by King, Sara
The tone of his brother’s voice put Patrick into an instinctive sprint. He slapped open the hatch and stepped inside. Tatiana looked up at him from the pilot’s chair. Milar was in the copilot seat, watching a news feed. He gave Patrick a look that stopped his heart.
“What?” Patrick said.
“Yolk Factory 14,” Milar said, gesturing to the screen.
It took Patrick a moment to tear his eyes from his brother’s face and re-focus them on the news feed. A camp-wide Shriek had decimated the population of Yolk Factory 14. Only three hundred and thirty-two survivors.
Oh no. Patrick stepped closer, his heart beginning to pound.
“Anna and Magali were in Factory 14, weren’t they?” Milar asked.
Patrick scanned the images of the tired, wan-faced survivors as they filed out of the mounds. He didn’t see the tall brunette and her creepy little sister.
Magali. His chest hurt. He was finding it hard to breathe. “They have a survivor list?” Patrick whispered.
Milar glanced at Tatiana, then reluctantly nodded. He accessed the data, then leaned back for Patrick to scan the lists.
Patrick read it three times. “No Landborns,” he whispered.
“Maybe they changed their names,” Tatiana offered.
“We’ve been keeping track of them every day since they were taken,” Milar said. He lowered his voice and his eyes caught Patrick with apology. “They were always there.”
We didn’t rescue them in time, Patrick thought. His eyes flickered to Tatiana. We didn’t rescue them in time because we were busy with the cyborg.
“Now, hey,” Milar said, starting to stand. “It ain’t her fault, Pat.”
“The Hell it isn’t,” Patrick whispered. “We left Mag and Anna to die because we were busy playing her stupid games.” Then, because he couldn’t stay there any longer without putting his fist through someone’s eye socket, he turned and left the cockpit.
Milar found him later, sitting in a corner on the lower deck. “I’m sorry, Pat.”
Patrick didn’t look at his brother. “You said she’d be fine another two weeks.” Patrick wiped tears from his eyes. He hadn’t realized he’d been crying.
“We don’t know they’re dead,” Milar said.
“I haven’t heard from Anna in four days,” Patrick said. “Ever since the day you were captured.”
“Think she knew?” Milar asked.
“She would have tried to set up a rescue, if she had,” Patrick said. He took a deep breath and let it out, squeezing his fingers into a white-knuckled fist. “Oh my God, I want to kill them.”
Milar watched his hand, his face contorted in understanding. He nodded. “I do too.”
“Then why do we keep waiting?” Patrick snapped. “I’m tired of waiting for Wideman’s damn Sign. All we’ve done is wait. David’s gone. Now Magali and Anna are gone. Who’s next? You? Jeanne? We lose anyone else and there’s not gonna be a war.”
“Wideman never said they’d be part of the resistance,” Milar reminded him.
Patrick almost hit his brother. Almost. Softly, he said, “Magali and I were gonna run off together. Build a house. Raise a family.”
Milar dropped his eyes to his hands and started fidgeting with his knife. For a long time, his brother said nothing. Patrick imagined he was dealing with the shock. Then, Milar said, “I know.”
Patrick flinched. “You knew?” He had thought he had managed to keep it a secret.
“Please,” Milar snorted. “You’re my brother, Pat. I can read you like a book. I knew you were gonna run off. Saw it coming a mile away. That’s why I told Anna.”
Patrick froze. The calm child’s face, the utter sincerity as she told him Magali wanted nothing to do with him. The letter, in Magali’s handwriting, confirming it.
“Pat?” Milar said, after a minute had passed.
“You split us up,” Patrick whispered.
Milar reddened, “You were gonna give up everything we’ve worked for to chase a girl. Hell yes, we split you up. And I’m glad happy we did. The resistance wouldn’t be the same without you, Pat. Like you just said, we lose anybody else and we lose the war.”
Patrick lunged at his brother, knocking the knife aside and going for his throat. “You asshole!” he snapped. “It was my life!”
Milar kicked him off and crawled forward before he had a chance to stand. He pinned his shoulders, glaring. “You’re gonna help me fight the coalers, Pat. We made a pact. You can chase tail when the fighting’s over with.”
“What, just like you and your little cyborg?” Patrick snarled and threw him to the side.
“That cyborg happens to be a leader of the resistance!” Milar snapped, shoving him away and getting to his feet. “We need her help.”
“Oh bullshit!” Patrick snapped back, standing. “You didn’t stare at her picture all those years because she was gonna put down a few coalers. You did it because you wanted to get her metal ass into bed.”
This time, Milar’s eyes narrowed and he lunged. Patrick stopped him with a roundhouse, but instead of going down, Milar caught his leg and jerked him off his feet. Patrick hit the floor hard with his back and head, making the metal grating clang as if it had been hit by a two-by-four. He blinked, seeing stars.
But Milar had already rammed his knee into his chest, reaching back to throw a punch.
Adrenaline was surging through him in burning waves, now. Patrick screamed an animal cry and rolled over onto his brother, once more going for the throat.
“Boys,” Tatiana said over the intercom, “as interesting as all that is, you might want to know we’ve got Coalition on our ass.”
Both Patrick and Milar froze.
“They give you a lifeline?” Patrick asked.
“Took it out,” Milar said. “I’m lucky the damn thing was a dud or I’d be—” His eyes widened. “Oh shit.”
“They put you under?” Pat cried, pushing himself to his feet.
“I was in surgery for almost two days, and drugged up for the next one.”
“Shit, Milar,” Patrick cursed, scanning his brother’s body for extra lumps. “Shit, shit.”
“Boys?” Tatiana said. “You want me to bring ‘em down or what?” She sounded utterly calm.
She doesn’t know the ship has no guns. “This ain’t a warship!” Milar cried, heading for the stairs. “You can’t take down Coalition fighters.”
“Watch me.” And then the ship lurched and went into a sudden dive, leaving Milar and Patrick struggling to stay upright. “Might wanna strap in, though.”
“Hell no!” Milar cried, stumbling up the stairs. Patrick followed on his heels, ready to take up copilot. Instead, they were thwarted by a locked door. Milar pounded on the hatch. “Damn it, coaler, let us in there! My brother and I need to fly this thing!”
“No you don’t, knucker,” Tatiana said. “Just sit down, relax, and try not to vomit. Oh, and figure out where they tagged you. I’d guess the armpit or between the shoulder blades. If you can get Patrick to cut it out without cutting off an arm during the maneuvers, that would be nice, too.”
Milar stared at the locked cockpit door, then raised his arm and pounded at it again. Tatiana ignored him.
Milar narrowed his eyes and went to the locking console affixed to the outside of the hatch. He flipped open the housing and started typing in a manual override.
Remembering the scenes Wideman had shown him, Patrick caught Milar’s arm. “We should let her do this.”
Milar blinked at him. “Are you nuts?” Then, a bit deflated, he said, “She needs a copilot.”
“No,” Patrick said, remembering. “She doesn’t.”
“That’s right,” Tatiana said, “So if you could please strap yourselves in before the walls of the ship turn you both into hamburger, I would very much like to start showing these three yokels who they’re dealing with. Twenty seconds until I start barrel-rolling.”
“This ship can’t barrel-roll,” Milar said.
“You can
gape at me in awe later. I promise I’ll give you all the proper opportunities.”
“Coaler,” Milar growled.
“Ten seconds, collie,” she replied.
“Fine,” Milar snapped. He slid down the stairs and settled into a crash harness. Patrick followed. Tatiana waited until he had clicked the primary straps into place, then the world started to spin.
* * *
This is it, Tatiana thought, watching the three Bouncer ships come in close, trying to cut her off. No going back now. She jammed the joystick forward and to one side, sending the ship into a spinning forward roll that should have ended in splattered Coalition operator smeared across a four-kilometer-wide stretch of Fortune flora.
Instead, she used her momentum to finish the arc and, like the toy ball on the end of a timeless cup-and-ball game, she came whipping around the other side, at the Bouncers’ backs. At the same time, she flipped off her main engines, going cold.
“Where the hell did it go?” one of the Bouncers said, over the secure Coalition band. Already knowing the couple dozen channels the Bouncers used, it had only taken Tatiana a few seconds to narrow it down.
“I don’t know. Shit, did it crash?”
The three Coalition pilots were still trying to figure out where she had gone when she pulled out of their backdraft and extended her landing gear.
“What the hell are you doing up there?!” one of the brothers screamed from the belly of the ship. Tatiana still hadn’t been around them long enough to tell the difference between their voices. Flipping on the com, she said, “Did you figure out where they tagged you yet?”
“One in the armpit, another behind his ear,” Patrick said. “We think he might have a couple in his chest cavity.”
“Aanaho,” Tatiana said. “No wonder they weren’t too worried about you running off. How you gonna get them out?”
“We’re gonna EMP him,” Patrick said. “Pulse him in a few dozen places from head to toe and it should fry anything he’s carrying.
“It’s above you, above you!”
Tatiana frowned, listening to the Bouncers scream at each other. Distractedly, she said, “You’re not setting off EMP charges on my ship.”
“Your ship?” This time, she could tell it was Milar. “Guess again, tart.”
In response, Tatiana switched power to her main engines and dove, ripping off the closest Bouncer’s left stabilizer with the screech of tearing metal. She watched as a chunk of landing gear spiraled toward the ground along with a goodly portion of the Bouncer’s left wing.
“I’m hit, I’m hit!”
“You going down?”
“I gotta turn back before I fall outta the sky. Lost maneuverability. Think it blew off a wing.”
“Aanaho, that thing’s got guns?”
“What the Hell do we do? It’s not letting us get a lock on it!”
Tatiana took a deep breath, then spun the vessel up and to the side, her ship’s engines roaring as she rolled back and fought her own momentum. She grabbed the console hard, then went cold again as she hit the apex of her arc. Immediately, the ship began an upside-down freefall dive. The smallish wings on the colonists’ ship were more for stability than carrying weight, but with the speed Tatiana had gained from her downward plunge, she used the wings to guide her fall into a wide arc, then slammed on the engines just before hitting the ground, making her feel the Gs in her brain.
“Goddamn it, you two, that’s just a collie ship. Ain’t got any guns on it. Just shut the hell up and bring it down.”
“Easy for you to say, jackass. He didn’t just turn your ship into Swiss cheese.”
To the Whitecliff brothers, she said, “Hold on. I’m about to put us in another spin.”
“Sweetie,” Milar replied, “You’ve already put Patrick out of commission. Another spin and I think I might join him.
Tatiana glanced at the camera feed. Still strapped securely to the wall, Patrick’s head was lolling against his forehead harness. Beside him, Milar looked a funny shade of green.
“Got a lock on it!”
“Fire, damn it!”
She couldn’t help herself. She laughed as she pulled another spin over the top of a Bouncer, forcing his companion to either break the lock or risk taking down his partner, as well. “Can’t take the heat, Milar?”
“Squid,” Milar said, sounding weak, “As soon as you put this thing down, I’m gonna bust in there and drag you somewhere to show you what heat is all about.”
Tatiana blushed and she forgot about the Bouncers. “Um.”
Milar grinned, perking up despite his pallid complexion. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Locked again! Firing!”
Tatiana shut off the engines, twisted the ship down, then didn’t haul up on the controls until she had collided with the treetops. All around her, the sounds of snapping trees thudded against the hull with dull metal bangs as she plowed through the alien canopy. She felt the echo of an explosion somewhere behind her, as the missile slammed into flying debris and detonated.
“Shit. It dodged the missiles. Do I have a go on the LAZ?”
Crap. Lasers. Tatiana was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.
“Roger, take it down.”
“Captain, I’m registering Colonial structures within the regulated twenty-five kilometer no-fire limit. A miss might result in civilian casualties.”
“I don’t give a dead shit! They’re all rebels and pirates anyway. Bring that junk heap down.”
Tatiana once again flipped on the com speaker. “Milar, I need you to release some stuff from the cargo nets. Everything heavy you can get your hands on. I need to drop some ballast.”
“What happened to the hamburger?” Milar mumbled. He looked well and truly miserable. She was actually a bit surprised he was still conscious.
“I’ll hold off on the fancy stuff until you get back in harness,” Tatiana promised.
“That before or after you wreck these Coalition guys’ days?” Milar asked, unbuckling himself. “Because I’m itching to drag you off somewhere and show you some fancy stuff of my own.”
Tatiana blushed again. “Me too.” Then, Oh my God, did you actually just say that?
Milar paused and looked up at her through the camera. He grinned. “Got any requests?”
“The ballast, you horny bastard! Get the ballast!”
Chuckling, Milar jogged across the cargo bay and started dragging stuff out of the nets and tossing it on the floor.
“Hurry!” Tatiana cried, as the Bouncers got into position behind her. She had put on as much speed as the ship could handle, but the Bouncers were closing. Any minute, they would start firing, and LAZ, once locked, wasn’t the type of weapon to miss.
“I am hurrying,” Milar cried, throwing more gear and tools onto the floor.
“I’ve got the target locked. He’s flying straight and level as a rookie now. Looks like the guy made himself sick.”
The other pilots laughed.
“Roger. As soon as you can, bring him down.”
“That’s enough!” Tatiana shouted at Milar, eying the pile of debris on the floor of the ship. “Get back in harness. Now!”
Milar, thankfully, didn’t argue. He struggled back across the deck and fell back into the body-shaped pad. He had just secured his forehead band when Tatiana veered up and shut off power, flattening the ship against the air in front of it. She heard the two Bouncers boom past beneath her. In the cargo bay, she heard Milar yell as all the loose debris tumbled past him and hit the cargo bay door.
“Damn, missed.”
“You missed? How the Hell could you miss?”
Tatiana was climbing, now, putting every ounce of her ship’s power into upward speed. She hit forty thousand feet, then opened the hatch and allowed all the debris to hurtle out the back with a roar of wind. Then she slammed the door shut, turned sharply toward the ground, and used gravity to boost the ship’s natural speed, much like a cart coasting down a hill. Hitting
one thousand feet, she saw the Bouncers ahead of her, circling back.
She flew straight at the first one.
“The asshole’s playing chicken!”
“LAZ the bastard!”
Tatiana rolled out of the way at the last moment, veered to the left, then retreated back the way she had come. She pressed her ship into speed, pushing the engines for all they would go. Tatiana felt even the little bots carrying extra oxygen to her brain struggle against the Gs. The two remaining Bouncers fell in behind her, their superior ships and cockpits able to handle the sudden force of acceleration. In moments, they were zipping along the treetops at three times the speed of sound, their velocity increasing steadily with every heartbeat.
“Three seconds for a lock,” one of the two remaining Bouncer captains said. “Two, one…”
Tatiana kept an even course, concentrating on navigating the terrain ahead of her.
Twenty seconds later, a new voice said, “Well? Did you take him down?”
Neither of the two Bouncer captains replied.
“Bravo-Four-Four-Eight-Papa-Seven-Charlie, did you get the lock?”
Tatiana checked her viewfinder, then turned due east and headed deeper into colonial territory.
“Bravo-Four-Four-Eight-Papa-Seven-Charlie, do you read?”
The controller received no reply. In an increasingly aggravated voice, the woman said, “Bouncer captains of the ships Bravo-Four-Four-Eight-Papa-Seven-Charlie and Bravo-Four-Four-One-Adam-Zero-Victor, do you copy?”
Tatiana flipped the com off and concentrated on staying low and off of radar. To her passengers, she said, “That did it. You can come in here and stare at me in awe, now.”
Neither Milar nor Patrick responded. She glanced at the camera feed. Both of their heads were lolling against the forehead harnesses. Tatiana grinned and let them sleep.
Two hours later, she heard someone open the cockpit hatch.
“Enjoy your snooze?” she asked.
“Well,” Milar said, stepping through, “We’re not dead or entertaining Nephyrs, so I’ve got to assume you and your buddies had a little coaler powwow and struck a deal and that’s why my ship isn’t a steaming wreck in the jungle somewhere.”
“I want guns on this ship,” Tatiana said. “Forward and rear.” Then she turned and scrunched her nose up at him. “You smell like vomit.”
