Conflagration

Third Law

Erin checked her watch. It had only been about two-and-a-half hours since they'd lost contact with Lyssa, but it felt like it had been days. All over the service platform, people were pacing tensely and checking their watches. They all knew the numbers. The HEVA suit's rebreather could keep Lyssa alive for around twelve-to-fourteen hours. If she didn't return to the surface within that time, they would assume she had failed and died. Erin knew she would likely be next if Lyssa didn't return. Not that Erin cared much whether she herself lived or died. She wanted her friend back, safe and sound.

Lyssa's last message as she'd dropped into the planet's tenebricite shadow had come through staticky, but Erin and Matty had been able to understand. "I just want to say thanks for being my friends," Lyssa had said just as her communicator had lost power. After that, it had become a waiting game.

Erin felt so powerless, thinking about the only real friend she had down there on the bottom of the lake trying to accomplish a nearly impossible task without any help. Erin and Matty actively avoided looking in one another's direction. Erin hated seeing her own worry reflected in the skinny, young pirate's face. It was clear that he really did care about Lyssa. Erin wondered if Lyssa might be right: maybe they should offer to take Matty with them when they leave the planet...

But Erin dismissed this thought. The risks were too great. If Matty ratted them out, their one chance at escape would be blown. No, Matty had chosen to join Third Law. He had loyalties to them as well.

Third Law. What kind of stupid name is that for a mercenary company?

"What's on your mind, airman?"

Erin recognized the voice. She turned to face Col. Tolbert, the new leader of Third Law. Erin hadn't seen Raith since the election and was afraid to ask what exactly Tolbert had done with her predecessor⁠—not that she actually cared all that much. The older pilot sat on a crate watching Erin with her one natural eye and her one prosthetic eye.

"Other than how Lyssa's doing, you mean?" Erin said.

"That's on all our minds."

Erin thought for a moment. She reminded herself that Tolbert had dominion of life and death over both herself and Lyssa. Maybe she should humor her with some conversation. At the very least, it might be good to get her mind off worrying about Lyssa. "I was just wondering, actually, why you guys call yourselves 'Third Law'?"

Tolbert laughed lightly. "Well, you've heard of the Third Law of Newtonian physics? For every action there is an opposite reaction?"

Erin nodded. She was pretty sure that wasn't exactly right, but she held her tongue.

"Well," Tolbert continued. "If somebody hurts you (and you've got the coin) we will bring a very opposite reaction down upon them."

"Ah, I see. That's clever," Erin lied. It was actually stupid.

Tolbert shrugged. "It was the name before I joined up. We work with what we got."

Erin was trying to think of what to say next when one of the lookouts shouted: "Something's coming out of the water! Something big!"

Erin looked to where the lookout was pointing. The lake's surface was being disturbed as some kind of large vessel surfaced. First, the vessel breached the surface and then it kept rising out of the water until it hovered a few meters above the surface. The vessel was huge, about twice the size of the Noémie hardpointer, but it looked like no plane Erin had ever seen before. It was anodized white and had a shape similar to that of an egg. Whereas a chicken's egg has a pointed and a more rounded end, this vessel had two pointed ends. It had no wings, empennage, nor any airfoils of any kind. Erin couldn't see its engines, but she could hear them. They didn't sound like the shrieking spaceplane engines Erin was used to. Instead, they thrummed with a deep, fast pulsing sound. At first, she couldn't even tell which end was the nose and which was the tail. Then, she noticed that on one of the vessel's ends was painted a string of letters and numbers, 330IH, next to the image of a flag she didn't recognize. Tail numbers. So that end must be the plane's tail, but so far as Erin could see the other end had no discernible cockpit windows.