Easing his sidearm out of it’s concealed holster, Kern thumbed its setting to stun. These men were just doing their jobs. There was no need to kill them if he could avoid it. An easy two shot and they would both be out cold with only a headache when they came to for their trouble. Catching Elora watching him out of the corner of his eye, he gave her a reassuring wink and raised his gun to fire at the officer closest to him first.
At that moment, his comm crackled back to life with Sierra’s excited voice. “
Kern, the port shield is down. We’re heading back to you. Get ready for that quick dust off
.”
Reflexively, Kern glanced down at the comm on his belt, looking back up to see the officers spinning around to face him again. With his weapon already raised at them, their expressions jumped from alert to alarmed and they both lunged forward at him. Cursing, Kern fired a point blank shot into the chest of his first target, an instant later being bowled over by the second.
Crashing to the deck with the officer on top of him, Kern took hold of the rifle suddenly being forced down on his throat, pushing against it as it choked the air from his lunges. Struggling to breath, he brought his right fist around with all the strength he could muster, striking his attacker in the jaw. The punch stunned him enough to allow Kern to continue the sideways movement, rolling them both over until Kern was the one on top. Able to breath again, he attempted to force the rifle, still clenched by both of them, down onto his opponent’s throat.
Quickly realizing that he wasn’t a match for the bulkier TrySec’s brute strength, he pushed himself up high enough to drive his fist down hard into the center of the man’s forehead, bouncing his head off the floor and this time knocking him unconscious.
Rolling off of the officer to sit on the deck, Kern glanced over at the first unmoving TrySec, ensuring that both were still incapacitated.
“Well, that wasn’t so hard, was it,” he stated, while catching his breath and looking around for Elora, seeing two more approaching TrySecs instead, their weapons trained on him.
“Hi,” he said between breaths. “How are you?”
“Don’t move!” one of the two officers ordered.
“Whatever you say,” Kern answered, throwing his hand up in the air and wondering when he might end up catching a break.
Another blast sounded, much closer than the last had been and Kern fell to floor assuming again that he was being shot at. Surprisingly, he saw the lead TrySec drop to the floor instead, his body convulsing momentarily from a stun round. The second officer stood frozen in mid process of activating his comm unit, looking at something over Kern’s shoulder.
Kern followed the officer’s gaze to find Elora standing next to the ship’s ramp, one of the fallen TrySec’s rifles in her hands, aimed squarely at the remaining officer.
“I would drop that comm if I were you,” she suggested, her voice ice cold. “Unless you want to end up like your friend.”
The officer glanced down at his comrade on the deck and immediately dropped his comm unit.
Stunned, Kern got to his feet and moved over to where Elora was standing, eyeing her curiously. “Nice shot.”
Her demeanor softened a bit and Kern could see what looked like concern in her face.
“Did I kill him?” she asked, her eyes locked on the downed officer on the deck.
Kern shook his head. “No. He’s just unconscious. You shot him on stun.”
Elora looked visibly relieved.
A shout sounded out from across the bay and Kern had to duck out of the way as Elora whipped her rifle around in its direction. Recognizing the voice as Sierra’s, Kern reached up to move the barrel of the weapon away from his head and safely down towards the deck.
“I think that’s enough shooting for today,” he commented, removing the rifle from Elora’s hands. “Why don’t I hold on to that for you.”
“Looks like you two have things under control here,” Sierra commented, as she approached, Jarred already on the lone remaining TrySec, disarming him.
“Piece of cake,” Kern answered.
Sierra continued past him without stopping and headed up the ship’s ramp. “Let’s say we actually make our escape before we start patting ourselves on the back, yeah?”
Kern watched her disappear through the entry hatch and looked at Elora, who gave him a sympathetic shrug. “We wouldn’t want to do that now would we.”
Jarred approached them both and Kern could see behind him that the second TrySec had joined his counterpart, unconscious on the deck.
“Good work,” Jarred commented, letting his gaze move over to Elora. “
Both
of you.” He kept his eyes on hers for a long moment before continuing. “Now, how about we get out of here?”
Kern couldn’t have agreed more and as he turned to follow the two of them up the ramp, he reminded himself to add docking ports to the list of places he hated most.
Chapter 17
Trycon’s normally bustling, multiple leveled skylanes were eerily void of traffic as the newly christened
Fancy Girl
hovered out of its docking port berth and into the seemingly calm night. The city wide air space grounding had left the skyway clear of its usual steady, and frequently jammed, streams of freighters and personal transports. Looking down into the nearly empty streets and walkways below through the front viewport, Jarred guessed that a ground curfew had also been put into affect. Trycon was being locked up tight.
It would serve as both a blessing
and
a curse. Without the heavy traffic congestion they would be free to make a hasty, unobstructed ascent through and out of the city. The flip side was that, with such open skies, they would have little to no cover and be far easier to spot and pursue. They wouldn’t be making much of an escape with a Sect assault force and Trycon’s local authorities right behind them.
The ship jerked hard to port and Kern let out a curse in Jarred’s ear as he was forced to evade a bulky freighter attempting to shoot past them. A number of other transports followed, all accelerating out into the open skylanes. Apparently, they weren’t the only ones docked at port two-one-seven with something to hide. Jarred smirked at the thought. It wasn’t exactly rush hour traffic, but any extra vessels to tie up their pursuers couldn’t hurt.
Kern began to put the ship into an ascent and Jarred waved him off. “Don’t climb yet.”
“Why not?” Kern asked, keeping his focus on the sky ahead of him. “We’ve got nothing but open air ahead of us. Let’s burn out of here.”
“
Because
there’s nothing but open air,” Sierra answered, from the upper control seat opposite Jarred’s.
Kern shook his head. “You’ve lost me.”
“That’s no surprise,” Sierra shot back at him, dryly. “We’re the only things flying around out here that aren’t Sect military or TrySec.”
“Exactly,” Kern exclaimed. “And I’d like to be out of here when they start showing up.”
Sierra continued. “The point is, if you send us rocketing up into the wide open stratosphere we’re going to stand out like a homing beacon for everyone to follow.”
Kern fell silent for a moment. “Great. So, what are we supposed to do? Just hover around
here
until they find us? I’d rather make a run for it now and take my chances.”
“Don’t worry,” Jarred reassured him, glancing down at his control console’s sensor display, which indicated multiple approaching vessels. “You’ll have the opportunity to do that soon enough.”
Kern must have checked his own hud as well as he let out another curse. “We’re vaped.”
“Maybe,” Jarred conceded. “For now, let’s see if we can’t give them something else to chase, aside from us.” He pointed out the viewport towards a pair of small freighters flying in formation ahead of them. “Take us in close to those cargo runners.”
Kern just gave a resigned shrug as he began to alter course. “Why not.”
“Relax, Kern,” Sierra said, also peering out the viewport. “I think I know what he’s planning.”
“Terrific,” Kern exclaimed, almost laughing. “As long as the two of you know.”
No sooner had Kern brought them into a position under the pair of runners than they both began to veer off and accelerate, obviously having noted the approaching mass of vessels on their own instruments.
“Stay with them,” Jarred said, keeping an eye on his sensor hud. Punching commands into his console, he designated the multiple incoming blips in red, their own and the other escaping craft in blue. Quickly, he began to see groups of red blips veering off towards the few individual blues. Another mass of reds was headed for them. “Here comes the cavalry.”
The cargo runners accelerated into evasive maneuvers, Kern matching their speed and heading, pressing everyone hard into their seats and sending them rocketing down into Trycon’s maze of towering skyscrapers.
The runner class freighters, nicknamed for their compact agility, were ideal transports for smugglers looking to move illegal cargo shipments quickly and safely. What they lacked in hull strength and shielding, they made up for in speed an maneuverability, allowing for a quick get away when trouble arrived. So, it was no small feat that Kern was keeping up to the duo as they wove their way through the spire like buildings, matching their movements as if he were a wing mate. Jarred was impressed.
The half dozen Sect assault craft and TrySec patrollers on their tails, the latter with emergency beacons flashing, were struggling to stay on them, though they could only keep running for so long.
“Any bright ideas?” Kern asked, as he sent them corkscrewing around another tower, still glued to the dual runners. “I can’t keep this up all day.”
“Hopefully, you won’t have to,” Jarred answered. “Just stay with them a little longer.”
“Easy for you to say!” Kern shouted back over the roar of the engines as he punched the throttle hard coming out of a sharp turn. “Why don’t you help me out and bring your weapons systems online already. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good chase, but everyone has their limits.”
Hesitating a moment, Jarred responded. “That’s going to be a bit of a problem.”
“What do you mean?” Kern asked.
Sierra turned to look at him, suspiciously. “What kind of problem?”
“I can’t deactivate the lockouts.”
Kern actually glanced back over his shoulder as he and Sierra spoke in unison. “Why not?”
Jarred cringed. “Because it’s not my ship.”
“Not your ship?” Kern echoed, incredulously. “Then who’s is it?”
Sierra began to shake her head at him and he guessed that she had suspected as much from the beginning.
“Who did you steal it from?” she asked.
“What does it matter?” Jarred answered, evading the question. They had enough to worry about right now without him adding to it by disclosing that the ship they were attempting to escape on was previously owned by one of the most notorious criminal kingpins in the system, and one who would most certainly be looking for it. That was his problem to deal with, and he
would
deal with it, once all of this was over and he could get back to tracking down Mac. “My ship was damaged. I needed another one. It was there.”
Sierra nodded in mock understanding. “So, you’re a bounty hunter
and
a thief.”
“Well, this is just perfect!” Kern exclaimed. “What happens when they start shooting at us?”
Jarred shook his head. “They won’t.”
“What makes you so sure?” This was from Sierra, who was still glaring at him.
“Yeah,” Kern seconded. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because they haven’t started yet,” Jarred answered. “Durak hasn’t gone to all this trouble for nothing.” He gestured with a thumb back to where both Orna and Elora were sitting at the rear of the flight deck. “We might all be expendable, but he wants your friend alive, and he isn’t going to risk shooting anyone down if there’s a chance she might be onboard. That’s the only reason we’re not already dead.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Kern grunted, putting the ship into another steep dive, bringing them dangerously close to ground level.
The ship was rocked suddenly as if struck by something and Jarred’s first thought was that Kern had actually bottomed out and collided with something on the ground. A quick inspection of his control readouts told him different.
“They’ve opened fire!” Sierra declared, monitoring her own display.
“So much for your theory,” Kern mocked, though Jarred detected the nervous edge in his voice.
“We’re still alive, aren’t we,” he retorted.
The ship was rocked again and Jarred checked their damage report. “Hull integrity is good. They’re using low power blasts. Targeting the engines.” He could see ahead that the two cargo runners were also taking the light hits.
Sierra looked over at him from her seat. “You’re right. They’re trying to force us to land.”