Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [186]
“We’d better get moving,” she said. Without her usual double-checks, Rlinda soared away from the Moon’s gravity field. She slapped the panel with the flat of her hand and tried to squeeze out more acceleration. On the screen, blips indicated swarms of fast Remoras coming in from perimeter patrols.
“The Curiosity was never designed to be taken into battle, you know,” she told him. “Brace yourself.”
“Who said anything about battle?” BeBob’s voice cracked. “How about we don’t let them catch up with us in the first place?”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”
Roaring in closer, the squadron commander transmitted in a voice that sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard, “You are ordered to stand down and return to the Moon base.”
Rlinda signaled back, “This isn’t a military ship, mister. You don’t have any authority to give me orders.”
“Well, those hot jazers give them some provisional authority—”
“Quiet, BeBob.” She opened a general channel without video. “Excuse me, but I was told to leave, and in no uncertain terms. Make up your minds.”
“We believe you are holding the fugitive Captain Roberts. We have orders not to let him escape. Return to the base or we will open fire.”
As the Moon dwindled behind them, the Blind Faith finally lifted off from the crater, accelerating at reckless velocity low to the lunar surface, trying unsuccessfully to remain below radar scans.
“Go, Davlin,” Rlinda said through clenched teeth.
BeBob knotted his fingers together, glancing at their screens and then out the front windowport. “Just so long as he’s careful with my ship. I don’t think even high-risk insurance covers damage incurred while fleeing from authorities.”
“Better check your policy, BeBob. But not right now, okay?”
“Just thinking ahead.”
Seeing the second ship appear, the Remora squadron split up, half of the fast fighter ships swooping off to intercept the Blind Faith. “That’s Roberts’s ship,” said the squadron commander. “The Voracious Curiosity is just a decoy.”
“I guess a bait and switch is just too much for their imaginations.” Rlinda grinned.
“Don’t celebrate yet, Rlinda—half of them are still on our tail.”
“That’s better than having all of them after us.” She continued on her erratic trajectory, throwing the two of them from side to side faster than the stabilizers could compensate. “BeBob, set a course out of this system. How soon can we engage the Ildiran stardrive and leave the EDF ships in our exhaust?”
“Umm...no sooner than they can.”
Before the Remoras could intercept the second fleeing ship, the Blind Faith shot out into open space. Its engines were powered beyond their maximums, the exhaust cowlings glowing cherry red from unmitigated thrust.
Over an open channel came a wavering staticky image, supposedly transmitted from the cockpit of BeBob’s ship, no doubt distorted by the huge power expenditure of its flight. The screen showed the visage of Branson Roberts himself. “You have no right to chase me,” the mock BeBob said. “I’ve been unfairly charged and convicted by a kangaroo court. You’re hunting an innocent man.”
“Hey! How did Davlin doctor that up so fast?”
Rlinda smiled. “Probably part of his training as a specialist in obscure details.”
“Does my voice really sound like that? High and squeaky?”
Rlinda turned her big brown eyes to him. “If you were really in the Faith ’s cockpit right now, you’d sound a lot squeakier.”
BeBob slumped back in his copilot chair.
As Davlin pulled farther away from the pursuing squadron, two more Remoras broke off from the Curiosity and joined the primary hunt.
But several EDF fighters stuck close as Rlinda flew the Voracious Curiosity on an erratic course to climb out of the solar system. The short-range fighters didn’t have as much fuel as her ship did, but they had greater speed. They could close around the Curiosity long before she could outrun them.
Rlinda and BeBob worked together in the cockpit like two components of a precision machine. It was just like old times.
The Blind Faith