For Honor We Stand (11 page)

Max knew better than to offer the rejoinder that Medicine was just as bad or even worse, because, while aerospace jargon had its basis in Standard, most medical terms are derived from Latin, the language of a long-dead civilization that is currently spoken only by the Romanovans, and Greek, a beautiful but now-obscure language spoken by only a few million of humanity’s hundreds of billions, because he knew from experience that Sahin would never admit the comparability of the two cases.  He decided just to go ahead and explain what was going on. 

“So, in the plainest possible terms, here is what is happening.  It is believed that our original flight plan has become known to people who want to kill us.  Accordingly, our descent and flight path have been changed.  As much as possible it now takes place over the sea.  We will travel with this escort until the last two and a half minutes or so, or just before we cross the coast.  Then, the escort will peel off so that no one will see a microfreighter with a fighter escort, which would attract attention and, apparently, cue the people on the ground that something unusual is happening.  We will land at a different field than originally planned.  This one is technically not a spaceport, but the Rashidian authorities are waiving that and will let us set down there.  It’s a military airfield, well garrisoned.  Someone will meet us there and take us where we need to go.”

“Why approach from the sea?”

“It’s hard to hide a portable surface to air missile launcher or pulse cannon on the surface of the ocean.  You have to put it on a ship or a boat, and those have been cleared from our flight path.” As the two men were talking, Max had steered the ship through a series of turns and descents.  In a few minutes, just before they crossed the coast, the fighter escort peeled off, the leader wagging his wings as they departed, a fact reflected by a similar motion of the icon representing the fighter on Max’s proximity display.  Before Sahin knew it, with a gentle bump, the
Clover
was on the ground.

After a few moments to equalize pressure, the hatch cycled and opened outward with a clunk and a hiss.  The doctor was standing at the hatch when the first glimpse of the outside became visible.  “But . . . it is dark,” he blurted indignantly.

“I noticed.  The phenomenon is technically known to planetary scientists as ‘night.’  I hear that it happens on a regular basis around here.”

“Do not be obtuse.”  He practically stomped his foot with uncharacteristic petulance.  “I mean that it is dark when it should be light.  I programmed my wrist chrono for the rotational period of Rashid IV and set it for the local time at Amman where we were to meet Mr. Wortham-Biggs.  I was expecting it to be 13:42 standard time, which is the middle of the afternoon, in Amman’s time zone.  But it is fully dark.” 

They stood in the hatch which was about three meters off the ground and waited for the
Clover
to extend its embarkation ramp, a process that took a little more than two minutes. 

“That is because we did not land at Amman, but at Harun, the planet’s capital city, to confuse anyone who might be planning to do us harm in Amman.  Local time here is seven hours later than at Amman.  Mr. Wortham-Biggs took a suborbital shuttle and is already at the meeting site.  We’re going to be taken by ground car, just like ordinary off-world trade delegates, to the Ministry of Trade building, where we will have our meeting.”

“When did you obtain that valuable intelligence and why did you not inform me?  It is not as though I am along solely as a passenger, you know.”

“Yarmouk Four and I talked about it on an open comm with you sitting right beside me.”

The doctor harrumphed.  “It must have been after I had been rendered insensate by listening to several minutes of ‘descend on a niner delta gradient to angles five zero and come right to two niner zero at mop two-point-seven’ and similar incomprehensible pilot-ese.  It is a wonder that I am thinking well enough to be able to speak with you right now rather than standing here with a blank stare on my face and saliva running down my chin.”

Max shook his head dejectedly.  He knew he was wasting his breath, but he said it anyway.  “Bram.  That ‘angels’ and ‘mach.’”

“Aha!  I have finally caught you in an error in your ridiculous pilot jargon.  You said ‘angels’ when you meant ‘angles.’”

Max could not keep from scowling slightly.  Accepting correction when he was wrong was difficult enough, but being corrected when he was right truly tested his patience.  “No.  I said ‘angels’ when I meant ‘angels.’  ‘Angels’ is the pilot shorthand for ‘thousand meters above the ground’ as opposed to a thousand meters along the ground or in any other direction.  Because angels occupy the heavens.”

“No matter.”  If Max was waiting for a show of contrition from Sahin, he could go on waiting.  “You might as well have said
houris
and Bach for all I care.  It is all nonsense.  You know, I am rather put out by all of this.  I should have liked to have received this disappointing news in a less abrupt fashion.”

“Disappointing news?  What’s so disappointing about having the meeting here rather than in Amman?”

“Because if we are meeting Mr. Wortham-Biggs at a government office rather than in his private study, the coffee will not be nearly as good.”

Max chuckled inwardly.  Coffee my ass.  Ibrahim Sahin was clearly hoping to spend a few moments with Wortham-Biggs’s perfectly lovely daughter.  According to Spacer Fahad, who had attended the first meeting between the doctor and Wortham-Biggs, a blind man could have seen the sparks flying between the young lady and Bram for the few moments they had been together. 

By this time the ramp had extended and a small party had gathered at its foot.  Max and the doctor, each carrying a small, anonymous-looking duffle, descended to meet them.  Two of the men were in Rashidian Air Force uniforms, which looked vaguely like 21
^st
Century British Air Force uniforms.  Ten more were dressed as were Max and Sahin, in the kind of medium brown and tan flowing robe of the kind worn by virtually everyone on Rashid IV who did not have a specific reason to wear something else.  The man with the more elaborate uniform and, apparently, the higher rank of the two, approached Max when he reached the bottom of the ramp.  He was a handsome man, a bit taller and broader than Max, wearing the kind of thin, closely trimmed beard that seemed to be the style on this world, who looked to be just on the near side of sixty.  He had a bearing that Max was accustomed to seeing in highly effective senior officers.  Max would have bet he was the base commander. 

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said.  “I am Colonel Mubarek and this is my Executive Officer, Major Hassam.  You are Captain Robichaux?” 

“That’s correct, Colonel.  I’m Max Robichaux.  This is my Chief Medical Officer, Lieutenant Ibrahim Sahin.  He is also acting Union Ambassador to the Kingdom.”  The Colonel shook hands with both of them in the manner common in the Union, although hand shaking was not the custom on Rashid IV.

“Very pleased to meet the both of you,” said the Colonel.  “Please forgive me for not introducing these other gentlemen, but they are in a profession in which their names are not the subject of casual discussion.  Please also forgive us for the disruption of your visit by certain lawless elements.  We will do everything possible to prevent further incidents of the kind.  Now, let us attend to your transportation to the Ministry of Trade.” 

While an Air Force crew secured the
Clover
and hustled it into a nearby hangar, Colonel Mubarek led the group into the hangar closest to the landing pad on which the microfreighter had set down.  In it were three identical, large, luxury-type ground cars.  The Colonel explained that all three cars would head to the Ministry, with two as decoys.  Each car would carry four men—two would carry four of what Max mentally labeled the “Special Ops men” because that’s what they undoubtedly were—highly trained special forces troops:  lean, hard, and deadly.  The other would carry Max, the doctor, and two of the Special Ops men.  The three cars would travel in line ahead formation, swapping positions from time to time. 

The three vehicles took off into the night at what seemed, to Max and the doctor at least, to be an imprudently high speed.  There were several checkpoints inside the air base at which the motorcade did not even slow down.  Within moments, they had crossed the base perimeter and reached a highway that led the short distance from the base to Harun, the capital of the planet and the entire Unified Kingdom of Rashid, Allied Emirates, and Protected Islamic Worlds.  Just as the vehicles left the base, Max noticed an aircraft that seemed to be flying formation with the motorcade.

Max gestured at the vehicle and turned to one of the Special Ops men.  “Is that rotorcraft providing cover for us?”

“That is correct,” he answered.  “Only we use the older term ‘helicopter.’  It is there to help protect from attack by air and to act as a gunship to strike at any ground targets that should constitute a threat.  There are also two atmosphere fighters at higher altitude to provide additional air cover, although they would not be much help with anything on the ground.” 

With that, Max sat back and relaxed a bit for the first time since the initial Rashidian space fighter escort had first shown up on the
Clover’s
sensors.  He noticed that, as he leaned back in the seat and rested his elbow on the armrest, a console deployed from the space between the seats.  The console’s display showed a menu, containing several entertainment and music programs, local broadcast channels, and a navigation display.  Max called up the latter, and examined the layout of the city, paying particular attention to the projected route of the motorcade, the location of the Ministry of Trade, and other landmarks and facilities.  Like most naval officers in combat assignments, Max had a good head for maps and spacial relationships, so much so that he was able to get his bearings quickly and before long knew where they were in the city. 

Several times so far, the cars had swapped positions.  After the last swap, the car carrying the Union men was in the rear.  The number two car was about 150 meters ahead and the number one the same distance ahead of the number two.  

The motorcade passed an impressively large Muslim seminary and a large regional retail facility which the navigational display identified by the peculiar title of “Shopping Mall,” and Max noted that the Ministry was now only five kills away.  Maybe, Max thought, whoever had been behind the attempted fighter attack in space didn’t have any assets on the ground in Harun.

Or, maybe, they did.

A tiny point of brilliant orange light climbed into the sky from behind a nearby building.  It accelerated rapidly, trailing smoke and glowing gas as it swerved erratically through the air before locking in onto its target and making a beeline for the rotorcraft flying about four hundred meters directly over the lead vehicle.  Before Max could give voice to the words that came immediately to mind, which were, quote, “oh, shit, that’s a portable surface to air missile, we’re really screwed,” the object in question had struck the rotorcraft leaving it a roiling thundercloud of flaming smoke, a hailstorm of metal and plastic shards, and a rain of still-burning fuel that showered the first vehicle as well as half of a city block, setting fire to every combustible object it touched. 

Max knew exactly what that meant and what had to be done.  “Driver, change course, turn around, go down a side street.  Anything but keep going where they expect.”  Either at Max’s prompting or having come to the same conclusion independently, the driver expertly spun the vehicle 180 degrees as though it were a stunt car and, in a screech of tortured tires, had it moving in the other direction in less than two seconds trailing a blue cloud of burned Plasti-tyre.  Just as the car began to accelerate, the first vehicle exploded, probably ignited by the burning aircraft fuel in which it was now coated.  The ground car’s hydrogen fuel made for a remarkably transparent fireball, a chaotic vortex of blue flame threaded with strands of black smoke and swirls of yellow-orange fire produced by combustion of the plastic, faux leather, foam seat padding, and human flesh. 

Just as the gut rattling CROOOMP of the shock wave from that explosion struck Max and Bram’s car, the light from another reached their retinas.  A yellow-white streak had lanced out from the window of a building near the street, striking the second car and obliterating it just as thoroughly as the first.  In contrast to the first car’s explosion, this one’s consisted of a sharp BLAM from the warhead of the weapon followed nearly two thirds of a second later by a CROOOMP, marking the secondary explosion caused by the detonation of the vehicle’s cryogenic hydrogen. 

The shock wave from that explosion struck the side of the still accelerating car carrying Max and Bram as it turned sharply, fleeing down a side street to escape the shooting gallery, rocking it hard to port but not slowing its rapid acceleration.  One six second reload later, another yellow-white streak reached out from the same building, but the longer range, awkwardness of the shooting angle, and the shooter’s haste to fire his weapon before his shot was blocked by the building on the corner, caused the shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon to miss the car by a good fifteen meters, slamming into the side of a building across the street from the firing site. 

Meanwhile, the ground car carrying Max and the doctor rocketed down the side street, and then took a squealing right down what Max recognized as one of the city’s main boulevards.  The second Special Ops man was talking busily on the vehicle’s Rashidian version of a secure comm unit informing someone, somewhere, of what was going on, whatever the hell that was.