Prodigal (61 page)

“You make it sound easy,” Avalon said, swinging the LSRV around. She clicked on the landing lights, training the beams on
Almacantar
’s ventral hull and slowing to thruster speed. She lined herself up for final approach, easing the ship down—but suddenly halted when a proximity warning sounded off the navigation panel.

“I spoke too soon,” she intoned.

Lea pounced on the console, watching as a single blip appeared at the edge of the display. It immediately darted toward them, closing fast.

“Unknown contact, bearing two-seven-nine!” she snapped. “Range, three thousand meters!”

Tiernan pressed himself against the window, scouring the sky for the approaching object.

“I can’t see it,” he said. “It’s small, whatever it is.”

“Fifteen hundred meters,” Lea reported. She ran a detailed configuration through the computer, which generated a model of an unmanned, star-shaped vehicle. Lea recognized it from the video feeds back at JTOC.

“ASAT,” Avalon said, giving form to Lea’s fear. “Hang on.”

Avalon rammed the throttles full forward, banking the LSRV hard to starboard. The small ship dived behind the protection of
Almacantar
’s hull, just as the ASAT shot overhead and released a tight beam of focused energy in the LSRV’s wake. The blast fell close enough to graze them, searing the lower fuselage and rocking the ship. A cluster of sparks exploded by the cockpit window as Avalon dived away, the afterimage burned in Lea’s eyes before those cinders were consumed by the void. She grabbed the sides of her chair, the surface of Earth spinning into her view, gravity and vertigo playing havoc with her senses. Avalon, meanwhile, kept yanking the stick from side to side, putting the LSRV through maneuvers it was never designed to handle.

“Shit, that was close,” Tiernan said, the concussive roar of their encounter fading into the distance. At the same time, the LSRV started to shudder, her wings catching the outermost layers of Earth’s atmosphere. “He’s still hot on your six, Avalon. I don’t think he’s backing off.”

The display only proved Tiernan right. The ASAT flashed bright red, recovering from its near miss and following them straight down.

“Son of a bitch,” Lea seethed. “They still have localized control.”

“Has to be through hyperband,” Nathan said. “Any way we can jack his signal?”

“Not with this console.”

“Then we better do something,” Tiernan said. “We’re not going to last very long giving him our backs.”

At that moment, the ASAT turned another salvo loose. It missed by a wider margin, but bounced across the stray gases outside the ship. Bright discharges of ionized energy throttled the LSRV, forcing Avalon to break off. Earth peeled away from the window while a torrent of g forces whipped them in punishment, gradually dissipating into weightlessness as
Almacantar
reappeared on the horizon. With no better strategy available, Avalon made a beeline back toward her.

The ASAT maintained its deadly pursuit.

“This isn’t working,” Nathan said.

“They won’t risk firing on themselves,” Avalon replied. “If we can stay close enough to that ship, we might have a chance.”

The navigation panel beeped again, another urgent alarm.

“That just got a lot harder,” Lea said, reading the display. She looked directly at Avalon, who returned a grim expression of her own. “Second contact, bearing two-six-zero. Range, nine hundred meters.”

Another ASAT spiraled toward them, clearly visible through the window this time. Its honed edges glinted wickedly in the pale moonlight, tumbling on an intercept course.

“It’s flanking us,” Tiernan said.

Nathan stared across the void between them and
Almacantar
.

“We’re not going to make it,” he decided.

“No,” Avalon agreed, “but we’re not going to die, either.”

She pushed the engines wide open, turning to port. Lea watched the directional indicator until it settled on a direct-line vector.

Two hundred and sixty degrees.

Directly into the approaching ASAT.

“This could get ugly,” Avalon said.

And space caught fire around them.

Lea spotted the salvo before it hit, bracing herself for impact. A human pilot would have flown through the oncoming shot, but Avalon’s sensors picked up its trajectory in time to take evasive action. She pulled back into a hard climb, jumping over the beam as it exploded. The LSRV rode the edge of that concussive wave, flipping end over end as Avalon poured on the z-axis thrusters. Scorching plumes of incandescent fuel erupted from the nose of the small ship, knocking her back on course. By then the ASAT giving chase opened fire as well, a quick succession of pulse bursts tracking them from close behind.

“Incoming!” Lea shouted.

Avalon dived.

Straight down, the same pattern in reverse—but so blindingly fast that the ASAT’s targeting system couldn’t compensate. A series of blasts descended on them from above, shaking the LSRV so hard that Lea could feel the ship wrenching itself apart.

“She’s breaking up!”

“Just a little more,” Avalon said, holding steady.

Both ASATs fired simultaneously, while Avalon weaved in and out of the cross fire—dodging each shot on instinct, fed by the flood of data from her sensuit. Somehow the ship held together, even though the constant drone of alarms told Lea that it couldn’t last much longer. All the while, the menacing form of the ASAT tumbled to point-blank range—so close that it seemed bent on collision.

“Avalon!”

Spitting light, the ASAT pierced the starboard wing. The beam went clean through, missing the fuel tank but slapping the LSRV into a flat spin. Chunks of metal tore loose from the spaceframe, while Avalon forced the nose down and spiraled away from the ASAT. The weapon immediately tried to reacquire its target, but in all the confusion its onboard computer didn’t even realize that
another
ASAT was approaching—and by then, simple logic could dictate only one course of action.

The ASATs fired on each other.

The one in front missed. The ASAT in pursuit from behind scored a direct hit, slicing its counterpart in two before pummeling it into vapor with repeated blasts. A nova of orange light seared the LSRV, shrapnel raining down on the small ship. Avalon rolled the LSRV over as she jockeyed for control, trying to get the hell out of the way before the explosion did even more serious damage.

“Go!”
Lea yelled.

Using the fire for cover, Avalon flew through the expanding cloud toward
Almacantar
. Jagged pieces of debris bounced off the skin of the ship, one smacking into the cockpit window before ripping itself away. With horror, Lea saw the glass begin to splinter before her eyes—an expanding crack that spidered outward under the stress of so much speed. So far it hadn’t breached the cabin, but it wouldn’t be long before the LSRV decompressed.

“Helmets!” she ordered.

Everyone except Avalon strapped their helmets on, starting the flow of oxygen to their suits. She kept both hands on the stick, riveted on the vessel in her sights. Tiernan, meanwhile, looked into the flotsam they left behind—searching for the last ASAT, to see if it had picked up their signature.

“We got trouble again,” he said.

Lea checked the scope and saw the weapon coming out of its stupor. Waves of active sensor energy pinged outward in all directions, so intense that it reverberated against the hull. The ASAT responded to that hard contact, heading after them like a shark smelling blood in the water.

“No way we can take another hit like that,” Lea told Avalon.

Avalon grimaced. “Then improvise.”

Lea scanned the details of
Almacantar
’s hull—especially her landing bay, closed off by an immutable door. Even if Nathan could get it open, there wasn’t near enough time with the ASAT on their tail.

That left only the docking collar.

“Is there an external service hatch?” she asked Nathan. “Something we can use to gain entry to the ship?”

“Yeah,” he replied, with a sudden flush of hope. “Dorsal hull, port side just aft of the bridge—utilities access.”

“Why don’t we just ram her?” Tiernan asked.

“Because it wouldn’t do any good,” Lea said. “Those explosives won’t go off on contact, and we don’t have time to plant them outside. We need to get
inside
and do this the hard way.”

The LSRV groaned as Avalon pitched upward to overfly
Almacantar,
but she kept on going at full speed. She only slowed when she got right on top of the huge vessel, braking thrusters throwing them into a lurch. Kicking over to port, Avalon alternated between her new target and the approaching ASAT.

“We got less than a minute,” she said.

Nathan unbuckled himself and squeezed between Lea and Avalon. He pointed at a small hatch less than ten meters off.

“That’s it.”

Avalon shoved the stick forward.

The LSRV swooped down, so fast that Lea thought they were going to crash. At the last second Avalon pulled back, pouring on thrusters at maximum power, spilling so much fuel that she almost sucked the tanks dry. With a horrifying screech of metal against metal, the ship scraped along
Almacantar
’s hull, her wings warping so badly that one of them sheared clean off.

“Contact!”
Avalon screamed.

She killed all engine power, using up the last of her conventional fuel to slam the ship down on top of the access hatch. The LSRV bounced one time before the magnetic seal around the docking collar engaged and clamped down. All at once the ship ground to a halt, snapping everyone against their restraints—except for Nathan, who nearly smashed right through the cockpit window. Lea grabbed him and pulled him back, pushing him down on the floor as
Almacantar
’s gravity envelope firmly ensnared them.

Then silence descended on the cabin, punctuated by random electrical discharges from the ruined console. A thick haze of smoke made it nearly impossible for Lea to see anything, the cockpit display screens completely dead. Avalon stirred next to her, slipping her helmet on. She unbuckled herself and stepped over Nathan, jumping on top of the docking hatch.

“Positive seal,” she said. “Don’t know for how long.”

Lea looked up and spotted the ASAT in the window, hurtling toward them. The cracks in the glass spread even farther, frost gathering along the seams as air began to leak into space.

“Move out!” she shouted, jumping from her own chair. She reached under the passenger seat and found the pulse pistols right where the chief had left them, then passed the weapons off to each member of her team—including Avalon, after a tense moment of hesitation. “We need to off-load at least three charges. We’ll set them in engineering, then use one of
Almacantar
’s shuttles to get out of here.”

Avalon spun the hatch open. It released with a hiss, a blast of icy air piercing the smoke. Nathan scrambled into the hole, onto
Almacantar
’s service hatch, and started working the lock.

“We won’t make it,” Tiernan said, taking Lea by the arm. “We’ll be dead in thirty seconds if we don’t get out of here.”

Another loud pop sounded from the hole. Nathan jumped out, pulling the service hatch open. From below, a ghostly light percolated into the cabin.

“It’s our lives or the mission,” Tiernan told her. “Your choice.”

Lea knew he was right.

“Go,” she ordered.

Nathan went in first, sliding down the access ladder. Avalon followed him and disappeared through the docking collar. Tiernan ushered Lea in next, his focus darting between her and the window. Beyond the splintering glass, the ASAT closed to killer range.

Lea, only halfway down the hatch, saw it too.

“Eric—” she began, reaching for him.

And then the ship imploded.

The cockpit window blew outward, venting atmosphere in a sudden, violent breach. Tiernan’s body wrenched away from Lea, drawn into a ravenous vacuum, flying across the cabin before slamming into the pilot’s seat. He managed to grab hold, his face a mask of pain and struggle beneath his helmet, his legs flailing into the void, as he tried to haul himself back in. Lea planted one hand on the ladder and extended the other one toward him, inching herself farther and farther into the LSRV to get closer—until Tiernan’s eyes made contact with hers, and she saw that he wouldn’t allow it.