Hell or Highwater (Hell's Jesters, #5), page 24
But the Valkyries were still flinging it wildly out at them, not even a spoiling volley; just frantic reaction. Tim wondered if the Jesters weren’t the only ones having to make do with inexperienced pilots.
The blat of the hostile targeting alarm brought Tim intense focus. On the tactical hologram, baleful red icons unraveled into sprays of missiles trails, a hell of a lot of them. Outnumbered, the Valkyries were ripple-firing multiple scatter packs apiece, filling the void before them with clutter to even the odds.
Sweat traced an acidy trail along Tim’s right cheek, dampened the padded seam of his helmet. “Don’t blink, First Squadron. Push through!”
Targeting halos lit across the oncoming missile salvo. Simultaneously, Matyszak’s Second Squadron flared into a counter-volley, Jester missiles streaking out past Tim into the onrushing wave. Blaster bolts followed.
Tim squeezed the trigger and starting walking his plasma blaster over the targets. Focus became chill, the sweat on his flesh forgotten. He’d been through this so many times it was near-monotonous, missiles exploding before him, a blizzard of antimatter flame-flakes swirling toward them, around them.
“Push through!” he repeated without really thinking.
They were in the storm then, blasts all around. The Hellhound shivered with a near-miss, shook again as the shrapnel of a blown missile crackled off the dorsal shields. A warhead bobbed across Tim’s viewscreen, coming on. The plasma blaster slapped it away in a curtain of blinding flame. The particle cannon strobed to Jeanie’s control, almost afterthoughts as they picked off stragglers.
Then they were through it. Valkyries following up on the storm streaked by momentarily, energy blasts fountaining. But Tim’s First Squadron had come on so hot, punching right through their missile volley, that opposing groups simply streaked past one another.
Second Squadron, on the other hand, had let First pull away, ahead. And the Valkyries found Matyszak’s killers waiting as they attempted to veer out of their courses to come around on First’s tails. A glance at the tactical showed Tim the conflagration—the butchery—as that happened, Hellhounds diving in amongst Valkyries that scattered, then simply flew apart in what almost looked like panic. Fiery death feasted everywhere.
An azure blade slammed off Tim’s starboard shield. He juked to port with a curse. Apparently, not everyone had been fooled. A blink from aft showed him a Valkyrie following their course, weaving in close, and peppering his tail.
“I got him!” Cory squawked.
Without interrupting her forward velocity, she juiced her ventral maneuvering fields and flipped her Mark IV end-over-end, left the starfighter upside-down, relative to Tim, and backwards. Particle beams ravaged out at their pursuer, splatting across his shields. When he twitched to port to avoid it, her plasma blaster added its fury and those shields flared white-hot, blew out in streamers of spark and darker orange flame. A last veer nearly took the Valkyrie clear, but a secondary explosion sent a wing and a grav drive nacelle flying off, sent the rest of the stricken craft careening across the endless dark.
Cory’s cheer of triumph cut out with a squeak as she flipped the Hellhound back over to face more metal and fire streaking out to meet them.
“Just like before!” Tim shouted.
But it wasn’t. Hastily-launched Valkyries were streaming out haphazardly into the melee, flights coming on in torrents of blaster fire or sprays of missiles. Uncoordinated, their reaction was more frantic than effective. But the sheer volume of it clouded the displays and Tim could see First Squadron pulling apart as separate flights wove through.
To port, Watkins Five fluttered with hits to his forward shield and peeled off to avoid further punishment. A Valkyrie shot through the gap he opened up, then tore into what had to be a gut-ripping turn. Tim lost sight of the Hellhound, and the chase. “Cory,” he snapped, “stay on me!”
“Not going anywhere!”
Another Valkyrie lashed by overhead, followed by a spray of missiles that almost looked like they were chasing it. But the warheads dipped across Tim’s nose, coming on at shocking speed. Jeanie was already hosing them with plasma fire before Tim’s reflexes caught up, squeezed the trigger to add the particle beams. It took everything he had to stare straight into that hellfire maelstrom, not rip the stick to either aside in what would be a vain attempt at evasion.
Push through...
White fire washed over the shields with a lingering shudder. Then they were through again. And not...
“Carrier!” Cory shrieked.
Tim had an instant to appreciate how badly the Alliance carrier group had fouled up their response to the surprise attack. The heavy ships had come about in utter disorganization, probably never having expected such a close—and suicidally crazy—charge into their flank. Escort craft were bumbling across capital ships’ fields of fire. Valkyries were still launching from the strike carrier.
But there was still a hell of a lot of them.
“Give ‘em the business!” Tim snapped and turned his targeting halos on the carrier. He was hurtling at it straight-on, the huge vessel having turned right into him and giving him a view straight up the lateral trench of its launch bays. For a fraction of a second, it was the most beautiful target Tim had ever seen.
A plasma bolt crossfire tangled into his path and shattered the illusion. A pair of hits stitched across the port shield and he veered to starboard. That took him into a second frenzy of energy bolts, pumping out from a sleek hull that looked like it might have been a destroyer escort, packed to the gills with anti-starfighter batteries.
Shoving the stick forward, Tim plunged his Hellhound under the escort, knew from past experience the model’s ventral weapons suites were thin. The ship lashed by above him and he had a moment clear before the snarl of its aft armaments chased him, lighting up his shields again. A ripping turn to port shook them off.
And that Bellerophon was right there.
Tim’s heart pulsed up into his throat. He didn’t think, twitched his thumb over the weapons selector to missile and jerked the trigger, unleashing whatever was there. The One and Two scatter-packs vomited in unison, sent twin tornadoes of projectiles whirling for the strike carrier’s bow.
Its point-defenses were clawing them out of the stars before they were barely clear. The explosions of his own missiles walked back into Tim’s face and he sawed the stick to starboard, grunting as shrapnel squalled off his ventral shields. The carrier whipped by and was gone before he knew he’d overflown it. A glance to the aft display showed flashes walking along the Alliance ship’s shields, up its length. But no follow-up bloom of fire accompanied them.
Shit...so close...
“Tim!” Cory called. “We’ve got a tail!”
Emerging from the last flutter of the strike on the Bellerophon, Tim could see Cory streaking after him—chased, herself, by azure bolts and then a delta-shape of blastisteel.
“Hold on!”
Tim juked to port, braking to bleed off speed, and waiting as Cory’s course brought her alongside, then past him. Dumping power back to the thrusters, he nosed his Hellhound the reverse direction, towards her, cutting across the chord of her pursuer’s path. But this Valkyrie pilot, at least, was no amateur, cut suddenly back into Tim’s approach. For a heartbeat, Hellhound and Valkyrie clawed one another across the void.
A direct hit crashed across the forward deflectors, slammed through Tim like a slap to the face. Then the Valkyrie was gone, streaking off and lost to his aft sensors.
“Speed, Jeanie!” he commanded the AI. He flicked to the squadron channel. “Put on speed, Cory! Let’s get clear!”
The momentum of their charge through the Alliance task group had already carried them wide of the scrum. A look back showed Hellhounds on a rampage through the still-scrambling heavy ships, shields bathed in fire, pulses of blaster bolts weaving this way and that. A cruiser was burning, hull lacerated and bleeding atmosphere into the vacuum, feeding flames which would have otherwise smothered. Hurtling debris suggested another ship hit, maybe even destroyed. But the comm was a snarl of conflicting warnings, reports, and cheers.
And it was equally clear there were just too damned many Alliance here to keep pressing the fight.
“All right, all right!” Tim called across the wing channel. “We woke ‘em up! That was the point! Get clear! Everyone, back to the belt!”
They’d made their point.
Time to run and live to fight another day.
MARROW-BITING WINDS propelled a blast of snow up the chute of the magna-rail station and a collective cringe went through the well-dressed passengers exiting the train.
It didn’t seem to bother Renfield as he led the small party through the shivering throng, the man smooth of step and straight-backed, as though nothing could bother him. But glances up and down the shoot gave Jerry a glimpse of intense concentration. Something was getting through that lizard-like exterior. Following his furtive glances, Jerry instantly saw what.
Council Guardsmen in full black armor lingered at the edges of the crowd, cradling blastrifles casually, visored helms panning back and forth. By pairs, some prowled the platform, parting folk before them without having to force their way. Others clustered near exits, occasionally barring the way to question passersby with their tinny, amplified voices.
“This way,” Renfield hissed over his shoulder and sidestepped a line that had formed at one such bottleneck.
Jerry and the others scrambled to keep up as the man strode along the edge of the platform, sidling by packs of murmuring passengers. The magna-rail cars clacked as magnetic clamps released and the whole train started off with a whir of acceleration so sudden it almost seemed to pull him along. He experienced a dizzying moment where he thought he’d fall, until Tina’s hand clapped down on his shoulder.
“Jesus, Dad.”
“Guy’s cutting it awfully close, don’t you think?”
But the reasons why were multiplying everywhere he looked. Guardsmen were coming down the stairs from the station’s upper levels. More were fanning out into the crowd, now physically moving people. Their ugly-mechanical voices carried over the rising mutter of the citizens. A woman’s voice raised in outrage. A child started crying.
“Our friend looks worried,” Josie called from the rear of their little procession.
And there was no doubt about that. Renfield didn’t quite break into a run, but long strides left no confusion as to his hurry. And the others were left scurrying. He reached what looked like a section of platform cordoned off for repairs and deftly stepped over the low barricade, barely paused to make certain the others had seen him do so before moving on into a poorly lit length of walkway, running along the tunnel.
Following into the gloom, the more confined space muffled sound, echoes of passing magna-rails buffeting them in their rolling thunder. Crackle and pop of electronic followed, fading off into the distance. A sputtering light ahead cast Renfield momentarily in a jerking, freeze-frame pattern as he ducked up a side passage.
Tina shoved Jerry into the hall and paused, waiting for Josie to come up while her left hand slithered between the large buttons of her fur-lined winter coat, finding and shifting a bulge there that Jerry knew to be a blastpistol. With Josie passed and crowding in with him, Tina waited a moment longer, the flickering light reflecting off her narrowed eyes like demonic strobes, before pushing after them.
“Keep moving!” Renfield snapped from where he’d halted, further up the narrow corridor—what looked like a chute for maintenance crew access. “Those brutes don’t expect anyone to break the rules but them. They’ll be sorting that lot back there out for an hour.”
“Thought that officer said they’d been kicked off the railhead duty?” Tina asked.
“His detail had been,” Renfield replied. “But it looks like they’ve upgraded the security with another detachment.” He shook his head. “This is bad.”
Jerry paused as he reached his side. “Are they on to us?”
“Don’t know,” he replied, staring down the hall behind them. “Don’t think so. But there’s a heightened level of alert for some reason.”
“These threats against the Restricted Communities?” Josie asked. “Whatever the hell those are.”
“Gated communes,” Renfield answered her after a last look. He started down the corridor again. “Exclusive neighborhoods—really fortified towns—for celebrities, politicians, the extremely wealthy. Supposedly, radicals have been threatening attacks in response to the supply shortages pretty much everywhere else.”
“Is that where your benefactor lives?” Jerry asked.
Renfield snorted. “My master has no interest in living amongst others.”
Jerry exchanged a frowning look with Josie, then tried to meet Tina’s eye. But she was hurrying them up from behind.
Lights brightened ahead. Renfield reached the end of the hall and paused, looked out into another, running perpendicular to theirs.
“Don’t suppose we’re going back for the luggage?” Tina quipped.
“You had something important you left behind?”
“It was a joke, pal.”
He didn’t respond and, without another word, stepped into the flow of people passing along the corridor before them. Jerry and the others lurched after him.
The broad hallway flowed into an open gallery of high, domed ceilings supported by flying buttresses. The whole chamber had a gilded grandeur invoking some long-lost past of Old Earth, with deliberately overdone metalwork and more of the antique lighting fixtures like they’d seen on the train. But very modern holograms hung in the air above, posting schedules, displaying ads, filling the air with their bluey throb. The rumble of shifting crowds drowned out whatever instructions they droned.
Renfield’s pace picked up. Glances up and down the wide chamber gave Jerry snatches of more Council Guardsmen filtering through the throngs, but the sheer volume of people kept them largely spread out. A few lingered by the exits, but it was clear from their lack of activity these were more for show, weren’t expected to check any of the passersby
That didn’t stop Renfield from striding by them and out the door with noticeable haste.
Outside, a fresh blast of chill met the little group, its moan almost muffling the blat of loudspeakers and the calls of chauffeurs waiting in front of hoverlimos. Dozens of vehicles came and went in an ongoing shuffle. Horns blared. Arguments flared. But it had an almost-rhythm to it, and the flow rarely slowed.
“There,” Renfield grunted and veered to the left.
Jerry’s eyebrows went up as they followed. Perched on the curb ahead, a large and ornate hovercoach awaited, antigravity motors already thrumming and these large enough that the vehicle was likely capable of higher altitudes—more aircraft than hovercraft. A vaguely dull black finish hinted at sensor-baffling paint and heavy panels suggested ablative armor. The thing was a tank; albeit, one built for comfort.
Suited men waited beside the vehicle, expressionless, save a nod from one as Renfield approached. This one offered more nods—but no other reaction—to Jerry and the others as one of his companions got the door for them. Renfield stepped aside and waved them in.
“Hurry,” he ordered, watching the exits they’d just left while the other men scanned back and forth down the street. Snow was hazing down, blanketed their shoulders, but otherwise producing no reaction, no obvious discomfort. They could have been machines, standing there. Renfield paused to check something on his wrist comm. He turned to one of the guards. “We’re still open.”
The other man nodded and waved for his compatriots, who all moved to a second heavy hoverlimo idling behind the first.
Renfield slid in beside Jerry and shut the door behind him. Josie and Tina had taken the bench opposite them in the wide cabin. Polished wood and oiled leather gleamed around them. Glasses and a wet bar beckoned. An unseen speaker crackled with a voice.
“You’re ready, Mister Renfield?”
“Let’s get going before these Council Guard clowns start to take a real interest in why Mister Anton is shuttling in guests,” he snapped.
“Of course, sir.”
“That officer on the train knew you,” Tina said as the hoverlimo hummed into motion and the station started to fly away behind them. “You never explained that.”
“I wasn’t aware I had to explain anything to you.”
Tina’s eyebrows arched in grim amusement Jerry knew well. “The place was crawling with CG’s. You didn’t expect that. I was just wondering if the plan’s been altered.” She shrugged and looked out a window. “Or you can just keep us in the dark.”
Renfield considered her for a moment. “My benefactor is known to be connected to some on the High Council.”
“Connected?” Jerry stiffened. “I thought he was working against them?”
Renfield turned eyes of absolute-zero chill upon him. “My master is a patriot, Mister Rodann. He works to save the government from factions within it that would tear it apart for their own gain.”
Jerry suppressed the urge to shiver. “But those Guard guys were looking for someone.”
“It doesn’t matter who,” Renfield said, leaning back in his seat, tension appearing to slough from him for the first time. “What matters is that the Guard didn’t take too keen an interest in Mister Anton’s comings and goings while they were rooting about.”
“And now you’re worried they did?” Josie asked.
Renfield shrugged. “It’s my job to always worry.”
HARRISON WATCHED HIS starfighters plunge into the storm on the tactical and couldn’t help a twist of anguish in his guts. The flashes of death started instantly. Fighter swarms met, intermixed, flamed. He’d seen it often enough to know the terrifying anarchy they flew through; destruction from every direction, pilots pulled apart, isolated, alone against a universe suddenly united in hate against them.
“Put the mission counter up, please,” he ordered—relieved that no tremor of emotion entered his voice.
