The jump freighter pulled out and stabilized, but it was hurt. It seemed to be bleeding propellant from a ruptured tank. The liquid propellant trail spattered off Yaer’s shields like rain on a windshield.
He had him. He had the crazy son of a d’ast.
He gunned again.
The jump freighter spurted forward, as if scared by the approach. It dodged another rock, went between another two and then—insanely—through the hole in the middle of a donut-shaped asteroid. The hole was scarcely big enough. Sparks trailed back fiercely as the jump shuttle’s hull scraped the rock in several places.
Yaer went after it. He punched through the hole, leaving two more starshield finials behind.
A targeter sounded: a sudden, bright chime in the small cockpit space.
Tractor-beam range achieved.
Yaer punched the beam activator and felt the sudden pull on his momentum as he snared the fleeing ship. He had the suspect, had him tight, like a chain was connecting them, taut and unbreakable.
But the suspect was not killing his engines. He was actually dragging Yaer along, unwilling to admit defeat and pull over.
“D’ast you!” Yaer yelled. “Know when to quit!”
They were tied together. They were d’ast well tied together. Yaer could kill the tractor and cut free, but he was damned if he was going to let the suspect go.
His gloved hands flew along a row of control touch plates. He killed his engines—he had no need of thrust now, as the jump freighter was doing all the work for both of them—and channeled all gravimetric power to the beam. In effect, he was now a ball and chain bolted to the jump freighter. And he was increasing his mass gravimetrically, making his chase ship heavier and heavier.
The jump freighter began to slow rapidly, its afterburners lighting to white hot as it strained its engines to break free.
“That’s it, you idiot,” Yaer said, “burn your d’ast drives out.”
Then the lunatic flying the jump freighter did something more lunatic, even by his own previously demonstrated high standards of lunacy.
He braked and hard-turned to starboard. He almost—almost— collided with a big rock in the process, but somehow missed it.
Yaer let out a cry of alarm. He had killed his engines—his chase ship was, in effect, an inert mass being towed by the freighter. All the physical laws of the Universe were against him. The jump freighter’s hard turn jerked his ship around like a dead weight on the end of a rope. Converted momentum was forcing him to fly out to port hard, sideways, dragged and yanked simultaneously.
Collision alarms screamed. A rock came at him hard from his port side. He could see it out of his left-side canopy ports. His ship was being swung sidelong into an asteroid.
No chance! No chance! No chance at all!
“Eject! Eject!” Yaer screamed.
But it was too late. Far too—
Yaer’s golden chase ship struck the asteroid side-on and disintegrated, releasing a brilliant, scalding explosion of light, debris and energy.
Total annihilation.
• CHAPTER NINE •
THE REST IS SILENCE
BLACKNESS.
Then more blackness.
Then a little bit more.
Then a slowly unfolding light.
Yaer woke up. He was spinning slowly in zero G, in absolute silence, tatters of his chase ship glinting as they tumbled around him like leaves.
His head was swimming.
Think. Think.
He had managed to eject. That’s it. Okay. At the very last minute, he had managed to eject. Now, like a drowned body in an ocean swell, he was tumbling through the silence of the void.
But Grekan Yaer was a Nova Centurion. Though the Nova Corps of Xandar used chase ships and star cruisers for convenience, each member of the Corps was effectively a ship in his or her own right. Yaer’s blue-and-gold armored uniform and his access to the extraordinary Nova Force made him a humanoid rocket.
Yaer reached out and accessed the Nova Force, activating his super-mortal power. He swept his fists forward like a diver coming off a high board. His chest circles glowed brightly. He sped forward, leaving a twinkling wake of gravimetric power behind him.
Asteroids rushed past him. Yaer was like a missile—not as fast as his poor, lost chase ship, but far more agile. Via his helmet’s visor, he plotted and tracked thousands of asteroids, whipping his course between them, watching for the backwash wake of the suspect vehicle.
It was dead ahead of him.
It had dropped speed sharply, assuming no more pursuit. It was in reach. It was banking and diving to exit the underside of the asteroid field and jump away.
The Worldmind spoke in Yaer’s head.
“Centurion Yaer. Telemetry has recorded the destruction of your vessel. Are you intact?”
“Yes,” Yaer replied.
“Are you still in pursuit?”
“Yes,” Yaer replied.
“Centurion Yaer, I am reading your vital signatures. Your heart rate is raised. Your adrenalin is accelerating. You are sweating. You are channeling a great deal of the Nova Force. Are you all right?”
“Oh, I’m marvelous,” Yaer said.
The jump freighter was right ahead of him. It was limping along—swooping and twisting between the rocks, trying to find a way out. He doubted he even showed up on its sensors, if it had any left.
He closed in, reaching out. He directed the Nova Force through his gold-spurred gauntlets. The beam, firing from his fists, struck the jump freighter and snuffed out its drive.
It tumbled, drive dead.
He swooped in and grabbed it by the hull plating. He hauled it after him, using the invincible power granted to the Nova Corps.
“You’re mine now, flarkhat,” he murmured.
He cleared the field, dragging the battered jump freighter after him.
Open space. He breathed out. Open, clear, deep space surrounded him. He loved that: the freedom—the freedom to soar, alone, free of a ship as he was now.
The asteroid field—a trillion spinning, sunlit rocks— fell away behind him in the galactic glow.
Two Nova Corps chase ships stood in position ahead, waiting for him with starshields open and hazards blinking.
“Centurion? Sir?” Valis linked.
“I got him, Valis,” Yaer replied.
“We…we thought you were dead, sir,” Starkross linked. Yaer could hear tears. That kid. So ballsy, but so emotional.
“I’m fine, Starkross. Seriously. In fact, I feel great. Lost my ship, bagged a bad guy. That’s a good day in the Corps.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Starkross? Valis? You did real good. I’m proud of you both.”
“Corpsman Starkross, aye.”
“Corpsman Valis, affirmed.”
Tugging the dead weight freighter behind him, Yaer allowed himself a smile. The kids were good. Really fine. One day, they would both make superb Centurions.
One day they might remember the crusty old Korbinite who had showed them the ropes, and maybe raise a glass of synthol to his memory.
Because Grekan Yaer would be long dead by then. Especially if he continued to pull crazy-flark stunts like this.
The Nova Corps heavy cruiser behind the two waiting chase ships was so vast it was almost invisible. It loomed like an eclipse out of the starfield, a subtle magnitude of brown shadow.
“Hello Heavy, hello Heavy,” Yaer linked.
The cruiser’s lights came on, illuminating it like a city block at night. Searchlights reached out to pinpoint him and the ship he was dragging.
“Hello, Yaer,” the link replied in a cheerful, warm female voice. “You been a crazy boy again?”
“That you, Centurion Clawdi?” Yaer teased.
“You know it, Grekan. Always here for you and your… exploits. What do you have for me?”
Clawdi was a gorgeous little Tsyrani and a superlative Centurion. She’d been classmates with Yaer at the Academy; they’d alway
s had a thing, though they had never acted on it.
Yaer sighed.
“I’ve got an absconding jump freighter, Lolet. Charges on file. Read them down—they’re quite a package. And open your hangar-bay doors so I can bring it in.”
“Wow, you weren’t kidding, crazy boy. Okay. Opening the bay doors now.”
The belly gates of the vast heavy cruiser opened, and light flooded out. It was like coming home.
Yaer steered in and set the jump freighter down on the deck. The chase ships followed him. The hangar-bay shutters closed behind them.
Yaer stood on the grilled decking of the hangar bay and stepped back from the battered, smoldering jump freighter. It was bashed up to hell. That’ll teach you, Yaer thought.
Atmosphere and gravity began to come up. The lighting increased. Yaer let the Nova Force ebb out of him, keeping a little in his gauntlets in case of trouble.
Leaping out of their open canopies, Starkross and Valis ran to his side. Starkross pulled off her golden helm. Yaer could see the kid had been crying, but she was trying to show she hadn’t. She was a pretty thing. A heartbreaker.
“That was amazing, Centurion,” she said. “I mean…we thought…we thought…“
“I know what you thought, Corpsman,” Yaer said and briefly touched her cheek. “Thank you.”
Valis, helm still in place, aimed his equine muzzle up at the much taller Yaer.
“That was unorthodox, sir,” he said.
“It was.”
“I should really write a report.”
“You should.”
“I won’t,” said Valis. “I mean—”
“No, you should. Just try not to make me sound too crazy.”
Valis offered his hand. Yaer shook it.
“It’s an honor to be in your tutelage, sir,” he said.
“Oh, don’t be telling him that. His head will swell, then he’ll be crazy as flark all over again.”
Centurion Lolet Clawdi was advancing across the hangar deck to join them. She was smiling. Her golden helm was under her arm. She shot a wink at Yaer that no one could have missed. Sixty Nova Denarians followed her, bearing grav-batons and riot shields. Millennians with team-served heavy gravimetric cannons set up their tripods and power boxes, and took aim at the jump freighter around the perimeter.
“So who are we dealing with here, Grekan?” Clawdi asked Yaer.
“No idea, Lolet. Fugitives from Xarth Three. You saw the rap sheet. Mucho dangerous perps, at the least. Very bad news. We should be prepared and armed for whatever emerges from that wreck.”
“Oh, I am,” she grinned.
She waved a team of Denarians forward. They were carrying cutting torches and raid-rams.
“Open the sucker up, boys,” Clawdi ordered. “Everyone else? One hint of a gun, we blow the flark out of them.”
The entry team of Denarians prepared to storm the jump freighter.
They hesitated.
The landing ramp was suddenly extending, and the main hatch behind it started to open.
“Steady, boys,” Clawdi warned, stiffening and raising her fists. Nova Force glowed within her gauntlets.
The hatch opened. Stale air fumed out.
A figure appeared.
It was small. Short. Shorter even than the Xanthan Nova Cadet Kurrgid whom Clawdi, Yaer, and everyone else in their class had teased at the Academy.
It skipped down the ramp—bright of eye, sleek of pelt, and bushy of tail. At the foot of the ramp, it stopped and smiled winningly at the circle of riot cops and tripod-mounted weapon crews. The riot team stiffened, drawing their armor-shields together with a concerted clack and raising their batons to charge. Safeties clicked off. Gun charges rose with a whine to fire status.
A pause. A terrible tension. A standoff.
“Evening, officers,” said Rocket Raccoon. “What seems to be the problem?”
• CHAPTER TEN •
HANDAR
I AM in what I believe is known as an interview room. On either side of me, at the very rugged maxteel table, are Rocket Raccoon and Groot. Our chairs are composed of very rugged maxteel, as well.
The chamber is entirely inhospitable and spare. The walls are plated in matte-finish maxteel, and the ceiling is an acoustic mesh. To one side, there is a blank window that I am sure is a one-way mirror for observation.
We are on Xandar, in the heart of the Hall of Justice. This is where the Nova Corps heavy cruiser has brought us after seven hours of jump-travel.
I am not nervous, gentle reader, for the very fact that I have no nervous system. But I am, still, apprehensive about this situation.
It is, quite clearly, not a good situation for anyone to be in.
“Let me do the talking,” advises Rocket Raccoon in a tone that suggests that this would be A Good Idea.
The hatch opens. Two people walk in. They are both Nova Centurions in full armor. The hatch closes.
They take their seats opposite us.
They put flat-screen tablets down on the table in front of them, sit back, and remove their helmets, which they also place on the table. One of the Centurions is a muscular Korbinite male. He glares at us, eyes narrowed.
The other is a short, curvaceous Tsyrani female.
“Record on,” she says. “Let the record show Centurion Lolet Clawdi interviewing.”
“Centurion Grekan Yaer interviewing,” the male says.
“Would you identify yourselves?” Clawdi asks us.
“Rocket Raccoon, like I told you already,” Rocket says, eyes down. He is fiddling with a part of the table’s lip that is slightly deformed, as if some previous interviewee has struck it. Or bitten it. In either case, it is not possible for me to tell whether said act is voluntary or involuntary.
“I am a Recorder,” I say in turn. “I am Recorder 127 of the Rigellian Intergalactic Survey.”
“I am Groot,” says Groot.
“Okay, planets of origin?” asks the male Centurion.
“Halfworld,” says Rocket.
“Rigel, essentially,” I reply.
“I am Groot,” says Groot.
I sense, at this point, that there is going to be a problem.
“Planet of origin?” the Korbinite Centurion asks Groot harshly.
“I am Groot.”
“We can play this game all day, buddy,” the Korbinite Centurion replies.
“Planet X,” says Rocket anxiously. “Put Planet X. That’s where he’s from.”
The Korbinite Centurion sighs.
“Explain your activities on Xarth Three,” says the female Centurion.
“Just doing business,” replies Rocket.
“What sort of business?” asks the Korbinite.
“You know…a little of this, a little of that,” replies Rocket Raccoon.
“No, I don’t,” the male Centurion counters gruffly.
“Well, you know…zunk trading, basically.
“Zunk trading?” asks the female.
“Right. But it’s a tough game. A really tough game. A hard market. We didn’t know what we were getting into.”
“Is that why you ran?” asks the male Centurion.
“Well, obviously,” says Rocket Raccoon.
The Korbinite Centurion looks at me.
“Is this correct?” he asks
“Utterly,” I reply. “It is utterly congruent with the details you have presented.”
“What about you?” the male Centurion asks Groot. “What’s your take on this?”
“I am Groot,” Groot replies.
“You, flark-face, are really beginning to rile me up,” growls the male Centurion. “If you’re not going to cooperate, at least say, ‘I refuse to comment,’ okay? Okay?”
“Easy, Grekan,” the female Centurion hisses sidelong.
“Cooperate, all right?” the male Centurion warns Groot.
“I am Groot,” replies Groot sincerely.
The male Centurion thumps the edge of the table angrily. I begin t
o see a possible origin for some of the dents and deformations in the maxteel surface.
“You trying to wind me up, buddy?” the male Centurion asks.
“I am Groot,” Groot responds, aghast.
“Flark!” the male Centurion exclaims.
“Easy!” the female Centurion hisses.
“This joker has to realize what he’s facing here,” the male Centurion says to the female. “The charge list alone could put him in the Kyln for more year-growth rings than he’d care to consider. Add to that failure to cooperate with a formal interview…”
“What would happen then?” Rocket asks, brushing his whiskers with a disconcertingly human-like hand as if he doesn’t really care two hoots about the answer. “What are you saying, big guy? You have ways of making us talk?”
“Less lip from you,” the male Centurion tells Rocket. “Sure, we have ways. Your pal says that again, and I’m going to fetch a chain saw and a wood chipper.”
“Grekan!” the female Centurion warns.
“One last chance,” the male Centurion tells Groot. “What were you doing on Xarth Three, and how come you had to leave in such a d’ast hurry?”
There is a pause. Groot hesitates, leans forward, and looks past me at Rocket plaintively.
“Just tell the truth, buddy,” Rocket says.
Groot sits back. He looks down.
“I am Groot,” he whispers, reluctantly.
“You flark-taking little voidzoid!” the male Centurion cries.
{halt expositional protocol}
—I think, loyal and kindly reader, that this was the point at which I decided to act. It was less out of concern for our terribly compromised situation, and more because I empathized with Groot. I felt his discomfort and helplessness. I also remembered that he and Rocket had, between them, saved me in my hour of need. In several of my hours of need, in fact. I wanted to return the favor.
{resume narrative mode}
“Verbal Abuse of a Detainee,” I say.
“Huh?” the male Centurion says, flicking his angry gaze toward me.
“Verbal Abuse of a Detainee,” I repeat. “Nova Corps Code of Conduct, item 171777454. ‘Detainees shall not be subjected to verbal or physical abuse during interview or custody. Nova Corps officers found guilty of such acts will be subject to penalties including loss of privileges, reprimand, severe reprimand, suspension, demotion, and—in extreme cases—expulsion from the Corps.’”