Stolen Flyght – Chapter 28

The bridge of this dropship is in chaos when we arrive. Red lights flash, and the frozen image of a maroon-faced admiral dominates the center screen. The front viewport, though, draws my attention. A giant, military battlecruiser faces us down, leaving no room for escape. It’s so close I can’t see anything else.

“There she is.” Hera’s voice comes from my right, her face staring out from a screen. “Oh my, Vivian. You’ve had a rough day.”

I pat down my hair and try to straighten my five layers of clothing. A rough day is a vast understatement.

“Ms. Lee, I can’t thank you enough for coming. Seeing the home ship in atmosphere was something I will never forget.”

“Hera, darling,” she corrects me and sighs. “I’m getting increasingly annoyed with the military. They think they rule this system, but they don’t. They take and take and take, and they give nothing in return. I’m ready for them to become a thing of the past. But we’re in a bit of a situation here. They have put one of their biggest, most powerful ships in between you and me. The Lee home ship only has the most basic of armaments — rail guns to guard against rocks or out-of-control ships. We won’t be able to win with firepower.”

I nod, my stomach tightening into a boulder of a knot.

“You need to talk to them. Bargain and negotiate. They want something. Let’s see what we can give them that won’t cost us our souls.”

I close my eyes, and the weariness I feel lies deep in my bones.

“Why me?” I ask no one in particular.

When I open my eyes, Jinzo and Asteria are both frowning.

“I have an incoming call from Ken Mata,” the woman at comms reports.

Ken. My heart leaps at the mention of his name.

Asteria glances at me, and I nod. “Put it through,” she says.

Ken’s face brings an extra measure of calm to my rising anxiety.

“Vivi, you’re safe,” he says, smiling. “I’ve been worried sick.”

It’s so good to see him. At many points during this mission, I didn’t think I’d see him or Gus or Mat ever again. But now I’ve seen them all, and I’m still alive.

“I’m here. A little bruised and beaten up, but not too bad. Things could be worse.” Mostly thanks to my plant. It gave me the rest and recuperation I needed to do everything I’ve done.

It could definitely be worse. I could be Gloria, near death in the cargo bay.

“I have some marvelous news. My lawyers have been absolute rabid dogs here.” His smile is slightly evil. Slightly. “And the military command admitted on the record that they had no reason to commandeer the Amagi. Now, whether they give it back is another story.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Ken, the Amagi is a trash can now.”

His face falls.

“They stripped it bare. We almost died trying to get out of the base. Jin did his best, but they even took the air. There are holes in the hull.”

“I am going to murder someone.” Ken’s voice turns cold.

I glance over at the frozen image of the maroon-faced admiral, and a wave of resignation comes over me. It’s time to face my future.

“If you’ll hold tight, Ken, I need to deal with something else, and then I’ll come back to you.” I lean in to the woman at comms. “I want to talk to the admiral now. Make sure Mr. Mata sees the conversation, and I would like for you to re-broadcast the transmission to all public wavelengths.”

“You want to put him on blast?” She asks, and I nod. “Yes, miz.”

She engages the feed to the admiral on the primary screen, and his face cools off. They must have frozen that one frame for a while, and during the wait, he’s calmed down.

“To whom am I speaking?” I ask, starting the conversation on my terms.

The man pauses, and confusion floods his face before he answers. “This is Admiral Amsden of the BSMC Rousseff. Who is this?”

I lift my chin. “This is Vivian Kawabata, Captain of the Amagi. I believe you are refusing to let my ship here pass so we may return to our escort.”

Jinzo leans in and whispers, “The official name of the home ship is Lee Prime.”

I nod and return to the admiral. “The Lee Prime is awaiting us. You will let us pass.”

He blinks a few times. “I don’t think you get to call the shots here.”

“Yes, I do. You have no reason to block me, no authority to stand in our way.”

He leans away from the camera on his side of the call, and someone whispers in his ear.

He clears his throat. “It appears this is a public call. We are ordering you to switch to a private channel.”

“I will do no such thing.” I keep my face as neutral as possible, even if my voice betrays the rage building in my chest. “And I’ll say it again. You have no right to hold us back from reaching our ship. Look.” I fold my arms over my chest. “Let me make this abundantly clear. Neve is not a military planet. You don’t control flights to and from the surface. The military serves at the privilege of the people. It is in your charter. I’m sure you know exactly which passage I’m referring to.”

Admiral Amsden’s face colors again.

“I visited the planet to find my stolen ship. I was fired upon without provocation. And your people are down on the surface trying to cover up your illegal activities. If I were the governors of Ossun and Rio, I’d be sending ships to Neve right now to determine if we should sanction the military. Possibly even dismantle it.”

His face is now back to the maroon shade it was earlier.

“Shall we talk about your military base that’s burning right now? How did that happen?”

“Young lady, you are out of bounds.”

“Don’t you dare ‘young lady’ me. You will treat me with the respect I deserve.” My voice climbs, and his eyes widen. I don’t think anyone has ever spoken to him the way I am. I take a deep breath. “Fine. I’d be happy to pass along the intelligence that was given to me about what you had in the base that’s currently on fire.”

His face tightens. “Stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

“No.”

“You will stand down. We are coming to get Commander Nina Correa and don’t deny she’s onboard your ship. We have surveillance that shows otherwise.”

Ah, it’s Nina they want?

Hmmm.

“Put us on mute,” I tell the comms officer.

“Muted,” she says. The video feed freezes.

I turn around and Carlos and Lia have joined the group behind me on the bridge. Good. Just the people I need.

“So, they want Nina. And after everything we’ve been through in the last day, I will not give her to them. What are our options?”

Asteria cringes. “Not much, unless they back down. We could evade them, but they’ll shoot at us. They’ll eventually grab us and board the ship.” She glances at Jinzo. “We have guns, though. It’s not something we talk about openly because the idea bothers Mom, but we stockpile plenty of individual firepower, even if the Lee home ship does not.”

“So, if they board us, we could potentially hold them off.”

I imagine holding a gun and firing it, and the image refuses to gel in my head. I have no experience with guns. I’d probably kill myself or some other innocent person instead of the intended target.

I turn to Carlos and touch his arm to catch his attention. “Tell me. Do you think your database wipe worked? Do they know we were there?”

“I’m one-hundred percent certain I not only wiped their security databases and the backups, but I also set fire to the server rooms too.” He shrugs as Jinzo chuckles. “It was a lot easier to do than it should have been. All I had to do was disable the cooling system.”

Asteria covers her mouth with her hand.

“They should do a better job of securing their systems. Not my fault. Not one bit.” Carlos rocks back on his heels.

Jinzo reaches out, and the two of them bump fists.

“Our biggest problem is that people who know Commander Correa saw us,” Jinzo says. “They saw her in places she shouldn’t be, with people they didn’t know — us. Even if they identify us eventually, they’ll only have a few eyewitnesses who saw us there but not what we were doing.”

“He’s right.”

Nina steps through the bulkhead door to the bridge. She glances at the frozen image of Admiral Amsden and sighs.

“I always hated that man. He’s one of the worst in the upper ranks.”

Gus is right behind Nina. He’s out of his scrubs but still wearing a surgical mask around his neck, like he rushed out of the cargo bay too quickly to undress properly.

“Let me guess. They want me to come aboard before they let you go.”

I raise my eyebrows at her. She shrugs.

“I knew it was coming. I used all my own access codes to get places I shouldn’t have been. They’ve been dying to stick me in the brig and put me on trial.” She sighs. “So much for that retirement I had planned on Sonoma.”

I shake my head. “I can’t let you surrender yourself to them.”

She laughs. “I appreciate the sentiment, Vivian. I do. You are a brave and caring woman, and I’m glad to know you. But I’ll do what I damned well please.”

I look past her to Gus. At first, he’s shocked, his face set in a frown. Then his eyes meet mine, and he shrugs. His expression says it all. What can we do, right? Lady Nina Correa makes her own decisions. She’s been railroaded by the military, hampered at every turn, and stuck in a position that had no real power.

Now, she wants to take control of her future.

She gets to make the decisions that affect her. Just like what I want for my life. Sometimes, it’s the illusion of choice, but it’s better than no choice at all.

“You will open the comms and tell him I’ll come aboard of my own free will. They are not to dock with us. I’ll get in an EVA suit and send myself over.” She raises her hand to stop my obvious objection. “I don’t trust them not to storm the ship. And I’ll refuse to come inside their airlock until they let you go.”

I step closer to her. “I don’t like this at all. You’re sacrificing yourself for us when we can blackmail them instead. We have all the data from the portal gate they built. We can show they’ve been stealing ships from other people. I mean, there’s a lot of damning evidence here.”

She reaches over and squeezes her hand around my forearm. “Save all that for later. This won’t be the last you hear from them. They’ll come at you again because they love to blame others for their problems. Don’t show your hand too early.”

“I want my ship back,” I blurt out.

She frowns. “I’m so sorry I took it from you. If you still want it, your lawyers should argue in court, in front of the media.” She raises one eyebrow. “I know you hate the media at this point, but they love an underdog story, and the top brass does not want governments kicking them off their planets. That’s the place to blackmail them — in court. If you paint them as bad guys, they’ll back down.”

I nod, resigned to this idea. Court. It’s the last place I want to be right now. Do I even have time for court? The auction is mere days away.

“Okay. Then that’s what we’ll do.”

We turn back to the wallscreen, and Nina stands tall at my side.

“Let’s get Admiral Amsden back on the line.”

The comms officer hails the ship again, and this time the admiral hasn’t calmed down at all since we last spoke.

“How dare you keep me waiting for so long?” Through his bluster, he focuses on the screen and recognizes Nina standing beside me now. “Commander Correa, you are in violation of several military laws, and you will surrender yourself immediately.”

Her smirk is just shy of a nuclear explosion. “Admiral Amsden, I see the blood pressure meds are working hard today.”

I didn’t know his face could get any redder, but it does.

“What you have done is outrageous —”

Nina cuts him off. “What I have done is necessary for the survival of our race, and I can’t wait to prove it in an open court.”

“We will not be having open court proceedings to discuss your destruction of a top-secret military project.”

“Oh? Is that what I’m being arrested for? Remember, this is an open channel, and it’s being relayed to media networks right now.”

His mouth opens and closes a few times. I do my best to hold my face still.

“I am coming in to give testimony to the court of the failures of the admiralty, failures to promote competent and deserving female candidates to their rightful ranks. And many other failures, too. I’m willing to come into custody, but I don’t think you’ll be happy with what you get out of the bargain.”

The admiral’s face turns grim. And now I’m worried about Nina’s safety.

“Prepare for our arrival,” he says, and she interrupts him with a stern no.

“No. I will come to you, and you will let this shuttle go.”

His face hardens into a frown. “Do you really trust us so little?”

She wags her finger at him and laughs. “Considering everything that’s happened in the last day, that’s hypocritical coming from you. And don’t test me. I’m coming via EVA suit, and you’ll let me in an airlock. I have over six hundred hours in Zero G suit time. I’ve even designed the Zero G obstacle course that most military personnel fail at least twice in their career. So, don’t try anything funny.”

She waves her hand, and the comms officer cuts the communication.

Ken resumes his call from a different screen.

“Well, that had the intended effect.” His eyes drop to look at something on a datapad. “All the local news circuits picked up the feed, and it’s now trickling down to the Californikos System as well.”

I turn to my team, and Eamon has joined everyone on the bridge.

“You don’t need me anymore, right?” He stuffs his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “I want out of this mess, right the fuck now.”

I frown for a moment but give in. I’m sure this was all a lot more than he bargained for. He’s battered and bruised, and I sold him a mission that was nothing like what we ended up with.

“You’re free and clear.” I hold out my hand to shake his. He stares into my eyes for a moment before lifting his hand to shake mine. “Asteria, you’ll make sure he’s okay with your mom?”

“Sure,” she says, watching Eamon carefully. “If you say so.”

“I say so. He did his part.”

“Great, then.” Eamon backs away, “I’ll go wait in the cargo bay with everyone else.” He continues to step backwards, not turning his back on us until he’s at a safe distance. I wave at him as he turns and jogs towards the cargo bay.

Something tells me this is not the last time we work together.

Lia jerks her thumb at him. “That guy is trouble. I’m glad he’s gone.”

“Me, too,” Ken says from the comms screen. His eyes widen. “Hey, I just got a ping from our lawyers. We have a court date set for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” My voice rises, and my heart soars. Tomorrow we can do! I turn over my wristlet and curse its dead battery.

“What’s the date?” I ask, leaning over the comms officer.

She smiles as she pulls up the universal calendar for me.

We have three days until the auction!

Three days.

Can we get everything done and settled in three days?

I don’t know.

But for once, I think we may actually have a chance.