Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) (25 page)

“I have a
medpack behind the seat there,” he said. “Throw some salve on that shoulder and
strap in.”

Ju-lin
quickly unpacked the medpack and squirted a tube of something that smelled like
mint all over my shoulder. At first it stung bad enough that I nearly cried out
in pain, though, after a few breaths the pain subsided, the tingling in my arm
subsided and my headache started to pass.

“They
locked our mag-clamp,” Cwaylyn muttered. “So much for subtlety. You two set?”

Ju-lin
commented an affirmative as she clipped her safety harness while I fumbled with
mine.

“Good,
three, two, and pop!” Cwaylyn flipped a switch and I heard a
thud
somewhere above us. The ship shook violently. After a second, we started to
drift as the docking bay and the mag-clamp disengaged. “Collective-designed
docking lockdowns: nothing a few well-placed charges can’t solve. Hold on, they
already have fighters scrambling. We ain’t near out of this yet.”

With that, he jammed the throttle to the stops. The engines
fired and the little ship leapt forward, pressing me back into my seat just as
I got my harness to click securely.

Chapter
25.

Kal, Jen’tak and Tren met me at the ship. I handed Tren the
datacard and he slipped it into the nav computer. The starmap appeared in the
holographic display.

“Eighteen jumps away,” Jen’tak commented. “Far from our
Clan’s territory.”

“Are we shifting our migration?” Kal asked.  “Is the
chieftain looking to expand our reach?”

“Why would we?” Jan’tak answered. “Our systems are plentiful.
The Human scourge has yet to spread into them. The systems they are sending us
to are too near the surface-dwellers. Why would we shift our migration so far
to somewhere already infested with world-dwellers?”

Kal looked at me expectantly, but I said nothing.

“There was a courier yesterday,” Tren spoke up.

Everyone turned to listen.

“A courier?” I asked.

“Yes,” Tren continued. “One of the novices overheard and told
me. A courier came in late last night from the conclave. He went straight to
the Chief and left again just after second watch.”

“You were given these orders at mid-third watch,” Kal said
quickly. “This isn’t from the chief, it is from the conclave.”

We were all silent, staring at the holographic map.

“What could it be?”  Jen’Tak’s voice was low and hungry.
“Could the clans be moving to war? Are we finally going to stand together and
exterminate the dweller’s spreading infestation?”

Again, we were silent. Kal smacked his gums hungrily.

“We follow our orders,” my voice was steady and resolute.

Cwaylyn
calmly handled the controls, pitching and rolling the little ship between the
massive cargo ships lumbering out of the docking bay. Within the first ten
seconds of our flight I had been certain that we were going to crash three
times; but, on every occasion, Cwaylyn maneuvered at the last possible moment,
leaving mere inches between us and the other ships as we passed.

To our
right one of the large cargo ships fired their thrusters, pulling away from the
station. The docking collar detached and swung sharply upward toward our flight
path, Cwaylyn pulled up lightly, avoiding it by inches.

“Make
sure you’re strapped in,” he said conversationally. “Looks like I get to put
this new engine through her paces.”

I had
thought I knew what space combat was like after our fight with Alonso’s
Starchaser. The first thirty seconds riding with Cwaylyn Jones taught me how
wrong I was.  We pitched downward and rolled sharply to the side, flying into a
long, narrow gap between the station and what looked like a barge docked
long-ways along the station. At the end of the passage I could see faint stars.
I looked upward through the cockpit canopy; we were going so fast that the
cargo barge above us was nothing but a blur. I realized I had been holding my
breath. With effort I forced myself to slowly exhale.

As we
burst out into open space Cwaylyn racked the controls and sent us into a tight
barrel roll just in time to avoid a barrage of plasma. I spun my head around to
see a small fighter in pursuit.

“Four
o’clock high!” Ju-lin called, I looked over to see her face lit up with the
rush of the battle as she scanned the sky. “He’s coming around.”

“Thanks
sweetheart,” Cwaylyn said to Ju-lin, smiling as he flipped a switch.

My rising
jealousy was replaced by fear as Cwaylyn disengaged our engines so we were
riding our forward inertia. Cwaylyn fired the maneuvering thrusters to flip us
around on our axis to face the other fighter. We had barely stopped spinning
when Cwaylyn thumbed the controls, firing two tightly focused particle beams on
the left wing of the enemy ship. Cwaylyn kept the beams perfectly on target for
several seconds before the wing started to glow hot and hull plating began to
fall away and the fighter began to spin out of control out into the void.

Satisfied,
Cwaylyn spun us back around and re-engaged the engines.

“Four
more coming in,” Ju-Lin said as she craned her neck back toward the station.
“We can’t fight them all.”

“Well we
could
,”
Cwaylyn answered. “But that’s not the plan. Those little fighter jocks have
nothing to do with the thugs that kidnapped y’all and I think we’ve made enough
enemies already.”

“They are
going to dust us,” Ju-lin snapped back. “You can’t just ignore them.”

“Like
hell I can’t,” Cwaylyn chuckled as he pulled up and turned us back around
toward the station. I was pressed back in my seat as he fired the thrusters,
leaving the fighters in our wake.

“That
forward thrust is incredible!” Ju-lin said.

“Ain't it
though?” Cwaylyn responded. “I’m telling you, when my guys get their funding
figured out and start going to mass production, everyone who’s anyone will be
flying one of these birds.”

“So what
is the plan?” I interrupted, feeling left out. “How are we getting out of
here?”

“Well,
the good news is that it looks like the Collegiate, or whatever they call
themselves rely on local defense forces,” Cwaylyn said conversationally. “These
poor local jocks aren’t well equipped. The Collegiate only send their own guys
when it’s something big I guess. Either way, we’re on the edge of the
Celestrial Empire, one quick flux from the Domari Collective. Lots of traders
and travelers pass through here, a good place to go to stay away from prying
eyes. What did they want you two for anyway?”

Ju-lin
and I exchanged quick glances but didn’t answer.

A yellow
light on the console started to flash, each tick was accompanied by a high
pitched beep.

“Oh, they
have missiles,” Cwaylyn said calmly as he steered the ship toward the oncoming
fighters in the distance.

The
yellow light was blinking more frequently.

“We’re
going toward them?” I felt panic rise in my stomach. “I thought we weren't
going to fight.”

“So, tell
me, Ju-lin was it?” Cwaylyn turned in his seat to look at Ju-lin. “That’s a
pretty name.”

“Yes,
thank you,” she fumbled, blushing.

The
yellow light was more frequent almost two blinks per second.

“Aren’t
you going to do something about that?” I asked, pointing to the light as I
wished she would stop looking at him like that.

“Oh fine,
you’re no fun,” Cwaylyn said as he spun around. He adjusted our trajectory
slightly and fired are particle beams, to streams of green shot out from the
bays along our wings. There was a series of three explosions as his shots
struck home, igniting the oncoming missiles.

While the
missiles were still exploding, Cwaylyn thumbed down our thrusters and turned
directly back toward the station and once again slammed the throttle to full.
For the first time, I got a full view of the station. When Alume had described
how the moon was struck by the comet, I had imagined that the moon would have
shattered and spread out into space. In reality, the gravitational pull of the
largest remaining mass of the moon would pull the rest of the debris behind it
in orbit. As a result, the large chunk of grey-brown ore that made up the core
of the moon had been hollowed out to build the station where we had been held
captive. The remaining mass of the shattered moon trailed along behind in a
thick and dense asteroid field. The bounty of ore and rare minerals that had
once made up the core of the moon and were now trailing the station was worth a
fortune.  The Domari Collective had given up a lot when they yielded the system
to the Celestrials.

“Those
fighters are closing in,” Ju-lin commented.

“They
won’t catch us in time,” Cwaylyn answered. “When the Celestrials took over the
station for some reason they didn’t bring in new fighters. They kept the old
Domari defense ships. They are well armored and decently armed, but slow.”

“But
where are we going?” I asked, thinking back to our arrival, it had been an hour
or two between our last jump and when we had docked. “The flux point can’t be
back toward the station.”

“Excellent
observation Eli,” Cwaylyn boomed. “Loid said that if anything happened to him
that we should still follow the plan. So I’m following the plan.”

“Which
is?”

“I’m
going to lead the locals on a goose chase and drop you two off to take the
Tons
out of here,” he responded. “Oh, that reminds me, I’m going too fast, can’t
lose them just yet.”

He pulled
back on the throttle as we approached the back side of the station, angling
toward the long stream of asteroids following in its orbital wake.

“How are
you going to be able to drop us off if we’re being followed by the
Celestrials?” I asked. “Aren’t they going to notice when we stop and dock?”

“Yeah,
about that,” Cwaylyn responded. “Under your seats you will find some
environmental suits, you should start getting those on.”

I reached
into the cubby under my seat and found the curved dome of a helmet. I pulled it
out and looked over at Ju-lin.

Ju-lin
looked skeptical.

“Is he
serious?” I asked.

“Of
course I’m serious,” Cwaylyn replied as he pulled up to avoid fire from the
oncoming fighters. “Remember back at the Par’eth I told you about how Loid and
I used to pull smuggling scams? This is one of them. I would run the goods out,
and then drop them at a prearranged location and Loid would sweep in and pick
them up. That way even if I got caught my ship would be clean. Meanwhile, Loid
would skip right out of the system with the goods without a care in the world.”

“Have you
done this before? With people?” Ju-lin asked.

“Well,
kinda,” Cwaylyn answered. “Well once with a dead guy, but he was dead
before
I dropped him.”

“What?” I
asked.

“True
story!” Cwaylyn said as we leveled out along the rugged stone surface of the
mangled core of the moon.

Cwaylyn
jammed the controls left to right as he avoided a spire of stone. We were
reaching the edge of the core remnant of the moon, ahead of us the view port
was full of asteroids. I saw lights and ships connected to some of the larger
ones, miners I assumed, though the bulk of the field was littered with misshapen
hunks of dark stone and minerals ranging from the size of a pebble to a few
dozen times the size of our little ship.

“We’re
going into the asteroid field?” Ju-lin didn’t sound nearly as terrified as I
felt.

“Technically
this isn’t an asteroid field,” Cwaylyn responded as he pulled up to maneuver
between two large chunks of stone. “All of the debris is locked in the trailing
orbit behind the chunk of moon that the station’s built into. It’s a debris
cloud.”

“So the
rocks are more or less stationary and it’s easier to navigate?” Ju-lin asked.

“Exactly,”
Cwaylyn responded as he pulled in closer to one of the larger asteroids. “Not
nearly as fun as the real thing. How are they doing?”

I craned
my neck to look behind us, four of the station’s defense fighters were falling
in behind us, but the shooting had stopped. They were struggling to keep up.

“They’re
still with us,” Ju-lin answered. “We’re pulling clear though, we’ll lose them
in here soon.”

“Don’t
want to lose them quite yet,” Cwaylyn eased up on the throttle a bit more. “Are
you two getting those suits on?”

I looked
over at Ju-lin.

“I can’t
say I’ve ejected into open space before. Should be fun.” Ju-lin said as she
reached down to grab her suit.

I didn’t
share her idea of fun.

I reached
down and pulled the rest of the suit out and started to put it on over my
clothes. I unbuckled my harness and held myself as steady as possible as I
slipped into the suit. It was awkward. After a few seconds I spared a glance
forward out of the cockpit and immediately regretted it. We were in the center
of the debris field now. Cwaylyn was shifting left and right and spiraling
while slowly increasing the throttle.

“Hurry
up,” Cwaylyn said. “
Tons
is parked out at the edge of the field here.
I’ll shoot both of you together in her general direction.”

“Her
general
direction
?” Ju-lin repeated.

“Shoot?”
I asked

“Yeah,
well, sweetheart, believe it or not this is a little harder than it looks,” he
pitched downward avoiding a cloud of gravel. “Look, I’ve been around the verse
a few times, rescues are messy business. I tend to avoid them as a rule, high
risk and no credits to show for it. But Loid called in a favor, so here I am.”

The
Matron, Cwaylyn. It seemed half of the galaxy owed Loid one kind of favor or
another. I remembered his face as he fell to the ground, his chest covered in
blood and the face of the old human and the Celestrial. They weren't with the
Collegiate, I was nearly certain. I hoped that whoever they were they wanted
him alive.

“I don’t
see how ejecting us into open space in the general direction of the ship will
qualify as much of a rescue,” Ju-lin countered.