Unstable Prototypes by Joseph Lallo Page B

designed for incapacitation. That in no way made
them harmless, however. For one thing, as previously stated, an
incapacitated spacecraft is essentially a projectile, and
projectiles don't mix well with fragile ships and structures the
likes of which the patrols were supposed to guard. To deal with
this, the security ships tended to be equipped with their own
(fortunately less destructive) tractor beams and good old fashioned
grappling cables to try to bring disabled ships to a halt. They
also had a tricky bit of technology that freelancers had come to
call "the clothesline." Security ships would pair off and link a
pair of emitters that had been installed on each of them. A ribbon
of bright blue energy would then zap to life between them. If said
ribbon so much as grazed your ship, the hull temperature would
start to spike. A few seconds of exposure would blow the coolant
system, forcing you to either kill the engines or kill everyone in
the vicinity of the engines when they eventually ruptured. Two such
clotheslines flickered on like neon threads ahead of him, and his
visual scanners showed that there was a handful more trying to box
him in.
    A quick waggle of the control stick sent the
pair of ships ahead of him into a sideways slide to the left to
compensate. He then shifted to the right and darted upward. The
ships above him tried to close off the path, but unfortunately for
them, the two pilots didn't quite have matching reflexes. One
drifted wide, nearly smashing into one of his fellow security
ships, and leaving a gaping hole in their defenses for Lex slip
through. A solo ship, either in an attempt to intimidate him or
simply due to plain old obliviousness, swept close enough to brush
shields, forcing Lex back down toward another pair of ribbons. They
slid together and tried to tighten up the net, but he eased his
ship into a careful orientation and managed to thread the needle
between the lines. One of the security ships, in its panicked
attempt to pursue, managed to cross the path of one the other
ship's lines, instantly triggering a fail-safe and drifting dead in
the water. By the time the other ships managed to sort themselves
out and get back on track, Lex had open space ahead of him and
could put his monster of an engine to work.
    When Lex had been describing to Karter what
sort of things he wanted in a ship, top on the list was speed, and
the lunatic inventor had delivered. Despite the fact that his
previous ship, Betsy, had been equipped with triple the engines it
was intended to have and an oversized power plant to run them, the
SOB was several times more powerful with what looked like (but was
absolutely not) stock equipment. With a little distance to get up a
head of steam, and without an atmosphere to contend with, Lex had
yet to find anything that could even keep pace with the SOB, let
alone catch up. He hammered the throttle until the security ships
were nowhere in sight. Once the sensors were clear, he picked out a
suitably random destination and activated the Carpinelli Field. The
view out the cockpit headed toward the blue side of the spectrum
until it rocketed past ultraviolet.
    "Okay, I'm going to plot out a few random
jumps to make sure they can't send anyone after us. Once I'm done,
the three of us are going to have a little chat. Understand?"
    "Certainly," said the former prisoner.
    "Of course," said Ma.
    "Good," Lex said, shaking his head and
muttering as he flipped through the star charts. "What a waste of a
stick of gum..."

Chapter 7
    Commander Purcell sat alone in her quarters.
The space station that acted as her command center was an outdated
military repair and defensive support model which, among other
things, meant that personal space was kept to the bare essentials.
A single cot occupied one wall. It was attached via hinges, and was
currently folded up to reveal what was technically a chair, but was
more accurately the slightly cushioned top of a footlocker. There
was a charging station