by Richard Fox
“If you feel good about yourself and the world, good things will just happen. Happy trees. Just go crazy. But not too crazy. Don’t try too hard. Just have fun.” The video continued as the ship stabilized.
“Opal watch,” the doughboy said as he returned to his bench.
“Don’t forget to turn him back on,” Hoffman said, relaxing as Opal calmed down.
“Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups. He just…” Garrison started.
“Save it until we know the crisis is over,” Hoffman said. “And only one joke about the legend at a time. We don’t know what two Chuck Norris jokes would do to Opie.” He went back to Masha. “Let’s finish our conversation.”
“What do you want to talk about, Lieutenant?” Masha asked.
“Why don’t we talk about the Ibarran terror cells in Koensuu City?”
“Terror is such an ugly word. You wound me, Thomas Hoffman. I am an explorer. More like one of your Pathfinders than—”
“Than what? A spy?”
“I thought we would be friends.” She smiled at him with beautifully intense eyes and complete confidence in her abilities. “We know what you did for the Dotari. The Ibarran Nation salutes you. They have ever been faithful allies.”
“Not relevant to this mission,” Hoffman said.
“Such tension in your voice. Do you have something against the Dotari?”
“They fought well during the Ember War.”
“Oh, come now, Lieutenant. We are not talking about ancient history. You saved them from the phage. You personally destroyed the last Xaros probe in the galaxy—we can all hope and assume. My hero.”
Hoffman controlled his expression. Details regarding the Dotari salvation were classified at the highest level.
She smiled at him despite the uncomfortable wrist ties.
“Tell them nothing!” her bodyguard growled.
“How can I say no to this face?” Masha said, winking at Hoffman.
“That is not his face,” Medvedev said.
Hoffman felt a chill pass through his chest. Years ago, when he led a doughboy platoon, he’d bore the face of Jared Hale, brother to the Ember War hero, a bio hack that made his doughboys latch on to him as their leader. After the war, and after all his bio-construct soldiers—except for Opal—had died off, he’d returned to the face he was born with.
Masha and her bodyguard were toying with him, playing mental tricks by dropping hints that they knew far more of Hoffman’s background and mission than he did of them.
“Permission to deploy the nonessential prisoner to the surface via anti-grav pallet,” Garrison said.
“We don’t have an anti-grav pallet,” King said.
Garrison shrugged. “Details.”
Hoffman yanked his thumb across his neck, silencing Garrison, then faced Medvedev. “You’re not among your people, Medvedev. You’re my prisoner. If you tell me where the rest of the real traitors are, I will mention your cooperation in my report.”
Medvedev curled back his upper lip and muttered something in his native language.
“Lieutenant,” Masha said. “We should start over—focus on what we have in common.”
“In common? What do we have in common?” Hoffman said.
“Humanity…a number of mutual enemies.”
“We can trade notes later.” Hoffman put the muzzle back on Masha’s mouth and she looked at him with big puppy-dog eyes.
Hoffman stepped away from the prisoner and went to the cockpit, where snow whipped past the glass.
The pilot, a well-built man with an infectious smile, tapped his headset. “My comms are working.”
Hoffman motioned for Lieutenant Sakkatos to remove the noise-cancelling ear protection. “I don’t want any chance of this going across the networks. You get any requests about your cargo?”
“Nope,” he said. “We’re flagged to you and the Falstaff. Secret-squirrel time. Ping as normal system traffic to all the IFF.”
“There are still Ibarran spy cells in Koensuu City. If they realize we’ve got their agents onboard…” Hoffman said.
“Scope is clean.” The copilot rapped a finger against a radar screen. “Ain’t nothing but ice, rocks, and those big moose things from the city to Pohja Base.”
“Pohja’s nothing but navy,” Sakkatos said. “Think those two have friends there?”
“Keep things quiet just in case,” Hoffman said. “HQ says the installation was scrubbed and cleared. I don’t exactly know how they did that, but the sooner we get them off world, the better off we’ll all be.”
He looked at the communications screen on Sakkatos’s control station. The temptation to send a message back to the hospital and get an update on Max and Duke was almost overwhelming. But the mission demanded radio silence. No matter what he felt.
****
Hoffman lingered in the door to the cockpit, considering what Masha seemed to know about top-secret Terran missions—which was too much. Was she dropping hints to scare him off from asking questions? Asking specific questions belied a Terran Union knowledge gap that the Ibarra Nation could exploit, but if Masha and Medvedev never saw their renegade faction again, then it didn’t matter what kind of questions he asked them.
Hoffman scowled. Cloak-and-dagger double-think was a far cry from his days leading a platoon of doughboys.
The pilots and copilots tensed up. Sakkatos scanned his view screens with new intensity and his copilot, Weber, bent over the comms panel.
“What’s happening?” Hoffman asked.
Sakkatos pointed at a headset. Hoffman put one of the plastic nobs against an ear and listened to planetary defense forces chatter across several radio frequencies about ships entering the atmosphere. Hoffman’s stomach suddenly felt hollow. In the distance, flashes of light looked a lot like gauss cannons firing.
“The Ibarrans attacking?” Hoffman asked.
“Not them,” Sakkatos said as he cycled power to the engines. “Definitely not their ships. Last transmission from the Falstaff showed a pretty significant hostile force en route to the planet.”
“Last transmission?” Hoffman asked.
“She got off a data packet before the enemy destroyed the ship,” Weber said, hands flying across the comms keyboard. “Picket ships haven’t been able to slow them down.”
“Yeah, that’s about right,” Sakkatos said in a low voice. “It’s going to get hot, Hoffman. I assume your men are trained on the turrets?”
“We are,” Hoffman said, trying to remember if Garrison or King had outscored him on the last simulation. “Can we still make Pohja Base?”
“Yeah, sure. No problem,” Sakkatos said. “Well, maybe. This is a Mule, not a fighter. If you jarheads could avoid provoking a fight or doing anything to get us noticed, your flight crew would appreciate it.”
Point defense systems fired on the horizon as waves of assault craft filled the atmosphere like a meteor storm. Blips appeared by twos and threes on Weber’s radar screen.
“Talk to me, Weber,” Sakkatos said.
“We have a problem. A wing of bogies is closing on us. Fast. Too bad we had to leave our crew chief back on the Falstaff. Can’t have uncleared personnel around the prisoners.” He gave Hoffman a dirty look. It was the Marine lieutenant’s order that left the Mule shorthanded. “You think Jim made it to an escape pod?”
Lieutenant Sakkatos banked the Mule hard, leaning his weight into the control stick as he piloted the armored transport ship around the side of a mountain. “It’s no good. Those are combat fighters bearing down on us. You better tell your Strike Marines to lock and load.”
“Garrison, King. Turrets,” Hoffman shouted.
“Way ahead of you, sir!” Garrison shouted from the other side of the Mule.
“How long until we can get inside the base’s air defenses?” Hoffman asked Sakkatos.
“Strap in!” Sakkatos lowered the craft into a valley. “Friend-or-foe radar’s got the bogies as…Kesaht. They’re mean as hell but not ace
pilots, if you ask me. They rely on numbers and swarm tactics.”
Sakkatos whipped the mule up and to the right, then dove like a brick when the first fighter attacked. Two energy bolts flashed past the cockpit, shaking the ship.
“Pohja’s gone off-line,” Weber said. “I’m not getting anything on the comms anymore.”
Hoffman gripped the doorframe as the Mule banked hard. He made it back to the cargo bay and saw Opal helping Garrison up into the hatch for the ventral turret pod.
As soon as Gunney King saw Hoffman was there to guard the prisoners, he slammed down the hatch for the dorsal turret and locked himself inside.
“Let me help,” said Medvedev, who’d just woken and was tugging against the restraints holding him to the wall bench. “I can’t do anything from here.”
Hoffman hesitated for a second before disregarding his prisoner’s offer to help. His eyes fixed on Masha next to her legionnaire bodyguard.
“I can fly anything in your fleet,” Masha said, lounging against the wall as though her restraints meant nothing.
“Opal, either of them try to get loose, you snap their necks.” Hoffman ducked back into the cockpit. “Lieutenant Sakkatos, I’ll do fire control and leave you and your copilot to your work,” he said.
“Roger that,” Sakkatos said, banking the Mule around the side of a cliff. “We’ll be flying low.”
“I heard the Kesaht eat their prisoners,” the copilot said, “which doesn’t work for me at all.”
Sakkatos shrugged, then dropped into a canyon and accelerated. The red and gray canyon walls were a kilometer apart but felt closer at the speed the Mule was moving. Winter storms covered the sky and filled side canyons with ice and snow.
Hoffman got into the crew chief’s seat, strapped himself in, then grabbed the side of the tactical display with both hands. In his Strike Marine armor, the cockpit felt painfully small.
The screen showed camera views from the forward, aft, dorsal, and ventral sections of the ship. Radar and infrared images were overlaid across directional hash marks that moved with the rapidly changing scene. Hoffman adjusted the contrast with a few quick motions of his bare hands. Gauntlets reduced the finger acuity needed to use the workstation optimally. Strike Marine gear was not a tool for subtlety.
“King, you have two crescent fighters popping in and out of cloud cover,” Hoffman said.
“I see them. Can you confirm range?”
Hoffman tapped a series of commands on the computer without looking at his fingers. Distance and atmospheric information zipped over to King’s turret.
“Garrison, you’ve got nothing. I repeat, no targets for the ventral turret,” Hoffman said.
“Why doesn’t that make me feel better?” Garrison asked. “Anyone know why these Kesaht are so pissed off?”
“Target’s about to enter range,” King said. “Permission to engage?”
“Sakkatos?” Hoffman asked.
“They definitely see us,” the pilot said. “No point trying to hide.”
“Cleared to fire,” Hoffman said.
King’s gauss turret thumped over and over and Hoffman felt vibrations through the hull.
“No hit. I repeat, no hit. Bogies are unaffected,” Hoffman said without emotion.
“Roger,” King said.
Along one side of Hoffman’s tactical screen, he saw the camera view from Gunney King sweeping the clouds for his adversaries. From King’s magnified point of view, rock spires and canyon walls alternated with swirling cloud cover as the Mule lumbered onward at best speed.
“Garrison, I think it’s your turn,” Hoffman said. “You’ve got five incoming crescent fighters. Brace yourself for the main event.”
Garrison opened fire with his turret gun, cycling gauss rounds at the enemy as fast as his weapon could spit them out. Rounds ripped past the fighters. Heartbeats later, Garrison scored a direct hit. One crescent fighter disappeared in a ball of flames as its comrades continued onward. The Kesaht ships closed the distance, rushing into the canyon with their afterburners glowing behind them.
Sakkatos climbed out of the canyon, crossed over another mesa, and dropped into another maze of cliffs and rock spires. “How are we on fuel?”
“More than enough,” his copilot answered.
A bolt of energy punched through the cockpit, leaving a hot scar across Hoffman’s vision. The Mule wobbled up and down as wind howled through the cockpit and sparks erupted from the copilot’s station. Weber reached for fire-suppression controls, but his left arm ended in a blackened stump and bounced off the controls, leaving an ugly smear of blackened blood.
“Hoffman! What’s going on? I’ve got a swarm of crescent fighters,” King shouted over the IR comms.
“Same here.” Garrison’s natural boisterousness vanished as Sakkatos juked the Mule left, right, and down to avoid the new swarm of enemy fighters.
“Weber needs a tourniquet!” Sakkatos shouted, glancing at his copilot again and again.
“Hold fire, King.” Hoffman struggled out of his seat. “I say again, hold fire. You have three dropping down on you, but it’s a screen. Sakkatos, if you see them, move to give King a shot.”
“Evasive climb,” the pilot said, and Hoffman braced against the seat, “…in 3, 2, 1.”
Hoffman flexed his legs and abdominal muscles to resist the sudden g-forces, but Weber made no effort to brace for the maneuver. His helmet flopped back and sideways against his seat as his arms dangled in the air, under no control from the man.
Hoffman lurched out of the seat as the climb ebbed and got to the copilot. An ugly black hole smoked on the man’s thigh and Hoffman’s boots slipped in the blood pooling against the deck.
Sakkatos flipped the Mule on its side as a Kesaht crescent-shaped fighter zipped past the Mule’s cockpit. Hoffman held on for dear life and mag-locked his boots to the deck.
Gauss cannon shots zipped over the nose and there was a flash as an enemy fighter exploded in the clouds.
“Get some!” Garrison yelled.
“Weber?” Sakkatos shouted as he maneuvered into a new vector.
Hoffman lifted the copilot’s head and looked into his half-open eyes. Blinking red alerts flashed on the copilot’s visor.
“He’s KIA. Sorry.” He lowered Weber’s chin to his chest and looked over the copilot’s station. “King, your friends from round one are making another pass. Weapons free. Garrison, you don’t have a shot but get ready to engage if they make a turn after their attack run.”
Energy bolts ripped past the cockpit and Sakkatos cursed. He banked the Mule hard and Hoffman’s shoulder bounced off the bulkhead, cracking display screens. There was an ugly shriek of tearing metal and the Mule began rolling over and over, the centrifugal force pinning Hoffman to the back of the cockpit.
“That was our port wing!” Sakkatos shouted as he struggled against the controls and Hoffman’s ears filled with shouts and warnings from the two gunners.
The Mule leveled out and Hoffman fought back to the crew chief’s station.
“Hoffman,” the pilot said, breathing hard, “can you give me a damage report, besides the obvious holes. This old girl is getting real sluggish, real fast.”
Hoffman scanned tactical menus. The Mule was losing altitude quickly. A wire diagram of the aircraft pulsed on a blood-flecked screen.
“Port wing is half-gone,” Hoffman said. “Capacitor banks one through five are off-line. And…trim control is failing. What’s trim control?”
“We’re going to land a bit short of Pohja Base,” Sakkatos said. “Well short.”
“The anti-grav clusters are functioning at less than seventy-five percent and the ailerons are blinking red. I have a feeling that’s bad too.”
Sakkatos laughed grimly. “Yep, we are definitely going down. I have to get us across these mountains or we’ll be in a real world of hurt.” He gunned his remaining engines, climbed, and clipped a jagged protrusion of rock.
Sakkatos scraped the bottom of t
he Mule against another ledge, nearly removing the ventral turret. “Valley we’re in now is a straight shot to Pohja Base. Easy hike for a bunch of Strike Marine studs like you guys.”
“With injured and a prisoner,” Hoffman said. “Through mountains in a storm.”
“Weber’s not injured; he’s dead,” Sakkatos said, fighting the controls as the entire Mule vibrated. “I bet he’d love the chance to freeze his ass off down there.”
Hoffman reached for the pilot. “Shit…your arm.”
Sakkatos looked at his right bicep where a piece of metal had lodged. “Well, that explains why this control stick feels so heavy. Huh. What crap luck.”
“Can you land?” Hoffman asked. “One of my prisoners is a pilot.”
“We’re not going to land. We’re going to crash. I’m gonna fly this bucket all the way to the crash site.”
“Masha!” Hoffman shouted and ran back to the cargo compartment.
She smiled back at him from the cargo bay, eyes wide and innocent.
“No time!” Sakkatos shouted. “Everyone strap in and hold on. Close up the turrets or you’ll eat them when we hit.” He fought for altitude as pine-tree analogs reached up to swat the clumsy Mule from the sky. Garrison cursed as the bubble around his turret struck treetops.
“I need to get out of this!” he shouted.
Hoffman grabbed a yellow and black handle on Garrison’s turret hatch and yanked it up. The hatch snapped open and Garrison scrambled out.
“Seats in their upright and locked position.” Garrison jumped onto a bench and drew a strap across his chest.
Hoffman looked up and stepped aside as King dropped out of the upper turret.
“Protect the prisoners!” Hoffman strapped himself in next to Masha, locked an arm across her chest, and gripped a metal rod on the bulkhead, bracing her against the ship.
The Mule hit a tree and lurched to one side. The ship rumbled as more trees broke against the hull and Sakkatos yelled from the cockpit.
The Mule slammed into the ground and the dorsal turret broke through the deck. There was a crash and the Mule tipped up. Hoffman’s world went upside down and the straps across his chest failed. He had a brief sensation of falling before he hit the roof face-first.
