[Hope]
Yellow lights blinked on the monitoring panel as the quantum drive hummed to life. The ship shook, enough that Hope grabbed the ladder for support. But after a moment, the shaking subsided to an eerie calm. She glanced up at the panel, reading a relative velocity number of twenty-seven-point-three C.
"Whoo-hoo!" Hope shouted, lifting her fists high.
"Awesome, Hope," Gabriel said over the intercom. "Glad we didn't die."
A joy warmed her heart. She remained in the drive room, continuously monitoring the drive status. After several minutes, the core temperature climbed to a caution level, and the numbers blinked yellow. In two more minutes, they blinked red and warning beeps sounded.
"Are you seeing this?" Gabriel asked.
"Yes. Shutting down now. Any sign of the frigate?"
"Nope. Maybe we hit it with the stingers."
Hope smiled. "Have to admit, Gab, that was some amazing flying you did."
"Don't jinx me, Hope."
With Gabriel's help, Hope ran full diagnostics on the quantum drive and recharged the cooling system. However, excessive vibrations from the fusion reactors concerned her, even though the diagnostics revealed no serious issues.
She joined her brother on the bridge. "What now?"
"Since our coms are toast, we go find a long-range com and call dad, preferably somewhere with no Commonwealth presence." With a touch of a button, Gabriel pulled up a holographic star map. "Unfortunately, the Corsair's range is limited." Using his finger, he selected a few occupied star systems beyond the outer colonies and scrolled through the listings. "There," he pointed, "Ephenia. Kinda a backwater world, but no Commonwealth base, although it has a Trade Consortium office."
"Okay. Let's go." Hope paused before bringing up that which troubled her mind. "Do you think Eshe and Celeste are all right?"
Gabriel leaned back and crossed his arms. "Well, Eshe is as fierce and resourceful as they come. And Celeste has come back from the dead once before. So, yeah, I think they will be all right."
Hope closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I wish I had Gab's optimism.
When Hope reopened her eyes, she noticed Gabriel eying her up and down with a smirk. She narrowed her eyes. "What?"
"You're a mess."
Her mind formulated a biting retort, but then her eyes drifted down to her body. The green coolant had stained her gray overalls, particularly from the knees down. Black lubricant smears marked the upper half of her outfit as well as her hands, and, she thought, probably on her face. Tangles of long dark hair partially obscured her vision.
Hope sighed. "I don't look much like an Empress, do I?"
"That's okay." Gabriel smiled. "You do some of your best work messed up."
After two days, they reached the desert world of Ephenia, which orbited binary stars, a Sol-like yellow sun with a smaller red dwarf companion. Narrow streaks of greens marked the muted reds and browns of the continents, separated by shallow turquoise seas. The primary exports from this world, lithium salts and rare-earth metals, were loaded onto Consortium freighters at two space ports at opposite sides of the planet.
"And that is why we don't want to dock at the space ports," Gabriel explained. "Too much Consortium presence there. Besides, us showing up in a stolen Commonwealth Corsair would look really suspicious."
Hope scrolled across a surface map on the forward display. "The principal city, Oran, has a Sol Priestess office. And it will have a long-range com." She turned to Gabriel. "Are you sure you can land this ship? A Corsair is not designed for atmospheric flight."
"Are you afraid I might scratch the paint?"
"No. I am afraid of having my body parts scattered across a smoldering crater."
"It's not a problem." He shrugged. "How hard could it be?"
*****
"That was probably the worst landing ever," Hope fumed. "I thought you said it would be no problem."
She gazed back at the wrecked starship. The long rounded gray body listed to one side with the nose half buried in a sand dune alongside a red rock outcropping. A long trench in the rocky ground trailed behind the Corsair, littered with external pieces of the vessel. A lazy wisp of dark smoke rose from the wreckage.
Shimmering waves of heat lifted from the dry land. To the west, a vortex of dust staggered its way across the flats like a drunkard. Sparse vegetation, mainly low thorny scrubs and dry grasses, struggled to grow in the cracked russet soil. To the east, the flats gave way to rocky hills and a steep-sided dry gorge. A metal suspension bridge that crossed the deep canyon led onward to the brown earthen walls of Oran.
Gabriel threw his hands up. "Hey, we walked away from it, didn't we? How was I to know a fusion reactor would fail? I thought I did good just to keep us alive."
"Yeah, well one of my first official acts as Empress might be to ban you from ever piloting a starship again."
"You can't." Gabriel grinned. "As the Empress' brother, I have full immunity."
"It doesn't work that--" Billowing dust clouds in the distance caught Hope's eye. "Someone is coming."
"Maybe they will help us," Gabriel said, then drew his lips tight. "But seeing how this trip is going, maybe not." He turned toward his sister and handed her the pulse pistol from his holster. "Hide the gun and be ready, just in case." Hope stuffed it behind her back in the blue scarf that wrapped around her waist.
Four hover cycles skimmed side by side across the plains, suspended above the ground with four fans each, swirling dust in their wakes. When the cycles arrived, they settled to the ground in a semi-circle around the siblings. Four men dismounted, wearing tattered dusty clothes. Wrappings covered their mouths, and goggles their eyes, concealing much of their dark faces. Two black-haired women remained behind, straddling the cycle seats and wearing similar garb. Most concerning to Hope, however, were the weapons the men carried, two with old style projectile guns and two with more modern pulse rifles.
Gabriel stepped forward with one hand up in greeting. "Hello, would you help us?"
The men did not answer, instead one lifted a hand-held device and scanned Gabriel. He shook his head to a companion, who then snapped a rifle up and fired, sending a stun pulse at Gabriel's gut. Hope gasped as spasms overtook her brother and he crumpled to the ground.
"Gab!" she shouted, stepping toward him. But then she stopped as a projectile handgun appeared, pointing at her head. The man holding the weapon lowered the wrap covering his mouth, revealing a malicious smile with cracked and yellowed teeth. He came forward, his eyes regarding her.
Hope narrowed her eyes. You shall not threaten us.
In a practiced flash of motion, Hope grabbed the man's wrist, pushing up and away. The gun went off with a sharp crack, but shot above her shoulder. Spinning closer, she drove an elbow into the man's throat. Gasping for breath, he bent over. An uppercut punch sent him to the ground.
The three other men stood like statues, apparently stunned by her violent action. Hope jumped to the side while pulling the pulse pistol from behind her back. She fired, striking another man in the chest with a stun pulse. Her next shot missed as the two remaining men scurried back.
Sprinting, Hope dove behind a large red boulder just as a plasma bolt blasted against its face. Two more blasts came, pelting her with bits of shattered rock.
Hope's ears tracked the whir of fans as one of the hover cycles circled around the wrecked starship, attempting to flank her. Ducking down, she dashed behind the cover of the rock outcropping toward the sound. This is my chance.
On the hover cycle, one of the women came into view, holding up a projectile gun. Hope was ready and fired first. The pulse threw the woman off the back of the machine. Heart racing, Hope sprinted to the cycle and jumped on. Shoving the throttle forward, she spun around in circles, kicking clouds of dust into the air to cover her escape.
Speeding away, she glanced back to her brother's slumped form. I'm coming back for you, Gab. I promise!
One man rose and shouldered his pulse rifle, firing, while the other ran back to his cycle. Plasma bolts streaked by Hope, left and right, bursting against the ground in flashes of orange and dust as she raced ahead in a zig-zag path. With jagged rocks looming below the steep canyon edge, she turned sharply toward the bridge. If I can just make it across.
Hope screamed at a searing hot pain originating from her left leg. Then spinning, falling, tumbling over the canyon edge. A sharp hit took away her breath and dizzied her mind. Then another. More tumbling. Another hard hit. Pain. Then darkness.