The Price of Freedom

by William R. Forstchen

  Sparrows shots slowed, the quad fire having drained his capacitors. "I'm outta here," the kid shouted into his mike. Vale picked up the gist of the message through the feedback as Sparrow poured fuel into his afterburners. The black ship rolled, then fired into Sparrows rear quarter, slewing the little ship around.

  "Damage?" he asked as Sparrow cleared the raider's guns.

  "Transmitting," the kid replied, sounding very subdued. The schematic of Sparrow's fighter solidified on his screen. He saw that the kid's afterburner, rear armor, and stabilization systems had been hit. One more solid hit and Sparrow would be history.

  Vale looked across the convoy in time to see a raider pinion Tiger's fighter, catching her in its bright beams like a pushpin through a butterfly. Vale watched her ship stagger under twinned hammer blows as the cannon stripped the Arrow of its phase shields, armor, and skin. Pieces began to spall and burn.

  Vale heard her scream, a long, drawn-out wail of fear and agony that abruptly ceased as the black ship fired again, this time with all its weaponry.

  The black ship did a victory roll as it flashed past the expanding debris cloud that marked the remains of Tiger's ship, then began to close in on the convoy. Vale glanced around, realizing too late that he'd lost track of the second raider.

  "Keep your eyes open," he said to Sparrow, "the other one's still out there."

  Scar cut his drives, autoslid, then boosted after the black ship that had killed Tiger. The Confederation pilot pulled his Arrow into a tight inside loop, trying to flip up and descend on the larger ships vulnerable back. The raider was ready. It shifted, linking the two ships with multiple columns of firepower. Scars Arrow, immolated on the beams, detonated.

  Vale realized as he looked in vain for a life pod from Scar's ship that resistance was futile. The convoy was lost. It was time to salvage what he could, in this case a young pilot who didn't deserve to die. "Sparrow," he said harshly, "disengage. Get home and make a full report. Intelligence'll need to know what we saw here."

  The other Arrow slowly turned away. Vale felt ice in his guts as he saw the two black ships slashing in towards the transports. He rammed his throttles to the stops, punching the little ship towards the convoy. A tiny voice inside his head screamed at him to disengage, to run for home, to live. He gritted his teeth and bored in to attack.

  His target fired its missiles, volleying them all off in a single salvo against the Elgin Dailey. The weapons bloomed in explosion after explosion as they punched into the Dailey's guts. Vale watched the stricken ship slew out of formation and angle away. A massive explosion rocked the transport, blowing off the front section containing the bridge and the life bubble. It tumbled alongside the remainder of the ship, still spewing gas and debris.

  Vale checked his scanner and saw Sparrow running flat out for home. Vales chest tightened as he saw one of the black ships flicker into existence behind the rookie. The raider accelerated and fired a missile. Sparrow dodged and weaved, trying to avoid the warhead. His maneuvering cost him enough forward speed for the fighter behind him to close. The black ship fired.

  "Hail, Mary, full of grace…" Vale heard Sparrow whisper as the bloom engulfed the back half of the light ship. The multiple impacts spun Sparrow to his right, killing his drives and snapping him end over end. The Confederation pilots prayer turned into a long scream that ended only when the ship exploded… The rookie never had a chance to eject.

  He turned his attention back to the two raiders closing in on the transports. He fired on the closest, switching to lasers and plinking at the heavier ship from long range. The raider ignored the fire while it poured shots into the third transport, the Bed's Gamble. The raider walked hits up the freighters defenseless spine.

  The Gamble burned brightly, its cargo outgassing and oxidizing through the holes punched in its hull by the raiders' cannon. Vale saw flames licking out into open space, an indicator of the intensity of the inferno within.

  The second raider bored in on the Gamble and fired, hitting the stricken transport with both tachyon beams and a heavier weapon that ate whole sections of the freighter. The transport detonated a moment later, one moment coasting in open space with bright jewels of flame winking along its sides and the next vanishing in an actinic flare. The detached, clinical part of Vale's mind noted that the ship's reactor core must have detonated.

  A fourth black ship dropped out of cloak on his right flank, firing as it closed the range. His Arrow rocked under the black fighters hits. Vale slashed his control yoke back and forth, frantically trying to dodge the converging weapons' streams. He felt his drives fail.

  He glanced down at his display. System after system glowed red. The eject warning flashed. He reached down between his legs, groping for the yellow-painted eject bar.

  The ship heeled to one side, hit by another salvo. He glanced up. The raider loomed close, its weapons pointed at his cockpit. It fired from point-blank range, twin bolts of violent energy that blanked out the ship behind. Vale didn't even have time to register pain…

  Seether felt the adrenaline drain away as he squeezed his trigger and saw the last Arrow disintegrate into atoms. The pilot, with squadron leaders markings on his fighters tail assembly, had been passably good. He would have felt a more enduring respect for his opponent, except the Confed pilot was dead. He had no respect for the dead. Death was the ultimate failure, and he could not abide failure.

  Drake Threes face appeared on his comm-screen. "Target area sterile," she said, "no signals and no pods. The last transport is attempting Mayday." She glanced downward a moment. "Jamming successful."

  Seether nodded and cut her off. "Drake One to Drake flight—stand by for test procedure." He brought his ship around in a tight arc and began his attack run on the sole remaining transport. The pigboat wallowed from side to side, trying to evade his ship. He narrowed his eyes as he closed on the ship. "I'm lighting the 'flash-pak.' " He flipped the safety cover off a special firing button and poised his thumb over it.

  The transport filled his forward view, growing larger and larger until he could see the rusted surface details. The transport's single gun sputtered at him ineffectually.

  He held his attack run to the last possible instant, then mashed the firing key. He immediately felt the difference in the ship as the thin, convex disc was ejected from his bay. Small thrusters located along its edge gave it ballistic stabilization as it spun and latched onto the transport's hull.

  Seether pulled the control yoke back, kicking in his maneuvering thrusters as he swept in a tight turn around the waist of the transport. He emerged above the disc just as it began to vibrate and shimmer. The whole transport visibly shook as surface components ruptured and detached under the strain imposed by the disc. He held his position as the Ashiri Mara shook and rumbled. A violent flash of oxygen and explosive fuels burst out of the hole in the ship's hull and exploded. A second fireball, then a third emerged as the ship's interior spaces detonated in sequence. The final blast loomed over the stricken ship's side like a malevolent flower. When it faded, only the Ashiri Maru's outer hull remained, a charred and scorched husk.

  Seether recorded the ship's death on his gun camera. He chuckled, the sound like dice rolling in a cup as he cued Drake Two's channel. "I'd call that a successful 'test,' wouldn't you?" He didn't wait for a response. He reoriented his ship towards the hulk and launched a conventional grappling mine. He watched the weapon tumbling towards the wreck a moment, then hit his "All Call" as he ghosted in after the falling mine.

  "Seether to Drakes. Come about to course three-one-zero, Z minus twenty and stand by."

  The mine hit the hulk and detonated. Seether whipped his ship around in time to catch the blast on his rear shields, just as he hit his afterburners. He let the blast propel him forward, accelerating him towards his waiting wingmates. The adrenaline faded, leaving him cold. He used the mine-drop and afterburner trick to test himself, probing himself for fear the way he might test a loose tooth with his tongue.
He prodded himself, satisfied with the results. No fear.

  "Cloak on my command," he ordered. "Now."

  The four unmarked, black fighters vanished, leaving behind only the hulks and the dead.

  Chapter One

  James Taggart, Assembly Master of the Confederation Senate, retired brigadier, and ex-spy, looked up at the vaulted ceiling of the Hall of the Great Assembly. The Great Hall's acoustics had been designed to allow a speaker to address the highest galleries without electronic amplification. The acoustics also concentrated all the sound in the room down on the dais.

  The Senate was in full cry. Eminent men and women from across the Confederation shouted and gestured at each other, each trying to be heard above the din. News services from a half dozen affiliated worlds aimed pin-mikes at their representatives. Lobbyists and flesh pressers of a dozen stripes worked the aisles, hobnobbing with the legislators who allocated power and, more importantly, money. Taggart found the whole show cynically amusing, very pathetic, and utterly fascinating.

  It occurred to him that he had come a long way since the war. Then, as "Paladin," he had plugged along in silent obscurity, spying and doing one classified operation after another for king and country. He would have vanished into obscurity had it not been for Admiral Tolwyn and his spectacular failure with Operation Behemoth.

  Taggart had put his own scheme together. Colonel Blair had gotten lucky over Kilrah, dropping the Temblor bomb and knocking Kilrah out of the war and Taggart into the limelight. Taggart had come away as "the man who saved humanity," especially as Blair had fled the public's adoration.

  He laughed as he recalled how little time it had taken before the deal makers and the image shapers came snooping after him. They'd helped him ride the rising tide of his fame to the Senate, then to the Master's Chair. It was an almost unprecedented honor for a freshman Senator, especially as he'd refused to open his black bag of tricks to engineer his promotion. His election had been done openly and honestly, and it was one of his proudest moments.

  Taggart glanced at his watch. The time for unstructured debate had finally ended. He took the heavy wooden gavel and began to tap the handle against the clapper. The sound, electronically enhanced, thumped out across the floor, warning the Senators that it was time to bring their remarks to a close. He kept politely tapping for several minutes, then reversed the hammer in his hand. The second sweep crossed the hour. Now he could get serious. He raised the gavel to shoulder level and brought it down hard.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The heavy wood struck the clapper, resonating throughout the chamber. The nearest Senators actually winced as the thrumming washed over them. Taggart continued to pound the gavel until the sound diminished enough for him to be heard.

  "Order," he demanded, "order."

  The Senate quieted, the last diehards sitting only as Taggart threatened to whack the gavel again.

  "You will all have the opportunity to voice your opinions on the occurrence on our Border Worlds frontier," he said soothingly. Damn, Paladin, he thought to himself, you really are becoming a politician. When did dead pilots and ambushed ships become an "occurrence"? He gritted his teeth, projecting a false smile before he continued. "But we will first hear from the Commander of the Strategic Readiness Agency. Admiral Tolwyn has graciously agreed to appear before us and provide us with his preliminary assessment of the raids." He half-turned towards his guest. "Admiral Tolwyn."

  Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn stepped up to the podium, resplendent in his dress uniform. Taggart noted that the admiral had worn all of his decorations, gilding his chest in gold, silver, and bronze. It was an impressive show, at least to the rubes in the cheap seats.

  Taggart suspected that Tolwyn's star had fallen enough after his pet project had failed for the admiral to feel he had to resort to such theatrics to make his point. In Taggart's assessment, he believed that Tolwyn had rebounded nicely, and was again ascendant, but apparently the admiral was taking no chances.

  Taggart watched the admiral step up to the podium and look out onto the ranks of assembled notables. Tolwyn's gaze seemed coolly appraising, as though taking the Senators' measure. His expression grew grave as he pulled a thin sheaf of papers out of his tunic and spread them out on the lectern.

  It occurred to Taggart, as he watched Tolwyn, that the admiral was the best politician of all of them. How else could the man—who'd nearly been cashiered after the Behemoth debacle—bounce back to run the Strategic Readiness Agency as his personal fiefdom? The man was a survivor, with more lives than a cat.

  Admiral Tolwyn cleared his throat and began. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Assembly: as the Commander of the SRA, I am charged with many duties. Foremost among these is the protection of the frontiers of our galaxy."

  He looked down briefly. Taggart noticed that while Tolwyn had notes, he hardly referred to them. It was also clear that Tolwyn had mastered political speech-making, using the slightly stiff, overblown rhetoric that was all the rage with the log-rolling set. The Tolwyn of old would neither have been so polite to those he considered mealy-mouthed civilians, nor would he have stooped to talk to them in their own language.

  "Unfortunately," the admiral continued, "I don't have any answers. The attacks have left no survivors and precious little evidence. Gonfed Intel has given it their best shot, and to date has come up empty."

  Taggart knew the last to be a subtle dig at himself. His own service was Intel, and semi-independent of the Fleet. Paladin had kept it that way, in spite of Tolwyn's attempts to absorb the uniformed element of the intelligence community.

  "We have," Tolwyn continued, spreading his palms humbly, "absolutely no proof of who is doing this."

  The Senate erupted in chaos. Many senators had constituents who were affected, owned ship lines, or wanted to put in a plug for "law and order" on general principles. Some blamed pirates while others accused the Border Worlds militia of treachery. Other, darker theories, of conspiracies and secret Kilrathi attacks, were bandied about. Taggart banged his gavel.

  Tolwyn raised his hand—and the room quieted, much to Taggart's concealed irritation. He wished he commanded as much respect from the legislators. He recalled, to his sour amusement, that he had until he became one of them.

  Tolwyn gave Taggart a wintery sidelong look. "Well, I'm sure we all have our theories…" He rolled his eyes slightly, allowing Taggart to see that his contempt for civilians was intact. "But let me tell you," he said, raising one index finger for emphasis, "that while it is a mystery now, it will not be one for long." Taggart wondered if Tolwyn was going to give some inkling of his plan.

  The admiral instead humbly lowered his eyes, a gesture Taggart knew to be pure artifice. "As most of you know, I've spent a lot of time on the frontier, both fighting the Kilrathi, and in building the peace. The Border Worlds are a wild lot—full of rogues, privateers, and the Border Worlders themselves." His voice took on disapproving tones. 'Their loose society encourages irresponsibility and indiscriminate growth rather than cooperative and controlled development of resources for the benefit of all humans."

  Taggart looked at Tolwyn, contemplating the admiral with hooded eyes. Tolwyn had just disclaimed knowing who the culprits were, and now was steering the senators towards the Border Worlds. He wondered what agenda the admiral had tucked up his gold-braided sleeve.

  One senator leapt to his feet, interrupting both Tolwyn's speech and Taggart's line of thought. Taggart glanced at the man, whom he really thought should be old enough to know better. "Scoundrels!" the senator thundered, pounding his hand on his desk for effect. "That's what they are! They should be punished for what they've done!"

  Another backbencher, unwilling to be outdone, also stood. "They're hoodlums! Rebels who're preying on innocent ships!" Taggart saw they were playing to the cameras and dismissed them.

  Tolwyn didn't. He shook his head sadly. "Let me remind you, senators, that during the long war with the Kilrathi, the Border Worlds were a strong ally."

  Another senator
jumped up to interrupt. "And now they're attacking us!"

  Taggart sighed. It must be the full moon, he thought. They seemed, after just the tiniest bit of nudging from Tolwyn, to be ready to blame the Border Worlders on general principles, much less on hard evidence. He looked up into the galleries, relieved to see that while many faces were hard with anger, many others looked contemplative and skeptical.

  Tolwyn, again the voice of reason, continued. "Do not allow lust for revenge to cloud your thinking…" He gave Taggart another sidelong glance and a tiny, wintery smile. "We mustn't forget who our friends are."

  Many of the senators present nodded assent, agreeing with the admiral's sentiments and missing the byplay on the dais.

  Taggart had no doubt whatsoever that the admiral had just put a shot across his bows. Counterintelligence had actually been Admiral Richard's bailiwick and not his, but the hard truth remained the same. Counter Intel had failed to catch the Kilrathi renegade, Hobbes, before he'd betrayed his human allies and returned to his own kind. That lapse had cost Tolwyn his precious Behemoth and his shot at ending the war. Tolwyn had made no secret of the fact he thought Paladin might have sabotaged his pet project.

  "However," Tolwyn said, his voice hardening as he delivered what Taggart thought would be his real pitch, "we must also keep in mind that during the war, certain social and political changes were taking place along the frontiers." He paused. "We don't know what is going on inside the Border Worlds themselves. We don't know if these raids may reflect a change within the Border Worlds governments, the rise of criminal elements on the frontier itself, or if these are just random terrorism events or even common piracy." He paused. "Until we get hard evidence, however, we must assume that the Border Worlds are as they have always been…" He paused, showing the slightest hint of skepticism, "our friends."