Rogue Command (The Kalahari Series)

by A J Marshall

  “Er . . . two hundred miles!”

  EMILY’s aim was being refined with each laser-burst, and despite a growing frustration with the pathetic craft she would have her day soon. She maintained fifty-eight per cent elliopheric precisely and headed a little north of west.

  “You are approaching latitude north zero four zero, longitude east zero four five,” said Canaveral’s controller over the new coded channel.

  Richard knew that Canaveral and the Federation were watching his struggle by satellite link and he also knew that the position he had just heard over the radio was the boundary between Santa Maria Oceanic Control and New York Oceanic Control. Enigma’s course was taking her directly towards the release point. He had only seconds remaining. He watched his Mach meter transition from Mach 15 in a near vertical climb to 43 lutens as he entered a suborbital regime and then, as he passed fifty-two per cent elliopheric, he pushed the nose down and dived towards the star line again.

  “Eighty miles!” Yannick screamed.

  “Say the time!” Richard shouted in response.

  And then, just as EMILY’s laser initiator had acquired the S2’s trajectory, Richard instinctively rolled into a dummy turn; first left and then almost instantaneously a snap-roll to the right. A blinding volley of energy flashed across the sky. The beams were so close to the Ares that they illuminated her cockpit as if the sun itself was bursting through. The first volley narrowly missed, but a beam from the second caught their left wingtip and an explosion rocked the ship that snatched the control stick from Richard’s hand. Richard fought to recover from the ensuing spin and the Ares plummeted.

  Inside the Temple of Osiris – simultaneous

  The robot stood motionless on the raised stone plinth close to the altar stone. Professor Mubarakar and Asharf were nearby and gazed wide-eyed as Madame Vallogia opened the square panel on the back of the machine. Then she made ready with the pair of tongs that Richard had left in his helmet box in Mubarakar’s house. Completely shielded inside the thick granite walls of the Great Pyramid, the crystal had a milky-white hue that appeared absorbent and lifeless. Carefully she picked it from its recess within the mechanism of the robot and withdrew it through an aperture. Extraction complete, she turned slowly towards the carved stone chalice.

  Mubarakar had his pocket watch in his hand and he became fixated on its face as the seconds ticked by. He swayed from one leg to the other, barely able to contain his nerves. “Ten seconds!” he said, without looking up.

  Asharf had his hands clasped over his nose and mouth. There was an air of high tension. “Careful, Madame,” he uttered, as if suffering excruciating pain, but his words were muffled between his fingers.

  Holding the crystal in the tongs and a few centimetres above the inscribed tabletop, Naomi made to drop the crystal into the chalice, which was plainly shaped and approximately ten centimetres in diameter and fifteen high. But over the rim her grip loosened and the crystal fell. It bounced onto the stone and rolled. She gasped. Asharf covered his eyes, but the crystal stopped just short of the edge. Quickly she picked it up again.

  “It is time!” said Mubarakar.

  Naomi concentrated with a fixed stare as she repeated the task. This time she was careful to lift it over the rim and she placed it down gently inside the chalice.

  Almost immediately the crystal responded by changing to a luminescent white. A look of surprise descended over Naomi’s face and she could not help but take a step backwards. Then the crystal began to glow from within and then to pulsate. Quickly Naomi turned and, putting her arms up to collect both Professor Mubarakar and Asharf in her sweep across the plinth, they all scurried clear. They did not stop until they were more than twenty metres away and by that time the vast edifice of the interior was bathed in brilliant light.

  Above the North Atlantic – simultaneous

  With expert handling, Richard had recovered from the spin but thick black smoke now streamed from the outer section of the left-hand wing. Yannick gave another course correction and Richard, with full throttle and fiery exhaust plumes, threw caution aside in order to achieve the star line. Closing on the position, Richard glanced at the chronometer on the instrument panel. It read: 14:30:02. He was late. His face was flushed within the confines of his helmet and he was sweating. His heart sank, but he held a steady course.

  EMILY finally achieved her aim of isolating the coded frequency. “Now I have you!” she called over the radio, her synthetic voice vindictive in triumph. In the low orbit, she flew in the wake of the Ares and followed its smoky trail for a few seconds, positioning for an easy kill.

  Richard held his breath and waited to die. But there was a delay . . . Unbeknown to him, EMILY’s attention was momentarily diverted as she ejected the pod. The conical, capsule-shaped device fired off from beneath the great, grey, bulk of the Enigma on a perfect trajectory for re-entry.

  Richard checked the navigation display and at that precise moment he noted them passing through the star line. They were flying flat-out, but not, it seemed, fast enough. His eyes were drawn to the chronometer and so too were Yannick’s. But they were fourteen seconds late and on the sensor screen he could see that the Enigma was perhaps another three or four seconds further behind. They had failed, and a tiny white blip on the screen signified the contaminated pod in free-fall. At that precise instant Richard was in two minds as to whether to continue his evasive tactics and fight for their lives, or let it be, as even if he escaped there was nowhere to go; and EMILY would surely deal with the human colonists on the Moon and on Mars, too – in her own time.

  Suddenly, an incredibly brilliant white flash passed over his ship and streamed into Space. It was pencil straight and unbelievably radiant so that even through his darkened visor it made Richard’s eyes smart. Had he time to look at the navigation display, Richard would see the flash exactly overlay the ‘star line’. The blinding light disappeared for a moment and then reappeared again. And for another five or six seconds it seemed to illuminate the entire hemisphere. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared.

  Richard didn’t wait, but hauled the Ares into a hard right-hand turn, all the while waiting to be targeted by the Enigma. But nothing happened. He held his breath, kept the turn going until he was pointing in the opposite direction and then flew a collision course – EMILY would not be expecting that manoeuvre and it might destabilise her for a few seconds. Suddenly, Richard closed the thrust levers and the Ares started to decelerate. Realising what he was seeing, he reached across and put a hand on Yannick’s shoulder. Yannick traced his eye line and a broad smile lightened his features.

  Richard measured the Enigma’s speed as 31 lutens, but the computation indicated a rapid decrease. Within a few seconds it fell to 29 and then to 28 lutens. Based on that rate she would be drifting in an unstable orbit within the hour. Richard was suspicious; EMILY was devious as well as malevolent. He kept his distance and steered the Ares so as to maintain his relative position of five kilometres off her starboard bow.

  “Put her on screen and magnify by five, Yannick,” Richard ordered. The subsequent picture on the central screen made Richard sit up with surprise. The mighty Enigma appeared completely lifeless. There were no lights, no moving scanners, in fact no electromagnetic transmissions of any kind, and the laser initiator appeared locked in an unusual position. Occasionally, flashing streaks of electrical energy crawled over the enormous hulk, like contoured bolts of forked lightning, and Richard pointed out fizzing sheets of blue plasma that played along her thrust tubes – sparking and dancing against the blackness of Space. The Enigma had not been destroyed, but the energy beam had effectively electrocuted EMILY, shorting her circuits and burning out her systems.

  Richard dropped his shoulders in relief and nodded his approval at Yannick – a gesture that signified much more than just the favourable outcome. He looked up at his instruments and assessed the implications of the numerous flashing lights on the Crew Alert Panel – warnings that pro
mpted him to check the fire extinguisher system and the residual quantities of suppressant – because he had initiated the system in order to dampen the wing fire. Suddenly, he drew a sharp breath. His face turned pale and he stared at Yannick. Immediately, Yannick realised why – they had forgotten the pod. It had completely slipped their minds.

  “The bloody pod!” Richard called, and he instantly rammed open the thrust levers and pushed the nose down. Moments later the S2 was in a steep dive. Plummeting towards the Earth, Richard turned west and flew in the direction of New York. “On the sensor display . . . Yannick, can you see it?” he shouted.

  In desperation, Yannick adjusted the display’s controls, changing the range and the gain and enhancing the clarity of the picture with weather filters. But there was nothing. He had an idea and superimposed a radar picture on the screen and set the range scale to a hundred miles. The scanner swept left and right – still nothing.

  He glanced at Richard, shaking his head. “It must be below the scanner’s maximum down tilt,” he said.

  Richard held the full forward stick and checked the pitch angle; the S2 was in a forty-five degree dive and the ship’s structure complained at the severity of the manoeuvre by shuddering and bouncing. It felt like flying through heavy turbulence. With their speed still increasing a red light illuminated on the alerting panel. Richard looked up – it was a skin temperature warning.

  “We’re coming in too steep outside the re-entry profile,” Richard screeched, “and we’re burning up . . . ! Keep looking for God’s sake!”

  Yannick made adjustments to the screen as quickly as he could. He tried everything, but still there was no sign of the pod. Richard applied full right rudder in an effort to keep the S2 straight. He glanced at the altimeter to see the digital readout momentarily read 70,000 feet. He knew their rate of descent was well outside the limits. The Ares plunged Earthwards with its extremities glowing red-hot. Metal surrounding the damaged left wingtip began pealing backwards as the air density increased and Richard glanced over his left shoulder to see burning shards of metal detaching in that area. He checked the fuel panel to ensure all the fuel had been pumped from that wing into centre and right wing tanks – lest they become a fireball.

  Down 65,000 feet . . . 61,000 . . . 59,000 . . . 57,000 feet they plunged. Sunlight reflected from the clouds, grew more intense as they neared their tops.

  “Still nothing!” Yannick shouted.

  Richard cursed and then abruptly fed in full opposite rudder. The S2 immediately snap-rolled to the left, an effect made more so by the ever-increasing drag from the left wing. Almost instantaneously they were inverted. Richard held that position with rudder and pulled back on the stick increasing their dive. The descent rate increased still further.

  Suddenly Yannick pointed to the screen. “I see it! I see it!” Right turn thirty degrees! Turn right thirty degrees!”

  Richard responded.

  Past 53,000 feet they zoomed . . . 52,000 . . . 50,000. The cloud layer loomed. Then it rushed towards them.

  “How far below us?” Richard demanded.

  Now the ship was vibrating almost uncontrollably. Heavy shudders ran through her structure. Torrents of sparks flooded past the windscreen and a cacophony of warning lights had illuminated on the panel. To add to the bedlam, a woman’s warning voice called: “Rate of descent! Rate of descent! Pull up! Pull up!”

  Yannick had to shout to be heard. “Twenty thousand feet below us! Eighteen thousand, seventeen, sixteen . . . A few seconds Commander and you’ll be on it!”

  Suddenly the Ares plunged into the clouds and the brilliance outside was subdued. In the flight deck it quickly grew dark and a smell of burning permeated through the air vents. It was time to make a decision, but what could Richard do? It was too late for the laser; they were well outside its operating parameters even if he could target the pod. They passed 39,000 feet and then 37,000 feet. Richard rolled right-side-up and glanced at the sensor display – the pod was thirty miles ahead and just 5000 feet below. He had to react quickly otherwise he would pass it. Immediately, he closed the thrust levers and pulled back slightly on the nose, arresting the rate of descent. There was only one thing he could do!

  “Yannick! Do as I say! No questions . . . ! Get out of your seat, go back and get into the Assault Pod. Strap into the front seat nearest the door – there are controls on the arm rest. If I’m not with you in thirty seconds you eject. Do you understand?”

  Yannick nodded; his eyes were afraid.

  “Do it!”

  Richard wrestled with the controls; he was flying blind. Yannick scrambled from his seat. The pod in free-fall was ten miles ahead of him and 2000 feet below, but his altimeter indicated 29,000 feet, then 28,000 feet and then 27,000.

  Richard homed in on the pod using the sensor display. At five miles he matched its level, but then checked back precisely on his controls in order to slip just fifty feet below it. Then his higher speed closed the gap. He monitored the skin temperature gauges, but found that the cloud had cooled down the S2’s structure sufficiently for the associated warnings to extinguish. In desperation, he glanced at the left wingtip; there was a chance that his plan would work because the contorted metal caused additional friction, and there was still a glow in that area from residual heat.

  The altimeter read 20,000 feet at that moment, but the numbers decreased at an alarming rate as Richard chased down the pod. He closed the last few metres and then positioned directly beneath it . . . 18,000 feet! Yannick had been gone for fifteen seconds.

  Richard reached up to the fuel control panel and switched on a pump that pressurised the fuel system for delivery back into the left wing tank. He knew that the tank was perforated at its outer extremity and that the surrounding metal was hot enough to ignite the fuel. He engaged the autopilot to hold the ship’s parameters . . . 16,000 feet!

  Richard unstrapped himself and climbed from his seat. A sudden shudder through the ship threw him off-balance, but he turned and clambered up the back of the co-pilot’s seat. The flight path was becoming unstable and he was being thrown from side to side. He looked back for Yannick, who was in his seat in the assault pod and leaning into the aisle staring at him and – with wild hand movements – willing him to come back immediately. The autopilot called 10,000 feet!

  Richard reached up to the fuel panel and pressed a button that opened the fuel valve. Now he had but seconds and he turned and hustled back towards Yannick.

  “Come on, sir! Come on!” Yannick shouted.

  Richard staggered through the doorway and fell into a seat. As the portal closed the woman’s voice shouted, “Terrain! Terrain! Pull up! Pull up!” from the flight deck.

  Richard had only his lap straps secured as Yannick slammed his fist down on the eject button. Instantaneously, they heard an enormous explosion and the assault pod shook so violently that Richard’s arms and legs flailed. Seconds seemed like eternity as the pod was tossed and tumbled. Richard felt the centrifugal force on his body as it spun through the air. He covered his head with his arms and groaned as a small, unsecured item of equipment flew dangerously around the cabin, banging and crashing on the sidewalls and ceiling. His head was a blur. But then, suddenly, the pod’s gyroscopic system cut in and it righted itself, and Richard felt a heavy vibration as the noise of retro rockets firing grew louder and louder until it became deafening. For an instant, the g-force pushed him down into his seat and his body was compressed – he felt his face contort and his cheeks sag. Abruptly the noise stopped, and for a second there was silence. He felt his seat harness tense automatically and pull him into his seat with a moment’s pain in his shoulders, and then there was an enormous but short-lived thud and a powerful judder.

  After a few seconds of nothing, Richard pushed himself up in his seat with his feet and looked across at Yannick. The emergency lights flickered momentarily and strange sloshing noises filtered through the open vents in the ceiling; apart from that, everything was quiet. Richard realis
ed the motion was that of the sea. Yannick smiled back at him, albeit uneasily. He felt sore, but they were both in one piece.

  Richard released his harness and the straps fell away. He stood hesitantly but hung on to the seat back because of the wave motion. In the quiet, they heard the repetitious bleeping of the emergency beacon. “I think we can get out now,” he said.

  CHAPTER 32

  Time for Turning

  London – Whitehall

  6 January – 09:11 Greenwich Mean Time

  “Good morning, I’m Richard Reece.”

  “Good morning, sir. My name is Sally; I’m Mr Rothschild’s new PA.”

  “Really . . . I didn’t know. Things don’t usually change around here.”

  Peter Rothschild walked into the lobby from his office. As usual he looked smart in a dark blue pinstriped suit and a pair of shiny black shoes. “Richard,” he said, “good to see you.” He raised his left arm in an exaggerated way and made a point of looking at his watch. “Please . . . come in,” he said, without reference to the time and without a smile to accompany his welcoming words. With that, he turned and disappeared into his office.

  Richard shrugged, gestured his excuses for being late, smiled briefly at the fifty-something woman and followed Rothschild. Inside, Rothschild was waiting by the door and promptly closed it behind Richard. “Please, take a seat,” he said, and pointed to the chair by his desk.

  Richard sat down and made himself comfortable. Because of his tardiness he tried to conjure a chastised look. Very unusually, Richard was also dressed for ‘the city’ in a dark, plain suit; but his was a general-sized, government-issue two-piece, and not a Savile Row, made-to-measure three-piece, like Rothschild’s.

  “Thought I’d get a hero’s welcome,” Richard said ironically, as Rothschild took his seat on the other side of the desk. “What with Enigma’s pod being vaporised just seconds before it was due to open.”