Ice War, page 6
Yajain nodded to him and then turned back toward the Razor Crow.
“I accept your gift, Senn.”
He took her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it.
“Thank you, Yajain.”
Dara emerged from the ship and returned to the high dock. She approached Yajain and Senn, eyes moving up the tower of the armor. Yajain turned to her.
“What is it?”
“We’d better get on board.” Dara turned toward Pansar and Boskem. “The sensors are picking up movement from the Ghost Hammer.”
Pansar scowled.
“Someone must have leaked something. We’d better get airborne right away.”
Yajain and Senn both turned toward Pansar along with the others. Her heart leapt into her throat.
Lin, please understand.
The Razor Crow launched through the lower set of doors in Castenlock’s aft-most dock. Yajain, Mosam, and Dara raced through the central passage under the audibly humming central core. The speakers in the corridor barked Pansar’s voice.
“Flight personnel to battle stations. Everyone else, strap in and prepare for transit.”
The ship banked and Yajain pressed herself to the padded wall to keep from falling. Dara grabbed a bracing bar on the opposite wall, while Mosam slid toward Yajain’s side of the passage. The ship reversed directions abruptly. Yajain lost her support from the wall and cried out. She and Mosam tumbled into the center of the passage and landed hard.
Mosam grunted in pain. Yajain reached for a bracing bar just out of reach. Dara’s hand found her wrist.
“Hang on,” Dara said.
Yajain nodded. She gripped Dara’s arm as the ship banked again. The passage’s tilt turned almost vertical. Mosam slammed into the wall across from Yajain.
He groaned.
“This is fun.”
Yajain reached for his hand.
“Hold on and we’ll stay in one piece,” she said.
His fingers intertwined with hers as the ship leveled out for at least a brief moment. He held her hand gently for that moment, but then they banked again, tugging Yajain toward the wall where Dara stood. Mosam’s grip on her hand tightened, firmly locking her between him and Dara in the center of the hallway. She gazed at him where he clung with feet braced between two door frames.
They leveled out for a moment.
“Activate your lifts,” said Yajain. “They could help us keep stable.”
Mosam nodded. He and Dara immediately released Yajain. All three of them activated lifts and swam down the corridor. Yajain stayed close to the wall behind Mosam, feeling along the side of the passage with one hand. Dara performed a similar maneuver on the other side but kept losing forward motion due to imperfect flight form. As a result, she nearly crawled along the floor.
The Razor Crow banked again.
Yajain grabbed a wall brace and shouted a warning. Ahead of her, Mosam took two braces and held on. Dara hugged the floor, but still rolled sideways into the center of the hallway. Mosam let go of his braces and pushed out into the center of the passage using all four limbs on his lifts and a great deal of physical strength.
Yajain could barely move thanks to the force pressing her to the wall. The passage tilted so Dara flew downward at an angle past Yajain and slammed into the wall below with a cry of pain. Mosam kicked off the from the wall opposite Yajain and shot after Dara.
He caught Dara’s stunned frame near the doors to the bridge and grabbed a wall brace with one hand.
“Is she alright?” Yajain called as the ship leveled out.
The three of them lowered their feet to the floor.
“Fine,” said Dara. “But I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get to the cabins at this rate.”
Yajain nodded at them.
“Why is Pansar on such a crazy flight path?”
“Not sure,” said Mosam. “Should have been a straight shot toward the edge of the cluster.”
The ship leveled out for a few seconds. Yajain put on a burst of speed and raced to Dara and Mosam by the bridge doors.
“Think the bridge has room for us?”
“I hope so.” Dara glanced at the bridge doors and winced as her neck moved. “Transit in this passage would be rough.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” said Mosam. “More like lethal.”
Dara’s eye flicked back to Mosam. She grimaced.
Yajain inched along the wall to the doors themselves and hit the intercom on the wall.
“Hello?” she said. “Agent Pansar?”
Gellen Chakal’s voice came from the speaker by the door. “Hang on, Doctor. Agent Pansar is attempting evasive maneuvers.”
“Can you let us in?” Yajain asked. “We can’t get to the cabins.”
A deafening pause lasted as the ship banked and then leveled out again. The double doors opened with a rush of air.
“Get in, quickly,” said Gellen.
Yajain turned to Dara and Mosam, but they were through the doors before she could even tell them to move. Why is Pansar on evasive maneuvers? Yajain slipped through the door and it sealed behind her.
The bridge of the Razor Crow was dark except for the glow of a handful of small terminals near the door and the blinking red lights on the bulky egg-shaped helmet Pansar wore at the controls in the center of the oblong room.
Pansar wore a dark gray fluid treatment suit and a breather with tubes running off of it and into a venting machine. His hands clenched on the control sticks and he neck spasmed like a junkie who just caught a whiff of his own poisonous breath. Behind him, at the terminals nearer Yajain, Gellen’s fingers moved over holographic keys.
Gellen’s brow furrowed.
“Another volley inbound!”
Pansar stuttered when he said, “W-Where?” His voice reverberated from speakers related by the microphone in his breather.
“Aft port.”
“Hang on.” Pansar hit a button on the end of one control stick. Razor Crow’s prow angled up, and then the ship bolted to starboard.
Yajain’s stomach flipped and her heart thumped in her chest. She clutched Dara’s arm and a floor brace. Mosam hung onto Dara’s other arm, and the brace opposite Yajain’s on the ceiling. The three of them clung together, Yajain in a crouch with both Dara and Mosam standing. A din of explosions shook the air behind them but the sound made up the worst of what hit the ship.
“Who’s shooting at us?” Yajain said.
Gellen glanced at her.
“Its that privateer. Ghost Hammer.”
“Lin,” Yajain said. “Someone tipped her off.”
Dara raised an eyebrow.
“Well it wasn’t me,” said Mosam.
Dara shook her head, then turned to Yajain with the same silent prompt.
Yajain scowled.
“Don’t give me that look. I didn’t tell Lin anything.”
“Not deliberately anyway,” said Dara. “But you are sisters.”
“The privateer is accelerating,” said Gellen to Pansar. “Launching two fighters. They’re fast. Could cut us off.”
Pansar grunted.
“N-No. They won’t.”
He hit a few keys on a control board with his prosthetic hand on the side opposite Yajain and the others. The Razor Crow accelerated, pushing Yajain and the others toward the wall. Through the large bridge windows Yajain glimpsed the sleek silver shape of one of the privateer’s fighter jets slicing through the air a few hundred meters off to starboard. Streaks of spent chemical fuel trailed behind the fighter from under its wings.
Yajain glanced at Pansar. He gritted his teeth. Another fighter appeared on the opposite side of the Crow. Gellen hit a few controls with unsteady hands and then plugged herself into the ship by the neural jack at the top of her spine. Her movements immediately became more fluid and regular. The fighters on either side angled to approach the Crow.
“How are they matching our pace?” asked Dara.
Mosam looked past Dara to Yajain and their eyes met. He shook his head.
“It’s us. Pansar can’t take the ship to full speed until we get prepared for transit speeds.”
“Officer Chakal,” Pansar said, then spoke in a string of digits. “That’s our pillar for initiating transit. How long?”
“Seventy seconds at our current velocity. But we won’t be clear of the fighters by then.”
Lin is in command of that ship. My sister is trying to kill us on a vendetta that is her right. Not us, just Mosam. Even if she’ll hate me, she would never try to hurt me.
“Gellen,” she said. “Can we contact the privateer?”
“They’ve been trying to hail us since they launched fighters.” Gellen’s eyes gazed down at the terminal key and holographic readouts. “I’ve been jamming their communications with their missiles.”
“You have to let me talk to that ship.”
“I-Impossible,” said Pansar. “We’d increase their chances of hitting us.”
His neck spasmed. He turned the face of the egg-shaped helmet he wore toward the fighter on the port side. The Razor Crow and the fighters hurtled toward the edge of the cluster where dark, Solna-less pillars reached into the misty void like densely packed and infinitely tall tree trunks.
“Please, Agent Pansar. I can give us the chance we need.”
Both Pansar’s ordinary left hand and his prosthetic right gripped the control sticks tightly.
“Open a channel.”
Gellen hit a few keys, breathing deep. She motioned for Yajain to approach her terminal. Yajain released her grip on Dara’s hand and then on the floor brace. She rose from her crouch and crossed the few shaking meters to Gellen.
“Here,” Gellen held out a wired communicator with a speaker and microphone. Yajain took it and gripped a brace on the floor beside the terminal. She sank to sit on the floor to increase her stability.
In her ear a soft crackle of static announced the channel connecting. Gellen touched Yajain’s shoulder and then nodded to her in a brief exchange. Lin’s voice spoke from Yajain’s receiver.
“Finally prepared to talk, Agent Pansar? Turn over Coe and we can end this pursuit.” A hologram portrait of Lin on the bridge of the Ghost Hammer flickered into life from a projector to Pansar’s left. Yajain stared at her sister’s hardened features.
She didn’t plan to show this ship mercy. I’m gambling on her sentimentality.
Yajain held the communicator close to her mouth.
“It’s not him who wants to talk, sister.”
Lin’s expression became brittle.
“Yajain?”
“Yes. I’m on board the Razor Crow,” she said.
Lin’s lip twitched.
“We need to explain ourselves to each other, Yajain.”
“Agreed, Lin.” Yajain took a deep breath. “This ship will let us scout the Kerida Cluster. Then we can find a way for the rest of the fleet to get there. Please, Lin, this is for everyone’s good.”
“Why is Mosam with you?”
“We’re bringing him as our guide. We need his help.”
“And you. How did you join this mission?”
The fighters swooped closer to either side of the Razor Crow.
“I…I’m here to make sure Mosam stays on our side.”
Lin’s face darkened.
“He’s a betrayer. None of you should trust him.”
Yajain looked straight into the hologram of Lin. Tears beaded, then ran down her face.
“I do. I trust him.”
The fighters dropped out of Yajain’s view from the bridge of the Razor Crow. They must have used up their afterburner fuel, a common problem for the old-style jet fighters, unlike core-powered ships. Lin’s eyes flashed and she said something off-channel, but Yajain could tell because her mouth moved.
Pansar hit a few keys.
“Connection suspended. The fighters are returning to the Ghost Hammer. Good work, Doctor Aksari.”
Yajain risked removing her hand from the brace to wipe her eyes.
“I hardly did anything, Agent Pansar.”
“We only needed seconds. Quickly, all of you, get to your cabins and prepare for transit. I’ll do my best to hold the ship steady while you do.”
Dara and Mosam didn’t need telling again. They joined Yajain by the door and then the three of them ran down the central passage. Dara and Yajain stopped by their doors while Mosam slowed his pace as he approached his own cabin, located right past Yajain’s on the opposite side of the hall.
Yajain glanced after him as he unsealed his door and then stepped inside. He sniffed and wiped a hand across his eyes before the door sealed behind him. Yajain turned to her own room. Her case of luggage still sat secured at the foot of the bed despite the wild jolts of movement. Everything else in the tiny room had been bolted or braced into place.
She took the pillow from its double brace on the wall and then lay down on the bed. In the wall beside the pillow holder, a small screen with remote operation from the bridge showed a view of the dark pillars, entirely lacking Solnas, that formed the edge of Yugha Cluster. Those dark columns of infinite height grew steadily larger in the viewer as the Razor Crow nosed toward one of the last lighted pillars near the edge.
A rumble of thunder from somewhere ahead of the ship beyond the darkened pillars contested with the sound of the Razor Crow’s engines. Yajain fastened the buckles around her waist and legs. She found the sleeves to put her arms inside, to keep them from being thrown about during transit, and a mobile brace for her neck to protect her from whiplash. Every part needed protection.
She sighed. Lin, I know this isn’t over. I made you angry this time, and you never learned to let go.
The ship held the pace as it circled the pillar to pick up arc charge to begin transit. Fast maneuvers or not, Pansar started the journey traditionally. The gaps in the shadowy pillars ahead of them looked tiny from the viewer in Yajain’s room, far too small for transit, but this was the only way to confront the tyrants and find Onnu Savar. Savar, who’d been the one to order Mosam to destroy the armory at Kaga.
He will answer for that. At the very least he’ll have to answer to me.
The Razor Crow’s engines hummed louder, droning over the sounds of the storm that waited in the darkness. Yajain lay her head on the pillow and fastened on the neck brace. The ship bucked. Pansar’s voice echoed from the speaker by the screen.
“Hang on everyone. Transit in five seconds.”
Yajain counted in her head.
The Razor Crow circled around the pillar one more time, and then jumped forward, speeding toward a gap in the black wall of pillars at the edge of Yugha.
The first time the Razor Crow ‘bounced’ its transit momentum from another pillar’s arc field, the whole ship shuddered around Yajain, with a sound like crashing drums. She clenched her hands inside the bed’s sleeve braces. As the ship leveled out again she breathed a sigh of relief. They bounced again. And again.
The ship careened through darkness, howling wind, and lashing sheets of sleet and rain. Yajain closed her eyes and fought to keep her stomach and nerves under control. They went on hurtling at transit speeds that pinned her to the bed even when they continually repelled from the arc of intervening pillars.
She did her best not to vomit. After fifteen or twenty bounces she noticed bile burning in her throat, and she turned her braced head awkwardly to make sure she didn’t choke if she did throw up. A beep at her side drew her attention to the screen that had shown the view of the ship. She withdrew a hand and then hit the control on the terminal beside the bed to activate voice chat.
Dara’s voice filtered through to her.
“I finally figured out the room number for you.”
Yajain groaned in reply.
“Are you alright?”
“I’ve never enjoyed turbulence.”
“You can handle this,” said Dara. “Hang in there.”
“I’m trying.”
Yajain stuffed her arm back into the sleeve just before the ship bounced again.
Pansar’s voice cut in low and gravelly over the channel.
“We’re halfway to an isolated corridor. Just another few minutes and we’ll be in clear air until we reach Kerida.”
“How many bounces until then?” Yajain managed to ask.
“Twenty,” Pansar said.
Dara whistled. They bounced again.
Yajain lurched onto her side as the Razor Crow emerged from its last bounce into the isolated corridor Pansar mentioned. Darkness and raging wind surrounded the ship on all sides, but it was finally possible to move without risking injury. And best of all the sickening changes in direction ceased. She unfastened the neck brace and set it to one side of the bed. Then she unbuckled her legs and climbed carefully to her feet.
Unlike other vessels, the Razor Crow’s modified arc field compensated for transit velocities. Yajain activated her lifts and swam to the door of her cabin. She braced herself on a grip on the frame and then opened the door into the passage. On the way to the bridge one of the doors was open and the young sorai-kytep scientist Kidann Odyide stood just outside it, lanky and ruffled, wearing a dark-colored ship suit and a face nauseated and pale.
Yajain swam into the hall.
I must look at least as bad as he does.
Kidann turned toward her, then hesitated and inclined his head toward the bridge.
“Do you hear that?”
“What? You heard something?”
The tiny sorai feelers concealed under Kidann’s eyebrows snaked out and waved slightly.
“I’m almost positive. But it was very faint.”
“Something outside the ship? If there’s something else moving out there its probably just being carried by the storm.”
“Maybe…” said Kidann. “I can’t be sure.”
Yajain frowned.
“If I had my ears on I might be able to get a fix on it.” She turned back to her cabin door. “Hang on.”
