“greenies” right out of the navy’sAdvancedCombatSchool . Rawlings didn’t know which scared her most, their lack of experience or hers. A group of red deltas wiped themselves onto her HUD and Lieutenant Hawa MorloBa, who never tired of being first, made the call. “Blue Five to Blue One . . . bandits at six o’clock!”
Rawlings listened to herself say, “Roger that. Five,” and took pride in the flat laconic sound of the words. ‘Tally ho!”
Clone intelligence claimed that Thraki interceptors were protected by cloaking technology obtained from a race called “The Simm,” and it appeared that they were correct. The enemy interceptors were a good deal closer than she would have preferred. The naval officer “thought” her aircraft to starboard, felt it side slip into a dive, and brought the ship’s weapons systems online.
The others watched her go, followed the officer down, and scanned their readouts. Power was critical, weapons were critical, everything was critical or would be soon.
Flight Warrior Hissa Hoi Beko watched the Confederate aircraft descend, checked her wing mates, and confirmed their positions. The pilot’s weapons, like the rest of her ship, were controlled by the special gauntlets she wore. Each movement had meaning. Index to finger to thumb:
“Safeties off—accumulators on.” First two fingers in paralleclass="underline" “Ship-to-ship missiles—safeties off—guidance on—warheads active.” The pilot’s displays flickered with each carefully articulated movement. Then, as the enemy fighters came into range, a circuit closed, and her fingers began to tingle. Beko fired and the air war began.
Rawlings heard tone, fired chaff, and rolled. The enemy missile sped past and exploded. The fighter that had fired it pulled a highgee turn and attempted to flee. The rest of the Thraki interceptors did likewise. Both of the Seebos responded with a nearly identical cheer, applied full military power, and gave chase, Rawlings wanted to stop them, wanted to call the pilots back, but wasn’t sure why. Good fighter pilots were aggressive, competitive, and little bit obnoxious. But this was too easy, too tempting, too ... Beko checked her screens and grinned as the enemy ships took the bait. The Hegemony had been most accommodating during the early stages of the Clone-Thraki relationship and shared some of their knowledge regarding Confederate technology. That was how Beko knew the range at which her adversaries would be able to detect her fighters and was able to put that knowledge to work. By leaving two heavily cloaked interceptors behind, and leading the enemy towards them, she and her wing mates had closed the trap.
The Seebos saw deltas appear as if by magic, tried to react, but ran out of time. Rawlings winced as the orange-red flowers blossomed, gritted her teeth, and took the challenge. The Thraki had reversed direction by then . .. which meant that she and her three surviving pilots were about to go head to head with six enemy aircraft. That’s when the naval officer noticed how precisely the enemy was grouped. Because they had a taste for discipline? Or because the pilots were trained to fight tightly controlled machines? Computer controlled machines that behaved in predictable ways? Words followed thought: “Break! Break! Break! Take ‘um one on one, over.”
Beko frowned, and the fur crawled away from her eyes as the oncoming formation seemed to explode. Confederate vessels went every which way as she struggled to understand. But there wasn’t enough time, not at combined speeds of more than a thousand units per hour, and the .sky went mad. The Confederate ships rolled, turned, dove, and climbed. Missiles left their racks, coherent light stuttered toward their targets, and 30 mm cannon shells tunneled through the air. Beko yowled in frustration as the formation disintegrated around her, fired at one of the oncoming ships, and knew she had missed. And then, before she could recover, the interceptor took a hit. Alarms went off, systems failed, and a computer made a decision. The cockpit blew itself free of the ship, a cluster of chutes popped open, and the planet swayed below. Beko saw no less than three of her pilots die or bail out during the next two minutes. Shame filled her heart, and the weight of it pulled the warrior down. The Command andControlCenter , or CCC, was almost eerily quiet. Near disasters, disasters, and total disasters were announced in the same emotionless drone used to describe the most important of victories. It was a large compartment by shipboard standards, buried deep within the Gladiator’s armorclad hull, and the place from which Booly, his staff, and a group of highly skilled technicians ran the assault on BETA018.
Screens lined the bulkheads, video flashed, rolled, and stuttered; indicator lights signaled from the darkness, and “Big Momma,” the ship’s primary C&C computer murmured in the background. Booly cocked his head as the latest summaries came in over the speakers. “Preliminary totals indicate casualties more than 16 percent in excess of plan. Estimate that 86.2 percent of enemy force engaged. Approximately 72.1 percent of enemy aircraft destroyed.”
Something moved through the officer’s peripheral vision, and a coffee cup landed at his elbow. Admiral Tyspin lowered herself onto a chair. She looked tired. He smiled. ‘Thanks for the coffee.”
She lifted her cup by way of an acknowledgement. “Denada.”
“So how’re we doing?”
Tyspin eyed him through the steam, took a sip, and lowered the mug. “You heard Big Momma ... We took causalities ... too many ... but the sky belongs to us.”
Booly nodded. “And the insertion teams?”
“Ready to drop.”
“Give ‘em my best.”
Tyspin smiled. “I already did.”
Once Dagger Commander, now Lieutenant Drik SeebaKa felt the landing craft fall free, checked the seal on his anus, and was relieved to find that it was intact. He hadn’t been so lucky the first time out—and spent the day wallowing in his own shit. No one had noticed though, not in the stink of the training swamp, and disgrace was avoided.
But what of today? the Hudathan asked himself, as he stared down the aisle. What of the twenty-five Hudathans, twenty-five legionnaires, four Naa and six cyborgs placed under his command? How would they regard him when the sun finally set? Assuming some survived? Would they honor his name? The officer was determined that they would. But what did barbarians know of honor? And could he trust them? War Commander DomaSa said “yes,” but who could be sure?
SeebaKa touched the Legion-issue wrist term and watched video blossom on the inside surface of his visor, He saw the ridge, two of the weapons emplacements that topped it, and the initial objective: a cluster of Thraki airshafts. The mission was simplicity itself. Neutralize the defenders, drop through the airshafts, and destroy everything in sight, If they made the LZ, if they could penetrate the complex, )I the enemy gave way. The purpose of the assault was to take some pressure off the forces detailed to drive the length of the valley floor. The landing craft shuddered as the hull hit the upper part of the atmosphere, but the Hudathan didn’t even notice. He ran the sequence again.
About four feet away, thumbs hooked into his battle harness. First Sergeant Antonio Top” Santana eyed his commanding officer through half-closed lids. What was the hatchet head thinking anyway? Jeez, the sonovabitch was ugly. He seemed to know his shit, though, which was good, because Santana was ready if he didn’t. Two slugs in the back of the head, and the matter would be settled. Not a pleasant thought but better than letting a geek waste his team. The noncom smiled.