Doomsday laughed.
“Oh, will we be in for it, but I’ll take care of it.”
The Sartha were starting to fall behind and Jason snapped his engine on and off, mimicking that he was starting to overheat. He scanned through Kilrathi frequencies and finally locked on to them. They were calling to each other excitedly, and it sounded as if some sort of argument was on.
He clicked on his mike.
“Your mother eats used cat litter,” he shouted in what he hoped was good Kilrathi.
There was an explosion of roars from the other side.
“Bugs Bunny screws his mother,” a Kilrathi taunted back in broken English and Jason roared with laughter. Apparently the Kilrathi had picked up some old Earth television transmissions that had been slowly traveling outward at light speed for hundreds of years. One fragment they had picked up had been analyzed by their psychological warfare department and they believed that this ancient animated character was a great folk hero of Earth. A number of taunts had been built around it and he remembered how crestfallen his friend Hobbes was when he was informed that such a taunt produced hysterical laughter from human pilots, since it had been one of Hobbes’ favorites when he was still serving the Empire.
Jason exchanged a few more taunts, the responses leaving him in stitches and he found himself hoping that the pilot he was facing would survive their upcoming encounter. He almost hoped that someday they could share a drink and he could tell him just how comical he really was.
The Tarawa was less than fifty thousand clicks out, and he hoped that the Kilrathi were finally picking it up. There was a moment of hesitation from his pursuers when they detected eight ships coming up, another round of shouted arguments and then they pressed on in.
“All right, Doomsday, break back in.”
Doomsday turned his ship around, several thousand clicks ahead of Jason, and started back for the Tarawa. The commlink channel from Tarawa flared to life and Jason switched the link off and smiled. He could imagine that O’Brian was going berserk when he saw that the fighters were running straight back home with only six Kilrathi Sarthas on their tail.
Jason watched his screen, knowing that he had to put on some sort of convincing show, both for O’Brian and for the Kilrathi who might grow suspicious.
“Ten thousand clicks we break back,” Jason announced.
As they crossed the line he switched back up to full power and yanked back hard on his stick while punching in the afterburners to produce a skidding turn.
As he turned, the Sarthas broke into an open formation and the fight was on. He bore straight in on the lead ship, rolled ninety degrees, punched some more afterburner in, and turned again, coming up on the portside rear quarter. He squeezed off a sharp double burst, and fragments rained off the enemy.
Another burst would kill him but he held off. The enemy turned to try to circle in and Jason kicked on his afterburners as if he had panicked and was now trying to escape. The Sartha turned in behind him. Doomsday streaked past, with his fighters behind him slashing into the other ships.
Jason continued to run straight back towards Tarawa, the Sartha behind him, trying to close the range. He pivoted and rolled to avoid the incoming, struggling with his own instincts and training to fake a pull-up, then roll over and dive under, coming up beneath his opponent. No. He had to lead him in.
Three small dots appeared straight ahead and within seconds started to take form. The Kilrathi, intent on what he thought would be a kill, continued to bore in, still firing. Good, his gun cameras would definitely be on, recording what was straight ahead. Jason dived straight for the fleet until a blind man could not help but see what was ahead. The Sartha slowed and Jason grinned, imagining a rather panicked cry of ’oh damn!’ from his opponent.
To his amazement the Tarawa’s long range laser cannon opened fire and Jason ducked his ship out of the way.
“Damn it, turn those guns off, this turkey has to report home!” Jason roared.
The Sartha pulled up and away. Jason turned after him, pursued briefly and then jerked his throttle up and down to simulate engine trouble.
“Doomsday, one heading straight back, let him get through. He’s scared to death but he’s got the information.”
“We’ve scratched four of them, feels strange to not finish ’em.”
“That’s not the mission, form up and return to base.”
Jason turned back in to the Tarawa, lined up for approach and came in to a smooth landing. As he shut down his engine and Sparks helped him out of the cockpit, the deck loudspeaker clicked on.
“Commander Bondarevsky, report to the bridge at once.”
“I guess you’re in for it now, sir,” Sparks said with a grin.
“Tell me something, Sparks, just how the hell is it that you always seem to know what’s going on all the time?”
“I keep my eyes and ears open, that’s all,” she said quietly.
“I see.”
She hesitated for a moment.
“For what it’s worth, sir, I think that marine captain’s a mighty fine lady.”
Jason looked over at his crew chief and could only shake his head. They had tried to keep their relationship secret. Fleet policy, though it didn’t officially ban such fraternization, certainly didn’t approve of it either. Couples were expected to be discreet and, outside the privacy of their rooms, to show military decorum at all times.
Embarrassed, Jason forced a weak smile.
“And she’s awfully lucky as well.”
He looked at Sparks and sensed that there was a twinge of jealousy in her comment. She stood before him, a streak of grease on her cheek, her hands dirty, her uniform a baggy pair of maintenance coveralls. But for the first time he also realized that she was an extremely attractive young lady.
“Ah, yeah, ah thanks, Sparks,” and he quickly left the deck.
As he walked down the corridor, still in flight gear, the ship’s crew that he passed looked at him and then lowered their eyes. As he opened the airlock door onto the bridge he could hear O’Brian’s high voice:
“I’ll have his stripes for this.”
“Reporting as ordered, sir,” Jason said quietly.
The entire bridge was as silent as the grave as O’Brian turned, his features flushed.
“You disobeyed a direct order to engage those Kilrathi beyond the range of this ship.”
“Sir, can we discuss this in your wardroom?” Jason asked quietly.
“No! We’ll discuss it right here!”
Jason walked past the captain and pulled open the wardroom door.
“Sir, this might involve issues of security and you know what Admiral Banbridge said about that.”
Jason knew that it had nothing to do with security at all. Before entering the system the crew had been briefed at last on their mission. That alone had nearly driven Jason to distraction, since O’Brian’s briefing was short on inspiration and long on the perils involved. But the last thing he wanted were witnesses to what he was about to say.
Fuming, O’Brian stalked across the bridge, his shoulder brushing against Jason, forcing him to step back. Jason followed him into the wardroom and slammed the door shut.
“I ordered you to engage those Sartha beyond range of the Tarawa.”
“Sir, under the mission guidelines established by Admiral Banbridge we were to engage the Kilrathi in this sector, in such a manner as to lead them back to the Tarawa so that our position would be revealed.”
“Banbridge is not out here now, mister, and I made a decision based upon the current threat.”