Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (57 page)

Slowly Six saw that two of the ships had turned lazily towards him, while another two were heading for Ledin’s hiding place. One further ship was detouring towards the orbital station. That meant that only five were still on course for Kwaide.

That should make it a little bit easier for the girls, thought Six, grimly pleased. Then he waited for the inevitable missiles. He had run out of ideas. He had no more gas tanks to jettison, and was the proud possessor of two more missiles, neither of which would cause much more than superficial damage. He waited.

Ledin prepared to use the same trick Six had told him about. He would wait until the missiles were fired, and then try to get out of the way of his own starboard tanks, leaving them behind as a target. He was not optimistic about his chances of survival. Then he shrugged – they were better than First Six’s, certainly. He thought of his life before the revolution and smiled grimly. He was ready to die for New Kwaide. There was only one thing to regret.

Six waited until the ships came into range. Then he pushed the button. The two last, rather pathetic missiles limped off into space. Perhaps the Sellites would simply laugh at them, he thought.

Then he relaxed. No, they had thought him worthy of their missiles: each ship had fired two at him. The remaining ship had fired its two missiles at the orbital station. Then they turned their ships back to Valhai. Six missiles which would never reach New Kwaide! He checked the screen carefully. Yes! The other two ships had copied the first, firing all four missiles at the Variance. Ten which would never reach New Kwaide! He watched the approach of the missiles half in trepidation, half in exultation. It was a strange moment. Everything was very quiet. Space cocooned him in its blanket of silence, and he felt somehow serene. He saw a smaller Six’s life, fast-forwarded through from birth to that moment. Yet it seemed he had time to stop and survey every scene since the birth shelter. He found himself grinning. It all seemed so trivial now. He could understand how Arcan felt. How could the orthogel entity possibly be interested in what happened in such a short time? What were ten or twenty years in twenty thousand? It was not surprising that Arcan had decided to take a step back. Six’s whole life must seem insignificantly short to him.

He closed his eyes, and decided to begin suiting up. He didn’t think that even a deep space suit would be much help against a couple of Sellite missiles, but Kwaidians were not exactly known for giving up hope. He was surprised by the evenness of his breathing. His body was refusing to take the danger seriously.

Suddenly he saw a tiny blip on the console in front of him. Some sort of spaceship had materialized between the the Resistance and the missiles. Cian! It was small! He realized that it must be the visitor’s ship, and that it was positioning itself exactly in the way of the first missile track.

“I take it all back,” Six told the thin air around him. “If you are doing what I think you are doing then you will be my friend for life! Why have you come? I thought none of you type 2 species were going to interfere anymore.” He looked around automatically for the little video camera, and then realized that there was no way it could penetrate the airlocks to get into the spaceship, not without Arcan’s help. And he knew better than to ask for Arcan’s help. Arcan had made it clear that his interference with the nuclear weapons would be the limit of his participation in the war for Kwaide.

The image of the ship on the console flickered and then disappeared. There was now nothing to be seen between Six and the incoming missiles. Six watched mesmerized, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen in front of him.

At first the missile continued unaffected on its track, and then – with no warning – swerved abruptly. The ship had become visible again, this time directly in front of the missile. The Sellite weapon began a weaving dance, like a firefly following a light. Six could do nothing but stare as he watched. The visitor guided his little ship unerringly towards the second missile, enticed that one to follow him too, and then went on to the third. When he had all three missiles following, he weaved towards the last missile, on a direct collision course.

Six held his breath. Now! Now! Don’t leave it too late! But the small blip on his console refused to listen. It powered on and on into the path of the missile, until Six was grasping the side of his chair in anxiety. Surely the visitor had left it too late?

Then the ship on the screen flickered again and disappeared, putting physical distance between it and the missiles, Six hoped. The leading missile fused with the one remaining projectile and there was a blossoming explosion reflected on the screen, and clearly visible through the rexelene visor, dazzling in its macabre splendor. Then the other two missiles threw themselves into the heat fray and added another burgeoning flash of bright white light, and another. Like fireworks, the pieces flew lazily apart, slowly losing their incandescence as they did so. The ship reappeared, and the blip that represented it made fast tracks in the direction of Ledin’s ship.

Six was left staring at the remains of the explosions on the rexelene observation visor. Lumina! How easy it was to interfere in the plans of type 3 species when you were a type 2. Even if you
were
only a few brain cells floating around in a tank. Just think what the Dessites must be capable of when whole! He turned the Resistance towards the orbital platform. His work was done. The remaining Sellite ships were already out of range nearing the planet, and the two which had stopped to fire on him were on their way back to Valhai. That left ten missiles for the rest of the group to deal with.

Six felt let down. There he was, preparing to die a hero’s death, and the visitor had swooped in and made it all look trivial again. Then he shook his head, and gave a laugh. Saved by a bowl of soup! Diva would simply not believe that one!

He watched on the screen as the visitor did exactly the same to Ledin’s incoming missiles, and then those that had been fired at the orbital station. The only thing he could do now was to fall back into a defensive position in case the orbital station was attacked again by the Sellites on their way out.

He wished he had thought to leave one shuttle pod at the orbital station. He could have shuttled down to try to help the girls. Now he would miss all the fun.

DIVA AND GRACE held their pods steady in low orbit around Kwaide. The projectiles would be coming in at any moment. They had seen that only five of the ships were on course for Kwaide itself. That meant one ship per pod. Each of them would be trying to explode two missiles before they could fall on New Kwaide.

Diva passed on instructions to the other pilots of the little flotilla. Each needed to know which ship they were to shadow. Grace gave a little wave to Diva as she broke formation, peeling off to situate her shuttle pod as close as possible to her target ship.

There was only a short wait until the console told her that the missiles had been launched from the Sellite ship above her. She threw her fingers into a dance on the console, trying to lock on to one of the very fast moving targets. It was almost impossible. Grace tried to move her pod closer, and cursed to herself at the slow progress. It was like asking a sound wave to catch up with a light beam.

Grace bit her lip. If she had been nearer she could have tried to put the pod between the ship and its target, but at the moment she was too far off course to do that. And as she was piloting something with the speed of manoeuvrability of a rexelene platform, it didn’t look as though she was going to make it.

Suddenly a buzzer sounded. She was close to a lock on! Her fingers raced to confirm the lock before the target was lost again. There! She fired one of her two meager projectiles, and began to reprogram the on-board computer to find the other incoming missile. There was no time to see how well she had done – there was another of the things to be found. She would put herself between it and the target if necessary.

But it was no good. That few seconds’ difference had allowed the second missile to get away. It was already almost upon its target, and there was no time to put her ship in its path. There was nothing she could do to save the people below her on the planet. Her heart sank. Refugees were going to die. She closed her eyes.

She couldn’t hear the sound of impact, but she did see the cloud of debris billowing up from the crater. It was certainly very near the base camp, if not full on it, but she was too high up to distinguish exactly where it had fallen.

She dragged her attention back to the console, to see the result of her projectile, and punched the air as an explosion about two hundred metres above the ground showed clearly on the console. Yes! She hoped that the two hundred metres of air would protect those on the ground from at least that explosion.

Everything was too confused now on the console for her to be able to judge what had happened to the others, so she faced her pod upwards, towards the space station. If there was anybody left up there they would need a pod to evacuate.

DIVA WAS IN exactly the right position when her target spaceship released its missiles. She saw from the console that they were arrowing in on her position and a glittering smile lit up her eyes. This then, was what it had all been leading to. This was to be the end of her existence, the moment when her life would finish. She felt adrenaline pump through her veins and lifted her head, almost eager to face the challenge.

She made her fingers work quickly on the console. She had to blow one of the things up first, and then the other could be left to destroy itself on the pod. Come on, Diva! You have to get rid of one of these things first!

It was a nightmare to get a lock on the target. It seemed to her that so many seconds passed that she would have been evaporated long before the projectile could be launched. She felt light-headed, free. A picture of Six passed through her mind, and she laughed with exhilaration
.
Beat this one, Kwaidian!

The buzzer was screaming out that she could lock on. She was delighted to see that her brain was still working, because of their own accord her fingers instantly locked on to the target, and fired.

At last there was time to breathe. She turned the small pod around so that she would have a visual on the result, and waited. The microseconds ticked past as if they were long minutes.

Then there was a huge flash in front of her, and the sky exploded into light. The brilliance which was hurting her eyes hurtled towards her, throwing the pod into a crazy dance. Through the fog of sheer white light came the sound of the explosion, carried by the sparse upper atmosphere at a slower speed than the light. Then came a smattering of shrapnel – each tiny piece capable of bringing death. The pod shuddered, but held.

Diva waited for the final impact, the one which would signal the destruction of the pod itself. She laughed again recklessly, ready for the end to come.

There was another huge flash of light, and she was so dazzled that she was blinded by the intensity. Then she was aware of a huge crump of sound. The pod gave a tremendous shudder from its nose cone to its tail fins. Metal screamed. The shuttle hung in agony for a moment, and then began to fall out of the sky, turning over and over on itself as it plummeted in the direction of Kwaide’s hard surface. She frowned, puzzled. Surely she should be dead by now? How had she been able to hear that sound? Now her brain was sluggish, making it an effort to think. If she had heard the sound so long after the flash, then the explosion was not that of her own pod. The second missile must have been triggered by the first explosion!

No sooner had she reached that belated conclusion when new pieces of shrapnel began to arrive. She felt the pod plunging down to Kwaide, felt small quivers in the thin material as it was decimated by the shrapnel, felt her stomach left far behind by the force of the fall, and then felt nothing at all …

SIX WAS ANXIOUSLY waiting for Grace when she docked at the orbital station.

“How are you? Is Diva all right? How many bombs got through?” He threw question after question at her, and she raised one hand in an attempt to stop him. The Kwaidian was moving from one foot to another, anxiety cutting a groove across his forehead to match the new white scar on his cheek. His eyes were burning with apprehension.

Grace shrugged her shoulders as an answer to everything. She felt what little energy she had left draining away through her feet, and her legs failed her for a moment. Ledin caught her by the elbow, and led her gently to the nearest chair.

“Rest here for a moment,” he told her sympathetically. “I will bring you a glass of water.”

Grace nodded her thanks, giving him a grateful look.

“I will take the pod back down,” decided Six. “I might be able to do something to help. You stay here, Grace, you look all in.”

Grace shook her head. “I must come with you,” she said, trying to struggle to her feet.

Ledin’s voice came from the console, where he was monitoring the events on the surface of Kwaide. “There are two pods missing,” he said. “Two and five.”

Six turned and gave Grace a totally unnecessary shake. “Which one was Diva in? Tell me!”

Grace lowered her head, to match her heart. “Five,” she told him slowly. “Five.”

Six stopped, paralyzed. He turned white. Then he turned on Ledin, who took a step back when he saw the expression on Six’s face.

“What do you mean, missing? Explain yourself!”

“Two of the pods have ceased transmitting, First Six.” Ledin gave Grace the glass of water he was still holding.

Six gave an uncertain laugh. “Nothing will have happened to Diva. Nothing
can
have happened to Diva.”

Ledin looked most uncomfortable, but wisely refrained from answering.

Six took Grace by the shoulders and shook her. “She will be all right, won’t she? You were down there, Grace, what did you see? What happened?”

Ledin prized Six’s fingers off Grace’s skin. “You are hurting her, First,” he told the Kwaidian gently but firmly.

Six looked down at the red marks he had left on Grace’s skin. “Sorry,” he said automatically. Then he looked more closely. “Sacras! I really am sorry, Grace. Forgive me, please.”

Grace gave a wan smile. “It’s all right, Six. I understand. Take Ledin here, and the others, and see if you can find her. I will stay here on the orbital station, in case we need to take the Variance out.”

Six frowned. It would be a tight squeeze with five in a pod. Ledin stepped forward.

“I will stay here too, First. It may be necessary to take out both ships, and there should be two experienced pilots here at all times.”

Six nodded. “That is true,” he said. “Very well. I will be in contact as soon as we get down there.” He gestured to the waiting men to follow him, and they were gone within a minute, leaving an empty silence behind them.