Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit

by Owen R. O'Neill

  NO

  Part II: Far Horizons

  “Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.”

  —Lord Byron

  “Only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.”

  — Dag Hammarskjöld

  One: Wing Burn

  Day 144, Yr. ‘43

  Five months later . . .

  Recon Flight Viper Fox, on patrol

  Phase Plane Anvil, Kepler Junction

  “How many bogies you got, Tanner?” Her voice was cool and smooth, but the med-monitors showed that her blood pressure was already ramping up.

  “I got five—that’s five—at tango one forty, nine hundred kips closure.” His voice was thin and tinny over the burst link.

  “You got that, Baz?”

  “Roger that—got five, I say five. Bearing okay, closure okay.”

  Her own T-Synth showed five too—five little red dots starting to spread out in attack formation in the T-Synth’s holographic volume. It chewed on their energy profiles and declared them hostile, but she already knew that. “Baz, I make ’em Halith heavy attack craft. You concur?”

  “Oh, they’re Doms all right. Emissions signature looks like Talon-3s.”

  “Okay, go to attack pattern delta. Suck it in, Tanner, you’re too low.” Obediently, one of the three little blue triangles that indicated her and her wingmen snuggled closer to her port quarter. “Good. Now don’t break until I tell you.”

  “You got it, Kris.”

  The blood chemistry monitors started to light up yellow with stress compounds as her fighter eased down and left. The sphere of the T-Synth rotated as it began to carve maneuver envelopes and velocity vectors through the volume. “I have intercept in four hundred thirty seconds,” she said with a calmness that the med-monitors didn’t reflect.

  “Roger that. Concur with intercept in four-thirty.”

  “Okay, weapons free—clear and hot. Wait for it.”

  As if on cue, her T-Synth lit up with a spatter of colored lights and snow as Tanner’s voice burst over the link, “We got music here—I lost ’em. Anybody got a read?” Rapidly she cycled through the TAC-displays as her own electronic warfare suite came on-line, but the red dots failed to reappear.

  What the hell kind of ECM is this?

  “I got ’em!” Baz’s voice came on. “Got ’em back with filter 7, convolve lima-3.”

  “Link that over, Baz.”

  “Roger. Linking now.” Her screen cleared, showing that the red dots had split, circling for an envelopment behind the cover of their jamming. Vectors hunted across her T-Synth as an adrenal rush echoed her smile.

  You’re spread too wide, you jag bastards—your envelopment’s gonna turn up shit.

  The thrum of her fighter’s drive plant increased as she punched the power up, swinging down towards the right-hand pair. “See that, Baz? Starboard group’s too wide. I make it an almost seventy-second engagement window before those three to port can close. What do you guys say?”

  “I’m with you, boss.”

  “You got it, ma’am!”

  “Then heat it up!” Power reading soared as she took her drive to one hundred ten percent and her blood chemistry danced as her adrenaline went with it. The blue icons swooped down and then her display snowed out again.

  “Holy fuck!” Tanner blurted. “How’d they do that?”

  “I’m going active,” she snapped. The med-monitors showed her heart rate edging towards 140. “Lock fire control to me.” Her deep-radar came up sweeping; the little red dots reappeared, dancing in the haze. Their number fluctuated wildly.

  “What the hell’s going on?” she murmured to herself, “This isn’t fighter jamming . . .” Something was covering for them—a new kind of ECM drone? There was a small volume between the diverging groups where the noise pattern didn’t look quite random enough. She magnified the spot, but her EW suite couldn’t find anything.

  “Baz,” her voice was tight, “train over to tango one seven—you see anything there?”

  “No—wait . . . can’t tell. You want me to swing out and take an aspect read, boss?”

  “Negative! Stay put dammit—”

  “Oh Shit!” Tanner cut her off. “I got launch transients here! Tango one seven and delta one five! Heavy metal coming this way!”

  Two fans of bright orange lines radiated from what her sensors had just indicated was only empty space. Her heart rate spiked.

  I’ve been suckered.

  “Break! Break now!” Alarms squealed as her ship went maximum decel and her blood chem readings slammed into the red. The trio of blue triangles broke up and over in a classic missile avoidance maneuver while their EW suites howled. The orange fans began to disperse. Some of the missiles remaining ballistic as ECM confused their seeker arrays, decoys pulled off others and their chain guns engaged some more. The rest came through. View screens went mad with orange-white plasma flowers as the incoming warheads began to detonate. More alarms shrieked as shock waves rang her hull, then died abruptly as she cut them off.

  “Hey!” Tanner yelped, “I think they’re shooting torps at us!”

  “No shit, Buckwheat! Get the hell outta here!”

  “But what about—”

  “Three more!” Baz yelled, “I got three—no make that four—four more bandits coming in on delta one niner! Shit! Where’d those assholes come from?”

  Goddammit! The word ricocheted around her skull as her blood chemistry went nuts. “Baz! Tanner! Clear out—disengage!”

  “Boss, we can’t—”

  “Go dammit! I’ll cover a zone five escape. Go go go!”

  Two blue triangles snapped up in a pure out-of-plane maneuver as the four new red icons burned in from port. Her T-Synth lit up with lock warnings. The display fuzzed as her fighter skidded hard right and snapped back clear as the compensators caught up. Two targets, unable to react, broke right in front of her. The T-Synth spun as she swung in behind them and her ship frame groaned as she slammed the drives into emergency boost. Baz and Tanner continued straight up as the other four bandits broke after them.

  “Hey!” Tanner shouted over the net, “Can somebody get rid of this asshole for me?”

  “I got ’im—I got ’im!” Baz called. “Cut left! Left!”

  “Shit! I’m locked! Take the shot—Nail ’im!”

  Her targets loomed large on her forward view screen, their ECM fighting her T-Synth for a firing solution. The weapons indicator cycled as she switched to plasma cannon while the link chattered, “Lock—I got lock! Firing!” Baz’s missiles streaked across her T-Synth, two thin purple lines. “Come on, come on—“ The purple lines stabbed a red dot, there was a flare across her view screen and then nothing. “Yes! Yes! Talon down!”

  Her targets split, one breaking hard left. Attitude sensors spun as she stayed with him. Two decoys purled off, her fire control lost lock and went into seek mode.

  No, goddammit! I’ve been suckered once already today.

  She thumbed off auto-track and fired a burst. He jinked as her shots bracketed him. He spun and accelerated hard, hoping she’d get into a scissors with him.

  No dice, you lil’ fucker—this ain’t playtime.

  She spun over into a J-slide, dropping below him. His maneuver was going to bring him right across her nose, belly up—a pure deflection shot. She have only a split-second to engage but he couldn’t turn at that speed. The range closed rapidly and she kept her finger on the firing stud . . .

  Now! She pressed the stud. Her neutron cannons fired, streams iridescent purple in the tracking lasers, stabbing into his lightly armored belly. His shields flared and died in a burst of ultraviolet and then his ablatives began to boil off. A second later, he exploded in a convulsing orange flower. Four different compounds peaked in her bloodstream as elation flooded her.

  “Got ’im! Two down!”

  A lock warning shrieked as a tracking laser found
her.

  “Kris! You’ve picked one up—break hard right!”

  Her T-Synth swung crazily as she broke right. Something hammered savagely on her aft quarter. Damage control indicators glared red as she lost a drive node, port side. Baz curled behind her, his cannon lit up and the bandit disappeared in a smear of light. Moments later, Tanner’s cannon caught the fourth bandit in a crossing pattern. He veered away, trailing a comet’s tail of molten slag and ionized gas.

  Her second target closed in behind Tanner. “Tanner, bring it up—help me engage.” He arced up in her T-Synth’s volume, his pursuer following. Her missile lock tone chimed beautifully in her ears.

  “Got him locked! Two hot!” Two missiles streaked away. The bandit broke back, spewing a hail of counter fire. One missile died. The other bore in. “That’s four!”

  The two remaining bandits, one still bleeding air, broke off.

  “Ooeee!” whooped Baz, “They’re outta here! Goin’ ballistic!”

  Below and behind them, more orange lines vomited from empty space.

  “Incoming!” she called, “Mail in your six! Flight pattern BOLO on my mark—now, now. . . Mark!” The blue triangles began a complex weave, knotting their drive wakes together. The trajectory of the torps started to bend as their seekers went active. They were too sluggish to match their quarries’ maneuvers, but the size of their warheads meant they didn’t have to. Her chain guns detonated one dead ahead, plasma shunts took some of the blast, armor took the rest. More damage control lights came on, blinking yellow. A warhead spiraled in on Tanner’s port side.

  “Tanner, watch your left! Your left!”

  “Ah shit, it’s picked me up—“ The torp exploded. “I got a problem here—”

  “Bail Tanner! Eject! Eject!”

  “Oh hell—” then a flood of static and a crack as her fist hit the console.

  “Baz?” Her voice was strangely calm as they climbed free of the inferno. “I’m going back down there.”

  “Kris, there’s gotta be four more of ’em down there, not to mention whatever’s launching these torps.”

  “Get clear, Baz.” She pulled the nose of her fighter up and started to slip it around. “I’m down to seventy-percent of max boost. Someone’s gotta stay behind to distract these assholes. Damage control says I’m elected—go home.”

  “Kris, I—”

  “Dammit, Lieutenant, that’s an order!” Reluctantly the blue icon that was Baz veered off. “When you see Rafe, tell him I said goodbye. He still owes me dinner at Iscariot’s. Collect it for me, will ya?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Over the link, his voice was weak and full of static. There was a pop as she cut it off. Down below, four blood red dots awaited her, hanging back now to avoid being caught in their own salvos. Her weapons display cycled as she checked her remaining ordnance. Her breathing slowed and most of her med-readouts smoothed into the green. Below her, as if confused by this insane tactic, the red dots began to converge hesitantly.

  That’s right, you motherfuckers—come to mama.

  She switched her fire control to full-auto and began to tune her deep-radar manually, focusing the snowy volume that was spawning the torp salvos. Slowly, an image built up on her T-Synth’s targeting window.

  “Kris!” Baz’s voice suddenly hammered her ears over the tight-beam link. “Break off, Kris! Those are tin cans down there! They’re stealth destroyers—”

  ~ ~ ~

  Day 161

  Verdun Military Hospital

  Weyland Station, Vesta, Eltanin Sector

  “You’re here to see Lieutenant Basmartin, ma’am?”

  The attendant looked up at Kris with that friendly, but not too friendly, expression that seemed to be required of people in the medical profession. Kris had to admit that here, in the critical care ward of Verdun Military Hospital, an excessive degree of friendliness would be out of place.

  “That’s right.”

  The attendant dropped her eyes to a hidden display. “You are aware of his condition, I believe?”

  “I am.” Frankly, it was a fucking miracle that Baz made it back alive. Verdun was one of only three medical centers equipped for cases as bad as his, and a few additional miracles had been needed to keep him alive (revivable might be a better term) on the long journey here from Kepler. He’d live, but even a miracle wouldn’t let him fly again. If there were another one in the cards, it might—just might—let him wiggle his fingers again someday without the aid of software.

  Once he had fingers to wiggle, that is.

  You shoulda fuckin’ listened to me, Baz. Of course, if he had, she wouldn’t be here to cuss him out. This was the second time he’d disobeyed a direct order from her—and the second time he’d saved her life. I knew that would getcha in trouble, you silly prick.

  Glancing up from the display, the woman gave her a mandated smile. “He’s conscious now. Please keep your visit to ten minutes or less.” A frown hardened the lower half of Kris’s face. The woman flicked her eyes back to the display. “Oh. I see you’re his squadron leader.”

  “That’s right.”

  Her smile eased into something more genuine. “Take more than ten minutes then, ma’am.”

  “Thanks.”

  The big double doors to the right of the attendant’s station unsealed at a click and Kris stepped through into the ward itself. The pathfinder guided her to Basmartin’s unit and Kris took a moment at the entrance to steel her nerves. They had Baz in a revivification unit, otherwise known as a “box.” Kris had a peculiar horror of boxing; the week she’d spent in a re-gen tank after Asylum was more than enough for her. Visiting people in hospitals always brought back the last time she’d seen Mariwen, and the tightness in her gut over that had never diminished.

  Exhaling slowly, she tapped the entrance panel.

  From the point of view of appearance, “boxing” was an overstatement. The unit had little or nothing of that character, and Baz appeared to be resting in a normal bed. The equipment racks were the only sign of what was going on beneath the covers; that and the characteristic stiffness of features that were controlled by a synthnet. But he could still produce an acceptable smile, and his voice had none of that artificial, over-modulated tone Mariwen’s had when Kris saw her.

  “Hey, Kris.”

  “Hi, Baz. How’re things with you?”

  His eyes moved toward the monitors. “I can’t complain—bitching’s not implemented in the software.”

  She pulled a chair next to the bed and sat. “Well, shit. I guess we’ll just have to talk, then.”

  “How’s the arm?” His gaze came back and fixed on her left arm, bound across her chest. Her eyes followed his to the immobilized limb: her own souvenir from their engagement. It had cost a couple of days in sickbay and a series of unpleasant visits since, as the doctors tried to devise a regeneration therapy to repair her nerve damage. So far, it hadn’t been working out, but all things considered, Kris counted herself lucky. Not that she appreciated her luck much at this moment.

  “They’re working on it. It’ll come around. Eventually.” Coming from a medical family, Baz could read more into that eventually than most people. Kris also guessed her attempt to sound confident about her arm wasn’t fooling him either. That arm had bought her a place on the “walking wounded” list—the Service’s professional limbo—and even when it healed (if it healed), she’d have to requalify to get back her flight rating. The SRF was touchy about requalifying flight officers who’d suffered nerve damage, and if they had to resort to a synthnet, all bets were off.

  None of which mattered a rat’s ass compared to what Baz was facing.

  “So there was some excitement this AM?”—shifting the subject to safer ground. “I heard you had visitors.” They’d cleared Baz to receive in-person visits just this day cycle, on a strictly limited basis. When Kris queried, she’d learned the first time slot had been reserved. That was unusual, except for immediate family, and she wondered who they’d giv
en precedence to.

  “Oh, that.” Baz didn’t sound pleased. “Some heavy wanted to make a show. Might be that they’re gonna put us up for something.”

  It was certainly possible, although Kris hadn’t heard anything. And while Baz deserved the recognition, she’d be happy to decline her share of the favor. Decorations got sticky with her being a colonial thrown into the mix, and her association with Huron made things more complicated still. It always turned into a circus, and she’d rather avoid the mess. If that was possible.

  “Was it Hatton?”

  Captain Hatton was Admiral PrenTalien’s new flight staff officer, and given their current status, she and Baz fell within his territory. Kris hadn’t met him yet but he had a reputation as a stickler, and moreover, he’d requested a meeting with her later this PM. If he’d made a point of visiting Baz this AM, it could hardly be a coincidence.

  “No. Some captain from G-Staff,” Baz answered after a moment’s reflection. “Didn’t catch her name—I wasn’t tracking very well. Seemed annoyed I couldn’t salute her. No module for that, I guess.”

  Kris shook her head. “How about a flipping-the-finger module instead?”

  “That would be an upgrade.”

  “Tell ’em to get working on it.”

  “I’ll add it my discharge interview.”

  No telling when that would happen and Kris decided not to pursue it. “When are your folks due?” She’d sent his parents a private message as soon as she could—outside the official “We regret to inform” letter from BuNavPers and a letter from their CO—and their reply had reached her two days ago. It said they were leaving immediately, but civilian travel was dicey during wartime.

  “Fifty to sixty hours, maybe. If they didn’t get stuck in the Hyades.”

  “Kenzie’s coming too?” When Baz didn’t immediately respond, Kris felt her heart sink. “Baz you didn’t—”

  “I just . . . told her to wait.” His voice told her things his expression couldn’t.

  “What the hell for? You’re gettin’ married.” The war had delayed the wedding, but Kris knew they’d planned to hold it immediately after this deployment.