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  “Hey!” she yelled. “I forgot to ask your name.”

  He stopped and turned around. “Name’s Hank,” he said with a wave. “What’s your name?”

  “Megan.”

  “Nice to meet you, Megan,” he said, and then turned and continued on his way with Shelby by his side. Megan watched Hank and Shelby walk to the building and enter. Hank waved again from the doorway before he pulled the door shut.

  She climbed into her aircar and closed the door. Taking Hank at his word, she moved the ship to the nearest empty pad. After shutting down the drive system, she went to the back of the ship, slipped out of her clothes, and climbed into bed. “Goodnight, Nolan, wherever you are,” she said to the quiet darkness. “I hope you’re safe.”

  Chapter 7

  The Independence slipped away as Nolan held the throttle open, trying to catch her. The fuel gauge crept downward as the jets burned. Judging large distances in space was nearly impossible by eye, but he was pretty sure the gap between himself and the ship was no longer growing. Ten percent fuel left, and now he thought the gap was decreasing. He’d burn a little longer, until he was sure he was moving toward the ship, and then he’d shut down and coast for a while. He had to save some fuel to match the ship’s speed when he got there, or he’d slam into the hull or fly past going the other direction. Sweat was rolling down his face, getting into his eyes and making it hard to see. He knew he was now closing on the Independence. Just a bit longer, to make sure I have enough velocity to reach her, and then I’ll shut down.

  The Independence was definitely getting closer. Closing the throttle, he checked his fuel. He had just three percent remaining. That wouldn’t be enough to match the ship’s speed when he got there. His pulse was racing, his breathing much too fast for the suit’s scrubber to handle. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and held it, hoping to keep from hyperventilating. He imagined Megan flying across Caldon on her way to visit Uncle Ethan. She was going to love the old man, and his horses, too. No matter what happened to him up here, she was going to have two wonderful weeks down there. Then he realized she would never know what had happened to him, how he had died. He simply wouldn’t return. She’d come back to Dawson spaceport, expecting to meet him, and he wouldn’t be there. She’d wait for him, for a while. Sooner or later, realization would set in, and she’d go home alone. He opened his eyes to see where the ship was, realizing he’d been crying. He blinked the tears away and found the ship a lot closer than he’d expected. This was it.

  Flipping a control to activate the front jets, he gave a short burst… then another… and another. He was slowing, but the ship was still passing him from right to left and he still had significant closing speed. He guessed he had enough fuel to solve one of those problems. If he burned all of his fuel matching the ship’s orbital velocity, he’d slam into the side of the ship. If he burned it all to keep from hitting the ship, she’d slip away, passing him by too quickly for him to grab hold and hang on. There really was only one choice. He needed to match the ship’s orbital velocity and hope he didn’t slam into her too hard.

  With a short burst from the front jets on one side, he spun himself around to face in the same direction as the ship. He fired the rear jets and watched as the ship appeared to slow. With a quick burst from one front jet, he spun around to face the ship, firing all the front jets to check his closing speed. They burned for two seconds, and then went out. His fuel was gone. Working as quickly as he could, he unstrapped himself from the pack. He could use it as reactionary mass, pushing it away to give himself momentum in the opposite direction. It wouldn’t help with his closing speed because he’d have to push the pack in the direction of the ship, increasing the pack’s velocity in order to reduce his own. It wouldn’t do him any good to reach the ship if his pack put a big hole in the hull. The airlock was slightly to his left, so he gently pushed the pack away to his right.

  The hull slid past as he braced for collision. There was a handrail on either side of the airlock, and his life now depended on grabbing hold and not letting go. The first handrail slipped by, just out of reach. Twisting his shoulders to get a little more extension, he grabbed for it with one hand. Just as he wrapped his fingers around the handrail, his body slammed into the airlock door, nearly knocking the wind out of him. He felt the handrail slip from his grasp. The airlock door was slipping past him to his right, and he reached with both hands and grabbed the second handrail as tightly as he could. His momentum ripped one hand free, but he managed to hold on with the other.

  Terrified and hyperventilating, he could barely see through his fogged face mask. With his free hand, he fumbled to find his safety tether and finally pulled its clip free from his belt. As quickly as he could, he reached and attached it to the handrail. He began to laugh, knowing that he was now tied to the ship. All he had to do was get inside.

  Several minutes passed as he rested and regained his composure. He’d made it. It had come down to one second of fuel. One less second of fuel and he would be floating away into space to die a painful, nasty death.

  Finally ready to make entry, he opened the access panel for the keypad and typed his access code. To his surprise, the airlock opened. He expected that SACOM would have cleared the codes, preventing anyone from entering. Perhaps they didn’t expect anyone to try. Whatever the reason, he was in. Grabbing a safety tether attached to the inside of the airlock, he clipped it to a ring on his belt, and then unclipped his tether from the outside rail. Pulling himself in, he pressed the button to close the outer door. The display indicating the ship’s internal pressure showed almost no air left. He wouldn’t need to pressurize the airlock to open the inner door.

  When the inner door was open, he unclipped the tether and moved inside, closing the door again. Everything appeared to be shut down except the transponder beacon and some of the emergency lights in the aft section of the ship. Before he tried to power up the ship and leave orbit, he wanted to look around and make sure everything was okay.

  Floating and pulling himself along using the handrails, he headed down the corridor toward the rear of the ship. Small items were floating around, mainly personal items that had not been secured before SACOM escorted everyone off the ship. He examined the cabins on his right as he passed the open doors. There were more things floating around, but otherwise, everything was exactly as they had left it. Reaching the commons room, he stopped and looked around. A deck of playing cards was floating all around the room. He remembered the last time he, John, and Becca had played poker at that table in the corner. Turning, he looked through the window into the cargo hold. Their last trip haunted him. He had spent most of the trip on the bridge, or sleeping, but he knew that Becca, John, Vince, and Earl had died on this ship, their bodies destroyed by radiation poisoning. He reminded himself that he had a job to do and pulled himself along to the engine room.

  After surveying the ship, satisfied that it was fit to fly, he headed back up the corridor toward the bridge.

  Floating across the dark room to the helm, he carefully strapped himself into his old seat. Without life support, he had to remain in his bulky pressure suit. Without the gravgen, the chair felt unfamiliar. He switched on the emergency lighting, giving a dim glow that allowed him to see the controls. The controls were designed to be operated with pressure suit gloves on in the event of the loss of life support or an accidental hull depressurization. He had never actually flown the ship with gloves on, and now realized how shortsighted that was. If there had been a catastrophic system failure during a salvage mission, could he have gotten everyone home safely? He should have practiced.

  If SACOM were monitoring the ship remotely, they would notice major systems being powered up and know someone was aboard. He had a startup routine in the ship’s command system that he had written to activate only the barest essentials in the event of a partial power system failure. Of course, there would be no missing the power build up when the retrograv engine started. He hoped his low power sta
rtup routine would hide what he was doing until the last possible moment. Fortunately, the routine, by virtue of starting only a few major systems, was also the fastest way to get the Independence under way.

  He switched on the command processor and waited as it booted. Then, scrolling through its programs, he found the one he needed and opened it. His finger hovered over the execute button. This was where things got real. Don’t be stupid, he thought. The point of no return was when you stepped out of that ship. The Independence is your only chance now. He pressed.

  Throughout the ship, critical systems whirred and hummed to life. One by one, system status indicators turned green on his display. Lastly, the retrograv status went green. He was certain that someone in SACOM was choking on their coffee right now as they watched the power buildup in the Independence and scrambled to alert someone higher up the chain of command. He’d be gone before they dialed their comm unit.

  Without wasting time plotting a course for the autopilot, Nolan manipulated the manual controls, and the Independence accelerated out of orbit. If SACOM hadn’t noticed the power buildup, they sure as hell had noticed the ship’s departure. Stealth was no longer necessary. With the flick of a finger on the control screen, he turned on the gravgen. He was pulled down into his chair and knew he was now free to throttle up the retrograv drive system.

  Before their last salvage job, Nolan had developed his own control system that linked the gravity generator to the drive systems, allowing the gravgen to compensate for and null out the ship’s acceleration. The Independence could pull twelve Gs while its occupants worked comfortably in a one G field. Even a SACOM interceptor was no match for the Independence now. Nothing currently in Caldonian orbit had any chance of keeping up with him. However, once the Independence reached its maximum sub-light speed, a SACOM cruiser could catch him on a flat run before he reached the edge of the star system.

  With another swipe of the control screen, he enabled the long-range sensor system. He could not fly the ship at its maximum sub-light speed using visual systems alone. Reminded by his cumbersome gloves, he activated the ship’s life support systems. He really wanted to take his helmet and gloves off, but it would take time to build up the ship’s internal pressure and heat the air to a comfortable temperature. Looking at the sensor display, he saw open space all around, free of any large ships. There was a small ship, probably an interceptor, following him, but it was quickly falling behind.

  He knew SACOM would track him as far as their sensors could reach. They would certainly dispatch a cruiser to try to catch him, in which case the only way he would escape would be to make a hyperspace jump. Making the transition into or out of hyperspace in the vicinity of a large mass, such as a planet or a star, caused significant deviations from the intended course. It was extremely dangerous, not to mention illegal.

  Several years ago, SACOM had developed a theoretical model of the effect of large masses on hyperspace transitions and had sent two ships to test the model. Initial results looked good, with the model predicting the course deviations within the expected uncertainty. However, the model broke down as the distance between the ship and a large mass decreased, and the trial was abruptly terminated when one of the ships vanished without a trace during a jump. Nobody knew for sure where the ship had gone, but there were only two possibilities—it had either come out of hyperspace inside a planet, or inside a star.

  Carl had ordered Nolan to make one such jump when they were rushing to get their four sick crewmates back to Caldon for medical treatment. Transitioning into hyperspace in close proximity to Kerros, a massive gas giant planet, they had ended up significantly closer to Caldon than expected. It had scared the hell out of Nolan. Even without emerging from hyperspace inside Caldon, they could have collided with another ship. He knew he would have to take that risk again if a SACOM cruiser pursued him.

  Checking the sensors again, he found the gap between himself and the following ship had widened significantly. With the Independence now in open space and approaching its maximum speed, he turned control over to the autopilot and began entering coordinates for a series of hyperspace jumps. If a cruiser appeared on his sensors, he’d execute the first jump and hope like hell he lived to make the second.

  * * * *

  It had been nearly twenty-three hours since he had left orbit, and he was now far beyond SACOM’s sensor range from Caldon. He had slept for a few brief periods, relying on the autopilot to maintain course, and the sensor system to alert him if any ships came into range.

  The cryogenic storage tanks containing the reserves of liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen had been used to pressurize the ship with a breathable atmosphere. The gases leaving the tanks had been heated to a comfortable temperature, far above their frigid boiling points. However, everything inside the ship had been cold, and it had taken several hours to warm everything up sufficiently enough that the environmental system could add water vapor to the air. Without that crucial humidity, his body would quickly become dehydrated.

  After a diagnostic scan of the life support system, and consulting his suit’s external atmosphere analyzer, Nolan removed his helmet and breathed fresh air. He worked his hands out of the gloves and then pulled off his boots. Finally, he shed his pressure suit and then went into the head to remove the diaper that was making him quite uncomfortable. After a quick shower, he went to his cabin and put on clean clothes.

  He made use of his new freedom of motion by walking around the bridge to stretch his stiff muscles. Then, returning to the control system screen, he activated the food synthesizer. After twenty-three hours in a pressure suit, surviving on water and liquid nutrients drunk through a tube, he desperately wanted a hot, solid meal. The long-range sensors still showed clear space and the autopilot was performing flawlessly, so he turned and headed down the corridor to the galley.

  Scrolling through the menu on the food synthesizer, he selected a meal. The machine hummed to life, and a few minutes later, the door slid open. The aroma made Nolan’s mouth water. This was a huge improvement over the pressure suit nutrient drink. He picked up the plate and grabbed some utensils, intending to go to the bridge to eat, and then changed his mind. The autopilot would avoid collisions and the sensor system would alert him of any approaching ships long before they were close enough to be any harm. He sat at one of the tables, made himself comfortable, and ate his meal.

  Back on the bridge, Nolan smiled as he sank into his chair at the helm. It felt like returning home after a long absence. Without the bulky pressure suit, he felt more optimistic about this whole endeavor. The ship’s identity would soon be changed. He’d park it at a busy spaceport and return home before anyone had missed him. He, however, missed Megan. Glancing at the clock, he realized she had probably already reached Zebulon and was getting to know Uncle Ethan.

  Looking at the long-range sensors, he marveled that no ships had come into range yet. He was sure that a cruiser would have pursued him by now. He sipped a drink he had brought from the galley as the autopilot guided the ship. His eyes kept returning to the sensor screen, and he reminded himself that an alarm would sound if anything came into range.

  Hours slipped away with no sign of pursuit. Surely, they had at least one cruiser in the quadrant that could have caught him by now. On the other hand, he didn’t relish the idea of making a hyperspace jump yet and welcomed the open space in every direction. All in all, he felt lucky that things had gone so smoothly.

  * * * *

  Nolan was getting nervous. A lack of extended, restful sleep contributed to this, but there was more to it. The Independence was more than halfway to the edge of the star system, and there was still no sign of pursuit. This no longer felt like good luck—it felt like a trap. For the sixth time, he reviewed the data he had entered for the first three hyperspace jumps and then looked at the sensor display again. With a couple of jumps, he would be gone and even SACOM could not follow him.

  His uneasiness continued to grow as additional hours pas
sed without pursuit. Something wasn’t right, and he wasn’t going to stick around to find out what was wrong. Reluctantly, he initiated the first jump. The scene on the forward view screen changed abruptly as the ship moved to a new section of the galaxy. The core checked the surrounding star field, determined the ship’s exact position as it had been pushed off course by the gravitational wells of two planets, and made corrections to the data for the next two jumps. Nolan released the breath he had been holding after he realized he had transitioned into clear space. He was now well outside the system and free to safely make additional jumps. With a touch of the screen, he executed the two remaining jumps.

  He relaxed, knowing there was no way any ship could have tracked him through hyperspace. He looked at the star chart and planned his next set of jumps. As a precaution, he had refused to make these calculations before departure for fear that some electronic record might remain, giving away his destination. Even Megan and Derick had no idea where he was going.

  As he calculated the parameters for the next jump, a tone from the long-range sensor system made him jump. He stared at the screen in disbelief. There was a ship out there on the very edge of sensor range, and it wasn’t moving. He reviewed the sensor data leading up to the ship’s appearance and found a series of Keyser fluctuations. The ship had not flown into sensor range. It had emerged from hyperspace in that spot, and now it was just sitting there. Okay, Nolan, don’t panic. There’s some explanation for this. There is no way they could have followed you. It’s just a coincidence. Except that you don’t believe in coincidences, and the odds of this coincidence are virtually zero. So, what are the possibilities? He stood and paced back and forth behind the console. The ship followed me. He turned and headed back the other way. It couldn’t have followed me. But it did, somehow. Turning, he walked to the screen and stared at the sensor readout for several minutes. The unknown ship remained fixed with relationship to the Independence.