The Last Starfighter (27 page)

“. . . defend the Frontier . . . and this is it . . .”

Grig sent the gunstar swooping down on four squadrons of Ko-Dan ships. Suicidal it might have seemed, but the Ko-Dan expected no trouble as they moved toward Rylos orbit, and they were used to doing battle under unified control. That control had been taken out by the single surprise pass at the command ship. It should take the Ko-Dan a while to adapt to operating without central tactical direction. Hopefully too much time.

Alex’s fingers played over the fire controls. Taken completely by surprise, the Ko-Dan ships were destroyed before they could react. And when they attempted to contact their fighter command center on the flagship and failed to get so much as a courteous reply, they began to panic. It must have seemed that they were under attack by a hundred gunstars. In every instance their delay in responding was fatal, as Grig wove neatly through the shattered formations and Alex obliterated potential opposition one ship after the other.

One squadron commander finally analyzed the chaotic situation in time to issue new orders just before his own ship vanished in a ball of expanding superhot metal and ceramic fragments. Grig turned the gunstar as two trios of fighters attempted to converge on the interloper from opposing directions, firing blindly at the target with all their weaponry.

The gunstar shuddered briefly under the combined attack but hull integrity was not compromised.

“We’re hit!” Grig announced a moment later. “Engine temperature is climbing, Alex. Drive’s overheating.”

“Evade!” Alex shouted, much as he would have hit the evade button back home.

Grig didn’t need the advice, sent the gunstar looping radically away from both sets of attackers. The blind charge ended in multiple destruction as the wildly aimed weapons of the opposing fighters blasted their opposite numbers.

Three more ships broke away from the milling, confused armada and dove toward the atmosphere below.

“Sector six,” he warned Alex. “Three ships making a surface attack. They’re going after a civilian target.”

“I see them,” Alex said grimly. The gunstar overtook the three fighters and Alex took them out with a single concentrated burst, using the minimum amount of firepower necessary to accomplish the job.

But now a whole series of warning lights glowed brightly on Grig’s console. “Damned engine temperature won’t come down. We need a minute or two so I can cruise powered-down and take the demand off.”

“Take us once around Rylos,” Alex suggested, a conclusion Grig reached independently. The gunstar stayed just above the ionosphere, skimming the outer edge of the Rylan atmosphere as it vanished from the screens of those few Ko-Dan ships alert enough to begin tracking it.

Grig ran the necessary commands through the ship’s system, was rewarded when the warning lights began to wink out, one after the other. With the demand down he was able to rechannel the drive and the affected area returned to normal. More important, it stayed there.

“Engine temperature steady, life support unchanged, weapons systems still operating at full efficiency . . . watch yourself, Alex. We’ll be back in attack range again in a minute or two.”

They raced across the terminator . . . only to have their screens stay blank.

Alex hunted for telltale images, found nothing. “Hey, where’s the armada? They must have run for it.”

“That would not be like the Ko-Dan.” Grig adjusted a control. Immediately both screens filled with ships . . . at the outer limits of detection.

“Uh-oh. They did retreat, but only to reestablish communication with each other and with the flagship.” He paused as several lights winked on. The multiple targets did not attack, but began to encroach slowly on the gunstar’s position. “Englobement,” Grig murmured worriedly.

Alex switched to a sternward view, saw the Ko-Dan in matching formation moving toward them at the same controlled, steady rate.

“What is it? What are they doing?”

“Spherical attack. Englobement. All ships abandon previous formations and assume positions equidistant from one another at a predetermined distance from the target, then reverse course and move in for the kill while the distance between them remains constant and shrinks. It means there’s no way out.”

“’Can’t we just shoot our way out of the sphere?”

“It’s a three-level maneuver. One sphere inside a second inside a third. Wherever we’d try to break through we’d run into a second and third line of fighters. They would hold us long enough for the others to collapse around us. We can’t do battle in every direction at once.”

“This wasn’t in the game, Grig!” Alex stammered.

His friend didn’t reply immediately, took a moment to adjust their heading. “The moon of Galan is still within the englobement. If we position ourselves near its surface at least one sector will be protected.”

“Look for another tunnel to hide in!”

“A useless move, Alex. They’d search us out anyway. Besides, Galan’s craters are meteoric in origin, not volcanic like the ones on that asteroid we used for cover. There aren’t likely to be any tunnels.”

“It was just an idea,” Alex mumbled. “I’m a Starfighter, not a geologist.”

“Then get ready, Starfighter,” said Grig grimly, “because we’re going to have to use the blossom.”

“That’s the experimental, untested weapons system you mentioned? You think it’ll work?”

“You have another suggestion?”

“Uh, not at the moment,” Alex confessed as he stared at the slowly shrinking sphere of Ko-Dan ships all around them. “What do I do?”

“You use your same fire controls, only use them
fast
. Don’t even stop to think. At kill range you’ll have sixty seconds of overfire . . . theoretically. The blossom has never been battle tested, only demonstrated in simulations. Use of it could overload the ship’s drive, and . . .” he hesitated.

“And what?” Alex prompted him. “What are you worrying about now?” Alex was amazed at how matter-of-fact he sounded. “Theoretically we should already be dead.”

“I cannot argue with your logic, but your attitude has turned flippant.”

“Has it?” Alex was feeling euphoric, blindly indifferent to whatever fate the universe had cooked up for him. “The hell with it.” He flipped open the protective plate that arched over the red button controlling the blossom. Not that he felt half as confident as he sounded. A gentle shudder passed through the ship. Opening the plate had activated
something
, but from his position in the gunnery chair he couldn’t see what. He had the feeling that the contours of the gunstar had been altered somehow.

He wiped his palms against plastic, wishing he could free his arms from the control sleeves but not daring to spare the time.

The images forming the deadly spheres on his screen began to close toward one another. The englobement was tightening. A somnolent green dot lay trapped in the center of the screen their own ship.

The first fighters came within range and Alex began firing selectively with standard defensive weaponry. He was precise in his choice of targets, trying to take out ships coming from every direction instead of concentrating on one sector. That would be what they’d be expecting him to do. His football coach had always told him to run the unexpected play, and the same strategy seemed to apply now.

Ko-Dan ships vanished from the screen, obliterated by the gunstar’s superior weaponry and Alex’s methodical aim. The survivors ignored the losses in their midst and closed up in preparation for the final, overwhelming attack.

“Hold them off a little longer.” Grig was fastened to his instrumentation.

Alex continued to fire, spoke without turning from the display screen. “How much longer?”

“Wait ’til they’re well within the blossom’s kill zone. We have to wait, else we may as well give up now.” An explosion rocked the dancing gunstar as Grig fought to confuse the incoming attacks while his area of maneuverability continued to shrink. Soon part of their defensive screen would fail and one shot would get through. That would be enough to destroy them.

“Grig . . .?”

“Easy, easy.”

“Now?”

“Steady . . . hold on, Alex.”

On the display screens the green dot appeared about to be swallowed by a swarm of red gnats. “Now Grig?” Alex asked anxiously.
“Now?”

“Now! Fire!”

Alex’s thumb hit the forbidden button while his other fingers became a blur on the rest of the fire control panel.

The gunstar became a dervish of destructive energy, throwing off energy bolts and heavy particles in all directions. It was as if a small sun had suddenly gone nova in the midst of the incoming Ko-Dan ships. That wash of unbelievable destruction swept them away as though they’d never been, vaporizing all before they had a chance to escape.

Alex kept firing even though his screen was rendered useless by the quantity of energy being dispersed around the gunstar, kept firing until the brief period of usefulness ended. A warning buzzer sounded loud in the cockpit. Lights dimmed, the ship resumed its standard fighting configuration, and space was once again visible outside and on the screens.

The latter were blank save for a single steady green dot hanging lazily in the centers.

“Engines down, power down,” Grig announced, studying his readouts. “Except for life support and communications, we’re dead.”

Exhausted, Alex pulled his arms out of the control sleeves, indulged in the ultimate luxury of wiping his face and rubbing his eyes. He was utterly drained, physically as well as emotionally.

“It doesn’t matter, Grig. We did it. It’s over, and we did it.”

“Yes, we actually did, didn’t we?” He continued to take readings of ship functions. “I’ll attempt to contact Rylos control. They’ll send something up to pick us up and recover the gunstar.” He started to spin his chair.

Near explosions suddenly rocked the ship, stopped as abruptly. Grig hastily swerved back to battle position while Alex thrust his arms back into the fire control sleeves.

“Now what?”

“I don’t know. Did we miss any? I thought we got them all.” He studied his console.

The oversized image appeared simultaneously on both screens.

“The command ship!” Alex yelled. “But they’ve stopped firing at us. Why?”

“Maybe they can sense that our drive is dysfunctional. Maybe they’re going to put a tow beam on us and pull us in.” He worked frantically at his instruments. “Plenty of evidence of damage to their exterior. We hurt them bad on our initial attack.”

Indeed they had. Kril raged at his fire control officer. “Why have you stopped firing? They are not even trying to evade. They must have engine damage. Fire!”

The officer in charge turned to face Kril. “Commander, all our weapons systems are down now. It will take time for damage control to repair even the least damaged of them.”

Kril whirled back to face the main screen. It clearly showed the gunstar drifting aimlessly above Galan.

“Sensors?”

“They have minimal power remaining, Commander,” came the reply. “I would imagine they retain life support since there is no visible sign of hull damage. But all other energy readings are minimal at best.”

“Could it be a deception?” wondered another officer. He was patched from where he’d struck the deck hard during an earlier explosion.

“Why bother?” Kril exclaimed. “They must know how badly we are hurt. If they could mount the most minimal attack they would be coming straight for us. We must therefore assume they are incapable of attack and cannot even manage their own escape. Could we put a tow beam on them?”

Again the disheartening reply. “That system is also down, Commander.”

Kril fumed silently. The opportunity was present to snatch victory from defeat, and he was helpless!

Or was he?

He turned to navigation. “Plot an intercept course. Even at our mutually reduced speeds the impact should be sufficient to reduce them to scrap. Clear all forward compartments of crew and seal off the forward section of the ship.”

“Yes, Commander,” came the replies from the appropriate stations.

Kril was able to regard the screen with satisfaction. This would be like the ancient battles, when Ko-Dan warred against Ko-Dan on the surface of the mother world for control of tribal territories. With the advanced weaponry of both vessels crippled, he had the advantage. He had no intention of waiting until his own weapons were fixed. The gunstar might regain the use of her drive and escape, or worse, mount her own attack.

No, the final outcome of the battle for Rylos would be determined by raw basics: mass against mass. In that primitive equation, the Ko-Dan led.

Alex stared at his screen. “Grig, they’re moving toward us.”

“I know, Alex.”

“What are they doing?”

“I think they are actually going to try and hit us with their own vessel. What a remarkable notion.”

“Remarkable, hell!
Do
something!”

“I am trying, Alex.”

Hesitantly, Alex touched one of the fire controls. All his effort produced was a red warning light on the readout and monitoring system. He tried another. Two red lights glared angrily at him, fiery hostile eyes in the dim light of the cabin.

“Grig, we need power. I’ve got nothing back here.”

“All systems were drained by the use of the blossom, but I’m trying to override the emergency safety system. It’s not designed to be overridden, Alex.”

“Well, do something. Another minute and
we’ll
be overridden!” The Ko-Dan command ship was clearly visible on the screen, leaking glowing gases from the gaping wounds inflicted earlier by the gunstar. It was moving at an infinitesimal speed straight toward the gunstar.

Grig worked with quiet determination. Something behind Alex’s seat vibrated awkwardly, stopped.

“All we have left is a little stored power for communications and life support maintenance.”

“Switch it through to the drive and hold your breath!”

Grig tried to do so. The temperature in the cabin began to fall rapidly. No longer continuously recycled and freshened, the air started to foul.

“Hurry, hurry!” Alex yelled, though he knew he shouldn’t have wasted the oxygen.