Forsaken Skies

by D. Nolan Clark

  But Lanoe knew that wasn’t what the kid wanted to hear, just then.

  Thom tilted his head back to look up at the painted triangular panels of the dome. “Okay. I mean, I know you know best. I’ll do what you say. So give me my orders.”

  “Huh?”

  Thom looked at him and his face was set in an expression of grim intent. “If I want a life, any kind of life, I need to do what you say. I understand that. So just tell me what to do.”

  “I already did. Keep your head down. Don’t talk to anyone.”

  “Maybe I can help out, here,” Thom said. “Help…you know. Defend this planet, I guess. I mean, I can do something.”

  “I’m not sure what,” Lanoe said. Thom didn’t exactly have a lot of useful skills. He’d spent most of his youth learning how to fly yachts and which set of clothes were appropriate for which sort of party. “But okay. That’s a good attitude.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” Thom said. With just a little sarcasm.

  “We’ll find you something to do. Maybe you can be our goodwill ambassador.”

  Lanoe knew he deserved the nasty look that earned him.

  “It’s a serious job,” Lanoe told him. “You see how few people there are here? You know why that is?”

  Thom shook his head.

  “It took me a while to find out. The elder and her church, whatever, back when the lander attacked, gathered up the most important people on this planet—the head of Centrocor’s mining operations, the leaders of the other churches like those guys in the big hats. They briefed them on what was happening, that the planet was being invaded. Then they all agreed not to tell anybody else.”

  “What?”

  Lanoe nodded. “The people in this room are the only people on Niraya who know they’re being attacked. The vast majority of the population has no idea. Does that sit well with you?” Lanoe didn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t like it at all.”

  “So you want me to…what? Tell the rest of them?” Thom asked, looking terrified.

  Lanoe shrugged. “No. Not yet, anyway. For now—we play it their way. It’s their planet, right? They get to decide, I guess.”

  “But the people—they have rights,” Thom insisted.

  Lanoe shrugged. “I’m no politician. Nor an ethicist. Not my job. For now, just get to know the people here. Get them on our side. This planet was settled by people who wanted to get away from things like the polys and the Navy. They’re not going to be thrilled we’re here, even if they need us. Maybe having a civilian to represent us is a good idea.”

  “You want me to be a politician for you,” Thom said.

  Lanoe considered that. Well, if Thom got to know Niraya better, maybe it would go easier for him, since he would probably never leave it. Maybe he’d even get to like the place. “I guess so.”

  “Okay. How do I do that?”

  Lanoe had to admit to himself he hadn’t the faintest idea. “We’ll figure that out as we go along. For now, if you really want something to do, head back to the spaceport,” Lanoe said. “Help out Ehta, if you can.”

  Thom just nodded.

  Lanoe would have said more but just then Elder McRae gave him a little wave. Time to talk about important things. “We’ll keep you busy,” he said.

  Thom just nodded, his eyes on the floor.

  The elder had gathered the other pilots. Maggs was still making apologies and shaking hands as the elder led them out of the dome and up three stories to her office. There was no elevator, of course. The three Navy officers were out of breath before they’d climbed a single flight of stairs, but the elder looked fresh and ready to talk when they arrived.

  Graceful, thin columns rose to a vaulted ceiling in her office. A central area floored with perfectly fitted flagstones led to four arched alcoves, one of which was used for the door that opened onto the stairs. Of the other three, one had a broad window with a view of the crater and the town and one was stuffed full of bookshelves containing actual bound paper books—which would have been surprising except they looked so appropriate in this place. The last alcove contained a narrow camp bed made up with crisp white sheets. Evidently she slept here as well, at least part of the time.

  The central space contained a desk with a display top and a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs. No art, no carpeting, nothing to distract or divert. It felt chilly, even though Lanoe’s suit automatically compensated for the local air temperature.

  The girl, Roan, came in behind them with a pot of hot water and some cups, in case anyone wanted tea. No one did. Roan set the pot down and went over to the bookshelves, then produced a brush and started dusting the old volumes.

  At the desk the elder summoned a virtual keyboard to bring up the latest imagery from the space telescope.

  “Not much change,” Lanoe said, nodding at the display. “They’ve advanced their fighter screen some more. Well, now that they know we’re here, they would, wouldn’t they?”

  He glanced up at the elder as he said it, but she didn’t react.

  “Two weeks before that big ship arrives,” Lanoe said, pointing at the largest blob, the one they thought had to be a carrier. “We’re going to have our work cut out for us. We’ll need to run constant patrols to deal with their fighter screen. Meanwhile there’ll be plenty of work to do on the ground. We’ll need intelligence—imaging from the space telescope we’ve got, and Valk will put down a microdrone network, but we need more than that. We also need to get a supply train going—fuel dumps and ammo caches, repair facilities, food and consumables for five pilots. Zhang, you can handle the logistics, right?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, a little too perkily. “Anything you need.”

  “Maggs, you’ve already proven you’re our best civilian liaison. We need every engineer on this planet working for us.”

  The elder inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry, why is that?”

  Lanoe stared at her. “There are five of us. There are hundreds of ships in this fleet. We need every bit of help we can get. I can put your people to work building static defenses—orbital guns, specifically—but there’ll be lots of things we need built. Ground stations and more telescopes. We definitely need to improve your communications grid.”

  “I don’t know,” the elder said. She shook her head. “That sounds like it will cost a lot of money. We don’t have any. Also, we’ll have to work with the miners to organize such things, and relations between the Retreat and Centrocor have never been cordial. What you’re asking—”

  “You want your people happy, or alive?” Lanoe asked.

  To the elder’s credit, she didn’t snarl or flinch or anything. She just stood there looking placid.

  “I asked you a question,” Lanoe said.

  If the room had felt psychologically chilly before, suddenly they were all at risk of emotional frostbite.

  “I didn’t feel it required an answer,” the elder replied.

  Lanoe grabbed the edge of the desk with both hands. “Am I the only one here who understands how serious this is?”

  “No,” Roan said, stepping forward. “You don’t get to say that. This is our planet, not yours. You can’t possibly understand—”

  “Roan,” the elder said. There was steel in her voice.

  The girl bowed her head and stepped back.

  “You’ll have the help you ask for,” the elder said. “It will, however, take a little time to organize our efforts. Civilian efforts.”

  Lanoe nodded, his fingers beating on the desk like a drum. “Time,” he said. “Lady, you don’t have any.”

  His cryptab throbbed against his chest. He had a new message. He started to swipe it away angrily, then noticed it was from Zhang.

  COMMS FAILURE IN REAR RECTENNA.

  Lanoe seethed but he understood what she meant. The two of them had set up a code, back when they were commander and second in command. The message she’d sent, properly decrypted, meant you’re talking out of your ass.

  He looked over at her an
d saw her nod at the door. “Excuse me,” he told the elder. “I need to confer with my second in command.”

  The elder didn’t seem too put out.

  Out in the hallway Zhang waited for him. “Don’t even start,” he told her.

  She ignored his orders. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you treating her like that? Just because she’s about as emotive as a brick wall doesn’t mean you can vent your frustrations on her.”

  He glared for a while. He rubbed at his scalp.

  “Civilians,” he said.

  She nodded, as if she understood.

  “That bunch who came to meet us—making demands, like we weren’t here to save their stupid asses. And then she starts talking about time. You know how well I do with public relations.”

  “Lanoe,” she said, very calmly, “I’m going to remind you of something now. It was your idea to come out here and help these people. Yours. You want to tell me why you wanted to do that, when you clearly don’t even like them?”

  He bit off what he wanted to say to that.

  “Fine, don’t tell me,” she said. “But look. You have some reason to want to help them. It seems counterproductive to me to tear their heads off, now.”

  Damn it.

  Hellfire.

  She was right, of course.

  Good old Zhang. Always watching out for him. The new body hadn’t changed her that much, apparently.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You and I are going to have to have a long talk at some point,” he said, the same way he might tell his squad they were about to be inspected by a visiting admiral. An unpleasant chore nobody looked forward to.

  It made her beam at him. Like that was all she ever wanted from him.

  Seventeen years he’d stayed away, not even sending her a get-well message when she was stuck in the hospital. Now she was acting like no time had passed at all.

  He didn’t get it.

  “Let’s go back inside. Maybe apologize, or something,” she told him.

  “Ha.” He started to say more but then his cryptab throbbed again. Another message. “I’ve got something coming in from Valk,” he told her.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Lanoe said. “I think he just started our war for us.”

  Valk had a secret.

  He pulled the BR.9 around into a corkscrew roll, accelerating away from the enemy interceptor. It lumbered after him, just starting to gain speed. It was a lot bigger than he was, and all that mass would take some time to get turned around. But there was no question now—it was coming for him.

  Valk’s secret was that he was only a middling pilot.

  Oh, he’d been the leader in his squad. But that wasn’t saying much. Even in its early glory days the Establishment had been lousy at training its pilots. Many of them died before they even got their flight certificate. Those that made it to the front lasted, on average, three missions before getting killed.

  Valk had got his Blue Star by luck, mostly, by staying alive long enough to catch fighters that were low on fuel or had already been damaged. He’d come close to dying way too many times, and always by his own fault. Even his accident had happened because he wasn’t looking behind him, hadn’t even seen the AV fire coming his way. Somebody high up in the Establishment’s ranks had heard his story and had created the Blue Devil nickname because at the end, right before the grand idea fell apart, they’d needed propaganda victories as much as material ones. They’d created the myth of the pilot who refused to die before finishing his mission.

  They’d had to bully him back to the front. He’d wanted to die, had thought he had a right to that. But the grand cause wanted a hero instead of a martyr.

  As the enemy interceptor came for him, out there in the dark far from Niraya, he had only one thought in his head: oh damn oh damn oh hell.

  The weapon spikes on the interceptor’s spine recoiled visibly as it opened fire. The corkscrew roll saved him—the projectiles passed to his left and his right, above and below him, none of them connecting. Behind him the interceptor’s thrusters belched fire as it sped after him, not even bothering to match his roll, just flying up his six as straight as an arrow.

  Valk snapped around in a rotary right and burned away at a sharp angle, thinking he would flank the interceptor. He had the advantage in speed and maneuverability.

  The interceptor had more guns than he did. They bounced and shook as it spread rounds all across his course. One of them came close enough that a panel lit up inside his cockpit, his computer having analyzed the projectile. A kinetic impactor—basically a lump of dense metal. The interceptor might as well be shooting cannonballs at him.

  Of course, as fast as he was going, if he ran into one of those it would tear a hole right through him. His vector field would deflect anything but a direct hit, but if even one shot got through it would kill him.

  It would be easy enough to break off, to pull some quick snap turns and burn for Niraya. That would mean abandoning his attack on the orbiters, though—which had been the whole reason why he’d started this fight.

  He was going to have to close and engage. No choice.

  The interceptor kept firing, nonstop. How many of those impactors could the thing carry? Valk swept in toward his enemy, wiggling his stick back and forth, jinking so the interceptor couldn’t get a solid firing solution on him. A kinetic impactor smacked off his vector field and he felt the BR.9 thrum like a violin string but a quick check of his systems panel showed no significant damage. The interceptor was close now, filling up his viewports with its lumpy, dark shape. It showed no lights at all but that didn’t matter. Valk’s sensors had painted the thing stem to stern and he could see it just fine on his displays.

  He readied an AV round—the same kind of projectile that nearly killed him and made him famous—and told his computer to work up a solution. He knew the algorithms it would use. It would sweep the interceptor with millimeter wave scanners that could see right through the enemy craft’s hull. If it found any significantly large cavities inside—for example, the pilot’s cockpit—it would find a way to put his AV round right inside that space. The AV would breach the hull and then explode in a jet of superheated metal inside the cockpit, incinerating any organic material it touched. Like, for instance, the pilot. A bad way to die, but Valk didn’t waste any sympathy on this bastard.

  While the computer worked on its solution, Valk focused on staying alive. Impactors zipped past him on every side. There was no human way to predict where the next one would be. Valk could only trust to intuition and luck. He swiveled around on his long axis until the interceptor looked upside down in his viewports and then punched for a quick Z-burn, simultaneously pulsing his engine. The effect was to throw the BR.9 into a tight loop, getting him out of the way of the enemy’s fire and giving the computer time to think. As he swung around in space, he trained his PBWs on the interceptor and loosed a volley of shots at it. All of them went wide. He’d known they would, but had hoped they would make the interceptor’s pilot keep his head down.

  The impactors came on just as fast and as thick as ever. Valk saw one approaching—actually saw it as a shadow looming dead ahead—and twisted out of his loop just in time to avoid it.

  A blue pearl appeared in the corner of his vision. The computer was done finding its solution. He reached for the trigger to launch the AV—but first he actually looked down at his weapons panel.

  No cavities detected. AV fire not recommended against target.

  What? That was—that couldn’t be right. There were no hollow spaces inside the interceptor’s hull? None at all? That would mean there could be no cockpit in there. That made no damned sense at all. Though if the computer had told Valk that the enemy ship was just a hollow skin full of impactor ammunition, he supposed he might have believed that.

  Working fast, he took his AV offline and switched to a disruptor. No need for a firing solution this time—he would just need to get close, an
d be lucky.

  The interceptor hadn’t just sat there dead in space while Valk flew circles around it. Whether or not there was a cockpit in there, somebody onboard was smart enough to figure out that Valk was trying to edge his way back toward the orbiters. They’d brought the interceptor’s nose around and moved to keep him from the defenseless targets. Now they turned again, to face him head-on. Because the interceptor was longer than it was wide, that meant giving him a smaller target. It also meant that the distance between them was shrinking at an alarming rate.

  Valk burned away from the interceptor, straight out into the void. Just as he’d expected, the interceptor followed him, pouring on speed to catch up with him. The spiky guns kept belching out impactors the whole time. Valk kept his acceleration low, just enough to keep ahead of the oncoming juggernaut. What he was about to try would take some very careful timing. It also demanded from the gods that the interceptor didn’t fire an impactor right up the funnel of his main thruster.

  As if thinking made it so—or nearly—the BR.9 shook just then as a near miss tore through its vector field. A noise like a gunshot echoed through the cockpit, deafening Valk until he couldn’t hear his music anymore. He let out a scream he couldn’t hear and looked down at his displays. One of his airfoils was gone, sheared off by an impactor hit.

  Well, out here in space he didn’t need them.

  Just hold on. Don’t panic and run. Let him come to you, Valk told himself.

  Behind him the interceptor blocked out half the stars. It was right on his tail, barely five hundred meters back. Three hundred. Impactors hit his vector field so often now the whole fighter shook and groaned.

  One hundred fifty meters. Now.

  Valk stabbed at a virtual key on his flight display. The fighter’s positioning jets fired and the BR.9 spun around, the stars in Valk’s viewport blurring as he swung around to face the interceptor. The jets fired again in the opposite direction to stabilize him and he was flying backward.

  He didn’t even look at his displays. He brought up a virtual Aldis sight, just a glorified set of crosshairs superimposed on his canopy, and focused on a likely spot on the interceptor’s right flank. Two bulbous pods met there, with a small gap between them. Valk gave his computer a second to firm up the shot, then squeezed his trigger.