“I don’t think so,” he said, his eyes narrowing.
McManus pulled his way toward the bridge, tugging Jax along by the elbow. It was awkward progress, but the cop seemed adept at yanking himself from one handhold to the next in the absence of gravity.
“Ayliff, where is he?” he said as they billowed through the hatch. “How close?”
“Six minutes, thirty.”
“He’s catching up to us,” McManus said. “Why is he catching up to us?”
“That little OrbitBurner is a mover.”
Jax felt helpless. He was useless when near weightless, even if the microgravity caused him to slowly sink. McManus’s grip on his elbow was like a winch, and if he resisted, the cuffs constricted. He could feel his breath growing short and sharp with the rising panic.
McManus directed his attention to a silver-haired, pale but solid-looking woman seated along the right side of the cabin. “Granny, heat up the auto-turrets.”
“Sergeant McManus, you know I can’t fire on a civilian vessel,” she said with a shake of her head. She motioned at her controls. “The auto-guns won’t do it.”
“Dammit.” McManus let go of Jax and floated to a wall terminal, mumbling as he tapped at it. “I thought we had override codes installed on this thing.”
“Five minutes,” the pilot said.
“Stop counting down and take evasive action, Ayliff!”
“You got it Sarge, but there’s no way we can outmaneuver that baby.”
“Just keep him off us long enough to break gravity so we can Xarp out.”
“Ah, shit.” The woman McManus had called Granny turned in her half-tightened restraints. “We’re not really gonna do a hot Xarp, are we?”
Jax felt the floor meet his feet with the smallest amount of pressure. Somehow the contact made him feel even less stable. His body, drained from long-gone adrenaline, wanted to collapse, but there wasn’t enough gravity for the act.
“Depends on whether you can keep this crazy bastard away from us,” McManus said. He stabbed the terminal a few more times, then leaned back with a grunt. “There. Auto-turret number six is unlocked. It’s manual now.”
“Manual?” she said, her head sliding back and her eyebrow crooking. “Like without the targeting computer? How the hell am I supposed to hit anything?”
“Granny, you’re the goddamn gunner!”
“I’m the defense system operator,” she said, her brow furrowing. “And I don’t shoot at civilian ships.”
“Well you don’t gotta kill him,” McManus said, propelling himself away from the wall and toward Jax. “Just keep him from killing us.”
“Tighten those straps, people,” Ayliff called out. “He’s getting close. And if we hot Xarp, you don’t wanna be caught loose in the cabin.”
McManus grunted as he shoved Jax against a cushioned wall at the back of the cabin. “Sorry, Jackson. I was going to put you in a sleep tube. Hell, was looking forward to a nice nap myself. But your buddy Stanley is complicating that plan.”
“It would get a lot simpler if you just let me go.” Jax grunted as McManus drew thick straps across his chest. “You could even tell ModPol I’m dead. Tell them you saw my body. I’ll go deep and never come up again. I’ll disappear.”
The cop looked up at him and for a moment Jax thought he was considering the option. Then he looked back down, reaching behind Jax to loosen the wrist restraints. “Ain’t taking you to ModPol.”
“Where are you taking me?” Jax said, his voice suddenly going weak.
McManus didn’t answer. He just pulled down a mask and strapped it to Jax’s face. Then he floated to an empty chair and began strapping himself in.
Jax tried to repeat the question, but he couldn’t get his mask-muffled voice to rise above the tension in the cabin. What was McManus hinting at? It couldn’t be good.
“Here he comes,” Ayliff said.
“Give him a few warning shots, Granny.”
“Alright, Sarge.”
The gunner – or rather, the defense system operator – tapped at a screen, then held a finger down, swirling it in a circle. Jax couldn’t make out the visual, but he imagined she was aiming the sights of the gun somewhere in the direction of Runstom’s OrbitBurner. She stopped the motion, and with the other hand she tapped once. A stream of distant high-pitched shrieks came from somewhere below the bridge.
After a few moments of tense silence, McManus barked, “Report!”
“No hits, no damage,” Granny said.
“Contact has taken evasive action,” Ayliff said. “I think that bought us some distance.”
“Good,” McManus said. “If he gets any closer, take another—”
“Shit,” Ayliff said, silencing the rest of the room.
There was a din of ambient noise throughout the cabin from engines, life support, and whatever else, but now Jax could hear a distinct sound off to the left side of the ship. It sounded sinusoidal, like a wave pulsing to a steady beat.
“That thing has some bad-ass afterburners on it,” the pilot finally said.
“Granny!” McManus shouted.
“I can’t find him!” The gunner’s hand swirled around her pad. “You gave me one of the turrets on the bottom of the patroller and I can’t get an angle up to him.”
“I’ll get ’im back,” Ayliff said.
As soon as the words came out, the ship lurched, and Jax imagined it spinning on the center axis, a line that drew from the rear to the front. Which meant that Jax was rotating along with it, being strapped to the middle of the wall perpendicular to the center axis. He coughed and sputtered, and something hot forced its way from his mouth and into the mask. He started to panic that his gastric ejection had blocked his airway, but there was a light sucking sound and with a sickening feeling that spread through his body, he suddenly understood the mask’s purpose.
The ship twisted again, then shuddered with a jolt. “Holy shit!” Ayliff called out. “The crazy bastard clipped our nose cone!”
The turret shrieked again. “Not even close to a hit,” Granny said. “But that gave him something to think about.”
“If you say so,” the pilot said. “Looks to me like he’s coming back around again.”
“Are we out of the gravity well yet?” McManus said through gritted teeth. Jax could see the pink skin on the cop’s hands going white from gripping his chair so hard.
“Hold on,” Ayliff said. “There. Yes. All hands ready for Xarp?”
“Just hit it,” McManus yelled.
The only thing Jax was thankful for in that moment was the mask that captured the contents of his entire stomach.
