Inner Discord, ch 42 (Patreon)

Tristan reached down the side of the seat, fighting the acceleration, located the strap and brought it forward. He put that hand over the board and used the other one to locate the other half of the harness, then locked them together and tightened it over himself, while never taking his eyes off the dot on the scanner that was Carter Hart’s ship.

He’d expected to be chasing the man out of the planetary atmosphere, keeping him from reaching a hidden escape ship, or taking advantage of his higher tolerance to catch up to his quarry before he engaged long range engines.

Kestron’s FCs weren’t equipped for long range flight; few fighter ships of that era were, but Tristan hadn’t been able to identify Carter Hart’s ship, so it had been a possibility he had to take into account.

But his target remained well within the atmosphere, but he was pushing it as hard as humans could endure. It meant Tristan would shortly be in range and—

Hart’s ship no longer registered on the sensors. The maneuver had been too fast and had taken it out of the sensor cone. Tristan looked up, searching the clouds. Carter Hart could have gone in any direction to escape the sensor, but only one let him do it with the suddenness demonstrated. 

The targeting lock alarm sounded and Tristan banked hard, his vision dimming momentarily under the pressure. The flash of blasters passing through where he’d been were followed by Carter Hart’s sleek fighter ship.

Tristan typed the command for his guns to track it and return fire, and discovered they were stationary on this model. He sent his ship down and after Carter Hart, the dot reappearing on his screen as he as the propulsion tail. Activating the weapons brought up the targeting reticule in time for the lock alarm to sound again.

A hard roll up had his vision dimming again, then he turned down to pick up the chance, and couldn’t see Carter Hart’s ship. He flew out of the clouds, leveled and did a visual check, then up at the ceiling of clouds. The attack had been to force him to lose sight so his target could alter his course in a non-standard way.

Tristan brought up the initial trajectory, the only concrete information he had, and set himself back on it, accelerating and slowly raising through the clouds.

It was possible it had been a panicked flight, in which case the information was meaningless, but everything he’d seen from Carter Hart spoke of someone who planned as much as Tristan did. So he had been heading for a specific location from the start. He had no reasons to think he’d be followed as the odds of another person with enough knowledge to fly such an antique were too low to be bothered with.

The dot appeared and almost immediately disappeared.

Tristan leveled his ship, then pushed the acceleration until his vision started dimming, then pulled back enough he could think. Carter Hart might have a passive sensor warning him, but all he had to then make his decision was what he knew of the situation.

He’d arranged for Tristan to be under him, which meant Tristan was now flying up when the other ship registered. The most likely way someone could escaper the scanner at this rage was to back out of the edge he had appeared on. So going up harder, possibly banking left or right to add to the confusion. The expected reaction would be for Tristan to do the same in an attempt to bring him back in the sensor for a proper lock.

The other way was to put on a burst of speed, remaining level and counting on the pursuer to be out of the plane to remain hidden.

If Tristan could afford it, he’d turn the scanner off and do the chase visually, but the clouds were too dense.

The dot reappeared and remained there while Tristan adjusted his position. Carter Hart was either confident he could outmaneuver him—Tristan checked his acceleration—or had pushed himself beyond what he could endure and let the onboard pilot take over.

Even that old, computers had a personality and survival instinct, although it would be simpler than modern counter parts. That simplicity meant a higher degree of predictability. Tristan activated the targeting lock, and the ship banked left. Turning it off, he followed, still gaining. Once he was centered again, he targeted it and it bank right. Three more tests and it never went up or down, but now Tristan could make out its propulsion trail in the way it affected the clouds.

Unless Carter Hart had added protection, his ship would have to slow down if he wanted to avoid permanent damage.

He fired at where he thought the ship was without the targeting system, missed, but the interesting thing was his target’s lack of reaction. Had the computer been able to track the shot fast enough to know he’d miss or was it dependent on the targeting alarm to trigger a reaction?

The change in speed was so sudden, Tristan barely maneuvered under it as he flew by. Before he’d decided how to adapt, the targeting alarm triggered and he looped up.

Instead of watching blaster fire pass by where he’d been, the alarm kept going as Carter Hart’s ship stayed on his tail. A series of harsh maneuver confirmed his target was conscious and in control.

Tristan maneuvered to keep him from maintaining the lock, which allowed him to slow enough, Carter Hart remained on his tail as he dropped below the clouds. The human followed him, but was still too far for Tristan to get more than the sleek shape of his ship. It didn’t matter. This was now about the pilots, and even under the stimulant Carter Hard had taken to regain consciousness so quickly, Tristan still have more tolerance to the hard maneuvers needed.

He did his own airbrake and had to bite down to stay conscious. He tasted blood as he accelerated again, dropping into the rear line of fire, but not remaining there. Blaster shots streak over him as he dropped, then went up again, getting a good view of the flat underbelly of the other ship. There was nothing familiar in it as he fired without the help of the targeting lock.

Carter Hart turned to get out of the approaching fire, but Tristan stayed with him, making his turn tighter until he clipped a wing and the other ship wobbled, some of its control in atmosphere taken away. Ships this old weren’t designed for full antigravity engines, as demonstrated by the lack of inertial compensation for any of the hard maneuvers.

Tristan flew by the damaged ship, quickly turning, and unsurprised when it wasn’t in freefall like it had seemed before. He spiraled the approaching ship, engaging the targeting lock a moment before Carter Hart did, and Hart panicked, banking out of the potential collision, letting Tristan come at him at an angle again.

 This time he targeting the rear, and hit it quicker, the previous damage affecting the ship’s capabilities. The left most thruster flared, but shutdown before the explosive reaction happened. 

Blaster fire trailed Tristan as he flew by and Carter Hart tried to hit him.

Then the targeting alarm sounded when it had no reason to. Carter Hart’s ship wasn’t in line with his; he wasn’t even firing anymore.

Banking left and right didn’t stop the alarm, neither did dropping nor suddenly going up, and the alarm’s volume increased, an indicator whatever had him was approaching.

A loop to get visual on whatever might be following him, let him see the missile before it too turned. He had no idea how it had its lock, and his go to solution when someone did this in space didn’t work here. He couldn’t shutdown his ship and see if it would lose the lock. He also couldn’t lose it by accelerating faster than it did. It had no limits on how much inertial forces it could take, while he did.

The one limit it had was how much power it had. Its size limited the power cells, but it also didn’t need to power much, propulsion and targeting. Possibly the triggering system, if it wasn’t fully mechanical.

A light flashed, and since there was nothing wrong with his ship, it meant someone was contacting him. He established the connection, looking around for where Hart was. He’d forgotten about him while dealing with the missile.

“So, you’re the infamous Tristan. You live up to your reputation.”

The reminder he had a target gave him something to use as a way to remove his current pursuer.

“Too busy trying to shake your death to talk? That’s okay. I’ll fill your last moments with telling you how I know who you—”

Tristan terminated to connection. If Carter Hart didn’t have useful information to give him, he didn’t need to hear him ramble.

He fired at the man’s ship, not bothered he was missing. This was more to remind him that while Tristan had a missile after him, Carter Hart had a pursuer of his own. The thrusters flared up as he accelerated. With only two-third of them functional, he couldn’t go fast enough, so he weaved left and right.

Tristan mirrored the maneuvered, firing when the opportunity presented itself, and timed all three’s reaction’s speed. When Carter Hard was where Tristan needed him, he accelerated and cut ahead of the other ship, then banked, changing the missile’s direction, tightening its turn so that instead of also passing in front of the ship it—

The explosion sent created the shadow of his ship on the clouds.

He turned and flew around the falling debris, looking for anything that might be Carter Hart in a survival system. 

No man in an anti-gravity harness. No cockpit pod on a controlled descent. The pieced that were larger enough someone could hide in, Tristan fired on, destroyed until there were no larger than the smallest pieced that would rain on the green hills below him.

Only when most of them had crashed did he regain altitude and set his course for the tower.

* * * * *

The Krestron Fleet Chaser made landing simple with the use of a short antigravity generator. Nothing that would save him from a crash, but as he slowed until he could just remain in the air, and entered the hangar he’d left from, activating it brought the ship to a standstill, then lowered it to the ground gently.

He was out before the landing support touched the floor, running to the panic room since Alex wasn’t there to welcome him.

There were no sounds, but the sent of blood was heavy among that of burned papers and polycarbon. He stopped at the sight of the destroyed art. Very little had escaped the battle that had taken place. Books were destroyed; burned and broken. He harshly pushed the outrage aside. They didn’t matter.

The only one who mattered was Alex and…

The man seated on the floor was in bad shape. Cuts and burns were what Tristan saw. He couldn’t guess and the internal damage he’d received. There was something of defeat in how his head hung down.

“Alex?” Tristan called softly, and his human looked up.

“I couldn’t do it,” he said, his voice hollow.

Tristan looked at the dead bodies he could see. Guessed at all those hidden he couldn’t see. “They were trying to kill you. Now wasn’t when you should try to—”

“I couldn’t lose myself in the fight.”

“You?” Tristan couldn’t work out how to continue.

“I kept doubting myself, hesitating, leaving myself open. Can we go home? If it means you need to lock me up, that’s fine. I just…I hate what this is making me into. Maybe I was in the process of killing everyone around us, but at least I knew what I was doing. What I could do. Now…” his head dropped again. “I just don’t know anymore.”

Tristan gently pickled his human up, and Alex rested his head against his breast. “It’s okay, Alex. I’m not giving up on you yet.”