The copilot looked at Morrison, brows raised in question.
“Kvannis isn’t a major general, he’s got no authority to order this mission, and there’s no such thing as the Combined Military Command,” Morrison said softly. “General Molosay commands the Joint Services Headquarters. Kvannis is the Academy Commandant.” The copilot nodded.
“Firing on our aircraft!” The Vatta pilot, Morrison noted, was doing a masterful job of acting outraged and unbelieving. “Fire on an unarmed civilian aircraft that is following an approved flight plan? What the hell for? I’m reporting you to Air Traffic Control Central.” He turned his head slightly. “Call it in, Tomas!”
In Morrison’s earbud, the Rector said, “Iskin Kvannis… I did not see that coming. Do what you can, Sergeant Major; I’ll be doing the same. Delay any way you can.”
“Orders. You don’t need to know more.”
“I sure as hell do!” the pilot said. “It’s my job to fly this plane to Port Major and unload cargo, some of it with a penalty for late delivery. If I’m late, I’ll get demerits and enough of those and I get fired.”
A fiery streak shot past the plane and exploded five hundred meters ahead. “That is your warning. Begin descent now.”
“Well?” the pilot said. “Do we become dead heroes or—” He drew in a breath sharply.
“What the—?” the copilot said. Two streaks of light punched through the clouds just as the interceptors came into view again, ahead of them. The planes disintegrated.
“Hold your course,” Morrison said to the pilots.
The plane rocked abruptly. “Turbulence from the—” the pilot began. It rocked again.
“Trailing pair gone,” the copilot said, pointing to one of his screens.
“The admiral did say she had something in reserve,” Morrison said.
“Those have to be military weapons,” the pilot said.
“I would say so, yes,” Morrison said, and went back to the survivors. Evidently Rodney had indeed taken care of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At the first delivery stop after leaving Weekes City, two hours down the road, a Stevens-Vatta employee came out and opened the rear door. “Anybody named Ky in here? Message for you in the office.”
Ky went in and used the secure ansible connection to call Grace. “It’s the Commandant,” Grace said. “Kvannis. He called down AirDefense on our plane. The sergeant major just reported the flight is continuing.”
“Call Rodney. Tell him it’s a signal change. Option 4-C.”
“You have a Plan C?”
“Of course. And further down than that. Do that, Aunt Grace, and then… who was that good guy in Transport that Morrison knew about?”
“Major Carson and Colonel Higgs.”
“Tell Higgs to contact me. Without telling anyone else. Say the sergeant major needs some help.”
“What are you going to—”
“Leaving now. New schedule. Rodney can tell you.”
Every plan should have branches. Aunt Grace had taught her that long ago. What if, and what if that, and what if the other thing. Rafe, looking at her plan back in Port Major, had complained that it looked like a huge tree, far too many branches to be workable. Ky had ignored him. Now, with the original plan in shreds, she was glad her first what-if had been “What if the person at the top on the other side finds out what we’re doing before we get the first five to Port Major?”
“What are we going to do?” Rafe asked.
“We’re going to make it work. We have the nice complicated plan. And we have sufficient armament.”
“But not bodies.”
“We do if we move them around.”
“But the plane…”
“Rodney took care of it.”
“But they’re not at Port Major.”
Ky felt her mood rising with every objection. “I know. They’re nowhere near it. What they are near is the cache of toys Rodney’s best friend Hawker placed at intervals along the plane’s route.”
“Toys. Like drones?”
Ky nodded. “Equipped with a nice variety of devices.” Devices the sergeant major had obtained, after some persuasion, as well as those in various district armories. She checked the time on her implant. “Best get ready. We intercept in eight minutes.”
“What about the sheep?”
“Not happening. Already called off. This will be… rougher. They know something’s going on; Kvannis will have had someone warn the truck they’re in, and they’ll be trying to slip our tail, have us go on ahead. That’s why we have the second truck behind us now.”
“Possible target in behind a shopping mall,” the special ops man riding shotgun in the cab said. “Parked.”
“Block it,” Ky said. Their truck turned at the next corner. She stood by the window, where she could see out the front of the cab. “We stop behind that angled wall. Be ready for the call when we pop their lid. Then come in right behind them.”
She came out the side of the truck wide open, followed by the rest of the crew, including Rafe. The wall gave them cover for most of the way; the target vehicle was tucked in behind it, right up against some store’s loading dock. That would cut its crew’s visibility. She held up her hand. “We’re going over,” she said.
“Over!”
“Satpic from Rodney. They put themselves in a corner—listen, that’s our backup team pulling across to block them in. We can land on their roof.”
It was not that easy, with two team members—herself and Rafe—shorter than the others. “Could wish for low-g,” Ky muttered, dragging her stomach up on the wall. But there below her was the top of the truck, pulled up close to the loading dock. The backup team had a high, distinctive truck, and one of them had already gotten out, banging on the side of the target and yelling.
“Hey! You’re blocking the dock! We got a delivery! Move that thing!”
Its driver came out the off side of the cab, equally furious. “You’re blocking us in! Get out of here.”
“I need this dock. Delivery! Are you deaf? Move it!”
Ky let herself down on the roof of the target and flattened. Rafe dropped onto the backup truck, with a perfect angle to the inside of the target’s cargo space. Another team member used his line to drop all the way to the ground between the two trucks; he looked up, and Ky dropped the door opener to him. He touched it with the charger and the lock sprang open; then he flipped the latch and pulled the door wide and continued around the side to attack the target’s driver.
Rafe fired before she could move. “One. Clear.” He slithered over the side of the truck he was on, and dropped to the ground. Ky swung sideways, where she could watch the parking lot. So far no one seemed to have noticed anything. Early afternoon, midweek, and the shopping mall didn’t look that prosperous anyway. Most of the cars were clustered on the other side, near the entrance.
Their other truck came around the wall, turned, and reversed toward the next loading dock, blocking more view of the target. Its driver got out, climbed up on the dock, opened the back of the truck, and set four boxes on the dock. He closed the back, going through the cargo area, and opened the side door, which faced them. Then he went around, climbed into the driver’s seat, and picked up a compad, like any driver reporting a delivery to his company.
Ky slid down the front of the target truck and walked around to see Rafe finish off the driver. “This vehicle—what do we do with it?”