John Maddox Roberts - Space Angel

by John Maddox Roberts

  "Then we will have to kill more." K'Stin made a rasping noise that might have been a laugh. "Good." He and B'Shant crossed the clearing to the other hut without making a sound, keeping to the shadows. Ignoring the ladder, they swarmed up the stilts and dashed into the entrance. A faint scuffling sound was heard briefly, then silence. Carrying large bundles, the Vivers emerged a few seconds later. Sliding back down the stilts, they returned to the others and dumped their loads on the ground. One of the bundles groaned faintly.

  "The prodigal returns," Torwald announced. The former prisoners picked up their weapons and equipment. "Leave the body armor. We can always make more back in the ship. It'll just slow us down, here." They were readying to leave when a group of Tchork emerged from between some huts, about a dozen led by some kind of petty officer. The intruders froze for a second, taking in the new situation.

  "They're changing the guard!" Torwald cried. "Shoot!" He leveled his beam rifle and fired, as did the others. Before they all dropped, the Tchork managed to get off a few wild shots, sending jagged green beams sizzling through the air. None did any harm, but the racket brought their comrades boiling from the barracks.

  "Run for it!" Torwald shouted, as the Vivers lofted a few grenades at the barracks. Flashes from the explosions lit their way as they stumbled toward the jungle. In a few minutes, they were joined by the Vivers, who loped easily into the lead, with Lafayette slung over B'Shant's shoulder. "Follow us!" called K'Stin.

  In a small clearing, screened by some hasty camouflaging work, they came upon the most beautiful sight of their lives—the Angel's atmosphere craft. They all swarmed aboard, Homer making a leap that seemed impossible for a creature with such short legs.

  "Let's get out of here!" yelled Torwald. "They're right behind us!" Torwald could see Achmed at the controls and Ham manning a heavy cutter-burner mounted on a tripod in the tail section. Both men were in full armor, including helmets.

  "Everyone back here!" bawled Ham. "On your bellies and aim to the rear!" Fighting their fatigue, the rest did as they were ordered; those not already equipped with rifles grabbed them from a stack in the cargo well. As the AC rose, a group of Tchork emerged from the trees. Ham cut loose with the cutter-burner, its searingly bright purple beam lashing among them like a scythe through grain. Marksmen were firing from the trees, and the human contingent fired back whenever they could spot a target. The Vivers methodically picked off snipers as soon as their sensitive eyes detected a flash. Ham cursed as a thin beam burned a chunk from the armor over his shoulder and swung the cutter-burner toward the shot's source in the trees. Fifteen or twenty trees went down in a heap, smoking and sputtering.

  From his position prone by the controls of a jury-rigged rocket launcher, Torwald's eye caught the gleam of jewels, reflecting the light of forcebeams and brush-fire. He grinned suddenly. "Next time, show a little less vanity, sucker." He aimed directly for the biggest jewel. The beam must have started a chemical reaction within the stone, because the woods were suddenly lit bright as day for a millisecond as an explosion ripped through a circular area of jungle and clearing for a radius of six meters from the spot where the officer had been standing.

  "Tor, what the hell was that?"

  "A lucky shot, Ham—that's all." By then they were flying above the trees and almost out of range of the few parting shots thrown by the Tchork. Some of the less experienced humans began to relax, but Ham got them back behind their sights immediately.

  "Back on your bellies and keep your eyes open! Nobody takes a break until we're back in the Angel, off this planet, and preferably in hyper away from this system. We're not out of this yet." As if to prove his point, an ugly, silent shape appeared a half-kilometer astern—the Tchork flying craft.

  "See what I mean? Let her get a little closer, if she can. It's too dark to find good targets. You Vivers got any flares?"

  "Naturally. We have some that are infrared. If they cannot see in that range, it will light them up for B'Shant and me, while leaving them blind."

  "It's a good idea, but they may be able to see infrared as well as you do. In any case, us ordinary-type humans will need visible light to pick targets."

  "The hull of their craft is immune to lasers and forcebeams," Torwald noted. "We found that out when they captured us. Maybe that cutter-burner can do the job."

  "We'll give it a try," Ham said grimly. "That flitter looks open-topped. Is it?"

  "There's a shallow well for passengers and cargo," Finn said. "It doesn't seem to be a military craft. There's a fairly high windshield forward, I don't know if it's beamproof like the hull."

  "We'll soon know," said Ham. "They're getting close. You people with rifles watch for targets. K'Stin, B'Shant, loft me a couple of flares over that thing."

  The tiny rockets arched above the AC. Set by the Vivers, they ignited just as the pursuing craft came under them, lighting it up most satisfactorily. The flares then fired small directional rockets, keeping them poised above the pursuers. Some of the Tchork tried to shoot the flares down, but the tiny targets were impossible to hit because wind buffeting caused them to dance from side to side.

  "Fire!" Ham shouted, cutting loose with his massive weapon. The beams from the rifles seemed to have no more effect against the transparent windshield than they had had against the hull. The cutter-burner was likewise futile. After a few searing blasts, Ham stopped trying. "Torwald, you got a fine touch with frag rockets?"

  "Better than most."

  "Then loft me one just over that craft."

  Torwald took a careful sighting at the ever nearing Tchork craft, examined the panel before him, set the controls for proximity and altitude, and punched a button. A moment later, a terrific explosion went off, several meters behind the pursuing craft. Torwald reset his instruments. He hit the button again. This time, the rocket ignited directly over the Tchork, at less than three meters. The concussion and spray of deadly fragments sent broken bodies flying over the bulwarks to crash into the jungle below. A few seconds later, the craft nosedived down into the jungle, sending up a spout of flame and a shattering roar when it hit. The crew aboard the AC cheered madly.

  "Shut up and look to your weapons!" Ham shouted. "Good shooting, Tor."

  "Took you two," K'Stin commented. "Waste of a good rocket."

  "We all have our bad days," Torwald acknowledged.

  Within a few minutes, the welcome sight of the

  Space Angel appeared before them. The AC flew into the lock at nearly top speed, decelerating so quickly that most of the people stationed aft came tumbling forward with their stored-up momentum. It was a masterful piece of flying on Achmed's part, and not until the hatch was shut and secured was he willing to collapse and admit that he'd been hit.

  "Get away from him," Ham ordered quietly. "All of you, get to your stations, Michelle, bring your emergency kit, he caught it through a lung." At that moment the skipper dropped into the dock, her cigar at a 45-degree angle.

  "Think he'll live, Ham?"

  "Old Achmed'll make it, Gertie." Ham cradled the tiny Egyptian while bloody froth bubbled from Achmed's lips. Michelle reappeared with some esoteric equipment and shooed the rest away. The bridge officers prepared the ship for takeoff as Michelle and Torwald strapped Achmed into a bunk, with tubes sprouting from his slight body and transparent, jellylike plasters slapped upon his chest. When all was secure, the ship lifted off, wobbling and rattling from its uncompleted repairs.

  "Everybody to battle stations," came the skipper's voice. "Forget about acceleration gear. We may be shooting our way off this planet, so keep your posts until we're safely in hyper."

  "Kelly, come with me." Torwald then climbed the ladder toward the astrogation bubble where the controls for the new heavy weaponry had been installed. Torwald strapped himself into the chair behind the depolarizer console. As Kelly took the chair beside him, Torwald began checking out the controls. "Let's go through a test sequence, kid." Kelly began setting up imaginary targets, lighting up the
viewscreens with blips and odd shapes traveling at different speeds and in wildly differing directions, some taking evasive action. One by one, Torwald obliterated the nonexistent attackers using the manual controls, then he set up the same problems and let the computer do the shooting. All systems checked out.

  "Alien vessels coming over the horizon," the skipper reported. Tor and Kelly were quickly joined by Ham, who took control of the cutter.

  "I don't have much faith in this thing," the mate said, "not after the way that craft absorbed the lighter cutters. I imagine their ships are made of the same stuff."

  "That was my thought," said Torwald. "If they're made of ordinary molecules, though, this depolarizer should disintegrate them."

  "That thing doesn't have much range, unfortunately," said Ham.

  "There they are!" Kelly pointed out two large blips on the targeting screens. They tracked across the grid, slowly closing the distance between themselves and the freighter.

  "Not fast, as warships go," Ham commented calmly, "but faster than the Angel."

  "They've fired something at us," Kelly announced. A high-resolution screen showed four small blips fast approaching the Angel.

  "Pretty slow," Torwald observed. "Must be torpedoes. See if the cutter can damage them." Ham set his sights and fired. Beams from four of the hex mount's projectors lanced out and destroyed the torpedoes.

  "Whatever that armor is, it must be too expensive to waste on torpedoes." Ham's voice was beginning to reflect his excitement.

  "More torpedoes coming!" Kelly said, "Much smaller, and there must be a hundred of them!" Ham and Torwald immediately turned their controls over to the computer, which could target and fire both weapons hundreds of times faster than any human. Within seconds, the small torpedoes were merely diffuse patches on the screen, whereupon both alien vessels put on a burst of speed.

  "We're in trouble now," Ham said without inflection.

  "They're going to try to close and use beam weapons. Two to one, and they're shielded against our cutters. Tor, try a torpedo."

  "Torpedo away." One of the Class K subnuclear devices sped toward the pursuers. The torpedo's velocity, added to that of the alien ships speeding toward it, closed the distance rapidly and it was very near the vessels before they managed to destroy it. The detonation appeared to damage one of the ships. Its motion became erratic and it began to drop back.

  "That's odd, Tor. They must not've licked the Doppler problem yet."

  "Stolen technology, Ham, remember? These clowns can handle the ships, but they're probably not up to the mathematics necessary for computer ballistics." Suddenly there was no time for conversation, as the nearer alien vessels opened fire with beamers. The Tchorks' aim was not very precise, but, eventually, they were sure to score a hit. As predicted, Ham's cutter was useless, and the Angel was sure to be destroyed long before the alien got close enough to use the depolarizer.

  "Another torpedo, Ham?"

  "Might as well."

  "Belay that!" The skipper's voice rang from the intercom. "We're turning and heading for them, collision course."

  "Is this some sort of suicide tactic?" asked Torwald.

  "Shut up and listen to the skipper," Ham growled.

  "As Ham pointed out, Tor, those turkeys have trouble hitting something that's headed straight for them. If we reverse direction, we just might get close enough to hit them with the depolarizer. Anybody got any better suggestions?" There were none. Without bothering to decelerate, the skipper put the Angel through an end-for-end turn, maneuvering so that the Angel was masked for a time by one of the planet's small moons. It was the kind of maneuver made possible only by the invention of the gravity field. Without it, the crew would have been reduced to jelly and the ship turned to scrap in a millisecond.

  When next the aliens had the Angel on their instruments, she was headed straight for them for a few seconds; they fired wildly, then the aliens were within range of Torwald's depolarizer. He pressed the firing stud, and the nearer alien very suddenly seemed to become touch larger. The blip on the screen expanded and became too diffuse to show any shape, and then there was nothing. The farther ship shifted course and headed away, presumably going back to its home base. A concerted cheer over the intercom momentarily overloaded the speaker in the bubble.

  "All right, all right, calm down," the skipper said. "I'm not handing out any cigars until we're safely in hyper. Stand by your stations."

  Bone-weary, they sat around the mess table, downing cup after cup of strong black coffee. Numbly, they had downed the rations that Michelle had laid out for them. She refused to budge until they had all eaten and taken the medication she had prescribed. Now they were waiting for Michelle to return with a report on Achmed and Lafayette.

  "That was a splendid piece of piloting, Skipper," said Sergei. "Tell me, just what kind of craft did you serve in during the War?"

  "Oh, I piloted a Marauder. Ham was my master gunner."

  "That explains a great deal."

  Indeed, it did. The small, heavily armed craft had spearheaded nearly every fleet action and planetary invasion of the conflict. They were considered absolutely necessary—and totally expendable. And they had been expended at a terrible rate. Fewer than 10 percent of the personnel who served on Marauders had survived the War.

  Everyone looked up as Michelle entered. "Achmed'll pull through," she said, drawing coffee from the bulkhead spout. "Lafayette's just bruised and battered. He'll be okay." There was a general sigh of relief from around the table.

  "That wraps it up, then," the skipper said, lighting up a fresh cigar. "Any other reports or questions?" She looked around the table for a response, but with the exception of Michelle, Sims, and the Vivers, all of the crew members were slumped in their chairs or facedown on the table, sound asleep.

  Seven

  Repainting the hold had been a disagreeable job. With months on their hands while the Angel continued her random search for a solution to the problem of the Guardian, Ham had hit upon the bright idea of having Kelly and Lafayette scrape the old paint off the hold and repaint the whole thing. It was not, officially, an act of punishment. However, both knew that, had they not caused quite so much trouble on the jungle world, they would have been spared this particular task.

  Kelly had washed up and put on clean clothes and was enjoying having nothing to do. Since they had recovered Lafayette, no one had referred to his blunder, although the hold-painting project demonstrated that his misbehavior had not been forgotten. Suddenly he heard a scuttling noise behind him, and Homer appeared at the hatch of his cabin. Teddy sat perched on Homer's shell. "What sadness lengthens Kelly's hours?"

  "Homer, have you been going over that Shakespeare stuff again?"

  "It has a certain precision and beauty of expression that is lacking in your present language."

  "Well, no sadness is lengthening my hours. Relief from scraping paint is shortening them, if anything."

  "Then why are you brooding?"

  "Like everybody else, I guess. We could spend the rest of our lives out here without finding a good decoy to distract this Guardian. What could occupy something that powerful for any length of time?"

  "I see." Homer extruded a tiny-fingered hand on a long arm with six elbows. He used it to scratch Teddy's ears. "I often forget how important these time spans are to you humans. Let me see ... the Guardian will attack a single ship that strays too close. It will engage a fleet, also. Suppose a truly enormous fleet were to approach, spread out on a wide front. Might that not occupy the being long enough for Sphere to accomplish his mysterious purposes?"

  "Maybe. I don't think anybody would lend us a fleet, though, Homer. Especially since it would be destroyed."

  "We might find such a fleet, though."

  "Huh? What are you getting at?"

  "I have heard many rumors and poems concerning planets converted into gigantic fleet bases at some far distant date in the past. Often, the ships found there are still operational and ha
ve been utilized by races such as the Tchork that can build no better craft of their own."

  "Can you find one of these planets, Homer?"

  "One of the poems gives a set of coordinates . . . they will have to be translated, of course; they would mean nothing to your computers." Homer began to mutter to himself, but by that time Kelly was out the hatch and headed for the bridge.

  Nobody could believe the screens: monstrous floating docks, surrounded by quiescent fleets of ships, stacked level on level, dwindling beyond the range of human eyesight. A monitor would hold on a particu-

  lar formation for a few minutes, then switch to another. Each screen registered at least ten such installations per minute.

  "The planet's the same way, folks. Nothing but spaceports from pole to pole."

  The crew remained silent for a few moments, then Ham spoke up. "I don't think all the ships I saw during the whole War would amount to a single one of those floating fleets. I think we've hit the jackpot."

  "You suppose we could get some of those ships moving?" Torwald's expression and tone of voice betrayed his doubts.

  "You'd better hope so," the skipper replied. "Enough to distract the Guardian, anyway. We could get awfully old looking for a better prospect. I intend to locate the biggest of the ground installations —that'll be the likeliest place to find a headquarters. After that, we'll just have to play it as we find it."

  "We've found the place," the skipper announced. "Biggest spaceship installation imaginable. There's a mountain sticking up out of it and we'll land on top of that. It's the only spot for a hundred kilometers around that isn't sealed under metal. The people who built this must have stripped this whole system of metals. It's unbelievable." The skipper turned to Torwald. "Put together a ground party. Make it a small group, this time, three or so besides you. The rest can help put the final repairs on the ship."

  "Right. Finn, were you planning anything for today?"

  "To be sure, my jewel, I was planning to work on my memoirs, but I can spare an hour or two."