IronStar (66 page)

When the eye steadied on her,
Kirrah spoke. “I am Kirrah shu’Roehl, Warmaster of Talam, in control of a
Regnum Landing Assault Shuttle. Let the record show that the other Navy and
Marine personnel are my prisoners. I am taking this action in defense of my
Realm, an ally of the Regnum Draconis, against Kruss agents who have destroyed
a part of our capital city with illegal weapons. As far as I know, except for
confining these people, everything I am about to do is legal and within the
Regnum’s published rules of engagement for this conflict.

“Ensign Piersall. My lieutenant
here has orders to kill you, if I tell her you say anything on comm that I
don’t approve of. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good, let’s get this show on the
road, then.”
Could have used a better choice of words
, Kirrah thought
with an inward grin.
Show, indeed
. She deployed a mic-rod from the
adjacent workstation to a place in front of Margaret’s lips, turned and sat at
the pilot’s seat.

“Sensor feed, external
On
,
internal
Off
. Remote latch
Standby
, outside
clear
.”

 
“Vertical thrusters,
ignition
.” A pump
whined and two pairs of soft explosions marked ignition of the four belly
thrusters. The sound spiraled up and they began to rise. Doris turned and
pointed at the Ensign, who leaned slightly forward and spoke into the audio
pickup.

“
Argosy
, Shuttle One, this
is Ensign Piersall, departing Roehl Two, local delivery, note-only.”

“Shuttle One,
Argosy
. Got
you on scan. Have a good flight. When you’re done there, we could use another
drop. Captain Wallace’s freed up another five relief workers and a couple of
regen tanks put together from spares. Sounds like the indies could use ‘em.”
No
shit
, thought Kirrah,
I know the first ‘indie’ I want to see in one of
those tanks, too
. On cue, Margaret replied:

“One, by.” Wishing she was as
practiced as the young woman behind her, or that she could trust her planet to
the woman’s present loyalties, Kirrah continued:

“Tail thrusters,
ignition
. Gear
up
.” The massive rocket motors in the shuttle’s tail came to life and
began pushing them forward. Motors whirred and rumbled under them, three green
lights turned yellow over Kirrah’s right knee, and were replaced by blue.

“Gear up,” confirmed Doris. They
fled into the night, climbing higher and faster with each passing moment.
Kirrah spared a glance over her left shoulder, saw the scatter of fires in the
heart of Talameths’cha receding rapidly behind them.
Soon
, she promised
the darkness inside.
Soon, we strike
.

“Shuttle One,
Argosy
. Say
again your destination?”
Hmm, we got a bit farther than I expected, oh well
…

“
Argosy
, Shuttle one, this
is Kirrah Roehl. We are transferring supplies to a Kruss base, they’re holding
hostages and this is part of the negotiations. Check the log for the last
watch, I think Lieutenant Warden had someone set it up.”

A half-minute pause, then, “Oh,
right, here it… no, this was a delivery to somewhere on that river north of
you, you seem to be off course or something.”

“I guess someone forgot to update
you in all the activity down here,
Argosy
. The Kruss demanded a change,
drop directly at that city, it’s called O’dakai on your charts,” Kirrah
replied.

“Oh, ok. Guess it’s been a pretty
hectic night.”

Kirrah allowed herself another
breath.

“Say, isn’t that the city where
there was shooting earlier, ma’am?”

“That’s affirmative,
Argosy
.
This is just a quick drop, in and out, they’re expecting us this time. No
hostilities.”

“Good. Oh, yeah, would you tell
Margaret we’re not getting internal sensor feed? Probably nothing, just a
switch. It’s not like her to miss something, though…”

“Will do, One by.”
Shit!
Kirrah shut off the mic pickup and turned to Doris. “
Now
what? We can’t
show him inside pictures!”

“Uh, ma’am,” said Ensign Piersall.
“Please close the flight deck hatch… thank you.” Now out of range of the RegNet
camera, she continued:

“Lieutenant Finch, if you look in
the off-line archives, you’ll see a file called ‘Happy-2’, it’s an image of the
shuttle interior, empty. If you patch that into the feed from CC-2, you could
activate the internal sensors and they’ll get that view instead. That way they
can at least confirm our weapons status.”

“C’mon, Marg,” Doris replied. “I
was using these systems before you started school. Fake images would show up
like a sore thumb in the data feed. Nice try.”

“Uh, not that file, ma’am. It’s
been, uh,
modified
, a little. It kinda slides into the LANstream traffic
with the right frame headers, and, and everything.” Doris tapped a few more
commands, looked sideways at her screen, typed some more.

“I’ll be damned, Kirrah! This young
Ensign has a
very
slick crack for the sensor stream! Don’t trust
anything
you take off this boat’s logs, ever again! Ensign Piersall, that’s a
very
naughty
piece of code! Tell me who did it, so I can shake their hand!”

The young woman blushed deeply,
replied, “
I
did, ma’am. There were times when it was sort of, uh,
convenient
,
for the shuttle to look empty.”

The voice from far overhead
interrupted, “Shuttle One,
Argosy
. That’s got it, thanks.”

Doris pointed to Margaret, who
replied, “
One
, by.”

Doris asked, “Not to pry, but
convenient for
whom
, Margaret?”

“Uh, I’d rather not say, ma’am.”

Doris shrugged and turned back to
her screens. Kirrah, sitting at the controls and watching their swift progress
on her heads-up display, put together the three-month voyage out from Trailway,
the two mutually-telepathic Marines who had chosen to bunk down in the
otherwise-empty shuttle, and the Navy’s strict regulations against fraternization
within one’s chain of command. She added the odd choice of file name, then
indexed her intuition’s conclusions under ‘private, FYI only, nice touch’, and
added another brush stroke to the image of Margaret she was painting in her
mind.

Ten minutes later, the shuttle
touched down in a plaza near Fleet-Captain Schmado’s old estate in the harbor
section of the northern lobe of O’dakai. The Captain, Rash’koi and Prax’soua
made a hurried exit. After a tense fifteen minutes’ absence, they returned with
a woman not quite Kirrah’s age holding tightly to the hands of two young boys,
one a little younger than Akaray, one a little older, both frightened and eyes
wide as saucers. Captain Schmado was actually weeping with relief and
happiness.

Well, that’s one thing went
right,
Kirrah thought to herself, as the reunited family settled down in
one of the middle rows of seats. A minute later, they were back in the air,
making a very loud pass straight south over the twin cities and climbing
steeply, high into the late night sky.
That should be a good wakeup call for
the citizens. Hey, this bird may not be as nimble as my old Manny P-11, but
Gods
!
you’ve gotta love the power,
she concluded.

From two thousand meters above the
plains south of the city, she turned back, powered the thrusters right down,
and glided silently back across the capitol. On the shuttle’s external
speakers, Captain Schmado’s pre-recorded voice boomed out over the thoroughly
aroused inhabitants. Kirrah listened to the O’dai translation in Talamae,
unconsciously selecting that language over Standard:

“
Citizens of O’dakai! Know that your King hosts devils from the sky,
in secret rooms under his palace. For this sin, fire will fall suddenly from
the sky on this city. All who remain here beyond dawn, will die. Flee! Flee
now! Take nothing with you! You must be twenty doi’la from the city by dawn. Do
not look at the sky until after judgement falls.

“king Oka’sse especially, you are ordered to flee your palace
immediately! If anyone sees the small sky-devils, kill them. Only then will you
be safe
.”

“That last bit was
inspired
,”
said Doris. The old fart has the choice of following
your
orders, or
standing there on ground zero! Nice touch!”

“Don’t thank
me
,” Kirrah
replied, feeding power to the thrusters to regain altitude for another pass.
“Thank Captain Schmado, it was his idea. As Angela used to say, there’s nothing
like a good cultural knowledge base to promote trust and understanding.

“I think he expected his family was
already dead in retribution for his defeat on the river, which tells you
something about how this government operates. Ok, that’s three. One more pass,
then we’re out of here.”

The shuttle turned back south over
the harbor, glided across the city one final time, speakers blaring. Kirrah
allowed their glide to float down to only two hundred meters at the south end
of their passage. Then she poured on the thrust, and as their speed accelerated
toward Mach One, lifted the shuttle’s nose into an ever-steepening climb that
gradually stood the sleek, powerful craft on its tail. Fusion rockets
thundering violet-white fire, they bored a hole straight up into the starry
sky. Behind them, a fully alarmed populace watched and trembled. By twos, then
tens, then hundreds, they began to move.

“If I take the wings of the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand
lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall
cover me; even the night shall be light about me.” - The Book of Psalms,
139:9-11; King James Translation, original circa 800 BC, Terra.

Definitely not a powered glider
,
Kirrah thought with a savage, primal joy, as the eighty-tonne bird passed Mach
Two in vertical flight at eighteen thousand meters’ altitude. Thirty seconds
later, at Mach Three and forty-one thousand meters, the sky to the east was
turning a faint rose color. The stars above were becoming the hard, bright
points of light Kirrah had known most of her life. She rolled the craft
slightly to give a better view out the portside windows. The rose color
continued to brighten and spread across the eastern horizon. Their speed
mounted steadily as they climbed, faster and faster, straight into the zenith.

In another hundred seconds, the
center of the eastern brightness went pearly white, and as the nine citizens of
the planet watched in astonished wonder, the shuttle burst into bright
sunlight. Even Peetha’s gasp of astonishment was clearly audible on the flight
deck.
Not bad
, Kirrah congratulated herself.
Three minutes at two
gees loading, a hundred eighty kilometers up and climbing at almost two
kilometers per second. Wonder what she’d do on
full
power?

“Kirrah made the
sun
rise,”
Peetha breathed, her awestruck whisper barely audible.

Whoops, let’s not overdo the
special effects
… “No, Peetha. Kirrah made the shuttle go up.
God
made the sun rise. I just got us a better view.”

In another half minute, the
approaching dawn line was visible to the east as an arc of bright colors on the
ground. A minute later, the arc became a visible crescent, and soon the human
eye and mind made the transition from being
above
the ground, to being
near
a planet.

The comm chimed. “Shuttle One,
Argosy
.
Bobby’s right, Marg, you
are
a cowboy!”

At a nod from Doris, Ensign
Piersall responded, “Hey, reaction mass is just lying there on the ground all
thawed and ready to pump in, why not have a little fun! Look, Ms. Roehl asked
for a little show for a cuppla VIP’s we’ve got on board. Thought we’d give ‘em
a tour of the system. We should be latching up in about an hour, ok?”

“You have yourself a good time,
Margaret. Standing by for remote latch.”

Kirrah allowed herself a deeper
breath, powered the rockets smoothly down to half a gee.
Now for the scary
part
…

“Ok, Doris, let’s bring the drive
collar online.”

“Way ahead of you, ‘Warmaster’.
Higgs cycle at thirty percent already. Autopilot got a good fix on that palace,
I bet we’re locked within half a meter. Forty percent Higgs. FB two coming on-line.
Who’s gonna do the honors?”

“I thought I’d let Peetha do the
actual launch. But I want to get a good, stable trajectory for thirty seconds
or so. Honestly I wasn’t sure we’d get this far, kiddo. It was a stroke of luck
we got the call to pick up those tanks. Otherwise as soon as we broke sky,
there’d be questions I don’t want to answer.”
Plus we’d never have made it
this far unchallenged, without Margaret’s help,
Kirrah added mentally,
unwilling to risk breaking their fragile cooperation by voicing it just yet.

Doris replied, “If it’s luck, I’ll
take it. Fusion Two is hot. Higgs cycle ninety… ninety-five… one hundred
percent. Stabilizing… green light. Ok, ‘Helm’, you have FTL on your board. Do
it.”

Kirrah checked the flight
parameters carefully. It had been a while since either one of them had worked
with the older Tubedrives on the LAS’s. Added almost as an afterthought to the
design, the small drive collar was built in under the skin, just behind the
flight deck. Intended more as a short-hop convenience than serious interstellar
transportation, the shuttles could manage a mere two hundred fifty cees. Enough
to coordinate a massed drop against a hostile planet, but nothing one hoped to
have to ride all the way home in.