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

sounded tense. "This is Team Leader. Return to shuttles and secure! Abort survey! Repeat, abort survey and secure aboard shuttles!"

"All right, people," Bondarevsky called. "You heard the man. Get aboard!"

Harper, Sparks, and the ten-man team from Diaz's salvage group were already in motion, and Bondarevsky heard Bhaktadil issuing terse instructions to his marines on their tactical channel. He watched as his people started back for the shuttle in haste, and switched off all his comm frequencies except the command link to Richards.

"What's going on, Admiral?" he asked.

'The Hornets picked up an incoming bogie," Richards said. "Moving slow, but on a course to intercept us in another fifteen minutes. They're not answering calls, and there's no IFF signal."

"Any idea what it is?"

"Not a clue yet, but I'm not taking any chances. I've got Babcock and her wingman closing in for a visual ID, but I want everybody ready to clear out in case that blip turns out to be a missile or an attack bird coming in to give us an old-fashioned Cat-style welcome." "Good idea, sir," Bondarevsky said. "But I doubt it's a missile . .

"Maybe not. But I keep remembering that the bomb that took out Kilrah was small enough to be carried in the munitions load of a heavy fighter. And big as this old rustbucket is, she ain't exactly planet-sized."

CHAPTER 7

"Honor is a thing to be cherished, but no true Warrior will place his honor above his duty."

from the Third Codex7:12:05

Hornet 101, VF-12 "Flying Eyes" Near Vaku VII, Vaku System 1031 hours (CST), 2670.313

Commander Darlene Babcock studied her tactical display and tried not to be irritated with the voice in her headset. She'd never been a big fan of backseat flyers, but she wasn't in a position to say so when it was one of the Landreich's senior admirals giving the unwanted and unnecessary advice. So she watched her screens, listened to the voice, and pictured Admiral Richards sitting at the controls of a Kilrathi Darket as her targeting reticule flashed red to announce a successful lock-on. . . .

Whatever that bogie is, Commander, leave it alone," Richards was saying. "Commander Tolwyn is on his way with the Raptors. Your job is to identify the thing if you can, and avoid combat unless it fires on yo."

"Copy," she said tersely. "My computer's still trying to process the sensor data, but so far it hasn't matched the configuration to any Kilrathi design in the warbook"

"Commander, this is Bondarevsky," a new voice broke in.

Great, she thought. Another expert trying to fly the mission for me. "Keep it short, Captain," she said. "I'm closing to weapons range in a hurry, and I won't have much time for talking."

"Check your warbook again, but don't limit the search parameters to Kilrathi designs," Bondarevsky said. "That could be a civilian ship like Vision Quest. Or a Kilrathi using a captured ship to fool us. Lots of possibilities that wouldn't be listed as Kilrathi ship types."

She cursed under her breath. She'd been flying against Kilrathi so long she'd automatically screened out other ship types when she called up the warbook database. What a damn-fool stunt to pull . . and with no end of important brass looking over her figurative shoulder, tool Maybe backseat flyers had a place after all, she thought. "Roger that. Running warbook." She couldn't keep her embarrassment out of her voice.

`Don't be too hard on yourself, Commander," her CO said. "The Bear caught me doing the same thing once when he was my Wing Commander and I was supposed to be the hottest new squadron CO in the Confederation Navy, so I figure you're in pretty good company."

Babcock didn't respond to that. She was too busy frowning at the readout from her warbook screen. "Computer's ID'd the target," she reported. "It's . . . a Confederation shuttle, Type R."

"Not one of ours," the Wing Commander said. "Landreich never picked up any of the new R-types from the Confed fleet."

"Stay on your toes, Commander," Richards advised.

"The Kilrathi have captured their share over the years. That could still be some kind of a Trojan Horse."

Bondarevsky's voice was thoughtful. "Didn't they start refitting cruisers of the Tallahassee class with R-type shuttles last year?" he asked. "For search and rescue work, wasn't it?"

"That's right," Admiral Tolwyn replied. This was getting to be a regular chat line.

"Inside weapons range. Still no sign they even know we're here." She paused. "Visual in thirty seconds. Drifter, you hang back and keep an eye on them. If they get me . . . well, you know the drill by now."

She tuned out the conversation between the senior officers that was still going on over the commlink and focused all her attention on the approaching ship. It showed up as a bright light against the void, just another star, but swelled visibly as the range closed. For the past several minutes she'd been allowing the computer autopilot to gradually adjust her vector so that she would be able to quickly match course and speed with the target if that seemed wise. As they came closer, the differences in their vectors were going down fast, and the approach seemed to drag out.

Finally the other ship was clearly visible. It was a human design, all right, a little sleeker than the Landreich's older shuttle designs but clearly nothing like the multi-hulled knife-blade shapes the Kilrathi favored. As her Hornet flashed by she got a look at the hull, where blast damage had blackened parts of the fuselage.

"Did you see that?" Bondarevsky demanded. "The sensor pod images . . . Sparks, play it back for me. Yeah . . . there. Those are Juneau's numbers on the bow."

"Survivors?" Richards sounded incredulous. "We didn't pick up any trace of Juneau or her consort."

Well, they could be human survivors," Bondarevsky said. "Or the Cats managed to pick up a trophy before the fight was over:"

"Any sign of hostile activity, Commander