“Cease firing, cease firing,” the UHF said in Bolton’s voice. “Home Base, what’s your status?”
Keezer’s face was slack. “Im-fucking-possible,” she breathed.
“Home Base, Tomcat One Oh One,” the radio said again. “What’s your status?”
Peters grabbed the microphone. “One Oh One, this’s Green Three—” he shook his head; Howell wasn’t there “—One. We got casualties, sir, one Hornet destroyed an’ personnel casualties.”
“How many casualties, Green Three One?”
“Unknown, sir, but it’s like to be a bunch, probably some fatalities.”
Pause. “Roger, Green Three One. Can you recover aircraft at this time?”
Peters looked around. People were scrambling, including a couple who were doubling across the bay with a stretcher. “I don’t advise it at this time, sir. The deck ain’t clear. We got a mess here, sir.”
“Understood, Three One. Can you estimate how long to clear the deck?”
Peters looked around again. The scramble was starting to subside a bit, purposeful effort replacing confusion and shouts. The closing strains of When a Blind Man Cries drifted across the bay. Peters liked the rest of the program, but he hated that song. “One Oh One, my first estimate’s five to ten, but let me check with Chief Joshua on that, sir.”
“Standing by for update. One Oh One to all crews. Blazer, you and Hotshot stand by on guard. Everybody else, search pattern three. We need to know if there’s any more of these bastards out here.” A series of mike clicks, and the planes started breaking off, fanning out in a spiral pattern.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Two years ago Peters had never heard of a spaceship, outside of vid recordings and old science programs. Actually driving one—piloting, flying, whatever the right verb was—hadn’t even been a real dream. If he’d been told then that he’d be operating a real live space ship he’d have called the teller an idiot. If whoever it was had added that he’d be towing a second one to berth it on yet a third, he’d have snorted and left the conversation.
If they’d added that he’d be doing it with trace chains he’d have been tempted to hit somebody.
Getting across the interface between zero gee outside and normal gravity inside at near-zero speed was tricky; that was why they usually approached with way on. That wasn’t practical now, because the ferassi ship would just fit—they’d measured—with a couple of meters clearance, and it was too massive for the freight haulers to get up to speed with any kind of control. All three of them working together could manage to move it—Hell, a kid with a rope could have moved it, given a place to stand—but getting it lined up right was a bitch.
“Approaching the entrance,” said Vredig over the earbug. She was at top left; Peters was top right, wearing blue-and-white on his kathir suit, which left Gell, the most experienced ship operator stupid enough to volunteer for this evolution, the tricky bottom middle position, which had to guide the other two.
“Take it slow,” Gell said. “Crossing the interface now.”
“Yes,” Peters acknowledged, and heard Vredig’s “yes” on its heels. This would have been impossible without the earbugs, but they had spares.
At least five of them.
Gell’s ship dipped its nose and sagged alarmingly toward the deck, but he corrected in time, creeping into the ops bay. The chain behind him—oh, yes; a real steel chain, heavier than the ones Granpap had used for snaking logs down out of the woods but otherwise identical, with links about five centimeters long—sagged oddly, the section immediately behind the ship dropping down, the rest of it bar-straight. “Now it’s our turn,” Vredig advised. “Be careful.”
“Yes,” Peters acknowledged. The bow started to dip; he caressed the andli, bringing it up a bit, and fed in a little lift.
Most of the sailors caught by the wreckage of 205 when it sailed up the bay, crashing against the pilaster beams and spinning all the way to the bow door, were more or less injured, ranging from mild abrasions to broken legs. Five hadn’t been so lucky, catching big pieces in vulnerable places, the kathir suits doing their best but simply overloaded.
He was through now, into the gravity of the ops bay, and guys with wands were directing him. He concentrated on feeding gentle motions into the control, and on staying out of the beams of the overhead. The next thing would be getting the bow of the ferassi ship through the opening, and that was likely to be fun.
Five bodies, wrapped in regulation U. S. military green body-bags, now reposed in an unused freezer in the farm section below the ops bay, waiting for return to their home soil.
Including Todd, God damnit.
The Hornet had come apart like a plastic model dropped on the sidewalk, and Todd had caught a structural piece, a long chunk of milled aluminum with a slight curve to it, straight through the chest from back to front, bits of insulation material hanging from the end like the decoration on some barbaric spear. Peters hadn’t found him; that had been Vogt, the programmer. They hadn’t tried to keep him from looking, though. “Tough shit,” they’d said, the incoherent consolations of guys whose culture didn’t go in much for sympathy. After all, it might have been them.
Or him.
The chain went tight; Peters fed in more power forward and up. Gell was almost at his level, keeping his chain tight as the nose of the ferassi ship tried to drop. The plan was that when the tail started to fall they’d just drag it, and to Hell with the nonskid. They’d re-done it once, and there was more of the paint stored away in buckets of about twenty liters capacity in the compartments alongside the engine room.
The pilot of the Hornet was all right. She’d made it out of the hulk under her own steam, and was now making herself obnoxious over being unemployed. Three of the dead were armorers: Gless, Abramowitz, Hurtada. Two were plane captains: Wells and Todd. “He wanted to watch,” Deutsch had reported, pale and shaking. “Me, I was hiding behind a post.” Sick bay had twenty-eight customers.
Peters’s ship was getting dangerously near the overhead; he reduced power in the up direction. About now they ought to be dragging their load, but that didn’t seem to be happening. The wand men didn’t seem worried; they kept waving come forward, come forward. The one on the starboard side, keeping an eye on the clearance aft, converted that to left, left, and Peters put on a little strain that way.
Finally the lead director held up crossed wands. Peters slacked off forward, letting the chain sag behind him, or so he supposed; at any rate he no longer felt tension. He let the ship drop slowly, coming to the deck with a soft bump, and felt a quick flash of pride. The first time he’d tried to do that had been a lot noisier.
“Good work,” said Gell over the earbug. “That was a little tricky.”
“Yes,” Peters thought to himself with satisfaction. “I am a qualified ship operator.” He looked over the control panel, reached up and forward to safe the zifthkakik, then stood and went to the panel that gave access to the cargo compartment. “Good work,” he told the six Grallt back there. “We had a little luck at the end, but it would have been useless without your help. Thank you.” He twitched his mouth wryly and winked. “In the past more effective thanks have been forthcoming. I believe it might be appropriate to expect such in this case as well.”