Korval's Game (41 page)

It was hard to move with the power bar all the way up and the leather strap was holding him tight while his mount climbed directly under the target, but the target was getting smaller.

There was a song in his head and he wanted to listen, but the target had to be stopped. The sky was getting darker and the target getting smaller and he couldn’t go much higher because it was the wrong kind of ship—

He fired his nose cannon and his wing cannon and his missiles all at once. He fired and thought maybe he’d hit the target and then thought maybe he hadn’t because it kept moving and he couldn’t go straight up anymore, anyway. His leg was hurting and he was very tired.

He closed his eyes and sagged against the board.

He remembered then that the song was named Miri and that he’d been very lucky to hear it.

***

Erob,
what numbers of them were in the house rather than in troop with his astonishing and admirable niece, or on the grounds, had taken shelter in the deep cellars.

He had given warning, for whatever good that would do them, to the defenders locked outside the shield, and relayed an encoded situation report to Jason Carmody’s last known position, down by the quarry encampment.

Duty done, Win Den tel’Vosti sat behind his desk in the back parlor that had become his war room, and waited for what might occur.

“Uncle?” Alys stood poised on the threshold, looking slightly rumpled in a tunic handed down from an older cousin, the weapons belt pulled snug ’round her waist, gun ready by her hand.

He sighed. “Child, you should be in the cellar with the rest.”

“But you aren’t,” she replied, irrefutably. “Why came you here?”

He sighed again, feeling very old, indeed, and as if all his years had taught him nothing.

“Because I am a general, child. Duty requires me to be at my station, in case there should be need.”

“Oh.” She came lightly across the room and leaned against his side, one arm across his shoulders. He put his arm around her waist, careful of the gun.

“What will happen, Uncle?”

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “Perhaps nothing.” But even Alys was too old to believe that.

“Dragon’s Tooth would not have awakened,” she told him, “if it were nothing. Clan Korval is our ally.”

Wisdom and folly in one short utterance, tel’Vosti thought. As if to be Korval’s ally placed one in anything like safety. He hugged her lightly.

“That’s so.”

The lights went out. The computers went off-line.

There was sound: the scream of ten thousand fingernails drawn simultaneously down ten thousand slate boards, going on and on.

The air was filled with static and the room was very warm. Alys gasped and flinched, caught herself and stood quiveringly still against his side, her arm like a bar of lead across his shoulder.

The sound stopped.

The lights came up. The computers beeped and rebooted. The air was gentle, pleasantly cool against the skin.

Alys sighed and slumped a little. tel’Vosti remembered to breathe.

The intercom on the desk chimed. He leaned forward and touched the key.

“Yes?”

“Uncle, it’s Kol Vus. There’s another message on the old telecoder. Planetary Defense Unit says that the shield has deflected an energy bolt. Shield power is down, it says here, by fifty-five percent.” There was a pause.

“Planetary Defense Unit advises us that the shielding will not divert another strike. And then it says, ‘Phase Two enabled, Phase Two confirmed, Phase Two in progress.’”

***

Shan threw himself down
the ladder and ran low across the field, pistol in hand, and flung to his belly next to the small leather-clad crumple.

His foray in the woods had stopped one Yxtrang tank, which left five more closing on the field. The Irregulars all seemed to be pointing in the right direction, the mortars and anti-armor guns in position. Nelirikk’s plane, with the Yxtrang number 32 on the tail, was on standby power, which might well mean there were rounds left in the nose cannon. For the moment, the side of the airfield was as safe as any other position in the immediate vicinity, but it wasn’t going to stay that way, and Miri. . .

She lay like one dead, face against the ground, the combat helmet askew, showing a bright gleam of hair.

That she was
not
dead or even wounded, he knew, though he barely knew what to make of the tangle of steel and fire that confounded his Inner Eyes.

The ground shook. A turret appeared at the end of the field, as the first of the Yxtrang armor cleared the trees. Shan came to his knees, pistol ready, heard the whine from Nelirikk’s plane change pitch, and went down, covering Miri’s body with his own.

Nelirikk’s cannon roared, the ground steadied, Shan rocked back on his knees, holstered the pistol, gathered his brother’s lifemate into his arms and ran.

***

She was so tired.
Opening her eyes was too much effort. But she had to open her eyes, because . . .

Damned if she knew why.

It was warm. She was tired. So . . . very . . . tired. Better to sleep and not to care . . .

Because there had been three planes and only two had landed. She needed to open her eyes and look for the other one, the most important one, to be sure that it got home safe.

She demanded sight with all her will and heavy eyelids lifted. The world was a blur.

It took her a second to realize that was because she’d fallen across the instrument panel and her cheek was against one of the dials. She exerted more will, and got herself upright, helped by the strap around her waist, that anchored her to the board.

That was better. She could see the instruments, the fuel gauge, the altimeter—
how
high?—and the compass. And through the windscreen she could see—

A slow drifting. And that was wrong, she knew from the tapes he had made her learn. Wrong, because it meant—

The plane wasn’t level.

Her hands were heavy, but she got one around the joystick, found the horizon meter and slowly pushed on the stick, watching the horizon line crawl down from almost vertical toward level.

The stick was hard to move. She tried to shift her weight to the left, to bring more push into play—and would have fallen if the strap hadn’t held her.

Still, she managed to inch it down until the dial finally displayed a clear horizontal bisection, the blue-white of sky on the top, the black that meant ground on the bottom.

Now, from side to side out the window, there was a horizon, distant and level. It rotated slowly. . .

And that wasn’t wrong or right, just a fact, until she knew where—and the compass heading showed that. She found the sun and realized she was flying in the wrong direction, bent to work the stick again, and below her was a boiling cauldron of gray and white and she jumped, the leg went, but the strap held her up and his voice was murmuring, distant and almost too soft to hear . . .

“Storm. Below.”

She reached out to touch his pattern, but it wasn’t there—no, it
was
there, but
around
her and, fading, somehow, its colors attenuating into mist, the interlockings beginning, slowly, to untwine.

She bit her lip. “You’re dying. Val Con—”

“Fly. The. Plane.”

***

The lifemate bridge
swirled with energy and Shan could see Val Con’s essence, very faint, and Miri’s, much stronger—and an incomplete third that drew threads from each, spindle-dancing above, or below, or within the bridgework.

And he dared not touch any of it.

So he did what he could and sat guard over her body in the shell of what had been a hangar and eventually Nelirikk joined him there.

“The captain, I saw her fall.” The blue eyes moved, registered the soft rise and fall of her breast and flicked up. “Not dead.”

“Not dead,” Shan agreed.

“The scout has not returned from his mission.”

Shan nodded, his attention on the flow of the lifemate bridge. It had taken his father a full year to die of his lifemate’s passing. But the connection between his parent’s souls had been as slender as a thread of spider silk, compared to the conflagration that linked Val Con and Miri. If Val Con was dying . . .

“What ails the captain?” Nelirikk asked. Shan looked up.

“She’s with the scout.”

The blue eyes blinked, then Nelirikk nodded. “More armor comes. And soldiers.”

Soldier Lore
bestirred itself. “What’s our situation?”

“We can prevail,” stated another voice from the doorway, in rusty Trade. “With boldness.”

A man strode forward—a Liaden male cradling an Yxtrang rifle in his arms like a child. A hatchet hung in a loop on his belt, stained red from edge to blunt.

Nelirikk rose to his towering height. The Liaden ignored him, walked past him and then stopped, looking down at Miri. After a moment, he turned and addressed himself to the Yxtrang.

“You fly for the captain? Eh? Kill enemy at her word?”

Nelirikk inclined his head. “Sir, I do.”

“She allowed me and mine with her, on condition we obey the sergeants. The sergeant of my squad is dead and there are many others, who joined at the last, with no sergeant to order them, but who will fight with ferocity.”

“You tell me this for a reason?” Nelirikk inquired and the man pulled his lips back from his teeth—a death’s head grin.

“I tell you this because I desire you to lead us, Yxtrang-of-the-Captain.”

“I do not—”

“My entire line is gone, damn you!” the Liaden shouted. “Will you take what I offer and use it well, or must my Balance fall short of my dead?”

A heartbeat of silence, no more. Nelirikk bowed.

“Soldier, I will lead you. For the glory of Troop and captain. Show me to your fighters.”

***

She flew the plane,
dropped the nose and brought it down into the clouds ruthlessly, remembering ships she’d never flown and emergencies she’d never experienced.

The sky was a long time gray; the buffeting and noise of the winds amazed her. The ship went subsonic with an odd fluttering and she had to fight the controls, stretching too far to reach—and then she was below the clouds.

There was green all around, and a river to her left. The clouds sweeping by obscured her vision momentarily and then tore away.

In the distance she could see the airfield, the Irregular’s flag flying high.

Lightning flashed off the left wing and the plane lurched as thunder boomed through the metal walls.

She was closing on the airfield fast and the winds were making it difficult, tossing the plane like it was no more substantial than a butterfly. It was hard to see properly, to understand direction from this perspective.

Down and ahead—Yxtrang armor in the trees.

She looked to the board, saw she had bombs to spend. She checked on the situation through the windscreen.

And saw the Yxtrang fighter, closing fast from the right and behind.

She veered the plane, brought it right down on the deck, and saw Val Con’s pattern all around her, overlaying everything in tired, fading color.

She knew what to do, stretched to the board and did it, bringing the plane down,
down
, wingtips brushing the treetops, and the Yxtrang fighter was on her, but that wasn’t important yet.

The Yxtrang on the ground had noticed her. She saw the turret on the anti-aircraft move, tracking, and she kept the speed steady, sweeping in low and insanely fast, waiting for it, waiting for it and the turret was on her and the plane behind had fired, but missed. She was directly over Yxtrang now, opened her belly and dropped the bombs, dumped what was left of her fuel and she was past and the other plane was still on her tail. The armor found its range and fired. Miri smacked the switch and the landing gear came down.

The fighter behind them blew up.

***

They were not soldiers,
but they were fierce and willing, in their hatred, to take orders.

Accordingly, Nelirikk had them wait, in the cover at the near edge of the airfield. Wait, until the first plane flashed over, dumping fuel and the last of its bombs onto the heads of the enemy. Wait, until the anti-aircraft fired and destroyed the pursuer.

Then, with the enemy disordered and dismayed, he rose up, roared the battle cry—“Revenge!”—and led the rabble to war as the wind rose and thunder out-sounded the cannons.

***

The beam
leapt up from the planet’s surface, threaded the Yxtrang Eye and touched the battleship.

There was a flare, which would be the outer shields, Priscilla thought, and a second, which would be the inner.

She sighed and shook her head, for it had been a valiant effort, if ill-favored and—

That quickly the Yxtrang battleship broke and ran, accelerating, and rising—

“Position report, Captain.”

Ren Zel’s voice was level, betraying nothing. “Tactical report, Captain.”

“Tactical?” Priscilla demanded and reached for her board, banishing the Eye and the battleship to a quarter screen, and saw the break-in noise of a dozen ships, IDs blossoming—Terran IDs. Terran troopships.

“Affiliation?”

“Tree-and-Dragon,” Ren Zel said, as more ships phased in-system. “Gyrfalk.” He paused. “Juntavas.”

“Juntavas,” she repeated and looked over to him. He met her eyes, blandly.

“Perhaps they consider the Yxtrang bad for commerce.”

“I suppose that’s possible.” She looked back to her screen. Something strange was happening close in by the Yxtrang battleship. Space was behaving in a most unusual manner—pulsing—and there seemed to be something phasing in, phasing out—in, out, in, out—

In.

Priscilla drew a breath, staring at the big asteroid, that was behaving as no asteroid could.

“Priscilla!” Ren Zel said sharply and she put out a hand to touch his sleeve.

“Clutch,” she said, projecting calmness into his agitation. “It’s only a Clutch ship, friend. Captain yos’Galan’s brother is—adopted—of a Turtle.”

“Yes,” he said, taking a breath. “Of course.”

***

Right rudder
and some left aileron. Crab into the wind, but not too much, and down two-thirds flaps to slow it. Keep the nose down and almost level and pop those leading slats right now to cut lift hard. Down flaps the rest of the way, don’t bounce. Main wheels down. Crush thrust reverse, slight bounce, nose wheel down and guiding. The wind’s up now and we’re getting off center, didn’t correct the crabbing enough and the rudder’s
fighting the wind hard and slam the brakes now with that wounded leg—