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  “I’m going to...” he started again.

  “What, commit suicide?” she pushed.

  “I have to do something!” Kurt spat at her through gritted teeth, wanting to tell her that his actions wouldn’t precipitate his own death, for as far as he knew there was nothing that could do that.

  “You are doing something, you’re helping all these people and all those who’ve already escaped. They need you Kurt, and I need you too. You can’t save everyone, let’s help those we can save,” she pleaded.

  Her words made sense and he turned back to the lifeboats and said, “Okay let’s get these people off this ship.”

  With a renewed haste, he moved back towards the lifeboats trying not to listen to the screams of those behind him.

  11

  Kurt pushed passengers before him into open hatches of lifeboats, trying to ensure the safety of as many of them as he could. Natasha had commandeered one of them for the prince, herself and Kurt. After making Aswan strap into a seat she returned to the hatch looking for Kurt.

  “Hurry Kurt,” she shouted when she saw him helping a group enter the lifeboat positioned next to theirs. Then she saw the Outlaws aiming an older version of the Remm assault rifle at him.

  Kurt turned to face her and immediately caught sight of the Outlaw about to fire. Reacting incredibly fast he drew his Sig, aimed and fired in one fluid motion before the Outlaw had time to fire his own weapon. The pulsed plasma bolt struck him on the forehead in a mist of blood snapping his head backwards and killing him instantly.

  As Kurt sprinted towards the open hatch where Natasha stood, other Outlaws opened fire on him. Plasma bolts stitched the wall where he had been moments earlier as he ran for his life. Natasha gave covering fire from her own Sig, emptying the battery clip just as he reached her.

  As he raced inside Kurt pulled her with him, then slapped a hand on the emergency release button, which just gave them seconds to get to a seat. The computer launched the lifeboat, virtually firing the small craft out into space away from the cruise liner like a missile. The emergency release function was used in dire cases, such as imminent destruction of the starship when the passengers, or crew, needed as much distance from the mother ship as fast as possible.

  The lifeboat was launched with such force, that Kurt and Natasha were slammed against the rear of the seating area of the small craft as its thrusters kicked in once it was free from its mooring. The lifeboats were positioned against the side of the starship, side on to her. Entrance to them was gained via the hatch positioned amidships, which meant when the lifeboat was launched it had to turn laterally to face away from the mothership before the thrusters could engage. In emergency release situations, they were ejected by force. Thrusters next to the clamps holding the small craft in place would fire the exact moment the clamps released it, firing it away from the mooring. The onboard computer would take over, and manoeuvring thrusters fired, to turn it away from the mothership so the main thrusters could fire to move it out of danger as fast as possible. All these actions were seamlessly put together so it became one fluid action.

  Kurt and Natasha rolled down the central aisle between the two rows of seats before slamming into the rear wall.

  “Wow that was close,” Natasha remarked as she regained her breath.

  “We’re not out of the woods just yet, so don’t relax,” Kurt commented.

  “Oh, you mean finding a place to hide?” Natasha mentioned.

  “There’s that, but I was referring to the Outlaws determination not to leave anyone alive,” Kurt replied as he made his way forward through the seating area.

  “That was rather disturbing. Wait, do you think they’ll come after us?”

  “Considering how they came after us on board, I see no reason to doubt that they’ll chase us down to finish the job.”

  “Oh that’s just great,” commented Aswan who was strapped to his seat but had been listening to every word.

  Kurt said to Natasha, “Think you can fly this thing?”

  “I thought this was automatic?” Natasha replied, not liking where this conversation was heading.

  “It is but we need to do some evasive manoeuvres.”

  “In that case, no. I’m Diplomatic Corp Security; we usually have pilots at our disposal. How about you?”

  “Recon Delta, we’re marines and we get flown to drop off points then left to do our jobs.”

  “So that’s a ‘no’ too, then.”

  “Hey, how hard can it be? I know a few pilots and geniuses they are not, so if they can do it, I’m sure I can too. Besides these crates are computer controlled right, which makes them practically idiot proof,” Kurt said as he reached the forward seat and strapped himself in.

  Positioning herself in the seat nearest to him Natasha watched as he familiarised himself with all the controls. Via his NI, he linked himself to the onboard computer, which made learning the controls simplicity itself.

  “Are you sure you can do this?” Natasha asked when he appeared to be hesitant. What he was actually doing was checking the sensors to see the positions of all the other lifeboats.

  “I can do this, no worries, trust me,” Kurt replied and even though they had only just met, she found that she did trust him.

  An explosion close by rocked their lifeboat as an attack craft opened fire and destroyed one of the other escaping lifeboats.

  “Here we go,” Kurt said, and he engaged the manual override.

  12

  Kurt sent the lifeboat into a spin to port to evade a salvo of plasma bolts fired from an attack craft that had appeared suddenly on his six. For a lifeboat, the manoeuvrability was incredibly delicate and it took Kurt several seconds to regain control and understand the sensitivity of the controls.

  Plasma bolts raked down the side of the small craft as her attacker came in on another strafing run.

  Small fires erupted inside the craft as equipment either overloaded or shorted out from the barrage.

  Natasha sprang out of her seat to tackle the flames with a small fire extinguisher. Spraying the flames with the specialised foam, she soon had them under control.

  “Get ready, they’re coming around for another pass,” Kurt said as he wrestled with the controls.

  Another huge explosion erupted before them as another of the lifeboats was targeted and blown to pieces.

  “They’re attacking all the lifeboats,” Kurt said when he saw the sensor readings. “They don’t want any survivors by the look of this,” he added. “I’m gonna have to try and lose them in the atmosphere of the planet,” he said as he turned the small craft towards the planet and fired the main thrusters.

  “You can’t land on the planet, you can’t. We’ll never survive,” Natasha shouted from the back of the lifeboat.

  “It might be the one chance we have. We have to do something, or we’ll end up like them. Besides I have no intention of landing there, I’m hoping they’ll think the same as you, and when they see us head in that direction, they’ll bug out and leave us for dead.”

  “And what if they don’t, what if they follow us all the way in?” she asked as she came to stand behind him, leaning on his seat.

  Kurt paused for a moment before speaking, “I’ll cross that bridge as and when.”

  “I just hope you’re right,” Natasha said as she retook her seat and strapped herself in for what she knew would be one hell of a bumpy ride. Accessing a com. channel via her NI, she called Tate. “Take manual control of your lifeboat Will, and take evasive manoeuvres, they’re shooting down all they can. Try and get as far away as you can,” she said urgently.

  “Will do, Nat, already seen them shoot down two of the lifeboats. Christ these guys mean business; taking manual control now. If I can just...” Will said before the signal was cut off abruptly as an explosion destroyed the lifeboat.

  “They just shot down my team with the Prince’s entourage,” she said in shock, her voice breaking with emotion.

  “I know,”
was all Kurt said as he threw his craft into a complicated series of loops, twists and turns, in the vain attempt to throw off the craft pursuing them.

  “I had two cousins with me in that group,” Aswan said speaking for the first time in quite a while.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, sir, but right now the most important thing on the agenda is keeping you safe,” Natasha replied.

  “Not on my agenda,” Kurt said.

  “Excuse me?” Natasha asked vexed.

  “Keeping him safe is not my priority. You, I’ll keep safe, so if he wants to live tell him to stay close to you and he just might make it,” Kurt replied as he wrestled with the controls. “Which may not be as easy as I make it sound,” he added as the lifeboat sustained hits from another salvo of plasma fire, courtesy of the chasing attack craft.

  For the first time since meeting Kurt, she began to feel that this was something they may not survive after all.

  “Hang on!” Kurt said. “Let’s see if they chase us into the planet’s atmosphere, I may be able to lose them in the cloud cover, if I’m lucky,” he added as he increased power to the main thrusters.

  As the small craft entered the atmosphere of the ‘E’ class planet, the passengers were thrown about violently in their seats.

  “What’re you doing, are you trying to kill us?” Natasha screamed at him.

  “Sorry, I miscalculated my entry angle, I went for a steep approach to gain more speed, but almost bounced off the atmosphere back into orbit. I probably left a trail a blind man could follow too.”

  More and more plasma bolts struck the rear section of the lifeboat as the attacks increased in intensity the closer to the planet they got. Suddenly the attitude of the craft altered drastically.

  “There goes the main drive,” Kurt said as he almost lost control of her. The small craft dropped like a stone in a spiralling tailspin that forced the trio of passengers back into their seats. Wrestling with the controls, Kurt fired the thrusters. Slowly their spiralling descent became less and less frantic as Kurt regained some semblance of control. There was an inevitable drawback to his slowing the craft’s descent though, and that was the craft was a marginally easier target to hit. Determined to destroy them, the Outlaws continued in their attack. Firing almost in desperation, they targeted anything and everything on the lifeboat.

  Kurt felt the lifeboat react as multiple plasma bolts struck the small, defenceless craft. Having only the thrusters to work with, there was not much he could do to evade the onslaught. To give up though was not an option and so he tried everything in his power.

  “They just don’t give up do they,” Natasha observed, a fact that had been bothering Kurt from the outset.

  “They do seem determined, I’ll give you that,” Kurt agreed, perplexed at the level of determination. The lengths they were going to, to ensure no one survived, smacked of overkill and something else. Something he dared not consider, for if that turned out to be true, then the ramifications would be unthinkable.

  Suddenly the lifeboat felt like it had been pushed from behind as an explosion rocked the rear section. Flames fanned out from the damaged rear section and crept inside in an attempt to devour everything in its path.

  “We’re going to die,” screamed Aswan as he spotted the flames creeping closer with every breath he drew.

  “With respect, sir, shut the fuck up and allow the man to do his job and save all our asses,” Natasha barked at the prince shocking him into silence. “You can save our asses, can’t you?” she added hopefully.

  “Yours I might just save, his, I’m not so sure,” Kurt replied.

  “Aren’t we going in a bit fast?” she asked as their rapid descent began to worry her. However, not as much as the flames and smoke which were increasing in intensity inside the rear section of the craft though.

  “Yes, we just lost the back section of this crate. She’ll never take off again. Looks like we’ll be spending a bit longer down there than we thought, if we survive the crash,” Kurt replied.

  “Crash? You said crash,” Aswan said in a panicky voice.

  “You noticed that did you, I did hope to slip that one past you.”

  “Are you mad?” Aswan asked in a voice raising an octave.

  “I’ll let you know in about thirty seconds,” Kurt said.

  “How long before we hit?” Natasha asked.

  “Oh about twenty-five seconds.”

  Through the forward viewport they could see the ground below racing towards them at an alarming rate. A huge forest was directly below seeming to stretch for miles, covering vast amounts of ground. The trees looked to be huge with an interwoven canopy of branches that at first appeared to be impenetrable.

  “They’ve stopped shooting at us,” Natasha noticed.

  “Yes, they think we’re dead,” Kurt answered.

  “What do you think?” Natasha asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  “I’ll let you know in about twenty seconds, hang on now.”

  The viewport imploded as the lifeboat crashed into the trees in a bone-crushing impact and disappeared down inside the canopy.

  Kurt’s last thought before they struck was to activate the tracker in his NI. If General Sinclair were to mount a rescue, he would need to know where to look.

  The Outlaw attack craft watched as the lifeboat struck the trees then peeled off and headed back out into space, confident no one could, or would, survive the crash.

  13

  After the catastrophic attack on the Confederation Headquarters on Earth by the group known only as OMEGA, drastic steps to ensure the security of the Confederation had to be taken.

  The Confederation building would be rebuilt but not on the old site, that would remain a shrine to all those who lost their lives on that tragic day. The work must go on though, so a temporary site was chosen. The Capitol Building in Washington DC was commandeered for Confederation business whereas Col Sec was moved to Area 15, deep beneath the Nevada desert.

  General Sinclair, the head of both Recon Delta operations and Col Sec Intelligence Division, had an urgent meeting with World President Takagi after the attack, almost before the dust had settled. He managed to push through his ideas for increased security both at home and throughout the Confederation. He also used the opportunity to green light an operation he had kept under the political radar for the previous couple of months, ever since his last conversation with, and the inspiration behind the operation, Kurt Stryder.

  Sinclair picked a team from Recon Delta for this operation, plus certain members from Intelligence Division, a unit that would work under the radar and therefore not have the hindrance of jurisdiction to worry about. They would be able to go and work anywhere. Originally, he would have kept them as an ultra top-secret unit, on a need to know basis, but with the new security measures President Takagi had given the green light to, Sinclair decided to make them overt, rather than covert, with the authority to override any red tape. This gave them the ability to go and work anywhere as he planned but also to call upon any local resources to use if the need arose. It would be a Combined Action Unit, dealing with matters of Ultra High Security and would be given special resources to deal with them.

  The team was given a derivative of the serum administered to Kurt Stryder before training began. Because the original strain had proven unpredictable, a much weaker version was administered to them and this time they were confident the results would be controllable. With an increase in muscle mass and bone density along with increased dexterity, reflexes and thought processes, the team began to train and learn how to use these new abilities to their best advantage. To speed up the process they trained in heavy ‘g’ environments.

  The first series of tests proved the serum worked extremely well. The increases were not massive amounts, but compared with the results of tests taken before the serum was given, used as a control, the results showed an increase of at least fifteen per cent, which meant they were superior to the best athletes in the world.


  After a few months they were almost ready to go operational, just one final test lay before them.

  Colonel Anton De Boer was given the duty of overseeing General Sinclair’s personal security. He was also in charge of the security of the new Col Sec HQ. He was also to oversee the teams’ final test, which had started half an hour earlier.

  “Teams One through Five, check in please,” he said through the battle com. channel accessed via his NI. Since the OMEGA incident and learning the terrorist group was supplied with the very same tec and munitions from MaxCorp that they had supplied to Col Sec, all the security protocols had to be rethought. Everything from com. channels to shield densities; from tracking chips to jump drives. Everything had to be recalibrated to ensure that Col Sec’s military, research and civilian projects were safe from the threat of being tampered with, navigated around or plain and simply broken. Col Sec had to ensure that they lived up to their name and made the colonies safe.

  “One here, secure sir.”

  “Two here, secure sir.”

  “Four here, secure sir.”

  “Five here, secure sir.”

  “Three, report your status,” De Boer snapped when the rest had called in.

  “Three report your status, immediately,” he said again, but this time with more force. Something had gone wrong and he had lost one team already.

  General Sinclair had told him this team was good and that they would get round his men within the hour. The Colonel was understandably adamant that his men were the best and that this mysterious team would not get past them. Of course, when the general had asked how certain he was and would he care to wager, the colonel had bet a week’s salary.

  They couldn’t be as good as Sinclair said they were, could they? De Boer thought. It just was not possible for them to get past five checkpoints in a Top Secret, Ultra High Security facility within one hour, without being detected.