Authors: Tony Gonzales
“Oh, there’s going to be a view alright,” he said, as he was replaced with composite imagery of the venue site, grid maps of the surrounding area, and the radar tracks of the airspace over the entire continental region.
One red blip was about to enter the grid.
“I don’t have much of an agenda today,” Tibus said.
“So just sit back and enjoy the show.”
“What exactly am I looking at here?”
she asked.
“Where we’re supposed to be right now,” Heth said.
“It seems that knowledge found a wider audience than usual this week.
I’m in the process of learning how that happened.
For reasons that ought to be obvious, you weren’t informed.
I’m sure you understand.”
LONETREK REGION—KAINOKAI CONSTELLATION
THE TSUKURAS SYSTEM—PLANET IV: MYOKLAR
64,000 METERS ABOVE SEA LEVEL
Captain Linden watched the red glow envelop the canopy as the Vaunted plowed through the upper atmosphere at more than seven thousand meters per second.
For the time being, he was out of radio contact with the tower below and Perkone Station Harbor Control behind him.
The ride, which had been smooth so far, was now starting to get bumpy.
As soon as the glow dissipated, Myoklar greeted them with vicious wind gusts.
Linden was slammed into his harness as the flight control systems for atmospheric flight engaged.
This was a really bad storm, the worst he’d seen.
The craft’s intakes began sucking in “good air”—plenty of air molecules that could be ionized and vectored around the craft through magnetic fields for maneuvering.
The four Propel Dynamics “Warhorse” Series LX-1000 plasma engines ignited, slowing the craft’s descent, just as the first updraft from a towering thunderstorm struck the craft.
Linden could hear unsecured cargo clanging in the hold from where he was sitting.
They were still several hundred kilometers away but closing distance quickly.
He’d made this trip dozens of times and could name everyone in the tower by name.
“Good evening Oxide Tower,” he said.
“Ishukone Four-Able here, tracking eastbound on your northwestern grid, angels twenty.
Requesting a vector for spaceport Two-Delta.”
Normally there was some wisecrack reply from one of the shift personnel, but now there was only static.
Given the dangerous lightning storm he was flying through, that didn’t surprise him.
At least not too much.
“Ishukone Four-Able,” an unfamiliar voice said, “state your destination and cargo.”
“Uh,” Trevor said aloud.
“Four-Able inbound to your Two-Delta spaceport, my hold is filled with civilians and colony support equipment—”
“What kind of equipment, Four-Able?”
the voice said.
Another updraft current shook the craft violently; red stall lights flashed briefly as the flight control system struggled to maintain airflow around the craft.
“Tower, where are the usual guys?”
Captain Linden demanded.
“We’re in bad weather here and need a vector to your spaceport ASAP.”
“Do not approach Two-Delta,” the voice said.
“You are cleared for Six-Bravo.
Set your course for that grid and do not deviate.”
This, Trevor knew, was trouble.
One way to check, and it was hardly foolproof, was to verify each other’s identity.
“Tower, authenticate to Ishukone passcode challenge Romeo-Nine-Oxide,” he said.
“Four-Able, passcode answer is Victor-One-Mike,” the tower replied.
“Come left one degree to proceed on your vector to Six-Bravo.”
The authentication passed, but Captain Linden knew this tower.
The guys would have laughed at him for going through the process in the first place.
In addition, “Six-Bravo” had just opened and was reserved for liquefied gas transports.
The tower was about five kilometers away from the Delta ports, completely isolated from the colony, never used, and didn’t have any off-loading equipment for a Vaunted-class dropship.
There were more alarms going off in his head than on his instrument panel.
As if to bring the point home, lightning struck near the canopy, blinding him.
He blinked away the greenish blobs in his vision.
The craft was fine, but the magnetic nozzles were struggling to keep up.
Auxiliary compressors embedded in the airframe had already engaged to support them.
The craft was heavy and didn’t handle well in the best of circumstances.
Whatever he was going to do needed to be done quickly.
“Tower, that port isn’t equipped to off-load my gear,” he said, buying himself some time to look over the map of the area.
“Request permission to land at—”
“Denied, Four-Able,” they interrupted.
“Cleared for Six-Bravo.
Do not deviate.”
The craft descended below the cloud ceiling, and Trevor lowered his thermal visor.
They were at twelve hundred meters, and he could see both landing sites.
Every spaceport was open, and there were vehicles he’d never seen before at Six-Bravo.
Captain Linden looked at his fuel gauge and took a deep breath.
“Roger that, Tower,” he said, clicking on the emergency alarm for his passengers.
He hoped they heeded his warning to get into their straps.
“Coming in nice and smooth on Six-Bravo.”
And with that, Captain Linden pointed the craft away from the colony and pushed the throttle as far as it would go.
He was pressed into his seat as several million kilograms of thrust rocketed him away from the landing site.
He keyed the Ishukone Watch emergency channel on his comms.
“Mayday, mayday!
This is Ishukone Heavy Transport Four-Able inbound from Perkone Station,” he said, watching his speed climb.
There was no way to get back into space now, even if he shed weight.
“We have been denied entry to port at Myoklar Colony.
Can you assist?
Over.”
The response was immediate.
“Four-Able, the Watch reads you,” the voice said.
“We confirm that Ishukone personnel are not responsive.
What is your location?”
“Ten kilometers west of the installation,” Linden said.
“We’re burning to put distance between us and looking for a safe place to put down at least two hundred klicks—”
Captain Linden felt cold metal pressed against his neck.
“Don’t move,” a voice said.
A hand reached forward and switched off the squawk box.
“Why didn’t you land?”
the voice demanded.
Trevor knew better than to remind the intruder that forced entry into the cockpit of a dropship was a crime punishable by death in the Caldari State.
“The tower didn’t authenticate my passcode challenge,” Trevor said.
“That’s bullshit,” the voice said, pressing the gun deeper into his neck.
“Turn the ship around.”
“Fine,” Captain Linden said, easing the control stick over.
“But I think you’re making a—”
Alarm klaxons filled the cockpit: A missile had been fired at them.
Acting on reflex alone, Captain Linden wrenched the controls over and activated countermeasures.
Several ECM canisters ejected from the Vaunted, but the lumbering craft barely changed directions.
“What the fuck!”
the voice shouted.
Linden threw the radio switch back on.
“Watch, mayday mayday!
Someone shot at us!”
he yelled.
“Please send help.
We have civilians on board!”
“Solid copy Four-Able.
Help is en route to your sector,” the Watch replied.
“Is there someone in the cockpit with you?”
The missile slammed into the countermeasures and exploded; the shockwave dissipated harmlessly behind them.
But now a second missile was tracking them.
Trevor tried to raise Ishukone Watch again, but couldn’t.
“We’re being jammed,” he said, reaching for the bay door controls.
“I have to jettison cargo—”
“Don’t,” the voice warned.
Furious, Trevor turned around and saw one of the beefier-looking civilians.
He had shoulder-length hair, with forearms that looked strong enough to rip off his head.
Trevor had no idea it was Muryia Mordu’s son.
But given the circumstances, he wouldn’t have cared even if he did.
“I don’t know who the fuck you are,” Trevor growled.
“But we’re going to die if I don’t drop that cargo!”
“Fine,” his assailant said, lowering the gun.
“I’ll help.”
The bay door opened, and cargo worth hundreds of millions of credits began tumbling out.
Relieved of so much mass, the craft buoyed upward as the second missile exploded.
Fragments ripped through the hull, and the craft’s number-three and -four plasma engines erupted in flames.
The craft yawed violently, but Captain Linden took a huge risk and increased throttle, vectoring the port nozzles in the opposite direction to straighten the craft out.
Hydraulic air brakes fully extended to slow the craft’s forward velocity.
The craft’s yaw corrected, but then they began descending quickly as the reactor quit, and the craft’s capacitor reserves began draining quickly to keep the intakes, compressors, and magnetic nozzles running long enough to stabilize its flight.
He didn’t need the craft’s flight computer to tell him they couldn’t stay airborne for much longer.
“If you want to live, strap in,” Trevor warned, as the craft approached the jungle canopy.
The beach clearing he was aiming for was just four hundred meters away, but he knew they wouldn’t make it.
He slammed the craft’s emergency broadcast beacon and prayed that Ishukone Watch was already looking for them.
“This is going to hurt,” he muttered, as the treetops rushed toward him.
THE FORGE REGION—KIMOTORO CONSTELLATION
THE NEW CALDARI SYSTEM—PLANET II: MATIAS
TWENTY-FOUR KILOMETERS NORTH OF KHYYRTH
SECURE CALDARI PROVIDENCE DIRECTORATE COMPOUND
(FORMERLY THE PRIVATE RESIDENCE OF HAATAKAN OIRITSUU)
“Nicely done,” Tibus admired, watching the Ishukone dropship crash into the jungle.
“Those Sciermas are nasty, aren’t they?”
He was referring to the very stealthy fighter aircraft that had been following the dropship since its entry into the atmosphere, completely unbeknownst to the Ishukone pilot.
Haatakan hoped they were all dead.
But the takedown was obviously designed to avoid that.
Targeting them in the air was preferable to a lengthy standoff on the ground with armed mercenaries, who always had the option of taking their own lives rather than being captured.
An EMP strike would have made the craft fall out of the sky like a stone; whomever the fighter pilot was had to cripple the Vaunted just enough to allow it to control its descent.
Heth clearly knew they were coming.
And Haatakan knew that Mordu would never send his “boys” into the grinder like this.
That meant Mens Reppola had either gone against his word or somehow fucked up the operation.
It didn’t matter which.
Of all the people who could have pulled this off, Reppola was the only person she knew for certain despised Heth enough to try.
Without Mens Reppola, she was never going to escape imprisonment.
This was her last chance.
The flaming wreck in the jungle proved that it was gone.
She snapped into survival mode, relishing the chance to strike back.
“Of course, we’re going to recover the cargo he dropped,” Heth continued.
“Maybe a few survivors as well.”
“What corporations owned and/or operated that gunship?”
she asked.
“You mean you don’t know?”
Heth asked.
“Time is wasting,” she said.
“Who?”
“Ishukone is the owner and operator,” he answered.
“My information is that a team of assassins were on board.”
She decided to play on Heth’s paranoia.
There was a dropship in the vicinity that she knew was very dear to Mens Reppola.
“How good is your ‘information’?”
she asked.
“Is the source reliable?”
“As reliable as they come,” he said.
“But is it thorough?”
she asked.
“Whatever you’re getting at had better impress me,” Heth warned.
“Show me a map of Echelon Villa,” she said, “and zoom out to one hundred kilometers.”