Tactical Error (2 page)

And now what? There was a secret Union base on this glacier-locked world,
but the Starwolves had known that for decades and, seeing no danger in it, had
politely pretended ignorance. Lately there had been rumors of an inordinate
amount of activity at this supposedly small and remote base, that had been
going on for years. There were rumors of a new super-weapon developed by the
Union to defeat Starwolves, one that Commander Trace felt would end the war in
a matter of weeks. There were even rumors, which had since been confirmed, that
Donalt Trace came here as often as he could manage. A Starwolf drone had
tracked his ship to this world, and every indication was that he was still
here.

“You worked with the Starwolves before?” the captain asked,
realizing too late that he had been indiscreet. “No, forget I said that. Starwolves
make good allies, but it’s dangerous to be involved in their business.
But I suppose that I don’t have to tell you that.”

Lenna shrugged. “With what I’ve been involved in, I don’t
see how I could be in any more trouble, if the Union ever did catch me.
I’ve been into quite a lot of mischief over the years, which they
probably put down to quite a few very different people. I try never to show
them the same face twice.”

“Sorry?”

Lenna shrugged again, disinterested in this subject. “You’d
never recognize me yourself, if you did happen to see me again.”

That was true enough. The Starwolf medics she had worked with over the years
had learned a thing or two about humans, or at least about Traders, a related
but radically different subspecies, to which she belonged. She was no
longer completely dependent upon unreliable cosmetics. At that moment she was
several shades darker than her usual self, and the light-sensitive contact
lenses meant to protect her eyes from snow blindness had also changed their color
to black.

The main scanner made a small but insistent beep, demanding attention. Lenna
glanced over the back of the captain’s seat. A small ship was closing
quickly from behind, still moving in from one side.

“That’s it,” he said, indicating the ghostly image.
“I don’t yet know what, but something is definitely after us. Do we
go ahead and attempt our run?”

“How far do we have to go?” Lenna asked, seeing only one ship
about the size of their own freighter on the scan.

“Not that far, but it will take some smart flying or they’ll
have us for sure.”

Lenna considered that briefly, and waved the pilot out of his seat.
“Let me take over – I’m of Trader stock. As long as this ship
can take it, I can outfly anyone they could be sending against us.”

“This old bird can take it,” the captain agreed as he turned
over his place to her without question, moving into the copilot’s seat.
Then he leaned closer to the scan monitor. “Confirmation is coming
through. That’s a stingship.”

“Bless us!” Lenna exclaimed under her breath, staring at the
monitor for a moment. Then she set to work on the ship’s master computer.
“I wonder where they were keeping that? Must have a stingship carrier in
orbit. We’ll have to settle our affairs and get you boys out of here
before they can get any more of those monsters into space.”

“We can’t outrun a stingship, not sublight,” the captain
reminded her. “Our engines are actually a little small for a ship this
size, to fit inside their aerodymanic housings.”

“I can do something about that,” Lenna said absently as she
continued her hurried work at the keyboard. “It’s a little-known
trick, but I’ve learned a thing or two from tricky people. It will be an
uncomfortable ride for the two of you...”

“Better than being shot out of space,” the copilot remarked.

“Just strap yourselves in tight and don’t think about how much
it’s going to hurt when you wake up again. I just hope that you can
recover quickly enough from high G’s to fly yourselves back out.”
She glanced at the monitor briefly. “Yes, here we go.”

The stingship was circling well around to come up behind the freighter, her
crew no doubt assuming that they were pursuing a slow, aging ship that would be
easy prey. Indeed, the complete lack of response on their own part suggested
that they were actually unaware that a hostile ship was closing with them.
Lenna waited, leading them in. It was an old game for her, and one that she had
learned very well. Anyone who was good enough to fly with the Starwolves could
handle a stingship, although she would have been happier with her converted
fighter than this ancient freighter.

Lenna waited patiently until the stingship turned in to begin its next run,
then gave full power to the freighter’s main drives and pulled up tight.
Although the two human crewmembers made small sounds of protest against the
fierce G’s, it was actually a fairly easy turn compared to what she
intended to do. She was saving her tricks for later on in the game.

“Go ahead and extend the missile cradle,” she instructed the
captain. “I’ll have to take him out, or he will never give us the
chance to make our run on their secret base.”

He activated the freighter’s improvised defense system. The doors of
the forward cargo bay, built into the bottom of the hull to facilitate loading,
swung open and the rotating cradle with its six large missiles was extended
just outside the hull.

“You want me to take weapon systems control?” the captain asked.

Lenna shook her head firmly, watching the scan monitor as the stingship swung
around for another run. She was keeping her distance, but deliberately setting
herself up to put her enemy on her tail. “You’ll not stay conscious
through the little surprise I have for our friends. Just be ready.”

Lenna rolled the freighter through a long evasive turn, knowing when she
started that she would end up with the stingship still squarely on her tail.
This part was the window dressing, building false confidence in an opponent who
was obviously not particularly experienced. Under other circumstances, her
evasive tactics would have been the best that anyone could have done. This
freighter did not have the high-intensity acceleration dampers of a stingship,
nor did she have the special acceleration suits or padded flight cradle the
enemy pilots enjoyed. But the Union pilot would not suspect that she was a
Trader, able to take harder turns than he could despite all of his protections.

She continued to lead the stingship in, feigning just enough helplessness to
lure the enemy close before he fired, sure of his kill. She waited as long as
she dared, then activated her program modifications to the control system and
gave the main drives full power. Following the automatic commands she had set,
the computer control also engaged the stardrive at very low power, just enough
to give their thrust a firm boost.

The freighter catapulted forward, and Lenna lead the ship through a
torturing 60-G turn. Its spaceframe groaned aloud as the ship bucked and shook,
protesting the sharp change of direction. Lenna had to fight the pain and
crushing forces herself, without the aid of the armored suit that usually
supported her through harsh accelerations in her own fighter. She could only
hope that her two companions had survived, facing G’s that humans never
should have taken unprotected. Even stingships did not attempt this.

She looped the freighter completely over, coming up behind the stingship and
catching the enemy pilot by surprise just long enough for Lenna to lock the
missile tracking system on target. Perhaps the stingship’s pilot never
thought he should have anything to fear from a freighter, even after that last
surprising move. He had only just begun to accelerate away almost casually when
Lenna released her first missile. Carried by a small drive that would quickly
burn itself out with its own power, the missile found its target in a matter of
seconds.

Sure of her prey, Lenna did not even wait to see. She had to get the
freighter within the planetary atmosphere before they were intercepted by
another stingship. She brought the ship back on course, keeping their speed as
high as she dared until she was forced to decelerate rapidly. With no time to
spare to orbit in, she guided the ship straight in at a sharp angle as she
continued to cut their speed, retracting the missile carriage and bringing the
atmospheric shields to full. It was only when the freighter entered the
atmosphere, wrapped in a shell of thin flame, that she finally leveled off to
an acceptable attitude for entry.

By that time, the two regular crewmembers were beginning to recover from
their rough handling. Lenna glanced at the captain quickly. “Do you think
that you can take over? I need to get Bill and myself packed away.”

“Yes. Right.” He released his straps and pulled himself from the
copilot’s seat, moving with exaggerated care. Lenna knew that he would be
regretting it far more tomorrow. She just hoped that he would be doing better
by the time they began their attack run.

Lenna relinquished her seat and hurried to the rear cargo hold, cramped with
the heavy, white form of the ejection module. Bill, the sentry, was already
inside, securely strapped down in his own impact cradle. He was in fact an
armored security automaton of Union construction, commandeered for her use by
the Starwolves during her first mission and later modified to suit her more
demanding needs. In form he was a great, white, armored bulk standing on four
solid legs, now retracted beneath him, his small head dominated by a battery of
guns and a pair of small camera pods behind protective flanges. Loyalty and
firepower were his strong points, but he was still an exceedingly stupid
machine compared to the sentient Starwolf carriers. Lenna climbed inside the
module and secured the hatch, then strapped herself into the single acceleration
couch. Then she settled in to wait.

The little freighter had continued its approach unopposed, having dropped
down to within a hundred meters of the surface and holding at twice the speed
of sound. According to the original plan, she was to hold a much greater speed
at an even lower altitude, but her captain was still reeling under the effects
of Lenna’s evasive tactics and he did not trust his ability to fly this
ship, and it had not had a functional low-level attack guidance system in
years. The extra altitude would also give Lenna and Bill a better chance of
surviving when they went overboard.

Just as the freighter was coming up on a hundred kilometers short of her
target, the missile cradle was extended again. This time, however, both the
forward and rear cargo bays were opened. The ship had been trans versing a
desolate world, a rocky, mountainous land cut by vast glaciers and immense
plains of ice and snow.

Coming up behind one high, narrow ridge, the freighter dropped down as low
as her captain dared to take her behind that wall of rock, hidden from radar
and quite possibly from scan as well. The small white and gray shape of the
ejection module popped out of the rear cargo hold. A tiny drogue chute, white
as snow, snapped out almost immediately. Too small to break its fall, it was
meant only to keep the module upright and to control its descent at a rate
meant to get it grounded as quickly as possible.

It hit the ground like a meteor, nearly burying itself in the snow and ice.
The freighter had already disappeared over the horizon, continuing its run.
Just as the sprawling surface portions of the secret base became visible twenty
kilometers ahead, it released three of its remaining missiles in rapid
succession, too far short of its destination for the weapons to have locked on
target. The freighter turned immediately and shot away, climbing back out of
the atmosphere and the safety of open space. It was meant to seem an act of
cowardice and desperation, a rebel attack run aborted because of fear and bad
judgment. Such things happened from time to time, sometimes successfully but
most often not. But the real goal of that feign had been accomplished. Two
passengers had been safely delivered.

At that moment, Lenna knew that she had been delivered but she would have
debated any mention of the word safely. She was beginning to have some
understanding for the two circumspect pilots she had tried to assassinate with
a good, tight turn. The ejection module, adapted from a small escape pod, had
been built with its two unusual passengers in mind. Lenna could walk away from
impacts that would have left ordinary humans dead or badly injured. Bill had,
of course, been built to very demanding specifications, at least by Union
standards. The replacement of many of his vital components, especially his
brain and other electronics, with constructed parts had made him especially
durable.

Lenna glanced about. The lights were still on and there were no icy drafts
at her back, so it seemed that the module had survived the one brief, dramatic
journey of its career. Bill was still folded away in his own shock-absorbing
cradle, his armored head and camera pods rotated around to watch her. He said
nothing. He was obviously his usual charming self; Lenna saw no reason to be
worried about him.

“You want to go for a walk?” she asked.

“Baby, it’s cold outside,” Bill answered obliquely; heaven
alone knew what he had in mind by that response.

“Why don’t we find out how cold,” she said as she began
unstrapping from her seat.

At least she maintained the good sense to get everything ready before she
opened the hatch. As a part of her usual procedure, she was dressed in a Union
officer’s uniform complete with arctic survival gear, weapons, and forged
identities that were good enough to survive even a computer check. Starwolves
knew quite a lot of interesting tricks, including magnetic strips on identity
cards that told the computer reading the card that it knew her.

Ready at last, she released the hatch and threw her packs outside before following
herself. Getting Bill out of a hatch that was three sizes too small was quite
another matter, especially now that the module was no longer resting completely
level. The sentry was in fact surprisingly agile, his reflexes faster even than
her own, but he always moved with exaggerated slowness and deliberation in
enclosed spaces. Lenna had never figured out whether that was a function
programmed into him or an acquired idiosyncracy. He had collected a few in the
course of his existence.