Course Correction

by Christian Kallias

  This gave her an idea, though. She located one of the engine coolant pumps and began venting some behind her ship. She then transferred additional power to the weapons from the shields. Once the ship following her hit part of the coolant, it would ignite and appear as hull damage from the outside.

  A smart pilot would double-check that data with its sensors, but from the way these bozos were flying, they were anything but smart. It was time to send them to meet their maker. Keera had to adjust her flight path and slow her evasive action so the pursuing ship could get a couple of hits off her aft shields, which was crucial to her plan. Upon the third hit, she released smoke from one of her engines while pounding the ship in front of her with more and more laser fire. Its aft shields were almost entirely gone.

  Her instrument lit up red, and an alarm wailed to inform her of a double missile lock.

  “Right on time. Now, let’s have some fun, shall we,” she smirked.

  A handful of seconds later, the pursuing ship launched two missiles her way, almost precisely in sync with her prey’s shields going down. She smiled as she redirected every ounce of power to her engines and pushed the throttle beyond the ship’s safety limits.

  With two missiles coming up her tail pipe, she soared forward, ignoring the ship’s structural integrity moaning and multiple warnings blinking on the instruments. She switched her laser from rapid fire to maximum power and sent two supercharged laser shots that took out one of the ship’s engines upon impact. It slowed down considerably. She spun her ship and passed in front of the enemy ship missing it by only a couple of feet.

  At that moment, she brought her ship’s nose back up and aligned herself perfectly with the ship that saw the move as an opportunity to bring her down. Deadly mistake, as it never saw the twin missiles destined for her as they tore the enemy ship to pieces, accompanied by a bright explosion.

  “One down!” she cheered.

  Keera killed the engines and spun her ship on its vertical axis. She locked the only two missiles at her disposal onto the pursuing ship that was now on a collision course with hers. Luckily, she had more than enough speed and momentum to make her next kill and take her time doing it.

  Laser fire impacted her frontal shields, and the second ship emerged from the dying flames and smoke caused by the first ship’s destruction as Keera sent her missiles away.

  She then immediately diverted every ounce of juice to only two systems: lasers and frontal shields. She redirected so much power, in fact, that even the lights in the cockpit were reduced to a soft flicker. She timed her shot and sent two supercharged laser shots toward the enemy ship at the exact millisecond her missiles hit the ship’s shields.

  While neither her lasers nor missiles had the ability to bring that ship down, a perfectly timed impact of both, however, had an exponential result.

  “Die, motherfucker!”

  The enemy fighter exploded into a million pieces.

  Keera patted the ship’s console. “You may be a piece of junk, but you still have some life in you; thank you for not blowing up in my face.”

  She checked her star map positioning, which showed she was only a couple of hours at sub-light speeds from Pyros III. Her navigational logs showed that a solar flare had taken her ship out of hyperspace and the remnant activity made it too dangerous to try another jump.

  She entered the coordinates and let the computer fly the ship while she assessed the ship’s damage. They were minimal, and unless she had another unfortunate encounter, it would bring her to where she needed to be.

  Her next stop was to medical where she patched up her still gushing wound.

  Landing the ship and finding a rental hoverbike had been relatively easy. It had cost Keera the better part of the minimal credits she had left, and she hoped Eleni’s stash and ship were real; otherwise, she might be forced to leave Pyros III with that junk of a ship that had gotten her there. Not that she would necessarily mind that, if push came to shove, but the ship’s engine ran on purified, military-grade quadrinium and that stuff was way more expensive than it ought to be.

  Most ships in the galaxy were now running on raw quadrinium. The engines themselves were designed to use the quadrinium and discard the impurities. But older ships still required fuel with a ninety-nine plus purity or their engines would stall, or worse, overload.

  A strong wind blew through Keera’s hair as she had opted to skip wearing a helmet on her hoverbike trip to Tanelis’ last known coordinates. Speed limits were also something Keera decided to blatantly ignore.

  The view of Zorga, Pyros III’s northern hemisphere capital, was breathtaking at this time of day, with both suns setting behind the tall, crystal-based skyscrapers. If Keera weren’t worried about getting Eleni’s daughter before the deadline, she would surely stop and take holo-pictures of the view.

  The setting suns’ reflecting off the thousands of flying vehicles all over the city made the crystal-looking megalopolis appear like sparkling gold, giving it both an eerie and surreal quality.

  Twenty minutes later, Keera arrived at her destination and parked her hoverbike by the side of the tall hotel. She took the elevator to the seventieth floor and looked for Room 7034.

  She realized something was wrong when she knocked on the door, and the door pushed open on its own. She grabbed her blaster and burst into the room. On the floor lay a dying man.

  Keera secured the area, aiming her gun as she rotated around, making sure there wasn’t anybody ready to ambush her. Once satisfied nobody was in the room, she sat next to the man.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Where’s Tanelis?”

  “They took her. Who are you?”

  “I’m a friend of her mother,” said Keera with a twitch.

  “I did everything I could to protect her. Please, help me.”

  “I will; how do I find her?”

  “My left pocket...tracker. Help...”

  Keera took a scanner out of her pocket, set it to perform a medical scan, and checked the man. The overlaid holo-scan showed more red areas on his body than it should for someone still breathing. The man was bleeding internally in multiple places. The prognosis was imminent death.

  “Hang on; I’ll get hel—”

  But the man was already gone. She grabbed the tracker from his pocket and located Tanelis’ position. She was moving fast, most likely inside a flying car, by the looks of it. They had about a five-minute head start on her, so she needed to act now.

  Keera delicately closed the dead man’s eyelids and left the room, running.

  Soon, she was on her hoverbike, pushing it beyond safety limits in the middle of heavy traffic. Flying cars, smaller craft, and other vehicles were lines of blurry colors.

  I have to get that girl back to her father; if it’s the last thing that I do.

  She had magnetically attached the tracker next to the hoverbike’s holo-display, and it began to beep faster, indicating she was approaching her target. She identified that the signal came from a matte black luxurious flying car about three hundred feet in front of her bike.

  Keera was only a few seconds away from the target car when it changed lanes quickly.

  Could they have detected my approach?

  She stayed in her lane and adjusted her speed to not overcome the car. She needed to approach and not be detected, if that was still an option at this point. After a minute, she slowly made her way into the same lane, trying to not attract any attention to herself.

  She was only a few yards away from the car when she made her move; she set the bike on autopilot and then climbed onto the seat, gaining some height and moving slightly forward toward the back position of the car. Keera took a deep breath before jumping off the bike.

  Blustery winds blew her upward as she tried descending in a free fall toward the car. She crashed on the trunk of the vehicle with less grace than she had hoped but managed to secure herself by grabbing the sides of the car.

  Before she could reach her blaster, the car
turned upside down and threw Keera off of the vehicle where she floated in the air.

  Her heart went from agitated to a panic galloping pace in a split second. She had to find a vehicle to grab, or she’d fall to her death. The first car she tried to latch onto was just out of reach, and all she achieved was to get her hand brutally thrown to the side, putting her into a spin.

  Crap! This shit isn’t happening!

  Before she could look around to find her bearings, she was swooped up and brutally landed on the empty backseat of a convertible, pink-colored car.

  “Are you insane?” shouted the driver, a humanoid with orange-colored skin and a tribal tattoo on his hairless skull. “You’re lucky I saw you fall.”

  Keera took a long breath of relief before climbing forward to the passenger seat.

  “Thank you for your help, but I’m going to have to ask for more.”

  “Oh no; I’m already late for an appointment; just be happy you didn’t fall to your death, and, in the future, I suggest that you—”

  Keera grabbed her blaster and looked at the driver.

  “I don’t want to sound ungrateful here, but you see that car,” said Keera pointing to the black car that was accelerating and getting away. “There’s a little seven-year-old girl that’s been kidnapped in that car, and I need to get her back to her dad. Do you have children?”

  The man looked at Keera intensely. “I have two daughters.”

  “Ok, then let me ask you this: if that was your daughter in there, what would you do?”

  “Anything I could.”

  Keera pointed to the car with her blaster. “I need you to get me under the car; can you do that for me…” Keera paused.

  “Jackson, my name is Jackson.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jackson; I’m Keera. Now, about that car.”

  “I’m going to regret this. I would tell you to strap in, but something tells me you’re not going to.” Keera smiled and did an infrared scan of the car and saw a youngling’s heat signature inside the trunk of the black vehicle.

  “Just get your hood under the trunk of that car and let me do the rest.”

  “Look, you clearly have a death wish, and I’m not going to argue, but who the hell are you? Police?”

  “Not exactly. And right now is not the time for chit chat, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Jackson nodded as he brought his car closer to Keera’s target.

  “A little closer,” pleaded Keera as she climbed out of her seat and jumped onto Jackson’s hood.

  “You’re one crazy lady!”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you.”

  Keera positioned herself under the black car; she grabbed her nano-blade and looked straight into Jackson’s eyes. She could see the fear in them.

  “Just keep steady, and be ready to get us out of here at a moment’s notice. Understood?”

  She could tell Jackson was too scared to reply with words, but he nodded vigorously.

  Keera grabbed a sonic grenade, activated a six-second timer on it, and stuck the cylindrical explosive device between her teeth.

  Here goes nothing.

  In a swift but fluid motion, she carved a large oval-shaped, unclosed hole through the bottom of the car. She sheathed her nano-blade, grabbed her blaster, and shot the bottom of the trunk. The shot made the oval carving swivel, and a young body rolled and fell from the car.

  Keera caught an unconscious Tanelis with one arm while she also grabbed her sonic grenade, threw it inside the trunk, and punched the metal back into place. She jumped from the hood to the backseat of Jackson’s car with Tanelis in her arms. The moment they both landed on the aged leathery seats, the sonic grenade exploded.

  “Now, Jackson! Get us the hell out of here.”

  Lightning bolts sizzled around the car before it became engulfed in flames and then exploded into a large fireball. Keera used her body to shield Tanelis from the flying and flaming debris. A piece of burning shrapnel pierced through the back of Keera’s shoulder. The pain was excruciating, and for a second, she thought she might lose consciousness, but she powered through.

  She grabbed the still burning metal and pulled it slowly from her skin, then threw it outside the car.

  “Crazy doesn’t even start to describe you, Keera,” said Jackson as he stabilized his car’s flight path. “Where to now?”

  Keera checked Tanelis. She had duct tape on her mouth, and her eyes appeared irritated, most likely from tears. She passed her hand through the girl’s beautiful blond hair.

  “Anywhere, but here.”

  Keera activated her ship’s hyperspace engine and set it on autopilot. It was time to check on Tanelis. Recovering Eleni’s ship and the stash of credits had gone smoothly, but it had forced Keera to give the little girl a sedative while she took care of business.

  The child had been through enough and Keera didn’t want to risk her life when she went to the bank to recover Eleni’s possessions from the safe deposit box. That had been a wise decision since the DTs sent another pair of assassins to that location. But it was nothing Keera couldn’t handle.

  Her shoulder still hurt, and she knew she should take care of the wound now that they seemed to be out of the woods. But first, she wanted to check on the child. She briskly walked to the ship’s living quarters.

  Tanelis was waking up, and she screamed the moment Keera entered her room.

  “Easy, Tanelis; I don’t mean you any harm.”

  Tanelis crawled back on her bed until she hit the bed frame and curled into a ball. The poor thing was visibly terrified, and Keera could understand why. She must have witnessed the assassination of the man who was taking care of her.

  Keera approached the girl’s bed cautiously; her hands forward in a non-threatening way, but Tanelis would not yield yet. Tears started flowing from her deep blue eyes.

  “Hey, that’s okay. I won’t let anyone hurt you; I promise.”

  Tanelis gingerly scanned the room. “This is mommy’s room; where’s my mommy? I want my mommy!”

  Keera’s heart bled. How was she to tell this little girl that her mom was gone? And while she hadn’t intended for Eleni to die, Keera felt even more responsible for her death now that she saw her innocent daughter asking for her dead mother.

  “I’m afraid your mommy couldn’t be here, but she sent me to get you back from those bad men. She asked me to bring you to…”

  Keera stopped in mid-sentence. Was the girl even aware she had a father? Keera had no idea what Eleni had told her about the subject. But she would have to meet him soon, so it wasn’t like Keera had much choice; perhaps preparing Tanelis in advance would give her time to adapt.

  “She asked me,” continued Keera, “to bring you to your father.”

  Tanelis’ eyes widened, and she wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Father? I don’t have a daddy.”

  “You do, Tanelis. His name is Georgios, and we’ll be with him soon. He will take care of you from now on.”

  Tears filled Tanelis’ eyes once more, and Keera realized that she shouldn’t have given her this piece of information. So, she lied to take some of it back.

  “Until your mom comes back, that is.”

  That seemed to calm Tanelis somewhat.

  “You must be hungry,” said Keera. “Want some ice cream?”

  That did the trick and Tanelis’ eyes lit up at the mention of the word. They both ate ice cream, and soon after, Tanelis fell asleep in her mom’s bed while Keera told her a bedtime story, one her own mom used to tell her as a child.

  Keera pressed the doorbell, and a tall bearded man answered the door. It was Georgios alright. She recognized him from the holo-picture Eleni had left in her safe deposit box, along with a letter addressed to his attention.

  “Yes, what can I do for you?” asked Georgios.

  “We need to talk. E— Eleni sent me; she needs your help.”

  The frown that filled Georgios’ face was not a good sign.

&n
bsp; “I don’t want to have anything to do with you or Eleni, I’m sorry,” said Georgios before attempting to close the door.

  Keera stuck her foot forward to prevent the door from closing.

  “Please, just give me a minute of your time; I guarantee you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”

  “Look Miss…” Georgios let the words hang.

  “Keera, Keera Hawking.”

  “Look, Miss Hawking, once upon a time my heart belonged to Eleni, and it took years to get over her. There’s nothing you can say that will be of any interest to me.”

  “Does the name Tanelis ring a bell?”

  Georgios pulled his head back. He and Eleni had talked about names for their children, should they ever have any. “Where did you hear that name?”

  Keera took the holo-projector from her pocket and turned it on. Tanelis’ holo-picture came to life.

  “This is Tanelis, your daughter. She just lost her mom, and I think she’d be thrilled to get to know her father.”

  Tears filled Georgios’ eyes.

  He opened the door fully.

  “Please, come in.”

  Georgios fixed Keera some coffee as she explained what had happened during the last few days and gave him the letter she had acquired from the safe deposit box. No matter what he had said earlier, he was deeply saddened when he learned Eleni had passed away.

  “It’s my fault; I should have been more careful. I— I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t blame you. Eleni chose her own path; she was always a strong-headed gal, and no matter what she did, danger always seemed to gravitate toward her. I don’t think you’re responsible for her death, and I suggest you stop blaming yourself for it.”

  “That’s not the reaction I expected from you.”

  “Look Keera, you seem like a nice person. I can tell you had a rough time as of late, and all that matters to me is that you’re bringing me Tanelis. You didn’t have to, and you could have sold my daughter, or worse, let her die. So, thank you for keeping your word and bringing her to me. By the way, where is she?”