“One mech advanced enough to pilot the fighter,” she says, panting. “Check.”
Across sick bay, Ephraim struggles to his feet. He stares at the immobilized mech for a second before he shakes his head to clear it. “You have to get off this planet. I have to get off this ship.”
“Come on.” Noemi takes off running again, pushing herself just as hard, because if there’s any hope of finding out where Abel’s being taken, she has to get the Daedalus in the air now.
Within five paces of sick bay, though, an automated warning comes through the ship’s sensors. The panels along the walls all flash the same message: HANGAR SECURITY COMPROMISED. NO-FLY PROTOCOL IN EFFECT.
“We have to get past that,” Noemi says. “Follow me to the bridge.”
Ephraim pauses. In the tension of his muscular body she can tell how badly he still wants to run for it. But in his sorrowful eyes, she knows he’s glimpsed the truth: The ship’s already been identified as a risk. He can’t walk off it and claim to have been drugged or forced. They know.
“A traitor,” he murmurs. “They’ll say I’m a traitor. All because I repaid a debt of honor—”
“Ironic, it sucks, I know, now run!”
With that, she goes, hoping he has the good sense to listen. Regardless, she’s getting off this rock.
Noemi hauls herself down to the bridge. Abel’s chair at navigation looks so empty. She shouts, “Autolaunch! Bypass system checks and get us out of here!”
The computer consoles light up with the no-fly rule, but civilian ships like this aren’t hardwired to ground commands. She hits the override and slides into Abel’s chair, even as the Daedalus engines roar to life.
Ephraim walks in after her, clearly in a state of shock that this sight does nothing to dispel. “Whoa. This ship is pretty flash.”
“Thanks.” Noemi steadies her hands on the control, takes a deep breath, and sends them soaring upward. The domed viewscreen shows her the hangar, then the view from above it, and then Stronghold’s gray sky, darkening as they fast approach the rim of its thin atmosphere. “Planetary security forces—what are we up against?”
Ephraim seems to surface from his daze, stepping closer to the front of the bridge. “There are labor strikes on the high eastern continent. Most security forces are over there, and they’re not going to leave the authorities without cover, not so soon after a hundred thousand immigrants showed up. So we shouldn’t have more than one or two ships after us.”
That’s one or two more than the Daedalus can handle. Noemi begins trying to think of something else she could use against them. The rescue beacons won’t work again; the launcher doesn’t aim with enough precision for her to hit a moving target.
“Here they come,” Ephraim says.
Noemi switches the viewscreen to show two small ships—dual-person fighters, probably—coming up fast behind them. If she tries to flee, they’ll shoot her out of the sky long before she could reach either Gate.
No surrender, she thinks. Better to go down fighting. But does she have the right to make that choice for Ephraim?
On the screen, a third shape darts in, faster than the others.
Ephraim groans. “That makes three.”
“That’s not the same kind of ship,” Noemi says absently. She enlarges the image to show their pursuers in more detail. The two-person fighters are unremarkable, but the third ship, the interloper—a corsair—is it painted red?
Her console lights up with new information. Staring, she watches as the new ship aims first one beam, then another at the fighters. It’s not a weapon, though. Instead of blasting the fighters from the sky, the red corsair seems to have…
“Stolen their power?” Noemi whispers. But if the energy readings on her screen don’t lie, both of the fighters are now adrift on emergency backup only, while the corsair practically glows with new reserves.
Ephraim steps to her side, looking as confused as she feels. “Are we about to get our power stolen, too?” All Noemi can do is shrug.
But then her console lights up with an incoming audio message. She hesitates for one breath, then punches the controls to listen.
“Oh, come on!” Virginia Redbird’s voice crackles over the speaker. “That doesn’t even get me a thank you?”
By the time Noemi gets down to the landing bay, the air lock has already cycled through. The doors open to reveal Virginia in a skintight red flight suit that’s as impractical as it is sexy, her helmet under her arm. “Hiya. Long time no see,” she says, as casually as if she and Noemi had run into each other on the street. Then Virginia motions toward Ephraim, who walked down, too. “Hey, who’s the new guy?”
Noemi ignores this. “Virginia, what are you doing here? How did you even find us?”
“You assume I came looking for you? A little self-centered, don’t you think?” Virginia cocks her head, almost ridiculously pleased with herself. “Maybe I decided to take a ride around the galaxy on my own.”
There’s no time for any of this. Noemi folds her arms. “The Milky Way galaxy is about a hundred and twenty thousand light-years long. It contains approximately four hundred billion stars, about a hundred billion planets. Do you seriously think you can play running into us as a coincidence?”
If Abel were here, he’d recite the exact probabilities involved. With a jolt, she remembers her last sight of him lying unconscious in the Charlie’s grasp.
Virginia shrugs, like, What can you do? “Okay, okay. Turns out, when two mechs trash your secret hideout and chase a couple of fugitives around—setting off every security alarm, by the way—well, your hideout’s not so secret anymore.” She sighs. “They found all the equipment we borrowed and even our designer, um, smokes. Got myself suspended for a month with no pay, no communication home. Thankfully they thought you two had me hostage, and nobody’s missed the thermomagnetic device, otherwise I’d probably be in lockup.”