The Lost King (64 page)

The corridor suddenly
slanted, the walls shook. Maigrey stumbled backward, Admiral Aks fell
to his knees.

Phoenix
was
under attack.

Tusk's squadron clung
tenaciously to Dion's Scimitar. The Corasians kept the plane in tow,
dragging it nearer and nearer the mothership. Wave after wave of
enemy fighters dove at Red Squadron, trying to dislodge them from
their position. Nola kept up a constant stream of fire; she could
feel the heat from the lasgun through her gloves.

She'd been scared, at
first; there were so many, it seemed hopeless. But now her fear was
gone. She didn't feel anything. She was too tired. The situation
wasn't hopeless to her anymore. It just simply wasn't real. It was
all happening to someone else—to someone whose arm muscles were
going limp from fatigue, whose hands ached from the strain, whose
eyes hurt from the constant, blinding flares of exploding death.
Nola, watching this person, felt a moment's brief pity for her.

Below, Tusk fought
controls that jumped and bucked and threatened to tear his arms from
their sockets. His flight suit was soaked with sweat; he would have
traded a starjewel for a drink of cool water. Above him, the gun's
firing was so constant that he didn't even hear it anymore, couldn't
remember a time when he hadn't heard it. The nightmare flight went on
and on. Corasians materialized out of the blackness, their planes
forever coming at him. He couldn't see Red Squadron anymore—if
it still existed. He dimly remembered hearing death screams,
registered that it was someone he knew, but he couldn't think,
couldn't care.

"Hang on, Tusk!"
Link's voice, ragged with fatigue, was somehow still cocky. "It's
just you and me now."

Time and again, the two
pilots fought off attack, their only hope of staying alive resting
with each other. Constant tracer fire lit the interior of the
Scimitar bright as if they'd come up on a sun.

"My new paint
job!" the computer mourned.

A Corasian popped up in
front of them. Laser fire seared into the Scimitar. The plane rocked.
Tusk was slammed violently against his restraining straps, nearly
breaking his right shoulder.

"One more hit like
that," XJ shouted, "and you can kiss that left shield
good-bye!"

"Keep quiet a
moment," Tusk ordered. He licked perspiration from his lips,
wondering why his heart was beating painfully and his mouth felt as
if he'd been chewing on his socks. "What's wrong? Something's
wrong, XJ! I can hear it!"

"No, you can't,"
the computer said slowly. "It's the gun. It's quit firing.
Shield's gone—"

"Nola!" Tusk
fumbled at the restraining straps.

"Are you insane?
Sit down, you maniac! That fighter's coming back around! I've got the
guns under control. Rian's not dead. The bubble wasn't penetrated. I
can register a heartbeat and she's breathing. If you want to keep her
alive, you better pull yourself together!"

Tusk subsided,
reluctantly, back into his seat. He stared out the viewport that was
smeared with carbon scoring, making it practically impossible to see
anything. "The kid! Where's the kid?"

"Lost him,"
XJ said quietly. "About fifteen minutes ago, during that last
attack. There was nothing you could do."

The guns, manned by the
computer, began firing. The Corasian dodged the tracer fire and dove
in on them.

"Link!" Tusk
shouted desperately.

"Got one of my
own!" Link gasped. "I—"

There was a shattering
explosion. The spaceplane rocked.

"Are we hit?"
Tusk demanded.

"No," XJ
said, its audio awed. "It was the enemy. They're both . . .
gone."

"Tusca. Mendaharin
Tusca," came a voice over the mercenary's headset.

Tusk was so relieved he
nearly broke down and cried. But—recognizing the voice—he
kept himself under strict control.

"Tusca here, sir."

"'My lord,' not
'sir'!" hissed the scandalized XJ.

Two planes came into
partial view through his filthy viewport. Sleek and smooth, shaped
like spearheads, they were glorious light in the midst of darkness,
calm in the center of chaos, life-bringers to the dead. Tusk had to
remind himself that it was Derek Sagan.

"The boy, sir."
Tusk tasted defeat. "We lost him. I'm sorry."

"I can see him,
Tusca," said a cool, feminine voice. "I have him in my
mind."

"There's something
wrong with him. I don't think he's hurt—at least not
physically. He was talkin' real funny—"

"We're going after
him," the Warlord said. "You needn't worry about him. You
are to be commended for your bravery, Captain Tusca, you and . . . ?"

"Link, sir,"
came the mercenary's cocky reply.

"I note both
planes have taken extensive damage. Captain Link will no doubt want
to return to
Defiant
, but you, Tusca, might want to consider
returning to
Phoenix
."

"Sir?" Tusk
couldn't think. Exhaustion was seeping in, taking over his mind and
body.

The Warlord's voice
sounded exasperated. "The enemy brains have nearly been
eliminated or their effectiveness reduced. It appears that we are on
the verge of winning this battle. I'm offering you a commission,
Mendaharin Tusca. In my personal command."

A low whisde came from
the computer.

"Shut up!"
Tusk ordered. "No—not you, sir. I was talking to my—my
partner. Uh, thank you, sir—that is, my lord. It's not that I
don't appreciate the honor, but I'm under General Dixter's command
and . . . and I'm saying this real bad, but I guess I'll go back to
Defiant
—"

"Consider your
decision well, young man." The Warlord's voice was grim,
ominous. "My offer will not be repeated."

Tusk felt a chill grip
his bowels, cramp his stomach.

"I understand, my
lord. Thank you. But it wouldn't work out."

"You are much like
your father, Tusca," Lady Maigrey said.

"Indeed he is,"
Lord Sagan added. "Danha Tusca suffered from a misguided sense
of loyalty. Apparently it runs in the family."

"Thank the
Creator. Farewell, Mendaharin Tusca. God be with you."

"Yeah. You, too,
my lady," Tusk said.

The communication ended
abruptly. The two gleaming white planes vanished, winking out of his
line of sight. In a moment he could see them again, but they were
distant and bright and cold as the other stars in the heavens.

"Link, we re
heading back to
Defiant
." Tusk disentangled himself from
his restraining harness. 'Take over the controls, XJ. I'm going to
check on Nola. Nothing fancy. That goes for you, too, Link! Just get
us back in one piece."

"Nothing fancy for
me, old friend. I'm played out. Say, Tusk. I gotta tell you. That was
a pretty great thing you did, turmne down the Warlord—"

"Great!" XJ
was furious. "You can't eat 'great'! I say he's a big dope!
You're a big dope, Men Da Ha Rin Tusca! We coulda made our fortunes!
The Warlord would've given you a command of your own, probably made
you a colonel. I could've had a new plane—like that one of the
kid's—"

"Leave me alone,
will you?" Tusk clambered up the ladder, snagging the emergency
medkit on his way. "I'm worried about Nola."

"Oh, yeah? If
you're so worried about her, why didn't you take Sagan up on his
offer?" the computer demanded. "She could be getting class
medical treatment now!"

"I wish I had!"
Tusk stuck his head back through the hatch to shake his fist at the
computer. "The Warlord purged all XJ-27 models!"

The word "purge"
stuck in Tusk's throat. A chill crept up the back of his spine.
Stupid. It's nothing. Someone standing on my grave. The mercenary
shook himself out of it.

"I don't believe
it!" XJ squeaked.

"Yep. Scrap heap.
One of the mechanics aboard
Defiant
told me. Something about
too much independent thinking."

Tusk pulled himself up
into the bubble. Nola lay sprawled in the gunner's seat. Her flight
suit was covered with blood. Splinters of metal filled the gun
turret. A quick glance showed Tusk that the hit had torn a hole
through the body of the spaceplane, not penetrating the bubble, but
sending metal fragments whizzing around like thrown daggers.

Cutting away Nola's
flight suit, Tusk sealed the wounds with plastiskin and managed to
stop the bleeding, but he knew she suffered head injuries and there
wasn't a damn thing he could do about that. He gave her a fix to
alleviate shock. Cradling her in his arms, he sank down on the
fragment-strewn floor of the gun turret and stared out the bubble.

The ranks of the enemy
were obviously thinned, although numerous dogfights continued to
rage. The mothership was launching a barrage of lascannon fire and
torpedoes into the hull of
Phoenix
. Another cruiser was coming
up to support her.
Defiant
had pulled back, out of the action.
Tusk could see long hues
at
the mercenaries returning to the
ship.

"I can't
comprehend it!" XJ's audio was thin and tinny sounding. "The
tragedy! My fellow computers. Purged! Maybe I'm the last survivor—"

"God, we can only
hope so!" Tusk smoothed back the blood-gummed curls from Nola's
ashen face. "XJ, contact
Defiant
. Get in touch with
Dixter."

Tusk could hear the
computer raising the ship. He couldn't hear the response; something
up in the turret had broken loose and was rattling loudly.

"Dixter's not
available," XJ reported.

"Not available?"
There was the chill again. "I don't like this. Are all our
people going back?"

"Where the hell
else they gonna go?" XJ demanded. "Half of "em are
shot up. The other half got barely enough fuel to make it that far.
Besides, Dixter's on that ship—somewhere."

Tusk shifted Nola
slightly. Easing his lasgun out of its holster, he examined it, made
sure it was fully charged, and laid it across his knees.

"Let's be careful
going in there, XJ. Real careful."

Who shall tempt . . .
the dark, unbottomed, infinite abyss?

John Milton,
Paradise
Lost

The white, spearheaded
planes mingled with the debris of a wrecked brain. The battle had
changed in nature and scope. The Corasian mothership, seeing defeat
being snatched from the jaws of victory, had moved up to challenge
Phoenix
. The Warlord's ship was taking grueling punishment and
was being forced to endure it without returning a shot, fearful of
hitting its own planes.

Scimitars dove at the
mothership, darting through withering fire to inflict what small
amount of damage they could on the enemy's heavily shielded black
hull. How the Corasian computers were analyzing this bizarre strategy
was anyone's guess. Certainly it would be impossible for the "body"
to comprehend that the Warlord was risking victory in order to
protect the one.

Maigrey herself
wondered at Sagan's motives. Knowing him as she did, she found it
difficult to accept that he would throw away everything he'd worked
so long and hard to achieve in order to rescue the boy. He must have
some ulterior design, some stratagem in mind, but—aside from
using the fighters as cover for their own assault on the
enemy—Maigrey couldn't discern Sagan's plans. The exhilarating
and frightening bond that had joined them when they fought the brain
had been broken, cleaved in two.

Where they were going,
in the dark night they were entering, they would have only each
other. Sagan was furious at Maigrey. She was wary and suspicious of
him. Their minds were shielded as heavily as their planes. Neither
could penetrate the other; they communicated through mechanical
means. Unless something changed, they were walking into certain
death.

Maigrey knew it and
wondered uneasily how she felt about it. She didn't trust herself.
She had sought this final escape into oblivion for so long! And, she
had to admit, she would rather die than experience that terrifying
"joining" again. She also had to admit she would rather die
because she longed for that joining with every fiber of her being.

With such power as the
enhancement brought them, he and she could rule the universe and no
one could stop them. Whenever she relived that moment, pleasurable
pain, like liquid fire, burned in her veins, constricted her heart,
and snatched at her breath. Her hands shook, her body trembled, and
she longed to cry out that she was with him, they were one as they
had been one so long ago. Only not even then, not in their youth, had
they experienced power as they had known together in those
flame-tinged moments of battle against the enemy.

Maturity. Age and the
wisdom it brings. Definitive goals. Reality taking the place of airy
and insubstantial dreams. Cold steel emerging from the ashes of
youth's hot passions.

"What about the
boy, my lady?"

Sagan had not spoken to
her since they had left Tusca, and his voice jolted through her like
electricity. Her spaceplane, guided by her mind, reacted, shivering
like a leaf in a wind. Angry at herself, she latched on to discipline
firmly, as a drowning man clings to a piece of wood.

"Dion won't
respond to my attempts to raise him."

"Nor to mine."

"But I'm able to
touch his mind through the ring. He can understand me, my lord."

"What's his mental
state?"

"Not good.
Frightened, guilt-ridden, overwhelmed by everything that's happened
to him. Just what you might expect from someone captured and wounded
by the enemy. And then, of course, there are the Corasians. ..."

"Spare me your
wit, lady."

"I count myself at
fault, my lord. I forgot what it was to be young . . . if I ever
really knew."

"Are you through
wallowing?" Sagan demanded.