“The premen of Social Unity have finally made their move,” the Grand Admiral said in a distorted voice.
The Praetor wanted to groan with relief. Instead, he glared at the Grand Admiral’s fuzzy image.
“In two days, you will begin the breakout from Sun orbit,” the Grand Admiral said. “The exact data and angle of your attack are already entering your tactical computer.”
“Yes,” the Praetor whispered.
“I admire your fortitude, Praetor. Your ship will bring us ultimate victory. I personally salute your courage and your daring.”
The Praetor managed a terse nod, and almost tore a neck muscle doing it.
“Grand Admiral Cassius out.” The fuzzy image faded away.
Two more days, the Praetor thought. Two more days and the
-19-
SU jets jumped Marten’s skimmers at the worst possible moment. He had time to wonder how long they had been under observation. Then Marten screamed at Omi to take the controls as he turned and grabbed the rocket- launcher between the frozen knees of the raider sitting behind him.
They climbed out of the Noctis Labyrinthus Canyon using the skimmer’s VTOL jets. Each skimmer did it in stages. It made the skimmer’s rotary engine whine so Marten’s teeth ached, and it made the metal craft shake as if it was about to burst apart from stress.
One moment, Marten watched the skimmer ahead of him. The dark craft wobbled as it rose higher and higher, its engines screaming to gain enough lift as the skimmer climbed beside a wall of red rock. Then a missile streaked out of the pink sky. It streaked and exploded, and the skimmer that had wobbled was now hot shards of metal and bloody body chunks flying in all directions. Some of those chunks smeared against the red rock wall, leaving gore and hot streaks of gashed basalt.
At the same moment, something higher up flashed into view and out of view at almost the same instant. Marten recognized it as a jet. He knew because of the afterburners that glowed orange long him for him know they were all about to die.
Omi leaned over and grabbed the controls.
“Move!” Marten roared.
The security men in the back leaned away from Marten. The man’s face behind the visor showed petrified shock.
Marten lifted the anti-air rocket launcher. It was a heavy weapon like an ancient bazooka. With a grunt, Marten hefted it onto his shoulder, flicked tracking with his thumb so the launcher beeped and a green light winked. He peered through the scope in time to see another jet fire a missile. That missile streaked like lethal death just as the first one had.
With a thud, Omi landed the skimmer. That violently jostled Marten and almost threw him out of the craft. Then the enemy missile slammed into the rock face with a shattering explosion. Marten heard rock shards whiz past his helmeted head.
High above, the SU jet’s afterburners engaged, and it flashed out of view.
With his teeth tightly clenched so his jaws hurt, Marten scanned the pink sky. The first jet had re-appeared. It must have made a wide circle. Yes. It was still turning. It was going to strike again.
“Bastard,” Marten whispered under his breath. He hefted the rocket-launcher onto his shoulder.
“Run for cover!” someone shouted into Marten’s headphones. He was vaguely aware that one of his men dove out of the skimmer. Didn’t the fool realize that if they lost the skimmer, he’d never make it anywhere alive in time before his suit ran out of power?
Beside him, Omi lifted another anti-air launcher. “The jet jocks should have fired a flock of missiles each and called it a day,” Omi said through his speakers.
The Korean’s coolness helped Marten’s tripping heart. Could the air jocks up there be as green as his men were? It seemed unlikely. But it did seem to Marten that it would have been smarter for the pilots to stay out farther and use their heavier missiles to advantage instead of coming in so close.
Marten tracked the first jet as it swung back around. The launcher beeped again, which meant it had gained radar-lock. Marten thanked God he held Highborn tech and not some imitation Martian crap. Marten held himself stiffly and pulled the oversized trigger. This wasn’t a gyroc weapon. The blast almost knocked him over backward. It was a Highborn weapon and was meant for a nine-foot giant in battleoid armor.
The rocket whooshed fast and climbed with astonishing speed. A second rocket whooshed. It was Omi firing.
The pilots must have recognized their danger. Without firing another missile, the first jet nosed up and the afterburners roared orange flames and made a thunderous sound. Anti-radar chaff drifted from the jet in a silvery clump behind the steeply climbing craft. Neither the chaff nor the steep climb helped. The anti-air missile hit the jet squarely and exploded with an impressive display of pyrotechnics. Omi’s missile did the same thing with the second jet.
Marten heard himself wheezing, the noise loud in his helmeted ears. He scanned the Martian sky as he trembled. If there were another jet, it would likely kill them all. Slowly, it dawned on him that the two aircraft were it. No more appeared.
Omi put his hand on Marten’s shoulder. Marten whirled around with a snarl. Then he grinned sheepishly and nodded as he settled down.
“Major Diaz?” Marten asked over the radio. There was nothing but static. Were his troubles with Diaz over? Was the man dead? “Major!” he shouted.
“Here,” Diaz answered in a choked voice.
“Glad to still have you among the living, Major,” Marten said. “Rojas.”
“Here, sir,” Rojas said.
Gutierrez was also alive, with his entire skimmer crew. Squad leaders Lopez and Barajas were dead and their skimmers destroyed. There were no survivors from either vehicle.
Thirteen skimmers were left out of the original twenty. They had destroyed two more jets, but at too high of a cost.
“Listen up, people,” Marten said over their headphones. “We’re going to use over-watch from now on.”
Marten waited for Diaz or one of the others to ask him why they hadn’t been using over-watch before this. But none of them did. Omi and he had killed the two jets and likely saved the remainder of the raiding party. Maybe it was finally starting to sink in with them that they weren’t soldiers and this was a real shooting war, not a guerrilla raid on underground city streets.
Too soon, their skimmer whined, and it shook so violently the metal rattled like a child’s toy. They rose higher and higher, using the VTOL jets to reach the next plateau.
Marten’s throat was dry like rust and tasted just as bad. He was sick of the planet’s sandy smell and the gigantically oversized geographical formations. He wanted to get back to the
What a way to buy fuel. He snarled as the VTOL jets whined down and they flew over the ground by a normal few feet. If Social Unity had done something to his hard-won shuttle… then he was going to find a way to make them pay in a manner that they would never forget.
-20-
