The Price of Freedom

by William R. Forstchen

He jinked and swerved. It flashed past. Blair looked frantically back out of his cockpit as he dodged and swerved, checking the missile's progress. It looped into the distinctive IFF-style search pattern, locked on, then roared after him. He dumped several decoys, hoping it would take off after one of them. It didn't.

  "Damn," he said. "Maniac, I got an IFF. Can you help?"

  "Negative," Maniac said tightly, "I got one, too. Who was that son of a bitch?"

  Blair ignored him to concentrate on the missile. It bored in after him, corkscrewing as its seekerhead fought to keep the wildly gyrating T-bolt in its field of view. Blair flat-kicked his own ship around, watching his field of view sluggishly change by ninety degrees, pushed the flight stick all the way forward and right, and kicked in his afterburners. The T-bolt launched forward in a twisting outside loop, changing his vector and position in all three axis. He gave the ship a moment to reorient on its new course, then hauled the stick back and right, spinning the fighter into a sequence of tight corkscrews.

  He felt the blood immediately rush into his head. His inertial dampers soaked up enough of his acceleration that he didn't black out or give himself an aneurism, but the tight spirals still put his head far enough from the ship's centerline for him to run the risk of blacking out. He clenched his neck muscles and gritted his teeth, trying to slow the blood flow, while breathing through his mouth.

  The missile bored in, unimpressed with his gyrations. A black ship flickered out of cloak on his port side. He held his course as it closed on him, then reversed his corkscrew. The raider's front quarter glowed redly as it discharged its heavy weapons. The ordnance missed completely. Blair let out a single explosive laugh. The pirate would need to be a fancy deflection shooter to hit him under those circumstances.

  He dumped the spiral, hauling the stick first back and to the right, then left, then pushing forward into a broad split "S" designed to bleed off forward motion without dumping inertia. The raider flashed past, so close overhead that Blair ducked.

  The missile hooked in from the right. The T-bolt's missile alarm sounded, its Doppler tones warning him of its proximity. He armed and fired a chaff pod, then another, before he hauled the yoke back into his lap, breaking his Thunderbolt out of the pod's plane. The missile detonated against the second pod, close enough for Blairs shields to flare briefly.

  He brought the fighter's nose down, seeking the black ship. The enemy banked hard away, trying to turn the tables. Blair had learned his lesson. Rather than trying to turn with the more nimble enemy, he held his acceleration and course steady. The raider cut upward and into a steep right-hand turn, seeking a deflection shot as Blair passed him.

  Blair altered his course to cut across the raiders arc. He selected his full ordnance and locked his tracker on the raider. He would continue to track it, regardless of what other targets wandered into range. His AI projected a targeting pipper, showing him where to lead the raider in order to hit it.

  The pilot, seeing that Blair had outfoxed him, activated his cloaker. The black ship flickered out of his sight, killing his lock-on. He fired anyway, hosing blank space with his full battery.

  Four energy beams lanced from the front of his Thunderbolt, flaring the raiders shields with pulse after pulse of energy. He poured on the coal, crossing the arc and firing into the cloaked ship, using its flashing shields and impacting beams as target references. His capacitors dipped deeply into the red. His fire volume slowed. A secondary explosion bloomed along the raider's wing. He missed with his next shot, giving the black fighter enough respite to turn and escape. He fired a few more random shots, then turned back to the main convoy.

  Maniac's squadron appeared to have driven the rest of the raiding ships back. He did a quick count of friendly forces and came up with eight. Everyone was accounted for.

  A single black ship flickered into view ahead of him, oriented towards a freighter. Blair checked his capacitors and swore as he saw they were back to little more than half-strength. He hit his afterburners, trying to close the distance.

  The black ship grew quickly in his forward view. Blair toggled his ordnance to plasma guns and fired as soon as the reticule settled on the raider. The enemy ship jumped forward as though scalded. Blair's shots missed completely, falling behind the raider as it dove for the Kilrathi freighter.

  He hauled his stick around to the left, trying to drag the sluggish T-bolt around by main force. He slopped into a pursuit angle and hit his afterburners. The raider rolled over and released a silvery colored object that impacted against the freighter's side. Blair saw no detonation as the black ship dove under the freighter's belly. Blair followed in hot pursuit. The black ship veered suddenly upward, slinging back around the topside of the transport. Blair, holding his stick against his belly, tried to hold to the raider's tight parabolic arc.

  His maneuvers were clumsy in comparison to the raiders.

  He got out of the turn and blazed after the raider as it crossed the freighters plane. He fired his plasma guns, more for his benefit than for any hope of hitting the enemy ship.

  A giant explosion flashed upward from the Kilrathi vessel as the delay blast mine detonated. The expanding shockwave and fireball engulfed the Thunderbolt. The raider, its rear phase shields flickering, rode the leading edge of the explosion outward, hitting its afterburners and boosting to an incredible speed. Blair sat, dumbstruck, as it vanished into the distance. The other raiders dropped out of cloak to boost after the pilot, abandoning the fight with Maniac's squadron and the Kilrathi ships.

  His cockpit alarms sounded, warning him of the Thunderbolt's dire straits. The mine explosion had collapsed both the front and rear phase shields, chewed through his armor, and wreaked havoc on his internal systems, including his comm-panel, target tracker, and internal damage monitor. All of his starboard side thrusters appeared to be out, as was his afterburner and fuel reserve. He doubtless had other damage, but with that sub-system on the fritz, he couldn't trust his monitor to report it.

  "Did… see that?" Maniac said, as he made a close pass by Blair. "You're… chewed up. Can… make… Intrepid?"

  Blair looked at his system display, tapping it to see if he could coax some cooperation from it. "I don't know," he replied, trying to sound laconic in the face of his growing worry. His display cleared a moment, showing most systems glowing either red or yellow. "Maybe. I'm transmitting telemetry." He crossed his fingers and hoped his system display made it to Marshall's board.

  Maniac was gone long enough for Blair to think his communications had gone out completely. When Marshall returned, his face had an odd expression. "Um… Melek offers you hospitality, for you to assess damage. He also wants to talk."

  Blair made Maniac repeat himself twice to make certain he understood the message correctly. He considered switching back to the distress channel to talk to the Shintahr himself, but wasn't sure he'd be able to lock onto it, or even to return to his own tactical frequency. It was better to let Maniac relay.

  He shook his head. What the hell did Melek want? His ship was hurt badly enough for the Kilrathi lord to blow him away, if he was willing to risk the consequences from Maniac's squadron.

  He checked his readouts. The damage from the raider's mine explosion really left him no choice but to accept. His return to the Intrepid was iffy and the Kilrathi vessel was directly under his lee. He couldn't afford to pass up the opportunity to check his damage before he committed himself to trying to get back.

  "Tell him it's a deal. Get landing instructions and tell him we'll give him a CAP until he gets clear of the system."

  Maniac relayed the message. Blair's communications fuzzed again as Maniac tried to relay landing instructions. It took Blair three tries before he understood that Maniac was to lead him to Melek's ship. Then a Kilrathi tractor beam would pull him inside. He hadn't the slightest idea of what would happen next.

  The docking procedure went smoothly, with the Kilrathi beam operator catching him with only the slightest bump and depos
iting him inside a large, open cargo hold. He guessed from the shape of the clamshell doors that this ship served in a capacity similar to the packets that had been with the Intrepid. Almost all of the Kilrathi fleet had been destroyed over Kilrah in the aftereffects of the Temblor Bomb. Makeshifts like this one would have to serve until Kilrathi shipbuilding came back on-line.

  Blair waited for the clamshell doors to close and the bay to repressurize before he removed his helmet and popped his canopy. There was a slight hiss as the pressures equalized. He sniffed the air. It smelled a little musty but seemed okay. He keyed the retractable handholds in the T-bolt's side and climbed down.

  A delegation of Kilrathi led by a tall male wrapped in a cloak of rank entered the hold through a pressure door and walked towards Blair, who reflexively checked his sidearm. He always forgot how damned big the Kilrathi were. The leader and his guard of knife-wielding warriors were well past two meters tall and massed a hundred twenty-five kilos on the hoof. Any one of them could have taken him apart without batting an eye.

  Blair waited for Melek to approach. The Kilrathi Shintahr had more gray in his fur than Blair remembered.

  Melek stopped a few meters short of Blair, and to his great surprise, bowed deeply from the waist. "I place your claws to my throat," Melek said, his voice a deep bass rumble.

  Blair fumbled to find the correct Kilrathi response. "I retract my claws and offer you…" He fumbled with his equipment, looking for something suitable to give his host. A flashlight seemed inadequate and emergency rations insulting. His hand touched his holster. He carefully removed his sidearm, so as not to alarm the guards, and offered it to Melek. The Kilrathi leader took it, making it disappear into the folds of his cloak. He produced a little packet of what looked like crackers. "I offer you bread and salt."

  Blair tried not to smile. "Thank you," he said. The custom wasn't his, but he accepted the gift in the spirit intended. He tucked the pouch into his flight suit.

  "I name you guest of my hrai," Melek said formally, then indicated Blair was to walk with him. He tried to remember his Kilrathi customs. Hobbes had told him much, but much of that had turned out to be useless misinformation planted by a deep-cover spy. He did know that warriors did not keep other warriors waiting. 'Why did you invite me here?" he asked, getting to the point. "It certainly wasn't to trade food and guüs."

  "Yes," Melek answered, "we need to exchange information, and the radio was no way to do it. Only eye to eye will do." He turned towards the bay door and gestured for Blair to pass through. They stepped into a corridor carpeted in deep greens and russets. The walls and bulkheads were painted with murals of Kilrathi stalking, fighting, eating, and if Blair understood his Cat anatomy, making love. Melek gave him a moment to study the paintings, then ushered him forward.

  "Ships of my hrai and those of the other clans are being attacked from your side of the border," he said. "Some of the attackers have markings of your Border Worlds. We have tapes."

  "I don't care what you've got," Blair replied with some heat, "we didn't do it."

  "I agree," Melek replied, "it is too obvious a ploy. If you really wanted to attack us, you would not be so stupid. You would cast your clues elsewhere to lead us off in different directions, not back to your own lairs."

  "You invited me here to tell me that?" Blair said.

  "Yes," Melek said. "Many on your side of the border would not believe a message from us, regardless of the reason. By bringing you here and giving to you the tape we have made, you can see for yourself that what we say is true."

  Blair looked up at Melek. "It must be hard for you to work with me. I appreciate that you are being so forthcoming." I don't understand it, he thought to himself, but I'm glad this isn't just an excuse to rip my guts out personally.

  "You have high status within my hrai," Melek said. "It is not often we get to meet a savior."

  He stopped, stock-still, and stared at the Kilrathi. "A what?"

  "A savior," Melek repeated. "Our savior."

  Blair searched his face for something he could recognize as humor, or insanity, or anything that would provide him with a rational explanation for Melek's words. "I don't understand. I would have thought your people would want to disembowel me for what I did." The image of Jeannette, dying in agony from Thrakhath's slash, sprang into his mind

  "I would have," Melek replied, "until I understood your purpose." His face assumed a sober air. "Our war with you corrupted us," he began. "As the war went on and as we continued to spend lives, we learned from you. Both good things like tactics, and bad things like treachery and asssa… ashashi…" He sighed, giving up on the tough word.

  "Assassination?" Blair supplied.

  Melek nodded. "Yes. We learned that from you, and we learned it well. When we offered you the false treaty, there were many, like me, who thought we were perverting ourselves, becoming lowly like humans."

  Blair kept his face still.

  "The attack on your planets should have been a sacrifice to Sivar, our victory dance on your graves. Yet Sivar denied us victory. Some of us realized that we had spoiled the sacrifice, by using duplicity. It was like using a tainted knife to draw blood, an abomination to Sivar."

  He guided Blair up a set of broad stairs and forward. They passed several Kilrathi females, some clothed, others naked. They turned their faces from the males. They were the first enemy females he had seen that weren't on an autopsy table.

  He looked up at Melek, uncertain how to phrase the questions that threatened to pour out of him in a torrent. Melek looked at him.

  "Those of us who had doubts did nothing. I confess I felt little except rage against humans. Your taint had sunk deep within our leadership. An attempt was made to assas… to murder by stealth our Emperor. The plot failed, but the seed was planted." He shook his head sadly.

  "So how do I fit into this?" Blair asked.

  "Sivar raised you up, gave you many victories. You became the equal of any Kilrathi, enough that you were honored by our people as much as by yours. Your hero-name reflected that honor." They entered a small, dark room. Melek bent to remove his loose shoes. He gestured for Blair to do the same.

  "The Heart of the People of Sivar became corrupt. You became the blade that purified the People, that excised the corruption. You were our ritual of atonement, our Pukcal."

  Blair reeled from the implications of what Melek said. "Let me get this straight. You think that operation over Kilrah was the fulfillment of a purpose set in motion by your own god?" He shook his head. "You think I was part of some massive bloodletting ritual?"

  "Yes," Melek said. He looked again at Blair. "I have to believe the death of so many of my hrai, so many of my race, was for some purpose. This way they are redeemed by sacrifice and can rejoin us for the future hunts and fights we shall wage in the name of Sivar."

  He opened the inner door and gestured. Blair entered, and stopped, at first startled by the lack of light. He smelled a thick, cloying scent that he thought at first was incense. It took him a moment to realize it was burned blood. He peered around, slowly taking in the details of the chapel. The paintings on the walls depicted sacrifices, hunts, battles, and victory. Towards the front of the room, above a smoking brazier were a number of figures holding their hands up to make offerings to the Kilrathi god. He looked at Melek.

  "The prophets of Sivar," Melek replied. He gestured for Blair to move forward. He did, and gasped in involuntary shock. There, among the prophets offering sacrifices to the god, were his own face and hands offering up what looked suspiciously like a torpedo. He turned to Melek, unable to speak.

  "You have helped my hrai find the true way, the honorable way. The taint at our core had to be cleansed in blood. Kilrah had to die for Kilrathi to live. Sivar smiles on us again."

  Blair licked his lips. His throat felt dry and tight. "What will you do?" he asked. He stared at the mural.

  "We will fight with the other hrai, the other Clans, until one is on top," Melek replied. "Then
there will be a new Emperor, a new Empire."

  Blair didn't like the sound of that. The very little he had heard about the Kilrathi since his retirement said they were locked in a five-way civil war. It would be a long time, if ever, before one clan would rise from that mess to rule. If it had been anyone except the Kilrathi he would have laid odds that it wouldn't happen. But he knew the Kilrathi would someday be back, tempered by their suffering and stronger than ever.

  Melek led him from the altar room. "Will you guest with us while we fix your ship so that you may return home?"

  Blair looked at him a long moment, then glanced back towards the chapel. "I'd like that. Thank you."

  Blair sniffled while Sosa played back his after-action report. He was allergic to something on Melek's ship, probably Cat fur. Hobbes had never given him any trouble, but Prince Ralgha had been one Cat among humans, and not the other way around. The concubine Melek had given him for honor's sake was probably to blame. She'd fancied him no more than he had her, but she'd insisted they respect proprieties and had very specific ideas about where she should sleep. Blair, not wanting to anger a female with three-centimeter-long claws who outmassed him by twenty kilos, had gone along. The morning after brought sniffles and itchy eyes, not to mention his host's amused glances.

  Sosa snapped off the recorder in exasperation. "That's it? He warned you about the attacks, gave you the tapes, and invited you for dinner? Nothing else?"

  Blair had decided on the flight back to the Intrepid that he would say nothing about the chapel or the mural. It struck him too deeply for him to want to share it. He'd had nightmares after using the Temblor Bomb and killing Kilrah. To have his enemy not only absolve him of the act, but to actually embrace it, tossed him into a tailspin. Melek seemed to think that his hero-name was literal— that he could in fact represent the heart of the Kilrathi nation. The idea frightened and confused him. The one thing he knew was that his time with Melek was terribly personal and he had no desire to share it with anyone.

  "Ye-up," he replied, "that's pretty much it."