Angeleyes - eARC

  Juan and Mira had the lock to the inspection tug open, and I stumbled through. I banged an ankle, an elbow and the side of my head, and dropped to the deck crying.

  Someone pulled me clear of the LZ and stuffed me into a G couch.

  I didn’t feel that hurt, but I barely tracked until G went away. We’d undocked and departed on a centripetal line, whatever it’s called.

  Up front, I heard Mira say, “I think that’s close. I don’t see anything in position to intercept, and I’m pretty sure they don’t want to toss beams or missiles around this close to the station.”

  Jack asked, “How did you calculate the trajectory?”

  “I just sort of guessed and unlatched when we hit that point. It appears I did it correctly.”

  Several segs later, a voice started shouting at us through comm. She ignored it and started maneuvering thrust. She made one shot that tapered off at an odd angle, but killed our rotation and apparently brought us right up to Bounder’s passenger lock.

  Teresa and Jack helped me to my bunk. I thought I was recovered, but I was still a bit out of it. I’d hit harder than I thought and not felt most of it.

  Mira’s voice said, “Boosting max. Stand by for G.”

  It ramped up from a hiss to a rumble in the frame, and the lights dipped to emergency levels. I guess she fed everything from the plant into thrust. It felt about 3 G standard, but might have been a bit more. In a cargo hauler with a train that was a lot of power.

  Juan said, “Everyone stand by, we’re going to try to slam the point. Timer.” A countdown showed on my phone, stowed in place above my bunk. Had I done that?

  Teresa came over, slapped a patch on my neck and handed me a bottle with a straw. I sipped, and felt a cool wave, then throbbing warmth, then my thoughts cleared up a lot. She looked tense. Then I realized she was standing at triple G. She collapsed back into her own bunk.

  I was mostly back on track as we neared jump.

  Mira came on air again.

  “Just an update. We’re looking good for position. There’s one hauler that could beat us if they pulled harder, but they don’t want a thrust-measuring contest. Apparently, I like thrust more than anyone else.”

  I wasn’t sure about that, even knowing she was making a joke. I do love good thrust.

  “If they’re not fighting us, I believe we have it. There’s a Space Guard ship in pursuit, but they’re far behind. Even though they’re pulling a lot more, we had a substantial lead. They won’t get us in range. However, we may have been reported on the last jump, it just depends on if Earth is willing to admit they fucked the dog on this and ask for help, or will try to bury the bone.”

  It was the first time I’d ever heard her swear.

  The timer adjusted several times, shorter and longer, as we got closer. I believed her that there was no effective pursuit, and I was quite calm when we hit the tick.

  CHAPTER 31

  We were in Salin space. There was so little here, I wondered what good it would do.

  We were still thrusting, though slightly lower.

  Mira said, “I have reduced power to one hundred twenty percent of Never Exceed. We hit one thirty-five for a bit there. Prescot’s engineers are phenomenal.”

  Shit. We were still 20% over danger level? And had exceeded their “even the goddess won’t save you” emergency level?

  I wasn’t calm anymore.

  I wondered what we were doing here, still at overmax boost.

  Shortly, Juan announced, “I’m putting it on shipwide. We have pursuit from their Jump Point patrol. They don’t know who we are yet.”

  “Unidentified ship, if you cease flight immediately, you will be captured and held for trial. If not, you will be destroyed.”

  We didn’t respond.

  I unbunked and carefully stepped up the main passage to C-deck. The C-deck wasn’t my place, but I was fascinated. What was the plan?

  Juan said, “You know there’s a large KBO not far from the point, right?”

  “No?” I said.

  “A frozen gaseous dwarf planet. It was conveniently near the point’s breakout, so they used it for grav slings and other astrogation, and as a grav anchorage.”

  “Okay.”

  Mira said, “So we’re heading that way. At this vector, about a standard hour will do it.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous to jump at that kind of speed?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, and shrugged. “It’s what we had to do.”

  Juan put magnification on a monitor and zoomed in. There wasn’t much to see. The planet was white and off-white and gray with a few bits of brown. It had a slight but visible equatorial bulge. Tags blinked on screen, showing a couple of ships in orbit and some sort of small station. It was really just an oversized ship with no main drive, only maneuvering thrusters for orbital correction.

  “I have to drop thrust to one-ten,” Glenn announced. “Really, we must.”

  “That tightens the window but we should still be safe,” Mira said. “Do it.”

  G slackened slightly more. I still felt huge with all that acceleration, and I had no idea how we were going to brake.

  I forced myself to go to the galley and warm up some food. We were eating a lot of soup from bulbs and wraps, more than just during cargo handling.

  I took some aft to the guys there, and forward to C-deck. Glenn and Mo thanked me with big smiles. I think they were hungry. Everyone went for the soup. It was warm. For some reason we were all chilled, even though volume temp showed normal—25C.

  We ate, I cleaned up, used the head and came back.

  I was just in time to hear Mira say, “I think we can have them in position in about a seg.”

  Juan asked, “Are you ready?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Everyone got silent again. I watched the scale that showed their range against their weapon range. We’d be in that shortly.

  “And . . . volley one,” she announced. “We shouldn’t be a target for them now.”

  I felt jolts and G increased.

  I looked the question to Juan, and he said, “We just dropped some pods. We gained acceleration. They have debris in their path.”

  “A couple of pods are easy to miss.”

  “Not when they explode into chaff, frag and jacks.”

  We’d just jacked off right where they had to pursue. That would slow them down.

  It looked like we were approaching the planet on a tight pass.

  “Unidentified ship, we now identify you as Bounder Dog. Item One: Drop thrust and stand down to be boarded, or you will be destroyed.

  “Item Two: You missed. Try again?”

  I wasn’t sure what we could do, but I didn’t think taunting Mira was smart.

  She spoke to us only as she said, “Volley two.”

  We were definitely pulling in tight enough to rotate around a barycenter as we came past this nameless snowball of a planet.

  I felt more jerks and figured out they were additional pods detaching. G rose again, and I hoped she’d accounted for that in her astrogation.

  Of course she had.

  We were going to pass awfully close, though.

  I didn’t realize Teresa had come up and was next to me on the remaining couch.

  “There’s negligible atmosphere,” she said. “We can get in pretty close. And it’s largely frozen ices. Not much in the way of mountains.”

  Just how fucking close were we going to approach?

  “Bounder Dog, we are about to open fire. There will be no warning shot. Drop thrust and assume orbit. You also missed again.”

  Mira said, “Volley three.”

  This time there was a significant change in thrust and a lot of clattering. We’d dropped something big.

  Juan was busy with a headset and hush hood. He was talking to someone, I figured one of the guys aft. Whatever it was, he looked serious, and pleased. That was a good sign.

  I was trusting them again, because that iceball was now v
isible and huge on a normal view. We were within a few thousand kilometers of it.

  The Space Guard commo tech called again.

  “Bounder Dog, you missed again,” she taunted.

  “Did I?” Mira asked, sounding innocent. I realized she’d opened a freq and actually talked to them.

  The response was shouted noise for a moment, then, “You goddam fucking whore! I hope they rape you over a fire! You fucking—” it went on, furious, incoherent. Then I realized they were terrified.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  She drew something at her station quickly, and an animation popped up.

  “Those are our bombs. That area I lit is the only safe place for them.”

  “Okay?”

  “That’s too low in the gravity well. They won’t be able to pull out of it.”

  She’d boxed them in, and they were going to burn in.

  “Hmm,” she muttered.

  The boat tried to lift out of that orbit, I guess. They ran right into whatever we’d scattered as our own area denial. That seemed fair.

  “There’s a lot more sharpies there, and closer separation,” she said. “They can’t do it.”

  It didn’t seem to actually destroy them, but they stopped calling, and were obviously in panic mode about the debris.

  Then they did call.

  “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! UNS Hammerskjold in critical danger. Hull integrity breached. Powerplant damaged. Drive damaged. Astrogation and helm damaged. Atmosphere integrity lost. Critical emerg . . . Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!”

  A few second later, it was, “Please, any ship respond! Crew are on emergency O Two. Life support failure. Containment failure imminent. Anyone. Please help!”

  The two ships at grav anchor responded. I heard one offer, “—we can thrust to reach you. Can you decelerate? We can match trajectory in approximately four hours.”

  “We don’t have four hours! Attempting deceleration. Astrogator and helm are dead. I am the systems officer.”

  They weren’t going to last four hours.

  The sensors twitched.

  Juan said, “Looks like they had a short overload on that attempted thrust.”

  “Blew up?

  “No, but screwed up their vector.”

  Mira swiped her screens and read numbers.

  “They’re going in. They lost enough velocity they can’t make it. By the way, we are at periapsis.”

  I had no idea how close we were and didn’t want to. I swear I felt centripetal, acceleration and natural G all at once.

  But we were obviously retreating. We’d made it. Though I did hear some creaks in the train.

  Hammerskjold’s screams kept going, shouting for help that couldn’t reach them. They were leaking atmosphere, had lost engines, and were going to bore into the snowball anyway. It would have been a cleaner death to go right in.

  We’d taken out another warship. A small one, but in actual combat.

  With a fifty-year-old tramp freighter and cargo pods.

  The planet blocked the view of them crashing, and I think I’m glad.

  Everyone wanted us dead, though.

  We even heard that.

  “General bulletin. A million mark reward is offered for the confirmed capture or destruction of NRS Bounder Dog. Do not attempt pursuit, but all UN military ships are advised that weapons clear and pre-emptive fire are authorized. All ships report on sensor track.”

  Juan pulled off his head gear.

  “Angie, how fast can you have your personal effects packed?”

  “Uh?” I was confused. “I can have both my bags ready in a seg if it’s an emergency.”

  “Assume so. Go.” He pointed. “Everyone else, we are offloading now.”

  I bounded through the way to my bunk and started stuffing my backpack with essentials. Comm, clothes, makeup, toys. The rest of my loose stuff went into the carry bag.

  “Good, you can board,” he said as I returned. He indicated the emergency lock.

  I wondered what the hell was happening? Was a slow missile inbound? More ships? We couldn’t really fight them.

  I got into the lifeboat, which was both very old and very updated.

  Roger was there already, a bag under him and one in his arms. I started buckling into a harness and did the same with my stuff.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. If it had been an imminent disaster, we wouldn’t have personal gear.

  Shannon boarded, followed by Mo and Jack. Mo filled the hatch and had to squeeze. Sebastian came next and barely made it.

  Roger said, “We’re swapping ships.”

  Teresa, Mira, Juan.

  “This one’s been made,” Juan said. “So we’re moving.”

  Something happened, and the klaxon bleated. I heard umbilicals pop, and bolts blow.

  We were in emgee and floating.

  Then the klaxon bleated three times, and on number three, the escape thruster kicked in. The harness cut into me tightly, and I winced. Then I gasped.

  “Ouch.”

  “Are you okay?” Teresa asked.

  “The web’s cutting into me.”

  “Thrust ends in a few seconds,” Juan said. He sounded pretty strained himself.

  Then it did, and we were in emgee again.

  The webbing stopped cutting, and I gently pushed to shift into a different position. It had left welts and numb spots.

  “I hope we have a pickup,” I said. I didn’t see many positives to sitting here waiting. We weren’t going to get found by friendlies.

  “We do,” Shannon said. “Soon.”

  We sat there in silence for a bit, before Jack started talking about one of the games he played. I don’t game. It meant nothing to me.

  Teresa asked, “Angie, what’s the load you got you’ve been paying so much attention to.”

  “Uh . . . intimate.”

  “Ah. Any good?”

  “Alexia is always good.” I don’t mind sharing with friends, but not in public.

  “Oh! I’ve heard of her.”

  “She does amazing things.”

  “Hmm. Can I check it sometime?”

  “Sure. But here is probably not the best place.” The head was a toilet with emgee seals over a vac-extraction bucket, with a curtain to wrap for privacy. If we were here more than a few hours, there’d be smells, then someone would have to seal and empty it.

  Mira said, “We have our ping. It won’t be long.”

  That reassured me.

  “Who’s getting us? Neutral? Ally?”

  “One of our stealth boats.”

  “Ours?”

  “Stand by.”

  I waited.

  Mira added, “By the way, in case you’re curious, periapsis was sixteen thousand meters. We could have gone closer, but I was worried about possible terrain features.”

  Yeah. Ice mountains could easily be that high on a distant snowball.

  Goddess. Sixteen kilometers close approach. Atmospheric craft flew higher than that. That explained the clanking from the train. It had pulled taut on centrifugal force as we whipped around.

  There was a soft thunking sound that rang like a synth tone. Then the sensation of motion changed.

  After a while there was thumping and bouncing. We were against some kind of mating harness.

  The hull buzzed, and said, “Codeword Victor.” It was metallic sounding even though it was a composite hull.

  Juan said, “Anna.”

  “Welcome, friends.”

  After a bit the voice said, “You’ll need to inflate rescue balls. We can’t dock.”

  We went aft to the lock. I let Mo and Glenn zip me into a ball. Jack and Bast wrapped all our gear in a mesh net. Juan punched for depressure and open, then jumped into a ball fast and zipped up. I felt my ball swell in the vacuum.

  As soon as there was room, three ghostly figures came through the hatch opening, and as soon as it was at full width, started dragging us across. Whatever the ship was, it was comple
tely matte black.

  Their bay was smaller than ours, and I sensed it was under, not side. I felt someone next to me, our balls all crunched up. Yes, I know, there’s a joke there.

  Someone must have EVAed to the tug, because our personal gear came over as well.

  The bay closed in complete darkness, and the ball softened again as atmosphere increased. When the hatch finally snapped tight, dim lights came on, but I could see.

  There was a bomb in front of me.

  I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was some sort of weapon. I recognized the warning tags.

  The bay was long, narrow and tiny. We were stuffed in with no room between.

  A rescue ball has a release you can only open under pressure. In vac, internal pressure holds it closed. I tested it, and it popped loose. I felt a slight pressure change to their vessel, which was lower than the ball’s, or at least, it was in a recently open bay.

  Someone in a V-suit came over and pulled me free.

  “Welcome aboard the FMS Selous. We’re informal here. I’m Dick.”

  “Thanks. Angie.” I took his hands and shook, and he helped me upright.

  I stretched and wondered what the heck we were doing.

  They brought me up to speed.

  Selous was a stealth boat on a J frame. It looked black outside because it had no color, and the outside of the hull was coated with fractal gel. Inside, everything was minimal signature. They didn’t even use much light.

  “We’re a black hole in space,” Dick said. “Nothing reflected or emitted.”

  Their crew was about our size, and they were in theory a war boat. I’ve been told not to give further details. I never learned their names, barely saw them, and mostly lived in that hold, which was chilly and spare and not at all hospitable. I’d gotten used to living like that. Bunks were luxuries, and I was tired from that chase and the massive adrenaline release from it.

  I was still gulping at the dead Hammerskjold. Instant glowing vapor was one thing. Sitting in the leaking cold knowing you were going to die had to be a lot worse.