Was Once a Hero (17 page)

She
looked down at him.
 
“It’s how I was
raised,” she replied in all seriousness.

Chapter Nine

“Ready?”
he asked Shasti as he tightened the straps on his helmet.

“Always,”
she replied.

Fenaday
pulled back on the stick and the
Wildcat
fighter lifted from
Sidhe’s
main
shuttle bay.
 
He deftly piloted the
fighter out the pressure doors midway up on the frigate’s blood-red hull then
rolled the
Wildcat
on her side.
 
Fenaday looked back at the ship where he’d
spent the last few years and felt a pang
.
 
Sidhe
was the closest thing he had left
to a home.
 
The frigate floated above
him, beautifully lit by Mur’s starlight.
 
Right now, with Enshar so close, he wished
himself safely back aboard her.

“Perez
to Fenaday.”

He
keyed open the mike.
 
“Fenaday here.”

“Communication
check.”

“I
read you five by five,
Sidhe
.
 
Scramblers on, we should be secure.”
 
He’d left the engineer in command.
 
Perez was not trained to navigate a ship but
Fenaday considered him more reliable than the inexperienced Micetich.
 
In any event, he’d taken the precaution of
locking the ship’s computers with codes to prevent anyone from taking
Sidhe
out of orbit for several weeks.

“Telisan
to Fenaday, checking in.”

“Read
you, Telisan,” he said, concentrating on the entry window for the dead world
below them.
 
He planned a steep and fast
approach.

“He
must be a good formation flyer,” Shasti said.

“Why
do you say that?” he asked absently.

“Because
I can see the color of his eyes from here, kind of a yellow gold,” she said.

Fenaday
looked over his shoulder at his wingman.
 
“Eek.”

Shasti
was slightly exaggerating, very slightly.
 
There was at least a five-meter separation.

“Fenaday
to Telisan.”

“Read
you.”

“I’m
not used to being much closer than a few kilometers to another object in
space.
 
Much as I appreciate the company,
how about one hundred meters separation?”

The
Denlenn’s laugh sounded over the headset.
 
“One hundred meters?
 
I’ll have to
fail you out of flight school.
 
Why, we
are so far apart now, I am deprived of much of the view of the beautiful Shasti
Rainhell.
 
Still, I swore an oath to obey
you, so one hundred meters it is.
 
I only
hope that no one I know sees me in such a sloppy formation.”
 
Telisan’s fighter slid smoothly out of view.

“Is
everyone enjoying this trip but me?” Fenaday muttered.

“I
could use more leg room,” Shasti said.

“You
can keep quiet,” he snapped back.
 
“You
should be safely back on
Sidhe.
”

“I am
where I chose to be,” she replied unperturbed.
 
“There is little point running from death.
 
It finds you anyway.”

“If I
had my choice,” Fenaday said, “death would have to spend a good deal of time
looking and wear out a few sets of boots chasing.”

Telemetry
from the frigate showed their fighters on course for the landing window.
 
Fenaday engaged his heat shield, watching it
slide over the canopy.
 
He readied the
fighter for atmospheric entry.
 
With her
nose pointed toward Enshar, the
Wildcat
began to heat from atmospheric friction.
 
Communications cut out due to interference.
 
They slipped into the quiet time of
entry.
 
Whatever happened now would be
known only to them.

They
rode down in silence and the increasing heat that the fighter’s life support
could not entirely dispel.
 
Finally, the
temperature began to lessen, and the canopy automatically retracted.
 
They’d entered the ionosphere of Enshar about
one hundred and twenty kilometers up.
 
The fighter’s nose lost its cherry glow as its super-conducting material
shed heat.
 
They coasted high in the
clear sky, still a midnight blue due to the nearness of space.
 
Fenaday had timed their landing for ten
minutes after sunrise at Gigor.
 
They
were coming in from the west, so the land below them lay shrouded in darkness.

“Fenaday
to Telisan, status?”

“All
in order.”

“Fenaday
to Perez.
 
Any reaction to our entry?”

“Negative
and you are well below the height at which
Flamme
was destroyed.
 
So far, so good,
Captain.”

They
continued their downward path.
 
As they
came into thicker atmosphere, the shuttles began to cut silver contrails
through the starlit sky.
 
Fenaday smiled
as he looked back at his wingman.
 
Telisan’s
Wildcat
looked
brave, riding its contrail.
 
A last
moment of beauty to take with him if they were struck down.

*****

Thousands
of feet below the
Wildcats
lay the
tiny, desolate remnants of a farmhouse in the town of Smarr.
 
The night lay cool and still.
 
Suddenly on the edge of the field, dust,
twigs and leaves stirred as if in a storm.
 
For only a second, the whirling debris formed a shape.
 
The shape faced heavenward, as if looking at
the contrails.
 
Then it dissipated, as if
it had never been.
 
There was not a
breath of wind in the night.
 
All
returned to stillness.

Traveling
eastward, the fighters raced over the horizon.

*****

“There’s
Gigor,” Fenaday said.
 
The sun cleared
the horizon and its rays lit the tops of trees and buildings, leaving the field
still cloaked in purple shadow.
 
He heard
Shasti’s seat creak as she leaned forward to look beyond the backrest of his
seat.
 
Fenaday put the
Wildcat
in a slow circle at a height of
four hundred meters.
 
Shasti and he
looked out at the devastated base.
 
Gigor
base extended for tens of kilometers.
 
The beige and yellow Enshari buildings in the distance had the squat and
unlovely utilitarian look favored by governments.
 
Beyond them, toward the city proper lay the
domes and half-domes preferred by the Enshari.
 
Shattered glass in those buildings splintered and threw back the
sunlight.
 

“Looks
worse than it did from orbit,” she said.

“Yeah,”
Fenaday said.
 
“No question that the base
was attacked.
 
By what I can’t imagine,
the pattern of destruction doesn’t resemble that from an airburst nuclear
weapon.
 
Nothing else I know of—not even
a mass driver—creates destruction like this.”

“Only
a few military spaceships were based at Gigor,” Shasti said.
 
“Most Navy traffic used the port at the
capital city of Barjan.”

Fenaday
pointed.
 
“There’s the Navy area.
 
It’s completely destroyed.”
 
They had seen all this from orbit, but it
lacked the effect of viewing it with their own eyes.
 

“Notice
something?” asked Shasti.

“Yeah,”
Fenaday replied.
 
“Those shuttles on the
apron look like they were cut down by a laser fired from ground level.
 
See that neat slice on the metal of that
green and white hospital shuttle?
 
It’s
cut almost in half.
 
Whatever it was
started striking the ground at a low angle, bubbling the apron.”

“Energy
weapons don’t work that way,” Shasti said.
 
“Why use massive quantities of power to cut metal when a kinetic weapon
does it cheaper and faster?
 
Lasers are
for burning flesh, starting fires and damaging sensitive instruments—-”

“These
are a few of your favorite things,” Fenaday murmured.

Shasti
ignored the comment, “Well, this isn’t Conchirri work.
 
If they had energy weapons like this, we
would all be dinner.”

Fenaday
brought the
Wildcat
to a hover near
the edge of the apron close to the barracks.
 
The sun had risen enough to light the field.
 
A brilliant, dark-blue ground cover, reminiscent
of pansies, dotted some of the nearby tarmac.

“Let’s
get this over with,” he said tightly.
 
“Are you ready, Shasti?”

“Locked
and loaded,” she said, putting her tri-auto in her lap.
 

“Telisan,
this is Fenaday.
 
I’m going in.
 
Keep circling.
 
If anything happens, run for it.
 
That is an order.”

“Of
course,” replied Telisan.
 
The Denlenn’s
easy answer made Fenaday suspect Telisan was simply humoring him.

“Fenaday
to
Sidhe
, we are landing.”

The
fighter landed smoothly, blowing dust and debris away from the
Wildcat
.
 
Fenaday throttled back the engines, but didn’t cut them off.
 
He kept the HOTAS stick, which controlled
thrust and weapons, in his right hand.
 
Fenaday looked to starboard, Shasti to port.
 
The fighter’s swivel-mounted guns followed
the motion of his eyes.
 
The Confed
shuttles from the first expedition landed only sixty-three seconds before being
overwhelmed by whatever killed their crews.
 
Fenaday didn’t look at the clock.
 
He scanned every shadow, dreading the sight of a dust cloud similar to
the one that enveloped the Confederate shuttles three years ago.
 
Telisan circled above, equally vigilant.

From
Perez’ station aboard
Sidhe
, the
engineer announced, “Thirty seconds.”

Fenaday
kept his eyes on the ground.
 
His heart
pounded and his mouth felt dry.
 
“Nothing
in sight,” he reported.
 
To his own
surprise, his voice sounded calm.

“All
clear here,” Shasti said.
 
She didn’t
even have the grace to sound concerned.

“Same,”
Telisan reported.
 
“Nothing on motion
sensors.”

“Forty-five
seconds.”

For an
instant, Fenaday thought about saying something to Shasti, something about the
night before.
 
He snapped a quick glance
into the one of the mirrors.
 
She stared
out the canopy, catlike, intent, totally focused on here and now.

He
returned his attention to the field.

“Sixty
seconds.”

Fenaday
held his breath, his finger on the trigger.

“Seventy
seconds, Captain.
 
Congratulations on a
new world record.”

The
breath left his body in a whoosh.

“Okay,”
he said, voice shaking slightly.
 
“I’m
heading into overheat, initiating engine shutdown.

“Telisan,
keep circling.
 
Perez, start the shuttles
down.
 
Tell Karass he is to abort if at
any time we lose contact before landing.”

“Pop
the canopy,” Shasti said.
 
“I’d like to
breathe some fresh air.”

Fenaday
hit the release, and the canopy whirred upward and back.
 
He unbelted, then removed the bulky flight
helmet and stood in the cockpit of the fighter, drawing his laser pistol.
 
A breeze blew across the ruined
spacefield.
 
It felt wonderful, sifting
through the flight suit to reveal that he’d been sweating.
 
The wind also brought the sounds of trees and
leaves but nothing that spoke of animal life.

He
stretched stiff muscles.
 
Mur climbed overhead into a partly clouded sky, its light
still stronger than Sol’s.
 
Fenaday put
on an unbreakable shooting visor and a ship’s cap.
 
Shasti did not need a visor; her eyes could
cope with greater extremes.
 

The first thing that hits you on an alien
world,
he thought,
are smells
.
 
Not because they are alien, but because they
are absent from ship air.
 
Enshar smelled
like trees, rain and dirt.
 
Brilliant,
lush green foliage edged the spacefield.
 
The soil, what he could see of it, looked rather ordinary—if somewhat
dark—compared to the brilliant vegetation in the distance.
 
The apron of the field near the
Wildcat
seemed in reasonably good
condition.

Sidhe’s
shuttles wouldn’t arrive until
they could line up on their own entry window, hours from now.
 
Fenaday thought about staying in the fighter,
waiting on the shuttles with their equipment and people to arrive.
 
He also thought of other things.
 
For the last few years he had shipped with
people who did not mean a damn to him.
 
The universe would generally be better off without most of his
crews.