Imperial Bounty

by William C. Dietz

  "What's so funny?"

  Yako looked up, startled. He wasn't sure that he'd laughed out loud. Tellor's eyes were narrowed, as if he somehow knew the laughter was directed at him. "Nothing special, Major," Yako replied. "Just a joke someone told me earlier today."

  Tellor nodded, but continued to watch Yako suspiciously, until the little man grew so uncomfortable he decided to take a nap. Anything was better than Tellor's unwavering gaze. A few minutes later Yako was asleep, dreaming about a monster who wouldn't stop staring at him, and a man named McCade who was supposed to die but wouldn't.

  McCade watched the preparations with a jaundiced eye. He'd flown gliders before, but usually they were towed into the air behind an aircar, not launched off the side of a seven-hundred-foot cliff. In front of him two skeletal-looking ramps swooped down the steep hillside to end at the edge of the abyss. People were climbing all over the durasteel structures making sure that recent storms hadn't damaged them. Meanwhile a white glider sat poised at the top of each ramp. They were pretty craft, made out of lightweight duraplast, and gracefully shaped. So much so that the energy weapons mounted under the long slender wings and behind the canopy looked foreign and out of place. McCade prayed they wouldn't need the weapons. Flying a glider after so many years without practice was bad enough, but having people shoot at you while you did it, well, that was just too much. However, it seemed like he didn't have much choice. It turned out the gliders were two-place craft, which meant they'd have to leave Mara behind, and do their own flying. And while Alexander had flown just about everything else, he'd missed gliders, and Phil's experience was limited to aircars. So McCade and Rico would have to get behind the controls and hope for the best. He looked up toward the sky. At least the weather was right. The wind had died down to a gentle breeze, and here and there, the sun peeked through the eternal overcast.

  There was the shrill sound of a whistle, and turning toward the sound McCade saw the inspectors had scrambled down off the ramps, and were gathering around the gliders. Rico waved in his direction and shouted, "Come on, ol' sport, all aboard the Deadeye express!" With a jaunty wave Rico climbed into his glider, settling himself behind the controls.

  Forcing a grin McCade climbed up the path leading to the launching platform. Off to one side he saw Phil give Mara one last bear hug, before lumbering over, and climbing in behind Rico. Earlier, while saying his good-byes, McCade had noticed Mara's eyes were red. Phil hadn't said anything, but apparently there'd been a parting of the ways, and not at his request. If so, McCade wasn't too surprised. In order for the relationship to succeed, one of them would have to make a very large sacrifice. While he hadn't complained, Phil's variant physiology made life on anything but an iceworld distinctly uncomfortable. And, in her own way, Mara was just as tied to her world. She had an almost mystical understanding of it. Besides, she clearly wished to continue her studies with the Walkers, and that would be impossible if she left.

  As he climbed onto the platform Alex was there, shaking hands and exchanging hugs with various friends, turning mischievously as McCade arrived. "Oh, driver, do try to be more prompt in the future. Imperial affairs await, you know."

  "A thousand pardons, Your Supreme Effluence," McCade replied, bowing deeply. "If you would be so kind as to lower your Imperial posterior into the cockpit, we can depart posthaste."

  "It's so hard to find good help these days," Alex confided to an amused woman with long black hair. "One must put up with the most outrageous incompetence." With a grin and a wave, Alexander followed McCade into the cockpit, and helped slide the canopy closed over their heads.

  McCade put on the pilot's helmet and chinned his mic. "Rico? Do you read me?"

  "Loud and clear, Sam," Rico answered from the other glider, grinning from behind his plastic canopy.

  McCade quickly scanned the simple instrument panel. With no engine to worry about, there weren't many instruments, and very little which could go wrong. Except getting our rear ends blown off, he thought to himself. However, due to the height of their launching platform the altimeter already showed 725 feet, and that made him feel better. At least they wouldn't have to go through a long vulnerable climb up from the ground.

  "All set, Alex?"

  "Ready when you are, Sam."

  "OK, the last one to Deadeye buys the beer!" And with that McCade hit the lever marked release, and felt his stomach lurch, as the glider slid downward. The aircraft quickly picked up speed, moving faster and faster, until they shot off the end of the ramp and their wings cut into the air. Pulling the stick back, McCade started looking for more altitude. In spite of the seven hundred feet they already had, it wasn't nearly enough to reach Deadeye. Because a glider has no engine, it spends a great deal of its time falling. Glider pilots like to call this part gliding, but in reality it's nothing more than controlled falling, which accounts for the sport's relative lack of popularity, and also explains why gliders aren't used for serious transportation. "Except on this stupid planet," McCade said through gritted teeth as he felt the nose drop and the glider start downward.

  Banking to the right, McCade tried to find some warmer air which would buoy them upward. Meanwhile the altimeter continued to unwind. Six hundred and fifty, then six hundred and twenty-five, and finally six hundred feet came and went, before he cut across a thermal and felt it lift his wings. Circling to stay with the warm air, the glider soared upward, first regaining the lost altitude, and then picking up even more, until the thermal disappeared, and McCade leveled out at eight hundred and seventy feet. A glance to the right confirmed that Rico was still with him. The other pilot gave him a cheerful thumbs-up, and McCade waved in return. Then he checked his course to make sure they were headed for Deadeye, and allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. They still had a long way to go, but it was a pretty good start.

  Then Alex's voice came over the intercom. It was tense and concerned. "Looks like we've got company, Sam, behind us about eight o'clock high."

  McCade craned his neck to see, and swore softly when his eyes confirmed Alexander's report. They were just black specks for the moment, gradually climbing, but there was no doubt as to who they were. The Wind Riders had found them.

  Twenty-One

  The Wind Riders were steadily gaining on them. Each time McCade lost altitude, and was forced to circle searching for a thermal, the bandits got closer, their engines buzzing like a flight of angry bees. Then, just when the bandits got close enough to fire, the gliders had always managed to find an updraft warm air, allowing them to soar up and away. However the Wind Riders knew how to use the thermals too, and were in fact better at it than either McCade or Rico, and that had allowed them to slowly close the gap. It was just a matter of time before they caught up.

  Nevertheless, McCade was determined to stretch that time out as long as he could. The chase was more than an hour old, and they had already covered more than half the distance between Chimehome and Deadeye. It was funny in a way. On any other planet a hundred miles would have seemed insignificant. A fifteen-minute ride in an aircar. But not here. Here one hundred miles was an eternity, a long passage requiring days of grueling travel in a Nuag caravan, or in the case of air travel, hours of fear, wondering if at any moment unpredictable gusts of wind might reach out and smash you into the ground.

  There was a burst of static over McCade's headphones. "They're closin', Sam. Looks like a fight comin' up."

  "I'm afraid so, Rico. But let's drag it out as long as we can. Since they've got powered aircraft they'll have the advantage. The most important thing is to reach Pegasus and lift. So don't let 'em sucker you into mixing it up. Dodge and duck, but keep your nose lined up on Deadeye."

  "Roger," Rico replied.

  Suddenly laughter cut through the light static. "You call that a plan?" Both the laughter and the voice belonged to the same man. Major Nolan Tellor. McCade felt the muscle in his left cheek begin to twitch. Somehow the miserable bastard had hooked up with the Wind Riders . . . and was still
on their trail. He should have shot the sonovabitch when he had the chance.

  "Why, Major, I see you've found some new recruits for the Imperial air force. A scruffy lot, I must say. Still, I suppose this beats lying around in the dirt waiting for a Nuag caravan to happen by, doesn't it?"

  For a moment the Wind Riders filled the air with mixed laughter. None of them liked Tellor, and they all knew McCade and his friends had ambushed the officer and his team, stripping them of their weapons. So in spite of McCade's reference to them as being "scruffy," they still had a good laugh. Then Yako's voice cut in. "Shut up, you idiots. So far the joke's been on you. So save the laughs for later."

  After that both sides maintained radio silence. McCade and Rico concentrated on eating up as much distance as possible, while the bandits held on, throttles full out, grimly watching as their fuel gauges steadily dropped toward empty.

  Then everything seemed to happen at once. McCade spotted the heavy-duty antenna and pylon which marked Deadeye's location up ahead, and hit a pocket of cold air at the same moment. Even though he put the glider into a shallow dive, it seemed to fall like a rock, and he had to either find a thermal or put it down miles short of Deadeye. Recognizing the problem, Yako's pilots began to shout with excitement. By God, the quarry wouldn't escape this time!

  As luck would have it, McCade and Rico found a thermal rather quickly, but were still fighting for altitude when the Wind Riders attacked. The first energy beam was just a hair off, but close enough to leave a black line across the top surface of McCade's port wing. "Try and keep their heads down, Alex!" McCade yelled over the intercom. "Make 'em keep their distance."

  Alexander didn't answer. He was lining up his first target. By working two foot pedals he could swing his seat and the gun mount 360 degrees. Twin pistol grips were built into the arms of his chair, and by squeezing them he could fire one, or both, of his two energy weapons. As the ultra lights swarmed after them, he smiled a predatory smile. He didn't know it, but it was the same smile his grandfather, the first emperor, had smiled as he led his fleet into battle. And it expressed similar feelings. He'd found their weakness. Although the Wind Riders were excellent pilots, they didn't know a damned thing about air combat! With the single exception of their fight with Jubal, they'd always attacked ground targets prior to this, so instead of coming up under the gliders, and attacking their most vulnerable point, the bandits were coming in from above, exposing their own bellies. Though not a professional like his sister, Alexander had served in air reserves, and had a reputation as something of a jet jockey. Aerial gunnery had been one of his favorite exercises. So he waited until two of the blue machines were hanging just above him, spitting out lethal bursts of energy, and missing as McCade dodged back and forth. Having never practiced aerial combat before this, their markmanship was very poor. But Alexander's wasn't. He squeezed both grips, literally cutting one ultra light in two, and blowing the second out of the air.

  As the wreckage of Alexander's kills went tumbling toward the ground, Phil took out a third, and suddenly Yako's force of eight aircraft was almost cut in half. Yako was stunned, scared, and secretly glad to be alive. He forced himself to think. What the hell was going on? We're better pilots than they are, so how come they're winning? Because they know some tricks we don't, he realized. What are we doing wrong?

  "What are you idiots doing?" The voice came from Major Tellor in the backseat. "You call yourselves pilots? Go for their bellies for God's sake. My grandmother could outfly you."

  Yako instinctively knew Tellor was right. They'd been attacking from above, right into those rear turrets. He banked right and dove, pulling back on his stick, and sliding up under the nearest glider.

  Glancing left, McCade saw one trying to come in from below. The bastards were learning fast! Slamming the glider into a barrel roll he lost some precious altitude but did manage to come out below the attacking ultra light. Seeing the opportunity, Alex squeezed both pistol grips, and flamed Yako's starboard wing.

  As the ultra light tipped, and went into a final spin, Yako closed his eyes, and wished he could listen to something besides Tellor's enraged swearing. What a miserable way to die.

  McCade tried to look everywhere at once. As the burning ultra light smashed into the ground, he turned to see smoke streaming from a dark hole in the side of Rico's glider, and the brown smear of ground beyond. However, both men seemed to be okay, Rico giving a cheerful thumbs-up, and Phil waving an empty fire extinguisher. What's more, Rico had apparently scored another kill, because only three Wind Riders remained. And they seemed to suddenly think better of it, banking right, and circling down to search the ground for survivors. Looking forward, he saw Dead-eye's antenna and pylon just ahead.

  Both gliders made decent landings, were taken in tow by a couple of the now-familiar red drones, and were soon lowered into the underground hangar. As the elevator moved smoothly downward they climbed out of the gliders and brought their energy rifles with them. The underground hangar would make a perfect place for an ambush. So when the walls dropped away they were crouched behind the gliders ready for anything. Anything except total silence. No energy beams screamed around them. No Imperial marines rushed forward to kill them. Nothing happened at all. In fact, except for an old man and a teenaged boy working on the wrecked ship in one corner, the place was empty of all life.

  As they stepped off the elevator, the boy eyed them with open curiosity but, after a whispered word from the old man, turned back to his work. McCade noticed that the freighter which had been there earlier had disappeared, and been replaced by a beat-up old tug, but the old lifeboat was still there, and still for sale.

  Pegasus was just as they'd left her. McCade palmed the main lock, entered, and initiated a pre-flight check. The computer assured him no one had attempted to enter, or had disturbed the ship in any way. Nonetheless, he left via the main lock to perform a visual inspection of the entire ship. It always pays to be careful . . . especially when you've been away for a while. Just because the computer said no one had bothered the ship didn't make it necessarily true. What if Claudia's people had found a way to fool his sensors? Attached some sort of explosive device to the hull, for example? As he ran his eyes over the ship, McCade wondered why Claudia's forces hadn't tried to ambush them inside the hangar. Maybe Claudia had that much faith in Tellor. Or maybe she had something even worse up her sleeve. Time would tell.

  Rico and Phil had gone off to pay Momma for their berth. When they returned both wore big smiles. McCade suspected they'd found time to put away a beer or two. "We're cleared for take-off, Sam," Rico said. "By the way, Momma says an Imperial Intruder put down here about two days back. Some second louie and half a section searched the place, warned her how evil ya are, and lifted. Kinda makes ya wonder, don't it?"

  "It sure does," McCade answered grimly. "Why leave Pegasus? Why not take her? Or disable her? It doesn't make sense."

  "Oh, but it does," Alex answered, joining them under a stubby wing. "I overheard the last part of that, and it's exactly what Claudia would do. She wants us to lift. Chasing us all over the planet isn't working, so she'll allow us to lift, and then grab us in space."

  McCade reluctantly nodded his agreement. "Viewed that way it does make a twisted sort of sense. So what do we do? We can't sit here forever."

  "True," Alexander agreed. "And time's running out. How long before she takes the throne by default?"

  "Three standard months from your father's death," McCade said. "And there's about a week of that time left."

  "Just enough to reach Terra if I start now," Alexander mused.

  "So," Rico said, "we have ta lift . . ."

  " . . . but if we do she'll nail us," McCade finished.

  Phil had remained silent so far. Now he cleared his throat with a deep growl. "True . . . but maybe we can at least give ourselves something to negotiate with."

  The other three turned to look at him. "I'm all ears," McCade said.

  "Well," Phil said
thoughtfully, "seeing that lifeboat over there gave me an idea." He pointed to the decrepit-looking boat with the for sale sign scrawled across its hull. "We could have used yours, but you left it on Joyo's Roid."

  "I'll try to be more considerate next time," McCade said dryly.

  Phil ignored McCade's comment. "We buy the lifeboat and load it aboard Pegasus. Then we have Alex here dump the full story of what's happened into the boat's vocorder, preset its course for Earth, and dump it the second we clear atmosphere. Maybe we find a way through Claudia's blockade, and maybe we don't, but even if she grabs us it's too late. No matter what she does the lifeboat's gonna show up in Earth orbit and spill the beans. Knowing that, she lets us go!"

  McCade lit a cigar, took a deep drag, and blew a column of blue smoke toward the floor. There were a number of holes in Phil's plan. The largest and most obvious was that the lifeboat in question wasn't equipped with hyperdrive. A single glance told him that. So, by the time the boat arrived in Earth orbit and delivered its message, Claudia would have been dead for hundreds of years. Assuming the old tub didn't fall apart along the way. Not much of a threat. While Phil was an excellent biologist, he didn't know much about ships. Nonetheless, maybe there was another way to use the lifeboat to their advantage.