Wing Commander: Freedom Flight Read online

  Oh no oh no oh no…

  Hunter pressed his hand to his mouth as he realized he was losing the battle with his stomach. He managed to stagger to the edge of the landing field before losing it all over the bare rock. By the time his stomach stopped fighting, he was down to dry heaves; his head was splitting so badly he'd have welcomed an axe-murderer with open arms, and his legs were shaking so hard he wondered if they'd hold him.

  The kid was already aboard the shuttlecraft when Hunter could stand again, which was probably good for the kid's health, he reflected. I think I'll kill him if he eats any more of that sandwich in front of me. He tried to walk onto the shuttle with something like dignity, but settled for slumping into the closest seat.

  The same laconic shuttle pilot walked into the cabin, looking over his passengers. He took one look at Hunter and handed him a spacesick sack. "Try not to heave all over the cabin," he advised. "It took us three days to clean out the shuttle after the last guy who did that."

  Hunter nodded, not trusting his guts enough to open his mouth to speak.

  The shuttle engines roared into life a few minutes later, sounding and feeling so loud to Hunter's ears that he might have been strapped to them. The rumbling didn't help his head at all. He could hear the techie kid several rows back, talking and laughing. He sat back in the seat, closed his eyes, and wished he was anywhere but on a shuttle about to lift at several gees and then go weightless for their trip beyond the planet's gravity well to the Claw. The shuttle lifted with a sudden pull of acceleration, too loud and too fast, and Hunter was suddenly very glad that the pilot had given him a spacesick sack.

  And to think he'd assumed there wasn't anything more in his stomach.

  Unless, of course, he was tossing up his socks. He might well be, by now…

  By the time they were out of the atmosphere and floating free in zero gee, Hunter was beyond caring. He lay back in his seat and thought about dying. Anything but this! His head had been split open by an axe-murderer, every muscle ached, he shook with chills one moment, and sweated with fever the next. He had to keep his eyes closed, or he'd have seen the shuttle doing a little spin around him.

  Finally the shuttle slowed for its approach to the Tiger's Claw, and Hunter felt the craft lurch slightly as the Automated Carrier Landing System engaged. Then the ACLS brought them into the flight deck, as smooth as sliding a fried egg onto a plate… Hunter felt his stomach lurch again. No, don't think about food, just don't think about it!

  Another minute as the shuttle's engines powered down, and then the hatchway slid open. Two crewmen in the bright green of Medical peered through the hatch, then saw Hunter.

  Who was close to panicking. No, not them again!

  "Captain St. John?" the taller medico asked politely, as his partner unstrapped Hunter from his chair and pulled him to his feet. From the back of the bus, Hunter could hear the tech kid snickering. "You have an appointment in Medical, sir."

  "Can't we talk about this, mates?" Hunter pleaded as they hauled him in the direction of Sickbay. "Maybe you could pretend that I missed the shuttle, eh? Just let me go back to the barracks and sleep this off, I'll be fine in another few hours, I swear…"

  "You're scheduled for a briefing in fifteen minutes, sir," the first medico said, opening the door to Sickbay. "I'm afraid we don't have any choice." He spoke over Hunter's head to his partner. "You get the hypo set, I'll get the—"

  No, not the green goop! "Come on, boys, let's not be too hasty!" Hunter said, trying to stagger in the direction of the doorway. "Hey, I'm almost sober now! I can make the briefing! Can't we—" He tripped and landed on the floor in a sprawl, as the medicos dosed in on him from either side. "—talk 'bout this?"

  The first injection was just north of his left thigh, followed by a second even further north of that. Hunter yelped and tried to protect that delicate area of his anatomy with his hands. "Gents, please! I'll have to sit in a cockpit in another hour!" Hunter choked as they prepped the third injection. As a small gesture of kindness, they gave him the third shot in his trapezius muscle instead. Then it was time to drink the "green goop," which hit Hunter's stomach like an exploding firecracker, and reactivated the lurching that he thought he'd gotten under control. He barely managed to run to the Sickbay bathroom in time, and heard them turning on the shower behind him. He was beyond resistance as they stripped him down and shoved him into the icy cold spray.

  Five minutes later, he thought that maybe he would survive this after all. His stomach had settled; his headache was slowly receding. The only chills he had now were the ones caused by the frigid water needling him. He stood away from it, plastering himself against the wall. "Can I please have my clothes back, boys?" he pleaded from inside the shower.

  A hand reached in and cut off the water. They handed him a towel, and laid out a clean flight suit uniform for him on the counter.

  The taller medico chuckled as Hunter stepped from the shower, toweling himself gently. He still felt as if someone had scraped the first layer of his skin off, and one of the effects of the second shot was to make everything a little too sharp and clear. "How many times has this been, Hunter? Four? Five?"

  Hunter glared at him. "It's the last time, that's what it is," he said, drying off quickly and wrapping the towel around his midriff. "I'll never give you professional sadists an excuse to work me over again."

  "That's what you said last time," the other medico observed. Hunter saw the man's grin and considered punching him just to wipe that smile off his face, but decided that being taken to the brig by Security would be an even worse ending to what had started as a thoroughly wretched day.

  And now that they'd hit him with that third shot, there wasn't even a chance he'd be able to sleep what was left of the hangover off. He felt like his eyelids had been glued to his eyebrows, and he knew from past experience that he'd be buzzing like a hummingbird for the next twenty-four hours.

  "Well, so long and thanks for nothin', gents," he said as cheerfully as he could (not very), starting for the Sickbay door.

  "Ah, Hunter… your uniform?" the tall medico said, holding up the jumpsuit and grinning.

  "Son of a—" Hunter grabbed the uniform from his hand and stalked off to the bathroom to dress, still grumbling obscenities under his breath.

  "As you can see, the probable flight paths begin at Jump Point 1 and Jump Point 2…" Colonel Halcyon glanced at the door of the Briefing Room as Hunter took a seat at the back of the room. "Good morning, Hunter. Glad you could join us." Hunter winced at the sarcasm in the Colonel's voice.

  "As I was saying, we think the enemy cruiser… if there even is an enemy cruiser… is approaching from one of these jump points. Of course, there's a peculiarity in the Firekka System, which some of you may know of, that will make it a little more difficult to track down this Kilrathi convoy. The Firekka System is like the famous Enigma Sector, but on a much smaller scale. Where the Enigma Sector is affected by a singularity that allows you to cross the entire sector in a single jump, Firekka is crisscrossed with different Jump Points that allow you to mini-jump within the system. Depending on whether the Kilrathi know of that peculiarity, we could have a difficult hunt ahead of us. He frowned. "If there's even anything out there at all. Tactical thinks that what they detected was a ship jumping in-system, but they've been recalibrating their detection equipment, so God knows what could be out there.

  "Pilots, even if there isn't anything out there, we have to make certain. We can't afford for the cats to disrupt the treaty signing.

  "We'll send out patrols staggered at fifteen minute intervals, following the probable flight paths of that ship," he continued. "I'm pairing our experienced pilots with some of the newer flyers from the TCS Austin. Iceman, you're partnered with Doomsday. Hunter, you'll fly with Jazz. Spirit, take Puma under your wing. All of you, get down to the flight deck for immediate launch. On the next patrol, Paladin will fly with…"

  Hunter followed the other pilots of the first patrol out of
the briefing room, feeling as though his heart was beating double-time. It's those damn drugs, they make me feel like I'm a live electric wire.

  If I can just live through the next couple hours, I'll be fine—

  In the lift down to the flight deck, Hunter leaned against the wall, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. Spirit, looking too alert and ready in her flight suit, watched him with a small smile. "You look as though you had a good shore leave, Hunter."

  He grimaced. "It was a great shore leave, until that MP dragged me out of bed. And for what? This sounds like a wild goose chase to me."

  "We need every pilot to cover the flight paths," Spirit said seriously. "The Colonel is right, the treaty between Firekka and the Confederation is too important to risk the Kilrathi disrupting it."

  "Yeah, but why me?"

  She gave him a smile that was as warm as a touch, as the lift doors opened to the flight deck, noisy and filled with technicians readying the starfighters for their pilots. "Fly well, my friend, and return safely," Spirit said quietly.

  "Thanks, lady," he said, and grabbed his helmet from the rack next to the lift doors.

  He started for his fighter, and realized that someone was following him. A young man in a flight suit, maybe twenty years old, with a shock of unruly brown hair and dark, serious eyes. His helmet was tucked under his arm, marked with the callsign 'Jazz" and several musical notes.

  Oh, right. My wingman.

  Colson, that was his name. One of the younger pilots from the Austin. Hunter vaguely remembered hearing him playing piano in the rec room a week before. The boy assumed an at-attention stance.

  "Oh, God, stand at ease, kid." Hunter rubbed his temples. His head still hurt, despite all the drugs. "You're Jazz, right? Jazz Colson?"

  "Lieutenant Zachary 'Jazz' Colson, ready for duty, sir!" Jazz saluted sharply.

  "Right, right. You're the piano player, aren't you? I heard you play last week. You're good. Damn good. Let's see if you can fly that well. How many combat missions have you flown, Jazz?"

  "Two. I iced a Salthi and a Dralthi." There was pride on the young man's face.

  "Not bad, mate. Okay, listen up. We're supposed to fly a simple patrol, but I've learned that nothing is ever simple, not in this war. You'll stick to me like glue, understand? We probably won't run into any cats, but if we do… no heroics, nothing fancy, just good flying. Follow my lead, stay dose on my wing, and you'll do fine." Hunter leaned against the closest fighter for support during this small speech, wishing more than anything that all he could do was go lie down for a while. His brain might've been on overdrive from the stimulants, but his legs still weren't working quite right.

  "Are you feeling all right, Captain?" Jazz asked solicitously. "You don't look so great, sir."

  "I'm fine, I'm fine. Go on, get started with your pre-flight checks. We're supposed to launch in another few minutes. Once you've launched, get out of the landing pattern area and wait for me, 'bout five thousand kilometres to starboard."

  Hunter continued across the flight deck to his fighter, which was still being serviced by the ground crew.

  Next to his Rapier fighter, Paladin was talking quietly with a strange-looking young man, his dark face marked with an intricate tattooed pattern. Spirit was having a similar talk with her wingman, Puma, AKA Lieutenant Youngblood. Sorry you got saddled with that boy, Mariko, Hunter thought, climbing up the ladder into his fighter cockpit. Nobody deserves that one.

  The blond boy from the shuttlecraft was crawling out from under the Rapier's left engine as Hunter walked up. Like everyone else this morning, he looked too alert and cheerful. "Ready for flight, sir!" he said, saluting.

  And I'm seeing too damn many salutes this morning, Hunter thought grumpily. "Thanks, Ensign, ah…" He squinted to see the name on the kid's jumpsuit. "Ensign Cafrelli. Thank you."

  "My pleasure. And you can call me Jimmy if you'd like, sir." The kid was obviously trying hard to keep a straight face. "By the way, sir, you look much better now than you did on the shuttle this morning, Sir."

  "Don't remind me," Hunter muttered, then called louder. "All personnel, dear for takeoff!" He clipped the comlink wires to his helmet, and pressed the button to close the cockpit.

  "Hey, Hunter, how's it hangin'?" The wry Southerner voice said into his ear, as the flight control officer's face appeared, green and fuzzy, on the vid.

  Hunter grinned. Of all of the flight control officers, "Mississippi Steve" was the most entertaining. "Just fine, Steve. How soon can I launch?"

  "You're first in the pattern, Captain, with immediate clearance. Your flight plan is uploading to your Nav computer right now. Have a good flight and a safe return, sir."

  "Thanks, Steve." Hunter finished his pre-flight checklist and strapped himself in, then double-checked to make sure that all the ground personnel were clear of the engines. Then he flipped the switches and thumbed the engines into life.

  Even through the closed cockpit, the roar of the engines drowned out all the other noise of the flight deck. Hunter clicked up the volume on his comlink as the entire fighter vibrated, straining against the braking system. Carefully, he pushed the throttle up slightly, moving the huge fighter toward the brightly-marked launch strip.

  As he maneuvered into position for the launch, the Deck Officer held up one hand, his other hand cupping his headset to listen more closely. Hunter eased up on the throttle, feeling the fighter quivering around him. The Deck Officer brought his hand down sharply, and Hunter punched the engines to full throttle, accelerating forward through the launch tube. A moment later the fighter broke through the magnetic airshield with a bare instant of resistance, and then he was free of the ship and its artificial gravity.

  Hunter banked the ship sharply to starboard, easily clearing the landing pattern traffic and heading into open space. A few seconds later he was five thousand klicks out and killed his engines, after reversing the engines briefly to bring his speed down to zero. He drifted there, weightless, waiting for his wingman. It was peaceful, even with the noise of the open com channel chattering in his ear.

  This is worth it all, he thought, looking back at the Tiger's Claw, the sphere of the blue-green planet Firekka beyond it. Just to be out here in space flying a fighter, this is worth all of the military crap, everything I have to deal with in the Navy.

  He watched as another Rapier launched from the carrier, veering sharply toward him. There's the boy, Hunter thought. He's looking good, has a light hand on the controls. Not overcorrecting, or turning too tightly. I think this one's going to do just fine.

  The second Rapier slowed as it approached his position. The vid flickered to life, Jazz's helmeted face smiling at him. "Lieutenant Colson reporting for duty, sir."

  "Let's check out our Nav points in sequence, Jazz. Set the nav computer for Nav 1, and AutoNav on my mark. Three… two… one… mark!"

  Hunter punched in the buttons in sequence, and felt the fighter accelerate as the autopilot engaged. He sat back in his chair to enjoy the ride, glancing at the Nav map occasionally to check their position.

  Three thousand klicks out from the Nav Point, the AutoNav dropped out and Hunter took the joystick to resume manual control of the spacecraft.

  "No Kilrathi on the sensors, Captain," Jazz reported over the vidlink.

  "Looks like this point is clear," Hunter said. "Reset AutoNav for Nav 2…"

  Jazz's image broke up on the monitor, to be replaced by Colonel Halcyon on vid override. Hunter stopped in mid-word, knowing that the Colonel never contacted pilots during a patrol unless it was an absolute emergency.

  "Hunter, your orders have changed. Set course for your Nav 3 and then keep going another five thousand klicks. Spirit and Youngblood are in serious trouble. Two heavy cruisers with full fighter complement. Get moving, man!"

  "Affirmative, Colonel. On my way. I'm sending Jazz back to the carrier."

  Jazz's voice burst over the comlink, though the Colonel was still overriding the vid circuits. "Cap
tain, you can't!"

  "Listen to me, mate. You've flown two missions… I've flown dozens. What do you think your odds are of surviving this? I'm saving your life, kid. Obey my orders and go back to the Claw."

  "Affirmative, Captain." Hunter glanced out the side cockpit view, to see Jazz's fighter peeling off in the correct direction. At least the kid obeys orders. He punched up the new navigation coordinates, and checked his afterburner fuel reserve. He had enough to get himself there on partial burn, with enough to use in reserve for the fight. Fortunately, the main engines on this fighter ran on nuclear cells, so he wasn't in danger of being stranded. He kicked in the 'burners and felt the engines vibrating as they soared up to full power. Let's go, let's go!

  He keyed through the comm channels until he heard Spirit's voice, faint and crackling with static. "Youngblood, where… you… form… my wing…NOW!"

  Spirit rolled her Raptor fighter hard right to stay close behind the Kilrathi, glancing desperately at the power readings on her ship's neutron guns, slowly building up to full power again. The small fighter's powerplant was straining to recharge the weapons… she waited until the last moment, when the Kilrathi fighter was veering sharply away, to pull the trigger and let loose the volley of deadly red fire. The aft engine of the enemy fighter peeled away and exploded, taking the rest of the fighter with it. Spirit veered again to avoid the debris, scanning her aft view for Youngblood.

  She couldn't see him, either aft or to either side. What she could see were the two Kilrathi heavy cruisers, and the enemy fighters launching from those cruisers, one by one. As soon as they had a full complement of fighters launched, they'd be after her.

  She and Youngblood had come out of the asteroid field and into this ambush without warning. Only one more enemy fighter was attacking them now, but in another few seconds a dozen more would join in the fight. "Youngblood, where are you? Form on my wing, right now!"