by Dan Moren
“Interesting choice of words. You might want to check those gauges.”
Eli blinked, casting his eyes over the dash. The red light he’d ignored before had come on again, now burning steady. This time he bothered to read the label.
“Oh. Shit.” He belatedly slapped the mute button on the microphone.
“What is it?” said Kovalic.
Eli pointed at the gauge. “Quick flying lesson. This is what we call the ‘fuel gauge,’ which shows how much–”
“We’re out of fuel?”
“No, we’re low on fuel. We’ll be out of fuel in about…” He did some quick calculations in his head. “Five minutes. Assuming there’s not a leak.” He scratched his head. “Which there probably is, because if my guess is correct, fucking Erich von Denffer sabotaged the fuel tank.”
Kovalic had turned a particular shade that Eli had never seen before. Who’s afraid of flying now? he started to crow, before realizing that there was a good chance he’d never really have a chance to rub that one in and, in any case, now was not exactly the time.
“What about the repulsors?” said Kovalic.
“The repulsors are working fine.”
“So we can land?”
“Well, here’s the thing about repulsors. They only have an effective distance of maybe fifty meters off the ground, max. If you were to, say, hit the ground because of a plummeting descent, they probably wouldn’t generate enough lift to counteract the velocity with which you were crashing.”
“You said ‘probably.’”
“Well, maybe if you timed it exactly right.”
Erich’s voice cut in again. “You’ve probably got enough fuel to make a landing now, Eli. Just let me go and we’re all fine.”
In the corner of his eye, Eli could see Kovalic shaking his head.
“I am really starting to regret that whole ‘accepting an officer’s commission’ thing,” Eli muttered.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m starting to regret you accepting it too.”
Eli stifled a bitter laugh, then dialed back the throttle, leaned back in his seat, and took a deep breath. There weren’t a lot of options to be had here, for him or for Erich. With no way for him to get away – Wait… why would he even want to get away? They got the fleet to show up, just like they planned.
They.
Not Erich. It was as if he’d finally found the focus knob, and the blurry picture that he’d been staring at for the last couple days was resolved into a clear, high-definition image of the whole affair for the first time. He turned it around, considering it from every angle, but no matter which way he looked at it, the picture was the same.
“Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath.
“Brody?”
“Son of a bitch.” Eli threw the throttle wide open, and the ship jumped like a scalded monkey, closing in rapidly on Erich’s flier.
“What the hell, Brody?” shouted Kovalic over the roar of the overtaxed engines. “You’re wasting all our fuel.”
“He’s going to kill him, Kovalic. He’s going to kill the prince – if he’s not dead already.” Erich had as much as admitted it: he hated the man. He’d gone along with the kidnapping plot, but whereas the rest of his comrades had intended to turn the prince right back over to the Illyrican fleet, Erich von Denffer had had a very different end in mind. Not that I give a shit about his royal highness, but I’m not about to let someone else I know die. Acid ate away at his stomach. Not again.
“Kill him? Why?”
Eli spared him a dumbfounded glance. “Does it matter right now?”
Kovalic raised his hands.
“Eli,” came Erich’s voice, more panicked. “What the hell are you doing? Back off!”
I’m still too far back, Eli thought as he watched the proximity meter count down rapidly. And I’m running out of fuel. A disturbingly gentle chime sounded, reminding him that he really should check his fuel levels. Stupid luxury skimmers.
Erich’s voice crackled across the radio again. “Pull up, Brody! Or I’ll put this ship right into the ground, with me and the prince on it.”
Responding would have meant taking his hands off the controls, and Eli wasn’t prepared to do that. The more Erich was talking, the less he was flying. And Eli was so very close to reaching them–
The ship in front of them suddenly pointed its nose sharply downward, going into a dive that looked to make good on Erich’s promise.
“He’s going to do it,” Kovalic said, gripping the edges of his seat.
“Oh no he’s not,” Eli muttered, and tipped his own yoke forward, following suit. A bright red holographic banner appeared on the inside of the canopy: WARNING: POWER DIVE NOT RECOMMENDED, accompanied by a blinking message to PULL UP. Reaching up with one hand, Eli flicked the messages off the display, concentrating on the craft in front of them. Fortunately, they’d been at a reasonably high altitude, and Erich – like Eli – would be fighting against a ship that more or less wanted to stay in the air. But Erich still had a lead on them, and Eli wasn’t going to be able to catch up if they were both going full speed. He needed an edge.
What I wouldn’t give for an afterburner – wait a second.
His eyes darted over the dashboard until they found the emergency fuel dump. Not that there’s much fuel left. He’d pulled this off in a simulator once, but that had been in the vacuum of space; in atmosphere, he was going to have to contend with drag and friction. Plus, you know, that had been a simulation.
Or, in other words, this idea was really stupid. Not that that had ever stopped him. Dr Thornfield’s comment about him being reckless echoed in his head. Sorry, doc. Looks like you were right after all.
“Kovalic,” he managed through gritted teeth. “I just want to apologize for something in advance.”
“For crashing us into the ground?”
“OK, for two things.” He flipped the cover off the fuel dump switch, finger grazing the control as he lined up his ship. Well, this could be the last thing I ever do. Go big or go home. He flipped the switch, then pulled the nose up to bring the flier’s engines in line with the rapidly dispensing fuel.
The ignition slammed both of them back into their seats, sending the ship diving even faster towards the all-too-rapidly-approaching ground. Eli fought with the stick, trying to keep himself on the trajectory he’d laid out – the one that would bring them right underneath Erich’s flier.
“Brody, this is insane.” He faintly heard Kovalic shouting, overwhelmed as it was by the rushing of blood that filled his ears. The skimmer’s rather rudimentary inertial compensators were the only thing keeping them from blacking out right now.
Slowly, they gained on Erich’s craft until they were nearly underneath the other skimmer; Eli brought the nose of his own skimmer up slightly, and a scrape of metal against metal signified contact between the two fliers. The stick wrenched in Eli’s grasp, but he fought to hold it steady, eyes on the altimeter. 500 meters.
He pulled back more, starting to level his ship out, and taking more of the weight of Erich’s flier with theirs. 400 meters.
Red spots started appearing in his vision, his teeth clenched so hard he thought they might crack with the pressure. 300 meters.
He dialed back the throttle, reducing speed while trying to keep Erich’s ship positioned on top of his. 200 meters.
Evening out the trim, he pulled back further, bringing the craft’s nose up to a thirty-degree angle. 100 meters.
A large red banner covered the entire screen: FUEL DEPLETED. INITIATING EMERGENCY LANDING PROTOCOLS. With a shaking hand, he slammed the override button, then let it hover over another control. 50 meters.
At 20 meters, he fired the repulsors.
The skimmer bounced.
There was a bone-rending crunch as Eli’s flier slammed upward into Erich’s flier, sending the other careening off onto the plains, spinning like a flying disc. Eli and Kovalic were thrown upwards against their restraints, then pushed back down
as the repulsors burned out from the effort. The ship dropped like a stone, but only from about 30 meters, which was much preferable to the 2,000 meters they’d started at.
Eli had just enough time to suck in a lungful of air before the skimmer hit the ground, knocking it right back out of him. It skipped like a rock off a lake, leaving Eli’s stomach far, far behind as they ricocheted across the open scrubland. Fountains of dirt sprayed over the canopy, and the two of them were pummeled and buffeted against their restraints.
After what seemed like an hour of the worst roller coaster ever – but which, in reality, was less than a minute – the skimmer slid to a stop, nose planted firmly in the dirt.
Eli coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood, panicking before he realized that he’d bit his cheek or his tongue somewhere in the descent. His chest ached, especially where the restraints had cut into it, and his head felt like someone had taken a ball-peen hammer to it. His hands were still gripping the yoke tightly, as if that could make any difference at all at this point.
“Brody?” croaked a voice. He looked over to see Kovalic breathing heavily, his eyes still closed. “Are we alive?”
Eli coughed again. “If we’re not then heaven is way shittier than I thought it would be.”
“What makes you think you’re going to heaven?”
“I just saved your ass, didn’t I?”
Kovalic grunted, then punched the restraint release. Eli followed suit, and the two of them struggled out of their seats, then, between them, managed to pop the canopy’s emergency release and fling it open.
It was cold on the plains, the air whipping over them with faint particles of what Eli realized after a moment was snow. He shivered, rubbing his arms with his hands – he really hadn’t dressed for this.
Kovalic clambered out next to him, peering around. “There,” he said, pointing to another furrow like the one their skimmer had plowed. Erich’s craft seemed to be largely in one piece, about a hundred meters off their starboard.
Picking their way over took longer than Eli had anticipated, thanks to the fact that neither of them were particularly steady on their feet, but when they arrived they found the ship mostly intact; one of the wings had sheared off and was sitting, smoking, another fifty feet away.
Climbing up on the fuselage, Eli found the external manual release for the canopy, and again he and Kovalic managed to wrestle the transparent cowl open.
The two men inside were limp against their restraints. Both had suffered a number of lacerations – Erich’s head looked like it had been slammed against the controls – but when Eli and Kovalic climbed down and checked, they both still had pulses. The prince was already beginning to stir, groaning quietly. They retrieved the first aid kit from the skimmer’s cockpit, and Eli did a quick check, ensuring that the vessel wasn’t about to explode or catch fire.
When they had made sure neither the prince nor Erich were about to expire from their injuries, they climbed back out of the ship and sprawled on the ground. Eli sighed in relief and shook his head. “Christ, Kovalic. Just another day at the office?”
Kovalic laughed, the skin around his gray eyes crinkling. “Nah. This is just–” he screwed up his face in thought, “whatever the hell day it is.”
Eli laughed too, then winced at the stabbing pain in his chest. “Dr Thornfield is going to have a field day with her psychological evaluation of this.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be classified above her clearance level anyway.”
Eli snorted. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s likely to stop her.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Eli glanced at Kovalic. “So, what’s going to happen to Erich?”
Kovalic let out a breath. “He plotted to kidnap and attempted to murder the heir to the Illyrican Empire. I’m guessing they’re going to execute him. Probably sooner rather than later.”
Fury coalesced in Eli’s head. “It’s not right, Kovalic. Erich wasn’t behind this whole thing. He said it: he was just following orders.” Well, except for the trying to kill the prince part. That definitely wasn’t part of the original plan.
“Well, the Illyricans are going to want to stick somebody’s head on a pike. Who do you propose we give them?”
Eli looked over his shoulder at the remains of Erich’s flier. “Thing is,” he said, lowering his voice, “I’m pretty sure it was all the prince’s idea. At the very least, he was in on it.” He scratched his head. “The kidnapping part, I mean. Not his own murder.”
Kovalic raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite an accusation, lieutenant. Got anything to back it up?”
Eli shook his head.
“Yeah. Us neither.”
“So he’s going to get away with it?”
The older man shrugged. “The prince is still alive, and we’ve got him, so we’ve probably avoided providing the Illyricans with a pretense for absorbing Bayern into the Imperium. I’d say that’s a pretty good day’s work.”
“And we sacrifice Erich for one bad decision?”
“It was a pretty bad decision,” Kovalic pointed out. “Even if his intentions were good.” He raised his hands to pacify Eli. “OK, OK. Give me a second to think about this.” He climbed to his feet and ran his good hand through his hair. Then he started to pace, walking in an ever-widening spiral. As he moved, his eyes flicked back and forth rapidly, and Eli could swear he was muttering to himself. But his expression, which had started grim, began to lighten as he walked, his stride becoming steadier and longer, until he stopped and turned to Eli, a smile on his face.
“I’ve got an idea.”
Chapter 23
Kovalic’s shoulder throbbed.
It had been bad enough after he’d plowed into that guard, but the crash in the skimmer had added, well, injury to injury. He didn’t think he’d done any permanent damage, but he was pretty sure that his doctor was not going to be thrilled with him when he made it back to Nova. For the meantime, Nat had refreshed the sealant plug and given him some painkillers, which did a little to take the edge off.
On the upside, at least he’d make it back. That wasn’t nothing.
He pushed the pain away, letting only a grimace seep through as he raised his coffee cup and sipped. The hot drink was welcome: it was windy and cold out on the landing platform, and his hair was being whipped to and fro by the stiff wind.
“What idiot decided the side of a mountain was a good place to put your ship down?” Tapper muttered from next to him.
Kovalic shrugged, pain stabbing through his shoulder. “Maybe they liked the view.”
“I’ve been trying not to look down.”
“Hey, I’m just glad we didn’t have to walk all the way back up,” said Kovalic. They’d managed to contact Nat and she’d brought the Cavalier to come pick them up from the crash site. She may not have had Brody’s piloting flair, but she was the only one of them rated on light craft in atmosphere – and frankly, after the crash, Kovalic had had his fill of daredevilry.
They’d slipped back up to the Cavalier’s landing platform just under the noses of the approaching Corporation fliers, dispatched to investigate reports of an accident. Kovalic had sent a couple messages from the ship, including one to Frayn.
And that brought them here.
The coffee-maker on the Cavalier wasn’t fancy, but it made a decent cup, Kovalic reflected as he took another sip. Better than the coffee he’d had as a marine, anyway. Not that that was saying much.
The doors at the end of the platform hissed open, admitting a bemused-looking Harry Frayn, accompanied by a pair of Illyrican marines who were most decidedly not wearing crimson and gold. Seeing Kovalic, Frayn held up a hand at the two, then walked forward alone.
Kovalic raised his cup of coffee and met Frayn halfway across the platform, leaving Tapper behind to eye the two guards.
“Simon.”
“Harry.”
Frayn raised an eyebrow. “Well, don’t leave me in suspense.”
With a modest shoulder-twinging shrug, Kovalic smiled. “Don’t worry, Harry: I’ve got your boy.”
The older man visibly relaxed, shoulders dropping from their hunch, his face melting into a weak smile. “Thank goodness. I was beginning to worry I’d have to find a new line of work. He is, I hope, intact?”
“More or less,” said Kovalic. “Some cuts and bruises.”
Frayn waved a hand. “He’ll live. And I was glad to see that Natalie was fine as well.” He shook his head and let out a long sigh, running a hand through his thinning mane. “Frankly, I’m amazed we all made it out OK.” With a frown, he looked up at the ship expectantly, then back down at Kovalic; his expression turned appraising. “Why do I have the sudden feeling that there’s more to this?”
“Well, it seems the prince has been a very naughty boy, Harry.” Kovalic took a slow swallow of coffee, watching Frayn. “There’s the matter of his… dating record for one thing.”
Frayn scratched at his head awkwardly. “Ah, yes. I’ve heard rumors.”
“He might benefit from a close eye.”
Tilting his head to one side, Frayn gave Kovalic a shrewd look. “I see. I’m sure that can be arranged.”
“Far more disturbing, though,” said Kovalic, gesturing with the coffee cup, “is the fact that he apparently organized this whole charade himself.”
“What?” Kovalic had expected surprise in Frayn’s tone, but hadn’t been sure whether it would be feigned or genuine. It sounded real enough, but with spies one never could tell. “The kidnapping?”
“Yep. Lock, stock, and barrel of monkeys.”
Frayn’s mouth was still hanging open. “The prince. Hadrian. That one.”
“I know. Smartest stupid idea I’ve heard in a while.”
Slowly, Frayn’s gray head shook back and forth. “Simon, this doesn’t make any sense. I thought surely von Denffer…”
“Commander von Denffer was involved, but he wasn’t the mastermind. He was ordered to take part in the ploy, as were the rest of the prince’s honor wing.”
Frayn was silent for a moment. “You have evidence?”
