“What happens after that?”
“It cycles down for two minutes.”
I nodded. That meant I’d have one shot at this.
“Okay, start calculating everything. We have about thirty-five minutes until we arrive in position.”
“I’ll need less than five.”
“Good, because next you’re going to learn how to fly this shuttle.”
In the meantime, I instructed the navsys to keep us on course and went to suit up. It took a while to get the exosuit on, but once I did, it quickly adapted to my body. Micro-hydraulics hummed and the internal enviro system whirred to life. The sensor package booted up and soon I was watching various status alerts and diagnostics reports dance across the helmet’s HUD. Everything seemed to be working okay, knock on ceramlar.
There wasn’t a lot of space in the shuttle’s hold for me to test out all the functions of the suit, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the combat haptic pulse had an EMP option. According to TenSix’s reading of the specs, the range of the EMP pulse was ten meters—which might just be enough. I’d find out for myself before too long.
We arrived at the intercept point with about five minutes to spare. The Mayir launch with Kira on it was coming in much faster than I had guessed. The only good thing was that it was flying low.
“Four minutes and twenty-seven seconds,” TenSix announced. He had jacked into the main console and was interfacing with the navsys.
I checked to see that my suit’s comm module was talking to the ship’s. I changed the routing real quick and saw the shuttle’s displays on my HUD. Now I could monitor the launch’s approach.
“How you feeling about this?” I asked TenSix.
“I don’t really feel.”
“Figure of speech.”
“Yes, I knew that. I was merely trying to evade answering, as the odds of success are quite discouraging.”
“Okay, we need a new rule—”
“Never tell you the odds?”
“Close. Only tell me the odds when they are good.”
“I can do that.”
“Good. Switch to ship’s comm. I’m going out. You’ve got the con.”
“Good luck, Jannigan Beck. You will need it.”
“Thanks, TenSix. What did we decide to call this bucket of junk again?”
“The Tiberius.”
“That’s right. Okay, Tiberius. Launch me when ready.”
Opening the main hatch in mid-flight took some major override work, but luckily this old rust heap’s OPS/OS didn’t have the layers of security that you’d find on larger or more modern craft. Or maybe the guy who cobbled this shuttle together from spare parts just didn’t care about safety that much.
In any case, I soon found myself clomping along the top of the shuttle’s outer hull. If the suit’s magtouch system hiccupped for even a half second, I’d be a goner, but from what I could tell, this Thunderhawk suit was truly industrial strength. I was locked on tighter than a barduc’s rim shell.
I perched there for a moment, taking a deep breath, and admiring the view. The late afternoon sun bathed the landscape in a warm glow.
“Comm open,” TenSix said in my ear.
I began broadcasting. “Mayday! Mayday! MCP shuttle Tiberius down! Request assistance! Repeat Tiberius down.”
“Tiberius, this is MCP shuttle Lysander. We have you on our scopes, but it looks like you are maintaining altitude. What’s going on?”
“Uh, controls are locked up,” I said, filling my voice with panic. “Some sort of nav malfunction. I think we might have an engine burnout—”
“Hang on, Tiberius. We’ll have a visual on you in a moment.”
I already had a visual of the launch. It was coming up quickly.
On a private channel, TenSix counted down. “Launch in seven seconds.”
Those seven seconds felt like an eternity, but finally TenSix yelled “Launching!” and I felt myself rocket into the air.
My suit’s targeting controls did all the work. I just extended my arms in front of me as if I was on the high dive at Momeel’s swimming hole. I cut through the air as the Mayir launch rose up in front of me, impossibly fast. At first I thought that I might sail right past its bow, but TenSix’s calculations were right on the money.
With a clang I made contact with the Lysander. Instantly the suit’s magtouch unit kicked in and I locked onto the launch’s hull.
“What the hell was that?” the Lysander’s captain yelled.
The impact was me, of course, but at the same time TenSix had jettisoned several crates worth of junk supplied by Caebach. The junk would register on the launch’s scope as debris, which hopefully would confuse and delay them for a little bit.
In the meantime, TenSix proved to be an able pilot. The bot plunged the Tiberius to the surface so sharply, I winced in dread. I really didn’t think he would be able to pull out of the dive, but he did—with maybe two meters to spare. Then he landed roughly in a cloud of dust.
“Tiberius, come in!”
He wasn’t going to get an answer from me.
“Tiberius!”
I felt the Lysander decelerate. They were biting. Definitely biting.
We slid into a hover, then started to ease down—probably so the captain could get a good look at this damaged shuttle.
I willed the launch to keep going and hoped that the captain was curious enough to ignore the fact that the Tiberius looked nothing like a Mayir shuttle.
Just when I thought we had scored, the Lysander rose again and began to accelerate away from the shuttle.
Shit. Something spooked them.
Oh well. I guess we would have to do this the hard way.
I crawled towards the main hatch and got a grip on its handle. Then I double-checked that I knew where the hinges were so that when I kicked, I’d be kicking in the right place.
I took a deep breath and goosed the kinetic circuits on my limbs. Immediately I felt the thrum of the suit’s hydraulics activating. Then I blasted the hatch controller with a surge of EMP from my combat pulsers.
Ribbons of electricity spidered along the controller box, and then I stomped on the hatch with the force of twenty men. With its
