FSE

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The last time Jaime was released from jail, he basked in the openness of the public corridors around him. Last time, the weasel walked confidently to the impound hangar, waited in line, got the keycard to Venom again, and blasted out of the star system at full speed, ready to cause trouble and make a profit somewhere else. Last time, he breathed a sigh of contentment to be surrounded by billions of stars once again.

Not this time. This time there was no ship to pick up from the impound hangar, and he couldn't see any of the corridors around him. He wouldn't be able to see the stars.

"C'mon, my ship is this way. It's only a quick hop to the main station in orbit." Kevin led him by the elbow through the busy hallway. The chatty lynx was the last person he wanted to take pity on him, but if his former jail guard was offering him a free ride to the nearest space port, he wasn't one to turn down the opportunity. Jaime gripped his half dozen small canvases and plastic bag of painting supplies tightly. They were his only possessions now.

"What do you fly?" Jaime asked.

"Eh, I honestly couldn't tell ya. It's small asteroid mining vessel we had in impound for years. The owner died before he was released, so it was auctioned off to the prison employees. All its mining hardware is still installed, but I've never gotten the chance to try it out, with the full time job as a guard and all. Her name is Somnium. Not my invention--I liked the name the last guy gave her."

Jaime's art and supplies clattered to the floor as someone bumped into him. He turned around, dropped into a low stance, and pulled from his pocket the paint brush with the sharp, broken-off end. He heard someone gasp and shuffle away.

"Easy now," Kevin said, gingerly laying a paw on the weasel's shoulder. "You're not in prison anymore. People out here don't want to hurt you."

"You don't know that."

"I do." Jaime could hear the lynx gathering the art supplies that had spilled out of the bag. "I tend to think that most people in the galaxy are kind-hearted. Most people out there aren't evil."

"Interesting ideology if you're surrounded by convicts every day for your job."

The lynx put the bag and canvasses back in Jaime's paw. "It's how I get through the day. I have to remind myself that people in there are still people. They're not evil; they're just normal people who got mixed up in bad situations."

"Hmph." They would have to agree to disagree. Jaime put the paintbrush shiv back in his pocket. He held out his elbow and the lynx continued leading him toward the hangar. "Tell me more about your Somnium. It'll help me keep my nerves in check."

"Oh! Alright. What do you want to know?"

"Describe her to me. If you don't know the type of ship, I can try to figure it out from your description."

"Well, she's more curvy than angular. She has short wings for more control in-atmosphere, and they fold up for landing."

"Hmm. That narrows it down a lot, actually. A general-purpose model aimed at civilians, then, instead of something rugged for tradesmen. What's her armament?"

"Well, like I said, she's been modified for use as a mining vessel, so she's got the mining laser. She has places where I think weapons were attached at some point, but they've since been removed. Either the original owner wanted to save on weight, or he was short on cash and had to sell them off."

"Defensive systems?"

"Chaffs for throwing off missiles and tracking systems. And shields, of course."

"That's it?"

"I think so.

"Not much of a fighter, is she?"

Kevin shrugged. "Doesn't need to be. I probably use my ship for much more boring things than you use yours for."

"Used."

"Right. Come on, Somnium's this way."

Jaime felt a cold draft of air as they exited the long hallway. Everything sounded more echoey; they were in the hangar. He heard ground crew hovertrucks milling about, heard a new arrival powering down its engines, heard a heated discussion nearby about fines for improper landing procedures. The lynx led him through what an everyday person would perceive to be chaos, but Jaime was sure he could find Somnium with his nose alone.

There was something about mining vessels that always made them stand out: the smell. When blasting at asteroids with high-powered lasers, clouds of vapor and small particles are released along with the larger chunks of rock. The vapor and particles start coating the mining craft after a while, and even atmospheric reentry isn't enough to dust it off. It settles in the little seams between armor plates and into the landing gear wells and gets superheated on reentry, baking it to the hull and giving off a burnt smell that stings the nostrils. Even though it had been years since Somnium was last used as a mining vessel, the smell still lingered. Jaime took a deep breath and held it in as they approached.

Kevin lowered Somnium's freight elevator, walked the two of them onto it, retracted it, and guided Jaime to the seat at the left of the cockpit. The lynx sat down at the flight controls on the right. "Ready to breathe fresh space again?"

"Let's hope you're not that risky of a pilot," Jaime said.

"Come on, I'm probably not as good as you were in your day, but I'm not a bad pilot."

"I didn't say bad. I said risky."

Kevin powered on the ship's engines, making Jaime's seat shudder. "Welcome aboard, captain," the smooth feminine voice of the computer said.

Jaime smiled. "Same voice I had on my ship."

"Good to hear it again?"

"Yeah. She was my only friend back then."

Kevin hit the switches to go through the pre-flight checklist. "You know, we kept the wreckage of your ship in the corner of the hangar over there for several years."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but after five years of that junk taking up a landing pad, we figured it wouldn't be worth keeping it around. Plus, it was clear you weren't going to get out early on good behavior."

"Hmph. Sold her for scrap, then?"

"Yeah, and used those credits to pay off some of your fines and legal fees. Don't look so glum; you would have only had half a ship to come back to."

The weasel crossed his arms and sighed. "Wish I could have taken a piece to remember her by."

"Hey, you painted a bunch of paintings of her, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I can't look at those and enjoy them. They just feel like pieces of paper. Would have been nice to have the joystick or something else tangible."

Kevin received launch clearance and guided them out of the hangar. Jaime felt himself pressed back into his seat as they climbed through the atmosphere, speed increasing exponentially. Soon they had enough speed to break free from the planet, and Kevin eased off the thrusters. Jaime smiled as he felt the familiar sensation of weightlessness. He was home.

"Oolien Station to approaching ArmaClaw Mk. II, please state intentions."

The weasel bristled. Oolien Station. The assholes who took so long giving him docking clearance he got noticed by security and got blasted apart. The assholes who probably watched him fight for his life while casually sipping their coffee. Someday he'd make them pay.

"ArmaClaw Mk. II Somnium to Oolien Station, requesting permission to dock. Cargo: one civilian."

"Oolien Station to Somnium, you are cleared to land at docking bay one-two. Please obey all traffic procedures."

"Somnium to Oolien, copy docking bay one-two, thank you."

Jaime felt his pocket to be sure his tubes of paint were still there. He hoped there was some place on Oolien he might be able to get a wider variety of paints than he had access to the last fifteen years. Somewhere where they wouldn't lie to him and try to give him a different color than he wanted. When he first started painting in prison, someone thought it'd be funny to trade him a tube of toothpaste instead of a tube of paint, thinking the weasel wouldn't notice. That was the day Jaime realized he could use a paintbrush as a shiv. And the day he got five years added to his sentence.

"System Patrol Ship Mamba to all nearby vessels, be advised: we have a criminal escaping Oolien Station in a stolen cargo vessel. The pilot is considered armed and dangerous. Requesting all available ships to assist."

"No fucking way," Jaime cursed.

"Looks like it," Kevin said. "I can see the cargo ship coming out of the station right now. Damn, that's a big one. How did he steal it all by himself?"

It wasn't that. It was the voice from the Mamba. It sounded a little more gruff than he remembered, a shade more tired, but it was definitely the same voice as his opponent in the patrol ship Constrictor all those years ago. The one who opened fire on him and started the chain of events that landed him here today. "Mother fucker."

"What do we do?" Kevin said. "I don't have any real combat experience, just simulations."

"System security doesn't need you to take him down, they just need you to help box him in. Get on his tail and stay there."

"Alright." The lynx hit the comms button. "ArmaClaw Mk. II Somnium to Mamba, coming in to assist." Jaime felt his body pull against the seat's restraints as they turned to give chase. He heard the lynx groan in frustration. "How am I supposed to fly this thing and operate the shields and weapons and power distribution at the same time?"

"Leave those to me," Jaime said, passing his fingers over the buttons on the arms of his seat. They felt like they were in a fairly standard copilot's configuration. "Just stay above and behind him if you can."

"How close?"

Jaime hit the buttons to power up the mining laser. He hoped it still worked after years of disuse. "These things are powerful, but don't go very far. I'd stay within 500 meters. The closer, the better."

He could practically hear Kevin shake his head. "I'll try."

The two strained against their seatbelts as Kevin put them through an aggressive, slightly clumsy series of maneuvers to get into position. He often overcorrected and had to spend precious seconds getting back in position, but Jaime could feel Kevin getting more confident. "Alright, we're within 500. Trying to get a good angle for you, but the Mamba keeps getting in the way."

"That's just fine, we'll let him do the hard work and only fire if we have to," the weasel said.

Kevin cursed and swerved as Somnium was rocked from the force of laser impacts on the shields. The stolen vessel was apparently equipped with a rear-facing weapons bank, and was firing wildly at anything behind it. Jaime cycled the targeting scanner. Based on the low-pitched whistles it gave, Mamba's shields were running low.

"I can't take much more of this!" Kevin said.

"Stay right behind the Mamba. That thing can take a beating better than we can."

The cargo ship's engines flared and it shot ahead. The Mamba and Somnium had to stay right on its tail to keep up. The system patrol ship suffered several more hits.

"Open a channel to the Mamba," Jaime said. "I need to tell him something important."

Kevin looked uncertain trying to dodge golden laser blasts and operate the comms panel at the same time, but he was eventually able to spare a second to hit the proper sequence of buttons. "You're on."

"Somnium to Mamba, whom am I speaking to?"

"Somnium, if you were not aware, we are in a combat situation. This is no time to be exchanging pleasantries."

"Mamba, this is important. Name and rank."

The other pilot gave an irritated sigh. "Commander Miles Dobson. Why do you care?"

"Did you fly a patrol ship called the Constrictor about fifteen years ago?"

"Yeah, she was a good ship." Commander Dobson cursed as his ship shook with a string of hits. His shields were running low. "Are you gonna keep yapping over frequency or help me stop this guy from escaping?"

Kevin shot the weasel a glare. "What are you doing?"

"Just hold on," he told the lynx. "One more question, Commander Dobson. Do you have a family?"

"What?"

"It's important, sir."

Jaime's sensors chimed. The Mamba's shields were offline. "No, no family. With this job I never had time to start one."

"Thank you, Miles. That makes my conscience lighter." He fired the mining laser at the Mamba.

The searing beam of light lanced out and hit the patrol ship right in the starboard engine. Somnium's shields glowed as chunks of the Mamba were drilled clean through and sent flying at them. The engine blew apart, rocking both ships.

"What the fuck are you doing?" yelled Commander Dobson.

"Don't you know? Venom takes time to kill its prey."

"...You!?"

Kevin veered away from the_Mamba_. A second later the patrol ship gave a flash of blinding white light and exploded.

Bits and pieces smashed into their shields, enough to overwhelm them and start impacting the ship itself. "Shields offline," Somnium said. "Hull taking damage."

"Why the fuck would you do that?!" Kevin yelled.

"Personal reasons."

"Fucking Christ," the lynx said. He inhaled sharply. "Look! He managed to use the escape pod."

"Hmph. An eye for an eye, then." He could only hope it was literal.

"Oolien Station to ArmaClaw Mk. II Somnium, you have committed crimes against this system and the Conglomerate. Shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded. Resistance will mean your immediate destruction."

"Shit," Kevin said. "Look what you've done! You assaulted a system security officer, and now I'm gonna be complicit. I can't go to jail!"

"Shut up and plot a course for the nearest system outside the Conglomerate. Hopefully we can get out of their jurisdiction before they catch up to us." Jaime pressed down on the spot where the fuel injector activation button should be but only felt the flat arm of his chairs. Of course this civvy ship doesn't have injectors. Figures.

"Listen, I can't go to jail! I know firsthand how hard it is to get out of one!"

"Then plot the damn course and pray we don't have to rely on that expertise." The radar beeped a warning. More security ships shot from the station's entrance and were headed right for them. "Shit. How far away does it say those ships are?"

"Thirteen kilometers and closing."

Jaime did the math. "We've got less than thirty seconds until they'll be in range with their military lasers. They won't be very accurate at the limits of their range, but with our shields down a few good hits is all they'll need. Is that course plotted yet?"

"A few more seconds... There! Five jumps until we're out of Conglomerate space."

"We got enough fuel for that?"

"Barely."

"Good. Get that wormhole going and keep the ship nice and steady."

Jaime felt the ship vibrating as it stored up the power to rip a temporary hole in space. The sound of the capacitors was rose pitch and was getting louder, until they finally released all their energy straight in front of them at a focused spot. A dot appeared in the distance and slowly grew wide enough for a ship to pass through.

"They're only eleven kilometers away!" the lynx said.

"Easy now. Run her straight through the middle." He remembered the last time he tried escaping through a wormhole all too well.

The radar whooped, signaling the patrol ships were deploying their weapons. They had only seconds left.

"Entering wormhole in 10... 9..."

Kevin swore. "They're within ten kilometers!"

"8... 7..."

Jaime hit the buttons to divert all extra power to the shield generators, hoping they might come back online in time.

"6... 5..."

Flashes of light came from the lead ship.

"4... Shields onli--" Somnium shook with the impact. Alarms sounded everywhere. "Shields offline. 3..."

"Come on!" Jaime snarled.

An explosion rocked the ship, nearly throwing them from their seats. "Wormhole generator offline. 2..."

"The hole's getting smaller!" Kevin cried.

"1..."

They shot through the wormhole. A second later it closed behind them. The harsh beeps from the radar went silent. Kevin and Jaime breathed hard. They made it.

"Holy shit," Kevin said. "We made it!"

Jaime knew they didn't have time to celebrate. It wouldn't take the security ships long to analyze the remnants of the wormhole to figure out where they went. And with their generator down, they wouldn't be able to jump to safety next time. They were trapped in unfriendly space. "What system are we in?" Jaime asked.

"Uh, let's see... The Wilde-748 system."

"Wilde-748..." The name sounded familiar. He probably owed someone here money. "Lay in a course for the nearest colonized planet. With any luck we'll be able to lay low for a while and get the repairs we need."

"We're still in Conglomerate space though. Any patrol ships near the planet are gonna start shooting immediately."

Jaime shook his head. "Engage the superluminal engines. Even if they beamed a message through the wormhole, it's only traveling at the speed of light. As long as we're going faster than that we should be able to beat the message by a few minutes or hours. That'll be long enough to get us past patrols safely."

"Right," Kevin said. His nav screen beeped. "Okay, nearest place is Niccolo's Planet. Mining economy with a population of fifty thousand. Sounds big enough to have a few repair shops. Laying in a course now."

Jaime grimaced. He'd definitely been here before. The planet's thriving black market meant good business for him back in the day, but now that he couldn't do drug runs anymore they'd have to find a different way to get the money for repairs. Because he was pretty sure Kevin's security guard paycheck wouldn't be enough to cover it.

Kevin must have been thinking along similar lines. "Got anyone down there who'd give us a good price on a new wormhole generator?"

"Maybe." The price would likely be a trade for work, and knowing the owner of the colony the weasel didn't know if Kevin would like the price. "We're going to go have a chat with Niccolo."