Dark Space (8 page)

   “He’s heading for the jump
gate,” Shawn said.

   Ramos nodded and then
turned to Shawn. The two men exchanged a wordless stare. They each knew what
needed to be done.

   Ramos turned slightly to
face Weberity. “Order Raven to change speed to three hundred. Intercept.”

   “Aye.”

   Ramos then caught Shawn’s
eye. “The question is,” he added under his breath, “what does she do when she
catches up to him?”

   “Captain, Lieutenant
Santorum has changed course,” Samantha almost shouted. “I think he’s spotted
her.”

   “Range?”

   “They are ten miles apart,
but closing on one another rapidly.”

   “He’s going to engage her?”
Shawn asked in disbelief.

   “Either that or he’s had a
serious change of heart about what he’s doing out there,” Ramos groaned.

   Shawn watched the screen as
the two fighters came closer to one another. “Any chatter?” he asked.

   “Negative,” Flynn
responded. “Raven is hailing, but Nova is silent.”

   “It’s too aggressive,”
Shawn mumbled, “even for Santorum. Something has him spooked, and it’s not just
Raven.”

   Ramos watched closely. The
two fighters would be in weapons range of one another in less than fifteen
seconds. Shawn was right, and every fiber in his being was telling him so.
“Order Raven to disengage, quickly!”

   “Yes, sir,” the
communications officer acknowledged, then began issuing the order to Roslyn
into his headset. “J-R-One-Zero-Zero, this is
Duchess
. Break off your
pursuit. Say again, break off your pursuit. Bandit may be hostile.”

    “Sir!” Samantha shouted.
“Lieutenant Santorum has hot-status. He’s getting a positive sensor lock on
J-R-One-Zero-Zero.”

   Shawn quickly turned to
Weberity. “Get her out of there!”

   “Sir, J-R-One-Zero-Four is
firing missiles,” Samantha continued.

   “J-R-One-Zero-Zero,
evasive!” Weberity shouted. “You have incoming! Repeat, you have incoming!”

   Shawn turned helplessly to
the sensor screen as the missile leapt from Jerry’s Maelstrom and exploded the
second it impacted Roslyn’s fighter.

“In the course of a day,
your lifelong perceptions can most certainly change. I mean, when I got stuck
behind a desk and was up to my knees in paperwork, I thought it was the worst
thing in the universe. Within a day, I was up to my knees in something that
truly
is
the worst
thing in the universe: snow.”

-Shawn
Kestrel

   On the screen, Captain
Ramos and his sensor officer, Lieutenant Samantha Dorsey, watched as Commander
Brunel’s fighter vanished from the scope. Sweat had broken across the captain’s
brow as he wondered what kind of insanity had taken over Lieutenant Jerry
Santorum that he would fire upon his own people with a total disregard for
their lives.

   Although the captain was
just as aware of Nova’s movements as she, Samantha knew it was her duty to
report the latest sensor readings. “We’ve lost J-R-One-Zero-Zero’s signal,
Captain.”

   Ramos’s hand crept up to
cup Samantha’s shoulder. Sitting at her side at the helm console, her close
friend, Lieutenant Ashlee Kidd, looked at her in sadness. Losing a crewman was
never an easy thing for anyone, regardless if one knew that person or not.
Ashlee got the impression that this was the case with respect to Samantha and
Roslyn’s relationship, but losing a shipmate was akin to losing a piece of oneself,
and the young woman felt a twinge of sadness at the news.

   Ramos moved forward slowly,
the heel of his boot tapping against the floor with restrained rage as he
looked out the large forward windows. Nova was far too distant to see with the
naked eye, but the
Duchess’s
finely tuned sensors could track anything
the size of a feather up to a range of eight hundred miles—twice as far if
linked into a satellite network. “What is the position of J-R-One-Zero-Four?”
Ramos asked, his throat suddenly parched.

   “He’s returning to previous
heading,” Samantha reported.

   Ramos nodded. “He’s heading
back toward the jump gate. Shawn—” he began, turning to address the commander
who had been standing beside him a moment before, but Kestrel was gone.

%%%

   As soon as the missile had
impacted with Raven’s ship, Shawn had bolted from the captain’s side on the
bridge. Quickly making his way to the emergency elevator located in a nearby passageway,
Shawn rocketed down to the pilots’ main briefing room. Once there, he put in a
hurried call to his longtime friend and mechanic, Trent Maddox, and told him in
no uncertain terms to meet him in the hangar in five minutes. Grudgingly, as
was the norm with Trent, the mechanic had agreed.

   Donning his flight suit, Shawn
had no real perception of what he was doing. His brain was on autopilot, his
hands moving as if they had a memory of their own as they clasped, zipped, and
tugged at the various pieces of his suit. He was angry, of that there was no
doubt—angrier than he’d ever been in his life. More furious, even, than when he
had discovered his wife had been all but murdered during a Kafaran raid years
ago, this anger was born of something deeper. It wasn’t that he had been lied
to; he had been betrayed. His shipmates had been deceived, and there was no
telling how far that betrayal stretched or how many lives had been jeopardized
or lost over it—or how many would be. It was imperative that Shawn find out the
extent of the subterfuge, no matter the cost. Everyone’s lives could very well
depend on it. It was this resolve that fueled him now, and before he’d even
realized it, he was suited up and ready for flight.

   Grabbing his helmet from
his locker, Shawn was vaguely aware that his name was being called over the
ship’s intercom—a message for him to return to the bridge. Disregarding the
notice, Shawn stepped purposefully from the locker room and into the main
hangar deck. Rushing to the side of one of the Jolly Rogers’ fighters, Shawn
put his identity card to the side of the canopy, and he breathed a sigh of
relief that it opened.
Thank God they haven’t cleared my memory card. This
would have been over before it even started.

   It was then that Trent came
bounding around the corner and hefted himself up to the cockpit as Shawn
strapped himself in. “What’s going on, man?” Trent asked hurriedly.

   Shawn pointed a gloved
finger at the launch door. “I need to get through that door in two minutes.
Make it happen.”

   Trent followed the
direction of the finger, then turned back to Shawn. “Come again?”

   “Get the doors open. How
hard is that to understand?”

   “Umm, begging your pardon,
Commander-sir, but can’t you just request that they be opened from the bridge?”

   “No, I can’t. Just do it.”

   “Do the words ‘highly
illegal’ or ‘court-martial’ mean anything to you?”

   “They would if I cared.
Besides, I know you can hack into the system and do it, so don’t give me that
bull that you can’t. Now, I’m going to put this as bluntly as I can, old buddy:
open the launch bay doors now. That’s an order, Sergeant.”

   Trent could see the
unwavering look in Shawn’s eye, and could tell there was going to be no
dissuading him from his cause. Whatever his reason, Shawn knew what he was
doing—and was willing to accept the consequences for it. Trent, however,
swallowed hard at the thought of peeling potatoes for the rest of his life.
With a slow nod, he agreed to do what was ordered of him. “Sure thing, Skipper.
Good luck.”

   Shawn reached out a hand,
which Trent took without a moment’s hesitation. “Thanks.”

   Four minutes and thirty
seconds later, the launch bay doors opened, and Shawn’s fighter rocketed out
into space to intercept Nova.

   Glancing down to his
computer console, Shawn could easily see that the
Duchess
was trying to
hail him. In truth, he was half-surprised that the carrier hadn’t instantly
overridden his navigational computer to bring his fighter back automatically.
He pondered if opening the channel would press his luck too far, but decided
that—if this was to be the end of his career as he had come to know it—he would
still try to do it by the book. Pressing the switch, he opened a channel to the
Duchess
’s communications system.

   “Go ahead,
Duchess
.
This is Kestrel.”

   “I’d sure like to know what
the hell you’re doing in one of my fighters, mister.” It was Ramos, and he was
far from happy.

   “Just going after our
little problem, sir.” Shawn said, trying to sound both casual and calm,
although he felt neither.

   “You don’t have
authorization for this, Commander. We’ve got two interceptors already on patrol
on the far side of the planet. They’ll be in range in ten minutes. We’re also
launching additional fighters to support them, any they’ll be away in less than
five. That’s more than enough to handle one rogue fighter. Now get your ass
back here on the double, Commander. That’s an order.”

   “I’m already in range.
Besides, Santorum will be long gone before your fighters ever get close.”

   “That’s an opinion, and not
one up for debate, Commander,” Ramos replied angrily. “If you’ve got some
personal vendetta for what he did to Roslyn, let me tell you this: we picked up
a life sign reading from what remains of her craft. We’re sending out a team to
retrieve her as we speak. Now you get back here this instant or you’ll find
yourself on the losing end of my patience, not to mention a court-martial.”

   Shawn breathed a short sigh
of relief, knowing that Roslyn was still alive. Still, that was of little
comfort over what he still needed to do. Nova needed to be brought back, and if
Shawn didn’t act quickly, there wouldn’t be a chance in hell of that happening
.
Once Santorum was through the jump gate he could easily destroy the one at his
end point, sealing any chance of bringing him to justice.

   “I’m sorry, Captain,” Shawn
replied regretfully. “This is something I have to do. I guess that faith you
had in me was misplaced.” Reaching down, he silenced the communications channel
before reaching for the thruster control. With one hand on the control stick,
he pushed the accelerator to full burn, rocking the fighter in a burst of
acceleration that pushed him back into his seat.

   “Full military power cannot
be maintained for much longer, dear,” the synthetic female voice of the
computer chimed in after two minutes.

   Shawn looked down at his
sensors, noting with satisfaction that Nova had just entered his weapons range,
still seemingly oblivious to his pursuer. Flipping on the ship-to-ship, Shawn
opened a channel to him.

   “Jerry, this is Kestrel. I
know you’re in there. Disengage your weapons and return to base.” There was no
answer, and the jump gate was getting dangerously close. “Jerry … don’t make me
open fire on you.” Again Shawn was met with silence. “Computer, charge the
particle cannons.”

   “You got it, baby,” it
replied a second later.

   On the sensor screen, Shawn
watched as two additional fighters came into range.
The interceptors from
the
Duchess
.
Grasping the control stick tightly, Shawn fired a short
burst of rounds that skirted Nova’s Maelstrom. Not close enough to hit him,
they did an admirable job of causing the wayward pilot to veer off from the
jump gate. Still, Nova was a capable pilot, and could get his fighter to turn
on a dime if need be. Shawn figured he had less than sixty seconds to end the
situation before it became critical.

   As if reading Shawn’s
thoughts on the matter, Jerry pivoted his fighter in a one-hundred-eighty-degree
hard turn. For a moment, the two fighters were head to head, and Jerry took the
opportunity to fire a single missile at Shawn.

   Correctly sensing the
maneuver, Shawn veered to port, narrowly avoiding the missile in the process.

   “In case you’re wondering,”
the computer said leisurely, “sensors report J-R-One-Zero-Four is out of
missiles.”

   “It’s a start,” Shawn
mused. He looked to the sensor screen to see that Nova had doubled back on his
original heading. He’d be at the gate in fifteen seconds. “Are his particle
cannons charged?”

   “Affirmative, dear.”

   Shawn pivoted to starboard,
bringing both Nova and the jump gate dead center in his targeting system.
Switching to missiles, Shawn was intent on blowing the jump gate itself into
space dust just as Nova’s navigation computer activated the portal. In a flash
of light, he was gone.

   Shawn had little time to
waste, as the gate’s internal memory would self-wipe in a few short seconds. He
had one chance. Pushing the throttle lever full forward, the Maelstrom once
again rocketed through space. “Computer, activate the jump gate using the last
programmed coordinates in its memory.”

   “Are you sure?” it asked in
a lazy tone. “Wouldn’t you rather go to—”

   The gate quickly filled the
cockpit. In ten seconds it would be all over one way or another. With one hand
on the control stick, he subconsciously put the other one on the ejection
lever—not that it would do him any good at his rate of speed. “Just do it! Now!
Activate the—”

   “Fine, dear. Don’t get your
underwear in—” the computer began just as a brilliant light flashed all around
the fighter.

%%%

   “—a wad,” the computer
finished after the Maelstrom emerged from the destination portal.

   Shawn’s eyes quickly
adjusted to his surroundings. It wasn’t often that fighters were authorized to utilize
jump gates. The fragility of their craft made such journeys tenuous at best,
usually approved only in emergency situations. As Shawn looked down to the myriad
of computer readouts he was receiving, he could understand why.

   Most importantly, his
fusion core was empty. That meant that not only could he not jump back to where
the
Duchess of York
and the fleet was, but that the remainder of his
maneuvering would be on solid fuel only. In a combat situation—as he was in
now—that would afford him about thirty minutes of powered flight. After that,
the batteries would kick in.

   Unfortunately, their power
had been halved. Any reserves he could normally tap into in an emergency were
useless. The long-range transmitter antenna was a pile of junk, and the
automatic landing systems operation was dubious at best. The only saving grace
was that, very likely, Santorum’s fighter would be in the same shape. That
meant that Nova was somewhere nearby—wherever Shawn was.  Thankful he hadn’t
materialized in some backwater asteroid field, Shawn accessed the sensors and
tried to get a quick overview of his immediate surroundings. A moment later he
was greeted with limited, but useful, information.

  
At least the sensors
still work.

  
On the small readout, Shawn saw the
overview of a nine-planet system, with a white-dwarf star at its center. The
name of the system, Mardron, was flashing in bold text above the diagram. The
fifth planet was habitable, if you enjoyed the idea of living on a giant
snowball. All the others were either enormous rocks or gas giants. He didn’t
take the time to count the total number of satellites in the system, but
guessed there were dozens.