Текст книги "Mercenary's Star"

Автор книги: Уильям Кейт

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8

 

Sue Ellen Klein was wedged so tightly into the narrow cockpit of her Chippewathat she could scarcely move, but it was times like this when she felt most free and alive. The Chippewawas large for a fighter, massing 90 tons, yet most of that was in the broad, knife-lean wing-body of the craft. The cockpit was perched at the wing's center, between the aft-jutting, boom-joined double tail. From that vantage point, the pilot had an unobstructed view of Glory through the transplex cockpit bubble. The stars crowded close, and the golden light of Verthandi bathed Sue Ellen's face when she unsealed and raised the visor of her helmet.

The wing-body of Jeffrie Sherman's Chippewaglittered sharp and bright against the stars a kilometer distant. She knew, too, that the Phoboswas again balanced on white fire, decelerating at over two Gs aft and beneath the sweep of her own wing.

The two fighters had been launched while at a higher intrinsic velocity, which was carrying them now beyond the Phobosand deeper into Verthandi's gravitational field. Instruments strained to glean tidbits of data from random noise. Of the multitude of probabilities spilling across the computer screen, which would be the vector of the enemy ships when they reappeared on the Chippewa'sscanners?

Klein opened a ship-to-ship direct beam microwave channel. It allowed short-ranged communications for coordinating fighter maneuvers without letting the enemy listen in.

"Chip One to Chip Two," she said. It was cold in her cockpit. The life support systems were deliberately kept at a low setting to conserve power that would be needed later. Besides that, the Chippewa'sproblem would soon be too much heat, not too little. Sue Ellen's breath puffed in wispy clouds before her face.

"Go ahead. One."

"In position. Keep alert, love."

"Right. Watch it, though. We're still pretty close to the Phobos.We may be monitored."

"The hellwith them," she said. "If that bastard wants to eavesdrop, he's welcome." She said it loudly but deliberately, and when no third voice came across the com, she giggled. "I think we're safe, darling, but we're really going to haveto stop meeting like this!"

"I'll go along with you there. I'd rather meet you in a nice warm bed, with a bottle of Chateau Davion '09. This gives us more privacy than we had on the Phobos,but I'm afraid it still leaves a little something to be desired."

"Well, I'll tell you. When we get back to the Phobos,we'll open up the watchstander's bunkroom on the fighter bay level and we'll—"

"Hold it. Sue! Bogies! Recorders on!" There was a breathless moment, then she heard, "Two enemy fighters, vectoring low across the planet. Jumping hell, they must be skimming atmosphere!"

Her own instruments showed the same story, close-paired Kurita fighters angling up from Verthandi's atmosphere. Her onboard computer cycled through scanner data and sketched out the ID schematics. They were SL-15 Slayers,delta-winged and sleek, each massing 80 tons and carrying six medium lasers and a heavy autocannon apiece. Slayerswere deadly at close combat, fully capable of shredding her heavier Chippewain a single pass.

A long-range com channel opened. "Phobosto pups," the voice said. "Bandit Slayersvectoring toward Phobos,bearing thu-ree-four-niner, mark two. Intercept and—"

Klein cut the voice off with a savage slap on the power switch, but kept her ship-to-ship microwave channel open. "Arming weapons," she said, then brought the visor down across her face and sealed it. A touch of a switch brought her fighter's heads-up display into glowing brightness an arm's length before her eyes.

"Arming weapons," Jeffrie replied. "Luck, my love..."

"Luck..."

Blood sang in her ears wth the racing of her pulse. She lived! That exhilaration was edged with fear that something might happen to Jeff. As always, she managed to dismiss the thought. Even then, the memory of her brother crowded to the fore. Alec...She shook her head, inwardly commanding herself, No!Instead, she gave in to the raw consuming passion of coming battle. Personal extinction, the memory of Alec, the possibility of the death of her lover, all were unthinkable with the surge of battle in heart and hands, with the senses so alive, so charged with excitement. Even the sweet thrill of sex paled by comparison.

Her instrument panel flashed red warning; the enemy had fired, but missed.

The Chippewawas not nearly as heavily armored as the Slayer,but the weapons mounted in its broad wings more than made up for it. A pair of light lasers guarded aft, six medium and heavy lasers aimed forward, and the space beneath the pilot's feet extending into the nose contained bundles of short and long-ranged missiles. At a range of 20,000 kilometers. Sue Ellen triggered a spread of SRMs, then punched her PlasmaStar 270 drive into throbbing life. Jeff's drives flared blue-white in almost the same instant. The miniature suns of missile drives intertwined into the distance against Verthandi's growing disk.

With her eyes locked on the readings of her HUD display, Klein counted off seconds, then flipped her Chippewaend for end. Five Gs crushed her into her seat, the roar of the drive hammering through her vessel's hull to pound and claw at her body through the padded seat. The maneuver was precisely timed. Her Chippewafell tail-first past the approaching Slayers,then accelerated after them with rapidly compounding speed. Missiles laced the sky with burning traceries; a hit flooded her cockpit with silent, white light that polarized her helmet visor black.

"Sue! I got one!" Jeff's voice over the microwave channel was ragged with excitement.

"He's still kicking," she replied. Her heads-up display pinpointed the damaged Slayer,tumbling out of control but struggling to regain flight attitude with its control thrusters. She locked onto the target and triggered her fighter's heavy, wing-mounted lasers in rapid succession. Spectroscopic scanners told of metal vapor boiling into space. She fired her own thrusters again to align her craft for another shot.

"Sue! More company! Planetward, three-five-five, mark two!"

She cursed as she glanced from doppler radar to computer ID, then caught her lower lip between her teeth. There were two more SL-15s climbing out of Verthandi's atmosphere. They must have been waiting for just such an opportunity to catch the Legion's fighter screen between the two halves of their forces. It was a trap!

"They’re boxing us, Jeff! We'll have to bull past the first two and close with the Phobosl"

"Affirmative! Punch it!"

The Chippewashad drifted apart by several hundred kilometers in the brief fight. They swung now to align with the distance-dimmed flare of the Phobos's drive just above the baleful orange eye of Norn, then boosted hard. One Slayerdrew across Klein's HUD sights, lasers scoring hits along her starboard wing. Flakes of paint and metal glittered in the sunlight, streaming aft in a metallic cascade as she continued to accelerate.

She checked Jeff's position quickly. He was under drive, slipping past the dead hulk of the Slayerthey'd already killed, angling for a deflection shot at the Slayerthat was attacking her. She triggered another salvo of missiles and another burst of laser fire. The heat in the cockpit was already beginning to penetrate her suit, and she was slick with sweat. A fighter's biggest problem in combat was excess heat, and every thruster burn, every discharge of laser or missile, added to the problem. Sue Ellen ignored the growing discomfort, held stock-still as her Chippewaclosed on the target with agonizing slowness, then shrieked victory as her lasers scored multiple hits on the enemy's charred and scored armor plate.

The Slayer'sthrusters fired frantically, knocking the damaged ship onto a new course. Seconds later, Sue's Chippewaplowed through the expanding cloud of paint chips and solidified droplets of recently vaporized metal from the enemy ship hit a moment before. Thousands of tiny, high-speed impacts sounded against her hull, like flung handsful of gravel. The target was aft now, boosting planet-ward at high-G.

Where was Jeff? She ignored the fireworks cascade across her HUD scanner display. Her instruments were temporarily blinded by the cloud of debris and would not be reliable for several seconds. Instead, she craned her neck, searching the black sky until she saw a. moving glitter of light reflected from what might have been Jeffs wing surface.

If it weren't Jeffs Chippewa,then it was the first enemy Slayer,now dead and drifting in the sunlight.

* * * *

That first Slayer wasnot dead, only damaged. Alive and cunning, its pilot watched Jeffrie Sherman's Chippewadrift across his own HUD at point-blank range. The Slayer'smain drive was out, and his life support was failing. He still had a positive power feed to his lasers, and his autocannon was loaded and ready.

The pilot's name was Raoul da Silva, and he'd long dreamed of being a great AeroSpace Fighter ace among House Kurita's legions. The fact that he hadn't yet scored his first kill had never dimmed that dream. Now, though, the possibility that he might die over Verthandi without ever knowing victory in ship-to-ship combat filled him with an infinite sense of loss and loneliness. He had killed before, but somehow the helpless rebel vehicles, the village buildings, the streaming rabble fleeing from burning Verthandian towns had never seemed more than impersonal targets, like holographic shadows in a flight combat simulator. What Raoul had dreamed of was the glory of fighter pilot facing fighter pilot, two keen minds in deadly contest

His ship was ruined and would not make atmosphere again, of that Raoul was certain. If the intruders could be destroyed, there was still a good chance his comrades could rescue him. Once the intruder DropShip was dead, the nearby Xaowould mount a search for survivors. Unless Raoul could take the enemy out now, he would drift forever in a metal tomb, growing colder and colder. His last hours would become a contest between cold and suffocation for the privilege of ending Raoul's short life.

Providence had arranged that he could still strike back. If luck was with him, he might yet kill one of the intruder fighters, and might even survive to fight again another day.... If luck was not with him, he would die, but knowing he had scored at least one kill, man-to-man.

He made a minute adjustment His Slayerrolled slightly, long shadows from torn metal falling across the curved armor of the ship's nose. The Chippewawas less than a kilometer away, large in his HUD crosshairs. Raoul's hand closed on the firing switch. All five forward-mounted lasers triggered in a salvo that sliced through the Chippewa'sarmor like hot wires through butter. The Combine pilot added his autocannon to the barrage, a steady stream of explosive shells shredding the control and port wing surfaces of the stricken enemy craft.

Raoul's lips were drawn back from his teeth in a fierce, berserker's grin, his yell of triumph deafening inside the confines of the Slayer'scockpit.

* * * *

Sue Ellen Klein's victory shout became a wail of anguish. Her Chippewa'shull creaked protest as she piled on Gs in an attempt to change course, to kill her own velocity and swing into a new intercept vector. Jeff was maneuvering, too, his drive flaring against the trailing cloud of debris from his ship's wounds. The target fell into the crosshairs, still firing, savaging Jeffs Chippewawith repeated hits.

Missiles lanced across space. One struck the Slayersquarely just behind its cockpit. Transplast melted in star-surface heat. The Slayerbegan tumbling, broken pieces of instrumentation and armor trailing from the gaping wound of the stricken ship's cockpit. Also tumbling was Jeff's Chippewa,moving outbound, away from Verthandi. It took Sue Ellen a few precious minutes to close with Jeff's ship, matching course and speed.

What she saw sickened her. The Chippewa'scockpit appeared intact, but the portside wing was nearly torn away. The starboard wing was holed in five places, and most of Jeffs stabilizer had been torn away. A spaghetti tangle of conduit tubing and wiring, hydraulic piping, and shredded armor plate trailed after the fighter, creating a ghastly image of disembowelment. A ring of dust-fine debris, water vapor, and leaking atmosphere condensing and freezing in the vacuum of space expanded outward from the wreckage. She knew that ship would never make a controlled entry into atmosphere again.

Her maneuver had taken her out of the direct line between the Phobosand the Slayers.All three surviving SL-15s seemed to be ignoring her and were closing on the DropShip instead. Frantic now, but dulled by worry and the sudden dwindling of her battle fever, she tried to raise Jeff ship-to-ship.

"I'm here," he said. "I'm O.K...Some leakage, but I'm not hurt too badly, The controls are gone, though and so is the power. The old girl has had it, I'm afraid."

"No! No, Jeff! Blow your hatch! I'll make pick-up!" She began struggling with her harness. The cockpit of the Chippewawas crowded with one. With two, it would be claustrophobic, but at least the two of them would make it back to the Phobos.

There was a long silence before Sherman replied. "I...don't think so, hon. My legs, they're...hurt. Not bad, but...there's...mere's no pain, but my pressure suit is pretty badly torn up down there." There was another pause, and then a sob came across her com channel. "Oh, God, Sue...it's starting to hurt..."

* * * *

"Fire control!" Captain Martinez had to yell to be heard above the roar reverberating through the ship. Her nav screen showed twisted trails of light marking the incoming paths of the Kurita Slayers.Autocannon shells hosed across the Phobos'shull, then-explosions cratering armor and opening savage gashes. "Fire control released to weapons stations! Fire at will!"

Missiles arced into blackness, seeking the glitter of the DropShip's minute attackers. Lasers burned briefly, invisibly, probing those spots where computers linked to the Phobos'sscanners predicted that the three SL-ISs should be. Occasionally, those predictions might be correct

The wing of one Slayerglowed white-hot when the Phobos'sheavy laser struck it. Droplets of molten armor streamed into space, a brief-lived contrail of dancing sparks. All three delta fighters streaked by the Phobosat high speed, lasers carving into the DropShip's hull as they passed. The Phobos'sweapons replied, tracking the fighters, scoring hits, but none were fatal. All three Slayersend-overed, and their drives burned white hot as they decelerated, lining up for another pass.

Martinez turned on Grayson. "We're taking too much damage. Major." She gestured toward the main viewscreen, where Verthandi loomed huge. "Another pass or two by those people and we might not survive re-entry. If we accelerate now, we could outdistance them, maybe loop around the planet and make it back to the zenith point."

Grayson allowed a half smile. "What for? The Invidiousjumped out as soon as she recharged."

"But another starship might jump in..."

"Any ships coming insystem are going to be Combine vessels, Captain...or do you want to go ahead and surrender now?"

"I'm stating options. Major." Martinez dropped her voice so low that Grayson could scarcely hear. "At this point, surrender might not be such a bad idea."

Grayson shook his head. "Plot your course. Captain. Grounding in the Azure Sea, at the coordinates Citizen Erudin gave you. I prefer to take my chances with your piloting than the Combine's mercy."

"Yes, sir."

Martinez had not called him that before. The word sounded strange on her lips.

"Captain!" The com officer looked up from his console. "Captain Martinez! I've got a distress beacon from one of the Chippewas!"

She turned from Grayson. "Damn! Where?"

"Planetward. Close in. I've got voice."

"Put it on speaker."

"Phobos! Phobos!This is Chip One!" Klein's voice was faint, distorted by the hash of static and distance. "Come in, Phobos!"

Martinez picked up a mike from her console. "Phoboshere."

"Phobos!Jeffs been hit! Home on the beacon transmission and pick us up! If you can manage rendezvous, we can save him!"

Martinez looked at Grayson, eyebrows raised, the skin taunt under the blue wing tatoos.

Grayson looked from her to the navscreen. The fighters were outbound, but slowing. In hours, Verthandi's gravity would drag them to a halt, would drag them into the long fall back. Pick-up would be possible, of course. It would take long hours more for the crippled Chippewato fall into Verthandi's atmosphere.

– But what would be happening in the meantime? The LeopardDropShip was already emerging from behind Verthandi's horizon, closer to the Chippewasman the Chippewaswere to Phobos.The Phobosmight make it past the enemy DropShip if she could maintain her present speed and course toward the planet, not decelerating until the final plunge into Vermandi's atmosphere. But the Chippewaswere on another vector, outbound. To match course and speed with them...

Grayson balanced the life of one wounded fighter pilot against the lives of all aboard the Phobos.No longer was it a question of mission. This was sheer survival. He gestured toward the microphone, and Martinez handed it to him. He took a deep breath, held the device to his lips, and spoke. "Chip One, this is Carlyle. Phoboscannot rendezvous, do you understand? We cannot make pick-up on Chip Two."

"He's dying!You can't leave us!"

"Chip One, this is an order." Grayson had not believed the words would hurt so much. He scarcely knew Klein and Sherman, but the pain was knife-sharp. "Abandon Chip Two and return to Phobos.The enemy DropShip is shaping an intercept orbit and we must meet her. Do you copy?"

"Carlyle, damn you, you can't do this to us!"

"Lieutenant Klein! There's nothing you can do for him! Return to Phobos,and take your station!"

"I'll tell youwhat you can do with your damn station! I'll see you in hell, Grayson Carlyle! In hell!"

As if to underscore her words, the Phobos'shull rang anew with the impact and thundering bellow of autocannon rounds. Somewhere, far down the curve of the DropShip's hull, a storage compartment had been breached, its atmosphere erupting explosively into vacuum.

The deltaform SL– 15s passed again. The Phobos'slasers sought and found. The drive of one stuttered and winked out at the touch of three beams sweeping across its after hull. The craft began a slow tumble into Darkness.

Now it was the Leopardbearing down, driving toward the Phobosat three Gs. LRMs struck her lower hull, rupturing a ‘Mech storage bay, smashing a starboard laser turret. The bay door blew out into space, winking off and on as it dwindled into the black. The Phobos'smissiles swarmed back along the same path. Laser beams, visible only on the bridge combat screens as lances of green and red, stabbed, probed, and struck. From somewhere, an alarm shrilled, but the sound was dull behind the babble of voices of the bridge crew. A computer voice announced pressure loss in Compartment Three.

Martinez looked up from her console. "Better take your seat, Major," she said. "We're committed, and here's where things get rough!"

Grayson strapped himself into his observer's chair. Events were beyond his control now, which gave him a moment to spare a thought for the two Chippewapilots. Could he have done anything differently? If the Phoboshad rendezvoused with Jeffrie Sherman's fighter, all of them would have died... or they would have been forced to surrender. Computer imaging showed the Leopardhuge on the main screen. A pair of now familiar delta shapes streaked past the larger form, those Slayersclosing for another run. Somewhere a voice recited range figures for a fire control station. "Nine-zero-zero, eight zero-zero, seven-zero-zero..." Was the voice a computer, or was it the unnaturally calm voice of a trained professional rising above the surge of emotions, of pain, of fear?

Surrender was unthinkable. Possibly, possibly,in a declared war with established sides, the Gray Death Legion might have considered it in hopes of being exchanged or pledged. Mercenaries aiding a rebellion on a world already conquered by the Draconis Combine was a different matter altogether. The Dracos' simplest solution would be to arrange for the entire unit to quietly vanish. Besides, these Combine forces fought under the banner of Duke Hassid Ricol, the Red Duke, mastermind of the plot that had resulted in the death of Grayson's father. How could he ever quietly surrender, knowing there was a chance to strike at Ricol, to attack him, to hurt him...Grayson's will to vengeance was not yet dead, but he'd abandoned Jeffrie Sherman to die. Where was right in all of this?

The Phobosbucked wildly. The noise of atmosphere rose outside, a distant susurration that built and surged, then built again into an overwhelming roar.

'Targets, incoming!" Someone's voice rose above the roar, sharp with new fear. "Bearing oh-five-oh, mark ten, high! He's coming in!"

As the DropShip plunged deeper into thickening atmosphere, it met this new attack with concentrated laser fire. The Slayer'smassive nose and belly armor absorbed most of the onslaught, as its own lasers sliced into the pocked and cratered target growing large in its pilot's sights.

One laser struck the Slayerfull in the cockpit, at a range too short to allow polarization of the canopy to rob the beam of more than a fraction of its strength. The fighter's cockpit turned brilliant under the beam's megajoule caress. The canopy fragmented, giving the pilot no time to scream or even comprehend before his body transformed into superheated vapor. Though the Slayerpilot was dead, his fighter bore on at three kilometers per second, a gaping scar now glowing red across its upper hull.

The impact caught the Phobos aglancing blow, but it was enough to stagger the larger ship and to lay open its fuel tanks in a ragged gash across the ship's flank. The wreckage of the dead Slayersprayed outward in a final blossoming of destructive brilliance that kicked the Phobosforward and down. The jolt sent the bridge crew reeling against consoles or lurching against the restraining straps of their harnesses as lights failed and damage alarms shrilled. The ionization shell of re-entry flickered wildly about the stricken, helpless Drop-Ship as it plunged and rolled uncontrollably toward the planet below.