Under Shadows. Jason LaPier

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СКАЧАТЬ he needed to do.

      *

      Jax had tried to reason with the cop on the shuttle ride up, but even when using the autopilot, he was so skittish that Jax figured he’d better not distract him or they’d be smashed to pieces on their way to the main ModPol ship. He remembered hearing McManus say that he had a pilot with him, but that pilot was busy keeping the ship in orbit, leaving McManus to handle the shuttle himself. Finally, they managed to dock with only minor bumps accompanied by a groaning crack, and then Jax was being hauled out of the shuttle with dizzying alacrity. As always, the transition to a nearly null gravity environment disoriented the hell out of him. He’d never get used to it.

      “I don’t know why you people just can’t let me be,” he said finally as his captor closed up the shuttle and jabbed at a console. “You know I’m not a criminal.”

      “Oh, I know.” The response came with a mirthless chuckle. “I’ve heard this song before.”

      “Sergeant McManus, right?” Jax said as the cop came back from his bout with the wall-mounted computer system. “What is this, like some kind of career move for you? To be the cop that brings in a wrongfully accused citizen? For the crime of being afraid and running for his life?”

      McManus grabbed Jax by the arm and tugged him across the tiny shuttle hangar. “I wish.”

      “What does that mean?”

      He ignored Jax and slid open a door that led to a narrow chamber. Jax could see sleeping tubes beyond it, similar to the one he’d been locked inside the first time McManus captured him.

      “What does that mean?” he repeated, doing his best to pull back. The small resistance was equaled by a small tightening of the bonds around his wrists.

      McManus shot him a glare and then pulled him toward the door. “Just shut up so I can get you into a stasis pod.”

      “What’s going to happen?” Jax said. “They’re going to give me a trial and find me innocent. They’re going to just let me go, right?”

      “If you believe that, then why do you keep running?”

      “Because I shouldn’t have to go on trial. I’m innocent and everyone knows it!”

      An unseen audio unit sparked to life. “Sergeant, there’s a contact.”

      McManus sighed. He floated to a nearby wall and found a comm unit. “There’s a planet, Ayliff. There’s gonna be some contacts.”

      “This one’s got an intercept trajectory.”

      “What the fuck,” McManus muttered to himself, before speaking directly into the comm again. “No. What is it?”

      “Civilian ship, Sarge. Hold on. OrbitBurner 4200 LX.”

      Jax felt a twinge in his chest. Simultaneously he felt hope and fear.

      “Goddammit,” McManus said. “That lunkhead Runstom just doesn’t know when to quit.” He spoke into the comm. “Ayliff, is it powering up any weapons?”

      “Uh, no, Sarge. I don’t think it has any weapons.”

      “No, of course not.”

      “He’s coming in hot though, Sarge. Time to intercept, eight minutes.”

      “Time to Xarp?”

      “Eleven minutes, forty seconds.”

      “Wait, whaddya mean, time to intercept?” McManus said after a moment of quiet thought. “He’s got no weapons.”

      After a pause, the ship’s pilot came back on. “Current trajectory suggests a collision course.”

      “No fucking way.” McManus shook his head and pointed a finger at Jax. “That crazy friend of yours is going to ram us.”

      “He is crazy,” Jax said. Maybe he could convince these cops that it was better to just leave them be. Runstom was a wild card that no one wanted to deal with. Calling him crazy wasn’t really all that much of a stretch. “Just let me go, McManus. I told you, it’s not worth it. I’m innocent. Let me go before Stanford kills us all.”

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ