Death Drop (55 page)

Dezmara stumbled forward as the sudden rush of air pushed her into the main deck. Diodojo crouched low to the ground and slunk cautiously down the walkway at her side. She paused for a moment after catching her balance and then took off toward engineering at a dead run. She could hear the wind rushing through the breach. The kranos outlined the dimensions of the hole before she could see it, but that didn’t lessen her surprise when she saw the damage with her own eyes. To her right, there were two holes with blackened edges about halfway down from the cockpit. The big one was 1.54 meters in diameter, according to the kranos, and its smaller cousin, sitting slightly higher and almost touching the first, was 1.02 meters across. Dezmara couldn’t help but shudder as she thought of the effects of rapid decompression on the body that would have been the fate of anyone standing on the main deck at the time of the impact. The biting sting of burnt metal still hung in the air, and as she sprinted on, she wondered whether the smell would ever truly go away.

After a brief fight with the blowback from the pressure differential, Dezmara and Diodojo stepped across the threshold into engineering and closed the door. Dezmara patted Diodojo hard on his muscular flank and sprinted toward the hole in the floor beyond the flashing screens and multiple keyboards at Simon’s workstation. Doj did as he was instructed, moving noiselessly toward the hidden entrance to his pipe-lined sanctuary and then vanishing among the labyrinth of black tubes.

The altimeter in the kranos passed seven thousand feet. They were being dragged to the surface, where the crew of the
Triton
would board their prize and most likely kill everyone aboard. Dezmara straddled the outside rails of the ladder and slid to the bay floor. She turned quickly and jogged toward the hunkered form of her Kaniderelle engineer, who was perched on a wing of
The
Firebug
and pulling hard on one end of a greasy wrench.

“C’mon, deary, be nice to Uncle Simon, would’ya?”

“What’s the problem?” Dezmara said as she stopped beneath him.

“Preflight showed the pressure in the pumper for this wing wasn’t quite up to snuff—didn’t wantcha to get out there with only one flapper, luv, might’ve been ugly. But no worries now—it’s all shipshape!” Simon was leaning over the front edge of the tapered wing as he smiled down at her, and he rapped twice on the section of airfoil folded up at ninety degrees in order to fit the fighter inside the
Ghost’s
humble docking bay.

The
Firebug
was Simon’s contribution to the enterprise. It turned out he was uncannily good at games that involved bluffing and reading the reactions of others, which made him an ace card player. And in the world of runners, there was never a shortage of characters willing to risk something—and sometimes everything—they owned for the chance to get more. The Bug was the grand prize in a game that had lasted eighteen hours straight, which Simon had played with a band of roguish Antars, and which had nearly cost Simon his life. Luckily, Dezmara ventured into port from the dockyard after the Kaniderelle didn’t return for several hours. She dispatched several Antars in their attempt to double-cross and murder the oblivious engineer as he inspected his new mount at the docks. After Simon was able to speak again, and then after he was able to say anything more than ‘thank you’ over and over, he wanted to know if he could keep the machine after all
his
hard work. Dezmara wasn’t too keen on the idea at first, but she couldn’t deny the craft’s potential.

The
Firebug
was a dual-fuselage, single-seat fighter. The pilot sat in a streamlined pod that protruded from an airfoil expanse between the two cigar-shaped hulls, and it reminded Dezmara of the abdomen of some deadly alien insect. The center section passed through the body assemblies and continued on the opposite side to form the wings. The tapered end of each fuselage was packed with a powerful engine that sat directly below an upright stabilizer.

Dezmara let Simon keep the odd-looking craft on two conditions. First, it had to fit inside the
Ghost’s
small docking bay; and second, it needed to pack a punch.

Now, in addition to folding at their midpoint, the wings were notched and gun barrels peeked out from four machined holes on either side of the ship. Eight machine guns was a lot, and Dezmara would have been satisfied with the craft’s firepower had Simon stopped there, but he was determined to design a new weapons system he’d been dreaming up, and this was his chance. He added a U-shaped section in front of the pilot pod and a few feet back from the noses of the chassis, which housed a spherical turret with three cannons capable of moving independently from one another. In their natural position, the three large barrels were situated with the uppermost perforated tube pointed up at forty-five degrees, the center at zero degrees, and the lower cannon pointed down at forty-five degrees.

With the new cannon pod looking like an antennaed head, and the abdomen-like pilot pod, the fighter’s insectile appearance was undeniable—as was her formidable arsenal—and so they deemed her
The
Firebug
. One evening in port, after a few too many pints of stout, Simon thought it would be “a bit’a fun” to christen the craft with a new paint job. He left most of the metal gray exterior alone and focused his drunken, artistic energies on the front sections. The next morning, Dezmara stormed down to the docking bay after several unanswered calls to engineering to find an unconscious, paint-covered Simon, a half-empty barrel of stout, and two rather brilliant renderings of a green insect with bulbous red eyes and muzzle flash erupting from its three antennae on the nose of each fuselage. He had also managed to paint the little ship’s moniker in a stylish, cursive script that arced above each persona before he passed out.

“She’s all yours, luv,” Simon said as he hopped down from the wing.

“All right, Sy, listen up. I need you to get that engine up and running, understand?”

“I’ll be done sharpish, luv!” Simon said with a hurt look.

“I’m not mad, Sy, but we’re in the shit, and that engine needs to be ready if we’re gonna make it.”

“You mean, if
I’m
gonna make it, right?”

“I’m not abandoning you, dammit!” Dezmara snapped. “I need you to trust me. I’ll giv’em something else to deal with, and as soon as that engine’s ready, let me know, all right?” She was talking fast. The altimeter in the kranos was spinning away and she was becoming more nervous with each flashing number.

“Whud’ja have in mind, luv?” Simon said, cocking his head to the side with interest.

She had it all worked out in her head, but before she could open her mouth and bring Simon up to speed, the ship groaned and trembled. Dezmara and Simon stumbled to their left, facing each other like two drunks dancing, and thudded against the wall of the bay at the same time.

“They’re puttin’ on the stoppers, luv,” Simon said through heavy breaths. The sheaths around the tow chains attached to the
Ghost
would now be filled with fluid to hold it in place as the pirates slowed down and searched for somewhere to land. “Not much longer now, luv. What’s the play?” Simon stared at Dezmara, his eyes filling with fear.

“When you give the word, I’ll shoot you free and then buy you some time by hammering those thieving bastards with everything I’ve got. You break from the battle and head east, find a safe place to land with some cover, and send a coded beacon, got it? As soon as I’m clear, I’ll bug out and meet up with you and Doj.” Dezmara wasn’t running the plan by Simon for approval or additional ideas, and they didn’t have time for any of his concerns: she was telling him what was going to happen.

“Right, luv. Sounds simple enough, I guess,” he said with an air of defeat.

“You think too much, Sy,” Dezmara said as she scrambled onto the wing. “Remember, east and a coded beacon when you’re safe.” She dropped into the pilot pod and pulled the clear bubble down over her head. Red warning lights twirled and flashed, and a siren chased Simon up the ladder and out of the bay as Dezmara engaged the prelaunch sequence for
The
Firebug.
He stood at the edge of the pit as the inner doors slid closed, and she couldn’t help but notice the grim look on his face: it unsettled her. “He just thinks too much,” she said, trying to reassure herself, as the large mechanical arms hovering the fighter above the outer bay door rotated on their circular base.

The folding wings of
The
Firebug
operated hydraulically, and Simon reasoned that it would be safer to use the force of the atmosphere pushing on the topside of the fighter to help extend them into position. He outfitted the underside of both wings with locks similar to the ones on the freight containers in the hold and mated them to straight sections of the same I-beam girders that lined the cargo bay. The arms were attached to a swiveling base mounted on the wall that rotated as soon as the launch sequence was started and the upper bay door was secured.

Dezmara could feel the veins in her head, now engorged with blood, pounding around her temples as she hung upside down and watched the numbers in her helmet. The outer door slid open and she arched her head back to look down below her. The first smile to tickle her lips since their narrow escape from Luxon and the portmaster tingled her face, and her heart pounded with anticipation. There was a floor of cloud cover below. “This is gonna be fun,” she said as the little smile turned into a waggish grin.

Three
.
Two
.
One
.

The
Firebug
passed through the opening of the docking bay and into the crisp, light blue sky of Clara 591. Dezmara engaged the wing hydraulics and arched her fighter nose down, diving for the fluffy white bumps that would hide her until the time came to set her friends free. “Sy, you there?”

“Copy that, luv.”

“The engine?”

“Almost…there,” Simon said with a grunt of effort.

“I hate to ruin your holiday, but if I don’t turn on these engines in about five seconds and make my run, you’ll be able to fit me and The Bug in the back pocket of your smock. So do me a favor and get that goddam engine up!”

“Got it—it’s done, luv!” said Simon triumphantly.

“Roger,” Dezmara said as she toggled the switch to fire the engines and pulled back hard on the control stick, “making my attack run now. Meet you at the rendezvous.”

The
Firebug
climbed in a sweeping arch and punched a hole in the cloud ceiling like a cyclone as Dezmara twisted the machine in a series of barrel rolls. She loved to fly anything with wings, and she would gladly do it anytime, anywhere; but on-world flight beat a space run any day of the week and three times on Sunday. The rumble of the engines was no longer just the vibration of mechanical workings humming through the ship—as it was in space. Now the mighty roar of exhaust pounded the air as she pushed the ship to its limits. As much as Dezmara loved the sound of the engines as she burned through the sky, her ears ached for another sound, something else that gets lost in the black vacuum above—gunfire. She longed for the crackle of machine guns and the boom of cannon fire so much that she could feel her heart beat faster in anticipation of putting
The
Firebug
in the thick of things with the
Triton
.

Dezmara took a deep breath to steady herself, leveled off, and flipped on the firing controls for each gun and all three cannons; then she waited for the instrument panel in front of her to flash green for ‘all systems go.’ She filled the moment by looking out of the pod at the skyscape around her.

The blanket of white clouds still floated lazily below in thick bunches that looked soft enough to safely land on, should she need to bail out. Ahead to her left was the first in a line of monstrous columns of smooth, blue stone that pierced the plump condensation beneath her and ascended ever upward, disappearing in a band of thinner, wispy clouds drifting high above. As she drew closer, a flock of strange birds flying in a V-formation gawked at her with several dark, orange-rimmed eyes on the sides of their plumed heads. Huge wings covered in green iridescent feathers beat the air rhythmically as their beaks, curving down from their brows and disappearing inside a massive, hooked underbite, nervously pulsed open and closed at the approach of the loud, flying insect to their right. Dezmara closed her eyes and let the rays of Clara 591’s yellow sun bathe her flight suit. It was warm and she smiled beneath her hood. For a brief few moments, it was peaceful, but she knew that very soon the sky would open up and rain fire.

Beep. The control panel blinked green all the way across. It was time. “…And
I’m
the coming storm.”

Dezmara jammed the stick forward and dropped.
The Firebug’s
twin engines shook the sky and sped the ship through the clouds like a lightning bolt cast down from the heavens by a furious god. She emerged from the clouds just as she had hoped: above the
Triton
and its ill-gotten prize and perpendicular to its course. Dezmara could see the tow columns, the sheaths now smooth against the compressed fluid inside, and the left side of her face bunched and wrinkled with hate for the murderous thieves inside the alien craft as she dropped from the sky and lined them up in her gunsights. Her finger pressed the trigger, and the wing guns sang their sweet, snapping song as columns disappeared in great thundering claps of pressurized liquid.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! One column.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! Two. Three. Four.