Absolute Zero - Chapter 15
"Gotcha!"
Tli saw the rescue play out via the food-crate camera. From a canted angle he watched as a young woman and older man expertly treated the afflicted. Even though a Soviet back channel got the USSF to stand down, he watched someone in uniform save the day. Perhaps voluntarily. As a result, what should have been a severe health incident and investigation (and maybe crew replacement) turned into nothing more than a simple flu. Their trip to Psyche-16 would be barely delayed as a result. That meant the Americans would arrive before the Soviets could extract all the Tetrataenite ore. The Americans would win again.
Those two Samaritans cost Tli a significant amount of rubles and reputation. While watching the rescue from afar, he decided it was best not to intervene. He couldn't be sure who else was watching and didn't want to risk starting an international incident. Instead, he did some recon on the two. One was a Spacecom lieutenant, and the other did wellness checks on nomads for a non-profit. An odd combination to be sure.
Once the military skiff decoupled and left the area, Tli turned Dudi around and gave pursuit.
Abbi continued to struggle to stay out of the other ship's path. The unknown enemy seemed determined to crash their ship into hers. This wasn't a scenario flight school trained her for. So far, random rolls, pitches, and yaws had saved her from several attempts. But she knew her luck would eventually run out. She continued trying to hail the unknown enemy.
"Unidentified vessel, this is a USSF ship. You are on a collision course, divert immediately. I repeat, change your heading now!"
But there was never a response.
Her ship was clearly marked, so whoever it was deliberately wanted to stir up some serious trouble. Or had nothing to lose. She couldn't learn much about who the attacker was. All she knew was the other ship was much larger, vantablack, and emitted no lights nor transponder signal.
The phantom was invisible to radar but did trip proximity sensors. On her display the red dot would only appear when the opposing ship was within a few hundred meters. Barely enough time for an evasive maneuver. The only other indicator it was close was the absence of stars eclipsed by its mass.
It had been a few minutes since the last pass, so Abbi assumed the ship was coming about for another run. She knew she was getting tired and would eventually slip up. It was time for the computer to take over.
"Al," she called out. "It's your turn."
"I have been observing another craft taking hostile actions. Do you want to call the authorities?"
"Just play defense and keep him off of us. At some point he'll give up and we can't outrun him."
"Understood," it said. "I have control."
The ship immediately lurched upward, spun left, pushed up some more, spun right, then dove. All the while she held onto her seat with a white-knuckled grip even though buckled in. On a screen, code scrolled past at an unreadable speed as the computer translated sensor data into maneuvers. On an adjacent panel, the red dot reappeared almost on top of her ship. She braced for impact.
And realized that should have stuck with manual controls.
The belt buckle came apart from the force of the collision, and she was thrown free of the chair. Her head smashed into the ceiling. And the world went black.
Tli silently observed that the other pilot was an amateur but showed good instincts. It should have been easier. But seemingly random maneuvers kept thwarting his attempts. He didn't know anything about the pilot other than her name and rank. But a mysterious prey made the hunt all the more exciting.
He missed again, went out a few hundred meters, turned around, and flared the engines for another run. He tried to guess if the target would go up, down, port, or starboard this time. But there was something different now. The target seemed to be moving more mechanically. Maybe the pilot finally got worn down enough to hand the controls over to a machine—which was the break he needed.
On the console Tli pushed the accelerator slider up some more, and, anticipating machine logic, pitched down at the last second. Contact! The bow of his ship scraped against the side. Not a death blow, just a message. Enough to rattle her cage.
"Gotcha!"
Tli continued in the same direction, metal scraping as he passed, and never looked back.
Thank you for reading! Another chapter coming soon. If you enjoyed reading this, please support the author by purchasing a copy of the book at Amazon.com.