Heart Of The Tiger (19 page)

Then it was over. The fireball consumed Jaeger's fighter so bright her computer cut in the polarizers for an instant to protect her eyes. When she could see again, nothing remained of Helmut Jaeger's craft but a rapidly-expanding cloud of twisted, scorched metal fragments.

She could hardly believe it had happened so suddenly. One instant Jaeger had been out there . . . now, nothing. It took her back to the horrors of the Kilrathi labor camp to guards who would strike down a slave without warning and to people she knew who vanished in the night. The cats were always the same, always killing without warning and without mercy, taking joy from death and fear and pain . . .

"Bastards!" she screamed, hitting her afterburners to dive toward the nearest Strakha as she opened fire with all her energy weapons at once. "Damn cat bastards! I'll see you all in hell!"

Graldak nar Sutaghi bared his fangs as four Terran fighters accelerated away from the developing battle. So, the Terran strike leader knows how to hunt, he thought grimly. Prince Thrakhath had bestowed a name upon their Flight Wing commander: The Heart of the Tiger. Today the human was living up to the honor of that name, clinging to his mission despite all the barriers the Empire raised in his path.

Did Thrakhath realize what kind of warrior this ape was? The Prince wasn't known for esteeming his Terran foes, even those who received a Kilrathi vendetta-name.

No matter, now. The only thing that counted at the moment was victory, and that was very nearly under Graldak's claws. The Terrans had managed to destroy two of the four flights of missiles, and they had almost reached the third. But they would get no further.

"Red Fang squadron," he said aloud, feeling the battle-lust surging through his veins. "Decloak and engage at will!"

"Keep them off me! Keep them off me!" Vaquero's voice was urgent in Blair's headphones. "Where the hell are you, Vagabond?"

"Just hang in there a little longer," the Chinese pilot responded. "The cavalry's coming."

Blair wrenched his attention back to his HUD as a Strakha dived toward him, guns blazing. This last batch of enemy fighters had come at them out of nowhere eight against his four, and the Terrans were fighting for their lives. Even as he flipped the Thunderbolt into a tight, high-G evasive turn a part of his mind was on another part of the battle entirely . . . and on the clock. Each second ticking away took the final flight of Kilrathi missiles further from the Terran fighters, letting them spread out. Soon it would be all but impossible to detect them even when they weren't cloaked.

He tracked the Strakha in, holding his fire and waiting for an opening. Then Flint swept past, her blasters searing, battering at the other ship's shields. Blair joined the barrage, and the Strakha came apart.

"Twenty-two, Lieutenant" he remarked dryly.

"No, sir, that one was yours. I just softened him up." Flint sounded as tired as he felt.

"We'll debate it when we get back to Old Vic," he said, trying to sound encouraging. Flint had done yeoman duty on his wing today, keeping formation, supporting him constantly, never forgetting herself or yielding to temptation. Since that first hit she hadn't scored a clean kill, but she didn't seem to be concerned at missing her chance to rack up more points in her quest for revenge. After this, he wouldn't doubt her again, he told himself as he turned his attention back to his sensor readouts. "Scanning for new targets."

There were four more Strakha ahead.

"Everybody up to another dogfight?" he asked. "Targets at eleven o'clock, low. Let's nail them!"

The four Thunderbolts closed up into tight formation and drove for the newest targets. The Strakha broke formation promptly, not waiting for the usual round of individual sorties that usually marked a fight with the Kilrathi. Their CO must he one hell of a leader, Blair thought.

"Vaquero, Vagabond, you guys dance with these four, Blair called. "I want to try for the rest of the missiles. You with me, Flint?"

"On your wing, Colonel," she told him.

He broke to port and increased thrust, with Flint's fighter sticking close by. The other two Thunderbolts drove straight toward the Strakha, but these Kilrathi pilots didn't rise to the bait of close combat. Blair saw the images on his scanner flicker and go out as the Strakha engaged their cloaks again. He muttered a curse under his breath.

"Keep a sharp eye out, people," he said over the comm channel. "They'll be back. Bet on it."

And suddenly they were back, two of them, at least. The pair of Kilrathi fighters materialized right on his tail, releasing missiles and then fading out of sight once again. Blair dumped a decoy missile and banked sharply, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline in his blood. One of the enemy missiles picked up the decoy and homed in on it, but the second wasn't fooled by the electronic signature and continued to hurtle after the Thunderbolt. Blair altered course sharply again, veering back toward the decoy's flight path. The timing would have to be damned tight. . . .

His fighter flashed past the two missiles just seconds before the Kilrathi warhead detonated. The blast that erupted behind him was like a false dawn. His shield indicators registered a noticeable power loss, but nothing close to what he would have suffered if the full force of the blast had been absorbed by the shields themselves. After a moment he checked his screens, and let out a sigh. The explosion had caught the second enemy missile.

Then another Strakha was in sight, firing on him with beams and missiles from dead ahead. Blair returned fire, and seconds later Flint joined the fray with all her guns blazing. Just as Blair's forward shield was registering zero, the Strakha went up in a magnificent fireball. Blair heard Flint cheering. A moment later Vaquero and Vagabond were joining in, proclaiming another kill.

"The other two boys are running!" Vaquero shouted all trace of the peaceful musician submerged now. "Looks like we've taught em a real lesson this time!"

"Permission to pursue, sir?" Flint added a moment later.

"Negative," he snapped. "Negative! We've still got missiles to track down! Get on your scanners, people. Now!"

But it was too late. His sensors turned up nothing but debris and open space, out to their maximum limit The remaining Skipper missiles, five at least, were gone

Blair stared at the empty screens, unable to accept what they were telling him. They'd come so damned close.

"A report, Lord Prince."

"What have you got, Melek?" Thrakhath leaned forward in his chair to study the bulky figure of the retainer.

"The Strakha have eluded the Terran Thunderbolts Lord Prince." Melek paused. "The surviving missiles are well on their way, and interception by the Terrans now is most unlikely. The colony will not survive."

Thrakhath bared his fangs. "Good. Then we have done what we came here to do. This will surely spur the Terrans into a rash attempt at retaliation." He could barely contain the pleasure that burned inside him. This was the first step to ending the long war. "The fleet will disengage and set course to the jump point to the Ariel system. Let us leave the Terrans to their . . . possession. Let them decide if they are pleased at the price they have paid to drive us away from their colony."

"Lord Prince . . . many of the fighters are damaged and low on fuel. The Strakha are at the very limit of their range. Should we not move to pick them up first?" Melek's look was almost challenging.

"The Terran reaction will be unpredictable, Melek. They could decide to launch a retaliatory strike, once they realize that all they have left is vengeance. We must not delay too long. Any fighters that can rendezvous with us may do so, but we will not wait for stragglers." Thrakhath paused. "You may order tankers to refuel them if you wish. Carry out my orders . . . now."

"Good God, Colonel, what do we do now?" Flint's voice was ragged, with fatigue or shock or disappointment. Blair wasn't sure which. "They're . . . gone."

"We do whatever we still can," he said, hard-pressed to keep the despair out of his own voice. "And we pray the in-system defenses spot those bastards before they do any damage to the colony . . ."

"I counted five of them all told, Colonel," Vaquero said. "Can t we blanket the approaches and pick them up before they reach the planet?"

"We can try," Blair said.

"So . . we head for home, skipper?" Vaquero asked.

"But . . . the colony," Flint said. "We can t just turn back now. We have to try to stop those missiles!"

"We'll do what we can, Lieutenant," Blair told her. "Spread out and keep hunting, and call for refueling from Victory. The Home Guard and whatever other ships are closer in to Four can search, too. But we can't track what we can't see. And I don't hold out much hope at this point."

"The last word we received put the Kilrathi concentrating around the jump point to Ariel. Looks like they re pulling out. Not even bothering to gather in all their fighters, either. Could be we can round up a few more of the bastards before the whole thing's over."

Blair wasn't particularly interested in the Kilrathi, not any more. He had other concerns. "Any word on the situation on Four, Lieutenant?"

"It doesn't look good, sir," Rollins said heavily. "The reports from the colony indicate at least five missiles got through. They were set for high airbursts, so the ground defenses never had a chance to fire at them. We won't know for a while if the pandemic is as bad as everybody claims, but . . . well, like I said, it doesn't look good."

"Acknowledged, Victory. Leader clear." Blair nodded slowly. The report was about what he expected, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow. Five Kilrathi biowarheads exploding high above the surface of the colony world . . . that would ensure a fast spread of the tailored disease they carried. It would not be long before the effects of the attack became visible.

Locanda IV was as good as dead already, and Maverick Blair, the great pilot and war hero, was the man to blame for it all. The man who failed. . . .

He forced the thought aside and concentrated on his fighter's controls. Blair's Thunderbolt came through the long fight with only light damage, but he had trouble with the port-side maneuvering thrusters, and the computer was unable to reroute the circuits through a more dependable network.

They were near the original coordinates of the Kilrathi fleet, which thankfully was moving away at full speed toward a nearby jump point. Blue and Green Squadrons, after maintaining a prolonged diversionary action against Thrakhath's flagship, had returned to Victory. Gold Squadron remained out, however, searching for a lost sheep.

Incredibly, only Beast Jaeger's fighter was confirmed as destroyed in battle, though several of the others were in terrible shape. How Hobbes still flew at all was a mystery, and Vaquero's weapons systems finally overloaded in the last fight against the Strakha. But one of the Thunderbolts remained missing, and Blair ordered Gold Squadron to spread out and search for the missing man . . . or some sign of his fate.

Lieutenant Alexander Sanders. callsign Sandman . . . Blair never really knew him. He had served as Maniac's wingman throughout the current deployment and spent most of his off-duty hours hanging with Marshall. Although he always struck Blair as a complete opposite to Maniac — steady, dependable, loyal, reliable — Sanders and Marshall were good friends as well as wingmates. Neither Blair nor the lieutenant were very comfortable with each other as a result of the on going feud dividing the colonel from the major.

Now it looked as if Blair would never get a chance to know the man. Maniac had allowed himself to be separated from his wingman in the battle with the Kilrathi escort squadron while Cobra covered herself after Jaeger's death, so no one saw Sandman fighting. He might have been destroyed, or simply damaged and left adrift . . . or he might have ejected from his fighter. Until they were sure, they had to look.

A refueling shuttle arrived from Victory to rendezvous with the squadron and top off their tanks, and now the eight remaining fighters were to form a broad search pattern, hunting for some signs of the lost pilot. They were barely within sensor range of each other, and the comm channels were mostly quiet. Everyone knew the mission had failed. Everyone was exhausted by hours of continuous stress and tension punctuated by more fighting than any of them had seen in a long, long time.

"Bad news, Colonel," Cobra broke into his reverie. "I've got a debris field here. Material analysis reads consistent with a Thunderbolt's hull armor . . . It's gotta be Sandy's."

"You're sure it isn't part of Jaeger's ship?"

"No way, sir. Too far from where Beast caught it."

"Start a close scan, Cobra. If there's an escape pod around there, find it.

"I'll try, sir, but you know the cats. If they spot a pilot after he ejects, they'll either blast him where they find him or tractor him in for interrogation and a sporting death entertaining a ship's nobles."

"Check it out, anyway, Lieutenant. If there's any chance Sandman's still alive, I want to find him." Blair paused. "All fighters, from Leader. Converge on Cobra's beacon and concentrate your search there."

Bringing the fighter around, he increased his thrust. Cobra was right, of course. The odds against finding Sanders alive were too high a bet for anyone but a blind optimist, but he had to try.

It was a pitiful gesture set against his failure defending the colony, but it was all he could do right now.