by Sharon Lee
“Directed the defense that turned an enemy invasion into a rout,” Val Con’s quiet voice picked up; “without loss to home guard. Learned High and Low Liaden, mastered the salient points of The Liaden Code of Proper Conduct, began the study of the opening equations and board-drills, sufficient to attain the level of provisional pilot, third class.”
There was a small silence, during which Miri tried to decide whether to break Val Con’s arm or only his jaw, then Jason cleared his throat.
“That right?” He shook his massive head. “Busy, my small—and here I was afraid you’d fall into trouble, what with having idle time on your hands.” He looked at Val Con.
“You’re a pilot, are you?”
“Master level, yes.”
“And you been teaching Redhead piloting.” He stared off into the far corner of the ceiling for a moment, then looked back at Val Con. “Your opinion, as a Master level pilot, is that Redhead is capable of attaining what class?”
There was a small pause. “Second class, easily,” Val Con said. “If she chooses to apply herself, first class is certainly within her reach. Master—” He moved his shoulders. “It is too soon to know.”
“Well,” said Jase and finished off his drink. His eyes came back to Miri with something like wonder. “Your partner telling it square, darlin’?”
“Yeah,” she said, throwing a glower at Val Con, who lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, he’s got it right.”
“Well,” Jase said again. “Might have to make that a captain’s badge.” He held up a hand. “Suzuki has to OK it, too—you know the drill. Learning how to pilot, tacking on both brands of Liaden . . .” He sat up straight, carefully avoiding the chest lid.
“I know Tough Guy’s your partner. If you want to talk further on it, I can commit the ’falks to a pilot’s slot at a rank comparable to his grade in—?”
Miri grinned wickedly. “He’s a scout,” she said, feeling Val Con shift sharply beside her. “Scout Commander, First-In.”
“Ooof!” said Jason—and laughed. “You don’t brag on yourself, do you, my son?”
“One does,” Val Con told him, “what one does.”
“Right you are.” He laughed again. “Scout Commander . . . but you look to be at liberty, if I might say so. If you want work as a pilot, or if there’s something else, the unit could only profit.”
“I—” Val Con hesitated, alive to the sudden note of longing in the sense of Miri within him. He glanced down into her eyes. “There are discussions to be made,” he said, and she nodded, wistfully.
“It sounds good,” she told Jase truthfully. “And I want it—but him and me still got some stuff to clear up. You’re going back to Headquarters, right?”
“For a time—there’s a new contract on the burner, though, so it looks to be a jump-in/jump-out. Suzuki’s gone to start the talk—which I assume you knew, since you didn’t ask for her.”
“Heard it on the chatter when we were coming in.” Miri nodded. “I’ll leave a message, after this other stuff gets settled.” Val Con stirred slightly. “Or, at least, after we got a better idea of what’s happening.” She sighed and looked up at him. He lifted a light hand to her cheek.
“Know you can’t hold an offer like that forever—” she said to Jase’s suddenly speculative eyes.
“Never mind it, my small. If you decide you want us, believe that we want you! Anytime, anywhere, any terms. Why, I’ll even give you my slot—”
Miri laughed and came to her feet. “Gods, look at the time!” she said, flicking a slender hand toward the window and the reaching orange rays of sundown. “We’re gonna be late for dinner, boss.”
“Alas,” Val Con said, standing. He bowed slightly to the towering Aus. “Honor attended the asking,” he said stiffly. “My thanks to you and your troop.”
“That’s all right, son. I know quality when I see quality—not quite as thick as that!” Jase laughed and loomed to his feet. “Walk you to the access road. Pretty planet. Pretty sunsets.”
***
The three of them stopped at the place where East Gate had been earlier that afternoon, and Jase bent nearly double to hug Miri and plant a kiss firmly on her mouth.
“Take care of yourself, my small.”
“You too, Jase. Best to Suzuki. Tell her. . .”
The message was swallowed in the sudden appalling uproar—a banshee wail from the lone communication pole still upright beside the comm shack—and startled beeps from a half-a-hundred personal communits.
“Air attack—popped up over the mountains—reentry speed—” Miri could barely hear the words pouring from Jason’s communit against the siren’s wail and the new sound, a sound like a thousand thunderstorms, all letting loose at once.
“Bastards tricked us! Pull everyone . . .” Jason cut off in the middle of issuing orders to stare.
In the sky: A formation of deadly shapes, black against sunset orange. As they watched, one peeled off—another—a third, toward the distant city and the closer town.
“Oh, shit,” breathed Jason. “Redhead—”
Redhead was already gone, moving flat out down the synthphalt toward Erob’s house, her partner a fleet dark shadow at her side.
Warning to the civilians in hand, Jason whirled, bellowing to his troops.
“Yxtrang coming in! Blood war!”
14th CONQUEST CORPS:
Lytaxin
Alone and weaponless, he held the planet.
It was an accident and one that would cost someone a stripe or two, though not himself, who had neither stripe nor rank to lose. The moment was laden with irony, had one taste for it—that Nelirikk No-Troop should be first Yxtrang upon this world, before even the General.
Having devoted most of ten Cycles to acquiring a taste for irony, Nelirikk embraced the moment and looked about him.
The world was beautiful and lush—exactly the sort of place Liadens usually chose to colonize. The wind—warm, yet edged now with evening-chill—brushed against his clean-shaven face, treating him to natural odors for the first time in—ah? those same ten Cycles! The noises behind him were those of war, but not yet the smells.
“Try now! Try again!” came the order from the ship.
Nelirikk rotated, put his foot back onto the landing chute, and with a swing of the solid metal mallet struck the recalcitrant holding lug. The mallet’s head bounced uselessly on the first strike, and the second—but the third strike was true, and the offending lug shot free and rolled away into the crushed field grass.
Automatics took over then, and Nelirikk bounded away in time to avoid being run over by the command cars coming hastily to life in the chute.
He ran farther, perhaps, than was required—and then a few steps more.
Behind him: sounds of motors, of shouting, of feet, hitting the metal plank in troop rhythm. Before him: free growing plants, high-flying birds, and flowers. Nelirikk filled his lungs with fragrant air; sighed it out grudgingly.
A small gray animal poked its head out of the high grass just beyond Nelirikk’s grasp, ears perked, eyes bright. It jerked abruptly upright; showing front paws very hand-like, and in a nose-twitch was gone. Two soldiers hit the grass from the landing tube, took aim instantly—and held fire pending orders. Nelirikk breathed a second sigh—and was instantly aware of this new irony, that a no-troop attached to an invasion force pledged to slay thousands of sentients should feel relief at the escape of a squirrel.
Someone shouted then and Nelirikk jumped aside, saluting the General’s car, as even a no-troop must, then melted away, alone of the crowd without duty or orders, to watch as the troops and vehicles of the 14th Conquest Corps turned the pretty land into Field Headquarters.
***
The General’s word brought him to the war room, a grim-faced Captain Kagan as his guard. Nelirikk’s greedy eyes sought this screen, that, taking information in rapidly and indiscriminately.
So—there was no capital ship arrayed against them in space, though there w
as strong resistance on the coasts of this continent and heavier fighting on the other continent, where they had inadvertently landed in the midst of mercenaries preparing to leave. Locally—
“This is the man, General.”
The General looked at Nelirikk, perhaps recognized him. Nelirikk stood at silent attention, face expressionless, hungry eyes hooded.
There were three men under guard behind the General. Two were corporals Nelirikk had dealt with recently; the other was an officer he didn’t recognize.
“No-Troop.” The General demanded his attention. “Describe to me the situation you encountered at landfall.”
“Sir.” He brought his fist up in salute. “I was strapped in at the advance station. The ship touched down and the landing chute began its extension, however the lead vehicle—your command car—did not move. The chute completed its extension, but the column remained still.
“Under orders, I investigated the situation and discovered that the explosive lugs had failed to fire and that the metal retaining lugs prevented your car from moving. I reported and was ordered to remove the impediment. I pointed out that disarming the explosive devices would prevent potential injury to the craft and your car. They were disarmed, I knocked out the metal lugs with a mallet, and the invasion proceeded.”
The General stabbed a finger at the first corporal.
“You—what was your role?”
“Sir. I set and checked the retaining lugs in orbit. All was well. Sir.”
“And you?”
The second corporal was visibly sweating, her youth perhaps preventing soldierly performance.
“Sir. I—my duty was to set the power cords to the explosive lugs, as ordered by Over-Technician Akrant. They checked out correctly on Test Circuit B.” She choked. “Sir.”
“Akrant, your report?”
The Over-Technician answered easily enough—too easily, Nelirikk thought.
“All tested according to spec, General, and was rechecked. It wasn’t until we set down that I discovered that Corporal Dikl had utilized reserve circuits which required pilot intervention to operate in atmosphere.”
Corporal Dikl broke into a fresh sweat, her eyes showing a bit of white around the edges.
Nelirikk, hearing as the General no doubt heard, could have advised her not to worry, but a no-troop speaks when a no-troop is spoken to, and at no other time. Nelirikk turned his attention to the proliferation of information about him.
The air power charts showed the largest aircraft concentrations on the coast. The nearest to Field Headquarters was a small base, doubtless related to the—yes; a town and a large holding were equidistant from the field. Which meant it most likely held civilian craft—easy pickings. Another screen showed the numbers of the dropjets sent to secure it, and the transport bringing in a hundred of the deadly Spraghentz—the infantry—support aircraft—that would occupy it.
Other screens—uplinks and downlinks—were coming on line now: locations of ships in orbit, radar and other scans, visual searches, live transmissions from the front.
“No, sir,” said Corporal Dikl, with unsoldierly fervor, “I was working from training manuals. I’d never done the procedure before.”
Nelirikk squinted his eyes slightly, focusing on a screen across the room showing the view from the combat camera of an interceptor. He found the cue number, checked the screens.
Bomb and strafing run. That same small airfield, on automatic target. The plane lifted and—Nelirikk’s heart climbed into his throat. He blinked, checked the vision screen against the radar scans, but it had moved to the next scan—looked back at the radar screen.
It wasn’t there.
He sighed. His once-exemplary eyesight was failing and had played him a shabby trick. As if such a ship would be found among a small field of backward civilian craft.
“On Akrant’s orders?” the General demanded of the corporal. Nelirikk sniffed. Now, there was a dead career. Called without rank twice by the General during Inquiry? Might as well begin tearing off the stripes and swallowing the badges.
Again the camera-screen showed the tiny airfield, this time from the vantage of a low-level run. And there, among the tall trees and with a slight hill behind it, was a thing of awful beauty.
The beauty lay in the deadly, competent lines.
The awfulness—was it that such a ship should die—if die it must—fighting, rather than destroyed ignominiously upon the ground? Or was it that he was reminded all at once of his own ship—the Command’s ship. Always the Command’s ship, for a troop owns nothing but his rank and his booty.
Duty turned him toward the Captain.
Thought stopped him.
He was Nelirikk No-Troop, permitted to speak when spoken to. He had been given leave by his assigned commander to speak to the Inquiry. Speaking without permission would cost—
The missiles were launched: they struck and crumbled a building. The view in the screen slipped as the plane turned and set up for the next run. The radar cross-scans showed no sign, the computer listeners heard no slightest whisper, the metallics—
And what would it cost him? He’d had ten Cycles of shame.
Decisively, he sought the Captain’s eyes; signed for permission to speak.
The Captain’s face clouded. He deliberately looked away. Nelirikk glanced back at the screen. Someone—an air controller—had finally sighted the beautiful ship. It sat in a visual freeze-frame as the computer made analysis, the null-image of the comparative radar etched over it.
The view from the field showed an aircraft rising in opposition. An antique by its look and in the air only by the grace of the Gods of Irony. Impossibly, it wavered into the horizontal—fired, by Jela! on the rushing dropjet—and was lost to view.
And there, in the corner screen, the spire of that—other-ship!
The screen froze again, as if someone lacking proper information was trying to figure out—
Nelirikk broke position, took three hasty strides toward the Controller.
“Hit that ship! Do it now!” he demanded.
There was instant silence in the room. The General turned to stare. Captain Kagan’s weapon was in hand.
The screen showed the ship again, and the silly, greathearted antique, as well, rushing headlong against the cream of Yxtrang fighters. The camera showed it circling slightly as if to protect that ship—and the closing fighters lost one of their number as the antique apparently unleashed all of its weapons at once before it was shredded into smoke. But its mission had been accomplished: the attack was diverted away from the beautiful ship.
“Hit that ship now!”
“No-Troop. Explain yourself!” Kagan’s voice was grim.
On the screen, the first pair of Yxtrang fighters leveled out before the camera plane, began a sweeping turn—
Glare! Glare!
TRANSMISSION LOST
Freeze-screen came back up, picture telescoping in on the deadly ship sitting there beneath the trees, the shielding hill behind it.
Nelirikk looked at the gun, looked back at the screen.
“Scout ship,” he said, calmly. “That’s a Liaden Scout ship, Captain. If it’s not destroyed immediately it could take out a battleship!”
“Control! ID that ship!” The General at least had ears.
“Sir. No ID on record. We’ve never captured or seen one—”
“I’ve seen one,” Nelirikk spoke before the General, against best health. “Take it now, before it’s fully activated!”
“Control!” ordered the General. “Get another flight in there. Take it out.”
“You’ll need something bigger. Call the transports back before they get in range—” Nelirikk heard his traitor voice correcting, apparently determined to have him shot. “It’s space-based—coil-fields, power magnetics—”
“Silence!”
Nelirikk fell silent; heard the mistaken order relayed.
“No-Troop will remain silent!” snarled the General. “You, C
ontroller, will keep me informed.”
Nelirikk watched the camera screen, heard as if from another galaxy the demotions behind him: the corporals busted a level each, retaining rank but losing pay and time in grade. The over-tech was now a life private in grocery supply, proper punishment for a stupid error. To trust to training-manual performance for a thing of such importance!
The camera screen came up, showing four planes ahead of the camera plane. Munitions tumbled away, heading for the pretty ship—
Glare! Glare! GLARE! And a wildly swinging picture, smoke on the fringes—TRANSMISSION LOST
***
“General, Flight 15 is not transmitting and does not show on scans.” The controller’s voice was level, soldierly, merely imparting the facts.
The General’s voice bordered on frenzied. “I want the Barakhan. Now. No one will mention No-Troop’s insolence or this occurrence outside of this room.”
For several moments there was nothing to see, and then a new camera—from quite a distance—hazarded a looksee and then was gone: the flash of an energy weapon was unmistakable.
“Sir, Barakhan is in position and has acquired the target.”
The camera screen came up once more and Nelirikk watched as the horrific fires of proud Barakhan, dimmed only slightly by atmosphere, punched through to the scout ship, leaving bright, dancing shadows behind his eyelids. He saw, incredibly, the small ship fire back, the first wave of the battleship’s energy deflected up and away by some tremendous effort of shielding.
Now the small ship could be seen from a more distant camera, firing in several directions as the General raised his voice.
“Bring all available batteries to bear, transports . . .”
And that quickly it was both too late and all over, for the Liaden ship had launched missiles and beam hard on target in the moments before it exploded, leaving a smoking crater in its stead.
