Wanderer 3: Tainted Universe (12 page)

They talked more, but nothing important was said.  Sal settled into being icily polite to Jess and Ali, while being far warmer when talking to Dash.  Ali went quiet and kept shooting glances at Dash.  He didn’t need to be a mind reader to tell she’d rather he wasn’t there.  Jess managed to be polite to Dash, but his mistrust was clear.  He treated Sal the same way, which only served to increase the rift between the two of them.

They soon broke up.  Jess heading to the bridge and Ali to her room.  Sal stayed with Dash, but once the others left she became much more distant.  After a few tries Dash stopped trying to engage her in conversation.

He found himself wondering just how he’d come to be in this position.  That lead to him thinking about the base at Desolation and Knuckles.  Was his friend dead?  It seemed likely.  Between the Imperial fleet and those who had taken over the base Knuckles wouldn’t have had many chances to escape.

Then again it was possible that an opportunity arose as the two groups battled it out.  Dash realised he would never know.  With no information he clung to hope.  Knuckles had always been smart.  If anyone could find a way out it would be him.

Chapter Nineteen

Jess sat brooding in the pilot’s chair.  The
Wanderer
was currently taking care of mining new resources and the most critical repairs.  All Jess could do now was to sit and wait. 

And think.  He couldn’t understand how Sal could so easily choose Dash over him.  There was obviously a spark between Sal and Dash, but how could she decide to leave so easily?  At first Jess had thought she was bluffing.  Now he was sure she wasn’t.  He’d seen the anger in her eyes, the determination.

Why couldn’t she see how dangerous Dash was?  She had suffered more at Dash’s hands than the rest of them, yet she stood by him time after time.  It made Jess angry.  He was scared too, though he wouldn’t admit it even to himself.  When Matt, Sal and he had first escaped slavery the other two had been his only links to his old life.  The only ones that truly understood the life he’d escaped.  Now Matt was gone, what seemed like an age ago, and Sal was preparing to leave.

Not yet though.  Jess had to let Dash stay, for a few days more at least.  What trouble could Dash cause with Sal helping him?  Jess didn’t know.  But it scared him.  Dash on his own was bad enough.  Dash together with Sal, and her access to the
Wanderer
, was far worse.

Then it hit Jess.  The answer was simple.  Remove Sal’s access.  She wouldn’t be happy, but she’d already chosen to leave.  This way at least he and Ali could relax.  And, if he was honest, the idea appealed to Jess because it would hurt Sal emotionally.  A little bit of vengeance for flushing the drugs from Dash.  Jess reached out and started the process before he could change his mind.

*****

“
Ow!” Sal shouted as a stabbing pain shot through her head.  It passed again almost immediately, but dizziness washed over her in its place.

She reached out for the ship with her mind, wanting to know what was causing the vomit inducing feelings.  She got nothing other than another sharp pain.

Panic started to set in.  Were the pains related to her interfaces?  Jess had always assured her they were perfectly safe.  What if he was wrong?  What if even now they were damaging her brain?  The pain faded, but was replaced by dizziness again.

“
Sal?  Sal, what’s wrong?” Roberto asked, rushing over.

She grabbed his arm, using it to steady herself.

“I don’t know.  My head hurt, and now I feel really dizzy.  I think something is wrong with my implants.  I’m scared Roberto.  Really scared.”

“
Here… sit down,” he said, guiding her to a sofa.  “I’m going to get Jess.  I won’t be long.  I promise.”

“
OK.”

It wasn’t what she wanted to say.  She desperately wanted him to stay, wanted to have someone to cling to.  Instead she watched as he left the room.  Tears stung her eyes but she refused to let them fall.  She couldn’t help feeling scared, but she could control how she reacted.

The wait for Roberto seemed endless.  There was no more pain but the dizziness persisted.  Sitting down helped a little but she still had to fight to keep her stomach under control.

Finally the door opened and Roberto returned.  The look of fury on his face almost made Sal forget her own problems.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.  “Where’s Jess?”

“
He wouldn’t come,” Roberto replied.  “But he said you’re safe and you’ll feel fine in a few minutes.”

“
What?  Why wouldn’t he come?”

“
He didn’t have the courage to face you.”

“
What?”

Now she was really confused.  If everything was fine why did Jess need courage?  Was Roberto lying to keep her calm?  She started to panic again.

“He didn’t have the courage to tell you what he’d done.  Your implants are breaking down.  There’s no danger but he said you may feel disorientated while it happens.”

“
What?” she said again.

She couldn’t take it in for a moment.  Then burning anger replaced all trace of fear and panic.

“How dare he!  What gives him the right to do that?  How could he do that to me?”

She struggled to her feet, using Roberto’s arm to pull herself up, then stamped towards the flight deck.  Before the door was fully open she was shouting at Jess.

“How
dare
you do this to me.  You should have asked me.  You should have warned me at least.”

Jess stood up as she entered, so they ended up face to face.  She wanted him to be sorry.  She wanted him to apologise.  She wanted him to break down and beg her not to leave the ship.  She was disappointed on all counts.

“Why shouldn’t I?” he shouted back.  “You want to leave the
Wanderer
.  That’s fine.  If you’re leaving you don’t need access to the ship, do you?”

“
I haven’t left yet.  And you should still have asked me!”

“
Like you asked me when you went behind my back and woke him?” he asked, pointing at Roberto.

“
Is that what this is about?  Are you getting your own back on me for going against what you wanted?”

“
No!”

Jess was lying.  Something in his face gave him away.

“You are!  I expected better of you Jess.  I certainly didn’t expect you to do something so childish.”

“
I didn’t!  I had to take away your control of the ship.  How could I know what you’d do next?  Maybe you and him would have tried to replace me, to take full control.”

“
That’s ridiculous…” she started to say.  Then she realised he was serious.  “What?  You really believe that?  How can you?  After everything we’ve been through how could you possibly believe that?”

“
You’ve chosen Dash over me,” Jess said, his voice sullen now.  “If you’ll do that how can I know what else you’ll do?”

If she hadn’t been so angry she might have heard the pain in his words, might have seen the hurt behind them.  Instead what he said just stoked her anger.

“I cannot believe you’ve done this to me!”

She jabbed a finger into his chest repeatedly to reinforce her point.  Jess angrily tried to push her hand away, then grabbed her wrist.  She lashed out with her other hand, landing a heavy slap across his cheek.  Jess replied in kind, though his slap was much lighter.  He’d pulled most of the strength at the last moment

Sal stood for a moment, shocked at what had happened.  Had Jess really just hit her?  Disbelief gave way to the white-hot burn of fury.  She clenched her free hand into a fist.  Pulled her arm back.

Before she could throw the punch strong arms had wrapped around her from behind and pulled her back.  Roberto ignored her struggles, forcing her towards the back of the flight deck then putting himself between her and Jess.

“What are you doing?  Who’s side are you on?” she demanded.  “He
hit
me!”

“
I saw,” Roberto replied.  “You hit him first though.”

“
And that makes it
right
?”

“
No.  It puts both of you in the wrong.  I know you’re angry with Jess.  Hell, so am I.  But a fistfight isn’t going to solve anything.”

“
Are you kidding me?  That bastard hit me and you’re not going to do anything about it?”

“
What should I do?  Hit him?  Floor him?  What good will that do?  At best I get a sore hand and break his jaw.  At worst he turns the robots on both of us.  Should I kill him perhaps, to prevent that?  What good would that do?”

Sal found her anger turning on Roberto.  She knew his arguments were logical but… well, this was no time for logic.  Not with fury pounding through her veins.

“I can’t believe you…”

Her words were cut off as alerts blasted out across the flight deck.  Jess went stiff as his attention shifted to the ship.  Sal reached out to the ship on reflex, finding only a cold, dark emptiness.  She cursed Jess once more.

“What is it?” Roberto asked Jess.

“
No… it’s not possible…” Jess said, more to himself than the others.  “How did they find us?”

“
How did
who
find us?” Dash asked, worry in his voice.

Jess gestured and screens around the flight deck sprang to life, showing a large fleet in ragged order but already starting to reform.  Key amongst them was a battlecruiser.  The very same one that had nearly destroyed the
Wanderer
.

“
That’s not possible…” Roberto said.

“
It might not be possible, but they’re damn well out there!” Jess said, strain in his voice.  “And they’re turning to attack us.”

Sal felt her stomach drop at his words.  All thoughts of their argument were buried, for the moment at least.  They’d barely escaped this fleet before when the
Wanderer
started in top condition.  Now the ship was far from that, still covered in scars from their last encounter.  Did Jess have anything up his sleeves?  Or was this going to be the end of the road?

Chapter Twenty

Clay cursed as laser fire screeched off his fighter’s shields.  He already had the ship turning, his instincts had taken over with the first impact.  He saw another flash of laser fire streak across the area of space he would have been in.  Or he saw the computer generated afterglow at least.  The laser fire moved at the speed of light, far to fast for him to spot.

Dodging had been the right call.  The only call.  He still hated it.  The pirate fighter Clay had been about to destroy was screaming away as quickly as possible, surely unable to believe its luck.

With a final curse Clay turned his attention to finding his own attacker.  There were plenty of candidates.  Space around Clay’s fighter seemed to be filled with weaving fighters, though he knew that in fact there were no more than seventy.  Twenty of those were Imperial.  Not the best odds, but the Imperial ships made up for their lack of numbers through training and better equipment.

Picking his attacker out would have been impossible without the on-board computer.  The screen had been enhanced to indicate which side each ship was on.  The computer had also helpfully tagged the ship that had attacked Clay, which was currently curving back towards him.

Clay studied the target quickly.  It was one of the many falcon variations.  A good ship though no match for Clay’s lightning.

The computer couldn’t work out the exact class of falcon he was dealing with.  Falcon’s were popular with pirates who inevitably customised them for better performance.

Clay kept his fighter moving as the attacker closed in. At the last moment he swung the lightning’s nose around, pouring power into the thrusters.

The falcon’s pilot froze for a moment, unable to cope with the sudden transition from being the aggressor to being in the enemy's sights.  Clay was more than ready.  He poured laser fire into the falcon, depleting its shields enough to score several hits on the hull before the pirate recovered and started trying to evade.

As the falcon jinked about Clay managed to land a few more shots, weakening the falcon’s shields still further but failing to do any real damage.  Then they shot past each other.  Clay threw his fighter into a tight curve, bleeding speed as he did so.

The pirate panicked.  His best hope of survival was to stay close to Clay, to make it difficult to land any shots.  Instead he lit his thrusters up at maximum and made a run for the corvette he had launched from.

Clay shook his head as he straightened out in pursuit.  The move was madness.  His lightning was faster than the falcon at any time, and some of the damage he’d inflicted had slowed the falcon still further.  The falcon’s shields were still severely depleted.  Within seconds Clay could be in position to deliver fatal blows to the falcon, an easy task when it insisted on flying a straight line.  The safety of the corvette was at least two minutes away for the falcon.

It actually took Clay nearly twenty seconds to reach attack distance.  The fastest pursuit would have left him doing exactly what his prey did — flying a straight course and making his ship an easy target for someone else.

As the cross hairs lined up on the falcon once more Clay quickly checked the situation.  No enemy ships were close enough to be an immediate threat.  He pulled the trigger, riddling the rear of the falcon with laser fire.

This time the falcon’s shields collapsed completely, allowing multiple shots to strike at its hull and thrusters.  The thrusters quickly failed, leaving the ship drifting with only manoeuvring jets to adjust its path.  The falcon was dead.  Clay was able to keep pouring fire into a target that had no hope of avoiding it.

The falcon started to break apart, more and more chunks being chewed off by Clay’s fire.  He prepared two missiles.  Sometimes you had to use them, sometimes you didn’t

This time he didn’t.  A shot pierced the falcon’s disintegrating armour and struck the engine.  The resulting explosion more than dealt with the falcon’s debris.

Clay smiled slightly.  In the heat of a battle it was almost impossible to influence whether an enemy ship simply fell apart or became a fireball.  The desk jockeys back on the
Purple Cloud
didn’t understand that.  Using missiles was always frowned on as a lack of tactical awareness and skill.

The alternative, not using the missiles and leaving the wreckage to drift, wasn’t an option.  Nor was picking up survivors or supplies.  All those options had been destroyed by the Taint.

Having made certain the explosion hadn’t left any large sections of wreckage Clay swung the lightning back towards the continuing fight.  It was going badly for the pirates.  Twenty of their fighters were already out of the action — destroyed or damaged beyond usefulness.  Two Imperial fighters were down too though.  The odds were improving, but they were still stacked in the pirates favour.  Numerically at least.

*****

The pirate falcon fired again, spearing Papa-Five with precision laser fire.  Clay had to admit that the pilot was good.  Damn good.  Papa-Five was Leo’s ship, and Leo was a fine pilot.  Despite that Papa-Five was soon going to be nothing but a pile of mangled components.  She shuddered under another heavy blast.

“Hang in there Leo,” Clay shouted over the comm channel.  “I’m almost there.”

“
About bloody time!” Leo replied.

Alarms sounded as Clay disabled life support, routing the extra power into the thrusters.  He killed the alarms.  His suit could keep him alive for a couple of hours if needed.  That was far longer than Leo had left.

The falcon swung round for another attack.  Leo already had his ship twisting aside as the falcon unleashed another deadly volley.  It helped, but it wasn’t enough.  Most of the shots still landed as the damaged fighter struggled to respond to Leo’s commands.

Clay cursed.  The falcon would get off at least another five or six volleys before he could intervene.  Papa-Five looked unlikely to survive even a couple.

Everything had been going so well.  Almost all of the pirate ships had been destroyed for the loss of only one more Imperial fighter, and that pilot had been safely recovered.

Two groups of pirate falcon’s had been left.  Clay and most of the Imperial pilots had gone after the larger group.  Leo and three other pilots had moved to intercept the smaller group of only three falcons.

Two of the falcons had been easily dispatched.  Too easily.  Clay had been focused on the ships he was chasing.  He didn’t notice the destruction of the first Imperial ship.  The second followed almost immediately after.

Both ships had been caught at the end of their attack runs by the surviving pirate ship.  Both had been young pilots, inexperienced and rash.  Clay thought they must have poured energy from their shields into their engines, aiming to boost their kills and their status.

Clay had known that Leo wouldn’t be caught out in the same way.  Papa-Seven also had a cool head and plenty of experience.  The two of them would be more than enough to deal with the surviving falcon.

Clay checked his display again, then pulled his ship in a tight curve.  His help wasn’t needed to deal with the larger group of pirates.  It shouldn’t be needed by Leo either.  In fact odds were that Leo would have destroyed the ship long before Clay arrived.  Still… there had been a tickle of doubt.

The tickle had been proven right.  The pirate had managed to destroy Papa-Seven, battering down its shields then letting loose with a missile.  Leo had used everything he had to try to take down his attacker but it had been no use.  Now he was just trying to keep his ship in one piece.  Only Clay was anywhere near close enough to intervene.  And it looked like even he would be too late.

Twenty seconds.  So little time… and yet it might be more time than Leo had left.  Clay willed the thrusters to run smoother, hotter, brighter.  Whatever it took to reach Leo in time.

Clay’s heart sank as he saw Leo’s shields finally give way.  Papa-Five wallowed from the damage she’d taken.  The falcon swung back again, preparing to fire.  Leo started to push his ship’s nose down but Clay already knew it wouldn’t be enough.

The falcon fired… but its shots flew through empty space, just missing Papa-Five.  Clay stared for a moment, trying to work out how Leo had grabbed the extra thrust.  He laughed as he saw Leo’s canopy floating through space.  Leo had triggered the canopy release while overriding the ejection mechanism.  The sudden outflow of atmosphere had been enough to push Papa-Five out of the way slightly faster.  Just enough to avoid being struck.

It was a move born of desperation.  The falcon would be back on target within two or three seconds.  The canopy trick was a one-off.  Unless Leo could think of another trick he’d be dead in moments.  Clay was certain the ejection mechanism would be out of action now.  Leo’s last desperate attempt to save the ship had removed his own hope of surviving.

The falcon swung round to bring Papa-Five back into its sights.  Lasers fired, crossing the distance almost immediately.  Clay grinned.  The falcon hadn’t fired.  He’d beaten it to the punch.  It bucked and turned, then broke off without firing.

Clay followed.  He didn’t try to get more shots off.  He focused instead on where the falcon would be if it tried to lock on to Papa-Five for a killing blow.

Time after time the falcon twisted and turned seeking to make the shot.  Time after time Clay was ready, fire from his lightning forcing the falcon to abandon its plan.

Clay had to admit that the enemy pilot was good.  Damn good.  Possibly better than Clay in some ways, and that was saying something.  It seemed to be instinctual though.  Reactive.  At a tactical level Clay was by far the better pilot, which was allowing him to steer the falcon further and further from Papa-Five.  Meanwhile Leo kept Papa-Five moving towards safety, coaxing the shields as he did so.

Finally the falcon’s pilot realised trying to reach Papa-Five was pointless until Clay was dealt with.  The change in tactic
nearly caught Clay out, even though he’d been watching for it.  The enemy pilot was
damn
good.

Clay took a few hits as he dodged the incoming fire.  He half expected that the falcon would try to swing past and pursue Leo.  It didn’t.  It executed a sharp, twisting turn and managed to land several more shots on Clay’s ship.  The shields held, but they were being knocked down faster than they could recover.

Clay needed to change the game, and he needed to do it now.  He forced himself to relax, letting the immediate fight take priority over tactical concerns.  Conscious plans were replaced by instincts and reactions.  It was a state few pilots truly reached, and far fewer could turn it on at will.  Clay was one of those few.

The change had an immediate impact.  This time when the falcon fired Clay already had his ship well out of the way.  The two ships tumbled through space, locked in a deadly dance with no safe way to break free.

The falcon broke one way, Clay the other.  Each swung round in a spine crushing curve, seeking to get the drop on the other.

Neither quite managed it.  They swung past each other at almost point-blank range.  As they swung round again Clay tried something different.  Something riskier.  He dropped his speed, letting him turn more quickly but making his ship an easier target.

It worked.  His turn was complete and he had the falcon in his sights well before it could return the favour.  Not wanting to waste his chance Clay unleashed his lasers.  It was a hit!  The falcon’s shields took a beating, though nowhere near enough to collapse them.

Clay kept firing, making use of his temporary advantage.  The falcon bucked and twisted, trying to throw off his attack.  Clay doggedly pressed his advantage.

Then the falcon started to roll rapidly.  So rapidly that whoever was inside must be suffering massive g-force.  Surely they must have passed out.  Clay nearly stopped firing. He’d never seen a ship do anything like this.  Only years of discipline kept his finger pressed down.

The move made no sense.  Despite the rapid roll the ship wasn’t changing position.  It was easier to hit than if it had been dodging.  Clay kept pouring laser fire into the falcon, unwilling to risk letting it go.  He primed two missiles, waiting for the perfect time to launch.

Another volley of laser fire battered down the falcon’s shields.  Clay tensed slightly, preparing to launch the missiles.

Something happened to the falcon. It suddenly peeled off, still rolling, corkscrewing its way to one side from Clay’s point of view.  It happened so quickly that Clay had trouble following what had happened.  Even as it flashed past his ship travelling in the opposite direction it seemed to be tumbling out of control.

Moments later laser fire crashed into Clay’s ship and the incoming missile alarm rang out.  Clay’s mind froze, struggling to understand what had just happened.  No one could possibly have calculated the rolls, spins and corkscrew needed to put Clay in their sights, let alone executed it well enough.  Could they?  It seemed impossible.

The alternative was that it had just been coincidence.  First the manoeuvre and then the enemy reacting to their good fortune so quickly.  Clay didn’t buy it.  The odds against it would be ridiculously long anyway.  Add in the fact that the pilot should have been at least unconscious from the violent manoeuvring.  No, the move had been planned, incredible though that seemed.