It's been perking a while, and the first cup just came outta the pot.
Enjoy! :)
Oh, and PLEASE - C&C is gratefully accepted. I need it!
Brian Payne
sofaspud@sofaspud.org
http://www.sofaspud.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the years following the Ascension, as it came to be known, the people
left behind on Earth had made great strides towards regaining their lost
former glory. Mighty Human citadels encroached on the wilds that had
overrun the planet under the Invid's rule; mighty Nature fought back.
The lack of true, powerful technology - a lack which was being remedied
very quickly - was all that was keeping the Humans from what they felt
was rightfully theirs.
As time went on, the wilds had no choice but to give way. Painfully,
the Humans reclaimed acre after acre of land from what had been chaos.
But it was a slow process - Nature was on much more even footing with
Humanity than it had been in times past, and the Invid experiments had
only added to her abilities. Humans that preferred the outlaw life
flourished, preying on those weaker than themselves at every
opportunity. Still, some sort of government was slowly creeping into
place, led by those who had survived the end of the Invid and were
determined to survive these dark times as well.
In situations such as these, there have to be pioneers. Explorers.
Conquerors. People who don't think twice about shooting first and
asking questions later, or living away from Human contact for months, or
strafing a bandit camp because it seemed like the right thing to do at
the time.
* * *
Too Much Caffeine Productions
in association with
Sofaspud's Imagination
presents
PUSHING THE ENVELOPE
Chapter One
* * *
I certainly never felt like a hero. But when Sin - short for
something, but she would never tell me what - looked at me with that
expression in her dark green eyes, I had a real hard time saying no.
"No goddamn way. Are you nuts?" I said.
See?
"But Ch-e-t..." she whined. I can't stand whining. Especially from
pretty redheads.
"I said no, and I meant it, Sin."
She pouted her lips and looked at me. Damn. I hate that.
"Sin..." I began, but she cut me off.
"It's okay, Chet. I know how it is. You got a run to make, and
anyway, the militia should be here any day now. Go on."
There ought to be a law against pretty girls crying, dammit.
* * *
The air is a great place to think. Especially when you're doing
something you'd rather not.
Welcome to the mind of Chet Wallace. I'm a drifter, a loner, an
explorer. Hell, for the past two years, I've been the mail carrier for
the entire state of Arizona... or what used to be the state of Arizona,
at any rate. I shuttle mail (and other things from time to time) back
and forth on the Arizona-Nevada-Idaho run, but only as a way to keep
Wanderer in the air. As soon as I find something better, I'll take it.
In the meantime, I keep myself occupied.
In other words (my mothers'), I'm a no-good useless bum who has too
much time and not enough ambition, and would I please remember to bring
some cigars for Dad next time I come home?
Fair enough. Can't see as how ambition ever does anyone much good,
anyhow - ulcers aren't my idea of happiness, and I'd rather be flying
than telling people what to do.
Flying. Now that's what I call fun. Nothing like being free from
the ground, soaring through the air, no rules, no regulations, nobody
begging favors from me because they know I'm too softhearted to say
no...
Pardon me. Sin pisses me off sometimes, but she's the closest thing
to a steady girlfriend I've ever had... not that that's saying much, I
guess. Hell, I just met her a year ago.
It was my first trip to the god-forsaken hellhole that had been
Tombstone, at some point way in the past. The town was still named
that, and I found it very appropriate as I circled overhead looking for
my landing site. A few low buildings, some outlying farm areas - how in
the world they got food to grow here, I would never know - and there,
nestled between an old shed on one side and the town well on the other,
was the freshly-poured concrete of my landing pad. A small shack at one
corner had a light on inside. I descended slowly, watching tumbleweeds
skitter across the road from the backblast, and set her down gently.
When I climbed out of the cockpit, an old man was waiting for me at
the base of my plane, and a small line had formed at the shack window.
"You the mailman?" he called up as I peered over the edge of the
wing.
"That's right. You're," I perused my scrawled note, "Mr. Santino, I
presume?"
"Yah, that's me. Open 'er up and we'll start unloading," he
replied.
"Right." I reached back inside the cockpit and tripped the cargo
door release by feel. One of the reasons I got the 'sweet' run is that
my plane is faster, has more room, and is safer than most other vehicles
the Post Office has available.
Tombstone was a central hub for several smaller, land-bound mail
routes, and I wasn't surprised to see a half-dozen or so people like
myself there, waiting to collect their parcels and start their own runs.
One of them immediately caught my eye, though.
She was a tall redhead, wearing an old, faded, and much-patched-
though-still-stylish Cyclone bodysuit. The helmet tucked under one arm
was not a Cyclone helmet, though, and was instead a relatively ordinary,
streamlined motorcycle helmet. The helmet and bodysuit matched each
other well, both being the same shade of bright green-blue. Black and
dark blue pinstripes accented her curves, which I must say, were rather
nice.
She looked up as I glanced her over, and our eyes met. Deep, forest
green eyes bored into mine across the tarmac, and I found myself
wondering just what her name was. I felt it had to be something
suitably exotic.
Then she turned away, and the old man clouted me across the back,
saying, "Thanks a lot, kid. We'll tank you up and load the outgoing
stuff, an' you can get out of this shithole, eh?"
I nodded numbly, staring after the departing redhead. "Sure," I
mumbled.
I didn't see her for a month, after that.
* * *
The next time I saw her was under more congenial conditions. It had
been a bigger-than-average run, and a storm blew up while we were
unloading it. When it started raining, as well as blowing, we decided
to pack it in until the storm quit. I sealed Wanderer, we got the
unloaded packages under cover, and Mr. Santino offered to buy me a
drink.
Well, hell. Why not, right?
The town bar was also the town grocery store (such as it was), Post
Office franchise, meeting hall, library, and most everything else. It
was the only building in town with electricity (besides the landing
field shack), which came from a set of power packs that were recharged
by wind, when available, or by hand when it was not.
It usually was; I don't think the wind has ever let up in all the
times I've been there.
After a couple of rounds, Mr. Santino wandered off, saying something
about the darts game in the corner. I wasn't worried. The long flight
had teamed up with the exertion of unloading packages from my plane and
the drinks to make me feel pretty warm and comfortable. I remember
thinking to myself that the landlord surely wouldn't mind if I took a
nap under his table, right?
Then I looked up, and she was there.
"Hi," I chirped, trying to focus my eyes.
"Hi," she replied, sitting down and sipping at her own drink.
A few moments of silence passed.
"Mind if I ask your name?" I inquired dumbly.
She shook her head.
I waited. Then, "What's your name?"
"Call me Sin," she said, looking at me over the rim of her glass
with half-lidded eyes.
I don't remember too much more of the night, save to say that I
didn't get started on my run again until pretty late in the morning.
* * *
Remembering how we met always puts me in a better mood. So much so
that I almost didn't mind that she'd convinced me to go attack some guys
I'd never even met.
Although there was no denying the fact that they deserved it.
I was coming up on the coordinates Sin had given me. There on the
horizon was a plume of smoke from a campfire or three, and I saw the
tell-tale glint of light reflecting off of the cockpits of their
vehicles.
I grinned. Usually, I try not to get involved in these brush wars,
or any wars, for that matter. Doing so is a sure ticket to a short
life, and I ain't interested in a short life. But this time was
different. No one knew for sure where these guys had come from, but
they had tech, and they were hot, and they had shot down the town
defenses within seconds, then strutted in and took what they wanted.
Including Sin's little sister, just turned nineteen. Little was a
bit of a misnomer for this gal; standing straight, she topped Sin by a
good two-three inches, and Sin wasn't a short girl.
And both of them could fight dirty, as I can attest. Ooh my aching
back...
So it was with some relish that I flipped down my visor and
activated the weapons systems. Sin's sister - Sara was her name - had
escaped on her own on one of their bikes and had the ear of one of the
bandits as a trophy. She seemed unharmed, but was very very pissed.
And she knew where their camp was.
Between her and Sin, I didn't stand a chance, dammit.
My weapons systems came online with a faint bleep, and the threat
computer instantly locked two of the vehicles on the ground. They were
planes, and they were 'hot'. I keyed up a constant-aspect magnification
on the fighters, and was rewarded with a view of a couple of men running
towards each.
Oh, HELL no. I don't think so, guys. Letting them get up in the
air would be my own death warrant.
I pitched down a tad, watching my airspeed bleed off quickly, and
let loose with several bursts from the chin-mounted laser pods. One of
the fighters burst open with a roar, and I juked to avoid the fireball.
I glanced over my shoulder as I boosted away, and saw that the other had
lost a wing.
Good enough. I wasn't out to kill them, after all - I just needed
to slow them down so they didn't come back to the town for a couple of
days. By then, the militia would have arrived, and that'd be all she
wrote.
I turned off the weapons systems, swept back the wings, and hit the
throttle. Sin was right about one thing - I did have a run to make.
* * *
It's times like this, when I'm flying along late at night, with the
ground far below and the sky all around me, that I wonder about my life.
I suppose I should consider myself lucky. I have my own plane, most
of my family is still alive, and I don't often go hungry.
My plane is my life, to be honest. Without it, I'd be stuck
wheeling around on the beat-up old motorcycle that lives in the back of
the cargo area, never going beyond a few hundred miles from where I grew
up.
I shuddered. That's something to be scared of, believe me.
Dad was a tech, back when the robbies were around, before the
Ascension. Mom always wonders why I didn't inherit his ambition. My
hometown has running water, electricity, and is relatively well-
defended.
All thanks to good ol' Dad.
Feh. He was so busy off tinkering with his gadgets and bothering
the Mayor that he never had much time for us kids. Oh, I'm not angry
with him about it - well, not much - but until I turned sixteen, I
didn't see him much.
My sixteenth year was the year that Dad and Uncle Craig (Mom's
brother) found the old Veritech crumpled into the earth at the far end
of Kelly's Gulch. It was bone-dry on 'culture, which Dad claimed was
the reason it had crashed.
"That poor bastid," he'd say, shaking his head at the empty cockpit.
"He never had a chance, crossin' this waste."
Well, that may have been true, I guess - I'm not old enough to know
first-hand what the end of the Invid era was like.
At any rate, Dad drafted me and my brother Aaron. Ron was a bit of
an odd one to the rest of us. He was five years older than myself, and
had moved out to live on his own two years previous. He was the town
librarian, of sorts - at least, he would read to people from his meager
collection of books and fiche, and after the Post Office started up,
he'd read letters and such to people who couldn't. And always, always,
always, he was trying to teach people to read on their own. To this
day, I don't know what he saw in those books. I can read, but it's not
something I do to enjoy myself. Now, Ron, on the other hand...
Dad and Uncle Craig, me and Ron, we all went traipsing out one dark
night to Kelly's Gulch. A drier place you will not find, and the wind
was blowing that night, stirring up the dust and making my eyes and
throat itch.
Uncle Craig had a bunch of metal poles stacked on the back of his
wheezing flatbed truck, and Dad had brought all the rope he could
scrounge from the town. We worked for hours under gas lanterns, banging
our shins and bumping our heads, until we'd rigged a hoist over the
plane. Then we got to work some more, digging it out enough to get the
ropes under it.
God, I hated this bird back then.
All in all, it took three days for us to hoist it out of the gulch,
working only at night to keep it secret. Dad had this notion that, if
anyone but us knew about it, they'd strip it and sell it. Or something.
I get the feeling sometimes, when Dad asks me to tell him about my
trips, that I'm living his dreams.
The last night was the most fun. We'd finally got the plane out,
and swung it over to rest on its' landing gear. Amazingly enough, the
gear was perfectly functional, if a bit dusty.
Tough birds, these are.
Dad and Uncle Craig hooked their trucks to the nose wheel, and we
towed it back to our house. Just before we started out, Dad clambered
up on the plane and gestured for me to join him. I watched him fiddle
for a few moments, then the cockpit opened, and Dad practically shoved
me in.
"You need to steer it for me, son. Just keep the nose pointed right
between our trucks, and you'll be fine," he said, placing my hand on the
stick.
That's when I really began to feel like I wanted to be part of this
project. Something about the way the stick moved in my hand, the way
the plane responded to my commands, made me want to get her in the air
and see what she could do.
We lived outside of town at the time, and Dad already had a half-
underground, covered shop that he tinkered in all too often. The plane
was - barely - small enough to fit inside, although we had to remove the
front wall to get it in.
And then the real work started.
Dad said that, without 'culture, we'd never restore the old girl to
her former glory. And since 'culture wasn't exactly something we could
buy, make, or steal, he had to come up with some other way to power her.
He did. For a year, she sat under tarps in the shop, and no one
touched her. Dad left with Uncle Craig, and didn't exactly enlist in
the still-forming military at what had been the state capital. But
somehow, he worked out an agreement with them. I guess techs were as
valuable then as they are now.
After the year of service, he came back with two turbines strapped
to the back of Uncle Craig's flatbed. They were pre-Macross designs, he
said, and would work on a variety of fuels. Perfect for this day and
age.
Well, no, not perfect, Dad. She's awful picky about fuel, as you
well know. But you meant well.
For another year, we worked her over. Installing the turbines was
the easy part. Getting her systems to work with them was something
else.
In the end, Dad had to chop out a lot of the capabilities that the
original design had. Gone was the humanoid form - the new turbines and
control paths couldn't support it. And without 'culture, and it's -
according to Dad - ability to interface with Human minds, that mode
wouldn't have been usable anyway. He was able to save the so-called
Guardian mode, though, which is damn useful. How many towns nowadays
have landing strips?
Finally, two and a half years after they found her dead, she came to
life completely for the first time.
We named her Wanderer.
I was in love.
* * *
Sorry if I tend to ramble. Flying is great for relaxation, and for
thinking, and for talking to yourself, and there's not much else to do
right now until I get this damn autopilot fixed so I can get some sleep.
It's a damn good thing that these birds were so tough. Neither of
us knew how to fly, and had to turn to Ron for textbook instruction.
Since his only fiche on flying was for prop-driven crop-dusters, and of
a hundred-year-old book to boot, we weren't exactly keen on relying on
it.
Still, flying is flying. The method differs, but the mechanics are
the same. It took the better part of a year, and several repairs to the
landing gear, but we learned.
And we found that, seemingly for the first time in my life, I was
good at something.
The year we learned to fly was the year that the Post Office started
business. It wasn't like old times (or so I'm told); this Post Office
was a private business, and meant to make money. Their representative
explained to the town that they used a franchise system, which made Dad
mutter something about fast food and clip joints.
Dad was always muttering about something.
They were looking for carriers. Men and women to shuttle packages
and parcels back and forth across the wastes, and they'd pay for it.
You provide the vehicle, they provide the fuel and limited repairs, and
a decent paycheck in the currency of your choice.
It sounded interesting... but Dad didn't agree.
"It's a fools notion, son," he'd say every time the subject came up.
Which it did. A lot. I was twenty then, and wanted out. Out of the
house, out of the town, out of the country if I could manage it.
"Think about it. You've got a beat-up bike, and no weapons. You'll
be carrying packages across bandit-infested wastes. What chance do you
think you have?"
"But Dad - " I'd start.
"No buts. You are not doing it. Look what happened to Christy, for
God's sake!"
Christy always ended the argument. She was Dad's trump card.
Christy was a neighbor. To me, she was mostly an annoyance, because
she and my little sister were best friends, and enjoyed tormenting me
whenever they could.
Girls do that.
She was one of the first to take the job. She was gone for a week
at a time, then came back in her tri-wheel, loaded with parcels. It was
amazing how many people had stuff they wanted to send to others,
especially at the beginning.
During her tenth run, she was jumped only ten miles from home by a
couple of punks from one of the smaller towns that dotted our area. The
poor girl rode one of the punks down with her tri-wheel, showing a
remarkable sense of self-preservation, but was knocked off her trike by
the second.
I was not privy to details beyond that, but Dad was white for a week
after he came back.
* * *
Thinking about Christy always gets me down. I let Wanderer fly
herself for a moment while I turned and rummaged in the mini-cooler
behind my seat. One pop-top later, I was sucking down an ice-cold root
beer with my left hand while my right brought us back on course. It's
an expensive habit, but I've found that I go nuts unless I spend a
little on myself once in a while.
A chirp from my instrument panel caught my attention, and I tucked
away the drink and returned both hands to the controls. My left thumb
flicked, and a semi-transparent comm window opened up on the heads-up
display.
General Matthias Briggs glared at me through bushy eyebrows, framed
by smoke from his ever-present cigar. I'd met him in person once, and
knew from experience that those cigars smelled worse than they looked.
"General Briggs, to what do I owe the honor?" I inquired politely,
keeping the smirk off my face.
Ol' Briggs was NOT happy with me, I was sure. He seemed to take it
as an insult that I wasn't subject to his every whim, but still flew a
military fighter. Fortunately for me, his territory was only a small
part of my route, and marked as a contested zone on my charts... which
meant I could just para-drop the parcels, and didn't have to land.
Thank God; I heard through the grapevine that Briggs was after every
flightworthy fighter he could find... and I got the feeling that he
wouldn't mind acquiring Wanderer, given the chance.
"Mr. Wallace. You're right on time, as usual. We've set up a field
for your use, at these -"
"Excuse me, General, but I'm afraid I can't do that. I'll be
dropping the parcels as usual, as soon as I'm over the drop zone."
The general frowned, and chomped on his cigar. "That's not
acceptable this time, carrier. Didn't you get the orders from the Post
Office HQ at your last stop?"
Now it was my turn to frown. "I'm afraid not, General. What
orders?"
He smiled, and it wasn't a pleasant smile. "I'll transmit a copy
immediately. Feel free to verify them, of course - the franchise
postmaster is standing by."
I nodded slowly. "I see. Thank you, General, and I'll contact you
as soon as I've determined what my orders are. Out."
I closed the connection and leaned back. This did not bode well...
* * *
The transmission came through almost instantly. As I read my
orders, I finished my root beer, and thought long, black thoughts about
my boss, Mara.
Mara, the Ice Queen of P.O. 131, my home station. She liked me, I
liked her, but damn, that woman drove me nuts. She loved setting up
surprises like this one. Had I been around to contest it, we never
would have accepted the contract - I've got enough pull for that, at
least as long as I own Wanderer.
Now it was too late. The client was expecting what he'd paid for,
and Wanderer or no, I'd be fired if I broke a contract with a client
without good cause.
I sighed, and requested a comm session with the franchise postmaster
and the general. Both came online immediately.
"I've reviewed the orders, gentlemen, and find them to be in order.
Where is the field?"
Both of them smiled, although the General's was considerably more
predatory than the postmaster's.
I wrote down the coordinates the General rattled off with unfelt
haste, then signed off again.
Dammit, Mara knew I hated shuttling passengers.
* * *
The field was barren, with no cover around to speak of. Two
refueling trucks stood by, ready to top off Wanderer's tanks.
Floodlights bathed the ground, and the press-formed soil of the runway
was flanked by portable signal lamps. I had to admit, it was the best
airfield I'd seen outside of Post Office HQ.
I dropped low on my approach run, trying to convince myself that the
General had too much to lose by alienating the Post Office... which he
would surely do if he took out one of their carriers.
The thought didn't cheer me much.
Just before Wanderer's landing gear touched down, I flared her out
and shifted to Guardian mode, skating on the foot jets to a slow stop.
I didn't want to give the General any advantage that I didn't have to,
and being able to take off instantly was a big plus in my favor. I shut
down the engines, but kept the turbines themselves spinning - I wanted
to be able to get out of here in a hurry.
The tenders nosed forward as soon as I shut down the engines. I
heard the muffled clanks as they fastened on to the refueling ports, and
my fuel indicator began edging up. Good enough.
The comm system bleeped again. I activated it.
"Mr. Wallace, might I ask what that was all about?" inquired the
postmaster for this region. He was sweating, although I couldn't be
sure if that was from nervousness or from the hot summer night. My
board indicated the outside temperature was eighty-five. Yowch.
"Just being careful, Shelby," I replied glibly. Shelby McPierce was
a relative newbie to the biz, and I still didn't know what
qualifications he had to be running the show for this region. None of
the carriers liked him much, and we all ribbed him a bit whenever we got
the chance. He didn't seem to mind, which had always struck me as odd.
"Ah... I see, I guess. Ah... were you going to, um, come out?"
"Not a chance, man. I'll lower the ladder and open the rear
cockpit, and the General's passenger can climb in. Once they're in,
I'll seal up, go over details, and take off. I'm on a schedule, you
know." The last I said with a grin.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure. She should be coming out any moment now.
Um... out."
The window blinked off, and I sat back to wait.
It was only about ten minutes before the girl came out, riding in
the back of a new-looking jeep. The tenders had finished and moved off,
so hers was the only vehicle close by. I lowered the ladder and popped
the cover on the rear cockpit.
Wanderer, by her very nature, is a custom bird. One of the
customizations that Dad and I made when the Post Office started taking
on passenger duties was to seal off the rearmost half of the twin-seat
original cockpit. Now, it was comfortably padded, sealed with a clear
plate of armor glass from my forward cockpit, and had a modest
entertainment unit mounted. All the original backup controls had been
removed.
It could also be flooded with sleepgas at a moments notice from my
compartment... but I didn't tell my passengers that.
"Permission to come aboard, captain?" chirped the young blonde as
she appeared over the edge of the cockpit. I groaned.
"Yeah, yeah, hop on in and strap down."
As soon as she'd finished strapping herself down, I sealed the
cockpit. The man driving the jeep, a lieutenant if I read the insignia
right, stood there somewhat helplessly with a pair of bags draped over
his arm. I tripped the cargo door release for him, watching his
progress on the several outside monitor cameras. As soon as he'd stowed
the bags and drove away, I sealed up completely and contacted the
General again.
"We're all set here, General," I said, keying the startup codes for
the engines into my console. "Permission to take off?"
The General looked frustrated beyond belief, but his tone was
polite. "Granted, Mr. Wallace. Clear skies." The connection
terminated abruptly as Wanderer's engines came online.
"You ready back there?" I asked, flipping on the internal comm
system.
"Sure!" she replied. Oh, great - a chipper one.
"Here we go," I said, and edged the throttle forward. Wanderer
leapt up from the runway, and I switched her back to Fighter
configuration as we cleared the ground. The girl yelped in surprise a
bit as Wanderer folded around us, but settled down and soon had her face
pressed against the inside of the cockpit, staring out.
Good enough; I wasn't in the mood to talk to her anyway. As we
cleared ten thousand feet I raked back the wings and went supersonic.
Mara's little trick had put me behind schedule, and I couldn't afford
the penalties for that again.
* * *
We crossed the Nevada border late that night. The ruins of the old
Hoover Dam glinted dully below in the moonlight, and I could see the
lights from the Angels compound, just barely on the Nevada side of the
border.
Not that borders meant much anymore, but the Post Office had decided
to use the old states as points of reference, rather than relying on the
ever-changing political boundaries between various factions out here in
the wilds. It was a smart decision, as far as I was concerned, but some
of our clients didn't seem to agree.
My board blared an alert, and I glanced at the tac display. The
Angels had loosed a surface-to-air missile. They were an optimistic
bunch if they thought it could hit me at this altitude and speed. I
watched the missile fall farther and farther behind, then detonate with
a bright flash.
They almost always tried to shoot me down. I was starting to wonder
just where they got the supply of missiles from.
"What happened?" came the voice from the backseat. I jumped,
banging my helmet on the inside of the canopy.
That is just one of the reasons I don't like ferrying passengers. I
never know when they're going to say something and startle me.
"Nothing important," I replied, settling back down in my seat. "One
of the Angels felt lucky tonight, and shot at us."
Dead silence from the backseat. I glanced at the small monitor
displaying my passenger compartment. She had gone pale.
"Don't worry," I hurriedly said. "The missiles can't catch us this
high up, and it's already gone. We're safe."
She nodded, but color was slow in returning to her cheeks.
"So tell me a little bit about yourself," I said, reaching up and
keying my visor back so she could see my face better in her screen. She
saw right through the ploy - the look in her eyes told me that - but she
seemed to calm down a bit anyhow.
"What do you want to know?"
I grinned. "Oh, I dunno. Anything. Why am I ferrying you to Salt
Lake, for example?"
"Oh, I can't tell you that," she said, giggling. Her good humor had
apparently been restored, just like that. I'm good, I know it.
Yeah, right.
"Military secret or something, huh?" I said. "Okay, I gotcha. So
tell me a bit about you, then."
"Well... okay, I guess. There's not much to tell." She frowned
cutely in the screen. "I should introduce myself, too, I suppose. My
name's Jennifer. Jennifer Briggs."
Oh, SHIT. "Jennifer Briggs?" I echoed faintly. "Any relation to,
ah..."
She giggled again. "Yes, as a matter of fact. He's my
grandfather."
"... ah..." was all I could manage. Mara, I vowed to myself, I'm
going to kick your butt from here back down to Tombstone next time I see
you! Glaring at the skies ahead, I absently picked up my root beer and
took a swig.
My passenger didn't seem to notice my discomfort. "Grandpa likes
you, you know."
I sprayed root beer all over the cockpit. "What?!" I demanded,
half-turning in my seat to look at Jennifer directly.
"He... he likes you. What? You didn't know?" she said, looking
perplexed.
For my part, I wasn't just perplexed - I was stunned. Matthias
Briggs liked *me*? The thought was laughable!
I was so lost in my shock that I almost didn't hear when she next
spoke. "Um... are we supposed to be diving like this?"
"Huh? Oh!" I faced forward again and brought Wanderer back on
course. "Generalissimo Briggs likes *me*?" I numbly muttered, only
half-expecting a response. I frowned at the root beer still trickling
down the inside of the canopy, and began to wipe it off with my
handkerchief.
"Yes," she replied. In the monitor, her face formed a small frown.
"He doesn't like it when people call him that, though."
"Sorry," I replied, although I really wasn't. What did I care what
the General thought of the name, right?
"S'okay," she said. "Now, what about you?"
I shrugged. "What you see is what there is, really. My name's Chet
Wallace. I fly this plane - she's Wanderer, by the way - and that's
about it."
"'Wanderer'? Pretty name."
"Thanks. I didn't think of it, though. My sister gets the credit
for that." I finished cleaning the canopy as best I could and sat back.
I still couldn't get it through my head that, apparently, Briggs
liked me. It was just too odd. "Say, Jennifer," I began. She cut me
off.
"Look out!" she screamed, pointing to our starboard side. I shot a
glance in that direction, then kicked the rudder and yanked on the
stick, ramming the throttle forward to the firewall at the same time.
Wanderer twisted and dropped, upside-down, and the dark shape that I'd
half-seen outside the cockpit brushed by so close that I could feel the
wind of it's passage through the controls.
"Hold on!" I barked, keying my visor back down. I rolled us out of
the dive, then scanned the skies furiously. My sensors still showed
nothing.
Without warning, bright bursts of laser fire began whistling by
overhead. I sideslipped out of the line of fire, and glanced back over
my shoulder.
Holding position behind us, so close I could see the figure in the
cockpit, was a dark jet of unfamiliar design. It still didn't show up
on my sensors. My blood ran cold.
"Jennifer, there's a helmet behind your seat. Put it on," I
commanded as I evaded the pursuing fighter. He stuck on our tail like
glue. Burdened as Wanderer was with cargo, I couldn't pull the more
dangerous maneuvers that would give us a fighting chance.
"What's going on?" she cried, fumbling with the helmet straps. I
ignored her. The guy behind us was good, damn good, and was obviously
toying with us - he'd had us made from the start, and hadn't taken the
shot when he had the chance. I flicked on the comm system.
"Wanderer to unknown fighter! Identify yourself! Why are you
attacking us?"
Another salvo, closer this time, flashed by. Then a comm window
opened up, displaying an "AUDIO ONLY" in the middle of the frame.
"Nothing personal, Wallace. But your passenger is another matter.
Want to save us both the trouble and simply eject her right now?"
"How do you know who I am?" I replied. He seemed content to remain
on our tail and had stopped shooting, and shaking him had been proving
difficult. The way I figured, if I kept him talking, we could still
come out of this in one piece.
"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to," he said. I
could hear the smirk even through the audio-only comm link. "Back to
the topic at hand: are you going to make things easy for both of us, or
do I take you down piece by piece?"
"You obviously want her alive," I said, more confidently than I
felt. "If you didn't, you'd have slagged us by now."
"True. She's no good to me dead. You know as well as I that I can
take you down without killing you, though."
I muted the pickup for a moment. "Do you know what this is all
about, Jennifer?"
She shook her head, eyes wide and face pale in stark terror.
"Great," I muttered. I restored the link. "I'm afraid I must
decline your offer, sir," I said, in the most insultingly polite tone
that I could.
For a moment, there was silence. Then: "You've got balls, Wallace.
Too bad about your plane; she's a beauty." The window vanished from my
HUD.
"You ain't seen nothing yet, asshole," I muttered, and yanked the
cargo-door release.
* * *