Maddox concentrated as the shaking air-car continued to skim the sands. This was bad. He didn’t want to initiate Plan B until he knew more. He thought about this for several seconds and finally shouted at the comm screen, showing that he was overcome with rage.
“My, my,” the operator said. “Are you attempting another subterfuge, Captain?”
“You have cloaked saucer ships in orbit, of course,” Maddox said, seeming to try to control his seething emotions.
“The cloaked ships are coming, true enough,” the operator said. “But—”
“The cloaked ships are here?” he blurted.
“Come now, Captain. If they were here, the ships would have sent shuttles down to pick up the crystals. No. The ships aren’t here yet, but we control the orbital defensive satellite. It’s so obvious that I’m surprised you failed to understand. I tell you this not because you have made me talkative through your emotional ruse, but because I want you to know that with the mere snap of my fingers, I can order the satellite to beam your air-car out of existence. You are in a hopeless position, Captain. You can die by missile or by beam. Surrender at once or you shall cease to exist.”
“Will you give me a minute to think this through?” he asked.
“I am done waiting, Captain. Return to Capricorn. Land on Nerva Corp Tower. You have five seconds to decide. I will give you no more than that.”
“You must be highly ranked indeed to be able to make such a decision on your own authority.”
“You are still trying to stall, Captain, and you have lost three of your seconds doing so. I am about to press the launch button. Decide.”
“Yes,” Maddox said, sounding crestfallen, and he banked the air-car again, making a wide turn, climbing as he did so. In seconds, the air-car aimed for the town of Capricorn and the smudge of the Nerva Corp Tower in the far distance.
As Maddox did all that, he switched off an engine. The air-car sagged and slowed down.
“What are you attempting now?” the Spacer said.
“Meta was right earlier,” he said. “Sand has clogged one of the intake valves. I’ve been forced to shut off an engine. I can turn it back on, but that might burn out—”
“No,” the Spacer said. “You are heading in the correct direction. This might be a piece of subterfuge on your part, but it will gain you nothing. If you deviate from Nerva Corp Tower, a beam shall lance down from orbit and destroy you. I am allowing for no more deviations.”
“I understand,” Maddox said quietly. “We should be at the tower shortly.”
“See that you are, Captain. I am monitoring your air-car, and now, so is the defensive satellite. Even if you land on the sand and attempt to flee, you will die. This time, Captain, there is no escape for you or your friends.”
Maddox stared starkly at the comm screen. Finally, as if he could stand it no more, he turned his head. As he did, he blinked several times in quick succession at Meta.
She stared at him in surprise.
Maddox tapped his left index finger four times on a flight control.
Slowly, Meta reached for her panel. She made a few adjustments and then sent a single ultra-sonic, short-range pulse.
The Spacer operator on the comm line was alert. “What was that?” she demanded. “What treachery are attempting now?”
“That was me,” Meta said in a dejected voice. “I…I was seeing if there was some way to pierce the jamming cloud.”
“Do not try that again,” the Spacer said. “Otherwise, I will assume you are planning a ploy. Land the air-car on the tower, Captain. Deviation of any kind will result in your destruction.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Maddox said in a surly tone.
The Spacer grinned at him tightly, triumphantly.
The captain sighed, and that was a genuine expression of emotion. He dearly hoped that Lieutenant Maker had heard the sonic pulse and knew how to interpret it. If the lieutenant hadn’t…in that case, Maddox planned to transform the air-car into a kamikaze craft and take out the operator’s SAM site before Meta, Riker and he perished in a fiery blast.
-16-
Lieutenant Keith Maker sailed weightlessly through the derelict-seeming torchship in orbit over Usan III.
Keith was a sandy-haired Scotsman with wiry, alert features. He loved all kinds of flying, the more dangerous the better. He considered himself the best pilot. He did not consider himself the best pilot in Star Watch or the best human pilot. He considered himself the best anywhere at any time, period, end of story.
He had many flying exploits to prove his claim. He had also played backup to Maddox for many of the captain’s exotic missions.
Keith wasn’t at his comm panel to receive or see Meta’s single pulse. Neither was Keith’s partner at his station.
The partner slept in a bunk, having grown increasingly inert the longer they had to wait up here in orbit doing nothing.
The torchship was ten times bigger than a Star Watch shuttle. It had an old-style reactor in back with huge cylindrical tanks attached to the central core. The life-support section was the small forward area, although the workers could use emergency shafts that went the length of the central rod of the ship. This torchship was an older model. It attained terribly slow speeds for a ship pretending to be an interstellar voyager that used Laumer Points to travel from one star system to another. A vessel of this sort was better served as an asteroid prospector’s ship. It was slow, and for all its size, it lacked real cargo space.
The fakery of the ship was in the fuel cylinders attached to the central rod. In reality, only one cylinder had fuel. The rest had been enlarged into a hangar bay. Neither Keith nor his partner had gained any advantage by this. They had been in tight quarters for so long that the two men had learned to hate the sight and now the rancid smell of each other.
Inside the special hangar bay was a fold-fighter, a tin can in Star Watch lingo. It was an ugly little vessel that resembled a tin can with many antennas sprouting from it. The fold-fighter did have a few guns, and they would fire, although they would do minimal damage in a real space battle.
Sometimes, a fold-fighter carried a missile. If that was an antimatter missile, that gave the fighter some real hitting power. The other key to the fold-fighter was its ability to fold space, popping directly from one location to another, possibly a million kilometers away, in a split-second.
Needless to say, Keith had used the fold ability of the fighter to save the captain’s bacon on many occasions.
As the small Scotsman sailed weightlessly through a corridor of the central torchship, a small device on his belt began beeping.
Keith heard it, and he snatched at it with great eagerness. Pressing his thumb against the device, he read a text that scrolled across the tiny screen.
The torchship’s rather powerful computer had analyzed the sonic pulse. The ship’s orbital location—that it was in the jamming area instead of outside it—and the nature of the pulse meant the signal had reached the torchship. With a teleoptic sensor, the computer had seen the air-car zooming over the sandy surface and added the factor of the defensive satellite’s sudden jamming signals. The computer therefore gave it a forty-eight percent probability that Captain Maddox or one of the others had attempted to signal them for a fast pullout.
The sonic pulse had reached the torchship, not the actual message. In that sense, the jamming had worked.
In any case, Keith pressed a button twice and checked the time. The computer had received the message one hundred and eleven seconds ago.
A thrill of excitement swept through him. Keith wanted to get back to the barn, meaning Starship Victory, as soon as possible. Lieutenant Valerie Noonan and he had been having some arguments. They had had a thing between them for a time. Keith wanted to keep it that way, as he’d finally been getting somewhere with the Academy-trained beauty.
If this was Maddox sending a message, he could finally leave the torchship and not have to see his partner’s ugly mug ever again. The man
needed a hard pop on the nose, maybe several kicks in the ribs for added measure.
Keith did a summersault and twisted in the air. His feet struck a bulkhead as he bent his knees. Redirecting his path, Keith pushed off as hard as he could go.
He had to get to the fold-fighter, start the engines, locate the captain exactly, and figure out what he was going to do. Too many seconds had already passed for him to waste any time.
In these kinds of rescue operations, every bloody second counted.
He grabbed float rails, building up speed. If he hit his head against a bulkhead, that could easily dash him unconscious. But Keith wasn’t worried. He was the best flier, even if that meant flying weightlessly through a torchship’s corridors.
He judged the next corridor, grabbed a rail, pulled, readied his shoulder and grunted as he hit a padded wall, slightly changing his heading, aiming for a sealed hatch that seemed to speed at him like a bullet.
“Okay now, mate,” Keith said. “Here we go. Seven-alpha-eight-tango-three-two-one, open baby.”
There was an audible clack, and as Keith sped at the hatch, it opened. He grinned with delight.
Thirty more seconds, and he should be able to get the show on the road.
“Hang on, sir. Lieutenant Maker is coming to the rescue.”
-17-
The seconds ticked away as the Nerva Corp air-car neared the tower. So far, there hadn’t been any Lieutenant Maker appearing in the fold-fighter. According to Meta, the defensive satellite was tracking them, in addition to the SAM site near the spaceport.
“Even if Keith gets here,” Meta said. “Where is he going to go to help us?”
“Are you tracking the torchship?” Maddox asked.
“Its engines have fired up,” she said.
“That’s the signal,” Maddox said. “We have to be ready.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Riker said from the other compartment, “but how are we going to make the transfer? That is the plan, right, sir?”
“You already know how, Sergeant.”
“You’re not thinking about jumping out of a moving air-car, are you?”
“Bingo,” Maddox said. His lips had thinned as he spoke. They had almost reached the tower. Even traveling as slowly as they had been, they were going to reach the tower too soon.
“Oh no,” Meta said. “Do you see the reception committee?”
Maddox did. There were six blue-uniformed Spacers, provost guards by the looks of it, on the roof of the tower building.
At that instant, a fold-fighter shimmered into existence below them. The vessel was only several feet away and pacing them exactly. If it maintained that position, they should be able to jump down onto it.
“Thank you, Mr. Maker,” Maddox shouted. “This is it.” He began to unbuckle.
Even as the captain did so, a beam reached down from the sky and pierced a rear nozzle on the tin can. The fold-fighter wobbled, and might have veered away under a less experienced pilot.
“Hurry,” Maddox shouted. “We don’t have much time left.”
“This is madness,” Riker said.
Another beam struck, barely passing the air-car to strike the tin can. The fold-fighter was a larger vessel than the air-car.
The beam punched through the tin can’s flimsy armor. This time, the aerodynamics fought the pilot’s incredible skill. The craft veered away sharply, heading down hard for the sand.
“No,” Meta whispered. “Keith—”
The tin can shimmered, and a third beam sliced down from the heavens. Just before that beam struck, the tin can vanished, disappearing from the situation.
The beam struck sand just outside the city limits, the beam turning the sand into slagged glass.
Maddox and Meta exchanged glances.
“There goes our ride,” Riker said.
“Is the fold-fighter reappearing?” Maddox asked.
Meta studied her panel, soon shaking her head.
“What now, sir?” Riker asked. “Looks like our ride took off without us.”
“Right,” Maddox said. He reactivated the shutdown engine, giving the air-car greater power. He banked sharply, forgoing a blast from the anti-personnel cannons at the provost guards on the roof. Killing them wasn’t going to change things. Either they escaped the SAM missiles and the defensive satellite or nothing else mattered. Unless they could get a message to Victory, all their twisting and turning was moot.
“Now they’ll shoot us down for sure,” Riker warned.
“We’re not dead yet,” Maddox said.
“If I might point out, sir—”
“You might shut up, Sergeant. I’m concentrating.”
“Right, sir, shutting up I am.”
Meta glanced back at Riker. The sergeant looked positively pale. Her husband looked grimmer than normal.
The air-car completed another turn, skimming over the sands as it built up speed leaving the city for the second time today.
“What are you hoping to achieve?” Meta whispered.
Maddox didn’t answer. He was too busy watching the sensors. The comm light blinked. He refused to answer it, as he was done bandying words with the Spacer operator.
“They’ve launched,” Meta said. “Make that two launches,” she added.
“Hang on,” Maddox said.
They all jerked forward as the air-car whined down at emergency speeds.
“How’s that going to help us?” Riker pleaded.
“Shut up!” Meta shouted. “Let him think. We’re all dead unless he comes up with something.”
Ten seconds later, Maddox banged the air-car down onto the hot sands. They skidded, throwing sand everywhere, but they slowed down fast and came to a stop.
“Out!” Maddox roared. “Get out!”
Meta unstrapped and rushed for the opening exit. Riker leaped out the main hatch, disappearing from view.
Maddox remained in his seat, waiting.
Meta turned at the hatch. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Soon,” he said. “Go.”
She obeyed, leaping from the door and disappearing.
Maddox immediately engaged the air-car, lifting. He manipulated the controls, unstrapped and rushed for the open hatch. He dove from the air-car, landing on the sands several feet down.
At almost the same time, the air-car increased speed. Seconds after that, the vehicle shot up into the sky, building up speed.
Maddox climbed to his feet. He shaded his eyes, watching the air-car. The first interceptor streaked like lightning across the sky, rapidly gaining on the air-car.
Maddox turned away at the last second. Even so, he saw the glow of the explosion against the desert sand.
Another interceptor roared through the skies, but it no longer had a target. The missile kept traveling, searching for something to destroy.
Maddox turned around. He could see Meta and Riker trudging across the sands toward him. The city was behind them. It amazed him how far from it they were already. Heat waves shimmered in front of Capricorn. It would take time to walk back into town.
Readjusting his wide-brimmed hunter’s hat, Maddox began trudging toward the others. He’d had a dune buggy last time he went into the wastelands. This time, he had nothing but the clothes on his back. Not even a canteen or another jacket aside from the one he’d given Meta.
They wouldn’t last long out here. Would the Spacers come to collect them? He had little doubt about that. He was sure the air-car stunt hadn’t fooled anyone.
Maddox frowned. One thing bothered him. Why hadn’t the defensive satellite beamed them with a heavy laser? It had taken the tin can out of action. Why not take out the air-car too?
Maddox increased his pace, feeling the heat of the sands radiating through the soles of his boots. The heat must be scorching his wife’s bare legs. He had to get her out of the harsh starlight.
After all that had happened, were the damned Spacers going to defeat him?
Even as Maddox wondered, a shi
mmering began on the sands to his right, and to his amazement, the tin can appeared on the desert floor. The shot-up vessel did not move. It just sat there, perfectly folded onto the desert sand. There was no exhaust from the nozzles, no—
A port opened in the side. Keith stood there, with bright red blood on his shirt. Could that be his blood? At that moment, Keith toppled out of the tin can and struck the sandy ground outside.
-18-
Maddox reached Keith first. The others were running for the tin can. The pilot lay face-down on the hot sand.
Plowing down onto his knees, Maddox put his hands on the pilot’s back.
Keith groaned.
“Are you badly injured?” Maddox asked.
Slowly, under his own power, Keith turned over onto his back. Blood stained his flight suit. There was a jagged hole in his chest, with blood seeping out.
Maddox tore off his shirt and pressed that against the wound. He could feel the heat beaming against his bare skin.
Keith groaned more.
“Hold it in place,” Maddox ordered sternly.
Keith did so, pressing down with his hands. Good. The ace could still move his arms and work his digits.
“What happened?” Maddox asked. “Be quick about telling me.”
Keith had grown pale with sweat streaming his face. “I’m sorry, mate. I failed you. I feel sick—”
“Belay that, Lieutenant. Give me a quick account. Is the fold-fighter still usable?”
“It has no motive power, sir.”
“Damn it.”
“But it can still make folds. That’s the trick, sir. If you’re smart—”
“We can fold out of here?” Maddox asked.
“That’s what I’m saying, mate. You have to get us inside to do that, though, and only a small compartment is now sealed against space—if you know what I mean?”
Maddox did. But one thing bothered him. “What happened to the defensive satellite? Why isn’t it beaming the tin can?”
The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9) Page 9