The Hunt for the Halifax Fox, page 21
Rox saw it again. Bodies on metal tables in a lab. Not just bodies—people. Drifters.
Had they all prayed for death?
A torrent of gunfire seared the air close around them, straight shots from the guards who had made their way into the plaza. Not this Drifter.
Her words came out in a burst. “I choose the risk.”
Their time ran out.
12
rock paper death
The shots stopped coming, and Ash’s senses returned. She saw Hachi halfway out of the lift, on his belly, face frozen with astonishment. Her mind caught up to what had just happened. She’d watched as Rox, with her single gun, had hit the three security guards who’d surged into the plaza, plus the four left in the entrance. All seven assailants lay writhing weakly where they’d dropped.
She wrestled an elbow free. Rox had her in a tight hold, chest to chest. She had used her free arm to pull Ash against her, wrapping her in a shielding hug while her other hand worked the gun. Rox, whose own mouth had dropped open, closed it and let go. Ash eased away. Rox looked around the plaza, bewildered.
Theirs was not convergence like any Ash had experienced. This was no surface tension, not the liminal space between Drift and universe. Rox pulled her beyond that boundary, into a deeper place Ash had intuited but never entered, one which existed in a layer closer to the Drift itself. Ash couldn’t tell where she ended and Rox began.
She and Rox stared at each other. Convergence churned, molten, between them. Rox switched to the crew comm. “Does anybody care if Ashrael comes with us and we all maybe die trying to get away?”
There was a collective affirmative from the crew, minus Hachi who said, “Do what you need to, Captain.”
Rox paused the crew comm. “The only unknown is if you’re going to come willingly, or if I’m going to shoot you and drag you back to the Halifax.”
Convergence was loosening its grip. Ash withdrew, pulling free of the Drift as she shifted her body away, putting physical space between them. Rox reached for her shoulder. Ash cringed away from the touch and Rox withdrew the hand, but her focus didn’t waver. In the volcanic emergency light, her eyes had gone space black. “Come with us.” Dust hung suspended in the air like mist, sunset red. “Come with me, Ash.”
Finally, Ash nodded. The wall above them absorbed another close hit. A wave of shouts and fresh gunfire spread through the plaza. One of Hachi’s guns had run out of charge. They'd never make it to the lift.
On the crew comm, Hachi said, “Catch.”
Rox looked up in time to grab what he'd thrown. Her voice rose in pitch. “Are you serious?” But another of the projectiles was already sailing by, over the wall of wreckage, to the far end of the atrium. Rox hastily armed hers and hurled it across the space toward the entrance opposite them. “Down!” She dragged Ash to the floor and threw her body over her a moment before the shockwave's edge reached them.
The plaza went silent, broken by a few isolated groans. Shock grenades. Highly illegal, almost certainly from the stealth market. Some of the groaning was Rox; her back had to have absorbed a wave of that shock. She had a pitiful throw.
Rox motioned Ash toward the lift and followed behind her, dragging Jos. After hacking the lift, Rox leaned against the wall, breathing through gritted teeth, while Ash tended to Jos. When Ash glanced up, Hachi was watching his sister. Rox stared him down. He crossed his arms and looked away.
They arrived at a crawlspace used by maintenance mechs. Hachi pried open the door, and on hands and knees helped to drag Jos down the crawlspace in the direction of their ship. When they’d gotten as close as they could, they forced another door, this one opening to a deserted corridor. The door was halfway up the wall. Hachi lowered himself over the edge and dropped to the floor. Rox lowered Jos into his arms. “Ash next,” she said, but he was already lumbering away with Jos over his shoulder. Seething, Rox jumped down to help Ash.
Rox had to bribe the section dockmaster with more mark than he probably made in a month to get the Halifax free of the grip of the locked-down station’s docking clamps. Even the crew pitched in, transferring even more to him with the understanding that it was to pay for his effort to delay, as long as possible, the unregistered destroyer that had docked soon after they had. Of course, the Clearwater people would bribe as well. They were Isak’s, and his offer would exceed their substantial eight hundred stripes. Hachi tried to appeal to the dockmaster’s humanity. Val told him their conflict with the destroyer's captain was a terrible misunderstanding. Rox told him there were little kids on their ship.
It was worth a try.
* * *
As the Halifax fled, its AI calmly informed them of the threat barreling after them. There was some under-the-breath cursing on the command deck, and a short but desperate prayer from Val in engineering, but otherwise the crew stayed focused.
Ash herself was anything but focused. Her head was churning with everything that had happened on Caballus Landing. Isak’s people finding her; the collapse; Jos’s gun in her hand. Rox, gambling her life.
In the central holo, the destroyer’s live image was accompanied by scrolling text and stats. “That ship is huge,” Rox sighed. The ship was also fast, though that wasn't what had allowed it to reach Caballus Landing so soon after they had. It turned out that the port had chosen today, of all days, to double up. They did this occasionally, going off script and opening twice in quick succession. While Ash was standing outside the Halifax’s berth, saying goodbye to the crew, the destroyer had emerged into Sol space and started cruising toward the station.
They were stuck between a rock and a hard place. “Screwed, or slightly less screwed,” as Rox had said. Here in Sol, the only way to escape Isak’s people was to go through the closest port, Caballus. On the other end of the port, in the Cruach, Isak would be monitoring Caballus for their return. Everyone had agreed that trying for the Cruach was the slightly less screwed option.
During the first hour of their escape attempt, Rox had blocked incoming comms requests. Now, after checking to make sure Ash was out of the line of sight, she answered the request for a visual. An avatar replaced the destroyer on the central dais, the accompanying profile listing him as the ship’s captain. He offered no preamble. “Adjust your trajectory away from the port and prepare to be boarded.”
“Take your weapons lock off us or we’ll knock a torpedo into your pork socket,” said Rox. The man stared. A groan came through on the crew com—Val, in engineering. If they survived this, Rox would get an earful about being old and embarrassing. “I repeat, disengage your weapons lock,” she said.
“You will bypass the port and prepare to be boarded in Sol space. You know as well as I do the position you’re in right now, but we can still negotiate for your lives. Make it easy for yourself and hand over Gabriel.”
“Never heard of him,” said Rox. She waved her hand around at the crew. “Anybody know Gabriel?”
“I dated a guy named Gabe once,” said Jos.
“Oh wait, you mean Anya Gabriel,” said Rox. “Sorry, never heard of her either.”
The destroyer's captain leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “You're not the only one with need of an alias.”
Rox cut the transmission. “Tavarres, how long until we can get a rails lock on them?”
“They’re killing distance quick. Decelerating, looks like nine minutes.”
“Are we going to be able to take out their torpedoes?”
“Almost outta ammo, and we got only two deck guns that aren’t busted. Our best bet'll be the rail guns when they get close enough, but you know.”
“...and that means?”
“They got us beat.”
“Mosi, port range?”
“Thirteen minutes. If we cut the brakes, it’ll be quicker.”
“Do it.” The float alarm sounded. Ash tucked in her shirt front as they went weightless.
The ship received another message request, but it wasn’t the destroyer’s captain who appeared on the dais. Ash felt the blood drain from her head.
The older woman sat with a straight back, hands clasped before her as if resting on her dash, though they were coasting and weightless. Elegant gray hair swept back from the kind of warm, genuine face that invited a sense of trust.
“Well, she doesn’t raise every red flag,” muttered Rox.
“I’m Doctor Eidalen Bauer. I’m sorry for our captain’s bad temper, and your altercation on Caballus Landing with my staff was regrettable. But tensions have been high since we lost touch with Anya. I’m afraid you don’t know the kind of danger you’ve put yourselves in.”
Rox clapped a hand to her chest. “Goodness me. Danger?”
A sober pinch appeared between Eidalen’s brows. “Captain Price, Anya’s not a stable woman. She believes her own lies, which makes her very good at hiding her mental illness, but trust me when I tell you this only makes her lack of control over her abilities that much more dangerous.” Eidalen shook her head with a familiar look of regret. So sorry, Anya. I really am. “Really, we only have ourselves to blame. Our staff should’ve been better equipped to keep her safe at our facility. I’d like you to come aboard with her. Let's negotiate compensation for the trouble we’ve caused you.”
Jos sent a text over the crew channel.
Compensation?
Rox texted back,
They think we’re a band of renegade privateers kidnapping a Drifter for a bounty.
Rox mirrored Eidalen’s gentle, beseeching tone. “Oh Ida, do go screw yourself.” She reached to end the transmission.
“Stop.” The shift in demeanor was so abrupt that Rox paused, hand outstretched. “If you fail to cooperate, we will follow you into Lir, disable the Halifax, contact the government of Belenus and give them your position. Either way, Anya is coming with us.”
Ash’s world went gray and toneless.
More was said. Some back and forth, a charged silence, Rox pointing out that by the time the port opened for another ship, the Halifax would be long gone in Lir. Ash hardly heard them. It wasn’t the words; it was the change. Eidalen had run out of patience.
Ash’s hands went to the straps pinning her to the seat. The transmission was paused. Jos raised a question. Rox cut him off, counted to ten, re-opened the comm. An argument; an agreement. An order to decelerate and prepare to be boarded. And then Eidalen saw her.
Ash was frozen in place halfway to the lift, clinging to the float rungs on the wall, and Eidalen’s eyes were locked on hers.
Rox turned to look at Ash. She snapped her hand down on the dash, and the avatar vanished. “Mosi, assuming the port shows up on time, if you adjust our trajectory to take us just to the outside of it, will you still have time to turn us back in?”
“I’ll need to turn us back at eight minutes out and fire the bow thrusters. The big ones. It won’t feel good.”
More discussion. They would make a show of compliance, then either cut and run for the port, or if it didn’t appear, come about and attempt to slip by the enemy ship. “Be ready for hard g’s and shooting,” said Rox.
So sorry about this, Anya.
The port did appear. Mar-Sadiqa took crossing command. “Strap in,” said the pilot.
Ash couldn’t breathe.
So sorry.
“Doctor Eli, take a station.” She couldn’t feel her hands. They wouldn’t let go of the rungs.
“Destroyer’s in range.”
“Captain, the course change is close. Please get the doctor in a chair.”
She was floating a light year away from them.
“Ash.” Her jaw hurt, and her neck.
“Breathe, Ash.” The muscles were taut as tension cables.
“Ashrael, look at me,” Rox commanded. She came into focus. She had unlocked and swiveled her chair to face Ash. “We won’t let them take you back.” The words were charged with quiet ferocity. “Breathe.” Rox’s chest moved with hers. In, out. “We’re about to cross. Go to a station.”
Ash let go of the rungs. She pushed herself away from the wall, grabbed the closest seat and pulled herself into it.
"Drone report," said Mosi.
Rox swiveled back to her dash, locked down her seat and checked her display. “The Lirish crossing drone just exited the port. According to its data package there’s a Cruach ship in holding at the other end. Merchant class catamaran. No patrols. And the Sollan drone...” She stopped. She sent Ash a text.
You with me?
Ash texted a shaking thumbs-up emoji. Rox sent,
They’ll have logged a message to Varga on that drone.
Ash forced her mind back to the present. She needed to survive today, not the past. She texted back an affirmative. Rox texted,
Hey there Zak, that privateer frigate carrying the Drifter you’re obsessed with? It’s coming back to the Crotch. And Price is a Tachuri. See you in Lir!
Ash sent,
Can you hack it? Divert its messages?
Before Rox could reply, the station displays flashed an alert, scrolling a set of stats along with a live image: a small, floating puff of wreckage. "They killed it," said Rox, incredulous. “They shot the crossing drone.”
A murmur went up from the crew. Evidently hacking the drone's AI wasn’t thorough enough. “I mean, I’d admire their barbarity,” said Jos, “but they just destroyed the thing that was going to keep us alive.” The drone would’ve prevented that merchant ship from flying into the other end, thinking they had a clear port to Sol.
The Halifax AI spoke up. “Captain, I have the Sollan crossing drone’s AI in holding. It jumped to us just before the drone was struck and is requesting passage to the Lir System so it can make its report.”
“Determined little thing, isn’t it? Permission granted, but don’t give it access to any internal information, and don’t release it until I give the okay.” To Ash, she texted,
I’ll have Jos scrub it before we let it go.
“We’re still going for the port,” said Mosi.
“Affirmative. Our chances are better if we try to cross. A merchant probably won’t enter the port without the all-clear.”
“And what are they going to do, follow us in?” said Jos. With the mass of two large ships inside a shaker, the strongest diaxite stabilizers could not hold back gravity. Doing it almost inevitably meant death for everyone inside.
The shaking began, followed by the low red light of crossing. For a tense minute they continued their course, angled just away from the shifting golden slash that was the Caballus Port. Rox received another message request. She waved up the image, this time a smaller avatar confined to the captain’s workstation. “You look upset, Doctor Bauer. Did something spiky crawl into your silken undershorts?”
“Halifax, you were instructed to decelerate,” said Eidalen.
“I’ve got a pissed-off drone AI over here.”
“It was a deterrent against any attempt to enter the port. Decelerate now.”
“Yeah, the issue is we’re already in port protocol and my pilot’s having trouble giving up command. Sorry, she goes kind of dictator on us when she sees battle reds.”
“Brake and navigate clear of the port. Now.”
“Brace for course change,” ordered Mar-Sadiqa. Rox slapped down the comm. “Bow thrusters,” said Mosi. Ash sucked in a breath as the ship adjusted its trajectory. “Lateral boosters!” They went into a twisting feet-first turn back toward the open port. Ash gripped the seat’s armrests, her weight pressed at an unnatural angle into her harness, up and to the side, hard, harder. Jos gasped out a curse.
“Torpedoes incoming,” grunted Hachi. “Eat some of ours, ice-axe cunt.”
“Don’t ever translate Cangali again,” panted Rox.
“Shut it,” he said.
Rox shut it. Under the quake and clatter of the ship came the thunk of the Halifax’s torpedo fittings opening to release their payload. The ship resonated with the chunky thud-thud-thud of their deck guns. The destroyer’s torpedoes went from blue to green on the station displays, then disappeared. Their own torpedoes, earmarked for the pursuing ship, were destroyed by that ship’s deck guns. They could’ve played this game all day, had the Halifax not depleted its ammunition at Clearwater.
Their pursuers didn’t fire again. “Why’d they stop?” said Jos. His question was answered when the other ship changed course.
Val’s voice broke the silence. “Bloody hell.”
There were many names for what the enemy was doing, as varied as the cultures that used the ports. Shooting the chancellor. The final fuck. Rock paper death.
The destroyer was going to follow them in.
13
threshold
Rox stared at her display, stunned into silence. As they drew nearer to the shaker, the Halifax gave a warning alert she’d never heard: there would be too much mass in the gravity port.
The destroyer had fired its drive in a hard brake to slow for crossing, but not before it got close enough to hit them with its rail guns. Rox didn’t see the point. There was no turning away from the port now; most likely, the destroyer’s captain had already killed them. Nonetheless, the growing noise of the shaker and Hachi’s stream of battle profanity were joined by the cacophonous din of their hull taking a thick barrage of rounds. A jolt juddered through the Halifax and Rox was once again thrown to the side.
The shots stopped coming. “Bow thruster,” yelled Mosi. “Nose twelve. Benjoska, see if we can get it back.”
“On it,” he gasped. On her display, Rox saw the AI cut the damaged thruster’s twin. Mar-Sadiqa's fingers flew through her display. As the Halifax came out of its slide, the painful sideways press into her harness eased and they went weightless again. “Nose twelve is out of play,” said Jos.
Rox addressed the crew, letting the links carry her voice directly to their crew comms, bypassing the clamor of port proximity. “Friends, Doctor Creepy and the brainless plank captaining her ship have just reduced our chance of survival to an extremely slim margin, theirs too, and I’m as confused about it as you are. If you pray, pray for a miracle.”
