Hostile Takeover excerpt
Chapter 1
18 March, 2040
Kama's gaze slid to the flyer's side window, and then down. The breath caught in her throat. A thousand meters below, a blanket of dense smoke obscured the ground. Hidden beneath the smoke, flames driven by a stiff breeze consumed endless hectares of noxious garraweed, the dominant life form on EcoMech's colony world, Harvest.
The heat of the updraft buffeted the flyer and jolted Kama against the passenger door. She tightened her seatbelt a notch and tucked her duffel firmly between her feet. Then she ordered herself to stop thinking about the raging inferno below. They were perfectly safe at this altitude.
She'd seen the garraweed up close when she'd arrived at Harvest's shuttleport. An ocean of two-meter tall golden stalks crowded the runways and buildings. With each gust of wind, billowing clouds of red dust spewed from the crimson flowers at the apex of the waving growth. The swirling haze of spores painted a spectacular blood red sunrise over Harvest's too-blue sky.
At the flyer's controls, newly appointed EcoMech CEO Rafe McTavish tossed her an apologetic smile. "Sorry about the bumpy ride."
He eased the controls back and boosted power. The flyer climbed into thinner smoke, and Kama got her first glimpse of River City, Harvest's only settlement, still ten kilometers ahead.
"Scorched earth," she said, choking back a cough. "Typical corporate approach. Do the eco-protesters storming your Mumbai offices know about this?"
He raised one eyebrow and cast her a cool look. "No, and I'd prefer to keep it that way."
His tone was light, but Kama heard the fatigue—and the warning. He'd sacrificed piloting his own company to take the job at EcoMech, all so he could pursue Leon Goldman's blackmailer undercover. He didn’t need more complications.
Something mechanical screeched. Then a belch of oily black smoke puffed from the flyer's right front nacelle. The craft canted right and dropped two meters. The pitch of the fans in the other three nacelles increased, and the flyer corrected back to level.
"We lost a fan," McTavish said in a patently 'don't panic' voice. "Probably a bad bearing. We'll be fine running on three engines."
Kama released the death grip on her duffel strap, irked that he thought she needed reassurance—or that she didn't understand the mechanics of a flyer. Give her three hours with an industrial grade replicator and she'd design and build a four-passenger flyer that would run rings around this crate.
She'd expected McTavish to pick her up in something snappier, something more in line with his playboy reputation for flashy women and racy transport. Instead he piloted a staid corporate vehicle. He was a chameleon, rolling out whatever persona the situation required while keeping the true man hidden. She wondered whether she'd ever really know him.
The flyer bumped and jounced through the turbulent air over the fire. Kama gritted her teeth.
"This thing has worse aerodynamics than a pig," she said.
McTavish turned her way, and his blue eyes sparkled. "You've flown a pig?"
"In simulations," she replied.
He grinned and waited. She shifted in her seat and wished she hadn't said anything.
"It was a genetic engineering lesson meant to teach the limits of genome manipulation. The pig had to be flight capable while retaining its ability to produce high quality ham and bacon."
His grin broadened. "And did you succeed in creating such an animal?"
"That depends."
"On how you define flight?" he guessed.
She crossed her arms over her chest. "No, on how you define ham. It's simply appendage muscle infused with carcinogens. The source appendage shouldn't matter."
McTavish stifled a laugh and turned back to the controls.
Kama craned her neck to check the airspace behind them.
"Where's your security escort?"
"I don't have one. None of the executives use them while they're on Harvest."
Kama blinked at him. "Because like you, they're all secretly immortal?"
"If I tighten security suddenly, it may tip off our blackmailer that we're on to him."
"You'll have a tough time catching a blackmailer if you're dead," she muttered. "Traveling across the galaxy is less of an impediment to crazy stalkers and lunatic eco-terrorists than you might think."
McTavish seemed too occupied with the controls to respond. When he focused that intently on anything, it meant trouble. A ripple of tension swept over her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Something isn't right." He frowned and jabbed the controls with nimble fingers.
When he scanned the ground, Kama's tension soared. He was looking for a possible landing site. They couldn't land in a sea of fire.
"If I'm going to die," she said, "I'd like to know why."
"It's not that bad," he replied, although his expression said otherwise. "The other fans are running hot, and the control system isn't compensating."
Kama swallowed a lump in her throat. "Pull the circuit breakers. Let them cool off while we lose altitude, then turn them on again to land."
"They aren't working." McTavish lifted his chin and sniffed. "Do you smell something burning?"
She clamped her jaw against a hysterical laugh. The planet was on fire, and he wanted to know if she smelled it?
His nose wrinkled. His eyes narrowed while he focused on whatever it was he detected. His head snapped around to the rear of the flyer.
"Battery overheat," he said, face grim. "The runaway fans are drawing too much power. If we can't shut them down, the battery will explode."
"There are redundant systems, checks and balances, lock-outs…" She looked at him with disbelief while her fear shifted into overdrive.
He tapped at the buttons on the control panel. When they didn't respond, he slammed his fist on the control housing.
"The system's been jumped." He glanced her way, saw her confusion, and said, "All those redundancies and lock-outs are grouped in the rear control cluster. It's possible to bridge them with a jumper cable and circumvent the safety equipment."
"Kali! Who'd be so stupid?"
A tinge of red crept up his face. "Sometimes kids do it to make a flyer run above the enforced safety limits."
"Options?"
He shook his head. "Cut power or die."
"Cut power and die, you mean."
Kama dragged her duffel from the floor and pawed through it, even though she knew its contents. Spare coveralls and computer hacking tools wouldn't get them out of this mess.
"What are you looking for?" McTavish asked.
"Something pointed and sharp."
He hiked up his trouser leg and drew a nasty little dagger from a sheath strapped to his calf. "Unless you go for your carotid, you won't bleed out before we explode."
Kama gaped at the knife. She snatched it and pulled her data cube from her duffel. The square black box was awkward in her hand, but then she hadn't designed it to be used as a sledgehammer.
"Prepare to lose power," she said.
"Hold on."
McTavish heeled the control stick over so they pointed upwind. The edge of the garraweed burn seemed an impossible distance away. The rear of the flyer dropped, and the nose angled toward the sky.
"Go," he said.
Kama shoved her duffel aside, placed the tip of the dagger against the floor between their seats, and smashed the data cube down on the handle. Pain erupted in her fingers and wrist. The knife sunk into the flyer floor two centimeters.
She slammed the data cube down again. The knife plunged to the hilt, but the fans droned on unabated. The smell of burning electronics overpowered the smell of burning vegetation.
"A little left," McTavish said.
Kama hammered the knife handle sideways, enlarging the slit in the floor enough to withdraw the knife. She tipped the knife at an angle and drove it down again. Sparks leaped from the slit, and she flinched back, the power conduit severed.
The fans cut out, leaving the boxy flyer at the mercy of the wind and updraft. McTavish clenched the steering control. A useless gesture. Without power, he could do nothing to change their course.
Sky was all she could see out the front window, but through the side window, the ground in the distance flashed by. Would they survive the coming crash only to burn alive in the wreckage? Her fingernails dug into the armrest, and her lungs refused to inflate.
"Brace for impact," McTavish said, voice strained. A sheen of sweat moistened his tanned face.
Kama curled over her duffel as far as the shoulder harness would allow. The wind whistled past outside. Impenetrable smoke hid the approaching ground. Her pulse drummed in her ears. Every muscle stretched taut.
"Vishnu, preserve us," she whispered through gritted teeth.
McTavish reached over and squeezed her hand.
They dropped into a wall of flames. Their aft end scratched across the burning garraweed creating an impressive cinder wake. The jolt when the craft contacted the ground drove her spine up through her head. They hurtled on.
The fire washed over them. Garraweed torches flailed the side windows. The cabin filled with smoke and the temperature spiked. The shoulder harness dug into Kama's flesh. She bit back a cry and thanked Lakshmi that they weren't dead already.
They plowed through the inferno, the flyer jerking and bouncing when it struck bumps and rocks. Metal tore with a shriek. A chunk of front wing and twisted fan flashed by Kama's window.
As they slowed, McTavish popped the release on Kama's harness and reached for his own. Acrid smoke swirled in the passenger compartment. The craft ground to a halt.
"Out!" he said.
McTavish shoved his door. It opened a dozen centimeters and stopped. Kama's door wouldn't release. Fresh panic raced through her veins.
McTavish leaned her direction, swiveled in his seat, and kicked his door with both legs, twice. It swung back enough for him to squeeze out. She hoisted her bag and scrambled to follow. Strong hands grabbed her arms and dragged her from the vehicle.
They stood on a ripple of fresh-turned dirt. Less than a meter away, a jumble of burning garraweed stalks created a knee-deep sea of flame. Unbearable heat burned against Kama's cheeks, and the dense smoke brought tears to her eyes. She held a sleeve against her nose and mouth and turned toward the front of the craft.
"This way." McTavish caught her hand and pulled her the opposite direction.
He must be turned around. She pointed. "Open ground is that way."
McTavish slapped at a spark smoldering on the right leg of his dress trousers. "Unless those are asbestos coveralls you're wearing, you'll never make it."
He jerked her along behind him, past the rear of the flyer and into the furrow it had dug in its rush through the field. The cleared rut shielded them from the worst of the heat but did nothing to aid their breathing. They stumbled over the rough ground, coughing as they jogged.
McTavish glanced back often. Of course, he was waiting for the battery to explode. She'd killed the power, but the fire would provide enough heat to finish the job a saboteur started.
McTavish spun her around in front of him so his body would shield her. She wrestled to reverse their positions. He wrapped strong arms around her and pulled her to the ground, landing on top of her.
The battery blew with a deafening boom. The smoke cloud was too dense for Kama to see the disintegration of the craft, but she heard the rain of debris over the crackling of the fire.
McTavish's breath soughed against her cheek, sending a warm glow lancing to her core. His chest pressed against her. Those cobalt eyes looked into hers, a lock of curling black hair falling over a forehead streaked with soot and dust. His lips moved closer.
"We can get up now," Kama whispered.
His eyes widened. Color flooded his cheeks. He rolled to her side. "Sorry."
She clamored up, still choking on dust and smoke, and slapped dirt from her coveralls. Her eyes ran over McTavish's lithe frame and ruined suit, ensuring that he wasn't about to become a human torch or otherwise injured by the falling debris. His embarrassed gaze met hers.
"Nice landing, McTavish."
A grin curved his lips. "Welcome to Harvest."
Kama shook her head. "Never a dull moment with you, is there? I hate to say I told you so, but if this wasn't an attempt on your life, then you ought to fire your maintenance manager."
Despite the flames raging around them, a chill crept over Kama. Watching CEO Rafe McTavish's back was going to be more challenging than she'd thought.
Kama's gaze slid to the flyer's side window, and then down. The breath caught in her throat. A thousand meters below, a blanket of dense smoke obscured the ground. Hidden beneath the smoke, flames driven by a stiff breeze consumed endless hectares of noxious garraweed, the dominant life form on EcoMech's colony world, Harvest.
The heat of the updraft buffeted the flyer and jolted Kama against the passenger door. She tightened her seatbelt a notch and tucked her duffel firmly between her feet. Then she ordered herself to stop thinking about the raging inferno below. They were perfectly safe at this altitude.
She'd seen the garraweed up close when she'd arrived at Harvest's shuttleport. An ocean of two-meter tall golden stalks crowded the runways and buildings. With each gust of wind, billowing clouds of red dust spewed from the crimson flowers at the apex of the waving growth. The swirling haze of spores painted a spectacular blood red sunrise over Harvest's too-blue sky.
At the flyer's controls, newly appointed EcoMech CEO Rafe McTavish tossed her an apologetic smile. "Sorry about the bumpy ride."
He eased the controls back and boosted power. The flyer climbed into thinner smoke, and Kama got her first glimpse of River City, Harvest's only settlement, still ten kilometers ahead.
"Scorched earth," she said, choking back a cough. "Typical corporate approach. Do the eco-protesters storming your Mumbai offices know about this?"
He raised one eyebrow and cast her a cool look. "No, and I'd prefer to keep it that way."
His tone was light, but Kama heard the fatigue—and the warning. He'd sacrificed piloting his own company to take the job at EcoMech, all so he could pursue Leon Goldman's blackmailer undercover. He didn’t need more complications.
Something mechanical screeched. Then a belch of oily black smoke puffed from the flyer's right front nacelle. The craft canted right and dropped two meters. The pitch of the fans in the other three nacelles increased, and the flyer corrected back to level.
"We lost a fan," McTavish said in a patently 'don't panic' voice. "Probably a bad bearing. We'll be fine running on three engines."
Kama released the death grip on her duffel strap, irked that he thought she needed reassurance—or that she didn't understand the mechanics of a flyer. Give her three hours with an industrial grade replicator and she'd design and build a four-passenger flyer that would run rings around this crate.
She'd expected McTavish to pick her up in something snappier, something more in line with his playboy reputation for flashy women and racy transport. Instead he piloted a staid corporate vehicle. He was a chameleon, rolling out whatever persona the situation required while keeping the true man hidden. She wondered whether she'd ever really know him.
The flyer bumped and jounced through the turbulent air over the fire. Kama gritted her teeth.
"This thing has worse aerodynamics than a pig," she said.
McTavish turned her way, and his blue eyes sparkled. "You've flown a pig?"
"In simulations," she replied.
He grinned and waited. She shifted in her seat and wished she hadn't said anything.
"It was a genetic engineering lesson meant to teach the limits of genome manipulation. The pig had to be flight capable while retaining its ability to produce high quality ham and bacon."
His grin broadened. "And did you succeed in creating such an animal?"
"That depends."
"On how you define flight?" he guessed.
She crossed her arms over her chest. "No, on how you define ham. It's simply appendage muscle infused with carcinogens. The source appendage shouldn't matter."
McTavish stifled a laugh and turned back to the controls.
Kama craned her neck to check the airspace behind them.
"Where's your security escort?"
"I don't have one. None of the executives use them while they're on Harvest."
Kama blinked at him. "Because like you, they're all secretly immortal?"
"If I tighten security suddenly, it may tip off our blackmailer that we're on to him."
"You'll have a tough time catching a blackmailer if you're dead," she muttered. "Traveling across the galaxy is less of an impediment to crazy stalkers and lunatic eco-terrorists than you might think."
McTavish seemed too occupied with the controls to respond. When he focused that intently on anything, it meant trouble. A ripple of tension swept over her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Something isn't right." He frowned and jabbed the controls with nimble fingers.
When he scanned the ground, Kama's tension soared. He was looking for a possible landing site. They couldn't land in a sea of fire.
"If I'm going to die," she said, "I'd like to know why."
"It's not that bad," he replied, although his expression said otherwise. "The other fans are running hot, and the control system isn't compensating."
Kama swallowed a lump in her throat. "Pull the circuit breakers. Let them cool off while we lose altitude, then turn them on again to land."
"They aren't working." McTavish lifted his chin and sniffed. "Do you smell something burning?"
She clamped her jaw against a hysterical laugh. The planet was on fire, and he wanted to know if she smelled it?
His nose wrinkled. His eyes narrowed while he focused on whatever it was he detected. His head snapped around to the rear of the flyer.
"Battery overheat," he said, face grim. "The runaway fans are drawing too much power. If we can't shut them down, the battery will explode."
"There are redundant systems, checks and balances, lock-outs…" She looked at him with disbelief while her fear shifted into overdrive.
He tapped at the buttons on the control panel. When they didn't respond, he slammed his fist on the control housing.
"The system's been jumped." He glanced her way, saw her confusion, and said, "All those redundancies and lock-outs are grouped in the rear control cluster. It's possible to bridge them with a jumper cable and circumvent the safety equipment."
"Kali! Who'd be so stupid?"
A tinge of red crept up his face. "Sometimes kids do it to make a flyer run above the enforced safety limits."
"Options?"
He shook his head. "Cut power or die."
"Cut power and die, you mean."
Kama dragged her duffel from the floor and pawed through it, even though she knew its contents. Spare coveralls and computer hacking tools wouldn't get them out of this mess.
"What are you looking for?" McTavish asked.
"Something pointed and sharp."
He hiked up his trouser leg and drew a nasty little dagger from a sheath strapped to his calf. "Unless you go for your carotid, you won't bleed out before we explode."
Kama gaped at the knife. She snatched it and pulled her data cube from her duffel. The square black box was awkward in her hand, but then she hadn't designed it to be used as a sledgehammer.
"Prepare to lose power," she said.
"Hold on."
McTavish heeled the control stick over so they pointed upwind. The edge of the garraweed burn seemed an impossible distance away. The rear of the flyer dropped, and the nose angled toward the sky.
"Go," he said.
Kama shoved her duffel aside, placed the tip of the dagger against the floor between their seats, and smashed the data cube down on the handle. Pain erupted in her fingers and wrist. The knife sunk into the flyer floor two centimeters.
She slammed the data cube down again. The knife plunged to the hilt, but the fans droned on unabated. The smell of burning electronics overpowered the smell of burning vegetation.
"A little left," McTavish said.
Kama hammered the knife handle sideways, enlarging the slit in the floor enough to withdraw the knife. She tipped the knife at an angle and drove it down again. Sparks leaped from the slit, and she flinched back, the power conduit severed.
The fans cut out, leaving the boxy flyer at the mercy of the wind and updraft. McTavish clenched the steering control. A useless gesture. Without power, he could do nothing to change their course.
Sky was all she could see out the front window, but through the side window, the ground in the distance flashed by. Would they survive the coming crash only to burn alive in the wreckage? Her fingernails dug into the armrest, and her lungs refused to inflate.
"Brace for impact," McTavish said, voice strained. A sheen of sweat moistened his tanned face.
Kama curled over her duffel as far as the shoulder harness would allow. The wind whistled past outside. Impenetrable smoke hid the approaching ground. Her pulse drummed in her ears. Every muscle stretched taut.
"Vishnu, preserve us," she whispered through gritted teeth.
McTavish reached over and squeezed her hand.
They dropped into a wall of flames. Their aft end scratched across the burning garraweed creating an impressive cinder wake. The jolt when the craft contacted the ground drove her spine up through her head. They hurtled on.
The fire washed over them. Garraweed torches flailed the side windows. The cabin filled with smoke and the temperature spiked. The shoulder harness dug into Kama's flesh. She bit back a cry and thanked Lakshmi that they weren't dead already.
They plowed through the inferno, the flyer jerking and bouncing when it struck bumps and rocks. Metal tore with a shriek. A chunk of front wing and twisted fan flashed by Kama's window.
As they slowed, McTavish popped the release on Kama's harness and reached for his own. Acrid smoke swirled in the passenger compartment. The craft ground to a halt.
"Out!" he said.
McTavish shoved his door. It opened a dozen centimeters and stopped. Kama's door wouldn't release. Fresh panic raced through her veins.
McTavish leaned her direction, swiveled in his seat, and kicked his door with both legs, twice. It swung back enough for him to squeeze out. She hoisted her bag and scrambled to follow. Strong hands grabbed her arms and dragged her from the vehicle.
They stood on a ripple of fresh-turned dirt. Less than a meter away, a jumble of burning garraweed stalks created a knee-deep sea of flame. Unbearable heat burned against Kama's cheeks, and the dense smoke brought tears to her eyes. She held a sleeve against her nose and mouth and turned toward the front of the craft.
"This way." McTavish caught her hand and pulled her the opposite direction.
He must be turned around. She pointed. "Open ground is that way."
McTavish slapped at a spark smoldering on the right leg of his dress trousers. "Unless those are asbestos coveralls you're wearing, you'll never make it."
He jerked her along behind him, past the rear of the flyer and into the furrow it had dug in its rush through the field. The cleared rut shielded them from the worst of the heat but did nothing to aid their breathing. They stumbled over the rough ground, coughing as they jogged.
McTavish glanced back often. Of course, he was waiting for the battery to explode. She'd killed the power, but the fire would provide enough heat to finish the job a saboteur started.
McTavish spun her around in front of him so his body would shield her. She wrestled to reverse their positions. He wrapped strong arms around her and pulled her to the ground, landing on top of her.
The battery blew with a deafening boom. The smoke cloud was too dense for Kama to see the disintegration of the craft, but she heard the rain of debris over the crackling of the fire.
McTavish's breath soughed against her cheek, sending a warm glow lancing to her core. His chest pressed against her. Those cobalt eyes looked into hers, a lock of curling black hair falling over a forehead streaked with soot and dust. His lips moved closer.
"We can get up now," Kama whispered.
His eyes widened. Color flooded his cheeks. He rolled to her side. "Sorry."
She clamored up, still choking on dust and smoke, and slapped dirt from her coveralls. Her eyes ran over McTavish's lithe frame and ruined suit, ensuring that he wasn't about to become a human torch or otherwise injured by the falling debris. His embarrassed gaze met hers.
"Nice landing, McTavish."
A grin curved his lips. "Welcome to Harvest."
Kama shook her head. "Never a dull moment with you, is there? I hate to say I told you so, but if this wasn't an attempt on your life, then you ought to fire your maintenance manager."
Despite the flames raging around them, a chill crept over Kama. Watching CEO Rafe McTavish's back was going to be more challenging than she'd thought.