Merritt nodded a thanks and Jason forced the nightmare thought away.
“If we turn back we’re a hundred percent sure we’re cooked. If we run ahead, there’s a chance, just a small one, but there is a chance the way might not yet be blocked. Every second is precious. I’m going to run for that chance.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“We’ll die game,” Jason said quietly. “If we find a carrier there, we go to flank speed, launch our fighters. We’ll try to evade and fight a way through to the next jump. If we can’t and it becomes obvious that we’re finished, I intend to bore straight in. They won’t be expecting that. They might take us down, but by God if Doomsday and his Sabres or Intrepid can get a torpedo lock on that carrier we’ll rip it apart. When we launch our last torpedoes I want a carrier in our sights and not just some second rate cruiser. If need be I’ll send the crew to the escape pods and ram him. We’re going to take at least one more down with us.”
“So that’s it?” Merritt asked.
“Hell, what more do you want?” Grierson said with a grin.
“Jump transition in ten seconds…”
Jason settled back and silently prayed. He looked around at his bridge staff, and beyond the plastiglass windows to the launch deck. His fighters were all manned, standard procedure for jumping into any unsecured sector, ground crews waiting expectantly.
“They’ve fought so hard, so damned hard Lord, let ’em make it,” Jason whispered.
There was a snap of light and he closed his eyes, waiting.
There were several seconds of silence and then the reports started to fly.
“Nav computer confirms correct alignment and jump.”
“We have contact,” combat information shouted. “Bogeys, repeat many bogeys bearing 021, positive three degrees, range one hundred and ten thousand clicks, closing at two eight zero clicks a second.”
“Get me Grierson on the laser link.”
The screen clicked on.
“You see them?”
“A hell of a lot of traffic out there.”
“How’s your long-range scan?”
“One carrier confirmed, parked on the edge of an asteroid belt. She’s deployed out a belt of mines forward. One other carrier on the far side of the system, wait, we’ve got another just coming through on jump transit, on the far side of the system, but she’s hours out from here.”
“I’m also picking up indications of another jump in progress on the jump point leading back to Jugara, but it’s blocked by the asteroids and heavy jamming.”
Jason nodded.
“So what are you going to do?” Grierson asked quietly.
Jason swallowed hard.
“Engage the carrier. If we can get past, we’ll run for Jugara.”
Grierson smiled.
“I’ll see you on the other side, son,” and the screen flickered off.
“Launch all fighters,” Jason said quietly.
“Confederation ship has just come through and is accelerating, moving straight at us.”
Prince Thrakhath nodded.
“He has warrior spirit. It will be the death of him. Launch all reserve fighters.”
Kevin Tolwyn, breathing hard, leaned back in his seat. The catapult slammed his Rapier down the length of the deck and he kicked on afterburners as soon as the airlock was cleared, aiming straight ahead.
Pulling out at a hundred kilometers he circled back around, letting the first Sabre go straight past; the second Sabre followed and finally the third and fourth. He banked up high, checking his nav screen, watching as two other Rapiers sortied out to form the rest of the escort. The strike group formed up and then started forward.
“Strike Group Alpha, follow my lead.”
“With you, Doomsday,” Kevin replied.
“Stay close to me, Lone Wolf, and don’t break away.”
Kevin sensed the dislike and rebuke in Doomsday’s voice but let it pass, though he was tempted to cut loose with a couple of choice words.
Funny, it all seemed so strange now. This was never how he figured it would all end up—there had never been any challenge before. He felt his thoughts racing, aware that it was triggered in part by the adrenaline coursing through him. A swarm of memories floated through, the pampered world he had once known, the all-so-correct schools, the luxury vacations, the summer home in Scotland, Eton, and then Cambridge, all of it so correctly arranged by his mother and his dead father’s family. The hardships of the war were outside his understanding, the shortages, even the rationing which his mother’s family could so easily work around, what with so many of them properly placed in top positions in the government and in the military procurement industry.
His uncle? A strange duck in the family waters. The severe, reticent uncle who would come home on rare trips back to Earth, looking around with disdain, a disdain intensified by the fawning of hangers-on who wanted to meet the famous admiral.
As for the military, there was no real way to avoid it; after all the Tolwyns had all done their bit going back for fifty generations. It was part of the family tradition. It had killed his father in a training accident when he was an instructor at the Academy. His mother wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any such risks to himself.
He thought of his mother and her horrified reaction when he had insisted upon flight school, turning on her sternness and then the tears, pointing out how the Vice Minister of Armaments wanted a military attache in his office, and with such a posting, there would be no reason to miss the theater season, or a chance to choose the right young lady from the proper family in London.
How the path weaves and changes, Kevin thought. Because I wanted to fly, to be like my father, I’m now getting set to die in this godforsaken corner of the universe, in a battle no one will ever hear of. He checked his instrument array, watching the growing spread of red blips, the thoughts still racing.
Mother and the family had made the most of his going to flight school, even arranging a holo station interview and magazine articles to show how even the best of families were doing their bit for the war effort, while quietly arranging that he would never get anywhere near to where there might be some real danger. That was still the mystery though. This mission had been in the planning for months, so why was he assigned to Tarawa? Was it vengeance on the part of a political rival to the family, an accident, or even done innocently, mother pulling some strings, believing that the ship would never see action, and after his tour of duty he could report back to headquarters, do his bit, and reach admiral without ever having to hear a shot fired?
He’d never know—and he didn’t give a damn. He banked slightly to look down at Doomsday’s ship a hundred meters below and then straightened back out again.
There was something about these people he had never experienced before in his entire life. They didn’t give a good damn who he was; out here on the edge the name was meaningless. There were only the quick and the dead, the comrades you could trust to risk everything to pull you out, and those who weren’t worth a damn. He could now see that for nearly all of his twenty-two years, he had not been worth a damn. He thought of Jason, only three years older than himself, a wing commander, his ascent based upon nothing more than ability and moral strength—and now he was an acting captain. He knew that even if Jason had hated and despised him, he still would have put his life on the line to save him.
He had finally come to realize that the only thing that counted was whether you could be relied upon or not. He had suddenly found that he wanted the approval of the other pilots in the ready room, not the sucking-up approval when he had first arrived aboard Tarawa and treated all of them to free meals and endless free drinks at their last port of call. That was crap. He wanted instead the steady-eyed look of understanding, and especially from Jason.