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A Wandering Childhood

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806 After Settlement ...

" - There must be somewhere we can stop, cariño.

- You know we can't, my love. If we get caught by the law enforcement before we get to our destination, we will never see space again. I understand how harsh it is to ask you that, but you need to be hold on, and be patient, cariña."

The dromedary just flew by Saint Lawrence Ice Field, in Ontario system.
Antonio gained some altitude to avoid the trade lane between California Jump Gate and Toronto Station, and the scanners of the ship passing by.
Oddly, he didn't feel like taking the risk to cross the path of a police or a military patrol, in spite of the urging situation.

Miranda, his wife, was lying down in the middle of the cardamine shipment, on a makeshift bed. She was tightly holding her belly, sweating, the face distorted with pain.
Every now and then, she would clench her teeth to hold the screams, but eventually they would break free from her mouth and resonate on the freighter's hull.
Antonio set the systems on autopilot on the coordinates to the California Jump Hole. He knew something could go wrong at any moment, but he wouldn't let his wife alone in that situation.

" - Come on baby, you can do it, we are not far away ...
- Hngh fuck! Why did it have to happen now!
- I know, baby, I know ... Come on, let me replace that, you won't make it otherwise ..."

On those words he replaced her cardamine respirator with a full one, and almost pure, and even if Miranda didn't him to change it, and just wanted this trip to be over with, she took a few deep breaths of the product.
A few seconds passed by, and she felt like the door of the cargo hold opened up, and slowly getting dragged out of the ship.
She was hallucinating, and seemed to pass out, but she smiled and seemed out of her pain, which reassured Antonio.
To keep track on her vital signs, he put a medical tracker on her arm, and after making sure she was still breathing, returned to the bridge.

The freighter was approaching Georgian Ice Field at a good pace, but what he saw right there was not reassuring.
On scanners, two Liberty Cruiser seemed to be flying by around the field. That was not good at all.
He turned off the autopilot and the cruise speed, and stopped the engine. He cut the power off of almost every system except for the life support system.

He needed to think. He needed to think and avoid a direct contact with the cruisers. If they spotted them, they were doomed. Not only their shipment would be lost, but their lives were at stake there.

The Liberty cruisers seemed to stop for a second. Behind the hardened glass of the cockpit, Antonio observed them. They stood still for a second, thrusters off, as if they were looking for something.
They moved again. They positioned themselves on the trade lane back to Toronto Station, and disappeared from sight.

The man in his dromedary sighed with relief.
He turned on the ship’s systems, and put back on the autopilot to the California jump hole.
As if the situation was not stressful enough, now there needed to be some weird patrol around the system …
A beeping brought him out of his thoughts. This didn’t sound right. The systems detected a missile approaching. High velocity, probably hitting them in a few seconds. A cruise disruptor.

Another beeping sound. Different, more alarming than the first one.
The one you hear when everything goes south. The sound of a life starting to fade away.

In the deep space of Ontario, a life was slowly drifting to the darkness, when another one should be starting seeing the light.

The missile hit the shield, and the ship’s speed immediately dropped, pushing Antonio against the hardened glass. The systems seemed to be optimal, only the cruise speed was unavailable for a short amount of time. If the enemy that launched it would not do it again.
The other alarm however, the one from the medical tracker of Miranda, kept going.

Antonio stood up slowly, a small drop of blood dripping on the floor. His head hurt, but he wasn’t feeling dizzy. He rushed to his wife, worried about the alarm of her medical bracelet.

The heart rate was nowhere to be found on the device, dioxygen saturation of her body was at zero percent. Antonio checked her breath, and she had one. He checked her pulse, and it seemed rather fine, her heart seemed to be going a bit too fast but that was okay. She was alive.
He switched her medical tracker with his, and a cold silence dropped in the ship.

A beeping sound made Antonio jump. He checked the radar: a Navy patrol composed of three Guardian-type ships, intercepted them, and one of them was trying to communicate.

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Antonio took his headphones and put them one, carefully turned off the microphone, and opened a channel to the Navy officer that was trying to reach out to him.

“This is Lieutenant Edward Hunt of the Liberty Navy, please advise.”

Antonio cleared his throat before turning the microphone on. He was hoping that a bluff might work.

“Good day, officer, I’m Edward May, Freelancer. I’m currently transporting someone in need of immediate care from medical facility. We need to be going, is that okay with you?”
“Copy that, Mister May. Hold on a second for a cargo scan, and you’ll be good to go. Ensign, proceed.”

Antonio’s face changed. He knew it was the end. They would find out they were smuggling cardamine in Liberty, and they would be killed or taken into custody.

“Sir, we have a problem here, this ship is filled with cardamine.”

They were done. Freedom, credits, love. All of this was going to disappear for good.

“Hold on, Ensign, we are picking up multiple signatures on scanners. Stay frosty.”

Antonio checked the radar: three other ships were inbound, and fast.

“Look at that, a patrol harassing another citizen. Let’s get rid of them! Fire away, folks!”

The group of ships broke its formation, and Antonio could see their weaponry: Lane Hackers.
One of them fired a torpedo, coming in the direction of the smuggler’s ship, triggering the proximity alarm. Antonio turned the engine back on, and tried to maneuver out of the torpedo’s area of effect.
The missile hit the ship that was scanning the dromedary, and the blast blew the Guardian up entirely.

“Now run, we know you have some job to do, we were sent there to help you, don’t make this a waste of time!”

The man reacted instantly. The systems loaded the cruise engine, and the freighter took its distances from the fight incredibly fast.
They were now out of scanner range within the Georgian Ice Field, and the California Jump Hole could be seen in the distance. Antonio set up the ship’s autopilot to ‘Approach’ and went to see how Miranda was doing. She seemed to be fine, so he took her to her seat, and put her seatbelt on.

He went back to his seat and entered the jump sequence in the computer. The ship accelerated, andwas sucked into the jump hole.

Yannis

Yannis