As it did, Monster spun the wheel, and there was a crunching sound as the side of the yacht rammed hard up against the metal side of the ship.
The whole area flooded with light, but that only made the shadow around them, in the lee of the ship, seem even darker. And the light lasted only a second. The air filled with sound, so loud it seemed solid, and the tailjets of three Bzadian jets clawed glowing strips across the sky just above their heads. Now the aircraft were rising, the floodlights snapping off, leaving them in darkness.
“Accelerate to maximum speed,” Zane said.
His attention was no longer on his cameras. The ship and the strange signal on the thermal imaging were all but forgotten. He was staring at his threat scope.
In the time it had taken them to fly over the ship, the six blips that were enemy aircraft had halved the distance between them.
“Enemy aircraft speed estimated at mach 5.” Shelz’ah sounded frightened.
Zane didn’t blame her. He was starting to get a little uneasy himself. “They don’t have anything that fast,” he said.
“They do now,” Nikoz said.
The three Razers were already accelerating and climbing. As they regained supersonic speed, he saw a vapour cone appear like a fuzzy circular disc around Nikoz’s and Shelz’ah’s tailfins, and he knew the same was around his own. There was no sound though. When you were travelling faster than sound you could not hear the sonic boom you created. Nikoz and Shelz’ah stayed in formation at his wingtips.
Zane keyed his radio. “Coastal Defence Command, this is Patrol Echo Three Four.”
“Go ahead, Patrol Echo Three Four.”
“We are under attack by unknown human aircraft. Something new. Travelling at hypersonic speeds. We are inbound at max power but would appreciate a little help here.”
“Understood, Echo Three Four, routing an air defence wing in your direction.”
Zane breathed a small sigh of relief. Their backup was on its way. All they had to do was stay out of reach of the humans for a few more minutes and the six-on-three odds would be turned on their head. His airspeed indicator passed mach 3.
“Thirty kilometres and closing,” Shelz’ah said. Her voice was not steady. “Enemy speed estimated at mach 6 and still climbing.”
Mach 6 and climbing! Zane checked his scope. These new human planes were catching up as if the patrol was standing still.
“Twenty-five kilometres,” Shelz’ah said.
“Azoh! We’re not going to outrun them,” Nikoz said. “We’re going to have to turn and fight.”
He was right. They wouldn’t reach the safety of their air cover in time. Not by a long shot.
“We’re not going to turn,” Zane said. “Oh my mark, switch power to your reverse thrusters. We’ll slow right down, launch countermeasures and let them zip right by. See if they can outrun a rocket.”
“They’re coming right at us!” Nikoz yelled. “Twenty kilometres. Eighteen!”
“Why aren’t they firing?” Shelz’ah asked.
Zane didn’t have an answer. The enemy jets were well within missile range.
“Why aren’t they firing?” Nikoz repeated Shelz’ah’s words.
“Keep it together,” Zane said.
“Azoh! Azoh! Azoh!” Nikoz was panicking now. “We gotta get out of here. I’m breaking left.”
“No!” Zane said. “Stay together, combine countermeasures.” If the three planes stayed in a group, their air-defence systems would work together to defeat whatever missiles the humans could throw at them.
“We just need to keep them off us until the backup gets here,” Shelz’ah said.
Shelz’ah, the rookie, was the calm one, Zane thought. Nikoz, the veteran, was the one who was losing it. Maybe that was because he had never been in this situation before. It was different when you had the upper hand.
“Get ready to slam on the brakes,” Zane said. “In three, two, one … now!”
He switched all power to his reverse thrusters. His craft shuddered as its speed dropped away, mach 3, mach 2 …
He saw the human planes flash past overhead. They were small, with narrow wings both above and below the fuselage. Biplanes. There were four tailfins like a rocket, shrouded in the mist of a supersonic vapour cone. Whatever they were, they were like no other human craft he had ever seen. The sky went crazy. The clear air exploded with the violent energy of multiple, overlapping sonic booms, close by. His plane was wrenched from side to side and up and down. His instruments went haywire.
As he fought for control of his craft, he heard Shelz’ah yell, “Incoming! Breaking right!”
Zane checked behind and saw nothing. And then, in the last few seconds of his life, he realised.
The missiles were not behind him. They were in front. The human planes had reverse fired missiles as they had passed, launching them at almost point-blank range.
Shelz’ah’s plane turned to the right, deploying countermeasures. Zane launched his own and flung his unresponsive plane after her. Nikoz had broken left.
He opened his mouth to speak but it became a scream as Shelz’ah’s Razer turned from a sleek predator of the sky into a jagged ball of flame. Half a second later, so did Zane’s.
“Boo-yah,” Wall said, watching three flaming stars trailing down the sky.
“Tide beginning to turn,” Monster said.
“Damn right,” Price said. “They’ve had it all their way for far too long. Now the shoe’s on the other foot.”
“No. I mean tide beginning to turn,” Monster said. “Need to get moving. We must getting into bay before low tide.”
“Okay, we’re out of here,” Price said.
The yacht was so close to the hull of the patrol ship that it seemed to be glued there. Now it peeled off, and the burnt-out ship quickly left them behind, bouncing and tossing in its wake. Out of its wind shadow, their sails filled once again and the yacht began to move, turning back to the east.
The wind turned with the tide, in their favour, flicking around behind them and skimming them across the wave tops like a pebble across a river. Price looked back at the smoking hulk of the ghost ship as it slipped away to the south, plodding its mindless way on a voyage to nowhere.
They had survived, but only by luck and the grace of the scream jets. Should they have raised their sails earlier? Was she being too cautious? Price felt a little sick. She could have got them all killed. She wished someone else, anyone else, was in charge of this mission. But that wasn’t an option. She couldn’t back out now.
She looked up at the sky as the scream jets passed back overhead, unseen, but unmistakable with the overlapping thunder of their sonic booms. She waved a hand in salute and thanks, knowing it would not be seen.
A contented sigh came from the back of the boat and she turned to see The Tsar standing at the railing, peeing off the stern.
“Tsar, you’re all class,” Barnard said.
Price smiled and turned back to the front of the boat. With the wind behind them she could no longer smell the land, but it was there. The huge landmass that the aliens called “New Bzadia” but humans still called “Australia”.
At least they were back on track.
They had an important package to deliver.
NOKZ’Z
[0230 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[BZADIAN CONGRESS, CANBERRA]
The war had been good to Colonel Nokz’z. Mostly.
Had it not been for the war he would have had nothing. He would have been nothing. He was under no illusion of that. At first they had said there would be no war, but there was war and when the war started they needed Nokz’z, or at least people like Nokz’z.
Brutality did not come naturally to the Bzadian species. It had once, but that was a very long time ago. War, violence, bloodshed, it had all disappeared over the centuries as their world had evolved. Bzadia had become a safer, gentler place. A dull, boring place, in Nokz’z opinion. Without death, or the threat of death, what was life? Just a mean
ingless cycle, the same day over and over and over again.
Weapons had gradually crumbled or been dismantled, existing only as curiosities in museums. Discussion was preferred over argument. Diplomacy over fighting. But to prepare for migration to a savage, violent world, Bzadians had been forced to rediscover their history. Warrior personalities, once reviled, were now revered.
Nokz’z considered himself a throwback to a glorious time. If not for people like him, they would have no chance against the barbarians that inhabited this planet called Earth.
Bzadia needed people who could do what he could do. Who would do what he was prepared to do. He was not like the others, Nokz’z knew that. He took pleasure in things that would horrify most of his kind. He knew that he was despised by many of his associates. But they tolerated him. They needed him. He told himself they secretly admired him and what he did, although he was too smart to really believe that.
Some of his compatriots felt sympathy for the humans, considering them noble savages who would eventually come to accept and tolerate Bzadian rule. To Nokz’z they were vermin, pests, and he was the exterminator.
But he did not tolerate failure, especially not in himself. And what had happened in the Bering Strait could be called nothing less. A small team of scumbugz, disguised as Bzadians, had disrupted the carefully laid plan for the invasion of the Americas. On the precipice of success, their million-strong army had been stopped in its tracks by four or five humans. Not just humans, children!
A disaster, his masters had called it, and his punishment was to lose command of the invasion force. Those weak bureaucrats and soft politicians had had him reposted to the Coastal Defence of New Bzadia and the defence of the capital.
True, it was an important posting. They were too afraid of him to give him anything less, and the defence of the motherland could not be considered inconsequential. But when the invasion of the Americas finally took place, it would not be his name that would be on the flags of victory. It would not be Nokz’z, the conqueror of Earth, that children read about in history classes.
There was nothing he could do about that, for now. But that would change.
Bzadia needed people like Colonel Nokz’z.
And they needed him right now.
He strode into the command centre still in his sleeping robes, wiping his face with a damp cloth to refresh himself and remove traces of the night cream that kept his skin soft and youthful. His Vaza, who had woken him, followed immediately behind.
The duty officers in the command centre waited for him to speak, which he did, almost at once, tossing the cloth into a rubbish bin.
“Three Razers?” he asked.
“Yes, Colonel.” The reply came from the duty officer, a young captain named Dequorz.
“And how many human planes were involved?” Nokz’z asked.
“The patrol leader reported six,” Dequorz said. “They reached speeds of mach 7, and initial analysis indicates they could go much faster.”
Nokz’z considered that as he moved to sit in his own chair, in the centre of the room. He swivelled to face Dequorz.
“You are quite sure?” he asked.
With planes like that the humans would control the air. Planes like that could rip the Bzadian air force to shreds.
Dequorz nodded. “Radar tracking and the feed from the Razers confirms it.”
The Vaza came over and put her hand on Nokz’z’s shoulder. He covered it with his own, looking up at her with a grim smile. The significance of what they had just learned was not lost on anyone in the room.
“I am going to call a crisis meeting,” Nokz’z said. “These new aircraft could attack us anywhere at any time.”
“I concur,” Dequorz said. Even with all the authority of Nokz’z’s position, it took two of them to agree to call a crisis meeting: an immediate meeting of the High Council and all senior commanders. It was a rare occurrence. The last one had been during the failed invasion of the Americas, in the so-called “Second Ice War”.
Nokz’z entered codes into his armrest console and watched as Dequorz did the same. In just minutes the leadership of Bzadia would be awakened. He checked the time. Two-thirty in the morning. Some of the leaders would need time to travel into the capital.
“Schedule the meeting for 0630?” he asked.
“Again, I concur,” Dequorz said.
Nokz’z entered the time, knowing that already alarms would be sounding in the sleeping quarters of all the important Bzadian decision-makers.
“What was the Razer patrol doing when it was attacked?” he asked.
“Investigating a signal,” Dequorz said. “A ship off the coast. It turned out to be one of ours, destroyed but not sunk in the attacks yesterday.”
“That’s all?”
“No, sir. The patrol leader reported they had picked up some kind of anomaly near the ship. They were checking it out when they were attacked. We have reviewed the footage and there is nothing visible.”
“This is not a coincidence,” Nokz’z said. “Those new planes did not show up for no reason. They must have been protecting something.”
“What?” Dequorz asked.
“I don’t know, but something is happening out there,” Nokz’z said. “I want increased air and ground patrols up and down the coastline. Also …” He paused, thinking. He pressed his fingertips together lightly. “Where did those scumbugz jets come from?”
“The east,” Dequorz said.
“New Zealand,” Nokz’z said. “If we can find their base, then we can destroy them on the ground.”
[0455 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[BATEMAN’S BAY, AUSTRALIA]
When Price next checked the time it was nearly five. The coast of Australia was no longer a distant weight on the horizon, but a giant shadow against the pre-dawn sky. Within minutes, it seemed, the headlands of the bay slipped past and they entered the sheltered waters within.
The bay was wide at the entrance but narrowed rapidly. They docked at a small jetty, the only one still standing, although the remains of many more were scattered along the shoreline.
Barnard looked at Price. She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to …?”
“No, I’ll do it,” Price said. The boat rocked as she took the narrow steep stairs that led down to the cabin and she had to hold the handrail for support.
She stopped and took a deep breath before rapping twice on the closed door.
“Rise and shine, Brogan,” she said. “It’s time to go.”
SALT
[0510 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[BZADIAN CONGRESS, CANBERRA]
The kitchen smelled like vomit. It always smelled that way, even now, at five in the morning, when nothing had yet started cooking.
The smell came from the huge leaves of the nuguz plant, a Bzadian delicacy. Humans called it pukeweed. Once, on a mission, Ryan Chisnall had found himself in a field of the plants and the stench had almost made him pass out.
Cooked, the smell was less pungent. Even so, it had taken Chisnall a week to accustom himself to the odour, so that he could work in a Bzadian kitchen without tossing his cookies into the nearest pot.
Not that the Bzadians would notice the difference if he did, Chisnall thought. And really the pukeweed was no stranger than some human delicacies. Chinese “stinky” tofu was said to smell like rotten garbage, and the Swedes had a fermented fish dish that smelled so bad it had to be eaten outdoors.
As a child, Chisnall had dreamed of being a chef. His mother had been a wonderful and creative cook and he loved watching her in the kitchen, helping out when he could.
Then his parents died. His father in the war, fighting Bzadians. His mother a year later, of a disease that would have been easily treated twenty years earlier. But there were too many people and there was too little medicine. Or perhaps she had wanted to die. She had grieved endlessly after the loss of his father. Chisnall had felt forgotten in the aftermath, a spectator to her grief, but that didn’t stop him grieving wh
en she died. Then the Angels came along.
The induction program had been harsh, unforgiving, even cruel, but it took his mind off the death of his parents. When they offered him the officers’ course, he had said yes without question.
And in the cyclic nature of the universe, that had led him, eventually, to here. A chef. He was working for the enemy, but it was a position that gave him access to information that no other human had access to.
A chef. A spy.
He moved quietly among the highest circles of the Bzadian military, organising their meals, listening to their conversations.
Nobody noticed a chef.
As a junior chef, and a new one, Chisnall was very aware of his place, but he was also aware that more and more he was being requested as chef for meetings and formal dinners.
It was all about the salt.
Salt was virtually unknown on Bzadia, a desert planet, lacking the huge, saline oceans of Earth. Bzadian chefs who had experimented with it since their arrival on Earth generally used far too much, resulting in overly salty dishes that made the diners reach for their water bulbs.
Chisnall had added salt gradually, knowing how it enhanced the flavours of certain foods. It had worked, and his star was rising in the Bzadian kitchen.
It was no accident that had placed Chisnall, with a little training in Bzadian cuisine, in the kitchen at the Congress, the former Australian Parliament House, now the seat of Bzadian Government. His security credentials were impeccable and completely false. His references and work history were just as false, and just as outstanding.
He had started as a kitchen helper, but invisible hands manipulated the system, and within a month he was cooking meals.
The group behind it all called themselves the Peacemakers. Bzadians who were opposed to the war. They had saved his life after Operation Magnum, hidden his identity, healed him, and eased him into this position in the kitchen in Canberra.
The Peacemakers said they had a vision of a different future for Earth. Instead of humans being eradicated, or subjugated, they foresaw a world in which humans and Bzadians co-existed peacefully. For the most part he believed them, but Chisnall couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that they had a hidden agenda.
Vengeance Page 3
