Twilight Earth (10 page)

As she altered coarse, she thought that things must have certainly changed at Argassi. She had been born there. When she was barely ten cycles old, her parents had moved them to Great Falls Aerie for a change of scenery. At the time she wondered why they needed a change; Argassi sat on a beautiful sandy beach in the tropical zone of the planet. Aside from the perpetual processing storm, Argassi was as close to paradise as the young Addson could imagine.

That lasted until her first look at the peaks of The Wall Mountains. That massive northern range with a huge glacial sea on one side and lush hardwood rain forests on the other. That wondrous vista made her decide to become a prospector. Even though the atmosphere had far too much ohto and not nearly enough 'hellum' for her to breath without a respirator, she knew she simply had to get out of the Aerie and roam the planet to see what other wonders it held. As soon as she was old enough, she signed up as a prospector and dove into her studies with abandon.

Almost an hour after being ordered to change course, she flew out over the glittering waves of the Great Inland Sea. In all the time the ohto mines had been here, no one had bothered to give a name to this tropical sea.

“Argassi Control, this is prospector three-nine-four. I’ve crossed the shore and am proceeding out over the sea, as per flight plan. Nothing to report,” Addson called just as if she were on a normal prospecting run.

“Understood prospector three-nine-four, be advised Met-Com has issued a gale watch for your target area. Please record all surface conditions as well, they would like to develop a better system for issuing storm warnings,” a female voice answered. "I didn’t get a chance to meet you yet, but I’m Carn and I’ll be your controller for the next shift."

“Hi Carn, I’m Addson Dee, late of Great Falls Aerie. Sorry I missed you,” Addson replied, even though she had not gone to the Aerie, it was an unsecured channel.

“Wow, you sound pretty!” There was a pause and Addson could imagine the controller typing furiously to find Addson’s public bio. “I was right! You are very beautiful. From the looks of it, we have a lot in common. Would you like to grab a drink when you get back so we can get to know each other better?”

“I’d love to Carn, but I think I should warn you; I’m hetro. I’m not opposed to a new friend though,” Addson replied in a friendly manner. This sort of thing was considered normal banter and was very common between the isolated prospectors, and their controllers. It helped keep the prospectors sane on long runs.

“Celestial! The first round’s on me!” Carn said, not deterred by Addson’s admission at all.

“I need to finish getting my gear ready for this new area, or I’ll be out here longer than I really want to be. I’ll give you a call back as soon as I get to my prospecting area. I hope I have better luck down here than I did in Great Falls area,” Addson replied, although she had been credited with the northern find, she needed to maintain a cover story.

“I’m sure you will, Addson. Talk to you soon! Argassi control, omega-zeta-one-oh-one-nine, clear.”

“Three-nine-four, out.”

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S
ector 34892 Beta Quadrant

Planet Terral III

Cassian March

Duchy of Cassias

Hyclarion Imperial Consortium

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“S
ir, just like we were told, we have a skipper inbound to the decoy position. Are you sure we have to kill her? I’ve been listening in to her radio chatter and she sounds really cute.” Amerath asked.

“Jesus, 'Rath! Are you so lonely that you’re warming up to a voice? We need to get you some companionship next time we’re in StarDock. Yes, the order came from the Duke himself, we’re to blow that skipper out of the air.”

“I’ll do as you order, Sir, but I don’t feel very good about it. We’ve never killed anyone before. I don’t like the idea of doing it now,” Amerath replied. “I’m not exactly an upright citizen, but I ain’t no murderer.”

The Commander, Elrond, nodded. “I know what you mean, 'Rath, but the Duke'll have us shot if we don’t follow orders. It’s our job to create enough of an uproar so the Duke can justify placing the planet under martial law. That way, he can bring in troops and finally stop paying the miners. Although we’ve been raisin' holy hell with shipments and stuff, he said it’s only a nuisance. We need to create a public outcry. Killing a supposed innocent will do that."

“What the hell does he need more troops for?” Amerath asked.

“What’d ya mean? There aren’t any troops here.”

Amerath snorted. “Next time we deliver a stolen cargo, come with us; you’ll see what I mean.”

“How many do you think are here? Where are they hiding their ships?” Elrond asked.

“I’m not sure; but there has to be a good amount. That ‘small base’ is getting bigger all the time and last time I was there, it looked like it was standing room only. From what the cargo mate said they was more getting here every day.”

Elrond just shook his head. “This whole deal just keeps getting worse and worse all the time. No one’s said a word to me about troops already being here!”

“So, do I still launch the missile?” Amerath asked.

Elrond was thoughtful for a few moments as he watched the screen with the skipper on it. “Yeah, but make sure you set it to optical search mode and retard the warhead. This is only a skipper, we don't need to vaporize it,” Elrond specified. Optical mode was far more accurate in the atmosphere, but if a pilot could break the initial target lock, then they stood a better chance of survival. Of course, they would have to fire another missile when she evaded, but perhaps by then, she would be smart enough to head back to Argassi. After all, scaring her off should accomplish the same panic in the citizenry and get the ‘anti-piracy command’ looking in the completely wrong place.

“Optical mode? But won’t that...” Amerath turned and got a look at the face of his superior. He grinned himself as he turned back around and began programming the search modes for the missiles. “Warhead set to thirty percent. Optical search mode set. All other modes are locked out. Activating tracking... and Lock! Firing Missile!”

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S
ector 34890 Alpha Quadrant

Planet Terral III

Cassian March

Duchy of Cassias

Hyclarion Imperial Consortium

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“H
oly Shit! Argassi Control! Someone just fired a missile at me!” Addson called as she put the skipper into a nosedive for the waves.

“Addson? Somebody did what?” Carn asked in shocked reply.

“Fired a missile at me! It’s locked on! I’m on the deck and heading back to you, but I sure could use some help out here!" Addson said as she focused on flying at max speed only few feet above the waves. The idea was to be low enough that once the missile gets closer, she could drop and pull up a tail behind her. Once she was obscured from the missile, she would reverse power, and shear off. It meant pulling a ton of gravities, but it was better than getting blown into fish food.

“I’ve notified defense command and they’re getting a couple of armed skippers launched. Did you see where it came from?" Carn asked.

“Kinda busy here, Carn; gimme a tick or two,” Addson replied. She had been watching the inbound missile and a couple of seconds before impact, she slammed the skipper down onto the waves, kicking a solid wall of water ten meters into the air. She pulled the throttle all the way back and threw the control yoke all the way over to the left. If the maneuver itself didn’t rip the skipper apart, she should have evaded the missile.

“The DC skippers are on their way, Addson, but they can’t get to your location for almost an hour! We don’t have anything else close to you either. I just don't believe they have missiles! They’re going to be attacking the Aeries themselves next!” Carn said sounding close to panic.

After ensuring the missile was pulled into the sea, Addson stayed low, but kept on her course for the Aerie. “Relax Carn, why would they want to attack an Aerie? They’re pirates; all they want is the ohto.” The threat detector interrupted her again.

“Damn! These guys really don’t like me. They just fired another missile. I’m continuing to evade!” Addson finished.

“I don’t know how you can be so calm, Addson! I’d be insane from fear by now!” Carn replied.

“It helps that I can hear you, but really, if I panic, I’m dead. I can panic later, once the emergency’s over.”

Addson knew that a second missile meant it was going to be smarter than the last one, since most missiles learned from the mistakes of previous missiles. The same tactic she used wouldn’t work this time.

Suddenly, she got a surface contact on her scanner. She clicked on it and was surprised to see it was a huge cargo floater. She immediately changed course for the big ship and dropped low enough to pull up the tail again. She tried to push the throttle further forward and alarms started sounding warning of the reactor overheating.

As she calculated the distance to the ship verses the speed of the missile, she didn’t think she’d make it this time. Her water plume slowed the missile somewhat, but would it be enough? She took her eyes off the missile and watched the fast approaching ship. The cargo floaters had cryo-steel armor to protect them in storms. If she could lead the missile into the ship, it should forget about her. But in order to do that, Addson was going to have to ‘leap’ the ship at full throttle.

As soon as she got within a hundred meters of the floating brick, she moved the lever to turn her thruster vents to vertical lift and the skipper began to leap. Scant centimeters below her hull, the missile shot past her and impacted the ship now only twenty meters in front of her unarmored canopy.

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S
ector 34871, Beta Quadrant

Planet Terral III

Cassian March

Duchy of Cassias

Hyclarion Imperial Consortium

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T
he various alarms going off in her cockpit awakened Addson. Blinking bleary eyes at the rain spattered windscreen she noticed it was cracked. Briefly, she’d wondered how that had happened.

Slowly coming back to her senses, she began to realize that several alarms were screaming to get her attention. Reaching out her hand, she tapped the screen that should have the skipper’s status report on it; it remained blank. She stared at it blankly for a moment before she realized that the indicator denoting system power was unlit. She looked around the cockpit and realized that everything was powered down; everything but those thrice-damned alarms.

Carefully twisting around in her seat, she noted it hurt to breath, so she knew her ribs were at least bruised, possibly cracked, she looked for the main power breaker for the craft, and saw that it had been tripped. She’d never even heard of that happening before, so she knew whatever happened had to have been bad.

She tried to reach for it, and a wave of dizziness washed over her, momentarily dimming her vision. She sat back, closed her eyes, and concentrated on breathing. Either that crack was bleeding her atmosphere out or she whacked her head on something and gave herself a concussion. ‘Could be a bit of both,’ she said to herself.

Once she felt stable again, she reached down and manually released the controls on her seat allowing it to recline all the way back. This was how she operated her equipment and managed to sleep on long trips. Setting the seat into couch mode would give her more room to work. Catching a bright flash reflected on the waves outside gave her the first good news; at least her beacon was working. The rescue team from the Aerie would be able to find her now. Not to mention, the robotic cargo ship would have called in the incident.

Very slowly and carefully, she tried to pull her legs up so she could turn around and reset the main breaker. As she started to bend her left leg, she screamed in pain and once again almost blacked out. Her left leg, below the knee was visibly out of alignment with the rest of the leg. It was either broken, or the knee was badly dislocated.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to accomplish much in her present condition, so she opened the emergency panel just under her right side console. Since the emergency panel had its own power system, it lit up as soon as she opened the door.

“Sensors indicate we have crashed. If you are injured please list your symptoms,” a voice issued from the small speaker on the unit.

“Dizziness, nausea, occasional blurry vision. My chest hurts on both sides, and I think I’ve bruised or cracked ribs. It is difficult to breath. My left leg is either broken or the knee is dislocated. I’m in a lot of pain. I can’t initiate repairs without treatment first,” Addson replied.

“Understood. Please retrieve the injector in this unit and inject yourself three to four inches above the knee on the left leg. Once that has been done return the injector to its position in the unit.”

Addson did as she was instructed, and immediately felt the injury begin to numb. She returned the injector.

“Now, as soon as the injury is numb enough for you to move, I need you to lie back on the couch so I may get an accurate scan of you.”

“Primary systems power is offline. The cockpit systems are dead,” Addson replied.

“Understood. If you can, please restore system power before the scan.”

“I’ll try.”

She scooted herself back a little, lifting and pulling her injured leg so she wouldn’t have to twist as much, she managed to push the large green reset button, but the pain in her chest was incredible, and she felt herself getting dizzy again, and her vision began to dim. She quickly lay back, luckily in the correct position for the computer to scan her. "I think I’m losing consciousness.”

“Please try not to. There is a very high probability that you have a concussion that I will not be able to treat you for without your assistance.”

Addson tried as hard as she could to remain awake, and to increase her blood pressure. She still felt herself slip into unconsciousness for a short period of time.

“I’m sorry, I tried. How long was I out?”

“Not long, I actually hadn’t noted it. You are doing very well. Now, try to hold still while I scan you to see if you need more help,” the limited AI of the medical unit replied.