I cut that a little too close, I think.
He sat for a moment in the Dralthi's cockpit, feeling relief wash over him like a wave, then hurried through the procedure of shutting down the engines and a final check before popping the fighter's exit hatch.
Jimmy Cafrelli was waiting for him outside the hatch, relief and exhaustion warring on his face. "We thought you were dead, sir!"
"Not yet, Jimmy. Maybe next week." Hunter swung down through the hatch and onto the firm metal of the Flight Deck. I'd kiss that Deck if I didn't know my mates would never let me forget it for the next ten years.
"Not a bad landing," Iceman's sardonic voice observed. Hunter turned to see the veteran pilot striding toward him. "Did you realize that you broke off the starboard cannon when you hit the ceiling, Ian?"
Hunter glanced at the wing involuntarily. It wasn't just the cannon that was broken… half the wing was scattered all over the Deck. "Oops," he said, and grinned, too full of relief himself to feel anything else. He patted the cold metal of the Dralthi's hull. "Poor old girl, I put her through a lot today."
"You're on jump arrival patrol in two minutes," Iceman continued, one eyebrow raised sardonically. "With me. The Colonel seemed convinced you were going to show up. Ready for another flight?"
"I can handle it," Hunter said. Right now, he could handle anything. Nothing like thinking you were dead—then finding out that you were going to live, after all…"Are the fighters ready?"
Iceman pointed across the Deck; he began to run toward the parked Rapiers, Hunter hard on his heels.
"Maniac's back on the Flight Roster," Iceman called as they ran.
"What?" Hunter asked, out of breath.
"The Colonel said that we need all hands," Iceman explained. "Even one as insane as Maniac. I wanted to warn you, Hunter. He is as crazy as ever. You could get him as wingman at any point."
"Terrific," Hunter muttered, looking at the row of Rapiers lined up for launch position on the deck. "That's all I need right now, a lunatic flying on my wing."
"At least we're back in Confederation space now, Hunter," Iceman said. "Our own home ground again."
"We were supposed to be in Confed space, back on Firekka, mate," Hunter said suddenly. "But I guess no one wants to remember that."
Now that he was no longer worried about his own survival, he had a moment to think about someone else's. "And now we've left the Firekkans there to face the Kilrathi on their own." He didn't look to see if Iceman paid any attention, or even heard him; instead he glanced back through the open landing bay, wondering if one of those million points of lights was the Firekka system, K'Kai's homeworld, hidden among the other stars. "Good luck, K'Kai," he whispered, as he climbed into the cockpit of the Rapier fighter.
"First group, move as close as you can to the landed ships while second group flies in from above…" K'Kai traced out a map with one curved claw on the dirt of the cave. The dust of the cave irritated her sensitive eyes, but it was something she had learned to ignore in these last days, as she had learned to live without the comforts of her home. At least her friends and family were with her, all having survived the torching of their tower homes by the alien Kilrathi. All armed with the assault rifles given to them by the humans, and bearing the marks and wounds of the long weeks of war against the Kilrathi.
Her sister Kree'Kai was a fine flock-leader, wise and a good counselor to her people. But Kree'Kai was no war-leader, and it was K'Kai, with her knowledge of space combat, who had been chosen as Shenrikke, to lead the flyers of Firekka against the Kilrathi invasion.
There is no one else. All the humans have gone, even Hun-ter, leaving us alone against the felines. Well, that was not strictly true. The humans had returned long enough to stage their attack against the Kilrathi religious ceremony, but then they departed, and for many days now, the Firekkans had been on their own. Maybe they will be back, maybe not. It does not matter. We will fight on, with or without them.
K'Kai pointed at one particular Kilrathi ship in her diagram, a large warship bristling with gun turrets. "We think this is their command center for the landing group. Focus your attack on anyone from that ship. Flock-leaders must be very careful." She gave Kree'Kai and several other flock-leaders a very sharp glance. "Because the Kilrathi have captured enough of our people that they surely know who our leaders are."
"You speak for yourself as well, K'Kai," Kree'Kai said seriously. "The Kilrathi must know that you are war-leader for all the flocks. Why else have they targeted our flock over the others in this area?"
"I will be careful, too," K'Kai agreed. "We have inflicted great casualties upon our enemies, with our inferior weapons but good tactics and knowledge of our homeworld. We cannot risk any carelessness now. Any questions?"
There was a long silence, and K'Kai spoke again, quietly. "Good. All of you, be ready to attack at sunset. Rest now, for a few minutes, then move to your positions."
She crouched, staring at the map drawn in the dirt, as the others moved away to their tasks.
"How long will you stare at the dirt, sister?" Kree'Kai said, grooming K'Kai's neck with her beak.
"There is something wrong here," K'Kai said at last. "They have brought all their landing ships here, to this valley, from all over the continent. They must know that we will attack. But there are few troops in the valley below, and only a handful of watchmen. It does not make any sense."
"K'Kai!"
The shout echoed through the cave. K'Kai spread her wings and launched herself toward the mouth of the cave, fluttering to a stop just inside the entrance. "What is it?"
"Look, in the valley!"
K'Kai's sharp eyes focused on the flames of the Kilrathi ship engines, raising clouds of dust from the valley floor. "They're leaving!"
Kilrathi footsoldiers were moving quickly onto the ships, which began to depart, one lifting every few seconds. A Kilrathi corvette glided in from the north, coming to a stop next to the largest of the ships. A moment later, Kilrathi soldiers emerged, guiding a group of Firekkans into the hold of the larger ship.
"Rikik!" Kree'Kai shrieked suddenly, pointing at the Firekkan prisoners. "They have Rikik!"
"Kree'Kai, wait!" K'Kai shouted, as her sister dived from the cliff's edge, heading straight down toward the valley. "Don't!"
Kree'Kai ignored her; ignored everything except the furred enemy—and the tiny figure among the taller prisoners. Her daughter—
She would not stop, not now.
"After her! Quickly! They know we're here now!" K'Kai called, and dozens of Firekkan warriors launched from the nearby cliffs, screaming battle cries at their enemy.
The gun turrets on the stationary Kilrathi ships swiveled, tracking the fast-moving flyers. Cannons boomed, sending energy bolts crackling into the cliff walls, rocks shattering and falling around them. K'Kai leaped from the cliff a moment before her perch disintegrated into falling rubble, and banked steeply down toward the Kilrathi squadron.
Kree'Kai was nearly in range to fire… K'Kai could see her aiming her assault rifle at one of the Kilrathi guards…
… another ship cannon fired, only a few meters from Kree'Kai as she swept past. For a horrible second, the Firekkan flock-leader was outlined in blue light, burning alive, and then she was gone.
K'Kai didn't stop to think, or grieve. There was no time, not if they were to rescue the captives. The small huddle of terrified Firekkans, being herded into the hold of one of the Kilrathi ships, stared up at the wing of Firekkan warriors descending down toward them. K'Kai heard her niece screaming her mother's name, as a Kilrathi guard shoved her into the airlock of the ship. The other Firekkans were forced inside as well; K'Kai recognized a dozen other flock-leaders and leader-kindred, captured from towers around the continent. Hostages. They are taking hostages with them!
She fired her assault rifle just as the airlock door slid shut; the energy bolt glanced uselessly off the thick metal, searing into the ground. A faint rumbling from beyond the metal skin of th
e ship warned her of what was about to happen.
"Back! Get back!" she screamed, flying away with all her strength and speed as the engines of the ship roared into life, blasting the area around it. She glanced back to see another Firekkan warrior who had not moved quickly enough, his wings on fire as he fell helplessly toward the ground.
A few seconds later, K'Kai landed on a high ledge, turning to look back at the valley. The last Kilrathi ships were lifting, ponderously moving upward through the sky. On other ledges, she saw Firekkans waving their rifles and shouting defiance at the departing Kilrathi ships.
Another Firekkan, his wings scorched and feathers blackened, landed awkwardly on the ledge next to her. In silence, they watched as the last Kilrathi ship disappeared into the night sky above them.
"The Kilrathi are gone, K'Kai. Is it over now?" the young fighter asked.
"No," she said slowly. "It is not over. I do not know if it will ever be over, not now…"
Chapter Eight
Ralgha watched his young liegeman pace, noting that Kirha's movements had become as predictable and repetitive as those of any caged beast. Thirteen steps to the wall, a reflexive twitch of his tail the moment before he turned, a lift of his chin as he turned. Then thirteen steps to the door, pulling up a little short, a pause to stare at the portal in case it opened (it never did), then an abrupt turn that left scratches on the floor from his claws, to pace back to the wall again. It was as well that this place had no fiber mats upon the floor, for the little cub would have torn that particular spot to shreds by now.
Ralgha had learned in his earlier captivity that such mind-numbing occupations did nothing to make the time seem any shorter. Instead of useless pacing, he varied his waking hours, doing nothing at the same time from day to day, not even eating. There were the exercises he had learned to keep a body in shape using a limited space—very useful on shipboard, when a captain could not take the time to go to an exercise room. Ralgha usually persuaded the younger male to share those exercises with him, for even Kirha could see their value. They kept his body supple, if not his mind.
There were other things to occupy Ralgha's attention. The chiefest was the computer terminal with limited access, so thoughtfully provided by their captors, through which he improved his command of the hairless ones' language and learned the ways in which they thought by reading their literature, philosophy and holy texts. The humans were fascinating; controlled more by their biology than they would admit, and yet less controlled than the Kilrathi, in many ways. And so many religions… many contradicting each other. Completely fascinating. It was as if the humans were, themselves, composed of many species.
Or as if, as one of their figures of literature had said, they could believe in several impossible things before breakfast.
He had other things from his own culture to occupy him, and make the place seem less alien. There were the meditations, for instance—things some of the priestesses had taught him, meant to focus thought and self-discipline as well as to relax.
He even learned a number of the humans' games and played them against the computer.
And if their games were any indication of their abilities as strategists, there was no wonder that they had fought his people to a deadlock. They were excellent strategists. He had always maintained that, but it was pleasant to have his opinion so confirmed.
Their little room held nothing else of interest; two bunks, three chairs, the desk, a closet for cleansing and elimination, evidently designed for multi-species use and elementary, but adequate. The walls were gray and could not be marked, the floor bare metal. The air carried no scent but that of the humans, and even that was faint. Someone must have deduced that too strong a human-scent would make both of the Kilrathi edgy and nervous.
He had expected to be sent to High Command as soon as Kirha joined him, but shortly after the youngster was escorted through the door, Captain Thorn sent a messenger with a kind of apology. It would not be possible to send the Kilrathi out of the Firekkan system at this time. He was sorry that he could not deliver the message in person, but Ralgha was a ship commander, and he must know that the ship and crew came before other considerations. It was phrased more diplomatically than that, of course, but that was the gist of the message.
Reading between the lines, and knowing what he did, Ralgha had no difficulty in interpreting the ambiguous message. The Kilrathi had arrived in force, and sooner than Ralgha had expected. The Prince must have decided to act quickly once word of Ralgha's defection reached him. It would be impossible to say without information he would certainly not get whether the problem was that no pilot could be spared to shuttle the two Kilrathi out, or whether the Kilrathi fleet had so invaded that system that no ship could escape them. And in any case, it hardly mattered. He and Ralgha were now bound to the Tiger's Claw and would share the fate of its human cargo.
He could guess some things; alarms that meant Kilrathi fighters had penetrated near enough to threaten the Claw itself, the dimming or flickering of lights that showed enormous power-drains on the ship's systems. Shudderings as the Claw maneuvered—or perhaps took a hit?
But mostly he and Kirha were left alone, to their own devices, with their meal arriving once a day, promptly, an hour after waking. As he himself had specified. The Kilrathi still followed their carnivorous instincts; eating only once a day, but gorging, then lying torpid for an hour or so. Kirha usually ate when he did, out of deference for his lord, and Ralgha varied the time to give the cub's day that little change that kept him from becoming mad with boredom.
Ralgha had been playing one of the games, something called Go, when the game itself suddenly froze on the screen, one piece holding in transition. Before Ralgha had a chance to react, the screen blanked, showing only the blinking cursor in the upper corner.
Then, before he could snarl in frustration and beat the terminal in the side, the cursor began to move, and a message appeared in its wake.
Commander Thorn would like to speak with you. Write "/send" and your reply.
It was not in the characters of written Kilrathi, but rather, scribed in the humans' written words. So, they had figured out that he could read their texts, hmm? He had assumed they were monitoring what this terminal was accessing, limited as the range was. Somewhere, some bored technician had noticed he had been calling up human texts.
And had made the appropriate deduction.
The abrupt character of the message was certainly typical of a bored tech of whatever species. Sometimes Ralgha thought that computer technicians were a species apart from all others, that it mattered not at all what their exterior shape was, for their minds were all alike. Precise, quick to recognize patterns, but with no interest for anything beyond their arcane little universe of numbers and electrons.
I shall speak to him, Ralgha typed, prefacing the message with the "/send" as instructed.
"Settle down, young one," he advised Kirha. "One of the humans is coming to call upon us, and if you are standing or pacing, you may make him nervous."
Kirha had barely settled into a chair when the door slid open, admitting Captain Thorn and the ubiquitous set of guards. They made the tiny room seem very crowded.
"We've got a situation," the human said without preamble, "and I was hoping you would explain it."
"Would?" Ralgha asked dryly, noting with no surprise that the Captain was not wearing his translator—and was speaking in his own language, rather than in Kilrathi. So the tech must have reported Ralgha's growing command of the human tongue to his superiors. "Would?" he repeated, in slow, deliberate human speech, "Or could?"
Thorn started to grimace, and stopped himself, which gave the odd effect of looking as if his entire face spasmed. "Perhaps a little of both," he admitted.
He did not sit down. Ralgha did not rise. Kirha had come to stand behind him, in the position normally taken by a personal guard.
Ralgha watched the Captain a moment longer, establishing the dynamic between them—the Captai
n, as the petitioner, himself as the courted. "I will try," he said, then. "What is this 'situation' of yours?"
There was a softening of the Captain's posture that made Ralgha think he had relaxed. "We sent Marines down to Firekka to try and disrupt the Sivar-Eshrad," he said shortly. "It seemed like a logical move, since your people place such store by the ceremony. We succeeded in that plan—and now—"
"Now the leader—who is probably the so-ambitious young Prince Thrakhath—is withdrawing his troops," Ralgha interrupted, and suppressed a purr of amusement at the widening of the human's eyes.
"How did you know that?" Thorn demanded, startled.
"There is no other choice for him. He must," Ralgha replied. He looked up at his young liegeman. "Tell the human, Kirha, why the Prince must withdraw, since the ceremony has been corrupted."
Kirha's forehead wrinkled, as he tried to find the human words to express Kilrathi concepts. "If the ceremony is corrupted, it is because Sivar is displeased and has rejected the ceremony and those who sponsored the ceremony," he said, haltingly. "The warriors that perished in the battle to take Firekka are no longer Sivar's favored servants; they are simply his fighters, standing between the Light of Sivar and the Great Dark which ever threatens the Light and seeks to devour souls. Because the ceremony was corrupted, those that survived cannot dedicate themselves to Sivar for the coming year, and they fear their souls will be lost in the Great Dark if they perish in combat."
"Does this mean that—that they're retreating because they think that Sivar has forsaken them?" the human asked, haltingly.
Ralgha nodded agreement, as the human shook his head; not in negation, Ralgha thought, but in unbelief.
In a way, Ralgha was torn. He was angry that the ceremony had been disrupted, and burned for those who had been so betrayed—yet this would not have happened if the Prince and the Emperor were not already corrupt. The humans were not the cause, only the means.
Wing Commander: Freedom Flight Page 14