his monitor console.
“I have a contact in the Kulu Embassy,” Graeme said, returning to the projection.
“This isn’t a commercial flight,” the captain said, a fair amount of resentment bubbling into her voice.
“I know.” Graeme had heard of the Kulu Ambassador throwing his authority around and virtually commandeering the Kulu-registered colonist-carrier. A situation which became even more interesting when he discovered from Langly that it was Cathal Fitzgerald who was in orbit making sure the captain did as she was told. Cathal Fitzgerald was one of Ralph Hiltch’s people. And now, as Graeme looked through the flight control centre’s window, he could see a queue of people standing on the nearby hangar apron, shoulders angled against the rain as they embarked on a passenger McBoeing BDA-9008. The entire embassy staff and dependants. “But it is only one memory flek,” he said winningly. “And the Time Universe office will pay a substantial bonus when you hand it in to them, I can assure you of that.”
“I haven’t been told where we’re going yet.”
“We have offices in every Confederation system. And it would be a personal favour,” Graeme emphasized.
There was a pause as the captain worked out that she would receive the entire carriage fee herself. “Very well, Mr. Nicholson. Give it to the McBoeing pilot, I’ll meet him when he docks.”
“Thank you, Captain, pleasure doing business with you.”
“I thought you sent a flek out with the
“I did, old boy. Just covering my back.”
“Are people really going to be interested in a riot on Lalonde? Nobody even knows this planet even exists.”
“They will. Oh, indeed they will.”
Rain slammed against the little spaceplane’s fuselage as it dived out through the bottom of the clouds. It made a fast rattling sound against the tough silicolithium-composite skin. Individual drops burst into streaks of steam, vaporized by the friction heat of the craft’s Mach five velocity.
Looking over the pilot’s shoulder Ralph Hiltch saw the jungle blurring past below. It was grey-green, sprinkled by flexuous strands of mist. Up ahead was a broad band of brighter grey where the clouds ended, and getting broader.
“Ninety seconds,” Kieron Syson, the pilot, shouted over the noise.
A loud metallic whirring filled the small cabin as the wings began to swing forward. The spaceplane pitched up at a sharp angle, and the noise of the rain impacts increased until talking was impossible. Deceleration hit three gees, forcing Ralph back into one of the cabin’s six plastic seats.
Sunlight burst into the cabin with a fast rainbow flash. The sound of the rain vanished. They levelled out as their speed dropped to subsonic.
“We’ll need a complete structure fatigue check after this,” Kieron Syson complained. “Nobody flies supersonic through rain, half the leading edges have abraded down to their safety margins.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ralph told him. “It’ll be paid for.” He turned to check with Cathal Fitzgerald. Both of them were wearing the same model of olive green one-piece anti-projectile suits as Jenny and the two G66 troops. It had been a long time since Ralph had dressed for combat, a cool tension was compressing his body inside and out.
“Looks like your people have been having themselves a wild time,” Kieron said.
Away in the southern distance a vast column of dense soot-laden smoke was rising high into the pale blue sky, a ring of flames dancing round its base. Ten kilometres to the east a kilometre-wide ebony crater had been burned out of the trees.
The spaceplane banked sharply, variable-camber wings twisting elastically to circle it round a third, smaller, blackened clearing. This one was only a hundred metres across. Small licks of flame fluttered from the fallen trees around the perimeter, and thin blue smoke formed a mushroom dome of haze. There was a small green island of withered vegetation in the exact centre.
“That’s them,” Kieron said as the spaceplane’s guidance systems locked on to the signal from Jenny Harris’s communication block.
Four people were standing on the crush of vine leaves and grass. As Ralph watched, one of them fired a gaussgun into the jungle.
“Down and grab them,” he told Kieron. “And make it fast.”
Kieron whistled through closed teeth. “Why me, Lord?” he muttered stoically.
Ralph heard the fan nozzles rotate to the vertical, and the undercarriage clunked as it unfolded. They were swinging round the black scorch zone in decreasing circles. He ordered his communication block to open a local channel to Jenny Harris.
“We’re coming down in fifty seconds,” he told her. “Get ready to run.”
The cabin airlock’s outer hatch hinged open, showing him the fuselage shield sliding back. A blast of hot, moist air hurtled in, along with the howl of the compressors.
“Faster, boss,” Jenny shouted, her voice raw. “We’ve only got thirty gaussgun rounds left. Once we stop this suppression fire they’ll hit the spaceplane with everything they’ve got.”
A fine black powder was churning through the cabin like a sable sandstorm. Environment-contamination warnings sounded above the racket from the compressors, amber lights winked frantically on the forward bulkhead.
“Land us now,” Ralph ordered Kieron. “Cathal, give them some covering fire, scorch that jungle.”
The compressor noise changed, becoming strident. Cathal Fitzgerald moved into the airlock, bracing himself against the outer hatch rim. He began to swing his TIP carbine in long arcs. A sheet of flame lashed the darkening sky around the edge of the clearing.
“Ten seconds,” Kieron said. “I’ll get as close to them as I can.”
Ash rose up in a cyclonic blizzard as the compressor nozzle efflux splashed against the ground. Visibility was reduced drastically. An orange glow from the flames fluoresced dimly on one side of the spaceplane.
Jenny Harris watched the craft touch and bounce, then settle. She could just make out the name
Will Danza fired the last of his gaussgun rounds, and dropped the big weapon. “Empty,” he muttered in disgust. His TIP carbine came up, and he started adding to the flames.
“Come on, move!” Ralph’s datavise was tangled with discordant static.
“Get Skibbow in,” Jenny ordered Dean and Will. “I’ll cover our backs.” She brought her TIP carbine to bear on the soot-occluded jungle, putting her back to the spaceplane.
Will and Dean grabbed Gerald Skibbow and started to drag him towards the sleek little craft.
Jenny limped after them, trailing by several metres. The last heavy duty power cell banged against her side, its energy level down to seven per cent. She reduced the carbine’s rate of fire, and fired off fifteen shots blindly. Grunting and shuffling sounds were coming down her headset, relayed by the suit’s audio pick-ups. She flicked to her rear optical sensors for a moment and saw Gerald Skibbow putting up a struggle as four people tried to haul him through the spaceplane’s airlock hatch. Ralph Hiltch slammed his carbine butt into Gerald’s face. Blood poured out of the colonist’s broken nose, dazing him long enough for Will to shove his legs through.
Jenny switched her attention back to her forward view. Five figures were solidifying out of the swirl of ash. They were stooped humanoids; like big apes, she thought. Blue targeting graphics closed like a noose around one. She fired, sending it flailing backwards.
A ball of white fire raced out of the gloom, too fast to duck. It splashed over her TIP carbine, intensifying. The weapon casing distorted, buckling as though it was made of soft wax. She couldn’t free her fingers from the grip; it had melted round them. Her throat voiced a desolate cry as the terrible fire bit hard into her knuckles. The flaming remnants of the carbine fell to the ground. She held up her hand; there were no fingers or thumb, only the smoking stump of her palm. Her cry turned to a wail, and she tripped over a root protruding from the loam. The woody strand coiled fluidly round her ankle like a malicious serpent. Four dark figures loomed closer, a fifth
