Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

Legroeder snatched it up and caught her by the arm. The second guard was coming around the end of the dying plasma jet. Legroeder aimed and squeezed. There was a flash: the guard staggered back. Jolly and Lumo were flattened against the wall, dumbfounded. “Come with us?” Legroeder yelled.

Jolly shook his head. Lumo was frozen with fear.

Legroeder squeezed several bursts into the guards’ com panel. “Then don’t try to stop us!”

Jolly nodded, terrified.

“Let’s go,” Legroeder grunted, straining to support Maris with his shoulder.

“ ’Kay,” she gasped. “Let’s go.” Her face was taut with pain, but she was already struggling toward the airlock.

It took about five minutes for him to get them both onto the scout, seal the airlock, secure Maris in the med-unit, and get to the bridge to power up.

A lifetime.

The scout ship dashed out of the Dead Man’s Zone like a fish through a broken net. Legroeder steered furiously, searching for currents leading away from the raider outpost. They were past one danger, but hardly in the clear.

BAROOOOOM!

The ship shuddered violently.

He kept flying as he scanned for the source of the explosion. The crimson and orange clouds of the Flux billowed past like foaming surf over the prow of a submarine. But he needed to stay fast and maneuverable. He reshaped the image to one of a jet fighter, fast and sleek, streaking through the misty clouds. He veered left and up, then right and down, trying to make them a difficult target if anyone was aiming. They were back in the main channel, on much the same course a raider ship might take in leaving the area. If the raiders were still pursuing…

BAROOOOOM!

Light flashed in the clouds to the left, and Legroeder banked hard away. Three raider ships burst out of the clouds in pursuit. Hell’s furnace! he thought. They’d been waiting to see if he made it through the Dead Man’s Zone. He was damn sure he’d surprised them.

He barreled over into a steep dive, pulling away, but only momentarily. They’d never get out by the main route—which left just one other way.

Maris! he shouted into the intercom. We’re going out through the Chimney. If you can hear me, hold tight!

Ignoring the lurch in his stomach, he pitched his dive past the vertical, undercutting his own flight path, then rolled the ship upright for a view of the raiders that were coming around in pursuit. They were not quite as desperate as he was, or as crazy, and they took a wider turn. They were firing, but accomplishing nothing but lighting up the clouds. Legroeder rolled inverted again to search the clouds below, and finally spotted a region of shadow that marked the opening of the Chimney, a passage so narrow and hazardous it was known as the Fool’s Refuge. He stretched himself into the longest, fastest fighter plane he could imagine, and aimed straight down into the murky darkness of the Chimney.

Pounding waves of energy suddenly assailed the net. TURN BACK! TURN BACK! OR YOU WILL DIE!… DIE!… DIE! The raiders were broadcasting into the Flux.

It was the booming of a steel kettle drum, projected so as to come right up out of the Chimney, reverberating through the very fabric of the Flux and booming into the rigger-net as though he were inside the drum. Legroeder knew the source of the thunderous noise, knew it well—he’d used it himself, against others—and yet, even knowing that it was only a trick to inspire fear, he couldn’t help being shaken. He was doing something insane.

WILL DIE… WILL DIE… WILL DIE…

There was no escaping the echoes. He could only try to ignore them. Try not to be afraid.

A deep, dark fissure was opening in the clouds below. That was where he had to go—and if he had any doubts, they were erased by bright flashes of light behind him—neutrasers and flux torpedoes. He took a sharp breath and spun down into the fissure. Into the Chimney. From this moment on, the pursuers would be the least of his worries. If they were stupid enough to follow, maybe they would all die together…

DIE… DIE… DIE…

Suddenly he was in darkness—midnight in the Chimney. Glints of light flickered in the cloud walls ahead. Deadly Flux-abscess, or other terrible ways to die.

He glanced back. Damn . They were still coming after him. No time to worry; he was dropping at tremendous speed through a shaft of raging turbulence. He fought vertigo as the cloud walls flashed abruptly light / dark / light / dark, until he could scarcely focus on them at all.

Something flashed past him from above, a coruscating veil of light that turned and rose back up toward him like a vast fishnet of energy seeking to ensnare him. He grunted and narrowed the rigger-net to a needle and arrowed straight down. The fishnet veil billowed up and around him again with a twinkle and a whump . The ship bucked but kept moving—until a blast of secondary turbulence hit him.

With a shriek, the ship lurched out of control and careened sideways toward the deadly Chimney wall.

The RiggerGuild hearing room was dead silent.

Its domed ceiling was coated with a multi-optic laminate that made it glitter like stars against darkness. Legroeder let his gaze wander along the ceiling, and for an instant the stars were transformed into the luminous features of the Flux.

Skidding toward the Chimney wall, pulsing with light: pockets of quantum chaos, where images could distort without warning. The ship plummeted through, and suddenly the landscape was strobing with stark reversals of light and contour. Behind him was the sparkle of weapons fire. Before his heart could beat twice, a spread of flux-torpedoes exploded, triggering a cascade of distortions that sent his ship spinning…

The holograms of the three panelists sat at the curved table at the front of the room. Legroeder sat with his young, Guild-appointed counsel, a Mr. Kalm-Lieu, facing the panel from a smaller curved table at the center of the room. Despite the expansive design, the room was designed to keep the inquest panel and its subjects rigidly separated. Only Legroeder and Kalm-Lieu were physically present.

From the front bench, the holo of the RiggerGuild inquest chairwoman was speaking. Her voice seemed hollow, devoid of inflection. Legroeder couldn’t remember her name, had never met her in person. “Rigger Legroeder, please remember that there are no charges being considered in this hearing. Our purpose is not to determine guilt or innocence, but rather to determine if you should be represented in this matter by the Guild of Riggers. We hope you understand the distinction.”

Legroeder shrugged in disbelief, staring up at the dome…

The pocket of Flux-abscess turned itself inside out with the torpedo blast, hurling him into a sudden opening that he felt rather than saw, a breach caused by the blast. Steering by an intuition that seemed almost supernatural in its accuracy, he threaded his way through… and by the time he caught his breath he was coasting free in the open Flux, well away from the Chimney, away from the raider outpost, and apparently free of pursuit .

Spying a current leading away from that place, he rode it for a long time, until he could decide on a destination world. The choice in the end was made for him; there was only one major world within his reach that was free of pirate influence: Faber Eridani, well beyond the borders of Golen Space. Not an easy flight in a small ship; but if he wanted to be free, really free, he had no choice but to risk the distance. Checking frequently on Maris, still in near-stasis in the suppression-field, he rigged their ship toward a new life and new hope for both of them. Toward the protection of the Centrist Worlds and the RiggerGuild, their own people…