CH1
"How are we doing?" Lanie asks, since she didn't remotely understand almost anything about this ship.
"The scanner is clear, so no signs of pursuit. The fuel system is full and the engines looked to have been worked on recently. The controls are a little sluggish, probably because they are 2nd generation. This ship is not exactly state of the art.
I should be able to activate the Star Drive in a few days. How is the medical?" Kate answers her question and asks one of her own.
"Pretty much like the rest of this ship. Antiquated but functioning for the most part, the scanner is operating, the onboard EMH is corrupted and non-operational and since I'm not a programmer it's going to stay that way. The refrigerator is however packed to the gills, so we should be fine.
It just depends on how far we are going and how often we can go without to make it last longer." Lanie explains. "So where are we going?" Lanie wanted to know.
"The tormented zone." Kate tells her shrinking to try and close her ears knowing what was coming.
"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?" Kate was not disappointed. "No one goes there." Lanie points out the obvious.
"Precisely why we are going, no one goes there. Meaning no one will follow us, and unless it has escaped your attention, we are on the run for our lives." Kate points out.
Lanie knew that. She was only all too aware that they were being hunted. "That area will rip this ship to shreds. The electromagnetic storms are why no ship can survive in there." Lanie wasn't up on everything about ships, but everyone knew better than to enter there.
"That's the best part about this antique; it isn't state of the art. The EMH that isn't operational anyway is the most modern part of this ship. This baby is practically fly by wire meaning there is little for the storms to affect." Kate points out grinning, liking her idea immensely.
"And what if there isn't a planet in there for us to land on?" Lanie still hated this idea.
"Then it just became my best and last brilliant idea." Kate was still smiling at Lanie who huffed and went back to the medical area to look the place over a little more closely, since they were both about to die.
This place was going to be home for the two of them, she just didn't know for how long.
Just hours ago:
Johanna came dashing into her room where Kate and Lanie had been sitting and discussing boys. Kate didn't have any interest in any of the boys she had met, while Lanie had been a little more adventurous and had found at least one boy she liked.
Then they started talking about the girls. They had both noticed that a lot of them would shut-up when they got too close. Meaning they were being talked about.
Since Kate and Lanie went everywhere together it could be anything. From being lesbians to questioning who and what they are, which would be bad. The two had been doing everything they could to not give themselves away.
"Grab your GO BAGS you two, we have to run." And Johanna exited the room just as fast.
The four of them always had emergency survival bags handy almost everywhere they went, it was a requirement if they wanted to keep living.
Kate and Lanie were up in a heartbeat and out in the living room where Kate's mother Johanna and her father Jim were already standing with their GO BAGS in hand. "What's wrong?" Kate asked. Had the girls at school figured them out and then rated them out to the locals?
"Can't you smell them?" Johanna was ready to scold her daughter for letting her guard down. But she and Jim had done the same, this place was nice and they liked it here. Plus they had done a good job of fitting in; even if Lanie didn't look anything like that she could be their daughter.
Plus they had new friends that had helped them with small things, not knowing who and what they actually were. If they did, they would likely rat them out to the locals too. All that work down the drain.
Kate and Lanie took in big whiffs through their noses and finally noticed straight away. "HUNTERS!" How could they have been so stupid not to have noticed? They were never going to have a real life, were they?
"You know where to go girls, we'll meet you there." Johanna tells them. However she also notices the hurt in her daughter's face, getting Johanna to step over to her and pull her into a hug. "I know honey, it's not fair, and asking you two to grow up when you're only 19 is a lot to ask." Johanna kissed the top of Kate's head.
"You two just remember, Jim and I love you. Both of you. Now hurry up, they are both very close now." Johanna could smell them; they were both together and only a couple of houses down from them now.
Jim and Johanna watch as their daughter and her best friend, race back into their room and jump through the closed window, shattering it and take off running. No longer caring who sees them running, they both knew they didn't have the luxury of holding back anymore.
"This is going to be close Jo." Jim warns his wife.
"I know, but I would rather have them chasing after us, then after the girls." Johanna answers his question, still worried about her daughter and her best friend who had long since become another daughter to both of them.
"They're across the street now, they will likely have weapons." Jim cautions.
Johanna nods her head, already knowing what her husband had just told her. Neither of them was new at this. It was one of the reasons their little family was still alive.
Jim nodded his head and ran for the window on one side of the house while Johanna ran for the other side window. They both jumped through, smashing them into pieces just like Kate had done to the window out back.
Landing effortlessly they both ran for the front of the house and then each took off running separate directions.
Just as they reached the front of the house they both made out that a plasma ball had been fired and impacted on the front door, blowing the front half of the house into kindling.
Jim was doing his best to throw off the tracker on their weapons, using trees, bushes and cars to help block them getting a lock on him as he ran, throwing in an occasional jump now and then.
Jim could feel the impacts of the automatic rounds impacting onto the trees and cars around him, knowing it was only moments before something bigger showed up. So he used one of the cars as a spring board and leapt over the house, two houses down, trying to land in their back yard.
Just as he was reaching the ground he felt the house behind him blow up. Jim didn't waste any time wondering if there was anyone in the house that had just been killed by one of the hunters. There was nothing he could do for them anyway.
Jim leaped over the wood privacy fence into the neighbor's back yard and then used their deck as another spring board to leap over their house, landing on their car in the driveway. Smashing in the front section of their car, totaling it.
"Sorry." Jim whispered out, knowing the cost of replacing the car wasn't likely to be easy on them.
Jim then ran across the street and used the car in that front drive way as another spring board to leap over their house and almost ended up in their pool in the backyard. Quickly choosing to just keep jumping over the pool, followed by the next house, and the next, and the next …..
Johanna didn't have her husband's skill, but she did have one of her own. Johanna went the opposite direction of her husband, running and flipping all the way. Front flips, back flips, cartwheels with sudden bursts of speed.
However the entire time she could feel the rounds one of the Hunters was firing at her. Damaging the homes, cars and trees as she went.
Then a car backed out of a garage and Johanna slammed into the side of it, momentarily stopping her dead in her tracks. The damage to the car was enough to cave in the right rear quarter panel, and push the car sideways.
Johanna jumped up and ran into the open garage and crashed out the back door into their backyard. Just as she did the house and the car out front blew up. Probably from another plasma ball, Johanna was guessing.
Johanna felt momentarily sorry for the family that was in that car. They didn't deserve to die, and the Hunters who had killed them were untouchable. The locals would likely hold them momentarily, provided they managed to capture them, but end up forced to release them. Hunter's had Carte Blanche to do as they pleased in their quest, no one was above them. No one!
Johanna was happy if they were captured, it would slow them down a little, hopefully enough to allow all of them to escape and go somewhere else.
Kate and Lanie were close to their destination when Kate stopped and got Lanie to stop with her. "What are we stopping here for?" Lanie wanted to get to the site and get out of here.
"Smell anything?" Kate asks her, getting Lanie to take in a deep breath. "Nothing." Lanie tells her.
"And yet we are going to stay here and watch. If this site is under surveillance and we get there too soon, they will show up just as my parents do." So Lanie hunkered down with Kate and watched, listened and smelled.
They were in the middle of nowhere. How can anyone be watching this site? There is nothing here. Not even a ship. Lanie didn't understand, but then Kate always had been smarter than her. It was one of the reasons she was still alive. When her own family and everyone else she knew and loved was gone.
Then Lanie and Kate at the same time felt someone coming, fast, followed close behind by another.
The Hunters had speed, just not their speed. But they also had a scent dispenser that could be used to throw you off thinking it was someone else. Kate prayed they didn't have their parents scent. And why didn't they use it earlier?
The two showed up and leaped across the canyon to the other side, and then they just stepped off the cliff and dropped to the bottom.
Kate knew Hunters didn't do that. "Come on, time to go." Kate rises up out of the sand that had been covering them, hiding them in the desert. It had been hot and uncomfortable, just that dying was even more uncomfortable.
Kate, followed by Lanie leaped across the canyon just like the other two, and the turned and stepped over the side to drop to the ground below.
It was a long drop, forcing both of them to land while bending both of their legs so that one knee rested on the ground.
There was a small river still here that had over the centuries cut this canyon. Problem was there wasn't anything to see, not really. However part of the cliff face looked funny up close like this.
Johanna suddenly stepped out of nowhere, however Kate and Lanie saw that the wall was actually a painted camouflaged sheet of some kind. "Hi Honey, glad you two could make it."
Kate leaped into her mother's arms. "MOM!" Johanna simply hugged her back. "Where's dad?"
"Inside. … Come with me." And Johanna lifts the tarp off the wall exposing an opening behind it.
There was a ship hidden on the other side. The cave, it that's what you could call it was dark, save for the small lights that the ship gave off. Plus the door was open.
Kate and Lanie followed Johanna inside and went in search of Jim. As they did the ship started to come to life. The lights came on and they could feel the atmospherics come to life as the stale air was slowly replaced with fresh air.
They found Jim on the bridge going over all of the controls. Johanna stepped up behind her husband and placed a hand on each shoulder, leaning down to kiss the top of his head.
"Everything is up and operational, she is good to go." Jim tells her.
"Where did you two get this artifact?" Kate asks looking around. It looked old and that was being generous.
"It's an old modified Talyn." Jim tells her smiling. He was playing with his daughter. Jim knew that Kate knew her ships.
"TALYN! … Those things were hunks of junk not long after they were manufactured.
"Sometimes the oldies are the goodies." Jim counters. "Besides you know how to pilot this, not to mention how to repair practically everything on it. Which might come in handy since you two are going to be flying it."
WHAT? …. You're coming with us." Kate wasn't leaving without them.
Johanna takes a hold of Kate with one hand and Lanie with the other. "This ship will sleep up to 6 people, however with just the two of you, you'll have more space." Johanna starts to try and get them to see reason.
"MOM, … NO." Kate was shaking her head while the tears started. Lanie was shaking her head too, not liking this plan at all.
"We have our own ship, far from here. Your father and I are going to get the Hunters to chase us while you two work to get away from here. We plan on being right behind you, and I think you know where to go honey." Johanna hoped she did anyway. They had talked about it some.
"This plan sucks mom, really sucks." Kate wiped away a few of her tears.
"You know as well as we do that if there are two Hunters, there are others or there will be soon. It's your father's and mine's job to see you leave here safely. You two are our children; this is what parents do honey." Johanna pulls both of them in close with her own tears falling down her face.
Johanna knew she and her husband were playing with fire, but they had been on the run since Kate and Lanie were 5 years old. They had both grown up on the run. Jim and Johanna had taught them everything they could.
Getting them into schools when they could and home schooling when they couldn't. Life had been hard, what worldly possessions they all had just got left behind. …. Again! All they had was what was in each of their go bags.
"This ship is packed to the gills for you two; there are even a few spare parts that took no small feat to find." Jim adds. "I've been working on it off and on for months now and your mother has filled the galley with everything you need, plus you each have your go bags. If you are careful and smart it should last you a long time." Jim moves to the other side of Johanna and wraps his arms around the two of them.
"You better be right behind us." Kate adds knowing she was going to lose this argument.
"We have a plan to draw the Hunters away and then run for our own ship." Jim tells them, since he and his wife had no plans on dying either.
"So what are you two flying?" Kate asks that way she could be on the lookout for it.
"We have a Deviant class." Jim answers smiling again, knowing just what his daughter would think of that.
It got Kate to start laughing. "You two really know how to pick'em. … A Talyn and a Deviant." Kate was shaking her head. "I suppose I should be grateful that you didn't get us both an Eve class." Kate chuckles.
"Actually I did find one of those, however it had been stripped down to an empty shell, I couldn't even get parts out of it." Jim chuckled. Plus Kate would never believe what else he had found. Beggers shouldn't be picky and Jim didn't have the luxury of being picky.
"We need to get going honey, the Hunters will find this place eventually and none of us should be here when they do." Johanna kissed Lanie and then her own daughter. "We'll get them off your backs and you two should be fine. We'll catch up, I promise." Johanna didn't know when, but if they lived, they would catch up, eventually.
"Please be careful mom." Kate broke into tears. Then switched to hugging her dad while Johanna hugged Lanie.
"We love both of you, don't ever forget that." Johanna tells both of them wiping away her own tears.
Kate and Lanie are forced to watch Jim and Johanna leave them behind. "What's in the bag dad?" Kate watched him pick up something she hadn't bothered to see earlier.
"This?" Jim lifts up the bag. "This is a little something for our friends who are likely going to show up here soon." Jim pulls one out and hands one to Johanna and takes the other one out for himself.
Kate eyes open wide and her mouth falls open. It takes her a moment to get her voice back. "My god dad! … Where the HELL did you get those?"
"These little beauties?" Jim lifts his up to look at it. He was rather proud of them, unlike the ships these babies were state of the art. It was mostly round and about the size of a softball.
"Let's see a Hunter ship stand up to one of these babies." Jim was grinning wide and arched his eyebrows a couple of times. Jim was rather proud of them, he loved his toys.
Johanna was shaking her head. Her husband could be such a child sometimes with the proper toys, not that what each of them had was in anyway a toy. "We should be going babe." Johanna tells her husband.
"One of us will contact you when we want you to leave honey. Please stay safe you two, we love both of you." Johanna headed for the exit before she broke down and changed her mind.
"Just be ready for the blast wave." Jim advises her and steps up to kiss both of them before running off after his wife.
Kate checked the seal after they were gone and headed back for the bridge and started powering up the rest of the systems, getting the engines and other systems ready for flight. "Better strap in Lanie, this is likely to be a bumpy flight." Kate was thinking a damn bumpy ride.
Lanie was strapping in. "What were those things?" Lanie was medical trained and didn't know much about this ship or those things.
"Those were Proton Bombs. The blast will bypass most electromagnetic shielding doing damage directly to a ship. Each bomb has the capability of taking out a Command Carrier. They are the absolute latest in anti-ship weapons." Kate explains.
Now Lanie's eyes were open wide again. "Where did your dad get one of those?" While technically noticing that he actually had two of them.
Kate chuckled. "I have no idea." Kate didn't even have a guess. However over the years her dad had proven to be quite resourceful at finding what they needed.
Kate was sitting there watching her screens quietly with Lanie just off to one side watching Kate. They were both getting nervous. "We've got company." Kate finally calls out, sitting up a little straighter in her seat.
"It's sitting down right above us." Kate looks up as if she could actually see, knowing full well that there were hundreds of feet of ground/rock between her and it.
"Hunter ship?" Lanie didn't really think she was asking.
"The size and configuration matches known Hunter designs." Kate confirms, starting to get nervous. Hunters were the most dangerous things in the known Universe, and they would not stop until her and her family were all dead.