Jess studied her face, at fairly close range. “So we’ll find out for sure if you’ve got the chops for it. Otherwise, chances are we’ll both croak.”
Dev studied her somberly. ‘That seems like a non optimal plan.” She commented. “Are you sure you want to do it?”
Jess felt a prickle of surprise. One thing Joshua had never done was question her. Techs didn’t. They weren’t the strategic part of the deal. What did this bio alt know about risk anyway? She looked back at Dev, taking a breath to tell her off when she was caught by the expression on her face.
Serious. Intent.
Concerned.
She re-sounded the question in her head. “Why wouldn’t I want to do it?” She countered.
“Well.” Dev glanced at her consoles, then back at jess. “If something happens and it doesn’t work, then both the other teams, and two with us, and you and I might not return. Does this achieve your goals?”
Jess revised her anger. “I’m gambling on the fact that theyre more interested in me than the others. If I focus them on me, the rest of the teams have a much better chance of getting out of here in one piece.”
Dev considered that, and they sat in silence studying each other. “I will do the best I can to do what you ask then.” She finally said. “It would be a good thing if we all got out in one piece.” She swiveled around and put a hand to one ear. “BR27006.”
“Long range scan, one inbound.” The soft speech sounded in her ear.
“What is it?” Jess asked, since she’d left her commset back on her station.
“They say they are picking up a single signal inbound to us.” Dev said. “Directly ahead.”
‘Interesting.” Jess scuttled back to her station and slid into her chair, swinging the commset up and onto her head. She pulled the pad around and started tapping on it, her eyes flicking to the various screens and readouts on her own console.
Dev focused on the air ahead of them, still full of rain, and wisps of cloud they were traveling through. She adjusted her scans and after a minute, they picked up the inbound signal also, a quick pan showing no identifying squirts that would mark them friend or otherwise.
It was coming fast, though. The comp quickly tabulated a vector and she heard Jess behind her starting to activate the weapons systems.
Her harness snugged down and the inside lights, already fairly dim, went to ice blue. She saw two panels come active and she adjusted the power leads from the engines as they shunted energy to the weapons systems Jess was now spooling up.
Dev took hold of the throttles and keyed off auto gen, holding the course by hand as she adjusted the side jets. The incoming object was heading right for them, and now the scan was warning distance. “Five minutes out.”
“Do you have an ident?”
“No.” Dev flexed her hands on the throttles. “Do you want me to evade it?”
“Hang on.” Jess got her hands into the triggering gloves and activated the targeting system. At once, she had a heads up display of what Dev was seeing through the front windows, and side panels that showed her the sensors on the outside of the carrier. “Let it come close enough for visual, then turn to port and come up over it.”
“Okay.” Dev reviewed what she’d have to do, and nodded to herself. She put the scan up on one monitor and watched it, seeing the blip getting larger and larger on the display.
“Tac 1, Tac2.” Jess’s voice sounded over the intercom. “We’re going to engage the incoming. Stand clear of my zenith please.”
“Done.”
“Clear.”
The male voices answering almost sounded alike, except one was a little deeper than the other. Dev had met the other two techs at the dining hall and their reaction to her had been so unfriendly that Jess had felt she needed to say something to them about it.
Dev wasn’t sure that was a good thing. She understood why they felt the way they did. Certainly, she thought the two men and also the other agents had resented Jess’s words. But she had to admit to herself she had gotten a certain odd sensation when it had happened that she still hadnt’ figured out.
“Okay, here it comes.” Jess said. “Get ready.”
“Ready.” Dev replied. She focused her attention on the forward window, trading the scans for realtime. Ahead of her, she could see the heavy cloud bank they were flying under and she searched the edges of it for the first sight of the oncoming craft.
A faint flicker, then there it was. “Visual.” Dev said. “Evading.” She took the craft into a bowing turn to the left, then hit the bottom jets and the starboard side ones, boosting the carrier up and over the intruder.
“Circle back.” Jess yelled.
Dev held the turn, then rotated the throttles and blended the jets to bring the carrier around in a tight turn, half on it’s side . She spotted the craft and dropped down to come alongside it, close enough now to see it clearly. “It’s another one of these.” She said in surprise.
“Fuckers.” Jess slid around in her station. “Tac 1, Tac 2 loose empty, probably rigged. I’m going to take it out clear standby.”
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
“Hold her steady.” Jess told Dev, as she brought the guns to bear and and fired at point blank range. As a stitching of fire creased the other carrier a bright pinprick of fire erupted near the engines. “Crap! Take her up! Hurry!”
Dev reacted instantly, kicking in the bottom jets and hauling the throttles up at full power, booting the starboard thrusters and peeling the carrier off at a high G high speed arc that took them up into the clouds.
An explosion behind them rocked the air, rumbling through the carrier walls as they punched through the lower cloud layer, and they were between that and the upper one. Dev hit the scan and located the other two carriers, and completed the turn, pitching down through the clouds again and sending out a location burst ahead of them on shortwave before she hauled the carrier into a tight turn to bring them back on course.
Her heart was hammering, a little. She was almost at the point where she was overrunning the programming, the sims not quite up to replicating the events she found herself a part of.
“Okay.”
“Erf.”
Dev glanced quickly back over her shoulder, spotting Jess righting herself in her chair. “Are you all right?”
“Peachy.” Jess put her commset back on. “Tac 1, Tac 2. Stable?”
“Stable, confirmed kill.” Jason answered. “Nice. Sent a squirt.”
“Stable.” Elaine echoed. “Close in scan showed that to be BR24004.”
Jess exhaled. “Crap.”
“Got that.” Jason replied. “So we know.”
“Damn it.” Jess muttered, clicking off comm and staring at the readouts. “Damn it, damn it. They’re probably both gone. This is a goose chase. That was one of the two carriers that we’re after.”
Dev adjusted her controls again and put the carrier back on auto nav. She half turned again in her seat and looked back at Jess. “I’m sorry, but does that mean the people we’re going to try and retrieve are not as expected?”
Jess gazed quietly into nothing for a moment. “They’re probably either dead or wish they were.” She said. “It’s hard to get into one of these carriers if the people inside it don’t’ want you to.” She glanced at the hatch. “There’s an integrity sensor and when it’s breached the gun systems implode.”
“Oh.”
“That carrier looked untouched.” Jess felt sad. “So they must have been let in, to tamper with it, and given codes.”
“Oh.” Dev’s voice took on a completely different tone. “You’re… “ She paused. “We’re not supposed to do that.” She corrected herself. ‘Programming told me.”
“No, Dev. We’re not supposed to do that.” Jess sighed.