Phoenix in Flames

by Jaleta Clegg

  "I've got the sensors recalibrated," Clark said, behind me. "We should be at Tireo, if we weren't knocked too far off course."

  As soon as Clark had a good fix, it was up to Ginni to pull us through the jump to normal space. Then it was my job to slow us down and steer us through any obstacles while she shut down what was left of our engines. Each moment seemed to drag on forever, a tense waiting that wore on my nerves.

  Jasyn sat behind Ginni, watching her nav station. She was the one responsible for finding out where we were once we made it through the jump. Twyla played with Louie in the lounge, keeping him occupied. Beryn and Darus played cards at the table. There was nothing we could do in the engine room. And there was a very good chance that if anyone was in there when we made the jump, they weren't going to live through it.

  "Passing the mark," Ginni said. She ran her hands over the controls, double checking her settings.

  "I've got no readings," Clark said.

  I waited, hoping we weren't missing the whole Tireo system. We could be flying blindly like this for days if we had. Seconds ticked past, counting down minutes. We all waited, tension building with each passing moment.

  "I've got something," Clark announced. We waited for his signal, hands poised over the controls. "Too far away, and too small.".

  "It means we're at least in the right system," I said. Now we just had to hope that there was a giant planet in our way. It was too much to hope that the star would be in the right place.

  Time kept passing. Clark worked over his controls, muttering to himself. Ginni and I waited, our hands cramping over the controls.

  "I've got something," Clark said. "Coming up fast. It's big enough. Barely."

  Ginni took a deep breath and shook her hands. She settled them across the controls, the ones I normally used. I reached to the side, my hand waiting over the braking thrusters.

  "Coming up fast," Clark repeated. "You've got a window in three seconds."

  We waited. He had to get a lock on the object.

  "Set and locked," he said.

  Ginni hit the sliders. The ship shuddered. The hyperfield fluctuated, ripples of strange distortions running through the ship. I gritted my teeth and refused to think about Trythia.

  "It's slipping," Ginni shouted over the cracking of tortured metal. Her hands flew over the controls, trying to stabilize us manually.

  I booted up the sublights, hoping the extra thrust would help. The ship shook, everything on board rattling. Louie shrieked, adding another level to the noise. I heard bits of the engine flying loose, even through the length of the ship and through closed doors. The sublights had a nasty vibration to them, out of sync and out of balance.

  "Give me more power," Ginni said to me.

  I diverted everything I could. She pushed the jump sliders up to the top then slammed them back down. The engines whined. The ship slid sideways. And we were through, back in normal space.

  I hit the braking thrusters. There was no response. I frantically flipped reset switches. Nothing was responding.

  "We've got a planet dead ahead," Clark announced.

  I tried the thrusters. Nothing. The ship was careening through normal space at hyperspeeds. I had seconds to move us out of the way of the planet. The main viewscreen cleared. A gas giant loomed in front of us, so close I could only see curvature on one edge.

  "The engines aren't responding," Ginni said.

  "Time for certain death," I said.

  Ginni glanced at me and grinned.

  "Shut everything down on my mark." I held my hands over the main power switches. "Beryn!" I shouted over my shoulder. "I need you to pull the main breaker for the engine and reset it."

  "You are insane," Beryn shouted back.

  "Just do it. Now!"

  Ginni and I both hit the power switches. The ship went black. The throbbing of the engine died. The viewscreen went dark.

  "Now, Beryn!"

  I silently counted down the seconds. The ship lurched and creaked, protesting the pull of the planet's gravity. Gases shrieked over the hull. The temperature rose.

  "We're going in," Jasyn said.

  "Not yet," I answered.

  "Got it!" Beryn yelled.

  Ginni and I hit the switches again. Lights flickered back on. Our controls were solid red lights. I hit the manual reset. The lights flickered to yellow and green, most of them. Some stayed red.

  Atmosphere screamed over the hull. I hit the switches for the shields and the maglev drive. The ship bucked and jumped.

  "I need the viewscreen," I said to Clark.

  He reached over my shoulder and flipped the button to turn it back on. It flickered and cleared, but it only showed streaking flames.

  "Hyperdrive is shut down," Ginni announced.

  "Hit the boosters when I tell you." I fought the thrusters, trying to keep us level. Ginni reached through my arms to the booster controls.

  "We're skipping across the atmosphere," Clark said. "We're coming clear."

  The streaking lights on the viewscreen began to die.

  "Now," I said.

  Ginni hit the boosters at the same time I yanked the thrusters up. The ship screamed, almost like a living being. The vibrations rattled my teeth. I held the thrusters with everything I had.

  "We're clear," Clark said over the rattling of the ship.

  "Let them up," I said to Ginni. I waited until she had the boosters shut down before I eased back on the thrusters.

  "We're traveling too fast," Jasyn said.

  "I've got an asteroid field," Clark announced.

  I hit the braking thrusters while chunks of rock sizzled and screeched over our shields. I dumped speed as fast as I could.

  "We're clear," Clark said.

  "Speed is down to one seventy," Ginni said.

  I let my breath out and eased off the brakes.

  "I've got a reading on the beacon," Jasyn said. "We're at Tireo. And not too far off normal traffic lanes."

  "Good flying, you two," Clark said.

  "We're losing pressure on the main coolant lines," Ginni said.

  "Take the controls, Clark," I said.

  "Dace, Beryn and Darus can handle it." He turned me back to face the controls. "They just headed down to the engines."

  Ginni had the headset off the wall and was talking to them.

  "You wanted copilot, you fly us in the rest of the way," Clark said.

  I nodded. He was right. I tweaked the thrusters, keeping us headed towards the distant beacon of Tireo.

  "Heading one six four," Jasyn told me.

  "Coolant levels stable," Ginni announced. "There's minor damage to the sublights, but Beryn says they should hold until we land."

  "We're going to have to overhaul everything," I said.

  No one bothered to reply to that comment.

  The ship drifted to port. I had to keep correcting our course.

  "I've got ground control," Jasyn said. "They're sending through an approach vector."

  "Tell them we need a straight course in," I said. "We've lost most of our maneuvering thrusters."

  "We've got an emergency approach, straight in," she told me. "They've cleared off half the landing field for us."

  "I hope we don't need it."

  "What was that comment about certain death?" Jasyn asked.

  "Emergency shut down, while you're flying," I explained. "Didn't Jerimon tell you about it? We had to pull it coming into Tebros. Leon passed out from sheer fright."

  "I think he neglected to tell me that one," Jasyn said. "Why call it certain death?"

  "Because if the maneuver doesn't kill you," Clark explained, "ground control certainly will."

  "I see," Jasyn drawled. "Do they teach this at the Academy?" She was the only one in the cockpit who hadn't gone to the Academy. She was the only one on the ship, other than Louie, who hadn't gone.

  "They tell you never to do it, that it's really dangerous," Ginni said.

  "Then I'm not surprised you've done it
at least twice," Jasyn said to me.

  "Only when I have to," I answered.

  "The core reading is rising," Ginni said.

  I opened my mouth to tell her how to fix it, but she was already adjusting the controls and talking to Beryn over the headset. Clark leaned forward and patted my shoulder.

  "Just fly the ship, Dace," he said.

  I breathed in and out slowly, calming myself. Clark was right. I needed to focus on my own job. I could trust the others to do theirs. They were perfectly capable. No, more than capable, they were all very good. And all of them loved the ship as much as I did. I relaxed and tried to enjoy just flying. It would have been easier if the ship weren't limping through space.

  They got the core temperature stabilized. It was still running hot but there wasn't much we could do about it. It was well below the red line, we didn't have to dump the core. I'd lost my first ship, Star's Grace, when the core redlined. The safetys had been disabled by my crew, who were both doublecrossing me. The ship exploded. I'd landed a damaged escape pod on Dadilan. My life would have been much different if that had never happened.

  "I said we're almost there," Jasyn said, startling me. "Ground control wants to know if we need any emergency aid standing by."

  I shook my head, clearing the last of the memories away. "Everything is holding. As long as the maglev field holds, we'll be fine."

  "If it doesn't hold, Dace will just land us on thrusters," Clark said.

  The first whisper of atmosphere brushed across the hull. I ran my hands down the sides of the control board. Lady Rina's pink seashell was there, at the top of the board. We flew with her blessing and her luck. I smiled as I adjusted our course. Her presence stood behind me. We weren't going to die, not yet.

  The trip down wasn't easy. The ship kept veering off course. There was a drenching thunderstorm over the port as we came in. The maglev drive shorted out fifty meters up. We burned out the thrusters keeping the ship from doing a nose dive into the plascrete. But it didn't matter. For some reason, I was happy. I knew we were going to make it down, I knew it with a certainty I couldn't explain.

  The ship landed with a rattling thump. Ginni and I shut everything down to emergency levels. Jasyn argued with ground control over the com. Clark checked the life support systems and tried to keep the lights on. Ginni talked to Beryn and Darus over the headset. The ship smelled of scorched controls. I shut down the last of the controls and started running diagnostics.

  "Why are you humming?" Ginni asked me.

  "Because we beat the odds again. The universe has been trying to kill me for years and it still can't."

  She shook her head. "You are crazy."

  "We fix the ship and in a week or two, we're back on our way, thumbing our nose at fate." I picked up the pink shell and ran my finger over the intricate surface. "Lady Rina's luck flies with us. We can't lose."

  "I think you've been smelling engine grease a bit long," Clark teased.

  "We're going to have to pay fines," Jasyn announced, tossing her headset onto her controls.

  "And buy most of a new hyperdrive," I put in.

  Jasyn pulled a sour face. "We don't own anything here, not directly. And even if we did, we'd have to prove who we are to access it. We're down to just over ten thousand credits on board."

  Rain hammered on the outside of the ship, dulled to a faint drumming inside.

  "We do have a full cargo hold," Clark said. "That should give us several thousand more."

  "Only if they let us trade here." Jasyn sighed and tugged her braid.

  "How many ships did we pass on the way in?" I asked.

  Clark shook his head. "Two, but they were pretty far out."

  "So they can't charge us with disrupting trade," I said. "We really could use Leon about now." Leon was our lawyer, one of the sneakiest people I'd ever met.

  "He should be on Tebros, which may as well be in another galaxy," Jasyn said. "They'd just arrest him on sight."

  "Like they'll do to us if they figure out who we are," Clark said. He typed away at the planet's datanet. "We're listed as pirates, fugitives, and a dozen other things."

  "We have got to get out of the Empire," Jasyn said.

  "Two more jumps and we will be," Clark said.

  "Beryn says two weeks, at most, if we can find the parts," Ginni said. "The whole hyperdrive support system needs replaced. The sublights have a few parts that need replaced, but the damage there was minor. The core needs recalibrated, after the coolant system is fixed."

  "We'll need to hire someone that specializes in hyperdrives," I said. "And we'll need to contract out the core repairs. I don't have the tools or the expertise for those."

  "There are a grand total of twenty seven merchant ships in port," Clark said. "None of them are Gypsy. At least not that I can tell."

  There should have been over a hundred ships on a world as settled as Tireo. The shipping lanes should have been bustling with ships. The fact that no Gypsy ships were in port was unsettling. Something was wrong here. Maybe my luck wasn't holding, not the good luck anyway.

  "Gypsy ships have been warned out of the Empire," Jasyn said. "I should know. I signed that edict. They won't fly openly. There should be one or two, though. Let me send the code and we'll find out."

  Something in her statement didn't make sense. I watched her as she sent a code pulse from the com.

  "You signed the edict?" I asked. "Jasyn, even if they are Gypsy, why would they help us? They might be from a rival clan."

  "There aren't any rival clans, not anymore, not for us," she said.

  "What? All the Gypsies decided to get together and be friends? I'll believe that about the time I see the Patrol asking me back." I leaned one hip on the back of my chair.

  "Shellfinder clan has no enemies," Clark said. "It's some obscure bit of their code dealing with the Council leader and her clan."

  It took a minute for that to make sense. My jaw dropped as I stared at Jasyn.

  "Council leader?" I couldn't believe it.

  "It's why we were so late getting to you on Shangrila," Jasyn said. "And don't look at me that way. I didn't want it. I got pushed into it."

  I started to laugh.

  "See? You aren't the only one with connections," Clark said to me. "It's also why we've been taking our time getting back to Tebros. They'll pull us back into trade negotiations as soon as we show up. The Gypsies are the official policy makers for the Federation, at least as far as trade goes."

  "So you losing your membership in the Guild of Independent Traders won't matter anymore," Ginni said.

  "I think your membership in the Gypsy trade union is pretty much guaranteed," Clark said.

  I shook my head. "I'll just go see how Darus is doing with the engine."

  "Ducking your responsibility to deal with ground control," Jasyn said. "You're the captain. It's way past your turn."

  I didn't answer. I went down to the engine room to hide.

  Chapter 11

  We'd landed in the middle of the night, in a ferocious thunderstorm. No one bothered to come out to talk to us until mid morning, long after the rain had stopped. By then, we had most of the engine stripped. I was outside, pulling off a thruster mount when port authority decided to finally come calling. The sun skipped behind clouds, alternating shadow and light. We were way out in a completely deserted section, far from the other ships in port. The officials drove an open groundcar, skirting the bigger puddles. I stayed on my perch on the side of the ship and watched them arrive.

  "You can pull it now," Darus shouted at me through the fittings from inside the ship.

  I pulled out the last bolt and yanked the mount off. It was crusted with soot. I wedged my hand inside then climbed off the ship.

  The groundcar pulled up to a stop near the hatch. The officials stepped out, three men who didn't look very happy. I put the mount down near the boarding ramp then straightened, wiping my filthy hands down the legs of my shipsuit. It didn't take off much soot.
/>
  "We want to speak to your captain," the leader said.

  "That would be me," I said. Jasyn had made it very clear that this time she wasn't dealing with the authorities, I was.

  He held out a sheaf of paper. "All fines and complaints and charges are listed. You are expected to appear at the port offices at two this afternoon."

  I took the papers and shuffled through them.

  "Payment in cash will be required," he continued. "If you do not have sufficient funds, your ship will be confiscated and sold at auction to cover your debts."

  I was really tempted to remove a few body parts from him, but I refrained. It would only have added to the list of charges pending against us.

  "And what if we dispute any of the claims?" I asked.

  "You can make your case at two," he said. I got the impression that nothing we said or did would get them reduced.

  He turned and left, his groundcar speeding away across the puddles.

  "That went well," Twyla said from the hatch.

  "I'm thinking a bit of bribery might help," Clark said from behind his sister.

  "Then don't let me do it," I said.

  "Jasyn and I will do our best to charm them," Clark said. He came down the ramp to read the papers over my shoulder.

  "Most of them are inflated," I said.

  "I don't think I like this place much," Twyla said.

  I handed the papers to Clark. "You deal with this and the cargo. I'll get the engine fixed so we can leave. I don't think I like it here much either."

  My skin crawled. I was outside of the ship and I didn't feel safe. I tried to convince myself it was just nerves, but something wasn't right. I wasn't the only one feeling it. I left the burnt out thruster mount with the other broken parts and went inside.

  Clark and Twyla stayed outside, on the ramp, reading through the list of charges. Jasyn was arguing with someone over the com. Ginni had Louie on the floor, playing with his squeaky blocks. I heard Darus and Beryn shouting at each other in the engine room. I went down the stairs.