Fic: The Summer Intern (cont)

[jeriendhal]

“It’s over then,” Nan breathed.  “The authorities will be here any minute.  Why don’t you just give up?”
 
Greycoat let out a low growl.  “I have never given up.  Besides, they’re coming after us with atmospheric craft.  This is a spaceship.”  As he spoke he started to rapidly punch buttons on the control panel, raising and sealing the cargo pod’s hatch and spinning up power to the reactionless and superluminal drives.
 
As he continued to run through a very abbreviated launch checklist, the galen slaver that had passed Nan and Nez when they had been sneaking towards the camp rushed onto the bridge.  “Rager says the sensors detected Ranger patrol craft approaching,” he shouted.  “Unseal the hatches so we can all get out of here!”
 
“No time.  They’ll be here in less than a minute,” Greycoat said, not looking up from the control panel.
 
“Damn you, I said open the fragging-“  The galen was cut short as Greycoat finally turned in his seat, pulling out his pistol and firing two point blank shots into the slaver. He fell backwards onto the deck, a charred hole in his chest, mouth and eyes wide in surprise.

“Never liked the smug birdbrain anyway,” Greycoat muttered, turning back the controls.

To any vessels that hear this message, this is the F.A.R.Rangers. You are ordered to remain where you are and not attempt to take flight.

“Oh, you don't see us yet, do you?” Greycoat said, his cheer returning. “That'll change in a second.”

“You're going to take off without the others?” Nan asked, wishing she could get her arms out from behind herself, so the cuffs would stop digging into her spine.

“That's right,” he said. “Eighty or so ferin divided by one adds up to quite a bit more than eighty divided by fourteen. The corp I made arrangements with won't care either way.”

“You think you're ever going to run out of people to betray?” Nan asked.

He spared a cold glance at her. “The only person I'm worried about betraying is myself.”

“You've donhe that already,” she said.

“Spare me,” he said irrritably. “You sound like my lady mother. It doesn't matter anyway, because now we are gone.” With that he pushed the throttle controls for the ventral thrusters forward and the cargo ship shot into the air, tearing through the spoofer net that had been covering the slaver encampment and shooting high into the air. Greycoat let out a surprised oath and eased the throttle back. “Why are we running so light?” he muttered.

Despite the pain shooting up her back, Nan grinned fiercely. “Maybe you left something behind,” she said. With all of the pain she was in, she couldn't really enjoy the look of horror that crossed Greycoat's face, as he checked his control panel and then set one of the display screens to show the view from the ventral cameras, but it was worth it nonetheless. Nearly five hundred meters below in the clearing was the ship's cargo pod, still sitting on the ground and surrounded by half a dozen Ranger troop carriers. They were landing to disgorge heavily armed vulpine and ferin officers that quickly surrounded the abandoned slavers.

“What did you do?” he shouted, ears turned completely back. “WHAT DID YOU DO!”

“Before I started playing the radio, I made sure to pull the emergency cargo pod release,” she said. “Guess you didn't have time to check that.”

TBC

Comments

[mehhayperson.livejournal.com]

Yaaaay the ferin are safe! And even if Nan has to make a Heroic Sacrifice then hopefully Nez will have seen that Greycoat was in charge.
Oh, or the ferin. Never mind. In either case he won't be welcome back in Vulpine space anytime soon.

(BTW you've titled this as an update on Altered Trajectory, not the Summer Intern.)

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

Yay!!!!! Of course, now there's absolutely nothing stopping him from killing Nan :(

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Working on that. All the calvary hasn't arrived yet. :)

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

Wow clever that one :)

...I so agree with Mehhay...

Great writing (as always) :D

mjkj