Pilgrim stars (wing commander)

by Peter Telep

  It had taken her several more minutes of coaxing before he had finally succumbed to her siren's song. And it had taken another few hours for Paladin to fully forget recent events that seemed to pull on his limbs as though he were strapped to some medieval instrument of torture. He had slipped even deeper into the fantasy than he had the day before, embracing Aristee with a love that had gone unanswered for too many years. He had felt the urgent desire to merge with her, become one, to live that way for the rest of his life.

  Twilight had come on like a pallbearer, carrying the lost day on its back and leaving Paladin deeply troubled. Not long afterward the palmlink had beeped. The XO had nervously made his report to Aristee. "Captain. A Kilrathi battle group has just jumped into the system. Confirm a Snakeir-class superdreadnought and five escorts. No evidence that they've tagged us yet."

  "Very well. Cease cargo loading. Recall all ships. Put the planet between us and that battle group."

  "Aye, ma'am."

  Paladin had given her a look.

  "All right," she had said, rolling her eyes, "you told me so."

  They had snatched up their clothes, had left behind their tent, and raced to the captain's launch. Within five minutes they had taken off, with Paladin at the helm.

  Now, as they cleared Aloysius's atmosphere and spotted the shining speck of the Olympus dead ahead, Paladin pulled up a tactical report and noted the battle group's position. Although the Olympus had pulled around to the dark side of the planet, the battle group had shifted into a wide arc and had probably made visual confirmation before the Olympus could get into hiding. Yes, the Olympus presently operated in stealth mode, but that had failed to elude the Kilrathi and had proven that they knew the ship would be here and that Aristee had been double-crossed. The cats' first volley of torpedoes had already reconfirmed that assessment.

  "Second salvo inbound," Paladin said as he tightened his grip on the launch's control stick. The sleek little shuttle with forward-swept wings responded well to even the slightest tap. He lit its twin afterburners and focused on the supercruiser.

  Aristee faced the starboard Visual Display Unit, trading intent stares with the deck boss. "How many more troopships left, Mr. Towers?"

  "Thirteen, Captain. I think we can get at least eight of them aboard before we're out of the system."

  "Try to get them all." She tapped a touchpad below the VDU, bringing up the engineering station. "Brotur Hawthorne? Talk to me about my hopper drive."

  The bedraggled man jerked toward the screen and tried to flatten his matted hair. "Still offline for modifications, ma'am."

  "What?"

  "You asked me to step up our schedule. I can't do that without taking the drive offline." He backhanded sweat from his brow and sighed.

  "Well, I want it back online now. We have a Kilrathi battle group bearing down on us."

  "I'm aware of that, ma'am, but the well field integrator has already been disassembled. I assumed you wanted me to make full modifications to the drive as we've discussed. I could have us ready to jump to Earth in fifteen, twenty days at the most, cutting our estimates in half. But the drive will have to remain offline."

  "Forget about that," she said, on the cusp of swearing. "Just get it back online and get us out of here."

  "We can reassemble within a day or two, but it'll take another eight to ten days to establish and moderate the reaction containment field. We'll have to add that time on to our estimates-and I know you want to get to Earth ASAP. If you want the drive to remain online during modifications and you want me to reassemble now, then we won't make it to Earth before one-five-eight. You told me we had to get there before then. I'm sorry, but this is the best I can do."

  Aristee closed her eyes, her breath coming in ragged bursts. "Keep the drive offline. Carry on with modifications. I assume the helm will answer to full impulse?"

  "It will."

  She tapped in another code, and the XO turned to face her. "Captain, shields holding. I've launched countermeasures and shifted us into an evasion course."

  "We can't jump, Mr. Vyson. Take the ship out of orbit. As soon as I'm aboard, we'll make way under full impulse."

  "Aye, ma'am. But we'll be leaving behind some of the troopships."

  "I know. Order those pilots back to Aloysius."

  "Yes, ma'am. And I have one more report. Bad news."

  "Of course it gets worse," she muttered.

  "Three pilots from Eighth Squadron deserted their patrol sectors at the first sighting of the Kilrathi. They broke atmosphere and ejected in their pods."

  "Eighth Squadron? Was Mr. Santyana with them?"

  "He was out there, ma'am, but he remained in position. We lost Doug Henrick, Jadyk Charm, and Joe Pazansky. And ma'am, I'm sorry to report that four pilots from the One-Nine and six from the Two-Two also deserted their patrols and have gone planetside."

  "Instruct cannon operators to fire upon any of our ships who make unauthorized breaks from their squadrons. Aristee out." She switched off the link and leaned toward him. "You believe that? Only a few of our people came unwillingly. I thought Santyana would be the first one to desert."

  "Worry about your bruised ego later," Paladin said, consumed by the laser-lit chaos blooming ahead. "We're going to take a few hits. Hang on."

  He jammed the stick forward and dove toward the fleeing supercruiser as it unfurled a long tail of fire back toward the Kil-rathi battle group, roughly twenty-two hundred kilometers behind. Aloysius's lime-colored glow faded from the ship's hull as she continued her escape and Paladin raced to reach her. He wove his way through avenues of antimatter fire and lined up with the flight deck behind a pair of troopships that lumbered at a frustratingly slow velocity. The incoming fire tightened its grasp, with bolts now glancing off the launch's shields and tossing himself and Aristee against their harnesses.

  Keeping an iron grip on the stick and screaming for the troopships to move their asses, Paladin concluded that if he waited for even a minute longer, the shields would bottom out and the launch's light armor would succumb to the torrential thrashing. The ship had been designed for diplomatic missions, for speed. Time to exploit that advantage. He lit the pipes and soared recklessly over the two troopships, then dove once more toward the aft flight deck's rectangular launch tunnel, sealed off by its glimmering environmental maintenance field.

  "Captain's Launch Alpha One. You have not been cleared to land," said the flight boss, a cranky, thick-faced Pilgrim in her fifties with an unforgettable mug and a name so long it was barely pronounceable, let alone memorable. "What is the-"

  "I have the captain aboard," Paladin barked. "We're landing."

  But he had spoken too soon. A lone antimatter round tore into the launch's exhaust cones and divided into millions of creepers that burned into fuel and hydraulic lines. The ship's safety systems kicked in, saving them from the heat and radiation as it ejected the thrusters a mere second before they thundered apart and sent debris careening into the hull.

  Now propelled by its own momentum, the launch plummeted through the energy curtain. "No response to course corrections," Paladin said, strangely intrigued by the moment of impending death. If he didn't get the nose up, they would strike the deck and be crushed into a neat, recyclable package fully appreciated by the deckdozer driver who would have little trouble clearing them from the runway. He ignored the tingle in his neck and the flashing indicator to lower the landing skids and just two-handed the stick, drawing it toward him in a last-ditch effort to belly flop. The launch remained on its collision course.

  "I have attitude jets back online," Aristee suddenly announced. "Firing!"

  "What's going on?"

  The guards ignored Maniac, so, of course, he shouted the question again. And again.

  "They don't know either," Blair finally said. "Just shut up. Listen."

  "Oh, I am. Sounds like our funeral march."

  The general quarters alarm had been switched off, replaced by the frequent rumble of shield im
pacts and the thrumming of the supercruiser's impulse engines. Seventy-three thousand tonnes of durasteel would soon reach a maximum velocity of one hundred kilometers per second. An engineering marvel, no doubt, but why hadn't they jumped yet? Had Confederation capital ships somehow managed to corner Aristee? That seemed unlikely. The drive's gravity well would prevent that. Wait. Paladin had mentioned that they had been having trouble with the drive. Blair's shoulders slumped. If they couldn't jump out, then maybe this was it…

  The brig's main hatch cycled open, and one of the guards spoke to someone with a voice too soft to discern. Blair hustled to the bars and spotted Paladin in a crimson flight suit, a nasty bruise purpling his forehead. "On your feet, Lieutenant," he said as he passed Maniac's cell.

  With a swish and chink, the cell door slid aside, and in mild astonishment Blair stepped into the corridor. The ship suddenly listed, and he grabbed a bar for support. Maniac staggered into the corridor, behind Taggart, who turned wearily to face them.

  "Sir? What's happening? Are you all right?" Blair asked, staring at the commodore's injury.

  Paladin mustered a grin. "Rough landing. Are you all right? You're shivering."

  "I'm okay."

  "And I'm okay, too," Maniac said darkly. "And we're all just fine. Let's celebrate, goddamn it!"

  "Gentlemen," Paladin began in a tone that forced even Maniac into silence. "We have a Kilrathi battle group on our tail, and the hopper drive is offline. We can maintain our gap with the dreadnought and the superdreadnought, maybe slip out of their cannon range or at least present a smaller target, but the three cruisers and destroyers can overtake us. Which is to say, we have a problem."

  According to Joan's Ships of Known Space, an interactive database every Confed pilot worth his salt had memorized, Kilrathi cruisers routinely reached a maximum velocity of 150 KPS, while destroyers could reach 250. The numbers rarely lied. However, the cats would not be foolish enough to send out a lone destroyer; it would remain in the company of the cruisers.

  "Yeah, we have problem," Maniac mimicked, "we're dead. But at least the cats will send us off instead of our own people."

  Paladin lifted an index finger. "I said those cruisers and destroyer can overtake us. I didn't say they will."

  "Sir, there aren't any asteroid fields or comet belts in this system," Blair said, recalling his cosmography. "Even the jump point's pretty far away. We have no cover."

  "And no defense," Maniac added. "You think this ragtag bunch of fanatics can stop the Kilrathi? Shit." He rubbed his forehead. "We got a battle group out there? They got five, maybe six fighters to Aristee's one."

  "Which is why you're suiting up. Mr. Marshall? You're Rapier came in redlined, but I'm told its been repaired and pre-flighted. Mr. Blair, we have a Rapier for you. Once we reach the flight deck, you'll launch and report to William Santyana, your squadron commander. He's a good man. Do what he says."

  Maniac whirled toward his cell, walked back inside, then sat on his bunk. "It doesn't take much to get me in a cockpit, but if you think I'll fly for these people…"

  "They die, we die," Blair said. "How do you not get that?"

  "Six million killed at Mylon Three. And what about our own people? What about Second Squadron? You forgot about them already? I'd rather die than help these lunatics."

  "You won't be helping them," Paladin corrected. "You'll be helping me. If we can evade this battle group, you'll buy me the time I need."

  "Permission to speak candidly?" Maniac asked, throttling up the sarcasm.

  "Say whatever you want, Mr. Marshall, but get off that bunk and join us."

  "Sir, we've been on this ship for nearly a month. How much more time do you need?"

  "Matters of diplomacy don't work on a timetable, Lieutenant."

  "Well, I got a feeling the admiral won't let Aristee waltz around the sector for much longer. Maybe you can give your diplomatic efforts a boot in the ass, eh? And I have to wonder, what do you think you can accomplish? She knows you're here to stop her. She's waiting for you to make your move, and then you'll get the cell next to mine. Your strategy is a joke. Coming here was a joke. Unless you planned on joining her in the first place, which, given everything I've seen, makes more sense. I mean, you love her, right?"

  Blair rushed by Paladin, stormed into Maniac's cell, and grabbed the wiry blonde's neck, fingers digging into Maniac's esophagus. "You're not just out of line, asshole. You've gone way beyond that. Unless you'd like me to tear you a new breathing hole, I suggest you come along."

  Powerful hands clenched Blair's wrists and pulled him away from Maniac.

  "We'll die before we settle this," Paladin said, releasing Blair. "Lieutenant Marshall, I can't force you to fly. But I can assure you that when the moment comes and you're staring at the ceiling and listening to the atmosphere whistle away through breeches in the hull, when you know in your gut that you have only a few seconds to live and you're thinking about your life and did you live it well and did it mean anything, when you realize that you're alone and helpless, that you can't fight back because you're locked behind these bars, I can assure you that you will, at that moment, wish that you had strapped yourself into a fighter, slammed on your helmet, and jammed down the trigger to fire in the face of death-because you're a Confederation fighter pilot and that's what you do. That's what's in your blood." Paladin swung toward the door. "Mr. Blair? Let's go."

  18

  VEGA SECTOR,ROBERT'S QUADRANT, LEAWING ALOYSIUS SYSTEM,CS OLYMPUS,

  2654.114, 0022 HOURS CONFEDEWRATION STANDARD TIME

  'Broturs and sosturs, I'm sure you know why I've asked you here." Aristee gazed intensely at the twenty-seven Pilgrims she had assembled in the Olympus's wardroom. Some of the robed elect sat in chairs around the conference table while others stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the bulkhead. Each possessed the rare gift of being able to sense and manipulate gravitic fields with their minds-a gift Aristee desperately needed them to exploit.

  But many of her people were already shaking their heads, and one in particular, Karista Mullens, left her seat at the table. "Sos-tur Aristee, when we realized that you had brought so many of us on board, we suspected this day would come. But we can't do as you ask. The edicts of Ivar Chu are clear on this. To reach out and kill contradicts everything we believe in. You know that. You know the pain it causes. The cold…"

  "Of course she knows," came the baritone voice of Shutaree Zimbaka, a bearded black man who threaded his way toward the front of the room. "But the Kilrathi are back there. They won't stop. And we'll die unless we do something about that. The protur has spoken. Sostur Aristee has spoken. All of us should make the sacrifice."

  Zimbaka had barely finished when an impact tremor came from the supercruiser's aft quarter and passed violently through the room. Another resounded just a second later, with still a third of equal force riding hard on its heels.

  "I'm with you," came another voice. Aristee watched Mishal-la Ti come forward on small, narrow legs, her stringy black hair swinging like a pendulum after the old woman.

  Karista Mullens eyed the two defectors, her mouth agape. "You can't do it. You'll reach out to those Kilrathi and crush their eyes or stop their hearts, but have any of you done that before? Do you know what it feels like to rob a being of its life force? Do you know what it feels like to touch the dead?"

  Four more Pilgrims elbowed their way to join Zimbaka and Ti. Three others slid up behind Mullens. Aristee's temper flared as her people continued choosing their camps. She spun away, swore, then spun back, directing her fury at Mullens. "I brought you on board with Frotur McDaniel's highest endorsement."

  "An endorsement I deserve," Mullens said, her voice faltering. "I'll do anything for you. Anything but this."

  "So you choose to defy me and the protur?"

  "But haven't you and the new protur chosen to defy the edicts? The former protur would not have endorsed this order."

  "Carver Tsu the Second is dead. Whether he would have endor
sed the order or not is inconsequential." Aristee lifted her voice for all to hear. "We have a new protur. And as Brotur Zimbaka rightly pointed out, he has spoken. So have I. Anyone who chooses to disobey will be held in the brig and sentenced to the five penance."

  "Is this how we'll shape our future?" Mullens asked. "By punishing people who refuse to break the edicts? We'll reward the sinners and damn the just?"

  "We'll shape our future by changing our laws," Aristee countered as she began to count heads. Sixteen Pilgrims had gathered around Mullens, while only ten had complied with the order and stood near the starboard bulkhead. Aristee had failed to win over even half. She eyed the dissenters with disgust. "Be sure of your decision."

  Mullens craned her head and studied the people behind her. Most stared on unflinchingly, their minds set. She faced forward and gave a solemn nod.

  Aristee raised her chin at the Marine guards posted near the door and listened to the resignation in her own voice. "Take them to brig."

  The Marines stepped back, allowing Mullens and the others to proceed to the hatch. Only a few gazes dared meet Aristee's. She felt sickened by the moment-but hadn't she known that some would not follow? She had, but not this many…

  Once the last traitor had filed through the door, Aristee favored Zimbaka with widened eyes. "You're only ten. Can you still do any damage?"

  Zimbaka scanned the others. Some shared his steady gaze of confidence while a few still looked uncertain. "We can do some damage."

  "I'll take you up to the aft observation bubble," she said. "You'll have privacy and a direct line." She spun on her heel, strode to the hatch, then paused. "You're not breaking the edicts," she assured them, "because those edicts no longer exist. Yes, we're rewriting the law, all of us, and it'll be a law that establishes our rightful place among the stars. Our days of bowing to the Confederation and the Kilrathi are over."