DusktoDust_Final3 Page 16

  David was strapped in to the pilot’s seat looking out the viewport at the closed hangar bay doors. He thought it was funny that Windcorp employed an air traffic control team for its illegal flights. He actually had to wait for clearance before taking off.

  It took another minute for the flight hands to vacate the hangar. “Okay, Catalyst. We’re clear. Opening the bay doors.” On cue, the enormous wall in front of the ship started to slide open. For a split second David was blinded by the intense sunshine of the light side, but the viewport autotinting quickly kicked in. “Catalyst. You are cleared for departure. Good skies.”

  “Thanks, control.” David turned to Alana. “You ready for this?”

  She nodded with a grin. “Once more into the fray, D.”

  “Once more.” And hopefully we live to see another. David felt a chill run down his spine. It was the same sensation he always felt before a run. He welcomed it and hated it at the same time. The feeling was why he did what he did. It was the rush, the adrenaline. Something a pilot couldn’t get flying a normal transport ship. But today the feeling was different. David couldn’t pinpoint it but something felt off.

  Get your head in the game, he told himself. He looked down at the controls. “Alright, activating repulsors.” He pushed a button and felt the ship drop slightly as Catalyst’s landing gear retracted. The ship now hovered under the power of her gravity repulsors. “I hope all the passengers are strapped in. Hit it.”

  Alana grabbed the throttle. “Taking engines to fifty percent.” David was slammed against his seat as the ship leapt forward out of the hangar. The desolate landscape of the light side passed under them. As David checked his displays, he received a call over the comm system. It was Mr. Black.

  “Mr. Carpenter, it would have been nice to have some warning before we got under way.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Black. I’m not used to carrying passengers. Everyone okay back there?” David hoped that Castle had taken a blow to the head.

  “We are all fine. Is there anything I can help with on the flight?”

  “Mr. Black, just leave the flying to us. I’ll let you know when we’re through.” He terminated the call. “How are we looking, Alana?”

  “Nothing yet,” she said as she studied the sensor read outs. “The skies look clear.”

  “Okay, I’m taking her up.” He pulled back on the yoke and Catalyst shot up through the atmosphere.

  The Peacekeepers kept a standard patrol in the space above Prospect. Their fleet was large. They had enough ships to cover all sectors with their sensors. That was what made a smuggler’s job so difficult.

  Some smugglers chose to defeat the PK fleet using brute force. Armed with missiles and cannons, they chose to attack and outrun the PKs. That was called a smash run and David thought the concept was insane. It was a good way for a smuggler to get blown out of the sky.

  He preferred the subtler and more challenging method. He and Alana chose to avoid the PKs sensors all together. Using frequency jammers and very delicate piloting skills, they were going to sneak past the Peacekeeper ships as if they were invisible

  Catalyst passed through the scattered clouds. Now all that was left in front of them was open space. “We should be coming up on the picket line. Got that jammer ready?”

  “It’s all spun up. I’ve got no contacts yet.” Alana continued to monitor the sensor panel. “Okay, we’re picking them up now… Holy shit.”

  David didn’t like her tone. “What is it?”

  “This can’t be right. There’s no way. Look at this.”

  David leaned over to look at her display. “What!?” The sensors were saying that there were twice as many Peacekeeper ships in orbit as he had ever seen before. Something was wrong. He grabbed the throttle and cut their speed in half. “Restart the sensor cluster.”

  Alana did so. “It’s saying the same thing. Did the Peaks up the size of the garrison?”

  “I don’t think so.” David’s mind raced as he contemplated their options.

  “What do we do?”

  There was only one option. “We go through.” He didn’t like the idea, but with the pressure Windcorp was putting on the run they could not turn around. And the longer they hung around in the atmosphere the higher the chances were that Catalyst would be spotted. “We take it slow. Plot a lane through the coverage.”

  “It’s going to be tight,” Alana said, plotting a course in the nav console. “Here it is.” It showed up on one of David’s displays. He studied it and nodded.

  “Okay. I can make that work. There’s a bit of overlap. You’ll need to pick those bogies up with the Wavebow.”

  David increased speed. Following Alana’s course he started navigating Catalyst through the hundreds of Peacekeeper ships that lay between them and open space. The ship’s static jammer should keep them invisible to anyone outside of one hundred kilometers. Anything that came closer in Alana would take care of with the Wavebow acute area jammer. The device played havoc with a ship’s sensor array when targeted accurately.

  “We’re coming up on the first overlap,” David alerted. “Interdictor at bearing zero-three-seven, takeoff six-zero. Closing in on one hundred and ten klicks.”

  Alana used a joystick to move the Wavebow onto target. “Solid lock. Initiating.” She punched a button, sending ten thousand watts of static noise straight to the interdictors sensor array. “Bam! He’s no longer a problem.” The commander of the ship wouldn’t know what was going on. Now he was blind. By the time they realized it was jamming and not a mechanical problem, Catalyst would be long gone.

  David smiled. Maybe this would work. He and Alana were the best smugglers out there. If there was a team that could sneak through a sky full of Peacekeepers it was them.

  Letsego felt helpless. He sat strapped in a chair in the passenger lounge with the rest of the troopers and Mr. Black. They had been flying for twenty minutes now. They should be in the middle of the Peacekeeper space patrol, unless Carpenter had done something out of the ordinary. It was only a matter of time before Carpenter realized that getting through the blockade was not an option.

  The minutes ticked by. Letsego could feel the transport making gradual, controlled maneuvers, nothing that would suggest Carpenter was trying to evade. Something was wrong.

  Letsego needed to do something to develop the situation. He undid his crash webbing and stood up.

  “Sit down, Johnson,” Staff Sergeant Chavez ordered from across the cabin. “No one goes anywhere until we are in hyperspace.”

  “Sorry, sarge. I need to use the head.”

  Chavez hesitated and then nodded. “Make it quick.”

  Outside the cabin Letsego headed aft. He made sure to keep his full face helmet on just in case he ran into Carpenter while he was moving about. He didn’t know all the ins and outs of starship engineering, but he figured that all the import parts of the ship would be found near the engines. The transport was not a large ship but it still took some getting used to. It took him about five minutes to find the engine room.

  The compartment was adorned with all types of lights, readouts, and switches. He didn’t even know where to begin, or what he was even trying to do. Right now it appeared that the transport was sneaking past the Peacekeeper pickets unseen. Carpenter must be using some type of jammer to mask the ship’s movements. He needed to shut it down.

  He went to a display that read “SENSORS”. With any luck the controls for the jammer were located here. He punched a button on the display. A prompt popped up requesting an access code. Letsego tried entering a few generic ones without success. He was going to have to find another way in.

  Everything was going well or at least as well as could be hoped. Catalyst had snuck past a dozen Peacekeeper vessels already, include a few fighter patrols. But compared to all of the other runs David and Alana had made, the space around the light side was swarming with bogies. They still had a ways to go and it was going to take some skill
and a good amount of luck to give the PKs the slip.

  “Cruiser to our front,” Alana announced, reading from her console. “Come about to bearing three-two-four, takeoff tac-one-two, on my mark…”

  David nodded, holding the yoke steady. The course the nav computer had calculated was holding true. He prepped for the next turn.

  “Mark.”

  David pushed the yoke down and to the left, watching the gyroscope until he was on the right heading. “Turn complete.” He brought the yoke back to neutral. “How much longer on this heading?”

  Alana checked the route. “About one hundred and twenty klicks.”

  David did the math. This leg would take them about five minutes. After that their route was just less than a thousand kilometers and then the space would be clear. From there they could jump to the safety of hyperspace.

  An alarm went off on Alana’s console. “Shit, we’ve got two new bogies.” She studied the display. “Looks like two zoomies moving fast.

  Two enemy fighters. Where had they come from? “Are they headed for us?”

  “No. Looks like a CAP. They’re a little more than a century and a half out. The closest we’ll come to them is fifty. I’ll cover them with the ‘bow.”

  David breathed a sigh of relief. It was just a standard combat air patrol. “Sounds good. Let me know when they’re clear.”

  The engine room computer was locked down too tight. Letsego was not going to be able to access the ship’s controls. He looked around for another option. Every minute that passed meant that Carpenter was that much closer to successfully navigating the pickets.

  He moved to the communications systems. All of the components were labeled but only with their technical classifications. Letsego scanned through the label names looking for something that looked familiar. He recognized the name of an intersystem communications laser, but disabling that wouldn’t do any good. He needed to find a jammer.

  Then he saw it. WAVEBOW 17B. He’d heard of that before. It could be used to confuse a ship’s sensor array. Reaching between two pillars of communications equipment, he grabbed a handful of wires leading into the jammer and pulled down. The wires popped out and all of the lights on the component winked out.

  Hopefully that works. His task complete, Letsego left the engine room and hustled back to the passenger cabin.

  “What the hell!”

  David looked over at Alana. “What is it?”

  She slapped her console. “The ‘bow. It just went off line.”

  “What do you mean it went offline?!” Jammers didn’t just go offline. “How far out are the zoomies?”

  “Just passed through a hundred.” Her hands flew over the holoscreen. “Computer’s saying that it has no power.”

  “Well get it power. Now!” David’s voice bled urgency. If they didn’t jam the incoming fighters they were going to have the whole Peacekeeper fleet all over them in a matter of minutes.

  “It’s no use. The computer doesn’t even read the ‘bow on the network.”

  “Shit, okay.” His anger was replaced with the will to survive. “Boost the static jammer power. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Alana objected. “We’ll overload the power plant, D. We could get stranded out here.”

  “Just do it, Alana. If we don’t, this run is going to go south real quick.”

  Tentatively, she followed the order. Power usage spiked into the red. David retarded the throttle, bringing Catalyst to a crawl. Then they waited. He watched the nav plot as the enemy fighters closed the distance. With the change in velocity the ships would only come within seventy kilometers of the transport. Hopefully, the static jammer would be enough.

  The heat in the cockpit rose, power being diverted from environmental control to the sensor array. Sweat rolled down David’s forehead. He didn’t bother to wipe it off. All his attention was devoted to his console.

  “They're past,” Alana said jubilantly, watching the distance-to-target readout reach seventy and then start climbing again.

  “Wait.” David wasn’t satisfied yet. Jammers were temperamental devices. They didn’t always work evenly across space. He wouldn’t be happy until the zoomies were well past them.

  And then his heart dropped. “Shit. They’re coming about.” The fighters had changed course, making a sweeping left turn. Their new bearing took them on an intercept course for Catalyst.

  “What!” Alana punched the copilot’s console with anger. “No… How?”

  David shrugged off the question. It didn’t matter. “Strap in. It’s about to get dicey.” He slammed the throttle all the way forward and Catalyst leapt towards the stars.

  Letsego had felt the ship slow down less than a minute after he had tampered with the jammer. It looked like his plan was working. Soon Peacekeeper soldiers would be boarding the transport and Carpenter, Ramirez, Castle and his troopers, and the Windcorp executive would be in custody. With any luck Titus Windham would be behind bars by the end of the week. When there was proof, Peacekeeper justice was swift.

  The intelligence operative was almost back to the passenger cabin when the transport accelerated again. He was not prepared for it. His body was thrown, the back of his head crashing into the corner of a bulkhead. Even with his helmet on his world went black.

  The situation developed quickly.

  Their pursuers increased from two to over a dozen in less than a minute. They were mostly fighters but there were a couple of gunboats in the mix too. Catalyst shuddered as cannons and missiles impacted her hull.

  “Strap yourselves in back there,” David announced belatedly on the ship’s PA.

  Mr. Black responded over the comm system, his voice still pleasant. “What is going on, Captain? Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Send a trooper up here. Someone who knows how to man the weapons.” Alana was already returning fire, but David needed her to call targets for him.

  He glanced at the nav plot. They now had three capital ships closing in on their path, trying to block Catalyst’s escape. The cruisers had powerful gun batteries that could cut the little transport to pieces. David maneuvered to avoid them.

  “How we looking?” he half spoke half screamed to Alana.

  “Not good. I’ve managed to take a couple of them out but more keep joining the chase. Where the hell is that trooper?”

  “Right here,” Castle said as he walked into the cockpit. Mr. Black followed him in. “What the hell happened?!”

  “Not now, Castle. Man that station.” David pointed in the direction of the weapons console. “I hope you know how to use a targeting computer.”

  Castle sat down at the station, clearly pissed. “Of course. If I miss it’s ‘cause you are a shitty pilot.”

  “Stow it, you two!” Alana screamed. “Mr. Black. I need your code. We need the launch point.”

  “Yes, of course.” The man leaned over her shoulder and inserted his passcode into the nav computer. She pushed him out of her way when he was done and he found a seat in front of the communications console.

  “Carp, the point is twenty-one hundred klicks out.” She now had the coordinates for the hyperspace launch. She compared it against the nav plot. “Damn, those cruisers are right between us and it.”

  Of course they are. Two thousand kilometers was still a long ways to go. “Castle, how are we looking back there?”

  Castle was deftly designating targets for the ship’s weapons systems. The heavy lifting was done by Catalyst’s computers, which prioritized the targets and then engaged them with the arsenal of missile and gun pods. “I’ve got eleven confirmed kills. Still eight bogies in pursuit. And more on their way.”

  “How’s the armor holding?”

  “The sparrows are taking out most of the inbound missiles.” He was referring to the ship’s countermeasure system. “But we can’t keep it up for much longer. Sparrow magazines are already down to thirty percent.”

  “
The rear hull’s taken quite a few hits,” Alana added as she read the status panel. “It’s holding for now, but it’s not invincible, D.”

  “What are they aiming for?” David demanded.

  Alana inspected the damage report. “The engines.”

  David nodded as he held the yoke tight. He had a solid picture of what was going on, both in front of him, with the cruisers, and behind him with the fighters.

  “Alana, what’s the direct heading for the launch point?”

  “Zero-four-two, takeoff one-eight. But that takes us right through the right most cruiser,” she objected.

  David ignored her. “Castle, can you keep our ass intact for another three minutes?”

  “Yes,” he said with a worried voice.

  “Good answer.” David pulled back on the yoke. “Coming about to new heading zero-four-two, takeoff one-eight.”

  “D, what are you doing?!” Alana cried in astonishment. “That cruiser will tear us to pieces.”

  “And it will tear its own fighters apart, too,” David observed. “Plus, the Peaks aren’t trying to shoot us down. They’re trying to cripple us. They won’t risk firing on us head on.”

  “That’s a hell of an assumption to make,” Castle objected.

  “It’s not an assumption,” David countered. “It’s what they’re doing. They’ve only fired at our engines.”

  Castle shook his head. “Carpenter, if you get me blown up, I swear to God I’m going to-”

  “Alana, put as much power into the engines as you can. Let’s widen the gap between us and those zoomies.” He admitted it was a wild plan, but they couldn’t risk taking the long way around. On the nav plot he could see other cruisers and interdictors maneuvering to set up a better blockade. If Catalyst didn’t get around it now they would be caught for sure. David just hoped that his assumption about the PKs intentions was correct

  “The gap is widening,” Alana announced.

  “Good. What’s our range to target?”

  “Two hundred to the cruiser, five hundred to the launch point.”