The Kindly Ones

by Melissa Scott

"I'll do that," Corrie said, and reached for the in-ships intercom.

  Guil turned her attention back to the workscreen displays, not really hearing the other pilot's cool-voiced announcement. She couldn't help wondering if she'd done the right thing in agreeing to the course change. After all, Moraghan was an off-worlder; no matter how good a pilot she was, she didn't know the ring. It was never good policy to court trouble with BRRH-56-J; you almost always got it. Guil shook herself then, watching the seconds tick away on the main screen. Moraghan might not know the ring, but she had an Oresteian pilot aboard, a senior union member with dozens of years' experience. Moraghan has more sense than to override that kind of knowledge, Guil thought, which means Leith's pilot must've approved this.

  The last seconds ticked away. In the main screen, Guil saw jets flare along Andrasteia's hull, and then along the wings and hull of the next ship. A moment later, the steering alarm sounded, and the hull seemed to tremble slightly. A second set of numbers appeared on the screen, counting the duration of the firing.

  "All jets fired," Corrie announced. "Everything's nominal."

  The asteroids shifted slowly in the screen, the ships seeming to remain motionless while the ringscape turned around them. For the first time, BRRH-56-J swam into view, warning beacons blinking at the ends of its long axis. Two or three people had been killed planting those beacons, Guil remembered, back before the remotes were put in service.

  The second countdown reached zero, and the second set of jets cut in, checking the Virago's swing. Corrie checked his instruments, and said, "Stop-jets fired. Everything looks good here."

  Guil consulted her own boards, and nodded. "We're on the new course. Pass that word to Andrasteia."

  "Right." Corrie typed in the proper numbers, and added, an instant later, "Andrasteia acknowledges. How far is it?"

  He didn't have to define his pronoun. Guil checked the radar display, and said, "Nineteen minutes, on this course. You better make sure no one's floating loose in the back."

  Corrie nodded, loosening his harness, and floated out of the control cabin. Guil leaned back into the couch, feeling her body rebound slightly against the padded harness. BRRH-56-J loomed in the screen, the beacons strobing at either end, casting an instant's light across the cratered rock. In each flash, a jagged ledge stood out in high relief, where the rock had ripped away in sheets. The radar showed almost a hundred smaller bodies surrounding the main stone, and Guil knew there would be more hidden in the clutter.

  She looked away from the main screen, turning her attention to the workscreen and the numbers projected there. The density readings remained uncomfortably high, but there was still no sign of any dangerous concentrations of debris in the bow wave.

  The hatch opened again, and Corrie drifted back in. "Everything's secure aft," he said, pulling himself into his couch. "I warned Costa, too, just in case."

  "Thanks," Guil said. Not that there was much the third pilot could do, in case of trouble, but it was her duty to share at least the worrying.

  "How's it looking?" Corrie asked.

  Guil gave him a rather sour glance—he could see the screen, and she didn't feel much like talking—but suppressed her annoyance, saying, "Yellow all through."

  "That's a relief—though I guess it doesn't really mean anything. I mean, after the stories you hear, how it can go from clear to red near the BRRH, especially in the bow wave. . . ." Corrie seemed to realize he was babbling and broke off, flushing.

  Guil nodded, soothingly, not really listening. In the main screen, little lights appeared around the Andrasteia's image, like tiny flashes of lightning: the freighter had entered the edge of the bow wave, and its screens were vaporizing the debris. So far, so good, Guil thought, as the same lights appeared around the second ship. Nothing really big, nothing the screens can't handle. . . .

  "How long will we be in?" Corrie asked.

  "About twenty minutes," Guil answered, and gave a humorless grin. "It won't seem that short, believe me."

  Corrie mumbled something that the other didn't hear. Guil fixed her eyes on the screen, resting her hands lightly on the edge of the board. As always, the temptation to take control herself was almost overwhelming, even though she knew, rationally, that the computer would hold the course as well as—even better than—she could. The main screen flashed white, and she jumped: the Virago had entered the bow wave. The screen flashed again, two lights together, but she made herself count ten and then fifteen flashes before saying, "What's the reading?"

  "Mostly dust," Corrie answered, eyes on his screen. "A couple of midges, nothing bigger."

  "Good." Guil kept her eyes on the screen, watching the flashes of light that surrounded her own ship, and danced along the wings and hull of the freighter ahead of them. Once, when she was much younger, she had flown with friends across the Ice Bridge that linked the land around the Closed Sea to the Big Island. They had run into a storm, and before they could lift out of it, an electrical charge had built up on the wings, and discharged itself in a spectacularly strange display. That was what the two freighters looked like; she almost wished she could see the same fire surrounding the Virago.

  Suddenly a brighter light flashed against Andrasteia's port side, a blue-white flare with a core of flame. Guil swore, and more light blossomed against the second freighter's hull. "Emergency power to the screens," she snapped.

  Corrie's hand was already moving the power lever, jamming it all the way forward in its slot. The cabin lights dimmed fractionally, and then the main screen turned white. The Virago shook under the impact, the sound transmitted through the hull as something too large to be completely vaporized by the screens crashed and tumbled the length of the ship. The intercom carried shouts and curses from the passenger compartment.

  "Status?" Guil demanded, punching buttons on her own board. The screen was slowly fading back to normal, but she hardly noticed, concentrating on the numbers coming from the sensor suite. A couple of the smaller nodes had been carried away or crushed, and there were holes in the radar image.

  "No hull damage," Corrie reported, shakily. "Environmental's all right, so's the power plant, and communications. Your side?"

  Guil grunted, not wanting to speak until she was sure she could control her voice, and concentrated on the sensor board. By readjusting a couple of the larger pickups, she could compensate for the damaged nodes; the resulting picture would be a little less clear, but it would provide full coverage. She took a deep breath and said, "We lost a couple of sensor nodes, nothing serious. What about the other ships?"

  Corrie shook his head. Then the communications board chimed, and he reached for it with a shaking hand. "Andrasteia's all right," he said, after a moment, "and Topper reports only minor hull damage. We're to report our status."

  "We're fine, then," Guil said, trying to project more calm than she actually felt. "Pass that along, will you, Corrie?" Now she was talking more than was necessary. She stopped abruptly, scowling. Her heart was still racing; she took another deep breath, trying to relax, then bent forward again to adjust the sensor suite. Ironically, the density reading was already beginning to drop, as though BRRH-56-J had shot its bolt with that one spectacular encounter.

  "Andrasteia acknowledges," Corrie said, "and it looks like the tugs are all right, too. They're not reporting any damage."

  "Good," Guil said again. As she spoke, the screen flared again, but it was feeble compared to the earlier lights.

  The rest of the ring passage was surprisingly quiet. Even the spot shoals that made up most of the ring's inner edge were passed without incident, and the fleet changed course for the final time, heading into Orestes on the Madelgar approach line. Guil settled herself into the pilot's couch again, scanning the radar window displayed on the main screen. There was no traffic to speak of—just a few high-flying aircraft almost lost in the ground clutter from the moon's surface—but a single light flashed red in the middle of the screen. That was the Madelgar approach buoy. Guil eyed it
warily, glad that Orestes had never had a particularly complicated defense system. The few guard buoys and automated battle stations, put into orbit almost a hundred years earlier, during the Controller scare, were out on the edge of the system proper, not in planetary orbit. Still, she braced herself, waiting for the ID call.

  It came at last, a light flashing on the communications board. Corrie, riding copilot again, jumped, even though he'd had his hand on the transponders abort bar. The light kept flashing for perhaps two minutes as the buoy's computer tried to get a response from the approaching ships' transponders, and then winked out. The two pilots exchanged nervous grins.

  "What's our screen rating?" Guil asked. She had asked that before, but could not seem to remember.

  "Extra-heavy-duty," Corrie answered. "That should be enough."

  Guil heard the note of doubt in his voice, and nodded agreement. Extra-heavy's good enough to keep out most of the ring debris, she reminded herself, as you saw on the way down. It's not as though the Brandr have any real fighters, just the standard ones with some guns mounted on the wings. The screens will handle that easily.

  Another light flashed on the communications board, and a voice said, "Attention, unlisted flight, this is Madelgar Approach Control. Your transponder does not answer our buoy. I repeat, your transponder does not answer our buoy. Please respond with name and registry information."

  "Kill it," Guil said.

  Corrie twisted a knob, and the voice faded out.

  Guil stared straight ahead, trying to exorcise the knot of fear in the pit of her stomach. She knew perfectly well that the Brandr didn't have sophisticated aircraft—certainly nothing capable of interfering with the Virago's approach—but in her mind's eye she could see the outline of a missile flowering on the radar window, growing despite her attempts at evasion, could see the explosion that would end everything. . . . She shook herself, hard, but could not completely banish that image. They were still a few minutes away from entering the atmosphere; if she acted now, she could pull out, and avoid the fighting. She closed her hands around each other, squeezing almost painfully hard, keeping them in her lap by sheer force of will.

  "Screen status?" she said, in a mechanical voice she barely recognized as her own.

  "Standard reentry," Corrie answered.

  "Put them on full," Guil said.

  "Full power," Corrie acknowledged. There was a note of relief in his voice, too.

  The Virago struck atmosphere then, and Guil gave a sigh of relief. The decision was out of her hands now; they were committed to the descent, and to the battle. She rested her hands against the twitching manual controls, waiting for the Virago to shed enough speed so that she could take over.

  "I have aircraft on radar," Corrie announced.

  "ID?"

  "Nothing, yet," Corrie answered, his voice under tight control.

  Guil swore. An unidentified ship was probably hostile, Brandr, and she was still trapped in the speed-killing descent mode, an easy target. Then the warning chime sounded, and she seized the released controls, pulling the Virago up and away from her previous course, buying time to look around.

  Below, caught by the left wing camera at its farthest downward extension, the Grand Shallows showed blue-violet in the fading light, only lightly obscured by thin wisps of cloud. The delta south of Madelgar, darker land seamed with multiple channels and the scars of old riverbeds, was clearly visible; Madelgar itself was just out of sight to the north. Guil touched a button, adjusting the cameras, and caught a quick glimpse of the crowding buildings. The field lights were hard to pick out at this height, but the audio beacons were already chirping in the speakers.

  She glanced again at the radar windows, checking the position of the other ships of the fleet, and rolled sideways, looking for the aircraft. At this altitude, the Virago handled fairly well, but that would change as they dropped deeper into the atmosphere.

  "I see them," Corrie cried. "I see them. They're low-flying birds, they can't get up here."

  Guil eased the Virago into a bank, turning wide to avoid the other ships spread out across the sky. As Moraghan had ordered, they were holding in a sandwich formation, three hundred meters between each "layer"; as long as no one was frightened into a sudden change of altitude, Guil thought, there shouldn't be any danger of collision. She swung the Virago in an easy circle, adjusting the cameras with her free hand. Sure enough, as Corrie had said, there was a cluster of aircraft hanging at the dividing line. As she watched, one peeled off, arrowing for the Madelgar field, but the others remained, circling. It was a clever tactic, she thought, grudgingly. For now, the ships were safe, but as soon as they committed themselves to a line of descent into the field, they would lose most of their maneuverability.

  "More aircraft," Corrie announced. "No ID—no, wait, it's our people. They're moving in to engage."

  Guil glanced at the radar display again. A second group of flyers, these picked out in blue light, were moving into range, the smaller ships breaking off from the rest to climb toward the hovering Brandr. The rest—larger craft; transports, almost certainly—continued toward the airfield.

  The communications board beeped twice, and the ship-to-ship radio crackled to life for the first time since leaving Electra.

  "All right, people," Moraghan said, conversationally. "We've got air cover now, so let's go in. Stay in your line, and follow the plan. Clear and out."

  "Virago acknowledges," Corrie said, without waiting for orders. He glanced at Guil. "We're going in?"

  "We're going in," Guil answered. "Better warn the passengers."

  "They'll've heard," Corrie said, but reached for the intercom anyway. "Attention, people, we are beginning the run into Madelgar Field. Stand by to jump as soon as we land. Squad leader, report as ordered."

  Guil swung the Virago in a final circle, eating up time and space as the two freighters swung themselves into the invisible approach line. She let Topper drop almost sixteen hundred meters before putting the Virago into the shallow dive that would bring her down onto Madelgar's main runways. The Virago fell quickly, controls trembling a little under the strain. Guil pulled back a little, flattening the dive even further, and felt the strain ease. Already, the increasing atmospheric drag was making itself felt. The Virago responded sluggishly to her touch.

  "Trouble, Guil," Corrie said. "Couple of flyers."

  "I see them." The craft were circling to intercept the Virago's path as soon as it reached their operating range. Guil studied her readouts, wondering if she dared pull out, but decided that would only foul up the pilots following her. "Emergency power to the screens," she snapped. Her mouth was dry, and tasted of metal; it seemed for an instant that there was a smell of ozone in the air.

  "Emergency power on," Corrie answered, hoarsely. He drew a ragged breath. "Two minutes to intercept."

  Guil tensed her shoulders against the harness. The Brandr shouldn't have anything that could penetrate a heavy-duty screen, she told herself; they shouldn't be able to hurt us. . . . But suppose they rammed us? The thought made her blood run cold, and she tightened her grip on the controls, leaning forward a little as though that would give her a better view of the screen. If they try it, I'll roll, take it on the hold, that's the least vulnerable part of the ship. . . . But they shouldn't try it—it'd be suicide.

  Then a dark shape flashed across the screen, and was gone before she could properly identify it. A second later, the screen flashed white and the ship rocked to the multiple explosions.

  "Status?" she said, moving the controls gingerly, feeling for damage.

  "Hull's sound," Corrie answered. "So far— Wait, here they come again."

  Guil swore. They were too far down in the atmosphere to attempt evasive maneuvers, and the scanty cloud cover was no use at all. The approaching Eclipse was still too far away to provide them with any cover. She stared at the screen, wishing bitterly that the Virago were armed.

  The ship bucked, little explosions marching forward
along its belly. Guil swore again, clinging to her controls and then a dark shape filled the screen, pulling up from under the Virago's nose. Then it was gone, and the Virago slid through the space it had occupied only a few seconds before. Corrie leaned back in his couch, eyes closed, breathing hard.

  "Oh, God, for a rack of missiles," Guil said, through clenched teeth. "God, I'd've had him."

  She checked her radar again, still muttering to herself. The two freighters seemed unscathed, and the lighter Halex craft were at least keeping most of the Brandr flyers occupied. The two ships that had attacked her were nowhere in sight, and she couldn't spare a hand to adjust the sensor suite. "Any sign of those aircraft?"

  Corrie adjusted the radar, shook his head. "I've lost them—no, wait, there they are." He looked across at the other pilot, grinning. "A couple of our people came to our rescue."

  "Good for them," Guil said, rather sourly. "I hope they keep them off our backs."

  "Looking good so far," Corrie answered.

  "Are we still getting the port beacon?" Guil asked.

  "So far," Corrie said, after a moment. "They're bound to cut it, though—unless their pilots need it?"

  "Don't borrow trouble," Guil said. Privately, she hoped the Brandr flyers were dependent on the field's directional broadcast. Having it on would make all the difference in trying to land.

  She scanned the main screen again, watching the port complex swell in the viewscreen. The cameras showed the delta-land rushing past, the channels like ribbons of tarnished silver in the rapidly fading light. Ahead, the blue lights of the runway beckoned, red lights flashing from the distant tower. The smaller digital display showed the proper approach as a pale blue line, ending at the runway's end. The yellow box was steady, indicating they were still on course. Then, abruptly, that box vanished. A heartbeat later, the rest of the picture winked out.

  "They've cut the beam," Corrie said.

  Guil swore, her hand stabbing for the switch that controlled the beam reader, flicking it off. Corrie leaned across to play with the sensor controls, twisting the enhancement switch to maximum and bringing everything to forward view.