The shrill whistle marking the end of the third shift reverberated through the hot metal of the foundry, piercing the eardrums of every worker present even over the roaring furnaces and constantly bubbling molten metal. It was always easy to tell who hadn't been working there long, because unlike the lifers -- inmates and parolees who were very likely to live out the remainder of their short lives in the oppressive heat, toiling away in a job that had beaten their bodies and their spirits into weary submission -- the newcomers almost always jumped clear out of their skins in surprise as they clapped their hands over their ears to stop the painful assault on their hearing.
Carina was one of those, and among the few times she ever saw a hint of amusement or any sort of life in the dead eyes of the lifers who worked on the line near her was when she caught them chuckling quietly at the new girl frightened by the shift whistle. There wasn't much about this job that she actually liked, to be fair, but it was always those moments when she really hated it. It had taken weeks for her to win her foreman's respect, and even longer than that for her to be relegated to a job that actually gave her something that required any effort. Compared to the hulking, twisted brutes covered in burns and scars from years of hard labor, Carina was like a little mouse, standing a full head shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than all but the smallest men she worked among, and she couldn't stand being treated like a fragile relic that would break under the slightest burden. For what seemed like forever she had been given the most menial, pointless jobs that required no exertion whatsoever, and it drove her nearly to the point of insanity. She was not an idle person, and doing that kind of work was an affront to her dignity, not to mention the fact that the clock seemed to run backwards when she watched the big men go about their toils while she piddled about sweeping up bits of slag.
Even though she was small, especially compared to her coworkers, Carina was deceptively strong and hardy, had a grip far surpassing what her little hands looked like they could administer, and she had begged for the opportunity to prove it. When she finally was given the chance to work at a smelting furnace, she worked herself almost to death in order to keep up with the others, never once letting on that she was fatigued to the point of exhaustion. She was never permitted to work the metal itself, but lifting, stacking, and transporting ingots and raw material about the factory floor was far less debasing than playing housemaid, and the work day always went by so much quicker. Her body was a permanent, achy wreck for the first solid two weeks of her new job, but not one time did she ever complain or stop to rest, and people were finally starting to notice.
But the one thing she still hadn't been able to overcome, no matter how she prepared, no matter how carefully she tried to pay attention to the time, she still fell victim to that damn whistle. It never failed.
She worked her jaw and blinked hard, trying to conceal the ringing in her ears as she, as casually as she could, placed the last ingot on the carryall and gave it a hard slap with her leather gloved hand, pretending not to hear the quiet laughter of the relief shift. Pulling her gloves off she ran her calloused hand over her matted thick black hair, the strands that had strayed loose from the tight bun into which she had pulled in back. The sweat soaking her scalp held them in place, and she ran the back of her forearm across her brow. She had lived on the planet Houston all her life, and even though as any other Houstonian native she was accustomed to the wild temperature extremes of the world's climate, the heat of the foundry was enough to dehydrate anyone within hours if they weren't careful.
Even though the sweat-and-grime-soaked coveralls revealed nothing about her figure and her light tan skin was ruddy with the day's effort, Carina could be called pretty by many, despite her undeniably brash, unladylike air. She and her sister Consuela had even gotten their hands on some makeup once, which was a rare luxury for someone of her social class, and she couldn't deny that she liked what she saw in the mirror. When her thin, demurely arched eyebrows were plucked, her eyelashes teased, and a tiny bit of eyeliner and blush accented her deep brown eyes and high cheekbones, she had looked lovely indeed. She had always though her nose to be a little too pointy or her eyes to be a little too far apart, but she had from time to time received a number of ill-conceived attempts at compliments on her unique blend of Hispanic and Rheinlander features. But there was little cause for someone like her to get trussed up like a clown and parade about like some self-absorbed bimbo looking to land a rich husband. Even if she wanted to, if she stayed at the foundry for very long, which she sincerely hoped not to, any potential beauty she might have would be marred and ruined forever by the heat of molten lead and steel.
Stuffing her gloves sloppily in the breast pocket of her loose coveralls, she put her hands on her hips and surveyed the factory floor quickly, making a big show of nodding to herself in satisfaction of a physically demanding and tiring job well done, still making sure to prove to the other men that she was as cut out for this work as they were.
A surly Hispanic man with a thick gray Fu Manchu mustache and a shaved head came striding up just then. It was Rodrigo, her relief worker, and the only person in this miserable job that she felt any sort of camaraderie with. His left arm was almost entirely covered in the gnarled remnants of a nasty-looking burn, and his cheek had a long scar that ran from his nostrils to his ear. His shoulders appeared to go right up to his head, his neck lost in a mass of hulking muscle. To anyone who just met him, he would look like any other dangerous convict, but Carina knew better. His cracked lips pulled back in a yellow-toothed grin that, oddly, had the unmistakable air of welcoming friendliness, when he saw her. Carina smiled back at him, not her usual tight-lipped, forced smile, but the genuine, warm smile she only gave to her sister, her mother, and to him.
"Buenos dias, Lauchita!" the big man said to her warmly, slapping her on the shoulder firmly, but obviously with far less force than he was capable of delivering. "Good one today?"
Carina scowled playfully at him and punched him squarely in the chest as hard as she could, but it wasn't even enough to make him back up a step. "Callate ya, cabrón," she retorted. "How many times do I have to tell you I hate it when you call me that!"
Rodrigo laughed mischievously, pretending to fend her off as if intimidated. "Sí, I know," he said, still chuckling. “That's why I do it.” She shook her head, trying to suppress her grin as he pulled on his gloves, preparing to take her place. The night shift workers were beginning to file out of the cavernous foundry as the first shift was filing in, two opposing currents of bodies moving around them like a river flowing around a rock jutting out of its bed. The two of them looked around for a moment before Rodrigo spoke again. “You hear from LPI about your application yet, mija?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I hope there'll be a wave waiting for me when I get back home,” she replied.
“How many times you taken their exam now? Two?” he asked.
“Three,” Carina corrected him with a quiet sigh. “And thanks for reminding me, pendejo.”
Rodrigo shrugged. “Just askin',” he said. “Still don't get why you're so stuck on it. You know you got a hell of roadblock to get around, with your daddy's record and all.”
She narrowed her eyes up at him, saying nothing aside from a cold stare.
Immediately he threw his hands up in front of him defensively. “Hey, hey, I'm just sayin' is all,” he said quickly. “I just don't wanna feed you any lies, mija. You got to be realistic is all. People like you and me, we're the bottom of the barrel. May not be totally legitimate, but the cops ain't likely to hire from the dregs down here, especially not someone like Felix Ibánez's kid, you know?”
“I need to get going,” Carina said tersely, and started to go.
Rodrigo stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Mija, hold on,” he pleaded with a paternal air to his voice. Carina avoided his eyes at first, but she knew his patient silence wouldn't abate until she either conceded or the foreman came along to kick her out and get Rodrigo on the line, so she finally looked back up at his steely gray eyes. “I ain't trying to upset you. I just don't wanna see you get your hopes up too high just to be disappointed. Look around you here,” he continued, motioning around the foundry floor with his bear paw of a hand. “See all them faces? All them shattered dreams? That ain't what I wanna see on you.”
Carina couldn't help give him a smirk. “So settle in and be happy I'm here, is that it?” she mocked.
He flicked her nose, and she had to twitch it and consciously force her eyes not to water up. “Don't be a smartass, Lauchita,” he chided, grinning. “I know you're destined for bigger things than this. I'm just sayin' keep your options open.”
She kept the smirk on her face. “Glad you're looking out for me, Rodrigo,” she said half-sarcastically.
A voice over the loudspeaker boomed. “First shift to your stations!”
Rodrigo grunted and looked back at her, slapping her upper arm. “Better get goin',” he told her. “Don't wanna keep your Daddy waiting up on ya.”
Carina scoffed. “No, we wouldn't want that, would we?”
“Hasta mañana, Cari,” he said, and gruffly took the carryall's powered handles and started to shove it away into the crowd.
She stood there quietly for another moment. “Yeah,” she whispered to no one as she watched him go. “Tomorrow.” With a sigh, she turned to head for the locker room, taking care not to limp or shuffle even though her body creaked in protest with every move.
Not for the first time, she wished she had someone like Rodrigo to talk to more often.
The clink and rattle of dishes being set out for lunch had awoken Carina before she was completely ready, but today she didn't have many daylight hours to spare before she had to head to the foundry anyhow. The Houstonian sun was stubbornly beating its way through the quaint yellow, outdated floral curtains drawn in a vain effort to keep its heat at bay as she made her way sleepily out into the common room. The house she lived in with her parents and sister was barely big enough for two people to comfortably cohabitate - a common room with a little kitchenette lined up in the corner opposite the front door, and two bedrooms and a single bathroom tucked away on the opposite end. There were days when it was a gamble whether or not the faucet knobs would actually provide running water, and the electricity browned out quite frequently. Still, her mother was a wizard at keeping it in order and feeling like a well-looked-after home, and she and Consuela pitched in every chance they got.
Her mother Aracely, a tallish, gracefully slender woman with a few gray streaks in her otherwise thick black hair that looked as if they had been deliberately placed there, looked up from setting the table at her. “Oh, lo siento, mija,” she apologized, drawing a quiet hissing breath in through her teeth. “I didn't mean to wake you.”
“That's okay, mamá,” Carina replied, rubbing some stubborn vestiges of sleep from her eyes. She surveyed the place settings - four of them - with some slight confusion. “I thought Connie would be working late tonight?”
“Not tonight,” Aracely said, arranging the last place setting on the small, wobbly square table. “She sent a wave saying she should be home by four.”
The news made one corner of Carina's lips twitch upward involuntarily. She and her sister had completely opposite work schedules; when she was working, Consuela was at home asleep, and vice versa. Even a few hours over a meal together sounded like a treat. She raised her closed fist to her chin and kissed the side of her index finger, and whispered a quiet prayer of gratitude as she made the sign of the cross on herself. “Have you told Dad about my plan yet?” she asked, scratching her backside absently as her mouth stretched wide open in a noisy yawn.
Aracely froze almost imperceptibly, and then looked sheepishly back at her, surprisingly not seeming to have even noticed the unladylike display. Instantly Carina knew she had either forgotten, or had never worked up the nerve to tell him. “I'm so sorry, mija,” she said quietly.
She pursed her lips tightly and sighed. Almost as if on cue, the footsteps fell outside the front door just before it swung open, revealing the stocky frame of her father Felix. He was not what one would call a giant or a hulk, but he sat in a squat, sturdy frame of moderate size, with very little arm hair and a dark goatee circling his mouth. His eyes were narrow slits that, coupled with the goatee obscuring his lips, gave him the impression he was always scowling. Surprising to most was his relative lack of wrinkles and total absence of gray hair. Felix could possibly pass for a man ten or twenty years his junior - he most certainly didn't look like a man in his fifties. Nobody really had much of an explanation for it, but Carina had a hypothesis of her own, however unpopular with some.
Felix was not someone who could be called driven or motivated. In fact, it was somewhat alarming to his daughters that he showed so little signs of stress or worry over caring for his family, especially not when his daughters had little choice but to work themselves half to death in order to help put food on the table and be sure the utilities stayed on. He never shyed from soapboxing about how he was the man of the house and everything they had they owed to him, even though he hadn't been able to keep a steady job for more than a year ever since her younger sister had been in her last year of high school. And Carina had been harboring a growing resentment towards him because of it. For all his talk about being the bedrock of their family, about men being the stronger sex, about being the one responsible for their livelihood, he certainly didn't have much to show for it. She had for a long time now felt like caring for her little sister and making sure her mother had the basest of supplies to keep their house in order was more her own responsibility than her father's.
She didn't want to be angry about having to work a miserable job to help put food on the table, but a part of her simply couldn't help it. She loved her family and was fiercely protective of them; anyone foolish enough to cross them or insult them around her usually was met with a fist in their face. Despite her smallish frame, she had gained something of a reputation around the smog shrouded industrial slums of Pasadena City as a scrapper. There weren't many who knew her that risked inviting her ire, and those who did more often than not wound up with more than a few bruises to show for it.
It was mostly that she simply did not see much of a future in her work at the foundry. She had clawed her way to the position she had, but she was no fool. It would be nearly impossible for her to rise much more than she had, and life was not getting any less costly on Houston with rising taxes to pay for the hostilities with Rheinland, not to mention the burgeoning population of convicts in orbit about their homeworld or in the new Sugarland prison around Brazos, millions of miles away. But what she feared most from the endless cycle of labor was to find herself resentful of her own family for her lot in life.
She had decided months ago that something had to change, and there was really only one way to ascertain that she never reached that breaking point while still picking up the considerable slack in providing for the family that her father left in his laziness. It wasn't ideal, and it would keep her away for months at a time, but she knew her family would support her decision.
Everyone, that is, except Felix.
As was the typical custom, Felix responded to his wife's pleasant greeting with a mere grunt and strode over to the table and sat down crudely with an impatient and expectant look on his empty plate. Carina suppressed the urge to sneer at him and simply walked over to the kitchen sink, giving her mother a quiet look of annoyance. Aracely frowned slightly as if to scold her for doing so.
Carina turned the knob on the faucet, and after a few coughing sputters of air a meager trickle of water seeped out. Even soap was too expensive to buy on a regular basis, so she proceeded to scrub her hands with a rough granite stone that sat on the edge of the washbasin.
“Oye, Chely,” her father said gruffly to his wife. “I get home after bustin' my back for eight hours and you can't even have a meal ready on time?”
“Lo siento, papi,” Aracely quickly apologized. Carina's shoulders sagged a bit as she sighed. “It's almost ready. Consuela said she would be here too.”
Carina saw the disapproving scowl on her father's face as she turned, shaking the moisture from her hands. “She did, did she?” he grunted. “Irresponsible little girl, don't she know we got bills to pay? She needs them hours.”
“Why didn't you stay and work a bit longer then, Dad?” Carina snapped, sitting down across from him.
“Cari!” her mother scolded, frowning at her.
Felix narrowed his eyes at her. “Watch your tone, mija,” he reprimanded her sternly. “You don't got any idea what I do every day.”
Carina started to retort, but another look from her mother silenced her. Instead, she pursed her lips even tighter and folded her arms, resting her elbows on the rickety table.
“Elbows off the table, please, Cari,” Aracely said as she went back to the kitchenette, checking on a clay pot of beans that were simmering on the old, discolored gas stove. “Felix, I think Cari had something she wanted to tell you.”
Carina obediently, if reluctantly, withdrew her arms from the table and slouched back in her chair. She knew that as soon as her mother saw her sitting like that, she'd ask her to sit up straight like a person with some semblance of manners, but that was one key difference between the two of them. Consuela was very much like their mother -- always sat up straight, folded her hands neatly in her lap when they were idle, and was soft spoken and reserved like it seemed a lady should be. Carina was far more brusque in her manner, even downright crass sometimes. She habitually burped during meals, never expected men to hold a door open for her, and had a mouth that could only be attributed to hanging around steelworkers for the past five years. For all the mild annoyance it brought her mother, she knew it drove her father absolutely insane. Maybe that was part of the reason, at least unconsciously, she did it.
Her father beckoned her to sit up straight with one of his thick fingers. “Quit sitting como una vándala,” he said, provoking a roll of her eyes as she scooted up in her seat just barely enough to feign compliance. “What you got to tell me?”
She cleared her throat and looked squarely into his eyes. “I heard that the LPI prison transports are taking applications for deck hands,” she said, her voice carrying a hint of a insolence, almost daring him to argue with her.
“So?” he said.
“So I'm thinking of applying.”
Felix immediately shook his head and waved his hand as if shooing away a fly. “No, mija,” he said. “No daughter of mine is workin' for those crooked cops.”
“The pay is more'n twice what I make at the foundry,” she pressed, never taking her dark brown eyes from him. “Plus a per diem, plus hazard pay, PLUS one standard month off for every two on.”
Felix laughed a little. “That's what they're promising, eh?” he chuckled.. “You're too young to get it, I know, but they'll find all kind of ways to cheat you out of it, Cari, I promise you. The LPI are a bunch of crooks, no better'n the ones they're arresting.”
She smirked sarcastically at him. “No better than you, you mean.”
Aracely's head whipped around from the pot of beans. “Cari, ya,” she whispered sharply.
Felix glared sharply at her. “What exactly you mean by that?”
“I mean that you're still bitter about your stint in Huntsville,” she said. “Ain't their fault you got yourself on the wrong side of the law.” She knew she had twisted the dagger a bit hard, but she didn't care. She knew a few people who were proud that they themselves or a family member had served time in prison, but she had never understood why. Carina had never stopped being embarrassed about being the daughter of a “rehabilitated” felon.
“Carina, that's enough,” her mother repeated.
Seeing that her father had no response aside from the angry glare he had pitched at her, she sat back in her chair again, satisfied that she had made her point.
Felix clenched his teeth and ground them together in silence for a moment. Carina revelled in seeing him squirm like a rat caught in a trap. “I served an unfair sentence for somethin' totally legitimate,” he hissed, even though he had to know that Carina wasn't stupid enough to believe it. “And one more smart-ass comment like that, mija, and I'll slap you into next week.”
Carina almost dared him to try it.
“Besides,” he continued, after taking a deep breath to calm himself, “it's too dangerous.”
Carina scoffed. “Too 'dangerous?'“ she asked incredulously. “You think the steel mill is a cake walk, then?”
“Long as you don't daydream and pay attention to what the hell you're doin', mija, you ain't likely to get hurt on a broom,” he said. “Bits of metal and machines are predictable. Felons ain't.”
“Neither is someone who dozes off at his machine because he's worked to exhaustion,” she retorted. “The foundry is every bit as dangerous as sharing a ship for a few days at a time with a bunch of locked up criminals. Besides, I can handle myself.”
Felix leveled his gaze at her again. “Schoolyard brawls ain't the same as when a dangerous criminal jumps you. You think you're tough, but you ain't as tough as you think, little girl. The kind of people they shuttle around on those transports ain't cuddly and cute like me.” Carina made a visible effort not to laugh at that. “I don't want my daughter around a bunch of felons,” he repeated. “And that's that.”
Carina folded her arms defiantly across her chest again. “That ain't what your problem is,” she said cooly.
“Oh no?” her father challenged. “What's my problem, then?”
“You just can't stand the thought of me not being under your thumb anymore.”
A belly laugh erupted from her father, much to her chagrin. “Oh ho ho ho,” Felix chortled. “Little girl, you'd be beggin' to come home inside of a month.”
Carina felt her face get hot, but before her angry outburst could spring forth, Aracely set the steaming clay pot of beans on the center of the table between them. “Felix, Cari, please, enough of this,” she pleaded. “Let's talk about it later when we've calmed down, okay?”
She started to protest, but one more look from her mother silenced her, and all she could do was glare across the table at the impossible oaf of a man sitting in front of her. She wanted to smack the smug look off of his fat face.
As if nothing had happened, Felix reached forward and started to serve himself a plate, still grinning to himself.
“Felix, espérate!” Aracely scolded him, and for a moment Carina thought she was going to swat his hand. “Wait for Consuela, and we can at least have the decency to say grace?”
“Then let's say grace already,” Felix said gruffly. “Consuela knows what time supper is, and if she wanted to make it on time, she'd be here by now.”
Carina just sat there, feeling her blood boiling in her veins, but swallowed her anger the best she could, for her mother's sake.
“Pinche hijo de puta madre…” Carina muttered aloud, not quite loud enough to hear over the roaring furnaces, welding arcs, and bubbling molten metal. She stood there, frozen in place at her work area, still with a pair of long tongs shoved into the blast furnace before her. She felt the heat of embarrassment and anger building behind her face even over the heat of the foundry, grinding her teeth together as she watched her father shoving his way through the crowd of workers milling about the floor.
His eyes, twin spheres of stern fury, were firmly locked on her position as he fought his way over to her. Carina knew exactly why he’d come looking for her. She wasn’t more than about two or three hours into her shift, and it was well beyond dark outside. How he had managed to get past the curfew officers was beyond her, but she knew he was going to have some choice words for her when he found out. She just hadn’t known when. And she most certainly hadn’t expected him to show up the same day and make a huge scene about it here at the foundry. He wasn’t due for his shift until morning, and the foremen typically didn’t tolerate visitors for very long, if at all.
Carina wiped the sweat from her face and threw the tongs to the ground, the loud clattering reverberating through the already noisy mill. She took a few assertive steps toward her approaching father as he neared her position, and solidly stood her ground as she met his eyes without flinching. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded. “You’re gonna get me in trouble with Wilkes.”
“Ya sabes por qué estoy aqui, niña,” Felix snapped at her as he stepped through the last bit of the crowd in his way and stood inches from her nose, looking down his own at her angrily. “What’s your angle, going behind my back and applying to that goddamn deck hand position!?”
A few of the workers nearby were starting to turn their heads to see what the commotion was about, which angered and embarrassed her even further. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire and her jaw was clenched so tight that her face was starting to hurt. Lowering her head a bit in a vain attempt to hide from the curious onlookers, she glared up at her father and hissed through her teeth. “Can you, for once, not make a scene? Keep your damn voice down.”
“Oye, niña,” her father snapped back, making no attempt to lower his voice, “you don’t get to tell me what to do. I’m your father, and you’ll show me some damn respect.”
“I’ll show you some respect when you do something to earn it, Dad,” Carina growled.
Felix’s eyes narrowed down to dangerous-looking slits. “I specifically told you that job was out of the question, little girl,” he snarled in a deep, rumbling, threatening tone.
“And I told you I don’t care,” she fired back. “It’s better money, and better than this dead-end crap here.”
“No me vengas con sandeces,” her father retorted. “You just wanna chase some stupid-ass ideal about getting off-world. I done already told you, Carina, give it up. We got mouths to feed and bills to pay, and we don’t got time for you to be gettin’ after some childish fantasy. I won’t have you runnin’ off and abandoning my family.”
“They’re MY family!” Carina yelled, her pulse now throbbing in her temples. “I’ve been taking better care of Mamá better than YOU ever since I was fifteen!”
“So help me, Carina,” Felix said with deadly evenness in his voice, “you raise your voice to me one more time, I’ll teach you a thing or two, even in front of everyone here.”
She couldn’t help but grin sarcastically at him after that comment. She knew her father well enough to know that he had thought twice about hitting her ever since she was a teenager. It was funny, really. All his macho talk, and he was a little scared of his own daughter who was almost half his size, even though he’d never admit it out loud, maybe not even to himself. “You know it’s true,” she replied, slightly calmer but still with evident irritation. “Only reason I haven’t been promoted past you is because your meathead buddies think I can’t handle it, even though I work circles around four-fifths of the men here.”
Felix snorted at her. “You wouldn’t last one hour on day shift, niña,” he challenged her. “Third shift is where they put the women, and the mariquitas that can’t hack it during day shift. Your production numbers ain’t half of ours.”
Her eyes shimmered a little as she grinned a little wider at him. “Wait a minute,” she said. “You pissed because I applied, or because you think they’ll accept me?” She sneered derisively up at him, chiding him, daring him. “Mad ‘cause you think I can do better in life than you ever did?”
Her father’s eyes flashed with unbridled rage for a split second before he reared his hand back and struck her hard across the face. The force of the blow almost spun her backwards, but even with the stinging handprint on her cheek, in the blink of an eye she had recovered, clenched her fist, and drove it squarely into his solar plexus.
Felix wasn’t a huge man, but he was heavy enough not to be reeled over onto his back from the blow. He wasn’t, however, a tough enough man to avoid having every breath of air completely knocked from his lungs by his daughter’s savage punch, and he doubled over, clutching his unresponsive lungs. On the way down, however, he was met with Carina’s elbow as she swung it violently upwards in a follow-up, shattering his nose and sending blood spraying across his face.
That one was enough to send him off his feet, and he slammed into the hard concrete floor with a dull thud, his head cracking against the ground with what seemed to be just barely less than enough energy to crack it clean open.
Another blink later and security guards were swarming over the floor, tossing workers aside as they moved in to stop the fight even before it had a chance to really start. Montgomery Steelworks was notorious for its lightning-fast response to anything that threatened to halt productivity. Even though they bragged it was because they cared for the safety and well-being of their employees, everyone there knew better. Regardless of the reason, however, Carina still was more than surprised at how quickly the bright yellow uniformed security guards had materialized from seemingly nowhere.
Instantly she found her arms pinned uncomfortably behind her back by two surly guards, and after one or two fruitless thrashes of resistance she suppressed the urge to struggle, and stood there staring icily down at the man who had attacked her and gotten laid out for it. Felix was helped to his feet by another two big guards while a smattering of other ones milled around the immediate area, barking orders to get back to work, nothing to see here, show’s over. Felix cupped his broken nose in his hands, blood dripping off of his fingers, wrists, and chin.
“You ungrateful little—” he roared, and lunged forward, but before he got even far enough for Carina to react, he was seized firmly on each arm by the guards who had helped him up, and similarly restrained. He, however, continued to struggle to get free, angrily trying to exact retribution on his little daughter who had just humiliated him in front of all the men he had called sissies.
Even though Carina knew she was probably going to be chastised and flooded with statements and interviews by the foundry’s brass for her little stunt, she couldn’t help feeling a little sense of satisfaction. Her dad had deserved it.
“You think you’re tough as nails then, huh!?” Felix roared as he swung to no avail against his captors. “You think you’re man enough to do it better’n me!? Go on, then, get after your stupid little fantasy! But don’t you bother coming home tomorrow morning then, you little bitch!”
“I don’t need you, I ain’t never needed you!” she barked back, tugging forward against her own restraints. “Any time you wanna take another swing at me, I’m ready for you, old man! You just try it any time you’re feelin’ big!” She yelled louder at him as he was dragged away, craning her neck to be sure every one of her words was heard. “And so help me, if I find out you laid a FINGER on my sister or Mamá, I’ll kill you! You hear me!? I’ll KILL you with my bare hands, maricón!”
“What’s goin’ on over here?” a deep bass voice demanded. A grime-smeared white hard hat moved through the crowd, and a giant gorilla of a black man effortlessly shoved his way through. Easily seven feet tall and with arms and hands that appeared as if they could crush a slab of granite, he was a mountain of sinew and muscle, a veritable titan. He looked around, scratching his stubble with one enormous paw, his other clutching a clipboard that looked disproportionately tiny in his grip, as he surveyed the area. “Valencia, there a problem here?”
Her anger still present, she wrenched her arms free with a sudden jerk, the guards behind her caught by surprise. “Leggo, puta,” she snipped. A single shake of the enormous foreman’s head stayed the guards from trying to grab her again. She rubbed her throbbing, stinging cheek as she looked up at him. “Nothin’ I didn’t already handle, Mister Wilkes.”
“You get into a scuffle, Valencia?” Wilkes asked, his powerful voice rumbling in her own stomach.
“Her dad came in hollering at her,” one of the security guards said before she could respond. “She must’ve cheesed him off pretty good, because he smacked her across the face, so she put him on the floor.”
Behind his iron façade, Carina swore she saw a hint of amusement on the titan’s face. “That so?” he said, looking back at her.
Carina shrugged. “Pretty much what happened,” she said. “Can I go back to work now?”
Wilkes grinned a little. “Eager as always, Valencia,” he said, his voice slightly friendly. “Better come on up to the office first. We gotta get your statement.”
She sighed, and reluctantly nodded. At least the next few hours of statements and reports would serve to distract her while she calmed down. After she had, she might actually be able to figure out where she was going to get some sleep, because she wasn't going home after work. At least not until after Felix had left the house.
Carina was caught off when the whistle sounded, the piercing shriek feeling like daggers through both of her ears. She jumped clear off of the floor, startled, and swore loudly. In her fit, she kicked over a large bucket containing slag sweepings, sending the jagged metal chunks clattering all about the floor in an arc from where it landed.
Workers scattered to avoid stepping on the pieces as they milled towards or out of the locker rooms as the shift change followed its otherwise normal routine, barely seeming concerned with her outburst. Carina’s mind was so clouded that she wasn’t even sure anymore with who or what she was so angry. With a heavy sigh, she grabbed a transfer shovel and started to rake the slag back together, recollecting it back into the bucket while the rest of her coworkers went on to punch out.
“So,” she heard a familiar voice behind her say hesitantly, “something on your mind, then, Lauchita?”
She chomped down on one corner of her lower lip and sighed again, glancing over her shoulder at Rodrigo’s heavy frame just briefly enough to acknowledge his existence before she went back to shoveling. “You could say that,” she replied, trying to sound casual.
Rodrigo grabbed another transfer shovel that was leaning against a nearby wall and started to help her. “Ain’t seen you jump like that at the shift whistle in years,” he told her. “And from the looks of it you were lookin’ to take some aggression out on something. Qué tienes, mija?”
Carina shrugged. “Dad kicked me out for applying to that prison transport ship.”
Her big friend stopped shoveling for a moment, looking up at her. “He went that far?” he asked, surprised.
She nodded, never taking her eyes from the last bits of slag as she shoveled it into the container. “Said I shouldn’t bother coming home in the morning.”
Rodrigo frowned, scratching his handlebar mustache, the last bits of slag going into the bucket. “That’s a bit much, even for him, ain’t it?” he asked. “Kick his daughter to the street over applying for another job?”
“Well,” she added, leaning on her shovel, “I broke his nose, too.”
From the amount that his eyes bulged out of his head, Rodrigo looked like he had just choked on a brick. “You did what!?”
“He didn’t like me suggesting that I took better care of the family than he did, and he slapped me,” she explained. “So I laid him out.”
“Well, now that seems like more a reason to toss you out,” Rodrigo said with a chuckle, but instantly caught it in his throat, his face going serious. “I’m sorry, mija.”
She shrugged again. “I guess it was gonna happen eventually anyway,” she said, still leaning on the shovel as she surveyed the foundry floor, watching the first shift workers taking their places. She idly wondered if her father bothered to show up to his station in another part of the facility, or if he used his busted face as an excuse to take another day off. “I don’t much give a **** about that. It’s mama and Connie I’m worried about. Dad and Connie don’t make enough to support the whole family.”
“Well, he’ll figure that out eventually,” Rodrigo assured her, taking the shovel from her and placing them both back on the wall rack a few paces away. “Hopefully before they cut your lights or water off,” he added, smirking.
“Pfah,” she scoffed. “Even if they did, the stupid puto would be too damn stubborn to admit it.”
Rodrigo chuckled again, and slapped her lightly on the upper arm. “Don’t worry about it for now, mija,” he told her, and shoved his hand beneath his coveralls into one of his pockets, fishing about for something. He produced a set of keys and without hesitation offered them to her. “Chastain and Byrnes, sixth floor, apartment 4B.”
Carina stared blankly at the keys for a moment, then looked back up at him. “You mean—?”
“It ain’t high class and I probably have a few leftovers sitting out to rot,” he said, “but te lo juro que it’s clean enough to live in for a few days while things between you and your dad cool down.”
“I dunno, Rodrigo,” she replied hesitantly. “It’d be weird. I don’t wanna impose.”
“There ain’t no hookers hangin’ around the place, and there’s a clean bed and food in the fridge,” he insisted. “You’ll have the place to yourself at least till three. You gonna take the damn keys or make me keep holding ‘em out like an idiot?”
She reached up and took the keys from him, still a bit reluctant. “You sure it’s not a bother?” she asked. “I can afford a motel for a day or two.”
He snorted. “I won’t let ya piss that money away on those dumps,” he told her. “Save your cash for the family. You’re staying at my place. Don’t make such a damn big deal about it, it’s only temporary anyway, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, and couldn’t help a little half-smile. “Guess you’re right.”
The loudspeaker roared over the din. “First shift to your stations!”
“I’ll catch you when I get off work, Lauchita,” Rodrigo said, slapping her upper arm again. “Get on outta here, go take a bath and get some rest.”
Carina nodded, still smirking a bit. She wasn’t much on hugs, but she did at that moment feel just a little like throwing her arms around the big gorilla’s neck/head, if even for just a fleeting moment. “Right,” she said, turning to go. She made it just a few paces before she looked back over her shoulder, still with her backside to him. “Rodrigo?” she called to him.
He looked up at her, hunched over as he bent down to retrieve a pair of tongs, his eyebrows raised in question.
“This doesn’t mean I’m gonna sleep with you or anything.”
Rodrigo laughed hard, and feigned throwing the tongs at her head. “Go on, get!” he yelled. “Before I give you a REAL knock upside the head, niña!”
Despite everything, Carina laughed and made her way to the locker room to grab her things, and by the looks of it, head on to Rodrigo’s apartment. He was right—there’d be time to handle this whole mess later. For now, it was best to just wait it out.
Carina climbed the last flight of stairs to Rodrigo’s apartment, sweaty from the un-air-conditioned subway trip from the starport across town, and from the long walk from the metro station in the blistering Houstonian sun. She had only been shaken down by the police patrols twice, a record low for her. She wondered if perhaps she was starting to gain a small amount of recognition for her work on the prison transports, or if perhaps today she was just lucky.
This was her third deployment on the LPS Tranquil, and the third time she was bringing home a paycheck that had far more digits than she ever thought she would see in her life. She couldn’t help but grin a little as she thumbed the credit clip in her pocket, resisting the urge to take it out and admire the sizable number that slowly blinked at the bottom line of the small LED display showing her net earnings. She had almost gone straight to the bank to cash it in, but the uncommonly hot day convinced her to just go on back home and relax. This particular deployment had been particularly taxing, as over the last two months she had been relegated mostly to servicing air ducts due to her smaller frame and greater flexibility than most of the other deck hands. Not that she could complain—she never liked being treated like she couldn’t handle a job—but the Tranquil was a particularly old vessel that was rapidly falling into disrepair, and she had easily spent more than twice the time squeezed and bent in the cramped ducts and crawl spaces than she had spent sleeping, and she was more than ready for four weeks of rest. The pack on her back felt like it was stuffed with cement, even though she had always made a point of only bringing with her the things she knew she would absolutely need, and her heavy boots may as well have been bricks.
During her time ashore she had been able to visit her mother and sister, though not nearly as often as she would have liked. She had not spoken to her father since their confrontation at the foundry, and Consuela’s hours as a maid varied from day to day. Sometimes she may have up to ten clients in a day, and others she could have as few as three. Her mother rarely left the house, so she was only able to visit them either individually or when Consuela was able to get back to their house before Felix came home. Her mother had told her she was trying to convince Felix to allow her to come home, but he was being as bullheaded as ever, refusing to even acknowledge her existence until he received an apology. Which, of course, she had no intention whatsoever of offering. If she didn’t resent him before, she verged on hating him now.
She had been secretly giving a substantial portion of her increased earnings to her mother to help them out with their household, but she wasn’t sure how effectively she was able to hide it from her husband. Each time she was able to visit them, however, all of the lights were still on, the water was still flowing, and there was food in the cupboard, so she guessed it was helping. She had even noticed that both of them had been able to buy some new clothing by the time she got back from her second deployment, and it had been a long time since she’d remembered being that pleased about anything. She had also insisted on paying Rodrigo a stipend for rent and for her share of the utilities, even though he stubbornly argued she wasn’t around enough to make much of a difference in his consumption. The thing he never did complain about, however, was the fact that while she was planetside, she made it a point to cook him a hearty meal every single night. He had joked on several occasions that having her around was almost better than having a wife, since she never got in his way and was always good company when he wanted it, but anytime he made any off-color insinuations about a wife’s other duties he received a hand upside his head. She wasn’t sure how much it dissuaded him, however, because he never stopped finding her irritation hilariously funny.
Rodrigo was pulling a cold bottle of beer from his little refrigerator when she walked in. “Qué pasa, mija?” he asked jovially, tossing the cold bottle her way as soon as he saw her.
Even though it was straight out of the icebox, by the time it travelled through the air and slapped into her palm as she snatched it, it was already dripping with condensation from the muggy heat. Carina ran the bottle across her forehead, reveling in the chilly sensation as she pushed some stray hair from her face. “Ready to sit down and do absolutely nothing for about a week,” she said tiredly.
The big man chuckled as he reached into the icebox and got another beer for himself. “So it was a good trip then, huh?” he said, cracking the top off of the bottle and tipping it up.
She dropped her backpack to the floor by the couch and fell into a seat, sighing loudly at how good it felt to sit down. Rodrigo’s apartment was slightly smaller than her own family’s house, but since there were half of the people living in it for only one month out of three, it felt like a palace. The landlord was much better about the upkeep as well, and it was a newer building. She still hadn’t completely figured out how he was able to afford such a place on his own, even if he had been working at the foundry for almost thirty years and was certainly making far more money than she ever did there, but by Houston standards, it still didn’t seem like it would be enough. She had brought it up a number of times before, but every time he had been somewhat vague with his answers.
Rodrigo came over and sat in his big chair across the room from her as she popped her own beer open and downed a third of the bottle in one gulp. The cool, light liquid seemed to drive all of the heat straight from her body, and she couldn’t help sighing again. He chuckled again. “Damn, they working you to death, are they?” he asked.
Carina grinned and shrugged. “For what they’re paying me, I’d stay on four months,” she replied. “Ain’t any harder than what I was doing before.”
“You don’t fool me,” he jabbed, smirking at her. “The brass at Montgomery didn’t give you half of what you’re capable of, if you ask me. You’re a damn machine, Lauchita.”
Her eyebrows raised as she glanced across at him. “Big bear Rodrigo complimenting someone on their work?” she shot back. “Now there’s a surprise.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, taking another drink. “I figure I gotta be nice to you now, otherwise I don’t think I’ll be eating like royalty anymore.”
Carina laughed quietly. “Smart guy,” she said.
“Still thinkin’ about putting in another application to LPI?” he asked her.
“A little,” she answered, shrugging again as she took another long drink. “I dunno if I should wait a little while though.”
Rodrigo thumbed his bottle pensively for a moment. “You know,” he began, “a friend of mine is a flight instructor at the civilian school. I could talk to him, see if he might be able to get you in.”
She furrowed her brow at him. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Yeah. The way I figure, if you already have basic flight under your belt, they might be more likely to hire you. They got enough beat cops planetside, and I heard they were short on orbital and trade lane patrols.”
“Why the change of heart?” she asked, tilting her head. “I thought you said I didn’t have a chance.”
“Heh. You’ve already surprised a lot of people,” he replied. “And you ain’t nothin’ like us, Carina.”
Now she was thoroughly intrigued. Rodrigo only used her name when he was really trying to be serious. “What’s that mean?” she inquired.
“I mean you’re different than the rest of us degenerates,” he explained, shifting slightly in his chair. “Most people in this neighborhood would step over their own mama if they could get ahead. You? You take care of everyone else before you worry about yourself. How much of that fortune you’re making off world are you actually keeping?”
She shrugged. “I dunno. Enough to save a little bit every time I come back.”
“’Zactly,” he said, gently pointing at her with a thick finger. “Whole reason you wanted this job is to provide for your family. You know damn well it ain’t because you dreamed of scrubbing latrines and knocking out convicts who are stupid enough to put their hands on you.”
“What’s your point?” she sharply asked.
“My point, mija,” he answered, “is that you wanna prove that you’re not Felix. You wanna show yourself that you’re better than him. That a person don’t have to be a slave to their family name.”
A slow grin spread across her face. “Wow,” she said sardonically. “That’s damn poetic of you.”
“I’m serious, Cari,” he insisted. “You’ve wanted to be a cop as long as I’ve known you, regardless of whatever reason I think it might be. You’d be a natural. You’ve lived your life protecting your mother and sister; it ain’t so far-fetched to think that you’d do any worse protecting other innocents too.”
She narrowed one eye at him, tucking some hair behind her ear.
Rodrigo shrugged. “Hey, if you don’t want my help, I’ll let it be,” he said, settling back into his seat again as he tipped his beer up nonchalantly.
“No, it’s not that,” she said quietly. “It’s just… you really would do that? I mean, you’ve already taken me in. I already owe you too much as it is.”
“Ay, callate, ya,” he said dismissively. “You’re like the daughter I never had. You belong out there. You were made for something more than this,” he added, motioning around him.
She couldn’t help smiling or looking briefly at her lap before she caught herself and cleared her throat. “How much would basic flight cost?” she asked.
“Let me talk to him,” he said, “but I bet we can work something out. You just worry about your time off for now, and we’ll figure out how we’re gonna make you a pilot. Then we’ll make you look good on your LPI application.”
“All right,” she agreed, taking another drink. “Maybe.”
The two of them sat in silence for a moment, and she just stared across at him, a slight smile on her face. She actually felt moved. Rodrigo was as much family to her as her mother and sister, and she was more than grateful to have someone like him.
“You gonna go see your mama today?” he asked after a few minutes.
She shook her head. “It’s too late,” she replied. “Dad’ll be getting off work any minute.”
“Well, in that case,” he said with a deadpan expression, “why don’t ya quit stinking up my couch and back your skinny butt into the kitchen to make us some dinner.”
Carina burst into laughter and hefted her backpack up, throwing it across the room at him. He deflected it with one of his massive paws, grinning that crooked-toothed mischievous mustachioed grin back at her. “So much for being ‘nice,’ joto,” she chided.
The shuttletaxi's door's whooshed open, revealing the vibrant, hectic commotion of Manhattan's capital district. Carina felt her lips pull upward involuntarily as she stepped out onto the platform into the midday sun and looked around at the dazzling lights and moving pictures, feeling simultaneously overwhelmed and invigorated by the sensory overload. Up as high as she could see, shuttles and city traffic buzzed along in unseen traffic lanes stacked atop one another, the collective hums of their repulsorlifts seeming to vibrate everything around them. Trying her best not to stand out too obviously as a newcomer, she giddily made her way over to the platform railing, peering over the edge. The surface streets were so far below her that it almost seemed as if she was floating on an endless expanse of nothing, just piles and piles of traffic lanes crisscrossing her vision every which way, weaving in and out of the myriad jungle of lighted buildings stretching down into the chasm.
She pulled her backpack up higher on her shoulder and started to follow the platform to the main pedetrian walkway, wobbling a little on her high heeled shoes as she strode. She'd taken the time to doll herself up for this day; she'd layered her hair and let it bounce lightly on her shoulders, put on a modest touch of makeup, and wore her best red jacket and slacks. She'd even gone so far as to buy a pair of high heels, and it had taken her days of practice to be able to walk in them without falling down. Once or twice she had to dodge to avoid getting run over by the throngs of people moving like relentless currents of water, unyielding and uncaring of what was in their way. The first few people she tried to flag down to ask for directions didn't even acknowledge her presence. One or two others simply made eye contact and ignored her.
Finally a middle-aged woman in a business suit stopped long enough for her to address. "Excuse me," she asked, "can you tell me where I can find the LPI recruitment office?"
"Sixty-fourth and M on this level," the woman replied flatly. "Follow the railing that way and then watch the signs. Can't get lost." She hardly paused long enough to even make sure her directions sunk in before she walked on.
Carina arched an eyebrow and grinned in spite of the curt reply, then shrugged and started off in the direction she'd indicated, almost turning her ankle on the damn high heel once more as she started again. She'd been told that the walking paths here were laid out in a grid, easy to navigate, so she didn't figure she'd have too much trouble finding her way. Another wave of nervous excitement washed over her as she moved through the crowds. This was it, it was finally happening. She had been called in for an interview for a position as an LPI pilot. Not planetside beats, not customs, not traffic control. Orbital and trade lane patrols. This was for the real thing.
She had to force herself to calm down. She had worked for years to make it to this very moment, and now she could almost taste it. If she handled this well, there'd be no more prison liners, no more leering convicts, no more urine puddles on the deck for her to mop up, no more squeezing into impossibly tight crawl spaces to fix electronics that the men couldn't get to. Taking a deep breath, she stopped her hands from shaking by grabbing hold of the strap slung over her shoulder.
She'd broken the news to her mother and Connie a couple of days ago, before she'd boarded the ship bound for Manhattan, and to Rodrigo just afterward. Her stalwart friend had been overjoyed for her, nearly crushing every bone in her body when he'd lifted her clean off the ground in a bear hug. Her family had been excited for her too, and while her mother did look a little concerned for her safety, it was obvious she was relieved to hear she had a shot at getting away from the prison ships. The only thing she wished she'd been able to do was to tell her father herself. She'd have traded almost anything to see the look on his face when he found out that his uppity little wayward daughter was on the brink of getting a badge.
A laugh burst out of her before she could stop it, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Nobody around her seemed to notice or care, however, though she still fought to control herself. Wouldn't do any good to go into her interview giggling like a schoolgirl. Boy, the look on her father's face would have been priceless indeed. She imagined him turning red as a beet when her mother broke the news, and could almost hear him stammering and sputtering like an idiot in his rage.
Immediately her laughter stopped as a thought occurred to her. Surely Felix wouldn't take his anger out on her mother and sister? No, certainly not. He hated the cops and did everything he could to stop her from becoming one, but as much of an intolerant, selfish ass as he was, he couldn't be cowardly enough to lash out at his wife, or his other daughter. Could he?
The possibility alone was enough to stay Carina's giddiness. She shook her head as if clearing it from a bad dream. He'd be mad, but surely not mad enough to do something that stupid. It wouldn't do any good to worry about it now, she had to be focused. Just to be sure, however, she made a mental note to send a wave back home to check on them as soon as she got out of her interview and found a room for the night. If her fears were confirmed, she swore she'd go back to Houston and break his legs herself.
She noticed the LPI office just as she was about to pass it. Had it not been for the unassuming sign shaped like a police badge with the LPI logo emblazoned on it, she'd have missed it. She stopped and looked up at the rather unimpressive suite. She didn't know what she'd expected, but it was certainly something more... grandiose. This looked like a two-bit operation run out of a little drugstore, almost. Given the sardine-can packing of businesses and people crammed onto the overcrowded surface of this world, however, she guessed she shouldn't have been surprised. Space was at a huge premium here, and this little hovel was likely costing the company thousands upon thousands of credits per standard month.
Drawing her shoulders back, she brushed her hair back over one ear and took a deep breath. This was it. Her moment to shine.
With practiced confidence, she carefully put one foot in front of the other, testing her balance, and pulled open the glass doors, striding inside.
The dull thud of the docking clamps securing her Liberator in place aboard Fort Bush rumbled her belly as Carina unclasped her oxygen mask, uncoupled it from the air supply, and retracted the autotinting visor into her helmet. She only had to cheat twice this time on her post-flight checklist as she shut off the lights, vented the cabin pressure, and began the process of taking the reactor offline. Orange-suited mechanics started to swarm over the little patrolcraft, hooking up hoses and cables in hidden compartments.
She pulled a yellow handled release lever by her hip out from its housing and gave it a hard twist, and immediately she heard the whoosh of the seal opening as the side of the duraglass canopy lifted away while another mechanic wheeled up a ladder tower, pushing it firmly up against the cockpit's only means of ingress. She smirked a little to herself as she surveyed the now-inert panel of countless lights and switches before her, sighing a little breath of satisfaction. Reaching above her head to the two nylon handholds on the cockpit frame, she hoisted herself up from her seat, wriggling her left leg free. Even with her smallish frame, the little fighter was a tight squeeze to get in and out of. Left leg up, step on the tiny pad, twist her body a bit, wriggle her right leg free and step in the seat for balance, using the handholds for support, just as she had practiced several times over the course of her training so far.
This was only her third solo flight in a Liberator, and she already felt like she was a natural. She hadn't really received any compliments on her performance so far, but she didn't feel like she needed them. The little ship felt almost like an extension of her body when she was flying it. Finally twisting free of the confining cockpit, she proceeded down the ladder and set foot down on the metallic flight deck. She worked the cramps out of her hips and back with a couple of torso twists and pulled off her flight helmet. Not for the first time, she considered cutting her hair short, as she still hadn't figured out a way to pull her hair back tightly enough.
She loosened the collar on her flight suit and made her way across the deck, helmet tucked under her arm, to the flight instructor waiting in the debriefing room. In several other slips were other Liberators undergoing simlilar shakedown routines, their recruit pilots disembarking and converging on the same hatch on the far wall. With a hiss, the portal to the debriefing room whisked open for one of the recruits in front of her, and she followed him in.
One by one the recruits took their seats in the small and depressingly drab theater, excitedly jabbering to each other about the thrill of flying. The seats all faced a plain white podium where the flight instructor Talmidge, a freckled, redheaded man in his late forties with a potbelly and a trimmed beard, stood. She sat down close to the door, placing her helmet in her lap, trying to suppress the grin as she waited for the debriefing.
"All right, boys and girls, shaddap already," Talmidge said in his nasally voice, tapping a stack of papers on the podium. "Let's get to it. Kowalski, I don't even gotta go look at your capacitors to tell ya you probably burned 'em up. Go easy on the blasted trigger, huh? These are just target drones, you don't gotta reduce 'em completely to dust. Rook and Dawson, excellent run all around."
A young brown-haired recruit flashed a bright white smile and gave a winner's "thumbs up" to the instructor. "Thanks Skip," he said in his classically obnoxious, overconfident tone.
"Jenson, good aim, but your maneuvering is sloppy. The slalom is part of the course, you ain't just being graded on how many targets you hit," Talmidge continued, reading from his sheets. "We'll get you in on the course one on one later in the week. Neeley, don't be such a frakkin' baby. You've got enough flight hours under your belt by now to not be scared of a Libby."
Quiet laughter murmured through the small crowd of cadets as they all looked over at Neeley, a blond, blue-eyed female rookie who was now shrinking into herself, furiously blushing with embarrassment. "Sorry," she said timidly. Carina rolled her eyes a little, shaking her head. She may not be a veteran worthy of passing such judgment, but Neeley didn't belong in the cockpit. She belonged planetside, maybe in a beauty pagent or a salon getting her nails done. Being glamorous was all that girl was good at, and it didn't require any special skill. All you had to do was just stand there and look stupid. She suspected it was her looks alone that had gotten her this far, as she was consistently the worst performer in every field throughout their training so far. The worst part of it was that bimbos like her made it a lot tougher for other women who were better qualified to make a name for themselves.
"Valencia," Talmidge continued. "You're gonna get yourself killed if you fly like that for real."
Carina's eyebrows shot up. "What?" she asked, simultaneously surprised and disappointed. "What'd I do wrong?"
The instructor looked up at her as though he was doing so over the rims of reading glasses, even though he wasn't wearing any. "You turn too tight and you almost ran into three beacons. Not to mention you opened fire too close to the targets."
"I did the course faster than the rest of these goons," she said defensively. "And I only missed two drones. Rook missed five, and you praised him."
Rook, a lithe young man with deep brown hair and a five o'clock shadow grinned chidingly at her from across the room. "I did it prettier than you did, though, honey," he teased.
She did her best to ignore the comment.
Talmidge shook his head. "If them drones'd been shooting back at you, you'd have been dusted in seconds," he explained. "Ya was reckless. And with the kind of maneuvering ya pulled, it's a wonder ya didn't completely black out and crash into the spotter."
She sputtered indiginantly. "Yeah, but I didn't!" she protested. "Just cause I can handle gees better than your other rookies—"
"We ain't here to listen to you pretend to be tougher'n everyone else here," the instructor interrupted her.
"Now wait a frakking minute," she pressed. "All you did was tell me what might have gone wrong. You ain't said anything about what I actually did wrong!"
He pointed scoldingly at her. "That'll be enough, recruit," he snapped. "What I say here is law, and I don't care one whit 'bout what ya think, awright? I'm the badge here, and the only thing I wanna hear outta you is 'yes sir.'"
She closed her mouth, feeling her face get hot as she fumed. She didn't fashion herself as some kind of fighter ace prodigy, but she'd outperformed the rest of the rabble in this room, and she knew it. Maybe she wasn't becoming all buddy-buddy with the rest of her classmates, going out and drinking herself stupid every time she had an off day or stuffing down loads of donuts with the ranking officers, but she took pride in what she was learning, and always did her best to prove herself.
"Maybe you should tell her in Spanish, skipper," a voice came from the back of the room. Raucous laughter erupted, and even Talmidge had to struggle not to break a smile.
Ohhhh ho ho ho... I get it, she thought. I see what this is.
"No more of that smart mouth now, Hotchkiss," Talmidge said, though his reprimand was robbed of its intensity by his voice breaking with restrained laughter. He fixed his gaze back on Carina sternly. "Any actual questions, Valencia?"
She clenched her jaw. "No, sir," she said through her teeth.
"Right, let's move along now," he continued, but Carina wasn't listening anymore. She hadn't been this furious in a long time, and her attention was entirely on her damaged dignity. The debriefing rambled on for what seemed like hours while she simply sat there, barely tolerating anyone else's voice, waiting for this farce of a training exercise to finally wrap up.
After more lengthy discussion, her personal comm vibrated in her belt, and she discretely peeked down, pulling it out just far enough to see what it was. A wave was waiting for her in her barracks, from her mother back on Houston. It wasn't marked urgent; she was probably just wondering why she hadn't heard from her in a few days, but all the same Carina felt even more antsy to get out of there. She'd sent another sizable sum of money back home last week, and unless Felix had discovered it and pissed it away, she was reasonably sure it was enough to last at least for another couple of weeks, so hopefully that wasn't what it was about. Por el amor de Dios, she thought exasperatedly. Will this guy ever shut up already?
"We keepin' you from somethin', Valencia?" Talmidge said, and she jumped a little, startled.
Looking around, she noticed that everyone's eyes were on her. Many of them were smirking down their noses at her, as if this was a second grade class and she'd just been caught passing notes. Quickly and discretely she shoved the comm back into her belt as she shook her head. "No," she replied. "Nothing."
"Then keep your eyes up here and you might actually learn somethin' for once, recruit."
Carina stood there at the top of the stairway grinning as she watched Rodrigo lock his door behind him, oblivious to her presence. She'd hopped on the first transport back to the Montgomery spaceport on Houston as soon as her rookie class had been given enough days of leave to make the visit worthwhile, and she'd made it back to her old friend's apartment building just in time to catch him as he left for work. Even though it was morning locally, her own internal clock was several hours off, and she had been fighting heavy eyes for hours now. Seeing Rodrigo again perked her right up, however, and she forgot all about her fatigue.
The bear of a man turned, tugging on the thick belt around his grease-stained coveralls and fiddling with his keys as he idly strode down the hall, the familiarity of his regular routine blinding him to the fact that she was blocking his way. She wondered for a second if he would plow right into her if she didn't move. And if he hadn't glanced up just at that moment, he would have.
She grinned even wider when he jumped nearly out of his skin, startled by her presence. Just as quickly his alarm gave way to joy, his face lighting up brightly. "Cari!" he exclaimed, and wrapped her up in a crushing hug, lifting her clear off of the ground.
"Dammit, put me down," she said between laughter. "You're gonna wrench your back, you old fart."
"Bah!" he replied, chuckling as he set her back down, but left his giant paws firmly gripping her by the shoulders affectionately. His eyes were shining as he looked at her, the normally grizzled steelworker's handlebar-mustachioed face looking giddy and childlike. She couldn't stop smiling at how excited he was, far more so than she'd expected him to be. "Yer still just a little mouse, mija. I ain't so old I can't throw ya still." Still with his hands on her shoulders, he looked her up and down, furrowing his brow, noticing her unassuming khaki pants, boots, and white blouse. "Qué haces aquí, mija? Where's your uniform?" He looked back up at her with concern. "You didn't quit, did ya?"
She shook her head. "No, tonto, I didn't quit," she replied with a sarcastic grin. "And LPI don't wear their uniforms if they're off duty."
"Right, right," he said. "And what's with this?" he continued, tossing a handful of her thick black hair that was cascading over her shoulders. "Ain't never seen you with your hair down."
"I dunno," she replied with a shrug. "Just felt like it. You gonna let me go or just keep me pinned here?" she asked him, still smirking.
He laughed again and turned her loose. "So you got some time off, then," he observed. "Back to slum it with us hood rats again?"
"Ay, don't say stupid crap like that," she scolded him, frowning. "It's still me. At least gimme some credit; I'm not about to get high and mighty just because I'm getting a badge."
"Heh, sorry mija," he said, and wrapped an affectionately paternal arm around her shoulders to guide her down the staircase. "C'mon, I'm about to be late, but you can walk with me to the mill."
The two of them walked side by side down the stairs, the narrow corridor barely able to accomodate Rodrigo's hulking frame, let alone the two of them. Carina felt a pleasantly warm sensation being among her own kind again, especially this guy. For all its unpleasant overcrowding and oppressive measures of civil control, it was still home. Manhattan's cities were an entirely different sort of crowded, full of people who fashioned themselves as better than Houstonians, and as intoxicating as it was to see the cosmopolitan cities for herself, it just felt like she didn't belong there. And the drab barracks on Fort Bush during her training were another matter. The walls of the station always felt like they were closing in on her, and it was even more unnerving to know that when she went to sleep at night in the women's dormitory, there was only a wall of steel seperating her from empty nothingness. At least aboard the prison transports she had the constant thrum of the reactors and engines to distract her. Fort Bush was a far more advanced piece of technology, not to mention bigger and emptier feeling.
"How long are you gonna be able to stay, mija?" Rodrigo asked her as they exited his apartment building, stepping out into the smoggy, sweltering streets of Montgomery.
"Only two days," she replied. "I've got to catch a transport in time to get back to New York for our second training stint."
He looked a little disappointed. "Well that's a damn tease," he said. "You staying at home while you're here?"
She blushed a little, but turned her face to keep him from seeing it. "Actually I was hoping I could still crash at your place," she said back. "Still don't think Dad would be happy to see me."
"Felix still being stubborn, huh," he grunted.
"Yeah. Hasn't called once since I left, and never lets Mama answer my waves while he's there."
He shook his head disapprovingly. "Well, cheer up," he told her. "You can go on and see your Mama and Connie after I head to work. I think your sister is off today."
That was good news, and she smiled again. "Good."
"And maybe if I get the chance I'll have a word with your Daddy about this whole mess during one of our breaks."
She slowed her pace and grabbed a hold of his sleeve. "No, Rodrigo, don't frakking do that," she protested, sternly glaring at him. "I don't need you going to bat for me, okay?"
He looked back at her pleadingly. "Cari, he's acting like a damn fool," he insisted. "He's got his panties in a twist because you're grown up now, and he can't boss you around no more."
"No, he's got his panties twisted because I became a cop," she corrected him, holding his eyes. "You'd think I went and joined the Rheinland military." There was still more to it than that, they both knew, but that was certainly one of the biggest reasons she no longer spoke to her father.
He sighed, shaking his head. "Yeah, probably," he conceded. "Still hasn't owned up to his own criminal record. Just shows he didn't learn nothin' in prison." The look on Carina's face must've been apparent, because he immediately turned apologetic. "Sorry, I know that embarrasses ya," he told her calmly.
She looked at her feet and shrugged before looking back up. "Don't make it false," she said back. She knew that Rodrigo was an ex-convict himself, but he was living proof that men could change their ways. He'd served his sentence, and emerged as an example of a fine man, at least in her eyes. That just made the frustration and embarrassment of being Felix's daughter much worse. Her father had been given more than one chance.
Few people knew the details outside of her family, but Felix was actually the son of a particularly vicious Corsair pirate-- Alonso Herrero Alvillar de la Barca. He never knew his mother, as she had been one of the countless women Alonso had enslaved for his own personal pleasure and then discarded when he tired of them. A man named Iván Barros Moreno had fled to Curacao with Felix as his adopted son, giving him the name Felix Ibánez, when he was still young, but he was barely into his teens before he fell in with marauding pirates in Liberty, and from there it was only a matter of time before he wound up in Huntsville. Between her father's chauvenistic mentality and his blatant refusal to accept responsibility for his family or for his own mistakes, Carina had spent her entire adult life trying to prove to everyone and to herself that she was not like him in any way. She even went so far as to adopt only her mother's name Valencia, instead of taking the full name Carina Ibánez Valencia as was traditional among the Hispanic population.
She straightened her shoulders. "Look, if it's an imposition, I can rent a room someplace."
"No, no, no," Rodrigo immediately snapped. "It ain't any more a problem now than it was before. You're always welcome, ya know that. I just hate to see you in this position. Yer like the daughter I never had."
Her cheeks felt hot again.
Rodrigo laughed hard. "Damned if I'll ever get used to seeing ya blush, Cari," he teased. "Sure ain't like you."
"Yeah, well, you're getting all sappy on me, so cut it out," she said dismissively.
Chuckling, he patted her on the cheek and started their walk again, picking up the pace. "Let's get going," he said. "Gonna be late."
"At this rate you'll still be twenty minutes early, ya big ape," she taunted. "You were never late while I was here."
"That's cause I look at being on time as late," he said. "You got no room to talk, ya know."
She chuckled and shrugged, pushing a lock of her hair behind her ear. The two of them chatted idly for the rest of the walk, discussing the details of her training, what she'd learned, who she'd met, the racist and classist overtones she was putting up with, and the money she'd been secretly slipping to her mother to support them. She didn't make too much, but growing up poor she was no stranger to stretching a credit. The other recruits might not think they were getting paid enough, but she was making almost ten times what she was scratching together breaking her back at the steel mill, and since during the course of her training the LPI had been paying for her room and board, she didn't spend a single credit more on herself than she absolutely had to.
They were almost to the mill when she realized that Rodrigo hadn't even once tried to turn the conversation to himself. She remembered right then why she had missed talking to him so much. He was a good friend, and as sickeningly sentimental as it was, he was more like a father to her than her own father ever was in her life.
Racing along at close to the speed of light was a thrill the first time Carina had experienced it, but after what must have been hundreds of times through the trade lanes it was routine. It would almost be dull, were it not for the mild nausea that subtly turned her stomach every time the trade lane rings wrenched her little ship out of conventional existence and launched it into luminal travel. Even with the inertial dampeners it was still disorienting, even though she knew that without them the acceleration would literally kill her. Someone had once tried to explain to her how the trade lanes worked, but he'd used so many huge words and equations that she hadn't really listened very hard. The explanation of the jump gates was even more confusing. Time dilation fields, relativistic adjustments, dimensional bubbles, it was all gobbledegook to her. All she understood was that it got her from one point to another before her hair turned gray, and that was explanation enough for her. The staggering scale of the universe compared to the human scale was enough to rattle a common person's sanity, and either make them come to terms with the idea of God, or perhaps simply remind one of humanity's comparable insignificance.
Shooting through the trade lanes as a passenger on a civilian transport was an entirely different experience than blasting along in the tiny patrol ship she piloted. As a passenger, she felt the effects in the pit of her gut, but her view was limited to the white and gray streaks out of one of the viewing ports alongside the liner's hull, if there was one at all. Sitting here in the cockpit perch, seperated from the infinite, unforgiving black by a bubble of duraglass was wholly more real. She idly brushed her thumb across the top of her currently inert flight stick, riding the current of light as if it were a wave, rushing her along to her destination. Another Liberator was visible ahead of her, barely a dark speck in the wavering white patterns-- her patrol partner Buck Frost. Up ahead, through the milky streaks, she could see the blue oceans and white-capped mountains of Denver rushing into her view, growing exponentially larger with each passing second until the planet looked as if it would slam right into her, pulverizing her to dust without so much as a flinch. The first time she'd jumped to planetary orbit she'd almost panicked, barely restraining herself from manually disengaging from the trade lane and turning away. It'd been quite the source of amusement for the instructor she'd been flying with at the time.
Her ship's engines began to whine and vibrate as they started to kick in again, and she felt the dampeners doing their job while the trade lane decelerated them, bringing them back into normal space. "Home sweet home," a voice crackled over the radio as the giant glowing sphere of Denver stabilized in their view, filling the bulk of their vision. Shipping traffic moved to and fro, moving between the trade lanes, a few bigger ships lazily drifting in orbit high above the planet, and orbital stations bristling with solar panels and docking stems seemed to be almost stationary in space, even though she knew they weren't. "That's the end of our shift, Valencia."
"Copy that," she replied as she flipped switches on her console and gripped the flight stick, reassuming control of her patrol craft. Her training had made the daunting list of routine checks and tasks of flying completely automatic, and the giddy joy of it all had long since subsided. But even though flying had become routine, and all of her patrols so far had been uneventful save for a few cargo checks she'd been present for, she still felt a sense of satisfaction when she touched down at the end of a patrol. She revelled in the air of authority her uniform exuded when she walked down the street, and was always meticulous about keeping it clean and pressed, her shoes shined, and her badges practically reflective. She'd never felt like she could walk around with her chin held so high or her shoulders so far back before. Thinking about it made her smile a little, unconsciously, as she steered her Liberator's nose toward the docking ring and pulsed the thrusters, following in formation behind her superior's craft.
"Let's set down planetside and I'll meet you in the debriefing room so we can get our paperwork started," Frost's voice spoke in her ears. "Remind me to make sure they look at my ventral thruster too, I think it's acting up again."
"Right," she replied, and adjusted the oxygen mask pressing on her face.
Another voice came in over their channel, the automated drone originating from the planet's docking ring. "LPI patrol Upsilon, you are cleared to land. Turn to heading three-one-niner and maintain present speed. Approach to one-five-zero-zero and stand by for docking procedure."
She let out a little sigh. "Home sweet home," she wistfully breathed to no one, keeping her thumb off the radio transmit button. When she'd completed her training she'd pushed as hard as she could to get assigned to the Texas system so she could be close to her family, but to no avail. She wondered if she'd been assigned to Colorado because she'd been so adamant. Several other rookies she'd trained with had gotten their first preference of jurisdiction, and it irritated her that hers had been ignored. Even more pessimistically, she wondered if the fact that she was of Hispanic descent played a role, or whether her father's criminal record had condemned her wishes from the start.
She blinked hard and shook her head, forcing herself to pay attention to what she was doing. She certainly had felt discriminated against all along, but it was a done deal now. Nothing to be done about it. She'd been fortunate enough to get the job she'd been dreaming of for years, so she figured she should be grateful. She'd found a decent enough apartment in one of the major metropolitan zones on Denver, close to the spaceport, and could afford to keep it and still have plenty of money left over to feed herself and send a sizable chunk back home. Let the other intolerant buffoons have their racist thoughts. She was a cop now, and she intended to be the best.
Frost was different, however. He was one of the few she truly respected. Always had a cool head, every word out of his mouth seemed collected and well thought out. He'd taken her under his wing in the last several patrols, and always valued her input, even if he didn't agree with it, and was more than willing to answer questions she had. He also appeared to have the same respect for his uniform as she did. Whether they were in the briefing room or on a coffee break, Frost was always well spoken and poised with a crisp appearance, even though most of the other officers didn't have the same care for their demeanor. She wrinkled her nose as she thought of some of the fat, slovenly veteran officers that on a good day might even remember to tuck in their shirt, but the rest of the time were more interested in testing the limits of their tazers or scarfing down donuts than upholding the law. She'd wondered for weeks now if some of them were any more than thugs with guns and badges. Even though she hadn't yet encountered any, she had heard numerous stories of pirates and brigands plaguing the more remote trade lanes in Liberty space, even a few getting away with heinous acts of robbery in the core systems. LPI had the manpower to curtail it; she had often wondered why she heard about it so often.
"You're drifting a bit close, Valencia," Frost chimed in over the radio.
She snapped out of her daydream again, silently scolding herself. "Sorry sir," she replied, firing the forward thrusters to decelerate and banking away from his craft to avoid possibility of a collision. "Dammit girl, keep your head out of the frakking clouds," she murmured to herself.
"That's good. Here we go. Time to set down and wind down," he said.
Carina watched as Frost's Liberator cruised through the docking ring and slipped into the atmosphere, the soft halo of fire fading in below him. She followed suit, guiding her ship into the slip until the remote pilot took control, guiding her down to the planet's surface. She felt the ship shudder as she hit the upper atmosphere herself, and leaned back in her seat, watching the fireball envelop her during the descent.
She'd been on the job for months now. Finally, she was going to see some action.
The disorienting warp field around her ship dissipated as she completed the jump back to the Colorado system from New York. Wasting no time she spun up the cruise engines, the whirring whine increasing in pitch and volume from the engines behind her. She grit her teeth as the cruise drive engaged, pushing her body firmly back into her seat, and swooped her nose toward Pueblo Station.
"Denver dispatch, this is Valencia, badge number bravo zero two six five charlie," she radioed on the secure channel. "Trade lane between New York jumpgate and Pueblo Station has been hacked. Civilian chatter reports pirate activity. Request backup."
There was a brief silence over the radio before the reply came. "Request received, Officer Valencia," a female voice answered. "Broadcasting to all LPI units in your sector."
Her blood was rushing through her veins and her fingers tingled. Exhiliration and nervous trepidation almost even kept her from blinking as she rocketed through space, past the floating ring that marked this end of the trade lane, all of its nav lights currently dead and lifeless. Little flashes of blue light flickered in her field of vision as micrometeorites slammed into the ship's shields and were obliterated on impact. Ahead lay the Silverton asteroid field, a cluster of dead rocks floating idly through the void. The trade lane navigated straight through it, and while it was an interesting sight to view through the distorted light effects of trade lane travel, flying into it on cruise power alone gave it the impression of an endless graveyard, and the dead trade lane boosters lined up through it only added to the eerie sensation. Space was vast and largely empty, but this was the first time that she'd been flying a solo patrol, and since all civilian traffic had been advised to avoid this trade lane for the time being, she felt truly alone out here. She stalled a shiver from streaking up her spine as she adjusted her course to avoid one of the big asteroids ahead. Alone.
Something in the back of her mind told her she should probably hang back until her backup was confirmed, but if she did, the criminal ship would likely bug out and be long gone before anyone got there. No, she had to get in there and deal with the problem, and for all she knew, civilian lives could be on the line. She couldn't afford to wait. Another one of the trade lane booster whizzed past her, looking like a dead husk. She adjusted her course again, threading herself through the cluttered field of debris.
After several minutes of travel, a blip appeared on her scope. Big one. Probably a transport of some kind, and it wasn't moving. She pinged it with the IFF, and immediately it came back with an Interspace Commerce ID tag. She frowned, shaking her head. Poor sap was probably floating there getting ready to offload some of its cargo at gunpoint.
As she got closer, a second blip appeared. Smaller signature than the first. Touching several spots on the scope's screen she brought up the scan details, and she felt her throat tighten a little bit - that was a gunship. She didn't recognize the type, but it was definitely bristling with weapons, and it wasn't anything used by any law-abiding organization in Liberty space. With a gloved hand she flipped two switches, setting the radio to scan all local frequencies. It didn't take long for the computer to zero in on the exchange taking place between the two vessels.
"...the rest of your cargo, we'll let ya go," a gravelly male voice was saying. Even though he spoke in a calm, almost friendly manner, there was no mistaking the threatening overtone.
"We copy," the reply came back from the transport's captain. "Hold tight and relax. We'll get it to you shortly."
She activated the flashing blue and red running lights atop her Liberator as she closed range. She could see both ships floating in space clearly now, seperated by only hundreds of feet. The gunship had all of its port cannons trained on the larger freighter train's broadside. As she disengaged the cruise engines, she opened a comm channel. "Unidentified vessel, this is the LPI," she radioed. "Hold your position and disarm all weapons."
A tense silence met her ears. She decelerated to a crawl, gliding closer to the two ships and swung above them, keeping her nose trained on the gunship as she drifted overhead. Neither ship moved an inch, and the gunship's cannons remained pointed at the freighter.
"Repeat, disarm all weapons," she said, more sternly, keeping one eye on her scanner's lock on the gunship. It still showed all weapons active. A little bead of sweat seeped out onto her forehead as her finger brushed the safety catch off of her trigger and held there, tensely waiting for any sign of hostility.
"No reason for alarm, Officer," the gravelly voice replied over the radio at last. At that moment her scanner board went green, and she looked up to see the gunship's cannons rotate forward, return to their default idle position. "We were merely passing through the area and soliciting donations."
"Encouraging donations is more like it," she retorted. "Interspace transport, trasmit your authorization code and flight plan."
"Copy that, LPI," the freighter responded. "Transmitting now."
She glanced down at her computer console just long enough to see the transport's identification credentials, cargo manifest, and flight plan highlights flash across the monitor. "Received and confirmed, Interspace," she said. "You'd best be on your merry way."
"Thank you, LPI," they answered. "Good luck." Below her she saw the brief flash from the transport's thrusters as it lurched forward, lumbering along as it gained momentum to resume its trading run. In moments they were in its engine wake, and she glanced down at her scope to see the blip getting further away, faster with each second. She couldn't help but notice that other than herself, the freighter, and the pirate ship, her scope was still blank. There was no further word from dispatch, either. Where the hell was her backup?
"We've done nothing wrong, Officer," the gravelly voice came back cheerfully. "Surely you don't have a problem with charity."
"I got a problem with piracy," she said back, her collected officer's demeanor giving way slightly to her coarser, true personality. "You expect me to believe you just happened to be out here in the middle of nowhere, alongside a hacked-down trade lane with your guns pointed at a civilian transport asking for goodwill?"
"I expect you to believe nothing, Officer," the pirate ship responded. "But I can see we're not welcome here. We'll just get out of your way."
Her finger twitched on the trigger again. She pulsed her dorsal and aft thrusters again, drifting around in a circle below the ship, never taking her nose off of it. "I don't think so," she said. "You'll just sit right there till I tell you otherwise."
"Now I know you've got lots of important matters to attend to," the grating voice said mockingly. "No need to bother yourself with us." As she drifted beneath them, the gunship's rear thrusters flashed to life, propelling it forward at a crawl.
She wrenched her little craft around, lining her guns up with the pirate ship's underbelly. "Cut your engines!" Carina barked. "Stop your ship immediately and await boarding!"
"Better check your scanner again, Officer," he taunted. "You aren't boarding anything from that little mosquito you're on, and I don't see anybody else around."
Dammit, where the HELL is my backup!? she thought. She switched her comms back to secure LPI channel. "Denver dispatch, Valencia! I have a confirmed pirate attempting to flee, request backup immediately!" No answer. She swore angrily in Spanish as she punched the radio back to the pirate's channel. "Unidentified vessel, you are in violation of Liberty law and resisting a police officer. Cut your engines or I WILL open fire!"
Another switch, and her cruise disruptor rack was armed. She hit the pirate ship's blip on her scope, there a pulsing tone, a high-pitched steady tone. Missile lock. She thumbed her gun trigger again. The pirate ship didn't slow down or show any signs of relenting.
"I wouldn't bet on your chances, Officer," the pirate ship radioed back. "I think I'll just give YOU the same ultimatum. Go run along now, and I promise we won't blast your cute little ship to ribbons."
She bristled. "I ain't gonna ask again," she hissed. She matched speed with the gunship, taking care to stay in the same spot below it. Its cannons couldn't fire at that angle; she felt reasonably sure she was safe. "Cut your engines or you're dusted."
Another, smoother voice came in over the radio. "You had your chance, Officer," it said, "and I sincerely apologize. All hands, open fire."
Carina's breath caught in her throat. "What the--?!" she gasped, looking down at her scope. Where there were once two contacts, now she had three. Her head whipped to the right, eyes wide with shock. From among the dead asteroids, another, bigger gunship was powering up. It was pockmarked and painted with black and brown, erratic stripes. Her scanners hadn't picked it up before, and she must have mistaken it for an asteroid. And it was now arming weapons. Every one of which was trained on her.
Another sharp swear escaped her lips as she punched the afterburner. Eight gees slammed her back, nearly knocking the wind out of her as the first bolts screamed past her, the ionized plasma missing her engines by less than a hair. On reflex she spun her ship on its lateral axis at full tilt. Another swear--she was staring straight down the end of more incoming blasts of energy from the first gunship. She fired two strafing thrusters and hit the afterburner again. She was thrown against the restraining belts as the shockwave from one of the bolts slammed into the ventral shields.
So here she was now. Being fired upon by two small frigates bristling with anti-fighter weaponry. Dodging for her life.