by Ryk Brown
Tony felt a sudden yank from behind. His shoulder and crotch straps dug into his suit. He felt his legs suddenly swing down underneath him as his body changed position into a feet-first fall toward the Earth below. His instinct was to reach up for his lines, but he remembered his instructions and clasped his arms around the life support pack mounted on his chest. “Let the auto-nav do its thing… It will work.” He remembered Jessica’s voice so clearly.
Tony looked at the data displayed on his visor. His rate of descent had slowed considerably, but he was still traveling incredibly fast, and his altitude was still decreasing at an uncomfortable rate. He looked down at the city lights below. He could see several cities, each separated by vast stretches of darkness dotted with occasional lights. They twisted around from side to side below him as he dangled from his drogue chute. The cities below him, however, were coming up to meet him far too quickly. He began to make out more and more features: vehicles moving over roadways, streetlights. They were all becoming too clear.
Tony felt another pop from behind him, this one was far more intense. He felt something massive leaving his backpack… My main chute. A wave of relief began to wash over him once again as his shoulder and leg harnesses dug into his body… but not as deeply or as painfully as before.
Something was wrong. The altitude and descent rate indicators in his visor had turned red and were flashing, and the ground was still rushing up toward him at over five hundred kilometers per hour. “Oh, God!”
Panic washed over him as he continued to fall. He could feel something pulling at him from above, tugging unevenly against his crotch and shoulders. He reached up and grabbed for his parachute lines but could not get a hold of them as they thrashed about. He managed to tilt his head back slightly and catch a glimpse of his main parachute as it flopped around uselessly in the wind. He could see that his drogue chute was still deployed, although it was moving around far more wildly than seemed appropriate.
“Oh, God,” he kept repeating. The data display on his visor continued to flash red as his altitude decreased. His rate of descent was also decreasing but not nearly enough, from what he could tell.
Tony glanced down at the ground below his kicking feet. He had only seconds left. He looked up again, trying desperately to reach his rigging.
A cold realization washed over him, and he stopped trying to reach his rigging overhead. He looked down at the ground again as it rushed up to meet him. Then he looked straight ahead at the rising horizon and screamed, “You said it would work!”
Jessica watched the data on the inside of her visor as her altitude reached single digits. Servos whined from behind her head as her jump rig automatically flared at the last second to place her gently on the ground with only the slightest forward momentum. Her feet touched the ground, and she took several running steps forward, then went down to one knee and braced herself as she slapped the retract button on her chest piece. She leaned forward against the tug of her main parachute as it was pulled back into her backpack. After several seconds, her chute was fully retracted. She quickly unlatched her helmet and dropped it to one side, then unlatched her backpack, letting it drop behind her. With the bulk of her jump rig now released, she could stand up more comfortably.
Jessica rose to a semi-crouched position as she pulled her sidearm. She searched the dark field around her, checking for any signs of danger. She had seen several Jung shuttles in the area on her data display. Although they could have just been standard patrol shuttles, they could have picked up the energy signatures of their thermal shielding during their reentry and calculated their landing area.
Satisfied that there were no shuttles in sight, Jessica stood up straight and looked around the field, searching for Tony. As she continued to search the field, she removed her torso piece and tossed it next to her helmet and jump rig.
In the distance, Jessica could see the lights of Sydney. She could also make out the outline of a barn in the same general direction as the city lights. She started walking toward the barn, making her way cautiously across the field.
Jessica froze in her tracks. Something in the distance was moving. Something large and dark was moving up above the line of the grass as it swayed in the evening breeze. It was rising and falling. No, it was billowing… It was a parachute.
Jessica ran in a semi-crouched position toward the billowing chute. It had to be his chute.
Jessica stopped dead in her tracks. Her mouth dropped open at the sight before her, and she muttered one word. “Fuck.” Tony lay twisted and mangled, still clad in his pressure suit. He was lying face up, his helmet cracked and his visor shattered. His left leg was folded underneath his back, and his right leg was broken and bent into an odd shape with part of his femur sticking out of his suit mid-thigh. There was blood flowing freely out of the tear in his suit at his right thigh where the bone was protruding. His mangled chute was flopping in the breeze, billowing gently upward with each gust of wind like the side of a giant, sleeping beast.
Jessica took two more steps forward, moving closer to him. She knelt down next to him, forcing herself to look at his face. His eyes were open in horror, and his mouth was agape as if screaming. She pulled out a small light and turned it on its lowest setting, pointing it at his shattered helmet visor.
His eyes moved, shifting toward her. He was still alive. His lips moved slightly, as if he were trying to speak, but no sound was heard. His eyes pleaded to her, and he was obviously in great pain.
Jessica hung her head down for several seconds. Finally, she raised her head again and sighed. “Jesus, Tony,” she whispered, “you weren’t supposed to live through the impact.”
Tony’s eye’s changed, as confusion had found its way through overwhelming pain.
“What, you think we don’t have surveillance systems all over our ships?” Jessica reached into her thigh pouch and pulled out a data pad. She reached over and carefully rolled him slightly to his right, then wiggled the data pad into the thigh pocket of Tony’s left leg, the one folded back under his torso. She turned to look at him again, shining the light on his face once more. “Sorry about that.”
Tony coughed, then barely managed to utter a single word. “Please.”
“You’re in a lot of pain, aren’t you?” Jessica sighed again. “Not surprising, really. I mean, you did just fall from orbit and slam into the ground with nothing more than a drogue and a damaged main chute to slow you down.” She cocked her head to one side, looking at him. “I really wish I could put you out of your misery, Tony, but that would ruin everything, and you’d be dying for nothing. This way, at least your dying act will be one that helps your people instead of selling them out.”
Tony’s eyes began pleading with her again.
“Look, I’m truly sorry it had to go down this way, but you had to know that something like this might happen when you decided to sell out your own people, right?”
Jessica paused, looking around the field again to check for any signs of approaching danger as she waited for Tony to die. After another minute, she put one knee on the ground and leaned in a little closer to him. “Look, I don’t know why you decided to work for the Jung. Maybe you had your reasons; I really don’t care. But there are bigger things at stake here, and you know it.” Jessica sighed again, wishing the dreadful scene would come to an end. She looked at his eyes. For a moment, she thought she saw acceptance in them. “I tell you what: if it will make you feel any better, I promise I won’t tell Synda. I’ll make something up. I’ll tell her you saved my ass or something, that you died a hero.”
A grateful look came over Tony’s face as he took his last breath. Jessica watched as his gaze became fixed, and the life left his eyes forever. She stood and looked around the field again, then back down at Tony’s now lifeless, mangled corpse. “Whoever said war sucks wasn’t fucking kidding, were they?” She turned and head
ed back toward her jump rig, quickly disappearing into the tall, dark grass.
CHAPTER FIVE
The image on the Aurora’s main view screen shifted from a field of stars to an extreme close up of Jupiter. The orange and brown gas giant filled the upper two-thirds of the screen, with its tiny moon, Metis, barely gracing the bottom edge of the screen.
“Jump complete,” Mister Riley announced as the jump flash faded. “We’re in orbit over Jupiter, approaching Metis.”
“Very well, Mister Riley,” Nathan said. “Comms, stand down from general quarters. Contact the Falcon and tell them to jump to their next comm-point.”
“Aye, sir,” Naralena answered.
“Move back into position to continue propellant transfer operations, Mister Chiles.”
“Aye, sir.”
The view on the main screen began to rotate, Metis and Jupiter reversing positions as the helmsman rolled the Aurora one hundred eighty degrees.
“Green deck, Mister Randeen,” Nathan ordered. “Tell flight ops to launch a pair of Talons to replace the Falcon on lookout duty.”
“Green deck, aye.”
“Roll complete,” Mister Chiles reported from the helm. “Moving into position above the Celestia. ETA to station: one minute.”
“Very good. Resume propellant transfer as soon as we’re in position,” Nathan said as he rose from his seat and headed aft. “Naralena, raise Commander Taylor on the Celestia and patch her through to my ready room.”
“Aye, sir,” Naralena answered.
Nathan entered his ready room and went to his seat behind the desk. As he sat, his intercom beeped.
“I have Commander Taylor for you, sir,” Naralena stated over the intercom.
“Put her through.”
Cameron’s face appeared on the view screen on the forward bulkhead of Nathan’s ready room. Cameron had obviously just entered her ready room on the Celestia and was also moving in to sit behind her desk. “How did it go?” she asked as she took her seat. “Jessica and Tony make it down all right?”
“They were still in reentry when we left, but everything appeared to be fine. She’ll make contact with the Falcon as soon as they’re down and secure.”
“How many ships did you see?”
“Two frigates, a cruiser, and a battleship,” Nathan said, “in that order. We took a few shots at them in passing but jumped past them and took out another cruiser that was docked at their makeshift spaceport for repairs.”
“Any casualties?”
“None. No damage, either. We didn’t get close enough to anyone or stay in one place long enough for them to get any good shots at us. I’ll send you a copy of the combat data recordings for you to take a look at.”
“So just the one wounded cruiser?”
“We weakened a few shields and took out one of the frigate’s main engines. It looks like their smaller ships have weaker shields.”
“What about the battleship?” Cameron asked. “Did you get any shots off at her?”
“A couple of plasma torpedoes,” Nathan said. “They didn’t even blink at that.”
“So what’s next?”
“We continue transferring propellant to you while we wait to hear from Jessica so the Falcon can return to lookout duty over Jupiter. Then we jump back and take a few shots at that spaceport, just to make them nervous. I have a feeling they need that thing in order to service their warships. If we can make them more worried about defending their spaceport than they are about going after you, we might actually be able to get you off that rock.”
“That would be nice,” Cameron agreed. “It’s more nerve-racking than I thought being stuck down here, unable to move.”
“How do you think I feel? My XO, my chief engineer, and a third of my crew are down there. I was just getting used to having you watching over everything down in combat.”
“You managed fine without anyone in combat before we had a full crew,” Cameron said. “Besides, you’re the one who’s hell-bent on raising this ship again, remember?”
“You’d think you would be a little more eager to see her raised, Commander. It is your first command, after all.”
“Not exactly what I had in mind.”
Nathan smiled. “Any progress while I was gone?”
“You were only gone for thirty-seven minutes, Nathan.”
* * *
Josh’s helmet visor changed from fully opaque to clear again as their jump flash subsided.
“Jump complete,” Loki announced from his seat at the back of the Falcon’s cockpit. “We are now at comm waypoint seventeen.”
“What’s the plan this time?” Josh asked, frustration obvious in his voice.
“We wait here for ten minutes. If we don’t hear from Lieutenant Commander Nash, we jump to comm-point eighteen and wait there for ten minutes.”
“How many times do we have to jump and wait?”
“Three times. If we don’t hear from her by then, we jump back to the Jovian system until the next comm window.”
“Man, I put myself through double doses of nanites, all for this? Jump, wait, jump, wait…”
“Enough, Josh,” Loki snapped.
“I’m just saying…”
“No, you’re just complaining… like usual. Frankly, I’m getting tired of it.”
“Someone needs a nap,” Josh quipped.
“Laser comm-array deployed and locked on target,” Loki stated. “Transmitting hail.”
Josh looked out the port side of the canopy at the Earth far off in the distance. It was a tiny, blue speck, not much bigger than the stars around it. “How far are we from Earth right now, anyway?”
“Four light minutes.”
“Why four?”
“It’s just enough time for us to send a hail, receive a response, and either send a confirmation or a continuation request.”
“Why not park two minutes out?” Josh wondered. “Or three?”
“They can see our jump flash, Josh, remember?” Loki said. “At this distance, we have just enough time to make contact and still get out of here before a Jung ship can spot us and FTL it out here to intercept us.”
“Unless, of course, they’re sitting there with the FTLs all warmed up and ready to jump once they see our pretty, blue flash.”
“That’s a distinct possibility,” Loki admitted. “That’s why we jump to random waypoints and always at different angles to the Earth.”
“They could still turn quickly and FTL it to us in that time,” Josh said.
“You’re just arguing for the sake of arguing, Josh,” Loki responded.
“Seriously, Loki. It could happen.”
“I already admitted it could. So, what’s your point?”
“No point, really. I’m just saying.” Josh turned and looked out the window again. “You know what? I miss flying the harvester. Dodging big rocks, scooping up the smaller ones: that was flying.”
“The harvester was a broken down hunk of junk, and you know it,” Loki said. “You’re just depressed because we got our asses chewed by the captain.”
“I’m not depressed,” Josh insisted. “I don’t get depressed.”
“The hell you don’t,” Loki argued. “The first two weeks you were in medical… What do you call that?”
“Drugs. Drugs and nanites.”
“Maybe.” Something caught Loki’s attention on his sensor display. “Hang on. I’m picking up something on passive.”
“What?”
“Movement. There’s a ship leaving Earth.”
“Can you tell which way they’re going?” Josh asked.
“Not yet, give me a minute. They’re turning… turning and accelerating.” Loki’s tone suddenly changed. “Come about
to four one four point three, twenty up, quickly.”
“What’s up?” Josh asked as he brought the Falcon’s nose around to the new course.
“I think they’re headed for Jupiter. At least, that’s the direction they’re turning.”
“Shouldn’t we wait and see for sure?”
“Their light is four minutes old, Josh,” Loki said as he entered a new jump. “If they went to FTL, they’re already there!”
* * *
“Captain, Comms,” Naralena called over the intercom.
“Go ahead,” Nathan answered.
“Falcon reports a Jung cruiser departed Earth approximately five minutes ago.”
“Course and speed?”
“They went to FTL, sir. Best guess is that they were headed our way.”
“Discontinue propellant transfer operations,” Nathan ordered as he rose from his seat behind his ready room desk. “Emergency disconnect and set general quarters. I’m on my way.”
“Aye, sir.”
The lighting in the captain’s ready room took on a red hue as Nathan exited the compartment and stepped onto the bridge. “Helm, as soon as the propellant transfer rig is free, move us away from Metis.”
“Aye, sir,” Mister Chiles answered.
“Any word from the Talons on lookout?”
“Negative. No contacts in the area,” Mister Navashee answered.
“Connect me to the Falcon.”
“All compartments are at general quarters, Captain,” Naralena reported. “The Celestia has also set general quarters. Channel open to the Falcon.”
“Very well.” Nathan tapped his comm-set. “Falcon, Aurora Actual.”
“Aurora Actual, go for Falcon,” Loki’s voice answered over the comm-set.
“I want you to jump back to Earth and keep an eye out for any more departing ships.” Nathan silenced his comm-set a moment and turned toward his navigator. “What’s the travel time from Earth to Jupiter’s current position at ten times light?”
