by Tom Jordan
“Whatever!” She broke out in a wide grin, and she knew it would be heard in her voice, to her embarrassment.
Marco laughed, a melodic and masculine delight. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, that story about your crash on the atmospheric entry exam…is that true?”
Jade’s interface blinked with an alert. It was a text-only message from Tommy wishing her good luck on the mission. She smiled and sent back a quick thank-you, and then sighed at having to relive the memory Marco was bringing up.
“Yeah. The test ship had a mechanical malfunction. The heat shielding gave out as soon as I hit atmo on that planet they used for the exam. I had to wait to eject until after I was in atmo or else the pod would have burned up.”
“You had to ride it out?”
“Yeah. Those testing ships were tiny. It was getting so hot inside…the ship was shaking apart around me. I was afraid the whole thing was going to incinerate. I was watching the countdown timer until I could eject. Each second seemed to take forever.” Jade tried to let the memory sail out on a breath. “It was terrifying.”
“I’ll bet. You really know how to stay frosty.”
“It took all my willpower not to panic. If I’d panicked I would have done something stupid. Did you have any classes with Julia? Er, Lieutenant Commander Ferraro? She worked in SOL-SEC for years as a combat pilot so she always taught about mindfulness, relaxation, breath techniques…that sort of thing.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, it helped me a lot. But I still dream about it. I pull my ejection handle over and over until it comes off in my hand. I wake up right when I’m about to slam into the surface.” The line was silent for a moment. She rubbed the edge of the new plastic cover atop the red button on her flight stick, then turned down her music a bit, wanting to set a calmer mood. “On the bright side, they gave me a sympathy pass even though I missed the final few stages of atmo entry, and I didn’t have to take the exam again.”
“I doubt it was sympathy. You went way beyond what anyone else had to demonstrate on that test. You are remarkable, Jade.” More silence. “I’m glad you’re here. I want to spend some time together once this job is done.”
Jade didn’t know what to say, so she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Me too.”
“Okay,” he said, “let’s make some money.”
Chapter 7
Jade yawned and squinted at the time display. It’d been nineteen hours since she and Marco completed their SFM jumps into the Balenos system and arrived at the waypoint, and nothing had appeared on their scanners since.
They’d checked with Tommy, who reanalyzed the data and came to the same conclusion: if someone wanted to enter this star system or any of the surrounding systems without being noticed, they’d do it here, through Evick’s Gate.
Spacetime Field Manipulator drives mounted in starships could handle jumps within a single system, but star systems themselves were many light-years apart, and large relay stations were necessary for jumps of such magnitude. These stations resided at Lagrange points—null spots where celestial bodies canceled one another’s gravitational pulls, and where less energy was required to tear space to execute an SFM jump. Evick’s Gate was a bit of an anomaly, being located extraordinarily far from the system’s star, between it and a distant supermassive gas giant. Since Evick’s Gate wasn’t near the central planets or moons, it had less surveillance and acted as a back door to the Balenos system, and to this region of space.
Jade and Marco had separated to their maximum scanner range in order to cover the largest area they could, and they kept an eye on the Evick’s Gate facility, a small, automated station hanging in the void. It had been over twelve hours since the last ship’s arrival, and no vessels had since departed. The only other ships in the area were a pair of security vessels that had showed up on patrol. They’d hailed Jade, and Marco had cut in with a simplified story, saying they were waiting for business associates to arrive. He explained to Jade that his preference was to avoid attracting attention.
A new contact fizzled in from the outer edge of Jade’s holomap. She scrutinized the blip for a moment, blinked to banish her grogginess, then shot forward in her seat.
“Got something. I have a contact on my map,” she said.
“Location.” It was a statement rather than a question. Marco sounded completely awake, a hawk on alert for its prey, in stark contrast to Jade’s fatigue.
“It’s way out there at the end of my range. Sending you the waypoint now.”
“Got it,” he replied. “We’ll check it. It could be our guy. You take the lead.”
“Copy that,” Jade said. “Take my six. I’m en route to the bogey.”
“Seriously?” Marco said in a low voice, as if he hadn’t intended the comment to be picked up by his mic.
Damn it. Jade blushed despite being alone in her cockpit. Why did she have to be such a dork? She was trying to put her best foot forward with Marco, and she’d stuck it in her mouth instead.
“Sorry. Old habit. Can I blame Tommy for that? He loves his action-movie stuff.” Jade rubbed her face with a hand, then slapped her cheeks, attempting to banish her fatigue and embarrassment. She took a big breath. She had to pay attention, especially if this ship on the map was their target. She couldn’t afford to get distracted by her crush on Marco or her efforts to play it cool and natural.
Jade pushed her concerns aside and cranked up the music she’d put on hours ago to help stay awake. She angled her ship in alignment with the blip on her holomap, then maxed her throttle and accelerated away.
“I’ll intercept in—” she checked her display, “—sixteen minutes.”
“Right behind you,” Marco said. “Go ahead and patch in the guys and let them know.”
“Okay.”
It felt weird to be friends with Marco—or whatever they were at this point—and to have to take orders from him on the job. It was a strange mix.
She added Henning and Tommy to the channel. “You guys there? This is Jade.”
“Yeah,” said Henning.
“Hi, Jaaade!” Tommy said at the same time, his voice full of enthusiasm, though tinny and distorted. His audio had traveled through the closest micro-wormhole—the one at Evick’s Gate—kept open for inter-system communications. She tried not to think about how much the transmissions would cost them.
“So, we’ve got something out here.” She filled them in on the contact’s location, bearing, speed, and her and Marco’s time to intercept.
Henning’s voice came back after a short lag, no doubt due to the distance the communications were traveling. “Fucking right! This is the guy. I can feel it.”
“You say that every time we think we’ve found someone,” Tommy said.
“Yeah, but I’m right most of the time.”
Jade grinned at their banter and retied her hair as some loose strands floated in her face.
“So what’s the plan?” she said. “Will you guys be meeting us there?”
“We need you to confirm it’s our target first,” Henning said. “If it’s our guy, then it’s all hands on deck. We can be there in…” He paused while he presumably checked his computer. “Thirty-two minutes.”
“That leaves, like, fifteen minutes after we intercept,” Jade said. “So what do you guys usually do? Just fly around and act casual until you all get there?”
“Pretty much,” Tommy said.
Marco spoke up, sounding relaxed and confident. “As you get closer to him, adjust your course so that it doesn’t look like you’re intercepting him. Travel parallel to his heading. Aim toward a likely destination if there is one. Stay at the edge of your sensor range. It fools some pilots. If they’re not too paranoid.”
“Okay,” Jade said. It sounded logical enough.
“Go ahead, Jade. I’m right with you,” Marco said. He cleared his throat. “Joining pursuit. On your six. Break.”
Henning sputtered, “Was…did Marco just…”
<
br /> “Aww, yeah!” Tommy said, laughing. “That is a solid copy! I never thought I’d see the day Mr. Cool broke down! Woo!”
Jade and Marco intercepted the target ship exactly when the computer calculated they would. Jade relayed her scans of the vessel to Tommy, who rattled off stats and compared the ship configuration in the bounty dossier to the one Jade reported.
“That’s him!” Tommy said. “That’s Stormwulf!”
“Let’s make sure,” Marco said. “I can’t go after a ship without being completely certain. Can you give me a one hundred percent that that’s the ship?”
“The chances of finding two Hammerheads, let alone two that share the same capacitor and reac—”
The green blip shot away from Jade and Marco on her map. “He’s running!” Jade said. She increased her throttle and sped after him. “I’m pursuing. Wait, I should, right?”
“Yes. I’m with you,” Marco said. “Weapons free. Send him some warning shots. Let’s stop this quickly.”
Jade found that, now that the moment was here, she felt calm, more so than she’d expected. There was excitement and a thread of anxiety, yet neither overwhelmed her.
She flipped up her switch cover with her thumb and deployed her weapons, again seeing the same holographic warning as when she’d tested them.
Ghost of Jupiter rushed ahead in pursuit of Stormwulf, but was slow to overtake the other ship. It was accelerating, and Jade knew there was a high probability it would outpace her once it gained speed. She was close enough to see the ship in the distance, a tiny speck lit by the system’s star.
Jade nudged her flight stick to line up her holoreticle over her target, then applied some gentle yaw to angle Ghost of Jupiter slightly starboard.
She squeezed her trigger.
Twin streams of particle-cannon fire sliced bright lines across her view, just missing the distant ship. She released the trigger a second later, still seeing the white-hot afterimage of the particle rounds.
“Good,” Marco said. “Send him a transmission telling him to cut his engines. Just like we discussed.”
Jade began recording the message. She made an effort to sound steady and detached. “Vessel Stormwulf. Throttle off your thrusters. You are being detained for piracy charges. You will be safely impounded. I repeat: cut your thrusters.” She set the message to transmit on loop to the ship they were chasing.
“Nicely done,” Marco said. “Perhaps a female voice will be more effective.”
“Henning always scares them into running,” Tommy said.
“Thanks,” she replied. “I hope it works.” A beep drew her attention to one of her holomenus. Stormwulf had sent a text-only reply.
It read EAT SHIT.
Jade tugged at the collar of her flight suit with a finger. “I have a reply from Stormwulf.”
“And?”
“He’s, uh, declining to comply.”
Jade jumped in surprise as a barrage of incandescent streaks slammed into Stormwulf. The ship’s deflection field was suddenly visible as a thin coat of energy that fizzled and flashed around it.
“Open fire,” Marco said after already doing so. “Drop his field, Jade. Now.”
Marco’s cold tone was alarming. “Right, okay,” she responded. She relaxed her hand after realizing she was gripping her stick too tightly, then reached for her weapon trigger. She lined up the target and squeezed, adding her own particle rounds to Marco’s bombardment. Her fire zapped into Stormwulf’s d-field.
“Stay cool, guys. Stay cool,” Tommy said from somewhere far away in space.
It was unsettling to fire weapons at another ship, and Jade wondered whether it was having an effect. “Is his field draining?” she asked.
Marco didn’t answer, leaving her hanging. “This guy’s packing good equipment. Tommy, Freeborn, full speed to our position if you haven’t started already.”
Jade’s particle cannons cut out with a warning tone. “My guns are out. Overheated.”
She decided to perform a maneuver she and Tommy had used in Alien Fleet, another of the VR combat sims they’d favored. In Alien Fleet the ships quickly ran out of ammo and had to wait until they recharged. When one of them ran out, Jade or Tommy would swing wide to allow the wingman a chance to take the lead. This way, they would always have a shooter on point and a teammate in reserve recharging their ammo. That tactic had allowed them to keep each other covered, maintain fire on their targets, and sweep the scoreboards at the arcade.
Still in pursuit, Jade pedaled into a roll and pulled up on the stick, which pitched her ship out of Marco’s path and gave him a clear line to Stormwulf. She throttled back and allowed him to take the lead.
“Jade,” Marco said, “power your d-field.” She flushed with the realization that she’d forgotten to engage her deflection field, having focused instead on pursuit and paying attention to Marco. She charged and engaged the field generator’s subsystem.
Stormwulf weaved in an effort to dodge Marco’s bombardment. It flew in random evasive movements, and Jade witnessed the impressive maneuvering Marco’s ship was capable of. He flew with precision as he matched Stormwulf turn for turn. Rebel Star closed the distance and spat beams, which chewed up the deflection field around Stormwulf.
Jade maintained a safe distance, keeping an eye on her heat levels. She worked her throttle, stick, and pedals to keep her weapon reticle on top of Stormwulf in anticipation of the moment when her guns would finish cooling and be ready to fire. She considered switching to the micro-rails but dismissed the idea since she needed to drain the other ship’s deflection field before the rail guns would have any effect.
“Tommy,” she said, switching to a private channel, “how can I check his field strength?”
Half a second passed due to the interstellar lag. “You can’t. Marco and I both have instruments that can measure energy fields, like, how many megajoules it’s reading at. It gives you a rough idea. I could only hook you up with so much.”
“No problem,” she replied.
Marco kept his ship threaded into the sweet spot behind Stormwulf. Rebel Star pursued like a bloodthirsty cheetah, and Marco swerved in perfect counterpoint to the evading ship’s movements. His piloting and his ship were impressive to watch. Remembering Commander Ferraro’s lessons, she tried to focus on breathing steadily through her nose.
“Field’s almost down,” Marco said, his voice pitched slightly higher than usual. “Time to intercept, guys?”
“We’re still twenty minutes out,” Henning said. “Try to leave a piece of this shithead for me.”
Marco continued giving orders without acknowledging. “Jade. Switch to your rails. Soon as I drop his shields, send a round through his ship. Somewhere that will disable but not kill.”
Jade tensed. Her reticle strayed from Stormwulf as she considered the situation. This was beyond the typical scenario the guys had described. She readied herself to voice concern about the consequences of damaging the other ship, but Tommy spoke up.
“I recommend the lower aft section. Capacitors and hydraulics are concentrated there. No chance of tagging the reactor.”
“Okay,” Jade said. “Switching to rails.” She frowned and scanned the rest of her holodisplays as though they’d reveal an alternative course of action. They did not. She let out a breath. “Are we sure we need to shoot him? I have some concerns about that.”
“His d-field is down eighty percent,” Marco said. “If he still wants to run once it drops, then we have to escalate. This is too big a payday. He needs to comply. If you won’t disable him, I will.”
“Okay, okay,” she said. Marco was right. Even though she was pretty far outside her comfort zone, there was too much at stake. She could safely disable the other ship, and the guy was a criminal. He was out here preying on people minding their own business, just like the pirate that had recently attacked her.
She could end all of this right now. She made her decision, squelching the smaller part of her that proteste
d.
Jade trailed Marco and readied to take her shot. Suddenly, Stormwulf flipped bow to stern, facing Marco nose to nose while continuing to travel in its same path. A warning light flashed on Jade’s heads-up display—Stormwulf was firing . Some kind of glowing rounds stood out against the darkness of space and the distant star field, though her map had no representation of the weapons fire.
She opened her mouth to speak a warning, but Marco dived below the enemy fire, causing the shots to stray high. Stormwulf, still traveling backward, tweaked its heading as its pilot attempted to use its fixed guns to hit Rebel Star. Jade felt her chest clench, snuffing out her breathing, and blasts of flame erupted from Stormwulf as a group of rockets blossomed out from a turret atop its hull. She looked down at her map, which fortunately did track the projectiles.
Marco snarled, “Gotta shake these missiles. Help me out here, Saito. Take him down.”
“Copy.”
Jade punched the throttle and slammed her left foot down on its pedal, causing her ship to execute a dizzying corkscrew. She arced above Stormwulf, cockpit to cockpit, a mere fifteen meters between them. She looked up and saw her opponent, an anonymous specter in a dark flight suit and helmet, lit by the glow of his cockpit lights and holos. He was still firing at Marco and didn’t seem to notice Jade’s presence.
Jade switched off her flight compensator, a subroutine in the ship’s computer that used thrusters to make corrections for the pilot’s convenience. Disabling it gave her greater control over the Ghost’s movement and allowed her to stay on the same heading without the ship trying to reorient itself in a logical way.
Still speeding through space in the same direction, Jade nudged the stick to point Ghost of Jupiter’s nose at Stormwulf’s topside.
Fearing for Marco’s safety and feeling the fire of adrenaline, she aimed at Stormwulf’s rear section, gritted her teeth, and squeezed the trigger. The white-hot lines of her cannon rounds seared into her target’s deflection field. Stormwulf wobbled as its pilot, suddenly aware of Jade’s maneuver, hurried to switch his attention from trying to hit Marco to escaping Jade’s assault.
