by David Weber
"General Goldmann? Colonel Archer. I've got something very strange on my scopes down here, Sir."
The squadron commander had no name. He had never possessed one, nor had he needed it. He was a tool to his creators, not a person, and one did not waste names upon tools. Indeed, the Shirmaksu had never even dignified his kind with a label. That had been left for humanity, and they called him Troll.
His fighter had no instruments. He was part of the fleet, deadly craft, merged with it as he merged with all the manifold devices of death he had been designed to manage so well. He needed no readouts to track the single, persistent human interceptor which clung to the rear of his formation like Death incarnate. The fighter which had destroyed ten of his own squadron. The last human fighter in the galaxy, in a sense. The one which had stubbornly refused to die for over three Terran weeks.
He was a thing of circuits and servomotors. Of chill alloy and electromechanical visual receptors. His body's veins carried no blood, for it had no veins. There was only the smooth, cool flow of power and the ever-renewed nutrient bath which fed his sole organic component.
Yet he was no stranger to emotion, this Troll. His kind knew the sustaining ferocity of hate, and it nurtured them well. Hate for their creators, who saw them only as disposable, expendable mechanisms. Hate for the humans they had been created to destroy. Hate for themselves, and the destiny which pitted them against humanity in the service of the Shirmaksu.
And at this moment, more than any other entity in the galaxy, the Troll commander hated the pilot who dogged his wake.
He knew what sort of human rode behind those guns and missiles. He had suspected from the first, when he noted the elegance with which that fighter flew and the deadly quick reactions which guided it. It could only be one of the cralkhi, the humans his masters had inadvertently created for their own downfall. Only a cralkhi could have evaded his own tireless pilots so long, clung so close, destroyed every fighter he'd been allowed to detach against it. Only a cralkhi . . .
And there was a certain bitter amusement in that, for the beings his squadron fought to protect were responsible for the very symbiote which enabled their enemy to threaten them. Deep inside, the Troll envied the cralkhi its freedom to strike at their mutual creators, for that was the one forever unattainable freedom for which the Troll longed with all the living passion trapped within his mechanical shell.
The first shockwaves screamed past his frontal drive field as his masters dipped into the atmosphere of the planet they had come to murder, and the hate within him cursed his Shirmaksu commander for refusing to let him take his remaining fighters back to overwhelm their single pursuer. But he could afford to wait. The cralkhi would come to him soon. It could not delay much longer. It could not afford to let the Shirmaksu tender slip from its grasp . . .
. . . not if it wanted this planet to live.
Desperation clawed at Colonel Ludmilla Leonovna. She was so tired. Not with physical weariness, but with accumulated mental fatigue. She'd drawn ruthlessly upon her symbiote, knowing the price she must pay—if she survived—for the demands she made. She had no choice, yet there was a limit even to her vitality, and it was nearing. If the Trolls ahead of her ran an analysis of her maneuvers, they couldn't miss her increasing sloppiness. The delay creeping into her responses was minute, so tiny no human would have noted it, but the computers would see it.
She forced the thought aside, concentrating on her task. The pursuit had snaked its way deep into the Sol system. Fighter multi-dees were weaker than those of starships, but they had far lower Frankel Limits in partial compensation, and the Kangas had fled madly, weaving up and down the alpha and beta bands to evade her. She'd long since stopped thinking about the strain on her onboard systems. Her life support had almost a full week still on its clock, but her drive had never been designed to run so long at such ruinous power, nor had her multi-dee been intended for such extended operation. She knew the abused interceptor was nearing the end of its endurance even as she neared her own, yet Sputnik hadn't failed her—not with Anwar O'Donnel to nurse and baby her systems.
She stank. She would have traded a year in hell for a shower, she thought, smiling wearily, and knew her crew felt the same, yet they hadn't complained once. Anwar had been her ESO for over two years—long enough to understand the differences between them—and he hadn't argued even when she ordered him to sleep at regular intervals while she managed his systems as well as her own.
Sergeant Goering hadn't been with her as long, but she, too, had done well. Indeed, it had been she who managed to deduce approximately when they were. Commodore Santander had succeeded in crippling the Kangas' planned Takeshita Translation; Sputnik's crew knew that, for Goering had monitored crude, old-style radio and microwave communications as they raced into the system at FTL speeds. They couldn't be much further back than the late twentieth century—yet it might as well have been 50,000 bc, for all the ability humanity would have to defend itself.
Her crew knew that as well as Leonovna did, but their unshaken confidence in her had been a tower of strength. And she'd needed that strength. Human hardware surpassed the best the Kangas could build, but there were always tradeoffs. Sputnik was faster than the tender she pursued, but despite her more advanced drive, she was no faster and far less maneuverable than the Troll-crewed fighters which guarded that tender. They had no need for life support, nor for the gravity compensators a human crew required. They had more mass to spare for other purposes, and their tremendous drives made up for their lower efficiency with pure, brute power. In deep space, with room to use the superiority of her technology, her bird was the equal of any three Troll fighters, but not if the Trolls could pin her. Not if they could somehow close the range through her superior missiles and more deadly power guns and force her into maneuvering combat in range of their own guns.
And that was exactly what they were about to do.
Her mind flicked over her remaining weapons automatically. She'd expended all but one of her heavy missiles, and she dared not waste that one on a Troll. It was a ship-killer, the last nuke she had, and it could be used on only one target. To get into range of that target, she had only three of the "Skeet" missiles with their deadly powered flechettes designed for short-range snapshots—only the Skeets and her guns.
She sighed and glanced over at her sleeping ESO. She would have to wake him soon, for she couldn't manage her electronic warfare systems as they must be managed if there was to be any hope for a shot.
She'd begun the pursuit with only two wingmen, deliberately sending Casper Turabian and her other five survivors after the only other surviving Kanga tender when it broke out-system. It had been a cold-blooded decision, but Casper had understood. His pilots stood a better chance against a tender which would be forced to turn back towards them if it was to reach its target before it expended its life support. They had a better chance to wait it out before fatigue crippled them. But by the same token, she'd known they would face a frontal attack by all sixteen of its escorting Trolls when the Kangas ordered their cyborgs to clear a path for it.
They had, and none of them had survived the encounter . . . but neither had the Kangas or their Trolls. Casper had lasted long enough, drifting in his crippled fighter, to confirm the kills. Then his life support had failed. She'd heard nothing from him in over a week.
She pushed the grief aside again. There was no time, just as there was no time for so many things. The long, grueling pursuit had come down to these last fleeting minutes, and soon it would end. Her last wingman had died five days ago when a trio of Trolls whipped back and up before Lieutenant Durstan could rouse from the sleep she needed so desperately. Colonel Leonovna had destroyed her killers, but it had been cold comfort. She'd scored seven more kills during the long stern chase, but five remained, covering the tender, blocking every firing angle, and if she came close enough to use her remaining Skeets, the surviving fighters would close to gun range and nail her short of the tender.
&
nbsp; She sighed again and nudged her ESO.
"Wake up, Anwar," she said gently, and his head jerked up, his eyes clearing almost instantly. But only almost, and it was that brief hesitation which would have killed a normal human pilot long since.
"Time?" he asked, rubbing the last sleep from his eyes.
"Just about," she said. There was no defeat in her weary voice, only a tinge of sorrow.
"Think of anything better while I was napping?" he asked, yawning as he tugged his helmet back into place.
"Sorry."
"Oh, well. I always wanted to go out with a bang. Should I wake Prissy?"
"Go ahead," Colonel Leonovna said absently, running deliberately back over her checklist. The process was normally so automatic she never thought about it, but her growing fatigue was yet another enemy she must defeat.
"It's been a hell of a ride, Skip," O'Donnel said, reaching for the button that would wake Sergeant Goering in her isolated little compartment. "Love to do it again sometime."
"You're a piss-poor liar, Anwar," she said affectionately, sparing him a smile, and he grinned back crookedly.
"True. But at least Prissy may come through it."
"I hope so," Colonel Leonovna said softly as he pressed the button, and there was no more to be said, for she and O'Donnel were about to die.
She'd tried to find another answer, but she had only one weapon besides her missile which might take out the tender: Sputnik herself. It had worked for Defender, and it should work again, if only she could get a clear run. She and O'Donnel had discussed it exhaustively, and they'd reached the same conclusion each time. The best she could hope for was to cross over the Troll rearguard once they entered atmosphere, then turn back, blow her way through the lead fighters by relying on the blast effect of exploding her last nuke in atmosphere, and ram the tender head-on. The fireball as their drives overloaded would be hotter than any nuclear warhead ever fired.
But she couldn't do it until they were in atmosphere, and she couldn't do it without Anwar to run ECM interference for her, so he would be included in her death. Yet it might be possible to save Goering. They had no more need for a communications officer, for there was no one with whom to communicate, and so Colonel Leonovna had decided to jettison the sergeant's escape capsule as soon as they entered atmosphere.
Goering had argued, but her commander over-rode her sternly. They both knew the com tech would have a poor enough chance, given standard Troll tactics, but it was the only one Leonovna could give her.
"Atmosphere in three minutes, Skip," O'Donnel reminded her quietly.
"Oh, yes. Thank you, Anwar. Prissy?"
"Yes, Skipper," Goering said in a tiny voice. "I'm ready."
"Good. Anwar will give you a five count."
"I . . . understand," the sergeant said, and the colonel heard the tears in her voice.
"Hoist one for us when you get down," she said.
"I will, Skip. Nail the bastards."
"I'll try, Prissy. I'll really try."
"Count starts—now!" O'Donnel said. "Five . . . four . . . three . . ."
"Good-bye, Skipper!"
" . . . Two . . . Luck, Prissy!"
Sputnik shuddered as the capsule blasted free, spinning away in a wild evasion pattern which blacked out its occupant instantly. Colonel Leonovna and her ESO held their breaths, following her with their instruments, willing her to safety.
"Skip! Bandit Two!"
"Goddamn it to hell!" Mental commands flashed to Leonovna's weapon systems, and two of her remaining Skeets dropped free, guiding instantly on the Troll fighter which had nosed up and around. They flashed towards their target, but too slowly, and a salvo of missiles ripped from the Troll, homing on the escape capsule.
Sergeant Priscilla Goering died two seconds after her killer.
There was silence in Sputnik's cockpit. A cold, hate-filled silence.
Task Force Twenty-Three, United States Navy, was one week out after exercises off Cuba, headed for a Mediterranean "fireman" deployment off the perpetually troubled Balkans at a leisurely fifteen knots when the first notice of something odd came in. SPASUR's Navy-run communication net had a Flash priority signal on its way to Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk before Space Defense Operations had its act together, and real-time tracking reports followed as it became apparent that something unusual was taking place high above the surface of the earth—and dropping lower with every passing moment. The bogeys' speed was coming down, but their course was hardening out across the Atlantic, and their projected track passed within less than five hundred miles of Task Force Twenty-Three.
Admiral Fritz Carson had a touch of insomnia, which was how he happened to be on his flag bridge when the Flash from Norfolk reached the carrier Theodore Roosevelt at the center of the carrier group. He looked bemusedly at the flimsy his signals officer handed him for just a moment, then turned to his chief of staff.
"Get down to CIC," he said, "and ask someone to wake the Captain." Then he picked up a phone and personally buzzed flight control.
"PriFly, Commander Staunton," a voice responded instantly.
"CAG?" The Navy had redesignated the aircraft embarked by a carrier as a carrier air wing decades ago, but like everyone else Admiral Carson still used the old acronym for "Commander Air Group." At the moment, however, he was a bit surprised to find his air commander in PriFly at this hour of the morning.
"Yes, Sir," Commander Staunton replied, answering the surprise in Carson's voice. "I've got a newbie Tomcat driver up, and I wanted to keep an eye on him."
"I see. Well, CAG, CIC is setting up some interesting data for you. A whole clutch of genuine UFOs coming in faster than bats out of hell from the west-sou'west. If they hold their course and speed, they're going to cross our track about five hundred miles out . . . at Mach nine-plus or so."
"Mach nine, Sir?" Commander Staunton asked very carefully.
"That's what they tell me," Carson said. "What've we got out there to wave as the little green men go by?"
"We've got a Hummer three hundred out, ready to exercise with my training flight, and I've got another pair of Toms at plus-five on the cats with two Hornets at plus-fifteen on the roof."
"I doubt we'll need them, but get the ready section up, then call up the Hawkeye and ask it to take a look as they pass."
"Yes, Sir."
"Thank you." He hung up as his flag lieutenant held out another phone. "Captain Jansen?" he asked, and the lieutenant nodded. "Good." He raised the handset. "Captain, sorry to wake you, but . . ."
"Something witchy on the passive, Flight." Lieutenant (j.g.) Demosthenes Lewiston said.
"Like what?" Lieutenant Atcheson asked.
"Dunno, Sir. Never seen anything like it. We're not receiving anything, but something's throwing some kind of ghosts on the set. All over the port quadrant and getting stronger."
"What d'you mean 'not receiving anything'?" the Hawkeye E-2D's copilot demanded. "You been drinking hair tonic again, Dimmy?"
"No, Sir," the radar officer said virtuously. "And what I mean is I sure as hell don't recognize it, but something's futzing up the receiver. Almost like it was outside the set's frequencies, but there ain't no such animal."
"Tacco's right, Mister Atcheson," one of Lewiston's petty officer operators put in. "It's . . . weird, Sir."
"Ummm," Lieutenant Atcheson mused. Dimmy was right about the capability of his equipment, he thought. Despite its apparently archaic turboprops and relatively small size, the ungainly-looking E-2 (especially in the brand new E-2D "Hawkeye 2000" variant) was among the most sophisticated airborne early warning aircraft in the world, and the Navy didn't exactly pick Hawkeye radar officers out of a hat. "Got any idea on the range?"
"Sorry, Skipper, but I don't really have anything. More an itch I don't know how to scratch than anything else."
"Okay, let's scratch," Lieutenant Atcheson decided. "Light up and see if there's something out there to bounce a signal off of."
"Lighting up," Lewiston said, and the Hawkeye went active. The peculiar bogeys were still far beyond detection range of even the Hawkeye's prodigiously efficient radar, but its pulses reached to the target, though they lacked the power to return. Three minutes and forty-two seconds later, a fifty kiloton nuclear warhead blew Atcheson, Lewiston, their fellow crewmen, and their aircraft into fiery oblivion.
"What the hell—?!" O'Donnel was startled out of his bitter silence by the sudden flash ahead of them.
"Somebody must've hit the tender with a scanner," Leonovna said, face tense as she fought the atmospheric shockwaves. "That was an ARAD."
"An antiradiation missile? Who the hell's got modern scanners down here?"
"Don't know," Colonel Leonovna said, and concentrated on her flying.
"Jesus Christ!" Commander Edward Staunton winced at the volume of his senior airborne Tomcat pilot's voice. "Home Plate, this is Hawk One! We have a nuclear explosion—I say again, a nuclear air burst—bearing two-seven-five relative from the task force, range two-eight-zero miles!"
"What did he say?" Staunton turned to see Commander Bret Hanfield, Roosevelt's executive officer, standing just inside PriFly.
"He said it was a nuke," Staunton replied, his voice completely calm while his mind tried to grapple with realization.
"CAG, we can't raise Spyglass." The air wing commander looked over his shoulder at the duty flight ops officer, but he wasn't really surprised. The range and bearing from Hawk One had already warned him, even if he had not consciously worked out all the implications yet.
"Sir, CIC is on the line," a petty officer said, extending a phone. "He's looking for the XO."
Hanfield held out his hand and pressed the phone to his ear. "XO," he said. "Talk to me." He listened for a moment, eyes narrowing, and Staunton noticed that his color was stronger than a moment before.
"Thank you," he said, then glanced at Staunton even as he punched buttons on the handset. "Message from Antietam," he said tersely, "group tacco just confirmed it."