The solar farm spread out for nearly a kilometer and resembled a metal forest. Each articulating collector sprouted thin metal filaments that must have been the static discharge vanes Naomi had mentioned. As the sun moved, the large flat panes rotated and tilted. When Jax and Naomi arrived, she looked around. “Better split up.” She pointed in one direction. “You try over that way. The main control node is over there, near the center of the field.”
“Who put you in charge?” Jax replied.
Naomi bowed, extending both arms in front of her. “By all means, take the lead, sir.”
Jax fumed, feeling his cheeks burn. “I’ll go this way.” He pointed the same way Naomi had. “See if she’s at the control, whatever it is.” He pointed vaguely in a different direction. “You go off that way.”
Naomi smirked and departed. Jax turned toward where she had indicated the control node was and took off at a jog.
A few minutes of running and Jax came around the base of a large solar array and collided with a petite woman in a relief worker jumpsuit, knocking her to the ground. “Watch out, asshole!” she shouted.
Jax shook it off and extended his hand. “Sorry. You Ingrid?”
She took the offered hand and stood up. “Yeah, you the guy from that ship I saw land?” She bent down and picked up a data tablet.
Jax answered, “Yeah, and it’s the ship you’re about to be on, too. We gotta go.”
She was about to answer when Skip cut in over Jax’s earpiece. “Boss, I’m picking up a couple of—the ridge—north.” Even the Osprey’s more powerful transmitter couldn’t cut through the interference of the static discharge vanes. Jax heard only a little of what Skip had said.
Jax grabbed the small woman’s arm and turned toward the camp and the waiting Osprey . “We gotta go.”
She snatched her arm away from him. “I can walk on my own.”
A solar array nearby exploded. Jax looked down at the small woman. “Then run on your own!” He shoved her ahead of him and started running.
“Captain—” Skip said, but the rest was garbled.
“Yeah, go!” Jax interrupted, ducking as another solar array exploded nearby. Ingrid screamed.
Naomi angled in alongside the fleeing pair. “Hey, Omi!” Ingrid shouted. Naomi grinned at her friend.
For whatever reason, solar arrays stopped exploding. Only to be replaced by the whine of an approaching hovercraft. Jax stopped, motioning the two women to follow suit. He was about to ask who they might be when a troop transport model hovercraft came into view between the thick white ceramic trunks of the solar arrays.
When it came to a stop a dozen meters away, several people in olive drab military uniforms jumped out and rushed toward Jax and Ingrid. Jax looked around. Where the hell did the other one go? One of them shouted, “Stop right there!”
Jax finished looking around for Naomi, then said, “Uh, hey.” He pointed back toward the camp. “We’re just heading back to camp…”
“Shut up!” the leader of the group said, looking around. He turned to one of his subordinates. “Fan out.”
Jax pushed Ingrid behind him. “Hey, look, man, we don’t want anything to do with this whole civil war thing. I was hired to extract the relief camp by their company, that’s it.”
The man stalked toward Jax. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to commandeer your craft. That Scout Ship by the camp? It will help us defeat the Imperial lackeys that have governed this world into the sorry state it’s in.”
“Jax, a dozen men and women are—workers. Want—them out?” Skip asked in his earpiece.
Jax shook his head. “No.”
“Excuse me?” The man had some kind of rank insignia on his shirt, but Jax had no idea what it meant. Apparently, Mariposa’s rebels had chosen to break from the more traditional rank structure of the Independents and the Empire. The military man continued, “I wasn’t asking for your ship. We’re taking it.”
Jax held up a hand. “I’m sorry to stop you. Your men, the ones approaching my ship, they’re about to die.” He kept his hand up. “Unless you call them off, let us go, and then you can get back to your civil war.”
The leader of the group walked up and poked Jax in the chest. “Look here, you miserable—”
“Wrong answer,” Jax said. “Skip, Baxter, take ‘em out.” He didn’t wait for an acknowledgement but hoped enough of his message got through the interference. He lashed out with a jab to the man’s throat, which forced the man to drop his rifle. The two men and one woman who had stayed with their superior tried to bring their weapons up, but Jax shoved their leader at the woman while he leapt at the two men, so he flew sideways, taking them both to the ground. He glanced at Ingrid. “Get to my ship!” He didn’t wait to see if she moved, turning back to the two men struggling under his weight. He looked at one, slugging him in the face. The other man grunted and was able to throw Jax’s legs off of him. He rolled, grabbing for his sidearm. Jax was a fraction of a second too slow as he came to his feet. His eyes locked on the energy pistol aimed at him, barely a foot from his face. “Damn,” he muttered.
Before Jax could choose his next words, the man opposite him flew backwards as an energy pulse struck him in the chest. The man hit the ground moaning, his chest armor smoking. Jax spun to see Ingrid holding an energy pistol. He looked over at the woman he’d thrown the officer at. She and the officer were unconscious.
Jax stood and nodded toward the two unconscious rebels. Ingrid shrugged. “They teach Krav Maga on Thursdays.”
Jax shrugged. “Cool. Let’s go. Where’d your friend go, the annoying one?”
“Naomi?” She looked around. “Beats me.” She added, “We’re not really friends or anything.”
Jax looked at her. “I honestly don’t care.” He motioned toward the camp and the Osprey perched on the field beyond it, surrounded by several bodies in olive drab uniforms.