Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) (34 page)

“Twig and
Berries!” Jager smiled widely as he slapped me on the back. “Good to see ya
kid.”

It was, by
far, the friendliest greeting I’d ever gotten from one of the colonists. I
stared back at him, unsure how to respond.

“Twig and
Berries?” Loid raised an eyebrow as he swiped a series of commands. “You there,
Boils was it? Plug into the conduit in the access panel behind the main console
and run the other end out to Teigan’s ship. What’s this Twig and Berries?”

“Ha!”
Jager’s laugh sounded almost like a cough. “You don’t know? When we first got
here the Govn’r found the kid hiding in a raspberry bush, buck nekid.”

“Really?
Just a twig was it?” Loid’s tone was light and joking, but when he glanced my
way his eyes were narrow and questioning.

I was
thankful when Ju-lin rushed into the cabin. Trying hard to mask her
breathlessness, she hopped lightly over the tangle of cables that Boil’s was
unspooling and hugged me tightly.

“I
thought they were going to kill you,” she said softly into my neck. I thought
for a second that I felt her shake with a sob, but as she released her eyes
were dry.

“Pick
your jaws up off the floor boys,” Loid jibed at Boils and Jager, whose eyes and
focus had wandered, appraising Ju-lin as she passed.

The two
turned back to their task, though they continued to toss fleeting glances from
time to time.

“We found
it,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t a weapon, not exactly. Not something Growd
could use right now, but in time he will. He took it all with him. If he slips
passed the Collegiate we’ll never find him. We have to catch him, it needs to
be destroyed.”

“Destroyed?”
Ju-lin questioned.

“It contained—”
I fumbled with my words, acutely aware that Loid, Jager, and Boils were
straining to listen and didn’t want to say too much. “I know the truth. I know
who I—er’ where
they
came from, who they were, why the Collegiate were
hunting them, and why the Draugari were here.”

Her eyes
widened.

I wanted
to say more, but didn’t dare. Loid was sitting in the pilot’s seat, accessing a
program I hadn’t seen before. He was seemingly absorbed in his task, Jager and
Boil’s talked quietly to each other as they continued to unravel the cable, but
I was sure that all three were hanging on our every word.

“How did
you get free?” I decided to change the subject.

“Oh, it
was amazing,” Ju-lin’s face lit up as she began recounting what happened after
I had left. “Of course Growd was lying when he said he would send Chen to talk
to me after they locked me up, but luckily-”

“I had
heard the whole conversation,” Jager broke in. “I passed the word back to the
Govn’r that Lin’ was back. He was shut up in the hospital from that nasty hit
he took on his shoulder. But he wasn’t nearly as sick as he was making out. He
snuck out of the hospital, got some of us colonists together, and organized a
rescue.”

“The
attack was brilliant,” Ju-lin continued, glowing with pride. “Dad sent Chen
into the storage area where they were holding me and Loid. Chen made up
something about how I needed a high dosage of antibiotics to make sure that I
wasn’t carrying any diseases or pathogens that could disrupt the planetary
ecosystem.”

“Smart,”
I nodded.

“Chen
managed to dose the guards with some meds he said would help contain the risk
of infection and broke us out, nice and quiet.”

“Every
guard in the place was piled up and snoring in the cells as we left,” Loid
added without looking up. “Quite a clever piece of work. Chen may not look like
much, but the little man’s got some stones.”

“By the
time we got back to Dad, Teigan had found us. He and most of his mercs are
fleet washouts with families on other worlds like this one. They refused to
leave us undefended, so he called his ships back home.”

“And when
they landed to refuel for the fight,” Loid said. “Growd sent out the drop-dead
code that his crew had managed to install on all of the fighters, bricking
their computers and making them useless. That is, unless-”

“Unless?”
I queried.

“Unless
this works,” Loid hopped up out of his chair with a smile.

“And if
it doesn’t?” Ju-lin asked.

“Well,”
Loid answered. “Then I promise I will save you a few minutes to gloat about how
I walked into a trap
again
before your buddies fly through the valley
and rain down some death.”

“You had
better get your ass moving if you think you can do this,” Lee called from
outside. “We have thirty minutes at the most before the Skins set this delta on
fire.”

“Right on
time,” Loid patted me on the back. “Jager, Boils! Run the cable out through the
secondary storage bay. We need to jack it into the fighter’s main nav systems.”

I was the
last to follow Loid out into the sun. Teigan’s fighter was resting about ten
meters off of
Tons-o-Fun’s
port side with a dozen people waiting around.
Lee stood in the center, watching Loid with a stoic gaze. Next to him was
Commander Teigan, the rest were either colonists or Teigan’s pilots.

“We’re
all set.” Loid took a few steps forward, leaned against the tail of Teigan’s
Falcon, and pulled out his Slate.

“You
really think you can override the lock-down?” Teigan asked.

“I’m not
going to override it as much as I am going to bypass it,” Loid answered as he
leaned over to make sure that Jager had secured the connection properly. “She
all plugged in there? Good, alright, initiate the protocol. Now we wait.”

“Bypass?”
Teigan raised an eyebrow.

“You
can’t bypass a system lockdown like this without completely re-flashing the
flight computers,” one of Teigan’s pilots interrupted. “I doubt you have
updated flight system software for the Mark II Falcon just sitting around in
that rust bucket of yours.”

“Rust
bucket?” Ju-lin interrupted. “Watch your mouth flyboy!”

Loid
smiled broadly.

Teigan
gave a quick gesture to silence his man, “So what are you doing?”

“You ever
heard of a hackjack?” Loid asked.

“Hackjack?”
Lee muttered. “You brought us out here for that? Dammit Burns! I thought you
had a plan, not some half-assed gutter-thief’s hover-jacking kit.”

“Hackjack?”
I asked.

“Hover-jacking
kit?” Loid echoed. “You don’t give the hackjack enough credit. You see, Eli,
its software that goes in and makes a complete image of the software
configuration for the ship, and then uses a complex algorithm to remove any
aftermarket security specifications.”

“Like
security codes?” I asked.

“And
lock-out codes,” Loid added.

“Except
it’s designed for stealing hovers,” Teigan broke in. “Not top-of-the-line
starfighters. This will never work.”

“I don’t
see why not,” Loid said.

“My cousin
got pinched while using a hackjack on Artemis,” Teigan continued. “He said that
even the best jacks took five to ten minutes to complete the process, and
that’s just for a hover!”

“Yes,
that’s when you run it off of a Slate,” Loid answered, nodding toward the buxom
red-head painted on
Tons’
hull. “The equation changes a bit when you are
routing it through the navigational processors and weapons system controllers
of a particularly well-endowed Lady.”

“I still
don’t think it will—”

Teigan’s
voice was drowned out by a high pitched whirl as the Falcon’s power systems
came to life.

“I’ll be
damned,” Lee said with a tight smile.

“Well
shit,” was all Teigan could manage to say.

“Next!”
Loid shouted casually. “If I heard right we have 11 more fighters to reprogram,
I’m making a few changes to the hackjack, I think I can speed it up a bit.”

“Nine
more,” Teigan said shaking his head. “I lost one of my pilots in the firefight,
and another took a hit to the leg. Lee’s man is taking care of them, but he
can’t fly as he is.”

“Nine it
is,” Loid answered.

“No,” Lee
broke in. “All twelve. If Teigan will have us, Lin’s more than capable, and
I‘ve spent more hours in the cockpit of a Falcon than some of you have spent
living.”

“I can
vouch for Twiggy-er, Ju-lin,” Loid nodded. “She can handle herself.”

Ju-lin
barely stifled a squeal.

“It would
be an honor,” Teigan nodded as he extended his hand to Lee.

“Enough
of this crap,” Loid broke in. “Now you boys, get this bird out of the way and
wheel over another.”

Chapter 35

“So what will it be?” Tren’s voice was thick with anger.
“Jen’tek? Kel?”

The other two looked from Tren, to me, and back to Tren.

“We destroyed the Skins,” I said. “And captured the others.”

“And lost two Slires, and left us stranded in orbit!” Tren countered.
“It will take hours to restore full power. Your leadership has failed,
Lor’ten!”

I stood, meeting him eye to eye, fury built within me.

“Jen’tek, Kel!” He called again. “You must decide, are you
with me, or with Lor’ten!”

Again there was silence, I met Tren’s stare as we waited.

“The Chieftain chose Lor’ten,” Jen’tek replied. “It is not
our choice to make.”

Tren growled, “Kel?”

“We are alive,” he replied. “We have victory. I follow
Lor’ten.”

Tren roared in anger and slammed his fist down against the
navigation console. For a second I thought he was going to draw his blade. At
the last moment, he turned and stormed off out of the command deck.

After he left, Jen’tek, Kel and I exchanged glances, but said
nothing as we set to work to repair the ship. I was in the middle of rerouting
the power from the weapons systems to engines when there was a blast from
somewhere behind us.

I sprang to my feet and pushed my way through the cabin door
and through the docking collar. As I opened the door to the main cabin I saw
Tren’s body lying on the deck, his chest was blackened and smoldering.

“Alarm!” I shouted back over my shoulder toward the command
deck. Jen’tek and Kel came running, immediately at my back. When I turned back
I saw them. Two small, fragile, shapes cowering behind the sleeping pods.

The humans had broken free. I drew my blade.

“To your death,” I said with a nod as I moved to attack.

After
fifteen minutes Loid had reset eight of the Falcons and was jacking into the
ninth. Teigan had authorized the fighters to go up in pairs as they were armed
and ready. He was sending regular reports as he monitored the Collegiate’s
progress.

“According
to Teigan, they are closing in slowly and deliberately.” Lee had set up a
communication post nearby under a shadowed overhang. He was leaning over a
sketched map while absently twirling a rusty bolt in his hand. “There are two
waves, the first will be small one-manned fighters, looks like they are
arranged in a three wings of a dozen each. The rest are holding back with their
haulers and bombers to clean up once they wipe out our defenses. Teigan is
staying low and holding off engaging them as long as possible so we can get
more birds in the air. You two pilots, Trasher and Skunks, right?”

The two
pilots nodded.

“You
should be getting up there right as the shooting starts. Lin and I will take
the last two up.”

While
watching the pilots as they waited their turn to lift off, I realized that
Ju-lin’s nervous energy wasn’t unique, it seemed that all fighter pilots felt
the same restlessness. Skunks’ Falcon was already reset, he was sitting in the
cockpit, waiting while Loid’s hackjack restored the systems on Trasher’s ship
so that they could join the fight. Meanwhile Trasher kept walking back and
forth double, triple, and quadruple checking the external systems on his
fighter as he waited. Ju-lin, for her part, stood next to her father with her
usual shifting feet.

“Lin,
they are wheeling your bird up now. Go climb in and get yourself acquainted,”
Lee paused as he looked down at the map. He gently set the rusty bolt that he
had been fidgeting with on the corner. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

She
flashed me an excited smile as she skipped away toward her fighter.

“Does
that girl have any idea what we’re about to face up there?” Trasher asked after
Ju-lin disappeared into her ship. “I mean, no offence, Lee, if she can fly then
I want her up there. We’ll need every gun we can, but this is a suicide run.”

“Her
mother was the same way,” Lee replied.

“Her
mother was a pilot too?” Loid piped in. “That explains things.”

“Damn
fine one too,” Lee answered. “She was a wing commander for a regional defense
deployment, she was on the first response team when the Draugari attacked Alpha
Centauri.”

Trasher
let a low whistle, “That was a helluva battle. Would have been amazing to be
there. They put up a fight.”

“It was a
slaughter,” Lee retorted, his tone was dry and even. “Her entire wing was
destroyed. Ju-lin was only three years old.”

“But they
held off the invasion until the regional battle group made it back, with all
respect sir, she was a hero.”

“Boy, I
was with the regional battlegroup,” Lee’s voice was cold. “The sky was full of
Draugari. There was no glory that day. Just wreckage. The regional battle group
should have never been pulled out of the system. It cost my daughter her
mother.”

“And on
that sunny note,” Loid broke in. “Trasher, you’re good to go. Get your
preflight going so you and Skunks can get up there.”

Without a
word, Trasher grabbed his flight helmet off the table and entered the ship, a
few seconds later, it began rolling forward with Skunks as they prepared to
lift off.

“I’m
going to go talk to Ju-lin,” Lee nodded to Loid. “Get me if anything changes,
and Eli, don’t go anywhere. I want to talk to you next.”

Without
waiting for my reply, he turned and walked toward Ju-lin’s fighter.

Loid
signaled Jager’s work crew to push up the last two Falcons. As they brought
them up, I saw Lee leaning over Ju-lin’s shoulder in the cockpit speaking
rapidly and pointing to various systems.

“So what
do you think?” Loid asked as he initiated the hackjack cycle on his Slate.
“Bravery or stupidity?”

“Is there
a difference?” I wasn’t sure if there was.

“You’re
learning.”

“You’re
still here,” I said. “What happened to Loid’s rule one? Bravery or stupidity?”

“Neither,”
Loid answered. “Necessity. There is nowhere to run.”

“Growd
ran,” I replied.

“Sure he
ran,” Loid answered. “But where? The Celestrials are thorough. They have the
world covered. Trust me, they will find him.”

“I hope
so.”

“Wow,
gained a little bloodlust?” he asked. “What did Alume do to you?”

“It
wasn’t that,” I answered. “Well, maybe it was. I don’t know. It’s not that I
want Growd dead. It’s that what he’s carrying needs to be destroyed.”

“Even if
it costs the lives of the two dozen mostly innocent people on-board that
shuttle?” Loid raised an eyebrow.

I didn’t
reply.

“There we
go again, not trusting old Loid,” he paused. “I think I’ve earned a bit more
than that kid.”

In that
moment, I wanted to explain it all. I wanted to tell him about what I was, and
what I had seen, but it was just too much.  I was trying to find the words and
figure out where to start when his Slate sounded. Ju-lin’s fighter was ready.

“Swap the
cable, boys!” Loid called over the roar Falcon’s power systems initializing.

I looked
over to see that Lee was coming down the ship’s landing ramp and walking toward
us.

“Don’t
just stand there boy,” Lee said gruffly. “Get up there and tell her good luck,
but not goodbye. It’s bad luck, fighter jocks are superstitious. Once you’re
done, go grab Chen and meet me in the hangar here. I need to see him before the
last ship’s ready.”

Lee
turned away and I walked towards Ju-lin’s Falcon docking ramp.

Thirty
seconds later I was walking up the docking ramp of Ju-lin’s Falcon. After
Growd’s luxury shuttle, the Falcon looked Spartan and rough. Like the
Tons
,
the Falcon is a workhorse, designed for a singular purpose. Power conduits were
run along the ceiling, and every corner was packed with power and weapons systems.
I squeezed through to the cockpit and saw a tuft of Ju-lin’s blue hair
protruding over the back of the pilot’s seat.

“Hi,”
even I was amazed how stupid I must have sounded.

“Eli,”
she turned in her seat and smiled reassuringly. “We will get out of this, don’t
worry. The way I figure it the Skins are tired from their fight with the
Draugari and they will be cutting into atmo as we engage. We have the tactical
advantage.”

I was
glad that she mistook my awkwardness for nerves.

“Waiting
is the worst part,” she continued. “I have another minute and a half on the
pre-flight initialization, but then Dad told me to get in the air immediately
and form up with Teigan’s wing. The first wave of the Collegiate fighters are
almost here.”

“You’re
going up before he’s ready?” I asked.

“Critical
mass is key in aerial combat,” she responded. You need every available ship
when the first clash hits. Barely over a minute now.”

She
looked at me expectantly.

I’m
certain that my face flushed red when I realized what she was waiting for. My
palms immediately began to sweat.

“I won’t
be far behind you guys,” I said as I took a step toward her tentatively. “Loid
will need a gunner.”

“Uh-huh,”
she responded as she leaned forward slightly.

We sat
looking at each other for several agonizing seconds before I took a breath,
leaned down and kissed her. It was sweet and gentle, but all too brief.  I
smiled at her as I pulled away, she slowly pursed her lips and then curled them
into a crooked smile.

Her
console buzzed and blinked green.

“Your
systems are set,” I broke the silence, nodding toward her console.

“Mm-right.”

I turned
to leave, then stopped, “Good luck.”

“You
too,” she answered.

I whirled
through a wave emotions as I left the ship. Happiness was there, but also fear.
Fear for her, fear for myself, fear for the thousands of lives on the planet’s
surface. My legs felt rubbery as they carried me across the landing field to
the hangar where they had brought the wounded after the firefight. I found Chen
just as Ju-lin’s Falcon’s engines fired, rocketing her into the air to join the
others.

When I
told him that Lee needed to see him, Chen immediately handed his Slate to the
nurse, grabbed a medpack, and followed me to the hanger.

“I told
him not to get up out of bed,” Chen muttered as we crossed the airfield. “That
Draugari poison is nasty stuff.”

“Poison?”

“Didn’t
you notice?” Chen asked. “Well, no you probably wouldn’t. He’s had me pump him
so full of stims that he could probably run a marathon in a half hour. No, the
hit he took fighting the Draugari when they leveled New Haven. That one in the
shoulder. It wasn’t a clean wound. Did he say why he needed me?”

“No, just
to get you,” I answered. “Maybe he needs some pain meds so he can fly.”

“Fly?” Chen
asked, incredulous as we neared the hangar. “You mean pilot something? If he
thinks he’s going to be piloting anything in his condition he’s lost his damned
mind.”

As we
entered the hangar we saw that Lee was there, leaning heavily on a table,
waiting.

“I
haven’t lost my damned mind,” Lee repeated with a gruff chuckle. “Well, maybe I
have.”

“Governor—”
Chen’s voice was forceful and urgent as he approached Lee and took his wrist,
feeling for a pulse. “I told you last time, your body can’t take any more stims,
I shouldn’t have given you that last dose.”

“Yes
well, hindsight,” Lee said dismissively.

“I’m
serious,” Chen persisted. “Whatever that Draugari hit you with got in your
bones and is spreading like a hyper-aggressive cancer. What you need is rest,
not
running around with a laser pistol or piloting an Eagle!”

“Falcon,”
Lee corrected him. “If you knew what it was that got in my bones could you have
reversed it?”

“Reversed
it?” Chen asked. “I doubt it. Contained it? Possibly. But I would need a proper
hospital. We just don’t have the facilities for this kind of thing. That’s why
I tried to convince
you
to go back to petition the Protectorate for
protection instead of sending Marin. They may have treatments for this on the
core worlds.”

That
answered the question of where Marin went. I wondered how long ago he’d left.

“Your
ship will be set in two minutes,” Loid said as he entered the room behind us.
“Teigan says they are about to engage. I’d best get moving.”

“Close
the door behind you,” Lee said. “No, Burns, you stay too.”

Loid
closed the door and leaned with his back against it.

“So, what
was it?” Lee asked, leveling his gaze at me. “What was it that the Draugari fired
that splintered into my bones? What is it that is that’s slowly killing me?”