M. Planck - The Kassa Gambit

They wanted her bad.

“If you cannot correct your course, then you will be required to abandon ship and board your crew on our vessel.”

Really bad.

“Well, if it’s that important, I guess we’ll have to.” She signed out.

After a few minutes, they called back.

“ Ulysses, we note that you are continuing to accelerate. This is not acceptable. Begin your deceleration now, or we will be forced to ask the Launceston to intervene.”

“I’m sorry, Monterey. The Launceston just chewed me out on the regs for course corrections during node approaches.” That, of course, had been the point of Stanton’s little lecture. “I’m not going through that again. We’ll see you on the other side. Ulysses out.”

She turned off the comm.

Kyle was grinning, in a very unfriendly way.

“What are you so happy about?”

“They’re trying to stop us. That’s good news.”

“How do you figure?”

“It means we can still hurt them.”

Four long days, but not long enough. He didn’t want them to end.

Not because there was trouble waiting for them on the other side. The Monterian ship would be only hours behind them. The Launceston might well feel compelled to enforce the law. There were many bad things that would start happening once they left the node. But those were not the reasons Kyle found himself resisting the passage of each hour.

Being with Prudence, a part of her crew, a part of her ship. A part of her family. They were together without friction, without suspicion. For the first time in his life, Kyle wasn’t playing a role, wasn’t trying to present the image he thought others wanted to see. There was no reason to try. Jorgun didn’t care, and Prudence couldn’t be fooled. And the absence of Garcia drew them together, like a hole in the ground that needed to be filled.

He wanted to win through to the next node for the most selfish of reasons. Because then he would have more time in node-space. Only two and a half days, but beggars could not complain.

The ancients had been right. Heaven was a place in the sky, where nothing bad could touch you. But not for long; never for long enough.

“Listen to that.” Prudence played a warbling hiss for him through her comm console. She’d been analyzing the data on his blue pod for the last five hours. He’d helped her with the technical settings, but mostly he’d sat next to her and soaked up her presence.

“I’m not a computer,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“It doesn’t mean anything to the computer, either. But it shouldn’t be there. It’s not cosmic radiation or planetary comm. And it’s at the right time. This signal was sent out by the invading fleet, on a wide beam, throughout the whole system.”

“Why would they broadcast their presence?” He kept asking why a lot. Everything these monks did was ass-backwards and upside down.

“I don’t have a clue. It’s an encrypted signal. But Altair should have computers that can crack it.”

“I’ll hand it over to the Launceston, then. They’ll get there sooner than we will.”

“Yes, they will,” she said cryptically.

A yellow light on her console turned on, accompanied by a gentle but insistent tone. It was the worst sound Kyle could imagine. It signaled the end of their vacation.

“Normal space in fifteen minutes. Put on your best smiles, boys. You need to convince the Launceston to give you a ride.”

A cold panic washed over him. “What?”

“Think about it, Kyle. I can’t stop that patrol boat from catching us. What I can do is put Jorgun and you on the Launceston, out of their reach. I’ll surrender, and take the Ulysses back to Monterey. It will be four more days before they find out they were swindled. You’ll be safe by then.”

“I’m not leaving you, Prudence.”

“It’s not your choice.”

“You can get on the Launceston with us.”

She turned her face partly away. “I’m not leaving my ship.”

“It’s just a ship! It’s not worth dying for. With the information you have to sell, Altair will buy you a new one.”

“Kyle, it won’t work. If I’m not on the Ulysses, they’ll know something is up. They’ll attack the Launceston .”

“So what? It’s armed. It can fight.”

“But it might not win.”

Kyle stared at her, unable to rationally cope with the prospect of losing her.

“Kyle, we can’t take the chance. You have to warn Altair before it’s too late. You don’t understand. You don’t understand. ”

“Psychotic clones are trying to take over my planet. What part do I not fucking understand?”

She stared past him, into some distant memory.

“The monks think they won’t kill anyone. But when they have complete power, they’ll forget. They’ll get impatient. There will be problems … and genocide will look like a solution. In twenty years, Kyle, there will be ovens.”

He reached out, to hold her, but she pushed him away, tears pouring down her face.

“I can’t lose you and Jorgun that way. I can’t lose another family to the fire.”

“You can’t stop it by dying!” His fingers were numb, all feeling and strength gone out of his hands.

“They might not kill me right away. And if you win, then you can rescue me. You can be my knight in shining armor.” She said it with a wan smile, the kind of smile that would have comforted Jorgun. It didn’t comfort him.

If wresting Monterey from its orbit and casting it into the sun with his bare hands was what it would take to win Prudence back, he would do it.

But there had to be an easier way.

“Fake a malfunction. Let the Ulysses drift. While they’re boarding we’ll escape on the Launceston .”

“They’re not that stupid, Kyle. For Earth’s sake, stop making it hard on me. On us.” Jorgun was whimpering at his station, confused but understanding enough to know something bad was going on. “This is the best plan. I’ve thought about it for days. It’s what we have to do.”

“I can’t do it, Prudence.”

“You have to! They will kill you, Kyle. They’ll turn you over to Rassinger, and he’ll kill you, whether Altair wins or loses. And what hope would I have then, locked in my cell, alone on Monterey? How could I bear the days, knowing you could never come for me?”

Stop it. Stop saying that. He thought the words, but could not speak.

Impossibly, she dried her tears. Impossibly, she stood without breaking, while the world spun around Kyle, colors and shapes turning harsh and unreal.

“Go pack your bags. That’s an order.”

Jorgun went, unable to disobey her. Kyle had nothing to pack. Everything he wanted would be remaining on the Ulysses .

“Take care of Jorgun for me,” she whispered.

The light turned red, and they were in real space. It didn’t feel any different. The evil had already touched him.

Stanton, of all unlikely sources, gave him a reprieve. The Launceston didn’t want to play along. When Prudence hailed them to arrange a passenger transfer, Stanton refused.

“I’m not going to abandon my assigned patrol route to ferry your passengers, Falling. Monterey can’t board you for a few questions. If they want to talk to you, they can bloody well follow you to Altair.”

She tried reasoning with him. “Captain, I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation. They won’t take no for an answer.”

“This is neutral space. Altair law is as equally valid here as Monterey law. If they want to pick a fight, I’ll give them one.” Stanton obviously had spent too much time floating around in empty space looking for something to shoot at.