As the primary display clears, and the planet below comes into focus, Wil can see cities covering much of the terrain, with large green spaces and forests spanning the gaps—just kilometer after kilometer of green and growing things. Wil whistles appreciatively at the sight.
“Incoming contact,” Maxim reports.
“The flight assist drone?” Wil has only ever seen a drone like this in use once. A freighter on its approach to a spaceport he happened to be docked at had experienced a blow-out in one of its repulsors—probably, based on the appearance of the freighter, from neglecting regular maintenance. The spaceport had scrambled a flight assist drone—two, actually, in case the first suffered damage.
Flight assist drones are little more than large repulsor systems with basic AI capabilities, which help get them close to the target and locked on. Once attached, the AI shuts down and shunts all control to the ship its assisting via a slave circuit. From that point forward, the drone is little more than a slightly ugly repulsor grav-locked onto the vessel. Once the ship is on the ground, the drone AI re-activates and takes control, flying back to its base of operations.
“Looks like it. I’ve never actually seen one, but yeah, that must be it,” the big Palorian replies.
Wil glances over to Zephyr. “Hail it and guide it in. I’m a bit busy. If you need something, call out—otherwise, I’m going to do my best to keep us moving in a straight line.”
The drone is moving fast toward the Ghost and only slows as the gap between them closes. By the time the Ghost screams past overhead, the drone is almost matching its velocity. Zephyr has opened a comm link to the pilot AI, and she is guiding it in, helping to identify hard points on the hull that the drone can attach itself to.
“Sending you a velocity adjustment!” she shouts.
“Acknowledged,” Wil replies, making the changes needed. Seconds later, the sound of something large latching onto the ship reverberates throughout. Momentarily, the controls go sluggish, due to the substantial increase in weight and drag the drone has suddenly added. But within another second, the main control display shows a repulsor active where the port engine should be, completely slaved into the Ghost’s central control systems. “Okay, this is kinda cool!” Wil says, adjusting power between the two repulsors and the atmospheric engines.
Only minutes later, they’re approaching the spaceport. Their target landing pad is right out front of the administration center. Several adjacent pads have been cleared. Probably a good idea, Wil thinks.
He’s working the controls to slow the Ghost down, still about a kilometer from the spaceport, when Maxim shouts something that’s lost in the sound of explosions and metal tearing. Four missiles, launched from the Peacekeeper Carrier at an angle impossible for the defenders to intercept, have taken a wide course through the atmosphere to eventually collide with the Ghost on its final approach. The flight assist drone is gone, Wil gathers, as is the starboard engine pod and its repulsor. The port atmospheric engine is also offline—he can’t tell if it’s there, or gone.
“Hang on!” he shouts, slamming the throttle for the atmo-engines to full power. A loud boom resonates through the ship, as the lone engine pushes the Ghost up to supersonic speed. Everyone is slammed back in their seats, as the Ghost—which had for one second been falling like a rock—is now falling more forward than downward, though technically it’s still falling. “Brace!” Wil shouts, as the Ghost approaches the outer wall of the spaceport, barely clearing it. A loud scraping erupts from below; warnings go off everywhere, and the computer is saying something, but Wil can’t hear over the noise of his ship screaming through the air.
Once past the outer wall, Wil cuts the power to the engines. The Ghost, still moving incredibly fast, drops to the ground below. The drop does little to slow the speed of the ship, which is now scraping and bouncing across the spaceport landing area, hitting random ships and bouncing like a pinball as it makes its way to the empty space that had been set aside for it. The entire bridge is dark now, the primary display first crackling with more static, then going dark, then finally—in a burst of hot metal and glass—shattering completely. The three crew members hold on for dear life, as their ship continues to bounce and slide across the landing area, leaving a tremendous gouge in its wake.
The Ghost finally comes to a slow wobbling halt, right in front of the main administration building. “At least we parked where they wanted us to,” Wil says, then passes out.
Outside the ship, fire and rescue vessels are buzzing across the spaceport like angry insects, extinguishing fires all over the landing area, and the Ghost itself.