Star Runners (32 page)

"Snake," he said through clenched teeth. "I got one on my tail."

"Roger, Rock. Be there if I can."

Austin fired again, the bolts sizzling off the rear of his target. He didn't have time to bask in his success, enemy bolts flashed around his canopy and smashed into his rear shields. Keeping one hand on the stick, Austin transferred power to his rear shields.

"I'm hit, Scorpion, systems fail-"

A blinding light flashed to his right and Austin glanced just long enough to see a Trident coming apart.

"Snake!" Scorpion yelled loud enough into the ear piece to cause static. "Report!"

"He's gone!" Austin said, fear creeping into his spine like a icy trickle.

"Roger," Scorpion said, strangely calm. As she paused, Austin landed two more shots and watched the enemy's shields fizzle and pop. "Prepare a curve, Rock."

Austin frowned as the enemy fighter tried to loop away. He fired and drained the energy banks, bolts crashing into the enemy's rear engines and sending it spinning away, powerless and its pilot probably dead.

"Got another one!" Austin yelled, checking his sensors. Still six pirates against two.

"I said prepare a curve," she said. "I'll keep them busy while you do. Where's Talon?"

Austin felt a twinge in his stomach. "Gone."

"Can you plot a curve on your own?"

"I won't leave you."

"Do it!"

"What about you?" Austin asked, although he already knew the answer.

"They want the ship, not the pilot. I'll fight till the ship's used up. Open a curve if you can, I'll keep them busy."

Her attention off Rodon's modified fighter, Scorpion spun around and into the remaining bogeys. Austin broke off and pushed hard away from the battle. No pirates pursued him

As he watched, Scorpion's fighter moved in and out of the bogeys, actually forcing them to fly into one another, and took out two fighters before Austin even opened his navigation computer for the curvature drive. He heard her yelling over the gamma wave, cursing, threatening, taunting as she went about her deadly work.

She's doing this for you.

Cursing himself, Austin fired up the navigation computer. Work fast, coordinates should be locked into your computer. Finding them he powered the drive, the energy levels had dropped well below optimum. He shifted more power from the engines to the curvature drive.

Another enemy vanished from the sensors. Scorpion had another kill. As his computer warmed up and the Trident reached a safe distance from the battle, he used his thrusters and turned the fighter around. The space in the distance was littered with fizzling debris. A pilot floated lifelessly among the steel. Scorpion's fighter was in pursuit of her enemy, but another fighter, Rodon's fighter, was close on her tail.

"Scorpion!" Austin put more power into his gamma wave. "Scorpion?"

Rodon's fighter closed in, spitting blue laser fire. He was going for the capture. Scorpion's rear shields must have buckled, one of the bolts flashing hard on her tail. Austin checked her readings, saw her shield power failed as the three fighters moved closer to the atmosphere of Flin Six.

The curvature drive pinged seventy-five percent. Thirty seconds and he would be able to escape.

Escape.

He paused, staring out at the dogfight accelerating closer to the planet.

Scorpion had ordered him to leave, ordered him to turn tail and run. He thought of Etti, of Rolling, of Nubern, of Josh. His eyes burned, his throat constricting. He would head back to the station, their deaths on his mind, the feeling of guilt worming into his conscience for the rest of his life as he slowly realized he would never hear Scorpion's voice again.

Or see her smile.

He shut down the curvature drive and slapped the throttle forward so hard he thought he broke it. Debris bounced off his canopy as he shot through the scene of battle. He worked as much power from the drive into the engines as possible. He had just enough power to charge his laser banks and partial shields.

The gamma wave crackled.

"- ayday, mayday! Legion fighter under attack and going down!"

"Scorpion. I'm on my way!"

“I gave you an order!"

The three pirate fighters broke off their pursuit as Scorpion's Trident tumbled into the atmosphere, red fire burning off the wings.

"I'm not leaving you!"

"Leave now!"

"No!"

"Do not - "

The gamma wave transmission ceased.

"Scorpion?" Austin whispered.

The pirate fighters moved off above him, the space in front of them wavering. The pirates opened their own curve and passed through. Since they had been here since the first wave from Tarton's Junction, they must be bingo fuel. They would return to salvage the debris yard just created by the battle. He had a couple hours, maybe less, to find Scorpion on Flin Six.

He blinked away sweat burning into his eyes, shifted all his laser power into his forward shields, and eased the throttle forward toward the planet.

He had never landed in atmo before. It couldn’t be much different than landing on Tarton’s Junction. He had studied the concepts of atmo flying in his course work and knew the navigation computer could do some of the work. He keyed for the projected course to enter the atmosphere and the mint green nav squares filled his HUD.

Ease yourself into the atmosphere, come on, easy.

He passed through the digital squares.

The shields buckled and flashed as he skipped across the planet.
Okay, ease down
. The squares came faster. He gripped the stick with both hands as the light around him turned blood red. The ship bounced. Sweat dripped down his face and back. He shook away the droplets from his eyes.

The squares passed faster than he could adjust. He risked freeing his right hand from the stick, pulled back on the throttle, but it didn't matter. His Trident screamed like a bullet into the atmosphere. He missed one square, then two. The navigation computer screeched an alarm. The shields dropped to forty percent, then thirty.

He leaned over the stick, stared at the squares ‘til his eyes felt like they would bleed out. Maneuvering through square after square, Austin didn't even know how far he had come or where he was in the atmosphere. All that mattered was the squares, and he hit every one of them. His mind drifted, he allowed his body to take over. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. Nothing but the squares, the squares, hit the squares.

And then the squares finished.

The scorching red fire dissipated around the cockpit, replaced by a dirt-colored sky with sandy clouds. He exhaled and sucked in a breath, his lungs burning. His muscles ached and sweat poured down his forehead and onto his cheeks. It felt like a salty shower had gone off in his flight suit. He looked to his left, checked the wings, saw the blackened scorch marks. It wasn't pretty, but he was flying.

Scorpion
.

He quickened his descent, the controls sluggish. He knew flying in atmo would be nothing like the vacuum of space as howling wind smacked against the cockpit.

Remember: a couple of hours, maybe less. Rodon would return, and he wouldn't be alone.

He thought of his training. When a pilot ejects, an emergency beacon is launched from the pod. If the pilot is conscious, they should activate the whisper beacon for encrypted messages. Austin ran a search for the beacon, picked up nothing. His stomach rolled, his heart raced. Scorpion hadn't punched out, she must have crashed.

The HUD flashed: NEW SIGNAL.

Austin smiled, surveyed the readout of Flin Six. Scorpion's beacon was two-thousand miles to the north. With any luck, she would be there waiting for him.

"Hold on, Scorpion," he said. "I'm coming."

The clouds broke, the land stretching out beneath him. Rolling hills of reddish dirt continued in every direction as sand storms raged on the horizon. Pockets of vegetation peppered the otherwise lifeless ground. Austin lowered the fighter to twenty thousand feet, still too far from Scorpion's beacon to begin visually searching for the crash site.

His face, still dripping with sweat, itched underneath the helmet. His flight suit stuck to his skin, his pants clinging to the back of his legs.

The current mission duration was four hours. In that time, they had lost Etti, Rolling, Nubern, Snake and probably Skylar and Braddock. Oh, God, why did they have to take Skylar? After the stunner missile flung him from battle, he wasn't sure any of the pilots were able to open a curve to escape. Scorpion was down here on the planet's surface, she had to be.

The nav squares flashed past his HUD as he guided the fighter on a path toward the beacon. Twenty minutes and he'd be there. Scanning the clouds, he half expected pirate fighters to pounce. But there was nothing, not yet.

Dark clouds loomed in his path. Austin slowed to a crawl, nearly hovering thousands of feet above the planet's surface. He had never flown the Trident in atmo, already feeling the difference of the sluggish response. Up ahead, lightning flashed.

The navigation computer showed him eight miles from Scorpion's crash site. The wind jostled the Trident as if to make the decision for him.

Guess I head the rest of the way on foot, he thought.

He decreased the altitude, flying the Trident like a helicopter. As he dropped through the layers of misty clouds, he concentrated on the controls, fighting against the crosswinds in an effort to keep the fighter stable.

The cockpit gyrated and rattled. He paused at two-hundred feet. The storm passed his location now. He needed to put down, but the jagged rocks convinced him otherwise.

Changing course, he risked traveling another mile toward Scorpion's location. The wind slapped against the canopy, sheets of rock and sand hissing against the fighter. In less than a minute, his sight distance reduced to zero. He lowered the landing gear and brought the wings up. The engines whined as he fought the fierce winds and tried to land. The altimeter dropped:

Seventy, forty, ten ...

He pushed the vertical thrusters, hoping to cushion the landing.

Sparks flashed from the controls as the Trident slapped into the ground. His head smashed into the side of his canopy, the crack shooting up the side of his face plate growing larger. He blinked several times, trying to clear his head. Darkness crept into his vision.

Don't pass out.

After a long minute with his head in his lap, Austin leaned back in the seat, watching the swirl of dirt spin around his cockpit. Try as he might, the voice in his mind kept telling him this was a bad idea, he should have taken the curve.

Even as thoughts threatened to spin out of control, he knew the truth: Scorpion would not die alone. The pirates would return, and she would be killed or forced into slavery. The same fate descended upon Josh.

He had to move, now.

Powering down the fighter's systems, he shifted the Trident into sleep mode and activated the reflecting shroud. The fighter's body blended into the surroundings, becoming nearly invisible. He unbuckled his safety harness and looked back at Nubern, who was still hunched over his controls. Alive or dead, it was impossible to tell.

Austin lowered the ladders on each canopy. Before opening, he checked his oxygen. Twenty hours of oxygen supply before he would have to resupply at the Trident or go home. He didn't need twenty hours. Somehow he knew the pirates would return long before twenty hours.

Opening the canopy, Austin stepped out into the cutting wind. The sand slapped against his flight suit. He stepped down the ladder and lost his footing. He grabbed at the closest rung, but fell to the dirt in a heap. He stayed on his back, staring up into the swirls of dirt and pebbles, his muscles aching.

So that was my first step on a foreign world, he thought. Impressive.

He slowly stood, ignoring his soreness, and felt heavier as if the world pressed down on him. The gravity must be different. For his first experience on a planet other than Earth, the view left a lot to be desired. Still, he marveled at the fact he stood on another world for the first time in his life. For the past nine months, his feet had only stepped on the steel of Tarton's Junction. Now, his boots sunk into the sandy soil of Flin Six. On all sides of his landing pad, rocks protruded out of the porous ground, reaching for the swirling clouds. The wind howled as if angry, releasing a long, slow moan as it shot through the sharp rocks. If this storm continued, he would need all of his instruments to find his way to Scorpion and, more importantly, return to his fighter.

In the small storage compartment under the cockpit, he grabbed the survival pack with first aid and extra oxygen for Scorpion. He climbed the ladder to check on Nubern. Hesitating, he lingered over his mentor for a moment, his eyes fixated on the torn and battered helmet. He placed his hand on Nubern's shoulder and pushed him gently back into his seat. To his relief, Nubern's chest slowly fell and then rose again. He was alive. Even with his helmet on, he still managed to suffer a bright red gash running from his left eye to his forehead. Blood trickled down his cheek.

"Captain Nubern? Cap?" Austin asked, leaning close. He tried the intercom again, but Nubern didn't answer.

Looks like I'll have to go on this little journey alone, he thought.

He should have taken the curve.

He should have left when he had the chance. Now he was going to die on this rock, a billion miles from nowhere.

Don't do this, he cursed himself. Get moving.

He glanced at the air gauge. Nineteen hours and fifty-eight minutes. Time to move.

He dragged his feet through ankle deep powdery sand, over unforgiving hills made of more sharp rocks, and through forests of cylindrical rubber-like trees. Of course, plant life probably meant there was water somewhere. At least, he hoped it did. If there was other life on Flin Six, it was doing a good job of hiding.

He checked his tablet, frustrated at the amount of time it was taking to make it a mile toward Scorpion. He thought an average person walked between three and six miles an hour, but after ninety minutes he had only made it a mile into his journey. The flight suit felt like it was made of lead, his boots filled with concrete. It was like walking in slow motion across this foreign world.

After the second hour, the storm had lessened to the point he could use his binoculars. He scanned the horizon, thought smoke rose from behind the next ridge. He checked his tablet and, sure enough, Scorpion was straight ahead.

When he was a child at Lake Lanier, he thought he could jump off the boat and swim to the sandy beach. His father told him it was farther than it looked, but Austin insisted. After being told to wear a life jacket, Austin tried to swim for the beach. His father had been right – it took forever to swim to the beach. At one point Austin thought the lake had hidden currents fighting against his advance.

The tablet showed Scorpion still about five miles to the north of his current position.

He looked back to see no sign of his own ship, the reflecting shroud doing its job. Unless the pirates had a way of detecting a Legion fighter through a reflecting shroud, his Trident and Nubern should be safe. Of course, Dax Rodon has proved to be resourceful.

He pressed on, ignoring his aching feet and leg muscles. When he had closed to under four miles, each step became a laboring effort. He struggled to breathe and hunched over several times, launching into a series of violent coughs. Even when the storm subsided, strong winds slapped against him as he walked.

His vision blurred as one hill looked just like the last ridge, one cluster of boulders resembled the last, one patch of tube trees looked like the last.

The third hour came and went.

He realized if it took more than ten hours to reach Scorpion, there wouldn't be enough air for both to make it back to his fighter.

Tired of staring at the ground as he labored to place one foot in front of the other, Austin focused on the horizon. A slight incline began, making the journey tougher. The strange tube trees became denser as he came to within a mile of the crash site. With his oxygen tanks reading twelve hours, Austin reached the crest of hill and rested under a cluster of trees.

Ahead at the bottom of the hill, a crater split the ground. Pieces of trees scattered around the hole. Austin grabbed the binoculars as he caught his breath. He surveyed the area around the crater, saw a track leading away, followed it, and found Scorpion’s escape pod had rolled down the hill before coming to a stop on another patch of trees in the middle of this gorge.

The fighter couldn't be far from here.

Thunder rumbled. Austin winced. Another storm.

Shadows zipped across his path. Austin looked up. Three fighters flying wing-to-wing hovered over the gorge. Search lights sent out beams through the dusty atmosphere. For a moment, Austin's spirits lifted. The fighters looked to have their wings slanted downward like the Trident, but it was a false hope.

The pirate fighters circled the crash site, weapons bristling under flat wings. The hodgepodge of machinery covered the fighter as if someone pieced together a series of different model kits. The pirates had found Scorpion, and they were no doubt resupplied and refueled for the salvage effort.

But they would want the ship, not the escape pod and the pilot. Wouldn't they?

Austin pressed against the tree, the binoculars at his visor. He watched the pirates descend, one fighter landing near the pod. Two pirates, dressed in black and maroon strips of rough fabric, exited the landed fighter, rifles held across the chest, their black helmets scanning the area as if anticipating an attack. Austin touched the pistol at his leg, briefly considered sneaking closer to take them out, but decided against it. Two pirate fighters still hovered over the pod. Attacking would be suicide.

The two pirates on the ground waved at the fighters, and the aircraft left the area. Their engines rumbled long after they had left his sight. The pirates on the ground crawled over the pod like ants. Austin bit his lip. Scorpion must have left the area.

A memory clicked. The first part of survival training directed the fallen pilot to activate the whisper beacon when able. He keyed his tablet for the whisper and listened. Nothing but the crackle of empty space. If Scorpion could, she would issue a distress message on the encrypted channel. As of yet, there was nothing but silence.

He turned back to his binoculars. Apparently having decided the pilot fled, one pirate had turned to stripping the pod with a welding torch while the other stood with his weapon facing the forest. The wielding torch sent firelight across the edge of the escape pod. Whatever they were trying to cut, Austin couldn't tell. Instead, he scanned the ground. If Scorpion had left the pod, there would be tracks. The fact the pirates weren't leaving the area meant they either hadn't seen the tracks or they didn't care.

Austin searched the area with his binoculars. The sandy ground looked disturbed on the side of the escape pod's final resting place. If Scorpion was alive, she would be somewhere on the other side of the pod.

He lowered the binoculars and sighed, the wind slapping against his back. He stared at the sky. The light was fading. Taking a walk through these strange trees while avoiding the cutthroat pirates didn't sound like a good idea. He had no other option. He scanned the sides of the ravine. He might be able to make his way around the perimeter, avoid the pirates and check the far side without being caught.

He had an hour and forty minutes of oxygen before he would have to head back to his own fighter.

He must find her before then.

*****

It took the better part of an hour hopping from tree to tree, rock to rock, as he walked to other side of the ravine. His muscles burned. His lungs ignited like fire when he inhaled. The fatigue took over, his eyelids growing heavier by the step.

When he finally made it to his goal, he glanced back at the escape pod. The pirates had dismantled the entire pod and stood over the parts. One used the wielding torch to cut through the back of the pod while the other pulled apart the metal.

Walking over the crest to remain out of view of the pirates, Austin checked the whisper beacon again.

Still nothing.

He glanced at his gauge: thirty-six minutes.

Another rumble, this time closer than before, and Austin knew it wasn't thunder. Rolling into the dirt, he tucked himself against a tree. The pirates had returned.

Two spacecraft, one larger than the fighter and shaped like a square with tentacles, hovered over the escape pod's crash sight. A metal claw descended from the bulky craft and lowered out of sight. When it raised, the black fingers of the claw grasped pieces of the pod.

Austin watched in awe.

The smaller craft circled the square, lights beaming down.

Voices barked orders from the other side of the hill, but the language did not sound familiar. His translator must not be working.