‘This is Valkyrie Unit 0401. Designation: White Rabbit. Requesting immediate assistance.’

Silence. The twenty second countdown elapsed again.

‘This is Valkyrie Unit 0401. Designation: White Rabbit. Requesting immediate assistance.’

Silence. Twenty seconds more squeeze through the digital counter of the silicone mind.

‘This is Valkyrie Unit…’

The storm chased the white rabbit, thundering just moments behind her, above fields of mud drowned bones. She ran like never before in her life. Not far enough behind rang the hollow braying of horses and the echoes of rifle fire. The hounds had been loosed, and their howls drowned out the thunder.

Terrible fear burned in the mad rabbit’s red eyes as she raced across dark, muddy moors. Hunters and the ever present storm nipped at her heels, but she managed to hold herself a heartbeat ahead.

‘This is Valkyrie Unit 0401. Designation: White Rabbit. Requesting immediate assistance.’

Silence answered. Twenty heartbeats squeezed through the digital timer again. Taro could not count them any more. Nothing mattered but to keep in front of the storm, and in front of the terrible hunters dogging his vapour trail.

In her depths, for one eternal heartbeat, Alice stirred in the centre of her web of sleepless dreams. Ice blue eyes opened in the dark and peered across the thinnest, most secret line she held close to her chest. She ran the tips of her white fingers across the ghost thin strand of fate, listening as it sang softly to her the fate of her beloved.

‘Taro, my White Rabbit. What have they done? You need me…’

‘This is Valkyrie Unit 0401. Designation: White Rabbit. Requesting immediate assistance.’

Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen.

The white rabbit, crazed and alone, raced across the dark moors.

Twelve. Eleven. Ten.

“This is the Wild Summer. We hear you Rabbit. We see you.”

Alice stirred again and turned her senses upwards, following her silver thread. She saw, in her dream, the white rabbit running over her canopy of shadows, his tiny, skipping prints leaving echoes of light in her dark sea. She reached her hand and began to climb.

‘This is the Valkyrie Unit 0401 Fail-safe AI. Pilot unit is in stim-induced fugue state. Unresponsive to stimulus. Requesting immediate assistance.’

On the deck of the Wild Summer an alarm klaxon screamed. Technicians braced for sudden acceleration, while the deck crew buckled themselves in. Commander Brachus watched from his throne the trajectory of the lone Valkyrie unit burning up the miles. The AI was already transmitting data back. Fuel levels were dangerously low, but the airspeed was insane.

“All hands, brace for acceleration to Mach 1 and above. Recovery crew, stand by. We’re going to catch us a rabbit.”

There was nervous laughter around the commander as he turned off his connection to the intercom. If the AI was flying the ship, there was no way for it to slow down, not while the pilot was alive. And it took a lot of abuse to kill an augmented sod like that.

They’d have to catch it in flight.

“Sir, we’ve got incoming bogeys on the tail of the 401 unit. Do we prepare fighters to dispatch?” Ada, the radar specialist, asked. She had strapped in and buckled down as Alice had begun accelerating.

“No. I’m certain the Delirium is following straight behind. We want to refuse that dance. Prepare to get us away the moment we have the Rabbit.”

“Non-essential crew are in crash couches and reporting in. We’ve begun flooding of non-essential sectors. Completion in 30 seconds from… mark,” another of the crew reported in. The essential updates flowed unto the commander’s HUD. Sector after sector reported green ready status.

Alice wasn’t wasting time. She pushed the Summer hard and turned sharply to correct for intercepting trajectory. A distant thud marked the main gun firing, followed by a violent shudder that told him, a fraction of a second ahead of the instruments, they had broken through the surface ice.

It took a minute for the sound of the Summer to change from the smooth vibrations of her conventional drive, into the angry buzz of the IMP-drive coming alive. Alice had been spinning it up even before they hit the surface. The sea behind them boiled as they accelerated and rose into the air.

A black wall of storm clouds visible over the horizon looked like it meant mean business. It was little wonder that Taro had been gunning his Valkyrie madly to keep ahead of that leviathan.

“Hangar 3 reporting in. We are ready to catch us a rabbit.”

Brachus called up the schematic for hangar 3. Six inertia killing gates flashed green ready status. At the back of them there was Recovery Unit Sigma, and behind him the plasteel-spun lattice that was the last chance for any retrieval. Even further back were the extremely thick metal shields that would, if needed, withstand a Valkyrie smashing into the hangar at top speed.

Umar Salvaros was in the pilot’s seat for the recovery suit. A blue status over his icon suddenly blinked twice and turned to solid green. His preparations were done.

"Final check,” the first mate, Adrak, called out. A chorus of affirmatives and confirmations replied. Finally, he sat in his own chair and strapped in.

“All right, Alice,” Brachus spoke to the ship’s machine ghost, “let’s get our boy home.”

Alice didn’t answer but the Summer lurched as their speed increased. A few seconds later everyone heard the sonic boom and felt the accompanying shudder. They climbed into the orange-blue evening of Deana, towards an arrow flying too fast at them.

“Handshake achieved with Unit 0401. Alice is flying her. We are matching course.”

“Incoming shell fire. Evasive manoeuvres initiated.”

Of course the Delirium wouldn’t just stand back and allow them to do as they pleased. Even invisible to their instruments, Brachus knew it was there, above the clouds. The moment they broke through the ice, it would have been a damn miracle if that ugly beast hadn’t fired on them.

Alice grumbled something over the intercom, her voice a mix of static noise and very angry hissing.

“We are not fighting today, Alice,” Brachus said to the machine ghost. “We can’t afford losing the Rabbit. Get her, and get us out.”

When Alice was in her mood, there was nothing to do but go along with the ride. Taro himself was dear to her, intimately, so his retrieval would by the priority regardless of events.

“Deploy countermeasures,” he commanded. “Let’s not give those bastards that easy of a target.”

The White Rabbit was too small to hit at that speed, but the heavy bulk of the Wild Summer was a different matter. They’d have to drop their shields to catch the Valkyrie jet, so they couldn’t afford any direct hits.

Even so, the Delirium fired again and silver streaks arched up from above the storm. The guns of the Summer sang in unison as they picked off the still distant objects. Long distance fighting in atmosphere wasn’t the speciality of neither the Delirium, nor the Wild Summer. But, given the chance, Brachus would have taken the same pot shots.

On the holographic tactical display in the centre of the room a representation of the hyper-carrier and the Valkyrie showed both objects changing trajectory as one. The Summer’s speed was just slightly below the Rabbit’s, and the two were almost upon one another.

“Hangar 3, package in-coming,” Ada reported.

Brachus switched his feed to the hangar cameras. The Delirium had fired another salvo, but he didn’t worry about it. Not much.

Umar shifted his stance in the great walker he piloted. At the end of the six inertia killers, he lowered his stance and spread his great metal arms.

“Here bunny, bunny, bunny,” he cooed over the intercom. Brachus didn’t feel that needed reprimanding.

It happened in the flash of a moment.

The White Rabbit came in just a fraction of a degree off the course of the Summer. It was as perfect as Alice could manage, given how she still needed to evade fire from above. All inertia gates fired nearly at once as the Rabbit tore through them. Umar caught the jet neatly in his embrace, metal nose under one bulky arm. The impact pushed him back into the safety lattice, but the gel under his armour plating absorbed what little kinetic energy the Rabbit still carried with her.

It would be a while until the Valkyrie was fit to fly again, but the damage was minimal, given the circumstances. Alice had killed her engine moments before interception.

“Package secured,” came the immediate confirmation from the third hangar bay.

“Shields to full power. Dig us a hole, mister Anders,” Brachus ordered.

The Summer’s forward cannon angled down and, exactly seven seconds later, a plasma blast tore a gaping wound through the frozen surface of the ocean.

“Take us under, Alice.”

Alice had already began descending and breaking. The impact would be hard. There wasn’t even time for Brachus to call an all hands brace for impact before the Wild Summer hit the black surface of the water. Shields absorbed most of the impact, but it still wasn’t a pleasant dip.

“Someone shut that klaxon up,” Brachus called as the depth meter began to climb.

It took a few minutes before they were deep enough to be under the sensor range of the Delirium. They wouldn’t be followed, given that the SRs weren’t outfitted for underwater operation. The last report from the Fragrant Spring had stated that the Malicious Intent was three days away from their position, so there was next to no chance of pursuit.

They had taken some glancing hits, mostly shrapnel, but nothing that the repair detail wouldn’t be able to handle. Already, crews were gearing up and heading to the stricken areas.

“The deck is yours, Adrak,” Brachus called as he sat up from his command throne. His second came up without a word and they switched places. “Take us down and far. Five hours off our projected course and then we turn towards the Ark.”

“Down and far and safe, sir,” Adrak agreed as he connected himself into the commander’s feed. Alice had relinquished control back to the command deck, but many systems were still rebooting.

Nobody said anything as Brachus hurried off the deck, towards the hangars. The Summer groaned as her metal super-structure cooled down in the frigid deep waters of Deana’s planetary ocean. She sounded very much like the great marine creature that she pretended to be.

Brachus went down the stairwell to the lower hangar levels. The elevators wouldn’t be active during an emergency dive. A medical team would probably be assessing the pilot, and he wanted to be there when they blew the canopy. A single Valkyrie had returned from a squad of six. The mission had, likely, failed spectacularly, but he held on to the slim hope that they had, at least, delivered the payload prior to getting annihilated.

To lose five fighters in a single engagement…

He would think about the cost later, both for the lives lost and the Valkyries.

With a grunt he shouldered aside the heavy bulk door at the bottom of the stairs and crossed into the next passage, and then into the next. He didn’t need to strain against the third bulkhead. The Summer unlocked and opened the heavy door with a whirr of motors coming back to life. Whatever system controlled the doors had finished rebooting and had commenced normal operation.

Whenever Alice took over command, she would deactivate every other system that was not essential to her goals. Brachus was used to the idiosyncrasies of the machine ghost. At least she hadn’t killed off life support on this occasion.

He stepped into the hangar bay just as the canopy atop the White Rabbit blew and launched off the battered jet, to be caught neatly by Umar in his Sigma. The recovery unit had set the Rabbit down on a mobile work bench and the technical staff had already started work.

There were about five technicians inspecting the jet, and a detail of five medical officers. Selma was on rotation that day and she coordinated the other four with practised efficiency and ease. Two of them had climbed into the cockpit and were undoing the harness and cables holding Taro in place.

“How’s the pilot?” the commander asked without preamble.

Selma merely threw him a quick side glance. She didn’t salute.

“Commander on deck,” a deck hand called and the three technicians next to him saluted crisply.

“At ease. Don’t let me hold you from your work,” Brachus said.

“He’s stimmed out of his mind,” Selma said, hoarsely. She had the faraway look specific to all augmented looking through the feeds coming in from the staff already up in the cockpit. There was a large, blackening bruise on the side of her head, likely from the emergency action. “I very much doubt you’ll be getting anything out of him for a couple of days, at least,” she went on, correctly guessing why he had made the journey down.

Brachus sighed as he, instead, turned to check on the damage to the Valkyrie. Given the method of recovery, it could have been worse. Both wings would need changing out, the armour plating would need investigating and repair, the engine was, likely, melted through. A few impact craters showed where Taro had narrowly avoided an SR volley.

The two med-techs were hauling Taro out of the cockpit, a mess of tubes and cables strewn over the edges of the blown canopy. One of the hangar technicians had brought a crane into position and the techs guided the harness to the unresponsive pilot. They neatly connected it and hauled him up by the armpits.

A mobile bed had been brought in and they loaded Taro onto it. The rubber wheels of the bed sagged under the weight of the augmented pilot. His eyes were wide open, unflinching as he was handled. His pupils were dilated to the point that the irises had been reduced to an extremely thin circle of red containing the black.

“I don’t want to ask this of you,” Brachus started to say, but Selma had just turned her back to him and started walking away.

“Then don’t,” she called over her shoulder as she led the bed away. “I’ll let you know if he comes to, earlier than predicted.”

One of the hologram projectors in the hangar, used for schematics and damage assessment by the repair crews, came to life. The tall, naked figure of a woman materialized next to the mobile bed, looking concerned at Taro’s inert shape. She made to grab his hand, but her fingers just passed through him.

“He is unharmed, Alice,” Brachus said, without leaving the side of the jet. The techs had started connecting terminals to the on-board computers.

Alice hissed over the intercom, sounding like a distorted scream of anger and frustration. She looked accusingly at Brachus, who ignored her until the hologram appeared right in front of him. She made to push him but, again, her hands just went through, harmless.

She hissed at him again.

“He’s a pilot. He knows the risks just as well as you or I. He came back when the others didn’t. Be happy with that, at least,” he said coolly, holding his hands at his back.

Alice just glared at him. Brachus didn’t recognize the avatar she was using. It didn’t look like her real body at all and was, likely, just some image she hastily put together or grabbed from the archives. She was still getting used to her holographic projections since tapping into those systems. The techs had failed in keeping her out.

Umar came next to him and saluted.

“Excellent recovery vector, miss Alice. I barely had to do anything,” the large, dark skinned man said. “It’s like you aimed the Rabbit right into my arms.”

A small army of technicians were taking apart the inertia killers. Their cartridges had been loaded to saturation, had overheated, and ejected. The entire line of gates needed to be taken apart, inspected, and rebuilt. Umar’s Sigma rested in its parking configuration, worked over by two technicians.

Alice hissed and grumbled at the commander again before disappearing suddenly.

"How soon until we have the black box?” Brachus asked Umar.

“Couple of hours, sir,” the man replied, smiling. “Most of the Rabbit’s red hot right now, so we’re cooling her down before we really dig into the entrails. We’ll prioritize the data recovery.”

“See that you do, mister Umar. I expect it up on bridge as soon as you have it.”

Brachus turned, finally, from the dark body of the abused Valkyrie, and headed back up to command.