Blair stared at the empty screens, unable to accept what they were telling him. They'd come so damned close.
"A report, Lord Prince."
"What have you got, Melek?" Thrakhath leaned forward in his chair to study the bulky figure of the retainer.
"The Strakha have eluded the Terran Thunderbolts Lord Prince." Melek paused. "The surviving missiles are well on their way, and interception by the Terrans now is most unlikely. The colony will not survive."
Thrakhath bared his fangs. "Good. Then we have done what we came here to do. This will surely spur the Terrans into a rash attempt at retaliation." He could barely contain the pleasure that burned inside him. This was the first step to ending the long war. "The fleet will disengage and set course to the jump point to the Ariel system. Let us leave the Terrans to their . . . possession. Let them decide if they are pleased at the price they have paid to drive us away from their colony."
"Lord Prince . . . many of the fighters are damaged and low on fuel. The Strakha are at the very limit of their range. Should we not move to pick them up first?" Melek's look was almost challenging.
"The Terran reaction will be unpredictable, Melek. They could decide to launch a retaliatory strike, once they realize that all they have left is vengeance. We must not delay too long. Any fighters that can rendezvous with us may do so, but we will not wait for stragglers." Thrakhath paused. "You may order tankers to refuel them if you wish. Carry out my orders . . . now."
"Good God, Colonel, what do we do now?" Flint's voice was ragged, with fatigue or shock or disappointment. Blair wasn't sure which. "They're . . . gone."
"We do whatever we still can," he said, hard-pressed to keep the despair out of his own voice. "And we pray the in-system defenses spot those bastards before they do any damage to the colony . . ."
"I counted five of them all told, Colonel," Vaquero said. "Can t we blanket the approaches and pick them up before they reach the planet?"
"We can try," Blair said.
"So . . we head for home, skipper?" Vaquero asked.
"But . . . the colony," Flint said. "We can t just turn back now. We have to try to stop those missiles!"
"We'll do what we can, Lieutenant," Blair told her. "Spread out and keep hunting, and call for refueling from Victory. The Home Guard and whatever other ships are closer in to Four can search, too. But we can't track what we can't see. And I don't hold out much hope at this point."
CHAPTER XIV
"The last word we received put the Kilrathi concentrating around the jump point to Ariel. Looks like they re pulling out. Not even bothering to gather in all their fighters, either. Could be we can round up a few more of the bastards before the whole thing's over."
Blair wasn't particularly interested in the Kilrathi, not any more. He had other concerns. "Any word on the situation on Four, Lieutenant?"
"It doesn't look good, sir," Rollins said heavily. "The reports from the colony indicate at least five missiles got through. They were set for high airbursts, so the ground defenses never had a chance to fire at them. We won't know for a while if the pandemic is as bad as everybody claims, but . . . well, like I said, it doesn't look good."
"Acknowledged, Victory. Leader clear." Blair nodded slowly. The report was about what he expected, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow. Five Kilrathi biowarheads exploding high above the surface of the colony world . . . that would ensure a fast spread of the tailored disease they carried. It would not be long before the effects of the attack became visible.
Locanda IV was as good as dead already, and Maverick Blair, the great pilot and war hero, was the man to blame for it all. The man who failed. . . .
He forced the thought aside and concentrated on his fighter's controls. Blair's Thunderbolt came through the long fight with only light damage, but he had trouble with the port-side maneuvering thrusters, and the computer was unable to reroute the circuits through a more dependable network.
They were near the original coordinates of the Kilrathi fleet, which thankfully was moving away at full speed toward a nearby jump point. Blue and Green Squadrons, after maintaining a prolonged diversionary action against Thrakhath's flagship, had returned to Victory. Gold Squadron remained out, however, searching for a lost sheep.
Incredibly, only Beast Jaeger's fighter was confirmed as destroyed in battle, though several of the others were in terrible shape. How Hobbes still flew at all was a mystery, and Vaquero's weapons systems finally overloaded in the last fight against the Strakha. But one of the Thunderbolts remained missing, and Blair ordered Gold Squadron to spread out and search for the missing man . . . or some sign of his fate.
Lieutenant Alexander Sanders. callsign Sandman . . . Blair never really knew him. He had served as Maniac's wingman throughout the current deployment and spent most of his off-duty hours hanging with Marshall. Although he always struck Blair as a complete opposite to Maniac — steady, dependable, loyal, reliable — Sanders and Marshall were good friends as well as wingmates. Neither Blair nor the lieutenant were very comfortable with each other as a result of the on going feud dividing the colonel from the major.
Now it looked as if Blair would never get a chance to know the man. Maniac had allowed himself to be separated from his wingman in the battle with the Kilrathi escort squadron while Cobra covered herself after Jaeger's death, so no one saw Sandman fighting. He might have been destroyed, or simply damaged and left adrift . . . or he might have ejected from his fighter. Until they were sure, they had to look.
A refueling shuttle arrived from Victory to rendezvous with the squadron and top off their tanks, and now the eight remaining fighters were to form a broad search pattern, hunting for some signs of the lost pilot. They were barely within sensor range of each other, and the comm channels were mostly quiet. Everyone knew the mission had failed. Everyone was exhausted by hours of continuous stress and tension punctuated by more fighting than any of them had seen in a long, long time.
"Bad news, Colonel," Cobra broke into his reverie. "I've got a debris field here. Material analysis reads consistent with a Thunderbolt's hull armor . . . It's gotta be Sandy's."
"You're sure it isn't part of Jaeger's ship?"
"No way, sir. Too far from where Beast caught it."
"Start a close scan, Cobra. If there's an escape pod around there, find it.
"I'll try, sir, but you know the cats. If they spot a pilot after he ejects, they'll either blast him where they find him or tractor him in for interrogation and a sporting death entertaining a ship's nobles."
"Check it out, anyway, Lieutenant. If there's any chance Sandman's still alive, I want to find him." Blair paused. "All fighters, from Leader. Converge on Cobra's beacon and concentrate your search there."
Bringing the fighter around, he increased his thrust. Cobra was right, of course. The odds against finding Sanders alive were too high a bet for anyone but a blind optimist, but he had to try.
It was a pitiful gesture set against his failure defending the colony, but it was all he could do right now.