Ep.#6 - For the Triumph of Evil (The Frontiers Saga - Part 2: Rogue Castes)

by Ryk Brown

  “He tagged the gate! He tagged the gate!” Josh exclaimed with glee.

  “He tagged us!” Nathan exclaimed nowhere near as joyfully as he struggled to maintain control, and pull their ship into a climbing left turn.

  “Shield power dropped twenty percent,” Loki reported, “but we were at one-ten, so we should be able to recharge in time.”

  “What about our systems?” Nathan demanded.

  “We’re good!” Loki assured him. “A little fluctuation in the starboard shield emitters, but we’re good!”

  “Nice job, Cap’n!” Josh congratulated. “You fucking showed him!”

  “Where’s he at?” Nathan wondered, looking around.

  “He’s on your six, two lengths back!” Josh reported, sounding as if he was about to burst from excitement. He spun around to look at Master Koku. “Did you see that?”

  “I did.”

  “Just hold your lines tight, and keep your speed up through the rest of the gates, and there’s no way he’ll get past you in time!” Josh told Nathan over his comm-set.

  “I can do that,” Nathan assured him.

  “In a stunning display of determination and skill, Nathan Scott has increased his lead over Valen Takoda…” the commentator announced over the Aurora’s loudspeakers.

  Cameron looked at Lieutenant Commander Kono at the sensor station. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s up to two ship lengths now,” the lieutenant commander replied. “The other ship is having to channel extra power from his propulsion system to recharge his port shield, which is having a hard time maintaining its integrity. If he falls back any further, the captain has the first race locked up.”

  “…The only way Takoda has a chance now, would be if the one they call Na-Tan tagged a gate, as well, but there’s not much chance of that with only three gates to go in the sixth heat of the day!”

  Cameron smiled.

  “Final gate coming up!” Josh announced, barely able to contain himself.

  “Where’s Takoda?” Nathan asked.

  “Low left, now,” Loki replied, “but he’s managed to close to half a ship length.”

  “It’s now, or never!” Josh exclaimed. “Max power, Cap’n!”

  Nathan came out of his turn, the last gate now directly ahead and closing fast. He pushed his throttles to full power, the force of acceleration pushing him back into his seat again. The Gunyoki’s were incredibly powerful, probably even more so than the Falcon had ever been. And although they were difficult to handle, they were, without a doubt, amazing ships to fly.

  “YES!” Josh exclaimed at the top of his lungs as the nose of Nathan’s Gunyoki fighter pierced the threshold of the final gate, claiming the team’s first victory of the day.

  Nathan felt a wave of relief wash over him as he backed off on the throttles, and waited for Race Control to activate his auto-flight systems and bring him home.

  “Good job, Captain,” Loki congratulated from the back seat.

  “Thanks, Loki. I couldn’t have done it without you,” Nathan replied. “Without all of you.”

  * * *

  Although she had heard the commentary about Nathan’s race, and the official announcement of his victory, Jessica had not been able to share in the celebration that had undoubtedly occurred in bay seventy-five afterward. In fact, she wondered if she was going to get back in time for his next race. She had been trying to find a way into Yokimah Racing’s Gunyoki suites for over an hour. As it turned out, her credentials showed her to be a member of the competition, which made it even more unlikely for her to gain access. She had even searched for a way to break in, but without success.

  So, she had been forced to pocket her ID badge and blend in with the throngs of racing fans prowling the corridors outside the Yokimah suites, hoping to get a glimpse of their favorite Gunyoki pilot.

  Fortunately for Jessica, she was not interested in pilots, only mechanics. The pilots rarely left the safety of their team suites, for fear of being mobbed by fans. Mechanics and technical support personnel did not have that problem. Early on, Jessica had noticed one of them slipping out for a few minutes to visit with friends attending the event. Not long after, another person stepped out and disappeared into the crowds, returning a few minutes later with an attractive young woman in tow.

  With a pattern established, Jessica now had a viable plan. But after forty-five minutes of waiting, she was starting to wonder if anyone else would leave.

  By the end of the second hour, she was beginning to contemplate her chances of successfully overpowering the guard at the entrance to the Yokimah suites, and getting inside to obtain the information she needed before security stunned her and dragged her away, unconscious.

  Another thirty minutes passed, and the race commentators were already reporting that Nathan Scott and Azel Senza were on their way to the approach lanes for the next heat. Assuming Nathan won, the following race would only be an hour away, and she was no closer to getting answers than she was two and half hours ago.

  Just as she was about to give up, a skinny young man in a Yokimah Racing uniform came through the door and into the crowd. Jessica immediately followed him, weaving her way through the shifting mass of spectators, being careful not to lose sight of her target.

  She quickly determined that the young man was up to something. He kept looking around, as if checking for a tail, although he was not very adept at it, as he never once looked Jessica’s way. If the man was a spy, he was a lousy one.

  Two minutes later, as the commentators announced the start of Nathan’s second heat, the young man slipped into one of the many public vid-com booths located throughout the race complex. Jessica continued to move closer, eventually coming to stand just outside the same booth, as if awaiting her turn.

  Less than a minute later, the young man turned and opened the door, startled by Jessica’s presence as she forced him back into the booth and closed the door behind her, trapping him inside.

  “What are you doing?” the young man demanded. “I don’t have any credits, if that’s what you want.”

  “You work for Yokimah Racing?” Jessica began.

  “Yes…” The young man realized how attractive his assailant was, and then added, “but I’m not a pilot, I’m just a tech.”

  “What kind of tech?” Jessica wondered, her arm up against the young man’s chest, holding him firmly against the vid-com screen behind him.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “What kind of tech?”

  “Sensors and comms,” the man replied.

  “Do you know someone named Darrien Genn?”

  “Who are you?” the man demanded to know, trying to get free from her.

  Jessica grabbed him forcefully by the chin, pinning his head against the view screen, as well, and pressing her body against his, while pushing her knee into his groin just enough to make him worry. “Give me any trouble, and you’ll be singing falsetto for the rest of your life,” she threatened. “Darrien Genn. Do you know him?”

  “Yes,” the young man admitted. “He’s the lead mechanic for two zero seven.”

  “The Gunyoki fighter that Ito Yokimah loaned to Nathan Scott?”

  “Yes, why do…”

  Jessica pushed her knee into him a little more firmly, shutting him up. “Where is he?”

  “Darrien?”

  “No, Santa Claus, asshole.”

  “Who?”

  “Is Darrien Genn working here today?”

  “No, no. He hasn’t been in all week,” the young man squeaked, fearing additional pressure by Jessica’s knee. “He got the week off, since they loaned out his ship. He was supposed to come in yesterday for a staff meeting, but didn’t show. Everyone figured he went out of town, or something.”

  Jessica thought for a moment, her grip weakening slightly. “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Well, yes, but…”

  Jessica tightened her grip again.

  “Okay, okay… He lives in Obi
district.”

  “What’s his address?”

  “I don’t know, one of the newer tenement buildings. Pison, Pisa… No, Pianeese! Pianeese Towers! On the seventeenth floor! That’s all I know! I swear!”

  Jessica eased up a bit, looking him in the eyes, their faces only centimeters apart. “Are you being honest with me?” she asked.

  “Yes, I promise you.”

  Jessica moved back a bit more, lowering her knee at the same time. She looked at him crossly. “Why did you come out here to make a call? You guys don’t have vid-comms in the Yokimah suites?”

  “I wanted to make the call in private,” the young man admitted.

  “Why? What are you hiding?” When the young man didn’t answer, she pushed her knee back into his groin a bit. “Tell me…”

  “I was making a bet,” he admitted.

  “What kind of bet?” Jessica wondered. “On the races? Isn’t that illegal?”

  “I need the money.”

  “So you bet on a Gunyoki race? What are you, stupid?”

  “It was a sure thing.”

  “What was?” Again, the young man didn’t want to answer. “Tell me,” Jessica instructed crossly.

  “One of our ships is experiencing power fluctuations, and they can’t figure it out.”

  “Yokimah’s got spares.”

  “One spare is down, and we loaned the other one to Nathan Scott.”

  “So, how is that a sure thing?” she wondered.

  “If the pilot goes over ninety percent on her reactor, it might blow a bus and she’d lose one of her primary systems,” the young man explained.

  “Whose ship are we talking about?”

  “Suli Noma,” he replied. “They discovered the problem during her first heat.”

  “But she won that heat.”

  “It didn’t start fluctuating until the heat was over,” the young man explained.

  “So you bet against your own team?” Jessica sighed, shaking her head. “You should be ashamed of yourself, young man. What could possibly be so important that you would betray the trust of an asshole like Yokimah?”

  The young man looked confused. “I need the money to quit my job and go back to school.”

  “What for?”

  “I want to change careers. I want to be a marine biologist.”

  “Ocean world…makes sense, I guess,” Jessica agreed. “What’s your name?”

  “Milan.”

  “Milan what?”

  “Milan Jento.”

  “Listen carefully, Milan Jento. This conversation is going to be our little secret, okay?” she said, straightening his collar and then brushing his bangs from his eyes.

  “Our little secret…right,” he agreed, relaxing a bit, but still on guard.

  “And since I know your name now, if I find out that you told anyone about our little rendezvous here in the vid-com booth, I’ll hunt you down and really introduce my knee to your nuts. Understand?”

  Milan nodded.

  “Good boy.”

  “Say, you wouldn’t want to meet later, maybe, after the races…”

  Jessica touched his lips with her index finger, quieting him. “Don’t ruin it, kid.” She winked at him, then reached behind her and opened the door, stepping out and closing him back in before she turned and walked away. “I always get the freaks.”

  * * *

  “Twenty down, twenty gates to go!” Josh exclaimed over comms. “You’re halfway there! Just keep your lead and keep squeezing him out!”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Nathan commented as he bore down against the g-forces of his turn, bringing his fighter’s nose around toward the next gate.

  “Two stub targets on twenty-one,” Loki reported. “Locking missiles on targets.”

  “Senza will try to slip under you as you launch missiles,” Master Koku warned. “He likes to use the flash of their rocket motors to blind you to his actions. Just before you launch, descend a few meters to block him.”

  “Copy that,” Nathan replied.

  “Five seconds to launch,” Loki warned. “Gate threshold in ten.”

  Nathan pushed his flight control stick down, causing his engine nacelles to angle downward. A second later, he pressed the thrust button for a full second, causing the ship to transition downward several meters and accelerate slightly.

  “Missiles away!” Loki announced as the missile’s rocket motors flashed as they left the pods on either side of the cockpit.

  “Senza’s climbing!” Josh warned. “He’s trying to slip over you!”

  “Damn,” Nathan cursed, pulling his flight control stick up and firing his thrusters again. He glanced out the window as his opponent’s ship tried, but failed, to slip over the top of them, nearly colliding in the process. “Nice try, buddy.”

  “He is more clever than I anticipated,” Master Koku admitted.

  “Targets disabled!” Loki announced. “We are taking points from this guy at every gate!”

  “We need more lead on him,” Nathan decided as they passed through the next gate. “Otherwise, he’s going to try that shit again, and again.”

  “You’re already at six-twenty, Cap’n, and these gates are more widely spread,” Josh warned.

  “Would you go faster?” Nathan asked.

  “Well, yeah, but I’m crazy. Just ask Loki.”

  “He’s not lying. He is crazy,” Loki happily agreed.

  “But he could still pull it off,” Nathan said as he inched his throttles forward to accelerate in his turn. “And so can I.”

  “You’re at six-thirty,” Josh warned as they watched the sensor display and camera views of the two Gunyoki fighters, battling for position as they dove through the twenty-eighth gate.

  “Can he handle that speed?” Neli wondered, watching nervously from the back of the room.

  “He can handle it,” Vladimir assured her. “Davai, Nathan, Davai,” he added, under his breath.

  “Six-thirty-five,” Josh reported. “He’s still matching your speed.”

  “He’s locking missiles on the next gate targets,” General Telles announced, noticing the opponent’s status displays.

  “Those targets are for lasers,” Josh exclaimed. “Can he do that?”

  “He can,” Master Koku confirmed. “He will lose a few points for not using the required weaponry, but he will gain points. More importantly, he will deny your captain of them.”

  “He realizes that he cannot continue at Nathan’s speed, so he’s trying to make up the difference by stealing points from him,” General Telles surmised.

  “Correct.”

  “A sound tactic,” the general observed.

  “Indeed,” Master Koku agreed.

  Josh turned back to his console. “Okay, guys, listen up…”

  “…the bottom line is, you’re going to have to go faster,” Josh explained to Nathan and Loki.

  “He’s barely able to make the turns as it is,” Lieutenant Commander Vidmar declared as he watched the race feeds on the transparent screens at the front of his console.

  Cameron quickly did the math, using a portion of the tactical console that she was standing at with the lieutenant commander. “If he takes the next ten gate targets, all with missiles, he can finish two full ship lengths behind Nathan, and still win,” she concluded. She looked at the lieutenant commander. “He needs to go even faster.”

  “Senza just took out three more targets with missiles,” Lieutenant Commander Kono reported from the sensor station. “He missed one, though. Loki just took it out with lasers.”

  “Every point counts,” Cameron muttered, staring at the camera feeds as Nathan rolled his ship through the next gate. “I have to admit, he is flying the hell out of that ship.”

  “Five gates left!” Josh announced over comms. “By our calculations, you still have a ten-point lead!”

  “Loki, is the last gate in missile range?” Nathan asked.

  “Uh, yes, but…”

  “If
I swing wide, right after the next gate, can you get a lock on those targets?” he asked as they approached the thirty-sixth gate.

  “Yeah, but…”

  “I know what you’re thinking, Cap’n,” Josh interrupted, “and I like it, but if you swing wide, I don’t know that you’ll make gate sixty-seven. If you miss that gate, you’re done.”

  “If we deny him those last few targets, we’ll have him by the balls,” Nathan exclaimed as they slid past gate thirty-six, clearing it by just under two meters.

  “I would not advise this,” Master Koku warned.

  Nathan pondered his idea for a split-second, then moved his flight control stick to the right, swinging wide of his line. “Do it, Loki,” he ordered.

  “Locking stubs on the finish gate targets,” Loki replied.

  “Senza’s accelerating,” Josh warned. “He’s trying to slip past you to port!”

  “Missiles away,” Loki reported as four missile rocket motors flashed on either side of them, lighting up the cockpit for a brief moment.

  Nathan rolled his ship back left, pushing his nose slightly downward as he jammed his throttles all the way forward.

  “What the fuck!” Josh exclaimed. “You’re accelerating!”

  “Captain!” Loki yelled in alarm.

  “Ready four flashers!” Nathan barked as he struggled against the g-forces induced by his accelerating turn.

  “Four flashers, ready!” Loki acknowledged without question.

  Nathan slid his fighter in front of the pursuing Gunyoki fighter, dropping slightly below his opponent’s flight path. “Drop four! Now, now, now!”

  Loki’s finger had pressed the button before the first ‘now’ had left Nathan’s lips.

  Four, small, cylindrical objects jettisoned from the top, aft end of Nathan’s Gunyoki fighter, popping directly up into Azel Senza’s line of flight. The four objects ignited, creating brilliant fireballs directly in front of the advancing fighter. Stunned by the sudden appearance of the bright objects, his opponent instinctively dove under the glowing countermeasures in order to avoid colliding with them, and weakening his shields with only three gates left.