John Maddox Roberts - Space Angel (19 page)

"I saw them take it over there." Kelly pointed to a hut fifty meters away. "A few Tchork went in that one with our stuff and they didn't come out again. They must be keeping guard on the stuff. I think that's where they have Lafayette, too. I saw a Tchork up there earlier tossing out an empty ration packet. They probably wouldn't be eating our food."

"Then we will have to kill more." K'Stin made a rasping noise that might have been a laugh. "Good." He and B'Shant crossed the clearing to the other hut without making a sound, keeping to the shadows. Ignoring the ladder, they swarmed up the stilts and dashed into the entrance. A faint scuffling sound was heard briefly, then silence. Carrying large bundles, the Vivers emerged a few seconds later. Sliding back down the stilts, they returned to the others and dumped their loads on the ground. One of the bundles groaned faintly.

"The prodigal returns," Torwald announced. The former prisoners picked up their weapons and equipment. "Leave the body armor. We can always make more back in the ship. It'll just slow us down, here." They were readying to leave when a group of Tchork emerged from between some huts, about a dozen led by some kind of petty officer. The intruders froze for a second, taking in the new situation.

"They're changing the guard!" Torwald cried. "Shoot!" He leveled his beam rifle and fired, as did the others. Before they all dropped, the Tchork managed to get off a few wild shots, sending jagged green beams sizzling through the air. None did any harm, but the racket brought their comrades boiling from the barracks.

"Run for it!" Torwald shouted, as the Vivers lofted a few grenades at the barracks. Flashes from the explosions lit their way as they stumbled toward the jungle. In a few minutes, they were joined by the Vivers, who loped easily into the lead, with Lafayette slung over B'Shant's shoulder. "Follow us!" called K'Stin.

In a small clearing, screened by some hasty camouflaging work, they came upon the most beautiful sight of their lives—the
Angel's
atmosphere craft. They all swarmed aboard, Homer making a leap that seemed impossible for a creature with such short legs.

"Let's get out of here!" yelled Torwald. "They're right behind us!" Torwald could see Achmed at the controls and Ham manning a heavy cutter-burner mounted on a tripod in the tail section. Both men were in full armor, including helmets.

"Everyone back here!" bawled Ham. "On your bellies and aim to the rear!" Fighting their fatigue, the rest did as they were ordered; those not already equipped with rifles grabbed them from a stack in the cargo well. As the AC rose, a group of Tchork emerged from the trees. Ham cut loose with the cutter-burner, its searingly bright purple beam lashing among them like a scythe through grain. Marksmen were firing from the trees, and the human contingent fired back whenever they could spot a target. The Vivers methodically picked off snipers as soon as their sensitive eyes detected a flash. Ham cursed as a thin beam burned a chunk from the armor over his shoulder and swung the cutter-burner toward the shot's source in the trees. Fifteen or twenty trees went down in a heap, smoking and sputtering.

From his position prone by the controls of a jury-rigged rocket launcher, Torwald's eye caught the gleam of jewels, reflecting the light of forcebeams and brush-fire. He grinned suddenly. "Next time, show a little less vanity, sucker." He aimed directly for the biggest jewel. The beam must have started a chemical reaction within the stone, because the woods were suddenly lit bright as day for a millisecond as an explosion ripped through a circular area of jungle and clearing for a radius of six meters from the spot where the officer had been standing.

"Tor, what the hell was that?"

"A lucky shot, Ham—that's all." By then they were flying above the trees and almost out of range of the few parting shots thrown by the Tchork. Some of the less experienced humans began to relax, but Ham got them back behind their sights immediately.

"Back on your bellies and keep your eyes open! Nobody takes a break until we're back in the
Angel,
off this planet, and preferably in hyper away from this system. We're not out of this yet." As if to prove his point, an ugly, silent shape appeared a half-kilometer astern—the Tchork flying craft.

"See what I mean? Let her get a little closer, if she can. It's too dark to find good targets. You Vivers got any flares?"

"Naturally. We have some that are infrared. If they cannot see in that range, it will light them up for B'Shant and me, while leaving them blind."

"It's a good idea, but they may be able to see infrared as well as you do. In any case, us ordinary-type humans will need visible light to pick targets."

"The hull of their craft is immune to lasers and forcebeams," Torwald noted. "We found that out when they captured us. Maybe that cutter-burner can do the job."

"We'll give it a try," Ham said grimly. "That flitter looks open-topped. Is it?"

"There's a shallow well for passengers and cargo," Finn said. "It doesn't seem to be a military craft. There's a fairly high windshield forward, I don't know if it's beamproof like the hull."

"We'll soon know," said Ham. "They're getting close. You people with rifles watch for targets. K'Stin, B'Shant, loft me a couple of flares over that thing."

The tiny rockets arched above the AC. Set by the Vivers, they ignited just as the pursuing craft came under them, lighting it up most satisfactorily. The flares then fired small directional rockets, keeping them poised above the pursuers. Some of the Tchork tried to shoot the flares down, but the tiny targets were impossible to hit because wind buffeting caused them to dance from side to side.

"Fire!" Ham shouted, cutting loose with his massive weapon. The beams from the rifles seemed to have no more effect against the transparent windshield than they had had against the hull. The cutter-burner was likewise futile. After a few searing blasts, Ham stopped trying. "Torwald, you got a fine touch with frag rockets?"

"Better than most."

"Then loft me one just over that craft."

Torwald took a careful sighting at the ever nearing Tchork craft, examined the panel before him, set the controls for proximity and altitude, and punched a button. A moment later, a terrific explosion went off, several meters behind the pursuing craft. Torwald reset his instruments. He hit the button again. This time, the rocket ignited directly over the Tchork, at less than three meters. The concussion and spray of deadly fragments sent broken bodies flying over the bulwarks to crash into the jungle below. A few seconds later, the craft nosedived down into the jungle, sending up a spout of flame and a shattering roar when it hit. The crew aboard the AC cheered madly.

"Shut up and look to your weapons!" Ham shouted. "Good shooting, Tor."

"Took you two," K'Stin commented. "Waste of a good rocket."

"We all have our bad days," Torwald acknowledged.

Within a few minutes, the welcome sight of the

Space Angel
appeared before them. The AC flew into the lock at nearly top speed, decelerating so quickly that most of the people stationed aft came tumbling forward with their stored-up momentum. It was a masterful piece of flying on Achmed's part, and not until the hatch was shut and secured was he willing to collapse and admit that he'd been hit.

"Get away from him," Ham ordered quietly. "All of you, get to your stations, Michelle, bring your emergency kit, he caught it through a lung." At that moment the skipper dropped into the dock, her cigar at a 45-degree angle.

"Think he'll live, Ham?"

"Old Achmed'll make it, Gertie." Ham cradled the tiny Egyptian while bloody froth bubbled from Achmed's lips. Michelle reappeared with some esoteric equipment and shooed the rest away. The bridge officers prepared the ship for takeoff as Michelle and Torwald strapped Achmed into a bunk, with tubes sprouting from his slight body and transparent, jellylike plasters slapped upon his chest. When all was secure, the ship lifted off, wobbling and rattling from its uncompleted repairs.

"Everybody to battle stations," came the skipper's voice. "Forget about acceleration gear. We may be shooting our way off this planet, so keep your posts until we're safely in hyper."

"Kelly, come with me." Torwald then climbed the ladder toward the astrogation bubble where the controls for the new heavy weaponry had been installed. Torwald strapped himself into the chair behind the depolarizer console. As Kelly took the chair beside him, Torwald began checking out the controls. "Let's go through a test sequence, kid." Kelly began setting up imaginary targets, lighting up the viewscreens with blips and odd shapes traveling at different speeds and in wildly differing directions, some taking evasive action. One by one, Torwald obliterated the nonexistent attackers using the manual controls, then he set up the same problems and let the computer do the shooting. All systems checked out.

"Alien vessels coming over the horizon," the skipper reported. Tor and Kelly were quickly joined by Ham, who took control of the cutter.

"I don't have much faith in this thing," the mate said, "not after the way that craft absorbed the lighter cutters. I imagine their ships are made of the same stuff."

"That was my thought," said Torwald. "If they're made of ordinary molecules, though, this depolarizer should disintegrate them."

"That thing doesn't have much range, unfortunately," said Ham.

"There they are!" Kelly pointed out two large blips on the targeting screens. They tracked across the grid, slowly closing the distance between themselves and the freighter.

"Not fast, as warships go," Ham commented calmly, "but faster than the
Angel."

"They've fired something at us," Kelly announced. A high-resolution screen showed four small blips fast approaching the
Angel.

"Pretty slow," Torwald observed. "Must be torpedoes. See if the cutter can damage them." Ham set his sights and fired. Beams from four of the hex mount's projectors lanced out and destroyed the torpedoes.

"Whatever that armor is, it must be too expensive to waste on torpedoes." Ham's voice was beginning to reflect his excitement.

"More torpedoes coming!" Kelly said, "Much smaller, and there must be a hundred of them!" Ham and Torwald immediately turned their controls over to the computer, which could target and fire both weapons hundreds of times faster than any human. Within seconds, the small torpedoes were merely diffuse patches on the screen, whereupon both alien vessels put on a burst of speed.

"We're in trouble now," Ham said without inflection.

"They're going to try to close and use beam weapons. Two to one, and they're shielded against our cutters. Tor, try a torpedo."

"Torpedo away." One of the Class K subnuclear devices sped toward the pursuers. The torpedo's velocity, added to that of the alien ships speeding toward it, closed the distance rapidly and it was very near the vessels before they managed to destroy it. The detonation appeared to damage one of the ships. Its motion became erratic and it began to drop back.

"That's odd, Tor. They must not've licked the Doppler problem yet."

"Stolen technology, Ham, remember? These clowns can handle the ships, but they're probably not up to the mathematics necessary for computer ballistics." Suddenly there was no time for conversation, as the nearer alien vessels opened fire with beamers. The Tchorks' aim was not very precise, but, eventually, they were sure to score a hit. As predicted, Ham's cutter was useless, and the
Angel
was sure to be destroyed long before the alien got close enough to use the depolarizer.

"Another torpedo, Ham?"

"Might as well."

"Belay that!" The skipper's voice rang from the intercom. "We're turning and heading for them, collision course."

"Is this some sort of suicide tactic?" asked Torwald.

"Shut up and listen to the skipper," Ham growled.

"As Ham pointed out, Tor, those turkeys have trouble hitting something that's headed straight for them. If we reverse direction, we just might get close enough to hit them with the depolarizer. Anybody got any better suggestions?" There were none. Without bothering to decelerate, the skipper put the
Angel
through an end-for-end turn, maneuvering so that the
Angel
was masked for a time by one of the planet's small moons. It was the kind of maneuver made possible only by the invention of the gravity field. Without it, the crew would have been reduced to jelly and the ship turned to scrap in a millisecond.

When next the aliens had the
Angel
on their instruments, she was headed straight for them for a few seconds; they fired wildly, then the aliens were within range of Torwald's depolarizer. He pressed the firing stud, and the nearer alien very suddenly seemed to become touch larger. The blip on the screen expanded and became too diffuse to show any shape, and then there was nothing. The farther ship shifted course and headed away, presumably going back to its home base. A concerted cheer over the intercom momentarily overloaded the speaker in the bubble.

"All right, all right, calm down," the skipper said. "I'm not handing out any cigars until we're safely in hyper. Stand by your stations."

Bone-weary, they sat around the mess table, downing cup after cup of strong black coffee. Numbly, they had downed the rations that Michelle had laid out for them. She refused to budge until they had all eaten and taken the medication she had prescribed. Now they were waiting for Michelle to return with a report on Achmed and Lafayette.