Hell or Highwater (Hell's Jesters, #5), page 15
“Repeat,” Red said hoarsely, “regroup and fall back!”
“They’ve picked up tails,” Cory noted tensely.
A scattering of red-hued icons trailed Red’s blue-coded swarm. For a moment, it looked as though they’d overtake them. But a separate flock of friendlies cut across the pursuers’ paths—the remnants of Matyszak’s Second Squadron. Lightning flecks cut across the void, long-range harassing fire, and the Valkyries broke off, no taste for another go, it seemed.
But as Tim followed their retreat, he saw it was no such thing. The fighters were accelerating away from this quadrant of the system altogether, coming together into the scraps of flights and squadrons, and rushing for its far side.
“Looks like a hell of a fight out there,” Cory said with a hush in her voice.
And it sure looked like it, the Union task force advanced in formal battle array, like Tim hadn’t seen them try since the Battles for Loudon. A flush of remembered terror-chill went through him as he recalled that holocaust, where massive battlewagons with crews of thousands died in world-ending firestorms and single starfighters mattered less than nothing. He was unashamedly glad to have a quarter of a billion clicks between him and that growing blaze.
“Jesters,” Red’s voice cracked, savaged down to barely better than a croak by shouting. “Let’s go. I’m getting the coded signal. Dropoff’s been made. Show’s over for us.”
“That means Jerry got through!” Cory squeaked.
Tim ignored her. “You heard the lady, Watkins Wing,” he growled over his own squadron channel, “Matyszak! Young! Let’s get out of here!”
All right, Rodann, Tim thought as he nosed the Hellhound for the edge of the gravity wall and Coronado fell from sight, wherever you are down there on that rock, Godspeed.
The Jesters had given up a dozen of their own for this charade. It was up to the former hauler pilot, his Raider girlfriend, and his deranged spy kid to make sure it’d been worth it.
And good luck. You’re gonna need it...
HARRISON COULD FEEL the Obliterator’s mighty gravity drives piling on the speed, a background weightiness leaching through the inertial compensators that felt like stress. Or age, he thought, God knows there’s that, already. “How much time to heavy weapons range?” he asked Woodruf, lingering still behind the officer at the tactical station.
“Four and a half minutes, current speed,” she replied.
“We will have to divert power from engines to engage them,” Walsh added calmly. “We won’t be able to keep up this pace.”
“Understood,” Harrison answered tightly, staring into the bedlam glittering across the massive hologram before him. He glanced over at the lieutenant at the communications station. “Signal to all vessels: ‘at extreme range, shift to shields and guns. Maintain battle line.’”
What line he’d thrown together looked ragged enough, indeed, a mismatching of every tonnage and type. They’d be numerous, at least, he knew, eyeing the tactical. There’d be no way Avery was going to bowl through them.
Not that Harrison believed that was his plan, anymore.
The lift to aft whisked open. A glance over his shoulder showed Harrison Omura emerging. The little spy exchanged a nod with Buck, effectively a polite dismissal as he took his place at Harrison’s side. In a low voice, Terry said, “We’ve analyzed the attack, sir. There’s no way Avery intends to press it.”
“I can see that clearly enough,” Harrison replied drolly. “What I can’t see is what he thinks he’s accomplishing, being here, at all.”
Omura leaned in very close. “It could be,” he whispered, “that this is a spoiling attack. And that Greer has become aware of the larger plan.”
A wave of cool rushed from head to toes and Harrison swallowed down a suddenly parched throat. “How would they have done so?”
Omura’s eyes flicked momentarily over his shoulder at Buck and his voice now was barely audible. “Leaks on Severson’s staff?”
“The Jesters are breaking off,” Woodruf announced. A look at the hologram confirmed it, the baleful red blips scrambling for the system’s edge. “Patrol screens are letting them go. Squadron leaders are recalling them.”
Harrison nodded with understanding if not exactly approval. There was no way they’d catch them, anyway, and Avery was the bigger threat. Meeting Omura’s dark eyes, he hissed, “Or it could be this is the largest concentration of Alliance fighting power in the Galactic South theater, and they’re testing it.”
“Greer’s a risk-taker, yes,” Terry said. “But those are some of his most seasoned units out there. Losing even a small number of ships for whatever this is hurts what remains of his offensive power.”
Alarms blatted and the tactical display swam. The Union battle line appeared to slow as one, then sidestep.
“Battle-turn!” Woodruf squawked.
And they sure were, the capital ships, heavy cruisers and their smaller cousins, coming suddenly, violently about. As their broadsides were momentarily presented, each icon unspooled into dozens of tracks, heavy missiles screaming from launch tubes by score. Their salvos loosed, the cruisers’ gravity drives flared and the whole lot of them dumped power into arresting momentum, reversing it for the flight for the system’s edge.
“Damn, but that’s pretty work,” Harrison couldn’t help but grunt. “And here come the destroyers.”
A screen of lesser icons streaked on several seconds longer, letting the heavies’ volley flash by them before loosing missile torrents of their own. Harrison knew from hard experience some of those ships would be not destroyers but mine tenders built on destroyer chassis and strewing the space in their wakes with gravity- and more crude fusion-bombs.
The last of the Union starfighters raced by the destroyers, who in turn reversed as their larger consorts had and began the grinding run back for the emptiness beyond the Coronado System—and a distance far enough for hyper jump. It was a full retreat, now, smoothly executed, terrifying in its efficiency.
The Obliterator shivered as her own missiles began streaming from their racks, rushing out to counter the Union salvos. A harder rattling joined the sensation as energy weapons opened up, picking off the projectiles as they streamed into range. The tactical began to snow over with blasts. It was as effective as any smoke screen a water-era navy ever fled behind.
“We might catch a few of those destroyers at long range,” Walsh hazarded.
Harrison shook his head. “Not worth it, at this point.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed. “Just make sure they leave.” He turned once more to the communications officer. “Belay previous order. New instructions: ‘Decelerate and stand off Union attack. Once cleared, deploy scouts and minesweepers.’”
“Aye, sir.”
“Think of the ordnance we just spent,” Omura pressed very quietly. “Looks like two monitors lost, possibly two dozen Valkyries. And yard operations will be sorting themselves out now for at least twenty-four hours.”
Harrison looked at the little man again.
“Avery wasn’t sent here to poke us in the eye,” Terry insisted. “This was the action of an enemy attempting to disrupt a timetable.” He set a hand on Harrison’s sleeve. “Because they know it already.”
Harrison chewed his lip and watched the battle escalate to its final, futile eruption, missiles blown to shreds by the dozens, thousands of kilometers from their targets. Finally, thoughtfully, he turned to the lieutenant at the comm console.
“Ready a hyper-capable message pod,” he said. “I’ll record and transmit from my ready room. Set yellow-band encryption. Destination: Nova Tera, the Admiralty.”
“LET’S GO, SLASHERS!” Kelly repeated as space blazed behind her and the task force rushed ahead of her. “Party’s over!”
Voices crackled back at her. She flipped through holograms to the roster and clenched her jaw as she checked off the responses in time to the blink of each fighter and pilot. They’d lost one, this time, Slasher Ten, one of the newbies. She knew the name, barely knew the face. It was a habit she’d picked up in the Jesters; don’t get to know them too well until they’d lasted a while. It was a hateful thing, but as old as war.
Still, they’d gotten off remarkably light, considering the ferocity of the Alliance resistance. Scanning across the tactical, she could see the Jesters had fared rather poorer. She reached up and touched the globular on its far side, zoomed in on their position. Hyperspace halos were pricking space as the first of them reached safe enough distance to flee.
Be among them, she thought and had to fight down the knot that suddenly constricted her throat. Please, Tim. Be among them.
“Slasher Leader,” came a new voice, and Kelly quickly recognized the radio orderly from the Sacramento. “Line up your group for docking. Make quick work of it! We need to be in hyper in less than fifteen minutes.”
“Roger that, Sacramento.”
This was going to be no simple thing, either. The Marauders were straining to catch up to the fleeing capital ships. They’d have to get ahead of the strike carrier, decelerate to match speeds, then allow themselves to drift “backwards” into the bay, adjusting position the whole time until tractor beams caught them and guided them into their gantries.
“Slashers,” she ordered, “damaged craft, first. That means you, Six and Eleven. Himari, you follow in after that. Follow up the roster from there, people. I’ll bring up the rear!”
She watched as the icons intermixed and took up their positions as they neared the carrier. A rush of pride filled her, watching the deceptively slow-looking dance. In reality, they were executing the maneuver at obscene speeds, the landing in some ways nearly as dangerous as the fight they’d just left. They were good, she thought, damned good. They weren’t the Jesters, she always recalled, but she’d help make this, too.
A weird guilt replaced the pride and her eyes went again to the far side of the tactical hologram. The last of the Jesters was just blinking away into hyperspace. Of course, that was an illusion. Her sensors were only just picking that up now, after a delay across the long distances. The Jesters were already gone.
They’re gone.
The thought shocked her like an uppercut to the jaw. They are gone. Or, rather, she was. Wasn’t she? At first, in the crazy rush after her departure from the Jesters, and her volunteering to fly with the Slashers at Fury, there’d been no real thought to any of it. But she’d been with these kids, now, for months, had led them, fought with them, mourned them. She’d always assumed she’d find a way back, somehow, to the Jesters.
But she was a Slasher now, too...wasn’t she?
She stared into the hologram, at the empty stretch of space that the Jesters had left through, a long time.
Then she turned her eyes back to getting her squadron out of Coronado.
THE COASTAL TOWN OF Cartago had come off blackout conditions with a dazzle of lights and racket. Of course, the harbor district had barely complied, as it was, and the lurid glow of taverns, pleasure dens, and casinos had remained a marker as Jerry’s little team had made their way up from the docks, where they’d parked the shuttle.
The place stank of the sea, of dust that swirled just inland from it—kept at bay only by ocean breezes—of hot-metal starships, cooling down at the piers, and of unwashed bodies. Jerry couldn’t help a smile as they made their way through its narrow, gloomy, seamy streets. He’d seen this type of place often in his years before the Jesters, as a Hauler carrying the goods of the Alliance across the galaxy.
“Up ahead,” Tina growled from the lead of the trio.
Neon glare filled a t-section where the street leading up from the docks met a major thoroughfare. Sound buffeted them as much as the crowds accreting towards the lights, laughter, shouts, music from a dozen worlds, hucksters both human and automated boasting the virtues of products or services. And the smells intensified; spice weeds cultivated on worlds just barely-tolerated by the Alliance, smoldering in pipes, cuisines shoplifted from a hundred sub-cultures, illegal perfumes made from distilled pheromones, slathered on hookers calling from side alleys.
Tina suddenly lurched down one of these, hissing at a pair of prostitutes who paled under their exotic face paints and scattered into the dark.
“Not exactly what I thought we came here for,” Josie quipped, joining her in the narrow confine between buildings.
“Right,” Tina snorted. “You’d catch STD’s that haven’t even been discovered yet.” She turned away from the street, leaned against the wall to hide the soft glow of the wrist comm the Union had given her and the hologram projected from it.
“Worried about the ship?” Jerry asked, huddling in close to her while Josie watched the street, a hand on the blaster she’d refused to surrender, after all—especially when none of the dock officials seemed interested in anything other than their expected bribes.
“No,” Tina replied. “The administration down there was even more cocked-up than I’d expected. This place is an overflow from the larger coastal towns. The facilities aren’t even up to basic standards. But the town’s booming because the Navy’s got no place else to send the ships and sailors.”
Jerry nodded. He’d seen the outline of Alliance transports, far down the docks and likely heavily-guarded. More, he’d seen the off-duty grays of Alliance personnel carousing and stumbling along every street. Many would be fleeced of pay, some robbed of it. Some wouldn’t get back, at all.
Their shuttle they’d left bobbing off a decrepit pier, locked and sealed. A reentry-singed small hauler had crowded it from one side; a shiny, private flitter from the other. There’d been no room at the town’s meager aerodrome, of course, but like most light spacecraft, it could handle a sea-landing, and had. There’d been a few hover drones to guard the piers and, other than the greasy-looking manifest officer, almost no human oversight. It was perfect, the boxy craft lost amongst the profusion of vessels.
“So, what then?” Jerry asked.
“Making sure we’re in the right place,” Tina replied. She manipulated the little hologram hovering over her wrist piece, a map of Cartago. Something blinked. “It’s off the main street ahead. We take a right, go a few blocks, make a left.”
“Straightforward,” Jerry grunted.
“Yeah, finding the place is.” Tina looked up at him. “Finding a contact or knowing what the hell we’re supposed to be doing or looking for...”
Jerry scowled as she trailed off. “We’ve really got nothing else to go on?”
“You know what I know.” Tina gave herself a shake. “Look, we’ll figure it out. There’s got to be something.”
“Got to be,” Josie growled over her shoulder.
Tina glared at the other woman’s back but offered no response. She deactivated her wrist device and adjusted the bill on her bulky laborer’s cap. They all wore them, pulled low over their brows—in Josie’s case, her aviators obscuring her features even more.
Hover drones skimmed with casual malice above the streets, infrequent but obvious, cyclopean sensor eyes constantly scanning the throngs. And surveillance devices likely ogled from every street corner, every shop front. The heavy caps would baffle all but the most advanced facial recognition scans. And they were three amongst thousands.
“Let’s keep moving,” Tina urged.
They left the side alley and were almost instantly reabsorbed into the human tide. A pulse of low bass thunder rippled through the bones as they moved with it, intensifying as they reached the t-section an made the right turn. Holographic signs hovered before businesses, sometimes accompanied by lesser neon placards. All manner of depravity was promised; every conceivable vice advertised.
A drunken Alliance star sailor stumbled past Jerry and into Josie’s way. It wasn’t clear from his slackened expression and vacant eyes that knew what he was doing, but he grabbed at her, perhaps for support. She rewarded him with a swift punch to the throat that dropped him, wheezing to the tacky pavement. The crowd washed over him, hardly noticing.
A hologram of a naked woman swept overhead as though swimming on the air, hideously detailed and vulgar and drawing the hoots of the male proportion of the throng. The acclamation turned to jeers as glaring lights shafted down the street ahead and the mob churned in its rush to get out of the way. A loudspeaker blared something distorted but insistent.
Tina whirled and grabbed Jerry by the from of his overalls, dragged him to the right. Josie followed, the lights catching blindingly off her aviators. A battered armored hovercar was sliding down the avenue, emblazoned with Alliance Military Police decals and spattered from thrown garbage. Two files of a dozen bowl-helmeted MP’s, bulbous in battle armor and brandishing either blastrifles or sonic stun blasters flanked the vehicle to either side. Another trooper panned a coaxial-mounted plasma blaster from its roof.
Jerry’s pulse hammered as he, Tina, and Josie crammed in amongst the seething mob. The disgust of the masses and their general chaos would serve as an excellent cloak. But watching one of the MP’s drag a particularly rowdy sailor out of the multitudes and fling him to the street for a swift pummeling, Jerry feared discontent would dissolve into riot.
“We need to get off the street!” Tina had to yell into Jerry’s ear to be heard.
“No kidding!”
She pulled him along through the narrow space between the backs of the howling onlookers and the building fronts, occasionally crushed by the ebb and toss of the throng against concrete facades. A particularly hard shove separated him from Tina, slammed him off a window so hard he thought he’d cracked the grimy glass. A hooker dressed as a kitten feigned a meow from the other side before Josie shoved him on from behind.
“Not your type, Rodann!”
He didn’t quite laugh at her harsh humor. He knew the character of this sort of place all too well, knew what a short, desperate life that kid in the window likely had to look forward to. It sickened him. Watching Tina navigate the mob ahead of him, thinking on how she’d been made a plaything in a different kind of glass box, that feeling worsened.
