Gormanz, the operator of the Quinotaur, stuck his grizzled head up the hatch of the cockpit and ascended to approach the slim figure in the pilot's chair, her hands resting easy on the control wheel. "Madame le Nautonnier?" he asked. "Are we going for a cold transfer?"
The young woman at the wheel glanced over her shoulder at him, careful to keep one eye on the narrow duct through which she manuevered the behemoth. "Yes, fortunately or unfortunately." Cold transfers, or picking up someone from a ship out in the field, tended to bring her back memories she'd rather not remember, but it proved better than going to a less than friendly base to board a new crew member. And considering MetaLogic's recent hard-earned defection from the Cypherites, and the report she'd seen on his and his lady-love Monica getting into a scuffle with Ebola, she didn't doubt the Cypherites had a mark on the Quinotaur. Granted, the ship was one of the most-decorated in the Merovingian fleet, with dozens of kills, but in a tight space, it's size could work against them.
"Are we close enough to transfer Monica's construct to the partition in Terminal Dogma?" Sieges asked.
"Negative, Madame le Nautonnier, I could open a link to Outpost Segur, but the bandwidth was insufficient," Gormanz replied.
"All right. Get HKS and LinksLife to the gun turrets, fore and aft. We may have company."
"As you wish, Madame le Nautonnier," Gormanz said, bowing and descending to the ship's core.
The ship's holographic projecter at her side hummed as it lit up, and a pale image of a hovercraft standing down came into view above the lens. "That must be it," she said. She keyed the cockpit's external comlink and opened a secure link to MetaLogic. "This is Sieges of the Quinotaur, to MetaLogic, do you read me?"
The comlink rustled, and a voice replied, "Sieges? Good to hear you. It's getting a bit hot down here." She recognized Meta's voice from conversations they'd had over the external link, and he sounded nervous.
"Hold on for a few moments more: we're here for you," she said. She stood the ship down and waited for the thump and jostle as it set down own the tunnel floor.
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Meta slipped out the access hatch at the back end of the ship, then reached up to pull out the box of parts he had stolen from the ship, as a gift to his friend and captain in a state of becoming, then swung out a duffle bag with. He felt the ground shake in the near distance; he looked up, but saw nothing. Following the direction of the impact tremor, he headed up the tunnel, walking as confidently and quickly as he could with the baggage he carried. Just a few moments more and he could jack into the ship's construct to visit with his love.
His footsteps echoed off the dank walls of the passageway, and at length, he came to a large indentation in the ground, in which the water dripping down the tunnel walls had collected. He walked as carefully as he could around the edges, but he still felt the water run over the toes of his boots.
The passageway angled around a turn and in the distance, he could make out the bluish-white glow that could only come from a set of hoverpads. The hum of the reactors echoed in the rank-smelling passageway. He quickened his pace, hoisting the dufflebag higher on his shoulders, following the turn till a light from the near distance fell over him. He looked up to see a massive ship, built like a mythic beast with jutting horns, its hoverpads blazing blue with electricity. It dawned on him that the horns were, in fact, the lowered turret guns, ready to defend the ship.
A figure in a hooded cloak stepped out of the shadow of the ship, carrying a flourescent lantern. The figure raised the lantern and pushed back the hood with a gloved hand. The face beneath was young but already care-lined about the mouth, and her dark eyes were deeply concerned behind the thick lenses of the pince-nez style glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. A whitish crescent-shaped scar scythed through her right eyebrow, which gave her face an oddly feral look, softened by the premature streaks of grey through her dark hair, pulled back in a loose braid.
"Sieges?" he asked.
"In the flesh," she replied. "Come on inside, there isn't time." She stepped aside, holding up the lantern to light the path up the ramp and into the body of the ship. Meta followed her up the ramp, feeling it start to draw up slowly under them even as they ascended it. He followed the light and her uneven footsteps along the corridor and into the light at the core of the ship.
A well-built, grizzled freeborn man in his late forties looked up from the Matrix feed console. "Thank heavens you got him on board alive, Nautonnier."
Sieges slung off her wine-colored cloak and draped it over an unoccupied jack-in chair. "We've got no time to lose, Gormanz, they're probably on to us..."
The ship's comlink crackled and a young man's voice called over the intercom. "Sieges, we've got company..."
"Dammit," Sieges muttered. "Meta, follow me." She scrambled up a ship's ladder to the catwalk that ringed the core, then crawled through a bulkhead door into the cockpit. Meta followed, the freeborn following them. Sieges strapped herself into the pilot's chair while Gormanz strapped Meta into the jump seat in back of it before dropping into the co-pilot's chair.
The holographic projector lit up, showing a hovercraft moving in fast. "Not one of ours," Sieges said, hitting several switches. The ship lurched and roared into motion as she gunned the pads and sent the ship carreening up the duct. Meta clung to his seat reflexively. I just joined the crew of a madwoman... he thought, but the words barely had time to form in his head, when the ship jolted from behind.
"That didn't feel good," Meta joked, nervously.
"No, they nicked the stern," she said, keying the comlink. "HKS, Links, give them the guns!"
"Now?" another young man replied.
"Fire at will!" Sieges shouted. The ship lurched slightly and from above, Meta heard a grinding noise as the turrets swivveled into position
"There's no one named Will on that crew, and if there were, I'd hate to be him right now," Meta said, with a laugh and a nervous glance to his new captain.
Sieges chuckled in reply, but he thought he detected a fiendish note in it. The ship bucked and turned a full ninety degrees on its axis as she gunned it down the duct. "Eat my dust, boys," she said, glaring at the holographic projection. Muzzle flashes lit up the guns of the other ship, then the image lit up with a barrage of return fire.
"Heh, got 'em!" Meta said, grinning.
"Not yet," Sieges said. The ship shuddered violently and she had to jerk the ship's wheel to right it.
"A hit?" Meta asked.
"Yeah, but the hull is holding; you'd know it if it wasn't," she said, grabbing the comlink. "More fire! Nail 'em!" she shouted into it. The hologram lit up with more fire and the image started to judder.
"Now we got 'em," Meta said, grinning up at her as the image fell apart, no target to transmit from.
"You're a good luck charm, Meta," she said, steering the ship into another duct. "What if I were to offer you the position of secondary gunner?"
"I'd take it and I'd give it my best, captain," he said, unstrapping himself.
"I know you won't fail us," she said. "I read the reports on you and Tranque has told me what you and Monica went through to get here. You got guts, Meta and we need that. That's why I took you on."
"That and you're a good cap to serve under, I can tell," he said.
"You go rest up; I've set up a link from a personal processing unit in your room to the ship's construct," she said. "When we get to Outpost Segur, in the next twelve hours, God and the Pattern willing, I'll set up your lady's homebase in Terminal Dogma, our primary base for Exilic members."
"Thanks, cap," he said, and saluted her, then took up his bags and went down to the Core.
