by Timothy Zahn
“Yes, sir.”
Valerian turned back to the comm officer. “Any responses?”
“Hierarch Artanis acknowledges, and expresses reservations about this action, Emperor,” the officer called. “But he agrees to stand by and not interfere.” His lip twitched. “Overqueen Zagara is not responding to the signal.”
Valerian frowned. “She’s refusing to acknowledge?”
“No, Emperor—there’s no response at all,” the officer said. “The transceiver she was using earlier still registers as functioning, but no one’s answering our call.”
“Not good,” Matt murmured. “You suppose she got wind of our plans and is getting ready to run?”
“Pull up the images on those seven leviathans,” Valerian ordered the tactical officer. “Are they still on the ground?”
“Yes, Emperor,” the officer confirmed.
“And we haven’t seen anyone boarding them?”
“No, Emperor. But there are clouds and mist down there, and the visual isn’t always perfect.”
“There could also be tunnels,” Matt murmured.
“Yes,” Valerian murmured back. And if Zagara and her broodmothers were about to bolt…“One thing at a time. Is the missile ready?”
The tactical officer pulled up a status display. “Yes, Emperor.”
Valerian looked at Matt. The admiral’s face was rigid, giving nothing away. Did he disapprove?
Probably. In fact, he probably saw this as the sort of ham-fisted thing Valerian’s father would have done.
But it didn’t matter what he thought. Halkman’s team was still the Dominion’s best hope of figuring out what was going on before they were forced to destroy the planet. Valerian wasn’t going to give up the team without a fight.
“Thank you.” He braced himself, wondering distantly whether he would live to regret this. “Admiral Horner, launch missile.”
—
The dropship’s sudden lurch threw Tanya completely off-balance, sending both her and Erin tumbling helplessly toward a bank of switches and knobs on the cockpit’s starboard wall. Erin was half a meter in front of Tanya, her hands scrabbling frantically for some kind of handhold, probably unaware that no matter what she did or didn’t grab, Tanya would be slamming into her a fraction of a second later.
And then, even as Erin’s fingers caught the edge of Whist’s headrest and Tanya braced herself for impact, Ulavu’s hand closed on Tanya’s forearm, bringing her to a twisting and arm-wrenching halt.
Are you all right?
I’m fine, Tanya assured him, listening with half an ear as Dizz and Whist shouted out the situation. The whole dropship was rocking and shaking now as Dizz tried to regain control.
But it was a losing battle. There were too many mutalisks, they had too much combined mass, and their grips were solid. And with the main thrusters jammed Dizz didn’t have enough power available to wrench the dropship free.
Ulavu had come to the same conclusion. I will deal with them, he said, pulling Tanya toward him and guiding her to a handhold. Your jump pack is prepared, Lieutenant Dennis Halkman?
“Yeah, it’s prepared,” Dizz shouted over the roaring whine of the afterburners as he tried to blast the mutalisks out of the thrusters. “And no, you’re not taking it. Whist, see this control here?”
There is no choice, Ulavu insisted. I can reach the mutalisks and kill them.
“Not with a jump pack designed for reaper armor, you can’t,” Dizz insisted right back. “Whist, this is the autopilot. When the mutalisks are gone, key it on.”
“How will I know when they’re gone?” Whist asked.
“We’ll probably start falling out of the sky,” Dizz said, punching off the afterburners and unstrapping from his seat. “When that happens, don’t waste time admiring the scenery. Erin, get your butt over here and strap in.” He caught Tanya’s eye and gave her a brisk nod. “Come on, pyrokeet. Visor on, and let’s burn us some zerg.”
The dropship had mostly stopped shaking by the time Dizz had his armor and jump pack on. But a glance out the stern as he lowered the ramp showed they were still heading toward the distant psi emitter. “Okay,” Dizz’s voice came through Tanya’s headset over the shrieking of the wind. “We don’t have time to rig a harness, so I’ll have to carry you the old-fashioned way.”
“Okay,” Tanya said, wincing. She wasn’t exactly afraid of heights, but being lugged around a thousand meters above the ground by someone she barely knew was not a scenario she could be happy about.
“And since you don’t need to hold a weapon, and I don’t trust my own strength,” Dizz continued, “we’ll do it face-to-face so that we can hold on to each other. That okay?”
“Sure,” Tanya said, feeling marginally better. At least this way she’d have some control of the situation. “I haven’t had a good hug for weeks.”
“Doubt this really qualifies.” Stepping in front of her, he stooped a little, offering her his upper torso armor. Tanya wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and he wrapped his around her lower ribs. “Ready? Let’s go.”
And with a roar from his jump pack’s turbines, he launched them out the back of the dropship and into the open air.
Mutalisks were bat-winged flying zerg, as big as a medium-sized Dominion mech, with a curved posture that always reminded Tanya of giant hornets leading with their stingers as they swooped to battle. They were normally also among the fastest of the zerg flyers, and Tanya had been concerned they might be able to outrun a reaper jump pack.
She needn’t have worried. Burdened with the dropship’s weight, and with the psi blocks probably also interfering with their speed, the mutalisks were plodding along at a greatly reduced pace, barely above that of a normal terran jog. Dizz maneuvered them into position above and behind the dropship, rotating to give Tanya a clear view of her targets.
And the carnage began.
She took out the two blocking the thrusters first, watching with grim satisfaction as their bodies tensed, then relaxed, then dropped silently into the forest below as she burned out their hearts and lungs. After that she began working her way forward from the stern, hoping the psi block interference to their communication would keep them from immediately noticing their diminishing numbers.
She’d killed five of the twelve when the others finally woke up to the threat. Two of them detached from the hull, leaving the dropship hanging precariously in the others’ grip, and swooped back toward their attackers.
Tanya set her teeth, concentrating her power on the one on the left. Something behind it caught her eye. “Dizz, drop!” she snapped.
Dizz obeyed instantly, shutting down his turbines and sending them plummeting toward the ground. The two mutalisks shifted course in response, angling down toward their prey—
And lurched violently in midair as Ulavu—crouched precariously in the dropship’s open stern with Tanya’s canister rifle gripped awkwardly in his large, nonhuman hands—blasted both zerg from behind with armor-piercing rounds. Even as the mutalisks flapped furiously, trying to regain altitude, Tanya finished them off. There was an earsplitting screech, and two of the other mutalisks let go of the dropship and swung to the attack.
That proved to be a mistake. The dropship canted sideways, its weight now too much for the remaining zerg to carry. Even as the mutalisks tried to regain control, the thrusters suddenly kicked out a massive blast and the ship broke free.
“No, no, no,” Dizz groaned. “Damn it, Whist—don’t fiddle with the controls. Just set the autopilot.”
“Trying,” Whist’s tense voice came back. “No response—they must have cut something. I don’t suppose you’d like to get your butt back in here?”
Dizz cursed and leaned over, and Tanya tightened her grip as he threw power to his turbines. “Yeah, we’re on our way. Watch it—your nose is dipping. Grab the yoke and ease it back a couple of millimeters. I said back a couple of millimeters.”
“I did,” Whist said. “It’s not responding, ei
ther.”
“Must have injected glave wurms,” Dizz muttered. “They’ve gotten into the gravs and the thruster controls.” Abruptly, he shot straight up into the air. The move nearly broke Tanya’s grip, but Dizz tightened his arms around her until she got her own arms resettled. “Okay, I’m looking down-course,” he said. “Looks like you’ve got a small clearing almost dead ahead. You’re going to aim for that.”
There was another burst from the thrusters, sending the dropship leaping ahead. “And turn the damn thrusters off,” he added tartly. “The master throttle’s between the seats—”
“Yeah, yeah, got it,” Whist said. “Any thoughts on how to slow down without thrusters or gravs?”
“You’re about to make friends with the trees,” Dizz said. “You’ve still got some grav, so you start by hitting the very tops—no more than three or four meters down. As you slow down, start edging a little deeper, into the heavier branches—use the pedals to change your pitch. With luck, the grav will hold out until you’re slow enough to ease down into the clearing.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then you’re about to become a bulldozer,” Dizz said bluntly. “Strap in tight, and hope like crazy the rivetheads who built the thing took pride in their work. Oh, and tell Ulavu to—” He paused. “Where’d Ulavu go?”
“Back inside,” Tanya told him. “He left after I took out the rest of the mutalisks.”
“Oh. Right. I missed that. Anyway, tell Ulavu to strap down, too.”
“Already done,” Whist said. “Anything else?”
“Nothing any of us have time for,” Dizz said. “Good luck.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Tanya murmured.
“Like I said, not enough time,” Dizz said, his voice tense. “Even if we could catch them, I’d never make it to the cockpit.” He paused. “Nice work with the mutalisks, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Tanya said. Considering that the dropship was teetering on the edge of destruction, all their heroics seemed to have been for nothing.
And then, off to her right, a sudden flicker caught her eye. She turned her head to see a fading spot of light just at the horizon. Frowning, she keyed in her visor’s optical enhancement.
Rising just above the fading light was a small mushroom-shaped cloud.
“Whoa!” Dizz said. “The sale must be over.”
“What sale?” Tanya asked, her mind trying to sort through the flash and the cloud. A nuke, obviously. But when did zerg start using nukes?
“That sale on premium creep I mentioned earlier,” Dizz said. “They’re not all flying thataway anymore.”
Tanya looked around. There were three flying zerg between them and the horizon, but none of them was flying northeast.
And then it clicked. “They nuked the psi emitter,” she said.
“They—whoa, what?”
“A nuke just went off right about where we were guessing the emitter was,” Tanya said, nodding in the direction of the blast. “The question is, who took it out? Us or the zerg?”
“Must have been us,” Dizz said. “Zerg don’t use tech. Well, us or the protoss. Come on, Whist. Come on…”
Tanya looked back to the drama taking place below. The dropship was plowing through the trees, just as Dizz had instructed. It was visibly slowing, to the point that Dizz and Tanya were finally starting to close the distance.
She caught her breath. It was slowing, but not slowing enough. “Dizz?”
“You’re still too hot, Whist,” Dizz warned. “You’ve got to get deeper. Don’t worry about scratching the paint.”
“Can’t,” Whist said. “Gravs are twitching at me.”
Dizz hissed out a curse. “Then shut them down.”
“Say again?”
“Shut down the gravs,” Dizz repeated. “Master lever’s forward of the throttle—twist the handle ninety clockwise, then pull back.”
“Dizz—”
“You’re going to pancake anyway,” Dizz cut him off. “You need to be in the clearing when you do it.”
“Great. Okay, here goes.”
The dropship sank abruptly, and even over the wind noise, Tanya could hear the much louder crunching of wood as the ship tore through larger branches. But it was still five meters up as it passed the last line and shot into the clearing. Tanya bit her lip as it fell like a rock, slammed to the ground, and skidded over the rough surface. She held her breath…
The dropship was nearly to the next line of trees when it finally bounced and swerved to a halt. “Whist?” Dizz called tentatively.
“Yeah, we’re okay,” Whist said. “Erin? Ulavu? Yeah, everyone’s okay. I don’t think this thing’s going to fly again, though.”
“No kidding,” Dizz said, and Tanya could hear the relief in his voice. “Okay, start pulling out everything we might need. Those glave wurms are still wandering around in there, and we don’t want them chewing on the spare C-14s.”
“Right. We’re on it.”
—
High on the list of things every colonel knew not to do was interrupt an admiral’s conversation. That went double when the admiral in question was conversing with an old friend.
It went triple when the old friend was the emperor.
And so Cruikshank waited as patiently as he could while the two men had their little chat by the tactical officer’s display wraparound.
Of course, considering they were discussing the possible consequences of a technically unprovoked nuking of a technically noncombatant planet, he was more than willing to give them whatever time and space they needed.
Their dialogue began winding down, and Cruikshank took the last two steps necessary to put him into conversational range. “Admiral?”
Admiral Horner looked up. “Yes, Colonel, what is it?”
“When you have a moment, sir,” Cruikshank said, “I’d like to discuss my group’s next mission.”
The admiral and the emperor glanced at each other. Probably wondering which of them had authorized even the planning stage for a new ground mission. “Go ahead,” Horner said.
“I’ve been talking to Commander Rahas on the protoss mothership,” Cruikshank said. “Our conclusion was—”
“Who authorized you to talk to the protoss?” Valerian interrupted.
“No one, Emperor,” Cruikshank said, tensing reflexively. “It was on my own initiative. There was nothing official about the conversation—we were simply two soldiers comparing notes.”
“And Commander Rahas is…?”
“Hierarch Artanis’s chief ground-force commander,” Cruikshank said. “He was Sagaya’s second-in-command before the Point Two fiasco.”
Valerian’s lip might have twitched at the word fiasco. But he merely nodded. “Continue.”
“Yes, Emperor.” At least the emperor didn’t randomly cannonball into the shallow end the way his father sometimes had. “Our conclusion was that, as you anticipated, the psi emitter will have drawn a lot of the zerg away from Point Three. Since flying zerg are faster than groundies, most of the flyers should have gotten there first, which further suggests that the nuke we just dropped will have taken out a fair percentage of them.”
“That was our conclusion, as well,” Horner agreed. “Is there more?”
“Yes, sir,” Cruikshank said. “Now that the emitter’s gone, we expect that whoever’s controlling those zerg will send them back to protect Point Three. If the dropship hadn’t been attacked, the team would have gotten there well ahead of most of the returning zerg. With the team now on foot, it’s going to be a race.” He pursed his lips. “Enough reason right there for them to be attacked.”
“It won’t be a race if we send another dropship down to carry them that last thirty klicks,” Valerian said.
“We could do that, Emperor, yes,” Cruikshank said. “The problem I see is twofold. First, sending anything down will immediately pinpoint the team’s location, which will allow the enemy to prepare ambushes along the way. Right n
ow, with their psi blocks running, they’re a lot less noticeable. Second, we’ve already seen how vulnerable a dropship is to aerial attack.”
“We could send some Wraiths down to escort them,” Horner said.
“Except that Gystt has a lot more mutalisks than we have Wraiths,” Valerian murmured. “And not all of them will have been taken out by the nuke. So you’re suggesting, Colonel, that we leave Halkman’s team on foot?”
“Yes, Emperor,” Cruikshank said. “The trip will take longer, but they’ve got powered suits, and the images we’re getting don’t indicate any major injuries. And again, right now they’re more or less invisible to local zerg.”
“Or at least harder to spot,” Valerian said. “As you say, though, they’re now racing the returning zerg. I assume you have a suggestion to offer?”
“We give them a buffer,” Cruikshank said. “By that I mean we put a line of troops, mechs, and protoss on the ground, about fifteen klicks out from Point Three, angled against the direction the zerg will come from. We’ll hopefully be able to hold them long enough for Halkman to get inside and pull the samples we need.”
“You just said the zerg would see any dropships we sent in,” Valerian reminded him.
“Yes, but we won’t care,” Cruikshank said. “It doesn’t matter if they know where we are, since we’re there to fight anyway. And we won’t be doing any horizontal flying, so they’ll have less time to gather enough flyers to mess with us.”
“There were a lot of zerg heading for the emitter,” Horner warned. “If they’re all under enemy control, that’ll be a damn big plateful for your force to handle.”
Cruikshank gave a small shrug. “That’s what we’re paid for, sir.”
“What’s the terrain look like?” Valerian asked.
“Here’s the spot, Emperor.” Cruikshank pulled out his datapad and keyed for the aerial view. “It’s a section of rolling grassland between two forested areas. Nice visibility—the enemy has to come at us over open ground, and we can’t be sneaked up on. It’s situated between a fast-moving river and marshland on the southeast and this cliff line on the north.”
