Svetlana’s voice suddenly cut into his thoughts.
“Blue Leader, clear the area, repeat, clear the area by at least three clicks.”
Jason pulled back, not quite sure of the logic of the command. From out of the front of the building he saw hundreds of commandos emerging, race to their ground assault vehicles. The vehicles revved to life, hovered up and skimmed away.
The palace suddenly disappeared in the hot white flash of a matter/antimatter detonation, that sent a tower of smoke and rubble thousands of meters into the air, the explosion spreading out into an ugly mushroom-shaped cloud, streaked with lightning.
The destruction left him with a curious feeling. There was, after all, the almost childlike joy of destruction, especially when one was destroying the property of an enemy that deserved to be hated, but on the other side he watched the explosion with a vague sense of loss. The building appeared to be ancient, a treasure that should have been preserved, its military significance a mystery.
Seconds later he picked up an encoded Kilrathi burst signal. It was on for only a second, then shut down and his ship’s targeting system picked up on it and secured a lock. He turned his Rapier around to go after the source of the transmission.
“Blue Leader, this is White Knight.”
“Blue Leader here. Going after a transmission source coming from a mountain twenty clicks from here, back shortly.”
“Belay that attack Blue Leader, repeat, belay that attack, your people are not to hit that source till ordered to.”
“What gives White Knight? It’s a threat, it could be calling in counter strike information. I’m going for it.”
“Blue Leader, that is a direct order from Big Duke One.”
“Acknowledge,” Jason replied, now thoroughly confused. Big Duke One was the marine commandant in charge of the entire assault. So the commandant decided to go in with the commando battalion and lead from the ground. It was just like him, Jason realized. But was there a reason why he was at that now ruined palace, and just why the hell did they want a Kilrathi station broadcasting in the middle of a damned invasion?
His fuel nearly expended, Jason finally pulled back up, calling Mongol and Round Top in as well to head back to Tarawa for a rearm and refuel.
He switched through the comm link channels, checking on his other pups, calling for them to signal in their status reports, checking his screen to see what damage they had sustained. Most of his people were dangerously low on fuel, several of them with barely enough to return to space, and he ordered his squadrons back up, leaving Doomsday and Janice to hover above the landing areas for support, requesting that a section of Sevastopol’s fighters act as backup for ground support, now that space based defenses had been suppressed.
“I’m hit, I’m hit, losing power.”
It took him a second to lock on the signal. It was a Sabre, flying suppression above the one Kilrathi city on the planet. The port engine of the ship had taken a small heat seeker and it appeared as if all shielding was gone.
“Head for space, Green four,” Jason commanded, and then checked his nav screen for an escort.
“Blue five acknowledge.”
“Lone Wolf here.”
“Kevin, escort Green four back to the Tarawa. He’s lost all shielding and an engine; he’ll need cover if anything shows up.”
“Acknowledge.”
Jason watched his screen as Tolwyn maneuvered in behind the damaged Sabre. The crippled ship cleared the atmosphere and he breathed a sigh of relief. Even if it lost all power now, they could still tractor beam the craft back to Tarawa for repairs.
“This is Tarawa combat information, we’ve got bogeys coming up off the moon’s surface.”
“Damn!”
Jason looked at his fuel supply, it was barely enough to get back to Tarawa, and there might be a fight brewing out there.
“We’re tracking one lone Sartha, vectoring in on Green four and Blue five.”
“Kevin did you copy that?”
“Got him on lock Blue Leader,” Kevin cried, his voice edged with excitement, his signal scratchy and breaking up.
“He’ll try and take out the Sabre. Stay close to that cripple and provide cover.”
There was no reply, and Jason felt a quick stab of anxiety.
“Blue Leader, Blue Leader, Lone Wolf is breaking off in pursuit of the Sartha, it’s heading back towards the moon.”
“Lone Wolf acknowledge!” Jason snapped.
There was no reply.
Jason punched in afterburners, calling for Mongol and Round Top to follow as he raced towards the crippled Sabre, which then announced that it was shutting down its remaining engine.
Mongol was finally forced to drop out, his afterburner fuel expended, reduced to coasting back towards Tarawa.
The comm link to Tarawa kicked on again. “We’ve got three, repeat three inbound bogeys, moving on Green four.”
“Blue Leader, we’re sitting ducks, we’re going to get cooked!” The pilot sounded on the edge of panic.
Jason could well imagine the fear building up, sitting damned near motionless, watching as the red blips closed in for the kill.
The range was still ten thousand clicks off. He rammed his throttle to maximum, racing forward. Ahead his vision-enhanced screen showed the three Kilrathi ships closing in for the kill. A volley of shots raked the crippled Sabre.
“Eject, get out, get out now!” Jason screamed.
The Sabre detonated silently, a brief flair in the darkness of space. He closed the range, the first Kilrathi ship, an old style Salthi starting into its turn to make good his escape. Jason punched in one last shot of afterburner, lined up on the ship’s bottom rear and fired off a quick succession of salvos. The enemy ship disintegrated, Round Top swinging about to make his second kill of the day, the third ship racing away to disappear around the far side of the moon.
“Break off attack,” Jason called, then signaling over to Sevastopol with an angry gibe about not having suppressed all space based activity.
He swung back towards the still expanding wreckage of the Sabre, and detected two rescue transponders and called in the location.
Seething with barely suppressed rage, Jason lined up on the Tarawa and came in to land.
The flight deck was in near chaos as the ground crews raced to refuel and rearm the incoming ships for another sortie. Pulled off the launch ramp, Jason leaned back in his seat as Sparks ran the ladder up alongside the cockpit. She scrambled up and tossed him a towel to wipe the sweat from his face. Standing up he stretched and then climbed down from his craft and strode over to the ready room. As he came in the pilots looked over at him expectantly.
He took a deep breath.
“Not bad, not bad at all,” he finally said, and there was a circle of grins.
He walked over to the mission board and then looked back at the situation map which was projecting a tactical image of the action on the ground. He listened to the situation report as it came in over the commlink and then turned back to the pilots.