The vehicle rocketed upward in a desperation escape attempt as the security skimmers closed in at last, and bursts of fire followed it. Not just plasma cannon, which were relatively short- ranged in atmosphere, either. The security people were playing for keeps, and the red and white flashes of high explosive converged on the wildly careering hull, but Tisiphone seemed to have worked her magic, for no one was shooting at her. An explosion flowered amidships, and the skimmer shuddered, shedding bits and pieces but still climbing vertically, almost out of sight from the ground. More hits splintered armorplast and alloy, and then a sting ship screamed in.
Alicia winced as twin bores of eye-searing light blazed. Those weren't plasma bolts; the skimmer was high enough for them to use heavy weapons on it, and it vaporized in a sun-bright boil as the HVW struck at seventeen thousand KPS.
"Crap, those people aren't kidding!"
"No, they are not," Tisiphone replied tartly, then relented. "Still, this was very clever. No doubt they will think you died in the skimmer."
"As long as none of them noticed us punching out." Alicia hit her keys again, killing the jets and powering down the counter-grav. They landed in the shadow of the freight pad, and she shucked the safety harness. "And now that we're here, just what the hell do we think we're doing?"
"Escaping. I have arranged an appropriate vehicle for the purpose."
"A cargo shuttle?" Alicia was sprinting for the pad stairs even while she protested. "That's not going to get us very far."
"It will get us far enough—and have I said anything about a cargo shuttle?" Tisiphone replied as Alicia cleared the stairs and rocked to a halt.
"Oh, shit," she whispered, and closed her eyes as if that could make it go away. When she opened them again, the fully-armed Bengal-class assault shuttle was still sitting there.
"It is amazing what one can arrange through computers."
"You are out of your mind! That thing costs sixty million credits! They'll never let it go—and I've never handled one in my life!"
"Y0u are already pre-flighted and cleared to lift in two minutes, and I checked carefully, Little One. You are fully qualified on Leopard-class shuttles, and while the Bengals are larger, the major changes are in payload, sensors, and increased armament, not flight controls."
"But I haven't flown anything in over five years!"
"I am sure it will all come back to you. But for now, I suggest we hurry. Our launch window is short." "Oh, God," Alicia moaned, but she was already dashing for the ramp. She had no choice. Tisiphone was out of her mythological mind, but whether Uncle Arthur believed in her or not, the Fury had done too many fresh impossible things. Alicia would never get out of observation after this!
The shuttle interior was cool, humming with the familiar tingle of waiting flight system. It was like coming home, despite the madness, and she charged through the troop section towards the flight deck. A freight canister was webbed to the deck, and she almost stopped when she saw the codes on it.
"There is no time. You may examine it later."
"B-but that can't really be— "
"Certainly it can. You may need your weapons, so I ordered it prepped and loaded aboard."
Alicia moaned again as she flopped into the pilot's couch and reached for the synth link headset. This couldn't be happening. Trained mental reflexes reached out to the flight computers, but underneath them was a bubble of wild laughter. So far, in a single night, she'd escaped custody, assaulted a fellow Cadreman, stolen a skimmer worth at least twenty thousand credits, crashed through Fleet security onto a restricted military reservation, refused to stop when so ordered, and caused the destruction of said stolen skimmer and damage to sundry base facilities as the direct result of lawfully empowered personnel's efforts to apprehend her—and none of that even compared to what she was about to do. Talk about grand theft! This shuttle alone represented a good sixty million of the Emperor's credits, and if that canister really contained a suit of Cadre combat armor, the price tag was about to double. They'd build a whole new jail just so they could put her under it!
"Only if they catch you," Tisiphone pointed out with maddening cheer. Alicia felt her teeth grate but swallowed her savage reply, for the computers had accepted her and placed themselves at her disposal. It was a disturbing sensation, almost frightening, as their inhuman vastness clicked into place about her. She hadn't felt it in a long time, and for just an instant she quailed, but then everything snapped into focus and she was home. The shuttle and she were one, its sensors her eyes and ears and nerves, its power plant her heart, its counter-gravity and thrusters her arms and legs. Joy filled her like cold fire, burning away the confusion and dismay, and she smiled.
"Yes, Little One," Tisiphone whispered. "Now is your moment. We are training flight Foxtrot-Two-Niner."
Alicia punched up Flight Control and announced her flight designation in a voice so calm it astonished her. There was a moment of silence, and her adrenalin spiked. Her intrusion had scrambled operations. Security had imposed a lock-down on all flights until they got to the bottom of it. Someone in FlyCon had her head together and was using her own initiative to hold all takeoffs until the situation was sorted out, or—
"Cleared to go, Foxtrot-Two-Niner," FlyCon said, and she swallowed another tremulous laugh as her atmospheric turbines screamed.
-=0=-***-=0=
The shuttle sliced up through Soissons' atmosphere, and there was no pursuit. None at all, and that was truly amazing. Of course, there was really no pressing need to pursue a purely intra- systemic craft. Where could it go, after all? For that matter, who in her right mind would steal an assault shuttle of all damned things?
"So now what?" Alicia asked aloud.
"Set course to rendezvous with beacon Sierra-Lima-Seven-Four-Four."
Alicia started to ask what they were rendezvousing with but bit her tongue and checked her computers for the proper coordinates. No doubt she would know soon enough. Too soon, judging by what had already happened. The shuttle swept higher, air-breathing turbines shutting down and thrusters firing to align its nose on one of the Fleet shipyards, and she frowned. If they wanted out of the system, they had to get aboard a starship, and that should have meant guile and stealth. Could Tisiphone be so confident—so crazy, she amended dourly—as to think they could hijack a ship?
If so, she was finally up against something even she couldn't manage. At absolute minimum, they needed a dispatch boat, and that meant a crew of at least eight. Not even a drop commando could force eight highly trained specialists to perform their tasks when all they had to do to maroon her was refuse to obey. And no way were Fleet officers going to help a crazed Cadrewoman steal their ship out from under them!
They continued unchallenged on their flight path, and Alicia's brows furrowed as she realized they weren't headed directly for the shipyard after all. Their destination lay in a parking orbit of its own, and she brought her sensors to bear on it. It didn't look like anyth—
"No!" she gasped. "Tisiphone, we can't steal that!"
"We certainly can, and we must."
"No!" Alicia repeated, and unaccustomed panic sharpened her voice. "I can't fly that thing— I'm no starship pilot! And ... and ..."