Death Drop (58 page)

The
Triton
slowly pulled away and Dezmara saw the horizon change from a sea of green to a sea of blue—literally. The pirate ship had left the desert air and now floated above the curling swells of an ocean. The waves surged and grew bigger until they matured and curled over themselves. At once, their blue faces vanished as they arched over, revealing the power of their green-white backs and roaring majestically in the final steps of their journey. They pounded against the shore in salutation to the passing ships and died, only to slip quietly back into the sea and be born again.

“Goddam you, bastard-ass-sons-of-bitches!” Dezmara screamed as the
Triton
grew smaller in the distance. She lined the cannon sight on their last engine and sent six shells streaming through the air. It was a move born of frustration and the knowledge that they would soon be back to assail her and her crew. Pirates didn’t give up that easily, especially when they knew the whereabouts of a wounded prize. She exhaled heavily and shook her head as she tugged on the stick to turn around. She took a long last scathing look at the pirate ship, and as she bored into it with her eyes, something happened.

The Triton was looming there in the distance—its only engine flickering, faltering, failing!
“Did you hit it? There’s no way. It was too far out! So what, then? Mechanical failure? Out of fuel? DAMMIT, GIRL, WHO GIVES A SHIT—OPEN FIRE!”

Its only advantage stolen by fate, the
Triton
skidded broadside. The three rows of nautilus doors opened and hesitated for a moment as they took aim at the speeding attacker. One by one, the guns inside the swirled chambers flashed and belched smoke, instantly surrounding Dezmara with the peal of exploding shells. She pulled up and rolled, wing over wing, through the blanket of artillery.

With a haywire engine, the pirate ship was struggling to maneuver, and it turned sluggishly as she passed over.
“Why the hell would you turn? You’ve got cannons on the other side…”
Dezmara didn’t need to ponder the question any further; she was almost certain she knew the answer. She smoothly entered into a downward loop from the top of a barrel roll and raced back toward the
Triton
before it could complete its turn.

She tapped the kranos and zoomed in on the retreating starboard side of her target. Her display outlined the specs of several cannons—bore, range, approximate firing angles—and one more thing before her line of sight disappeared. “Bingo!” she said as she checked the ammunition for her own cannons. One shell left. “Well, that’s lucky, since you’re only gonna get one shot at this thing.” She had found the reason for the
Triton’s
peculiar battle tactics. The pirates had cleared their ship for battle, jettisoning the shredded sheaths and decimated chains of the snatcher rounds back in the canyon. Now all of the doors were tightly wrapped around a protruding gun barrel, like fleshy membranes surrounding tuberous eyes—all except one.

The fourth portal from the stern in the center row of the
Triton’s
doors had a small, gnarled length of chain hanging from its center. Tatters of black membrane lay over the twisted shards of metal like a death shroud that flapped in the breeze as air rushed past the remnants of the snatcher and entered the ship through the small hole around it. Dezmara flipped a switch on her instrument panel, and the small motors in the cannon turret hummed in a high-pitched whine. As she pulled alongside the silver vessel, the two flanking barrels flexed out until they were vertical. She rolled on her side, and as the target aligned with the digital gunsight in the kranos, the helmet beeped her cue to send the pirates to hell. KABOOM!

The sound of air rushing into her cockpit was like a river surging over a high cliff, and she could feel the stinging cold bite at her flight suit. A piece of shrapnel had punched a six-inch hole by her left foot. She rolled away instantly and pulled beneath the
Triton.
Her heart was pounding, but she wasn’t injured, and
The Firebug
was still flying. Dezmara pulled from beneath the
Triton
and rolled over so her pilot bubble was facing her attackers. She flew around the ship like a rogue moon in a kamikaze orbit of a doomed planet. Cannon shells chased her, but she was clear and barreling over the top of the ship before the first wisps of smoke were swept away from the portside barrels by the slipstream. If the
Triton’s
captain anticipated her move, it didn’t show. Dezmara arched around to the jammed door and pulled back on her trigger.

Her eyes closed at the sudden bright light of the explosion, and she felt intense heat as a fountain of flame spewed from the gaping hole that had once been the nautilus door. She drifted away from the mortally wounded pirate ship but stayed parallel to its course and watched. A brume of inky smoke rolled from the wound, weaving its way into the salt air as the ship pitched nose down and plummeted. The shiny ram on the
Triton’s
prow sliced through the water in an explosive spray of brine that leapt up its flanks and ran slowly back to the sea like transparent fingers dragging it to a watery grave. The ship pitched upward as it sank into the ocean, balancing on end for a moment and refusing defeat. For an instant, the elaborate curl and jutting spike of its tail looked like the glimmering crown of an alien sculpture rising from the depths; then it slipped beneath the waves with a spiteful, flame-quenching hiss.

Dezmara peeled away and headed north. Her body tingled from head to toe with exhaustion, and she sagged in her seat. The stress of the battle was fading as her heart slowed to its usual pace and she let out a long sigh. “Not there yet,” she said and tapped the side of the kranos. Simon’s coded beacon was sounding loud and clear. He and Diodojo were about three hundred kilometers northeast of her position. She double-checked the fuel level and let out a low whistle. “Nothing like cutting things close to put excitement into an otherwise boring day,” she quipped. Her fuel was low, and getting back to the
Ghost
would use every drop.

The green desert she had flown over while chasing the
Triton
out to sea stretched under her again, and Dezmara decided to drop low and see what she could see. She looked down through the bubble as
The
Firebug
buzzed the top of the dunes and its shadow glided silently across the sand in pursuit. The drone of the engine made her drowsy, and she shook her head to ward off the lulling effects of the warm air that seeped into the cockpit and sapped her strength like a drug. It had been twenty minutes and Dezmara hadn’t seen a single living thing. Nothing scurried across the glistening grains, and nothing sprouted from the shifting soil. “Doesn’t look like a place I need to see any closer,” she said and pulled up on the control stick.

AEEER-AEEER-AEEER-AEEER! Dezmara was hearing alarm bells coming from the little fighter, alarms she had had no idea existed. The kranos showed an outline of
The
Firebug
from the top, and the left wing was pulsing an angry red followed by flashing words,
Danger—left primary hydraulic pressure low.

“No, no, no—I didn’t mean it!” Dezmara could’ve kicked herself for opening her big mouth. She imagined the tongue-lashing she would be getting right now if Simon were there as she climbed as fast as possible. She needed to gain altitude before punching out, but if the wing folded during her ascent,
The Firebug
would spin out of control and crash. “Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!” she chanted as
The Firebug
crept slowly into the sky, and she stared at the blinking display in the kranos. “Come on, dammit!” she shouted.

Suddenly, the ship lurched to one side. The pressure of the fluid locking the wing in place was approaching critical levels, and the airfoil itself had bent up a few degrees. Dezmara pulled hard on the stick to compensate for the change in aerodynamics. She wasn’t high enough, but she would have to risk it. “Simon, I’m punchin’ out!” she hollered into the kranos as she pulled a black lever next to her leg.

The
Firebug’s
left wingtip collapsed, flipping up on its hinges and crashing into the stationary part of the foil with a tremendous SMACK! The fighter spiraled left, and the right wing slammed into the ejected pilot-pod. Luckily, the protective shell surrounding Dezmara didn’t crack, but the impact rocked the pilot-pod so hard that it rattled her teeth. Then the shaking stopped, and the sound of cloth fluttering in the wind escaped from behind her. She was wrenched forward against her harness as the chute opened, filling with air and arching above the pod as she floated face down toward the glittering sand. The pod landed hard on its nose and then rolled backward on its bigger, heavier tail end.

Dezmara unbuckled her harness and cracked the lid. She brought both knees to her chest and kicked up hard. The top of the cockpit bubble lifted free, and a small flood of green sand poured from around the opening, hissing as it sifted over the edges and claimed the piece of downed fighter for the desert. She crawled through the deluge, plopped her back against the shaded side of the bubble, and tapped the side of the kranos. “Simon, come in. Do you copy, over?” The com crackled and whined, and Dezmara heard a response. It was Simon’s voice, but she couldn’t make it out over the interference. “I’m down approximately twenty-five kilometers southwest of your position. Need evac. Do you copy, over?” She repeated the message several times with no response; not even Simon’s garbled voice on the other end.

“Great!” she said as she stripped out of her heavy jacket and swung it down on the ground by the collar. She looked up at the sun, and by its position in the sky and the condition of the light, she guessed that it was relatively early in the day. She checked the temperature—it was hot but not unbearable—and then rechecked the distance to the
Ghost
to see if, by some chance, Simon had heard her last transmission and was on his way, but the beacon wasn’t moving. “Of course not,” she said as she ducked inside the cockpit and reemerged with a reinforced case.

Dezmara unclasped the hinges, flipped the top back, and removed several shiny cylinders and a long, wide pouch with a strap. She tucked the cylinders into the pockets of her flight jacket and shook the pouch. The fluid inside the bladder sloshed just enough to tell her it was full, and she smiled. “Thank goodness for small miracles,” she said as she slung the hydro-pouch around her shoulders with the strap across her back and the pouch over her chest. She slipped off the kranos and fastened it to a section of the hydro-pouch strap just off her right hip below the bladder, then pulled both her autos from their holsters and double-checked her ammunition. Both guns were full and she had extra clips on her belt. She wrapped the sleeves of her flight jacket around her waist, tied them in a knot and paused to make sure of her figures.

“Average foot speed of a biped over even ground is three miles per hour; we’ll call it two loaded with gear traveling over
this
,” she said as she swept her foot through the sand. “Twenty-five clicks to the
Ghost
makes it…seven and a half hours plus time for resting. We’ll call it eight.” She unzipped the front of her flight suit down to her waist, pulled the thin tank-top beneath back and forth several times to create some airflow, and let out an exhale. She held one hand over her eyes and looked at the sun uneasily before turning northeast and walking deeper into the desert.

Hour after hour she walked beneath the sun. She sank to her ankles as she trekked up dunes and plunged down into valleys. The sun chased her as she hiked, and by late afternoon it was searing overhead and off to her left. Dezmara was well provisioned and her body had a natural affinity for the heat. The exposed skin of her chest and face were already a golden brown, and she was making better time than she had expected. By the time the sun was streaking the sky purple and red over the northern horizon, Dezmara crested a high dune and was greeted by a small trail of smoke curling into the air not far in the distance.

She pulled one of her pistols and jogged along the ridge, her mind running wild. A low rumble surrounded her and she dropped to one knee, scanning the sky for a star freighter, her pistol leading the way. The sound faded and she got up, but as soon as she started to run, the sound echoed around her again. Dezmara stopped for a moment and scooped up a handful of sand. She watched as the wind swept over the top of the crumbling ridge. “Thundering sand? That’s a new one,” she said and then got to her feet and ran toward the thin haze still hanging on the other side of the next dune.

“Oh, no!” she said more loudly than she should have. She had no idea whether anyone was still there, but somebody had found the
Ghost
, and whoever it was wasn’t friendly. The landing skids weren’t down and the ship was listing badly to the right. The portside engine—the only one left working—was gone and its charred, smoldering cowl was the only sign of movement anywhere. Dezmara slipped the knot around her waist and let her flight jacket lay where it fell as she sprinted down the back side of the sandy crest. She skirted the open cargo bay door and pulled her other auto as she crouched at the rear of the fuselage and listened. Everything was quiet.

She whipped her head around the corner and scanned the room inside as quickly as possible before snapping her head back. The cargo was gone—that was certain—but the rest of the bay was dark. She holstered one pistol and unfastened the kranos from its tether, slipping it over her head and engaging the thermal optics. She scanned the cargo bay in the same quick fashion and found nothing—the room was empty. Dezmara hopped inside and cautiously sidestepped down the right side of the deck with both guns leveled in front of her.