Chapter 4
1433 Words
2: Piran
Piran
Piran threw himself into the tech’s chair, fastened the harness. Damn thing needed oiling or something, only snapped into place on the third time.
“They’re coming for us!” he said.
Keelin, in the pilot’s seat to his right, shook her head. “Don’t know intentions yet.”
“Check their course—straight for us! And they’re in formation. What the hell else are they doing?”
“Keelin’s correct.” Ryann eased into her seat, at the rear—the commander’s position. “They haven’t engaged yet, so we make no assumptions.”
“But we don’t need to meet them. We can divert or something.”
Keelin growled—and it was freaky, how she sounded so much like an animal when she made that sound. Another reminder—as if he needed one—that she wasn’t…normal.
He turned away, focused on the data streaming across his lenses. It didn’t help. Too many ways to interpret it, and none of them were good. Even if those bugs weren’t coming for them, they’d register the Proteus. Probably already had. They’d send a signal, bound to be intercepted by Kaiahive somewhere along the line. And then the company would come down on them once again.
“That would draw attention to ourselves,” Deva said. She sat behind Keelin, and she looked relaxed—but she’d fastened her harness too. “We act suspicious, they react. Right, Kee?”
“Right.”
The door to the bridge opened. Brice stepped through, smirked when he looked in Piran’s direction.
“Thought you were busy in your bunk.” Piran faced front, shouldn’t’ve turned.
“Heard we’ve got a problem,” Brice said, all calm and casual, like this didn’t concern him.
“Yeah? Snooping on conversations again?”
“Hard to miss your noise.”
“Boys,” Ryann said. “You know the situation, Brice?”
“Incoming. Could be Kaiahive.”
“We don’t know that for certain.”
Brice slipped into his seat, directly behind Piran. Why couldn’t the moody sod stay in his bunk? Wasn’t like he could help up here, was it?
“Piran,” Ryann said. “What do we know about the craft?”
He scanned through the data, confirming what he’d already checked. “Ions. Seven of them. Tight formation, so professional pilots. All modified. Getting unfamiliar ping-backs, possibly…” He ran the data through a couple of routines, analysed on the fly. “Looks like high-power plasmas. Scan’s running too high for idling, though.”
“Primed?” Deva asked.
Piran swore, spun round to face Ryann. “They’re going to shoot us down!”
“We don’t know that. Keelin—have we had communication?”
“You want me to give them a call?”
Piran thumped his arm-rest. “No! Don’t you dare talk to them! They’ll…they’ll know we’re here.”
“They know that already.”
Keelin’s face—snout, set-back eyes, the whole lot—showed nothing. And that scared Piran. If she was retreating into herself, then…then anything could happen.
“We don’t need to open communication,” Ryann said. “If they call, I want us all to hear it.”
“This isn’t good,” Piran muttered. Then, louder, as he watched the data in his lenses, “Current speed, they’ll be on us in thirty seconds. Heavy power signal—definitely primed.” He swallowed. “They’re splitting. Buggers are breaking ranks!”
“I can’t see that on my data.” Deva tapped at the terminal in her lap.
“Deeper sensors,” Piran said—because she couldn’t see everything, could she? Only top-level data scanned to her terminal. “Got a pair to our port, a pair to starboard. Couple more increasing speed.” He spun to Keelin. “That a standard split?”
She nodded. “Boxing.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll see.”
“It’s bad, isn’t it? Come on, Kee! Get us out of here!”
“Keelin!” A tendril of spit fell from her snout.
Piran raised his hands. “Keelin. Sorry. Sure. But…but they’re boxing us in, right? Trapping us.”
“Looks that way.”
“So why…I mean, do something!”
She faced front again. “Message,” she said. “Patching it through.”
The voice that erupted from the speakers was male and monotone. “Keep your course steady. Ident received. Checking.”
“Sounds like he loves his job,” Brice said. As if this was any time to joke.
Keelin glanced at Piran. “Hope your mask holds up.”
“You doubt me?” But he shot through the system, double-checked—triple-checked, whatever—the false ident he’d inserted. And of course it was fine. Didn’t skimp on his work, did he? Hell, he doubted even Keelin knew how deep that mask went.
The bored voice burst from the speakers again. “Don’t deviate. I repeat—don’t deviate. We mean you no harm, but are under orders to retaliate with terminal force should you disobey. Patching through a destination. Please log it and follow.”
The system pinged with the incoming data. Keelin frowned.
“Guess we get to visit your volcano island after all,” the pilot said.
Deva sighed. “Kaiahive. Has to be. Secret base or something.”
“You think they know who we are?” Keelin asked.
“Hey! My mask’s holding up!”
“Let’s assume this is a routine check,” Ryann said.
Brice snorted.
Piran stared at Ryann. “Routine? Seven armed Ions? And they didn’t ask us anything. You notice that? Didn’t ask what we’re doing out here.” He swallowed, needed a drink. “They’re taking us captive!”
“Thought you said your mask was good,” Keelin said.
“It is! Doesn’t mean they’ll leave us alone, though, does it? Probably…I don’t know, invading air space or something. You check on that, Keelin? Any fields we slipped through?”
Keelin did that growl again. “No certainty they’re Kaiahive.”
“Of course they’re the b****y company! Who else would they be? And they’ve easily got enough firepower to take us down. We make one mistake and they blow us out of the sky, drop us in the drink.”
Keelin twitched.
“Don’t b****y do anything! I don’t want to die!”
“Might shut you up,” Brice muttered. And when Piran spun round he wanted to punch that b****y smirk.
“Focus,” Ryann said. “Piran, concentrate on the data. Let Keelin pilot.”
Piran pulled at his collar, faced front, withdrew to his lenses.
The data wasn’t much comfort. The Ions were in position now—two to either side of their Proteus, two behind, and one in front. An escort, if he was being generous.
“Be at the island in a couple of minutes,” Keelin said. “Got visual.”
Piran pulled up the sensor. The volcano rose from the sea, tiny white-capped waves crashing at the base. The rock was dark, scarred, craggy. Ugly.
He checked the destination the Ion had sent, pulled up the local area scan. Frowned.
“Kee?”
“Keelin!”
“Keelin. You got a lock on that destination?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You make it for inside the volcano?”
“Haven’t looked into it too much. You got a point to this?”
“Why’re they taking us into a volcano? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Extinct,” Brice said.
“Yeah, but…doesn’t feel right.”
“None of this feels right,” Keelin said. “Going with your idea, Piran.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Might not have our true ident, but they’ll figure it out before too long.”
Piran’s face flushed both hot and cold. “So…so what the hell do we do?”
Her snout twitched. “Your idea.”
“What b****y idea?”
And now, as she turned to him, he realised that the twitching was a smile. And it scared the hell out of him.
“Drop us in the drink.”
- Writer
