Escape Velocity (The Quantum War Book 1)

by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

  He arched an eyebrow, apparently trying to picture worse. “Thanks.”

  Teo’s voice trampled their discussion from over the comm. “Buckle up, it’s going to get rough.”

  “Going to get.” Gavin balked. He pulled on his safety harness.

  Laramie hauled herself by the grab bars until she reached the crew chief seat. Wyatt sat at his own station on the other side of the cockpit hatch. A sudden lurch left her stomach on the wall of the fuselage. She didn’t waste any more time before strapping in.

  “What’s going on, Wyatt?”

  He tapped the wired headset over his ears and pointed to a compartment above her head.

  Laramie got the picture. She opened the locker and retrieved another headset. It took only a second to plug the cable into the control panel and fill her ears with a stream of chatter from the flight deck.

  “… second contact, aft, seven o’clock high,” the copilot said.

  “I see it,” Teo replied.

  The Javelin banked to the right, sloshing around Laramie’s insides.

  “What are they?” Wyatt asked.

  “Patrol drones. The threat computer says they’re AV-8B Ibex. Two of them, coming in fast.”

  “We saw one up close when we were in the city. There’s a nose-mounted autocannon.”

  “Do they have air-to-air?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Laramie saw Wyatt turn on his station’s holo monitor and realized she could do the same. She groped around the perimeter until her fingers closed on the power toggle. After a second to power up, a shallow, three-dimensional display appeared in the air between her and the bulkhead.

  She changed the screen to an overhead tactical map, with the Javelin represented in the center by a triangle embedded in a circle. Two red squares with carats above them bobbed nearby. Another few taps and the right side revealed the visual feed from the nose camera.

  The red squares were lining up single file behind Teo. Laramie heard the defense computer narrate threat information as it analyzed the attack pattern.

  A noise that sounded like hail reverberated off the back quarter of the Javelin, quickly followed by the bleat of a computer warning.

  “Hit, port side,” the copilot said.

  They banked hard. Gravity tugged with renewed ferocity and Laramie grasped a nearby handle. The computer went momentarily silent as they rounded a city block and broke line of sight.

  “Can you light them up?” Teo asked.

  “Too close. I need some space,” the copilot replied.

  “Why don’t we just outrun them?” Laramie said. “Javelins can go fast enough to make orbit, right?”

  Wyatt pointed at her screen. “Telemetry is in the corner. They’re faster than we are. Without an ascent booster, we’re just a big, slow-lifting body.”

  “Slow, but slippery,” Teo said. His voice was cool to the point that he could have been talking about mud drying. Quite a contradiction to the panic in Laramie’s gut.

  On cue, they pitched nose down and picked up speed. She clutched harder at the grab bars. Someone made a retching sound further back in the cargo bay.

  The video feed showed the Javelin slotting between the blur of carbon-fiber skyscrapers. Teo flew them down near street level. Laramie saw throngs of panicked people running for cover. The red squares on the left slid further behind, but with the extra distance came a smaller angle of attack, and that meant easier targeting.

  “Still behind us,” said the copilot. “Both high, negative closure.”

  “We’re going to run out of buildings for cover,” Wyatt warned.

  Teo pushed his control stick and sent the Javelin into another hard bank. The stream of skyscrapers in the holo monitor made Laramie dizzy. But each turn broke line of sight with the pursuing Ibex. Their optical targeting would have to reanalyze and retarget every time they came back into view.

  Unfortunately, Wyatt’s comment proved spot-on. The video feed showed a rush of high-rises give way to the five-story buildings of a different construction period.

  A barrage of ugly, metallic whumps rattled the spacecraft this time. The Javelin seemed to drop several meters before flattening back out. The contortions of her teammates suggested they wanted to be anywhere but here.

  “Another hit on port. Engine C is shutting down.”

  “Range?” Teo said.

  “Two hundred meters.”

  Laramie glanced over at Wyatt. He was staring hard at his own holo monitor.

  Teo pulled back on the stick and the Javelin shot upward, gaining altitude. A moment later he leveled out.

  “I have Optical Target Lock,” the copilot said. “Othello, Othello.”

  “Weapons free.”

  The deck of the Javelin shuddered as the laser turret fired underneath their feet.

  Laramie saw one of the rectangles turn a flashing white. She guessed what happened. In his eagerness to take a shot, the Ibex’s remote pilot had lined up right behind the Javelin and into their field of fire. Teo was right. None of these guys knew what a Javelin was, or what sort of armament it had.

  The rectangle flashed one last time and disappeared. In the holo monitor, a cloud of smoke appeared as the Ibex smashed uncontrollably into a brick building.

  “Good hit,” Dave said. “Target one down.”

  The second red rectangle drifted further back in the threat display until Laramie had to adjust the zoom. Apparently it didn’t want to play the same game.

  “Target two is still shadowing us.”

  “Any fast movers showing up?”

  “Negative.”

  Laramie peeked in the cockpit. She suddenly realized how hard Teo was fighting to keep the Javelin’s flight path level.

  “How badly are we hit?” Wyatt asked.

  “Once we set down, we’re not getting back up.”

  The Lieutenant thought for a long moment. “Can you reach the spaceport?”

  “I’ll try. If I can, do you want to put down easy, or hard?”

  “Easy, please.”

  “Sorry, was kidding. Hard is all we’ve got.”

  Wyatt glanced over at Laramie. His eyes betrayed his thoughts of another hard landing many months ago. She knew he was thinking of Tiamat.

  “You know,” she said, “you don’t have to keep doing this just for me.”

  Wyatt blinked in surprise. A wry smirk started to form on his lips. “It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, isn’t it?”

  “Yet I try, and I try.”

  They shared a long look. Laramie could see that he understood, and was glad. She would be in it with him, together, no matter what.

  Her eyes drifted back to the video feed from the nose camera. The buildings in the nose camera were shorter here, further from downtown, with the blue haze of water visible in the distance. She focused her energy on staring at their failing altitude. If they were about to crash—again—she at least wanted to see the end coming.

  30

  Harrison-Munroe Spaceport Complex

  Juliet, Alpha Centauri A

  2 March 2272

  Wyatt’s leg was on fire.

  It had started with a dull thumping as they pushed up the central stairwell at the Health Department. By the time they cleared the roof, a shock of pain seemed to shoot through his calf every minute or two. Now it had ignited into a slow burn that made it incredibly difficult to concentrate on the command decisions he was making.

  While Teo strained with the controls of the Javelin, Wyatt tried to distract himself from the phantom pain with anything he could think of. An imminent hard landing was unfortunately the easy choice. He looked down the fuselage at his team and said a silent prayer. How similar this felt to the crash on Tiamat. So many of those faces were gone from this life.

  Wyatt pleaded to God to avoid a repeat. His prosthetic howled in its own silent prayer.

  Assuming they survived, things were about to get even more dicey. The original plan had been to smuggle Dr. Bell out
of the Health Department inside the supply truck. Figuring out the plan to get to orbit was supposed to come after that. But now, after that loomed in front of Wyatt like a maglev train. There would be no hope of refueling or repairing their Javelin once they landed at the spaceport.

  This wouldn’t be a discrete entry. They couldn’t blend in with other passengers, perhaps buy tickets and take the next catapult up. They were about to crash-land a military spacecraft full of fugitives and wounded, with the city police tracking them and mobilizing for their next engagement.

  A warning chime bleated from the cockpit. Wyatt switched to the onboard channel. God, my leg hurts.

  He had to push it aside. He had to focus.

  “How are we looking, Teo?”

  “Almost there. I’ve got my eye on a potential LZ. It’s going to be a big belly flop.”

  “How long?”

  “On the ground in sixty.”

  The tactical screen beckoned with a static-filled video feed. The Javelin approached a freight receiving yard on the edge of the spaceport campus. Wyatt hoped it would be unpopulated enough that police in riot gear didn’t immediately swarm them.

  One of the engines sputtered, breaking the steadiness of the background whine.

  The cargo bay was absent of any conversation. He spotted Laramie staring at the fuselage in a daze. He worried about her behavior. One minute she seemed lucid, the next she was out of it. Was it a concussion? Adrenaline? Either way, if it was the same thing that drove her foolhardy behavior on the roof, she might not be so lucky the next time around.

  “We’re coming down,” Teo announced. “Everybody brace.”

  The whine flared in volume and the Javelin slowed its forward momentum. Wyatt felt the gyrations of landing adjustments through the fuselage. Then the spacecraft dropped from underneath them, throwing Wyatt against his safety harness.

  Floating.

  A last, desperate burst from the engines fought the draw of Juliet’s heavy gravity.

  They hit the ground with a crunch. Wyatt’s teeth jarred against the inside of his skull as the engines died. Then the Javelin pitched forward as the tail of the spacecraft rose some thirty degrees into the air. An eerie silence descended around the cabin.

  “Everybody okay?” Wyatt called out.

  A number of aye, ayes. A few groans. Wyatt unbuckled his harness and grabbed his weapon. “Gavin, out the side hatch. Make a perimeter.”

  “On it.”

  Laramie shot him questioning look. Normally he’d give her the order.

  “LT?”

  “Come here,” he said. As she moved closer, Wyatt studied her face, looking for any signs of brain trauma. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Follow my finger.”

  He swept his index finger from one side of her face to the other. Her eyes seemed to track well enough.

  “What day is today?” he asked.

  “No idea.”

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Two and a thumb.”

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  “Camo.”

  Wyatt felt some relief. She still had her wits. He still couldn’t believe she had sprinted along the roof ledge to cover Chris and Finn. But if Laramie was anything, she was brave.

  She stared at him expectantly. “LT, what gives?”

  “You scared the hell out of me, running on that ledge. I thought you didn’t like heights.”

  “I don’t,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Just want to make sure you’re okay. You got shot in the helmet. You ate an explosion on the staircase.”

  “LT, I’m fine.”

  “I want to believe you. Let’s just make sure. Gav can cover.”

  Laramie’s eyes took on a severe intensity.

  The sense of hurt was palpable. Laramie was as proud as they got, and that pride drove an incredible work ethic. But Wyatt couldn’t take any chances. He waved toward the back of the cargo bay. “Let’s get a marching order for the civvies and wounded.”

  Laramie slipped stiffly into business mode. “I’ll get it done,” she said, a bit too formally.

  Wyatt pushed the friction aside for later and jumped out the forward hatch. His boots crunched into the crushed granite of a wide industrial lot. He could tell from the smell of the salt air that they were near the coast. Low buildings enclosed two of the sides, each with a receiving dock and freight door placed one meter off the ground. A covered breezeway wide enough for a lift loader led off to the east. Above, the storm cell that pelted them at the Health Department had mercifully blown inland. A cascade of color splashed the sky as the sun sank toward the horizon.

  He scanned the area. He didn’t see any people. He didn’t see anything. Everything appeared dead and abandoned.

  Wyatt’s eye gave an involuntary twitch at a sudden spike of heat from his prosthetic.

  “Gavin, sitrep.”

  “Emptier than Carlos’s head. I don’t like it.”

  Wyatt studied the perimeter again. “Yeah. We drop a spacecraft from the sky into their backyard. You’d think somebody would notice.”

  “Or at least have security come to see what the ruckus was all about.”

  Something told him not to waste any more time than necessary. “Gav, recon the breezeway. The tactical showed the main facility to the west. Let’s get moving.”

  “Roger that.”

  Gavin sent Maya and Kenny to scout ahead. Wyatt turned his attention back to the Javelin. The aft ramp hung open about a meter off the ground, with Elton and Laramie helping the two young girls drop off the back. Dr. Bell was assisting Chris with a makeshift sling for his broken arm. Corporal Rahsaan had joined Finn at the back half of the perimeter. Teo stood by the forward hatch near the buckled landing gear. The pilot gave the side of the Javelin a pat on the fuselage, as if it were a faithful mount who had just made its last charge into battle. He held a small zero-gee bulb in his other hand. Wyatt thought he spied the cactus Teo kept in the cockpit.

  “LT,” Laramie said. “Looks like Izzy’s up.”

  That got his attention. Wyatt jogged toward the aft of the Javelin. Carlos was moving down the ramp with a pained expression. Izzy sat on the ground just below him, awake and apparently lucid.

  “Nice of you to join us again, pal,” Wyatt said. He knelt next to the trooper. “How are you feeling?”

  “A bit lost,” Izzy replied. “Where are we?”

  “We’re making an exit.”

  The corpsman glanced with dark eyes at their surroundings. He nodded blankly. “What do you need me to do, sir?”

  “Can you walk?”

  He thought for a moment. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. That’s all you need to worry about right now.”

  The group made a hurried assembly while Wyatt pulled Chris over for some quick route planning. “Do you know anything about the layout of this place?”

  The Marine shook his head. “Hewitt’s job was groundside, not out in space, so we didn’t exactly come here. But I’ve been on enough military bases to make some guesses. I think that breezeway must go to the operations building.” He pointed with his good arm. “The main concourse should be on the other side. If we get there, we can find the boarding area and get you aboard a catapult pod. Then you can bolt out of this place.”

  “Hopefully before we draw too much attention,” Wyatt said.

  Chris raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll draw attention.”

  A minute later, the call came back from Maya that the breezeway approach was clear. Neither she nor Kenny had seen a soul.

  They lined up into formation, seventeen people divided into four groups. Maya, Wyatt, Chris, and Finn comprised the lead element. Gavin, Rahsaan, and the flight crew came next, carrying the bandaged body of the crew chief in a makeshift stretcher. They were followed by the noncombatants—Elton, Annika, Calista, and Dr. Bell. Laramie and Kenny brought up the rear with Carlos and Izzy.
The moved along, quickly but carefully, keeping a watchful eye for anybody that might notice them.

  As they approached the breezeway, Chris unholstered his pistol.

  “This is wrong,” he muttered. “No security guards, no alarm. This is bad.”

  Maya turned her head and looked at Wyatt, no longer wearing her helmet after finally running out of charge. He saw her face and instantly knew what she was thinking.

  Parrell.

  A simple badge reader secured the door of the operations building. Finn shot a hole in the lock and they moved inside to find an administrative office. A number of holo monitors and consoles lined one wall, with camera shots displaying the Javelin nose-down in the receiving yard. The room was abandoned.

  “This is very, very wrong,” Chris repeated. “Watch your corners.”

  “Move up,” Wyatt said.

  The office had an interior security door as the only other exit. Finn and Maya edged to one side, covering each other. Finn peeked through the small window above the latch. Then he pushed it open with his Vector. A service corridor extended further into the complex.

  “Clear.” Finn’s voice was low, careful.

  Wyatt gave a hand signal to push forward. They entered the corridor and followed it to a T-intersection. Instead of the hustle and bustle of a busy spaceport, the only noise came from the echoes of their boots off the tile floor. Stripes of different colors ran horizontally on the wall, indicators of what to follow to reach different operational destinations. A yellow band marked the path toward Flight Control.

  “I don’t think we’re going to find an agent to book your boarding passes,” Chris said.

  “No, I don’t think so either.” Wyatt eyed the yellow stripe. “Looks like this is going to be self-serve. Let’s head to Flight Control and see what our options are.”

  They passed an open doorway that revealed a deserted employee breakroom. Up ahead, a set of double doors obscured the corridor on the other side. Finn and Maya hurried up to one side and waited for the nod to push it open.