Riding the Red Horse (18 page)

“They’re online,” Richards said. “Can you get the beacon?”

“Will do,” John said. “Can you draw a live feed from the passive sensors?”

There was a long pause as Richards worked his systems. “Barely,” he said. “The signal strength is very low. Our friend hasn't changed position, though, as far as I can tell.”

John made a face. Passive sensors couldn't be detected, unlike active sensors, but they depended on the enemy radiating something – anything – into the inky darkness of space. If the aliens took a few minor precautions, it would be impossible for
Canopus
to track their ship until it was far too late. No doubt that was how the aliens had sneaked up on the carrier in the first place. He honestly had no idea why the aliens hadn't returned to stealth mode once the carrier had been disabled.

Unless they’re using their own ship as bait
, he thought.
And they have more ships waiting in stealth.

He pushed the thought out of his head as he made his way back to the bridge. Somehow, the wreaked ship seemed eerier now he was alone, the sight of bodies drifting in space sending chills down his spine. They’d be preserved, he knew, long enough for the carrier to be recovered—assuming the aliens didn't vaporise her—but it still felt wrong to leave them where they were. The Royal Navy buried its personnel in space, unless they made other requests, yet they simply didn't have time to handle the burials. It felt like he was betraying his former crewmates.

The bridge looked dimmer now, he noted as he stepped through the hatch and sat down at the helm console. It took several tries to figure out how to use the console to access the other systems, something that would have been harder if
Canopus
had been a military starship, with embedded security protocols. Thankfully, civilians were less anal about the whole thing. He made a mental note to raise the issue with the Admiralty if they ever made it home, then started to test out the emergency beacon system. It was ready for activation, along with one of the drive units. There was no hope of powering their way into a stable orbit, considering the damage, but he hoped the aliens wouldn't know that. They’d come back to destroy the hulk before she could make it to the tramline.

Unless they want to point and laugh while we struggle and die
, he thought. There had been no evidence of any real sadism, at least not in the battles so far, but there was no way to be sure. Humans had been known to be sadistic to their enemies, particularly when there was deep hatred on both sides.
They could do that, if they wished
.

“I’m linking the system into the starfighter control panels,” he said. There was no point in remaining on the hulk, once the beacon was ready to be activated. “We can trigger it at any time.”

“Get one of the shuttles out too,” Richards said. “I’ll join you in the shuttlebay.”

Canopus
had carried two shuttles, both old enough to date from the same production run as
Ark Royal
. John had been nervously anticipating their destruction, but one of the shuttles was definitely functional. The other had been knocked free of its moorings and slammed into a rear bulkhead when the freighter had come under attack. Richards checked the damaged shuttle for anything they could cannibalise while John powered up the shuttle’s systems, then prepped her autopilot for a trip outside the ship’s hull. It took longer than he had anticipated, but in the end the shuttle was ready to go.

“We’ve got a supply of emergency drugs inside,” he said, finally. “We might just be able to wait it out.”

“Good,” Richards said. There was the sound of a yawn. “Shall we go before we collapse?”

John nodded. Now they'd done everything they could, the exertions were finally starting to catch up with them. He felt utterly exhausted, his body aching in places he hadn't known he had; hell, starfighter pilots were normally spared the rigorous exercises mandatory for all other crewmen. It was a morbid reminder that their time in service was expected to be short, no more than five years at most, even in peacetime. Now, their life expectancy was far too short for comfort. He wanted to get back to Pilot Country, undress, shower and rest for a few hours. But it was impossible. Even if they could set up an airtight compartment, the carrier was drifting towards the gas giant. They would have no time to launch their plan after taking a rest.

“We’ll rest when we’re dead,” he agreed. “Let’s go.”

Space felt welcoming as they slipped through the gash in the hull and walked back to their starfighters. The missiles hung next to the hull, waiting for the command to power up their drives and engage. John climbed into his cockpit, ran through a careful check to make sure the life support packs had installed properly, then let out a sigh of relief. It was silly, he knew, but he felt better now he was back in the cockpit. At least they’d have a chance to claw the aliens in the face before they died.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,” Richards said. He snickered, loudly. “Consign their parts most private to a Rutland tree.”

John chuckled. “The original was more inspiring,” he said. “But less funny.”

Richards laughed, then sobered. “The missiles are online,” he said. “Once we bring up the beacon, we’ll have bare minutes before they react.”

“Five, at best,” John said. He wished, with a sudden bitter intensity that surprised him, that he’d had more time with his comrades. Or that Richards and he could go on leave together. They’d planned to visit Soho together when they’d next shared a leave ... he sighed, then dismissed it all as wishful thinking. There was no time for woolgathering. “The beacon will be active in ten seconds, then the drive will come online.”

He counted down, then tapped the switch when he reached zero. The distress beacon on
Canopus
activated, pulsing out an emergency signal across the system. He watched the passive sensors warily as the signal rocketed towards the alien starship. They’d be able to tell the freighter was trying to bring up her drive, if they were watching. But would they know the freighter’s desperate attempt to escape was doomed to fail?

“She's altering course,” Richards said. On the display, the alien craft tilted and started to drift towards
Canopus
. “I think we caught her attention.”

“Good,” John said. “Now all we have to do is reel her in.”

The alien weapons system had one weakness; its range was terrifyingly short. John had read a report suggesting that the aliens had tailored their weapons mix to match and exceed humanity’s best weapons, although it still struck him as odd that they hadn’t built anything designed to engage the enemy at long range. In their place, he would have preferred to open fire from outside the enemy’s engagement range. But, given their weapons, it was possible that they’d dismissed missiles as wasted energy. It didn't matter how many Weber missile swarms a starship could put out if they could all be swatted out of space before they got into engagement range.

He found himself wondering just what the aliens intended to do as they glided closer. In their place, he would have boarded
Canopus
and taken her for study, and the fact the aliens hadn't tried to salvage the ship bothered him. Were they
that
convinced they had nothing to gain from studying human technology? Or were they well aware that
Canopus
had little to offer them, beyond dead bodies. And they could pick up no shortage of those from New Russia, if they wanted more human biological samples.

“She’ll be in engagement range in two minutes,” Richards said. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” John said. “We’ll go in one minute.”

He braced himself, feeling sweat forming under his gloves, as the alien closed in. By any reasonable standard, the plan was suicide, particularly if the aliens were already suspicious of trouble. But there was no real alternative. Bitter experience had shown that only overwhelming numbers or the advantage of surprise could allow human starfighters to score on their enemies. The only other option was mass drivers and
Canopus
had none.

“Go,” he said.

He yanked on his stick, pulling the starfighter out from behind the freighter and barrelling towards the alien craft. Up close, he had to admire the design; her power curves suggested a technology considerably in advance of humanity’s. But there was no time to do anything other than charge right at the alien craft, weapons and sensors ready to go. Behind him, Richards followed, while the missiles brought up the rear. The aliens seemed to hesitate, then opened fire, spitting endless streams of plasma towards the human craft. But, thankfully, they didn't seem to have any starfighters of their own.

“Evade,” John ordered, as he pulled the starfighter into a tight turn. In the atmosphere, it would have ripped the craft apart within seconds; in space, it was just a simple trick. He fought hard to keep his course as unpredictable as possible as he screamed towards the alien craft, wincing as bolts of plasma fire passed his hull, almost close enough to touch. “Keep them focused on us.”

He keyed his weapons as they slid into range and sprayed the alien’s hull with pellets. None of them would do real damage – naturally, out-of-the-way
Canopus
hadn't been equipped with any of the alien-derived plasma weapons – but it would keep the aliens focused on the two starfighters. He had the satisfaction of watching as a handful of weapons mounts exploded into sheets of flame, crippling the alien ability to fight back. But there were always more.

“A piece of cake,” Richards cheered, as he picked off another alien sensor node. “Wait, what–”

The alien altered course rapidly, lancing upwards with a speed no human craft could match. John swore, then yanked his craft away from the hull. He’d never heard of
anyone
trying to force the starfighters to ram, just to get rid of them, but the alien commander seemed to think it could work. And maybe it would have done…he shook his head, then checked on the missiles. They were coming into engagement range now.

“Two missiles down,” Richards said, suddenly. John cursed again. The aliens had refocused their fire and he hadn’t even
noticed
! “The other two are taking fire!”

“Distract them,” John said. “I–”

The alien plasma cannon fired, once. John’s sensors blurred, then cleared, just in time to show
Canopus
vanishing into a ball of expanding plasma. He felt a sudden pang;
Canopus
might not have been a fleet carrier, but she’d been home to him and his entire squadron. Her crew had deserved better than vaporisation by alien weapons. His starfighter flipped over as the aliens altered course, then lanced back down, distracting the alien gunners as he raced towards their hull. Hundreds of brilliant streaks of plasma reached out towards him…

“Missile detonation,” Richards said. He yelled in delight. “Take that, you bastards!”

The missile detonated, blasting a ravening laser beam into the alien hull. John watched with cold delight as the alien craft staggered, envisioning her interior being ripped apart by secondary explosions, just like she’d killed
Canopus
. A stream of water, already freezing rapidly, blasted out of the gash in the hull, followed by shapes he thought were alien bodies. But the aliens were still firing.

“The last missile is down,” Richards said. “There's nothing we can do.”

“Pull back,” John ordered. “Pull back!”

There was a final desperate burst of fire from the alien craft. And Richard’s fighter abruptly vanished in a single flash of light.

“No!”

John stared in horror. Richards had been his friend, his lover, his partner…he’d deserved better than to die after the fight was already won. But a single moment of carelessness had cost him his life. John felt the sudden urge to reach for the switch and eject himself into open space, to die beside his partner. But there was no point in suicide. Richards wouldn’t want him to give up his life for a gesture.

Stricken with grief, he pulled back and watched, from a safe distance, as the alien craft struggled for life. She was no longer the enemy, somehow; she was just another ship struggling against the cold unfeeling vacuum of space. But it was a struggle she was bound to lose. There was a final explosion, knocking the craft towards the gas giant, then nothing. The alien craft would die when she plummeted into the planet’s atmosphere. He took some cold satisfaction in that as he turned his starfighter and rocketed towards the shuttle, now drifting some distance from the combat zone. If the aliens had survived, he was sure, she would have been picked off seconds later.

He cracked open his cockpit when he matched course and speed with the shuttle, then pushed himself through space and into the shuttle’s airlock. There was no point in altering his position, he knew; he keyed the emergency distress beacon to activate when it picked up a signal from a human starship, then sat back and reached for the small collection of suspension drugs. Using them without proper medical support was a risk, he knew, but there was no choice. The alternative was waiting until the shuttle’s life support gave out. He recorded a short message for his family, in the event of the drugs accidentally killing him, set the shuttle to drop the temperature sharply within ten minutes, then pressed the first injector against his arm. A strange cold feeling ran up his arm, followed by darkness…

“He’s waking up,” a voice said.

John opened his eyes, utterly disoriented. His body felt weak and hopelessly floppy, but he managed to look up at the ceiling. It was studded with sensor nodes, telling him that he was lying in a sickbay. It seemed someone had found him and rescued him.

“Welcome back to the world,” the voice said. John turned his head, just enough to see a red-haired woman bending over the bed. “Do you remember your name?”

“John,” John said. The drugs sometimes had bad effects, he recalled now. And he’d used enough to put him in suspension for years. Memory problems were the least of them. “My name is John.”

“Good,” the doctor said. She ran a scanner over his body, then smiled down at him. “You seem to have escaped the most dangerous side effects, you’ll be pleased to hear.”