Wing Commander #07 False Color by William Forstchen (novels for students TXT) 📗

shipping ships and men out to serve with Kruger's boys while the Confederation was in the middle of those phony peace negotiations. I flew down there after the Battle of Earth to let Ian's folks know what had happened first-hand. I couldn't put that kind of thing in an internet bulletin, you know." He paused, staring down at the drink again, wrapped up in unpleasant memories.

"And?" Sparks urged. "Did you see Kirha?"

He shook his head. "No, I was too late. The news had got there ahead of me. And Kirha did the only thing he could do under the circumstances, given the vow he'd sworn. The big orange bastard took a knife and stabbed himself through the heart. Zu'kara . . . ritual suicide. Without his adopted clan leader, he was alone in a strange culture, and I don't think Kirha wanted to live without Hunter to lead him."

"Cats," Tolwyn said. "I can't figure them. Barbaric, stupid buggers if you ask me."

"You're wrong there, Kevin," Bondarevsky said sternly. "The Kilrathi have been civilized a lot longer than we have, and they're anything but stupid. Or else the war would have been over with a long time back, and without all the blood and pain we've had to invest just to fight them to a standstill. No, they just have a different outlook on things. If more of our political leaders would stop treating them as if they were humans in furry suits and start recognizing just how different their culture is, we might be able to deal with them better. Find common ground, even. It's only when you insist on holding somebody to your own narrow standards that you shut off all hope of ever reaching them. Hearts and minds and all that."

"I still prefer the old approach," Tolwyn said. "When you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."

CHAPTER 6

"The brave Warrior is not without fear. He is a friend of his fear, embracing it, intimate with it, but never allowing it to overcome him."

from the First Codex10:21:18

Flight Deck, FRLS Independence Jump Point Three, Vaku System 0717 hours (CST), 2670.313

Jumpshock!

There was something fundamentally incompatible between living organisms and the realm of hyperspace, not powerful enough to kill but strong and unpleasant nonetheless. Nausea, dizziness, momentary disorientation, these were the symptoms of jumpshock, and Bondarevsky experienced them all in good measure as the Independence made the transition from the fringes of the Oecumene system to the jump point nearest Vaku's brown dwarf companion and the derelict's last plotted position. He blinked, trying to focus his eyes and get his bearings while fighting a feeling that reminded him of the worst hangover he'd ever awakened with. It didn't help that his vacuum suit, designed for salvage and construction work in space, was bulky, stiff, and unwieldy compared to the issue flight suit he was used to wearing. He had a momentary flash of fear that he was about to vomit, one of the worst experiences known to man when it happened inside a suit and at times fatal if one was out in vacuum and couldn't clear his breather. The wave of nausea passed and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Beside him Aengus Harper recovered more quickly, as younger men were apt to do. "My sainted mother always said that man wasn't meant to travel through space, and Lord forgive me but I said she was wrong," he said, his voice husky. "Remind me, sir, to let her know she was right."

Across from the two men, Sparks was already playing her fingers across the keys of the small holo-projector set up between their seats. Bondarevsky had never seen her suffering from the effects of jumpshock. There were some people who claimed to be immune, and at times like this Bondarevsky would cheerfully have killed any one of them.

"Looks like everything's going according to plan," she commented cheerfully.

Bondarevsky blinked again and peered at the computer-generated holographic image floating in the air. He could discern the blips that represented Independence, Xenophon, and Durendal, grouped around the jump point but already beginning to shape their course inwards, toward the oversized gas giant the derelict orbited. There was nothing registering in the projection that might have been their target, only the brown dwarf and its attendant moons.

'Where's our Kilrathi hulk?" That question came from Colonel Bhaktadil, seated beside Sparks. He didn't have his turban on today. Like the rest of them, he had his helmet ready at hand in the storage rack behind and above his seat, and his dark, curly hair looked all wrong somehow without its customary covering. "Don't tell me we've come all this way for nothing!"

The marine CO had elected to go in with the squads assigned to the flight deck of the supercarrier, since that was the largest single space they'd have to secure and investigate and hence required the most marines to take it. The marines and Bondarevsky's survey team were already strapped into the shuttle, ready to launch as soon as the all-clear was given by Kevin Tolwyn's pilots. Other shuttles ready on the flight deck were similarly manned and set for launch. Although they had plenty of time left before they were close enough to launch, Richards and Tolwyn had ordered them to be ready to go at short notice. Even if something dangerous was waiting for them in the Vaku system, the fighting ships of the battle group might be able to lead it away while the shuttles went in to size up the situation, so preparedness was the order of the day.

"Probably obscured by the brown dwarf," Sparks said. "You know the database better than I do, skipper. What do you think?"

Bondarevsky tapped a command into the projector controls and nodded as a trace appeared on the far side of the supergiant. "Yeah. That's the computer estimate of where it should be, given Vision Quest's data on orbital characteristics."