Starhawk Chronicles Book II Chapter 3

This is something they don’t tell you about in the travel brochures, Raychel McAllister thought. Visit Utopia. Get arrested for no good reason! Bust your behind working the scenic Tydrium mines. Run blindly through darkened mine tunnels pursued by weapons-toting mercenaries hired to gun you down on sight!

She slowed long enough to throw a look back over her shoulder. Her exertions were catching up with her, and despite her young age of only sixteen, and relatively good physical shape, she found herself panting heavily. She tried to breathe as shallowly as she could. Her breath in her ears sounded as loud as a raging windstorm. She feared that the sound would carry back down the dark tunnel, giving away her position.

She inhaled a long, deep breath. The air in the tunnel smelled of moldy earth mixed with the ozone stench from mining lasers. It was a smell Raychel had come to hate in the two years she and her father had been imprisoned here. But the air here was slightly different than deeper in the mines. There was the barest hint of a fresh breeze wafting down the tunnel towards them that told her that freedom was near.

Wiping strands of her sweat-plastered brown hair away from her eyes, Raychel had to squint in the darkness to see the figure behind her. Her father Morgan had stopped several meters behind, and was doubled over, hands resting on his knees, as he tried to catch his breath. He looked up and gave a feeble wave. “I’m okay,” he said, his voice half-choked as he gasped for air. “Don’t stop on my account.”

Footsteps from ahead of her told Raychel that the other member of their party had noticed their absence and returned to see what the delay was. “Not to sound uncaring,” Kebbe Triston said, his voice a stage whisper. “But they’re going to catch up with us if we have to keep stopping like this.”

Kebbe was a year older than Raychel, and dwarfed her by almost a foot. He had been imprisoned in the mines for only a few months, but was in no way any less eager to escape than they were. He stood several meters ahead of them, hopping from one foot to the other with nervous energy.

“Dad needs to rest, Kebbe,” Raychel started to argue, but her father’s voice, stronger now, cut her off.

“I said I was okay,” He had straightened, and while his breathing was still labored, it was nowhere near as bad as it had been minutes ago. “We can stop when we make it out of here, not before.” He turned and made a quick glance back the way they had come, shaking his head. “I’m not spending another minute here.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Kebbe replied, moving closer to Morgan, extending a hand. “You want some help?”

“I’m fine,” Morgan waved him off. He pointed up the tunnel past where Kebbe was standing. “It shouldn’t be much further now. If we can just. . .”

He paused, and Raychel realized that she could hear other voices, distant, but growing louder with each second. “Damn,” Morgan cursed. “They’re already on our trail. I hoped it would take them longer.” He motioned up the tunnel again. “Get moving.”

Kebbe started off in the lead again. This time Raychel stayed by her father’s side, aiding him as they staggered through the blackness. After a few more minutes, they rounded a curve and found Kebbe standing in the center of a faint pillar of light. Moonlight, Raychel realized. Her heart, already pounding from the exertion, skipped another beat at the prospect of open skies above them.

Beside her, Morgan nodded with satisfaction. “Up that ventilation shaft and out of this hellhole. Then after we get out of the foothills, it’s either south to the ocean or west through the forests. We lay low for a few days, live off the land, then make it into Valhalla City to meet with the Resistance and hopefully get transport out of here.”

Despite his exhaustion, Raychel could hear her father gaining strength with every word. Freedom was within their reach now. After two years of living hell working the Tyderium mines, they were finally going to get out.

Raychel doubted that their final objective would be as simple to reach as Morgan made it sound. Three fugitives, on foot, with no weapons to speak of, had little hope of evading capture once outside. Her father was confident in his belief, and Raychel desperately wanted to believe as well, so she followed without question.

Her reverie was broken by the sound of the approaching voices once more. They were very close this time and growing closer.

“No time to waste,” her father said. “You two get up into the air shaft. I have to set a little deterrent for our pursuers, then I’ll be along with you.”

Kebbe was already reaching up, grabbing for the lower rungs of the maintenance ladder and starting to pull himself into the shaft. Raychel shot her father a concerned look. “What deterrent?

Morgan reached into his tunic and pulled out a time-delayed detonator. “I swiped this from the supply shed the other day. After you get up into the shaft, I’ll set the timer then come up after you. There isn’t much of a charge, but it should be enough to seal up the shaft. If they decide to keep after us, they’ll have to go around half a mountain range to do it.”

“I hope you’re right,” Raychel jumped as the pursuing voices became very loud. The guards were almost upon them.

“Methinks it be time to skedaddle, my friends.” Kebbe called from the rim of the vent shaft.

“Go now, Ray,” Morgan said, “I’ll be right behind you.”

Morgan shoved the detonator into his tunic then laced the fingers of both hands together to make a step for Raychel. With the boost from her father, and a helping hand from Kebbe above, she grabbed hold of the ladder and started up the shaft after Kebbe.

For a long moment, she hung there, taking deep breaths of the cool breeze that was flowing through the airshaft. She could not remember when she last breathed air that sweet.

Snapping out of her reverie, she looked up to find Kebbe almost at the top of the shaft. She started after him, pausing after a few meters when she realized her father had not yet joined her. “Dad?” she called down after him as loudly as she dared. “Daddy?”

She could not see him, but his voice carried up clearly enough. “Go!” Morgan shouted. The desperation in his voice was tangible. “They’re almost on us. I’ll be right there.”

Raychel heard the beep from the detonator he held, confirming that the explosive was now armed. She resumed her ascent, her heart pounding harder with each rung she climbed. Kebbe was at the top now, still several meters away, beckoning her onward.

The sound of laserfire from below stopped her in her tracks. Peering down, she still could not see her father, and this time she dared not call out to him again. A subdued cry followed more firing.

Without warning, Morgan’s explosive detonated. The shock almost shook Raychel loose from her perch and she clung precariously from one rung with only the strength in her arms to hold her up before she found her footing again. A thick cloud of smoke and dust billowed up the shaft around her, causing her eyes to water, choking her. She wanted to call out to Morgan, to be sure he had made it in the shaft behind her before the blast, but could not find her voice.

She jumped as a hand came down suddenly on her shoulder then heard Kebbe’s voice urging her to keep climbing. As she made her way half-blind up the ventilation shaft, she could tell the smoke was dissipating. Doggedly, she kept reaching for the next rung, and the next until she climbed from the shaft into the night air.

Ignoring the first view of the outside world she had had in years, she turned back and called down the shaft to her father. She listened as her voice echoed back up to her and she strained to hear any sign of Morgan’s approach. Calling again, her heart began to sink as the realization hit that her father was not going to reply.

Kebbe put his arm across her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Ray,” he said. “But we’ve got to get going; otherwise he sacrificed himself for nothing. They’ll be coming for us soon.”

Raychel straightened and pulled away from Kebbe. She took a deep breath of the cool night air and gazed at the stars between the swaying branches of the trees that surrounded them. No tears came to her. She had cried them all long ago when she was younger, when the guards had taken her mother away from them, and now her father was gone as well.

“Patrol craft,” Kebbe mentioned matter-of-factly, pointing to the twin sets of running lights that were cruising over the mountains in the distance, turning their way. “If they’re scanning for thermal signatures, it won’t take them long to lock on to us.”

Raychel turned back to the airshaft one last time, hoping against hope that somehow her father would magically appear, though she knew it was hopeless. Placing a hand on the rim of the shaft, she said a silent goodbye to Morgan. Turning away, she faced Kebbe. “Right,” she said. “Let’s get moving.”

* * *

Hours later, and despite many close calls, Kebbe and Raychel managed to get out of the foothills undetected. The patrol ships were nowhere in sight and the two of them began to breathe a little freer now.

Kebbe looked to the stars, trying to determine how much time was left before sunrise. “Two, maybe three more hours, then we better find someplace to hole up until evening.”

The area around the foothills where they had first exited the mine had only sparse thickets of trees, but as they journeyed onward the terrain became lusher. Another half hour of walking and they found themselves on the edge of a full-blown forest.

“We’ve got a much better chance of keeping undetected in here,” Kebbe said. “I’ll bet we could even find something to eat. A place like this has got to be crawling with small game.”

Raychel speared him with a dubious look. “Oh right. Since when did you become the great white hunter?”

“Hey, I was quite the outdoorsman before I landed on this rock,” Kebbe defended himself, as he pressed further into the brush. “My old man and I used to go trapping all the time back on Celestra Five. Why, I’ll have you know . . .”

Kebbe’s words were lost to her as something sticking out of the ground a few meters off caught her eye. Kneeling, she pulled away vines and dried leaves to reveal an old metal sign that had toppled from its post long ago, possibly in a windstorm. Wiping away flecks of dried mud, she read:

WARNING!

Utopian Game Preserve # 4

Extremely Dangerous Animals On Site.

Experienced Hunters Only!!

“Extremely dangerous animals,” Kebbe echoed the writing on the sign, as he came up beside her, his voice giving an ever so slight tremble. “Okay, I’m thinking the open plains are looking pretty good. Maybe we can try for the coast instead.”

Raychel rose, but did not follow her friend as he began to walk back the way they had come. She stared into the darkened woods. “I’m going in,”

Kebbe’s footfalls stopped. “You’re going . . . in there?”

“There’s bound to be some hunters in there. If not now, then as soon as the sun comes up,” she said. “They’ll have a transport. If I can swipe one, I’ll get into Valhalla City that much quicker.”

Kebbe threw his hands up in exasperation. “Okay, what are you missing here?” he said. He took her by the arm and turned her back to face the sign. “Extremely dangerous animals,” he said again, pointing to each word on the sign in the hopes that the meaning behind those words would take effect. “And what in the four moons do you want to go to Valhalla City for anyway? That wasn’t the plan. We were supposed to lay low for awhile.”

“I have to get there as soon as I can,” Raychel said, her voice sounding distant to her as she pulled away from him. “I have to get there soon so I can kill him.”

“Um, kill whom, exactly?” he asked. “You can’t mean the guard that killed your dad. We’ll never know which one it was. Hell, we don’t even know that your dad’s really dead.”

“I’m going after Boke.” she replied. “Everything is that bastard’s fault. It’s time he paid for the suffering he’s caused”

Her statement dropped Kebbe’s jaw several centimeters more than thought humanly possible. In the time he had known Raychel, he had never heard her speak a bad word against anyone, even despite the wretched conditions and treatment they were forced to endure. Now she was speaking of murder.

“Ray, Boke’s the most powerful man on the planet. He owns the planet, and has enough credits to buy a second if he wants!” Kebbe implored. “He’s got his own private army, not to mention, if the tales are true, at least one warship in orbit to keep order. You’ll never get anywhere near him. Hell, you won’t even know where to find him, if he does happen to be in Valhalla at all.”

“Oh, I’ll get near him,” she answered. “And I’ll kill him. I promise you that.”

“You realize, even if by some impossible twist of fate you do get near Boke and kill him, you’ll be dead two seconds later?”

She turned to him, her voice glacially cold when she spoke. “That doesn’t matter anymore.”

“You know I can’t come with you.” Kebbe gave a heavy sigh, looking for all the world like he was deflating.

“I understand,” Raychel replied. It broke her heart to see him this way, but it was best for him. Where she was going, she would not want him to follow. She stood on her toes and kissed him softly on the cheek. “I hope you’re able to make it away from here Kebbs. I hope you can find the rest of your family again.”

She turned away and disappeared into the darkness.

* * *

“I am sorry, Starhawk,” the spaceport controller said over the bridge speaker system. One could tell by the tone of her voice that she bore no sorrow whatsoever and was making only the minimal attempt at being courteous. “The traffic pattern for the approach to Valhalla City is quite full right now and you will just have to wait for further clearance.”

Jesse had no doubt as to the truthfulness behind the controller’s statement. They had arrived in-system an hour earlier and were amazed by the overwhelming amount of traffic leading into orbit around Utopia. The number of orbiting ships was so great that, from a distance, there appeared to be twin sets of rings encircling the planet. As K’Tran and Morogo eased the Starhawk in amongst the traffic, they could clearly see that massive passenger liners made up the bulk of the flotilla. Just as amazing, however, were the vast numbers of smaller craft, some as small as single-seat starfighters that were jockeying for position amidst the space lanes. The number of near misses was alarming.

“Control, I understand that you have to deal with an inordinate amount of traffic,” Jesse replied, trying to keep his tone as civilized as possible. “However, I also know you’ve given clearance to shuttles from at least two passenger liners that arrived in-system after we did.”

“That is correct, Starhawk,” the controller answered, offering no more.

Jesse rolled his eyes. Looking to one side, he could see K’Tran doing the same. Podo was in his seat, leaning back, eyes closed, but shaking his head in incredulity. Jesse fought back the urge to keep from raising his voice, “Then why are we forced to wait while these shuttles are allowed to break orbit and head in ahead of us?”

“Understand this, Starhawk,” the controller shot back, all hint of civility gone from her voice now. “Those shuttles, and the liners they service, are under license with the Utopian Port Authority. They bring thousands of visitors to this system daily. Then we have ships like yours. You enter our space on a moments notice and expect to just be allowed the next available landing slot that comes along. Sorry to say that it doesn’t work that way.”

Jesse opened his mouth to retort, but the controller never let him get the words onto his tongue. “Right now you are looking at a minimum wait of two standard hours before we can even consider putting you into the landing cycle. You can either hold orbit or break and head back out-system. Your choice. You will be contacted when your landing clearance has been authorized. U.P.A. control out.”

As soon as the last word was broadcast, the transmission cut off. From his seat at the controls, K’Tran scratched his head and spoke without turning around. “Something tells me that this isn’t going to be the kind of vacation we bargained on.”

Deep in his gut, Jesse had the feeling that his friend was right.