Wing Commander: Freedom Flight

by Mercedes Lackey

  "I would say that you are one insane human, Hun-ter," the Firekkan said thoughtfully. "But as there seems to be no other way to save Rikik and the others, I think it is what we must do."

  "Kirha?"

  "You are my liege lord, my reason for being," the Kilrathi said, so seriously that Hunter couldn't laugh at the absurd words. "I would follow you to death and beyond, if that were in my power."

  "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. If all goes well, you'll just be following me to Ghorah Khar and back again. So, next stop, the Bonnie Heather. It should be abandoned, unless—well, James said that he and Gwen were getting the ship ready to depart in another few days. So they might be there, and maybe some workmen. I'd better pick up a pistol from Ordnance, just in case."

  "You would not shoot Taggart, would you, Hunter?" K'Kai asked, sounding alarmed.

  "Not a chance." He grinned. "But scaring the wits out of him by holding him at gunpoint will start to make up for all those times that he got me into trouble with the MPs when we were on shore leave… or maybe I was the one who got him into trouble… anyhow, doesn't matter. We've got a plan, let's get moving!"

  Chapter Eleven

  "Y'know, mates, he really isn't going to like this," Hunter said, eyeing the open airlock of the Bonnie Heather. It was one thing to have a crazy plan, and another to actually do something about it. He was having second thoughts. The three of them huddled in a mostly vacant equipment bay, about a hundred meters from the Heather. Close quarters, and Hunter was afraid that in a few moments, either K'Kai's feathers or Kirha's fur was going to make him sneeze. Paladin tended to react quickly to unusual sounds, and given his new profession and probable training, Hunter wasn't too anxious to see how he reacted to an assumed threat. It would probably be something on the order of "shoot first, and apologize to the survivors."

  "So?" K'Kai hissed back. "Whether or not he likes this is a matter of complete indifference to me, so long as we take his ship."

  "Yeah, but you don't have to live with him, after. I will. Provided the court-martial leaves enough of me for him to take his piece out of." Hunter watched the lock with acquisitive gloom. He'd heard stories from the techs in the past few days about the Bonnie Heather, the stuff she supposedly carried. It was almost worth the dual risk of Paladin's wrath and a Confed court-martial to get a chance to fly her.

  Almost.

  "Is it time yet?" Kirha growled. Hunter checked his watch. There was a little something he'd learned from his days as a tech; how to check the power-drain an in-dock ship was placing on tech services. As long as a ship wasn't drydocked, she was plugged into the Claw by umbilical, giving her ship's water and power, saving the strain on her own resources. But that drain varied depending on what was being used. An empty ship, or one full of sleeping people, didn't have a quarter of the drain a ship with two techno-junkies like Paladin and Gwen awake in it had. He'd watched and waited in the tech bay until the drain from the Heather dropped to almost nothing, then got the other two, figuring on two hours for Paladin to settle into a really deep sleep.

  It was about that, now—and his nose really itched. Better move out before he sneezed.

  "Now remember," he cautioned them both. "We make like commandos only until we're past the lock. Then walk normally, don't try to sneak."

  "I still don't understand why," K'Kai complained in a whisper. "If we walk normally, won't Paladin hear us?"

  Kirha gave her a withering look—and Hunter realized that now he was able to read the Kilrathi's expressions! Well, that was some progress, anyway!

  "You are dealing with a trained warrior-hunter, oh brain-wiped one!" he hissed back. "If he hears you trying to be silent, his sleeping mind will assume that you are an enemy attempting to slip past him! If he hears beings walking normally, his mind will assume they are friends and all is well."

  K'Kai shook her head. "Mammals," she muttered.

  Hunter ignored both of them, concentrating on reaching his next goal, the tech bay directly in front of the airlock, timing his sprint for the moment the surveillance camera was sweeping away from him. He wasn't supposed to be here. More importantly, neither were K'Kai and Kirha. He could be brought up on charges just for bringing them in here.

  Especially Kirha …

  He ran, the other two shutting up and following him like a pair of shadows, and all three reached the safe haven of the bay just as the camera began its sweep back toward them. They pressed into the back of the bay, hoping that the shadows cast by equipment were enough to conceal them. No point in having an I-R sweep in here; too much hot equipment to confuse it. Somewhere, a bored tech watched about twenty of these screens, keeping an eye peeled for movement, looking for people who didn't belong, a nicety of purpose no computer could replicate.

  Of course, if luck was really with him, one of the other fighter pilots was having a little rendezvous in his fighter, unaware that there even was a camera up there with a sentient watching what it showed. That was another thing he'd learned when he was a tech, before signing up for Flight School. Although… probably no one else was selling tickets to the other techs anymore, not after what they'd done to Hardesty.

  Sometimes Hunter wondered if Hardesty was ever going to get off that garbage scow.

  He shook off the irrelevant thoughts and tensed for his last dash up to the airlock. This one was going to take careful timing, since they were within pickup range of two cameras now. He watched them, timing them—

  Then he was off, dashing up the ramp, plastering himself against the side of the lock and making room for K'Kai and Kirha. Waiting for an alarm, heart pounding, adrenaline drying his mouth.

  Nothing.

  With a "thank you" to fickle Lady Luck, he moved into the Heather, gun at the ready, but making no attempt to muffle his footsteps. The ship was shadow-shrouded, all the lights dimmed down to almost nothing, with only the red and green pinpoints of equipment and controls shining at full strength. Past the control room, past something that looked like a techno-fiend's dream, a little room crammed with more equipment and tools than Hunter had ever seen in his life in one place—half of which he didn't even recognize. If he remembered the layout right, the bunkrooms should be at the end of this little corridor—

  Sure enough; from behind one of the two doors came the unmistakable sound of snoring. Hunter decided to take that one, and nodded to the others to take Gwen's. Paladin, if he was armed in the assumed safety of his own ship, might be less likely to take a pot-shot at a human outline.

  Three things occurred to him as he prepared to kick the door open. The first, that Paladin's reflexes might be too hard-wired by now to prevent him from taking a shot at anything breaking down the door. The second, that it would be just like Paladin to have set up a recording of a man snoring to decoy enemies into thinking he was asleep.

  And third, that the door just might be locked, and he was about to break his foot.

  By then, of course, it was too late; he was committed, and his foot hit the door with a solid thud. It slammed open a moment later, the second door slamming open as a kind of echo, and Hunter was in the room, down on one knee, gun trained on a very sleepy and startled Paladin.

  He rumbled for the light-switch beside the door and turned it on, flooding the room with light, and feeling incredibly pleased with himself. He, Hunter, had just taken old hot-shot super-spy Paladin down, all by himself.

  Paladin blinked, wincing away from the light. "Bloody hell, Hunter, what d'you think you're doing?" he slurred, his voice thick with interrupted sleep. "Dammit, you just broke up the best dream I've had in weeks! I had three gorgeous flight attendants in here and—"

  Hunter rose slowly to his feet, and Paladin broke off as the gun in his hand finally registered.

  "I'm hijacking your ship, mate," he said, cheerfully. "Surprise!"

  Hunter sat on the only chair in the tiny bunkroom. Gwen sat on the floor beside the bed, her face reflecting an interesting mix of annoyance and amusement. K'Kai stood on one leg
beside Hunter, in what Hunter knew was her "resting" posture, and Kirha filled the entire doorway. Neither Gwen nor Paladin were going to get out past him.

  Right now, Paladin didn't act as if he wanted to. Somehow he had persuaded Hunter—mostly by sheer force of personality—to have Gwen brought in so "we can all talk about this." What there was to talk about, Hunter wasn't sure; the original plan was to tie them both up and leave them in a maintenance closet for someone to find, figuring that by then he and the others would be long gone. But Paladin was welcome to try to talk them out of this if he wanted. Let him come up against K'Kai's desperation and Kirha's precious honor. Hunter didn't give him the chance of a fighter against a carrier.

  After a few moments of useless persuasion, Paladin seemed to come to the same conclusion. He looked from one to the other of them, and nodded just a little. "You three really are set on doin' this, aren't you?"

  K'Kai jerked her beak up in her equivalent of a nod. Kirha set his hindclaws into the carpet. "Try and stop us," he growled. "This is a matter of Honor, hairless ape!"

  Paladin sighed, and leaned back against the bulkhead. "All right then, I won't be tryin' to stop ye," he replied. "In fact, I'd like to go with ye."

  "What?" Hunter's jaw dropped. "You have got to be kidding! You're out of your mind!"

  "You're out of your mind if you think you can run the Bonnie Heather without either me or Gwen, boyo—but I won't ask Gwen to be in on this."

  She looked up at him sardonically. "That's good, 'cause I'm not stupid, I'm not crazy, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going. Not even for you, boss."

  "There's too many things in here that you don't know—ye canna tell what they do," Paladin continued. "Push the wrong button or sequence of buttons, and you could find yourself broadcastin' wide-band to the Kilrathi, telling them—"

  Here he spit out a collection of snarls and hisses that had Kirha flattening his ears down to his skull, eyes narrowed and claws extended. "You leave my clan-mother out of this, you promiscuous ape!" the Kilrathi snarled. "Your father had to beg for leavings from the beast-tenders, and your birth-mother serviced sewage workers!"

  Paladin chuckled, and Kirha suddenly shook his head, as if he had only that moment remembered where he was. "I—er—" Kirha spluttered, ears coming up and flushing at the tips with what Hunter thought was probably embarrassment.

  "Dinna worry about it, Kirha," Paladin said good-naturedly. "I was just givin' Hunter a graphic example of what he could get into without me along."

  "Very—graphic," Kirha said stiffly. "There is no worse insult than that you just spat at me."

  "And keyed up as you were, were, you reacted without thinkin', as any trained and keyed-up warrior would," Paladin replied soothingly. "Just as any fighter pilot would, if that came over his com unit."

  Hunter, who had watched Kirha's sudden anger with a certain amount of awe, took the point. "So what if we do take you with us?" he asked. "What's that gain us, besides your expertise? I don't think that's much of a gain, considering that we'll have to be watching you every damn second!"

  But Paladin only shook his head. "Nae, you won't. My pledge is as good as Kirha's on this, and you know it, Hunter, me boy. I've been wantin' to rattle around in that part of Kilrathi space ever since I got this crazed assignment, and this is better than waitin' for permission from High Command." He grinned crookedly. "You know what they say; it's easier to apologize than get permission."

  "Besides," Hunter replied dryly, "you can always blame us for forcing you if you get into hot water over this."

  Paladin's grin widened.

  "Oh hell," Gwen said suddenly. "You might as well count me in on this too."

  Hunter looked at her in surprise. So did Paladin, but she ignored him.

  "I don't want to stick around and face the music if all of you go haring off on this wild adventure. Besides, I didn't have anything else planned for the next couple of weeks," she said, shrugging. "If we can still stand each other when this is over—" She winked at him, and to his amazement, she had a definitely flirtatious gleam in her eye. "Besides, this way I have three chaperones in case you get frisky."

  "Me?" he said innocently. "Frisky? Why, I'm a perfect gentleman!"

  "Bloody hell! In your dreams, lad," Paladin muttered, and it seemed to Hunter that he just might be a little put out that Gwen was giving Hunter the eye.

  Hunter looked at his partners-in-crime. "What do you think?" he asked.

  K'Kai dropped her leg down to the floor, and fluffed her feathers. "I think that two more very sneaky fighters—whose ship, after all, this is—make a good addition."

  Kirha lifted his chin and his ears. "I think that Paladin's Honor is as true as that of any of my people," he replied. "Hunter, you as my liege-lord clearly admire him. I do not know this female, but she has treated me with honor, and if he and you speak for her, then that is enough. I think we should let them come with us."

  Hunter grinned ruefully; he still wasn't sure it was a good idea—but he wasn't sure any of this was a good idea. And he was clearly outvoted.

  "All right, Paladin," he said, holstering his hand-weapon with a sigh, "Just how do you start this bucket of bolts, anyway? Let's get this show on the road."

  Five days later…

  Gwen's hands flew over the console at her station, as Hunter watched in admiration. He wished he was that good; she didn't even seem to look at anything; she was just aware of it all.

  "Cat patrol in sensor range," she said crisply, long before the warning beacon and while the patrol-ships were nothing more than vague blips among the asteroids. In fact, Hunter wasn't quite sure how she knew they were patrol-fighters, but a moment later the onboard computer system had identified and red-tagged them.

  "Right," Hunter said, reaching for a sequence of keys on his console.

  "I could get us past them," Kirha offered, before he actually touched anything. "Past the first squadron, at least. I was personally oathsworn to Lord Ralgha; I doubt that any of them have anything close to my rank. They will not dare nay-say me, for fear of a challenge, if I say that I am a civilian inspector, coming to make a review of—of supply records at the base. Or something religious, an acolyte of the priestesses of Sivar, to cleanse them of the taint of the failed ceremony."

  For a moment longer, Paladin hesitated. Then he shook his head. "Nae," he said, keying in a sequence too fast for Hunter to follow what he'd done. "Nae, thank you, Kirha, but we canna take the chance that—that your rank would overawe them. I've got all the latest codes, and I have a computer program that will simulate a Kilrathi on the outgoin' video signal. Gettin' onto the station isn't going to be a problem."

  Hunter heard what he didn't say; that even with Kirha's oaths, Paladin still wasn't going to trust Kirha entirely.

  Kirha looked as if he would like to object to this, but by then the Kilrathi ship was hailing them and it was too late. Paladin hit another sequence of keys, and answered the hail.

  In—so far as Hunter could tell—near-flawless Kilrathi.

  He didn't understand more than one word in ten, but Kirha leaned over and translated for him, in a whisper too soft for the pickups to register. "He says that we are fighter pilots, that we captured and boarded this human ship, and we wish to bring it to the station. He is very good; what slips he makes could be counted to being a lower-class fighter from the deep country, or having been born and raised on a colony world, far from Kilrah."

  There was the inevitable pause, as the fighter squadron on Gwen's screens surrounded them and their leader checked back with the station. Hunter's gut clenched in an involuntary reaction to being surrounded like that. All it would take would be one order from the station…

  But the deception held.

  The leader came back, ears erect, eyes relaxed, and barked a short order that even Hunter understood. Paladin jerked his chin up in an affirmative, and barked back, before cutting off communication. Out of the corner of his eye, Hunter saw the fighters on Gwen's scre
en peel off and reform on their leader, then shoot off in the direction of the asteroid belt again.

  Paladin leaned back into his chair with a grin. "Permission to dock," he said cheerfully. "Aye. Piece of cake, lads."

  "Huh," Kirha replied sardonically, "Now it only remains to be seen—just what kind of 'cake' it is. The mission is not over yet, hairless one." Then he said something in Kilrathi that Hunter could not make out at all.

  Paladin only shrugged. "So they say." He turned back to his console.

  Hunter looked at Gwen with a lifted eyebrow. "What was that last bit?" he asked, as Kirha bent to the docking-task that Paladin had assigned him, monitoring the Kilrathi equivalent of civilian com frequencies.

  "The equivalent of our saying, 'The opera isn't over until the fat lady sings,' " Gwen told him. "Just a lot grimmer. What he said was, 'The hunt is not complete until the quarry's heart has been ripped from his chest and eaten.' "

  "Lordy," Hunter replied, taken a bit aback. "That's a bit extreme."

  "So are they," Gwen reminded him, "So are they. Some day, maybe we'll understand why." Then she bent to her own task, prompting Hunter to do the same.

  Kirha went to the airlock when they had docked, to wave away the helpful low-class techs and maintenance crew who came to give him a hand. Hunter stood just out of sight, armed with a hand-weapon, in case Kirha couldn't handle them.

  Or in case he turned his coat—but after all this, Hunter didn't think it too likely. Not Kirha, anyway. Only God himself knew what was going on in Ralgha's mind. Presumably, the higher in rank a Kilrathi got, the easier it was to find excuses to justify a little bending of the Honor. Then a little more, and maybe a chip or two in the old Honor-armor… certainly power was a force for corruption, and Hunter doubted that it was any different for the cats than it was for any other sentient race.