“Ready?” Mach asked.
Sanchez didn’t wait for a command. He sprinted to the edge of the track, aimed at the truck’s windshield and fired an energy burst.
Mach ran straight past him. An orcus gang member jumped out of the side door and raised a laser. Before he could fire, Mach zapped him in the chest. He quickly switched aim to the cabin. The other door was open. Multiple footsteps pounded against the dirt.
The distinctive fire of a Viper crackled high to his left. Adira found her target. A body hit the ground.
“Front truck clear,” Sanchez called out.
A head appeared around the back of the rear truck. Mach ducked in front. “We’ve still got one back here.”
Mach took a few deep breaths and wiped sweat from his brow. Sanchez dashed around forward and skidded to a halt next to him. “Three in the front cabin. One here. That’s one left.”
“Sanchez,” a voice called out, “is that you?”
“Damn,” Sanchez said and glanced around the side of the truck. “It’s Tarkun.”
Fuel from the front engine pooled around Mach’s boots. He elbowed Sanchez and gestured down with his rifle. “We have to finish this. Now.”
“Come out, Sanchez,” Tarkun shouted. “If it’s the crystals you want, take them.”
“He’s gonna call in our position,” Carson said. “You go one way, I’ll go the other. Ready?”
“Wait,” Sanchez said. “I’ll talk to him.”
“No. It only buys the orcus more time to get here.”
Carson reached out to drag him back, but Sanchez moved swiftly around away and stood around the side with his rifle shouldered.
“Come out with your hands up,” Sanchez said.
Quickly glancing in either direction, Mach couldn’t see anything approaching. He hunched down, edged around the front end, and provided cover.
Tarkun leaped from the back with a laser pistol raised in each hand. A shot echoed high to Carson’s left and the gangster’s head snapped back. The pistols fell from his hands and thudded against the ground. Adira accurately stunned him.
Sanchez stared at Tarkun. Carson rushed past him to the back of the truck, climbed the mini ladder, and searched for the crystals. He popped open two dull metal crates, but both were empty. Switching on his night vision, he searched around the dark corners with his sights. There was nothing else here apart from an old blanket and some empty food trays.
Carson jumped back out of the truck and found Sanchez crouched over Tarkun.
“Forget about him,” Carson said. “He’s not going to give you a present when he wakes.”
“I’m not bothered about him. I’m checking for anything useful.”
“We need the damned crystals. If they’re not in the front truck, we’re leaving here on the Phalanx-E.”
Adira had descended into the valley. She opened the lead truck’s door and aimed inside. Carson climbed into the back. Two shiny metal boxes, one on top of the other, were position at the front end. He pulled the lid off the first and ripped away the foil seal, revealing it packed full with blue fusion crystals.
Mach picked up the box and guessed it weighed double what the master-builder requested. Sanchez and Adira both looked at him in anticipation as he carried the rear end and held it down.
“This is our ticket out of here,” Mach said.
Sanchez cradled the box in his tattooed arms.
Adira looked inside it and her eyes lit up. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Mach jumped down and they climbed the opposite side of the valley. From here, it was a descent to the grid of warehouses and back to hangar two.
Two bright lights shot into the air over the city and headed for the location of the ambush. Another one came from the direction of the mine. Orcus hover bikes reacting to a call they probably received from Tarkun.
All three of them ran down the opposite slope, toward the shipyard lights that twinkled in the dusk.
Mach scrolled through the contacts on his screen and called Babcock. “We’ll be there in a few minutes. Make sure everything’s ready.”
“I’ll have the master-builder wait by the ramp.”
“Thanks.”
Unlike the JPs, who would probably ask dumb questions, Mach knew Babcock would understand the situation. No surviving witnesses also suited the master-builder’s needs. He could stash the crystals and deny everything. If an investigation were launched by the orcus, their ship would be long gone. Mach guessed it would be the last time he visited Feronia Prime.
They continued at a fast pace between warehouses. No craft flew overhead, meaning a hot pursuit hadn’t begun. The stealth of their operation was the key to its success.
A door opened at the back of hangar two and an engineer beckoned them inside. “Have you got the crystals?” she asked.
“We’re delivering them to your boss,” Carson said and continued toward the ramp.
Babcock and the master-builder turned as they slapped across the hangar floor. Sanchez dumped the box at their feet, rested his hands against his knees and gulped for air. Adira rubbed her forearm across her brow and leaned against the wing.
“Are we good to go?” Mach asked.
The master-builder scooped out a chunk of shimmering crystal and held it against a shiny black device. It registered a beep and reading. He smiled and buried his hand deep into the box, checking the quantity.
“Can we leave?” Mach said. “For the record, we only stunned your local gangsters.”
“You are free to leave. I wish you good luck and safe travels.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mach engaged the ignition protocol and the advanced Gamma Drive engines on the Jaguar bellowed into life like the roar of Zeus himself. A thunderclap boomed around the shipyard, its massive roar shaking the craft as Mach increased the power slowly into the experimental motors.
A ship tech spoke over the comm channel. “How’s she doing up there?” the grizzled voice, thick with pride, asked.
“Purring like a lion,” Mach said, thrilled by the power pulsing through the ship. The rest of the crew were strapped into their seats and just looked on at the curved holographic screen with a mixture of fear and excitement.
“How’re the crystals holding up?” Mach asked as he let the engines idle.
“So far so good,” the tech said. “Temperatures and frequencies all within tolerances. Captain, Mach, I do believe you have yourself a new ship. Go fly her like the wind and put her through her paces. And be sure to send us reports.”
“Roger that,” Mach said, and then to his crew: “Wanna go fly a new bird?”
“Punch it,” Sanchez said with a boyish grin on his face.
“Take it steady at first,” Danick said, “just in case.”
Mach’s laugh was almost as raucous as the Jaguar’s engines. He didn’t come this far to take it easy. If this ship was as good as everyone had promised, he was going to damn well see what it could do.
The Gamma Drive was said to allow the ship to fly at an incredible two-point-five APD: astronomical units per day. Coming from the heap of crap that was the Phalanx-E it was like suddenly being fired out of a rail gun where before you were flung from a boy’s slingshot.
Mach placed his hands into the holocontrols and disengaged the landing locks. The ship rock to one side as the weight of it settled naturally on its landing feet. He adjusted the angle of the auxiliary thrusters and, when he received the all clear from the tech, slowly took the ship up and out of the vertical hangar.
Once clear, he banked to starboard, pointed the nose to the sky and, when he was a few hundred meters away from the shipyard, engaged the Gamma Drive and punched it to thirty percent power.
The ship shot forward, accelerating to thirty percent in less time than it took to take a breath. Mach was forced back into his seat, the ship pulling hard Gs in the instant it climbed out of Feronia’s gravity well.
Lassea screamed with the shock of it. Sanchez’
smile hadn’t moved at all.
Adira looked at him, her face passive as though this was just an everyday occurrence.
“There goes the atmosphere,” Danick said after a few seconds. They blasted out of the planet’s atmosphere and charged on forward, reaching well over thirty-four thousand KPH.
Mach slowly increased the power of the ship to fifty percent capacity and the thrust continued to drive them faster and faster. He banked the ship half a degree, flying starboard of an asteroid cluster.
The rocky formation blurred away, the Jaguar burning up the klicks. “My god, this thing is good,” Mach said. He glanced over to Babcock, who held his head at an angle, watching the telemetry metrics flowing down his screen. “All good over there?” Mach asked, concerned at the worried expression on the other’s face.
“I think we’re being…” Babcock waved his hands over the console, leaned closer and nodded before sitting back and turning to Sanchez and Adira. “Arm the lasers, we’ve got company. Three signals, point two AUs, ten degrees north, behind that asteroid.”
“What?” Mach said, doing a double take at the screen in front of him. He enlarged the magnification and squinted at the three specks of yellow fusion burners. “Orcus fighters. I guess they figured they’d get their crystals back.”
Sanchez grunted as he manipulated the weapon’s controls. “Lasers at quarter capacity, ready to fire in three seconds.”
Adira fixed Mach with a cold glare. “Ions ready to go.”
Nodding, Mach analyzed the orcus fighters’ positions. They swooped round in an arc, the three ships splitting direction so that two banked either side of the Jaguar’s vector, the third dipping below.
“They won’t escape the firing arc,” Lassea said, surprising Mach with the focus on her face. Danick looked pale, but calmer than he had been when they flew through the Vekron Valley, making that decision justified in Mach’s eyes.
“You two monitor the flanks,” Mach ordered the JPs. “Adira, Sanchez, blast ’em when you have them in your sights.” With a chorus of affirmatives, Mach increased the power to the Gamma Drive and pulled the yoke back to angle the motors down, sending the craft in an upward arc.
The central orcus fighter started to turn and head upward, following their vector, just as Mach hoped. The other two were curving inward, approaching the Jaguar’s flanks.
“They’re trying to hack our nav systems,” Babcock said.
“Then stop them,” Mach yelled.
“I’m on it. Launching digital chaff mines.”
Squid appeared in Mach’s peripheral vision. “Yes?” Mach snapped.
“Sir, would the UAV-Interceptors be of use in this situation as we do seem to be outnumbered,” Squid said.
“Of course!” Mach had completely forgotten about them in the excitement of taking the Jag out for its first flight.
“Mach,” Danick said, looking around from his console, his eyes eager, “I trained on UAV-drones in CWDF academy, the controls here look similar enough; the AI-driven defense programs are the same. I can—”
“Do it,” Mach said, cutting the kid off. “Focus fire on one orcus ship at a time. Lassea, you monitor both flanks and comm with Danick to help with targeting.”
Lassea nodded and adjusted her console’s holodisplay to show both sides of the Jag’s field of view. Mach turned his attention back to his maneuver. When the ship had reached the zenith of its arc, he snapped the yoke to the left, spinning the craft through one-eighty so they were now facing the orcus ship below.
Before the enemy could react, Mach gunned the Gamma Drive to seventy percent, launching the ship to within firing distance.
“Locked for torpedoes,” Adira said.
“Fire three when ready,” Mach replied.
“Launching torpedoes.”
Mach watched the screen in front of him as a weapon’s HUD showed the feed from each torpedo. Much like the orcus fighters’ formation against the Jag, the torpedoes split wide to ensnare their target from multiple angles.
“Orcus closing on our flanks,” Lassea said.
Danick nodded and manipulated the controls for the UAVs. The two interceptors launched out of their bay in the stern of the Jaguar and with their miniature fusion motors were soon closing in on the fighter from the port side.
Turning his attention back to the torpedoes, Mach watched the orcus ship barrel-roll out of the way of one but then arced away into the path of another. It struck the orcus fighter amidships, sending it into a tight flat spin.
“In range,” Sanchez said. “Firing lasers.”
Mach matched the path of the orcus fighter to give Sanchez the best chance of a hit. They were less than half a klick away when Sanchez fired with a cry of, “Yeah!” The quad lasers, along with the other two torpedoes, hit home, turning the orcus fighter into a spray of light and debris.
“One down,” Adira said.
“Digital chaff mines active,” Babcock said. “We’re safe. Should I engage stealth mode?”
“Do it,” Mach said as he steered the Jaguar out of the way of the wreckage. Some of the debris struck the ship. Bits of metal and plastic struck the Jag’s hull, echoing the crashes throughout the bridge. A couple of minor alarms rang out.
“Squid, investigate,” Babcock said to his floating friend. The small drone zipped out of the bridge.
The lights within the ships dimmed when Mach tried to increase the power to the Gamma Drive. The drive wouldn’t power up more than seventy percent.
“Flanking ships with point six of a klick,” Lassea said.
“I’ve got one,” Danick said. “Firing ion blasters.”
Two blue triangles on the combat screen bleeped, indicating the UAVs had successfully fired and hit with their miniature ion weapons. One of the orcus fighters disengaged its interception path.
“Sir,” Squid said over the comm channel, “there’s an issue with the fusion crystals. We’ve lost power in three of the array.”
“Dammit, can you fix them?” Mach asked.
“Stealth mode not activating,” Babcock reported. “System error.”
“I’ve lost control of one of the UAVs,” Danick said.
“No power in the ion cannon either,” Adira added.
Mach slapped his hand against the arm of his chair, wondering what the hell was going on though accepted it was his own damn fault for taking an experimental, untested ship out like this. “Sanchez, what about the lasers?” he asked.
“Single fire only,” the hunter growled.
“We can’t stay and fight like this, we need to L-jump while we still can,” Babcock said, turning to face Mach. “Squid says we should have enough juice to get us to our destination, but not sure what condition we’ll be in when we get there.”
“Well,” Mach said, “we can’t stick around here. Looks like more orcus fighters launched from Feronia.” Mach nodded his head to the viewscreen, which showed half a dozen smaller craft break the planet’s atmosphere.
“Danick, bring the UAVs home. We’re getting out of here.”
“Done, they’ll be in the hangars in approximately a minute and a half.”
“Sir, the remaining orcus fighter is drifting out of firing range,” Lassea said.
“It’s waiting for the support of the others,” Adira said. “We ought to chase it down.”
“No,” Mach said. “We’re jumping. I don’t like these odds.”
Mach reduced the power to the Gamma Drive by fifty percent and brought the ship around to face the coordinates of their destination: the contested sector beyond the NCZ. He waited until the UAVs had confirmed their re-entry to the ship’s bay before plotting the course and diverting all power to the LD. It wasn’t quite enough to engage. He had to shut down the power to the laser and ion cannons.
“We’re a sitting duck,” Adira snapped.
The group of orcus fighters was closing in to torpedo range.
Mach watched the power to the LD increase, but it still wasn’t enough.<
br />
“EMP torpedoes fifteen seconds from impact,” Babcock said.
“There’s not enough juice left,” Mach said, trying to think where else he could divert the power from in order to give the LD enough to engage. “Squid,” he said, “re-engage the damaged crystals.”
“But, sir, they could destroy the array completely.”
“Could, but not certain. What are the odds?”
Squid waited for a moment before saying, “Ten percent at a minimum chance they’ll blow the entire array, damaging the LD beyond repair.”
“That’s good enough for me. Do it.”
“As you wish,” Squid said with a chirp.
“Ten seconds from impact,” Babcock informed them.
Mach tapped his fingers against his knee, waiting for Squid’s confirmation.
The entire crew turned to face Mach, each person’s face taut with a mix of fear and expectation.
“Five seconds,” Babcock said before counting down. “Four… three… two…”
“Crystals re-engaged,” Squid said.
Mach hit the LD control on his holoscreen.
“One…”
The roar of the EMP torpedoes sounded like a thunderstorm had erupted within the craft, but it was too late. The LD kicked in, launching the Jaguar forward even as a dozen or more alarm icons flashed, warning on one issue or another. The ship entered that weird state of FTL travel where they saw only darkness on the holoscreen and the hull seemed to vibrate with an impossible frequency. A subsonic susurration filled the bridge.
The crew waited for Mach’s update, almost as if they needed him to say if they were dead or alive. How would Mach tell the difference, he didn’t know, but what he did know, was that it was too damned close for comfort.
At least this time, his gamble paid off.
The Jaguar’s LD held up despite the damaged crystals.
They’d just need to wait now and see what kind of state the ship was in once it finished its jump—if they made it that far.
“We’re okay,” Mach said, wiping the sweat from his face. “We’re all okay.” For how long that would last, he just couldn’t say.
Carson Mach 1: The Atlantis Ship Page 13
