A Company of Heroes Book Five: The Space Cadet (28 page)

“We’re getting close in,” announced the engineer, softly. “Shall I cut thrust to minimum?”

“Yes—yes, I suppose so,” answered Pomfret. “Slow down—there, stop and hover. I can’t see a thing out there. It’s too confounded dark. Can anyone see?”

Eight pairs of eyes strained at the ports.

“Land’s right ahead, sir, high land,” said Judikha, whose eyes were sharp.

“Right—I see it, now, of course. Must be Romola. Where the deuce are the lights of the fortress, anyway? What am I supposed to find out in this infernal darkness? Nothing going on that I can see.”

“If they still have their screens up, sir,” said the engineer, “then it’s likely that none of their interceptors are out tonight.”

“If we get far enough to find that out,” said Judikha, “we might not get back.”

“I told you,” said Pomfret, “that if I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it. Kindly remember that.”

Judikha bit her lip, but kept quiet.

“Go on toward the fortress,” ordered the young gentleman. “We’ll see about those screens when we get to them. Dead slow, engineer.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The little craft crept along cautiously, hovering only a few yards above the dark landscape, it’s ether benders raising only a few puffs of dust in its wake. The engineer was intent upon his instruments, his face weirdly lit by their lurid gleam, looking for the slightest electronic sign of the enemy. The others were each pressed against one of the ports, scrutinizing the impenetrable dark.

“Light to starboard, sir,” said one of the men, “at about three o’clock.”

Everyone looked, but could see nothing. Even Judikha’s sharp eyes detected nothing but the random discharges of her own retina. Still, the man insisted he had seen a brief glimmer on the level of the horizon. Suddenly, there was a flash of electric blue light, a loud crackling, and the scout ship bucked like a startled cat. There immediately followed other blows, each accompanied by sharp reports and flashes of light. The interior of the scout was suddenly flooded with a brilliant glare and Judikha, shading her eyes against it, could see that it emanated from batteries of searchlights that topped the low hills on either side of the scout. The long beams of light had pinned the little spaceship to the ground like a butterfly. Small, dark shapes, bearing their own dazzling lights, rose from the batteries.

“Fighters, sir!” she cried, but before Pomfret responded, the scout was raked by fire, sounding like pebbles thrown against a tin can. The enemy was still a little too distant to do real harm yet—but there were only seconds to spare until the range was closed.

“We’ve got to get out of here, sir,” said the engineer. “I’ll give her full speed, if you’ll give the order.”

“They’ve spotted us,” added Judikha. “We can do no more good here.”

“I know that! I told you to shut up!” shouted the cadet.

The scout was again raked by gunfire and this time it lurched sickeningly; there was an acrid scent in the air. The interior seemed filled with angry wasps. Judikha had thrown herself to the deck and when she raised her head, she saw that the two Patrolmen were laying quietly near her. Something wet had splashed her from head to foot.

“Sir!” cried the engineer. “Give the order!”

“Yes! Yes! You’ve got the order!” shouted Pomfret and before he had finished speaking the engineer had opened his controls to their fullest. The scout leaped ahead like, well, like a rocket.

The cadet turned on Judikha, shrieking: “This is your fault, damn you!”

There was another explosion and hot sparks flew past her face. The cockpit was filled with stinging smoke. The cadet fell against Judikha and she held him for a moment, looking into his dull, shocked eyes.

“We can’t get any altitude!” cried the engineer.

Dropping the body, Judikha sprang to the helm. “Give her all the forward velocity you can! We’ll have to run in instead of out. Mr. Pomfret’s been hit. We can’t get out now.”

There was no reply and she glanced over her shoulder. The engineer was slumped over his instruments, their lights dimmed by the thick gouts of blood that covered them. Nevertheless, the scout was accelerating at full speed and she turned her attention to steering. Stopping was her very last concern at the moment. She leveled the craft as best she could, while looking for a way to elude her pursuers. She was consistently losing altitude—evidently the ether benders were mortally damaged—no doubt the reason the engineer could not allow a vertical escape.

She spared a glance at her rear-view screen and was pleased, if somewhat surprised, to see that the fighters were being distanced. Perhaps Musrum had been satisfied with four men down and a scout fatally damaged.

She saw the deep shadow of a gully among the low hills and swung the sluggish spacecraft toward it. The gloom was comprehensive and she hoped that the lightless scoutcraft would be invisible, that any scanners might not be able to distinguish it from the boulders and crags. The gully followed a lazy S curve, ending abruptly at a low cliff. She pulled back on the wheel—the muscles of her arms and back standing out in metallic cords and knots—and was afraid for a long moment that the scout would refuse to respond. As it was, it did not begin to lift until the cliff face filled her window and she heard the rocks grinding against the bottom of the hull until it fell over the lip of the cliff. The scout would rise no further, but instead skidded painfully across the rough, pebbly soil.

She cut the power and listened to the long, descending whine as the capacitors and flywheels ran down. The sudden silence engulfed her like a heavy, wet blanket.

Throwing open the upper hatch, she raised her head and shoulders into the night air. It was sultry and spice-scented after the cold, processed atmosphere of the scout, now filled with the stinging smoke of burning electronics and the coppery smell of blood. The sky was crystal-clear from horizon to horizon. There was no sign of the fighters. No doubt they had recognized the futility of pursuing the crippled scout and would merely wait until daylight, when they could locate it easily. She looked overhead and saw regularly-spaced lines of stars: the artificial constellations of the blockading fleet. She turned and saw, to the port side of the scout, a massive, shapeless bulk blotting out half the sky. At first she thought it was a lifeless, deserted city before she recognized the ruined hulk of the downed battleship
Rudiger
.

-III-

It was difficult in the darkness, for Judikha was not an engineer, but she made what repairs she could to the engines and the ether bender. The capacitors were damaged, but she had no way of assessing the degree nor of fixing them if she could.

The engineer was dead, as were the two Patrolmen. They were from Pomfret’s crew and she had never seen them before. The cadet, however, was still alive, though breathing painfully. She lifted his head—gently, for Rhys’s sake—and asked, “Are you badly hurt, sir? What can I do?”

“Is that you, Judikha?” Pomfret gasped faintly. “I think I’m done for. Something ricocheted all around inside me. Guts are all messed up. Can’t move anything. Ah! It hurts, though. Don’t move me, please!”

Making a sort of pillow out of her jacket, she laid his head on it and sat back on her haunches.

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know for sure, sir. Not far from the Rustchuk main launch complex and well behind the defensive batteries, I know that much. We’re laying right beneath the wreck of the
Rudiger
, sir.”

“The
Rudiger
? Lot of good men lost on her, Judikha.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know, I could have been part of that crew. But I called in some favors and got reassigned. At first, I thought myself lucky to have escaped. Later, I got to wondering: what if I was the one thing it had lacked? You know, like the battle that was lost because a horse lost its shoe?”

“I suppose you’ll never know,” she replied a little cruelly. She doubted that Pomfret would scarcely ever have been that vital. “I’ve made some repairs to the scout. We’ll try to get out after dark.”

“Yes. Try it. Be careful. For your sake. You won’t have to worry about me. I’m going fast.”

“I think so, too, but you only need hold out for a day, then you can get a doctor.”

“Judikha, can you forgive me for what I did to you in school? I want you to.”

“Don’t talk about that. It was all straightened out eventually. You owned up.”

“Under compulsion. Mostly to please my brother. Do you forgive me?”

“Please, you must lie still, sir. Don’t talk. Try to save your energy.”

There was a long silence, then Pomfret spoke again.

“It was the only thing that ever came between me and Rhys. He begged me to write to you, but I wouldn’t, not even for him. Will you tell him that I did, that I apologized?”

“When I see him next, I will, sir. I’ll tell him that you apologized to me.”

“Thanks, Judikha. I was a rat.”

She started to say “Yes you were, sir,” but there was a long, rasping sigh and he said no more. Judikha wondered if he had died realizing that she had not forgiven him. The only time in his life he had ever spoken the truth, she thought, and he died saying it. Well, good, she decided: he
was
a rat.

There was work to be done. She was alone, possibly marooned, on an hostile alien world, with four dead men and a crippled scout rocket.

Her choices, as she saw them, were limited. There were bound to be other scouts; she might try to signal them. Of course, there was always the danger that the Rustchukians would be as likely to detect her signals as were her friends. She did not pretend that the Patrol would send a scout for the sole purpose of looking for Cadet Pomfret and his lost crew. Another possibility was that she might succeed in repairing the little vessel at least enough to enable it to return her to the fleet. This was just possible, but only if she were not overestimating her meager abilities as an engineer. Of course, she could simply surrender to the Rustchukians. She would be safe for the duration—for the Rustchukians were civilized enough.

But then—if she could complete the mission that had been started, if she could learn the status of the Rustchukian fleet—for they would be sure of testing the blockade soon—if she could get that information back to the Patrol in time for it to be of use...well, then, that would certainly mean recognition, honor, promotion...and possibly an appointment to the Academy, wouldn’t it? At the worst, it could do no harm...

The landscape outside the ship was hardly prepossessing. But then, Judikha had certainly seen worse around the Transmoltus. In fact, the cratered, cindery vista created a nostalgic pang that caught her entirely unawares.

She had inventoried what few supplies she had. The little spacecraft had been only sparsely equipped. She had only a little water, her DeLameter and the clothes on her back. She did, however, have some idea of where she was headed: on the way down she’d noticed an enormous domed city that couldn’t lay too many miles away...to the northeast, so far as she could judge. She considered picking the bones of the old
Rudiger
, but it would probably be a waste of precious time—what there might have been that was worthwhile would surely be long gone.

Once she had gone a few paces from the wrecked scout, she glanced skyward. The ring of blockading ships made a glittering necklace across the black dome. Sighing, she hefted her small pack and headed across the dunes.

THE END OF BOOK FIVE