Frontiers 07 - The Expanse (26 page)

“Well, their plan is not going to work,” Josh said with a smile. “As soon as the first flight loses sight of us, we flash out of here.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know that,” Loki said. “This just might work, assuming they don’t shoot us down first.”

“They tried, remember? The missiles?”

“That might have been a knee-jerk reaction on their part,” Loki said. “We suddenly appeared on their sensors, really close. They probably thought we were about to launch a sneak-attack. Drop a nuke or something.”

“So what are they trying to do now?” Josh wondered. “Capture us?”

“Maybe? They’re probably curious as to how we managed to get in so close without being detected. That would explain why they’re launching so many fighters,” Loki added, “to try and scare us into surrendering.”

“Aren’t they gonna be surprised when we don’t come out around the other side of the planet?” Josh giggled.

“They’re probably going to think we dove down into the atmosphere to hide. If so, they could be searching for days.”

“That’s fine with me,” Josh said. “How long until we start our turn?”

“Two minutes.”

Josh’s comm-set suddenly crackled to life as an endless river of unintelligible words began to stream through his ear piece. “What the hell? Are you getting this?”

“Yeah,” Loki answered. “I think they’re trying to contact us.”

“In what language?”

“I think they’re repeating the same message in many different languages.” Loki listened intently for several seconds as the message continued to replay, each time in a different language. “Wait!”

“…
immediately indicate your surrender, or we are to begin on hostile action
.” Loki backed up the recorded message a few seconds and replayed it. After a few unintelligible words followed by some static, he heard, “
You have aggressed into Jung space. Immediately indicate your surrender, or we are to begin on hostile action
.”

“Wow,” Josh said. “Their Angla sucks.”

“I’m pretty sure they hope to capture us,” Loki said. “I’m sure they’re in missile range by now.”

“What’s the second group doing?”

“They’re still following the first group. They probably won’t break off and change course to come around the other side of the planet until after we duck behind so that they don’t tip us off on their little plan.” The message began repeating, going through every language version again. “Should we answer them?” Loki asked.

“Yeah. How about, ‘
Fuck you. Open your eyes wide and check out our pretty jump flash
’?”

Loki chuckled. “They’ll probably translate it as ‘
flash fuck your wide open eyes’
anyway. One minute to turn.”

“Uh, I just thought of something,” Josh said. “What if they are tracking us from the planet? Wouldn’t they see us jump?”

“Yeah, I thought about that,” Loki answered. “But we’re going to be jumping from the dark side, so maybe everyone is asleep on that side. And so far, there are no tracking signals coming from the planet. Comm-signals, yes, emissions that would indicate tracking systems or sensors, no.”

“You can’t detect some junior-Junger looking at the night sky with his toy telescope.”

“All we can do at this point is take the course of action that results in the least probability of our jump being witnessed,” Loki explained. “The captain never said, ‘
Die before being seen jumping
.’ He said, ‘
Die before being captured
.’”

“I’m with you on that one,” Josh said.

“Twenty seconds to turn.”

The two of them sat in silence for several seconds. Loki kept running his calculations over and over, making sure they were correct, while Josh stared out the window at the approaching planet, preparing himself for the nasty, high-speed turn he was about to attempt.

“Five seconds.”

“Sure beats the hell out of jump-recharge-repeat, don’t it?” Josh mused.

“Four……There really is something wrong with you.”

Josh smiled.

“Two……one……start your turn.”

Josh pulled the stick hard to port, slightly rolling the ship as he did so. Despite the inertial dampener’s efforts, the force of his turn pushed them both hard to starboard, their bodies pulling against their flight harnesses. Josh peered out the left side as the planet started to move toward them more quickly. If he did the turn correctly, the planet’s gravity would whip them around and accelerate them further, dropping them out of the sight of their pursuers just long enough for them to jump away unseen.

“Twenty seconds until they lose line of sight on us,” Loki announced.

“Tell me you’ve already plotted our jump,” Josh answered.

“Plotted and locked. Ten seconds.”

“No fucking auto-nav this time, either.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Loki promised. “Five sec… SHIT!”

“What?”

“Contacts! Four more fighters, coming up from the planet, dead ahead!”

“Fuck!”

“They’re painting us! They’re firing! Four missiles inbound! Impact in fifteen seconds!”

“Shit!” Josh screamed in frustration. “I thought they wanted us alive!”

“They must think we’re attacking the planet!” Loki responded. “Screw it, Josh! Let’s jump!”

Josh looked at his tracking displays, then his flight data, and then glanced out the window at the planet below. There was a massive mountain range looming a few hundred kilometers below them. “I’ve got an idea!”

Loki’s heart sank. Josh’s ideas, although they usually worked, were usually wild rides that took years off Loki’s life span.

“Charge up the reentry shields, and stand by to pop another dozen decoys.” Without warning, Josh flipped the interceptor end over so that they were flying backwards, and then slammed his throttles back up to full power. Again, they were pushed back into their flight seats as the Falcon began to rapidly decelerate.

“Ten seconds to impact!” Loki called out.

The planet was now above them, sliding by from stern to nose. Josh eased the Falcon’s nose toward the planet above, pitching the ship into a decelerating dive.

“Five……”

“Just a little more,” Josh mumbled.

“Four……”

“Stand by decoys,” Josh ordered.

“Three……decoys ready,” Loki acknowledged. “Two……”

“Launch decoys,” Josh ordered calmly.

“Decoys away!”

Another dozen decoys shot out the back of the Falcon as Josh pushed the nose straight into the planet and started a powered dive. Again, all four missiles struck the decoys and exploded.

The interceptor shook lightly for several seconds as the shock wave rippled through the planet’s thin, upper atmosphere.

“If that had happened deeper in the atmosphere, we’d have been screwed!” Josh announced gleefully.

“Josh! You’re in a powered dive at greater than orbital velocity!”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to do something about that sooner or later, aren’t I?”

“Sooner would be good.”

“Where is that third group of fighters?” Josh asked.

“They’re turning back into the planet to follow us,” Loki answered, “two hundred kilometers and closing.”

“Hang on,” Josh warned. “You’re not gonna like this.”

Loki grabbed the handrails on either side of the cockpit and held on tight. Josh cut his engines, jerked back on the interceptor’s nose, and pulled the ship level as they continued to fall toward the planet.

“Are you nuts?” Loki cried out. “A zero atmospheric entry angle?”

“Dump all power into the thermal shielding, Loki!” Josh barked.

“It isn’t going to be enough, Josh! You’re going to rip us to pieces!”

“It’ll work! Trust me!” Josh yelled as the Falcon began to shake.

“Not in a million years, you psychotic, little shit!”

Josh laughed. That was the Loki he knew.

The Falcon continued its fiery descent through the planet’s thickening atmosphere, the shaking becoming more violent with every meter they fell.

“Thermal shields are at maximum!” Loki announced. “Shield temp three thousand and climbing!”

Josh struggled to keep the interceptor’s attitude perpendicular to their angle of attack. The more drag he created, the greater the rate of deceleration. But it also meant the greater the amount of heat their thermal shields were subjected to, and they had their limits as well.

“Altitude: ninety kilometers. Speed: fifty thousand. Shield temp: four thousand!” Loki called out. “Max shield temp is six, Josh!”

“I know!”

“Just sayin’.”

Josh checked his propellant levels, quickly running the calculations in his head. They had used very little propellant thus far, having only made a few maneuvers since they had left the Aurora. In fact, they had used more propellant in the last five minutes than they had in the entire flight. “I need to know the escape velocity of this world,” Josh said.

“One moment,” Loki answered as he set to work with the Falcon’s scanners. “About fifteen thousand meters per second.”

“So it will take us, what, about ten percent of our propellant to get off this planet?”

Loki again buried his attention in his display as he ran precise calculations.

“Loki?” Josh asked impatiently.

“Yeah, yeah. Eight point six eight! So ten gives us a nice margin. You’re not thinking of landing, are you?”

“Not if I can help it,” he proclaimed. “Just want to know where my point of no return is, propellant wise.”

“Let’s just worry about not burning up right now.”

“Or slamming into the planet like a meteorite,” Josh added.

“That too,” Loki agreed. “Altitude: eighty kilometers. Speed: forty thousand. Temp: five thousand.”

“Loki?” Josh asked as the ship shook violently. “What would happen if I did a half end-over right now?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“I’m not sure you could. The aerodynamics…”

“I was thinking about using my maneuvering thrusters.”

“Uh, it might work,” Loki said, “if the drag doesn’t snap us like a twig.”

“Could you run that for me?”

“Sure. Why not?” He glanced at the tracking display. “By the way, in case it matters, the third fighter group is still hot on our tail, albeit in a much more controlled fashion.”

“I see them,” Josh told him, glancing at his own tracking display screen. “But they’re not overtaking us anymore.”

“Hell no, they’re not as crazy as we are,” Loki declared as he ran simulations of the Falcon doing an end-over in their current situation. “It doesn’t look good, Josh. We need to be down to at least half our current speed before we can even think about it. Even then, it’s risky.”

“So we’ll be at, what, sixty kilometers by the time we get down to twenty thousand kilometers per hour?”

“Something like that. But we’ll also be at seven thousand degrees on our shields,” Loki added. “Failure is at six thousand three hundred.”

“Bring the reactors up to one twenty and dump the extra into the shields.”

“That won’t work, Josh. It might keep the shield generators from blowing, but heat will get through, a lot of it!”

“So we’ll be well-done,” Josh said. “That’s better than becoming ashes!”

Loki shook his head in dismay. “Passing seventy. Speed: thirty thousand. Temp: six thousand. Reactors at one twenty.” Loki watched the thermal shield control display. “Thermal shields are holding. Shield temp is sixty-five hundred. Hull temp: fifteen hundred and climbing.” Loki shook his head again. “Josh, it won’t work. You can’t shave off twenty-nine thousand KPH of speed in less than sixty kilometers. Even if you successfully end over without tearing us apart, the turbines just aren’t powerful enough.”

“We’re not going to use the turbines!” Josh yelled. “Override the auto-drive selection and put all propulsion systems on manual activation.”

“What?”

“Slave the turbines to my flight controls. Slave the main drive to yours.”

“Oh shit! You are crazy!” Loki declared as he began to make the necessary changes. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. I don’t know if I can do this, Josh.”

“You’ve got the easy part! I’m the one that’s gotta try a half end-over and fly ass first at twenty thousand KPH!”

“Got it. I’ve got spaceflight. You’ve got aero!” Loki took a deep breath. “Twenty thousand kilometers per hour and falling.”

“Here we go,” Josh announced. “Roll forty-five right. NOW!” Josh and Loki simultaneously executed the same maneuver, Loki using the thrusters and Josh using the aerodynamic control surfaces. The ship snap-rolled forty-five degrees to the right, and they began falling starboard side first toward the planet below.

“Good!” Josh yelled. “Now we’re going to yaw left forty-five. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Ready, NOW!” The ship yawed to port, shaking even more violently as the airflow was forced to change its path across the interceptor once again.

“Okay! Awesome! We’re back in the slipstream again!” Josh announced as he struggled to hold the ship at its current attitude. The problem was it wasn’t designed to fly tail first in the atmosphere. “Oh shit!” Josh cried out as he felt the interceptor slipping out of his control. “Loki! I can’t hold it! The control surfaces are locking up! You’re gonna have to take her!”

“Fuck!” Loki grabbed the controls again, twisting the stick from right to left, back and forth, side to side. Thrusters fired wildly outside as he tried to keep the ship falling smoothly tail first. “That’s as smooth as I can get her!” Loki announced. “Firing mains!” he announced as he slammed the throttles forward.

Once more, they were slammed back into their seats as the main space drive that was designed to quickly accelerate them to near relativistic velocities used its might to quickly decelerate them.

“Passing fifty!” Josh announced. “Speed: eighteen! Shield temp: seven thousand! Hull temp: two thousand!” The idea of a rocket flying backwards suddenly appeared in Josh’s mind. “Fuck me! It’s working!”

“We’re not there yet!” Loki yelled as he struggled to keep the ship at the proper attitude while they rode the massive tail of thrust coming from their main space drive.

“We just lost our deep-space comm-array,” Josh announced. “Long-range sensors are offline as well.”

“We’re starting to melt,” Loki mumbled as the interceptor continued to shake.

“Passing forty-five. Speed: fifteen thousand. Shield temp: seventy-two hundred. Hull temp: twenty-two hundred!” Josh tried not to giggle. It was working, but Loki was right; it wasn’t over.

“I cannot believe I am doing this,” Loki mumbled.

“Passing forty. Speed: ten thousand. Shield temp holding at seventy-two! Hull temp also holding at twenty-two! I told you!”

“Check tracking!” Loki yelled.

“They’re still coming,” Josh said. “Range: one hundred twenty kilometers and closing fast.” Josh glanced at the flight systems display. “We’re sucking up propellant awfully fast here. Passing forty. Speed: five thousand. Temps are falling!”