Cyber Dreams 4.16 - Kill or Be Killed

Enjoy the chapter, everyone. Happy to hear your thoughts.

-Plum

Juliet tried to keep her breaths steady and even, in and out through her nose, watching the readouts and tracking the little blips on the colorful, three-dimensional proximity display at the lower center of her AUI. She’d learned, riding with Nick in the pilot’s seat, that if she breathed too heavily inside her helmet, hot condensation would accumulate on the plastiglass, which could make parts of the holographic HUD look blurry. There were probably helmets with better air circulation that would alleviate a problem like that, but the one Nick had given her had issues. On the display, her ship, a blue triangle, was at the center, and she was tracking the harvester, a big magenta rectangle, and two pirates—red triangles.

“Are you sure you don’t want the controls?” she asked again, jerking the stick to the left and pushing forward, trying to line up her sights on the “priority-one” target. She’d flagged it; Angel said the ship looked newer and had a dangerous rail gun she wouldn’t want to be pointed at her tailpipes. A chuckle escaped her as she thought about it. Where had Angel heard the rear of a ship referred to as “tailpipes?”

“You got his. Come on, I got your countermeasures.” Nick sounded calm and relaxed, and she wondered if there was something off about the guy. His life was in her hands, and she was up against two pirates. She supposed part of his confidence was that he knew his ship was faster and more maneuverable than the shoddily maintained, decades-old interceptors the pirates were flying. He knew it, but he probably didn’t think Juliet knew it. Angel was remarkably good at identifying ships and spotting mechanical deficiencies.

The Lady could ramp up Gs far faster than either the Bumble or Kowashi, the only ships Juliet could really compare her to. She’d flown simulated interceptors in her dream-rig, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing the rig threw at her came close to the brain-bleeding, diaphragm-crushing jump from two to seven Gs in a handful of seconds that the Lady could pull off. On top of that, she could strafe and turn much, much faster than the pirates she was currently facing. Juliet worked the pedals, the throttle, and the stick, bringing her nose to bear against the first pirate interceptor, the one with the big rail gun.

“Good target choice.” Nick’s voice was a little clipped as he worked on his breathing, but Juliet knew he sounded better than she would. “I’m reading a big gun on that guy. As long as he’s running from you, he can’t point it at ya.”

“Unless he does that!” Juliet cried, driving the ship’s nose down and punching the throttle. They never heard it, being in the very upper reaches of Jupiter’s atmosphere where the air was so thin it almost didn’t exist, but a rail gun round missed the Lady by just a dozen meters or so. Juliet’s vision was tunneling as she fired the port maneuvering jets, strafing to the right, and then jerked the stick, bringing her nose back toward the pirate. He’d done a flip, still soaring outward, away from Jupiter, but facing her, using his momentum to keep moving away. Even so, Juliet’s quick maneuver had brought her around to his port side, and she was closing fast.

“I’ll help you line up the gimbals,” Angel said, doing what she could to assist her aim as Juliet tried to get Nick’s twin thirty-millimeter cannons pointing at the pirate. His canons had “gimbals,” which allowed them to move independently of the ship. Angel had a targeting program that she ran, using the gimbals to track the pirate and bring the crosshairs right into the little red circle where she was predicting the ship’s movement would take it while the cannon rounds flew through the space between them. Juliet squeezed the trigger on the stick, and the low rumble of the cannons vibrated through the plasteel beneath her acceleration couch.

The whole time she’d been trying to follow the ship, avoid its railgun shot, and now line up her crosshairs, she’d also been trying to keep tabs on the other pirate. Her movements thus far had gone a long way to keeping him off her six, but she saw him starting to line up. Juliet mentally struggled with the dilemma—she knew she was on target at the moment; the targeting software was playing little pings in her auditory implants, letting her know the rounds were hitting. She might have already killed the ship, but it hadn’t popped, wasn’t burning. Should she pull off to avoid getting blasted? Should she stay on target another few seconds and keep pounding the first ship?

“Don’t forget about your six . . .” Nick said, the first sign of nervousness entering his voice. Juliet grunted, held the trigger down for another full, pregnant second, then she fired the starboard maneuvering jets, yanked the stick back, and punched the throttle again. “Ugh!” Nick groaned, and Juliet grinned; it was harder to brace for quick maneuvers when you were a passenger. She knew she was going to do it, so she’d clenched up at just the right moment.

That was another thing she’d learned while flying in the pilot’s seat: a lot of the hectic, stressful bewilderment she’d felt while riding shotgun had been simply because of that—she was the passenger, always a few milliseconds behind when Nick made a decision. When she was driving, she knew when the ship would turn, accelerate, decelerate, strafe, spin, and all the other things it did. She felt much more in control with a full front-seat view and all her attention on the job. Flying in the nav seat made it too easy to let your mind drift, too easy to miss a reflection or a heads-up light.

“You smoked him!” Nick crowed as she brought the ship around, catching the other little interceptor in the middle of a turn, and almost by luck, found her crosshairs just below his starboard side. Angel didn’t waste time, locking the guns on target with the gimbals, and Juliet squeezed the trigger. Nothing beat that satisfying hum as the guns began to throw hot, heavy metal alloys through the thin air. Juliet revised that opinion as the pings started sounding in her ears—her rounds were on target, and this time, she was close enough to see the impacts, the sparks, the bits of metal, plasteel, and fluids spraying into the air.

The ship banked and lit up its drives in an attempt to flee, but the Lady Hawk wasn’t having it. Juliet pushed the throttle forward, steering with her right hand, trigger down, hot metal streaking out from under the ship’s nose, ripping holes in the interceptor. The little interceptor was half drives, and when the starboard one started smoking, Juliet pulled up. She’d learned from Nick that you didn’t want to be too close to a ship like that when it was about to pop. She heard him exhale a pent-up breath as she pulled off and released the trigger.

“Worried?” she asked, grinning behind the dark tint of her helmet.

“Just a little.”

Juliet called up one of the rear-view cams and watched as the pirate ship began to smoke more heavily, and then she saw something she’d only seen a couple of times while Nick was flying. The front of the wedge-shaped ship seemed to burst with smoke and fire, and then it spun off into the blackness and deployed two huge parachutes. The ship fell away, streaking smoke and fire as it descended toward Jupiter. The pilot’s capsule, though, hung in the thin atmosphere, only very slowly, spiraling down. “Anything we can do?”

“Not in this atmosphere. I can’t hold this ship steady enough to take on a passenger, and I doubt you can.”

“Poor guy . . .”

“He’s probably dead already; not many suits can handle this environment.”

The idea was sobering, and Juliet didn’t have any words. Some person had just been so desperate to try to live, so desperate not to go down with the ship she’d shot full of holes, that they’d jumped out into the rough atmosphere, terrible radiation, and, soon, crushing gravity. What had they been thinking? Had they been? Shooting ships hundreds, thousands, of meters away was a lot less personal when you didn’t think about the people inside. She shook her head. “I’m not the one who started this little brawl.”

“Exactly. They’re pirates, and they wouldn’t have shed a tear for us; believe it.” He touched the side of his helmet, and it hissed as the visor released, and he flipped it up. Juliet knew what was coming—vape time. He snagged it from the magnet over his head, and as he put it between his lips, he said, out of the corner of his mouth, “What are you forgetting?”

“Right!” Juliet stared at her comms display, and Angel connected her to the ship they were escorting.

A high, feminine voice with a southern twang spoke up immediately, “Arctus Belle here, that you Lucky?”

“That’s me, Bernice. You guys take any hits?”

“We’re all good; those pirates were on you from the get-go. Glad you showed ‘em what for!”

“Yep, we got ‘em, and we’re back in escort position.”

“Right on, I’ll holler if we need anything. Belle out.”

Juliet sighed and leaned back, trusting Angel to keep an eye on the camera feeds and the various scanners. She wanted a second to breathe and process the fact that she’d just had her first real dogfight and that she’d won in a two-versus-one scenario. She could hear Nick taking a deep inhale on his vape, and she held off lifting her visor so she didn’t have to experience the scent of his exhalation—mint today. He’d been remarkably calm and patient with her for the last week as she’d taken the pilot’s seat. This was her third mission doing so, but it was the first time she’d had an encounter with hostiles.

Nick blew out a thick cloud of vapor and said, true to form, “Not a bad way to pop your cherry, I guess.”

“Gross.”

“Gross? Oh, uh, yeah, sorry. C’mon, I thought you did time with a paramilitary unit. Why are you always busting my balls? You didn’t get on your teams’ cases, did you?”

“I wasn’t stuck alone with them in a coffin-sized box of plasteel a million miles from . . . anything.”

“Fair.” Nick sighed, rubbed at the bridge of his nose, and continued, “Anyway, good job. I think you handled those guys pretty damn well. I’m impressed with your pilot’s gut.”

“My what?”

“Your pilot’s gut. You know, the thing that tells you how long to squeeze that trigger, what way to jerk the stick, and when to punch the throttle. That kind of stuff.”

“There are interesting essays about what he’s referencing. There are reputable research papers that seem to indicate it’s a real thing and one of the reasons the AI pilots often fared worse than their human counterparts during the big war.”

“Huh,” Juliet subvocalized. “That’s pretty interesting. Can you save me one of the more readable papers? I mean for a layperson.”

“Will do. It would be fun to discuss in the context of what we know about the lattice and psionics, don’t you think?”

“Yep,” Juliet nodded, then turned to look over her shoulder. “Nick, how much money have you put into the Lady? Like, seriously, she’s so damn nimble and quick. There’s not much on her that’s stock, is there?”

“Oh, shit, I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to—ten k here, forty k there. I’ve been dumping bounties into this ship for ten years or more. As far as what’s stock, well, she looks mostly stock other than the nacelles, the oversized ammo cans, the aftermarket struts, the paint . . . well, all right, there’s not much that’s stock left on her. Aftermarket drives, maneuvering jets, guns—she’s still got the stock reactor, though.”

“Well, I guess if I’m trying to get some real experience, I’m lucky to have such a nice ship to use. Thanks for trusting me with the stick.” Juliet let her mind drift and tried to pick up his surface thoughts as he answered.

“No worries, Lucky.”

Not like I wasn’t about to seize control there for a minute! Whew, you pushed your luck holding fire on that first target!

“You really think I did a good job?” Juliet flipped up her visor and turned to look him in the eyes.

“Well, yeah, you just won a two v one.”

“But I could have done something better? Come on, help me learn!”

“All right, all right. Let me see here; you made me nervous when you stayed on the first ship for so long. In fact, I was getting ready to take the controls over. I’ll tell you what, though, that’s the same thing my old mentor told me. He always said I was pushing things just a little too far. Truth is, I think my instincts were just a little better than his. I’m still kicking, and I’ve seen twice the action he ever did. I mean, this hurts my pride a little, but maybe your gut’s just a little better than mine. Or maybe you got lucky.” He chuckled and shrugged.

“Maybe.” Juliet laughed too, but she wished she knew more about her uncanny knack for knowing when to move and where during fights and, apparently, dogfights. Was it just luck? Was she using her latent psionic abilities to know when to move? It surely didn’t always work; she’d lost fights at the dojo and been beaten and shot. Still, many people might look at the things she’d been through and be amazed that she was alive. Either she was incredibly skilled, or very lucky, or, and this was what Juliet thought, there was something more to her feelings.

Subvocalizing, she asked, “Do you think I had some psionic sensitivity before I got the lattice? Do you think my feelings, like when I wanted to run away from Doc Murphy’s place, are rooted in some natural ability?”

“We’ve spoken about this, and you know I do. I think the reason the squints were excited about your body’s acceptance of the lattice has to do with your natural potential.”

Juliet barked a short laugh. “You called them squints, Angel.”

“I know. I love that word!”

“What’s funny?” Nick asked, speaking kind of strangely because he was holding in a breath of vape.

“Oh, God, here it comes.” Juliet groaned and reached up to plug her nose. Nick laughed as he exhaled, and a cloud of vapor filled the front of the cockpit. “You know why you’re a good pilot?”

“Why?” He was already starting to laugh, anticipating her answer.

“Because you’re high as hell on nicotine. You must have jitters like a bad wire-job!”

“How’d I know you were going to say that?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Anyway, we should celebrate when we get back. Your first two skulls—it’s a pretty big deal for a fighter pilot, Lucky. I’ve got some buddies we can meet up with and do it right.”

“I’m not really . . .”

“You better accept this!” Angel said, and Juliet could hear from her tone that she wouldn’t be okay with an argument.

“Oh, come on!” Nick said, also interrupting her.

“All right, forget I said anything. Let’s do it. I can use some actual fun.”

“That’s the spirit! We’ll go to the Raptor House.”

“Raptor House?”

“It’s a bar, but mostly frequented by interceptor pilots. Uh, quite a few pirate types, too. It’s not for the faint of heart.”

Juliet shook her head as she perused the ship’s readings and flipped through the various external feeds. “Raptor House sounds a little . . . on the nose, I guess. If you say it’s the place to go, though, then I’m down.”

“Right on. Messaging some of my pals.”

“Speaking of pals, I’ve been trying to keep my nose out of your business, but you never told me about your weekend with your “friend” from out of town.”

“Why’d you do that with your fingers when you said, “friend?”

“Come on, Nick.” Juliet snorted and shifted in her acceleration couch to better see him again.

“Are you . . . jealous?” His voice rose with mock incredulity.

“No! I’m curious! How’d this get turned around on me? I was busting your balls.” Juliet cringed inwardly as she heard herself using Nick’s vernacular. She supposed it wasn’t just Nick—she’d heard it plenty from Houston and the others in Charlie Unit. Still, she pointedly made the decision to try to avoid letting any more of his particular brand of trash talk brush off on her.

“You think you’re at that level? You think you can get under my skin . . .”

“Well,” Juliet grinned evilly, “how about I tell your buddies about your little run-in with Tono and how I had to save you?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t! Come on, Lucky! If we’re going to meet those guys, you can’t be making me look bad, all right? I have a reputation!” Juliet grinned and ran through another diagnostic check, then a scan of the camera feeds, chuckling as Nick continued to belabor the many reasons why he had to maintain his tough-guy reputation with all of his pilot buddies. She’d only recently been willing to tease Nick about the run-in with Tono; she’d hardly been able to think about the encounter for weeks. The feelings had been too raw and real, but they had slowly diminished. Juliet thought they faded faster than real memories, real emotions, but she wasn’t sure; she’d changed a lot since she’d met Angel, and she might just be getting better at dealing with trauma.

“. . . especially at the Raptor House! Some of those guys . . .”

“Nick! Relax, I was just messing with you; I won’t tell your buddies anything about it. Does this bar have a good beer selection? I mean, on tap? Anything local?”

“You are the snootiest operator I’ve ever met. I flew a guy to Mars once, a real chrome jockey, and he’d drink anything. Shit, I caught him drinking paint thinner at the warehouse where we’d stashed the “cargo” he’d hired me to haul . . .”

Juliet leaned back with a comfortable smile as she listened to Nick regale her with his tale about a “chromed-out-nightmare” and the medicine he wanted to be delivered to an orphanage in New Galveston. It sounded like a bad soap vid, but he was a good storyteller, so Juliet laughed along and had a good time trying to picture the crazy scenes. Yeah, she decided, Nick had some problems, but he was a pretty all-right guy when you boiled it down to the bone, when you considered the important stuff. “And shouldn’t you do that?” she asked no one in particular, speaking too softly for Nick to notice as he continued his narrative. “Shouldn’t you focus on what’s important and not the petty BS?”

“Definitely,” Angel replied, surprising her. Her smile deepened as she flipped through the camera feeds again, leaving the scanners to Angel’s judgment. She figured she’d get through this story of Nick’s, spin one of her own, and then they’d be about ready to fly home, and she could celebrate her first kill. To her credit, Juliet didn’t frown or even flinch at the idea; she’d killed again today, and that was the way things were. That was her life now—kill or be killed.