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<< previous | Prologue | Interlude 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
"You know," Mitchell shouted, "The Mole may have been an Imperial agent, but his trap couldn't have been worse than this!"
"I could go back and look for that disk," Wild shouted back.
"Nah," Mitchell replied. "You're the only one who understands my analogies."
"I have an extensive literary database."
Mitchell laughed, thinking that Wild was joking.
Things had gone from bad to worse. The three fat, unarmed transports had turned out to be Trojans. As soon as Mrrraiff and Prrrl launched, they opened up, belching 30 fighters from their holds.
They had heard reports of privateer traps. This appeared to be one of them.
The ship shook as a torpedo crashed into its side. Wild winced as fires began burning behind him. There were only two turrets, and Clemmons couldn't do this on his own. He had to keep his post.
Far away on the ship, his turret followed the commands he entered into his console. He tracked a fighter as it burned off velocity for another pass. Wait for it. Wait for it. The targeter locked onto the fighter, its tone blaring through the gunnery station. Fire.
The blaster bolt tore through the wing of the fighter. He fired again. More metal vaporized. He still had his lock, so he lay on the firing toggle. As the fighter tried to fly away, he tore across the cockpit. The fighter went dead.
"Hey, Mitchell, I think I just got a fighter salvage." Those were rare. Falar pilots hated to lose, even in death.
"Great, how you manage that?"
"Cooked the pilot."
"Nova. I hear cats taste like chicken."
Mrrraiff roared over their comlinks.
"Sorry, buddy," Mitchell said. "Didn't know I was on
Voice there."
Their levity was forced. They knew this was it.
"Claw Two destroyed," the tactical computer reported.
"Dammit!" shouted Clemmons. "I liked Prrrl."
"I've got strong vitals on his beacon," Mitchell shouted back.
"Yeah, and Prrrl is always losing his fighter," Wild added. That was probably the real reason Mrrraiff had roared. Now he was all alone out there.
As he tried to get his next lock, he could see Mrrraiff, burning velocity along three, maybe four, vectors at once, trying to fire while flying backwards. As he watched, Mrrraiff splashed another bogie. Only twenty-ten to go.
His victim was burning off his vector of velocity after splashing Prrrl. The targeting computer started to home in on him. Wait for it. Wait for it. Tone. Fire!
He watched his blasters cutting through the ship. Hit. Hit. Hit. Miss as the fighter tried to break the lock. Hit. Hit. Dead kitty.
"Got another one."
"Me two," Clemmons shouted.
Wild watched on the screen as large chunks of Mrrralff's fighter burned away under a firestorm of blaster fire. The lion, screaming over the com, burned his engines up to 8 G's, all they had left, and flew straight into one of the fighters.
"What's that, twenty-eight?" Mitchell shouted.
"Twenty-seven, "Wild said over the throatmike. "Mrrraiff
just buried himself in one."
Silence.
"Suck all cats and their blasted honor," Mitchell said, his voice thick with emotion.
"Did he eject?" Clemmons asked.
Mitchell checked. "Yeah but his vitals are all screwed up."
On the display, three of the torpedoes Mitchell had fired caught one of the fighters. Thirty percent of the craft blew off into space in a cloud of glowing metal. The rest went tumbling into the void. Seconds later, the self destruct detonated.
"Twenty-six," Wild said.
"Hoo-wah," Mitchell said, but his heart wasn't in it.
Two more torpedoes crashed into the ship. The fire was licking up Wild's back now. He was trying to figure out what to do about it when he felt the fire suppression system kick in, dousing him in inert gasses. He pulled on a breath mask for show.
"The Oort got that fire suppression fixed," he reported as his computer locked onto his next victim.
"Great," Mitchell said. "Now he can work on the engines."
Wild could feel what he meant. The ship was no longer under power. The torps had taken out their drive system.
"Suck me," Wild whispered.
Two more impacts rocked the ship. His console went dead.
Wild sighed and began to unbuckle his harness. He pulled out his personal comlink.
"How bad?"
The reply was an angry stream of Oort.
"Um," said a mechanical voice over the corn. One of the Oort's little robots, most likely. "The master says that the power cells blew and took the vacuum generator with them. I'm afraid we're not going anywhere."
Mitchell stuck his head back into the gunnery compartment. "I lost com."
"Yeah," Wild said, holding up his hand held unit. "Had this in my pocket. The Oort says we're sucked."
Mitchell looked at the little comlink. He nodded. "Everyone grab your comlink and put fresh power cells in it. Then prepare to repel borders."
Wild looked around as he strained his audio inputs. No blaster fire. No torps.
No missiles.
"They want to take us alive," Wild said.
"That they do."
"And…?" WiId let the question go unspoken. Clemmons had come around the corner, drifting in the zero-g. He could see it in Clemmons' face as well.
"We let them."
Clemmons winced.
"I'm not saying we don't put up a fight," Mitchell said, "but when we lose, and we will lose, no burning a hole in your own head."
Clemmons didn't look happy. "I heard a quote once," he said. "Ours is not to reason why. Ours is just to do or die."
"Tennyson," Mitchell said. "Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into the valley of Death I Rode the six hundred. A moving passage. Ever hear the line that came before that?"
Clemmons shook his head.
"Some one had blundered," Wild said.
"Though they were cut to pieces, the Light Brigade survived. We fight like men, but we let them take us when it's over. There are many more days left in this war. We will live to fight another one."
Clemmons nodded and headed off for his blaster.
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