Chronicles of a Space Mercenary 0: Tanya (28 page)

Jason put his piloting skills and Adjudicator’s automated defense to the supreme test of their abilities, running the ship at half burn and refusing to decelerate. Even as he flew free of the leading edge of the field, Falcon came out less than a kilometer away.

Jason threw his stick over to avoid the photon blast that was coming. It sizzled across Adjudicator’s bow as the larger ship rolled away in a complicated expert maneuver that Jason knew well, and he simultaneously snapped out of the roll and targeted his photon cannon. He knew exactly how Falcon’s AI would behave now, and the vicious anticipatory sneer that curled his lip spoke clearly of his utter lack of respect for an inferior opponent.

Chapter 78

Tanya watched Adjudicator begin the complicated roll while waiting until the last moment, waiting until the warning beep on her own board
told of Adjudicator’s subsequent targeting lock, and then she threw Falcon into a backwards reenactment of the same maneuver Jason had just performed, an insane move according to the accepted conventions of open-space combat, yet Jason’s photon blast burned harmlessly past Falcon as she rolled under it and then, continuing the roll, to come back around in the completion of the maneuver, she fired a bare moment
before
Falcon signaled lock.

Adjudicator was rolling again, the same maneuver as before, but this time too late. Tanya knew that Jason
thought he
was fighting an AI, and
knowing
that he would perform the same maneuver, Tanya’s premature firing assured that Adjudicator rolled directly into her shot. It was not a set of moves that would have come from an AI. It was that simple- she fired early and Jason, in a prideful assumption of his own superiority, had acted late. He realized with cold horror that it was no AI behind Falcon’s controls, and that his pride and Tanya’s intuition would be the end of him.

Falcon’s photon beam caught Adjudicator in her roll even while Falcon was still completing her own, the photon beam rising along with Falcon and passing through Adjudicator, slicing the entire stern of the ship clear of the bow and midsection.

The fusion reactor was still operational and at full burn, and it spun off like a fireworks display, leaving Adjudicator completely dead in space. Tanya waited breathlessly for the photon cannon to finish charging with her finger poised over the fire control button, when the incoming jump signature warning signaled an incoming ship, and space opened up, vomiting forth Felone, now back in her gigantic and over-armed ore-freighter.

Tanya had thrown Falcon into full burn the moment the jump signature warning blared, but the ship that came out of jump did not even seem to notice Falcon, Felone’s full attention now focused only on revenge as she approached Jason.

Though it took all of her self-control, Tanya did not
lock
on the freighter. Her display was showing her that its photon cannons were fully charged and locked on Adjudicator, and she suddenly comprehended why Felone was not taking the opportunity to finish her- obviously thinking her dead, not knowing she was aboard Falcon! It was no time to question this gift of providence, and Falcon quickly accelerated to jump velocity and disappeared into inner space to leave Jason and Felone to one another.

But not before Tanya sent off another message. It was short and to the point;

“You haven't finished me yet, bitch!” Then Tanya closed the connection and Falcon jumped.

“I think we can count Jason as finished.” Jerin said once real space had vanished behind them and they could all breathe a little easier.

“He isn’t finished quite yet.” Tanya said.

“Why do you say that?” Malcomb asked.

“Because I have a feeling it’s going to take him a long time to die.” Tanya replied.

No one had anything further to add to that.

Chapter 79

Jason watched the ore-freighter draw near with dread. Adjudicator had a small amount of residual power, at least for the moment, and it had been enough to auto-activate the bulkhead hatches in the rear of Adjudicator and his screens were working, so he had a beautiful, crystal clear view of the freighter as it slowly approached. But Adjudicator was frozen in space and completely defenseless.

“Get it over with, bitch!” Jason screamed maniacally, leaping to his feet and spilling whisky
everywhere
. There was a reason Felone wasn't finishing him with her photon cannons. The reason was that she wanted to finish him herself, personally. The ancient double-malt was for courage, either to put his blaster to his own head or to find the audacity somewhere within himself to actually fight her!

Jason wasn’t afraid in the sense that most people fear, there was no question that he was entirely insane and this was the life
he
had chosen,
had always known that he would go out violently. He would laugh in his killer’s face even as he died, but he was pragmatic.

Felone was the most dangerous and sick-minded human Jason knew now that Tanya was dead, and his odds weren’t good, but they were still better than if he put his blaster to his temple and just blew his own
head
off.

The problem for Jason was that on the opposite side of that argument was the knowledge of what Felone would do to him if she captured him alive, and how long it would take her to do it to him. It was an
unpleasant thought! Even though Jason’s odds of defeating Felone were less than equal, Jason had always been willing to fight.

He
climbed from the ghetto himself and understood intrinsically the struggle for survival against long odds, but it was the bone chilling thought of what would be in store for him if somehow Felo
ne caught him alive t
hat gave him the first real shiver of fear running down his spine that he had ever felt in his entire life.

Yet he was a
n intrinsic
survivor. He had triumphed repeatedly throughout his life, never tasting defeat, overcoming unbelievable odds and steamrolling over everyone and everything who
or which
had ever had the misfortune of crossing his path. Though fully aware of what Felone would do to him if she captured him, as well as aware of how difficult it would be to defeat her, Jason just didn’t have it in himself to commit suicide out of fear. He finished the glass of Scotch, and poured himself another as he contemplated his decision.

Chapter 80

Felone simply hadn’t been interested in Falcon
- her concentration on the still potentially dangerous Adjudicator- and it
showed good common sense on their part to depart.
Once she
dea
lt with Jason she would create
new brood
s
of Simians and send them out to deal with the ghetto trash
as their training
.
Few would survive but that was the point- weed out the weak- something Jason hadn’t understood.

For the moment her attention was completely focused on Adjudicator,
her scans completed and it obvious
that Adjudicator
itself
was
no longer
a danger to her since it was now a powerless hunk of flotsam on the cosmic winds, but because of the intense anticipation she was feeling at the chance of getting her hands on Jason’s living body.

Then the communication came through from Falcon, from Tanya, just as that ship disappeared into jump, and Felone knew a rage unlike any she had ever experienced. She had watched Starfire break apart on that planetoid- the same one which had almost claimed her! It was impossible that Tanya wasn’t dead.

Of course Felone understood that somehow Falcon had found her enemy, that there was a rational reason why someone who was dead was not dead, but it just wouldn’t sink in, not for long minutes. The bitch simply wouldn’t die!

Helpless to stop her, she brought the ore-freighter up alongside Adjudicator and calmly docked the ships together. Her rage was now gone, in its place only anticipation. Jason would be waiting for her if he had survived Tanya’s attack. Felone knew this much about Jason if she knew nothing else.

He wouldn’t take the easy way out, even knowing he stood no chance against her, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be dangerous. He would be especially dangerous knowing what was in store for him if he were captured alive. No, he wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Jason was- had been- the second best Felone ever met, until Tanya. Felone gave Jason her respect even as she planned his tortures.

Felone had no intention of just walking through the lock. Jason would be right there waiting for her, and this was what she was counting on. Already suited and ready to go, Felone ran down to the bottommost level, to a maintenance hatch, and was quickly cycled through. Felone shouldered the blast rifle and fired three times into the same spot on Adjudicator's hull. Internal gravity ended at the edge of the hatch and with blast rifle in hand Felone ran and dove out into space, sailing gracefully across the span and through the gaping rent in its side.

Felone was on the opposite side of the sealed hatches. If the feeble flickering light was any indication of Adjudicator's power levels, then it would not have had enough power left to seal the hatches from Felone's breach, but that was all right also because it would give Jason something to do if he didn't already have his suit on- if he hadn't already had it on he'd be running for it now!

Felone pulled the strap from her suit harness and clipped it to a wall bracket, then leveled the blast rifle and shot down the corridor- completely blowing away the airtight hatch. Throwing the blast rifle’s strap over her shoulder with one hand and activating the miniature winch on her belt harness at the same time with the other, she was drawn tight to the wall even as the explosive decompression of the released atmosphere ripped past her, trying to suck her from the wall, buffeting her with debris.
I
t was over as quickly as it bega
n.

Another airtight hatch farther down the corridor which had sealed before all power was lost. Felone didn’t bother moving but fired down the corridor again, and was rewarded with another hurricane which clawed at her viciously but was unable to remove her from the wall.

After a couple of very long minutes the outpouring of Adjudicator’s final breath subsided into cold, empty space. Felone unsnapped herself and quickly found one of the numerous weapons lockers strewn throughout Adjudicator. Now armed with twin Kievor blasters, she began to hunt.

Chapter 81

Fully suited, faceplate locked, weapons everywhere, Jason sat in his Bridge, where he planned to make his stand, and watched in disbelief on his remaining exterior feeds as the blast caught his attention, and just as he turned to the screen saw Felone sail across open space to disappear from view inside Adjudicator. Jason was on his feet even as Felone vanished from his sight, running for the hatch that connected Adjudicator to the freighter.

The freighter’s lock refused to cycle but Jason hadn’t expected any less. A locker next to the hatch contained emergency carbon seals and Jason quickly cut a hole with a laser cutter taken from the same locker, a little spew of atmosphere shooting out of the cut but quickly subsiding.

When he had cut a large enough opening to fit through without burning
himself
on the molten edges he climbed through, unrolled the patch and adhered
it
to the hole he had cut. It was a big hole for such
a
patch and it wouldn’t last for eternity, but Jason didn’t need eternity, he only needed long enough to get inside and seal the internal hatch behind him.

The controls were working inside the freighter’s lock, and now that he was inside it Jason was grateful to find
that
the mechanism quickly equalized the pressure. The patch bulged into the hole as the pressure rose but held, then the internal hatch was open, he was inside and the lock closed before the patch went.

Jason had Felone’s ship.

………………..

There
were
two scenarios Felone had envisioned at the outset of this little adventure. One was that Jason would think she was coming through the hatch- the obvious choice s
he had thought- and the other
that he would detect her as she made her entrance and he would then attempt to take her freighter.

The little alarm that beeped in Felone’s helmet speaker was the answer she had been waiting for. Jason was at her hatch. Felone turned instantly and ran back down the way she had come and
just as gracefully as before
launched herself into space and across to land rolling, back in her freighter’s maintenance hatch.

She cycled through and then found a place to make herself comfortable. There was no point in announcing her presence until they had undocked
- she
left the controls free-
and
soon
Jason had the freighter under way. That occurred only two minutes late
r
, which pleased Felone a great deal.