“Five liters.”

  “Yes, we heard, thanks. And you kept talking about shiny flashes.”

  “That’s the main drive.”

  “Our main drive is flashing?”

  “No. The main drive of the ship chasing us.”

  “What ship chasing us?”

  “The one I can see out the viewport. It’s slowing down to match our orbit. See the engine flashes?”

  Nadine and Riley turned to look out the viewport. Dead center was a flashing light. There was indeed a ship chasing them.

  Jake was still a little woozy, but the argument was loud enough to keep him awake.

  “We don’t have enough fuel,” Riley said. “Tomas has already pumped as much as possible. Tomas?”

  “Si. Yes. The bladder mostly boiled off before I could pump it all out.” Tomas and Jorge were crowded into the hatch to the lounge. “That’s all the extra fuel we’ll be getting.”

  “We can still climb above them. I can outmaneuver them and get to a higher orbit. They can’t arrest us if they can’t catch us. We’ll shut down the engines and drift till we find a station,” Nadine said.

  “Which station? One with Militia? They’ll arrest us,” Riley said.

  “They’ll arrest you, merchant girl. They won’t arrest me. I work for the Militia.”

  “No, you don’t. You worked for Mack and his thugs. They are not Militia. The Militia will arrest you as well. We need to go to a Free Traders’ station, or one that will fight Militia extradition. Like Galactic Growing.”

  “The Militia will probably shoot us,” Jorge said.

  “Whoa, wait a second, signorina,” Tomas said. “Many of us have disputes with Galactic Growing. We cannot go to one of their stations.”

  “We can too. I’m going to find one,” Riley said. She turned toward the computer. Tomas left the control room and climbed down to the passenger compartment. Riley began to type in navigation commands. “We just need to find one of their transfer stations and come close to it.”

  Jorge stood at the back of the cabin. “We cannot go to a Galactic Growing station. We must go elsewhere,” he said.

  “That’s what I said,” Nadine snarled. “But merchant girl here wants to go see her buddies.”

  “I heard you, but I don’t care what you two say. I’m putting the course in,” Riley said.

  “Uh, ladies,” Jake said. “If I could have a moment of your time.”

  “Shut up, Jake,” both of them said.

  There was a loud click. Jorge had drawn a revolver from a concealed holster. “We will not go to a Galactic Growing station. There are dozens of stations out there. Match orbit with any of them, but not Galactic Growing.” He pointed the gun at the floor, not directly at her, but in the general direction. “I am very sorry, Miss Riley. Anywhere but there.”

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Nadine said. “Give me the board, merchie.”

  “Are you going to shoot me, Jorge—really?” Riley asked.

  “Miss, I will be in very big trouble if I go there.” Jorge looked at the gun and put it in his holster. “No, I will not shoot you. But some of the others in the back—they might not be so gentle. They are young and excitable, and accidents do happen. Perhaps you should let Miss Nadine drive instead.”

  Riley rolled her eyes, but typed in a command and folded her arms across her chest. “Whatever,” she said.

  “I am sorry to bother you two with this, but we could not be diverted. Miss Nadine, where are you taking us?” Jorge said.

  Nadine had started tapping commands into her board, but stopped, then frowned. She turned to Riley. “Which one?” she asked.

  “You’re so smart, you figure it out,” Riley said.

  Nadine glared at Riley. Riley glared right back.

  “Which what?” Jorge asked.

  “Station,” Nadine said.

  “Take us to the closet one, perhaps,” Jorge said.

  “Which one?” Nadine said again. Riley just grinned.

  “What is happening?” Jorge asked. “Can we not just pick one?”

  Jake felt a little woozy. He shook his head to clear it. His voice shook from the drugs. “It’s not that simple, Jorge. We are moving at different vectors in three dimensions, and the moon and some of the asteroids are perturbing our course, and the other stations are also moving in three dimensions, so it is very difficult to calculate a course. The mathematics for each solution is very complex. We will have a different course to each one, and trying to find the closest one in time means we have to solve for all of them, and that takes more time, and then we will have to recalculate given the time that has passed. And we only have so much fuel.”

  “How does anyone get anywhere then?” Jorge asked.

  “They teach shortcuts in navigator classes. Riley probably had made some guesses, or has some rules of thumb.”

  “Cannot Nadine do that?”

  “Nope,” Riley said. “She’s purely a seat-of-the-pants pilot. She needs a course, or needs to see where she’s going. She’s not a navigator. She needs a destination.”

  “Bullshit, merchie. It just takes me longer,” Nadine said.

  There was a bang, and the decompression gong sounded for a few seconds. There were shouts from the passenger compartment, a banging, then the alarm went off.

  “What was that?” Nadine asked.

  Jorge had leaned back into the passenger compartment. He pulled his head back. “A small hole appeared in the hull. The guys patched it. What is happening?” he said.

  Jake pointed out the front of the viewport. “Look there. Drive flare is gone. They’ve pivoted to point the bow directly at us.”

  “Why?” Riley said.

  “To bring their mass driver to bear. They’re shooting at us. Calculation time is up, ladies.”

  Chapter 31

  “Gotcha,” the pilot said. “We’re at high guard now. We’ll sweep above them every orbit.”

  “Pivot me for a clear shot. I’ll use the laser—try to take out a control line. Then we can board if needed,” the navigator said. They could see the shuttle on their screens.

  The intercom beeped. The pilot ignored it. “Pivoting,” he agreed. “You’ll get your shot. Ah, shooting an engine out might not be a great idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “This is a really, really low orbit. I’m already seeing some decay on ours, and they are lower. If we hit an engine, they might not be able to climb up out of there.”

  The intercom beeped again. They ignored it again. “I’ll take a shot on the cabins then. They’ll know we’re serious.” The intercom began to beep over and over again. They looked at each other. The navigator answered the intercom.

  “Sir? We’re kind of busy up here. This is tricky navigation. We need to maneuver to get a warning shot at this ship.”

  “No, you do not. Destroy that ship,” the officer said.

  “Sir? We normally fire a warning shot, then board. Ships are valuable, and damaging them is not a good idea. We can re-use their engines, if nothing else.”

  “The Officers’ Council has an observer on the nearby asteroid. They are watching us. I have a communication from them. Destroy that ship.”

  The navigator looked at the pilot. The pilot punched the intercom and spoke. “Uh, sir, we can’t really destroy it with a laser. Not enough power. We can damage exterior sensors and control lines, but we can’t really blow it up.”

  “What about with the mass driver?”

  “That would work, sir, if we can hit it. But they are still maneuvering, and the lag from our firing means that we’re very unlikely to hit them.”

  “Get closer then.”

  “You idiots have missed,” the officer snarled, looking out the viewport. He had climbed back into the control room as soon as they stopped maneuvering. “What sort of gunners are you?”

  “Well, sir,” the navigator began, “technically, we’re not gunners. We’ve never received training. I’ve never actually fired the rail gun on this ship.”

  “I’ve never fired the rail gun on any ship, never mind this one,” the pilot said. “I know that we’re supposed to point the bow at them, but then the gunner is supposed to give us directions.”

  “So, give the gunners directions then. Or take them. Must I think of everything,” the officer said.

  “Sir, the gunnery program for the rail gun is locked up. You need a gunner’s credentials to access them.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Keep accidents from happening. Save ammunition. I don’t know, sir,” the pilot replied.

  The officer stared at the ceiling. “Very well. We have orders to destroy them. What do we do now, then?”

  “You are in charge, sir. Your call.”

  “Can you simulate this gunnery program? Can you get close to them?”

  The pilot looked at the navigator. The navigator shrugged. “Kind of. We can check their bearing in the telescope, and I think we can compute a closing course, but that’s for the ship, not for weapons.”

  “The mass driver fires on the axis of the ship, yes?”

  “Not quite, but close,” the navigator said.

  “If you see them in the center of the viewport, then we should hit them, shouldn’t we?”

  “Sir, they are so far away, at this distance, even an error of part of a degree will be a miss. And it takes time for the slugs to reach them. We have to aim at where they will be, not where they are now.”

  “But the closer we are to them, the less time it takes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get close enough to make sure that a degree or two does not matter. Set up that closing course, and use it to shoot at them as well. Get to a lower orbit, quickly.”

  Nadine had taken the helm. Everybody else was strapped in. She kept them in the same orbit, and had added random drops, swings, and spins to make the mass driver miss them. Riley hadn’t argued but was typing on the nav computer.

  “We need to get away from them. Jake, you always have a plan.”

  Jake coughed. He felt better than he had a while ago, but he was still woozy, and his leg still bothered him. “There should be a TGI station almost intersecting our orbit in about thirty minutes,” he said.

  “TGI?” Riley asked.

  “The insurance company?” Jorge asked.

  “Jake works for TGI,” Nadine said.

  “You do?” Riley said. “What do you do for them?”

  “He’s a spy,” Nadine said. “He was spying on you.”

  “You’re a spy? You were spying on us. Is that why you stowed away on my ship?”

  “No. I was spying on your dad. I stowed away on your ship because I thought you were pretty and wanted to spend more time with you,” Jake said. Did I just say that? Jake thought. These are pretty good drugs.

  Riley blushed. Jorge laughed. Nadine looked confused for a moment, but then her face blanked.

  “Good deflection, loverboy,” Nadine said.

  “You, shut up,” Riley said.

  “Ladies,” Jake began.

  “Shut up, Jake,” both girls said. Jorge began to laugh. Everybody looked at him. “What?” Nadine said.

  “Nothing,” Jorge said, hiding a smile. “I am just remembering what it is like to be young.” He turned to Jake. “Mr. Professor, I think if we go with you to a TGI station, we will be fine. Do you think they will let us go?”

  “Yes,” Jake said. “I can guarantee that they will let you and the guys go, Jorge. They have no interest in you. Nadine, you can run off like you normally do, and Riley, they won’t stop you from going to meet your father.”

  “Like she normally does? What does that mean?” Riley asked.

  “Never mind, Riley. Find us that station. It will come down from higher, but I think we can intercept. That was my original plan. We’ll just need time. Nadine, how do we keep from getting killed by that mass driver?”

  “Jake, that’s not a Free Trader. That’s a Militia ship. They have targeting software. It will know our capabilities and will calculate our course, and account for gravity, and drag.” She stopped talking and looked at Riley. “How much drag does your ship have in atmosphere?”

  Riley frowned. “A lot. We would never go this low—it would be dangerous. And why do you care? We’re not in our ship.”

  Nadine smiled. “I know. Watch this, Jakey.” She began hitting the screen, and they felt the maneuvering jets fire, then the thrusters.

  “We’re dropping,” Riley reported. “We’re going deeper into the atmosphere. It’s slowing us down. What are you doing?” Riley said.

  “Yes. But how much is it slowing us down?” Nadine said.

  Riley looked at Nadine for a moment, then smiled. “Pivot us back, and get the telescope on that Militia ship,” she said. Riley and Nadine watched their screens for a minute. Then they smiled at each other.

  “There’s a flare,” Riley reported.

  “That’s a shot,” Nadine said. “Another. Three. Four. Five. No hits. They can’t figure it out.”

  Riley and Nadine smiled at each other and exchanged a high-five.

  “What is going on?” Jorge asked.

  “We’re in the atmosphere, and it’s causing drag, which is causing us to drop, but this bizarre ship Jake stole is streamlined. We’re not getting nearly as much drag as we should. They’re still shooting at us, but their computer is treating us like a regular merchant ship, so it’s coming up with the wrong answer. They will keep missing, and they won’t know why.”

  “That is good,” Jorge said. “Jake, your girlfriends are quite smart.”

  “I’m not his girlfriend,” Riley and Nadine said together.

  They continued diving into the atmosphere. The air visible through the front viewport glowed red from the friction of their re-entry. Riley and Nadine flipped through screens.

  “Crap. They’re following us down,” Nadine said.

  “So much for your great idea that they wouldn’t want to be this low,” Riley said.

  “Just give me a course to get out of here,” Nadine said.

  “I’ve found Jake’s station. Just give me some time with the computer,” Riley said.

  Everyone in the cockpit was quiet. They felt the gentle sways and spins as Nadine’s program gave them a random walk around their base course. A bong interrupted the silence.

  “Okay, I’ve got a course to the station Jake wants. It’ll be tight, but we can make it. I’m putting it into the computer.”

  Nadine watched her screen. “Okay, I have the course. We have to climb, and we’ll move closer to that Militia ship if we do. They’ll have a better shot. A much better shot.”

  “That’s the best I can do. We’re tight on fuel as it is.”

  “How much of a better shot? What are their chances of hitting us?” Jorge asked.

  “We don’t know,” Nadine said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? You have computers here,” Jorge said.

  “We have computers, but we’re missing software. We don’t have any targeting software, and we don’t have any evade software, so we have no way of tracking what they can or can’t do.”

  “But they will have a better shot?”

  “For a while,” Riley said.

  “Can’t we wait?”

  “We don’t have unlimited fuel. We need to go somewhere. Up or down. Up there’s a station,” Nadine said.

  “Nadine, could we—” Jake began.

  “Jake, not now,” Riley said. “The pilots are talking. Nadine, if you manually evade can you avoid getting hit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do it. Fast. Before we lose that option.”

  “Hang on,” Nadine said, and they were pushed into their seats as she accelerated to a higher altitude. She typed commands into the computer and was randomly swinging the control yoke back and forth while pulsing the main engine.

  “Okay, we’re coming up closer to them. In a few seconds, we should be by.”

  “Almost there,” Riley said.

  “Just a few more seconds, and we’ll be safe,” Nadine said. “Jakey, let’s see if we can find your friends. Say, they should be paying for all the wages we lost. What sort of bonus can we expect?”

  “Bonus, Nadine? I don’t think they do bonuses, but I suppose I could ask,” Jake said.

  BANG!

  Jake felt the ship lurch, and a number of gongs sounded. He was lifted out of his seat by negative g’s, then slammed back into it, then negative again, then positive. Delta began to cartwheel across the viewport. First there, then gone, there, then gone. He felt Nadine cut the engines and the forces on him decreased, but the craft continued to pitchpole. Nadine was cursing, and she rolled the ship ninety degrees, then yawed it ninety degrees, and Jake felt her pulse the main engines to bring the tumble under control. She was using the main engines as maneuvering thrusters by spinning the ship around. Her cursing stopped as the ship’s gyration slowed.

  The three spacers ignored the retching sounds and the smell of vomit coming from the passenger compartment.

  “Okay, that was bad. We lost a thruster, and we’ve dropped a lot. If we go up again, they’ll have a better shot, and next time they might hit something important.”

  BANG. The ship lurched again. Jake was pushed back into his seat as Nadine revved the main engines up to full throttle.

  “Going low. Real low,” she said.

  “We definitely hit them once. I saw them spin,” the navigator said.

  “Yes, but we’re not getting as many hits as we should,” the pilot said. “I checked the specs, and I’m using the computer’s numbers for performance.”

  “Follow them down lower then,” the officer said. “We have more fuel than they do, correct? We are a bigger ship.”

  “Yes, sir, correct on both counts, but it’s just—” the navigator said.

  “Just what? Just too hard for someone as unskilled as you?”

  “No, sir. It’s just odd. They are going way lower than I’ve ever seen any craft go. I’ve never been this low before—not in a regular ship.” He looked at the pilot.