When the visiphone suddenly bleated at him, he covered the camera before hitting a button to accept the call. A face appeared on the screen that he recognized as Kevin Chen—a contact who had gotten him one job in the Capellan Confederation that had turned out well. "A man wishes to speak with you. It will pay as well as your last job and offers some of the same perks without the same risks. A week?"
The assassin frowned. Jude and her group would be leaving in a week. In the past he would never have pushed a meeting back because of something like a final party with friends, but then he'd never really had friends before. It could wait. "Eight days."
"Done."
"Who will I be meeting?"
"Don't worry, he checks out."
"I worry. Who?"
Chen looked uneasy and dropped his voice to a whisper. "Fuh Teng."
"Message me details."
The assassin broke the connection and opened the door to the booth. Fuh Teng: He had been Kai Allard-Liao's manager ever since the warrior first came to Solaris, and had managed the family's stable of fighters on Solaris since his early partnership with Justin Allard. Whoever he wants dead will not be easy to kill.
The assassin smiled to himself and laughed in a way that would have made Chuck Grayson shiver. But with me doing the job, whoever it is will die well.
31
DropShip Tigress
Pirate Jump Point, Zanderij
Federated Commonwealth
20 August 3055
Knowing the Red Corsair was planning to jump soon, Nelson Geist did not fully seat the earphones for his journey into the computer-reality. He wanted to be able to hear the three-tone signal warning that jump was imminent beyond the sounds of the artificial world. When it came suddenly, he braced himself on the treadmill railing and moved his feet to the sides of the rubber tread.
He pulled off his helmet and hung it on the corner of the railing, then swung under and sat down on the ground. Hugging his knees to his chest, Nelson concentrated on breathing. In, out. Jumping isn't that bad. He screwed his eyes shut and felt his stomach lurch as the ship entered hyperspace.
The universe compacted itself into the size of a pin-head, which then seemed to lodge at the base of his skull. He saw visions of everything happening at once, as if time had been stripped away. In those visions he suddenly grasped the key to all of reality. For a single nanosecond he and the universe were one, and realization of that fact brought with it a glimmering of hope that he had not known since his capture.
Then the universe exploded back to its full dimensions and he felt pain as the explosion lasered up and down his spine. For the barest of moments he feared the ship had made a misjump and ended up in whatever ethereal limbo waited for starships with faulty jump drives. But opening his eyes he realized that all was well, and somewhere at the back of his mind, he caught and held on to a wisp of the hope he had discovered in the moment of the jump.
The whole Tigress remained eerily silent for a short time. Because of the near ambushes at Great X and Yeguas, Nelson knew that the Red Corsair was not going to commit her DropShips to a run on the fourth planet unless she could determine what threat, if any, the enemy could offer.
A solar system being a rather huge place, hiding a JumpShip or DropShips full of 'Mechs should have been a simple thing, but Nelson knew from his years as a warrior that it was not. Because gravity could rip a JumpShip to pieces as it entered or left a system, the ship had to be stationed either well above or well below the plane of the elliptic. That usually put it at either solar pole, but pirate points—little windows in the dynamic gravitational matrices near the planets and moons—made it possible to come in dangerously close to planets at certain times and at certain points.
The JumpShip Fire Rose had come in at just one of those pirate points and that it had not jumped back out immediately meant the initial scan showed no danger. As seconds passed into infinity, Nelson steeled himself against the possible jolt of another jump. Not so soon, he pleaded silently because he knew that with another jump, despair would replace the hope he had glimpsed.
Klaxons rang through the ship and he heard the whirring clicks as the two Overlord Class DropShips pulled away from the Fire Rose. Nelson felt himself get heavy as the Tigress began accelerating away from the Rose, and as he struggled to his feet, he realized the Red Corsair meant to go in hot. We're pushing 1.5 gees. She wants to be in and out before the Wolves can react to a distress call from Zanderij.
* * *
Caitlin Kell keyed her radio as she saw DropShip separation on her secondary cockpit screen. "Raven Leader to Raven Flight, we have separation. ETA fifteen minutes." She punched another button on her console and switched over to the command frequency. "Vulture Leader, we have separation."
"Roger, Raven Leader," Carew responded. "We pick them up in ten, and you close the door on them."
"Roger, Vulture Leader. Good luck." Caitlin shifted her radio back to her own tactical frequency and realized she was smiling. She was proud that her brother's plan had worked out. The asteroid field just outside Zanderij IV had provided ample hiding places for her fighter wing. The asteroids, while a nasty hazard for fighters going full-bore, were much more dangerous for the larger DropShips, and forced them into some fairly specific and narrow channels.
The ambush plan was simple and would have been perfect had there not been two equally accessible pirate points in the Zanderij system. Two of the three Kell Hound fighter squadrons had been stationed at a point roughly 1.6 million kilometers away. With her, Caitlin had the First Fighter Squadron and the ten Clan fliers in the Honor Guard Star that had come with Phelan.
She knew that twenty-eight fighters were insufficient to engage two Overlord Class DropShips, but the DropShips' transit through an asteroid field made them especially vulnerable. The Red Corsair's ships would have no choice but to run the gauntlet. She would hit them as they went in, but if the Corsair failed to reverse and jump out, the Hounds would join them in-system and engage on the ground. The key for Caitlin's fighter group was to do the DropShips as much damage as possible. If one or both of the DropShips smashed into the asteroids and died, everyone would consider that a bonus.
Caitlin watched the video feed coming from the sensor pod mounted atop the abandoned mining office on the asteroid where her aerospace squadron had been stationed. The two DropShips were coming in fast and dangerously close to each other, with the ship designated the Tigress coming first. The Lioness lingered behind a bit, but their port and starboard fields of fire overlapped. The zone between them, instead of being a death zone, would be fairly open because neither ship could fire for fear of hitting its sister.
"Raven Leader, prep launch in 1.5 minutes. Velocity adjustment for run to plus fifty-two percent."
"Acknowledged, Vulture Leader." Caitlin relayed the information to her Raven squadron and knew that Crow and Blackbird squadrons were getting similar orders from Carew. The Kell Hounds were in command of the overall operation against the Clans, but Phelan and Dan Allard had. agreed that having Carew command at least this part of the ambush would give Conal Ward less to complain about. The assignment would satisfy the Wolf Clan's sense of honor.
She punched up her engines and let them build up to 110 percent of military power. They came online quickly and pushed power to her Stingray's wing-mounted large and medium laser pairs and the PPC mounted in the nose. She vectored the thrust up so it would keep her on the asteroid, but she knew that the second she shifted it the other way, the asteroid's vestigial gravity would release her fighter and send it out into the fray.
The clock on her auxiliary screen counted down to zero. "Raven Flight, go!"
As Caitlin pulled the stick back and eased the throttle forward, the Stingray leaped from the asteroid like a falcon freed for flight. Punching both feet down on the overthrust pedals spiked the power output and jammed her back into her command couch as the fighter shot up and away. Glancing at her holographic combat display, she saw another Sti
ngray pull in beside her. "Glad you're here, Mulligan."
The pair of swept-wing fighters threaded their way through the asteroid field and broke into the cylinder the DropShips had used to make their passage in toward the planet. Caitlin kicked her fighter up on its right wing in a looping turn that centered her in the cylinder. As the craft's nose pointed in at Zanderij IV, she spotted the two bright dots that were the bandit DropShips.
"Bandits at twelve o'clock," she radioed her squadron. "Fire at will."
* * *
Nelson stumbled against a bulkhead as the Tigress shuddered with the first hit. The blaring klaxons summoning bandits to battle stations had already told him something was wrong, but the hit confirmed it. Fighters. They jumped us with fighters. He hit the button to open the hatch to the corridor and stepped through it as another explosion rocked the DropShip.
In the corridor he could feel the thrumming rhythm of the Overlord's autocannons coming into play against the fighters. The ship swayed as gunners activated missile launchers and unleashed their clouds of missiles. The Tigress started to spin slowly and Nelson realized that it was doing so to bring all its weapons into play. We're too close to the Lioness for a full sphere of fire.
As a MechWarrior, Nelson felt a mixture of joy and dread concerning fighters. He knew they could easily devastate ground-bound forces and even cripple Drop-Ships. Though such an action would mean his death, the idea made him happy because it would also bring the Red Corsair's predations to an end. That fed into the optimistic feelings in his heart, and spawned a desperate plan.
I don't have to die. Nelson knew it was true with the conviction of a madman or a prophet, and he knew two other things without a doubt. The first was that he would survive whatever happened at Zanderij.
The second was that he would finally be free of the Red Corsair!
* * *
"Watch it, Raven Deuce, open up," Caitlin snarled into her radio as Mulligan's Stingray strayed in close to her fighter. Seeing his fighter jerk ahead as he hit the overthrusters, she dropped back to cover him in case the bandits launched fighters of their own. Spinning asteroids whirled strobelike through sun and shadow, reducing the channel to a surreal tunnel with a firestorm at the far end.
"I'm in!" Mulligan's words echoed through her helmet as he flipped his Stingray up on its canopy in a tight roll, and made a run on the Lioness. His wing-mounted medium and large lasers flashed out with competing red and green shafts of energy, raking like claws through the armor of the egg-shaped DropShip, then the PPC in the Stingray's nose jolted the larger ship with an azure bolt of artificial lightning.
Caitlin had less than a second to appreciate Mulligan's handiwork before her own attack run started. She dropped her golden crosshairs onto the ship and, immediately got the gold dot in the center, confirming a target lock. She punched her thumb down on the joystick's firing stud, and heat spiked colorfully on her auxiliary monitor. The PPC sent a jagged blue line of lightning into the Lioness.
Hitting the trigger under her index finger, Caitlin next fired both large lasers, pushing her ship's heat higher. The fighter's green beams bracketed the PPC blast and melted away yet more armor on the DropShip's hull.
"Nice shooting, Cait!" Mulligan corkscrewed his fighter down through the death alley between the two DropShips, and she followed in his wake. "Another run?"
"Roger, Raven Two." She remembered Phelan's instructions to the pilots. "Whatever it takes."
* * *
Nelson ran as hard as he could through the corridor, the klaxons harrying him like hunting horns after a fox. I will escape! He threaded his way through the ship, running counter to the ship's rotation. Glancing at letters stenciled on the wall, he knew he was only two segments away from his goal.
Suddenly a huge explosion rocked the Tigress, smashing him against the interior bulkhead. He saw stars when he hit his forehead, then rebounded and sprawled on the deck? Darkness wanted to close around him, but he forced it away. Pushing himself to a sitting position, Nelson felt blood dripping down from the gash on his head, but his adrenaline and sense of urgency blocked any pain.
The Tigress tipped on its axis, pitching the deck up. Nelson, grabbed a structural girder and held on, then pulled himself forward. Sinking to his hands and knees, he scrambled uphill, then somersaulted forward as the ship violently righted itself. A wave of dizziness passed over him, then he regained his feet and started running forward again.
Around the curve of the ship he saw the access hatch to the escape pod. He ran to it and slammed his right palm down on the panel switch to open it. The hatch irised open, revealing the dark interior of the womblike pod.
As he started to step into it, a bandit grabbed the upper part of his left arm and pulled him away. "Where do you think you're going?"
Nelson slumped his shoulders in defeat, then balled his maimed fist. He swung it down in a short arc that terminated in the bandit's groin. As the man squealed and bent over, Nelson brought his right knee up. The man's nose shattered in a spray of blood, then he dropped to the deck.
Nelson pulled the pistol from the bandit's holster and pumped two bullets into him. Clutching the gun and scanning the corridor in both directions, he backed into the pod. He used the gun barrel to punch the button that closed the hatch, then he felt his ears pop as the pod pressurized. He reached out with his half-hand and hit the launch sequencer.
"Countdown commencing. Ten, nine, eight . . . ," droned a computer voice.
Nelson heard a thumping on the pod hatch, followed by the sight of a face pressed against the glass. He pointed the gun at it. "Override. Launch immediately."
"Affirmative."
Heavily padded panels slid down over the hatch and the controls. Three small explosions rippled through the pod, then he sank deeply into the padding as one final blast hurled the pod out and away from the Tigress. The rocket motor's roar filled the pod, rattling Nelson's teeth and making his ears ring, but he couldn't have been happier.
I'm free. I can go home again. The pod's viewport pads retracted, giving him a central view of the space battle raging around the DropShips. I can go home again, but only if I survive the attempt to kill the Red Corsair and all her people.
* * *
Caitlin had a bad feeling as Mulligan turned around to make the second run. He pushed his speed for going back, which did not make much sense because the DropShips were coming toward them. She knew Mulligan was addicted to velocity and he obviously thought that the DropShips were not a danger. "Careful, Raven Deuce."
"Roger, Raven Leader. I'm going in."
Despite the excitement in his voice, Caitlin knew Mulligan was being careful and she had come to respect his abilities ever since they'd been paired in the squadron. He brought his ship over and around in a barrel roll that lined him up perfectly on the Tigress and then onto her sister ship.
She smiled and pushed her fighter after him as Mulligan burned in close and skimmed the surface of the Tigress. Their laser and PPC shots burned parallel paths through the ship's armor, and she saw one autocannon turret flame out as their PPC beams met at its location. "Deuce, your nine!"
The escape pod looked like a comet as it streaked up and away from the Tigress. Mulligan rolled down and away from it, but sailed directly into the spreading debris cloud from the autocannon turret they'd taken out. Caitlin saw something hit his Stingray, then he spun away and flashed on toward the Lioness.
For an instant or two as she chased him, Caitlin thought Mulligan was in command and just finishing up his attack run. As she came around onto his aft, however, she saw damage, to his left wing and a jammed vector-thruster. "Clear, Mulligan. You've lost maneuvering on port."
Getting no response, she pushed herself forward just enough to see that his cockpit was gone, then she pulled up and away from the Lioness. She popped up on her left wing, then came down and through in a loop that shifted her perpendicular to her previous course. She let the change stand for three seconds, then rolled up on her
right wing and reversed the maneuver to take her in a circular course outside the Lioness' lethal perimeter.
Mulligan's fighter arrowed into the Lioness near the ion engines, and went from being a small pellet of steel and ceramics to a boiling ball of plasma. At first the bright blossom of fire seemed far too small to have affected the ship, and even the amount of debris that geysered out into space through the hole it left behind hardly seemed fatal. Caitlin shuddered, thinking her friend's death should have counted for more.
Then one of the DropShip's four ion engines winked out, making the Lioness begin to spin faster and start to wobble in its course. The rotation picked up speed, which smoothed out the course irregularities, but when the directional rockets fired to bring that back under control, the ovoid craft twisted in its axis and the two ends began to circle out of sync with each other.
Caitlin knew the Lioness was in trouble as it fired maneuvering rockets in sequence to somersault the ship around to reorient the boosters for a retreat. The wobble transformed that maneuver into a spinning, skidding tumble through space that was utterly out of control. Jets pulsed out energy to try to regain control, but merely lit the ship up like a meteor hitting atmosphere.
The Lioness caromed off an asteroid twice its size into the thick of the asteroid field. Miraculously it sailed between two whirling giants, and for a moment Caitlin wanted the ship to survive. Then the Lioness impaled itself on a smaller asteroid that punched a hole right through it. The ship's hull surrounded the asteroid like a corona for a moment, then split apart into glittering fragments that shattered and spilled through space like droplets of quicksilver.
* * *
Natural Selection Page 23
