"This place is dead," Maniac said, not bothering to temper his astonishment.
"It's like a holo," Zarya added. "And hey, there go the Marines. They won't find much. Looks like MyGov has been leveled."
"Advance to escort coordinates," Blair ordered, taking his Rapier between their fighters. Nearly in unison, they banked right and followed a vector that took them lateral of the Claw. The nav computer beeped, and the circular radar screen showed a flashing white cross, indicating they had reached their assigned position: waiting on the bench, as Maniac understood it. They lined up and throttled down. Blair had trouble removing his gaze from the planet, had trouble removing his thoughts from the millions who had died under an onslaught of planetary torpedoes. No doubt about it. The Kilrathi had to be responsible. They had somehow captured a supercruiser and intended to incite a civil war with it.
"I'm running a short-range scan, and I'm already picking up a lot of debris. I'm talking a lot of debris," Zarya said.
Blair switched to Angel. "Reserve leader to second patrol, copy?"
Her face lit his display. "Copy, Lieutenant."
"We're at station. No sign of hostile contacts, roger."
"None on this end either. Picking up wreckage from, I don't know, could be hundreds of ships, mostly private and commercial transports. No military craft IDed yet."
"They were probably trying to get offworld." Blair snorted in disbelief. "Bastards just shot them down."
"I've seen holos of the Peron Massacre, but that pales in comparison to this," Angel remarked. "We're looking at the total annihilation of a Confederation world. This place won't be habitable for a century, and that's with terraformers rebuilding around the clock."
"I don't get it. Why Mylon Three? It's along the Kilrathi border, but there aren't any jump points from here into their space. And from what I've read, it is-or was-your basic agricultural world. I don't understand what they're gaining from this, besides sending a message."
"Maybe that's all they wanted to do. And Mylon was simply a target of opportunity since at the time of the attack, no Confed cap ships were in the immediate vicinity."
"Angel?" Gangsta called. "Found a small shuttle, civilian registry. Or at least what's left of it. Life support still functioning. Got two live ones inside."
2
VEGA SECTOR.DOWNING QUADRANT.CS TIGER CLAW.HIGH ORBIT NYLON THREE.
2654.079.1500 HOURS CONFEDERATION STANDARD TIME
Second patrol moved in on the civilian shuttle, and Angel and Gangsta activated retrieval tractors to tow the ship back to the Tiger Claw. They tried to contact the survivors inside, but shipboard communications had been destroyed. One survivor, a frazzled teenage girl, waved to them from a porthole. First patrol continued probing the wreckage, and Blair listened in as they encountered another tattered vessel with more survivors on board.
About an hour into the operation, Angel declared the area secured, and for the next four hours Blair sat in his cockpit and watched as more patrols launched, scoured the wreckage, and discovered still more survivors. Deveraux continued to hold Blair's patrol on reserve, despite his best arguments. True, a hostile vessel could return to thwart their rescue efforts, but Blair considered that more unlikely as the hours passed.
"Man, how much longer are we going to sit on our asses?" Maniac had unclipped his mask, and his expression hung so low that it promised to fall off.
Blair shook his head at the VDU. "We're sitting tight until we're ordered or forced back."
"Well, we ain't draining systems in this hover. Oxygen's rated for seven hours, but I'm good for another five, dammit. If the order doesn't come in, I say we lie about our status. I didn't get to finish my lunch, and we're already heading into supper."
"You hearing this, Zarya?" Blair asked. "Pay attention to the way Lieutenant Marshall operates."
"Hey, I just ain't for wasting us out here. The whole wing is involved in this effort, and there's only one other reserve patrol. They haven't been out here as long as us."
"Sometimes it ain't all guts and glory," Blair said. "And sometimes it ain't fair. You know that."
"Lumberjack to, uh, Pilgrim, copy? That you, Blair?"
"Copy, Lumberjack. New call sign. What's up?"
"We're your relief. Be there in a ninety seconds."
"You don't know what a pleasure it is," Maniac said. "Hey, L.J.? When we get back, I owe you a tongue kiss."
Lumberjack, a burly twenty-six-year old man fond of wearing flannel during off-duty hours, grunted and said, "That tongue comes within a meter of me, and I'll tear it off and bloodpin it to your chest."
"You'll never see it coming. They never do." The big Lumberjack sniggered. "Get out of here, you idiot."
"Reserve patrol? Throttle up," Blair ordered, then engaged his own thrusters and wheeled back for the carrier, gratified to escape Mylon Three's oppressive gloom.
The second Blair penetrated the flight deck's energy curtain, a Dantean scene of chaos assaulted his gaze. Fighters and bombers had been shifted back, some doubled up in repair bays to accommodate the fifty or more scorched and shattered fuselages of commercial and civilian shuttles that lay in ragged rows parallel to the runway. Civilians were being helped or carried out of the wrecks, with, it appeared, all twenty-five medics assigned to the Claw addressing wounds or rushing the incapacitated to sick bay. Two dazed civvies wandered dangerously close to the runway as Blair took his main thrusters offline and braked frantically with maneuvering jets. "Boss! Get 'em out of the way!"
Peterson sprinted across the runway, extended both arms, wrapped them around the civvies' necks, then dragged them back toward the shoulder. Blair cocked his head as his starboard wingtip drew within a meter of Peterson's back. A flash of light ahead made him realize that he came up too hard on Zarya's tail, her jets emitting bursts of thrust as she only now turned off the runway, aiming for her starboard berth. Blair leaned on the throttle, increasing reverse thrust.
"Give me another second, Pilgrim. I have like a meter clearance on each side."
She hadn't exaggerated. The fighters in their section of berths appeared freshly squeezed from concentrate. Her Rapier's port-side wing glanced off Maniac's neutron gun as she lowered the fighter onto its skids. Techs from both crews began hollering their protests as Maniac's canopy lifted back and the man himself stood, ripped off his helmet, and shouted, "People! Chill! Just a love tap. Check it out. No harm done."
Blair's crew chief, Rina Temples, guided him to his berth, a slot no bigger than Zarya's. Three Rapiers would now be moored where only one had stood.
"Don't worry, Lieutenant," Rina said over the channel, headgear and goggles protecting her from the wash, "we'll have this mess cleaned up soon. Once we get the civvies out, we'll plow away this junkyard."
"I hope so. Can you imagine if the entire wing had to scramble now?"
"Can't think about that," she groaned. "Okay. Five meters. Little more… little more… that's it."
He thumbed down on his high-hat control, and the Rapier descended. A trio of thuds from the landing skids triggered a mild sigh. Blair engaged the automatic powerdown system, then sent off the data from his flight recorder to the Shipboard Information Datanet so that it could be automatically assessed and delivered to Angel, who would debrief them in the pilots' ready room.
By the time he had his gear off and the canopy open, Rina had already rolled up a ladder and had vanished beneath the Rapier, probably inspecting a coolant conduit that had been giving her people some trouble. Maniac and Zarya waited for him, and Blair heard Maniac muttering something about a steel-beach picnic and a bottle of champagne he had been saving for a special occasion. Blair hit the flight deck, legs stiff and sore. Yes, Maniac and Zarya had waited, but now they failed to acknowledge him. Maniac was too busy looking surprised, while she eyed him with utter incredulity.