Crossways

by Jacey Bedford

  As if to echo that statement a bright flare from the east announced a single missile fired from somewhere in the lee of the northern mountain range. A second contrail followed it, and a third.

  “Reinforcements on their way from Crossways,” Cara said.

  “By the time they get here it will be over,” Ben said.

  Yan Gwenn kept up a running commentary. *ETA twenty minutes. Trust fighters deployed. Two fighters have punched through Staple’s outer cordon. Prepare for incoming. They’ll be on my tail.*

  “Wait with the Dixie.” Ben didn’t want Cara confronting the shell of what used to be Donida McLellan, not yet. “Guide Yan down. When Solar Wind lands, get the Dixie into her cargo hold and prepare for a quick takeoff.”

  He ran to the hangar where Morton Tengue’s mercs were gathering, fully kitted out for combat and carrying their packs on their backs and weapons—the ones they were supposed to have handed over—in their hands. Three antigrav gurneys were neatly lined up. Ronan knelt over one of them. Ben wondered if Donida McLellan was one of the patients, but then he saw Kitty leading a tall, thin woman with dark hair and a vacant expression.

  “Is that her?” he asked Kitty.

  “It is. Doesn’t look like much now, does she?”

  “Looks can be deceptive. Are you okay with her?”

  “She’s pliant enough.”

  “Keep her away from Cara for the time being.”

  He checked. There was no flicker of understanding from McLellan at the mention of Cara’s name.

  “Understood.”

  He hoped Kitty did understand. He’d felt Cara’s intense satisfaction when she’d found a way to turn off the Telepath during the warehouse attack. I can kill you with my mind was nothing more than an old psi-tech joke precisely because it couldn’t happen, but somehow Cara had found a way to make it happen and suddenly the phrase had lost all its humor.

  Solar Wind came in low over the horizon, antigravs already engaged. Yan dropped her neatly into the open space just beyond the Dixie and let down the ramp.

  Cara rolled the Dixie into the hold on antigravs. Tengue’s mercs jog-trotted across the open ground, neat and orderly. Ronan took one gurney, Gwala the second, and Ben picked up the controller for the third, noting it was occupied by a pale young woman, upper body swathed in burn dressings. She was conscious and watching him.

  “I hope you know how to drive this thing,” she said.

  “I can pilot a starship. How hard can it be?”

  “I hope those aren’t your famous last words. I hear we might be in for a rough ride.”

  “Don’t worry. Getting off this rock will be a piece of cake.”

  As he said it the landing vehicle, which had been the center of operations during their time on Olyanda, exploded in a fireball.

  *Incoming,* Cara said.

  *Yeah, thanks, got that.* Ben pushed the gurney and ran for the Solar Wind, a hundred-meter sprint. Something whomped into the ground beside him: debris from the LV. He sprang sideways, and the gurney wobbled alarmingly.

  “I thought you said you could drive this thing?”

  “Everyone’s a critic.” Ben scooped up the young woman, abandoned the gurney and ran like hell.

  Three fighters screamed out of the sky and fanned out. Two flew low and straight, heading for where Nolan’s troops were based. One strafed the ground behind them. Ben clutched the girl to him and concentrated on the Solar Wind, legs pumping, breath rasping. His shoulder muscles pulled beneath the burn scar.

  “Run, damn you!” she screamed. As if he needed telling.

  He clattered up into Solar Wind’s belly as the hangar they’d just left took a direct hit. The shockwave from the explosion shoved Ben forward and he barely avoided squashing the woman as he went down.

  “Owww! I want a fucking refund!” The edge of panic had subsided from the young woman’s voice.

  “Fowler, is that you acting up again?” Tengue picked up the complaining young woman while Gwala dragged Ben up and off the ramp as it began to close.

  “Sick bay’s this way.” Ben led Tengue and Gwala up into the guts of his ship, Tengue carrying Fowler. “Don’t worry, Fowler, Doc Wolfe has got some state-of-the-art gadgets up there. Tested them myself.”

  “I should take your word for it? You can’t even drive a gurney.”

  “No, but I can fly us out of here.”

  As Tengue delivered Fowler into Ronan’s care Ben ran for the flight deck. Gwala stayed with him all the way.

  “Do you mind?” the big man asked. “I was supposed to work tactical for van Blaiden before some bastard stole his ship.”

  “Come and welcome.”

  Cara knew why Ben had asked her to stay with the Dixie, but it galled her. Still, she did the job she’d been asked to do even though her hands shook on the controls. As the Solar Wind landed and dropped her cargo hatch she rolled the little flyer in there and locked it down, making a quick exit to the flight deck as the first of Tengue’s mercs trotted up the ramp. Ben had a point. It wasn’t the right time to confront Donida McLellan. Just knowing she was on board was bad enough.

  Cara felt sick.

  She took three deep breaths, ran up to the flight deck, slid into the comms chair, and patched into Oleg Staple’s channel.

  There was a full-blown battle going on above them, two Trust cruisers, a battlewagon, and their associated fighters versus a Crossways fleet of one cruiser with an array of fighters and six smaller ships. She guessed Crossways wasn’t yet up to full strength.

  Fighters had mobilized from the planet’s surface. The Trust had the advantage of numbers for now, but there were surface-to-air missiles prepped which could tip the balance.

  Unfortunately, the missiles weren’t picky. Solar Wind, being registered to an independent port rather than Crossways, sported a ship code that could get them killed by their own side as well as the Trust.

  *We can give you eight minutes to clear before we release the next missiles,* Staple said. *Eight minutes and counting.*

  Cara set her clock.

  *Six minutes, Ben,* she told him as he entered the flight deck followed by the big African Kitty had identified as Gwala.

  Yan relinquished the pilot’s chair to Ben and took the copilot’s space. Kitty moved to systems and Gwala took tactical.

  “Strap in.” Ben connected with the ship and lifted Solar Wind on her antigravs while the drive cycled. “Ready?”

  *Ready. Four minutes twenty,* Cara told him.

  Solar Wind shot skyward just as a Trust fighter screamed toward them. It snagged in their wake and, too low to make a recovery at that speed, plunged into the ruins of the settlement.

  Solar Wind yawed. Ben fought to hold her steady.

  *Incoming.* Cara pinpointed a second fighter ahead of them and flashed the exact location.

  “Pulse-cannon, clear the way,” Ben ordered, straightening out their flight path.

  The ship reverberated as the pulse-cannon discharged, but the shot went wide. The fighter was still heading straight for them and a second fighter was on their screen now.

  “Gwala,” Ben said, sharply.

  “Got the range now.” Gwala fired again. The ship shuddered and the first fighter disappeared. Gwala reconfigured and took out the second fighter as well.

  “Nice shooting,” Ben said.

  “It’s my ass on the line as well.” Gwala stepped back. “Sorry about the first one. Got the feel of it, now.”

  “Two minutes forty to ground missile release,” Cara said. More blips appeared on her screen. “Trust cruiser dead ahead. Low orbit. Fifteen fighters, ten of them Trust, five belonging to Crossways. The Trust’s got the upper hand.”

  “Damn!” Ben made a course adjustment toward the cruiser.

  “What?” Cara said. That thing had ten times their firepower
.

  “That’s our platinum down there,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “We lose Olyanda to the Trust and it’s going to take forever to pay off all those loans. I’ve got an idea to help even the odds. Prepare to jump to foldspace.”

  “We’re still in Olyanda’s upper atmosphere.” Kitty’s voice rose to a squeak.

  “How long to the missiles, Cara?” Ben asked.

  “One minute fifty.”

  Cara broadcast a shipwide alert. *Prepare for foldspace. It’s going to be a rocky transition. Strap in or hold on tight.*

  Ben cranked up the jump drive.

  “One minute ten.”

  “Nearly there,” Ben said.

  The cruiser loomed closer.

  “Ah, gotcha.” Ben fixed his eyes on the forward screen. “Gwala, stand by, punch us a passage through the gnats. Yan, what’s the range on that cruiser?”

  “Seventy klicks.”

  “I want to get close enough to kiss her.”

  Oh, shit. Cara realized what Ben was trying to do. They’d sucked the missile into foldspace, now Ben was going to try and take out a cruiser by doing the same. It would even up the numbers for the Crossways fleet and give them a chance of holding out until the reinforcements arrived, but it might wreck Solar Wind in the process.

  *Ben—*

  He looked perfectly calm, perfectly focused. He flicked a glance in her direction and gave her a tight half-nod. Nothing else betrayed his emotions.

  She cleared her throat to try and steady her voice. “Thirty-five seconds.”

  “Thirty klicks,” Yan said.

  Oleg Staple’s broadcast cut in. *Solar Wind I’ve got missiles launching on your tail in thirty, twenty-five, twenty . . . *

  *Thanks, Staple, trying to do you a favor as we leave,* Ben said. *Stand by.*

  “Ten klicks,” Yan said.

  “Ten seconds to missile launch,” Cara said. *Five. Three. Two. Missiles away.*

  “Close enough.”

  Ben slammed open the jump drive and they seemed to collapse sideways, sucked through a space that was too small.

  “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. Trust cruiser Simonides, Captain James Duran requesting assistance.”

  A ship’s distress beacon flashes a message on the forward screen at the same time as the audio message overrides normal comms.

  Ben has successfully dragged the cruiser through into the Folds with them. Drawing them away from the battle is Ben’s primary objective. He doesn’t want to kill the crew, but without a gate beacon to latch onto they’ll never be able to find a way out of the Folds. How many on board?

  Friends or enemies, you never leave anyone to die in space if there is an option.

  “Captain Duran, stand by.” Cara opens up the comm link both ways, almost surprised that it operates so well in foldspace. There’s hardly any lag at all, half a second maybe.

  She looks toward Ben.

  He shrugs, nods and touches the vox control on his collar. “Simonides, Captain Duran, this is Ben Benjamin of the Solar Wind.”

  “Benjamin. What happened?”

  “You got caught in our jump drive wake, Duran. Sorry about that.”

  “Like hell you are.”

  “Well, you were trying to kill us.”

  “You’ve got me there.”

  “Have you got a Psi-1 Navigator on board?” Ben asks.

  “Negative. Psi-3. Do you?”

  “Affirmative.” Ben smiles. “Stand by and we’ll try and hook you up to a gate beacon.”

  There’s a pause. “Thanks, Benjamin.”

  Ben switches off his vox and looks up. “How long since we entered foldspace?”

  “Subjective time four minutes,” Kitty answers.

  “Yan, take the helm while I search for a nav beacon. Just hold her steady.”

  “You do know where we are, right, Boss?” Yan asks.

  “Sure, we’re between here and there. It’s where we’ll end up that we need to know.”

  Ben reaches out with his senses. He can feel the tides of foldspace. Things are moving out there, sliding between the eddies, but there’s no jump gate beacon within reach. The Folds are never the same twice and any vessel entering by a jump gate usually has a choice of two or three different exit points. They’ve not only come in via the Solar Wind’s jump drive, but they’ve entered from within Olyanda’s upper atmosphere, something not technically possible, or at least not desirable unless you have a death wish.

  When he opens his eyes, Ben realizes everyone is staring at him, but it’s nothing to do with the swarm of void creatures that have gathered around his head. He doubts that they’re visible to anyone else.

  He shivers. “How long now, Cara?”

  “Five minutes thirty.”

  He nods. The longer they stay in the Folds the less chance they have of coming out the other side. He can get Solar Wind out right now, but only by leaving Duran and the Simonides behind. Ships have been lost in the Folds before. It’s an occupational hazard of flying the vast deeps but . . . not on his watch, not if he can help it.

  He taps his vox and opens up the comms channel to the Simonides again. “Duran.”

  “Benjamin, where are you? Our instruments are showing . . . things swimming about out there as well as in here. I think it’s only illusion but . . . Hell, what was that?”

  The conversation turns chaotic as something happens on the Simonides’ flight deck to interrupt Duran’s calm.

  “There is something out there, Benjamin. Can’t you feel it?”

  “There’s always something out there. The trick is not to let it see that you’ve noticed. Don’t draw its attention.”

  Whether it’s real or not, a Navigator learns to ignore it lest it take too keen an interest in the intruding ship.

  “Have you found us a gate beacon?” Duran asks.

  “No. There isn’t one.”

  “You can’t just leave us . . .”

  “I don’t intend to,” Ben says. “Maintain your course. I’m going to swing you out on our coattails like I brought you in.”

  “You must be mad. You can’t maneuver that closely in here. You’ll kill us all. We should abandon ship and try and shuttle our crew across to you.”

  “Without a Psi-1 Navigator? You’d be lost as soon as you launched. You’d rather we left you?”

  “No. Please, no.”

  “Keep steady then.”

  Ben takes over the ship from Yan. To be honest, he’s not sure he can do it, but he has to try. He can’t imagine a worse way to die, cut off from all hope of assistance until the ship’s life support fails. It could take weeks or months or even years, but no one would ever come to the rescue and eventually everything would break down and people would die like his parents had died.

  “What’s happening up there?” Captain Tengue asks. “It’s like the seventh layer of hell down here. There are . . . things. Are we getting out of the Folds any time soon?”

  “Soon enough,” Ben says, shaking his head at Gwala. “Stand by.”

  “You know what you’re doing, right?” Cara asks.

  “I hope so,” he says.

  Cara’s nails cut into the palms of her hands. Either this move will always be remembered as the Benjamin Maneuver or both ships will be scattered to atoms in the next minute and a half.

  “What’s happening up there?” Tengue asks again from the hold, his voice harsh.

  “You really don’t want to know, Cap,” Gwala answers, his eyes showing too much white.

  “Benjamin!” Tengue tries to get Ben’s attention.

  “Not now!” Cara cuts in. “Give him some space.” She severs Tengue’s audio connection to the flight deck.

  Ben pulls up the holographic nav screen, not entirely reliable in the Folds, but a rough indication of how c
lose the two ships are. Cara’s screen mirrors it.

  “How close do you need to be?” she asks.

  “Maybe three klicks, but to be safe, less than one. If I don’t get him on the first go there won’t be a second chance. Watch that blip on the screen. Call time and distance as you see it.”

  “Six minutes forty-five. Fifty-two klicks and closing.”

  Ben makes a slight adjustment to their course.

  “Seven minutes, ten. Thirty-eight klicks and closing.”

  “Seven minutes thirty. Fifteen klicks and holding.”

  “We’re much closer than fifteen klicks by the feel of it,” Ben says.

  “What?”

  “We’re too damn close. The instruments are wrong.”

  “Pull out, Boss,” Kitty squeaks.

  “Hold your nerve. We need to be kissing close.” Ben grins, but the mirth doesn’t reach his eyes despite his flash of white teeth. “Fucking close, in fact.”

  “Remember the missile.” He makes another slight adjustment. “Here we go!”

  The prow of the Solar Wind nudges the Simonides amidships, but instead of the shudder of hull on hull the Solar Wind cleaves cleanly through the other ship like a hot knife through butter. For a frozen moment the Simonides’ bridge appears on the Solar Wind’s flight deck like a hologram. The two ships slide through and past each other as if neither is solid, each a ghost to the other. Ben and Duran come face-to-face and Duran’s expression is a mask of horror, but he pulls himself together and salutes. Ben nods an acknowledgment. Then they are past and the Solar Wind is coming out the other side as Ben fires up the jump drive and roars out into real space.

  “So that’s the Benjamin Maneuver,” Cara said, fighting off a wave of dizziness.

  “Huh?” Ben looked gray.

  “I’ll tell you later. It’s better than the other scenario I had in mind.”

  She opened up communications and winced at the onslaught of protests from the mercs and questions from Ronan in the med bay.