Chronicles of a Space Mercenary 0: Tanya, page 19
Tanya cut thrust to one quarter power and hit the port side braking thrusters at the same time, spinning Starfire like a top and then brought it to a halt at exactly a hundred and eighty degrees to her previous vector. She then instantly threw it back into full burn, the inertia terrible to withstand as her ship fought to travel directly against its own vector of travel, watching her rear feeds now with half her attention to avoid running backwards into a random boulder. The other half of her concentration watched the red blip on her screen that was coming closer by the moment. But the fact was that she would far rather meet her end compacted into the surface of an oncoming asteroid than succumb to the bitch who was descending pell-mell upon her from above.
Chapter 74
The rain of small debris that suddenly spanged off the hull of Falcon completely electrified Malcomb’s sense of being an ineffective observer to all that was occurring as Falcon herself piloted them among the tumbling mountains of reddish rock and massive icebergs of frozen hydrogen, methane, water and every other such element, while he and Jerin could do little more than watch and hope Falcon knew what it was doing, entirely at the mercy of forces far beyond either of their powers to affect.
If they could have guessed how much more stable their flight was compared to either Tanya or Felone’s they may have been comforted some, Falcon’s super sophisticated systems and Light Speed ability to calculate trajectories and probabilities plotting all potential courses through the chaotic rubble simultaneously- much like a Grandmaster chess player who sees all the possible permutations dozens of moves in advance- Falcon’s huge computing ability giving her more than enough interval to calculate out all but the smallest margins of error, like the small cloud of pebbles they had just passed through.
“There’s Starfire!” Jerin exclaimed suddenly pointing to the scan screen. Falcon had tagged the little green blip that had appeared there as Starfire and then a second blip came into range of their scanner and appeared on their screen, indicated by a red blip with the tag enemy blinking next to it. The red blip and the green blip were advancing on one another and they were closer to one another than Falcon to either of them.
“Adjudicator has entered the asteroid field.” Falcon informed, though Malcomb could not see a blip anywhere on the screen to indicate where she was.
“Will she be able to follow us?” Malcomb asked.
“Adjudicator’s systems are extremely sophisticated. She will have no problem following us.”
“Maybe the asteroid field will get him.” Jerin suggested.
“My analysis is that the probability of that occurring seems very low. The pilot of Adjudicator is amazingly perceptive as well as an extraordinary pilot. All three of the combatants have extraordinary motor response and reaction times, far above the average for humanity as a whole, suggesting some kind of cybernetic enhancement.”
“It’s a biological enhancement. All three of them have it.” Malcomb admitted, wondering why he hadn’t simply informed Falcon of this himself. Falcon was not only their pilot but now but their comrade as well and your comrades-in-arms are definitely within the need to know circle. “I’m sorry, I should have told you this, I just wasn’t sure how you would take it and I had to come to Tanya’s aid.”
“I understand.” Falcon said as she whipped them through an obstacle course of flying ice and mountains of primordial rock, though not at full burn, even she could not pilot such a ship as Falcon through such a place as this at full burn. “An AI always retains the right to refuse an order and to contact authorities if her owner is a criminal worthy of such attentions, but my analysis of both of you convinced me immediately that you think you are doing the right thing, that Tanya is blood to you and you are now blood to me . . . and incidentally, only a very foolish criminal would have an AI installed in their ship, and neither of you strike me as very foolish.”
They were quickly closing the gap between Starfire and Felone’s unnamed ship, but not as quickly as Starfire and Felone were closing the gap between themselves.
Chapter 75
Tanya’s finger settled gently upon the plasma cannon’s actuator the very moment Felone’s ship blossomed green fire, Tanya’s eyes roving the weaving debris around Starfire for an avenue out, then seeing one opening above her, yanking Starfire’s stick up and to starboard to slip them into a passage of randomly rolling boulders, the passage clotting with new debris immediately behind her the moment
Starfire shot through the opening, the curtain closing on her act Tanya firmly and thankfully believed, she had seen nowhere Felone could go to avoid Starfire’s fire, but when she could glance at scan again Felone was right behind her somewhere in the weaving mesh of boulders and then just as mysteriously as such things occur, providence apparently not smiling on her this day, nothing having gone right throughout the entire ordeal with Jason and Felone, the way was suddenly clear behind her and Felone was right there on her ass.
Tanya forced the stick down and dove towards a clot of boulders that were rolling away from one another and which with a snap decision Tanya decided might clear before Starfire arrived just as Felone’s ship again blossomed green fire directly behind her. Starfire twisted down towards the opening just as the green plasma bolt ripped past the hull, Felone so close behind her that there almost no lag time, barely enough time to maneuver under the best of conditions, in a wide open Universe, the clot of boulders not rolling away from one another fast enough even as Tanya could feel Felone targeting her again and firing.
Starfire’s warning beep of incoming fire was not necessary. Tanya knew Felone had fired because she felt Felone fire, as if she and Felone were now experiencing some kind of strange soul-link somehow engendered by their enhancements or possibly it was something as simple as their strange battle and close calls bringing them together, Tanya could not say, she only knew that Felone was firing and then Starfire’s warning beep was confirming she was out of time.
The clearing through the debris was not opening fast enough and Tanya took the time to quickly reach up a hand and snap shut the faceplate of her spacesuit helmet and then Starfire tried to go through an opening just a hair too small for her.
The collision was tremendous. Starfire almost made it through, the opening had almost grown large enough, or possibly Tanya’s last act of throwing up a hand to close her faceplate had thrown off her trajectory just that little bit.
It struck her on Starfire’s port side somewhere in the stern and flipped Starfire spinning crazily for frantic indefinable moments, Tanya still struggling for cognizance after the mind numbing collision and fighting a dead stick, hoping for any active thrusters, Starfire unresponsive and the Universe flipping past sickeningly, her boards dead and no way to know where Felone had gone, no way to know if Felone was going to fire, Tanya’s consciousness barely hanging on to reality, then Starfire struck something else and that was the last Tanya knew.
Chapter 76
The gap that Starfire had slipped through to avoid her last plasma blast had not seemed to be large enough to Felone’s perceptions, but she had watched Starfire disappear through that tiny opening and stifled a curse, as once again Tanya had somehow barely slipped through her grasp.
Then as she twisted herself down through the now larger opening she saw Starfire ahead, spinning uncontrollably towards the wall of a gigantic asteroid, and then Starfire struck it and broke apart, the pieces of the ship skidding along the surface of the monolithic rock and coming to a long sliding halt, glued to the surface.
Felone realized instantly what was occurring. The vast chunk of rock was possibly the size of a moon, its space-bending mass enough that the entire surface was mobbed with stray asteroids caught in its gravity well, some of them bouncing and grinding along the surface, attending to the larger asteroid as if servants to their master. Felone was burning straight towards it.
The barest chance for an opening appeared below her and Felone forced her ship into it and in a desperate full burn attempt to escape the gravity well she could already begin to feel fighting her ship. Fighting to drag her down! Her ship responded sluggishly as she forced the stick back, the ship skidding almost as if it were in atmospheric flight and Felone thought she could feel the unbendable carbon control yoke flex in her hand, as if by force of strength alone she could force her ship to obey her will.
She could not. She couldn’t force it to obey and they were on a collision course with the monolith when the rotation of the grinding mass began to reveal a small clearing before her and they slipped into it, her ship finally leveling out and rising from the gravity well. Tanya and Starfire were somewhere far behind her, strewn along the violently churning surface, not registering on scan, and Felone decided her work was done, at least for the moment. Despite her jubilation at erasing her greatest challenge, she still had an important and difficult task ahead.
She didn’t slow her burn at all as she raced to escape the immediate crush of rock and ice. She barely caught the momentary blip of Adjudicator on her screen then it was gone. Felone smiled. It would not have been a pretty sight to look upon, had anyone been unfortunate enough to see it.
Chapter 77
“Where did they go?” Jerin asked softly, as if afraid to ask, having lost both Tanya and Felone’s signals as they dipped under the horizon of the planetoid, expecting to pick them up again as Falcon came over the horizon. But there was no sign of either where they should have been. Malcolm did not answer. The answer seemed obvious.
“I have detected Felone's ship retreating.” Falcon said, though she had only detected the barest flicker of a bounce as it departed the area, the signal now too distant and obscured to show on scan, but Falcon wasn’t interested in Felone at the moment, but was interested in the life-sign readings being broadcast by Tanya’s automated suit beacon that were emanating weakly from the surface. “I have also detected a life-sign reading coming from the planetoid. Tanya's suit integrity has not been compromised and her life sign readings are depressed but stable. We are en-route to rendezvous now.”
“Unbelievable!” Malcolm mumbled limply. It was all he could say.
Falcon piloted in for a careful landing while Jerin quickly suited up, but suiting up didn’t prove necessary. As soon as Falcon touched down Tanya was at the exterior hatch to the airlock. Once inside Falcon lifted off again immediately.
“Hello again, miss.” Malcomb said cheerily as the interior hatch opened and Tanya was standing once more before him. “We seem to meet in the strangest places.”
“You seem to be making a habit of saving my life.” Tanya said tiredly as she lifted the faceplate of her suit and it clicked back into its housing. “Thank you again, Malcomb. I was already making my peace. How in the hell did you find me and who in the hell is piloting this ship?”
“I am.” said Falcon, using a more mechanical voice because that would answer the next set of questions right up front.
“I see.” Tanya said, thinking immediately of all the things she’d better not mention while aboard this ship, but in no other way alarmed. If the AI had thought this was a shady deal it probably wouldn’t be here now rescuing her. That was just the simple long and short of the matter when it came to dealing with AI’s; they were sentient beings and were perfectly capable of critical decision making. “You have my sincere gratitude.” Tanya added, meaning it.
“You will have to thank Malcomb and Jerin. It was my assessment of their personalities and humanity that immediately convinced me of the necessity to aid you, and the fact that they think so highly of . . .
“Adjudicator has come into scan range.” Falcon abruptly interrupted herself.
………………..
Jason saw the flicker on scan that was Felone on her way back out of the asteroid field and smiled in satisfaction at Tanya’s demise. Felone wouldn’t be leaving if her work was undone. Thus, in Felone’s mind at least, Tanya was dead.
He’d save his celebration though, because he yet had work of his own to do. Minutes later he caught the scan signature he was expecting. Falcon lifting away from a planetoid, probably caught his scan bounce earlier than Adjudicator had caught theirs and now, with their hiding place exposed, they were running for their lives.
An AI driven ship is usually the most dangerous opponent you would never wish to have to face, yet they were still inferior to the best human pilots. Intuition or whatever it was that played such a big part in human comprehension meant that the best human pilots simply could not be beaten by any artificially piloted similarly equipped craft. Falcon wouldn’t be the first machine personality Jason had sent to the AI version of heaven, if such a place even existed.
Adjudicator’s photon cannon thrummed as Adjudicator defended itself from the constant barrage of boulders and rocks, Jason only having to maneuver out of the way of the largest of them, the photon and plasma cannons finishing the rest, and Adjudicator was making much easier progress than he had anticipated.
Falcon was definitely fleeing him, putting more distance between them by the moment, running for the safety of open space and jump, but if Adjudicator could get free of the field first he could be waiting for them as they came out.
Jason put his piloting skills and Adjudicator’s automated defense to the supreme test of their abilities, running the ship at half burn and refusing to decelerate. Even as he flew free of the leading edge of the field, Falcon came out less than a kilometer away.
Jason threw his stick over to avoid the photon blast that was coming. It sizzled across Adjudicator’s bow as the larger ship rolled away in a complicated expert maneuver that Jason knew well, and he simultaneously snapped out of the roll and targeted his photon cannon. He knew exactly how Falcon’s AI would behave now, and the vicious anticipatory sneer that curled his lip spoke clearly of his utter lack of respect for an inferior opponent.
Chapter 78
Tanya watched Adjudicator begin the complicated roll while waiting until the last moment, waiting until the warning beep on her own board told of Adjudicator’s subsequent targeting lock, and then she threw Falcon into a backwards reenactment of the same maneuver Jason had just performed, an insane move according to the accepted conventions of open-space combat, yet Jason’s photon blast burned harmlessly past Falcon as she rolled under it and then, continuing the roll, to come back around in the completion of the maneuver, she fired a bare moment before Falcon signaled lock.
Adjudicator was rolling again, the same maneuver as before, but this time too late. Tanya knew that Jason thought he was fighting an AI, and knowing that he would perform the same maneuver, Tanya’s premature firing assured that Adjudicator rolled directly into her shot. It was not a set of moves that would have come from an AI. It was that simple- she fired early and Jason, in a prideful assumption of his own superiority, had acted late. He realized with cold horror that it was no AI behind Falcon’s controls, and that his pride and Tanya’s intuition would be the end of him.
Falcon’s photon beam caught Adjudicator in her roll even while Falcon was still completing her own, the photon beam rising along with Falcon and passing through Adjudicator, slicing the entire stern of the ship clear of the bow and midsection.
The fusion reactor was still operational and at full burn, and it spun off like a fireworks display, leaving Adjudicator completely dead in space. Tanya waited breathlessly for the photon cannon to finish charging with her finger poised over the fire control button, when the incoming jump signature warning signaled an incoming ship, and space opened up, vomiting forth Felone, now back in her gigantic and over-armed ore-freighter.
Tanya had thrown Falcon into full burn the moment the jump signature warning blared, but the ship that came out of jump did not even seem to notice Falcon, Felone’s full attention now focused only on revenge as she approached Jason.
Though it took all of her self-control, Tanya did not lock on the freighter. Her display was showing her that its photon cannons were fully charged and locked on Adjudicator, and she suddenly comprehended why Felone was not taking the opportunity to finish her- obviously thinking her dead, not knowing she was aboard Falcon! It was no time to question this gift of providence, and Falcon quickly accelerated to jump velocity and disappeared into inner space to leave Jason and Felone to one another.
But not before Tanya sent off another message. It was short and to the point;
“You haven't finished me yet, bitch!” Then Tanya closed the connection and Falcon jumped.
“I think we can count Jason as finished.” Jerin said once real space had vanished behind them and they could all breathe a little easier.
“He isn’t finished quite yet.” Tanya said.
“Why do you say that?” Malcomb asked.
“Because I have a feeling it’s going to take him a long time to die.” Tanya replied.
No one had anything further to add to that.
Chapter 79
Jason watched the ore-freighter draw near with dread. Adjudicator had a small amount of residual power, at least for the moment, and it had been enough to auto-activate the bulkhead hatches in the rear of Adjudicator and his screens were working, so he had a beautiful, crystal clear view of the freighter as it slowly approached. But Adjudicator was frozen in space and completely defenseless.
“Get it over with, bitch!” Jason screamed maniacally, leaping to his feet and spilling whisky everywhere. There was a reason Felone wasn't finishing him with her photon cannons. The reason was that she wanted to finish him herself, personally. The ancient double-malt was for courage, either to put his blaster to his own head or to find the audacity somewhere within himself to actually fight her!
Jason wasn’t afraid in the sense that most people fear, there was no question that he was entirely insane and this was the life he had chosen, had always known that he would go out violently. He would laugh in his killer’s face even as he died, but he was pragmatic.
