gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap

by Christine Pope

  The fighter craft leaped forward, moving away from the remains of the Avalon. All around him readouts were blinking, but he couldn’t decipher the information they were attempting to relay.

  “Hang on,” Cassidy said as the ship continued to accelerate. “I think our friends’ buddies just realized something went wrong with their picket ship. We’ve got to outrun them.”

  “How can we outrun them if they’re flying the same kind of ship?”

  “Because we have a head start.”

  He’d never had this experience of speed in any other ship he’d been on, not the shuttles that had taken him back and forth to the Moon, and certainly not in the sluggish Avalon. It almost sounded as if the engines were whining, which he knew was impossible, since sound didn’t carry in vacuum.

  It was impossible to look back, so he had to trust Cassidy, trust that she knew what she was doing.

  And hope like hell that she knew what she was doing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  She’d never flown a ship like this before. If it weren’t for their current dire circumstances, in that first moment of acceleration, she would have thrown her head back and laughed out of pure joy.

  This thing was fast. So fast, so sleek and responsive. She had no doubt the personnel in the other fighter craft were desperately trying to contact her, but since they were all on a different frequency from the one her suit and Derek’s shared, she heard nothing. Only blessed silence.

  The readouts told her the other eleven ships were regrouping and coming after them. So much for attempting to rescue their stranded comrades. Although the enormity of what she had just done would probably catch up with her later, right now she wouldn’t let herself think too much about that, especially not when it was either those two GDF pilots or her and Derek. Not much of a choice.

  “Deploying countermeasures,” she said, falling into the no-nonsense delivery of a military pilot, even though she doubted her companion cared about protocols. In that moment, it seemed it would help to keep her head on straight if she did everything by the book…even if it was a book she’d never actually read.

  Derek’s voice came through the helmet speaker. “Countermeasures?”

  “Basically, drones that carry traces of fuel, designed to clutter up the space between us and an enemy, fool their missiles.” She touched the button on the screen, and at once the cluster of countermeasure devices fell behind them and began to spread out, confusing the signal they were leaving behind and, hopefully, mucking with any missiles the remaining GDF ships might fire at them.

  That task done, she began scanning the other readouts, seeing where they were in terms of fuel and oxygen. Yes, they’d blown a whole lot of atmosphere into space when they popped the canopy, but the backup oxygen tanks had already kicked in. There was plenty left, at least a good twenty hours’ worth, and they still each had a few hours of air left in the tanks attached to their spacesuits as well.

  Fuel levels were also good. These ships were system craft, and so they didn’t possess the subspace engines necessary to propel a vessel the unimaginable distances between the stars. No, their propulsion systems wouldn’t have seemed too strange to engineers from several hundred years in the past, although they were far more efficient, capable of reaching speeds no long-ago shuttle or probe could have hoped to match.

  The best thing to do would be to push the little starship to the utter limit of what it could manage. Yes, if their pursuers were dedicated — and crazy — enough, they might do the same, but then they’d risk stranding themselves among the outer worlds. Titan was the last outpost of civilization, except for the one place she was pretty sure a bunch of GDF ships really wouldn’t want to go…which meant it was the perfect destination for her and Derek.

  Cassidy poured on the power, watching in satisfaction as the red blips indicating their pursuers began to drop behind. Smaller blips emerged from those moving dots, and she knew they must have fired. Missiles were faster than ships, but they still had to find their target.

  And there she saw it — the smaller red blips flashing and then disappearing, meaning they’d exploded harmlessly against the countermeasures she’d deployed. Nothing like using the Consortium’s own technology against its pilots.

  To be safe, she arced away in a trajectory that would make it look as if they were about to head sunward, toward the inner planets. She couldn’t burn too long in this direction, but she wanted to do what she could to put them off the scent…not that they’d probably be all that interested in following it, once they figured out what she was doing. The readouts showed they were still giving chase, but falling behind. Even better.

  Her fingers danced over the keys to the nav-computer. Thank God that navigational systems were all more or less alike, although this one was far faster and more responsive than the computer that had just gotten blown up on the Avalon. A whole lot else had just gotten blown up, too, but she couldn’t let herself think about that right now.

  Derek spoke again. “So what’s the plan?”

  “Working on it.” There. By some great good luck, their destination was on approach to Saturn, and not on the far side of the sun. That would’ve doubled their flight time. At their current speed, they should reach their destination in about fifteen hours. That was roughly fourteen hours longer than she wanted to spend in a spacesuit, but at least it was manageable. The suits would handle any annoying bodily functions in the meantime, although they’d want to find a hostel at the earliest opportunity and get cleaned up.

  As she worked, Derek remained silent, but finally he asked, “Where are we going?”

  Cassidy settled back against the padded seat and let out a long breath. “Triton.”

  * * *

  At first he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. Triton? That den of thieves…and worse…on Neptune’s moon? His brain tried to work at the question from several directions, but in the end he could only say, “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s the only place in the system where the GDF has no real jurisdiction. Sure, they could go in there swinging their dicks if they wanted to, but that would make a whole lot of people mad, people the Consortium really doesn’t want to mess with right now.” There was a rustling sound over the speaker, as if she’d shifted in her seat. “Besides, this fighter is worth a lot of units. We can sell it, get what we can out of it, and then buy a different ship or passage on a transport that’ll get us out of the system.”

  He had his own thoughts on that subject, but he knew better than to voice them now, especially since Cassidy had just managed the impossible and had saved them both from the doomed Avalon. “Okay,” he said at last. No use arguing with her; she was in control of the ship, and anyway, going back and forth on the subject would use up too much precious oxygen. Instead, he asked, “How long?”

  “Approximately fifteen hours.” She paused, adding, “Go ahead and shut down the oxygen in your suit and crack your helmet, but don’t take it off. We’re using the backup air on the ship, but it should be enough to get us to Triton. If we end up having to switch over at the end, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, you might as well make yourself comfortable back there.”

  It crossed his mind to ask her if she was joking, but he knew she wasn’t. Actually, to get from the orbit of Saturn’s outermost moon to Triton in fifteen hours was a not-inconsiderable feat, and he guessed she must be pushing the fighter craft as hard as she could, not worrying about saving any fuel, as she obviously intended this to be a one-way trip.

  One-way to Triton.

  He didn’t exactly sigh, but he did let out the smallest of breaths, then said, “Will do.”

  Shifting in his bulky spacesuit, he attempted to find a more comfortable position in the cramped seat. He wasn’t sure if he was entirely successful, but at least it gave him the appearance of having some control over his surroundings. Then he reached up and cracked his helmet, taking in a breath of the fighter craft’s air. It did smell and taste fresher than what he’d bee
n breathing through the spacesuit.

  Then, since he didn’t have anything else he could do, he leaned his head back against the headrest and shut his eyes.

  * * *

  By the time they were approaching Triton, Cassidy was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. For a while, pure adrenaline had kept her going, but as the hours ticked by and she lost all sight of her pursuers, she could feel her body wanting to shut down, to lose itself in a few hours of oblivious sleep. If the faint snores she heard from time to time through the helmet speaker were any indication, Derek was doing that very thing.

  At first it had irritated her, that he was getting rest while she was sitting in the pilot’s chair, eyes glued to the readouts, scanning for any signs of hostile activity. But she told herself he really had nothing else he could be doing, and at least one of them might as well be alert and in control when they reached the outpost moon of Neptune. She supposed she should count herself lucky that, even in the heart of the Gaian Consortium, traffic in the outer reaches of the Solar System was not so heavy that they ran much risk of discovery.

  No, the hard part would be when they reached Triton.

  When they were approximately a hundred thousand kilometers out from Neptune, the fighter’s comm squawked to life. “GDF ship, this is Triton Control. You are approaching interdicted space. You are directed to turn around at once or be fired upon.”

  Go ahead, she thought. At least then I’d get some rest. But since that was her exhaustion talking, she ignored that inner voice, pushed the button on the comm to open a channel, and replied, “Triton Control, this is a GDF ship, but I am not a GDF pilot. Permission to stay on course.”

  If silence could be startled, that was what the ensuing pause sounded like. Then, “Uh…come again, GDF ship?”

  “Again, this ship is not under the control of GDF personnel. My name is Cassidy Evans, and I used to pilot a freighter called the Avalon.”

  Another silence. Cassidy guessed whoever was on the other end of the line was hurriedly looking up the Avalon in the Consortium’s ship registry. She waited, wondering if they had come all this way, only to be shot down.

  Then the voice said, “Welcome to Triton, Captain Evans. We’re not sure how you got your hands on that ship, but…kudos.”

  She let out a rusty chuckle. “Thanks, Triton Control. Let me know where I can land this thing…and also where a girl can find a place to lay her head.”

  “Rolling out the welcome mat, Captain Evans. We’re sending coordinates now.”

  Numbers danced across the screen, and she plugged them into the nav-computer, allowing herself a relieved sigh when she saw they were now less than a half hour away from landing on terra firma. It might be solid methane ice, rather than actual rock, but at this point she’d take what she could get.

  “Hey, sleeping beauty,” she said into her suit’s mic. “Wakey, wakey. We’re almost there.”

  “Almost…wha?” came Derek’s voice, so groggy she had to smile.

  “Almost to Triton. And it sounds like they’re going to send out the welcome wagon. I guess making off with a GDF starfighter earns you some points with the crew that calls Triton home.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  She grinned. It wasn’t anything she would have believed if she hadn’t been here to see it for herself, but it seemed as if they might survive this place after all.

  * * *

  They landed in a small hangar on the outskirts of the enormous complex of domes that made up the main settlement on Triton. Derek had never thought he’d see this place in person, so he had to force himself to keep from gawking like some rube who’d never left the surface of Gaia in his entire life. Maybe at one point this had been an orderly scientific outpost, but the less savory elements of Gaian society had taken it over more than a hundred years earlier, and now it was a hodgepodge of rundown housing, shops, bars, strip joints, cafes, and commissaries.

  Although her eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, Cassidy walked briskly enough beside him, her chin up. Where they were headed, he had no idea, as neither of them had any cash or vouchers, and this didn’t look like the sort of place that exactly extended credit to unlucky travelers.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” he murmured to her, making sure he couldn’t be overheard by any of the sentient flotsam and jetsam, Gaian and otherwise, that crowded the byways of the domed settlement.

  A quick nod. “My friends at Triton Control gave me an address, said there was someone here who’d be interested in taking the ship off our hands.”

  So she was still on that kick. “Cassidy, if we get rid of the ship, we’re stranded here.”

  She didn’t look over at him, but he could see her jaw tighten. “We’re stranded either way, since there’s no way we can take that thing anywhere near Gaia itself, and it’s only a system craft and won’t get us anyplace else. So we might as well get some money out of it.”

  “And what’s to stop them from killing us and taking the ship anyway?”

  “Nothing.”

  That’s reassuring. He didn’t say anything, though, only strode along beside her, hoping he looked tougher than he felt. Probably not, in the ill-fitting borrowed clothes Cassidy had given him, his face rough with stubble.

  What she really needed here was some muscle, not an atmospheric scientist who couldn’t even handle a gun properly. Not that guns were allowed here…not openly, anyway. There were signs in the hangar where they’d disembarked, and posted on every ersatz street corner, and they’d had to walk through a full-body scanner when they exited the hangar complex. Made sense, he supposed; one pulse bolt through a dome, and everyone was in a world of trouble. Also, maybe it kept violence to a personal level, and not the whole-scale nightmare it might otherwise be in a place whose population was composed almost entirely of criminals.

  “Here,” she said, turning into a dubious-looking prefab building with an animated holo sign that proclaimed it to be the Pink Elephant. The trunk of the aforementioned elephant moved up and down jerkily, showing that its programming had begun to deteriorate. Something about it was vaguely nausea-inducing, so Derek shifted his attention from the sign to the interior of the bar that now surrounded him.

  It wasn’t much of an improvement. Shabby, worn plastic tables and chairs, the bar itself seeming to be made of extruded aluminum, every inch marred by the initials and other graffiti that had been carved into it. The place smelled of stale beer and sweat, and the indefinable humid aftertaste of a well-used locker room.

  Apparently undeterred by all that, Cassidy paused in the middle of the seedy room, eyes scanning the few occupants. None of them seemed to match the description of the person she was looking for, as she planted her hands on her hips and frowned.

  Then a scruffy-looking man who appeared to be in his late fifties emerged through the door behind the bar, a door that probably led to a storeroom or possibly a kitchen, although Derek couldn’t imagine actually eating any of the food served here. The man paused behind the bar, gave Cassidy one raking look from head to toe, then said, “You the one with the ship?”

  An expression of relief passed over her face, one Derek could tell she was trying to hide. She nodded and moved closer to the bar, taking a seat on one of the worn plastic barstools. He followed her, not wanting her to get too far away, although he didn’t know exactly what he could do to protect her if things really went south.

  “You interested?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’m interested.” The man’s flat gray gaze traveled to Derek, paused briefly, then moved back to Cassidy. “I know some people who’d like to open her up and see what makes her tick.”

  “What’re you offering?” Her tone was casual, but Derek could see the muscles in her throat move as she swallowed, and he knew she was far more on edge than she wanted to let on. Then again, he was amazed at how functional she was. How many hours straight had she been up now? Forty-eight?

  The man grinned, revealing yellowed
teeth that had never seen the benefit of cosmetic dentistry. “Relax, sweetheart. You earned some points, swiping that ship from those GDF assholes. I can’t give you full market price, of course, but my contacts are willing to do a quarter-mil.”

  A quarter-million units. Just like that. It would buy them a replacement ship — if they could find one — or passage out of here. Hell, it could buy them just about anything they wanted.

  Save, possibly, their freedom.

  “That works,” Cassidy said, voice calm, as if she hadn’t just been handed their ticket out of this nightmare. “Voucher?”

  “Of course. And some cash. A lot of the places around here don’t take anything else.”

  She nodded. “It’s a deal.”

  The man spat on his palm and extended his hand, and Cassidy did the same, unruffled as if she engaged in this sort of unsanitary transaction every day. Obviously, she had some experience with it, whereas Derek felt as if he were an anthropologist observing the rituals of a far more primitive race. Well, it was already fairly clear to him that he and Cassidy had come from very different worlds.

  “Give me a minute,” the man said. “In the meantime, drinks’re on the house. What’ll you have?”

  Drinking anything here didn’t seem all that appealing. On the other hand, refusing would seem downright rude. “Gin and tonic,” Derek replied, wishing the remark hadn’t ended on an upward inflection, as if he wasn’t certain of what he’d requested.

  “I can do gin without the tonic,” the man said, one eye twitching. Maybe it was supposed to be a wink.

  “Sounds great,” Cassidy put in, and the bartender reached out to the shelf behind him and poured them a couple of shots. After that, he disappeared through the door again, leaving Derek and Cassidy alone.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

  “Too late for second thoughts now. Besides, a quarter-mil? We’ll be set.” She sipped from the shot glass and winced. “Holy shit, that’s nasty. I bet he makes it himself in the back room there.”