Kurt nodded, then triggered the starfighter’s engines and powered the craft through the hatch and out into space. The blackmailers had done a very good job of confusing everyone, he had to admit. It would be difficult to launch the ready starfighters or get the remaining pilots into space before the aliens reacted, perhaps assuming the humans intended to launch a sneak attack on their world. And yet… how did they plan to deploy the bioweapon? He recalled everything he’d seen or heard since the blackmailers had captured him, but there had been nothing to suggest they’d armed the starfighter with anything capable of deploying the bioweapon. The craft didn’t even carry any missiles…
“Admiral,” he said slowly, “how can he deploy the weapon?”
“They can drop into the planet’s atmosphere,” the Admiral said. “The damn thing might even survive a gentle re-entry.”
But they can’t fly into the atmosphere, Kurt thought. The starfighter would break up and fall to the surface if someone was idiotic enough to try. But if the pilot didn’t mind committing suicide, the bioweapon might just float down to the surface anyway… if it survived the heat of re-entry. Would it? Kurt recalled some accidents during the early days of spaceflight, where genetic material had made it down to the surface. The early days of science-fiction had included hundreds of diseases from outer space…
And there was no way to be sure the bioweapon wouldn’t survive the fall.
“Understood, Admiral,” he said. “I’m on my way.”
“We have all but one of the Russians accounted for, Admiral,” Parnell reported. “The last one was just killed attempting to break into the armoury.”
Ted nodded, shortly. “Good,” he said. “And Commander Labara?”
“We found her tied and gagged with duct tape, but she’s alive,” Parnell assured him. “They actually left a remote grenade beside her, probably to keep her quiet. We deactivated the device and threw it out into space.”
He paused. “She wants to speak with you, Admiral.”
“She’ll have to wait,” Ted said. He needed to speak with Rose Labara too, but later, when he’d had a chance to think through what had happened. “There’s too much to do.”
He sighed. Five Russians dead on Ark Royal, one more in custody, one blown into space and one on a starfighter heading towards the planet. One Russian agent who could still pull the whole thing off, if he got close enough to the world. In hindsight, it had been terrifyingly obvious what the Russians had in mind. But he’d been so horrified by the bioweapon’s mere existence, to say nothing of its prospective results, that he hadn’t even considered the possibility. Did the Russians intend to provoke an unwinnable war or were they intent on ending the war by exterminating the aliens completely?
The thought made him shudder. He’d come to view the aliens as intelligent beings in their own right. He would have felt the same way if he’d faced Russians or Chinese in combat, even though he would have fought them with the same effort he’d brought to fighting the aliens. Fighting them, defeating them in battle, was one thing, but committing genocide was quite another. There was no way he would have bombarded civilian populations…
And so it had been unthinkable that anyone would. He’d been so adamant that the aliens were alien, and had to be treated with great care, that he hadn’t been thinking about the Russians as anything other than fellow humans. And it had been a wise thing to think, particularly during Operation Nelson. He couldn’t afford to think of the foreign ships under his flag as anything but human.
But the Russians had been prepared to slaughter uncounted billions of aliens. He’d seen reports of endless skirmishes along the Russian southern borders, where civilisation broke down and tribal warfare was epidemic. The Russians had responded with staggering force, calling down targeted fire from orbit and blasting entire villages to rubble. Why would they not slaughter the aliens? They weren’t even human.
He turned his gaze to the status display. Repair crews were working frantically, but it would be hours before the Old Lady was ready to launch starfighters again. If the aliens attacked now, the carrier would be thoroughly screwed. So far, the aliens seemed bemused, rather than hostile. That would change, he knew, if they ever worked out what had actually happened… was still happening. There was nothing he could do, any longer, to influence events. All he could do was pray.
And watch, helplessly, as two starfighters battled for the future of humanity.
Peter spared a moment to think of Ivan as the starfighter raced towards the planet, sacrificing any form of stealth for speed. They had been friends and comrades for a long time, well before the aliens had made their presence felt. But now Ivan was dead… they’d always known they would die together, but it was still a shock.
He pushed the thought away as he watched the alien defences. So far, they hadn’t reacted to his presence, as far as he could tell. It was quite likely the aliens were monitoring events closely, unsure of just how best to respond. If they waited long enough, he told himself firmly, they’d lose everything before they made up their minds what to do. And even if they didn’t… he remembered the briefing papers and smiled. It was quite possible the aliens would smash his starfighter and the bioweapon would still survive. Unless the designers had been blowing smoke again, he knew…
They used to promise us the superman, he thought, feeling an odd calmness settling over his mind now he knew he was going to die. And how many men died, mutilated savagely, before they mastered enhancements?
He pushed the thought aside as the console sounded an alert. Someone was on his tail.
The blackmailer was a pilot, Kurt noted, but he was not an experienced pilot. Spitfires had quite a bit in common with Russian-designed Grigorovich starfighters, yet there were some modifications that had been added to the later generations of Spitfires the blackmailer didn’t seem to know existed. For one thing, it was possible to boost the drive if the pilot didn’t mind the risk of burning out his compensators. Kurt pushed his drives as hard as he dared, knowing he had to catch up with the enemy before it was too late.
He sucked in a breath as the alien world came into view, a blue orb hanging against the infinite darkness of space. It was astonishing just how little land surface there was on the planet, most of it subject to truly horrible weather. The aliens, utterly unconcerned about the mainland, probably didn’t care about the rain. Or thunder and lightning…
The starfighter ahead of him lunged forward, then altered course lightly. Kurt recognised it as an attempt to hit the atmosphere at an angle, the only — theoretical — way a starfighter could enter the atmosphere safely. But it wouldn’t be easy to actually land on the water, let alone the mainland. Kurt cursed and removed the safeties from his weapons, then locked onto the starfighter and opened fire. There could be no risk of allowing the starfighter, even as a piece of wreckage, to enter the planet’s atmosphere.
He frowned as the blackmailer spun the craft through a crazy series of loops, then came up shooting.. Kurt evaded with ease, but he could tell that the enemy pilot was determined to go through with his mad plan. As soon as Kurt had altered course enough to throw off his aim, the pilot had altered course and started to move back towards the planet. And every time he did it, Kurt suspected, he’d get closer and closer to his goal. Completing his mission would be much simpler if he didn’t intend to survive afterwards.