Moire jigged hard and fast to avoid a spinning chunk of wreckage, hoping the crab fighter chasing her would not dodge in time. Judging from the debris floating about, Fleet was losing the battle–too much of the wreckage was theirs.
She stared as some of that wreckage went by her ship, feeling suddenly cold. It was a piece of fuselage covered with garish abstract swirls of pink, yellow, and electric blue. The colors were still visible under patches and streaks of black from a direct, full-power enemy hit. Jorge’s ship. This was not a good day to be a merc. “Dammit, I told you to wait for me!” she whispered, fighting back tears. Jorge was always impatient to get to the fight.
Moire glanced at the communication panel. It showed only one message, the same message for the last fifteen-minutes-going-on-eternity. SAYRES GO WIDE, HUNT/KILL. She never had liked that name; she had to keep reminding herself it was hers. That’s what happens when you need a new identity in a hurry. With Jorge dead, she realized with guilty relief, nobody else in the unit would know about it.
The crabs must have killed the wing commander too. The comms went on the blink all the time, but they'd never been out this long before. If the wing commander was down, she was on her own. Wasn't likely the crewcuts would bother contacting her–a merc was just supposed to go get killed instead of one of the crewcuts, they didn't care how.
The crab fighter was still on her tail, and it was beginning to annoy her. Stupid crab. Why don't you just go home so I don't have to kill you? It flew close enough for her to see it without the scope. She knew some of the spines on its spiky black surface were guns, but where were the viewports? Might explain why its targeting was so terrible. Fleet should tell them these things. Maybe Fleet didn’t know either. They knew surprisingly little about an enemy they’d been fighting for so long. Including why the crabs had attacked humans in the first place.
The crab fighter pulled a sharp turn, flipping in the process. Now it was behind her, to one side. That was one of their favorite maneuvers, and an effective one. The crab fighter fired, the far edge of the spread catching the engine casing. A red pinlight flickered on her display but went out almost immediately. Engine self-repair was one thing about the future she really liked. Too bad Bon Accord hadn’t...no. She wasn’t going to think about that now.
The fighter was following her in an outside circle now. The crabs were good at high-g turns, but she’d noticed they didn’t do too many of them together. Moire pulled a sudden curve down and reversed direction. Darkness started to crowd the edges of her vision, but she caught her breath and held it. The trick worked–the darkness receded, and she flipped into another sharp, crazy turn, as hard as she could stand. The other mercs thought she just had a natural talent for high-g maneuvers. She’d never mentioned being a test pilot, and wasn’t planning to. It would just raise awkward questions.
Sure enough, the crab fighter didn’t follow as cleanly this time. Without any delay Moire flipped up and over, her hand on the firing controls. The fighter sped past her and into a shell round before it could recover. Small fragments of wreckage from the explosion pinged her viewport and fuselage.
More wreckage flew by, some heavy and fast enough to damage her ship, and she pulled away. She remembered the fighter’s fin-notch pattern from the beginning of the fight, so they were still working on the first wave. The crab carrier would be disgorging the second wave soon, and there was no way in hell they could withstand it. Canaveral was already in bad shape. One of the mercenaries’ keel launch bays had been hit, and she'd seen enough damage when she left to tell her Fleet was getting a thorough shellacking.
Someone had to get the carrier. That wouldn't be easy; nobody had made a confirmed hit on a crab carrier although plenty had tried. Even if she went banzai, the carrier’s guns were quite accurate. It also had some kind of whacko ship-specific shielding that let the crab fighters go right through, but batted away Fleet ships as if by a giant invisible hand that then held them immobile as they were blasted. She hadn't believed it herself until she saw it in action; it sounded too much like a force field. Which, she had on the best authority, was impossible. Of course her information was eighty years out of date, and she remembered when they thought faster-than-light was impossible too. They were lucky only the carriers seemed to have the shielding.
A large, jagged mass drifted by–enemy wreckage, but too big to be from the fighter she’d just hit. No other hostiles were in the immediate area, so she cruised around it to check it out. It looked like one of the remote-control gun platforms Fleet fighters called dumbos.
The crabs liked to fight defensively. When they showed up, the dumbos were detached from their carriers and deployed around them. Their formidable guns fired almost as quickly as those on the main ship, and if the crabs were forced to leave in a hurry the dumbos were abandoned–and detonated. The few unexploded ones that had been investigated showed no indication of ever being manned.
Something must have triggered the core by accident this time. The dumbo was little more than a gutted shell. A big gutted shell. Big enough for an antique Fleet fighter to fit into, if the pilot was skilled. Moire grinned. A trace of the old what-the-hell feeling returned–what Etienne had called “the mischief.” She hadn’t felt that for a long time.
It was risky, but safe was for people who had a chance of living to retire. Slow and gentle, she nudged her ship into the dumbo. It took longer than she liked to get in position without damaging it. There was a small hole forward that she considered enlarging, but decided against. She could see enough as it was and the risk of the crabs detecting her alien self inside the dumbo shell was too high. She gave the engines a hefty kick, wincing at the sound of straining metal but not letting up. If this stunt was going to work, it would have to be soon or it was wasted effort.
The Trojan Dumbo drifted toward the carrier. It was hard to judge her position. Was she inside the shield now? Moire bit her lip, frowning. No, she had to be sure. A little bit more. The comm display suddenly flashed random visual junk, then went blank again. She felt a surge of excitement and wrapped her hand around the throttle. Time to find out if she was right.
Reversed engines at full power vibrated through the frame of her fighter. As she cleared the hulk of the dumbo she armed all three remaining missiles. There was no point in being conservative now. She flipped the ship up and around, checking for trouble and targets. The open maw of the fighter sortie port was not far away. That would do for a start. Maybe it would hamper the crabs as much as Canaveral had been when its bay got hit. “See how you like it,” she muttered, and fired.
She didn't wait to see if the missile had any effect. If she was going to get all three launched she would have to keep going. Number two went amidships, on the general principle that it had to damage something, and by then she knew she had their attention. According to her scope, every remaining alien fighter was headed back toward the carrier. And her.
Moire cast about for the last target. By now she was near what seemed to be the bow of the ship. Like most of the alien carriers, the ship had a bulbous protrusion from the main body there: a long, narrow strut with a blob sticking out on the end. It looked like a swizzle stick. It was different enough from the usual spikiness of the crab ships that it must have a purpose. She fired the last missile. It wasn’t a clean hit, but the swizzle stick was definitely damaged.
A storm of angry crab fighters suddenly engulfed her. They were doing damage to each other in their eagerness to destroy her, firing without making any effort to avoid their comrades. She spun and turned desperately, using her greater maneuverability as best she could, but she knew she wouldn't last. There were too many of them. She could just give up–but the more crabs she destroyed now, the fewer Fleet would have to deal with later.
A hit, and another. Damage was occurring faster than the self-repair could fix it. Now an engine wasn't responding. At least she hadn’t run out of ammo yet. Any second now. This was it, she was going to die. Finally.
A blinding flash of light seared her eyes, and her fighter bucked and tossed like it was in a gale force wind. Something slammed into her fighter from behind with a tearing crunch and her tell-board went crimson, but whatever had hit her was hitting the enemy as well. She saw Fleet fighters streaking by, attacking the dazed enemy with ruthless efficiency. There was no sign of the crab carrier.
Soon the only thing moving was drifting wreckage. Lots of wreckage, which she could be considered part of since she had lost engine power. If her tell-board was to be believed the only working system was the running lights. It wasn’t fair. She'd done her best to get killed and she couldn't even do that right. Fighting a crushing wave of disappointment, Moire started to flip off nonessentials. She was going to have to keep on living a little while longer.
“...hired gun, looks like...merc ship, do you read? Come in, merc!”
She glanced at the console, puzzled. She'd never shut down the comms...and someone was hailing her. “People are trying to sleep around here, flyboy,” she responded. “I've had a busy day.”
A muffled snort came over the comm. They must be getting close if the signal was that good. She looked about and saw them. Three Fleet directs flew by, then around.
“You look like hell,” said the first pilot. “Can you maneuver?”
Moire grimaced and looked at her board. A pinlight flickered red, then stayed yellow. “I've got half of one engine, now. Maybe. Don't wait up.”
“We will escort you,” said a woman's voice, cool and measured. “After what you did, we will get you back whatever it takes. We owe you.”
“Cosign that,” the third pilot chimed in. “Yer pretty damn sneaky, merc.”
“You don't know the half of it,” Moire said under her breath, and she urged her wounded ship into motion.
It took forever to return to Canaveral. Moire’s fighter could barely move, and there were too many other craft that couldn’t move at all. She watched the rescue scows move out and return as her ship crept closer. Damage and destruction everywhere she looked, and frantic calls for assistance on all channels.
Moire slapped the comm switch silent, angry and ashamed for feeling that way. Those people wanted to live. It was easy to develop a reputation for fearlessness if you didn’t. They didn’t know she was really just trying to run away. Run away from the ghosts, and the guilt of still being alive.
One of the Fleet fighters escorting her was flashing its running lights. Moire blinked, then realized she was close enough to Canaveral to see the bay doors. Close enough for the override, but she didn’t see the indicator on her board. That’s probably why they were signaling her.
She sighed and flipped on the comm again. A barrage of voices greeted her.
“Sorry about that. Comms are intermittent,” Moire lied, when she could work a word in edgewise. Flight control sounded frantic.
“Sayres, you trying to give us heart attacks? For all we knew you were dead in there. Your ship isn’t even broadcasting its ID, never mind life support status. Remote isn’t working and you are still moving in under power, if you can call it that. Think you can get yourself in?”
“Bad idea, Control,” Moire answered. “I’m lucky to be moving at all.” The remote override would have brought the ship in and docked it, if it were working. They didn’t like pilots coming in under power on their own. That they had even offered showed how desperate they were.
Mumbled consultations on the other side of the comm.
“How’s your air?”
Moire squinted at the panel. It was, of course, flashing red. “No atmosphere recycle. I got thirty minutes on this, then I’ll have to go to my shipsuit emergency backup.”
A curse, then a sigh. “Sayres, hold your position. We have to figure out a way to get you in. Are you loaded still?”
“Half a belt of cannon shells. No missiles,” Moire said, going on memory. That console was completely dead. She slowed her fighter to a standstill.
“Right, that makes it easier. Look, Sayres, we’ll get you in as soon as we can. I’m keeping this channel open. Give a yell the instant anything changes in there, got that?”
“Got it, Control.” Trapped in her own cockpit. Not roomy at the best of times, and she was wearing combat protective gear over her shipsuit.
She watched the cleanup, and the damage control, and her gauges. Just before she was about to switch to the emergency oxygen she heard a metallic clunk on the underside of her fighter, then another. A powered EVA suit rose up in front of her viewport, and the operator raised the center waldo arm. Moire returned the A-OK signal, wondering why they hadn’t contacted her. Maybe they had, and the comms were out for real this time.
Her ship started to move forward again. They had attached a line, and she could see other powered EVAs nudging the ship into position. Then she was in the carrier, and then her cockpit was open and many hands were unfastening her harness and pulling her free.
“I’m all right, I’m fine...,” Moire snapped. The bay was complete chaos. Mobile robotic cranes were moving craft out of the way so others could be brought in. Where was her unit chief? She had to report in. Moire shook her head, trying to focus. This wasn’t the launch bay. She stepped aside to let a woman in a rugged, dented exoskeleton get past. She was carrying a tool with hydraulic fittings big enough to have their own valves.
What did they call those again? Heavy mechanics. She must be in Maintenance, then.
A voice shouted a wordless warning, and she ducked as a thick metal cable went swinging by. The voice added a profane suggestion of where she could go and what she could do when she got there. Leaving would probably be a good idea. They had enough to worry about here without gawking pilots.
Somehow she stumbled out of Maintenance. Mercs weren’t supposed to be in that section of the ship, so of course a harassed marine started giving her grief about it. Moire took advantage of the distraction caused by a convoy of wounded to dodge down a side corridor and escape.
Sheesh. You’d think there’s a war on.
Emergency lighting only on the lower levels, and smoke obscuring things even more. Closed bulkhead pressure doors more than once made her retrace her route. Some had the “low pressure” warning lights flashing.
Finally she made it to the one still-functioning mercenary launch bay, all the way at the bottom of the ship. It was easy to find a unit chief–they were surrounded by five or more people, all shouting. She found one with only three and reported to him. She wasn’t even sure if her unit chief was still alive. Somebody would get it all sorted out.
She made sure she accounted for all of her expended missiles. They were expensive, and Fleet didn’t like mercs wasting them. Dimly she noted nobody else seemed to be talking. Maybe she was the last to report. It had taken long enough to get back, and she’d gone all the way out to the crab carrier.
Oh yeah. The crab carrier. Hard to cover that up.
“Saw a piece of Jorge’s fighter,” Moire forced herself to say. “Looks like he got nominated.” The chief nodded, respectfully silent. Moire stumbled away, finding a crate against a wall to sit on just before her legs gave out.
She’d blown up a crab carrier, but not quick enough for Jorge.
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