Free Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework by Randolph Lalonde Page B

for that.”
    “That is the backup,” Minh replied. “The
energy and hard shielding is all right, so I should be fine to
enter atmo - and even our vacsuits can take the heat - but I’d
rather have all systems go for reentry. Just call me paranoid.
Safe, but paranoid.”
    Jake walked onto the elevation platform and
noticed a pigment-shift painting on the side of his aircraft. An
image of Paula lounging under Minh-Chu’s callsign: RONIN, her
modesty maintained only by smoke trailing from a recently fired gun
in her hand. Jake stared at it a moment, stunned, then burst into a
debilitating bout of laughter.
    “What?” Minh asked, alarmed. He looked at
the side of the fighter and hung his head. “Yeah, she bonded that
on yesterday.”
    “Well, she looks pretty good,” Jake said,
taking a breath. “I hope you’ll be happy together!” He managed to
say before he burst anew.
    “But I-“ Minh began to offer lamely as he
finished stepping down from the fighter.
    Jake put his hand on his friend’s shoulder
and looked him in the eye. “If she’s so mad for you that she’s done
this, there’ll be no shaking her off. I hope she’s got some
redeeming traits we haven’t seen.”
    “She can be nice in quiet moments, and she’s
ambitious,” Minh said. “Doesn’t think people take her very
seriously, though.”
    Jake straightened up and recovered. “Well,
this isn’t going to help. I’ll get a scrubber and we’ll get this
off.”
    “Yeah,” Minh said. “I’m sticking to my guns
though, we’re split. She’s getting harder and harder to keep at
arm’s length. I still can’t believe she didn’t believe me.”
    “Just stop,” Jake said. “Or I’ll get started
up again.”
    “It’s not that funny!” Minh retorted. “It’s
actually pretty scary!”
    Jake was just starting to snicker again when a bold
message appeared on his head’s up display:
    NOW! DO IT NOW!
    The elevation pad dropped two metres in half
a second. The side Jake stood on lowered more, and before he could
move the Uriel skidded in his direction, trapping him against the
side of the elevation shaft.
    Minh tripped over one of the thruster pods,
the emergency hood of his vacsuit activated before he struck his
head soundly against the side. “We’ve got a malfunction with lift
six!” He announced to the deck crew.
    “This isn’t a malfunction,” Jake said. He
tried to push the rear thruster pod of the fighter away from him,
but the left arm of his suit’s strength augmentation failed. “I’m
pinned.” Just as he said it, a man wearing a grey worker’s vacsuit
leaned over the opening of the short elevator shaft and dropped a
roughly rewired compact battery right on top of him.
    “EMP grenade!” Jake warned.
    It went off, effecting the fighter through
its open cockpit, and the systems on Jake’s lower quality vacsuit.
He could feel the little artificial muscle there was layered into
it stiffen. Without power, the material would be more hindrance to
movement than assistance.
    “I’m pinned,” Jake said again, struggling
under the weight of the fighter and the panic rising in his mind.
“My suit’s keeping me from getting crushed, but it’s not doing
anything else.”
    “Hold on, my suit’s okay,” Minh said. “I
might be able to get you out.”
    “You’ve barely got augmentation, that’s a
pilot’s suit,” Jake said. He opened a channel to Frost. “Get over
here, we need your loader to pick up this fighter.”
    “Is this an accident?” Frost asked.
    “You know it isn’t,” Jake replied.
    Three grey suited workers dropped into the
elevation pit, one falling on top of Minh as he was balanced on an
engine pod pylon. The pair went crashing down, and that’s when Jake
saw a makeshift restraint in the attacker’s hand. “Watch it, Minh!”
Jake said. “He’s trying to get a restraint on you!”
    One end of the modified metal cargo tie
clapped closed around Minh’s arm before he could turn over and
react. He