"lt’d be just great if I went through all this and ended up walking right smack into Sagan's forces!"
But if he stayed here much longer, he'd put down roots. A dark, hulking shape loomed near him. Leaving the safety of the beam, Dion dove for it, recognizing it at the last moment as a fighter plane. A beam rifle opened fire. Sparks showered down around him, ricocheting off the wings. He slid beneath the plane's belly, lay flat on his own. He recognized the plane—it belonged to one of the mercenaries, an old rejuvenated RV. He recalled Williams's report. The mercenaries have barricaded themselves with their spaceplanes . . .
"This should mean I'm on Tusk's side of the battlefield." Dion squirmed around, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone—anyone—through the smoke and flame. A lascannon opened fire behind him. Twisting, keeping his head down, he looked back, thought he recognized a scaly greenish gray hide.
"Jarun!" he shouted, and immediately went into a fit of coughing, the smoke filling his lungs.
The firing ceased.
"Did you hear something?" The voice sounded oddly mechanical, and it took Dion a moment to realize it was coming from a translator device.
"Yeah, I thought so." The other voice was human. "Who the hell'd be out there?"
"Jarun!" Dion yelled desperately.
"We hear ya! And you got just three seconds to convince us why we shouldn't fry your hide!"
"It's Dion! I'm looking for Tusk!"
A long green-gray tentacle snaked out, wrapped itself around Dion's boot, and pulled the young man across the deck. A human hand grabbed hold of his collar, dragged him behind a hastily built barricade consisting of several large metal barrels.
Lying on his back, breathless, Dion stared into the four eyes of the Jarun, the two eyes of a human, and the single barrel of a beam rifle.
"It is the kid," the Jarun said through his translator, his actual voice sounding like numerous screeching cats fighting inside a well.
"What kid?" the human demanded, holding the weapon aimed at Dion's head.
"Friend of Tusk's. He's okay. "
"Yeah? What the hell's he doin' dressed up like one of the Warlord's pet monkeys?"
"It's a long story, Reefer, put down the gun. Hey, kid. Next time, don't crawl under the belly of a plane for cover. One laser hit in the fuel tank and—" The alien made a sound that approximated the screeching cats hitting bottom.
Dion glanced back, gulped, and nodded. "Where's Tusk?"
"Hell, kid"—Reefer aimed the gun back in what Dion supposed was the general direction of the enemy—"I don't even know where I am. You know, Xrmt?"
"No." The Jarun fired a searing beam into smoke-filled darkness.
"How about General Dixter?"
"Dead," Reefer said shortly.
"Dead!" Dion gasped, feeling as though someone had punched him hard in the stomach.
"Cut in two by a beam rifle."
"Naw, that was Colonel Mudahby," the Jarun protested.
"Heard it was Dixter," Reefer argued, A laser bolt slammed into a metal beam overhead, showering sparks all around them, Dion scrunched down as flat as possible on the deck, resenting the very pockets on his flight suit that wouldn't let him flatten down farther,
"Dixter got blown apart by a grenade."
The Jarun fired. Reefer fired.
Dion started breathing again. These two had no idea what was going on! Again he remembered what he'd overheard about the battle from Captain Williams's conversation with Admiral Aks. If Dixter was anywhere, he'd probably be on Charlie deck.
"Any idea how to reach the others?" Dion shouted over the firing.
"What others?"
"Our people fighting on Charlie deck!"
"What deck we on?"
"Delta," Dion began, then realized his questions were futile. Closing his eves, he tried to envision the situation. The alien must have landed his RV facing the front of the hangar. That was standard procedure. Which meant Charlie deck had to be somewhere to his left.
"Thanks," he said, and crawled off under the protective cover of the Jarun's fire.
Moving to his left, he saw that he had guessed correctly. The huge hangar bay doors towered over him, sealed shut, trapping those inside. The smoke was thinner back here, the firing was not as concentrated, and Dion risked standing upright. Rubbing his bruised knees, he reacclimated himself and started forward.
A whistling sound sent him diving beneath the wreckage of something—he couldn't tell what in the smoke. A hand caught hold of him around the neck, flipped him over onto his back.
"Damn! It's a Galactic pilot! Say your prayers, ass-licker!"
The blade of a combat knife gleamed above him. Dion shouted, struggled wildly. A black arm shot out and stopped the knife's descent.
"Link, you bloodthirsty S.O.B.! It's Dion!"
"Tusk!" Dion could have burst into tears. He grabbed hold of the mercenary thankfully.
"I'll be damned!" Link tossed the knife in the air, caught it expertly, and tucked it back in his boot. "Sorry, kid. Thought I had a live one."
"Can't say I'm glad to see you here, kid." Tusk gripped Dion's arm tightly, smiled grimly. "But I'm glad to see you're alive."
Dion couldn't answer; smoke, leftover terror, and shock robbed him of his voice. He stared at his friends, stunned by what he saw. Tusk's face was drawn and haggard; he seemed to have aged a decade. The ebony skin glistened with sweat, his eyes were red-rimmed. Blood streaked his face, his lips were cracked and blistered. Link, crouched nearby, managed a grin, but it looked ghastly through a mask of blood and soot. The horrible reality of their desperate situation hit Dion in the pit of his stomach.
"Where's Nola?" the young man managed to ask, clearing his throat. "She flew with you, didn't she?"
"Best damn gunner I ever had." Tusk jerked a thumb behind him. Dion peered over his shoulder to see a woman huddled on a pile of flight jackets, her head swathed in bloody bandages.
"She'll be all right," Link said, noting Dion's sudden pallor.
"Yeah," Tusk grunted. "Nice quiet prison cell. Do wonders for her."
The two mercenaries exchanged glances. The boy wasn't fooled. He knew there'd be no prison cell. He'd heard Sagan's orders. The mercenaries were to be executed. He knew then that Tusk and Link knew it, too.
"Where's Dixter?" Dion shouted.
A lasgun beam slanted through the darkness.
Tusk and Link raised up, fired in the beam's direction. A brief but furious exchange ensued, then ceased. Link rolled over on his back, wriggled into a more comfortable position.
"Hell, kid, Dixter's d— Ouch! Damn it. Tusk. Wliat'd you kick me for?"
"Dixter's on Charlie deck," Tusk said, not looking at Dion,
Tusk's heard the general's dead, Dion realized.
Link was carefully inspecting his gun. Smoke drifted overhead. Lethal beams streaked through the darkness. An explosion, then someone screamed—a high, piercing note that was suddenly cut off. Behind him, Dion heard Nola moan. The woman stirred fitfully. Tusk crawled back to her, gently pulled his flight jacket up over her shoulders. Dion followed him.
"Who's in charge around here?" he demanded.
"No one, kid. Each of us is on his own, just trvin' to stay alive. I don't even know how many of us are left."
"Listen, Tusk, I heard Captain Williams talking to Admiral Aks. This battle isn't going well for the Warlord's forces. And I've been thinking. They don't dare use any heavy artillery— mortars and rockets—inside the ship. They can't cram too many men into this confined space or they'll start shooting each other. You're not outgunned and you can’t be that far outnumbered. If you made a concentrated push right now, tried to go for the hangar bay controls—"
Tusk snorted in derision. "Thanks for droppin' by, kid. You better get back to your friends, now. Tell the Warlord I said he can take a flying leap—" Where Tusk recommended the Warlord could leap was lost in a blast from Link's lasgun.
"Tusk, I—" Dion began desperately.
"Look, kid!" Tusk grabbed him by the collar of his flight suit. "It's hopeless. Dixter's dead. We're all going to die. I don't know what you're doin' here, but you got a Galactic uniform on. You can get out. You better do it!'
Dion shook himself free of Tusk's hold. "I'm going to find Dixter. Okay if I borrow this?' He took Nola's lasgun, started off through the smoke.
"Dion! Damn it, kid—"
He heard Tusk shout, but Dion didn't turn around. He’d spotted what looked to be a way out.
Dion opened a door, peered into a narrow corridor. According to the blueprint, this corridor connected Delta deck with Charlie. The young man advanced cautiously, weapon drawn, expecting a raging battle.
The corridor was strangely, eerily quiet. No smoke, no signs of life or death. A door at the end was labeled with a large C. Dion dashed toward it. his heart in his throat. He hit the controls with his hand so hard he bruised his palm.
The door slid open. He darted inside, prepared to take immediate cover, and blundered into a desk. The room was brightly lit; he couldn't see anything after coming in from the darkness of the corridor. He shoved the desk out of his way, but another step brought him up against another desk. Blinking, he saw the place was filled with them! Rolled-up star charts and a coffee maker humming to itself in a corner gave him an idea where he was—a pilot's ready room.
Shoving desks aside, he headed for a steelglass viewport that must face out onto Charlie deck. Dion pressed his nose against the steelglass, expecting to see the same chaos he'd left on Delta: smoke, laser bursts, tracer fire. He recognized the mercenaries' spaceplanes, but the only signs of combat were trailing wisps of smoke being sucked into Defiant's ventilation system.
"Charlie deck!" he muttered. "It has to be! But what's happened?"
The fighting's ended! Which means—
Dion's knees felt weak. He sat down suddenly at a desk, stared out onto the deck, searching for people, seeing no one. That's it, then. They're all dead.
"What should I do?" he asked himself bleakly, feeling empty, drained. "Go back to Tusk. I can at least help him and Nola and Link escape, take them off in my spaceplane. Hell. That wouldn't work. They'd never leave. But I could. I could escape. Get out while I can, like Tusk said. No one would ever know. . . .
"Yes . . . he would," Dion said softly. "Sagan would know. He always knows! And. once again, he'd know that I ran. He'd figure I was scared.
Dion rose to his feet. "Let him find my body with the bodies of my friends. I'll—"
Out of the corner of his eye. he saw the man, saw the gun. . . .
Pain . . . and then nothing.
Chapter Six
Have you built your ship of death. O have you?
"The Ship of Death," D. H. Lawrence
Disguised as a pilot—a wounded pilot, her "borrowed" flight suit covered with blood—Maigrey hoped, in the confusion. to make her way onto one of the evac ships. She arrived on one of Phoenix's flight decks and hovered in the background. keeping to the shadows, watching, appraising the situation. Time was running out, maybe another fifteen minutes left in the safety window. But this, she discovered, had not been one of her better ideas.
First, there was no confusion. No panic. Each man, apparently. had his own assigned place on his own assigned ship. The men—those who were left, and there weren't many— were proceeding on board the evac ships in the well-drilled orderly fashion she might have expected of Sagan's crew. Second, disguised as a pilot, she had no idea what her assigned station was. Gnawing on her lip, swearing beneath her breath, she watched for several minutes, hoping to see some breakdown in discipline, wondering if she couldn't bluff her way on board by claiming she had been knocked out, missed her own evac ship.
No. that would draw attention to her. Sagan had undoubtedly alerted the guards to her disappearance. They'd be watching for her.
"The hospital ship,' Maigrey muttered. She recalled Sagan saying something about using his own shuttle to transport wounded. The wounded wouldn't have any assigned stations! She glanced down at the bloody hole in the front of her flight suit and headed immediately, at a run, for the hangar where Sagan's shuttle was kept.
Arriving there, she remembered just in time that she was supposed to be injured and stopped outside the entrance to the hangar to get into her role. Of course, once she got onto the shuttle, there'd be the problem of the medics wanting to examine her.
"One worry at a time." Maigrey was just about to press her hand over the bloodstained rip and stagger forward when the door shot open.
In front of her stood Sagan's own personal sleek white spaceplane. The plane he would use to leave the ship.
Maigrey recoiled back into the shadows. This is the last place ! need to lie! she thought wildly. The Warlord could arrive at any moment. But how the hell else can I get oft?
A heavy hand grasped her by the shoulder.
Maigrey's breath stopped. It's not Sagan! her mind reassured her. She would have sensed his presence. But it took her heart a moment to catch up with her brain’s logic. She stared through her helmet at the hand, its fingers scraping roughly against her neck.
The hand was large, clean, too clean for a man on board a fighting ship.
"Rogers!" came a voice from the general proximity of the hand.
Maigrey turned to face the man, jerking free of the hands grip in the same movement. The hand’s owner was like his appendage—large and too neat, too clean. His uniform had a small smudge of soot on one sleeve; otherwise it was spotless, not even wrinkled. Whatever hole he'd found to hide in must be a good one.
"Major," she said, remembering in time that—according to the insignia on the uniform—she was a captain, and saluting. The helmet's face shield, though clear, would distort her features; the dirt and blood she'd smeared on her skin would help make recognition difficult, especially in the semi-darkness.
But the man's eyes narrowed, he leaned forward, stared at her closely. "You're not Rogers!'
"So, what if I'm not?" she returned, facing him down. "You don't really give a damn who I am, do you?'
The major grinned, glanced significantly at the blood on the front of her flight suit. "Maybe I don't. Are you even a pilot?'
She could either kill him or go along with him. One jab to the throat, it would be all over, and Maigrey had the distinct impression that no one would miss this bastard. She was wondering what his scheme was when she saw another person move out of the shadows. A young man, clad in a flight suit. Suddenly, Maigrey knew what was going on.
"Yes, I'm a pilot." Fortunately her voice was low for a woman's and further distorted through the helmet mike. "And I need to get off this ship. "
The major grinned unpleasantly. "Yeah. I thought so. It'll cost you.'
"I left my wallet in my other pants."
"Then you and your other pants can stay here and fry. I ain't runnin' a charity. Hey, what's this?"
He reached inside her flightsuit. caught hold of the star-jewel. glittering brightly on its chain. The major's eyes widened. "What the hell is it? A diamond? I never saw one that big'"
Grinning at her, he grasped hold of the jewel's silver chain and twisted. The catch gave, the chain slid from around her neck, the starjewel gleamed in his hand. "You just bought your way off this bomb."
Maigrey said nothing, made no protest. She couldn't, her breath was gone—not through concern over the jewel's loss. She wasn't worried about it. A starjewel, taken by force, has a way of returning to its owner. It was her plan, now suddenly complete, flawless, perfect and brilliant as the jewel itself, that stole away her breath.
You just bought your way . . . bomb.
The major tossed the starjewel in the air, closed his fist over it, and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. "Let's get a move on, then. Follow me."
The ship was quiet, except for the muffled sound of an occasional explosion. Time was ticking by. The officer hastened onto the hangar deck, Maigrey and the young pilot running after him. They were headed for
Sagan's private plane, and Maigrey feared she'd made a mistake. The officer never glanced at it, passed it right by. He strode rapidly to the far end of the hangar bay. Here stood several Scimitars—several wrecked Scimitars.
"I was right," she murmured. "You bastard!"
The major gestured, "Here's your ticket to freedom."
"You expect us to fly out in those?" Maigrey demanded.
"I don't expect nothing. I'm not wearing a dead man's flight suit. What are you'3 An escaped prisoner, figured you'd sneak away in the confusion? Or maybe a deserter? All you got to worry about is the kid here"—the major jerked a thumb at the young pilot—"but I don't think he'll turn you in. He's too anxious to get off himself."
Maigrey glanced at the young pilot, saw his face flush, then harden. He was only a trainee pilot; the Scimitar pin on his uniform was silver, not gold. She wondered what he'd been busted for; something pretty serious, to make him this desperate.
The major leaned near, clamped his heavy hand over Maigrey's shoulder. The man would probably never know just how close he came to having it snapped off at the wrist. "You fly that plane out." He pointed at one of the wrecks. "The kid'll take the other one."
"You're crazy! An experienced pilot couldn't fly that plane! You can't expect this . . . this cadet to—" Maigrey turned to the young pilot. "How many hours have you logged?"
"Enough." The young man's tone was defensive.
A calm voice over the loudspeakers announced that the last of the evac ships were leaving.
"You better hurry," Maigrey said to the major, "or you'll miss your flight. And take the kid here with you."
The major shrugged. "The prison evac already left. If the kid wants off this bomb, he can either fly that Scimitar or walk. Same with vou."
He took off at a dead run. Maigrey was half-inclined to stop him, not certain what she'd do to him, but plenty certain she'd enjoy doing it.
"It's all right, Starlady!" the young pilot said. "Really. I'll fly the plane."
Startled at his recognition, trying not to show it. Maigrey glanced at him, shook her head. "Were you talking to me? I'm afraid you have the wrong—?"
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