Fire Rage

by Chris Ward

  As an indicator gauge announced the return of the pod-shuttle’s internal systems, Caladan ripped the flexi-helmet off his face and tossed it away. Breathing in air slightly better processed than that of the helmet, he stretched for the controls and set them on their way out of the facility.

  ‘Just stop fussing around him. He’ll be fine.’

  Lump bounced up and down in front of the recuperation tank, peering through the glass at Jake’s inert form. Caladan hoped only to finish the setup quickly, then find something to drink while they blasted off into deep-space and headed for the wormhole into Trill System.

  ‘Will he live? He doesn’t look so good.’

  ‘I told you—’

  ‘His hand…?’

  Caladan rolled his eyes. ‘It got a little crushed. Nothing the tank can’t fix. He’ll be out of there in a couple of Earth-days. Now, find something to entertain you and leave me alone to pilot the ship.’

  As he left the chamber behind, Lump made to follow. Caladan stopped, turned back and fixed the cretinous creature with a glare. ‘Stop. Following. Me.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘There are detention cells on this ship. Don’t tempt me to use one.’

  Lump looked crestfallen, and Caladan felt a momentary pang of guilt which he brushed angrily away. He opened his mouth to say something else—to soften the blow, perhaps—then shut it again. If he showed too much weakness, he’d never get rid of the thing trailing him like a bad smell.

  Back on the bridge, he watched with satisfaction as Ergon-7 slowly disappeared against the backdrop of stars. They were still in the moon’s orbit, but soon they would be cruising through deep space, on the way to their destiny.

  And what might that be? Caladan shook his head. Would their insane plan actually work, or would it just anger the Helix, turning its focus toward the rest of the Fire Quarter?

  There was a good chance that if it didn’t, it wouldn’t matter to him anyway.

  He checked the systems controls, grudgingly accepting Lump had done a good job with the loading of the radiation core. It now sat near the back of the ship, safely inside its containment chamber, ready to be blasted through stasis-ultraspace without leaching out during the trip and turning them all into diminutive goblins.

  It was time to prepare the ship for travel to Trill System. Clunky and hard to control, Caladan brought the Raging Fire around in a wide circle, angling it toward the outer system and the nearest wormhole coordinates. As he did so, a warning light flashed up on the screen. He glanced at it, frowning.

  Notification of incoming ships. A small freight vessel with a complement of fighters.

  Caladan’s heart sank.

  Bandits.

  ‘Let’s see you catch us,’ he muttered, setting the ship’s ultraspace drive for maximum cruising speed. Once they were blasting through space at full power, the short-range fighters would be left far behind.

  He shifted the controls, leaning back in the chair at the same time, ready for the pull of g-force.

  Nothing happened.

  Another light flashed. The acceleration unit showed zero power. His heart sank, his single hand shaking. The Raging Fire had few defensive cannons, but most of them were manually operated. With only himself and Lump able to man them, the bandits would easily board the ship.

  ‘Not good, not good,’ he muttered calling up the intercom display. ‘Lump! Where are you? Get to the bridge now!’ he shouted into it, his voice echoing back as it relayed through the ship’s endless corridors.

  ‘Here!’ shouted a voice through the broken door Caladan had patched up with tape. Lump, who had to have been sitting right outside the whole time, snapped to attention.

  ‘Tell me what you know that I don’t know,’ Caladan snapped. ‘Quickly.’

  Lump’s lower lip trembled. ‘I tried to tell you—’

  ‘I don’t care what you tried to do. Tell me now.’

  ‘The accelerator unit has blown. The electronics were frayed and when we pulled out of Ergon-7 they failed. I tried—’

  Caladan lifted a finger to his lips. ‘Shh. How long will it take to fix?’

  ‘A couple of hours, but I can’t do it alone. Someone will have to hold the wires while they’re soldered.’

  Caladan nodded. If it had to happen, it had to happen. ‘First, we have a problem. We have bandits tailing us. Perhaps they picked up an automated transmission from the facility, or maybe we showed up on radar. I don’t know, and I don’t care, but if they get on board this ship we’re both dead.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘I’ve set us on a cruising course. I need you to man one of the main cannons. Keep them away from our rear where they can do the most damage. If you can, target the main ship.’

  ‘What about you?’

  Caladan took a deep breath. ‘I’m going out there. You want to see your father as a hero, boy? Now’s your chance.’

  The barge’s complement of defensive fighters was pretty weak. As Caladan selected the most space-worthy of three short-range Air-Raiders—far down on the original complement of ten because the trader had likely been selling them off on the side—he wondered if he would ever make it back. The bandits’ main craft was a short-range freighter. It could only go so far from a planet or fueling station. There was only so far they could follow the Raging Fire into deep-space without needing to turn back. If he could hold them off long enough, maybe they had a chance.

  The Air-Raider’s controls felt archaic and leaden, but at least it was fully fueled and armed. Caladan activated the thrusters then blasted out through a magnetic shield, arcing around over the barge to engage the enemy.

  As he shifted the fighter back and forth, he tried to remember the last time he had flown into a dogfight like this. Once, before gambling and other mistakes, it had been all he had done, and he had done it as well as any pilot out there. Now, one arm and a couple of decades down, he was back.

  Most of them saw him coming. For those that didn’t, he fired off a couple of blasts just to let them know. It was dishonorable to sneak up on an enemy, and it was so much more fun to meet them head on.

  With the freighter hanging back, the fighters swooped low over the barge’s upper surface. Caladan smiled as cannon fire blasted out of the main ship, catching one of the fighters in the rear, sending it spiraling away in a plume of shattered parts.

  ‘I told you to aim for the main ship,’ Caladan growled around a smile he was unable to resist. Perhaps there was something in the boy’s DNA after all.

  The remaining fighters moved into a rough formation, heading straight for him. He fired off a couple of cannon blasts then banked to the left, arcing back and underneath the barge, using the big ship as his primary defense. In the rear-view-screen he saw two of them follow him, the others lose formation and scatter. Caladan smiled. They were mercenaries: unused to working as a team.

  He pressed some buttons, bringing up some flight pattern information. The one to the far left was the most erratic, struggling to keep up with the others. He banked hard, cutting the left thruster to make his flight path more confusing, breaking whatever locks they might have on him. It worked. His sudden loss of acceleration caused the erratic left fighter to zoom past.

  Caladan didn’t even bother with the cannons’ targeting lock. He hacked the Air-Raider around, got a visual, and blew the fighter apart.

  The second, seeing the first’s destruction, pulled up. Caladan turned the Air-Raider into a steep ascent, getting behind the fighter as it moved in close against the barge. Perhaps thinking he wouldn’t dare to fire for fear of hitting his own ship, it dropped low to the barge’s surface.

  A common amateur pilot’s mistake. Nothing on board the Air-Raider would penetrate the Raging Fire’s magnetic fields. With a satisfied grin, he opened fire.

  Three down. Lump had taken out another, so there were only two and the freighter left.

  Easy.

  With Lump’s fire coming from the Raging Fire, Calad
an tried the fighter’s own tactic, directly targeting the freighter, aware the fighters might balk at firing toward their own ship. As it grew larger in his visuals, he saw it was a ragtag thing, built, perhaps, out of the parts of a dozen other ships. He opened fire, the Air-Raider’s cannons having little impact, but the flashes as the freighter’s magnetic shields deflected the blasts boosted his ego.

  ‘As good as I ever was.’ He punched the dashboard.

  Lump’s fire was still covering him, blazing through the sky to either side of the freighter. A blast caught the ship full on, and it sagged, one thruster losing power. The battle was nearly over. Caladan turned the cannons on full. Damaged, its power would be redirected, making the shields vulnerable.

  ‘Goodnight—’

  His view turned upside down as the Air-Raider’s left wing took a glancing blow. Caladan immediately dropped the power to level the ship out, leaving him at the fighters’ mercy. As he watched the sky outside realign, he saw a stray fighter arcing back around. Complacent, he had missed one hanging back beneath the cover of the Raging Fire’s front end.

  ‘Lump!’ he shouted, pulling up the intercom. ‘I’m hit! Open the shields on the left front hangar.’

  The only response was a sudden volley of cannon fire from the Raging Fire which hit the freighter head on. It disintegrated in a plume of fire, leaving only three fighters to take out.

  Still, three too many.

  ‘Lump!’

  ‘Yes, Father?’

  ‘Don’t… I mean, did you hear me? Open the hangar!’

  A long pause. Caladan wondered if Lump would make some irritating demand, that Caladan, in his moment of need, acknowledge that the monstrosity operating the cannon was his son. Get it over with, he thought, turning his cannons around as the three fighters closed in. Coming in low to the Raging Fire’s front end, he had one chance. He would never make a second pass.

  Below him, the hangar entrance, protected by a magnetic field, shimmered. Caladan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. It was open. Lump had done it.

  Firing off one last blast, he turned the Air-Raider into a sharp spinning descent, narrowly avoiding a volley of return fire. The Raging Fire loomed large, its front hangar a safe haven. Cannon fire exploded around it, one blast even making it inside to wreck another fighter standing at dock, and then Caladan was through. As the hangar drew him in like a giant metal mouth, he hit the decelerators and brought the Air-Raider down.

  ‘Shut the shields!’ he hollered into the intercom. In response, the entrance shimmered, the magnetic field restored.

  Caladan climbed out of the fighter and surveyed the damage. One wing was a smoking ruin. Experience had got him home, but so had luck.

  Through the magnetic field, he saw one of the remaining fighters hit by a cannon blast. The other two banked away and turned tail, their nerve gone. Whether they had enough fuel to get home, Caladan didn’t know or care. For now, they were safe.

  He headed up to the bridge, ignoring a couple of cuts he had received during the dogfight. The sensors showed space around them was empty, the fighters out of range. Caladan called up Lump on the intercom. ‘They’re gone. You can come up now. And… thanks.’

  Another pause. Then, quietly, ‘No problem.’

  ‘But don’t think this means you can take a break. We have to fix that accelerator.’

  ‘I’ll need help, remember?’

  Caladan nodded, suppressing a sigh. ‘Sure. Whatever you need.’

  39

  Beth

  All she felt was anger, anger toward everyone. Anger at Paul for being alive when Davar was dead, at Harlan5, for not leaving her to her fate, and now at Raylan Climlee’s ships for not giving her the time to grieve.

  She wanted nothing other than to hide away with her grief, but they had three ships on their tail and myriad more waiting in orbit.

  ‘They’re trying to get a lock on us,’ Harlan5 said from his brace at the bridge’s rear.

  ‘Engage cannons.’ Beth leaned over the pilot’s controls, switching over the commands to give full gunner’s control to the droid. ‘Fire rapid, try to throw them off. We’ll outrun them in space.’

  The Matilda ducked over a jagged ridgeline and plummeted into a wide valley before leveling out. Having not bothered even to strap herself in, Beth bounced from side and to side across the seat, jerking the manual thruster control with careless abandon, not sure whether she even cared if they careened into a wall of rock.

  ‘Might my programming be allowed to point out that atmospheric pressure has a far greater negative impact on the Matilda’s thrust systems than the void of space?’ Harlan5 said from behind her.

  ‘I don’t care,’ Beth said.

  ‘My programming would like to point out that while I understand your grief, it is worth remembering the original cause that brought you and Davar together, and although Davar is now gone, that cause remains.’

  Beth choked a sob as she closed her eyes. ‘Were you programmed by a woman, Harlan?’

  ‘I am unable to confirm or deny that. Most likely by a simulation computer versed in a spectrum of emotions.’

  The Matilda swooped low over a forest, missing the tops of the tallest trees by barely a few inches. Beth glanced at the view-screens and saw one ship of the seek-and-destroy unit caught by a cannon blast. Its left side exploded, and what remained spiraled down into the forest and exploded.

  ‘One down,’ she said. ‘Let’s go meet the rest of the fleet.’

  She turned the ship into a sharp ascent. Harlan5 began to protest, but Beth drowned him out. She turned the shields up to full power and switched four of the seven remaining cannons to fire forward, creating a deadly vanguard she hoped would clear them a path.

  They broke through the atmosphere, the haze of Vattla’s clouds replaced by a blanket of space. The systems display told her the main part of Raylan’s fleet was to the north, close to the pole. A couple of larger cruisers were breaking away from the main fleet to engage them.

  ‘Any ideas, Harlan?’

  ‘We can’t win the battle,’ the droid said. ‘They have too many ships, too much firepower. My programming suggests switching off all defensive systems and directing all power to the rear thrusters.’

  ‘But then a single fighter shot would take us out.’

  ‘Then let’s not get hit by one. The momentary confusion might work to our advantage.’

  Beth nodded. Part of her still didn’t care what might happen. Harlan5 wanted her to honor Davar’s memory by fighting on, but in her mind she still saw his face for the last time as she turned away to walk up the ridge. Davar, urging her to go on, promising to wait. The words she had wanted to say almost from their first meeting had dangled themselves on her lips but stayed inside, stayed hidden. Would it have made a difference? Would it have made him gather his strength to come after her?

  The intercom crackled.

  ‘Incoming message,’ Harlan5 said.

  ‘Activate.’

  ‘Lianetta? This is Kyle Jansen. Remember me? You were stupid enough to choose my brother. Can I remind you how poorly that worked out? I see things aren’t going too well these days either. It’s been fun, but the longer you run, the harder things will be for you when you’re caught. I can’t promise I can protect you.’

  Beth muted the intercom responder. ‘Who’s Kyle Jansen?’ she hissed.

  ‘My stored data tells me this is my captain’s brother-in-law and a former general in the Galactic Military Police.’

  ‘Is he a friend?’

  ‘My database contains the words “asshole”, “sleazebag”, “scum”, and “traitor”. I would therefore suggest not.’

  Beth nodded. She clicked off the mute. ‘Kyle, this is Lianetta. If we turn ourselves in, will you swear to my crew’s safety?’

  ‘I can swear to nothing. All I can do is promise to do my best. We have a hundred ships. Most can outrun you or blow you out of the sky.’

  Beth nodded at
Harlan5. ‘We’re turning off our shields and guns. We offer an unconditional surrender in return for your lord’s mercy.’

  Kyle sighed. ‘Do it. Do it now.’

  Harlan5 pressed something on his terminal and a light flashed above Beth’s head.

  ‘Shields down,’ came an electronic voice. Through the view-screens, she saw all cannons had also ceased firing.

  ‘Approach the lead cruiser,’ Kyle said. ‘A single cannon blast will see you destroyed. I know you, Lia. Try nothing.’

  Beth thought of Davar. She remembered what Harlan5 had said about Lianetta’s family. Was what she felt comparable in any way? She had been just friends with Davar. Lianetta Jansen had lost her husband and child. How did that feel?

  ‘I miss you,’ she muttered out loud. ‘I’ll never forget you.’

  Laughter came through the intercom. ‘I appreciate the sentiment,’ came Kyle’s voice. ‘I’ll do my best to keep you to my private chamber. Perhaps something can be arranged. Your crew’s lives, for yours.’

  Beth scowled at the intercom then looked up at Harlan5, who nodded.

  ‘Now,’ the droid whispered.

  Through the view-screens, the two large cruisers approached. Behind them was a blanket of space, out there somewhere a wormhole that would get them away. Every one of Ralan’s ships was approaching them, following the curve of Vattla far below.

  ‘Full power to the rear thruster,’ Beth said. ‘Let’s go.’

  The Matilda shuddered. With her shields down, all her power was concentrated in one place. The thruster roared, throwing them forward as the Matilda’s arms fell flat against her sides, transforming the battle-ready space spider into a sleek, elongated deep-space missile.

  ‘Lia? What on Old-Earth are you doing?’

  ‘I thought you said you knew me, Kyle,’ Beth said. ‘Doesn’t sound like you know me at all.’

  ‘You’ll never make it!’ Kyle’s voice screamed through the intercom.