Stardust

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Bad news," the man with the knife said. "We're going to need your—"

  His words turned into a gurgle as MacAdams shot him in the neck. His partner bent his knees, deciding whether to charge or run. MacAdams decided he was taking too long and put two rounds in his chest. MacAdams' horse tossed its head, alarmed by the pop of the cartridges or maybe the smell of the blood. He put a palm on its neck and nudged its side and it resumed its trot.

  Webber twisted in the saddle, gazing back at the bodies. "You shot them?"

  "Yeah, that's why they fell like that."

  "They didn't have guns. We could have scared them off."

  "They should have thought of that before they tried to rob us."

  MacAdams pocketed his pistol. Overhead, one of the foreign jets made another pass, circling so slowly it was like it was daring anyone to shoot at it. Spin guns chattered from the west end of the city, followed by another wave of screams.

  The town spaced out into single homes with private yards, then stopped altogether. There wasn't a proper road—there was nothing but empty hills from here to the Sveylani border—but the horses located a riding trail, taking to it like it was just another day at work.

  "Question," Webber said. "If we're trying to avoid the war, why are we riding toward it?"

  MacAdams grunted. "If we head south, we'll run out of bullets before they run out of refugees. Head west, and the military definitely won't run out of bullets before they run out of us."

  "What's wrong with east? Is it dating your ex-girlfriend?"

  "Would take too long to get out of the city, numbnuts." MacAdams jerked his chin at Rohan. "How's it going, boss?"

  "Perfectly fine," the man said. "Given how easy it was for us to walk out under these conditions, I'm starting to wish Sveylan had attacked the city days ago."

  "We're one step closer to fulfilling our deal. So how about you give us another bite of what you know?"

  "Your impatience does not make me more inclined to trust you."

  "It's not impatience." MacAdams took a look up at the slate-clouded sky. "I'm just not sure we're all going to make it out of here."

  Rohan went quiet, the conversation replaced by the steady thump of hooves and the whisper of snow accreting on the shrubs.

  "As I said before," Rohan said, "the Lurkers are already here. They continue to collaborate with traitor nations. But they seem to have learned their lesson. This time, they're doing their work in secret."

  "Who are they working with?"

  "You've had your taste. You will receive the rest once we are safe."

  Five minutes later, another jet engine pealed from the sky. As it neared Khent, it banked west, where the caravan of New Mongolian military had fought its way free of the city and was now proceeding away as fast as the snowed-in highway allowed. The jet crossed over the column of vehicles, drawing sporadic fire from small arms but offering none in return. It gained altitude, retreating north.

  A squadron of nine fighters flew in from Sveylan not long after. Six in front, three lagging behind. They were flying much higher than the last few that had passed over the city, threading in and out of the clouds. They descended slightly, clearing their line of sight. As soon as they were over Khent, they accelerated upward, afterburners glowing, and disappeared into the clouds.

  MacAdams jabbed his finger at a shallow cleft in the land. "Get in there and get down."

  Webber craned around. "What's happening?"

  "Do what I say!"

  MacAdams urged his horse off the trail. It wagged its head but responded to his clumsy guidance, descending the slope into the brambly little ravine. Wasn't as deep as MacAdams wanted, but it would have to do.

  He jumped down, the snow rising past his knees. Everything in him wanted to run but he waited until Rohan was down, then grabbed the man by the shoulder of his coat and high-stepped toward a boulder. He pulled Rohan into its lee and got down, pressing his back against it.

  Webber ran up to them, slipping at the last step and falling facedown into the snow. It was the kind of thing that made you want to laugh, except in Webber's case it probably meant his leg braces were having problems. Webber scrabbled next to them, dropping his back against the boulder.

  "Close your eyes!" MacAdams yelled.

  He had just done so himself and was tucking himself into a ball when the light washed over them, so blinding he would have sworn he was seeing it through the back of his head. The reflection from the field of white snow? He pressed his forehead against his knees, pulling his hood over his face.

  The light faded like the sun slipping over the western horizon of the ocean.

  "Holy shit," Webber said. "Was that what I think it was?"

  "We'll know in another minute," MacAdams said. "Just stay down."

  "Oh, you think? And here I was thinking about trying to outrun it."

  The shock wave passed over them with an invisible kick, knocking the snow from the shrubs with a crisp bang. MacAdams got to his feet and loped up the low ridge. Back at Khent, the bloated head of the mushroom cloud was already starting to detach from its sickly stalk.

  Webber and Rohan hiked up beside him. Rohan's voice was a rasp. "Those monsters. Those murderers. There must have been two hundred thousand people there. Half of them refugees!"

  "We have to get moving," MacAdams said.

  "Give me one minute. I must remember this!"

  MacAdams was about to hit him with a barb about how he'd have a hard time forgetting the mutations he'd acquire from the coming fallout, but the horses had spooked and scattered. He slid down into the narrow canyon and went to gather them up. He'd barely even seen horses in movies and had no idea how you were supposed to wrangle them, but the soft tones and tongue-clucking came to him like it had been waiting somewhere down in his blood.

  They mounted up and headed out. There were no more bombings. Evidently the first one had been enough.

  MacAdams crested a ridge and came to a stop, watching the land. It was late in the year and the sun wouldn't last for much longer. They were going to have to find a place to stop for the night—and try to find a way to keep themselves and the horses from freezing. He was from artificial stations where the only two temperatures were "perfectly fine" and "you will die in seconds from the inconceivable cold of the vacuum" and he didn't know how they were going to make it.

  But he knew that Walt Lawson and the other survivors had made it through much worse. He would find a way.

  "MacAdams!"

  Webber was pointing to the west. There, a craft was skimming in less than a hundred feet from the ground. The three of them were exposed on the ridge. No way to reach cover before the vessel got to them. Better not to try: right now they just looked pathetic, three refugees on horses outside of a dead city.

  The craft came up on them, slowing to a crawl. It descended in a cloud of churned-up snow. MacAdams' stomach sank with it. It extended six leg struts, engines spinning down, steam enshrouding it like a ghost.

  "Is this our ride?" Rohan said.

  "It's not from Dark Solutions," MacAdams said. "But I'm guessing it intends to take us out of here."

  Two quad-barreled cannons flipped out from beneath the craft's nose. Through a loudspeaker, a man said, "Drop your weapons and put up your hands. You have five seconds to comply. On the sixth second, we will open fire."

  MacAdams had a thought: spur his horse into a gallop, jump on top of the craft, shoot his way in through the windshield or a hatch.

  But a thought was all it was.

  He reached into his pocket, dropped his pistol into the snow, and lifted his hands above his head.

  9

  The first laser beamed past a skirmish line of Earth fighters and a motley collection of Belter vessels, striking the prow of a missile cruiser just beyond the front line. A score of other lasers followed after it, burning toward the snubbed noses of everything that was obviously bigger and more important than a fighter.

  Several missed their t
argets, throw off by the erratic juking and corkscrewing of the human fleet. But half or more struck home.

  The pulse of laser fire was too dense and too fast. Their entire fleet would be carved up within moments. Unless the Belters' defense ploy kicked off inside the next minute, everything was doomed.

  Then a funny thing happened. The targeted ships didn't blow up. Their noses glowed red-white, and gobs of smoldering matter poured from them like sparklers, but the ships held fast.

  "What the hell?" Rada blurted into her wing's comm.

  "I gather," First Wing Alcera said, "that no one told you we have made some modifications to the larger ships we assumed they would be targeting first."

  A second spray of lasers hit the ships. More gobs and sparks sizzled off in every direction, but the vessels held tight.

  "Don't tell me they're laser-proof!"

  "They aren't. But they are packed with the most heat-resistant matter we could gather. Noses only—this is only intended to work during the initial advance. We weren't sure it would do the trick, but it looks like it will work just well enough."

  The Lurkers hesitated. One second became two, then five. The Lurkers were like jackals: they never committed to a fight they weren't certain they could win. They were recalculating everything on the fly. Which meant the humans might have to do the same: they hadn't even prepared for what they'd do if the Lurkers broke off and—

  Another wave of lasers pulsed toward the human fleet. This time, they were targeting the smaller fighters. Zagging and ducking completely at random, they were quicker and more maneuverable than the bigger ships, and less than a third of the lasers hit their mark. A few of these couldn't maintain contact for long enough to do more than carve a trough through the outer hull.

  Even so, six Earth military fighters and four Belter irregulars blanked from tactical.

  The Lurkers followed this with a fourth volley, the smallest yet. Tactical updated; the count of friendlies decreased by seven. Yet the combination of the capital ships' armor and the Lurkers' confused delay was enough. The human fleet entered effective combat range.

  "Launch drones, first wave." Alcera's voice, typically so humorless and even-keeled, pitched up with nerves. "Fighters first."

  Rada throttled forward, dropping three of her drones. They sped toward the coming line of fighters. Missiles were already snapping back and forth. The overall plan was simple: tangle with the fighters just long enough to make it look like a normal engagement and to get a little closer. Then converge on the carriers, deploying every drone, missile, and bullet in their arsenal until both of the ships were gone.

  At some point in this process, the Belt's defenses were supposed to come into play. Rada didn't know how. She didn't think that even Admiral Vance knew. After the carriers went up, the big idea was to disengage as fast as possible and hope that the Lurkers, now stripped of vital supplies and equipment, called it off and went home.

  The two sides came together like colliding galaxies, brief starbursts of missiles going off all around them. Rada's hands were already stiff on the controls. She'd been in plenty of dogfights before, but she'd only spent a few minutes in the kind where an unlucky shot from a laser could take you out before you knew what was happening.

  Still, while red beams stabbed sporadically from the Lurkers, it wasn't as many as it should have been, even accounting for the firing lanes being snarled by whirling ships. Another trap?

  Or were they starting to exhaust whatever source of energy powered their lasers?

  One of her drones went down under a barrage of missiles. She had three left and reserved them for now. Off to her right, Third-Nineteen disappeared from tactical. Two of the radar dish-shaped Lurkers swerved toward her, flooding her with so many missiles she had no choice but to deploy another drone, which instantly shot off every rocket it had. The Lurker missiles exploded closer and closer until the Silence's threat display was shrieking at her.

  Rada broke sharply downward. Both Lurkers followed. Rada rattled off a long burst of kinetics to give them one more thing to worry about, then bent through another ninety degree turn, as if she was about to fly away from the entire battle.

  Instead, she kept turning—until she was flying straight up, into the rear of Third Squadron, four of whom were already coming about to assist her. The Lurkers were already peeling off, but they'd chased a little too eagerly. A flock of missiles converged on them both. As they fell into wreaths of flames, a red lance connected one of the dying fighters to Rada's aft.

  The rear sensors went dead. The bridge—if you could call it that, it was half the size of the Tine's—was bathed in ruby light. Rada was quite certain that she was dying, that her brain had locked in on the last moment of its consciousness as the Silence ripped itself apart, but then the computer started babbling something about how the hull had almost but not quite been breached and she understood the red light inside the bridge wasn't a laser, but the unfamiliar ship's emergency system.

  The bolt had just scraped her backside. Fried a few sensors, but the backups were up to the task. She ran a quick check and the ship assured her it wasn't going to blow apart any time soon.

  She angled down to rejoin the squad, which was now down two ships. They were currently regrouping after a pair of small dogfights that had actually seen them claim more kills than they'd suffered losses.

  The Lurkers were keeping both carriers with the reserve forces, hanging a short distance above the main scrum. The two fleets were now tied up in a total dogfight. The left half of the human forces were more or less holding position while the right half, including Third Squad, was slowly drifting upward.

  "Time to make our push," Alcera said. "Nothing too obvious. They'll probably try to chase us off, but if they want to push us up, let them. Once we've started clearing a path, Fifth Squad will come in behind us to—"

  Rada's comm went dead. For a second she thought it was damage from the laser blast, but a glance at its status said otherwise. She was being jammed. They all were.

  Alcera switched over to light signals. She led the squad further into the melee. When a group of Lurkers made to engage, they all launched drones, screening themselves from the enemy. Off to the left, an alien heavy fighter aligned itself toward an Earth missile barge and let loose with its laser.

  The beam took the ship square in the flank. The light faded. The barge, which wasn't armored on its sides, exploded exactly the way you would think a ship completely full of missiles would explode.

  Lights flashed back and forth between the Lurker ships. Two groups of heavy fighters peeled away from their engagements, breaking into groups of three to five ships and charging at every human vessel larger than a corvette.

  "Get our caps to point their noses at them!" Rada dictated to her device, which translated it into light-code and transmitted it to Admiral Vance. "Right now!"

  Lasers glowed from a trio of fighters, carving into the side of a Belter mining ship whose missile batteries had just been bolted onto its hull. It crumpled into its own flames.

  Vance sent a burst of signals across the fleet. Every one of the targeted ships swung about to orient its armored nose at its attackers. A volley of lasers fired from the alien fighters, slicing into the reinforced prows, liquefying them with showers of slag. A corvette tumbled apart into burning debris. The others maintained hull cohesion, but warning lights popped up across tactical warning that their shielding was on the brink.

  "Time to make our push," Rada dictated. "Sacrifice every one of the big ships if you have to, just—"

  Before she could complete her message, a new light signal came in from Vance. The fleet was to make a hard press at the laser-bearing Lurker heavy fighters. Then, if the strategically valuable alien ships fell back, the humans were to divert course and make an all-out attack on the carriers.

  Alcera signaled the squad to veer toward a detachment of four fighters. Rada fell in line, holding back on her missiles until they got closer. Yet the fighters were a
lready reacting to the threat, curling away as a detachment of smaller Lurker skirmishers boosted up to support them.

  "Give them a hard barrage," the computer said, speaking the orders incoming from Alcera. "Enough to make them worry. Then head for the second carrier."

  Rada queued up a three-part attack sequence. Missiles flew from the belly of the Silence. Her batteries paused for two seconds, then launched a second round, smaller than the first; these would exploit any holes in the initial defense. The batteries paused again, slightly longer, and then rattled off a final round, the largest yet, which would look to overwhelm the Lurkers if their defense against the small second round had been too conservative.

  She held course, waiting for Alcera's signal. The Lurkers scrambled back as fast as they could, spraying counters behind them. The first missiles rammed into each other.

  Alcera flashed her lights. "Second carrier! Straight at it!"

  Rada grinned vengefully and swung the Silence up and to the right, maxing her engines. The pullback of the laser-equipped fighters had left an open lane between them and the dogfight playing out in the center of the encounter. Second and Third Squadron raced down this tunnel, accompanied by a ragtag flight of Dasher ships painted with tiger stripes and toothy, leering jaws.

  The second carrier hung in front of Rada like a small station. It had a pyramidal nose capping a long, broad body built like an oceangoing cruise ship, complete with three aproned decks (launch decks?) extending from its flanks like the fins of flounders.

  Its aft engines were about the size you'd expect for such a cumbersome vessel, with banks of maneuvering thrusters scattered across its sides. Every single main engine and all of its starboard thrusters were currently pushing with everything they had to get it out of harm's way.

  A quarter of the way across the irregular sphere of space the battle was taking place inside, the first carrier was struggling just as hard to maneuver away from the broadsword of human vessels blowing up everything that stood between themselves and their target.