by Jay Allan
And that’s keeping them from joining the mother ship in going after us…
It wasn’t everything, but Andi suspected the two attack craft would have had an easier time in the atmosphere than the larger vessel, and she was glad to see them out of the chase. Pegasus was fully streamlined for planetary landings, but she doubted the Union ship was. The actives scans were giving her a closer look, and her first educated guess was the vessel was landing-capable, but also that it would handle like a pig in thick air like Aquellus’s.
Every advantage helped.
“Moving below close orbit level, Andi. Forty seconds to upper atmosphere.”
Andi reached out and put her hand on the controls. The AI had brought Pegasus this far, but she was going to take her ship through the heavy atmosphere herself. She glanced over at the screen, at the enemy ship moving back toward the planet. In open space, the enemy would already be firing, but the Union vessel would have to get closer to hit Pegasus in the atmosphere.
Hopefully, a lot closer…
Andi pushed the throttle forward, further deepening the angle. The sooner she could get under the cover of the Aquellian ocean, the better.
Pegasus shook hard as the ship raced down into the upper atmosphere, the air pressure and wild gusts buffeting the vessel hard. The hull temperature started rising almost immediately. Two hundred degrees, three hundred.
Andi held tightly to the controls, trying to offset the increasing turbulence. The air pressure was rising steadily, and the hull temperature passed five hundred degrees.
Then, she saw a flash on the scanner.
She told herself there were a hundred things it could have been, but that wasn’t true. She knew exactly what had happened.
The enemy ship had opened fire.
The laser pulse had been badly attenuated, its power reduced to a fraction of its original levels…but she knew it wouldn’t take much to wound Pegasus, not while the ship was navigating the thickening atmosphere. The slightest hull breach, or even a material weakening of a section of alloy, could prove fatal to all aboard.
Her instinct was to initiate evasive maneuvers, but it just wasn’t possible. It was taking all she had, and all her engines could manage, to keep Pegasus on course through the thickening air. The carefully executed shifts in lateral thrust so common in space combat wouldn’t work in an atmosphere.
She checked the altitude…ten kilometers from sea level. Her eye moved toward the screen displaying input from the exterior feeds. The hull was glowing a bright orangey-red, and a quick check showed the temperature exceeded twelve hundred degrees.
Pegasus’s hull was an alloy of titanium, tungsten, and half a dozen other metals. She had no idea of the proportions, or how much of the high-melting point tungsten was in the mix. She could only guess at the metal’s endurance. Maybe eighteen hundred…two thousand if we’re lucky.
The hull was at fourteen hundred already, up almost two hundred in the past twenty seconds, and she had both hands on the controls, trying desperately to stabilize the ship, even as the vastly strengthening air currents buffeted it. The altitude was down under five kilometers, but now the pursuing enemy ship was entering the atmosphere as well. Andi had been right, the Union vessel handled like a pig, even in the lighter air pressure of the upper atmosphere. Still, there were barely twenty kilometers between the two vessels now, and that was almost nothing in terms of space combat.
But the atmosphere changed that whole dynamic. The thick air around Pegasus was almost like armor plating, and the seemingly powerful lasers of the pursuing ship zipped past the hull, not much more powerful at the current distance than a strong flashlight. Still, Pegasus’s hull was compromised and far more vulnerable than it usually was. The last thing she needed now was any laser impact striking her tortured ship. An extra hundred degrees could be the difference, the extra push that turned a section of the hull into liquid…and started a landslide of damage that destroyed Pegasus.
Three kilometers. Hull temperature fifteen hundred.
It was going to be close. Andi could feel her hands trying to move, to pull back on the throttle. She had to reduce the ship’s descent angle, no matter how close on her tail that enemy ship was. She wasn’t going to make it otherwise.
But if she slowed down too much, the enemy might just score that fatal hit.
She gritted her teeth and held the angle. If she had to bet on something she couldn’t control, she’d rather place her faith in her ship than count on some Union gunner continuing to miss.
“C’mon, baby…I know it’s hot out there…but we’re close now.”
So close…
“Andi, we’ve got to slow down. At this speed and angle, that waterline’s going to be like solid concrete.”
She nodded. She knew Barret was right…but she could also see the Union ship closing. Its fire coming closer and closer with each volley.
She had to keep going. She’d pull up at the last second to minimize the impact, but she couldn’t afford any more time than that.
Two kilometers.
The hull temperature was eighteen hundred. She felt her stomach twisting into knots, and she knew any instant, the overheated metal could fail. At Pegasus’s speed, a half-meter breach would be enough to tear the ship apart in a matter of seconds. Aquellus’s heavy air would stream in with unimaginable force, and that would be the end.
One kilometer. A laser blast ripped by, less than twenty meters to port. It was still severely weakened, but the scanners picked up energy levels almost twice those of the last volley. One hit like that would be enough, at least with the alloy so close to its melting point. There wasn’t a spot on the hull that could endure that impact, not just then.
The ship was shaking hard, bouncing all around, despite her best efforts to hold it on course. It was hot on the bridge—close to fifty degrees, and the sweat was pouring off her in waves. Her shirt was plastered to her back, and she slid around on the slick, wet leather of her seat. But she stayed focused, her eyes fixed, her soaking wet hands somehow holding onto the controls.
Her board showed a dozen system failures, mostly burnouts. She ignored them all. There was nothing she could do, nothing but bring her ship down into the waves below…in one piece.
Five hundred meters. She pulled back hard on the throttle, trying to level off the ship’s approach. But there was no response.
She pulled again, harder. Still nothing.
Two hundred meters.
She popped open the emergency controls, and pulled back on the small switch inside.
Then she tried again, knowing it was her last chance.
“Come on, baby…for me…”
She felt a wild lurch, as Pegasus responded, almost as if answering her plea. The ship’s approach angle lessened as the thrust blasted from the engines…but it was too late. The ocean surface was just ahead.
Andi took a deep breath, wondering if it would be her last…and then Pegasus slammed hard into the water. The ship skimmed along the surface for a few seconds, bouncing up twenty or thirty meters and then coming down again. Hard.
A spray of water flew across the bridge as a gash opened in the hull, and Andi could hear the hissing of steam from outside as the white hot alloy met the far cooler water. She struggled to maintain control, but it was a hopeless effort. The ship bounced along across the waves for another few hundred meters, tortuous creaking sounds announcing damage being suffered all around her. Then, Pegasus flipped up in the air, and came down hard, capsizing almost immediately.
Andi felt her harness bite into her shoulders as it held her in place, upside down and looking at the bridge’s ceiling, now below her. Her stomach twisted into a roiling mass, and she felt the bile rising up, spitting out of her mouth as she tried to reach for the controls.
There were at least two more leaks on the bridge now, and more, she suspected elsewhere. She knew she had to get out of her chair, try somehow to save her ship. But her hands clawed ineffectually at her harness,
and then, a few seconds later, Pegasus jerked hard, its tail jutting up toward the Aquellian sky, as its bow slipped beneath the waves of the planet’s vast sea…and then the ship slid down, plunging into the deep blue depths.
Chapter Thirteen
Samis Station Three
Orbiting Ventica VII
Year 302 AC
“You’ve been in a stupor for weeks now, Durango. I know you like her, or at least you respect her. But there was no choice. We couldn’t send a navy ship, not without Senate authorization. And involving the politicians would have tied our hands even more.” Gary Holsten almost grunted. The new head of Confederation Intelligence stared across the room at his operative, a man known to the adventurers of the frontier as someone who could fix their ships, and maybe get them a job, all on the down low. None of his many and varied clients and contacts knew he held another position, one as an operative for Confederation Intelligence.
Or that Samis had been conceived, funded, and built by the spy agency. Not even the vast multitudes who crewed the stations and provided the vast menu of quasi-illicit services they provided, had any idea they were working for Gary Holsten. He most common assumption was that Samis was owned by a secret consortium of underworld organizations, and that rumor suited Holsten just fine.
Holsten had actually come very close to doing the very thing he’d just described. He was still reasonably new to his post, and disregarding direct Senate orders was still something of a reach for him. He’d spent considerable time preparing his arguments, and he’d even ordered his ship to prepare for a trip back to Megara, but then he asked himself a simple question. What will you do if they say no? Let the Union gain the upper hand, build enough of a lead to win the next war?
“She may be a good captain, and an admirable person in her own way, Durango, but remember, she is a criminal. Don’t forget that. She’s dealt in Badlands contraband who knows how many times…one of those, at least, with you.” The irony that Andi had committed one of her crimes dealing with his own people wasn’t lost on Holsten, but he was trying to make a point, not engage in a debate on principles. “And she shot up the Port Royal spaceport on her way out to the Badlands. I was able to intervene and prevent any immediate naval pursuit—and she proved adept enough to evade the system defense yokels—but she’s not exactly an innocent. Nor is she the child she looks like, the helpless young girl she can pretend to be. Not with her background.”
“I know all of that, sir. But I still wonder if there wasn’t another way.” The shipyard manager and old tech fence—and Confederation spy as well—looked morose.
“There wasn’t.” A pause. “Durango, you’ve been at this game for two years now. You were one of my first recruits after taking over the agency, and even before that, you worked on Samis without knowing it was a Confederation Intelligence front. You know what we do, and you know why we do it. I don’t take Andromeda Lafarge’s life lightly, nor those of her people. But four billion Confederation citizens died in the last war with the Union. And three billion in the one before that. We’ve still got eight old Confederation worlds under Union control, billions more living in a totalitarian nightmare. Andi Lafarge and her people could be the most commendable group we’ve ever encountered, but would it matter? Can their few lives match up to the stakes here? You saw the intel as well as I did. If the artifacts we think are on Aquellus are actually out there, it could move AI technology forward by a generation or more. We’ve got the edge in that now, by the slimmest margin. What do you think would happen if the Union leapfrogged us in that area? They’ve already got twice the worlds we do and half again as many hulls. Do you want the navy fighting the next war unable to target Union ships as well as being outnumbered? Do you want to see this rogue paradise here on the Badlands border turned over to Sector Nine? Do you want to see some Union commissar sitting in the ruins of the Senate Compound, sending people to death camps? I’m not fan of our esteemed leaders and their corruption and arrogance. But neither of us believes they are remotely comparable to the psychopaths that run the Union.”
“Of course not. I know why we do what we do.” There was realization in Durango’s tone, but still some doubt. “But I volunteered, didn’t I? You recruited me, gave me the speech about defending what was important. We didn’t do that with Andi. We just lured her in, even took advantage of her situation by dangling some money—and medical care for her injured friend—in front of her. How could she have refused?”
“How are we hurting her? By saving and protecting her wounded friend? By repairing her ship and offering her a large reward for completing the mission? This is what she does, Durango, whether or not we’re involved. She takes leads—buys them—from some of the most disreputable types imaginable, and then she plunges into an area of space almost unknown to us, far from any protection, any help. She chose a life of danger, we didn’t lure her into it. She managed to get into a fight with Sector Nine before we were involved, so how different is this? If anything, she’s far likelier to survive with us helping her, whether she knows about it or not. She’d has three million credits of torpedoes in her hold. You think she’d have that on a mission she picked up in some Spacer’s District bar?”
Durango knew Holsten’s words were nothing but the truth. But he was still uncomfortable. And worries.
The two men were both silent for a moment. Then, Holsten spoke again. “If it helps you, I find it difficult, too. I haven’t met Andi Lafarge, and all I know of her is what you’ve told me, plus what is in the mission reports, but it is hard to send people into danger, and even harder when they’re people we like and admire. But it’s our duty to overcome such doubts, to do what we must to preserve what little exists in the galaxy of freedom. We’re behind the enemy on this operation, Durango, and Andromeda Lafarge and Pegasus are all we’ve got. As much as they’re at risk in this, so is the Confederation itself. If Andi fails, the ramifications go well beyond her death and those of her crew. The lives and futures of billions could be at stake.”
Durango nodded. Holsten had swung somewhat to the dramatic, but his words hit all the harder for the fact that he’d told only the hard truth. Durango wondered if he’d feel better if he’d been able to tell Andi what was truly at stake, if he’d been able to recruit her openly to serve the Confederation.
Or would that have been worse for her? She sees that there is freedom in many places, no doubt, and prosperity. But she was born into abject poverty, in a place with little effective liberty. She found her way out…into a profession where she is harassed by the authorities, pushed into virtual outlawry. Would she have felt better knowing she was serving a Confederation that had largely failed her at every turn? Or is she better off just thinking she was there for gain, to make a profit for herself and for her loyal crew, probably the only people in the galaxy that actually mean anything to hers?
“I understand, sir.” A pause. “I just…I just hope they make it back. Andi doesn’t fit any normal definition of a solid citizen, not by a longshot. But there’s something about her. I think she has a real future, something beyond Badlands prospecting…and I hope we haven’t cut that off at the root.”
* * *
Carmichael twitched nervously in the chair. It was a hard bench, and he wondered if it had been specifically designed to be uncomfortable. The way Sector Nine approached things, he figured that was a likely prospect. He knew why he was there, why he had been for almost half an hour. Brewer was sending a message. Carmichael understood, but he still bristled with barely contained rage. The gangster sent such signals to people, he didn’t receive them.
But as much of a bully as he was by nature, Carmichael was scared to death of Sector Nine. It was treason to deal with the Union spy agency, of course, but fear of being caught and prosecuted was far down on his list. He knew just how Sector Nine operated. The Intelligence outfit generally rewarded those who served it well…but those who failed were treated harshly. And, they rarely hesitated to discard someone—in the most sinis
ter definition of that term—when it served their purposes, or when an asset was no longer deemed valuable.
Carmichael knew Sector Nine well enough, mostly because he owed his modest criminal empire to the agency. He’d cooperated with the Union spies for years, helping them hire prospecting teams to follow up on leads…and ensuring that any finds resulting from such operations ended up securely in their hands. It made him a traitor, at least most people would see it like that, but it had also made him rich.
“I thought we agreed not to meet in person again, at least not unless there was an emergency.” Carmichael hadn’t noticed the man slipping into the room. The figure standing in front of him was nearly two meters tall, with sandy hair and a nasty facial scar.
Brewer.
“There is something of an emergency.”
“To you, perhaps, Carmichael, but do you think I concern myself with petty disputes among District…operators?”
Carmichael stood up, trying to equalize the dynamic of the discussion, but falling short in the shadow of the near giant standing in front of him. “The damage I suffered was not at the hands of a competitor. It was a Badlands prospector and her crew, one who has long been a thorn in my side.”
“Again, Carmichael, I fail to see how this involves me. I assisted you in building your organization so that you would be able to aid me when I needed it…not so you could rush to me for help every time you encounter a problem.”
“I am not here, Brewer, because she is a problem for me…” A lie, of course, but one with some truth in it. Carmichael was hoping Brewer would help him rid himself of Andi…but he knew his adversary was also Sector Nine’s enemy. “…I am here to help you solve a problem or yours, or at least to settle a score. I understand your organization believes strongly in dealing with its enemies in a permanent way. I thought surely you would be interested in assistance in that area.”
