Unfortunately, the beeping continued. With heavy disappointment, he answered the call. “Who is this?”
“Harrington, sir. I-”
“This had better be good, Harrington. What is it?”
“Smugglers sir, they came down from Gopus with the Yeti.”
“For this you used the emergency channel?”
“Something went wrong, sir. Two ships dropped out, and at much too high an altitude. The diagnostics picked it up sir, there’s nothing we can do, it’s been recorded.”
“Oh fine! On my watch, too. Who’s responsible? Who arranged for two tickets on that freighter?”
“No sir, you don’t understand. There was only one ah, legitimate guest on that trip. Should we send the interceptors after them, sir?”
“Eh? What? Are you insane man?”
“It’s regulations, sir.”
“Fine, fine. Make an entry into the log that we scrambled the interceptors and shot them down or something. You know my password, take care of it,” said Drick, bored with the entire affair already. The game was about to start.
“Well, sir. Things have gone a bit beyond that now.”
“What are you prattling about?”
“Captain Dorman has taken up two interceptors and is chasing them now, sir.”
That got the Major into action. He stabbed the cut-off and paused only long enough to sweep his holo-set and flask out of sight, then headed for the door. Vaporous distillate dribbled from the seams of his top drawer after he left, as he had forgotten to stopper it. Smoking blue drops splattered his chair and the carpet beneath his desk.
The interceptors were Stormbringers, shipped out from the Nexus just two years ago, they were the latest in colonial-class atmospheric gunships. Built like a missile with short stubby wings and high-thrust lifters, the ship had an excellent feel in the air and was instantly responsive to the controls. Captain Dorman had loved the ships since the first time he saw them and they had always been a real pleasure to fly. Two hundred yards to his right was his wingman, a trusted flyer that he felt he could take with him on this mission without fear of treachery.
“Dorman to central, we are overhauling the slower of the two unauthorized craft now.”
“Dorman, this is Major Lee,” said a hurried voice, cutting in.
“Please get off the channel, Major, this is a combat mission and the situation is under Nexus Cluster jurisdiction now. Come in, Harrington.”
“You are ordered to return to base immediately. You do not, repeat do not have authorization to pursue.”
“We don’t need your authorization now, Major,” replied Dorman, grinning inside his helmet. “The situation has been recorded and relayed to Nexus Cluster Command. The NCC will handle this. Dorman out.”
Still grinning, he closed in and easily sat on the first of the smugglers. Although the pilot maneuvered with considerable skill, the bulky spacecraft wasn’t really designed with atmospheric flight in mind. The two Stormbringers paced the ship with absurd ease. Dorman was in fact more worried for their safety than about keeping up with them.
“Captain, the other target is escaping to the north at a very high speed. We won’t be able to catch him if we don’t go to full acceleration in about two minutes,” said his wingman.
That decided it for Dorman. There was no time for a lengthy effort on his part to talk the pilot down. He dropped down quickly and slid beneath the smuggler’s jetwash. “I’m engaging the target. It’s probably a decoy to keep us busy while the other slips away.”
“Dorman!” screamed Major Lee. He had been listening in on their intercom circuit, and now interrupted. “Under no circumstances are you to engage that ship! Answer me!”
Dorman flicked a switch, arming his forward cannons. “There seems to be some interference, sir. Could you repeat that last?”
“Listen to me, Captain-” said Major Lee, his voice shaking with rage.
“Unidentified craft is attempting to evade,” said Dorman breaking in on Major Lee. He knew he was covered on this one. With the diagnostics records black-boxed and relayed to the NCC, they couldn’t court-martial him for disobeying orders. If they tried, he could bring counter-charges that they didn’t dare to face in the Nexus courts. Without hesitation he set the mission selector to disable then depressed the attack studs, letting the microprocessors take over. Instantly, a quick burst of explosive pellets neatly removed the lifters from underneath the target. It stuttered, then dropped like a rock. Two parachutes opened as the crew ejected before impact.
“Target has been disabled. Hope they all made it,” said Dorman, calling in a rescue-lifter. After one spiraling pass over the wreck, he lifted the nose back up and the two Stormbringers poured on the thrust. In ninety seconds they achieved low orbit, where they could use max thrust in order to catch up with the second ship, which was half-way to New Chad by now.
Seven
The front doors of the arrivals section blew in with roar. Partly by luck, partly by design, no one was injured. Giants carrying heavy weapons and one normal man jogged into Grunstein Interplanetary. The giants all wore silver and black. Their huge jaws were grimly set, their boots crunched on broken glass fragments, grinding them to dust. Although he was quite tall, the single normal human was dwarfed by his massive companions. They took no notice of the screaming, scrambling people and moved smartly to a stainless steel door located underneath the escalators that led up to departures.
Jarmo leveled his long-barreled weapon, taking aim at the steel doors. Lucas pushed the weapon aside, shaking his head while he pulled out his ID card. The card slid through the lock smoothly and Lucas passed the optical and thumbprint tests as cleanly as when he had first arrived on Garm. With his giants behind him, he strode into the spaceport control center.
In the front office, there were cries of terrorist attack from the staff. When Lucas burst into the operations room with Jarmo at his heels Major Drick Lee was already on the phone to security.
“How in the hell did you get in here?” Major Lee demanded in disgust. His eyebrows went shot up at the sight of the armed giants that were marching into the room. “Are you the manager of some new rayball team?”
With something of a flourish, Lucas produced his ID card. He plunged it into the slot under the view-screen beside the door. He pressed the ID verify button and his identity along with frontal and profile holo shots were instantly displayed.
In the stunned silence that followed, Lucas got himself a cup of hot caf. While he poured, he demanded a report of the current status of the spaceport.
“Well sir, there was a slight security breach just about half an hour ago,” replied Lieutenant Harrison, breaking the shocked pause.
“What kind of security breach?” said Lucas, focusing on the lieutenant.
“It was nothing, we filed a routine report,” snapped Drick, glowering at the lieutenant, who averted his eyes. He wheeled to face the intruders, his hands behind his back. “We can’t accept the data of one probably tampered with terminal as proof of your identity, sir. In any case, even if you are who you say you are, until you are properly inaugurated and recognized, you have no authority here. Now, I suggest you leave the premises and turn yourself in to the militia authorities, who will sort all this out. We have work to do here.”
“What security breach?” Lucas repeated, more sharply. He completely ignored Major Lee.
The lieutenant flicked his eyes back and forth between Major Lee and Lucas, clearly ambivalent.
“If you would please leave,” repeated Major Lee, his teeth clenched.
“Major, you’re relieved of your duties. Jarmo, escort this civilian to the security doors and remove all of his identification passes,” ordered Lucas, taking a drink from his hot caf. The staff all watched wide-eyed as the heatedly protesting Major Lee was half-carried to the doors by the hulking, scowling giant. “Now, who is next in command?”