The Battle for Terra Two bw-2 Read online

  "You think we'd fare any better with those thugs?" said McShane. "Or the S'Cotar?"

  The shuttle in front of them suddenly broke away, climbing to disappear over the top ofImplacable.

  "He's up to something," said D'Trelna. He dropped the shuttle to fly beneath the ship, flying along the bottom hull. "Let's see what."

  The commodore slammed the shuttle forward. McShane pressed back in the flight chair, sure they'd collide with one of the turrets or pods flashing by, meters away.

  "Number twelve shuttle reports engine malfunction and is returning toNew Hope," reported flight control.

  "Acknowledged," said K'Raoda. He stood beside Z'Sha in the great cavern of hangar deck, watching as the last of the shuttles landed with a faint whine of n-gravs.

  The corsairs' shuttles were parked in a long line just inside the atmosphere curtain, spanning hangar deck from maintenance bays to berths. Outside, Terra was visible, a blue-and-white sphere just above the shuttles.

  "Would one of your shuttles leaving now come to grief, Commander?" asked Z'Sha, watching the corsairs form ranks in front of their craft.

  "Without a doubt, sir," said K'Raoda, noting the Mark 44 cannon turret atop the center shuttle. He couldn't see if there was a gunner-the turret was a black pod, sheathed in one-way armorglass.

  Wearing Fleet uniforms, almost three hundred corsairs were drawn up in four ranks of eleven units, M32s at order arms.

  K'Tran walked down the ramp from the last shuttle, turning right past the flank of the last unit, then right again. As he stepped in front of the first corsair, the entire formation came to present arms, two hundred and ninety gloved hands slappingone-Mo against the polished M32 stocks.

  "That man is very dangerous," said Z'Sha as K'Tran executed a right-face at the front of the formation, smartly returning the salute, hand-to-head at just the right angle for just long enough. The rifles crashed back down to order arms, butts clanging to the deck as one, the echo ringing through the hangar. "He's molded that rabble into a crack unit. Imagine what he could do with two cruisers and those frigates."

  "Only the inner quadrants would be safe," said K'Raoda.

  "For a while. Commander. For a while."

  "Formation!" called K'Tran, eyes sweeping the ranks, "Port… Arms!" The rifles came off the deck, held at a forty-five-degree angle in front of the body. Heel and toe perfectly aligned, K'Tran executed an about-face. "Formation… Forward, march!"

  "A mistake," said K'Raoda as the corsairs advanced with flawless precision, a column of eights with K'Tran at their head. "They should be at right-shoulder arms. To be at port arms displays either ignorance or hostile intent." The one-two cadence of five hundred and eighty-four battle boots striking battlesteel boomed along the deck.

  The corsairs entered the long, narrow corridor formed by twin rows of commando assault craft parked nose-to-engine half the length of the hangar, their march resounding through the hangar.

  "Tactical three," said K'Raoda into his communicator. "Remember," he said softly, his voice heard only by the thirty-man honor guard a few meters behind him, "when it starts, fall back to the lift access corridor and take out any who get through."

  Z'Sha was watching K'Tran, now about two hundred meters away. "There's a Fourth Dynasty painting, Commander, in the museum ring on K'Ronar. It's done in old style-paint on spun plant fiber. The artist's name doesn't survive, but it's a brilliant work, 'The Assessor comes to T'Gan.' Do you know it?"

  "No, sir," said K'Raoda, hoping K'Tran wouldn't notice the unfastened safety strap on his holster.

  "It depicts a man at the head of a column of Imperial Marines, striding down the street of this squalid Agro town-you can all but taste the dust and smell the manure. The few people about are scurrying fearfully away. The artist's perspective is from the end of the street, watching the Assessor come. The Assessor is well dressed, handsome, with an assured, intelligent look. There is something cold and ruthless about the man's face, Commander, that holds one. It's the sort of face that comes toward us now."

  The deadly parade halted, grounding arms with a crash that rattled off the distant ceiling. K'Tran covered the twenty meters to K'Raoda and the Ambassador in a few seconds, halting before Z'Sha and snapping a brisk salute. "Captain T'Ral, Task Force One-Seven-Five attending, Excellency."

  "Welcome, Captain."

  K'Tran turned to K'Raoda. "I await your salute, Commander."

  K'Raoda nodded, looking into the other's pale blue eyes. "You're fronted and flanked on two sides, K'Tran," he said. "Surrender or die."

  A brief flicker of surprise crossed the corsair's face. "Point one to you, Commander," he said, smiling faintly. "Point two to me." His hand a blur of motion, he drew his blaster and fired point blank at K'Raoda.

  "He's going for the bridge," said D'Trelna, bringing the shuttle out from underImplacable, racing toward her top hull.

  "The lift access?" asked McShane.

  "Yes." Reaching the top hull, they leveled off, DTrelna keeping the shuttle so low that it barely skimmed the top of the highest turrets.

  "What are you going to do?" asked McShane.

  "Kill them," said the commodore, "before they kill us."

  "Push that red button to your top right. Yes, that one," he nodded as McShane reached out.

  A targeting overlay appeared on the screen, five concentric phosphor circles surrounding the familiar cross hairs.

  "There!" cried McShane.

  A line of space-suited figures were moving carefully toward the bullet-shaped pod lift housing, magnetized boots keeping them on the hull.

  DTrelna fingered a touch pad, sending a stream of tracking data across the bottom of the scan.

  As the shuttle swooped toward them, all but the corsair nearest the bullet-shaped lift pod stopped and opened fire.

  Oblivious to the red blaster bolts, DTrelna waited till most of the corsairs were within the two smallest rings of the targeting overlay, then pushed the firing stud, twice.

  Two small silver missiles shot out from the shuttle, flashing along the hull to explode silently among the corsairs, twin bursts of blue sending thousands of suit-and-flesh-rending flechettes into the corsairs.

  The shuttle slowed, drifting over the carnage. McShane shook his head at the sight of torn bodies, severed heads, limbs and perfect spheres of blood slowly scattering into space. "What were those?"

  "Anti-personnel missiles," said DTrelna. "Crude but effective." He frowned at the screen readout. "Almost effective."

  "What's wrong?"

  "The pieces down there equal twenty-nine corsairs. One got on board." He punched into the tactical network. "Bridge. D'Trelna. 'Ware boarders, top forward lift access."

  K'Tran whirled as a pneumatic hissing filled the hangar. The sides of the assault boats had dropped-three hundred warsuited crew stared down their M32s at the corsairs.

  "Lay down your arms!" The command boomed across the deck. "Lay down your arms!"

  Orders filled the air as the corsair column split down the center, forming two double lines facing each row of assault boats.

  "You can't win against warsuits," said K'Raoda, picking himself up from the deck, the silver gleam of a warsuit visible through the blaster holes in his tunic.

  K'Tran glanced at K'Raoda, coolly surveyed the long lines of grim-faced crew, then turned back to K'Raoda. "Commander, I can do anything.

  "S'Halir," he said, his voice carrying over the commnet to one of the shuttles, "fire!"

  The red fusion beam snapped from the center shuttle's turret, tearing into the ceiling. Sparks showered the deck as the hangar's primary power nexus shattered.

  "Fire!" shouted K'Raoda as the lights died.

  Over six hundred blasters opened up, turning hangar deck into a battleground lit red by millisecond bursts of massed blaster fire.

  "Engineering!" shouted K'Raoda over the din. "Light!"

  "Hold on," grumbled N'Trol over the commnet. "There's a glitch in the nobreak."

 
"Identify and authenticate," said the bridge security station.

  Ignoring computer's challenge, A'Tir slapped the black wedge onto the nearly invisible seam dividing the armored doors. She waited directly in front of the explosive, pistol in each hand, knowing if there was any blowback they'd have to scrape her off the bulkhead.

  With a loudwhoomp! the shaped charge punched a man-size hole through the doors. It was still sounding as A'Tir plunged through the smoldering opening, blaster in each hand.

  "Hangar deck's gone black," said D'Trelna, bringing the shuttle in toward the dark rectangle. Gone were the green-and-orange guidelights rimming the opening, gone too the warm wash of yellow that greeted incoming shuttles. Red lightning flickered from within.

  "Blaster fire," said McShane.

  "Lots of it," said D'Trelna. "Flight control doesn't respond. Have to go in on manual."

  "You're not taking us into that?"

  "Of course I am."

  Straddling K'Raoda's chest, the corsair squeezed harder, teeth bared, basking in the pleasure of another life throbbing desperately between his fingers.

  Vision blurring, lungs bursting, K'Raoda felt his grip slipping from the killer's thick, hairy wrists.

  The blaster bolt sheared off the top of the corsair's head, tumbling his body to the deck, teeth still bared, eyes wide with amazement.

  Z'Sha appeared, MK 1A in his right hand. "Are you all right, Commander?" he asked, bending over K'Raoda.

  Nodding, K'Raoda caught his breath for a moment, then took the hand the ambassador extended, climbing to his feet. "Thank you," he said hoarsely, rubbing his larynx.

  The blaster fire ended as the lights flared on. K'Raoda pulled himself up the side ladder of the shuttle. "Hangar deck," he said into his communicator. "General address.

  "You can't win, v'org slime!" His voice boomed across the deck. "Down arms!"

  Able to see again, the turret gunner in the corsair shuttle swung her twin-barreled cannon right, raking a packed commando boat with a double stream of red bolts that found the power cells.

  Exploding in a pillar of orange-red flame, the boat became a pyre for forty-two crew. High, inhuman screams filled the tactical band as the cannon tracked left, locking on the next boat. Crewmen leaped for their lives as the turret fired again.

  Using the confusion, the surviving corsairs broke for their shuttles.

  The hangar rocked as the second commando boat and a corsair shuttle detonated, a double explosion tumbling corsairs and crew to the deck. The destruction continued as the remaining corsair craft exploded in quick succession.

  "What…?" said K'Raoda, trying to see through the smoke and flames obscuring the shuttles.

  Silent on its n-gravs, a single shuttle flew out of the smoke, firing warning bolts near surviving corsairs. Dropping their weapons, the corsairs surrendered, fingers locked behind their heads.

  The shuttle landed middeck, between the corsairs and the burning commando boats. As crewmen rushed by to take prisoners, the ramp lowered. D'Trelna and McShane stepped onto the deck, rifles in hand.

  "N'Trol," said K'Raoda, hurrying toward D'Trelna, Z'Sha by his side, "move the atmosphere curtain in past those shuttles."

  Barely perceptible, the shimmering air curtain advanced slowly past the inferno of burning spacecraft, stopping a few meters forward of the shuttles. Behind it, the flames winked out.

  Where eleven silver ships had sat gleaming, eleven charred durasteel frames lay broken and buckled on the scarred decking.

  Z'Sha looked at the air curtain. Shocked, he turned to K'Raoda. "Why didn't you do that to the corsairs, Commander? You could have spaced them all when they were marching along the deck. We'd have been spared all this." His hand swept the carnage.

  "My uncle K'Zor served in the A'Rem Action," said K'Raoda as they walked toward newly landed shuttle. "He was aide to a planetary guard general. This general went to parley with F'Sal and his rebels, suspecting a trap. It was. The rebels wiped his guard, held him and my uncle prisoner for the rest of the war. Even F'Sal was surprised. 'Why'd you come, knowing it was a trap?' he asked. 'Why didn't you lure us with a hologram, then strafe us?' "

  Z'Sha smiled faintly."I looked into that clever thug's dope-widened eyes and I said, 'Because then there'd be no difference between you and us.'

  "The older one gets, Commander, the greater the risk of being dosed with one's own words. A good man in a tight spot, K'Zor. How is he?"

  D'Trelna and McShane stood watching as the crewmen foamed down the two burning commando boats, knocking down the fires. They turned as K'Raoda and Z'Sha arrived.

  "Somehow, Commodore, I'm not surprised to see you," said Z'Sha. "You seem quite recovered."

  "Thank you. I am."

  He turned to K'Raoda. "Casualties?"

  "One hundred and eight as of now, sir."

  "You look like hell."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Send a force to the bridge. They were trying to put an assault force in there through the forward section-four lift access. We wiped most of them, but…"

  "We thought they might try for the bridge, sir." K'Raoda rubbed his throat. "That contingency's covered."

  "No sign of K'Tran," said a voice over K'Raoda's communicator.

  The commander looked at the line of prisoners being marched past. Stepping over the corsair bodies littering the deck, he stopped a large, bearded prisoner with commander's pips on his collar.

  "Where's K'Tran?"

  The corsair made an autoerotic suggestion.

  "He's heading for the bridge, isn't he?"

  Recognition flicked across the corsair's face, replaced by impassivity. It was enough. Waving prisoner and escort on, K'Raoda turned back to D'Trelna. "There's probably a very surprised corsair commander on our bridge right now."

  "You can kill Captain K'Tran, Commander," said Ambassador Z'Sha, handing his pistol, butt first, to K'Raoda, "but I don't think you can really surprise him."

  K'Tran and his last seven corsairs stepped from the lift. Leaving four men in the corridor, he led the others through the ragged hole in the bridge doors.

  The bridge was empty, except for A'Tir, who sat at the engineering station. Seeing who it was, she lowered her pistol and turned back to the complink. "You didn't take the ship," she said, watching a readout.

  "The ship took us," he said with a faint smile. Waving his men out, he sank into the adjacent comm officer's chair, pistol in his lap. "You found the bridge abandoned, of course."

  "Of course." Frowning, she typed in a long series of numbers.

  "They've switched control to Engineering, tied up the complink with all sorts of authenticators."

  "Right."

  "You're now trying to break through to computer and restore control to the bridge," he said. "Knowing you won't make it, that they're on their way."

  "One must try."

  Blaster fire sounded from outside. "Coming from both access corridors and the lift!" said a hurried voice over K'Tran's communicator. "Too many of them."

  "Give it up, J'Lar," said K'Tran, standing. "We've had it."

  The firing stopped.

  "Weapons through the door, now, or we'll gas you!" K'Raoda's voice came from the corridor.

  "A good run, friend." K'Tran smiled as A'Tir rose from the console. "But no paradise world for us, now."

  "It was a good run," she said, returning his smile. "Friend."

  Together, they walked to the door and pitched their weapons into the corridor.

  "Your ships are taken," said D'Trelna. "Of the three hundred and eighty-four raiders who followed you here, all but sixty-two are dead." He sat behind his desk, looking up at K'Tran and A'Tir, duraplast security bond around their ankles and wrists.

  "Commodore…" began K'Tran.

  D'Trelna's fist slamed the desk. "Silence! You are slime! You betrayed humanity to serve the S'Cotar. You still serve the S'Cotar. And you serve something else." Reaching down, he picked up the brainpod, slamming it onto the desk. It
rolled over the edge, stopping at K'Tran's gleaming black boots.

  "A mindslaver," said D'Trelna. "There's a great bloody mindslaver out there-where?-one of the lost Imperial quadrants? And it's hired you to keep it supplied. Correct?"

  "We don't betray confidences, Fats," said A'Tir.

  "You're aware of the Fleet Regulations regarding corsairs?" said the commodore coldly.

  "Quite liberal," said K'Tran. "The condemned have a choice of death by blaster, poison, disintegration, spacing or hanging."

  "We'll be giving you and your lot a fair trial next watch. You'll be found guilty, condemned to death and executed immediately after the trial. You might want to consider your death preference."

  He reached for the door button, then paused. "Do you remember me, K'Tran, from before the war?"

  The corsair nodded. "You were a smuggler-blue seven sector. I was senior patrol officer, commanding four frigates. You wouldn't pay protection, so I came after you. Almost got you-twice."

  "Three times. You were good-one of the best, in fact. Why'd you turn?"

  K'Tran shrugged-an unnatural action with his hands shackled behind him. "When the S'Cotar wiped Second Fleet, we were cut off from any known jump path home. We raided loyally for a long time-shot up S'Cotar supply convoys, hit their occupation garrisons. Captain T'Ral was killed. We fought on. Finally we annoyed them enough to bring a whole sector fleet down on us. It was a very clever trap, well-baited. All they had to do was open fire and we were history. Instead, they had a talk with us-with me.

  Guan-Sharick himself. He pointed out that humanity was doomed. I could save myself and my command, he said, if I served the S'Cotar. After they won the war, we'd be given our own star system, plus whatever booty we'd taken."

  "Ridiculous. They'd have killed you the instant they were through with you."

  "Easy for you to say, D'Trelna. The choice was either to die nobly, uselessly, or to go on living for a while. I'm a pragmatist. I chose life."

  "Life," said D'Trelna thoughtfully. "And your crews- what did they chose?"

  "Second Fleet were prewar conscripts-the street scum of a dozen worlds. Good soldiers, properly led and disciplined, but no fanatics. None of us were fanatics."