Mira let her hair free as they pulled up through the lower wind shear and climbed for the faster winds of the second-level stream.
Three streams of high-speed wind moved over the land, layered at ten thousand feet, thirty thousand, and finally a hundred thousand. There were plenty of other currents to be sailed in between those, of course, but they were less predictable and generally the domain of master ship handlers and amateurs who sailed for fun.
As the Andros pulled up close to thirty thousand feet, the air was thin, enough so that the crew on deck was using breathers and dressed in winter gear. Mira had Cadre-issue gear and a personal warmer looped casually around her neck. She was dressed far more lightly than the others and seemed impervious to the cold as she casually twisted the wheel to bank the Andros around.
“We’re running half-mast, my lady,” Gaston reminded her. “They’ll be on us in minutes at this rate.”
“That they will,” Mira confirmed cheerfully.
Gaston looked so uncomfortably nervous that she chuckled.
“Losing trust in me, Gas?”
“Never, my lady,” he swore. “But trust is one thing. Faith is a very different matter.”
“Well said,” she affirmed. “We have a delivery to make.”
Gaston looked out over the rails to the mottled greens and browns below. “The refugees, my lady? But that’s suicide!”
“Do I look like the suicidal type?” she asked, amused.
“Do you really want me to answer that?” he asked right back, his brow arched.
“No, probably not,” she conceded with a grin.
Gaston sighed, knowing that she was set on her path. “At least put up the rest of the sails. We can be there in seconds and try to skirt the legion …”
“We’d never make it.” Mira shook her head. “They’ve spread their lead squadron. We might get a destroyer one time in two …”
“My lady!” Gaston looked insulted.
“Fine,” Mira chuckled. “Two in three?”
“A little more, I’d say.” He sniffed.
“However,” she stressed the word, “we’d not take two of them one time in ten …”
This time, despite Mira pausing to let him object, Gaston just shrugged. It was a fair assessment. Combined forces were more effective than their individual numbers would indicate.
“. . . let alone a full squadron, and at least three would be able to intercept us if we tried that,” Mira finished. “So I have a plan.”
“You have a plan?”
His tone wasn’t quite incredulous, but Gaston knew the woman standing beside him well enough to know that those words weren’t going to result in anything he personally wanted to be present for. Still, not having much choice in the matter, he just sighed and nodded.
“Yes, my lady,” he said.
Mira by then had a predatory look on her face. “Oh, and you might want to tell the crew to secure for maneuvering.”
“Yes, my lady,” he answered dutifully, reaching for the ship’s blower.
“Gas.” Mira’s voice caused him to pause and glance back.
“Yes?”
“Make sure they’re really secure.”
Oh hell. Gaston groaned. It was going to be one of those days.
“She’s leading us right into the legion.” Brennan scowled as he tightened to the wind, bringing his Naga in within a few hundred feet of the Andros, hanging back a little to her port side. “What the hell is she thinking?”
“That she’s the skipper, and she makes the calls,” Kennick said calmly, though inside he was wondering pretty much the same thing.
Brennan, unlike his gunner, didn’t have much faith in the former Cadrewoman, but he was now committed. Lydia was on that ship, that corsair, and he’d be damned if he left her to fall into the hands of the people who’d killed the rest of his family.
Damn Lydia and her duty and responsibility streak. He’d kicked most of those feelings aside a long time earlier. Duty had lost him his father and his brother before they’d actually died, and Brennan had little interest in responsibility either. His sister, despite all her rebellions, still held on to those chains deep down, and he’d be damned if he lost her too.
The Andros was moving so damned slowly that he had to keep dropping line, using his fighter to drag his sails back and reduce speed. That caused a level of frustration that neared a boiling point when the Andros cut to port, turning into the advancing legion.
“What the burning skies is she doing?” Brennan growled, adjusting to match speed and course. “If she keeps this up, I’m landing this crate on the deck of that hunk of junk and taking my sister off …”
Kennick shook his head, both amused and concerned. Concern was outweighing amusement, though, mostly because he had so many damned things to be concerned about. He didn’t know what the skipper was doing either, but he trusted her. He didn’t have much trust in the young heir flying the Naga he was currently relying on for his life, however, and the boy’s lack of cool was a problem.
“Calmly,” he said. “It’s out of our hands right now. We have to trust the skipper.”
“She’s out of her mind!” Brennan yelled. “We should be running for the desert. We could easily vanish into the haze and come out anywhere we chose.”
“We could”—Kennick nodded—“but that’s not what the skipper’s decided to do, so we won’t. Losing your cool over it just isn’t how things are done.”
Brennan took a breath, forcing himself to calm down. Kennick was right, of course. The one commandment of flying was that you didn’t lose your cool. You didn’t panic; you didn’t get mad. If you had to, you got even, but that was it.
“All right, fine. I hope she knows what she’s doing.”
Kennick was glad that the boy couldn’t see his face as he looked at the legion they were bearing down on. You’re not the only one, kid.
“The Phoenix and the Thunderbird are going to make the intercept.”
Kim nodded, eyes on the skies. The Elemental would come a few minutes late to the engagement, but they’d be able to back up the other two destroyers just in case they needed it. The way the Andros was flying, however, made it seem like the current handler of the ship intended to surrender.
There was no other explanation for flying half-mast into a full squadron of destroyers with a ship that had no chance of matching them.
He couldn’t, wouldn’t, count on that, but that’s what seemed to be happening.
“Intercept will happen in three minutes, skipper.”
“Location?” Kim asked, eyes flitting to the map.
“Sector Ninety-Eight Aleph.”
Kim frowned. “That sounds familiar.”
“Refugee camp in the sector, skipper. No armed personnel.”
Kim nodded, remembering. He hoped that the refugees wouldn’t be caught in anything nasty, but sometimes it sucked to be a civilian.
“Signal the Thunderbird. Have them issue the order to heave to.”
“Aye, skipper.”
“Two destroyers on approach, skipper.”
Mira nodded. “I see them. Signals?”
The signals officer, Kay Mirran, nodded from where she was standing, her security strap locked tight to a nearby rail.
“Looks like the Phoenix and the Thunderbird, skipper,” she announced. “That means we’re up against the Bulls. Hold on. I’m getting a signal code from the Thunderbird … They’re demanding that we heave to, skipper. Do I respond?”