by C M Weller
Something flared, and the mysterious debris changed course.
It wasn't a piece of debris.
It was a tiny vampire ship.
Sucking fuel from military vessels for some other need.
Sabotage!
Whoever had this technology couldn't have made many under his watchful eye. He'd have to check with his records. He was going to have to visually inspect every image of every military vessel that had docked over the time everyone had been complaining.
And in the meantime, he would take... measures.
He had no staff to keep personal watch on docked vessels, and the cam-analysis programs were not clever enough to spot tiny discrepancies on a space vessel. They were, after all, only good for tracking people someone else identified. If he suborned pilots, passengers, and anyone with a window to look out to keep watch for the splinter-ships. And then, speed up the response system so that soldiers and ships alike would isolate and capture one.
He needed them alive for interrogation.
To think, that all he had to do was watch the problem area to discover the nature of the problem.
And ready the shipboard troops to scramble, the next time one appeared. Which meant making sure his junior task-force was at each and every observation port with a hot-wired comms unit in their ready claws.
*
Sahra clamped her Mosquito's back to the fuel line. She'd done this dozens of times, before. It gave her time to think up new tricks to play on the masters. The Tu'atta. They couldn't hear her thinking it, out here. All she could hear was her own breathing in her mask and the contented burbling of Simy under her knees.
Lots of people were leaving. Civilians. Sahra could see some passenger ships docked, across the way. She'd heard lots of Tu'atta griping about the station, lately. About curses and bad luck.
One had run down the main concourse, naked, screaming about the judgement ahead.
Whichever trick was working, it was really working good.
Sahra watched her tank levels crawl up, so slowly. Some days, it took a little while, other days, it took forever. There was no clock inside the Mosquito. There was no room.
Ships were passing close by. Close enough that she could see the windows and the Tu'atta inside. If she stayed still while they passed, maybe they wouldn't notice. Sahra only moved her eyes, going from the passing ship and its windows to the fuel gage.
Come on... Come on... Fill up you stupid slow thing. Hurry! Not that she could launch with the ship in the way, with all those people at the windows. Staring and pointing.
Right her.
Crap.
The people staffing the civilian ship would be coming up with excuses, then looking out themselves and talking to the captain. Who would then radio the soldiers on the ship that Sahra was currently stealing fuel from. Who would then do--- what?
Check their sensors? The Mosquito was too small to be picked up by Tu'atta sensors.
Send another military vessel on a flyby?
Maybe she could be gone by the time that happened. They had to wait for the civilian ship to clear out of the way first.
Eighty-four percent.
Eighty-five...
Sahra stared suddenly at a master in a space suit. No human was that shape. His body-speak said he was just as shocked to find her there as she was to be looking at him.
No time for thought. She hit the panic button.
It shot a hole clear through the Tu'atta in a space suit and unlatched the Mosquito from the military vessel.
Eva's voice came over the comms. "We've got the emergency signal. What's happening?"
"Done been busted. Can't retrace. Gotta go man-yool." She pressed her fingers on the controls and shoved her foot down on the go-faster button.
She hadn't done this before.
Sahra found out quick that the Mosquito could go places that other ships couldn't follow. Even the suited masters couldn't catch her. Either she bumped them with her ship's pointy nose and wrecked their suits, or blasted them with her engine exhaust, or just outright shot them because they were in her way.
A few random shots actually hit master ships. Did some damage.
Sahra shot away from the station. Get some distance. Maybe hide in the asteroid belt or use it to play dodge and come back in by the quiet side.
But they seemed to be waiting for that.
A Striker boxed her off from going into the asteroids. Another came up underneath her like a deadly landing strip. A third got in on the other side. A fourth on top.
Sahra felt more than saw the fifth, behind. A looming shadow waiting for her to fly straight so they could open fire.
They were the only ones who could, without hitting another ship.
Good thing for Sahra that she hadn't quite figured out how to fly straight, yet.
Every tiny place where she thought she could go turned out to be swarming with suited soldiers. All with the big guns and all under shields she couldn't shoot through.
She kept trying, all the same.
Then she realized where they were herding her to.
The wormhole.
The certain-death one that lead, by and by, to heaven. One more unremarked scratch on the firstcomer's ship. Maybe a smear of blood and whatever Simy was made of.
She hit the comms. "They's herdin' me to the wormhole. Tell my Mama what they done. Tell her I'm sorry. An' tell my rat patrol to keep on fightin'. We needs t' keep on fightin'."
"God watch over you," said Eva. There was nothing else to say.
Sahra reached down to pet Simy, and really leaned on the go-faster pedal. Was this suicide? Or just making it get over quick? Sahra suddenly didn't care. "Our father who art in hev'n... hallered be thy name--"
Something happened, just as she went into the one patch of space nobody wanted to go. The Mosquito bucked, and she had the briefest sight of glowing purple smoke and bright colours painful to her eyes, all through blue before something squeezed all her air out of her and it went dark.
Please wait, I gotta...
About the Author
C M Weller lives in Burpengary East in south-east Queensland and has heard all about getting a life, but has been too busy to arrange one.
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