Resolution (65 page)

Come on.
Dirk’s heart beat faster.
The danger must be outside.

The ship’s control cabin smelled new, a mixed scent of organics and metal. The seat, adjusting itself to Kian’s form, felt both solid and oily as it morphed.

I’m not scared.

Status displays billowed: phase spaces and graphs, number-grids and vector-arrows enumerating a myriad subsystem values. And that was merely the top-level overview of an immensely complicated craft.

I’m bloody terrified.

Diagnostics scrolled through a dozen holos. Kian shut his eyes.

What does my blood pressure look like now?

If he asked the question aloud, someone in the control tower would answer him. They could probably say how likely he was to piss himself before take-off.

‘How long is this going to take?’

The answer came back straight away:
‘Not long now, Pilot Candidate McNamara. Hold on to your horses.’

‘Yee-ha, roger that.’

And I hope to Christ Dirk works out what’s happening.

The scent of Kian’s sweat strengthened in the cabin.

In a ground-level bay, heavy outer doors were sliding shut.

‘Hey! You can’t—’

Golden sparks glimmered in Dirk’s eyes.

The doors screeched, halted, leaving a narrow gap.

‘What the goddamn hell?’

He squeezed through.

The hot air was hammering down. The great ship was gleaming.

Dirk ran towards the runway.

Up in the control tower, Deirdre stood next to Chief Controller Bratko. From here, through blue-tinted windows, the poised ship was deep-bronze banded with darkness: the green-blue ceramic appeared almost black.

‘—clearing you to go,’ said one of the controllers.

At the ship’s rear, the engines increased power - pale flames expanding into nova-white brightness - while the vessel rocked on its undercarriage, straining against the brakes which kept it bound to Terra.

‘My God,’ breathed Deirdre. ‘Will you look at that.’

‘Makes my heart thud’ - Bratko touched his bulky chest - ‘every single time.’

Then he was leaning forward as two of the controllers rose from their seats, pointing at the small figure streaking across the tarmac, running towards the ship.

‘Who the hell is—?’

‘Dirk.’ Deirdre’s voice was unnaturally calm. ‘Something’s wrong.’

Bratko spun fast despite his heaviness.

‘Shut down. Immediate shut down.’

There was a moment’s silence as fingers danced in control displays, voices muttered commands. Then a young-looking controller rotated her chair and looked at Bratko.

‘No response. Main thruster’s still burning.’

‘Shit.’

At the control room’s rear, Solly was shaking, wiping large runnels of sweat from his forehead.

Come on, Dirk.

Deirdre’s attention was all on the running figure below.

Come on.

In the ship’s control couch, Kian closed his eyes.

‘Pulse engines are go.’

The great roar, however muted by protective insulation, was deep and massive behind him. Status displays brightened as the ship gathered its power, strained against the leash.

Then something shifted at the edge of Kian’s awareness, in the twilight between subconsciousness and thought.

Dirk?

It was a kind of distant movement that he could not see but
felt.

‘Control? Come in, control.’

No reply.

‘Onboard command: shutdown-shutdown-shutdown.’

Nothing.

Behind him the engines’ power continued to build.

Dirk could sense it, where the starboard delta-wing met the fuselage: a tugging against the natural flux, a warp in the rising energies that overrode system commands while blazing starfire brightened at the vessel’s tail.

Hang on, Kian.

Running faster along the runway, getting closer.

I can feel you now, you bastard.

It was a definite presence inside the wing. Insulated in the Pilot’s cabin, Kian would be sitting above the huge energies growing in the vessel, shielded from the tiny malevolent presence that did not belong on a well-ordered ship.

A bomb?

Getting closer.

I
can see the access hatch.

But the roar was palpable, shaking the air, and it was hard to breathe this close to the titanic engines.

No.

Percussive waves slapped Dirk to the ground.

Damn it... No.

On hands and knees, he hung his head, blood dripping to the tarmac. Then he looked up at the wing, where the device was hidden, and began to concentrate. Golden lights danced in the blackness of his eyes.

Where are you?

It was not enough to sense its presence: he must go inside, parse its internal complexity and hold the thing in place.

There?

Questing.

Yes, there.

Now Dirk’s eyes held a steady yellow glow like a wolf caught in headlights.

Got you.

The device had intelligence. Its counteroffensive modules activated, trying to regain control, but Dirk’s focused power beat them down.

Got you, motherfucker.

A hatch popped atop the vessel. Kian clambered half out, stopped with one leg dangling against the hull.

Jesus, Dirk.

Concentrating.

I’m with you.