Since the mountain range surrounded the city on all sides, there was no way to avoid them. Coming in for a landing was less of a problem than accelerating to escape velocity, especially since they had to get up to speed as quickly as possible. This planet had an air force. He knew that much.
“Several Pojjan fighter aircraft just scrambled on an intercept course, Eric,” Perraton reported.
“Behind us?”
“Angle two-five zero, port side and closing. Spreading out across our aft flanks.”
“I’m increasing speed. As the atmosphere gets thinner, we’ll get faster. They’ll never catch us.”
“Don’t you want some defense back there?”
“Yes—yes, I do. Nuts, Oak One. Take up Diamond formation. Guard our aft flanks. Fall back, repeat, fall back. Acknowledge as you take position.”
In his side ports he saw Pecan and Brazil fall away toward the aft, and soon all five green lights flashed in acknowledgement.
“Nothing’ll get by our guys,” he muttered with satisfaction.
“The Pojjan planes are trying to come around, Eric,” Perraton warned. “All four of them coming around on the starboard side.”
“Moving to port,” Stiles accepted, and steered the coach out of the way so the nuts on the starboard flank could deal with the encroaching Pojjan fighters. “I don’t know why they’re even trying. In two minutes they won’t be able to catch up with space-ready vessels.”
“Oak One, Chestnut.”
“Oak One. Go ahead, Zack.”
“The Pojjans aren’t firing on us yet, but they’re trying to slip by us. Don’t they know what our weapons can do?”
“Maybe not,” Stiles said. “They don’t have a space fleet.”
“I don’t know—it’s like they’re touring or something here. Should we open fire?”
Determined not to ignite a situation the ambassador already described as volatile, Stiles tried to use reserved judgment. He’d looked idiotic enough already. He had to make Spock proud of him.
“As long as they’re not shooting,” he said, “just stay between me and them. They can’t catch me now.”
“Understood.”
“Ensign?”
Stiles glanced over his shoulder at the chilling sound of that voice. Ambassador Spock stood at the hatchway, gripping the rims and peering through to the wide forward screen.
“Yes, sir?” Stiles responded. “Is there a problem? We’re almost to flank speed. The mountains are coming up under us. We’ll be in space in about ninety seconds. I’ve positioned all my fighters in a rearguard, between us and the pursuit fleet, just in case the bad guys have more speed than they seem to. Nobody can catch us now, sir.”
“Unlikely,” Spock accepted, deliberately not stepping into the cockpit. “Ensign, may I make an observation?”
Stiles almost fainted with the depth of that question. An “observation” from Science Officer/Captain/Ambassador Spock? A Starfleet superior for as long as Stiles and his whole team had collectively been alive? That was virtually a direct order!
Stiles steered the coach through the first mountain peaks that reached toward them from a skirt of low snowclouds. “Of course you can, sir!”
Spock now stepped through the hatchway and knelt beside Stiles to get a better view of the mountains.
Why was he looking at the mountains?
“As I am sure you know,” Spock began, “it is unlikely those planes pose any danger to us.”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.”
“And it is likely that the Pojjana know their planes cannot overtake us.”
“Well…they might know it, sir….”
“Then perhaps you should consider,” the ambassador quietly advised, “that while the Pojjana do not possess strong spacefaring, their atmospheric capabilities are formidable. Those planes behind us could be diversionary.”
Stiles heard the words, but for a moment they made no sense. Then, gradually, the picture of reality crystallized in his mind and he abruptly understood the ugly mistake he was making.
“Oh…oh!” Stiles’s mouth suddenly went completely dry, and he gripped his controls. “Oh, God!”
Suddenly Travis Perraton tensed at his own console. “Tactical display shows something in front of us! Coming up through the clouds! It’s an A/I! They’ve got an A/I blocking our way! There are mountains on both sides! Eric, can we climb?”
By not taking any chances, by pretending to be a topnotcher who knew how to do his job and going for finesse instead of humility, Stiles had left everything wide open. Eric Stiles, man about town, citizen of the galaxy, had left the ship without forward protection. No vanguard!
Now he was coming into the targeting sights of whatever the Pojjans wanted to throw in his way—he’d let those planes steer him into its firing range, and all his defensive fighters were five miles behind him, guarding him from planes that couldn’t catch up. The Pojjan planes didn’t have a chance of catching him, but they sure had a chance of steering the coach toward an assault net hidden in the mountains!
Stiles felt his throat close up around the realization that he’d been completely duped. Spock hadn’t interfered until it became obvious that Stiles was being suckered into a vulnerable position.
And no, he couldn’t climb yet. Not that high—not yet.
He stared at the forward screen as a huge, nasty-looking assault/interceptor moved merrily through the mountain pass, essentially a giant gun platform, on an intercept course with the coach. And certainly that would happen, because in this short space there was no way to gain enough velocity to rise any higher, and there were mountains funneling them on both sides. All that Pojjan A/I had to do was move toward them in the sky and let the cricket fly into the web.
There were only moments left before the two craft would intersect. Seconds—
Stiles bolted to his feet, driven by a rash decision.
“Ambassador, can you pilot this coach? Ah—what am I saying! I’m so—I’m such—of course you can!”
As Stiles stepped through the hatch, Spock stood aside as if he were clairvoyant about Stiles’ intentions.
“I understand, Ensign,” the ambassador said as he slid into the pilot’s seat. “You know your nominal weapons will be ineffective against an assault/interceptor.”
Stiles yanked open the equipment locker and pulled out an air mask and gloves. Dry-mouthed and ashamed, he rasped, “It’s my duty to try, sir.”
“Commendable.”
Perraton twisted around in his seat. “What’s going on? Eric? What’re you doing? Where do you think you’re going?” Then his blue eyes flashed with shock. “You’re not going out in the Frog!”
Harnessed by his failure to master the savoir-faire of command, Stiles didn’t respond. He yanked on his gloves and slipped the air mask’s strap over his head.
“Oh, no!” Thrusting to his feet, Perraton grasped Stiles’s arm, forcing Stiles to shake him off in order to yank on a thermal jacket. “Eric, you’re not serious!”
“As you were, Mr. Perraton,” Spock advised, steering the coach masterfully through the angry mountains.
Perraton shrank back into his seat, cold with astonishment, his lips working as he tried to think of something to say.
Spock adjusted his pitch controls, but continued speaking to Stiles. “The midwing is unlikely to be able to divert a craft of that mass,” he attempted again.
Was he trying to talk Stiles out of going?
“I know that, sir,” Stiles said. “But by my calculations you only need an additional fifteen seconds to get up enough speed to break out of the atmosphere over that thing.”
“Eleven seconds.”
“Oh…well, I’ll try to get it for you. Good luck, sir.”
Even in the midst of piloting the heavy coach, Spock bothered to turn and give him the gift of eye-to-eye contact, a deeply meaningful effort that Stiles didn’t miss.
“And to you, Mr. Stiles,” he said.
Stiles closed his thermal j
acket around his chest as he ran down the aisle through the glances of frightened passengers. He wanted to forget about the jacket, but training had kicked in. If he didn’t have the jacket, he’d been too cold to be effective inside the uninsulated midwing.
As he passed the side-gunner pods, Jeremy White cranked around with surprise. “Eric, where do you think you’re going? Who’s piloting?”
Stiles ran past him. “Mind your gun, Jeremy.”
Spock hadn’t tried to stop him. Why not? Travis was right—this was hopeless. A twelve-foot one-man defense plane against a hundred-foot assault/interceptor?
As Stiles crawled into the Frog, the smallness of the utility craft struck him like a club. The little detachable was a holdover from previous technology, just something people expected to see on a transport coach and could be used now and then to scout a landing area or as a spotter. It had phasers, yes, but hardly more powerful than a hand phaser, and not very useful against large targets. It was amphibious, hence its nickname, but was almost never used in water; mostly it gave passengers the illusion of safety and options which it really couldn’t deliver. It hung from the belly of the big coach, more of a wart than anything useful in a battle situation.
And he was about to launch himself in this crackerbox and pretend he could do something about a hundred-foot A/I platform.
He had to do something. This was something.
They didn’t need him anyway. Spock could pilot the coach, probably better than Stiles could, so he was useless here. Might as well take a wild shot at clearing the coach past the platform out there. The A/I was big, but not maneuverable. It was made to do exactly what it was doing—hover out there, block the path, and pounce on whatever those planes funneled through to it. If the coach could just get past it, the A/I couldn’t chase them.
One chance…one chance….
He dropped into the pilot’s seat, which accepted his backside like a big hand, and didn’t bother buckling himself in. No—better buckle in, just in case he had to spiral or yaw hard. Wouldn’t help to fall out of the seat onto his head, would it?
The belts were hard and stiff over his shoulders and around his chest. His feet fell upon the lower trim controls. His gloved hands gripped the yoke. The Frog’s comm system would automatically tie in with his combadge…he could still communicate with his team, with the ambassador…they’d be able to both see and hear him making a further fool of himself.
Though it seemed minutes were going by, in fact it was only seconds before he had yanked the release and the Frog had drifted away from the coach, instantly going to its own power once it felt itself let go.
Stiles rammed the throttle, and was suddenly rushing out from under the belly of the big gray-white transport as if bursting out of a cloud.
“Mr. Stiles, Spock here.”
The voice in his ear startled him.
“Stiles, sir,” he responded automatically.
“You are at full throttle. You realize that the Frog will burn itself out quickly at that speed. In less than three minutes, you’ll have nothing left.”
“I know that, sir. I figure there won’t be much point in doing any less.”
“Your choice, Ensign.”
“I’m coming into range, sir. I’m opening fire. I’ll try to distract them enough that you can get by.”
“Understood.”
Oh, that was charity. What were the chances his little popgun phasers could do any damage to the enormous assault craft rushing toward him between the snowy crags of the mountain belt?
He opened fire anyway.
Shoot! Shoot! Again! Direct hit!
Bolts of red energy cut through the mist and skittered across the big gunladen maw of the A/I. He was way ahead of the coach now, in range of those guns, but they weren’t firing at him. Why not? He was firing on them, so why weren’t they returning fire?
No point. They knew the Frog wasn’t worth the trouble, couldn’t pose a threat to them, couldn’t possibly stop them from taking down the coach.
And judging by the way his phaser energy sparked and fizzled on that ship’s shielded skin, they were right. In seconds he wouldn’t have any power left, at this speed, this effort.
The Frog rocketed over the top of the A/I, treating Stiles to a vision of bristling guns just waiting to skin the coach to death. All he had to do was distract them for eleven seconds, but they weren’t playing. His last chance to be a hero was fizzling just like his phaser shots. They were ignoring him.
“They’re ignoring me,” he muttered. “Sir, how close are you to escape velocity?”
“Twenty-five seconds, Ensign.”
“Sir…they’re not paying any attention to me. How can I get them to chase me instead of you?”
“It’s unlikely that you can,” Spock bluntly told him.
Oh, why not? He’d come this far into the valley of the stupid. One more step couldn’t do any worse.
“Sir,” Stiles began, “I need a suggestion. I’ll do anything for that eleven seconds.”
“Very good, Ensign. Consider this—that interceptor is not a space vessel. It depends upon lift.”
“Thank you, sir!”
“You’ll be in extreme danger, Ensign.”
“Doesn’t matter, sir. In a couple of minutes, the Frog won’t have anything left anyway. Here I go….”
Spock didn’t respond to that. Stiles waited for the zing of heroism to strike him, but nothing happened. He was too laden with the silliness of his mistakes to take much credit for what he was about to do. Pulling back on the Frog’s steering mechanism, he vectored full about and once again streaked toward the interceptor when he heard the decisive Dutch accent of Fighter Wing Leader Bernt Folmer.
“Oak One, Brazil. Stiles, what’re you doing? You can’t fight that thing off with a Frog!”
“Maintain position, wing leader,” Stiles told him. “Never mind me.”
“Eric, you’re making the wrong decision.”
“No, it isn’t. Cut the chatter.”
Before him he saw the A/I piercing the clouds on its way down the natural path formed by mountains on both sides, and beyond that the rushing coach heading directly toward him, its nose up slightly as it tried to reach up and over the A/I and gain escape velocity. Not being a fighting craft of any kind, rather the kind of vessel that would be protected rather than protect itself, it did nothing fast, nothing fierce. Everything was slow and steady—eleven seconds too slow.
In just a moment the coach would be in range of the blunt force of the A/I’s guns, and be driven down with its precious payload.
Stiles aimed the nose of his Frog downward, directly at the A/I’s tail fins. A slave to lift…to the air it rode upon. Not a space vessel…why hadn’t he thought of that himself?
Like a mosquito buzzing a raven, he shot downward from the high peaks until all around him became a spiky blur. The A/I’s big black body grew before him with stunning speed until it filled his forward canopy and he could see nothing but the interceptor and the nearing form of the coach beyond it. All he could see of the coach was the gleaming underbelly—what an angle Spock was piloting! The stresses—could the coach take that?
“Didn’t know it could do that,” he gasped, but there was hardly any sound. “Ambassador, this is Stiles. If I disable that interceptor, the five fighters can drive it out of your way. Do you copy?”
“Understood. Three fighters would probably be sufficient, Ensign. The other two can effect rescue—”
“No,” Stiles said. “Not again. Keep them in formation, all five of them.”
“Explain your plan.”
“I’m gonna clip that thing.”
He was surprised when Spock didn’t argue. Stiles found himself both gratified and humiliated by his hero’s silence.
Then, abruptly, a giant hand reached out and slapped him blind. A crash like thunder deafened him.
Collision!
Chapter Three
THE FROG RAKED its port wing hard across
the A/I’s tail pectoral, shearing the fin off halfway down. With a sickening pitch, the tiny defender skidded over the metal top of the interceptor, then scraped off to one side like water sheeting off, now hopelessly damaged, and for a silly moment hung side by side in the sky with its enemy. As Stiles watched, the big interceptor almost casually yawed and lost altitude, falling away beneath the coach and rolling almost on its side, which prevented it from firing its forward guns at anything but the nearest mountain. The A/I took a couple of shots, but missed the coach entirely.
As if in a dream, Stiles listened to the reactions of his fighter pilots.
“The interceptor’s falling off! All wings, attack formation! Get under the coach and drive the A/I down!”
“Affirmative. Formation Attack-Alpha.”
Brazil’s voice—giving the strike order.
Falling apart around Stiles, the Frog shook violently and rattled enough to make a man insane. Nothing responded as Stiles fought for trim—hopeless. The big interceptor was veering out of control, but unfortunately so was he.
“I’m going down!” he shouted, more to himself than anyone listening. He was glad when Spock didn’t try to give him last-minute instructions. The Frog was croaking and there was nothing to be done about it.
“The A/I is veering off. They’ve got no control. Beautiful…Stiles, you did it. Eric?”
“I can’t see him anymore! Bernt, have you got visual?”
“That’s negative. He’s off my screens. No visual.”
“No visual, Travis.”
“Oak One, do you copy? Do you copy!”
“Pecan, Chestnut—stay in formation! We’re not out yet!”
Then, Spock’s voice, like an oasis amid the youthful cries of the others. “Coming to flank speed. All wings maintain formation.”
Without control he skimmed through the mountains, past knives of rock and white slopes of snow, scratching and plowing through whatever scooped up into his path, buffeted fiercely by winds and the force of his own fall. Around him the Frog cracked, broke, screamed, until finally an insurmountable crag caught the starboard wing and whipped him into a snow drift.
“Formation Emerald, all wings.”