by Jaye McKenna
The station AI told Miko the departure queue was currently long enough that it would be hours before they could leave. “Don’t bother contacting the Station Master,” he told Anja. “Start on your pre-flight checks. I’ll get us cleared and moved to the front of the queue. We need to be ready to leave the system as soon as the shuttle gets here.”
“Pre-flight routines are done,” Anja said. “I ran the checks and put all the critical systems on standby the moment the boys left in the shuttle, just in case we needed to blow out of here fast.”
“Good. We can leave any time. The Station Master’s office just cleared us for departure and wished us a pleasant journey.”
“Hell, kid, you want a job? Do you have any idea how much time and aggravation you could save me?” Anja didn’t wait for an answer before heading off to the bridge.
“What can I do?” Kyn asked as the door slid shut behind the captain.
“Nothing,” Miko said with a shake of his head. “I need to have a word with Space Fleet’s AI.” He sensed Kyn’s alarm, knew he wanted to know what was happening to the rescue team, but Miko had no time for that, not unless Draven needed something specific. Hiding them from Traffic Control was as much as Miko could do for them. The rest was up to Alek and his piloting skills.
Keeping the smallest fraction of his attention on the thread connecting him to Draven, he dove into the net and followed the alert back toward its point of origin.
It wasn’t long before it disappeared into a thick, black cloud that represented Space Fleet’s part of the data-net. Slipping past security bots that were almost as smart as civilian AI systems was not going to be as easy as getting into a corporate data-net. Military AIs were smarter, faster, and much better protected. This one was spiky and suspicious to begin with, unwilling to negotiate, and aware of his presence in a way that no other AI he’d ever encountered had been.
Every time he tried to disguise himself and slip past, it slammed down a barrier, cutting him off. Miko couldn’t get close to the structures that housed the military data he needed to access.
Undaunted, he made a strategic retreat and pondered the problem.
* * *
Draven cast his awareness into the snowy night, seeking any sign of psionic pursuit. The fact that Miko had reported two military flyers with psion occupants was concerning, but he sensed nothing nearby.
“Where are we going, Cottrell?” Draven asked.
Cottrell twisted around in his seat. “The McKinnon place. We’ve got a shuttle waiting to take us up to a freighter docked at Aurora Station.”
“Freighter? You’re taking Cam off-world?” He remembered Miko saying they were all going someplace safe, though Miko hadn’t elaborated.
“Yeah,” Luka said, his voice sounding a little stronger now. “We’re setting up a colony, way outside the Federation. Someplace where nobody will ever—” He stopped and made a small choking noise.
A colony. So that was what Miko had meant when he’d said there would be a place for him. Draven couldn’t imagine it. Not with people like Cottrell and McKinnon around, people who knew him for exactly what he was, and would lock him up for it.
“Damn it, Luka, do you ever shut that mouth?” McKinnon snarled from the pilot’s seat.
“Um. Sorry, man. I… guess I kinda thought he was on our side?” It was too dark to see the kid’s face, but he sounded contrite.
“Thanks to Luka, you’ll be coming with us, Draven,” Cottrell said flatly.
“Think again,” Draven said. “I’m leaving the moment I’m certain you people can protect Cam.”
“You already know too much,” Cottrell said.
“I also know how to keep secrets.”
“Yeah, but can you resist FedSec interrogation?”
“You’re making a big assumption, Cottrell.”
“That you’d get caught?”
“That I’d let them take me alive.”
“We did once,” Cottrell said.
“Mmm, but you didn’t hold on to me for very long, did you?”
“You won’t have Miko to help you, this time,” Cottrell pointed out. “He’s coming with us.”
A flicker in the mythe drew his attention away from Cottrell, and Draven scanned the area again. There… two psionic signatures coming from two different directions.
McKinnon was speaking now, his tone of voice indicating that whatever he was saying, it wasn’t complimentary. Draven cut him off with, “I think they’ve got us. I’m picking up two psionic signatures, one on either side, pacing us.”
“How far away?” Cottrell asked.
“Hard to say without knowing how strong the individual psions are.”
Luka was peering out the window at the swirling snow. “Can’t even see their lights through this shit.”
“They’re keeping their distance,” Draven told him, “and running dark, if they’ve got any sense. How far away is your shuttle?”
“Too far,” McKinnon muttered. “Another twenty minutes or so. I don’t suppose you can sense any psions ahead of us? Our shuttle pilot’s a psion, and I’d like to know if they’ve found him already.”
Draven scanned again, this time focusing all his attention ahead of them. “Got him. We’re not going to have much time to reach the shuttle once we land this thing.”
A hard psychic tug jerked his awareness to Miko’s thread.
“McKinnon, if you can wring anything more out of those engines, now’s the time,” Draven said, and repeated what Miko had told him.
“How the hell can they have Drexavin?” Cottrell asked. “FedSec doesn’t—”
“That they told you,” Draven said.
Cottrell swore vehemently. “He lied to me. Iverson fucking lied—” The rest of his words were drowned out by the scream of the engines as McKinnon pushed them to the limit. Yellow lights flashed on the control boards, some quickly shifting past orange and into red.
“Alek!” Cottrell barked.
“Relax,” McKinnon shouted over the noise. “I know what I’m doing. You can push these things a good twenty percent beyond the warning lights.”
Cottrell muttered something Draven didn’t hear over the howling of the engines, and McKinnon responded with an exasperated, “Trust me on this.”
Draven shifted in his seat and withdrew Cam’s pistol from his jacket. “You got anything more powerful than a handgun in this crate, Cottrell?” He had to yell to be heard over the engine noise.
“Nope. We weren’t looking to shoot the place up. We assumed Luka could take out any opposition. Wasn’t counting on them having Drexavin.”
Great. So he’d be holding off eight armed men with a handgun. Could the evening possibly get any worse? “Then you and McKinnon get everyone into the shuttle and I’ll try to hold them off.”
“You’ll try to…” Cottrell trailed off, shaking his head. “With that little thing? You’re insane.”
“You have a better idea?”
No answer.
“Didn’t think so.” Draven settled back and continued scanning the area, though he knew it was pointless. Neither psi nor the mythe could help him if the enemy was drugged with Drexavin.
* * *
“I see the shuttle!” McKinnon yelled over the engine noise. “Luka, do you sense Rhys?”
“Yeah, he’s fine.” The kid sounded subdued. “He’s tense, but he ain’t scared like he would be if he knew there wa
s an army out there.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward Draven. “Do you… do you think there is?”
“I don’t know, but I’d rather assume there is, and be prepared, wouldn’t you?”
“Be ready to move the second we touch down,” McKinnon ordered. “Draven, you and I will hold them off. Luka and Pat will get Cam and Eleni to the shuttle.”
“Hold them off with what?” Cottrell said.
“Needle gun,” McKinnon said tersely.
“Those things are only good at close range,” Cottrell protested. “And it won’t do a damn thing to the flyer.”
Draven rolled his eyes and tuned out the argument. He checked the safety on his weapon and took a few moments to focus. When the flyer touched down, he scanned the area before jumping out. He sensed nothing but his own team and the shuttle pilot, who was outside in the woods near his craft.
“Shit, here they come!” McKinnon yelled at the same moment Draven saw lights approaching through the swirling snow.
He sensed nothing from the flyer as he raised the pistol and aimed. At that speed and distance, it was unlikely he’d even hit it, but if the occupants realized they were being shot at, they’d be cautious. It might buy Cottrell enough time to get Cam to the shuttle. He squeezed off a few rounds as it flew over, but the craft quickly passed out of range, still flying steadily.
Luka and Eleni were helping Cottrell wrestle Cam out of the flyer. Draven eyed the dark patches of forest surrounding them. Whoever had chosen this spot needed to have their neck wrung.
“Go, go, go!” McKinnon yelled. The sound of the flyer’s engines changed abruptly, and Draven guessed it had turned and was heading back toward them. He squinted up at the sky, but could see nothing through the dark and the snow.
Cottrell had Cam slung over his shoulder and was headed for the shuttle, struggling through knee-deep snow. Luka and Eleni followed, while Draven and McKinnon brought up the rear, weapons trained in the direction of the engine noise.
Cottrell was halfway up the ramp, Eleni and Luka right behind him, before the flyer reappeared. Draven was already shooting as it went over. Muzzle flare from above told him the occupants were firing back.
McKinnon yelled and went down next to him, and without thinking, Draven threw himself down on top of him, covering McKinnon’s body with his own.
Something slammed into his back. Pain blossomed in his chest, and he struggled for breath. The loud whump of a rocket launcher came from his right, and a moment later, an explosion rocked the world. The shock wave pressed him against the man under him, and debris rained down around them, hissing and sizzling as bits of hot metal hit the snow.
McKinnon groaned under him and started to struggle. A crash from the forest off to his left told him the flyer was no longer a threat, but there were two more out there, closing in on their position. Even if they weren’t close enough to see the explosion, they’d pick it up on sensors.
Draven tried to roll off of McKinnon, but his limbs refused to respond. Pain seared through his chest, making it impossible to breathe, impossible to move. He couldn’t get enough air, and his vision began to darken.
Underneath him, McKinnon grunted and shifted. There was another explosion followed by shouting, and then he was rolled over. An agonizing wave dragged him down into blackness, and the next thing he knew, someone was grabbing him under the shoulders and someone else took hold of his legs. He was lifted up out of the snow and carried. Darkness changed to brilliant, harsh light, and he was laid out on a hard surface. Warm wetness trickled across his skin. Hands tore at his clothing, voices barked orders, and more hands held him still as he struggled for breath.
The world tilted and darkened. Something pricked the skin of his arm. A slim, cool hand squeezed his own, and the last thing he heard before the darkness closed in over him was Eleni’s voice whispering, “Thank you.”
* * *
Most of Miko’s attention was on the delicate operation he was conducting on the Space Fleet AI. He’d found a back door left by the original designer, and instead of trying to disguise himself, he’d taken a different approach: distraction and destruction. It was much less subtle than his usual style, but subtle was taking too long, and could jeopardize the Wanderlust and her precious cargo.
With infinite care, he pushed a logic pattern of his own design through the mythe, right into the heart of the system, convincing the AI that it was under attack, its defenses breached.
The AI responded to the threat by locking itself down tight, refusing to respond to human input while it worked its way through a logic loop that, if not broken, would eventually convince it to destroy itself. With Space Fleet’s systems crippled, the Wanderlust’s departure and subsequent rendezvous with her shuttle would go unnoticed and unlogged.
As he untangled himself from the data-net, the thread connecting him to Draven lit up in a brilliant red blaze of agony. Miko’s body froze, but his mind was scrabbling through the mythe to reach Draven.
The blinding pain coming down the thread was too much. Miko withdrew from the mythe to find Kyn at his side, asking in a low, urgent tone what had happened.
He lifted shaking hands and signed, Draven is hurt. He couldn’t breathe, and then it all went dark. His thread is fraying… Tears streamed from his eyes, blurring his vision.
“What about the others?” Kyn’s voice was taut. “Did the shuttle get off the ground? Miko? Did it?”
The shuttle…
Cameron…
Miko pulled himself together. His job wasn’t finished until the shuttle was back on board and the Wanderlust was safely out of the Aurora system and on its way to Hope.
Cautiously, he dipped back into the net, focusing on FedSec’s comm traffic and studiously ignoring Draven’s slowly-fading thread. “FedSec is reporting two military flyers down,” he said through the voice synth. “The shuttle lifted off. FedSec is trying to coordinate with Space Fleet, but Space Fleet’s hands are tied at the moment.”
“How?”
“Their AI is convinced its own security bots are invaders. It’ll be busy for a while.”
“Good work. I’m damn glad you’re on our side.” Kyn squeezed his shoulder gently. “Eleni’s with them, Miko. She’ll help Draven.”
Luka’s voice came over the secured comm-line Miko had set up between the shuttle and the freighter. Miko’s heart pounded and his stomach clenched in dread as he routed the signal through to the speaker above the conference table.
“… and Rhys says no pursuit so far. Eleni says tell Damon to prep for surgery. Alek and Draven are both shot, and they gotta get the bullet out of Draven before they can heal him. Alek’s bleeding like a pig, but he’s bitchin’ like hell about it, so I guess he’s mostly okay. Cam’s out cold, an’ the doc says Jaana needs to look at him. Everyone else is okay. Oh, and you guys should have seen Rhys. Holy bleeding fuck, give the guy a rocket launcher and he goes all badass master of destruction!” There was a long pause before Luka continued in a more subdued tone, “Rhys says that’s the last time I get to be comm officer.”
Anja’s voice came through the speakers. “We’ll have a medical team on standby. Good job, people. Come on home.”
Kyn turned to Miko. “Rocket launcher?”
“Military shipment,” Miko said. “A few things might have gone astray and turned up in one of Anja’s supply orders.”
Miko kept half an eye on the Space Fleet AI, but it was locked deep in battle with itself. The comm traffic between the Space Fleet office on Aurora Station and Space Fleet Command down on the surface was becoming increasingly hysterical. Everything from hackers to an alien invasion was being suggested, but nobody had a clue what had really happened, because Miko had performed most of his manipulations in the mythe.
He had no idea how much time passed before Kyn touched his shoulder. “The shuttle’s on final approach, Miko. Do you want to come down to the shuttle bay and meet them, or do you need to stay here?”
Miko slid down off the chair and stretched. “I’ll come,” he said. “There’s nothing to do here but watch. Space Fleet’s been trying to launch a pursuit craft to intercept the shuttle, but their AI locked everything down tight before it started to melt down.”
Kyn arched an eyebrow. “You seriously just fragged a military AI?”
“It wasn’t hard once I figured out the pattern,” Miko said with a shrug. “I found a back door that wasn’t as well protected as the rest. The defensive data structures generated by their encryption algorithms are full of holes if you look at them in the mythe. I just had to figure out how to get close enough to push my pattern in without tripping any alarms.”
“I’m not sure if I should be pleased or terrified by that,” Kyn said.
By the time they arrived at the shuttle bay doors, the shuttle was already aboard, though they had to wait for the pressure in the bay to equalize. Tarrin was there, ready to lend a hand, along with Trevor and Angus McKinnon, Damon, and a crew of med-techs. They had three gurneys and a rolling rack of medical equipment and monitors with them. When the lights turned green and the big doors slid open, Kyn and Miko hung back with Trevor and Angus, letting the medical team go first.
The shuttle’s hatch lifted and the ramp extended. Miko followed Kyn toward it. The medical team went straight inside, and after a few moments, Pat came down the ramp. He looked exhausted, and there was blood on his shirt and hands. “It’s okay,” he said, catching Kyn up in a hug. “Not my blood.”
Kyn squeezed him back and murmured, “I hated every minute of that.”
“I’m fine,” Pat said, but he was holding Kyn as tightly as Kyn was holding him.
“What about the others?” Kyn asked, pulling away.
Pat glanced at Trevor and Angus. “Eleni’s fine. Alek took a bullet in the leg, but he’s okay. Draven’s stable for now, but he needs surgery.” Pat stared down at the deck. “Never thought I’d be saying this, but I hope he makes it. I figured he’d help get Cam out and then it’d be all about saving his own ass. But when Alek went down, Draven didn’t even hesitate. He threw himself down on top of Alek and took two shots in the back for him.”
