A Choice of Treasons

by J. L. Doty

  York rose up out of the chair, the barrel of the gun still pressed under his chin. “Come on, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. Pull the god damned trigger.”

  He leaned forward over the table and almost climbed up onto it, pushing Andleman back. “Don’t you understand?” he screamed. “This is probably the only chance I’ll ever have to go out clean—pull the fucking trigger.”

  Andleman looked deep into York’s eyes and he started to shake. York was thinking about reaching up, grabbing Andleman’s hands and forcing him to pull the trigger, when a barely audible croak from Straegga filled the surrounding silence. “Ballin . . . Help me . . .”

  York closed his eyes, thought about his dream, heard a faint click as Andleman activated the gun’s safety, realized Straegga had robbed him of a clean end. He leaned back away from Andleman as the governor lowered the gun he was holding. Then York lifted his left hand palm up, careful to keep his right thumb pressed tightly on the switch in his left forearm panel. “Give me the gun.”

  Andleman lowered it carefully and put it in York’s hand. York laid it on the table. “Sublegion Sab’ach’ahn,” York said. “Tell your people one of our boats’ll be coming to retrieve us, and that it’s not to be fired upon.”

  Sab’ach’ahn touched her throat mike and issued the orders.

  York keyed his com. “Palevi, this is Ballin. We need pickup. Bring Two, and be careful. Straegga needs a medic, and the deadman is alive.”

  “We’re on our way, sir.”

  They waited in silence, York still concentrating on the deadman switch. Then he heard the sound of an approaching boat, heard it settle to the ground, heard a short bit of commotion, a few shouts and a couple of gunshots. By prior agreement Two was filled with a squad of forty marines. The feddies guarding the bunker, without armor themselves, were no match for armored marines.

  The door burst open and Palevi and four of his best filed into the room, quickly disarmed everyone. A medic dropped to one knee beside Straegga and started cutting away her tunic. York was still facing Andleman when Palevi stopped beside him and saluted. “The immediate vicinity is secure, sir.”

  York looked down at his forearm panel, held his thumb on the deadman switch while Palevi keyed in the deactivation sequence. The angry hum from his reactor pack died. “Sound recall, Sergeant. Let’s get the hell out of here.” York pointed at Sab’ach’ahn and Andleman. “And those two are under arrest. Cuff ‘em.”

  “Arrest!” Andleman demanded. “You can’t do that. What are the charges?”

  York looked at Andleman and nodded toward the Kinathin. “Ask Sab’ach’ahn there. She can tell you.”

  Andleman looked at the sublegion. “War crimes,” she said coldly. “As the most senior civilian and military officials here we are responsible for any violation of the Treaty Accords.”

  She turned away from Andleman, and it was as if he were long dead and forgotten. She said to York. “There is no need to restrain me. I accept the charges and will not resist. But tell me, were you . . . bluffing?”

  He nodded toward Andleman. “Ask him. He knows.”

  True to her word, Sab’ach’ahn surrendered her sidearm without incident, and though York had her cuffed anyway, she marched calmly to the boat. Andleman, however, screamed and kicked until one of the marines slapped him with the butt of her rifle. Unconscious, he was much more cooperative.

  Two headed back to the perimeter to help the other boats load up for recall. York was technically correct in arresting Andleman and Sab’ach’ahn, but that was really just a pretext for getting a few hostages. He wasn’t confident they could depend on fire support from Cinesstar, and without that, if the feddies sent their fighters after them it would be tricky getting the boats off-planet. He had their military leader and their chief fanatic, and he hoped their subordinates would be confused long enough for the marines to escape. It didn’t work.

  They were half way back to the stronghold when Two’s pilot said excitedly, “Cap’em, I got two bogies coming in fast behind us. Looks like fighters.”

  York activated the command channel. “Heads up, everyone. We’re being hit. All boats take evasive action. And give me a display, god damn it.”

  While the pilot launched two’s target drones and dropped the boat down toward the trees, the lower half of York’s visor flickered, then a console appeared in front of him. He had to squash the immediate reaction to reach out and start programming what was merely a virtual projection on the inside of his visor.

  One of the screens showed two fighters coming in from behind, two more coming in from the left and already within targeting range of the perimeter where One and Three were loading up for recall. York had an instant to see the blips representing a salvo of rockets separate lazily from the fighters on his screen, then Two dropped below the treetops and for a moment the screen went blank.

  The two fighters approaching from behind passed overhead, took out some of Two’s drones then started to swing around for another pass. Luckily the forest wasn’t that dense and Two’s pilot was able to keep the boat below the tree line while zigzagging toward the stronghold.

  “Three’s down,” someone shouted over the com. “Rocket hit.”

  York keyed his com. “This is Ballin. How bad?”

  “Yagell here, Cap’em, on the ground. She’s still in one piece, about two hundred meters from me.”

  Counting the survivors of the Dumayia crew, they had almost two hundred and eighty people in combat armor. It would be impossible to fit that many into two boats, not in armor, and there was no time to strip down and abandon it. If they couldn’t get fire support from Cinesstar, their only alternative would be to dig in and fight it out.

  “One and Two,” York shouted, “go in for support. Palevi, stand by for drop. Dig in around Three while we pull her people.

  “Two. Get on the horn to Cinesstar, see if you can get us fire support. And give me a pan of Three as you come in.”

  One of the screens displayed on York’s visor lit up with a nose view of the terrain in front of Two, a lot of trees and ground screaming past at low altitude. Then suddenly they lifted up over the trees, York got a momentary glimpse of the defensive perimeter they’d cut in the forest, then another glimpse of Three, sitting on the ground canted at an odd angle, a jagged hole ripped into the cockpit, a long furrow dug into the dirt where she’d plowed her way through about twenty meters of turf before coming to a stop, her landing skids torn away.

  “Cap’em. Cinesstar says we’ve got orders to return to ship, on the double, but she can’t risk coming in close enough to support us. We’re on our own.”

  Palevi’s voice came over the com. “Cap’em, we’re zoned.”

  York hit the latches holding him clipped in his seat, scrambled to the hatch where Palevi was waiting with his marines lined up behind him. He hit the release and the hatch disappeared into the skin of the boat. Two was still moving so he hit the ground at a run, Palevi and his marines fanning out behind him. Fifty meters in front of him marines spilled out of the hatch of the damaged boat.

  Palevi said, “She must have been low when she took the hit, sir, and not moving too fast. Otherwise she’d have broken up. Wonder if she’ll still fly?”

  “Dig in,” York said. “But stand by to move out fast. I’m going to check her out.”

  One and Two took up defensive positions close to the ground, constantly moving and changing position, using their decoy drones and weaponry to hold off the fighters.

  Three’s nose had crumpled, though not badly, but the rocket had hit her right in the cockpit, leaving a large jagged hole of torn plast, tubing, and wiring. York climbed up over it, almost didn’t have to crouch to get through the hole onto the deck of the cockpit.

  Three’s pilot was gone, though there were bits and pieces of her strewn on the ground in a semicircle in front of the boat. The copilot was still seated in his couch, at least the lower half of him was. The rocket had blown away the upper half, as well as the upper
half of his couch. Not for the first time York marveled at the fickle nature of a blast; the way it could, in this case, disintegrate the pilot, tear away the console and its screens along with the upper half of the copilot and his couch, but leave the lower half, including the copilot’s two control yokes, completely intact.

  York keyed his com. “Palevi, this boat may still fly. Stand by.”

  He edged his way past the remains of the copilot. The bulkhead separating the cockpit from the passenger compartment was badly warped, and York had to pry the auxiliary control panel loose with a piece of debris before it would fold down. It was completely dead until he hit the system switch. The auxiliary lighting dimmed for a second, a mortar round shook the ground in the distance, then miraculously the boat’s operating system began flashing information on the screen above the keyboard as it ran through its emergency damage control sequence. It automatically shunted out the now nonexistent main console and the missing pilot’s controls. It gave a warning message about the copilot’s controls, recommended the boat be shut down for extensive repairs. York interceded and put the boat’s system on red status, which redefined all of its safety protocols. He set it to take programming from one of his suit’s com frequencies, programmed it to feed him a projection of the main console on the lower half of the inside of his visor, reprogrammed some of the most critical functions for access through his forearm panel, then ran it through a system check again. It finished with the message, All functions accessible, but flight worthiness is unacceptable and flight operation is not advised.

  York turned to the remains of the copilot, and while he muscled the lower half of the man’s body out of the couch he keyed his com. “Palevi, Ballin here. Load ‘er up. And make sure you put people on her weapons stations. This boat’s gonna fly if I have to flap my fucking arms to make it do so.”

  York tossed the remains of the copilot out through hole in the front of the cockpit, snapped himself into the couch and used his forearm plate to bring up the boat’s power. He sealed his armor. “Minor hazard warning,” his suit said. “Gauntlet brea—”

  He killed the message, tried not to think about what was going to happen to his hand if he was successful and got the boat out of the planet’s atmosphere.

  “Cap’em. Ten seconds, then we’re ready to roll.”

  The fighters made another pass, took out some of the decoy drones and blew a few craters in the ground nearby. York counted slowly to ten, barked into his com, “Lifting!” then put power to the drive gingerly. “One and Two stand clear of me. I don’t know how she’s gonna handle.”

  With most of the front of the cockpit gone, it was an odd feeling to watch the ground drop away in front of him as the boat lifted straight up. It wobbled a little, had a tendency to drift to port, but he ignored that, tilted her forward and goosed the drive while watching his virtual screens for intruders. “Cap’em, this is Hackla in One. Me and Two are with you all the way.”

  The boat’s aerodynamics were shot to hell, and as he started picking up speed the wind made an awful racket and pressed him back in the couch. At one hundred knots he lifted the nose, shouted over the com, “Let’s go for it.” His screens showed One and Two falling in behind him to cover him. When he reached five hundred knots she started to shake and jerk about and he had to drop back on the drive. It was then that he saw the four fighters appear on the edge of his screens.

  He had the boat’s nose almost straight up by then. One and Two dropped back to take on the fighters. York shouted into the com, “Do what you can to cover me, but don’t go down with me. That’s an order.” They were marines. He hoped they weren’t stupid enough to lose all three boats just to save one.

  “Palevi, I can’t coordinate fire. Do what you can with our gun turrets.”

  Palevi didn’t acknowledge him, so he repeated the message, waited for a few long seconds, guessed the boat’s relay circuitry was damaged, and without that the hull plating was blocking their suit transmissions.

  An assault boat, with six weapons turrets, close to thirty decoy drones, electronic counter measures, air-to-air rockets and cannon, was a formidable opponent for the fighters. But the fighters had speed, and their pilots weren’t stupid. It was obvious one of the three impers was damaged, so two of them kept One and Two busy while the other two went after the crippled boat.

  York pushed the boat to the limit, kept it just below the velocity where it wanted to shake itself apart. The two fighters were climbing right up behind him. He kept his eyes on the console, watched the fighters overtaking him, waited until he saw the blips of their rockets, then fired a salvo of defensive interceptor rockets, dumped a load of chaff, launched Three’s decoy drones.

  The interceptor rockets took out half the salvo of feddie rockets, the chaff deflected more, and the decoy drones cut that number further. Four blips got through those defenses and Palevi’s marines cut in with the gun turrets. York watched a blip disappear and there were three. Another salvo from the gun turrets then there were two, then one. On his screen York saw it slowly converge with the tail of his boat.

  The boat convulsed once, shuddered, lost all drive power, then careened wildly to one side. His status screen showed red lights all up and down the panel, the starboard drive pod had been blown away and the port pod lit up like a landing beacon for a moment, then shut down.

  They still had plenty of velocity, but they were heading toward the top of a ballistic arc, and when they got there, without drive power, they’d start right back down to the bottom, and in the shape the boat was in he doubted he could bring it down dead-stick. He had one chance; he hit a three-switch combination on his forearm panel, and the boat’s computer said in his ear, “Emergency launch pods activated. Ignition in twenty seconds and counting. Stand by for—”

  “Override,” York screamed. “Execute, god damn you, override and execute.”

  The emergency launch pods cut in without warning, slammed York back into the copilot’s couch under about fifteen gravities. In seconds the boat went unstable and started to shake, and he had everything he could do just to keep it going in a straight line. He knew he had one hundred seconds before the disposable pods died, but by then they’d be traveling at close to three thousand meters per second and well beyond the planet’s atmosphere, if the boat stayed in one piece and he could keep her nose aimed in the right direction.

  “Major hazard warning,” his suit reminded him. “Gauntlet breach. Decompression compensation increasing.”

  The isolation seal around his left wrist began to tighten painfully. Something tore away from the boat; it lurched badly to one side, almost went into a spin, but he got it straightened out and marginally stable again. His left hand started to throb painfully as the isolation seal got tighter. Again, the ship lurched badly as something tore away, but the shaking eased as the joints in his armor expanded. He took a chance, glanced at the console: no blips coming at him from behind, altitude just under fifty kilometers. They were almost there.

  The copilot’s couch really should have been able to take fifteen gravities, but then the rocket that opened up the front of the boat must have damaged it’s mounting in some way. York was watching the boat’s altitude, trying not to think about the pain in his left hand, but breathing easier because they were approaching an altitude of one hundred kilometers and moving beyond the range of the fighters, when the copilot’s couch tore loose from its mounting. It was only about a half-meter drop from the back of the couch to the bulkhead behind it, but at fifteen gravities it was like falling better than seven meters. He slammed into the bulkhead and lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER 18: MURDEROUS NEED

  York regained consciousness drifting weightless in a black and white world of bright glare and sharp shadows. He was still buckled in the couch, and a readout at the top of his visor told him he’d been out for less than ten minutes. His thoughts immediately settled on the intolerable pain in his left hand.

  “Three, this is One. Do you read? Thre
e, this is One. Do you read? Over.”

  York keyed his com. “Ballin here. Over.”

  “Three, this is One. Do you read? Three, this is One. Do you read? Over.”

  They weren’t receiving him, and there was no console projection displayed at the bottom of his visor. His suit’s connection to the boat’s system was down.

  He lifted his left hand; his suit had tightened the isolation seal around his wrist with crushing force and his hand had swollen to fill and distend the gauntlet. There was no feeling in the hand any more, not in the sense of manipulating the thumb and fingers, but there was plenty of feeling when it came to pain. As he looked at it a tiny drop of unhealthy looking yellowish fluid oozed out of the small tear in the mesh of the gauntlet, then dissipated quickly into the vacuum of space.

  “Three, this is One. Do you read? Three, this is One. Do you read? Over.”

  He took a dose of kikker, then just for good measure added a couple of nerve jackers. The drugs accentuated the pain, but they cleared his head and he took stock of his situation.

  He was floating near the hole in the cockpit, still buckled in the copilot’s seat. When the seat had torn away it had taken both control yokes with it, pulling a couple of meters of shredded wiring out of the deck. If he hadn’t been tethered to the boat by the wiring he and the seat might have drifted out through the hole and floated away. With his good hand he released the straps buckling him to the seat, braced one foot against the deck and his hand against the bulkhead overhead, then used the other foot to kick the seat out through the hole. While doing that he felt a faint vibration in his hand and foot, as if someone was hammering on the frame of the boat.

  “Three, this is One. Do you read? Three, this is One. Do you read? Over.”

  His suit was equipped with fifty meters of thin, plast safety line. He pulled out a few meters, clipped the end to a piece of tubing protruding from the wreck of the control console, yanked on it a couple of times to test it. He went back to the bulkhead at the rear of the cockpit, pressed the palm of his good hand against it, felt the vibration strongly there as a series of distinct, though seemingly frantic, blows. He wondered if the marines had some code of taps and clicks by which they could communicate. If so they’d never taught it to him. He pounded on the bulkhead a couple of times and the hammering responded by picking up its pace.