Текст книги " Lethal Heritage "

Tyra Miraborg glanced at the auxiliary monitor on her cockpit control monitor. It showed a small icon representing her Shilonefighter dead-center on the screen and slowly rotated a vector-graphic sphere around the craft. Three small triangles with identification tags appeared near her ship to mark the position of her wingman and the other two pilots in her flight. Further on along her line of flight, a large orb remained tantalizingly distant.

She smiled, barely feeling the added pressure of the neurohelmet's padding against the corners of her mouth. We'll be home soon enough. Back aboard theBragi and off to another system. I should have known that joining an honor guard company would mean spending most of my time doing ceremonial things, but I didn't expect extended tours of duty guarding the Defense Minister as he toured the systems the Periphery pirates had attacked.

Anika Janssen's voice called to her through the speakers built into the helmet. "I've got nothing unusual, Kapten."

Tyra turned her head to the right and saw Anika's Shilonepull parallel to her own fighter craft. The wing shape of the craft made it one of the few AeroSpace Fighters suited to both atmospheric and deep-space combat. Shilonepilots, as a class, referred to their craft as "boomerangs."

"That, darlin'," one of Tyra's first flight instructors had told her, "is because Shilonepilots always come back after a mission."

Sure, and ComStar never loses a message.Tyra keyed her radio. "Roger that, Valkyrie Two. I'm clear. What about you, Ljungquist?"

"Clear as the day after a weekend off," laughed Sven Ljungquist. "Valkyrie Four reports no trouble. He's been watching our six. No one has crept up on us."

"Roger, three." Tyra touched a finger to the DropShip icon on her auxiliary screen. In an instant, the DropShip replaced her ship in the center of the screen, depositing the icons marking her flight down at eight o'clock on its scanner sphere. In addition to painting her screen with the Bragi'ssensor data, the computer opened a direct line to the flight's home ship. "Valkyrie Flight reporting all clear."

"Roger, Valkyrie Leader. You should be home in time for supper." The male flight controller lowered his voice. "The food's not going to be anything like the meal I had two nights ago in Sovol, Tyra. You should have accepted my invitation."

Anika cut into the line before Tyra could answer. "Lqjtnant Tviet, would you mind sticking to business? We are in a hostile theatre of operations."

Tyra heard Tviet's acknowledgement of Anika's rebuke and the radio went dead. She thanked Anika silently, but the all-too-familiar feelings of regret and anger began to boil up within her again. She fought to keep her mind from wandering off on these unhappy tangents. You made your decision and that is that. You decided to decline Phelan's offer and sign on with this company because that made the most sense. You couldn't stay on Gunzburg, that's for certain.

A red light flared on her radio control panel, and she punched it automatically. As though reading Tyra's mind, Anika spoke with her friend over the private frequency they shared. "Tyra, you can't keep kicking yourself, because it's not your fault. What happens, happens."

Tyra nodded and glanced over at Anika's Shilone."I know you're right, Nik. There's nothing I could have done about Phelan's death, even if I hadsigned on with the Kell Hounds. Phelan's unit didn't have aerospace cover, so I wouldn't even have been there."

"That's more like it." A mixture of relief and exasperation echoed through Anika's voice.

Tyra glanced again at the sensor scan from the Bragi,but it remained clear. Throughout this "public relations" tour, she had been hoping the pirates that killed Phelan would stage a raid so she could get a shot at revenge. That's stupid. Just the sort of thinking to get me killed.

Tyra keyed her mike. "Thanks, Nik. I'm back. When we hit the Bragi,remind me to give Tviet a lesson in the definition of the word nej."

"Roger."

Tyra saw something new appear on the scanner screen. Four small red triangles appeared at the outer edge of the DropShip's scan. Her combat computer brought the secondary monitor up and started flashing the different silhouettes and performance profiles for all aerospace fighters and shuttlecraft that matched the incoming data. The computer alternated between the Stukaand the Corsairmodels but could not make a final decision.

Tyra touched the icon representing her ship, and the scanning computer shifted back over to her own instrumentation. It cut down the range of the scan, but gave her combat capability which, all of a sudden, seemed a good thing. She keyed her radio to the DropShip's control frequency, but patched her flight's tactical channel into the feed.

"Valkyrie flight here, Bragi.We have four UAC on the screen." She looked at the monitor again. "They're coming in on a vector that might have looked to you like our heat shadows, but I've got them on my instruments. Please confirm."

Tyra increased vector thrust on the right side of her ship, moving it to the left and away from Anika's craft. She watched as one of the four ships following her flight aped her maneuver. Whoever they are, they're good! It takes some tight flying to pass yourself off as the IR shadow of an aerospace fighter traveling through a helium cloud.

Tviet's voice answered Tyra's call, but gone was the cockiness of their earlier communication. "Ah, roger, Valflight. We're getting some jammed transmission from Thule itself.

We don't know what it was, but chances are it has something to do with hostile actions on the planet."

"Roger, Bragi.Do we engage the people on our tails? I have them about a hundred myriameters behind us."

"Negative, Valflight. We are clear to the JumpShip at the nadir point. Just watch them."

Tviet's words came slowly, with pauses between them that told Tyra the controller was getting lots of input from sources other than her ship. She glanced at the auxiliary monitor and saw the four unidentified aerospace craft split formation and pick up speed. Here they come!"Be advised, Bragi,we are under attack and moving to engage. Valkyrie Two form up on me. Three and Four hang together and take the pair vectored at 256 degrees and closing. Luck."

"Skill," countered Ljungquist.

Tyra kicked her thrusters in and vectored their output to pull her through a tight turn that stood her ship on its left wing-tip. While in space she didn't have to worry about friction and air turbulence, but inertia still affected her and her craft. Her flightsuit pressurized itself to prevent blood from draining from her head as she pulled four gees coming around, but she knew that even the suit would not keep her from blacking out if she maneuvered too quickly.

Set on her new course—racing back through the space she had just patrolled—Tyra brought each of her combat systems up. The computer drew a picture of the Shiloneon her primary monitor and illuminated each weapon as it came on line. "Forward long range missile launcher, check," Tyra mumbled to herself. "Forward heavy laser, check. Wingmounted medium lasers, check and check, and aft arc shortrange missile launcher loaded and ready." A red crosshair painted itself on her helmet's faceplate and tracked with her right eye as she looked around. The armrests of her chair slowly rotated ninety degrees, presenting the trigger buttons for all her weapons. Keep the crosshairs on the target, in space or on the sensor display, and poof, it's gone.

Like the ground-pounding BattleMechs, AeroSpace Fighters relied on a holographic display of sensor data. Though 'Mech pilots had only to orient themselves within a twodimensional battlefield, fighter pilots had to deal with enemies in a full three-dimensional theatre. That meant their holographic displays formed a bowl with the area toward which the fighter's nose pointed as the center. When a gold ring flashed around the whole display, it told the pilot that the computer had gotten a lock-on to a target in the aft arc.

Tyra's computer still could not decide if the ships she and Anika were hurtling toward were Corsairsor Stukas,which was disturbing. The Stukawas a heavily armored fighter boasting all the weapons she had, but more of them. The Corsair,while lighter in weapons and armor, had superior handling capabilities that made it an elusive enemy. Still, if I can get into its arc, it's vulnerable.

"Is your computer schizingout on you?" Anika asked, apparently having the same problem with hers.

Tyra tried to answer confidently. "Yeah, something has definitely addled its little silicon brain." She felt a shiver course up her spine. "Figure on Stukasbut pray for Corsairs."

"Roger." Static shot over the open channel for a second, then came Anika's voice again. "What the hell are Davion fighters doing out here? Did I miss a declaration of war? I mean, did Prince Hanse Davion get married again or something?"

Tyra knew that Stukasand Corsairswere key Federated Suns military spacecraft, but something told her that these fighters were not from the Federated Suns. Before she could say anything to Anika, lights blazed to life on her command console. Then came the keening alarm resounding through her cockpit. "I've got a hostile radar lock on me! Juke left high!" Tyra shouted.

She sideslipped her Shiloneright, which jammed her shoulder into the left side of the cockpit. That dropped her fighter directly beneath Anika's craft, with only twenty-five meters between them. As the computer updated its sensor data, painting one image over the other, Tyra boosted thrust to the right vector. The Shilonerocketed off to the left, streaking up beyond where Anika's Shilonehad been while Anika executed a similar move that took her high and to Tyra's right.

The warning lights died. Good. Mixing our silhouettes, then ripping them apart confused it.She punched her right fist against the targeting computer. Why the hell did they get a lock on me and I didn't reciprocate? This is not the time for my computer to go out on me.

She glanced at the auxiliary monitor, dropping the visually guided crosshairs onto the scanning image of the lead enemy craft. In the flick of an eye, she armed her long-range missiles and waited for the dot in the center of the crosshairs to light up, confirming a sensor lock. Instead of the dot, she got a running meter clicking off the distance separating her target from the LRM's effective range. What? They had a lock on me at three times effective range. Who the hell are these guys?

She opened a radio channel. "Valkyrie Three, bogies might have advanced target capability. Advise caution."

She heard the sensor lock sirens blaring through Ljungquist's reply. "Roger. Kinda busy here, Val One." His voice slurred its way through the next sentence as he put his Slayerthrough a high-gee maneuver to shake the lock. "No, dammit. Arrgghh!"

A sizzling pop snapped through the radio speakers. Before Tyra could find out what had happened to Ljungquist, the computer gave her a lock onto her target. Her right index finger hit the trigger beneath it, and the LRM pod mounted beneath the cockpit spat out a score of missiles in rapid-fire succession. The missiles streaked away until their rockets seemed little more than stars in the distance, then a series of explosions cast light into the void. Hit!

She knew better than to hope one volley of LRMs had destroyed her enemy, and she gained quick confirmation of that fact as both aerospace fighters shot past each other. Instantly, her computer stopped its vacillation between Stukaand Corsairfighters. It settled on neither and instead filled the secondary monitor with a digitized visual representation of the craft she faced.

The craft had definitely been built along the lines of a Stuka.The rectangular body and stubby wings supporting large weapons pods were unmistakably those of an STU-K5. It also had the forward stabilizers, located beneath the dome-covered cockpit, which added stability to the aerospace fighter when forced into atmosphere. Slight variations in the outline of the weapon canisters on the wings suggested, however, that they carried even more weapons than the standard complement of twin heavy lasers, which did not please Tyra at all.

What did please her was the ruined armor on the Stuka'snose and the gaping, fire-blackened hole where the computer reported a short-range missile launcher should have been. Good! In a tight fight, that will be to my advantage, though his lasers are more than enough to destroy this thing. And not only is it packing more weapons, but its performance profile suggests it has more armor, too.

Most intriguing, the visual image showed the craft's crest. At first glance, it looked to Tyra like a polar bear silhouetted against a black moon. No, that can't be right. No bear has six legs. And why is there a white star in the middle of the moon?

Tyra kicked her Shilonearound in a split-S, sending it arcing up and off to the right and then rolling the craft back around, its nose pointed one-hundred-eighty degrees from where it had just been. She tried to get another weapons lock onto the enemy fighter, but it had pulled a similar move, sending their warbirds straight at each other again. Tyra, seeing that the abbreviated range of the battle would give her heavily armed enemy the advantage, let the Shilonecontinue its slide to the right. Then she brought the craft over and around in a broad barrel roll that looped her around her enemy's line of attack.

She armed another weapon as her scanners reported her foe nosing up abruptly and rolling in an Immelmann. Fancy flying, but real risky. You gotta be woozy from the gees you've just pulled.She looked at the icon of the craft behind her, then when the rim of her display disk pulsed gold, hit the switch beneath her left thumb. Here's where you earn your pay.

Four SRMs shot straight in on their target, hitting the enemy fighter just as it completed its roll. The missile explosions marched in succession up the nose of the fighter and onto the cockpit canopy. Tyra's combat computer updated the picture of her enemy by ripping holes in armor and denting the crystalline cockpit dome.

The pilot reacted to the attack after only a moment's hesitation. During that moment, the craft continued its roll, so the pilot increased thrust to bring the craft down and to the right. Tyra jerked her fighter up onto its left wing, then feathered the pitch controls to bring up the nose. The maneuver slammed her down into her seat and ground her teeth together, but she hung with it. Boosting the thrust from her right wing, she sent the Shilonespinning back down to where it dove like a hawk on the fleeing raider craft.

Shimmering, multicolored balls danced before her eyes as she brought the Shilone'snose back up. My dive arc is steeper than his. Gotta come up to target...She pressed her left foot down, vectoring more thrust to that wing, which brought the left side of the craft up and around by fifteen degrees. Hold it! Hold it!Her Shiloneswung in behind the raider as though being towed on a string. Now!