End Run

by William R. Forstchen

  "Doomsday, do you copy?"

  "Right here."

  "Switch to commlink 2331."

  "Copy."

  "All right old friend, you with me?"

  "Got ya."

  "You know the plan. The old man wants you to engage and destroy at fifty thousand clicks out. I want you to run, and keep pulling back. We need those Sartha to see the ship."

  Doomsday laughed.

  "Oh, will we be in for it, but I'll take care of it."

  The Sartha were starting to fall behind and Jason snapped his engine on and off, mimicking that he was starting to overheat. He scanned through Kilrathi frequencies and finally locked on to them. They were calling to each other excitedly, and it sounded as if some sort of argument was on.

  He clicked on his mike.

  "Your mother eats used cat litter," he shouted in what he hoped was good Kilrathi.

  There was an explosion of roars from the other side.

  "Bugs Bunny screws his mother," a Kilrathi taunted back in broken English and Jason roared with laughter. Apparently the Kilrathi had picked up some old Earth television transmissions that had been slowly traveling outward at light speed for hundreds of years. One fragment they had picked up had been analyzed by their psychological warfare department and they believed that this ancient animated character was a great folk hero of Earth. A number of taunts had been built around it and he remembered how crestfallen his friend Hobbes was when he was informed that such a taunt produced hysterical laughter from human pilots, since it had been one of Hobbes' favorites when he was still serving the Empire.

  Jason exchanged a few more taunts, the responses leaving him in stitches and he found himself hoping that the pilot he was facing would survive their upcoming encounter. He almost hoped that someday they could share a drink and he could tell him just how comical he really was.

  The Tarawa was less than fifty thousand clicks out, and he hoped that the Kilrathi were finally picking it up. There was a moment of hesitation from his pursuers when they detected eight ships coming up, another round of shouted arguments and then they pressed on in.

  "All right, Doomsday, break back in."

  Doomsday turned his ship around, several thousand clicks ahead of Jason, and started back for the Tarawa. The commlink channel from Tarawa flared to life and Jason switched the link off and smiled. He could imagine that O'Brian was going berserk when he saw that the fighters were running straight back home with only six Kilrathi Sarthas on their tail.

  Jason watched his screen, knowing that he had to put on some sort of convincing show, both for O'Brian and for the Kilrathi who might grow suspicious.

  "Ten thousand clicks we break back," Jason announced.

  As they crossed the line he switched back up to full power and yanked back hard on his stick while punching in the afterburners to produce a skidding turn.

  As he turned, the Sarthas broke into an open formation and the fight was on. He bore straight in on the lead ship, rolled ninety degrees, punched some more afterburner in, and turned again, coming up on the portside rear quarter. He squeezed off a sharp double burst, and fragments rained off the enemy.

  Another burst would kill him but he held off. The enemy turned to try to circle in and Jason kicked on his afterburners as if he had panicked and was now trying to escape. The Sartha turned in behind him. Doomsday streaked past, with his fighters behind him slashing into the other ships.

  Jason continued to run straight back towards Tarawa, the Sartha behind him, trying to close the range. He pivoted and rolled to avoid the incoming, struggling with his own instincts and training to fake a pull-up, then roll over and dive under, coming up beneath his opponent. No. He had to lead him in.

  Three small dots appeared straight ahead and within seconds started to take form. The Kilrathi, intent on what he thought would be a kill, continued to bore in, still firing. Good, his gun cameras would definitely be on, recording what was straight ahead. Jason dived straight for the fleet until a blind man could not help but see what was ahead. The Sartha slowed and Jason grinned, imagining a rather panicked cry of 'oh damn!' from his opponent.

  To his amazement the Tarawa's long range laser cannon opened fire and Jason ducked his ship out of the way.

  "Damn it, turn those guns off, this turkey has to report home!" Jason roared.

  The Sartha pulled up and away. Jason turned after him, pursued briefly and then jerked his throttle up and down to simulate engine trouble.

  "Doomsday, one heading straight back, let him get through. He's scared to death but he's got the information."

  "We've scratched four of them, feels strange to not finish 'em."

  "That's not the mission, form up and return to base."

  Jason turned back in to the Tarawa, lined up for approach and came in to a smooth landing. As he shut down his engine and Sparks helped him out of the cockpit, the deck loudspeaker clicked on.

  "Commander Bondarevsky, report to the bridge at once."

  "I guess you're in for it now, sir," Sparks said with a grin.

  "Tell me something, Sparks, just how the hell is it that you always seem to know what's going on all the time?"

  "I keep my eyes and ears open, that's all," she said quietly.

  "I see."

  She hesitated for a moment.

  "For what it's worth, sir, I think that marine captain's a mighty fine lady."

  Jason looked over at his crew chief and could only shake his head. They had tried to keep their relationship secret. Fleet policy, though it didn't officially ban such fraternization, certainly didnt approve of it either. Couples were expected to be discreet and, outside the privacy of their rooms, to show military decorum at all times.

  Embarrassed, Jason forced a weak smile.

  "And she's awfully lucky as well."

  He looked at Sparks and sensed that there was a twinge of jealousy in her comment. She stood before him, a streak of grease on her cheek, her hands dirty, her uniform a baggy pair of maintenance coveralls. But for the first time he also realized that she was an extremely attractive young lady.

  "Ah, yeah, ah thanks, Sparks," and he quickly left the deck.

  As he walked down the corridor, still in flight gear, the ship's crew that he passed looked at him and then lowered their eyes. As he opened the airlock door onto the bridge he could hear O'Brian's high voice:

  "I'll have his stripes for this."

  "Reporting as ordered, sir," Jason said quietly.

  The entire bridge was as silent as the grave as O'Brian turned, his features flushed.

  "You disobeyed a direct order to engage those Kilrathi beyond the range of this ship."

  "Sir, can we discuss this in your wardroom?" Jason asked quietly.

  "No! We'll discuss it right here!"

  Jason walked past the captain and pulled open the wardroom door.

  "Sir, this might involve issues of security and you know what Admiral Banbridge said about that."

  Jason knew that it had nothing to do with security at all. Before entering the system the crew had been briefed at last on their mission. That alone had nearly driven Jason to distraction, since O'Brian's briefing was short on inspiration and long on the perils involved. But the last thing he wanted were witnesses to what he was about to say.

  Fuming, O'Brian stalked across the bridge, his shoulder brushing against Jason, forcing him to step back. Jason followed him into the wardroom and slammed the door shut.

  "I ordered you to engage those Sartha beyond range of the Tarawa."

  "Sir, under the mission guidelines established by Admiral Banbridge we were to engage the Kilrathi in this sector, in such a manner as to lead them back to the Tarawa so that our position would be revealed."

  "Banbridge is not out here now, mister, and I made a decision based upon the current threat."

  "Six lousy Sartha a threat to an escort carrier, a destroyer, and corvette?"

  "Don't you question my judgment, mister."

  "I am ques
tioning it," Jason snapped angrily.

  O'Brian, his features flushed, waved a finger at Jason.

  "Oh, I know all about you and that Gettysburg affair. You're a mutineer. You got away with it last time, but by God you won't this time."

  Furious, Jason struggled for control to not say anything else.

  "I've decided to cross this sector without detection. If we spring into Kilrah unannounced we'll smash them, by God. Now they know we're coming and I have a good mind to call this mission off thanks to you."

  Jason turned away for a second. He felt his hands shaking with rage and then he turned back.

  "If you do that, sir, our main task force will be jumped by ten carriers. They'll be destroyed and we will lose this war!"

  He slammed the table with his fist, afraid for a second that he had actually broken his hand.

  O'Brian blanched and stepped backwards.

  "I'm grounding you; you are confined to quarters and we are pulling back now that the Kilrathi know of our whereabouts."

  Jason felt a rising temptation to simply kill O'Brian and be done with it.

  "At least the captain of the Gettysburg was not a coward, I'll give him credit for that."

  "You are under arrest," O'Brian snarled.

  "Listen, O'Brian. You were at the briefing. You know what's at stake."

  "Our lives are at stake."

  "Your miserable hide is all you're thinking of. If we don't do this next jump in towards the heart of the Empire, they won't divert part of their fleet. Over fifty thousand men and women are in our task force. They're all that stands between the Kilrathi and our homes. All of them will die if the Kilrathi don't turn back part of their fleet! You'll go back home to nothing."

  "We're pulling out."

  Furious, Jason turned away. God, was he going to have to initiate another mutiny? He had barely gotten through the last one. No one in the fleet would accept or believe that he was forced to do it twice in spite of Admiral Tolwyn's promise of support and O'Brian could change his story later, something he would most certainly do if they ever got back.

  There was a knock at the door.

  "Go away!" O'Brian roared.

  The door opened and Grierson stepped in.

  "Thought I'd come over here and congratulate young Jason on a job well done," Grierson said quietly.

  O'Brian looked at Grierson in confusion.

  "You lured those furballs straight in. It was masterful. I bet at this very minute the damned Kilrathi are going nuts. I had to come over and let you know how I felt."

  Grierson spoke quietly, not even looking at Jason, his attention focused on O'Brian.

  "Sir, I'd suggest we push this little fleet up to flank speed and head straight into the next jump inward as quickly as possible. Captain Teng just called me from Kagimasha as I was coming over and suggested we do that as well. It's how we'd react if this raid was supposed to be trying to sneak in and suddenly got discovered."

  He paused for a moment.

  "Don't you agree, sir?"

  O'Brian's features dropped, his face going as pale as rotten bone.

  He nodded his head, unable to speak.

  Grierson turned to look back out at the bridge, the door into the wardroom still open.

  "Hey, you there, communications, pass the word to the other two ships, bring her up to flank speed, head straight for the jump point. Helm, get a move on there and throttle her up!"

  The entire bridge crew was standing in a tight cluster, looking at Grierson in the doorway as if he were a ghost.

  "Well shake a leg and get moving! We're about to scare the living daylights out of the entire Kilrathi Empire. Hell, I'd sell my soul just to see their damned Emperor's face when he hears that we're coming for a visit!"

  "Aye, sir," and grinning, the crew returned to their seats.

  "Well I best be getting back to my ship, that little shuttle craft of mine can barely keep up."

  He reached over to Jason, shook his hand, and then patted him on the back.

  "Good work, son."

  Jason looked back at O'Brian.

  "May I return to my duties, sir?" he asked quietly.

  "Return to your duties, Mr. Barnosky. Dismissed."

  Jason followed Grierson off the bridge and back down the corridor to the flight deck.

  "Your quarters nearby, son?"

  Jason, still shaken, nodded towards the door and the two entered his room.

  Without unzipping his flight survival suit Jason collapsed down on his bunk with a sigh.

  "Rather fortunate you came along, sir," Jason whispered, almost afraid to speak too loudly.

  "I was tuned into your commlink and heard the exchange. O'Brian exploded when you turned your radio off."

  "Then you know what he wanted to do?"

  Grierson nodded.

  "I know your reputation, son; I also know the truth about the Gettysburg incident and I fully supported what you and your friends did. O'Brian was setting you up while at the same time trying to find a way to squeeze out of this little crack we got caught in."

  "Hell, if he pulled out, you and everyone else would live to see your next paycheck."

  "Don't insult me," Grierson said coldly. "I know what the hell the stakes are, same as you, and I'll be damned if some coward kills a hell of a lot of my friends back at Vukar and brings down the Confederation just to save his lousy hide. So I figured I'd better get over here, cover your butt, and lean on him a bit. As long as he knows that he has two other captains watching him, he'll be forced to play according to the plan."

  "Now I've got to get back to my ship. If you've got a problem again, here's a secured commlink channel which routes straight in to me," and as he spoke he jotted down the number on a slip of paper and handed it to Jason.

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Stay sharp, son, and for God's sake stay alive. You're the one counter we've got against him aboard this ship."

  "Just great," Jason sighed.

  Grierson smiled.

  "Find that young lady of yours and take the next watch off and try to relax a bit."

  "Just how the hell do you know about that?"

  "Hey, juicy gossip is the fastest traveling news of all," Grierson said with a laugh and with another friendly handshake he left the room.

  Jason switched off the lights, lay back on his bunk and closed his eyes, not even bothering to get out of his flight suit.

  He wouldn't have even noticed someone else in the room if it hadn't have first been for the faint scent of honeysuckle, a smell which took him back so many years to when he was in flight school.

  "Svetlana."

  "Captain Grierson dropped by my landing craft on his way out and said you wanted to see me."

  Jason smiled. Grierson was all right; if only he was the one running this mission, there'd be no worries, other than what he knew they were finally going to face when part of the home fleet closed in.

  "The perfume?"

  "Our good friend Janice loaned it to me."

  "Perfume on a marine? Come on."

  "Just shut up and follow my orders," she said as she started to unzip his flight suit.

  CHAPTER VII

  "It is too neat, far too neat."

  Prince Thrakhath clicked the holo film back to the beginning.

  It was shaky, the Sartha pilot incompetent, and overcontrolling his ship as he attempted to line up on the Ferret. But there, clearly visible, were three ships. He froze the image and looked back at his intelligence officer.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Quite sure, sire. Magnification of the image confirms that it is Tarawa, one of their new class of light carriers," and the intelligence officer ran off the specs of the ship.

  Thrakhath settled back into his chair and looked around the room.

  "And the course?"

  "Confirmed. A remote sensing drone picked up traces of a jump in the Jurbara Sector. The timing would fit precisely into the passage of these three ships."

&n
bsp; Thrakhath looked at the strategic map display hovering in the middle of the room, and ordered the intelligence officer to trace the route in.

  "From the Gmarktu Sector where the film was taken, then into Jurbara. They're heading straight into the heart of the Empire," Thrakhath whispered.

  The intelligence officer nodded.

  "Get out."

  Saluting the staff officer left the room.

  Thrakhath looked at the map one more time, and then replayed the film again.

  It didn't smell right. If they were indeed going for a raid, why bother to send out patrols that just so happen to stumble on a base, thus triggering a sortie which leads straight back to their fleet? They could have slipped through, their passage perhaps never detected. Secondly, they knew they'd been found out, yet still they were pressing in. Suicide. Such an act was ofttimes expected and honorable for a Kilrathi, but for humans it was rare.

  He looked back at the map again.

  Vukar Tag.

  Was there a connection?

  He walked around the strategic map which hovered in the middle of the room, telling the computer to plot arrival times for the fleet to Vukar and back to the center of the Empire. Six days back at flank speed, five days and a half out to Vukar.

  Next he checked the Tarawa's course. Just under six days as well if they were indeed going for Kilrah.

  It was all too pat.

  He called up his order of battle on the opposite wall and studied it once again. Ten carriers, over twelve hundred fighter and bomber craft, one hundred and twenty major ships in escort.

  There was a knock at the door.

  "Enter."

  He looked up as Baron Jukaga entered the room, followed by Kalralahr of Fleets Rusmak and Kalralahr of the Imperial Legions Gar.

  "You've heard?" Thrakhath asked.

  "The audacity," Gar snarled. "First the home of the Dowager, and now they strike straight at our heart."

  "And why? How does it fit together?"

  "A defilement born out of desperation," Rusmak growled. "All our projections indicated that this war would be finished within another year, their precious Earth turned into an extinct and lifeless husk. They are doing this as revenge raids, to hurt our pride."

  The Baron looked over at Rusmak and chuckled softly.