Vanguard

by Jack Campbell

  “Looks like a good bet,” the second pilot agreed. “What does he do then?”

  “He’d either have to shoot past us and swing back around, or climb almost straight up to shed velocity and tip back down and dive on us. Maybe a full loop if he thinks of that in time, but it would be a big one because of how fast he’s going and how much speed he has to lose.”

  “Do you think he could manage a passing shot?”

  “He could try. We’re going to be throwing up a lot of spray while we’re bouncing off the swells, though, and . . . the missiles aren’t going to impact that far ahead of us.”

  The second pilot grinned. “They go boom, we fly right into a big fountain of spray, and maybe our warbird thinks he hit us. He’s going to have trouble figuring out what happened. Only for a few seconds, but at the speed he’s chasing us—”

  “A few seconds might do the trick.” The first pilot grinned. “Want to try?”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Why the hell not?” the pilot agreed. “Hey, Marine. If this doesn’t work, we’ll probably end up cartwheeling across the surface of the ocean, shedding pieces as we go. Since you gave us the idea, I wanted you to know that.”

  “Thanks,” Mele said. “And if it does work, will we be able to get close enough to Delta before the warbird can engage us again?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s better than no chance,” Mele said.

  “So it is. Make sure your guys are strapped in back there. In about ten minutes, we’re going to see whether we can do this.”

  Mele passed the word, then returned to the cockpit and strapped into her seat. The pilots were both visibly tense, sweat on their necks as they watched the warbird draw ever closer. She stayed quiet, not wanting to distract them.

  An alarm sounded at the same moment as one of the pilots called out. “Incoming! Two of them!”

  “Hold on,” the other said.

  “You going to call it?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’ll call it.”

  “I’ll cut the engines when you call it.”

  Mele could see the threat markers that represented the two missiles closing fast on the WinG. The pilots held the WinG on a steady course as the alarm sounded again with more urgency. Red lights flashed. “Danger,” a woman’s recorded voice said. “Incoming missiles. Recommend evasive action.”

  “No kidding,” the first pilot muttered. “Stand by.”

  “Ready,” the second pilot replied.

  “Ten seconds to impact,” the woman’s voice warned.

  “Now!”

  The WinG tilted down as the first pilot headed lower and the second pilot cut thrust. Almost immediately, there came a jolt that slammed Mele against the straps holding her in her seat, and the WinG bounced up again. The WinG floated several meters above the waves while the pilots fought to bring her back down, then fell and bounced upward again in another shower of spray.

  “Not too hard!” the first pilot yelled to the second as they struggled to bring the WinG down again.

  A third jolt, longer this time, the WinG ringing with the sound of the contact with the water.

  Mele, looking forward, saw two objects plummet into the water just ahead. An instant later, spray from two explosions blossomed as the WinG reached the impact point. The WinG jolted as the spray hit it under its belly and wings, then steadied out as the pilots goosed the thrust again.

  “What’s he doing?” the first pilot demanded as he steadied the WinG.

  “Already overhead,” the second one reported. “He’s climbing. Coming up . . . it’s a loop. He’s coming all the way around.”

  Mele saw the displays light up with warnings again. She didn’t need the pilots to interpret that. The warbird would soon finish his loop and dive at the WinG in a second attack.

  “He’s either out of missiles,” the second pilot said, “or he doesn’t want to waste any more. This looks like a gun run.”

  “It’s going to be real close,” the first pilot gasped, checking the distance remaining to Delta. “Here he comes. Let’s dance!”

  The pilots of the WinG jinked the craft wildly as the warbird came boring in, its manta shape making it look malevolent as well as deadly. The WinG pilots lost speed with every maneuver but also created an erratic target whose path the Scatha warbird’s fire control system couldn’t predict. The warbird’s first burst tore up water to the left of the WinG, the second burst pelted the ocean just to the right of the WinG, and the third burst was hitting just in front of the WinG when the warbird finally came into range of Delta.

  Two heavy-duty industrial lasers, their output pumped and their operating controls tied to simple optical tracking systems that spanned into infrared and ultraviolet. In daylight, its hull heated by the friction of tearing through the atmosphere at high speed, the warbird was easy for the tracking systems to lock on. And the beams of the lasers moved much, much faster than the bullets fired by the warbird’s guns.

  The warbird’s skin was designed to vaporize when hit to help protect against damage from lasers, but two powerful weapons firing at the fairly close range demanded by their industrial design put out too much energy for that to make much difference.

  An explosion in the warbird’s right weapons bay tore off the right wing, sending the warbird spinning wildly as it spiraled in an uncontrollable corkscrew across the sky.

  Mele saw a symbol appear as the pilot of the warbird ejected, but the symbol vanished an instant after it appeared when the rapidly spinning craft’s left wing slapped the ejection module before it could boost clear. The impact turned the ejection module into flying debris and tore off a large part of the left wing, slowing the crippled warbird’s tumble a little as it nosed over and rocketed into the ocean. A tall plume of water erupted to mark the destruction of the warbird. As the water settled, nothing could be seen but small fragments of the aerospace craft.

  “No way they survived that,” the first pilot said somberly.

  “No,” the second pilot agreed. “Too bad. That pilot was pretty good.”

  “Yeah.” The first pilot looked back at Mele. “It worked.”

  “I noticed,” Mele said. “Next time you meet Marines, buy them a round.”

  “Fair enough. Shall we tell Delta to pack up and go home?”

  “Yes. Do they need us to hang around until they can lift in case Scatha sends someone else?”

  “You haven’t had enough excitement for one day, Marine?” The second pilot passed on the request, then shook his head at Mele. “Delta says they’re already loading their power unit and lasers back on their WinG and they’ll be out of there in ten minutes, so there’s no need for us to hang around.”

  Mele kept her eyes on the pilots’ displays as they raced past the two islands, watching until she saw Delta’s WinG take off and head for home as well.

  She sighed, feeling her whole body suddenly overcome with weariness, but unstrapped and went back to her team. “You can relax,” she told them. “There’s nothing to do now but wait until we get back.”

  “I’m writing my memoirs,” Obi announced. “And I’m going to update my online status from It’s complicated to I’m still alive.”

  Everyone laughed except Grant. “What’s the matter?” Mele asked.

  He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I know he doesn’t deserve it, but I’m worried about what must be happening to Spurlick.”

  “Spurlick?” It took Mele a moment to understand. “Oh, yeah. We figure he told Scatha they had nothing to worry about from me because I was an idiot, and that if Glenlyon did do something, it would be a head-on attack across the open field. That probably contributed to how unprepared they were tonight. No, I don’t expect Citizen Spurlick is having much fun right now.”

  “He’s probably already dead,” Grant said.

  “If he’s lucky, he
is. The only reason Scatha would keep him alive would be to make him pay for their losses tonight.”

  Riley spoke up. “I can go through some of the files we downloaded and see if there’s anything about Spurlick in there.”

  “Good idea.” Too tired to care much about the fate of someone who had betrayed them, Mele went back to the cockpit, strapped in, and fell asleep.

  • • •

  Glenlyon had gone from tense foreboding to wild celebration. “They think the fight is almost over,” Grant remarked to Mele.

  They were sitting in the temporary building that Mele had labeled the Supreme Headquarters Complex, in the small office that Mele called the Planetary Defense Command Center. “How many volunteers came in today?” she asked.

  “Another ten,” Grant said. “That takes us close to two hundred. How large do you think the council will let us go?”

  “I’ll keep them informed and see when they say stop,” Mele said. “We’re going to need those warm bodies. And next time, we’re going to lose some of them. Scatha still has more than eighty soldiers at that base, and they’re not going to be asleep at their watch stations next time we show up.” She gestured toward her portable display. “They finally found the surveillance pickups I planted, so no more close-in signal collection for us.”

  “Too bad we couldn’t have hit them again already,” Grant remarked. “Their morale must be low enough to walk under closed doors.”

  “The satellite shows they’re running patrols out a lot farther from the base,” Mele said.

  “Can we take one?”

  “Maybe. Their second warbird hasn’t lifted since the raid. It might be down, or they might be playing dead.” Mele’s alert chimed. “Let’s see what fan mail the council sent me. Hey, Squall is back. Showed up at the jump point four hours ago.”

  “That’s good. We’ve got top cover again,” Grant said. “How’d their mission go?”

  “No details. Space squids send status reports as soon as they arrive in a system, right? So the council should know something. They must be worried about people tapping into our network.”

  “We did do that to Scatha.”

  “Yeah,” Mele said, “but the same people who tapped into Scatha upgraded the defenses on our networks. I’ll go over to the council for a face-to-face with Leigh Camagan to find out how Squall did and let her know our current strength.”

  “Sure thing, Major Darcy,” Grant said. “Maybe they’ll make you a colonel while you’re there.”

  “I’m not sure I’m dumb enough to be a colonel. Maybe they’ll just bust me back to sergeant.”

  • • •

  Rob Geary had sent a detailed report in to the council as soon as Squall arrived back at Glenlyon Star System. He had talked with the council as soon as Squall got close enough to the planet for something like real-time conversation. And he had taken a shuttle down for a face-to-face with the council, which had dragged on for some time.

  All the while, he had really wanted to meet with someone else.

  “Ninja?” Rob asked as he opened the door to Ninja IT Consulting.

  She was there, smiling at him from her desk.

  Mele Darcy was in the office as well, just getting up from a second chair that Ninja had finally acquired. “Hi, Lieutenant Geary. I heard you did some great work.”

  “Hello, Major Darcy,” Rob said. “I guess you outrank me now.”

  She grinned. “I’m sure you’ll get bumped up in rank soon.”

  He shook his head. “Not likely.”

  Ninja’s glower was obviously aimed at the council, not him. “Why not? Look what you did!”

  “I endangered Glenlyon’s only warship and may have started hostilities with another star system,” Rob said. “Or that’s what a good chunk of the council is worried about, anyway.”

  “What were you supposed to have done? Let that ship bombard Kosatka?”

  “The council can’t decide what I should have done,” Rob said, leaning against the wall. “Or if what I did was done the way I should have done it.”

  “But you’re the one who done it,” Mele Darcy observed.

  “Right. Speaking of stuff done, you did a real number on Scatha here. We saw the damage from orbit.”

  “It’s going to take more,” Mele Darcy said, and he understood the dark undertone to that statement. She clearly feared that “more” would be expensive in terms of casualties. Having worried that Darcy would be strutting around like the savior of Glenlyon, Rob was relieved to see her still acting as levelheaded as his first impression of her had been.

  “We’re here to help,” he said. “Uh, did I interrupt a business meeting?”

  “Nope,” Darcy said. “Ninja and I were just discussing how vital it is not to put off important stuff when there’s shooting going on. You never know when it’ll be your last chance to tell somebody something, you know? I’ll let you guys catch up.”

  Ninja gave Mele an exasperated look as she left, then waved Rob to the other seat. “Is the council really mad at you?”

  “The council,” Rob said as he sat down, “doesn’t know what it wants to do. It’s been spooked ever since Scatha sent a ship to shake us down, and that’s gotten worse as the situation got worse. They’re thrilled I’ve got Kosatka’s promise of aid, scared that I might have triggered hostilities with another, unknown star system, glad that I probably saved Kosatka from what happened to Lares, and terrified that what was done to Lares might happen here.”

  “So what they’re mad at is the universe,” Ninja said.

  “Yes. But they can’t take anything out on the universe. I, on the other hand, am right here.”

  Ninja looked down. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Me, too. Are you and Darcy friends now?”

  “I need someone to spend time with while you’re gallivanting all over the galaxy,” Ninja said. “Don’t you like her?”

  “Mele Darcy? Yeah, I think I do. What she’s accomplished against Scatha’s base is amazing given what she had to work with. I was worried about her when I left, you know that, but now it seems she’s really something.”

  Ninja cast a very quick glance his way. “If you like that sort of thing,” she said in a toneless voice.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Ninja, I thought you’d be happy to see me. Are you all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be all right? I’m fine. Just don’t assume I’ll always be sitting around waiting for you to get back from another star,” Ninja said.

  Rob eyed her, thinking. “I’ve got a sister, you know.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “She told me what it means when a woman says fine. It means whatever man she’s talking to is in trouble. Why am I in trouble?”

  “Look,” Ninja said, “I’m sort of busy. If you don’t mind, I need to—”

  “Ninja, I spent a lot of time thinking about you while I was gone. You’re an amazing person. I missed you. But I want to be fair to you.”

  She kept her eyes on the display before her. “What does that mean?”

  Rob had practiced his speech countless times, but now found it hard to say anything. “You already know what my life might be like. Danger, sometimes, and a lot of separation maybe. How could I ask any partner to put up with that?”

  “Wouldn’t that be up to the partner?” Ninja asked. “If you respect someone, shouldn’t you let them weigh in on a decision like that instead of making it yourself?”

  “Yeah,” Rob said. “I should. You’re right.”

  “That’s a good start.”

  “So?” Rob asked.

  “So?” Ninja replied.

  “How do you feel about it? Because I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been imagining things.”

  She finally looked at him again. “One
of the reasons I like you is because you don’t mess with people.”

  “I’m not messing with you,” Rob said. “That’d be kind of dangerous, wouldn’t it?”

  “You have no idea how dangerous it would be,” Ninja said.

  “Is that what happened to that chief petty officer back in Alfar?”

  “Him? Nah. He was just a jerk to everybody. It’ll probably be another decade before he gets his public and private records straightened out. Not that I know anything about that, you understand. Just tell me one thing. Are you doing me a favor?” Ninja asked.

  Startled by the question, Rob took a moment to answer. “No. I’m doing myself a favor. I’m finally taking a chance on something that . . . could be really special.”

  “It took you long enough,” Ninja said. “Now what?”

  He felt awkward, rubbing the back of his neck. “Um . . . what are you doing for dinner?”

  Ninja waved toward a bulb of highly caffeinated soda and a pack of candy. “Working meal.”

  “You wouldn’t mind if we went out and got some dinner with actual nutrients in it, would you?”

  “You mean like a date? Are you asking me out? Because I have a lot of work to do, and I wouldn’t want to waste any time.”

  He grinned at her. “I’ve already wasted enough time. Yes, I am asking you out. I just realized how much I’ve always enjoyed talking to you.”

  “You just realized that?” She shook her head, looking exasperated again. “You should do it more often, then. Sure. We’ll go out and get something healthy to eat if that’s your thing. Oh, wait, there’s something else I need to get out of the way first.”

  “Will it take long?” Rob asked.

  “Nah.” Ninja got up, walked the short distance to him, and bent over to kiss Rob, long and gently. When she finished, Ninja straightened and smiled at him. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”

  “You can do it again if you want,” Rob said, his lips still tingling from the touch of hers.

  Ninja laughed. “Maybe after dinner.”