The Price of Freedom

by William R. Forstchen

  Eisen gave him a long look. "Thank you, Colonel." He, took a deep breath. "I think the first order of business is going to be to pull the Intrepid back long enough for a refit."

  "We're running away?" a voice asked from the crowd.

  Blair felt Maniac bristle next to him. Marshall might be an iconoclast, but he apparently didn't appreciate seeing insubordination in others.

  "No," Eisen replied, choosing to take the questions head-on, rather than withdrawing behind his rank. Blair realized that the rough-and-tumble nature of the Border Worlds fleet allowed for tougher questioning than the Confed permitted. Eisen seemed to understand the same thing. He chose to answer questions he'd have shrugged off if he had still been on the Lex. "We won't remain combat operational for long on one-third power. We need to relight at least one more APtI and flush the residual radiation out the number one drive bay. That'll keep us marginal until we get to a drydock. Any other questions?"

  He waited a moment, while the officers glanced back and forth. "Also," he said, "we're getting short on torpedoes and missiles—not to mention first-line fighters and pilots. We're in no shape to go toe-to-toe with the Lexington as we are." He flipped through the maps on the flat screen behind him until he found a sector chart. He tapped the jump point on the far side of the system with his fingertip, then traced a parabolic arc around the gas giant. "We'll slingshot around to the jump point, picking up some speed due to orbital mechanics. That'll let us cut our drives. Once we get to the jump point, we'll go through the Silenos Nebula to cover our tracks, then withdraw to the Orestes system. We'll do a combat resupply there as well as a hasty refit."

  Blair watched the Intrepid's surviving officers glance back and forth. No one ventured a comment.

  "Now," Eisen said, "it's time for the dreaded personnel shuffle. I'm going to appoint Major Marshall to fill in provisionally for Colonel Shima. Her squadron'll need a senior officer, at least until we can get a permanent replacement." He tapped his finger on the lectern. "Lieutenant Garibaldi'll serve as my exec." He looked at the sober-faced, red-headed officer. "Your first order is to cut yourself an order for promoting yourself to lieutenant-commander. I don't like my executive officers to be too junior."

  "Sir!" Garibaldi piped. "Can you dp that?"

  "I don't know," Eisen answered, "but I know it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission."

  A Colonial officer sitting in front of Blair turned to her fellow. "I think he's gonna work out," she whispered.

  "Let's see," Eisen continued, "that leaves a hole at Ops. Colonel Blair will fill in as the operations officer." He looked up. "Chris—what was your degree in?"

  "Electronic engineering," Blair answered, "but that was thirty years ago!"

  Eisen smiled. "You'll also take over communications from Lieutenant Sosa. That'll free her to work on her code breaking." He shifted his gaze to Sosa. "Lieutenant, you'll drop back to deputy CommO and OpsO. That'll keep Blair on the flight roster. Get him up to speed and get to work on that cryptography.

  "Other than that, there're no changes. Colonel Farnsworth'll stay on as Damage Control, and Colonel Manley—you'll retain the wing, as well as your logistics and squadron commanders hats."

  He took in the whole group. "Are there any questions?' Blair noticed he waited about two seconds before wrapping up the briefing. "All right then, people, get to work. We're burning daylight."

  Blair noticed it was a tribute to his skills that the officers jumped up and responded as though Eisen had been in command for months, rather than minutes. Even Manley.

  Maniac turned to Blair, then grinned. "Well, hero," he said, "I'd better shove off." Blair followed his gaze and saw Sosa working her way across the briefing room towards them. "Lucky bastard," Blair heard him mumble as he left.

  Blair watched her approach. He guessed she was in her middle-to-late twenties. He noticed her shoulder-length black hair and china-blue eyes, then chided himself for noticing. Don't get interested, Chris, he told himself, or it'll be like Rachel all over again.

  He wasn't listening.

  "Colonel Blair?" she said as she stepped up to him. She smiled, a little nervously. "I'm.First Lieutenant Velina Sosa—I run the 'switchboard' here. I guess you're taking over?"

  "Not really," he answered. She had an engaging personality and an open, friendly smile. "I'll just be running blocker for you, Lieutenant, so you can finish breaking those files."

  She smiled again and extended her hand. "Fair enough, I guess. Shall I show you what passes for a comm center here?"

  They shook hands. The warmth of her skin surprised him. Of course her skin's hot, the voice inside him said, the whole damn ship's hot. "Uhh… lead on, Lieutenant," he said, feeling a little silly.

  She led him out of the briefing room, giving him a view of her trim figure. He sighed, suddenly feeling his age.

  She took him from station to station, explaining the purpose of each and answering his questions. Blair was heartily grateful for her in-depth knowledge of the system. He'd served as the officer of the deck on innumerable occasions in his career, and worked as an operations and flight deck officer repeatedly, but the hodge-podge equipment was new to his experience.

  "How often does this stuff break down?" he asked her.

  "Daily," she replied.

  "What do you do then?"

  She smiled. The male in him noticed she was just tall enough to see over his shoulder, the perfect height for a dancing partner. He swallowed, telling himself to behave.

  "We fix it," she said. She laughed at his pained expression. "You do have an engineering degree, don't you?"

  "Barely," he replied. "What I wanted to do was fly. I learned just enough to get my basic degree and get into flight school." He looked at her. "What'd you do your degree work in?"

  "Dual Masters in theoretical mathematics and linguistics from Oxford. I was doing my doctoral work on theoretical numbers and phase-shift inducers when Admiral Richards recruited me."

  Blair nodded politely, aware he was out of his depth. "Anyway," she laughed, "I've been on the admirals staff— one of the 'Black Gang'—for about the last two years."

  They shared another smile. Sosa seemed suddenly nervous. She looked away. "Let's go over to the light table. I'd better bring you up to speed on the system diagrams. The fires have been melting the fiber optics systems, so I'd better show you where the bridges are."

  Blair followed her to the damage control station and watched as she cued the ship's schematics. The ship was much more badly damaged than it first appeared. Almost a third of the internal sections glowed either amber or red, indicating partial or full damage. The core fighting systems appeared to be intact, and, except for the power shortage, appeared battle-ready. Either the Achilles had been especially good at hitting non-essential systems or the damage control parties were exceptionally good.

  She took him through the major communications and electronic countermeasures sub-systems, pointing out where her crews had cobbled things together. He caught a whiff of her perfume as she idly tucked one bang back behind her ear. He found himself wondering how she managed to smell clean, with just a hint of spiciness, on a ship with no showers.

  A chirping noise from her pocket interrupted her briefing. She pulled it out and opened it. "Sosa," she said.

  Blair heard a tinny voice coming from the unit's tiny speaker. "Velina, it's Pliers. Is Colonel Blair with you?"

  "Yes," she replied, "do you need him?"

  "Have him come down to the flight deck. We got his bird fixed, and I need him to sign off on the repairs."

  "Okay," she said. "Sosa out." She closed the comm-unit.

  Blair looked at his watch. "That was fast." He laughed. "You really have a maintenance tech named Pliers?"

  She smiled, showing dimples. "He was a master chief for the Confed Fleet who retired out this way after the war." She shrugged. "He treats me like I'm his daughter."

  "I see," Blair said, grinning, "I guess I ought to head down ther
e."

  She dipped her head. "If there's anything else I can help you with, Colonel, please don't hesitate to call."

  He nodded and returned to the flight deck. He found his thoughts turning to her as he walked. She'd seemed just a little friendlier and more open than her duties required. Was she interested in him, or was his imagination working overtime? He laughed at himself. You old goat, he thought. What would she want with your old carcass?

  He descended the ladder, coughing a little in the noxious air. Rachel Corialis' face sprang, unbidden, into his mind. He felt the pain of her departure as sharply as if she had just left him. He wasn't ready to go through that again, he told himself firmly. His thoughts, betraying him again, turned to Sosa's clean, spicy scent.

  He stepped onto the flight deck, swearing at himself for his folly.

  An older man, his coveralls spotted with grease and other, less identifiable fluids, walked up to him. "You Blair?" he asked in a gravelly voice. Blair took a long look at the leather-faced old coot with his fringe of snow white hair.

  "I'm Colonel Blair," Chris corrected, putting the slightest stress on his rank.

  The maintenance tech looked at Blair skeptically, tipping his head to one side. "So," he said sourly, "if it ain't the new kid, here to save us from the Feds."

  Blair felt his eyebrows rise. He could not recall the last time he'd been called "kid," certainly not since he had turned forty. "I don't know about that," he said, feeling the tension between them.

  The tech looked at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling into crow's-feet as he looked at Blair. He grinned and burst out laughing. "Pleased ta know you, kid." He tapped his chest. "Chief Tech Bob Sykes. Most folks call me Pliers."

  "Most folks don't call me 'kid,' " Blair said dryly.

  "Most folks ain't as old as I am," Pliers retorted, "so everybody's a kid to me." He crooked a finger at Blair. "You'd better come see what I did with the crate you brought in."

  He led Blair towards the flight deck. Chris saw lines of the Intrepid's fighters lined up, facing forward.

  "This is your ready group?" he asked.

  "Yup," Pliers answered, "ready group, strike group, and magnum launch, all rolled into one!" He stopped and pointed at the painted marks. "We don't have a catapult, so we got to run them here on the deck—get them going under full afterburners, push them out, and pray. We can only use a third of the deck for spotting, so that cuts down on how many we can launch at a time." Pliers walked away, heading around the last rank of spotted fighters. "I'm told being in the back's better, 'cause it gives you a litde extra distance for getting up to speed." Blair frowned at the tech's malicious grin.

  He followed Pliers around the last fighter, to where his Thunderbolt stood, ready for launch. He wasn't certain what surprised him more, that it had been repaired, or that it had a Mark IV torpedo slung from its belly.

  "Is that a torpedo?" Blair asked.

  Pliers looked at him, long and hard. "You're observant, kid," he said sarcastically. "We ain't got but six ships that'll carry torps, and yours is one of them." He pointed to the back rank of fighters. He saw, in addition to his own Thunderbolt, a pair of tired-looking Broadswords and three old Saber conversions.

  Pliers smiled. Blair saw a gleam in his eyes as he looked at the T-bolt. "Ain't worked on one of those birds in a while. Not since the war."

  "How'd you fix her so fast?" Blair asked. "I thought the bent wing would have to be pulled and replaced."

  "Naw," Pliers said, "the T-bolt uses the same strut and bow assembly as the Rapier, and we've got four of those we're using for parts. All we had to do was match panels and cut them to fit." He shrugged. 'Tour wing tanks a write-off, so your fuel'll be low, but I did get the thrusters fixed and aligned."

  "I'm impressed," Blair replied.

  Pliers took a packet out of his pocket and removed a black-looking clump that he stuffed into his mouth.

  Blair winced. "Is that tobacco?" he said, trying to keep the disgust out of his voice.

  "Yeah," Pliers replied, holding the pouch out to Blair. "You want some?"

  Blair kept his expression still as Pliers bit down and chewed at the lump in his cheek. "Thanks, no."

  "Suit yourself," the old man said as he rolled the pouch up and put it back into his pocket. He leaned over and spat a long, brown stream onto the deck. Blair winced again.

  "Yup," Pliers said, "when you kids bend 'em, I fix 'em.

  That's a later model than I've seen before, though." He looked at the fighter again, his expression wistful. "Yep, I could do a few things with that baby—touch up the engines, tweak the specs a little." He looked at Blair. "Give me a couple of days, and I could give you one hot ship."

  Blair thought about all of the times he'd been outrun or outmaneuvered in a Thunderbolt. The idea of matching the heavy fighter's firepower with a lighter ship's speed or maneuverability appealed to him. Especially with Seether lurking out there somewhere. "This I'd like to see."

  Pliers spat another jet onto the deck and smiled. "You just wait and you will see."

  Blair opened his mouth to respond when red lights began to flash around the perimeter of the bay. An old fashioned loudspeaker began to bray the ship's alarm code.

  "It's a scramble!" Pliers yelled. Blair sprinted for his ship, grateful he still wore his dirty flight suit.

  "Attention!" a voice said. Blair recognized Sosa's voice through the loudhailer's crackle and distortion. "All hands to action stations. Fighters inbound. All pilots to launch deck. Attention! This is not a drill."

  Blair dashed across the last few meters of the flight deck, dodging crew members who emerged from nowhere, springing up from crash carts or tiny niches from which they could steal some shut-eye.

  Deck hands rolled a ladder up to the Thunderbolt. Blair scrambled up as the canopy whirred open. He slid into the acceleration chair, grabbed the helmet from its place on the control yoke, and popped it on. Willing hands grabbed the straps, snapping him into place, and plugging in his intercom wires. All around him he saw other ships readying, their crews prepping the pilots. Engines fired, filling the cavernous bay with sound and smoke. Loose scraps of paper and blanket material swirled in the dark, cluttered bay.

  Pliers heaved himself up the ladder. Blair had to lean towards him to hear what he was saying. "… and you don't have enough rolling room to clear the deck!" the old man yelled.

  "What!?" Blair yelled back, convinced he was hearing about one word in three.

  "We rigged you with a pair of JATO bottles," Pliers yelled.

  "What's a JATO?" Blair yelled back.

  "Jet Assisted Take-Off," Pliers said, his lips against Blairs helmet. "Booster rockets. We think it'll be enough."

  "You think?'

  "Well," Pliers said, "the computer says it'll work… but its an old computer."

  Blair stared at him, dumbfounded. Pliers clapped him on the shoulder and retreated, pulling the ladder away with him. Blair, shaking his head in disbelief, matched his bearing and started his fuel-feed system. The turbines span up smoothly, ready to feed steady fuel to the thirsty main engines. His fuel reading flicked down a notch, then steadied out at seventy-five percent. He looked down at the ground crewman stationed on each wing. They each raised one thumb, indicating the area behind the ship was clear. He raised his own thumb, making eye contact with each in turn, then hit his main drives.

  The ship shuddered as the twin engines spun up and ignited. He felt the fighter jerk forward.

  "Flight control to wing," Sosa said, her warm voice taut with excitement. "The TCS Lexington followed us through the jump point. We've got thirty-plus fighters inbound."

  "Roger," Hawk said, answering for the wing. "Panther, you and I'll have to keep them from getting to the carrier. Blair… Tiger, you take the bomber group and Maniac. Try to take out the carrier. Your callsign'll be Thor." He paused, the static crackling in Blair's ears as the local stars added their voices to the frequency. "If we blow this, it'll be a long float
home."

  "Stand by for launch," Sosa said. Blair felt his stomach grow queasy at the thought of firing on the Lex. They were his friends, his comrades.

  "Launch!" she ordered. The first Rapier hurled itself

  forward, its afterburners on full thrust. It cut through the force curtain and into space. The fighters fired off the deck in five-second intervals. The Scimitar in front of Blairs Thunderbolt vanished in a cloud of smoke and a circular blue compression ring. Blair saw only the groundcrews scrambling for the safety of the dock edges.

  He looked down at Pliers and raised his right hand. He used his left to spool up his afterburners. He felt the Thunderbolt shake and shudder as it strained to move forward. He waited for the engine thrust to edge into the red, then cut his arm down. The crewmen pulled the blocks.

  The Thunderbolt blazed forward, pushing him back in his seat. The JATO bottles ignited a moment later, their thrust slamming him hard against his chair. He breathed deeply, trying to keep his breastbone from kissing his spine.

  He raced through the force curtain and into space. The weight fell away from his chest as the fighter's inertial dampers took over from the ships artificial gravity. He hauled his stick to the left, entering the recovery orbit and finishing his clearing turn. The JATO bottles failed, the last of their thrust bleeding away as they expended their fuel.

  He jettisoned them. Telemetry began to roll in from Sosa's communications operators. Blair saw the Lexington, advancing alone on the battered Intrepid behind a wall of fighters. Where the hell were the escorts? A fleet carrier was simply too valuable to be allowed to go anywhere by itself, especially on an attack.

  He scanned his tactical plot, then checked his map. The wall of Lexington fighters prevented him from approaching the flattop directly. Perhaps he could slip around one flank…

  He cued his radio. "Thor Leader to Thor elements. Form on me, base course two-seven-zero, Z minus twenty-five." He angled down and away from the small task group, taking himself out of the ship's plane to make it easier for his scattered ships to assemble. The remainder of the Intrepid's Forces swirled and dove, seeking to form up into their respective squadrons. The delay in organizing allowed the Confed fighters to close on the rebels. This was the time, Blair thought, that the Border Worlders would feel the hurt of their primitive systems.