Stones: Experiment (Stones #3) (64 page)

“Problem?”

“Weapons. This ship is lightly armored, but its hard-wired to not allow firing against friendlies.” She glances at the four red arrows closing in. “They’re all MX Global. Our ship thinks this is a game. We can run, but we can’t fire back.”

Matt glimpses an object moving out of the corner of his eye and jerks his head right. “I see them.”

“Over here, too.” Alexa says.

Without warning, the transport stops in midair. As the four pursuit ships pass out in front, the transport explodes upward, going into a steep power climb, dancing to the right and left in a twisting, ascending spiral.

With multiple Gs pulling against him, the blood slowly drains out of Matt’s head and he slips close to unconsciousness. Closing his eyes and concentrating, he finds the flow of blood and, using his Stone, forcibly reverses it before it’s too late.

The ship continues to climb without mercy.

“Any control over the flight algorithm? I don’t think we can take much more of this.” With effort, Matt turns his head to the left.

Alexa’s body hangs limp in the pilot’s chair. She’s blacked out.

How are you doing back there, Yarah?

“Fine.” The little girl’s words echo in Matt’s mind like someone shouting in an empty room. “But Jessica just fell asleep.”

As the transport reaches the top of its climb, the pursuers begin to close in. The tactical readout shows multiple lines of yellow next to the red arrows.

The meaning is clear.

A woman’s syn-voice fills the interior of the transport, confirming his fear. “Enemy missile launch. Taking evasive action.”

The transport makes a hard turn from vertical to horizontal, flashing its belly at the stars. Two streaks of fire shoot past the cockpit windows. The missiles detonate in a midair explosion twenty meters away, throwing the transport end over end in an uncontrolled slide.

“Does this ship accept voice commands?” Matt yells.

The reply comes in a calm reply. “Affirmative.”

“Then get us the hell out of here.”

“Confirmed.”

The ship immediately rights itself for a split second and shoots straight down in a death spiral.

Matt’s body pulls against the shoulder straps as the green tops of the mountains rise up to meet him. Another burst of yellow lights up the tactical.

“Evade!”

The ship jerks to the right, pulls out of the dive and skims across the treetops just as two more missiles blow past in a blur, missing the wings by inches and detonating against the mountain slope, throwing up a cloud of dirt and wood debris.

“Evasion algorithm acquired by attackers.” The woman’s voice resonates through the transport. “Probability of imminent projectile impact in excess of ninety-five percent.”

Matt roars at the voice. “Are you able to shoot live ammo?”

“Negative. Live fire not permitted during gaming sequences.”

“But this isn’t a game! They’re firing live ammo at us. Request override.”

After a long pause, the voice finally answers. “Request denied.”

As the transport flies five meters above the treetops, Matt stares forward in desperation. On the tactical screen, red arrows are back in a diamond formation behind the ship.

Another burst of yellow.

The ship jumps up in a diagonal climb to the left. “Impact in four seconds.”

Gripping his Stone, Matt’s eyelids snap shut.

Three, two, one . . .

When the impact comes, a spectacular fire blooms around the transport. Protected by a blue energy bubble from Matt’s Stone, its sides are unscathed.

“Direct hit scored by opponent.” The voice intones. “Game over.”

“Load
new
game.” Matt yells back at the voice. “Commence attack phase.”

“Confirmed.”

The transport pulls away from the trees in a long upward arc. More missiles slam harmlessly against the energy field, throwing ripples across its surface.

“Warn opponents to break off attack,” Matt says. “Confirm receipt of warning.”

Several seconds pass.

“Receipt confirmed. Attackers refuse to comply.”

Alexa lifts her head and opens her eyes to the blue glow surrounding the ship. “What’s going on?”

Matt holds his Stone, glowing light blue, in his open palm.

An idea pops into his head.

“Ship, can you accept direct interface?”

“Universal interface possible. Please upload sequence.” A slot on the ship’s com flashes white, indicating the point of contact for interface with its systems.

I hope this works,
Matt screams in his mind to Yarah.

“Prepare for link.” He closes his eyes and reaches out to the ship’s computer directly, as if it were another mind, like Yarah.

At first, he sees only emptiness, a vacuum.

“Searching for link,” the voice says.

As Matt concentrates on connecting the Stone to the ship’s computer, a small point of light suddenly blossoms in the darkness behind his eyes. Moving forward, he touches it with a finger.

The point explodes into a massive cubic grid of flowing color dots.

“Link found. Indicate point of contact,” the voice says.

One of the dots near the center of the cube flashes on and off in bright red.

Matt moves to it. “I’m attempting contact.” He reaches out to the point, not knowing what to expect as his mind opens to it. “Please confirm.”

“Contact confirmed. Interface accepted. Please provide command.”

“Transfer full control of the ship.”

“Confirmed.”

A digital 3-D grid opens up in Matt’s mind showing the transport’s location, the topography of the local ground surface and the speed and direction of all four attack vessels.

Clarity moves through his thoughts as the ship falls under the direct control of his mind.

Matt had always been good at Meshgames, but this goes far beyond anything he’s ever experienced. Not only is he in complete command of the ship, it’s as if he has
become
the ship. He jerks it slightly to the right to avoid an incoming missile.

The result is nearly catastrophic.

Alexa blacks out again. A loose slate lying on the floor of the cargo area shatters against the wall.

“Warning. Requested commands nearing limits of human structural integrity.” The voice sounds like a school teacher delivering a lecture on the proper way to dissect a frog. “Excessive gravitational pull may result in organ damage.”

Too many Gs.

Matt can throw out a bubble for protection, but what about Jessica and the others? He opens his eyes and sees the protective envelope of blue energy hugging the ship. It gives him an idea. Reaching out to the flow of time, his mind grabs it and holds on, like jumping on a fast-moving bicycle.

Time stops, giving the air a golden tint. The transport hangs motionless and silent in the night sky.

“Yarah, unbuckle and come to the front.”

Moments later, she appears at his side. “Need some help?” Her Stone glows light pink in her hands.

“You guessed it,” Matt says. “I’m going to try something new. Follow me.” He closes his eyes.

Yarah’s lids drop down at the same time.

“Ever heard of gravity?” Matt says.

“What’s that?”

“It’s what makes you fall to the ground when you jump out of a tree.” Matt tries to make the explanation simple. “It pulls a small object toward a larger one. It’s what keeps our feet on the floor. It’s what tries to pull this ship down. We need to find it so we can change it.”

“Got it.” Yarah’s voice is matter-of-fact, completely unaware of the immense complexity of anything remotely related to quantum physics. Matt wants to keep it that way.

They need a common point of reference.

“Let’s start with you, Yarah. What’s holding you to the floor of the ship?”

Matt turns his attention to the metal under Yarah’s feet. Studying the infinite points of contact between the two, he searches for some wave, particle or field that can explain how gravity works, vaguely aware that this question had been discussed in one of his college physics classes. They never reached a conclusion.

But I have a Stone. I can stop time. I should be able to do this.

Yarah giggles as her feet float off the floor.

“How did you do that?” Matt says.

“It’s easy.” Her feet come back down. “I just changed the color of the cloud.”

“The cloud?”

“Yeah. Can’t you see it? It’s all over me and the floor, darkest right under my feet, but lighter farther away.”

Matt looks, but can’t see anything. “Can you do the same thing to the whole ship?”

“Sure.” Yarah says. “Like this?”

Suddenly, all the weight flows out of Matt’s body. He floats an inch above the seat.

“That works. Can you keep doing it as we fly?”

Yarah laughs. “Yeah. It’ll be fun.”

“OK, just don’t stop.” He opens his eyes and looks at Yarah to make sure she’s listening. “Our lives depend on it. Got it?”

“Got it.” Yarah’s smile disappears, and she clenches her jaw.

“Good. Let’s go.” Matt relaxes his grip on time as it slowly slips away. When it’s entirely gone, he goes back into his connection with the ship.

An explosion of light slams against the blue energy bubble engulfing the transport.

The ship’s voice floats through the cabin. “Attackers closing in.”

Matt can see them, converging from all directions, firing a string of missiles on their approach. White light engulfs the bubble. As he watches the trajectory of the attackers, their motion is slow and sluggish. Just before they come together, he pops the ship up out of the plane of attack, feeling light and easy in the weightlessness of space.

The four attackers twist like the strands of a rope as they pass through the point where the transport had been, their wings sliding past each other with only a few feet of clearance.

“Time to have some fun.” Matt shoots toward one of the attackers on a wild zigzag pattern.

The voice comes back. “Internal forces exceed survival thresholds.”

“Wrong,” Matt says. “We’re still alive.”

No reply.

“Show me best point of impact to disable attackers.”

A technical schematic of the enemy ships pops up in Matt’s mind with a red zone over the section of the cockpit holding the pilot.”

“No,” Matt says. “How do I disable attackers but leave human occupants alive?”

“Target navigation module.”

Another still of an attacker ship jumps in front of Matt, but this time a red dot floats over a dimple in the outside skin midway between the tail and the spot where the back of the wing merges into the body.

“Got it.”

As the four ships draw apart, two turn sharply upward. The other two drop in the opposite direction. All of them ride on short arcs that bring them back into the plane of attack.

“Attackers initiating Lightning Blade sequence.”

Matt picks one of the ships and flies directly at it, adjusting his line to match its trajectory, like a game of chicken. With less than two hundred meters between them, Matt slows time and watches the ship fire off a projectile and swerve to the right. As it pulls away, its side is fully exposed to Matt.

A pulse of green energy shoots out from the bubble. Matt guides it with his mind, scoring a direct hit on the dimple. Sparks explode in the dark air. The attack vessel spirals into blackness.

Two pilots eject.

“Attacker disabled,” the voice says.

The next two are dispatched in the same way. Matt takes his time with the final one, perfecting his technique.

To his left, Alexa wakes up just as the last ship is downed.

“Impressive,” she says. “You can return full control to me.”

Matt lets go of the computer interface. They shoot north over the mountains.

“Now, we need to talk.” Alexa engages the ship’s autopilot so it circles high in an unused piece of airspace above the Canadian arctic. “Follow me.” She gets up from her chair and walks to the back. “That was the easy part.”

“T
hey got away.” Jerek takes a step closer to Ryzaard’s desk. “All the attack vessels were destroyed. Neat and quick.”

“What about the fighter crews?” Ryzaard leans back in his chair and lifts two fingers up to his mouth. The black Djarum goes between his lips, and he inhales a lungful of blue smoke. It pours out as he talks. “Any word from them before they went down?”

“Sure. They’ve all been thoroughly debriefed.”

“What?” Ryzaard looks confused.

Jerek’s eyes are glued to his jax. “All survived. The attack ships were surgically disabled with precise hits to their navigation systems.” He looks up, raising an eyebrow. “That is the only spot on the fighters where a direct hit won’t result in complete destruction of the vessels. The crews were all able to safely eject.” His eyes flicker from left to right. “They all say the same thing. The transport had a protective skin of blue energy, impossible to penetrate, even with laser impact cannons.”

Ryzaard nods, unsurprised.

“There’s more.” Jerek looks up. “They say the transport executed impossible maneuvers, jumping, shifting, jerking. The Gs alone should’ve killed everyone aboard.”