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

were hopeless and there was no prospect of either survival or a warrior's death in battle. It was not a decision to be made lightly.

The admiral ignored the currents of uncertainty that ran through the bridge around him. He took up the knife he had used to kill Khirgh, knelt beside the command chair, and placed the point of the blade directly above his heart.

Honor shall flow to the warrior who is true, to his hrai, to his comrades, to his people, and to himself, for only the true warrior shall know the gods hereafter.

His last thought was of the warriors under his command. He wished them all a chance at glory in death.

Then he drove the point of the dagger home, and felt the blood running free.

Shuttle Juneau Delta Vaku Vila, Vaku System 1747 hours (CST)

The overloaded shuttle bucked and shuddered as it descended through the roiling atmosphere toward the planet's surface. Donald Graham held on to the stick and fought to keep the craft on course as it bled off speed, all too conscious of his precious cargo. Sadness vied with relief within him as he contemplated the planet below. Three of the cruiser's shuttles had escaped the Juneau's destruction, and they had collected enough lifepods en route to pack each of the craft with survivors. But many more had died, including Commander Lindstrom and the entire contingent aboard Shuttle Alpha, caught by the last explosions that had consumed Juneau while trying to rescue a cluster of lifepods that hadn't won clear of the ship.

Three shuttles packed to the gills . . maybe a hundred men and women, all told, out of the cruiser's complement of three hundred sixty. It was hard to even think of the loss of two-thirds of his shipmates.

But for the moment Graham couldn't afford to let emotion tear at him. He was the senior surviving officer left out of the Juneau's wardroom, and he had a responsibility to the survivors. The main job at the moment was to find a safe place to land and pray the conditions on the surface of this miserable planet wouldn't be too harsh. It was listed as "marginally habitable" in the navigation files, but his sensor readings didn't look promising.

A few degrees off his heading, the sensors were registering a concentration of metal and a few sporadic energy readings. That would be the Kilrathi survivors who had made it down earlier, from the damaged escort ship and whatever fighters and escape vessels had managed to get clear of the carrier. His first impulse was to put plenty of distance between his survivors and the Cats.

Then Graham considered again, and moved the stick to bank left and line up on the sensor readings.

He had no way of knowing what had happened to the Cats. They might be strong enough to be a real threat to the human survivors, in which case a quick over flight before they realized there were humans in the area might be the one chance Graham would have for estimating the danger. And if they were in worse shape than the Juneau's survivors, there was always the chance the humans could overpower them and make use of whatever equipment and supplies they had on hand. After all, the shuttles carried plenty of people, but little else. They needed food, water, shelter . . . just about everything, in fact.

The shuttle broke through a cloud layer and Graham saw the wreck of the Cat escort ship spread out below. They'd come down hard, no doubt about that. Close by were a handful of shuttles and a line of fighters drawn up on a reasonably smooth stretch of ground. Figures were racing back and forth across the open plain, some stopping to point or raise clawed hands to the sky in defiance.

Graham swallowed, his eyes on those fighters. If they took off . . .

He reached for the control that would activate the shuttle's weapons pod. Kilrathi had never been prone to surrender, even in the face of overwhelming odds. But that ragtag group on the ground looked confused and unready to fight. Could he force them to surrender?

Or persuade them that they had to work together with the human survivors if either group was going to see their homes again before the brown dwarfs strange radiation filtered through the clouds and killed them slowly.

CHAPTER 1

"Fortunate is the Warrior who meets Death in Battle; no true Warrior should die in bed with his claws sheathed."

from the Second Codex3:18:12

Shuttle Port Three, Moonbase Tycho Luna, Terra System 1228 hours (CST), 2670.275

Commodore (Ret.) Jason Bondarevsky leaned against the railing overlooking the reception area for Shuttle Port Three and shook his head in dismay. It was hard to believe so much could change in a matter of months, but the evidence was there before his eyes. It was the end of an era . . . or perhaps it was the start of a new one. Jason Bondarevsky wasn't sure he liked either option much.

"Credit for your thoughts, skipper," a soft contralto voice spoke up from behind him.

"Don't waste your money, Sparks," he said, turning to meet the newcomer. Lieutenant (Ret.) Janet "Sparks" McCullough was dressed in civilian clothes, though like Bondarevsky she was entitled to wear the Terran Confederation Navy uniform if she so desired. Her taste, though, ran to plain coveralls, the garb she'd been comfortable with ever since she'd started out in the service as an enlisted technician. Since then she'd risen through the ranks, and later earned a commission, but Sparks still had a taste for the nuts and bolts of technical work, and dressed to suit that taste.

Still, even her baggy coveralls couldn't hide the fact that she was an attractive woman, though she often seemed determined to ignore that fact completely.

"Seems strange to have this mausoleum so empty," she said. "You think they're going to sell