Aurora Blazing

by Jessie Mihalik

  I nodded and we lunged into the main hallway. Ian shot the guard at the gate, but more soldiers milled in the hallway beyond. I attached the codebreaker while he laid down suppressing fire.

  The door popped open. “Now!” I shouted. We dashed up the stairs. This stairwell was blissfully short compared to the one from the mine, but soldiers streamed in below us, shooting both bolts and stun rounds.

  We surprised a quartet of soldiers in the hangar. I shot one and Ian shot three. Outside, Opportunity was in defense mode. Aoife stood on the cargo ramp in combat armor. At least four bodies in spacesuits littered the ground. An atmospheric barrier shimmered over the cargo bay door.

  Ian put Ferdinand on his feet. “Bianca, help Ferdinand to the ship. I will be rear guard.” He cut me off before I could protest. “I’ll be right behind you. Remember, the air outside isn’t breathable, so take a deep breath and get moving.”

  We didn’t have time to argue, so I slung Ferdinand’s left arm over my shoulder and pulled him into a slow jog that made him grunt with every step. “Deep breath,” I said right before we hit the hangar’s atmospheric barrier.

  I sucked in air just as my cuff vibrated and blaster bolts sailed past. The ship was twenty meters out. Ferdinand dragged at me, but I pulled him inexorably forward. My lungs burned with the need to breathe. I gritted my teeth against the instinct.

  My cuff vibrated again. I wanted to check on Ian, but if I stopped, I might not start again. Fire burned through my chest. The need to breathe became impossible to ignore. Ten meters.

  We crossed into the ship’s shield. Someone had turned off ground protection, so at least we weren’t instantly incinerated.

  Five meters.

  I blew out some of my precious air, just so my body might think I was breathing and give me a fucking break.

  It didn’t work.

  Ferdinand coughed and gasped next to me. Aoife stopped shooting long enough to come down the cargo ramp and drag us inside. I wanted to collapse into a coughing fit on the cargo bay floor, but I turned, looking for Ian.

  He was still in the hangar, on the ground, surrounded by at least two squads of soldiers, half in helmeted spacesuits.

  He’d promised to be right behind me. He’d lied and sacrificed himself. Irrational anger seared away all of my worry and fatigue.

  Fuck that noise. He didn’t get to die heroically for me. I was going to explain that to him in great detail using very small words, just as soon as I retrieved his captured ass.

  I opened my crate of supplies, looking for my armor, but digging it out wasn’t going to be fast enough. “Aoife, strip. I need your armor. Take Ferdinand and stick to the plan. I’m going after Ian.”

  “You can’t,” she said. She reached for the cargo door button.

  “Touch that button and I’ll fling myself out the door without a weapon or armor. I’m going, so start fucking helping.”

  I grabbed my primary com and a pair of long blasters from my crate. Aoife was half out of her armor, and as she took pieces off, I strapped them on. It would be too tall, but I’d make it work.

  Ferdinand tried to stop me, but I batted his hands away. “I have to do this,” I said. “If you keep slowing me down, it’s going to be harder.”

  He backed away with a curt nod.

  With Ian secure, the soldiers in spacesuits were approaching the ship. “Get Ferdinand to Benedict. I’m trusting you, Aoife,” I said.

  She nodded. “Good hunting. Don’t die or Ian will resurrect himself just so he can kill me.”

  My feet weren’t all the way in the boots and the face mask was a little higher than ideal, but I’d used oversized armor before. It clamped around me tightly enough that I could make it work. I put my com in the chest compartment and closed the face guard. I didn’t have time for squeamishness.

  I strapped one long gun to my back and held the other one with the muzzle pointing down. I activated the external speaker. “Go as soon as I’m on the ground,” I said. “They must not catch you. I’m going to shift blame to Silva. If questioned, do the same.”

  “I’ll make you a hole while the door closes. Make use of it. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  I hoped I did, too. If Ian was already dead, I’d personally revive him just so I could yell at him for being a lying bastard.

  Aoife started picking off the soldiers. I bounded down the ramp, shooting as I went. I wasn’t nearly as accurate as Aoife, but not too many of the soldiers wanted to take on an armored opponent. They scattered for cover.

  I had an extremely narrow window of time where that shock would carry the day. Then they’d armor up and overwhelm me. I had to be gone before that happened.

  Once I was clear of the ship’s shield, I brought the suit’s shield up. Aoife’s armor was top of the line and responded beautifully, even with the bad fit. I barreled toward the soldiers who were dragging Ian toward the elevator. If they got him inside, I was done for.

  With Ian mostly on the ground, I had a clear line of fire on the soldiers around him. I did not waste the opportunity. After two of them went down, the rest dropped Ian and ran for cover.

  Ian did not move.

  Dread curled through my belly. Ian wouldn’t give up; he would fight to the end. Was he truly dead?

  I skidded to a stop next to him. The suit’s heads-up display detected a faint heartbeat, thready and too fast. Not dead, but seriously injured. I carefully scooped him up in my left arm with the suit’s help. His torso left a bright red smear on the hangar’s floor. He hung limply from my grip.

  I spun and checked my options one last time before I decided. Opportunity was gone and I breathed a sigh of relief. Even if my stupidity got me killed, at least Ferdinand had a shot.

  A small Rockhurst planet hopper sat outside, covered in a layer of snow. Another small Rockhurst transport ship was parked in the hangar, but it hadn’t been here when we’d arrived. That meant it had likely jumped in more recently than the hopper. Neither would have a sophisticated medbay or FTL drive.

  There were no other options. Where in the hell did they keep their military ships?

  I would have only one shot at this. If I chose wrong, we were captured at best, dead at worst.

  Trusting my instincts, I ran for the ship outside. Ian was inside my shield, but I shot at anything that moved, trying to keep them from returning fire. I couldn’t tell Ian to hold his breath, so I’d have to give him CPR once we were inside. I silently prayed he would hang on.

  The cargo ramp was down, and the door opened when I pressed the button. Alarms sounded as unbreathable air came in with us. The ship automatically began a purge as soon as I closed the door. I locked it behind us. It might buy us a few seconds.

  Once the air was safe, I laid Ian on the floor and stripped off my gloves and helmet. He wasn’t breathing. I started CPR, pressing his chest and filling his lungs with oxygen.

  When he took a shallow breath on his own, I nearly cried. My hands came away red, but I had to get us in the air before I could do more for him.

  I pulled out my com and searched for the Rockhurst override codes I’d recently found for Ada. In addition to the six standard codes spanning a dozen years, I had five newer specialized codes I could try.

  I started with the standard codes because they were the most likely to work on a nonessential ship like this. The newest standard code didn’t work, nor did the second newest. But the third code, the one from six years ago, gave me administrative access to the ship. How long had it been since they’d serviced this scrap heap?

  I changed the override codes, wiped the existing crew, and set myself up as captain. I was conscious of each second that slipped past. I stripped off the rest of my borrowed armor and dropped it carelessly on the ground. I ran for the flight deck.

  The ship had some technical name I couldn’t remember. “Computer, plot a course to NAD Seven.”

  “Yes, Captain White,” the ship responded. I’d used my secondary identity, just in case.
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br />   On the flight deck, I didn’t bother to sit down. I leaned over the captain’s console and checked the flight plan. It was both better and worse than I feared. The bad news was, we’d have to jump twice. The good news was, the FTL was ready to jump now. Any recent von Hasenberg ship could make the trip in a single jump, but this ship was designed with a cheap FTL for hops between relatively close planets.

  I told the ship to follow the suggested flight plan, but a warning flashed on-screen. Rockhurst was refusing takeoff permission. Of course they were. I moved to the manual controls and clipped in.

  I hadn’t manually flown a ship in a dozen years. This would be fun.

  I flipped the switches, overrode the warnings, and pulled back on the controls. The tiny ship shot into the air, far faster than I’d been planning. New warnings blared and I eased back on the controls. Once my stomach climbed out of my feet, I took a shaky breath.

  I watched both the console and the forward vid screens, searching for other ships. They had to be out there, but I just needed to clear the atmosphere and then I’d be free to jump.

  “Incoming communication,” the ship intoned.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “Commander Rockhurst of the Santa Celestia.”

  I laughed without humor. Of course Richard Rockhurst would be here. Why wouldn’t he be? The universe fucking hated me today. The Santa Celestia was a Rockhurst battle cruiser capable of blowing me out of the sky without even breaking out the big guns.

  Had Opportunity escaped before he’d arrived? They had a little less than an hour before they could jump. If they could get enough distance, they could go dark and make themselves a harder target to hit, but hiding from a battle cruiser was a losing proposition.

  “Accept voice-only,” I said.

  Richard’s face appeared on-screen. With the trademark Rockhurst blond hair and blue eyes, he was gorgeous—or he had been. We were both twenty-five, but he looked like he’d aged a decade in the few months since I’d last seen him. “Stand down at once and return to XAD Seven,” he demanded.

  I adopted the rolling, lilting accent typical of the Silva family. “It is you who should stand down.”

  In three minutes, I’d clear the atmosphere. I just had to keep him talking. I pulled back on the controls a little more, pushing the ship to the edge of safety.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “I am no one. A promise fulfilled,” I said, “nothing more. But if you interfere, I will become an enormous problem.”

  “You’re from the Syndicate?”

  I said nothing. The silence stretched.

  “What does the Syndicate want with one of our miners? We would’ve happily negotiated for his release.”

  I laughed low. “I know how you negotiate, Commander. MineCorp took something from us. We retrieved it. I regret that so many of your troops failed to stay out of our way, but such is life.”

  “Was the other ship the distraction or are you the distraction?” Richard asked.

  “Perhaps we are both the distraction. Have your troops reached the mine depths yet, Commander?”

  He gestured to someone off camera.

  “What will the Syndicate give me for your safe return?”

  “You should ask what they will do should I not return safely. That is the far more interesting question.”

  “If I let you go, you must do something for me in return.”

  “If you let both ships go, the Syndicate will honor one future request from you, free of charge.”

  “No, not them. You, personally.”

  I chuckled again. “I am no one. You are trading gold for dirt.”

  “It is my choice.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I haven’t decided,” he said, “but can you put a price on two ships and multiple lives? My request will be worthy of that debt.”

  Did he know? Could he have possibly guessed who I was? I should promise him whatever he wanted and then break that promise, but even now, I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Ian’s lifeblood leaked in the cargo bay every second I delayed and even if we jumped, Aoife, Alex, and Ferdinand were trapped for another hour.

  “Very well,” I said. “If you look the other way while both of our ships exit your system, I will personally honor one future request from you that will take no longer than a week to complete and must not harm me or mine.”

  “How will I contact you?”

  “Post a public request for information on a source of gold dragon scales. I will contact you.”

  “Very well, my lady. I accept. But if you go back on your word, I will destroy everything you love.” He said it softly but steel laced his tone.

  The blood froze in my veins. He knew. If not about Ferdinand, then about me at the very least.

  “Why?” I whispered.

  “Your family may yet prove useful to me,” he said. Then with an arrogant little smirk, he cut the connection.

  I didn’t trust Richard in the least and expected a barrage of fighters from Santa Celestia at any moment, but the ship’s sensors weren’t picking up anything. I couldn’t keep hesitating. I had to trust that Alex and Aoife could take care of Ferdinand.

  I released the manual controls and let the ship take over. I checked our flight plan again then pressed the jump confirmation button. The engine noise changed and ramped up for an alarmingly long time before my stomach dropped and we jumped.

  I checked our location, then put the ship in what passed for stealth. We would drift for four days before we could jump again.

  Now I had to save Ian. I prayed I wasn’t already too late.

  Chapter 27

  I had to use the combat armor to carry Ian into the tiny medbay. The diagnostic table took up more than half of the room. I carefully maneuvered Ian onto the table and kicked off a scan before returning to the cargo bay to strip the armor off.

  By the time I returned, the scan was done. The report listed his injuries from most to least severe, and it was a long list. The worst injury was internal bleeding from a blaster wound through his right side. That one needed immediate treatment. The report recommended time in a regeneration tank, but that wasn’t an option—this ship had no tank.

  The outlook for alternative treatment put his chance of survival at less than 50 percent and that was with his nanos. But if I could keep him alive for the next few days, the doctors on Benedict’s ship could save him. I cut off his shirt, washed and disinfected my hands, and got to work.

  I’d had some basic field medicine training years ago. I tried to remember what I had been taught as the diagnostic table walked me through a manual IV insertion. Usually an IV machine would start the IV for you, but this ship’s medbay didn’t have one, so I was on my own.

  My hands shook so badly that I had to stop and take a deep breath. I could do this. It took three tries before I hit the vein. I hooked him up to a bag of synthetic blood replacement and moved on to his wound.

  The blast had gone straight through. I rolled Ian onto his side, being careful with his IV. I irrigated both sides of the wound, and his blood ran like water. Luckily, the ship had a decent supply of regeneration gel. I pumped the wound full of gel. The regen gel congealed and sealed the hole, preventing him from bleeding out, but he might need another bag of synth blood.

  I couldn’t lift him to wrap bandages around his body, so I pressed thick pads of gauze against the wound on his back and taped it tightly in place, then repeated the procedure on his front.

  I cut off his pants, then cleaned and bandaged the rest of his wounds. Most were shallow, but he’d lost a few decently sized chunks of flesh to blaster bolts. His heart rate began to slow as the synth blood replaced what he had lost.

  With Ian as stabilized as I could make him, I cleaned and bandaged my own wounds. My arm wasn’t bad enough to need regen gel, so I skipped it. I didn’t have time for the pain and Ian might need more before we could jump again.

  I turned on the audible heart monit
oring on the diagnostic table and piped sounds from the medbay through the ship’s speakers. I would hear if anything happened while I was exploring our refuge for the next four days.

  The comforting sound of Ian’s continued life followed me throughout the ship. The main area was a single level, with a half-height maintenance level underneath. Besides the flight deck, cargo bay, and medbay, there was a large passenger lounge filled with tables, chairs, and two synthesizers, a bathroom, and a tiny crew cabin with a narrow bed.

  The ship was designed to ferry passengers between close planets in a system. Most trips wouldn’t last more than an hour or two, so crew comfort wasn’t exactly a priority. There also weren’t any available communication drones, so I couldn’t jump a message to Benedict.

  I grabbed a meal replacement shake and bottle of water from the synthesizer. I wasn’t hungry, but my head rang like a bell and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I briefly considered trying to get some broth into Ian, but decided that fluids via IV were less likely to choke him. He wouldn’t starve in the four days before the real doctors could take over.

  I stopped by the crew bunk and snagged a pillow and blanket, then returned to the medbay. I slid down the wall across from Ian and drank my shake without tasting it. I sipped at the water and listened to Ian’s heartbeat.

  Once I’d drained half the bottle, I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. Adrenaline gave way to exhaustion. It wasn’t that late, but today had started early. I could hardly believe that we’d broken into MineCorp just this morning—it seemed like a lifetime ago.

  The steady beeping of the heart monitor soothed me into a light sleep, so when Ian started thrashing, it took me a second to remember where I was and what was going on.

  I sprang up and caught his arm before he could rip out the IV. His eyes were wide and glassy. I was no match for his strength, so he just pulled my body along with his arm. I climbed onto the table, being careful of his wound, and pinned his arms with my legs.

  “Ian! You’re safe. It’s Bianca! I’ve got you. You’re wounded and you’re doing a good job of wrecking all of my work. Stay still!”