Wing Commander: Freedom Flight

by Mercedes Lackey

  The techs were easily cowed by Kirha's growling assertion that the ship was too dangerous to come near yet, before he and his crew had disarmed all the traps the promiscuous, mating-out-of-season, tailless, hairless apes had put in place when they abandoned their ship. Kirha bounced down the interior ramp with a certain amount of jauntiness in his step, and pride in his carriage. "Very low-rank," he said to Hunter. "I convinced them to go away and stay away until we called, my lord. I think they were just as pleased, once I mentioned traps. The whole area will probably become mysteriously deserted as they find reasons to be elsewhere. Low-rankers like that have no sense of pride."

  Hunter didn't point out that they did appear to have a healthy sense of self-preservation. He was just grateful that Kirha had found a way to get rid of them without a fuss.

  They had entered the control room in time for Paladin to hear most of it, and the news brought a healthy grin to Paladin's handsome face. "Good work, Kirha," he said. "You're a bright lad, an' that's sure. Let's take that advantage while we've got it. We might just get in, get the hostages, and get out before they even notice we're gone."

  Gwen made a face, suggesting to Hunter that the young tech thought Paladin was overestimating his luck-quotient by far too much, but Hunter kept his mouth shut. For one thing, it had finally hit home while Kirha was talking to the maintenance cats that this was Kilrathi territory, a cat-station. They were in enemy hands. And if they were discovered…

  Mingled fear and excitement dried his mouth and made his hands tremble a little, and he took a deep breath to steady himself. Take it easy, old boy, he told himself. This isn't the first tight one you've ever been in, and it won't be the last. Paladin acted as if he was on hostile stations all the time, moving cautiously out the lock, and gesturing for the rest to follow, with no sign of emotion on his face. Maybe he was. Maybe none of this bothered him in the least.

  Maybe cows could cruise the asteroids.

  Hunter followed Gwen out of the lock, with K'Kai and Kirha bringing up the rear. He only hoped K'Kai could keep a tight hold on her nerves. Her people tended to be excitable, and this was not the time for K'Kai to go berserk on him.

  Paladin glanced around the docking area, looking for something; in a moment he found it, and the rest followed him as he hurried over to it. A computer console, Hunter saw, looking over his shoulder, with a strip across the top for station bulletins to scroll constantly. Presumably it was like the ones in their own docking bays, giving access to a great deal of information about the station. Things like—the maps of the detention areas, for instance.

  Kirha craned his neck to see over Paladin's shoulder, and let out a hiss of alarm.

  Paladin looked up from his search, as Kirha pointed to the string of Kilrathi characters scrolling across the screen much too fast for Hunter to even make out what they were. "Those are scramble-commands for ground troops!" Kirha growled, half in anger, half in dismay. "They are being ordered to this docking bay to attack the crew of the ship here!"

  "Evidently your codes weren't quite accurate, boss," Gwen said, as Paladin swore in Gaelic. "Now what? We haven't got more than a couple of minutes at most before the welcoming committee arrives."

  "They have not sounded the alarms," Kirha said flatly. "This means that they must wish not to alert us. They must want us alive, to question. Before they kill us, of course."

  "Of course," Hunter said weakly.

  "Fighting our way past them will be difficult," the young Kilrathi continued, unperturbed. "There must be at least four squadrons on the way here."

  "We'll split up," Paladin said, suddenly. "Aye, that's it. Hunter, you and Kirha make a run for the prisoners—Kirha, the computer says that they're here—"

  He pointed at the console screen, and Kirha nodded. "I can find that," the young Kilrathi said confidently.

  "Meanwhile, K'Kai, Gwen and I will be tryin' to divert 'em. We'll meet back here."

  "Oh thanks, boss," Gwen replied under her breath. Hunter didn't think Paladin heard.

  "All right, let's move!" Paladin said, turning to run toward the entrance to the docking bay. Before Hunter could say anything, Kirha had grabbed him by the arm.

  "Quickly, in here!" Kirha pulled Hunter back into a shadowy alcove of the docking bay, as the heavy footfalls of a Kilrathi squadron ran past, not fifteen feet away. Kirha started up the odd tilted plastic pole next to them, glancing down a moment later. "You do not wish to follow me, my lord? But this is the best way to the prisoner area!"

  "It's not that," Hunter said, swallowing nervously as he looked up at the pole, which followed the curving ceiling a hundred feet overhead. You'd have to be a monkey to climb that and not fall…or a cat.… "Never mind, I can do it," he said firmly. Just keep repeating that to yourself, Hunter, and maybe you'll make it. There's no going back now, anyhow. He grabbed the pole, trying not to show his surprise at the feel of the warm, rough plastic against his bare hands, then began to climb.

  It was slow going, especially when he was hanging upside-down in the shadows of the ceiling, looking down at the Kilrathi troops who were now thoroughly searching the Bonnie Heather for any other intruders, but hadn't figured out that all they had to do was look up at the ceiling to spot two of them. And ten seconds after that it'll be "Ready, Aim, and Fire…" Hunter banished the thought, concentrating on holding onto the pole and shimmying forward, a few inches at a time. Kirha, clinging to the pole a few feet ahead of him, seemed baffled by his liege lord's inability to scramble effortlessly up the pole. It's called evolutionary differences, kitty, having fingers instead of claws, Hunter thought as he struggled upward.

  An endless amount of time later, he was still wrapped around the pole, watching Kirha pry open an access hatch and pull himself through. "Hey, Kirha," Hunter whispered, barely loud enough to be heard, "You mind helping your liege lord through this?" There was no way Hunter could let go of the pole long enough to scramble through the hatch. Kirha reached back through, easily pulling Hunter from the pole and through the hatch. He's stronger than he looks, Hunter thought, startled. "Thanks, mate," he murmured, closing the hatch behind him. "Now, which way from here?"

  "Most of these stations have the detention areas on the fourth level," Kirha whispered back. "Some of them have it on the sixth level, though. We should check the fourth level first, which is directly above us."

  "Sounds good," Hunter whispered back. He followed Kirha down the corridor, then up a twisting hall that led up to the fourth level. There was a closed hatchway at the end of a corridor; Kirha and Hunter moved quickly toward it, then Kirha paused, very close to an odd-looking plastic plate on the closed hatch. "There is a code sequence for this, but I cannot remember what it is."

  "K'rakh drish'kai rai h'ra!" a loud Kilrathi voice said, and Hunter whirled.

  "Oh, hell," he said, looking down a Kilrathi assault rifle barrel. There were five of them, all aimed at him. The Kilrathi behind the guns were staring at him, and at Kirha. "Uh, Kirha," he said, nudging his comrade, who was staring back at the Kilrathi soldiers. "Can you say something to them?"

  "Ja'lra rash'nakh h'rai?" one of the Kilrathi said angrily, stepping forward and glaring at Kirha.

  That bloke must be the leader. Lord, he's nearly seven feet tall and almost as wide! "What was he saying, mate?" Hunter whispered to Kirha.

  "He is asking why I am consorting with a human, my lord," Kirha whispered back. He spoke louder in Kilrathi, a speech that went on and on as Hunter glanced nervously at the Kilrathi, who were intently listening to what Kirha had to say.

  "What did you say to him?" Hunter asked, as Kirha concluded his rather long speech.

  "I told him that you are my liege lord, that you are the finest, most honorable, most noble lord I have ever known, that even though you are human, your word is as the Kilrathi Emperor's to me, and that I and my descendants will be loyal to you for all eternity."

  Hunter saw the way the Kilrathi's claws were extending and retracting as Kirha finished his exp
lanation. "Uh, Kirha, you don't need to lay it on quite that thick, mate…"

  The huge Kilrathi snarled something in his own language, and Kirha nodded, replying in the same unintelligible words. They spoke for another few seconds. Then the big Kilrathi handed his rifle to one of the others, and began stripping off his weapons belt, laying it and his belt knife to the ground.

  "This is good," Kirha said, nodding. "Very good."

  "What's so good about it, Kirha?" Hunter asked, totally baffled.

  "He doesn't believe that a human can be an honorable liege lord to a Kilrathi," Kirha explained. "To prove this, he has offered to fight you to the death in single combat. He commands the others, and says that they will not harm us if you fight him."

  "I'm supposed to fight him?" Hunter said, his voice squeaking a little on the last word, as he stared at the huge Kilrathi, now stripped down to his hauberk, who was grinning toothily at him. "Are you nuts, mate?"

  "You must fight him, my lord," Kirha said earnestly. "This is now a duel of honor. You must prove that you are worthy to be a liege lord."

  "What if I don't fight?"

  "Then you are only an inferior member of a prey-species, and I am a traitor, and they will kill us both right now. You, for being human, and me, for betraying the honor of the Kilrathi Empire," Kirha said, glancing at the surrounding Kilrathi warriors. "You had probably better fight him, my lord Hunter."

  "You and I are going to have a long talk about this 'liege lord' business, Kirha," Hunter said. "If I survive this," he added. The tall Kilrathi moved to stand in front of him, smiling to show his many pointed, white teeth and flexing his broad muscles, visible even beneath his thick coat of fur.

  "Yes, my lord," Kirha said obediently.

  "We can't hold them off!" Gwen said desperately, firing her pistol back down through the hatchway. The Kilrathi squadron ducked back around the corner, and Gwen punched the airlock controls to shut the hatch, then smashed the control panel with the butt of her pistol, sealing the door shut from the inside.

  "Keep running!" Paladin said urgently. He glanced back, to see K'Kai struggling to keep up with them. Running was not a usual activity for a Firekkan, but there was not enough room in these narrow halls for her to spread her wings and fly.

  "In here!" Paladin shoved open another hatchway, and brought up his pistol to fire with deadly accuracy through the doorway at the Kilrathi seated in the room. The air crackled with the snap of the energy weapon. Startled, the Kilrathi did not have time to return fire… one slumped over a computer panel, then the other fell to the deck. "Quickly!" Paladin shouted. K'Kai and Gwen dived through after him, and Paladin slammed the lock shut.

  "I've studied captured diagrams of these stations," Paladin said, looking around the small room. "This is a control room, maybe an Environmental Station. If we can figure out what works here, maybe we can turn these odds in our favor."

  Why are you bothering to be optimistic about this, James? he asked himself. This mission is insane, suicide, and you know it. We'll die here, this won't help anyone…

  I have to keep going, until it's obvious that we're going to be captured. His hand brushed against the holstered pistol on his belt. Then I'll have to make sure that the cats don't capture me alive. I know too much about our Intelligence operations.

  I shouldna let Hunter do this, I could've triggered the alarms on the Heather and stopped it all before it began. But I wanted so much to get a glimpse of Ghorah Khar, to see whether or not the real mission can succeed later.

  Now we're all going to pay for my stupidity.

  "K'Kai, cover the door. Check those guards, Gwen," Paladin instructed the woman, who complied. "I'll try to figure out how to work these controls…"

  "James, look out!"

  Paladin heard Gwen's warning a half-second before a blue energy bolt seared into the console next to him. He leaped toward the Kilrathi who was struggling on the floor with Gwen. The Kilrathi, bleeding badly from a burn across his chest, held a pistol in his hand. Paladin reached them just as the Kilrathi shoved Gwen away from him and fired the gun directly at her, a blinding burst of blue fire. A moment later, James was fighting to wrest the gun from the Kilrathi.

  A heavy backhand from the Kilrathi caught him across the face, and he stumbled backwards into a computer console. The Kilrathi raised his gun to fire…

  Point-blank range, he can't miss—there's nowhere to go, nothing to hide behind—

  K'Kai leaped into the air, spreading her wings to dive down onto the Kilrathi. Both landed hard on the deck, the Kilrathi's head slamming onto the edge of a console as he fell. Paladin could hear the crunch across the room. K'Kai rose to her feet a moment later, but the Kilrathi lay motionless on the deck, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle.

  "Thanks, K'Kai," he breathed, and moved quickly to where Gwen was lying on the floor, not moving. "Gwen, lass?" He knelt by her, turning her over gently. His breath caught.

  Gwen's face and chest were horribly burned, blackened down to the bone in several places. Her eyes were untouched and open, blankly staring.

  Paladin spoke very softly, checking her unburnt wrist for a pulse. "Come on, lass, don't do this to me. Gwen, look at me, look at me. Please, Gwen…"

  "She is dead, Taggart," K'Kai said above him. He glanced up to look at her inscrutable alien face, blurred through the tears in his eyes. "You cannot help her now."

  "She can't be dead. This wasn't supposed to happen, it should have been me… she's so young, only a child… Gwen, lass, you canna die on me, girl!" Paladin's arms tightened around her, burying his face against her scorched red hair. He felt numb, frozen, unable to think. This shouldn't hae happened, not to Gwen. A young lass, with everything in the world to live for. It should have been me, a useless old man, not her ... mother…

  "Taggart, there are other lives at stake here," K'Kai began.

  "Shut up!" Paladin snarled at her, holding Gwen's body against him, tears brimming over his eyes, his stomach clenched with grief.

  The Firekkan leaned in close and bit his ear.

  Paladin yelped and swung his fist at her, but she ducked back out of range. He felt the blood trickling hotly down his face, the pain drying his tears and breaking him out of his grief, throwing him instead into anger. Hell, that bitch!

  "Gwen is dead, but we are still alive, and we have work to do!" K'Kai said angrily. "Get back on your feet and help me find my people, or I will do more than bite you!"

  Her cold, reasoned words shocked him back into thinking again. She's right. Gwen's dead, but we can't give up yet.

  "You're—you're right," Paladin said slowly, looking down at the woman in his arms. He set Gwen's body on the deck, gently closing her open, staring eyes. Then he straightened, crossing to one of the computer consoles. "We—we need something that'll slow down those Kilrathi troops, give us a chance to get the hostages and get back off the station. Do any of these controls make sense to you, K'Kai?"

  "No, Dzames."

  He stared at them, talking as much to himself as to her. "I recognize these symbols. That's the temperature controls. We could raise or lower the temperature, but that wouldn't really help us… wait! Over there, those switches. They look like they're emergency seal controls in case of an environmental accident." His eyes raced over the keys as he spoke, pointing out what he was talking about to K'Kai. "We can seal off this section of the station, prevent the Kilrathi from bringing more troops into this area. The only risk is that we'd cut off Hunter and Kirha as well." He studied the controls, desperately trying to remember the layout of the station that he had studied for endless hours. "No, if we hit them here, and here, Hunter will still be able to get through to the detention areas."

  "A good plan," K'Kai agreed, and together they set the controls for the worst possible environmental accident that could occur on a station, multiple breaches of the station's hull.

  "And that gauge over there. I bet that's the artificial gravity controls."

  "It could be,"
K'Kai said, studying the console.

  "Your people are flyers. They'd be able to move pretty damn fast in zero gravity, better than the Kilrathi."

  "That is true," K'Kai agreed, her eyes brightening. "Indeed we move well on my freighter."

  "I'm sure they'll have backup systems, but a few minutes of zero-gee might allow Hunter and Kirha a better chance of getting the hostages out, not to mention giving us a better chance to fight our way back onto the ship." He paused a moment, trying to think of any holes in the hastily-made plan. There were probably dozens, but at this point it hardly mattered. "It's worth a try, and I can't see anything else here that'll help. We can shut down the gravity and use that surprise to get out of here. Grab onto something, I'm going to switch the gravity off… now!"

  He held onto the edge of the console as he pulled the switch, and a split-second later felt the familiar stomach-twisting weightlessness of zero gravity. Gwen's body gently floated up from the floor, the Kilrathi corpses drifting through the air beyond her.

  "We must hurry, Major," K'Kai said from the hatchway.

  "I know," he replied, pulling himself across the console toward the floating body. "Goodbye, Gwen," he said, holding her unburnt hand in his for a long moment, and pressing it to his lips. He turned and pushed off in the direction of the hatchway. "On three, K'Kai," he said, grabbing onto the edge of the hatch. "One, two… three!" He punched the control to unlock the hatch and kicked it open. The three Kilrathi floating helplessly in the corridor tried to bring up their assault rifles, but too late… a few seconds later, Paladin and K'Kai were moving past the lifeless bodies, heading back toward the Bonnie Heather.