Death Drop (42 page)

“You’re proving to be quite a nuisance, Ghost,” the portmaster grumbled in her ear, “but you’re only delaying the inevitable! Your pathetic hacker is an amateur. He’ll never crack the gate, and I’ll force you down or you’ll run out of fuel or ammunition and then I’ll have my prize—you’re trapped, Ghost!”

“I thought you would’ve learned your lesson in The Boneyard,” Dezmara said. “You should pay more attention to what you’re doin’ and less time talkin’ shit—I’m almost through your encryption while you’re busy runnin’ your fat mouth.” Dezmara bluffed. She was angry that the portmaster was so confident, and that Simon hadn’t radioed back yet to say the gate was open and they were going to live. She was angry and she wanted to remind him of the stinging blow she had dealt him and his preacher-bot in this game to the death. But the portmaster understood the value of psychology in warfare and he was slowly figuring out how to get to Dezmara.

“And now you’ve left your precious cargo behind—aw, that’s too bad. Tell me, Ghost, how does it feel to know that even if you manage to escape from Luxon, you won’t be the number one runner anymore, eh? You’ll be a
lighter.
Hahaha! I think knowing that I ended the winning streak of the mighty Ghost will be more satisfying than when I kill you!”

The portmaster laughed on and Dezmara slapped the side of the kranos in frustration. He was smug and he had good reason to be: he was right. If Simon didn’t open that gate, it was all over; and if he did somehow manage to crack the encryption, Dezmara needed to get that container. Missing cargo, even a fraction, could ruin a runner. Not only would the ringer in charge of setting up the run levy a huge penalty, but once it was rumored that a runner ‘came in light,’ they’d never be used to transport goods again. Nobody with anything valuable to ship would trust his livelihood to a lighter.

“Where we at, Sy?”

“If you could do somethin’ to distract ‘im, that’d be a great help, luv!”

“I’m way ahead of you,” she said, and with a tap of the controls on the side of her helmet, the
Ghost
opened fire on the closest dock. Floor panels shredded and buckled as the slugs withered support beams and snapped tower cables like they were string. The dock leaned to one side and pitched the landing pad at its end so it tilted almost ninety degrees and then it paused for a moment, clinging desperately to the mountain by centuries of dirt, rust, and acquaintance before sounding a wounded groan and tumbling into the darkness below.

“AAARRRGGG, NO! You goddam bastard!” the portmaster screeched at the top of his lungs as Dezmara blasted the next dock.

“Tell me, asshole—how hard will it be robbing travelers with all of your docks lying at the bottom of this pit?” Dezmara paused for emphasis as the ship’s guns shrieked and the next dock frayed and crumbled into twisted, jagged pieces and then vanished. She could hear the portmaster’s erratic breathing on the other side of the connection and every knifing rasp seethed with spittle and hatred. “And how long will it take ‘til you’re back in business, eh? I mean, it’ll take months, maybe even years to get the materials—not to mention construction. And the cost—
whew
—it’s crazy!” Dezmara poured on the sarcasm; after all, if it was going to be her last smart-ass performance, she wanted to make sure it was a good one. From the curses streaming non-stop from the other end of the com, she knew she had accomplished her goal.

“That’s it, you sonofabitch. You’re dead!” said the portmaster.

“You know, I think knowing that I cost you your entire operation murdering unsuspecting travelers and stealing their cargo will be more satisfying than killing you—
maybe
.”

“You’re dead, do you hear me?! YOU’RE DEAD!” The receiver in the kranos couldn’t process the volume of the portmaster’s rabid cries, and it crackled painfully in Dezmara’s ear. Her head jerked to one side before the slap of her hand killed the transmission. The smallest beginnings of a self-satisfied smirk tingled warmly around the tops and outsides of her cheeks, but before the feeling could materialize into a conceited laugh, the kranos flashed a warning and a diagram of a new threat rotated on the right side of her display. They were fighters—ultra-maneuverable and armed to the teeth. Five of the small craft buzzed from a hangar door beneath one of the remaining docks and swarmed after them.

“Luv, we’ve got comp’ny!”

“I know, Simon. Just get that damn gate open!”

The
Ghost
was more powerful and better armed than the little fighters, and in open space Dezmara could have reduced the whole squadron to dust with a few twists of the control stick and a flick of her trigger finger. But inside the cramped dockyard of Luxon, the smaller ships had the upper hand. Dezmara hoped it would take them a little while to figure out that if they hugged the mountainside as they pursued, they could easily shoot the
Ghost
from the inside position and use their superior agility to avoid her guns.

“So far, so good,” Dezmara said as the five little aircraft pulled into attack formation directly behind them. She checked the time until the next pass over the cargo container and then pressed the button in the center of her left vambrace. She had barely lifted the shield into position when the lead fighter let loose with a hail of bullets. The large caliber slugs slammed into the shield so hard that her teeth rattled, and it felt like a star freighter had plowed into the left side of her body at full speed.

“Sonofabitch!” she hollered as she tapped the kranos and returned fire with the
Ghost’s
aft guns. She wasn’t lucky enough to hit any of them, but the salvo sent the little fighters scattering for a moment—swerving and weaving in righteous fear for the heavy artillery aimed in their direction—before they regrouped again.

The lead pilot got wise and Dezmara watched helplessly as he ducked his fighter to the inside of the tower on dock five. She was telling herself that it wasn’t so bad, that she could deal with it, but then she stopped abruptly. Dezmara shook her head as two more ships fell into position behind him. She’d hoped they wouldn’t figure it out until the cargo was on board, but it was too late and she didn’t have a back-up plan. The kranos announced the approach of dock six, and she had to get ready to load the container in mid flight while being chased and shot at by a squadron of enemy ships with superior positioning; after that, it was up to Simon and lady luck. She fired the
Ghost’s
big guns at the leader and then jerked her autos from their holsters and peppered the two fighters racing behind her. The luck she hoped for made a sudden and grand entrance, shining in brilliant orange and red as the lead ship in the inside position burst into flames and caromed off the stony, carved spires on the mountain and then plunged into the abyss.

The commotion of the attack and the downed fighter frazzled the remaining pilots, and they didn’t rejoin formation—just as Dezmara hoped. The container passed below and her timing couldn’t have been more perfect. With the fighters still scrambling, she picked up the tethered rifles and rested a butt against either shoulder. As she took aim at the loading pins on either side of the long, rectangular container, she could see the attack squadron forming again in the distance and she knew she was an easy target, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t face the shield forward while aiming the rifles and she didn’t have a free hand to operate the controls for the ship’s guns. Radioing Simon and asking him to fire would break both of their concentration and each of their tasks was dire—there simply wasn’t any time. Dezmara knew that a single shot into the open cargo bay would cut her in half and there were four fighters lining up their sights, poised and ready to shoot.

Gunfire exploded in the cargo bay, followed by the zip of unfurling cables as the bulbous projectiles hurtled toward the dock. Midway through their flight, a sharp tip extended from each spheroid, transforming the strange ammunition into speeding harpoons. The spears pierced the cargo box and multiple barbs snapped out from the pointed shaft, digging into the container on the back side. Dezmara tumbled to the deck and slid toward the edge of the open door as the tail end of the
Ghost
dropped suddenly. The engines let out a sluggish moan under the added weight of the load as machine gun fire slapped the containers where she had been standing just an instant before. As she slid quickly down the now almost vertical ramp, she could see the tethered container swaying below her and the dockyard beyond that. The nose of the ship pitched higher and she no longer felt the friction of her flight suit against the alloy of the deck slowing her descent—she was in free fall.

Her body jerked and the harness around her waist and hips dug into her skin as the winch cable snapped taut. Her boots dangled over the lip of the door before her backside slammed into the floor behind her.

“Bloody hell! You all right, luv?!”

“Never better!” Dezmara said as the fighters moved in on their significantly slower-moving target.

The lead ship was so close, she could see the pilot’s crooked smile as he lined up his guns and flicked out his trigger finger. Dezmara waved goodbye with one hand and tapped the kranos with the other. The
Ghost
lurched upward and then quickly leveled out, whipping the cargo container streaming behind it like an enormous wrecking ball. The decrease in speed had lured the two bogeys behind them closer, and now they would pay for their greed. Dezmara sat up off the floor just in time to see the cables attached to the swinging container dissect the small gunship closest to them into thirds. The wings fell away from the center section of the fuselage, and Dezmara could see the confusion on the pilot’s face turn to terror as he spiraled away and slammed into the outer wall of the dockyard.

The second attacker caught the full force of the battering ram container on the belly. The nose of the little vessel was wrenched skyward and it drifted horizontally. For a brief moment, it looked like an odd bird flaring its wings and readying itself to perch on the nearest ledge or outcropping, but then the craft’s engines coughed and sputtered as it stalled; then it fell like a stone.
“Three down…”
Dezmara thought optimistically, but there was no time for celebrating. Fire from the two remaining bandits still hugging the mountain clapped at the rear of the ship. The portmaster and his goons didn’t have to destroy the
Ghost
to win the game—a breached hull would make it almost impossible to escape into space, even if Simon opened the gate. Dezmara had to destroy the last two fighters or they were doomed. There wasn’t enough room to maneuver, but she had no choice.

“Hang on, Sy!” she shouted as she swerved the ship dangerously close to the mountainside.

“’Oly shite, luv! What in the bloody blazes do you think you’re doin’?! We were too close as it was!”

“Shut up and let me fly!” she yelled over the echo of the engines now bouncing off of the rocks and careening through the hold around her. She was the best pilot in the universe, but she was starting to have doubts. Simon’s warning burned in her ears and her heart leapt into her throat as she watched the cargo float past and drift toward the mountain. A spray of rock and dust exploded into the air with a crunch as the edge of the metal box barreled into a buttress flanking one of the dockyard doors. The container was now a giant anchor and the back end of the
Ghost
fishtailed wildly, sliding toward the unmovable rock just inches away.

“Shit!” screamed Dezmara as she pounded the kranos and pushed the throttles to their stops. The tail of the ship whipped in the opposite direction, and Dezmara was already overcorrecting to straighten their flight path as the load swung past again and smashed into one of the dock towers that were still standing. The corroded metal of the tower crumpled from the impact and the twisted dock below, pulled by the tremendous force of the speeding Zebulon, snapped free from the mountain like a decayed, gnarled branch. The ship was still swaying and shaking as Dezmara edged it closer to the mountain again and opened fire on the two fighters still chasing them. They shot back, but Dezmara’s daredevil tactics were paying off—she was matching their position closely enough to make the
Ghost’s
guns effective again—and the warplane in the lead was shredded.

“Four down!” Dezmara cheered through the com. “Now, if this last jerk-off knows what’s best for him, he’ll pack it up and” Black smoke curled in the wake of his fighter as the remaining pilot barrel-rolled away from the mountain through the dark smoke billowing up from the remains of the fallen ship. He was running the same game from the outside and Dezmara had only a fraction of a second to counter his move before he opened fire. She swung the ship wide to mirror his position and fired a salvo, but the nimble craft dodged the bullets easily, avoiding the barrage with a taunting display of acrobatic spins.

“Why, you little sandbaggin’ sonofa…” Dezmara cursed. The pilot was good and he had waited to see what the bigger, less maneuverable space-hauler could do inside the dockyard. Now that he had seen the extent of Dezmara’s tactics, he moved in for the death stroke. A nauseated feeling sickened her stomach as the fighter pilot positioned himself on the back side of the container gently bobbing through the air behind the open cargo door. If the portmaster hadn’t already told him, the enemy pilot had certainly seen enough to know how important the freight must be to Dezmara, and he was using it to his full advantage—firing machine gun bursts over the top of the floating box and then dropping behind it for cover. He had a shield now too, and although it wasn’t entirely impenetrable, it didn’t need to stop bullets. The pilot knew Dezmara wouldn’t fire at him for the very same reason she couldn’t risk any more shots making it into the hold—damaged cargo was just as bad as missing cargo.

“Hahaha!” the portmaster laughed maniacally. “It looks like my pilot friend has you in quite the dilemma, Ghost—destroy his ship and you destroy the cargo; don’t destroy his ship and he’ll destroy your cargo! There’s nothing left for you to do, Ghost, I’ve beaten you! You can give up and die like a coward—tortured and begging for my mercy—or you can try to be a hero and watch your livelihood get torn to shreds. Either way, I win and you die. And I have to say, now that it’s all over, I expected more from the
mighty
Ghost!