The bridge of Longshot Hypothesis was really the only place in the universe that Valentinian felt like calling home. Sure, he could go visit his parents, if he wanted a lecture from Dad about ruining his life, or for Mom to discuss all the eligible daughters of friends she knew.
Deep space was so much more welcoming than men and women who have already surrendered to old age and entropy.
Dave had gotten everything close to ready. Valentinian took a quick moment to verify a few things that always stuck or fussed on launch, but he could do this right now if he wanted to. Had to.
Valentinian decided to help Dave finish the checklist as a way of saying thank you for being competent. This would have been so much more of a pain in the ass from a dead cold start.
“Station this is Longshot Hypothesis,” Valentinian said into the comm.
It helped that he was hard linked to the station and didn’t have to announce to the universe what he was about to do. “Departure imminent.”
Rather than wait for them to acknowledge, Valentinian cleared the locks aft with a sound like a vault door setting posts and puffed away from the station as soon as the bolts had retracted. The Dominion ship had docked, which he thought was a mistake. They should have parked right off his bow, because he was pretty sure they had guns and he didn’t.
Of course, Laurentia might see that as an act of official piracy, since the vessel flew a Dominion Diplomatic flag.
The station would probably shoot back.
Not that it would un-destroy Longshot Hypothesis if those people were as serious at being crazed, militant, warrior monks like the guy sitting next to him, but maybe they didn’t want to die today.
“Strap yourself in,” Valentinian ordered his first mate. “This might get stupid.”
Dave just nodded and began pulling his harness into place. Valentinian did the same, pausing to stab at buttons as he got enough clearance to not scorch metal behind him.
The engines were already warm and live. Now they began to push.
Most transports were designed to run cheap, so the engines had just enough power to move the vessel around and a warpbubble good enough to get you between stars in a reasonable amount of time.
Valentinian had always suspected that the previous owner had not just been a gearhead, but also a smuggler of some sort. The man had tuned the two engines significantly better than the factory had, a century and a half ago. And upgraded them to bigger models than the ship had originally shipped with.
These were off a vessel at least a third again heavier than the Longshot. The warpbubble generator was also an after-factory upgrade.
Valentinian didn’t complain, but he occasionally wondered just what the hell that other guy had bought when he sold this beast.
But right now, it was time to go zoom. Valentinian pushed the engines a little harder. The Sheriff might claim that the fines would be reviewed later, but Valentinian really didn’t care. He was only fifty/fifty on coming back here, anyway, in spite of what he had told the man, or his niece. Or Bayjy.
He might miss the purple lady the most, only because she was probably the most useful, going forward into the darkness of Wildspace.
“Longshot Hypothesis, this is Dominion-427,” an angry voice came over the external radio. “You are ordered to heave to and prepare to be boarded, under Dominion Law.”
Valentinian couldn’t resist. He jumped the thrusters up another five percent and keyed the radio.
“This isn’t the Dominion, buddy,” he challenged. “That might be interpretable as a deliberate act of piracy in the sovereign space of Laurentia. They’ll probably take offense.”
Then he opened the engines up a little more. Taunting might actually cause them to do something stupid. But he just couldn’t help himself.
From the grin on Dave’s face, the big guy didn’t mind all that much, either.
Behind them, the station receded at an ever-increasing clip. The fines would probably be ugly, but he could always plead mitigating circumstances. He hadn’t done anything else illegal in Laurentian space. And the folks on Dominion-427 would have to make some seriously crazy, PUBLIC, claims about Dave Hall being a wanted assassin if they wanted any sympathy.
Of course, the man who had just assassinated their worst enemy in the universe might be a hero here. Kinda the reason Valentinian had fled into Laurentia in the first place, rather than someplace like Asherah or Lei-Zu where the local cops might actually listen.
Boom. Zip. Away.
It was almost like living in a comic book.
Right up until the point that the access alarms went off on the forward airlock. The one right beyond the bulkhead next to Dave.
What the hell was going on? And of course he hadn’t disabled that one when he did the two in back. Nobody had tried to break in that way in more than a year.
Plus, they were in deep space, heading away from Bohrne’s station as fast as Longshot Hypothesis felt like running.
Valentinian keyed the camera live in the airlock as the door continued to open. He silenced the alarms, and put a hand on Dave’s arm before the big guy could finish unbuckling his harness.
“Hang tight,” Valentinian said, keying a couple of commands he hadn’t told Dave about earlier.
In the wall, a little switch opened and cut power to the inner airlock hatch. Someone could still open it manually, by twisting the wheel that would push the inner hatch in, but they weren’t getting in quickly that way. And he and the killer next to him were armed.
“What just happened?” Dave asked.
“I added a breaker override to the power lines on all the airlocks after the last time someone tried this exact trick,” Valentinian said. “Except I was docked to a station at the time. He thought he’d be cute, but didn’t quite understand how Anuradhan tech works, so managed to lock himself out of the bridge when he thought he was unlocking the hatch instead. There’s a reason you see me with a shock pistol, even aboard the ship.”
“Firefight inside Longshot Hypothesis?” Dave asked.
Most of the time, Valentinian didn’t really like that look of glee that came into Dave’s eyes when they talked about gunfire. Now, however…
“Yup,” Valentinian answered him. “So there’s a second set of alarms on all the airlocks. And some overrides.”
“Can they still manage to get in?” Dave asked, almost hopeful from that gleam.
“Only manually, with the wheel, Dave,” Valentinian nodded.
“Fish in a bucket,” Dave smiled.
Valentinian shrugged and toggled some external cameras to try to see what was going on. The cockpit stuck out from the Y at the center of the ship, and that airlock was back a little ways, so he supposed that maybe one of them could push his nose up against the windshield and maybe see what was back there, but whoever it was had been trying to hide or they might already have been seen.
Probably thought they were still invisible, since the primary alarm hadn’t gone off.
He looked and sure enough there was an override in place on the system alarms. One he didn’t recognize, but Longshot Hypothesis did.
Like maybe the White Hats had insisted that all Dominion ships have a secret back door buried in their code base? Interesting.
Maybe he’d see if Dave was good enough to locate it, once they got rid of the pest.
Finally, Valentinian found a view that showed a single figure, suited up and lurking under the starboard wing, near where the landing gear pistoned down. Good spot to hide.
He would need to add a few more external cameras at the next planetary landing.
But there was only one figure.
And the door was fully open now, so the figure slid along the skin of the ship and got himself into the airlock professionally enough. Couple of buttons and the hatch began to seal itself up.
“How close are we to a warpbubble?” Dave asked.
He tapped the screen between them to show that Dominion-427 had backed away from the station and was in the process of turning around to give chase.
“Close enough,” Valentinian decided. They were just getting away from the station, so he didn’t need that accurate of a plot for the Overdrive systems. Just enough to miss big things at FTL speeds for the next few hours.
He punched the button and the stars suddenly streamed into lines as the warpbubble took hold and cast them across the galaxy.
Longshot Hypothesis, running for the border.
In his forward airlock, their new passenger had gotten the outer hatch locked shut and an atmosphere inflated. Valentinian switched his view to the interior and watched the figure reach up and open their faceplate enough to test the air.
Valentinian was in a bad mood.
“You’re trespassing,” he announced into the airlock, after dialing the volume on the speakers up a few notches, just in case the intruder wasn’t paying attention.
The intruder turned to face the inner hatch with his faceplate closed again and studied the barrier. He had a holster on his right thigh, with a weapon in it, but made no move to draw it.
Moments passed while the figure stood perfectly still. Valentinian couldn’t detect any radio transmissions, but they were inside a warpbubble right now, so his friends couldn’t help him anyway.
He surprised Valentinian by reaching up and undocking his helmet, rotating it enough to detach, then hanging it from the lanyard that kept suit and helmet together at times like this.
Oh, shit.
Inspector Apokapes.
“Is that…?” Dave asked, almost as shocked.
“Yup,” Valentinian replied.
He dialed the volume back down to normal conversation and keyed the button.
“What are you doing here, Inspector?” he asked.
She grimaced. The camera was good enough to watch, in spite of a slight fisheye.
“Saving your life, Dave’s life, and mine,” she replied in a flat, almost angry tone. “Permission to come aboard?”