by Lisa Eskra
Amii had a plan—at least that's what she'd told him. He trusted she was familiar with the base. Whether or not she could pilot them out of there smoothly, however, remained to be seen. He hoped it could be done. If not, their next stop would be Caldos Minor Penitentiary where they'd spend the rest of their natural lives.
From afar, he couldn't recognize her anymore. While the ashen brown color of her hair looked natural, it didn't fit the image of her he'd grown to care so much about. She wore a conservative gray suit to fit in with their false personas, that they were scientists studying polycyclene composites for the hull. She wore her catsuit underneath it, and he knew at the earliest opportunity, she strip down to only that.
"You're staring," she said.
"My mom had blond hair," he told her, his voice nothing more than a low whisper. "Well, she did—before the Great Holocaust."
"Is that why you're so fond me?"
Magnius didn't have an answer. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about her all day. They rode through Northampton yesterday afternoon and ate lunch at D'Avona. Her peculiar charm won him over, and through no fault of his own, she'd stolen his heart. He'd never planned to fall in love with her, yet here he stood jumping down the rabbit hole after her to save her father and his estranged wife even though they might die in the process.
She took his hand in hers, and they remained that way for the rest of the trip. Their fingers interlocked in quiet solidarity. The date and time radiated from her wrist in a bright green font: May 3rd, 19:31. She glanced to the left and furrowed her brow in pensive thought. Past the three empty seats beside her, the panoramic window displayed an unbroken snowscape.
At 20:09 the transport coasted through the outer threshold of the base and landed beside the security gate. He'd gotten cold feet about going through with their plan, but neither could turn back now. The mission represented their best chance for survival, as ass-backwards as it seemed.
The two of them were the first ones to file off and walk toward the base. The bitter air drained his body heat in a matter of seconds, and his vaporous breath crystallized in their wake to crisp clouds. The mediocre shielding provided little protection from the cruel temperature. He felt glad they'd be on their way out soon.
Amii took a deep breath and put her right hand on his shoulder. "Stop worrying. We're in this together; we're going to be fine."
"Maybe…but let's be careful. Okay?"
She lightly kissed him on the cheek. "I'm always careful."
Part of him hoped she was right. The other part wondered if she was really naïve enough to think this would be easy.
Magnius gestured for her to be scanned first. She stretched out her arm to the young uniformed man standing there to greet them. "Good evening," he said to her and pressed the scanning device to her wrist. "First time to the base?"
Amii nodded. "Does it get any warmer here during the day?"
"Not much." The scanner beeped and he mulled over the display. "I see you've been authorized to test some experimental disruptors over the next few days." He pointed to the case. "I'm going to have to take a look in there."
"Of course." Inspecting personal affects had been standard operating procedure since the advent of guns and explosives so the request came as no surprise. He glanced over them. "What is it you plan to test?"
Her smile spoke volumes about how much she'd wanted him to ask just that. Before anyone could stop her, she launched into an orgy of technobabble. Tongue-twisting scientific terms he'd never heard and wouldn't be able to reiterate five minutes from now. But the words came naturally to her.
He closed the case and nodded out of politeness while she droned on about magnetic capacitance and Eisenberg's Theorems even after he'd moved onto Magnius to scan his implant. Her acting ability astounded him and injected a healthy dose of trepidation into his psyche. Seeing her in action left no question about whether or not she'd done this before.
He was quite certain the guard hurried them through just to get rid of her.
Once they were admitted inside the base, security lightened. But Amii had already told him it would. They set to work at once.
She led him through many corridors that looked the same, her long charcoal pants swallowing her feet when she walked. He wondered if she was aware of the sexy confidence she exuded with the swing of her hips. Forcing himself to look away did no good since the thought of her lingered in the absence of other distractions.
After a minute, they approached a restricted area. Yellow and black tape marked the doorway, and large red letters read "Level 3 Clearance Only." The heavy metal door appeared solid enough to be impenetrable by force. Amii set the black suitcase she carried on the floor next to her and scrutinized the computer console beside the door.
Magnius figured she'd gotten her hands on a high-level clearance card the same way she'd turned up with a small arsenal of disruptors one day. Security would have confiscated them if Nadine hadn't ensured Amii had a license to bring them. Two women so radically different conspiring against the government in the name of justice and friendship…the second lady would not have risked treason if the stakes weren't dire.
She pecked away at the terminal, and after a few seconds the doors slid open. No card, no retinal scan. How in the hell did she do that? Amii grabbed her case and the two of them scurried through like field mice. Moments later it slammed shut behind them, and a disquieting echo filled the halls.
"Two more," she whispered and led them further inside. They walked at a fast pace with deliberate care to attract no one's attention—two well-disguised thieves preparing to pillage the Forbidden City and get away with the traitorous deed. It might not be worth it, but the mere thought of pulling this off gave him a rush.
When they approached a second set of locked doors, she set to work at the console. He wondered if in her fearlessness she could see clearly anymore. After all, he did and was scared as hell. He'd been on edge since they boarded the transport. In some way this would not end well. He could feel it.
The second set of doors marked "Level 4 Clearance Only" parted and they once again hurried through. The massive door behind them hissed and closed in a smooth motion. Amii put her arm out to stop him before they approached an intersection and peered around a corner. Further down the corridor a set of voices echoed toward them.
She took his hand and jogged down the hall in the direction she'd scouted before darting into a recessed doorway and pressing both of them against a cobalt door with the number 2 stenciled on it in white. She held herself so close to him he could smell the faint odor of the dye from her hair and feel the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Although it hadn't been an obvious act to arouse him, it did.
The two voices became louder as the guards made their way down the corridor. Neither sounded like they grew up in United Europe.
"See Viva Vega last night, Ted?"
"Naw, I ain't watched it since Leslie left. She's the only reason I tuned in. And I stopped watchin' ANN a long time ago. Too golsh darn depressing. Though I am lookin' forward to the Chara Classic tournament this here weekend."
"Peter Colburn's the defending champ, right? Think he can win it two years in a row?"
"Aw, hell, you'd have to be stupid to bet against him, though that lefty ain't no slouch. Paul Dougan was the best damn thing to happen to the AGA in years, if ya ask me."
"Ever since he won back-to-back at Riverside and Ponte Terra, he's been on fire. That eagle he made on 18 to win? Legendary."
Amii's stare fixed on Magnius but he avoided meeting it with his eyes. When she flicked her tongue against his lips, his heart raced. Her awkward display of affection was ill-timed yet charming, the same as the rest of her quirky behaviors. The way she crossed her legs and shook her foot fiendishly. How she'd pull a lock of hair between her top lip and nose and try to hold it there. Seeing her imperceptible smile directed at him across a crowded room. She didn't have half a clue how she made him feel.
The men co
ntinued their inane conversation about golf as they passed. Their eyes stayed glued to the floor in front of them when they marched by. Magnius watched and worried for their safety. But they kept walking and talking without a care in the world, absorbed in their beloved sport like their livelihood depended on it.
From the sounds of their voices trailing off, the two men took a right at the next junction. Amii sidestepped her way to the corner and glanced around it just long enough to see they were no longer in sight. She gestured for him to follow and jogged ahead to the solid doors that took up the entire width of the hallway. Huge red letters spelled their doom: "Level 5 Clearance Only." This was it. Their only way out was through this room.
Amii headed over to the console on the left wall and readied the magic at her fingertips. Would he have gotten himself into this if Nadine hadn't dropped that bombshell vision on him? Probably. Although he loathed thinking it, she was a savvy woman. She might be the most powerful psion of all thanks to her telepathy and clairvoyance, yet she held it in check to be an icon for psions. A beacon of good in a sea of evil. He didn't know how she did it, but her selflessness inspired him.
The rugged steel entrance to the secret hangar bay opened more slowly than either of them would've liked. They disappeared inside and hugged the perimeter as their eyes adjusted to the darkness. She dug into the suitcase and pulled out a disruptor before continuing on. He crept behind her toward a long workbench while she scouted the room for scientists.
Once she confirmed they were alone, she led him around the outskirts of the hangar, where computers and diagnostic stations littered the bulkheads. But the fascinating ship held his full attention. She'd referred to it as the Excalibur. It sat there like a hoary bumblebee ensconced with a royal jewel. The craft was small, designed for a few people at most. If this was the AC's answer to the PAU fighters, they'd be the first to find out.
They approached its rear hatch, and she puzzled over it for a minute trying to figure out how to get inside. She stroked her hands along the sides as she searched for a concealed access panel near the edge. On the right side about waist-high, she found it. Her fingers pushed it in, and the hatch dropped down, causing Magnius to jump back out of the way.
"You could've warned me," he said.
Amii shrugged before heading inside. The ship appeared to be sleeping due to its darkness, but she led him into the hold without pause. The cargo area was quite Spartan, and the amount of interior space seemed small based on the ship's size.
They passed two rooms with a single bed in each and two more rooms full of diagnostic tools and equipment before they reached a chamber in the belly of the ship. A round console stood in the middle of the room, which Amii approached and tapped away at. After a few seconds, the Excalibur whirred to life before them as though it had been waiting for this woman to free it from bondage forever.
A number of holographic monitors ringed the chamber, programmed to display various information about the ship's engines. On top of the round console, a transparent cylinder stretched toward the ceiling. Inside, some kind of viscous fluid glistened unnaturally. Overhead, an unusual crystalline material had been embedded in the hull of the ship, cut at odd angles. From the outside it appeared transparent, but from here it was opaque.
Amii gestured toward the forward section of the ship where a translucent door separated the engine room from the control room. As they stepped through the door, he noticed the bridge was quite small. The design suggested that one or two people could manage the entire ship. There were only two chairs: one at a large computer at the rear of the control room and the other at a wrap-around pilot's display farther up.
The navigation console was positioned to give the pilot the most expansive view of space around the ship possible. Magnius walked to the front of the bridge and stared around and up through the panoramic window. It seemed obvious that a pilot good enough to fly this ship wouldn't need to be able to see where they were going. Yet for aesthetic reasons windows always turned up on the bridge of fighter craft.
Amii furrowed her brow when she sat down at it. "I don't recognize this configuration." She eyed the display, a heady semicircular array of data and the exterior vicinity of the ship. In many ways it looked similar to the view in his hoverbike helmet, though this appeared much more sophisticated. "I'll need a few minutes to familiarize myself with it."
He sighed and sat down in the chair at the aft station. He got lost in the various display screens and technical specifications before settling his eyes on a graph that monitored power usage in real-time. A data point was added every few seconds, presently fluctuating between five and seven percent.
It dawned on him that Amii wasn't the innocent scientist he'd always taken her to be. She was shrewd and cunning. She spoke to that guard like she knew exactly what she was doing—distracting him, annoying him. After all, people didn't break onto restricted AC installations, but people also didn't steal from the PAU government and live to tell about it. Someone like Xander might've had the brains to pull it off but not alone. Might one of her daring acts caused the loss of memory? Only one man knew the answer to that and he seemed determined to take it to his grave.
He closed his eyes in a futile attempt to relax when he felt a tap on his shoulder. When he opened them, he saw Amii standing there with her hands on her hips. She tucked the weapon into a holster underneath her jacket. "Let's go get the hanger door open."
The two of them jogged back off the ship. She pointed up to the large round hatch in the ceiling several stories above them. "You have got to be kidding me," he uttered.
"I should be able to get it open from the console over here," she said and strode toward the wall. He watched her punch in the level-five clearance code. The screen flashed red with the words ACCESS DENIED. "Damn. I don't think I saw Xander enter the password for this one. And it's not worth wasting our time trying. Time to get our hands dirty." She glanced toward the roof. "Can you lift me up there?"
"What in Astra for?"
"The manual override. There are two of them, one on each side." Amii pointed to the edges farthest from the seams on the recessed circular opening. "They open out using hydraulics." She gestured with her hands to mimic the process. "There's always a manual override in case there's no power or the computer isn't working. But as you can see, there's no way to safely get to it unless you can hold me steady up there."
"Easy," Magnius responded. "I've never done this on a person before though so you might be in for a rough ride."
"Okay, let's do it."
Without another word he flung her into the air. She teetered without the ground to support her weight but caught her balance while she rose toward the ceiling. The first override was positioned almost directly overhead, and she shrunk as she got further away until she looked like a small fairy. In the darkened room he had a hard time estimating how close she was, but when he heard a thud, he knew he'd misjudged the distance.
"Sorry," he called but wasn't sure she even heard him.
Magnius watched her open a panel high above him and reach her arm inside. Her legs flailed as she groped around like a cat straining for the mouse to be her dinner. After a minute, she caught it and pulled with all her might. The seal of the hangar door broke, and distant starlight poured into the room accompanied by a smattering of snowflakes.
In that same instant a deafening siren echoed throughout the room, and a surge of red light fell on every surface. His heart pounded in his throat while Amii hurried to open the first half of the hangar door, but there wasn't much she could do to work faster. The behemoth moved slow and deliberate to spite their perfectly orchestrated getaway. He felt his airway narrow with dread at the thought he could do nothing to help her or stop anyone from entering the room; she required his complete attention right now.
Amii shouted down at him, but he could not hear her words. She pointed to the panel opposite her and waved her hand toward it. He assumed she was ready for the other side so he took a deep breat
h and moved her over to it. The alarm drowned out his thoughts and his head throbbed from the pain of the noise, but he couldn't lose focus on her. She was the only thing standing between their freedom and a world of hell.
After she tossed open the panel on the far end, Magnius felt the cold muzzle of a rifle burrow into his back. "Hands on your head right now, mother fucker. One wrong move and you're dead."
He hadn't even heard the door open behind him. All he could do was bring his hands to his head, never once taking his eyes off of her. He couldn't disarm them fast enough. If his gaze wavered and his concentration waned, it would only take a few seconds for her to die from the fall.
Think, Magnius, think, he scolded himself. Nothing in his immediate visual range could prove a distraction. He couldn't risk diverting his attention in a room so dark on nothing but wishful thinking. So he resigned himself to the fact he'd have to hold out until Amii finished the job.
A second guard meandered around him with a shotgun raised. He chewed a wad of hashish with snarling lips. He looked like the stouter of the two men who'd passed them earlier. "On yer knees, sum'bitch," he ordered and swiftly booted Magnius' left shin.
He winced at the sharp sting but recomposed himself and knelt in front of them. When he looked back at Amii, he saw her clinging to the ceiling in frantic desperation. She grabbed onto the edge of the open panel with all her strength while she searched for the same mechanism that opened the lower half. The second side of the hangar door had not yet budged. He strained to right her, hoping the guards wouldn't notice her so high above them while she continued.
"How in damnations did a bastard like you get in here? Ya know what we do to folks who break the law 'round these parts?"
His nostrils flared at the crass comment but he did not answer. He doubted either of the men would kill him outright, but their questionable morality wouldn't stop them from brutalizing him.
The flash of metal from a rifle smashed him across the face, and he crumpled over from the pain. Blood trickled down his cheek, and he forced himself to look back over at Amii. She hung onto a cable that came unseated from the bulkhead and pulled it with the force of her weight, yanking it wildly for it to give. The moment it did, the slick cable slipped out of her hands and she fell.
