Good thing he didn’t. Two Yk.64s were hanging in the clear air right beyond the portal, facing him with their guns hot. He had to twist sideways to avoid smacking right into them as he tore past them at speed.
Hellfire. Maybe they’d been investigating the portal. Maybe they’d been lying in wait for him. If his reflexes had been just a little slower, if he’d come out of the portal on a different trajectory—
No. There was no use thinking about how he could have died. He was still alive.
For the moment.
He saw both fighters turning, swinging around to follow him and knew he would be dead in a matter of seconds if he didn’t think of something.
No sign of Maggs, at least. No sign of that damned traitor. He was probably onboard the Centrocor carrier now; they’d probably set out champagne and a four piece band to welcome him—
PBW fire lanced across the air in front of Bury’s nose. His tactical board snapped into his view and he saw the two ships as yellow dots, right behind him, their thrusters flaring to life as they moved to intercept.
Bury flipped around on his long axis until he was flying backward.
Big mistake. It was an easy maneuver in the vacuum of space, a classic reversal move, but down here, deep in a planetary atmosphere, it was nearly suicidal. His crate groaned and rattled and red lights flickered on all around him as he fought gravity and inertia and air resistance. His airspeed indicator blurred as he lost lift and started to fall.
Bury’s body tried to panic but he fought down his fear. The Sixty-Fours were right in front of him, right in the line of his guns. He picked one and squeezed off a quick burst of PBW fire, cleaving off half of its airfoils, making it stagger and fall back.
The other dove for him, screaming out of the clouds. Its pilot started firing instantly, pouring particle bursts down around Bury’s canopy. His vector field crackled as it shunted all that energy away.
Bury hauled back on his stick. His inertial sink crushed him back into his seat as he shoved open his throttle and his primary thrusters launched him toward space—right at the Sixty-Four that was coming for him. He snarled as he saw that big round canopy growing in his forward view, as collision detection alarms sounded behind his head, as he smashed down the trigger built into his control stick, not even bothering to aim.
The Sixty-Four’s pilot veered off at the last moment and they went flying off in opposite directions. Bury knew he couldn’t afford another one-eighty turn, knew he’d risk breaking his ship in half if he tried, so he eased off the throttle and hit his positioning jets instead to throw himself into a long, easy roll, arcing upward like a ballistic missile. Gravity tugged at him, but gently, and he let his airfoils catch the air, keep him aloft.
Below him he saw the two Sixty-Fours. The one whose wings he’d clipped was slewing off to the left, just trying to stay airborne. The one he’d just played chicken with was still descending, but he could see it pulling up into a hard loop, getting into position to make another pass at him.
And there—yes—up in the darkest part of the sky, another one, another Yk.64, its nose bright red with heat as it slammed down through the atmosphere. Damn, he thought. Damn damn damn. Where the hell was Commander Lanoe? Where was his support?
He tried to remember what he’d learned at Rishi about small squad tactics, about what to do when you were outnumbered. His instructors had told him that a three-on-one dogfight was a losing proposition. They’d taught him to avoid getting into situations like this, how to avoid being cut off from the rest of your squad, how to break out of a box formation—
All fine lessons, of absolutely no bloody use to him now.
He looked down and saw the wounded Sixty-Four struggling to stay aloft. It could barely fly—but it could still shoot.
Divide and conquer, he thought. Cut down the odds.
Even if it felt like the most dishonorable thing he’d ever done. The Navy taught you that a cataphract pilot was a knight of the void, a gallant warrior capable of mercy and forbearance.
The Navy taught you lots of things. Then they dumped you in this kind of bosh to figure it out on your own.
Bury brought up a virtual Aldis sight. Locked it on the wounded ship and—before he could change his mind—poured PBW fire right into its midsection. Cut it to pieces that went spinning and shrieking down toward the wide ocean below.
He just hoped the pilot didn’t have a chance to feel it, to know what was happening. He hoped it was painless.
He knew that was almost certainly not the case.
He didn’t have much time to debate ethical dilemmas in his head, though. The ship coming down from space was cutting a long velocity-shedding S-turn toward him. Bury’s sensor board told him the Sixty-Four’s guns were already warmed up.
Meanwhile, below him, the other ship was coming out of its loop—its nose pointed right at him.
Where the hell is Commander Lanoe? Where is Valk, or Lieutenant Candless?
Ginger’s eyes wouldn’t quite focus. She thought she saw Lieutenant Candless sitting next to her. She thought maybe her former teacher was still holding her hand, but she felt so numb—her skin, her skin was frozen, dead to the world. She could smell disinfectant and something else, some alien chemical, and there was a devilishly bad taste in her mouth. She could hear—
She could hear
She could hear everything
So many voices
So many
So
she is awake is she awake
too weak too young
her thoughts are all wrong the old one was better
one of the choir now
their hair comes in that color not enough hands
where is archie i miss archie
where is she is awake
So many voices—so many sensations, so many emotions. The loudest of them, the thoughts that were rebroadcast the most often, set the trends for the rest. They were so loud inside her head they overwhelmed her own thoughts. One of the choir now. It was like it was emblazoned on the inside of her skull, in giant, flaming letters. Seven hundred and thirty-nine choristers had rebroadcast that message. Not enough hands had been rebroadcast ninety-eight times. Her thoughts are all wrong echoed all around her, repeated one hundred and fourteen times.
She tried to form her own words, her own message. But her voice was only one of so many. So many voices. So many—
“Oh, hellfire,” Ginger gasped, and she squeezed the hand in hers, squeezed it until she was sure Lieutenant Candless would cry out. Ginger threw her head from side to side, looking for the voices she heard, looking for the source of all those thoughts—
“Shh,” Lieutenant Candless said. “You’re all right.”
No, she bloody well was not, her head was full of—of voices, of thoughts, she could hear them all, hear everything the Choir thought, feel every emotion they felt, all of it, all of it piled on top of her and she couldn’t—
she is afraid
where is archie
she is a coward
she is not breathing
they called her a coward
just breathe
she will not harmonize
she cannot harmonize
she is one of us now
it is not working
she is afraid
Just breathe. Rebroadcast 1,947 times. A hurricane of demand smashed into her, carried her along and she couldn’t help it, her mouth opened, her body shook.
Breath surged into her lungs. They’d—they’d done that. It wasn’t her conscious choice to breathe, they’d—they’d forced her to breathe, they’d taken her over, they were controlling her—
No.
No, she—she felt them denying it. Like a thousand people shaking their heads at once. They hadn’t forced her to do anything. They’d guided her. Helped her. She understood. She didn’t understand. She wished that she understood. She hoped she would eventually understand. She—no. No no no. That was, that was them, the Choir, she hear
d their thoughts inside her head and they sounded—they sounded exactly like her own thoughts, like her own internal voice but—but they weren’t—but they were—why didn’t she understand?
They wanted her to understand.
She wanted her to understand.
They (she) needed her (them) needed (all of us, together) understanding. Understanding. Coming together as one. Singing as one.
Harmony.
If she was going to be part of the Choir, she had to harmonize. She had to accept consensus.
“I’m—I’m scared,” she said.
Lieutenant Candless squeezed her hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she said, but she seemed infinitely far away, and anyway Ginger hadn’t been talking to her, she’d been talking to—to the Choir—and—and—and—
let go
breathe
listen and repeat
it is too much she can’t do it
your voice is one of many
archie could not harmonize at first
it is too much for her
accept the harmony
it is too much
“Ginger,” someone said. Said out loud, not in her head, the voice wasn’t in her head, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, it was exterior to her. “Ginger, I have to—” Another voice, not part of the harmony, not part, not part of—
“I have to go,” Lieutenant Candless said. “They need me. Bury needs me.”
Ginger nodded. She lifted four arms, to reach for Lieutenant Candless, to beg her to stay. She was busy making a chair, no time for goodbyes. She was monitoring the flow in the sewage reclamation sieve, deep under the city, in the dark. She was—she was—she nodded. She nodded. She nodded. They were talking, all of them. Not talking, any of them. No words, no sounds. Images? Thoughts, pure thoughts. Their thoughts their thoughts their thoughts their feelings, and everything repeated, relayed, rebroadcasted a hundred times. Voices floated to the surface, the voices that were rebroadcast the largest number of times, consensus built by brute force algorithm, by mutual agreement, by love, by dominance, by understanding understanding understanding.
breathe
where is archie
she is not harmonizing
why will she not harmonize
other human was better
she will fail
losing her
“I promise—I’ll be back. I won’t leave you alone, not for very long.”
She heard the hatch of the sick bay close behind Lieutenant Candless.
Ginger was alone.
Ginger was (not) alone.
Ginger was (would never be) alone (again).
Someone chirped. She’d heard that, actually heard it—with her ears. The surgeon. The surgeon was still (always had been) there (always would be) here.
The surgeon made a sound. An actual, audible sound, except in her head, in (their) head(s) Ginger, everyone, the entire Choir heard, (did not hear) felt, sensed not the sound, but the meaning of the sound, its pure, basic meaning.
A name.
Rain-on-Stones-in-a-Dry-Riverbed.
A name.
Ginger.
A name.
Three thousand four hundred thirty-three names, and she knew them all.
All at once.
Down—down toward the planet’s surface, diving toward the blue snake of a river on the planet’s surface. With two Sixty-Fours in pursuit, Bury could only think to run for cover, to at least put solid ground beneath him so they couldn’t stack him up. PBW fire lanced past Bury on either side. He broke out of the dive just ten meters over a river delta. Picked one of the meandering valleys at random and dove behind a mound of mossy rock that burst into shards of stone as it was struck by heavy fire. He pressed down lower, lower still until the air he displaced tore at the surface of the river, a huge plume of water cascading upward behind him, maybe—just maybe—obscuring his tail.
The two Centrocor pilots stuck on him like they were chained to his airfoils, like he was pulling them along for this hell ride. Up ahead the river gave way, tumbling down a low cliff into the sea. No cover out there on the waves, nothing to protect him—he would make the perfect target. They’d taught him his very first day at Rishi: Never let the enemy get behind you, never let them chase your tail.
When you saw it on a minder’s screen, white text scrolling up against a black background, it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world. Of course you would never let an enemy get right behind you, of course—
PBW fire tore through one of his secondary thrusters, shattering the cone and throwing him forward in his seat. His safety harness bit hard into his flesh as red lights flashed all around him and his damage board snapped into place right in front of him.
He swiped it away. He was too busy dodging to worry about damage control. He waggled his airfoils, the wind swinging him back and forth like a pendulum bob. He had to be careful not to let his evasive pattern get too predictable, had to remember to zig every once in a while when his hand on the control stick wanted to zag.
Twenty meters back one of the Centrocor pilots stopped shooting. Bury knew better than to think that was good news. He checked his tactical board and saw that the enemy pilot was loading an antivehicle round.
Maybe three seconds to finish loading the AV. Another three or maybe four seconds to lock in a firing solution. Then the AV would tear its way through his armor, through his shielding, through a half ton of complicated equipment. A jet of molten copper would spray through his cockpit and he would be cooked alive.
But—suddenly he had an idea.
The BR.9 he flew was a multi-role fighter, designed to carry out all kinds of missions. He had AV rounds and disruptors in his arsenal—useless to him now, since he couldn’t shoot backward. He also had a rack of bombs. He’d forgotten all about them, because what use were bombs in a dogfight? You dropped bombs on stationary targets. Ground targets. There was no way they could hit the enemy fighters on his tail.
Luckily for Bury, they didn’t have to. He hit the release for the bombs and pulled back hard on his stick at the same time. His BR.9 punched for the sky while the bombs spilled out of a hatch in his undercarriage, to fall just a few meters to the surface of the water below.
He’d set them for a half-second delay. By the time they went off he was already a hundred meters up and climbing fast. The Centrocor fighters had just started to copy his maneuver, their noses swinging up after him. The bombs went off right underneath them, boom boom boom boom, the shock wave doing no damage whatsoever to the Sixty-Fours but launching tons of water up into the air.
One of the Sixty-Fours was caught in the plume and sent spinning, its airfoils digging long strokes through the salt water. The other veered off, its pilot barely managing to swing away from the fountaining water.
Bury didn’t stop to watch what happened next. He opened his throttle wide and screaming for the edge of space, intending to get far enough out of the atmosphere that he could pull some fancy maneuvers and get into a decent position to do some real dogfighting.
The sky over him turned black, and the roar of his thrusters quieted to a dull roar. He brought up his tactical board and his comms panel, looking to see if there was any sign yet of Commander Lanoe and the others.
The tactical panel showed just one yellow blip far below him—the Sixty-Four he’d knocked into the drink was out of action, probably halfway to the bottom of the sea. The other one was climbing steadily toward him but still more than five seconds away.
None of that mattered. The tactical panel zoomed out to show him the volume of space around the planet, then zoomed out again until the wormhole throat was just at the edge of his view. The throat, and the dozens of fighters that were pouring out of it.
A green pearl rotated in the corner of his vision. He flicked his eye across it and Commander Lanoe’s face appeared on his comms panel. “Bury—what’s the situation? Give me a report.”
Bury licked his lips and glanced down at the tactical panel again
.
“The situation?” he asked.
On the panel yellow dots streamed from the wormhole throat, a never-ending supply of them. Squad after squad after squad.
“The situation is bad,” he said. It was the best he could manage.
“It’s too much,” Ginger said. “Human brains don’t work like this!”
The voices in her head drowned out every thought. She could barely see, barely knew where she was—the voices crowded her brain until she couldn’t sense anything else, couldn’t—couldn’t—
push her out
she is not capable
she can not harmonize
she is not stable enough
for now listen only to me
her heart is going to burst
why did they choose her
she is panicking
we need her
Rain-on-Stones shouted over the din, except—it wasn’t really shouting, it was—she projected her—
Focus on me. For now. You must learn to harmonize. You cannot listen to every voice at once, of course not. Our brains are not dissimilar from yours. Let the thoughts pass through you, flow through you.
“I feel like I want to be sick, but—” Ginger couldn’t even finish the thought. She couldn’t remember starting it. “I—I—through—”
The voices the voices the voices they never shut up they shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut
Here! Listen only to me. For now, listen only to me.
Ginger opened her eyes. Saw a row of silver eyes looking back at her. Saw herself through silver eyes saw herself from above saw a hundred eyes saw through a thousand eyes saw
Let go. Let go of this idea that somehow you can contain the Choir. You cannot. The Choir contains you.
Ginger …
Ginger tried. She tried to let go. To not focus on the voices, to not focus on any one voice. She tried. She tried she tried (shut up!) she she she she
Let your thoughts join with ours. Let our thoughts join with yours.
What did that even mean? What did—what could she—what did she have to—
Harmonize.
Forgotten Worlds Page 53