by E A Wicklund
“C’mon little missile brain,” he murmured. “Get used to the way I fly.”
Sometimes missiles were too smart for their own good. Most watched for a target’s pattern of evasion, using the information to anticipate what the pilot would do next to ensure a kill.
But that information could be used to surprise a missile as well.
At the last second, McCray yanked the stick down and to port, catching the weapon completely out of position.
Without the inertial balancers, the people aboard would’ve felt twenty-nine gees, enough force to kill everyone. Still, the violent maneuver created substantial inertial bleed-through and hurled everyone against the seat restraints.Lucky for them, the shuttle was well-maintained and they didn’t die. The missile, quickly accelerating through Mach 4, was unable to make the turn and lost lock. It flew on a four-hundred yards more before self-destructing.
Quiet returned to the shuttle as the alarms ceased.
“You lost it,” Castellano sounded impressed and the Cretins broke out in cheers as the craft continued accelerating, reaching Mach 2. McCray smiled. Still had the moves. We’re going to make it.
“See?” said Aziz. “You guys are so quick to accuse. What could happen now?”
Alarms blared again.
McCray winced. Maybe not.
McCray had far less time to react to this threat. He juked right and back up instead of down, because now they were getting close to the lake below. Hitting water at Mach 2 would be lethal. But his hard turn wasn’t quite enough. The proximity warhead explode and shrapnel rained like hellish hailstones against the craft. Red warning lights lit up across the console. McCray leaned into the stick, trying to hold it steady. The shuttle shook violently as several inertial balancers fell out of calibration. They were still airborne, but only barely.Their speed dropped off significantly, and the shuttle was soon subsonic.
“I lost a lot of systems just now,” grunted McCray, fighting the controls. “She’s barely holding together. We can’t take another hit.”
Fresh alarms blared.
Chapter 16
Aja lay prone at the crest of a hill. Most of her was covered by ochre-colored native plants with tiny orange flowers. She could smell the Martinsyde parked just a few yards away out of sight. The car smelled hot, as the metal parts in it popped and crackled softly.
Though her own eyes enjoyed a powerful zoom, she watched the scene below with the scope on her Merkel & Barstow sniper rifle. Without the need for miniaturization, the scope had a better magnification. She could see the mote in a target’s eyes from five-hundred meters. The Martinsyde was full of goodies and the weapon in her hands was easily her favorite. As well as it’s powerful scope it also carried an array of potent ammunition she could select from, designed to deal with just about any situation where a long shot was needed.
At Arcoplex below, she could see the bodies of the Scirocco crewmen being dragged away through puddles of blood. Other Xerxes charged into the complex, firing wildly, just spraying and praying as they attacked the defending cadre of guards. Seconds later some hobbled out wounded. Others carried the more seriously injured on their backs. The assault was on, and it looked like the guards were putting up a stout defense.
Aja couldn’t help a predatory smile; the Xerxes were used to attacking unarmed civilians and children, not armed men and women, and now they were taking a beating they weren’t used to.
Scanning the scene, she could see that the second group of apparent protesters in civilian clothing were more of the Xerxes. They had pulled hidden weapons out from under baggy clothing and joined the attack with glee, obviously excited by the prospect of murder.
There had to be about eight-hundred Xerxes occupying the parking area before the complex. Even though the guards apparently fought hard, they couldn’t hold out forever. The best defense of the facility should have been an immediate lockdown but no alarms sounded. That suggested something sinister at work. Likely, the Xerxes would have free rein within and would eventually overwhelm the guards.
Aja felt for the Arcoplex people, but her immediate concern was Evander McCray. The fact that the staff fought back suggested that if McCray remained inside he was probably still alive. Aja thanked the Emergent Mind for that. Still, she needed a way into the facility. The front door was definitely out. Four stories up and behind the complex, the shuttle landing pad could be a workable option. No one fought anywhere near it.
This was all good, but sliders operated close to the ground, and the landing pad was far too high up for it to reach. Not a problem. After the scanning the Martinsyde’s classified features menu, she knew how she could get up there.
Decision made, Aja climbed back into the Martinsyde and roared off.
She drove around the complex in a wide loop, always keeping the low foothills between her and Arcoplex. Reaching the southern extent of the complex, she abruptly turned north and gunned the engine.
Three hundred yards of treeless ground populated only by grasses, low scrub, and land mines separated her from the building. The clear zone made it hard for escaping prisoners to get away unseen. She worried this same zone would also reveal her approach. Hurtling across the open area, she watched for signs of anyone running around the building to engage her. She crouched low in the seat, expecting to hear the sounds of gunfire striking the vehicle any moment. After tense seconds driving across it, she arrived at the ruddy stone of the edifice.
Gunfire still chattered on the other side of the building but nothing nearby. Her luck held, and neither the guards nor the Xerxes noticed her approach. They were too focused on each other. Unfortunately, she had to watch out for both sides of the battle. The guards didn’t know her or her intentions and, already in a firefight, they were quite likely to shoot her on sight.
Now the only problem was getting up to the shuttle pad. Time for that handy feature she had located earlier. Her Zephyr system connected directly to the slider’s systems, and opened up a hidden menu revealing the spy machine’s secret capabilities.
The repeller boost system whined and the slider zoomed upwards until level with the shuttle landing pad. She eased forward, wary of any armed guards who, theoretically, should have been watching the facility’s flank. Aja eased the slider forward low across the pad.
Movement deep inside the darkness of the covered bay caught her eye, and a shuttle shot out of it. The aerospace transport was easily three times the mass of her slider. It loomed large like a raging freight train. She swerved to the side and barely missed being crushed by the behemoth. As it passed, the wind gust nearly blew her back off the platform. She fought with the controls. The slider tipped perilously as the rear end swung over the precipice. At the last second, she jammed the throttle forward, and the engines screamed. It stopped slipping backward, then steadied. A last little bit of thrust heaved her forward, and the craft settled back onto the platform.
Breathing hard from the close call, Aja recovered and cursed the madman driving the shuttle. Being four stories up, she had a good view of the transport as it raced low over the terrain. It made a hard turn that surely pushed the machine’s inertial balancers to the limit. As it streaked over the trees, a SAM screamed in from the Xerxes and raced after the shuttle.
For a moment, Aja wondered if that could be McCray. It certainly wasn’t one of the Xerxes— they wouldn’t be firing SAMs at their own ship. But after a few moments she realised the madman doing the flying was clearly a combat veteran. He baited the weapons analytical systems into thinking he was an easy target. She smiled. That had to be McCray. Only a pilot with experience being shot at would attempt such a maneuver, and she doubted any of Arcoplex’s staff pilots were old enough to have seen combat.
It was McCray piloting that shuttle.
But then another missile hurtled towards the shuttle. The craft was still recovering from the last maneuver, and was pinned against the waters of the lake. McCray tried another evasion but the missile got close enough to set off it
s proximity warhead, raining shrapnel across the vehicle.
Smoke billowed behind the stricken shuttle. It was flying, but barely. McCray obviously fought the controls to keep it aloft. If the Xerxes fired another missile, they wouldn’t be able to maneuver, and McCray would surely die.
Aja pulled the sniper rifle from the Martinsyde. She was certain the SAMs were optically-guided PA-9 Petlikovs, launched from armored vertical launchers like those in the armored car she’d seen while reconnitoring the site earlier.
McCray needed her help and he needed it soon. Scenarios like this were her specialty, so why couldn’t she think of what to do? Simple, of course. She was in love. Love never entered the equation in any previous mission. It was making her panic, and worrying about how much she had to lose only muddied her thinking. So what now? Panic is the only real enemy of an operative, she told herself. She took a deep breath and concentrated on how the SAMs worked.
The missiles weren’t only a launcher; other necessary elements worked in the system’s kill chain. Such weapons had to be receiving signals from somewhere. The APC rested far too low to maintain an optical track on the path of McCray’s craft. Somebody or something helped the SAM battery as a forward observer.
She looked into the blue skies above Arcoplex. Her eyes, specially modified by her ultra-classified nanotech suite to control a powerful zoom, made an Eagle seem half-blind. She scanned for a moment. It could be almost anywhere in tens of square kilometers of sky, and she had moments to search.
There!
The hovering drone was small, a disk no more than a meter across. At half a kilometer up in the air, its small size coupled with camouflage would make it impossible for an ordinary human to see. Aja surmised a small laser aboard the drone maintained a lock on the shuttle and fed targeting data to the missiles in flight.
This was the weak link in the kill chain.
She raised the Merkel just as a third missile launched—one that would certainly end McCray’s life.
“Don’t look at the missile,” she told herself. “Don’t look at the missile.”
She found the drone in her scope, breathed out, and stroked the trigger pad.
The 11mm round launched electromagnetically, easily reaching mach two at the muzzle. The bullet was unusually large for the Elysium military, but it left room for all sorts of unusual goodies. Stabilizing fins flipped out, and the seeker head locked on to her target, helping the round to maneuver if the target moved. The best part was the miniaturized scramjet engine.
The exceptionally large-sized round permitted room for the powerful aerospace engine. A more advanced version of the ramjet, the scramjet had no moving parts, making it the perfect system for building into a bullet.
In a fraction of a second, the bullet accelerated past Mach 9. It struck the drone with all the energy of a city bus, fired by a howitzer. The sky lit up with a brilliant light as much of the drone flew apart into component molecules.
Aja spared a last look for the shuttle. It still flew though only barely, lurching continuously to port and perilously close to falling into an uncontrollable spin. The third missile still streaked towards it, the crippled vehicle an easy target.
Aja watched the missile in agony. Did she disable it? Mind protect him. He means so much to me.
***
McCray watched the rearview screen as the missile approached. Beside him Castellano was equally focused on it. His former Madkhali marines leaned out from the webbing of their crash couches to watch as well.
His efforts to keep the shuttle airborne meant it barely remained level and flying, but slowly turning to the port, back towards the Xerxes. He thought perhaps this may be his last action before rejoining the gestalt of the Emergent Mind. He imagined the universe-spanning consciousness and sent his thoughts towards it. Please watch out for Aja. Give her peace and happiness. He shot a glance at Castellano “We’re subsonic and an easy target. This crate is too beat up to maneuver. I’m sorry. It’s been an honor.”
“For me…” Castellano hesitated.
McCray winced, disappointed. “Oh, it’s like that, eh?”
“Look!” Castellano pointed.
On the rear view screen, the missile slowly wandered off to the right.
“It’s gone ballistic,” said McCray. “Somehow it lost lock.”
McCray let out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he’d been holding. I guess the Mind isn’t ready for me to return just yet. The marines in the back cheered and slapped each other around.
“An angel is watching over us,” crowed Matuczak.
They may have avoided further hits, but prior damage continued to cascade as more and more flight controls failed, unbalancing the shuttle. McCray fought the controls until it lurched hard suddenly, and the view in the screens rolled wildly.
“I’m losing attitude control,” McCray said. “Trying to compensate. Matuczak, tell your angel to get her ass back here.”
McCray jammed the stick to starboard and opened just the speed brakes on that side. The trick probably wouldn’t work to stop their spin, but it was all they had left.
The shuttle contacted the lake moving at more than seven-hundred kilometers per hour.
Chapter 17
Launching the Martinsyde from the four-story platform at Arcoplex probably wasn’t the smartest thing Aja had ever done, but the well-equipped slider had the repeller boost. She engaged it at the last second and winced as the slider crushed a Keep Off The Grass sign. It blasted through the ornamental shrubs bordering the rear parking lot and hurtled across the southern fields.
The wild maneuver probably saved her life by spoiling the aim of the Xerxes. Destroying the targeting drone drew more attention to her than she’d wanted. Hundreds of rounds streaked past overhead. Though the vehicle received only moderate damage, the sound of hypersonic bullet strikes boded ill for the lightly armored vehicle.
Reaching the tree line and staying low, the hail of fire faded. She turned and raced towards the lake, occasionally trimming trees along the way. She reached the body of water, looking anxiously for the shuttle. It was still airborne, the missile once threatening it flying off in a different direction before self-destructing. Aja let out a whoop for the mad luck of her lover.
But just as she thought all was well, a loud crack sounded from the shuttle as its damaged repeller shattered. Overbalanced, with too much power at one corner, the shuttle snap-rolled and dove for the lake.
Aja watched in agony. Hitting the water so fast could be a death sentence for McCray. Water wasn’t as forgiving as some people imagined. Hitting it at a high speed was little different from striking concrete.
The shuttle tumbled awkwardly as it streaked towards the water. Then at the last moment, the starboard speed brake opened. The craft halted its tumble, and the nose came up at the perfect angle. It struck the water and skittered across like a skipping rock, its slick, aerodynamic shape, helping to hydroplane the vehicle all the way to the lakeside. Once there, it puttered along a bit, then gently tapped the jagged rocks near the bank.
Aja raced on until she reached it, bringing the slider to a jolting halt near the rocks.
She waded out to the settling shuttle and, using her Zephyr privileges to override its systems, opened the emergency hatch. Inside, no one was moving and for a moment she felt the world spin around her. It couldn’t be that after all she had done and the way McCray had fought so hard that they were dead. Surely life couldn’t be that cruel? But she knew full well it might. She has seen those who had given their all and been within a finger’s breadth of making it through, fall back and perish. Life wasn’t a fairytale where the good guys always won.
Then she realized there was movement, slight but real. They were breathing and everyone was unconscious. Unable to contain herself, she pushed through to where McCray was strapped into the pilot’s seat, fingers probing under his jaw to check for vital signs. She felt the strong beat beneath her fingers, and in a moment of elation kissed his cheek. Exam
ining further, she found no other obvious injuries. With a relieved sigh,she forced herself to turn away to check on the others. They were all okay—so far.
Mallouk was a different story. He’d been tied to the overhead. She scowled at the men. What were they thinking? That stunt almost cost the former captain his life. He’d swung forward and up, smashing into the overhead. She estimated he had a broken nose, fractured skull, broken ribs, and a shattered wrist. In short, he was a mess.
Aja found the emergency medical kit loaded with eight general-purpose nanite injectors. They weren’t any good for major surgery, but perfectly suited to Mallouk’s wounds. She injected him and gently cut him down from his unwilling perch.
She had expected McCray to be far away from the Xerxes, but instead the wounded shuttle had returned uncomfortably close to the maniacal killers, now gathering to head towards the lakeside. Aja also expected to find McCray by himself, not with twenty of Castellano’s marines. That complicated and changed her plans quite a bit. After having worked out with these erstwhile enemies in the gym, they’d become her friends too. No way was she leaving them behind, but her slider couldn’t take them all. An alternative plan bloomed in her mind.
Aja waded back to the Martinsyde. The shuttle behind her wouldn’t sink far in the few inches of water it stopped in, so she could leave without worrying they would drift off or drown. She took off, choosing a circuitous route to the road leading to Arcoplex and thereby avoiding detection by the mercenaries. There, she found usable vehicles parked along the shoulder.