Time Siege (20 page)

“Do you know where we're going?” Cole asked.

James pointed at his head. “Mapped it out the day I got here. Let's go. We can hijack one of the transports before Amazon security arrives.”

Cole stopped. “That's suicide. We can't outrun anything with a transport. They'll blow us out of space.”

“Shut up and keep moving,” James growled, hurrying them along. The sounds of the fighting faded as they continued to the surface. Six flights up, they ran into four guards positioned at the hangar doors. James held up a hand and, with a kinetic swing, swept all four aside and slammed them into the walls. “Keep watch,” he said, as he used his exo to pry open the thick bay doors.

Cole ran to one of the unconscious guards and picked up a rifle. He walked over to the next unconscious guard and jabbed the barrel into the man's forehead. Levin knocked his arm away as the rifle discharged harmlessly into the air.

“Stop! What are you doing?” Levin said, spinning him around and grabbing the front of his shirt.

Cole pushed Levin backward and pointed the rifle at his chest. The two froze. “I should,” Cole said, his voice low. “It would serve you right. You sent me to this hellhole, your own flesh and blood.”

Levin held his ground and gave his nephew a resigned gaze. “Is this how you really want this to end? Do it, then.”

“I wouldn't do that if I were you,” James said, his focus still on the doors. “Levin's a bastard, but he's the only reason you're getting off this rock, boy.”

For a second, Cole looked like he was going to pull the trigger anyway. Instead, he spat and pointed his rifle down the hallway. “It's not over between us.”

Levin picked up one of the other rifles and took position next to him. “I doubt it ever will be. We're family.”

“I have no family.”

“Your mother disagrees.”

“You should have just left me in the Ming Dynasty—”

“Will you two just shut up?” James snapped, looking their way and rolling his eyes. “I swear, if you guys keep this up, I will just cryo both your asses until we get to Earth.” The bay doors began to creak as James's exo pried them apart. A second later, the doors were forced open just wide enough for each man to slip through sideways. “Come on.”

Levin slipped into the massive hangar first, followed by Cole, and then James. Right away, a barrage of weapon fire hammered the bay doors. Levin grabbed Cole just as the man came through the crack and pulled him to the ground. They scrambled behind a stack of metal containers.

“Exo on the far wall,” he called as James appeared last through the door.

At least three guards were converging on them. The guard with the exo floated in the air, a green glow surrounding him. It was a security exo specializing in crowd control. Levin had fought against these before, though he wasn't sure if James had had the experience.

“The exo is powered for multiple coils,” he called out.

“Don't worry about me. Get that ship up and running,” James said, launching into the air and putting himself between the exo guard and the transport.

The last thing Levin saw before turning away from the battle was thirty thin strings of coils leap out of the guard and shoot toward James. In response, James summoned ten or so of his own yellow coils and moved to intercept.

Levin pulled Cole to the hatch of the transport. “Take out the guards. Keep them off James.”

Cole moved to the belly of the craft and engaged the three guards, taking one of them down as they ran toward the ship. Levin entered the transport and got to work. It was an old Valiant model, easily three hundred years old. Simple and slow, but efficient and reliable, basically a giant flying container with a tiny engine. They weren't going to get very far in this tub. Cole wasn't wrong earlier about James needing more than a ship to escape the penal colony. He hoped James had a better plan than to try to escape in this thing.

Levin ran the length of the box-shaped transport into the tiny cockpit. Outside the three front slits of windows, he could see flashes of green and yellow lighting up the room. Those green coils were everywhere, seemingly filling up the entire hangar. He hoped James could pull this off. The ex-chronman could take care of himself, but who knew what shape he was in after having spent so much time as a fugitive.

Levin got to work on the transport's startup sequence. The good thing about cheap, reliable ships was that they were as basic as they came. Besides fairly simple navigation and a minimal shielding system, the rest of the ship was nothing more than thrusters, steering, and life support, something Levin could have built while an initiate at the Academy. There wasn't even artificial gravity or central heat; the cockpit was outfitted with only an electrical heater. Basically, this thing was a miserable ride. However, it's simplicity made it a cinch to start. Within a few seconds, the rear thrusters had rumbled to life.

Levin ran back to the container side of the ship and shouted down at Cole, “Get in here and close the hatch.” He ran back to the cockpit and looked out the window. Those green coils were still everywhere, and there wasn't a hint of yellow at all. Levin couldn't see the fight outside clearly, but he worried that James might actually be losing.

Well, nothing could be done for him now. If James survived, they had a chance. If he didn't, then they were all as good as dead. That green exo guard could easily drag and ground the transport, though even if they managed to escape the hangar, they wouldn't get very far.

It had been years since Levin had had to pilot a ship, and this damn thing was wide as a star base and responded just about as well as one. He lifted the transport up and maneuvered it—if one could call driving this ship that—to the center of the hangar. He nearly careened into another ship as he turned it toward the exit. The turning speed of this thing was painful. The transport rumbled forward, floating across the length of the hangar slowly to the launch-way. James must still be fighting, since green coils hadn't pulled the ship back to the ground.

Levin felt every second tick by as the transport made it past the air shield of the hangar to the runway outside. As the ship made the final turn, his heart fell. The exterior bay door was closed. He checked his console for weapons; there were none. The shield arms of the transport were barely strong enough to take a solar flare, let alone crash through those external hangar doors. They were trapped.

Off to the side, he saw a flare of yellow, and then James streaked toward the exterior door. He must have not only survived the fight, he must have knocked the guard out of play. James motioned for Levin to hold and began working on the door.

Levin felt his palms sweat as James flitted from the right bay door to the left. This was taking too long. He was surprised the hangar wasn't being flooded with more guards; the riot must still be taking most of their attention. He silently thanked the People again. He'd keep his promise to his men somehow. One day.

Eventually, James was able to crack the mechanism locking the doors shut and push them open. As soon as he flew into the transport, Levin punched the ship and took off. A few minutes later, in a very rough ride, they cleared Nereid and were shooting off into the blackness of space. Twenty short minutes later, the radar began to blip.

“Two incoming Amazon drone ships on intercept within ten minutes,” said Levin.

Cole leaned over the console and looked over at James, panicked. “What's your plan now, chronman?”

James muttered, “We'll cut it close. I hope this tub bought us enough distance for my exo levels to last us the rest of the way. How far are we from the Kuiper Belt?”

“Not close enough to make it before those drones come,” said Levin.

“We don't need to be. Set a heading for the opposite direction.” James signaled for them to follow him. “Let's go.” He threw his atmos over Levin and Cole and carried them off the ship. Floating in space, they watched as the transport continued its casual path away. James pulled the two men in close and shot toward the Kuiper Belt.

“Stay close and quiet,” he ordered. “I'm going to power down and we'll wait them out. Attack drones shouldn't have powerful enough sensors to find us, but you never know.”

No sooner had James lowered his atmos than the three of them felt the cold creep of space wash over them. The ex-chronman was maintaining just the minimum levels to keep them alive, but not much else. Breathing became more labored as the three clung to each other for warmth. Levin was starting to feel his consciousness fade by the time James finally raised the levels.

“Now what?” Cole grumbled. “We're trapped out here without a ship on the fringe of Neptune. What the abyss do we do now?”

James gave him a flat stare. “I'm a Tier-1, boy. I always have a plan.”

 

NINETEEN

T
HE
D
OCTOR

James almost had to eat his words. It took the
Frankenstein
much longer than anticipated to find them in the Kuiper Belt. By the time he caught sight of it, moving sporadically toward them, his levels were down to eight percent and he was starting to doubt that they were going to make it.

When the
Frankenstein
came into view, James nearly whooped for joy, except that his throat was so dry he could get only a squeak out. Their little band of jailbreaks had spent over two days floating in space waiting for Grace to find them. In order to conserve energy, James had kept his bands powered to a bare minimum. The three of them spent many long hours of breathing hard and freezing their asses off. None of them had eaten, and they were all experiencing severe hunger pains. For some reason, and James took full responsibility for this, none of them had thought to pack food. Fortunately, Levin had had the foresight to bring a canteen of water; that had been their only sustenance.

Needless to say, tempers were short.

Cole squinted. “Is that a ship or a magnetic meteor that passed through a junk heap?”

“It's your ride home, you little prick,” James huffed. As far as he was concerned, the only people allowed to laugh at it were the people who had built it. He checked his levels: they should make it in time; he hoped they made it in time. That was, assuming Grace was able to pilot the
Frankenstein
to their position. He watched as it maneuvered around an asteroid, making an arc that was too wide. It just managed to stop right before it hit another asteroid, make a slow pivot, and then speed toward them.

The
Frankenstein
nearly collided into them when it finally reached their location. James had to move the group out of its way, lest they get smashed. They got into the ship through the hatch with what James estimated was less than thirty minutes of levels to spare on his bands. Maybe an hour if he had jettisoned that punk Cole.

He had decided early during their time sharing body heat that he detested the young ex-chronman, which shouldn't have been surprising, since he was Levin's flesh and blood. The two apples must have grown from the same branch. If anything, Cole was an even bigger asshole than his uncle. He had a chip on his shoulder and was unpleasant to be around. At least with Levin, you knew what you were getting with his arrogant sense of righteousness. Cole was just an angry young man who faulted anyone and everyone for his problems, and generally was only looking out for himself. The boy could not be trusted.

The three of them stumbled out of the compression chamber and collapsed onto the deck of the collie, sucking in air as they tried to regain feeling in their frozen fingers and toes. James rolled onto his back and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will the splitting brain freeze out of his head. His vision was blurry, but he could tell Grace was huffing down at him.

“This tub handles like a nightmare!” she yelled, nudging him with her foot.

“Great to see you, too.” He sat up, groaning. The three of them had taken to staying as still as possible to conserve energy, and now his joints were protesting their intended use. “I told you to get some practice before I left, but you said you were going to be fine.”

“I was fine,” she snapped, “until I had to move this unwieldy cow around a sea of flying rocks.”

“You mean there's more to flying a ship then plotting courses and going straight?” James allowed a grin to appear on his face.

Grace looked like she was about to hit him, but then she threw her arms around him. “I didn't think I was going to make it in time.”

Her show of affection and concern surprised him. James sat there awkwardly, unsure of how to react. Her body was shaking; she must have been really worried. He reached up and patted her on the back. “There, there.”

Grace pulled away and the High Scion was back in an instant. “Don't patronize me, pet. Just because you've seen me naked doesn't mean we're on equal footing. I'm still the—”

“Wait, what?” Levin exclaimed, looking indignant. “You slept with her? You sacrilegious bastard.”

“It was for a job,” James muttered in a low voice.

“Best he's ever had,” Grace said smugly. She looked over at Cole. “Who's the boy?”

Cole stood up. “Who are you calling a boy, old hag?”

Levin got to his feet and bristled. “Watch your mouth around the Mother of Time.” He turned to Grace. “Apologies. This is my nephew, Cole.”

Grace looked Cole up and down. “You two were in prison together? Certain habits must run in your family.”

“You could say that,” Levin said dryly.

Cole's eyes widened at the mention of the Mother of Time, and he looked her up and down as well. Then, with a shrug, he walked to the back and to find the food locker. A few seconds later, he appeared with an armful of rations. He gave them all a sullen scowl and then went into one of the side rooms.