The Rings of Haven (22 page)

A moment later, Josh’s voice came over Cameron’s comm-set.
“What can I do for ya, love?”

Cameron rolled her eyes at the cocky pilot’s attitude. “We’ve got people on the surface, presumably with no way back up. Think one of your shuttles could go down and get them, really quickly?”

“How quick we talking?”

“Thirty minutes, max?”

“I’m guessing your hurry has something to do with that Ta’Akar battle cruiser heading our way?”

“That would be a good guess.”

“Sorry, but the second shuttle’s all shot up, and it’s blocking the first one from launching. Maybe if we had more time to move it—”

“What about your ship?” Cameron interrupted. “Can you still launch?”

“Sure, but how many people we talking about? I’m made for scooping up rocks, not hauling passengers.”

“Four or five?”

“Yeah, I guess I can squeeze them in. So long as they don’t mind a bumpy ride. This thing’s not built for comfort, you know.”

“Great,” Cameron exclaimed. “But how much is it going to cost me?”

“You can buy me dinner,”
Josh suggested playfully.

“I’m sure we can figure out some manner of payment. But I think I should warn you, there may be some trouble at the pick-up point.”

“Then make it two dinners!”

“How soon can you depart?” she asked, ignoring his solicitations.

“I’ll be wheels up in a few minutes, love. Just send me their coordinates.”

“Thanks, Josh,” she told him. “And good luck.”

The harvester began quickly backing out of the hangar bay, headed for the transfer airlock at a rate slightly faster than normal. The helmeted pilot, his faceplate still hiding his facial features, constantly rotated his head from side to side as well as looking down at his consoles as he tried to keep from hitting anything in the chaotic aftermath of the earlier boarding attempt.

“Any luck contacting them?” Cameron asked the comm officer.

“No, sir. I’m pretty sure someone is jamming communications on the surface.”

“The harvester is rolling onto the flight deck now, Commander,” Ensign Mendez reported from the tactical station.

“Warn the pilot about the comm-jamming going on down there,” she ordered Mendez.

The harvester continued to roll quickly backwards as it came out of the transfer airlock and out onto the open flight deck. It immediately applied slight upward thrust, its gear retracting as soon as it left the deck. Another short burst shooting forward from braking thrusters embedded in the harvester’s nose caused it to float back away from the ship more quickly. Applying side thrust, the little ship quickly slid to the right, clearing the ship just before the large drive section was about to slam into it from behind. As it cleared the side of the ship, it snap-rolled to the right and swung its nose down, firing its main engines at full thrust as it accelerated quickly away from the Aurora on its journey to the moon below.

“The harvester’s away,” Mendez chuckled. “Damn that guy—”

“Flies like a nut,” Cameron finished. “Yeah, I know. But that nut’s the only hope they’ve got right now.”

* * *

Nathan continued looking out the broken front window of the main house. The air outside was still thick with black and gray smoke from the burning wreckage of Tobin’s ship, less than a dozen meters away. Thankfully, there had been no more shots fired at them by the snipers since they had made it inside the house. “What the hell are they waiting for?”

Deliza sat in the corner, holding her younger sister in her lap, keeping her little head against her chest to keep her from staring at her mother’s corpse on the living room floor. Jalea knelt beside them, trying to calm the child.

“Reinforcements,” Vladimir suggested.

“Yes,” Jalea agreed, rising from the girls to move back toward the others at the windows. “They must be coming from elsewhere—a ship in orbit, perhaps—or they’d already be upon us.”

Nathan looked outside again, trying to see the snipers through the smoke. “If we could just get past those snipers, we might be able to make our way back to town on foot, maybe find another way off this moon and back to the ship.”

“I expect there is a Ta’Akar ship nearby,” Jalea advised him. “If so…”

“…then the Aurora’s got her own problems to deal with,” Nathan surmised. “Hell, they’ve probably already jumped away.”

“You worry too much, Nathan,” Vladimir said. “They will come for us. You will see.”

“God, I hope you’re right.”

Suddenly, the snipers began firing through the windows. Blasts of energy broke through the remaining glass, slamming into floors and furniture, sending splinters flying in all directions and charring everything they struck. Jalea grabbed the girls, dragging them down to the floor and pushing them into the corner tucked in behind a cabinet.

Vladimir scrambled on his hands and knees to the side window and began firing blindly toward the ridge line with his hand gun, hoping he’d get lucky and hit one of the snipers. Following his friend’s example, Nathan scrambled to the opposite side and did the same.

Moments later, the shuttle began firing its pulse cannon at the main house. Each blast tore through the roof, passing through the upper floor and breaking through the ceiling above them, bringing a shower of debris down on top of them with every blast. The young girls screamed with each blast.

“Jesus!” Nathan yelled. He had little doubt that they were all about to be either buried in a pile of burning debris or completely vaporized.

“They’re trying to drive us out into the open!” Vladimir replied. “To force us to surrender!”

“By bombing the crap out of us?” Nathan asked as he continued firing wildly out the window.

One of the main beams cracked and bowed downward, bringing more debris from the ceiling above. With the following blast, the beam split completely, crashing to the floor narrowly missing Vladimir.

“We’ve gotta get outta here!” Nathan hollered, scrambling across the shattered living room toward the kitchen. “Through the back!”

As if the shuttle’s gunner had heard him, the next few salvos impacted the back half of the house, collapsing the kitchen roof. Nathan opened the kitchen door just in time to see the ceiling come crashing down, dust and debris bouncing up into his face in the doorway, knocking him backward into the living room. “Guess not!”

Josh looked out the forward windshield over the nose of the harvester as it raced along less than fifteen meters above the surface of the Haven countryside. In the distance, maybe twenty kilometers in front of them, he could see the pillar of black smoke rising from the surface, spreading to the right as it rose into the sky.

“Twenty seconds out,” his co-pilot, Loki, reported over the whine of the engines. The two of them had been flying the harvester together for nearly six months, ever since Josh had first arrived on Haven.

“Volander landing party, Harvester. Do you copy?” Josh waited a few seconds for an answer, but got none. “Guess we’re gonna have to surprise them,” he smiled.

Loki tightened the shoulder straps on his flight harness. Although Josh was an amazing pilot, he had a tendency to do things without warning. “You sure you wanna go in so fast, Josh?”

“This’ll have to do,” Josh chuckled.

As the distance closed, they could begin to make out the shape of the enemy shuttle as it circled over the sinkhole, firing its pulse cannon at targets below.

“Pulse cannons,” Loki pointed out.

“I see them.”

“I’m assuming you’ve got a plan?”

Josh said nothing, only clucked like a chicken.

“Great,” Loki said, grabbing the hand-holds on the top edges of the front and side consoles to brace himself. He knew what was coming, and he knew from experience that he’d best hold on tight.

As they rapidly closed on the enemy shuttle, it continued its slow circle, turning toward the oncoming harvester.

“Oh shit!” Loki cried.

For a brief moment, Loki was sure he could see the faces of the flight crew on the shuttle as it suddenly rolled sharply to its right to avoid colliding with the onrushing harvester. Josh immediately rolled slightly opposite the enemy ship, pulling his nose up ever so slightly to send his ship into a tight, high-g turn. “YES!” he cried out in victory. “I NEVER FLINCH!”

The enemy shuttle did not pull his nose up as he rolled, which resulted in a sudden loss of altitude bringing him below the top of the sinkhole and sending him diving toward its wall.

Inside the main house, the sound of the harvester rocketing by at high velocity shook the entire structure, knocking them off their feet. For a brief moment, they were deafened by the roar of the harvester’s main drive as it blew past them at incredible speed.

“What the hell was that?” Nathan wondered as he picked himself up, noticing that the bombardment had stopped. A moment later the ground shook once more as a tremendous crash came from outside. Nathan spun around to look out the windows. Through the smoke he could barely make out the image of the enemy shuttle as it slammed into the side of the sinkhole, falling into the greenhouse below before exploding.

“Holy shit!”

“Volander landing party, Harvester. Do you copy?”
The voice coming over his comm-set was unfamiliar to him, but Nathan answered the hail nonetheless.

“This is Captain Scott! Who’s calling?”

“It’s your ride, Captain! That sweet little commander of yours sent us to bring you home!”

“Sweet little commander?” Vladimir wondered.

“He must be talking about Cameron,” Nathan said.

“Great!” Nathan told him over the comms. “How did you take out that shuttle?”

“No time to chit-chat, Captain. I’ve gotta deal with a few snipers first. Get your people ready to move out! I’ll be down in a minute to pick you up!”

“Copy that!” Nathan answered.

“There’s another explosion at their position!” Kaylah reported.

“Who is it?” Cameron snapped. “Is it the harvester?”

“No, sir! I show the harvester still maneuvering!” Ensign Mendez reported with excitement. The son-of-a-bitch took him head on at max velocity!”

“Christ! He played chicken with them?”

“That guy is insane!” Mendez exclaimed.

Loki flinched as sniper rounds struck the nose of the harvester. “They’re shooting at us, Josh!”

“No shit, really?”

The harvester dipped down to no more than two meters above the ground as it reached the first sniper, who dove out of the way. A few seconds later Josh turned hard to starboard, smacking the next sniper with the thrust wash from his main drive and knocking him off the cliff into the sinkhole.

Vladimir looked out the window to try and determine why the snipers were no longer firing at them. He quickly realized the cause of their distraction when he saw the harvester come swinging around to line up with the opposite ridge line. “He’s buzzing the snipers!”

On the next pass, Josh flew so low that his exhaust was lighting the sparse vegetation on fire. Loki closed his eyes as they nearly slammed into the first sniper, who dove face down hoping to avoid being hit, only to find his own armor melting to his back due to the heat of the passing harvester’s exhaust. A few seconds later, there was a sickening
thud
.

“OH SHIT!” Josh yelled.

Loki opened his eyes again, only to see a red smear on the nose of the harvester that ran up onto the front windshield. “What happened?”

“I took off his fucking head!” Josh giggled.

Loki shook his head. “You’re a sick little dude, you know that, don’t you?”

The harvester pulled up hard until it was almost vertical, backing off on the power until it was about to stall. As it did, the ship banked over to port and dove back down, pulling up just enough to angle toward the center of the sinkhole. Within seconds they were nearly there, and Josh pulled up the nose, firing his landing thrusters at maximum burn to stop their descent. The little ship came to a hover in the middle of the compound, directly in front of the main house, spinning around to point its nose toward the front door before extending its gear and dropping the last meter to the ground.

The side hatch to the harvester popped open. Loki leaned out to wave at the landing party, signaling them to move quickly as they exited the main house and ran towards the ship. Vladimir scooped up the little girl and handed her up to Loki who pulled her into the ship. Deliza was next, followed by Jalea.

“We’ve gotta go back and look for Jessica!” Nathan shouted.

“There’s no time!” Loki objected. “There’s a warship on the way! If we’re not back in ten minutes, your ship’s leaving without you!”

“But she could still be alive!” Nathan argued.

“Nathan! We’ve got to go!” Vladimir insisted.

“No! I have to be sure!”

“Nathan! You’re the captain now! Your responsibility is to your ship!” Vladimir grabbed Nathan by the collar and shoved him up the side of the harvester. “Now get in there!” Vladimir shoved Nathan up to the hatch, climbing up behind him.

There were only two seats in the small cabin behind the cockpit of the harvester, which were taken by Jalea on one side and Deliza on the other with her little sister in her lap. Nathan and Vladimir crammed themselves onto the floor, between Jalea’s feet and the front bulkhead that separated the small cabin from the cockpit. Loki pulled the hatch closed and stepped over them, returning to the cockpit as he hollered, “Let’s go!”

Before Loki even sat down, the harvester leapt into the air, its main drive kicking in and sending it accelerating away as its landing gear retracted.

“Message from the harvester, sir,” the comm officer reported. “They’re inbound, with five passengers!”

“Yes!” Cameron said, a wave of relief washing over her. “What’s their ETA?”

“Ten minutes, sir.”

Cameron turned to Ensign Mendez at the tactical station directly behind her.