Redemption(10)

"I think we arrived a bit earlier than they thought as well," Kage said. "Take 'em down, Captain."

"Knock down it is," Jason said. He pushed the throttle up and lined up behind the fleeing shuttle. The pitiful little craft had no chance of outrunning the powerful gunship, and soon it was bouncing around in the air as the Phoenix drew in so close she was disrupting the airflow over the aft stabilizers. "Kage, you're up," he said, squeezing the trigger and holding it for a three-count to let the computer know the copilot's station was authorized access to fire control.

"Watch this, Doc," Kage said as he deployed the Phoenix's point-defense turrets. "Like a surgeon." He fired a single, low-power salvo that he'd assumed would degrade the port, aft repulsors enough that it would force them down in a controlled landing. But Jason had been much too close and the sudden loss of lift, coupled with the Phoenix compressing the air between them, sent the small ship into an uncontrollable tumble. They watched it fall from the low altitude and bounce across the desert floor in an impressive eruption of dust and parts.

"Damnit, Kage!" Jason snapped as he yanked the stick back into his lap and shoved the throttle up. The Phoenix shot up off the deck in a vertical "yo-yo" maneuver with Jason chopping the power at the apex and rolling them around, braking hard so they didn't overfly the crash site.

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't my fault," Kage said as he scanned the debris field. "Look! It had an ejectable crew capsule." Jason looked and saw the forward section of the shuttle had broken away and was sitting on a set of spindly looking landing struts, the retrorockets underneath still belching out smoke and steam.

"I'm putting us down just on the other side of where the fuselage hit. We'll use it for cover," Jason said as he extended the landing gear and raised the nose, flaring just before landing. "Lucky, grab me a couple of guns and meet me at the ramp." Once he felt the bump of the wheels touching the hard-packed dirt and the ship's weight settling he popped off his restraints and raced off the bridge without bothering to tell everyone else what he wanted. They knew what to do without him by this point.

"The ejected capsule is just over one hundred meters behind us," Jason said as he accepted his railgun and a plasma sidearm from Lucky. "Our only priority right now is getting Crusher back. Everything else is now a secondary concern."

"Understood, Captain," Lucky said, switching to combat mode as Jason walked over to open the pressure doors and drop the ramp.

"Let's go," he said, jogging down into the dry, cool air of the desert evening and skirting around the edge of the main wreckage. He was shocked to see signs of life as they approached the capsule. One of the pilots had managed to pop the canopy open and was trying to climb out of his seat. Jason lined up on the open canopy and fired a single, low-velocity round from his railgun into it. It only put a small hole in the composite material, but the crack from the round hitting froze the pilot where he was, his eyes wide and fearful.

"Don't even think about moving," Jason said as he approached within ten meters. "Is your partner dead?"

"I ... I believe so," the pilot said. "Why would you do this? We're just delivery pilots."

"Shut up," Jason snapped. "Lucky, check the other one. I don't want a faker shooting me in the back while I question this one. So you're claiming you're just an innocent delivery pilot?"

"I am just an innocent delivery pilot!" the alien claimed shrilly.

"So the loosely wrapped corpse you tossed out earlier is normal for your company?" Jason asked casually. "And the unorthodox high-speed escape you performed afterward?" The alien flinched, dropping his hands slightly.

"This one is indeed dead, Captain," Lucky reported.

"This one is about to be," Jason said, stuffing the muzzle of his sidearm up under the alien's chin. "Talk. We don't have much time before we have to run, so you'll either be here telling this to the authorities later or they'll be scraping your plasma-cooked brains off your canopy."

"I don't know who the contractor was," the pilot said, seeming to deflate and resign himself to his fate. "It was a cash transaction and we were simply told where to be and when."

"Was there any other cargo?" Jason pressed. "Specifically a Galvetic warrior? Or another tarp that was four times as large as the one you tossed out?"

"No. I'd have remembered something like that," the pilot said. "One of the trio that loaded our shuttle was talking on a com unit about 'moving the other one' before we were given our destination coordinates. I'm not sure what that meant. Listen ... I'm in bad shape here. You're going to kill me anyway, could you make it quick?"