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Corsair Mining Site, Dianis
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“What is all that?” Krch twisted around in the co-pilot’s seat of the shuttle.
“Weapons,” grunted Gof.
Krch watched the mutated Human man-handle the object in through the side hatch of the cargo shuttle. “Is that—,” she slurred, her sucking tubes wagging, a battle-drone?!”
“Yes,” answered Geezer, following in behind Gof. “I stacked the six-pack of anti-air missiles outside the hatch. Gof, get them next. I’ll go prep the other battle-drone. Maybe that one will start. Damn Junko for buying crap; half this stuff doesn’t work. We rifled through fifty plasma rifle energy packs, and half of them were shorted out.”
Gof snorted through his huge nostrils that compared favorably to the corded muscles that writhed like snakes across his body. “The auto-cannon is new.”
Geezer stopped what he was doing and looked at Krch. “It’s true, Junko sprung for a brand-new auto-cannon. What the hell did he bring that for?”
Sysreq answered as she ran through a hurried preflight check of the shuttle they were about to abscond with, “I heard he stole it. The jacks in the good crew were bragging about it.” It was a point of conflict between the two factions of Junko’s crew: the good and the bad. Krch, Geezer, Gof, Sysreq, and the recently deceased Turk were on the bad.
Geezer and Gof left for another trip to the weapons locker. Krch asked, “We’ve two tons of ore. How much weight do we have for weapons?”
Sysreq punched the preheater for the starboard nacelle. “Plenty. Junko’s plan was to boost this shit out low and fast. We’ve got lots of gas.”
Krch grabbed Sysreq’s multi-func. “I’ll prep the port nacelle.”
Sysreq eyed her. “You qualified?”
“Ya,” she slurred, “I was dropship pilot on Tweeunar.”
Sysreq said, “Oh.” The Human female looked at her Tweeunar co-pilot. “I’m sorry.”
Krch scanned the engine preflight checklist and then handed the multi-func back. She didn’t say anything. It was quiet in the shuttle cabin.
Sysreq said, “I didn’t know. I thought—“
“Yass,” she slurred. “I was a geologist before the Turboii, and their sizar cretins showed up. We killed by the thousands.” She paused as she punched the fuel-vaporizer button, “but it wassssn’t enough.”
A thump sounded from the side hatch. “I got the second battle drone started,” Geezer bragged. He backed away from the hatch and watched as the battle-drone, articulating on its six legs, climbed in the shuttle after him.
Sysreq peered aft. “Creepy. Those things always give me the spooks. Why are the optics always red? They look like two beady red eyes.”
Geezer beamed with pride. “Hey, it works.”
The battle drone took notice of Krch and raised its twin flechette machine guns.
Krch’s eyes grew as wide as Lonely Soul. “Geeeeeez!”
Geezer slapped the disable command on his multi-func. “Oh, sorry about that. Uh, uh, oh. I see. Damn Junk. He never programmed it. The default setting is to attack anything non-Human. I will fix that.”
Krch slumped in her seat, and Sysreq laughed.
“Is that thing loaded?” Krch groaned as she slumped way down in the co-pilot’s chair.
“Oh yea,” said Geezer happily. “Seven thousand rounds in each magazine.”
Sysreq saw Krch’s limp sucking tubes and laughed again.
Gof climbed in the hatch with two bulging sacks under each arm. He dropped them on the deck and hit the hatch close control. “All done. Weapons locker is empty.”
Krch sat up enough to look back at Gof. “Everything?”
“Yep.”
Then she looked at Geezer. “Everything?”
“Yea? Why?”
“What if—“
Geezer looked at her. “What if what? What if the indigins get mad and rush Junko and the Good crew?” he sneered.
“He’s sick,” said Sysreq. “Whatever you did to Junko, it laid him out good. His plasma pistol should be able to hold off the locals. If he’s awake and can find it.”
“What about—” Krch was about to ask when Sysreq interrupted. “Lackey, the foreman? I got his number. He’ll bail to the field gen at the first whiff of trouble.”
“Good,” hissed Krch. “Take seats. We boost for the coordinates I gave you.”
The agent on watch punched the All Hands comm channel. “Shuttle is leaving the mining site,” he broadcast ship-wide on the Shields. “I repeat, the shuttle is leaving the site.”
Both fore and aft hatches to the command deck opened, and soon, all of the Shields’ crew were watching the video feed of the orbital drone above the site.
“Shit,” cursed one of the agents.
“Yep,” said another.
Lieutenant Hearter, commander of the Shields, considered the problem. “They picked the perfect day.”
“We knew they would,” answered Mears.
“AI,” Hearter called, “given the twenty-minute video delay, superimpose their furthest distance of travel under all that cloud cover.”
A red circle appeared on the display that roughly corresponded to an aircraft traveling at seven hundred miles per hour for twenty minutes.
“They could be going supersonic,” said an agent.
“Probabilities are twenty-three percent that Krch would instruct Sysreq to violate sonic-barrier protocols,” responded the AI.
The agents shared glances. Their AI was good; it had been paying attention to Krch.
Hearter leaned on the holodesk. The display was reduced to a plain 2-d representation due to the lack of active sensors. “Where is she going?” he asked.
“If she is boosting to Junko’s ship, she’ll pop out to the west here,” the agent on watch pointed at the edge of the huge storm system squatting over the mining site, “in a minute or so.”
“Yeah, but,” added Mears, “we strongly suspect someone, using a one-time code, is rendezvousing with her. She’s got two tons of filtered dash-5 ore on board.” At the value of that cargo, anyone would come out to meet her.
“AI,” asked Hearter, “do we really have no infrared or other emissions from that shuttle?”
“Negative. The storm column extends from ten to twenty-five thousand feet. The shuttle is running on a chemical propellant. There are no neutrino emissions.” The Shields could go active with radar, but that would break their emcon protocol and alert the corsairs.
“Roger. Give me the countdown for when you predict the shuttle to emerge from the storm.”
The crew made small talk while Hearter remained stooped over the hologrid, waiting for the seconds to tick by. The storm system was shaped in a long oval. The optimum path for the shuttle to boost off the planet lay on one of the shorter sides of the storm.
When the time came and went for the shuttle to exit from the storm for an off-planet boost, Hearter began having other thoughts. As the time ticked on and the shuttle still did not exit, the lieutenant began looking along the longest axis of the storm front.
“Could they have gone to ground?” Mears asked the AI.
“Unknown probability,” the AI responded.
More seconds ticked by.
Hearter kept focusing on the longest axis of the storm. “No,” he said. His crew looked at him. More seconds ticked by. “No,” he said again.
“What?” asked Mears.
“Shit,” Hearter cursed. “Get Agent Meridia on the channel now. Live. Hurry.”
Mears glanced down at the hologrid. “AI, plot shuttle course and speed to Wedgwood using the storm as cover.”
A red line appeared on the holodeck. Mears and Hearter looked at each other. “Did you see the weapons they loaded on that shuttle?” asked Mears.
Hearter’s glare said yes. “AI, sound Battle Stations. Boost us the hell out of here. All hands,” he yelled, “thirty seconds. Get to your crash couches. The AI is taking us out of here!”
“Destination?” asked the Shields AI.
Hearter dove into his crash couch, slapping the inertial dampener actuator. As the hermetically-sealed lid of his crash couch lowered, he said, “Wedgewood, low-planet orbit. We’ll be taking the assault shuttle down. Alert Clienen. Tell him we’re executing an emergency planet-side intervention and would appreciate backup.”
