With a smile he powered the vessel up and checked to see if both fusion reactors were ready for operation. They were. The deck crew had locked down the thruster pods with restraint rods and disconnected its faster than light systems but they hadn't done anything to disable main power.
He tried to access the ship entertainment network but found himself locked out entirely. Jake opted for the volume enhancement system built into his visor instead and jacked it all the way up so the oncoming soldiers and whoever else was in range could hear him. “On board my fighter are two nuclear fusion power plants! Allow me to take a ship down to the planet or I will detonate the reactors! I will not allow myself to be captured!”
“It is so good to see you Mister Valentine. I wasn't sure we'd get a chance to speak after you escaped holding,” said the familiar, self assured voice of Lister Hampon.
“I can't say the same.”
“Cordial as usual. Below you is are a series of quick access drop pods. One of them will take you directly to the planet if you like. I have no need to capture you, in fact I don't truly have a desire to see you killed. There are greater things underway, things you could not change, not even while using the First Light, or the Samson, or even the Triton. I don't have time to toy with old familiar pets.”
“Even after all these years you still love the sound of your own voice.”
“And you still have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the end you don't matter. That refined framework technology, one of a kind I'll grant you, doesn't matter when you compare it to the power we have over the Order of Eden and the Eden Fleet. We have what we need from you already, I procured it as soon as we pried you from your fighter. It is a new war Jonas. You should take a moment to decide which side you're on before you leave the ship.”
There were questions he wanted to ask, grudges he wanted to settle, and a fleeting thought that there might be just a chance, if ever so slim that he could put an end to the war if he could find his way to the command deck and kill Hampon himself. Then he regained his senses.
“I'll leave,” Jake said as he closed the channel. A red indicator came up on his visor and he focused his attention there for a moment. He was using a voice disguiser? So it wasn't the real Hampon? Why would anyone go to the trouble to gloat for him? He shook his head. Why bother figuring it out, I just need to get the hell out of here before those soldiers are given the order to rush in with guns blazing. Someone's holding them back, like they want me to leave. “Who am I to argue?” he muttered to himself with a shrug.
He increased the reaction rate of his fighter's fusion power plants to near critical and he could see the thermal outlines of the squads falling back. A lot of good that'll do you. Jake thought to himself with a snicker.
The rear hangar was clearing out and through a transparent bay door he could see the frenzy of activity as larger drop ships were being prepared for takeoff. A medical team emerged from a lift to his right and he waved them through as he got to his feet, watching them warily regardless.
“We're just here to help,” said one of the emergency workers with an upraised hand.
“Don't give me a reason to think otherwise and we'll all be happy,” Jake said as he strode towards his fighter. It was set down beside another vessel that didn't match the surroundings, a beat up interplanetary passenger transport.
“Vacsuit re-sealed.” said a voice in his ear. It was his command and control unit announcing that the hole that was made when he was shot in the shin was once again secure, the vacsuit material had come together to form a seal safe for space. “Good timing.” Jake said to himself as he looked the Uriel fighter over.
He climbed into the cockpit and armed the guns. The bars holding the ship in place had been extended across the four lower engine pods and he hoped the fighter would stay together as he increased power to the engines. The canopy was just starting to close and his vacsuit headpiece partially muted the screeching of the metal restraint rods as his fighter strained against them and won free.
One of the engine pods was pulled slightly out of alignment and the fighter's status screen blinked yellow several times as it recalibrated its new position with the control systems.
Without a second thought Jake guided the fighter down into the launch bay, scraping the bottom of the fighter against the deck before descending into an open elevation pit. He tried to guide the ship between two larger, more heavily armed troop carriers and managed to barely avoid a collision with the main rear hatch of one of them.
The fighter shot through the atmosphere retention field, leaving the command carrier behind. He flipped the fighter upside down and to his relief he could see Pandem. The view from where he sat was serene, and if he didn't know it was an actively contested world he would have thought that it was paradise. They were on the night side, but his visor corrected for the darkness and after a few seconds it was as though he was looking at the planet under the full light of the sun. the blue ocean was dotted with green and gold islands, white clouds drifted lazily through the atmosphere and on the larger land masses he could see the glint and gleam of great cities surrounded by green woods, like diamonds surrounded by emeralds set in gold.
He set the self destruct system on the fighter and brought up the shields just in time. Several of the anti-starfighter batteries aboard the Diplomat began firing on him, one striking the ship several times. So much for Hampon not going out of his way to kill me.
The pulse weapons were effective, too effective. His shields were down to forty three percent before he found what he was looking for.
“I promise to never question who I am, what my name should be or which personality I should put on in the morning ever again if this works,” he said to the Gods as much as to himself as he activated the ejection system.
He was launched with incredible force straight for the planet's atmosphere. He felt naked, bare as he watched the blue ocean and brown-green land beneath grow nearer. He tried to see through the bottom of his small thermally shielded pod, and couldn't. Using his new found connection to his command and control unit he checked his distance from the fighter and it's status.
Its shields were down to eleven percent and he was already over a thousand kilometres away. He watched the counter:
SHIELDS: 11%DISTANCE: 1300km
SHIELDS: 9%DISTANCE: 4200km
SHIELDS: 6%DISTANCE: 7300km
SHIELDS: 1%DISTANCE: 9800km
Then he detonated the pair of fusion reactors on the fighter. He could see the flash even though he was looking in the opposite direction, over ten thousand kilometres away and just about to enter the atmosphere. “You should have killed me when you had the chance Hampon!” Jake cried out in the near null space of the protective pod.
It had a hard, protective layer, rudimentary emergency gravity compensators and an antigravity booster for when it was time to touch down. He had made his target the foot of the mountain in Damshir. As he began to burn into the atmosphere his visor blocked the bright light. Wouldn't it just be the worst if it all ended here? If I became just another shooting star, matter burned up in the sky? He caught himself thinking. “Think positive, think positive, think positive,” he repeated to himself hurriedly as a last minute mantra.