Seconds dragged by with the weight of decades. Rene’s attention darted between Solae and the unfamiliar controls. He hastily punched keys at the console. Holographic screens fluttered to life on either side of him, filling the cockpit with a pale blue glow. The screens stuttered and flickered unsteadily, given the slovenly state of the Bonaventure Rene wouldn’t have bet that the projectors had been serviced since their installation. Another few keystrokes brought up the external cameras. Six out of eight returned nothing but static, the optical pickups either damaged or missing all together. By luck or providence one of the two live screens showed Kalrio and his people retreating towards the rubber trees that screened the ancient railroad.

Rene glanced at Solae, she was obviously in a bad way, smoke inhalation or the early stages of shock perhaps. The incoming contacts were coming across the attack board at considerable speed, vector line elongating as the rangefinder figures clicked down in a blur. The freighters sensors were too rudimentary to provide any identification but they had to be rapid response jumpers. Armed aircraft that could carry a squad or two depending on who friendly the soldiers were willing to be. Sweat began to trickle down his neck, there was so much going on that his body wanted to shut down, but that was death for him and maybe worse for Solae.

Rene wasn’t a pilot. The corp employed specialist flight officers and all the training he had ever had was a few hours moving dropships around a firebase. Nothing like this. For a moments delay he checked the video to make sure Kalrio and his people were out of the way of any potential backblast, then he reached over and lit the plasma thrusters. The great engines roared to life filling the ship with an assymetrical rhythmic thrum that rattled his teeth. The deck beneath him quivered like a living thing as the thrusters fired. At present the outlets were flared widely enough that they gave almost no lift. Rene waited three precious seconds and then irised the thruster casings to focus the thrust. The Bonaventure pitched sideway as the port side lifted a meter into the air and ground them sideways across the pad in a shower of sparks that would have put any fireworks display he had ever seen to shame. Intertia slammed Rene into the side of his seat as the ship slid sideways gouging a thirty centimeter trench through the dirt, he felt them hit the side of the cane field and keep going, the slap of the stalks like a gauntlet. Solae screamed and Rene couldn’t be sure he wasn’t joining her.

“I suggest you rebalance your thrust,” Mia crooned, her tone so inappropriate to the situation that it shook Rene from his panic. He cut thrust to port and increased to starboard and the ship pogoed into the air the deck pressing hard against his feet. A shower of flaming dirt, ignited by the star hot kiss of the plasma thrusters, tumbled to the ground to add to the gathering blaze. They were ascending rapidly and Rene made a few quick adjustments. The Bonaventure’s thrusters were badly misaligned, a fact which its veteran pilot was no doubt used to compensating for, and Rene, as a novice, had missed it completely. Given the power involved he was lucky he hadn’t flipped the ship on its back and wrecked the freighter within the first few seconds.

“Mia can you help balance port and starboard thrust!’ he yelled, struggling to make himself heard over the roar of the ship. The flight smoothed considerably and the vibration decreased from bone rattling to merely brain scrambling. Rene had just enough time to sigh with relief when a proximity alert shrieked. Rene glanced down at the attack board in horror, one of the jumpers was within 1500 meters. There was a noise like an anvil falling into a steel works and the ship whipsawed wildly. The sound of bullets ricocheting inside the hull was so loud it was a physical pain to endure.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Rene yelled, ducking low in his seat in what was an understandable but totally useless response. The air was filled with the thick greasy scent of burning metal and he could see the pale blue sparks of shorting electronics flickering in the corner of his eyes. Something on the control board went dark but he didn’t even have time to worry about what it might be.

“Frieghter Bonaventure you will land at once at desig…” The comm unit squaked.

Rene chopped the throttle and the ground fell away from under him as the Bonaventure plummeted a thousand feet in a few seconds, dropping him out of the line of fire of the jumper. The ship screamed like a whistle and he slapped the emergency containment sealing the cockpit off from the hull of the ship. Then he focused the jets as tightly as they could go. The deck smashed up through his spine as the ship lifted at maximum rate. He felt his vision begin to gray as the blood was forced to his feet. He cast a desperate glance at Solae, aware that he was pushing her beyond her physical limits but unable to do anything else that would protect her life and freedom.

“Stay with me,” he prayed, though the words came out as an unintelligible slur. The altimeter spun like a roulette wheel climbing to fifty thousand feet, then a hundred. His hands felt weak and his vision was going dark.

“Master Quentain I suggest you…” Mia buzzed at the edge of his consciousness. Through his fading vision he saw the atmosphere slip away, his reckless rate of climb far outpacing that of the pursuing jumpers. They were atmosphere capable vehicles and couldn’t pursue into vacuum. The viewport darkened to the full black of open space, the stars losing their twinkle and sharpening as the air molecules that diffracted the light slipped away beneath them. Rene chopped the throttles back to one gravity and nearly passed out as his blood thundered back to his brain. He gasped several mouthfuls of air and then vomited over the arm of his seat.

“Miiiiaaa,” he croaked.

“Plot a one g burn to the closest jump point and execute,” he managed wiping his mouth with his sleeve and disengaging his restraint. He tumbled to his knees and crawled across to Solae. Without a pause he pulled an infuser from his belt, a basic unit loaded with adrenaline and powerful anti-inflammatories. He pressed the needle to her wrist and pulled the trigger with a hiss of compressed air. The rattle of the plasma jets slowed and ceased and he felt the gentle kick of impulse engines engaging, driving them out and away from New Concordia.

“Stay with me,” he begged cradling Solae in his arms.