Heart Of The Tiger

by William R. Forstchen

  Blair nodded and crossed to the locker, opening it with a security magnakey that overrode Vaquero's lock. It was crowded and untidy. Evidently Mitchell Lopez had managed to accumulate a fair number of possessions in the short time he'd been aboard Victory.

  "Tell me this much, Colonel," Vagabond said from behind him. "Rumor mill says we've got a shot at the cats after all, even after Behemoth. Is it true?"

  Blair looked at him, nodded. "Yeah. A shot… a pretty damned long one, but a shot."

  "Good." Chang gave a curt nod. "Good. 'Cause I want a piece of the bastards."

  "Are you sure? You were the one who had doubts about Behemoth, as I recall. And the new mission's also designed to knock out Kilrah. No ifs, ands, buts, or maybes…"

  Vagabond shrugged. "I'm past caring about it now, Colonel. Damn it, the kid didn't have to die like that. He was going to retire, open his cantina. He had it all planned out, and that bastard Hobbes snuffed him out. And Cobra, too. It's one thing to lose your buddies on the firing line, but this… it's just wrong."

  Blair fixed him with a level stare. "I hear you, Vagabond. I've been there myself, and not just this cruise, either. But you can't let it eat away at you." He pointed to the locker. "Do you know how much I hate this ritual? As his CO, I'm the one who has to send the comm to Vaquero's family… you know, the one that's supposed to make them feel proud of their son and the way he died. What am I supposed to tell them? That my best friend turned traitor and killed him in a sneak attack? That I might have stopped it if I hadn't been so convinced that Hobbes was one of the good guys?" He shook his head.

  Vagabond shrugged and sighed. "I used to think I could keep myself apart from it, you know? Be the cool professional on duty, and the squadron clown in the rec room. But for the first time, here on Victory, I actually felt like I was starting to put down roots. I made friends, real friends… Cobra, Vaquero, Beast Jaeger. Now they're gone, and all I want is to see the end of it all… one way or another."

  Blair didn't reply right away. Vagabond's words struck a familiar chord. "The attack on Kilrah's likely to be a one-way trip, Chang," he said at last. "It's supposed to be an all-volunteer run. I was going to encourage you to opt out of it, since you were pretty well set against bombing civilian targets. Now… hell, I don't have enough pilots in Gold Squadron as it is. If you really want in, I'll be glad to have you there. But if you're not sure, speak up now. So I can try to get someone else checked out on the Excalibur from one of the other outfits."

  Vagabond shook his head. "Don't bother. I'm in."

  "It's nice to know you can count on… people." Blair turned back to the locker, saw Vaquero's prized old guitar. He picked it up, ran his fingers over each string. "His family will want this, I suppose…" he said softly. Then, with another flash of anger, he went on. "It just isn't fair, Chang. That kid should never have been a pilot."

  "But he was," Vagabond told him. "A good one, too. We're all going to miss him, before this thing is over."

  Together, they emptied out the locker and packed Vaquero's gear in the cargo module. When it was done, Blair tagged it and left it outside the door for a work detail to pick up later. He fetched a second module from a storeroom nearby and headed for his last stop. He knew this one would be the most difficult of all.

  Cobra had shared her quarters with Flint, and the lieutenant opened the door at Blair's signal. She saw the cargo module and nodded. "Cobra's stuff, huh?"

  "Yeah." He followed her in. "Er… you knew her pretty well, didn't you?"

  "As well as anyone, I guess," she said. "Laurel didn't make a lot of friends."

  "I guess not" Blair looked away. "Fact is, I'm supposed to send her effects to her family, write a note, the usual routine. But I don't even know if she has a family. Her file was pretty thin."

  "We were the only family she had," Flint said softly.

  "I didn't treat her very well, for family," Blair said, looking away. "I trusted Hobbes, not her…"

  "You had your reasons," she replied. "Blaming yourself won't change what happened… won't bring Cobra back, or Vaquero, either."

  "Maybe you're right. I don't know any more. It seems like every choice I've made, every turn I've taken since I came on board this ship has been wrong. I'm starting to second-guess myself on everything."

  Flint hesitated a moment before responding, her look intent, searching for something in his face. "Everything? Does that mean your romance with your little grease monkey has fallen through?"

  "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded. He was still feeling bad about breaking his date with Rachel the night before, but under the circumstances he hadn't felt like seeing anyone.

  She looked away. "I just thought… you could do a lot better, you know?"

  "No, I don't know," Blair told her. "Rachel's been a good friend to me… more than a friend." He studied her. "I know you thought there might be something between you and me. I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea about how I felt."

  "Just how do you feel?" she demanded.

  "You've been a good friend, too, Flint. Hell, I probably owe you my life, after Delius. And under other circumstances, things might have gone further between us."

  "Other circumstances… ?"

  "Don't you get it, Flint? Rachel's not a pilot. You are. And after Angel—I just don't think I could handle getting involved with another pilot. Especially one who might end up flying on my wing." He paused. "Truth is, it isn't fair to either one of you, now. When we hit Kilrah, odds are none of us are coming back. So any romance I get into now is strictly short-term."

  "Maybe that's all there is for any of us, now," Flint said quietly. "If this next fight goes against us, there won't be time left for anyone."

  Blair nodded. "That's true enough. Look… I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you."

  "I'm grown up," she told him. "I can handle rejection. But I don't take kindly to losing out to some mechanic who smells like synlubes and uses grease for make-up."

  He looked away, feeling helpless. "If it helps any, I doubt she and I are going anywhere, now."

  Flint's look was cold. "Do what you like, flyboy," she said. "Doesn't matter to me. And like you said, this next op's probably going to be the last, right? For all of us."

  "It's a volunteer mission, Flint. You don't have to fly it. Maybe you'd be better off staying with the ship."

  She shook her head. "You've been telling me not to put my feelings ahead of my duty, and that's just what I'm going to do now. I will be in on the kill, all riglit. Just try and stop me." Flint paused. "But I'll give you a word of warning, Colonel. I may try to keep my personal feelings on a leash, but I don't make any guarantees. And it might not be such a good idea for you to pick a wingman you've just kicked in the teeth. If you take my meaning… sir."

  Blair had no answer for that. He left Flint to pack up Cobra's gear, and headed back to his office to think.

  Sometimes it was easier to face the enemy than it was to deal with the people he cared about most.

  Flight Wing Rec Room, TCS Victory

  Freya System

  The carrier made the jump from Blackmane to the Freya System, where the High Command ordered the strike force to assemble for the attack that was supposed to cover the raid on Kilrah. Through the viewport in the rec room, Blair could see a few of the ships of the Terran fleet, some close enough to recognize shapes and configurations, others so far away that they glimmered as moving lights against the starfield.

  It was a powerful force, but nowhere near the size of the fleet that had held the Kilrathi at Terra. Yet this was supposed to be Earth's decisive strike, the knockout punch that would end the war.

  Blair watched the other ships, and doubted.

  "You look like you could use some company," Rachel Coriolis said from behind him.

  Blair turned in his chair. "Rachel… I thought you had the duty until seventeen hundred hours."

  "This is just a break," she said. "We've still got a lot to get done before the j
ump to Hyperion tomorrow, so I'm grabbing a bite to eat now and then pulling a double shift." She mustered a weary smile. "So, are you going to invite a girl to sit down, or what?"

  "Sure, sure," he said hurriedly. "Please. Sorry…"

  Rachel laughed. "So, the rough, tough pilot goes to pieces under pressure." She took the seat across from him, her eyes searching his face under a worried frown. "What's the matter? Is it… Hobbes?"

  He shook his head. "Not that… not really. Fact is… it's, well, it's us."

  "Us? As in you plus me equals us?"

  "Yeah. Look, Rachel, I started thinking some things over today, and I realized something. Yesterday I was all set for a nice little seduction scene. Dinner. Music. A quiet talk that could lead to… whatever." He looked away. "After what happened…"

  "Hey, I understood then. I understand now. We'll still have our time together."

  "Maybe it was best that we couldn't make it happen," he went on doggedly. "It might be the best thing if we don't try to push it now…"

  "Are you backing out on me?" Her expression hovered between concern and anger. "I thought…"

  "Look, Rachel, by this time tomorrow, God only knows where I'll be. Even if we carry out the mission, the deck's stacked against any of us coming back from Kilrah. It isn't fair to start something with you that I might not be able to finish. I wouldn't want you to have to go through what I did… with Angel."

  "Pilots…" She shook her head. "They'd rather crash and burn than make a commitment. Look, Chris, I've been there, remember? I know what it's like. And I also know that if we keep putting our own lives aside because of what might happen tomorrow, eventually we'll run out of tomorrows. We'll never have anything to look back at, anything to remember except the war, just fighting and killing. I want something else to remember… whether it's one night, or an eternity. Don't you?"

  "Do you really mean that? You want to go ahead, even knowing it might not be more than one night?"

  She met his eyes and nodded. "I'd rather we had just one night together. Especially if the alternative is… never having any time at all."

  "Your shift…"

  "Ends at midnight. I'll skip the dinner and the music, if you'll be there for me when I come…"

  "Midnight, then." She stood when he did, and they came together in a long, lingering kiss. "Midnight…"

  Chapter XXIX

  Excalibur 3OO

  Hyperion System

  Acceleration pressed Blair into his seat as the Excalibur burst into open space. He cut in his engines and steered hard to port, toward the unseen jump point that would carry him to the enemy homeworld.

  To the real Heart of the Tiger, he thought idly.

  "Excalibur three-zero-zero, clear and under power," Blair said aloud. "Lancelot Flight, form on me and proceed as planned."

  The other three pilots acknowledged, closing around him. Four Excalibur fighters, to attack the Imperial homeworld. It still seemed like sheer madness. But this time it was truly mankind's last chance for victory.

  "Lancelot Flight, Lancelot Flight, this is Round Table," Eisen's voice crackled over the eomm channel. "Good luck to you all… and Godspeed."

  Blair didn't reply. Instead he checked his power levels, then spoke to the other pilots. "Go to cloaks… now!" he ordered, switching on his own cloaking system. There was no apparent effect, other than the sudden increase in the fighter's power drain. Weapons and shields were useless while the shroud concealed the craft, but detection would be nearly impossible. Already the other Excaliburs had vanished. He was all alone in an endless night.

  He checked the range to the jump point, and asked the computer for an ETA. Ten minutes…

  The timing of this phase of the operation was critical. The Confed's battle fleet had jumped into the Hyperion System from nearby Freya, challenging the local Kilrathi garrison forces with a series of strike attacks by fighters and capital ships. Victory had remained in reserve throughout nearly a week of combat ops, keeping to the fringes of the action. The Kilrathi were given every opportunity to commit their forces to the system, and they'd pumped in enough ships to put the Terran fleet at a serious disadvantage. It was all a part of the plan, to encourage the cats to thin out their home defenses and divert attention away from Kilrah. But it had been a costly fight already, and it was likely to get worse.

  Today the admiral commanding the fleet had passed the word to General Taggart aboard Victory. There was no guarantee that the fleet could maintain the fight for more than a few more hours. Then they would have to break off, or go down fighting. Paladin had given the orders. The attack was on at last.

  The carrier edged toward the jump point, seemingly to reinforce the Terran battlegroup built around the Hermes and the Invincible which had been heavily engaged in the area for several hours. According to intelligence reports, the Kilrathi were unaware of the Terran survey work done around Hyperion, and thus thought the Confederation knew nothing of the Kilrah jump point. But they had to be careful to keep from tipping their hands too soon.

  As it was, they nearly ran into trouble when a Kilrathi destroyer escort left the enemy fleet on course for the jump point, but Eisen turned the situation to their advantage by pretending to pursue the enemy ship. That ship had passed through the jump point less than half an hour ago, and that transjump became the main reason for Blair's present preoccupation with the ticking countdown clock.

  If the escort withdrew to Kilrah to summon additional reinforcements, the Terrans had to hope nothing else was waiting close to the jump point on the other side. Otherwise they might be blundering into trouble before the mission was even fairly under way.

  He checked the ETA again. Three minutes…

  Audience Hall, KIS Hvar'kann

  Kilrah System

  "Message from the escort Ghordax, Lord Prince. From the fleet at Hyperion."

  Thrakhath allowed his throne to swivel past the viewscreen he was contemplating so he could look down on Melek. "What is their report?"

  "The battle proceeds well, Lord Prince," Melek said, bowing. "The Terrans cannot last long."

  "So there is no further need for reinforcements, then?"

  "No, Lord Prince. None."

  "Good," Thrakhath said. "I do not wish to further disrupt our buildup. Is there any word from the Logistics Masters on the timetable for launching the Grand Fleet?"

  "Six eights of hours, Lord Prince. The bombardment missiles will be fully loaded by then, and the fleet can break orbit any time after that."

  "Excellent. Then we will soon be on our way to the Terran homeworld. This time they shall not turn us back." Thrakhath turned his throne again, gesturing to the screen. It showed a view of Kilrah's orbital yards, with capital ships grouped around orbital depots and swarms of smaller craft moving among them, preparing the Grand Fleet for the last great campaign. "Victory, Melek," the prince continued. "It smells sweet, does it not?"

  "Yes, Lord Prince," Melek replied dutifully.

  "Still, there is one thing missing," Thrakhath went on, almost to himself. "I can only hope for one last chance to meet the Heart of the Tiger in battle. It will make our triumph all the more complete…"

  Thrakhath continued to study the viewscreen, the light of victory in his eyes.

  Excalibur 3OO

  Kilrah System

  Jumpshock made Blair sluggish, but he forcing his body to obey his will, he switched power from the transjump drive to the cloaking device. Powering up his engines, he steered the fighter out of the jump point, setting course inward, toward the Kilrathi homeworld.

  On his sensor screen, another blip flickered into existence astern, then faded a few moments later. That was Vagabond, acting as wingman on the mission. Maniac and Flint followed in succession, apparently without being noticed. There were no Kilrathi ships in the immediate area, though the escort they had trailed in the Hyperion System was at the very edge of detection range, also on course toward Kilrah. Hopefully, if they spotted anything suspicious at all
they wouldn't be able to react until the cloaked Terran ships were well clear of the area.

  Blair's comm monitor came alive with an image of Paladin. The old warrior had warned him that the computers aboard all four fighters would trigger periodic briefings as they headed in toward their goal. This tape, for Blair, had been personalized. Taggart smiled out at him. "Laddie, we've covered this ground backwards and forwards waiting for the mission to launch, but I'll give you the straight dope one more time now. Since you're seeing this, you've made the jump successfully, and you're in the Kilrathi System now." The screen changed to show a chart of the Kilrah star system, with navpoints glowing brightly. "Your first job, now that you're through, is tae bring your fighters in tae the first asteroid depot. There you'll find a stock of fuel, spares, and missiles, everything you'll need tae carry you all the way in tae the outer moon of Kilrah." The first depot faded, and another, more distant asteroid was indicated. "Should ye find the first position compromised, laddie, there is a second choice. But remember, if ye canna keep one depot in reserve, there'll nae be enough fuel in your birds tae get you through the jump point after the mission's done. The second depot is supposed to be for the trip back… but I ken well you'll do what ye have tae if the mission depends upon it."

  Paladin's face appeared on the screen again. "Good luck, laddie. You'll need it."

  The screen went blank.

  Blair set his course for the nearer depot, knowing that the others would be doing the same. They were maintaining absolute comm silence, hoping to avoid any detection by the Kilrathi. Surprise was their only hope… surprise, sheer flying skill, and pure, unadulterated good luck.

  He hoped it would be enough.

  Excalibur 3O2

  Kilrah System

  A warning alarm beeped for attention, and Lieutenant Winston Chang checked his sensor board. There was something ahead, a powered target that glowed amber on his screen as the computer tried to identify it as friend or foe. A moment later, it changed to a reddish orange. An enemy, then… no, two enemies, a pair of Darket fighters, evidently making a routine patrol sweep.