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Slingshots – by Katrina Joyner

Taus idly pushed a few buttons on the console then flipped a switch to release thrusters.  Things lurched slightly when she opened backward thrusts, putting the ship into break formation.  Blinking lights reflected in her eyes as they scanned the data screens avidly.

 Herman studied the preoccupied expression of his partner.  She seemed more interested in her thoughts than aligning their little space freighter into a safe orbit.  When she got like this, Herman tried to get out of town.  It worried him that this time he was already out of town and she had come along for the ride.

 “Where in the nebula are they?” Taus muttered to herself.

 “Maybe we’re parking on the wrong side,” Herman suggested.  Before them, an immense blue-white star roiled angrily in the silence of space.  Taus was still making orbital adjustments to account for gravitational pull.

 “These are the coordinates,” she said.  “If they chicken out on us, I’ll make sure to post it across every bulletin board in the ethernets from here until Sunderland.”

 “You’re so sexy when feeling vengeful,” Herman remarked.  “Lucky for me, this means you’re sexy all of the time.”

 “Shut up,” Taus said, hiding a smile.  Folding her arms, she contemplated the gaseous monster before them. She was thinking very hard about something. It would be a little while before she felt amicable again, if at all.

 Herman stood up and stretched.  It had been a long ride since leaving the comfort of that little bar on Station Black Prime.  His back hurt from sitting down at the console for so long. “I’m getting a snack.  Want anything?”

 “Water,” she answered.  She had turned her attention to the local area scan.

 Water.  This was not a good sign.  “Be right back,” Herman said.  He was almost to the exit when the ship’s console started to bleep.  Taus barked a quick laugh.

 “They’re here,” she announced unnecessarily.

 Resigned, Herman returned to his seat. “Don’t hail them yet!” Taus cried, slapping his hand away from the frequency dial.  “I’ll be right back.  If they hail us first, fine.  You know what the plan is, right?”  She escaped the room before he could answer.

 Herman knew that Taus had a plan. Like usual, he was never clued into the specifics until it was too late. He went along with Taus’s plans because they usually ended happily with money, liquor, and a night he couldn’t remember.  Besides, she would kill him if he did not.

 This plan’s objective was probably no different. However, they were parked by a giant star a trillion miles away from civilization to meet with questionable people.  The situation simply screamed, “Arrest me!”

Communications blipped quietly.  Herman took a look at the area scan.  Two ships had slipped into orbit like gentle thieves.  That had to be them calling.

Herman turned on the telescreen and patched the call through.  “This is Dying Sun 009,” he said.  “Go ahead.”

The serious face on the screen had a hard pressed mouth. His graying hair glinted from the console lights. There were fine wrinkles around his eyes. He wore a dusty fighter jacket, the kind that soldiers wore.  His hard green eyes narrowed.  “Let’s get this straight,” he said.  “The first one who breaks thrusters loses everything.”

 “If that’s the agreement,” Herman stalled. He turned to ultrasound and ran a scan on the ships. One ship drifted closer to the Sun; the other held its distance from them, observing the two in a silent cold stare.

 “Where is the woman?” the man asked.  “Where is my challenger?  I’d like to see her for real, instead of talking to her over sound frequencies.”

 “She’s preoccupied,” Herman responded, looking down at the scanner’s report.  The two sleek ships were built for speed and stealth. Blondie’s ship was obviously just a speedster; a toy for the rich. From where it held a safe distance, the second ship was much more dangerous.  It possessed a dazzling array of weapons- any one of them would fetch a handsome price on the black market. Herman noted that each of the weapons was in firing range of the two ships. “I can have her call you back.”  Without looking up, he adjusted one of the controls.

 “Is she even real?  Ha! She left you to run this race by yourself, didn’t she?” the man accused.  “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

 Abandoning Herman would not be like Taus, but he would never admit that to a stranger.  He broadened his scan to the surrounding area.  “Just tell me the conditions,” he said.  There were no other ships nearby.  This was a very private deal.

 The door behind Herman opened abruptly, and a strange woman stepped on deck.  She had short, spiked red hair and a realistic tattoo across her face.  Taus’s disguise was so complete, he barely recognized her.  She even wore a flight jacket similar to the one their opponent was wearing.

 She swaggered to the video screen and leaned against one of the consoles, thrusting her hip out.  “Well,” she drawled, “so this is what you look like.”

“Yes.  It would appear so,” the man said.  “You must be Emerald Briggs.”

“Former Private Briggs, at your service!”  Taus saluted tightly.  “A pleasure to meet the infamous Corporal Reginald Jones!  And an honor to race against you, sir!”  She laughed, slamming herself into her chair and propping her booted feet up.

 Corporal Jones grunted.  “I’ve never heard of you,” he said.  “Now that I’ve scanned your ship, I’m appalled you would have the brass to challenge me.”

 Herman started to say something, but Taus cut him off. “She may not look like much to the untrained eye, but The Sun can take it,” Taus boasted.

 “You’re piloting an obsolete class freighter,” the Corporal snapped.  “You don’t stand a chance.  I will give you this one chance to concede, with no embarrassment for your side.” 

 Taus patted the closest console lovingly.  Since joining Herman as his partner, she had invested a lot of her personal savings in fixing up the ship.  The engine had been rebuilt, corroded fuse lines and circuitry had been replaced, and exterior items had been added.

 “These are my conditions,” she said.  “Fifteen shots around this star.  The closest one-“

 Herman tried to interrupt.  “Excuse me-” Taus kicked him underneath the console.

“-wins.  The first one to blink loses.  If I win, I get your ship or the monetary equivalent.  We’ll start from sixty thousand specters off starboard.”

 “When I win,” the man said smugly, “I’ll be sure to set a memorial beacon for your death.”

 “Whatever works,” Taus quipped before hanging up on him. She smiled as she turned to the control console. Herman gaped at her horrified; Taus kept her smug smile and ignored him.

 “Are you insane?” Herman demanded as Taus broke orbit.  He was thrown off balance as The Sun veered wildly away from the star.  “You challenged Corporal Jones to a slingshot race?  He’s one of the most ruthless underground pilots in space!  We’ll be fried in the sun’s photosphere!”

 Taus shrugged.  “Don’t be so optimistic.  Anyway, didn’t you race once upon a time?  You’ve earned a bit of your own reputation through the years.”

 “I can’t beat this man!” Herman shouted.  “Especially not using The Sun!  She’s not built for this sort of thing!”

 Taus did not respond. She was so engrossed in piloting them to the designated starting point; she might not even have heard him.  “We’re going to die,” Herman tried again.

 After another minute of silence, he gave up.  It was too late to argue the point, anyway.  If they backed out of the fight now, the third ship would open fire.  It was not with them to race. It was there to make sure there was a race in the first place.

 Slingshot racing… It was drag racing while using a star’s gravitational pull to fly faster and in tighter orbital circuits.  The winners (or survivors) were pilots who managed to skim the closest to the star without being pulled into the fire.  Losers pulled away, braked, or simply did not make it out again.

 There was a reason why most governments had outlawed the fine art of playing chicken with a star’s gravitational pull.  Although there was never a mess to clean up because all of the casualties burned to a crisp in the star’s photosphere, the death count was staggering. Banning the practice had only made it more popular, though, and it had become the most popular game for high stakes gambling. Could his partner have picked a more dangerous means to make some quick cash? 

 Taus turned on the outward monitor to get a more natural view of their surroundings.  Her face flickered with an unreadable emotion as she pondered the star.  One fist was clenched against her hip.  Gods, Herman realized.  She was unconsciously standing at attention.

He knew that she had once served in the Imperial Military, but it had never before hit him how much of an ex-soldier she was.  Her flight jacket looked well-loved; polished and oiled to keep the leather soft. She even had put an insignia cuff on her ear.  It was not a private’s cuff, but something for a higher rank.  Having never paid attention to such things, Herman was not sure which one it was.

 With the outward monitor running, they were able to watch the other two ships break their own orbits to join them.  “How much are we paying the other guy to referee?” Herman asked.  The Corporal’s ship was almost in position next to them.  The third ship slowly drifted closer to the port side. One of its main cannons was fixed on the Sun.

 “The Corporal is,” Taus said with a grin. “I told him that that since he expected to win, he could expect to foot the bill.  He’s so full of himself, he didn’t even argue with me.”  The Corporal’s ship was in place.  Taus punched a call out on the telescreen.  Corporal Jones’ face immediately filled it.

 “We’ll go when the ref signals,” Taus said.  “You might want to tell him that.”

 “Tell her yourself,” Jones snarled.  The image on the screen split into two as he patched their referee into the conversation.  On one side of the screen was the Corporal.  On the other was a delicate-looking, pale woman. Herman cocked an eyebrow, wondering what she was doing after the race.

 She wasted no time.  “I will make it clear that I am completely neutral in this affair.” Her voice was soft.  “If either of you frag off, I will open fire with everything I’ve got.  If either of you fly on computer automation, I will open fire. If either of you break a single rule, I will open fire.  Got it? Good.  I will signal in ten.”  The monitor went dark.

 Herman swiveled his chair to face Taus.  “This is stupid.  We’re slingshotting against a dangerous shot pilot with a ring dust referee.  We’re going to die.”

 “We’ll be fine.  Trust me on this.”  She had produced a rag from one pocket and was using it to clean her face.  Her skin was red from her furious rubbing.

 “So, think you can fill me in on what’s exactly going on?”

 “Get ready, the signal is starting.”  Taus tossed the rag aside and jumped to engine control.  “Warming thrusters.  Looks like all go in five.”

 Herman barely had time to cue the computer into manual.  The referee ship blinked its outer lights brightly twice, and Taus slammed her hand on the button console.  The Sun jumped forward just after The Corporal’s ship.  As the star got larger in the monitor view, the Corporal’s ship got smaller as he left them behind.

 “Frag it!” Herman cursed.

 Taus’s smirk was mysterious.  “Our cargo will speed us up when we need it. That star is our propulsion system, remember?  We’re heavier.  We’ll be slingshotting near the speed of light!”

 “We’ll be slinging out of control if we’re not careful,” Herman muttered.  Too soon, they were in line for their first orbit.  The Corporal was already so far ahead that he looked very small on their screen.

 “Turn it, turn it!” Taus cried, adjusting controls and hitting dials.  The Sun arced wide as it came around.  They were losing ground as The Corporal got even farther ahead.

 Herman brought them closer to the star as their orbit curved.  The Corporal’s ship was almost out of sight.  “He’s so worried about leaving us in the dust, he’s forgetting to tighten his slingshot,” Taus observed.  “What did you do to make him mad?”

 “I think that was you,” Herman retorted.  Behind him, a circulation vent hissed urgently.  It was starting to get hot in here.

 “He’s out of sight,” Herman said after a moment.  Sweat beaded on his forehead and hands.  Taus removed her wig, flung it on the floor, and turned her attention to environment control.

“When the frag was the last time you had the air conditioning serviced?” she demanded suddenly.  “It’s not working well enough!”

 “Space is a vast expanse of frozen nothing!” Herman snapped defensively.  “Why would I worry about air conditioning?”

 “If it gets too hot in here, you’ll wish you had worried about it!”  The Sun was shuddering under the stress.  The grate on the ventilation vent rattled.  “Tighten that arc!  We don’t have to be fast, just good.”

 “Frag it, Taus; it’s not every day I run my ship meters away from a star’s outer sphere!  I’m more worried about keeping us warm in space than cold most of the time!”  While he was shouting, he obeyed his partner.  The shuddering did not cease, but the ship’s path tightened and they swerved away from the star. Now it was time for the slingshot portion of the game, when they turned and used the sheer force of their speed to dive back at the star.

 Taus forgot about the air conditioning as she poured over the scanners.  “Where is he? Where is he?”  She slammed her fist on the counter.  “This will never work if we lose him!”

 “All we have to do is sling the closest to the sun!  Who cares if we’ve lost him?”

 “I care!” Taus shouted.  Her feet were planted wide to keep from falling as The Sun twisted and turned wildly.  The star’s gravitation had already pulled them into a faster rate than they could normally achieve on their own.  The back of Herman’s nose felt pulled, as if he was leaving parts of himself behind. 

 The star came at them much faster than before.  Herman forced himself to focus strictly on guiding his ship into a new orbital path.  Just in front of him, a small screen was spitting out thousands of panicked numbers as the ship’s computer calculated temperature limits and meltdown times. 

 They managed to get a little closer that time.  The temperature climbed noticeably.  Herman shed his outer shirt and used it to wipe his brow.  Although she was sweating, Taus refused to unbutton her jacket.  She gathered her hair into a tight bun. 

 A bright plume of fire suddenly appeared on the edge of the screen. It glowed bright red and whitened as it grew. “Solar flare!” Taus roared. “Raise the pitch to positive 48 degrees!”

 “It can’t handle it!” Herman rejoined. “We need to hold it steady!”

 “Do it!” Taus countered forcefully.

 With misgivings, Herman obeyed. It was not often that she spoke to him like that, but sometimes she knew what she was talking about. Loose change and a coffee cup slid off of the counters and clattered on the floor as The Sun pointed its nose upwards. The flare was under them now, its massive heat and deadly radiation more of a danger than ever. “Push it!” Taus cried. “Push it to starboard! Maintain vertical pull!”

 “Fraaaaggg!” Herman yelled.

 The ship veered to the right as it continued its upward climb. The solar flare arced gracefully and collided back into its birth mother. The Sun turned and went down, faster and faster until it looked like it would join the flare. The thruster array fired and pushed the ship into a near horizontal orbit with the massive giant.

 “That was easy,” Taus said.

 “Sure,” Herman muttered. He looked at his console. The burn on their fuel had taken up a sizeable amount. If they didn’t slingshot again soon, there would not be another close call to talk about.

 Taus eyed her reflection in one of the monitors.  “How do I look?” she asked offhandedly.  There was no way she was serious, but Herman whistled anyway.  Ultrasound scans started to bleep, printing scattered readouts on their tiny screens.

 “Moons, here he comes!”  Taus excitedly bounced on her feet.  She opened a side cabinet to reveal another scanner and control console.  Hurriedly, she flipped switches.

 “What the frag?”  Herman half stood up. “Taus??”

 “He’s coming up on us from behind.  He’s in a hurry, too.  I’ll only have one chance at this.  Monitor him, Herman! Don’t let him get away!”  Taus was already hailing him via telescreen.  “This is Dying Sun 009. Do you copy? Dying Sun 009 to Corporal Jones.  Answer me, you self-serving excuse for bad company!”

 “Taus, you can’t be serious—“

 “Corporal Jones, do you copy?  This is The Dying Sun 009.”  Taus flipped a final switch and sat down with a satisfied sigh.  A tiny screen at the bottom of the console came to life.  Corporal Jones’ ship was perfectly aligned in the middle of it.

 “We’re going to die,” Herman said to himself.  There was no one else that would listen to him.  “Worse yet, we’re not getting any money out of this.  Taus?”

 Even the crackle of static when the telescreen patched Corporal Jones through to them sounded smug.  The man’s lips were thin with victory, and his eyes were narrower than ever.  “So, you wish to give up?  I warned you.  For a price, I might be willing to…”  His voice trailed away when he saw Taus half-turned in her chair.  His face changed as if he had suddenly recognized her.  She wiggled her fingers in a friendly hello.

 “Remember me?” she asked before hitting a solitary, rarely used, button.

 Corporal Jones opened his mouth to shout as his eyes rounded in shock and indignation.  “Taus-!” he cried.  A sudden, purposeful explosion from the rear rattled the ship. Communications were cut abruptly. The telescreen filled with static. 

 “Outward view!” Taus cried exultantly. So filled with morbid fascination over what had just happened was he, Herman was already turning the monitors over.  The two of them watched wordlessly as the Corporal’s ship, crippled with one engine blasted, careened into the star.  Taus breathed outward in obvious ecstasy.  The ship vanished with an almost disappointing bright light.    

 Herman shook his head to himself and steered out of the star’s orbit.  Laughing so hard she could barely work the buttons, Taus unbuttoned her jacket.  She was still laughing as they entered normal space.  Once they had established a safe orbit around the star, they floated for at least an hour.  Taus continued to chuckle and gloat, occasionally bursting into new fits of laughter.  It was like being trapped in a tin box with a madman.  At least the temperature in the cabin was finally cooling to something more comfortable.

 Suddenly, ship scans picked up something coming at them.  “It’s not over yet,” Herman said.  Taus laughed again.  It was an expectant laugh he had heard before.  He hated that laugh.

The referee ship had closed in on them from behind.  Lights were blinking unremittingly.  “Do I answer their call?”

 “You’re a racer, aren’t you?” Taus challenged.  There were genuine tears of joy in her eyes. “What have you always done in this sort of situation?  Let’s think about it. What would the other hoodlums do?”

 Herman punched a few buttons, thinking about what he could possibly say to that woman.  There was no way they could possibly pay whatever it was Corporal Jones had promised her.  On the other hand, Herman’s reputation was on the line (not to mention his plans for later). It was the referee’s accepted place to open fire if she felt the game had been betrayed.

 There was no doubt that Taus had betrayed the game. Purposefully disabling your opponent was a mortal sin to slingshotters everywhere. Many people who took slingshot racing very seriously were going to be angry.  They would outnumber the other set of people who would be relieved that such fierce competition had been eliminated permanently.

 “What the frag did he ever do to you?” Herman demanded of his partner.  The lights were still blinking, but the referee was not going to wait forever. Sooner or later, she was going to open fire.

 “He didn’t die the last time I tried to kill him,” Taus said. She habitually touched her earpiece.  “So, what are we going to do here?  Do you want to talk to her or not?”  Taus sounded more amused than irritated, even though she was no longer laughing.

 Herman’s finger hovered over the connect switch.  “What did you bet on this race, anyway?  How much of a cut is this woman going to expect?”

 Taus smoothly buckled herself into her chair before saying, “To be quite honest, I bet him enough money to buy two small moons.  Also and for the record, this woman you’re so worried about happens to be his niece.  She probably hasn’t blown us to Sundry and Come yet because of the money.”

 Herman made his decision and flipped another, rarely used switch at the bottom of his console.  Dying Sun 009 opened its auxiliary thrusts and flared into motion.  Taus laughed as her investments spurred them out of reach.  There was a single shot that shook them before the star was a rapidly shrinking dot in the distance.  Even as other stars began to come close, Taus was still chortling.

 “You’re going to kill us with your little vendettas one of these days,” Herman said after chewing his lip in silent frustration.  “Someone is going to come after you.”

 “If I don’t get them first,” she chirruped. “I’m up for some wine. Want some?”

 “So long as it’s not water,” Herman said, adjusting controls and enjoying the vast cold of deep space.

 END


Akashik is written and drawn by The Writers of the Apocalypse.  Interested in seeing other places Battle of Angels has been in print?  Contact Dandelion Studios for a back issue of Kinships, or the publishers of Moshi Moshi for Issues 8 and 9.  All rights reserved.

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