The Last Horizon (9 page)

Suddenly, the cabin filled with a bright flicker of orange light followed by the sound of thunder as a warhead detonated a thousand meters in front of us. The
Zephyr shuddered and the cabin lights blinked on and off as we were jostled hard against our seats. We could hear the clatter of debris slamming against the fuselage as we flew through the shrapnel.

“Damn it!” I shouted angrily as I clutched the yoke and stabilized the
Zephyr.

“Are we hit?”

“I don’t see any breach in our hull!” I glowered as I looked at the diagnostic panel for red blinking lights. “That was close!”

Another transmission from the Moria piped over the cast, “Blue
Zephyr, power down and surrender your ship or we will fire on you again!”

“I knew it!” The probe showed that the Moria had fired-up its engines and began to turn in our direction. “Hang on, it’s time to turn-n-burn. I’m going to try to out run them!”

“Blue Zephyr, you cannot escape. Power down and prepare to be boarded.”

Getting hijacked is
one thing, but what the pirates would do to a female if they captured me was another. “Captain Seinz, why don’t you pack five pounds of sodium azide in the crack of your ass and get blistered!” I growled as I punched an overdrive button and launched us into spontaneous hypersonic flight.

“You just signed your own death warrant, pilot!”
Seinz snarled. “I’m going to skin you alive and roll you in salt. Before I’m done, you will be begging me to put an end to your pitiful life!”

“That ship’s fast!” I hissed as I looked at the vector scanner to get a fix on their position. “They just went hypersonic.”

“Don’t you have any weapons systems to protect yourself?”

“We’re a civi
lian freighter,” I was about to tell Scotty about the Bokka but decided against it for now, “we have to rely on Fleet or ISP officers to defend us from parasites like Seinz.”

“And we’re an illegal flight so...”

“…so we’re as lawless as they are and basically shit out of luck.”

We almost had a hundred and fifty
mile lead, but the Moria was closing on us fast. I accelerated and hoped we could put enough distance between us to discourage a pursuit. If I extended the sonic drive shrouds to shield the magnetic trace from the spawnsons, they would smother the magnetic fields the drives needed to maximize our speed. I kept the canopy’s particle heat shield up so I could actually see what was in front of us as we blazed through the chill of deep space.

“We’re still two days out from Tal-Seti, but we can definitely shake them off our ass if we can reach the Ceres Vesta belt.”

“Okay, do what you have to do.” Scotty replied through clenched teeth.

“I was figuring on maxing 2.8 HsD but we’re going to have to push the drives harder. You’d better tighten your harness,
Scotty, I’m going to burn the pipe and try to knock a few more hours off our flight time.”

“How fast can your ship go?”

“I can get 4.5 HsD, but the Zephyr can’t maintain that speed for too long or the cryogen squelch piping will rupture and we’ll burn-out the inter-coolers.”

“Then what happens?”

“Then we’re a dead stick. We may as well initiate the self-destruct sequence and vaporize ourselves before Seinz gets to us.”

“I don’t think we’ve got much of a choice, Nikki.
You’re going to have to push the Zephyr.”

“He’s pissed.”
I snickered softly as I bit my lower lip and gave Scotty an embarrassed look.

“You think? You told him to pack his ass.” Scotty smiled.

“He fired on us then threatened to skin me alive! Not exactly the kind of thing a girl likes to hear during the holidays.”

“Do you always get in this much trouble, Nikki?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“
I mean first it was that guy at Kurlie’s bar, now you’ve got this Seinz in love with you…”

“
Okay, so I’m having a bad week,” I feigned angrily as I tried to keep a straight face, “you may want to tread lightly, Scotty, I’m not above lobbing an insult your direction to keep you in your place.”

“You’re all heart
.” Scotty smiled widely as he turned his attention back to the view outside the canopy.

“We’
re at 3.2 now. I’m hoping Seinz isn’t going to be able to keep up with us .”

“What if he can?
”

“He needs to be able to
see us first. Any vector scan or IMF probe he does will be a waste of time, we’re shielded electronically. If he tries to get a thermal image on our heat signature he’ll be out of luck. We’re purely hypersonic--have been since I shut down the thrusters when we cleared Earth’s gravitational pull, so he can’t track us by infra-red. We also don’t leave any ion or radiation trails because the Zephyr has magnetic drives. The only two ways Seinz could track us is if the Moria can zero-in on our drive’s magnetic emissions or he actually gets a visual on us.”

“How visible is our magnetic trail?”

“There are a lot of things floating around out there that have magnetic fields--meteorites, asteroids, charged particles in the solar winds, not to mention plasma streams and transient energies. Seinz would have to ferret the Zephyr’s profile out of that fodder and get within a hundred mile radius to get an accurate reading on our course, but then again…”

“But then again—what?”

I sighed. “I’ve seen a lot of things since I’ve been in the business. Black market techies are willing to make just about anything if you’ve got the cash or credit to pay them off…no questions asked propositions. God only knows what kind of systems the Moria has onboard and where he got them.” I shook my head with disdain and exhaled. “I farking hate pirates.”

“Is there a difference between bandits and pirates?”

“Bandits steal. Pirates kill.”

I held our trajectory
steady and kept an eye on the scanner for the Moria Balá as we pushed into the infinite sub-zero blackness toward the Pipe. Thousands of light years ahead, the vast blue and orange beauty of the Lucky CN 1051 Nebula filled the cockpit canopy. The central star pulsed with a rhythm as if the birth of another solar system was being announced to the rest of the universe.

“Tell me about
Nexus. Kurlie said you knew the planet like the back of your hand.”

“What do you want to know? Demographics?”

“I was thinking along the lines of night life. You know, dance clubs, parties, shows…”

“Nikki, do I look like the type of guy that goes to dance clubs?”

“You never know about a person, you don’t exactly fit the profile of anyone that would do business with Kurlie, either.”

“I think you’ll love it there. The days are thirty-six hours long, so you’ll have plenty of time to recover from any of the festivities you plan to attend.”

“Once this drop is made, I’ll refuel and tune-up the Zephyr for the trip back, it usually takes about two days depending on how much particle damage there is on the hull.”

“Are you going to need help with that?”

“Nah, it’s not that big a deal most of the time, and I can usually hire a mechanic for the heavier work if one of the larger panels needs to be replaced.”

“Let me know if you want to share the repair costs.”

“Thanks, Scotty.” I smiled warmly as I glanced at him. I was really starting to like this guy. “When I’m done, I’d like to hang back for a few days to rest before we start back to Earth. You know, poke around Nexus and get a feel for the culture.”

“When do you want to leave
?”

“
We arrive in Fluture on Tuesday morning at 0530. Meet me back at the Inter-port on Sunday the 29
th
at the same time, I want to get an early start home. Will that give you enough time to take care of your business?”

“
Perfect, you’ve got a deal.”

“Get some rest, Scotty.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve got a ship to fly. No sleep for the wicked.”

T
he hours stretched out in ragged strands coiled with apprehension. I was worried about Seinz, I’ve encountered hijackers before, but they’ve never been able to put the fear in me like this guy--even without knowing what he looked like, he frightened me. Yes, his threats were barbaric and unsettling, but it wasn’t limited to what he said, it was in how he said it. Call it a woman’s intuition, but there was just something in his voice that set my internal alarm off and terrified me. It seemed to change the energy that surrounded us--it was dark, soulless, and reptilian. I had a feeling that vaporizing me wouldn’t satisfy Seinz. No, he struck me as a sadist that wanted more from his victims. He wants to see them suffer, writhe, and beg.

Another cause for concern was t
he Moria’s speed, she looked like a formidable ship, and I’ve never seen a vessel that size move so fast; and last but not least, the missile he fired at us; judging from the burst, it had to be a military grade warhead. God only knows how and where he got ordnance like that and what else he had in his arsenal.

I edged the
Zephyr closer to her maximum speed and held her there for a couple of hours then backed-off the drives before they squelched. I rubbed my eyes and yawned. I couldn’t remember ever being so tired on any journey.

As we neared the Ceres Vesta ast
eroid belt, the instrument panel twittered three times. “Damn!” I cussed raptly as I shot a look at the vector scanner.

  
“What’s wrong?” Scotty snapped awake and clutched the armrests of his chair.

   “As if we didn’t have enough problems,” I pointed at the monitor, “see those four red dots blipping ahead of us?”

  
“What are they?”

  
“I can’t tell yet, give the scanner a minute to get us a profile. They may be harmless navigation buoys based on their spacing. They’re just in our path for now.”

  
I exhaled as the computer began constructing a model of the crafts ahead, then turned my attention on tracker to see where the Moria was positioned.

  
“Eighty miles and closing.” I clenched my teeth hard and frowned. “Seinz is on our trajectory.”

   “Nikki, what the hell are those things in front of us?” Scotty scowled as he stared at the monitor at the
rotating 3D images. The VDU revealed four unmanned crafts, each with armored dome fuselages twenty feet in diameter and six segmented tentacles trailing forty feet behind them.

   “
Oh that’s just great, Serenian terminus drones. Seekers.”

   “How far are they?”

   “Hundred and twenty miles out, but I’m going to draw them in.”

   “WHAT?”

   “You heard me. Look, Seinz is gaining on us and we’re less than two hours away from Ceres Vesta. I don’t think we’re going to be able to outrun him.” I pointed at the vector scanner and the VDU.  “I’ve got a plan, we get those Seekers and the Moria to zero-in on us, if I time it right, maybe we can get the drones to go after Seinz’s ship and we can slip through.”

   “Risky.”
Scott sighed as he rubbed his brow.

   “It’s our only chance.
We need to disable the Moria or we’ll never make it to the Pipe.”

   “Okay, Nikki, I trust your
judgment.”

   “One more thing, Scotty.”

   “What’s that?”

   “
Seinz doesn’t know you’re here, as far as he’s concerned, I’m the only one on board. If this doesn’t work and he boards us,” I looked over at Scotty grimly, “there’s an epod in the cargo hold, I want you to get in and eject. I’ll keep them distracted while you get away. The auto-pilot is enabled by default and should get you to the lanes. You should get picked up by a freighter.”

  
“And what are you going to do?”

   “
I’ve got the shuttle,” I lied, “I’ll get out  when I get the chance.”

   “If not?”

   “Captain goes down with the ship. It’s an old, unspoken code of honor. Once Seinz is on board I’ll blow-up the Zephyr and take him with me into the afterlife in a blaze of glory.”