Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve - Liaden Books 1-9

by Liaden 1-9 (lit)

  "Do you?" The scout sighed. "These are new abilities, brother?"

  Shan nodded. "I warn you that the explanation will be a thing devoid of sense. Though I am, of course, willing to try."

  "Leave it for the present," said the scout, "if it's nonsense. When this is over, let us share a glass or two and tell each other fantastic stories."

  "Done."

  "Done," the scout echoed and stepped aside.

  "So the two of you, fine-looking pilots, both, will proceed boldly across the field, pausing only to distribute explosives at likely looking Communications centers. You will then claim your planes and board. In the meantime, I will advance by a more circuitous route and stealthily steal my own. We will then proceed as discussed, each making at least one pass over the airfield before peeling off in his assigned direction. Questions?"

  There were none. They had been through this before. And, after all, the plan was simple.

  The scout nodded. "Good. It's time we were gone."

  DUTIFUL PASSAGE

  LYTAXIN ORBIT

  In one hour. Standard, the Yxtrang Eye mould be fully open, at once clearing a firing path from the battleship to Erob's House and placing the thickest layer of shielding ships between the battleship and the Passage.

  Priscilla had ran the math a dozen times in the last few hours, assigned the tactical comp to find the means by which the Passage could divert, prevent, or minimize the Yxtrang's beam.

  The answer came back negative.

  She had copied their situation files and downloaded them to Pod 77. What, if anything, that ancient non-sentient made of those facts, she had no idea. Subsequent efforts to engage it in dialog had met with no response. Perhaps it had simply stopped functioning.

  Ren Zel, hastily briefed on his return to the bridge, stood silent, his eyes on the screen displaying the movement of the Yxtrang shield.

  "No answer whatsoever?"

  "Nothing," Priscilla said. "I wonder if I've offended it."

  "Overloaded it, possibly," he returned, eyes still on the screen. "You say it is very old, and a defense logic. It would perhaps not be equipped to sift through such levels of data as the Passage—" He stopped and drew a slow, careful breath.

  "Or perhaps it is."

  Priscilla looked to the screen, saw the message window filling with words.

  TACTICAL DEFENSE POD 77 ON-LINE.

  DOWNLOAD DATA ANALYSIS COMPLETE.

  DEFENSE PLAN FORMULATED.

  PHASE ONE ENACTED.

  UPLOADING TO MOBILE UNIT TARGETING COMP.

  Ren Zel flung forward, clearing a tertiary screen and accessing the targeting computer in three rapid keystrokes. Priscilla sat rapt, the red counter in her hand, watching the words form on the screen.

  ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL OFFENSIVE ACTION: 43 UNITS. SYNCHRONIZING MOBILE UNIT TARGETING COMP.

  "It's uploaded settings for guns seven and nine," Ren Zel told her, fingers moving across the board, "and instructions to fire to those coordinates in forty Standard minutes."

  TACTICAL DEFENSE POD 77 ON STAND-BY, CONDITION ORANGE.

  The words stopped and Priscilla stirred at last.

  "Remove Pod seventy-seven's instructions from the targeting command queue, please, First Mate."

  He spun his chair around, showing her a face which was entirely devoid of emotion.

  "I cannot," he said quietly, and she read the effort he expended to hold to calmness. 'The file is sealed."

  "Sealed, is it?" She reached to her own board. "I'll pull them—"

  Ren Zel cleared his throat.

  "Forgive me. I should have said that the instructions and the coords are under the seal of Delm Korval."

  "Under delm's seal?" Priscilla felt a thrill not unlike terror. Theonna yos'Phelium had left the power to implement delm's seal resident in the ancient defense pod. Theonna yos'Phelium had been a far-seeing delm, indeed.

  Or a frothing madwoman.

  Priscilla took a breath, felt the red counter warm in her hand and looked to Ren Zel.

  "So, we can see it, but we can't change it." As she said that her witch sense told her it was true: some ancient Korval necessity now ruled their fate. "Fine. To my screen two, please. Let's at least find out what we've gotten ourselves into."

  "Uncle Win Den!" Alys ran headlong out of the house as he was preparing to step into the flitter for an inspection of the outer ring defenses. He waited, remembering to frown.

  "Well, niece? I thought you on duty at the core-comm."

  "I was, Uncle. But there was a message…" she paused to gulp more air into her lungs. "A message on the telecoder— the old one, that never takes any messages?" tel'Vosti froze, remembering late night fright stories told him by his uncle, too many years ago, and centering around that particular, always silent, telecoder.

  "Go on," he urged Alys.

  "Yes. The message says it's from the Planetary Defense Unit, and it—" her eyes lifted to his, baffled. "Uncle, it says that it's activated the meteor shielding over Erob Central Control."

  LYTAXIN

  WAR ZONE

  Val Con melted away at the edge of the Field, taking his bag of cockpit adaptations and another, similar to the one Nelirikk carried with him. His target was the comm shed at the south end of the field, which housed the back-up space-link. After setting the charges contained in the second bag, he would choose a plane and lift. The mark was one-half-hour.

  Shan and Nelirikk walked openly across the field, Nelirikk bearing his bag of explosives, the scout's brother swaggering empty-handed, as befit the sort of officer he had found in Nelirikk's undermind. Their targets were the radar support shack and back-up communications.

  The field was busy, but not overly so. They had arrived, so Nelirikk thought, in the trough between the first wave moving out and the second. Those who were abroad had duty to attend. No one paid attention to two officers arrogantly and unhurriedly about their own duty. They marched directly up to back-up comm, Shan waiting with cold impatience while Nelirikk deftly jimmied the lock, pushed the door open, stepped back and saluted smartly. In character, he ignored the salute and stamped into the shed, Nelirikk in his wake, swinging the door closed behind them.

  "Do not touch that," he said, pointing at a green striped panel. "Alarm circuit." He had dropped his bag and fished out two of the scout's devices.

  Shan took one of the explosives, moved to the left, seated it and armed it as his brother had shown him, while Nelirikk did his part of the work on the opposite side of the shed.

  Two minutes later, they were once again striding across the busy field.

  At radar support, the door was unlocked. Nelirikk paused, threw a worried glance toward his companion and was answered with a vicious glower from the inspector major.

  Well enough, thought Nelirikk. We do what we have come to do. He thrust the door open and brought his fist up in salute. The major tramped by him with no acknowledgment, into the radar shed.

  A tech jumped up from behind the board, his face displaying surprise that quickly became chagrin as he read their vingtai.

  "Inspectors…" The salute was hasty, the face pale behind the tattoos that showed him a specialist, confirmed twice at combat radar, a volunteer who had achieved success in a difficult mission, originally of Ornjal's Tech Troop. "I was not told you were to be here. I—"

  Shan frowned, and the tech gulped. Slowly, the gesture filled with such menace that Nelirikk felt his own heart stutter, the scout's brother pointed at the door.

  "Inspector Major." The tech saluted. "I received no notice of your coming. Duty demands that I ask to see your passes."

  "We have no time for that!" Nelirikk snarled, moving forward. "There have been security failures at several locations! We must check this facility and certify it! Out, and leave us to duty!"

  Despite the sweat beading on his upper lip and the definite paleness of his face, the tech was not so easy to rout. He took a hard breath and met Nelirikk's eyes squarely.

  "I need
some ID, sir. You understand. I am required to…"

  They had given the scout's brother perhaps thirty words of the Common Troop, without ever expecting he would have need of them.

  "Fool!" he roared now, thrusting a hard hand under the tech's nose. "Papers, damn you!"

  The tech jumped, saluted even more hastily, pulling his work orders, his day sheets, his meal cards, as the officer cursed him for a sluggard dog and seemed almost ready to strike him.

  Shakily, the tech ordered his papers, offering them with yet another salute.

  The scout's brother snatched them, looked them over contemptuously, with a special sneer for the coveted meal cards. Abruptly, he turned, shoved the offensive papers into Nelirikk's hands and stalked over to the screen bank.

  "Troop!" barked Nelirikk. "Have you eyes?"

  "Sir!" A shaky salute. "Yes, sir!"

  "Good! Take them elsewhere if you ever wish to eat again!" He threw the papers and the tech caught them against his chest, his eyes on the meal cards Nelirikk still held in his hand.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Put yourself on half rations tonight," Nelirikk snapped, and pushed the cards into the tech's sweating face. "Dismissed!"

  "Sir!" The tech saluted, threw a terrified glance at the major, who was now inspecting the lateral board, and all but ran from the shed.

  Nelirikk pushed the door shut, dropped the sack and yanked it open.

  "Quickly," he said, putting the bomb into the hands of the scout's brother. "We are off the mark."

  Crouched in scant cover, Val Con waited while an officer dressed in what he had to believe was the original of the uniform Nelirikk had approximated for himself, face bearing vingtai eerily similar to Shan's artwork, performed what could only be an inspection.

  Precious minutes ticked by and still the officer did not emerge from the comm shed.

  Three minutes more, Val Con thought, belly down under a cable lorry. If he is not gone in three minutes, I will set the charges against the shed's exterior and trust in the luck.

  Chancy enough under the best of conditions, the luck being notoriously fickle. Yet, what else could be done? This whole mad venture sat on the knees of the luck, born of the desperate necessity of success. They must succeed in routing the Yxtrang. Must. The cost of failure was too terrible to contemplate.

  The door to the shed opened and Val Con tucked his face into the crook of an arm, watching sidewise as the inspector and his aide marched to the waiting armored car, entered and were driven away.

  Close on the mark, Commander, he told himself, checking the area carefully. Be quick, now, and all's well.

  Finding the immediate environs suitably empty, he left his cover, ghosted to the shed and let himself inside.

  The scout's brother was safe in his chosen craft. Nelirikk continued farther down the field, so that there should be some distance between the two of them on take-off.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw an armored car make a wide turn and bear down on his position. There was no reason to assume that the driver of the vehicle was in any way interested in an adjutant inspector, but Nelirikk felt the newly shaved hairs lift on the back of his neck.

  Taking care to betray no haste, he changed course, angling toward one of the newer, Raphix-class planes. The damned car came after and Nelirikk grit his teeth, marching on, soldierly, measuring the distance, if it came to a chase.

  Behind him, the car accelerated. Over the engine's excitement, a voice shouted out in the language of the Troop, "You there! Halt for the Inspector Major!"

  Nelirikk ran.

  It was wonderful, Shan thought, what a little height did for one's perspective.

  Snug in the cockpit of the quiescent Yxtrang fighter, trusting his projected suggestion to any and all passersby that this same cockpit was empty, he looked down the field of planes.

  Some way down the field, lorries and refuellers were busy preparing the next pod of planes. Shan made a note of that.

  Closer to home, he spied the broad shoulders and soldierly stride of Nelirikk Explorer, followed by an armored car bearing the Yxtrang graphic for "Inspection Office." Shan sat up, trying to get a reading on the occupants of the car. His touch fell short and he saw the car accelerate. Saw Nelirikk break stride and bolt for the ladder of a plane.

  It lacked five minutes of the mark.

  Shan engaged the shock webbing, hands moving—though he was careful not to be too quick—over the fighter's board.

  Val Con was running too close to the mark. Delayed and delayed again by the movement of maintenance vehicles and technical crews, he finally swung back, angling for the last of three planes that sat in pristine isolation at the very edge of the field.

  It was chancy. The location was open, and the guards— three guards, he counted—suggested that these craft were meant to be flown by pilots of rank.

  Chancy. He sank back into his sliver of shadow and tried to weigh how chancy. The cause was not served, if he died before he ever gained the air.

  After all, he had promised Miri that he would meet her at Erob's field this noon.

  He smiled a little then, feeling the tension in his face. A foolish promise on both sides, given what they both undertook. Still, she would expect him to exert himself to keep it.

  A diversion was clearly required. If he could but entice the guards a few steps away from their posts, he would have Luken's oft-desired honest advantage that made a dash for the nearest craft possible.

  As if his thought ignited it, thunder roared across the field, closely followed by a second boom, which was an air-to-ground cannon being fired. A second engine roared into life and the guards were running toward the sounds, rifles ready, and Val Con threw thought away, gathered his bag and his breath and ran.

  He didn't look for the guards. He looked at nothing but the ladder, convenient enough for one of Nelirikk's length, but requiring a leap at the end of his race, and with the bag to hamper him—

  A pellet hit the ground a pace ahead, gravel bits exploding, and he jumped, grabbed the ladder, heard another shot, but he was climbing, and it was a third shot and a fourth. His hand slipped and he snatched a recovery, felt the bag slide and let it go, swarming up, up, and falling into the cockpit, the left leg numb beneath him, but he flung forward, slapped the switch and the bubble rose up and over, sealing him into safety with a click.

  The engine roared to life and the plane began to move. Shan applied the brake, carefully, found the control for the cannon, crossed hairs on the armored car's position and pushed the firing stud.

  The plane lurched under him, the armored car went up in a hail of metal, and he eased off the brake, letting the engine have its way as he saw the plane Nelirikk had chosen, with the Yxtrang numbers 32 on the tail, begin to creep forward. Nodding, he took the lead, relinquished the brake entirely and let the engines pull the plane down the runway, pushing her a little now, hauling back on the stick the instant he was able.

  Climbing, he looked down, saw Nelirikk's plane leap off the field, and quite a commotion on the ground. A finger's width above the tree-tops, he leveled out and banked hard, sweeping back the way he had come, using the belly guns to kill the planes sitting weak and defenseless, pulled back on the stick at the end of his line, saw 32 flying neck-or-nothing, lashing the field into shrapnel.

  It was now thirty-five minutes since they had separated and there was no third fighter in the air. Shan bit his lip, banked again, searching—and saw a plane rising, a sleek affair with the numbers 03 painted high on its proud tail. He grinned. Trust Val Con to steal himself a beauty.

  For an instant it seemed to him that the pretty plane faltered, then it was climbing, arrow-bright, leveled and banked smoothly right, sweeping in low over the field, guns blaring.

  All according to plan, Shan, he told himself, ridiculously relieved. With a phrase or two varied. We're all safe in the air, for whatever that's worth. Go east, young man, and finish things up. After which, I promise, you may go mad.


  He pulled on the stick and made his turn, still climbing, east, in search of targets.

  He'd been hit. The left leg, well above the knee. There was blood. A lot of blood. Not good.

  There was also pain, now that he had seen the wound. He tried to shake it out of awareness, used the levers to shrink the cockpit to minimum, and discovered the shock webbing was too large for him, and then discovered that it didn't matter. He could not be webbed in and reach his instruments. Instead, he raised the pilot's couch to maximum and perched precariously on the edge. The pain…

  The drill.

  He stretched, took a breath and touched the first key, chanting the drill to focus his mind.

  "Power check; external go. Internal, go. Clock set synchronize; clock reset to trip zero. Power on. External power stable. Internal stable. Release external cable."

  He faltered, the pain chewing his thoughts. He ran the Rainbow, quickly, drawing the body away from the mind, continued to chant the drill.

  "Drag brake on, mech brake on. Engine A start. Engine A positive, null thrust."

  He was late on the mark. They would be worried, but he couldn't rush the drill, because…

  Something would go wrong, if he rushed the drill.

  "Engine B start. Engine B positive, null thrust. Clock check; timing positive. Annular pressure fifty percent, thrust positive. Scan positive. Weapon check; outboard cannon check."

  There were soldiers, on the ground far below. They were running toward him. He looked up and there was a soldier there, too, at the top of the ladder, looking down at him through the dome.

  "Remove fuse sixteen. Cap fuse sixteen. Pull pin seven."

  There was a truck headed his way, he saw the cannon in its bed and hurtled through the last of the drill.

  "Drag brake off, mech brake off, inlets open, full power, on."

  He was moving, as the drill said he should, scattering soldiers as he gained speed. He looked up, saw the soldier still clinging to the dome, then forgot him as the speed built and off to the right a building exploded, brilliant orange smoke spreading rapidly in the whipping wind.

  The speed was building quickly and the pressure felt good against him, except his leg… and it took him a moment to find the dial that told him the plane was going fast enough so he pulled back hard on the stick, and didn't notice when the soldier finally slid off the dome.