Conflagration

Bastards

"Fuck the safety valve! Bolt it closed if you have to. Give me more speed!" Col. Tolbert shouted at the steam barge's boiler operator. "That bitch O'Connell is about to get away with our paycheck. If the boiler blows, you'll never know it."

"Yes, ma'am," the boiler operator said as he used a ratchet to begin cranking more tension into the safety valve's spring.

The hardpointer, now just under a kilometer beyond their bow, had pulled away from the service platform. O'Connell hadn't turned on the freighter's external lights, which was smart, but the big plane was still easy enough to see in the dim moonlight. From the barge's bow, several men were taking pot shots at the hardpointer. Col. Tolbert knew that their rifles couldn't hurt the sturdily built freighter, especially at this range, and likely the men knew it too. It was a waste of ammo, but Tolbert let the men have their fun.

She was more concerned with what her technical specialist was doing. Sgt. Trig was trying to get their portable, fast-cycling communicator operating. "Trigger, that thing working yet?"

"Sporadically, ma'am," Trigger answered. "We must be just at the edge of the tenebricite shadow. 'Nother couple minutes and we should have a reliable signal to our main forces."

"Good. As soon as you get a signal to the terraforming rig, tell them what's going on. Get our fighters and gunships in the air. Tell them to intercept and disable that freighter."

"Yes, ma'am," Trig answered.

"Just disable. Make sure they understand not to blow it up or anything stupid like that. That civvie piece of shit is hauling our paycheck."

"Roger that, colonel."

"And tell them to send somebody out here with a fighter for me. I need to be airborne."

* * *

Lyssa had seen some terrible things in her lifetime, but nothing like this. She couldn't make her brain think. She heard a sound and only vaguely recognized it as Erin's voice. She couldn't make out the words, though. She couldn't think. Her brain had just stopped.

"Are you guys aboard?" Erin asked again into her headset and again got no response. "I can't take off until you guys are aboard and I'm still showing the upper hatch open." Erin waited another moment as she listened to more small arms fire pling against the hardpointer's outer skin. She wasn't worried about the bullets hurting the plane. The enemy's steam barge was still about a kilometer away and Erin knew enough about guns to know that was extreme range for most projectile rifles. Besides, the hardpointer was built tough enough to withstand the rigors of spaceflight with dozens of containers locked onto its external hardpoints. The bullets were like mosquito bites to an elephant.

What did concern Erin was the unnerving silence on the intercom. "Crew Chief Ruiz, are you guys aboard? I need that hatch shut."

Still no answer from Lyssa.

Erin turned in her seat and looked over her right shoulder. She stared down the plane's central corridor, but all the lights were off. She could see neither Lyssa nor Matty back there. She feared the worst. There was nothing for it; she would have to go back and check the situation out for herself.

Erin climbed out of the captain's seat and made her way down the central corridor, past the crew quarters and into the darkened galley area where the upper hatch still stood open. She turned the lights on and saw what had happened. Lyssa looked stunned. Her eyes stared forward, unfocused. She held what was left of Matty's head in her lap, as though trying to comfort him.

Erin knelt and held her friend, but Lyssa made no acknowledgement of her presence. She's in shock, Erin realized.

Erin stood up, ran into the nearest crew quarter. The pirates had ransacked the room, but she found a blanket rumpled on the floor. She took the blanket back out to the galley and draped it over Matty's body. The covering of Matty's head seemed to (at least partially) snap Lyssa out of her trance-like state.