Starbase Human (40 page)

Weight limit breached
.

His heart constricted. Was he going to have pick which teenager to throw out?

Then he saw that other teenagers clung to the back of the shuttle. One kid had jumped onto the front.

“God! Let him in! That’s Derek!” yelled one of the girls in the back.

Koos’s mouth was dry. The other shuttles had the same problem. They were covered in teenagers who had probably been messaged by the ones inside.

Turn on your shields
, Koos sent to his entire team.

Shields weren’t recommended in atmosphere, but they would wipe away any intruders.

He flicked his on, and the kid on the front of the shuttle screamed, then slipped off.

Not that Koos heard the scream. He saw the kid’s mouth open, the terror on his face, the hopelessness in his eyes.

The shuttle went up, followed by the remaining four.

Laser fire rose from the surface—someone was shooting at the shuttles. Some kind of automated, large gun started shooting from the top of a building in Hétique City. Finally, the authorities there realized that the entire area was under attack.

Maybe when they saw the hundred attack ships approaching the planet.

The air was filled with smoke and laser fire. The shuttle bobbed and weaved its way up and out, shots occasionally zooming past it.

Koos was braced for the sound of an explosion as he lost a shuttle, but nothing exploded so far.

The girl behind him was sobbing.

“How could you leave them behind?” one of the boys yelled. “They’re people, you know.”

“We know,” Nawotka snapped. “If you had cooperated instead of fighting us, we might’ve gotten another group of ships to the surface.”

“Shut up,” Koos said to Nawotka.

“You gotta go back!” the boy yelled.

“We’re not—”

“Shut. Up. All of you.” Koos focused on the piloting. The bickering continued behind him.

Pay attention
, he sent to Nawotka.
We’re not out of this yet
.

Koos was heading toward one of the last cargo ships in orbit. The attack ships were lining up. He could see them on his screens, in the guidance system he’d set up in his own vision, and in his mind’s eye.

He knew what it was like to be in one of those forces. You never even saw the ground. Just the targets.

He reached the cargo ship. Its bay doors were open, and he slid inside. Two other shuttles slid in right behind him.

One of the girls reached for the door. “Let us out.”

He looked at her over his shoulder and realized, with a sinking feeling, that these kids had never been in space. No one had educated them about atmosphere and environment.

One more shuttle wobbled its way in, a long scorch mark down its middle.

He searched for the last shuttle on his equipment, saw it, saw some kind of fire weapon pursuing it, watched as the weapon hit and the shuttle exploded—

He closed his eyes, forgetting that he had the same images on his vision, watched the bits of shuttle expand like a flower in the remaining red light.

Bits of shuttle and bits of his team and bits of teenagers.

He shut down the internal vision.

Close the doors
, he sent to the pilots of the cargo vessel.
This is everyone
.

All that hope he’d had after getting the babies, the feeling like he might be able to accomplish this mission completely, gone now.

He’d done more than he’d thought was possible, but not nearly enough.

Plus, he’d seen that kid’s eyes as he fell off the shuttle.

Hopelessness. Terror.

Koos would be seeing that as long as he lived.

But he would be living.

He’d done the best he could—and Deshin would have to deal with that.

Just like Koos would.

FIFTY-SEVEN

THE YACHT’S AUTOMATED
doctor bent down, examined Zagrando’s legs, and then gathered tools. She had limited capabilities of touch. She could do some things to heal and not others. Some she might have to ask him to do, and he was in no shape to comply.

But he didn’t tell her that. He figured she probably knew.

Besides, being healed was the least of his worries. He needed to remain alert, at least until the bullet ship separated from the space yacht.

He moved back to the second cockpit’s single chair, worked the console, saw the separation was happening, and looked at the door.

It didn’t glow red anymore.

In fact, if any of those invaders were near it, they would be experiencing the separation as if they were on the edge of an open door with no airlock.

One of the first things he had done after he bought this ship was redesign the separation sequence—and he had designed it so that no one would be protected as the second cockpit became another ship.

He had figured that if he ever had to separate the yacht and the bullet ship, he was being invaded; and no one outside the second cockpit was someone he wanted to protect.

Good for him, thinking ahead. Yay, him.

And then, with those thoughts, those cheery thoughts, he realized that his judgment had become impaired. He was acting like he did when he was drunk.

I gotta think clearly
, he said or maybe thought or sent to the doctor.

I know,
she said/sent/whatever.
It’s all I can do to keep you awake.

Great. He made himself focus—again, ignoring the probing feeling in the wounds, the great bursts of pain that shot through him at irregular intervals (okay, he couldn’t ignore that).

He called up a holographic image of the exterior so he could see what was going on.

The gigantic ship was swallowing the yacht, which meant if this damn second cockpit didn’t launch soon, it would launch inside the other ship, and the other ship probably had measures set up for that, which meant they had measures to handle his explosions, which meant he was caught no matter what he did—

And then he cursed.

He had planned for five steps, finished five steps, added the doctor, but he had been wrong from the start. He hadn’t needed five steps.

He needed six.

He had to release the torpedoes. If the yacht went inside the gigantic ship, he was screwed no matter what, and he couldn’t let that happen, so if he got caught in the blowback of his own explosions, so be it, he’d let that happen, he’d let it all happen—

Concentrate
.

He fired the torpedoes, all of them, not caring if the bullet ship escaped.

Everything blacked out—including the doctor—and for a moment, he thought
he
had blacked out, and then he realized the blackout was the separation. He had separated, the second cockpit had separated, the
bullet ship
had separated and he needed the systems back online so it could move, move, move—

Lights, power, everything returned, including the doctor who told him she couldn’t work like that and he ignored her as best he could even though she was poking at his injured legs, and then the image showed up, the gigantic ship, the yacht, the bullet ship—and balloons of red hitting the hull of the gigantic ship, and the yacht got sucked inside.

But the bullet ship didn’t.

It caromed (okay, not caromed but hurried—moved, went at top speed—)

Concentrate.

It took more work this time. But he saw it. He saw the yacht disappear into the bay of the gigantic ship, and he counted—he made himself count down the time to the destruction of his beautiful yacht, even though nothing was happening, even though he was failing—

Big, gigantic explosion, rocking the giant ship. (Maybe a series of explosions, maybe the weapons and the explosives going off in sequence.)

He couldn’t focus on those details.

Because he didn’t have a lot of time.

That gigantic ship, that gigantic
Alliance
ship, would contact other Alliance ships unless they knew they were running an illegal op for Jarvis, unless they were
only
coming after the money to cover their respective asses.

And even then, they might just say that this little space yacht had attacked them out of the blue, and they needed to destroy the person who had destroyed their ship, and they might have convinced someone in the Alliance to come after him.

He needed to get the hell out of here.

And he needed help doing it.

He cursed himself again.

Not six steps.

Seven. Seven steps.

He needed to get to Armstrong, in a no-name ship, without identification.

He needed someone to help him enter Earth’s Moon—

In the center of the Alliance.

Right after a second major attack.

He’d escaped only to trap himself in Earth’s Solar System.

He was screwed, and he had no idea what to do.

FIFTY-EIGHT

THE UPPER LEVEL
cargo deck smelled of fear. Babies wailed, little children watched everything with wide open eyes, and a handful of overwhelmed evacuees already slept on top of pillows someone had scrounged up.

The ten adults Koos's teams had brought on that first trip were the only full adults on this cargo vessel, although more had arrived on another, with the toddlers. He was grateful that the toddlers were on a different ship. The under-fives were tough enough, with their overwhelming energy and their fear.

That last group he’d brought had fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, and he’d pressed them into babysitting service. He needed them to deal with the younger kids, at least until he could figure some of this out.

The adults wanted answers and he wasn’t giving any, except to say that they’d all been rescued.

He had instructed the staff not to give them answers, either. No one was to identify the name of the corporation running the ship or the parent company of that particular corporation.

Deshin didn’t want anyone to know he had taken the clones, and Koos’s job was to make sure no one would get any information.

Particularly since he was going to dump the adults at the nearest starbase. He already had staff there, hiring actual nannies and gathering supplies.

This was the largest operation he’d organized for Deshin in years, and they’d done it in less than twenty-four hours.

“You need to tell us what’s going on,” said one of the teenage boys Koos had rescued in the last group. That group still had a bit of bravado.

“Yeah,” a couple others said nearby.

“Why were we being bombed?”

“What did it mean?”

Koos looked at all of them, a sea of somewhat matching faces, and sighed heavily. He needed to say something. So he was going to tell them what he could.

He raised his hands above his head and clapped.

The room grew silent—except for the crying babies. Apparently, the sound covers on the carriers weren’t up to the task.

Then he realized that several of the crying babies were being held by adults and teenagers—probably not for the baby’s comfort, but for the adult’s comfort.

“I’m the person in charge here. I ran the operation, and I’ll tell you what I know. Please don’t ask questions until I’m done.” He cleared his throat. He had to raise his voice to speak over the crying.

All of the teenagers stood. A few put their arms around the younger kids, who were also watching him.

Koos felt like this was a tougher task than getting them out of the industrial park.

“I don’t know much about the mission, okay? I was contacted a day or so ago with the news that the industrial park was going to be attacked. My team was sent to rescue as many of you as possible—”

“Why didn’t someone tell us you were coming?” the adult woman who had turned a rifle on him demanded.

“Please,” Koos said, “no questions. I don’t know why this method was chosen. Probably expediency.”

He would have to be careful. His mixture of lies and the truth needed to sound convincing.

“We got as many of you out as we could. The attack started just as the last group left. We lost two rescue shuttles—and no, I don’t know who among your friends was on them.”

Two of the teenage girls wrapped their arms around each other. One of the boys stifled a sob. Apparently, they knew.

“We’re going to make a stop in a few hours to get supplies and some hired help for the younger children and babies.”

One of the adults let out an audible sigh. Koos took that as encouragement.

“You adults will have a choice at that moment. You can leave the ship. We will give you enough money to get back to your families in Hétique City. We can’t send you farther than that. I have no idea what condition the area will be in when you return. That’s your problem, not mine.”