Dave kept a set of camera views handy on the console in front of him, to try to stay on top of the developing situation. He had lots of experience with juggling a dozen catastrophes in his head at once.
Invading a planet gave one extremely good experience at that.
So he had cameras in both the cargo bay and the rear airlock, just in case somebody somehow managed to overcome the security systems aft and open either door, and to somehow manage that without setting off alarms. In addition, he had a feed from the station itself showing the deck just outside of the ship, to see who might be about to ring the doorbell with a gun in their hand.
Valentinian would be back soon. Or he would call. Or the White Hats would show up and Dave would just have to blast free and run like hell.
Would he come back later? Vee had specifically said they might arrest him and that Dave should escape.
There was always the option of another rescue, but he had needed the woman’s help the first time. If the White Hats had come this far, they knew the truth, and he could expect that the woman was going to kill him this time.
Except she already knew the truth. Had guessed part of it on Tartarus, and he had volunteered the rest. So it made no sense that she was here now, unless more of her people had arrived on Tartarus just after he and Valentinian had left, and she had gotten swept up in their wake.
Or she had changed her mind about arresting him. Never leave that option off the table when talking about a woman. She might have woken up the next morning and decided the galaxy would be a better place without he and Valentinian in it.
Just in case, Dave had checked out a flame pistol from the armory, as well as a pulse carbine. If the White Hats managed a breach, they would be gunning for bear, and Dave knew there was no way in hell he wanted to be taken alive.
Not by those people. Even random pirates would only kill him.
The Dominion, if they were truly here, would want so much more than that.
So he was about halfway through the pre-flight checklist. Maybe running it a little faster than he needed to, but this was not a lazy Sunday afternoon. Bad people with guns would be here soon enough.
At the same time, Valentinian never cut corners on maintenance and work. And wouldn’t allow Dave to do so, either. In a crunch, he could just unlock from the station, bring the engines up to one percent power and accelerate away, gradually pouring on the speed until he was clear enough to bubble into warp and disappear forever.
If he was lucky.
There were other identities he could use, in a pinch. Not as well documented as Dave Hall, and he would have to give up a significant portion of the money he had stashed away under Dave’s picture, but it would be possible to do.
He would probably have to sell Longshot Hypothesis as part of his escape anyway. Even without Valentinian, the ship was still too well known in certain places, but it would give him the cash he needed.
But it would also mean abandoning his only friend in the galaxy to suffer what should have been his fate. That sort of thing absolutely galled him more than everything else.
What kind of man was he, if Valentinian had to be sacrificed? Not one he’d want to know.
“Longshot Hypothesis, this is Station Control,” a woman’s voice suddenly came over the line he had been monitoring. “Your flight plan for Meskle is received and acknowledged. Transmitting your outbound lane assignment now.”
There was a file attached. Dave opened it and sure enough, lane assignment. Almost a straight shot outward from their current bow. Minimum time flight to the buoy.
How was that possible? Dave hadn’t filed anything.
Unless Vee had.
Valentinian had mentioned friends that would help. Had he managed to bribe the stationmaster? Could they really pull this off?
“Uhm. Uh. Roger that, Station Control,” Dave finally managed, still a little bewildered.
But Valentinian had charisma. That was one of the big reasons Dave had picked the young man. He had a record of getting into trouble, and somehow almost always being able to talk his way out of it.
Take that poker game, for instance.
Okay, then. Nothing to do now but finish the checklist and hope that Vee got here before that woman did. He put his nose down and toggled the secondary, port-side, thruster control on. Almost done.
His card-reader beeped, rather than the comm.
Vee.
“Yeah?” Dave asked.
“Standing close on the dock, but out of sight,” Valentinian said quietly. “Don’t see anything. But I don’t trust anybody right now. Can you come aft and meet me in the personnel airlock with a pistol, just in case?”
“Be right down,” Dave said.
He rose and checked the cockpit one last time. All the big parts of the pre-flight were done, with just minor bits remaining, if they were really in a hurry.
Out the door, across the rec room, and up the steps, through the engineering spaces to the cargo deck.
It was always weird to his sensibilities that the big space was off-center from the line of the ship. The ship was about thirty-two meters wide down the leg of the Y. But the rear airlock was four meters wide down the starboard side and the bay itself about twenty-eight, with two sets of tracks in the deck to load a pair of the big cargo boxes, ten meters by ten by thirty, with two meters of space between them.
He went into the rear airlock, but left the inner hatch open, so he could hear anything happening in the main bay. A quick, fisheye lens check at a local screen showed nobody standing outside the door, so Dave triggered the hatch, standing off to one side, more or less hidden by a spare hard suit hanging from a rack.
The door beeped loudly, to warn anyone to get out of the way, so there was no way to do this quietly. That was why there was a pulse carbine with the safety off in his hands. Someone rushing this door would be blown backwards if he shot them from this range, and possibly on fire.
Which would teach anyone who survived to be more polite in the future. Or try this stunt while wearing Caelon armor.
There was always that.
A shadow appeared at the door and Dave centered the carbine on them.
“Dave?”
Valentinian.
“Here,” he murmured, just loud enough for the man to turn and see him.
“Good.”
Vee stepped on the deck and slammed his palm onto the close button. He also drew a shock pistol and turned to watch the gap as the door began closing with more beeps.
Dave stayed perfectly still and watched.
Finally, the hatch sealed.
Valentinian let go a huge sigh and turned to the locking mechanism. Dave couldn’t see what he was doing, but it was probably good.
“Okay, nobody’s opening this door,” he said. “Just shut down power to both external pads. They’ll have to cut it open if they want in.”
He turned and Dave could see the stress of the last hour on the young man’s face. Lines of exhaustion that hadn’t been there at breakfast.
“We ready to go?” Vee asked.
Dave stepped away from the wall, set his safety on the weapon, and nodded.
“Almost through the checklist, but we could move if we had to,” Dave said, turning and starting to jog. Vee would want to be on the bridge. “And Station Control already acknowledged our departure and sent us a lane assignment. What’s up with that?”
“Told you,” Valentinian was jogging with him. “We’ve got friends here. And if all goes well, we’ll come back and see them in about a week, assuming the Dominion keeps chasing us when we leave here.”