From Darkness

[Manticore]

LISA

Lisa Jaeger sat at the helm of her new gunboat – the Errant Venture – and fidgeted nervously. Despite her outward showing of support, she privately agreed with the other freelancers about this particular part of the plan. It was crazy.

For the tenth time, she glanced at the scanner - currently stretching invisible fingers far ahead and below to pinpoint the location of their target: the Idus Martii. It was nearly time.

She let out a long breath, running fingers through her short hair. A downside of JADE’s unbelievable speed and efficiency was that she was left feeling powerless. The AI was currently flying the ship, making miniscule adjustments to their course to line up with the calculated trajectory for James’ freefall. And JADE would be doing the majority of the work once James plugged her into the target’s mainframe, as well.

Lisa hated being powerless. It reminded her too much of being a slave.

Frustrated, she checked again. Almost there.

James’ voice crackled to life in her ear. "Lisa, depressurize the cargo bay and open the bay doors when you're ready. JADE, start the timer and the guidance system."

She nodded, checking the scanner readout once again. At least she had this small task to handle manually. "Got them on my scanners - right on cue. We're getting lined up now." She tried to sound as confident as possible. It was getting more and more difficult to manage.

She waited for a long moment until the readout finally flashed to green as JADE confirmed their alignment. "Okay, depressurizing in three, two, one..." she said, and then hit a small button on her console. A section of the Venture’s schematic sputtered from green to angry red as the pressurized atmosphere vented into Hamburg’s stratosphere.

A timer suddenly appeared on her main monitor, counting down from thirty seconds. JADE was nothing if not precise. "Drop in thirty!" she half-yelled into the comm. It was getting more and more difficult to maintain her composure.

"I'll see you on the ground,” James said, with an eerie placidity in his voice.

Lisa wanted to say something… anything… but then the timer hit zero and raw instinct took over. “Go!” she shouted.

Belatedly, she quietly added, “Good luck…”

Looking at the active sensor readout, she saw James appear as a small blip to the stern of the ship, then disappear as the scanners lost him.

However, JADE was jacked in to his suit’s electronics suite, and she had pinpointed him on the tactical display as he made the approach. Lisa watched the small numbers beside his falling icon with trepidation. His speed had picked up quite a bit, and she watched, helplessly, as he coordinated tiny maneuvers with JADE’s steady help. The distance to target kept falling, and he still hadn’t opened the grav chute.

She winced. Would it be possible to decelerate enough to stop in time? The numbers were changing too rapidly for her to mentally do the math, but she trusted her AI to get it right. She’d better get it right…

More seconds passed as James continued to plummet. Then, abruptly, his icon changed as Jade released the chute. The Venture’s scanners still didn’t see a thing, Lisa noted, which was a good omen for the stealthy aspect of this maneuver.

Then, impact. It happened so fast Lisa almost missed it. James’s vitals fluttered dangerously, and for a moment she was deathly afraid.

Then, they stabilized enough for her to release the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She resisted the urge to comm him immediately, knowing that he would need all his focus to successfully breach the ship’s hull.

A moment later, his icon moved, paused again, and then vanished. The screen shifted, showing the schematic of a Gull-class transport, and James’s icon appeared again, this time just inside an airlock.

Her comm crackled to life, James’s voice sounding slightly pained, but triumphant. "I'm in, I'm in the ship! Notify Wayfarer, and give me a waypoint marker to the mainframe! This looks like, ah, the upper deck maintenance room, I can see equipment and EVA suits up here."

"Copy,” she replied. “Are... are you okay? Your vitals have gone a bit... off."

Her fingers flew now, sending him a waypoint of the estimated location of the mainframe. She also sent a brief encoded message to Wayfarer, advising them to prepare for action.

"I'm fine, just a hard landing. I'm en route, they've probably noticed something's wrong, now."

She nodded, and began working to guide him through the ship. Then, on a gut feeling, she ordered the Venture’s autopilot to descend to the rendezvous point where Wayfarer already waited. JADE would be able to handle the interactions with the mainframe without Lisa’s help, and James would need her the moment that ship touched down.

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