Chapter 23

Marco

It had been a long, long trip. Rachel complained the whole time. Lok wanted to tell me stories and hear mine the entire voyage – apparently something his people did quite often. I'd woken up when Lok had informed me we were coming up on the moon of the fourth planet, which was the Trunsk home world. "Thank you," I'd simply said. I didn't know who I was talking to, but whoever it was that gave me the patience to make it without venting myself into space deserved my appreciation.

"I'm picking up a bunch of sensor blips from behind the moon," Rachel said. "They don't match anything in the targeting computer's memory, though."

"Probably just satellites," I said, although I wasn't so sure. It's not like humans had satellites orbiting our moon, and even if we had, we wouldn't concentrate them all on one side. "Keep an eye on it, though, and let me know if the situation changes."

"On it, chief," Rachel said brightly. She was just as glad as I was to be at our journey's end.

Past the moon, which looked a lot like the one orbiting Earth, I could see a good three-fourths of the Trunsks' nameless planet. It didn't look too inviting. Swirls of clouds covered most of it, like you see on the weather channel's hurricane tracker maps. Like Earth, it was mostly ocean, but instead of the water being blue, it was as black as ink. The continents looked more like islands. Even from this distance, the land looked sun-baked and smoldering. No wonder the Trunsk had evolved as cold-blooded reptilians.

"Lok, my life sensors are picking up the biggest concentration from that big island near the equator," I said as the computer beeped at me. I turned off the proximity alarm I'd set to go off if we accidentally got too close to a gravity well, such as a planet. "Can you plot me a course down through those storms?"

"Yes," he said, and got to work with his usual efficiency. I grinned – the big guy might not be much fun to joke around with, but he sure knew how to handle business.

"Hey sun-hair," I called to Rachel, because I knew she hated it. Well, hated it when I called her that, anyway. She seemed to like Lok's nickname for her, but only when Lok said it. Girls – what can I say?

"Mako four here," she snapped. "Try to be a little more professional, commander." I loved it when Rachel tried to get under my skin. It almost always meant I was succeeding in getting under hers. She was right, though – it wasn't really the time to play around.

"What do you have on those sensor contacts?" I asked.

"I dunno. The computer can't tell me what they are, but it's definitely something. I've got six distinct signatures, now."

The little alarm bells went off in the back of my brain. "That's got trouble written all over it, four. Keep a close eye on that and let me know if you pick up any change. The surface of that moon might just be playing tricks with your sensors, but I'd be willing to bet it's a welcoming committee."

"What're you, psychic?" Rachel asked, a little too anxious-sounding for my comfort. "They just cleared the horizon. Targeting computer suggests two-man fighters, six of 'em. Approaching us in a hostile formation."

"Take it easy, four," I said to her, trying to calm her nerves a little. Anxiety was something that got you killed. I located them, selected a communications frequency, and keyed the communicator. "This is Mako leader to approaching starfighter formation. Please respond with your intentions."

A whole bunch of snake-like hisses along with a few decidedly ugly-sounding grunts came from the fighters. Rachel was right about the approach pattern – they were tucked in tight, apparently to confuse our targeting computers into thinking it was one big, shifting ship. "Hey two, did you catch any of that?" I asked Lok.

"Yes. They laughed at you," he said simply. He'd drawn his own fighter up close to mine. "They said, 'turn around or die.' I don't think they will be laughing in a moment," he said viciously. His engines glowed and he started to jump out in front of me. Great. I had a pissed-off, emotional Taruff on one side of me. Rachel was on the other side, and for the first time ever, she picked now to get all jittery on me.

"Close the formation, Lok. We'll hit them all at once, just like in the sims. Arm your missiles," I told him, fervently hoping he'd listen to me. He didn't acknowledge that he'd heard, but his fighter dropped back beside mine. "You okay, four?" I asked Rachel.

"Don't worry about me," she said coolly, and I could picture the wide, psychotic grin on her face I'd seen a million times before. It prompted a smile of my own.

"Don't hurt 'em too bad, four," I told her to make sure she didn't get twitchy on the trigger. I kept our pace towards the enemy fighters leisurely and was pleased to see Rachel and Lok match my speed. Not to be stuck-up or anything, but I was the leader, and pretty damn good at what I did. My missile-launcher package turned the crosshairs I'd settled on the lead fighter from green to yellow, the sign of a maximum distance lock. This was where I was concerned about Rachel – the missiles theoretically could lock on from this distance, but if the fighter shook the lock before the missile hit, the projectile would just become ballistic, which the fighter could easily dodge. Rachel had shown a tendency to fire at this point instead of waiting for a solid lock, and I was again pleased to see she held her fire.

The enemy fighter I was focused on was very strange. I didn't know what I'd expected, but it sure wasn't this. My group's fighters, while distinct in their own ways, were superficially similar. They were definitely machines of war, all hard and angular. The Trunsk fighters were almost organic-looking. They reminded me of a stingray with the tail arched up over the body. Too, while our fighters were silver in mine and Rachel's case and red in Lok's, the Trunsk had opted to paint a black, grey, and yellow camoflage scheme to match their planet. They looked to me like a dangerous predator rather than a machine commanded by a sentient person. They were as much form as function.

I stopped admiring them when the crosshairs turned a bloody-red. "Makos, launch missiles," I said calmly as I hit the thumb button that would release the rocket from it's harness under one of my wings. Rachel and Lok reported their own launches.

It was more successful than I could have hoped. Three fighters exploded messily and the remaining three broke formation, still heading for us, but not quite as confident as they'd been a few seconds ago. I prepared to fire my shredders at the middle enemy fighter, but I held back as I saw it start to shudder. It began a lazy dive towards the surface of the moon, and began coming apart before it got there. I guessed it had been perforated by the shrapnel of one of his exploding squadmates and the drag of the moon's thin atmosphere did the rest. As it exploded, the other two peeled off, apparently wanting to regroup before engaging us.

I grimaced. That probably would have worked in atmosphere, where flying was difficult because of the problems associated with air resistance. As it was, they presented us with beautiful shots at their wide, fleeing bellies. Rachel cut in front of Lok and I hissed – if Lok's reflexes had been a little slower, he'd have blown her to bits. As it was, he dodged away to get a shot around her fighter. My shredders burned into one of them, turning it into an incandescent ball of gas. Lok grunted something and punched the acceleration to catch up with the escaping Trunsk, but I stopped him. "Let him go, two. He'll return with stories of how we made mincemeat out of their entire patrol, and the Trunsk will be more likely to treat us with some caution if not respect."

"Ta-tu," he said, the Taruff version of 'I copy.'

"Why did you jump in front of Lok?" I asked Rachel, not exactly mad. More curious than anything, I guess.

"I didn't mean to. One of my thrusters went out, and the ones on my right were firing at full power. Pushed me right in front of him."

I rolled my craft to look at Rachel left side. Sure enough, some debris had knocked one of her jet thrusters totally out of line with the others. "You have it all compensated?" I asked.

"Yeah, the computer took care of most of it. It was squawking at me not to maneuver, because I'd have torn the few connections I'd had left."

"Well, tell Lok thank you sometime for not incinerating you," I told her. "You got our heading to that island?" I asked Lok. He answered in the affirmative and sent me some coordinates. I began taking us down. "Stay loose – if they've got anti-fighter guns, this is where they'll use 'em. Stay on course, but be jumping around if we start taking fire. Keep your jukes unpredictable – if you move in a pattern, they'll be able to guess where you'll be next." The front of the fighter started glowing as we hit the atmosphere, and sure enough, red rays of light started streaking towards us. Terribly inaccurate for now, but I knew that would change once they figured out our speed and vector. I barrel-rolled to dodge a close laser blast and said, "Hold on to your butts – we're going in hot." We streaked in at the hellish planet at full speed.

I never even saw the blast that hit me. About a minute into the descent, my computer went nuts and the fighter started shaking as if it were in the grip of some giant throwing a tantrum. My canopy starred with cracks, and my vision started to gray out as my inertial compensators failed me. I didn't know if my communications were still working, but I tried anyway. "Two, four, can anyone see me? How bad am I hit?" I yelled, aware that it was a stupid question. The answer was easy – bad enough. I had no control over the fighter, I had no sense of direction, I was blacking out, and to top it off, the spin made me want to puke.

"…can't see…bad…punch out! …Out, Marco!" Rachel's voice came through my helmet, but was chopped to bits by static.

"Ejecting!" I yelled. Once I was free of the doomed fighter, I might have enough time to morph to a bird. Maybe. I slapped the flashing eject button and waited for the unfamiliar explosion of the canopy flying off and the command chair jetting free. I missed. Slapped it again. Nothing happened. "Ejector circuits fried!" I cried, panicked. I tried to reach my arms up to push the canopy open, but enertia kept my arms pinned down.

"…too close! …out now, or…get out!" I heard Rachel yell, sounding more than a little scared through the static. I tried desperately to think of something, anything I could use to get out of this jam, but came up with nothing as the collision alarms started blaring.