Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIII

Annie was going in hot. Why didn’t her computer slow her down? “Annie!” Flex shouted, knowing she could not hear. She should switch to manual.

“Annie!” No change. Her engine discharge went white hot, and her tube pulled back with the others. Flex cut to manual just long enough to steer a little closer to her tube, then back to auto. She rocked her fiery tube to signal she was all right.

“Tabam!” he said.

With fusion rockets firing there was no way to see what lay below. Based on his topographic display Flex knew that they were angling in over a continent, on target for the vacation den of one Jarko-S’larbo, a rich kzin who built a reputation as a luxury resort owner. The plotted route was low and stealthy, and with some planned distractions from the Fever , they should be able to slide right into S’larbo’s backyard. The four mercenary soldiers with them were to subdue S’larbo long enough for Annie to implant a coma collar on the cat. Then they could spirit him away. Failing that, Flex’s job was to extract whatever information he could from the compound’s data systems.

The tumblers cut across the terminator and slid into night and then into clouds. Lightning flashed and crackled around them, triggering a warning alert. Usually not a problem, but Zel had mentioned positrons from the storm system…

Through the schwartzite hull, Flex heard a loud booming. Then he felt a violent rumbling as they hauled ass through storm. Another thunderclap, and more flashes.

In the stroboscopic light, Flex went manual to check on Annie. He had to roll to one side to aim a camera in her direction. He found her, red diamond against the cobalt, just in time to see a powerful bolt of lightning forking below her craft. Breaking formation, he fought the turbulence so he could keep the sensor trained on her capsule. Annie would understand his maneuver and rock her tube to show she was all right.

Her tube did not rock. The lightning did not seem to have adversely affected its engine or navigation, but the detection of positrons from orbit meant that the lightening from the storm was probably giving off gamma rays. That could cause any number of problems. The disposable tumblers had no redundant systems, since they were built for single, rapid strikes.

A signal indicated that the power landing would commence in five minutes. The tubes would pitch 180 degrees again, tails up (which really meant tails behind in this case), and cruise over the terrain like guided missiles, until final braking. Flex prayed to the closest thing he had to a goddess, Annie, that her tube would tumble properly. Meanwhile, Annie’s tube had slipped closer, and a proximity alarm sounded.

“Tanj!” Flex instinctively switched to manual, just as his tumbler moved to a safe distance automatically. He wished for daylight, so it would be easier to see his companion.

Another alarm. Again, a proximity warning. Flex steered clear, but now the two of them were veering from the group. Why didn’t she go manual? Why didn’t she rock her tube? He didn’t want to admit it, but Annie must have been hurt in the lightning hit.

It was time for the power approach, and Flex returned to auto, making sure he had a clear visual of Annie. His tube tumbled head over heels, the thruster no longer breaking. Now it accelerated him forward, low over the ground that was still hidden by darkness. Annie’s tube also turned, right on schedule, as did the others, which were now fifty-three meters away. Still manageable, but they had a lot of ground to cover before final braking.

They glided into badlands seeped in pre-dawn mist, the guidance systems keeping them low, between the hills, and then threading them through sandstone canyons and monuments that leaped from the shadows as if they were shoots seeking light. Flex’s tumbler dodged and weaved, leaving him free to scrutinize Annie’s.

Her tube was negotiating the labyrinth, so its maps and guidance were operational. But execution was sluggish-it was slow to evade on all planes. These mountains and rocks provided perfect cover for tiny personal craft to sneak in, but there was no room for the kind of slop that Annie’s tumbler was exhibiting. He watched with horror as Annie careened toward an outcropping, only to avert it at the last minute.

“Not while I’m here,” Flex said, adding a choice swear word he overheard in an isolated vacuum plant while still a boy on Jinx. That was not far from Brain Freeze, where he later learned what the word really meant.

A large stone pillar loomed ahead, and he felt his tube adjust for a tight pass. That’s how this course had been charted, as a geographilic caress of the landscape. Even though they had strayed from the plan, the guidance system adjusted. He felt his thruster ease off some, but noted that Annie’s did not.

That was the problem, then. Somehow her tube was not modifying its speed properly, so its steering was wild and uncontrolled. She was going to hit that mountain.

In desperation, Flex kicked over to manual and gunned it. His tumbler shot ahead, directly toward the rock wall. He caught up with Annie and pulled alongside. With a hearty “Tabam!” he nudged over, physically knocking her tube away from the death ahead.

It worked. He saw her tube shoot off to the left, to a relatively open area. His own tube had yawed to the right, so to avoid the mountain, he had to shoot around the other side, losing sight of Annie. He found her again, this time sliding dangerously toward a rock-ribbed plain.

“Come on, Annie, wake up!” he said. “I can’t steer for both of us!”

He zipped in her direction, taxing the poor maneuverability of the tumbler. The only evident way to keep her from crashing would be to get underneath her, and jostle her upward. He straightened out in front of her and cut power. Annie’s jet was pegged, and as she passed above him he bumped her just enough to level her off. Then he allowed her to move ahead again.

“Wake up, Annie, we need you! You’re the only one who can get S’larbo out alive!” A calculated exaggeration.

Ahead, the ground sloped slowly, sinking into a verdant morass. The kzin backyard was somewhere in that jungle, and somehow he had to get them safely grounded there.

Twice, Flex kicked Annie’s tumbler this way and then nudged it that. One last time he saw the other four tumblers kilometers away. Then the green hills separated them from sight.

Trees seemed to shoot into the sky, the tumblers rising above them, Annie’s with a little kiss from Flex’s. It was impossible to steer the speeding tubes between such dense obstacles.

An alert signaled the final tumble. Flex’s tube pitched 180 degrees back to the braking position that had countered the planet’s gravity a while ago. Annie’s followed suit and their thrusters beat at the steaming air above the forest canopy. Flex predicted that if her thruster did not modulate it would overbrake, and she would drop into the ground like a hot javelin through snow. So with his own retro roaring, he again slid beneath her and gave her an upward push, their hulls grinding together like teeth.

Too much. He contacted off center, too close to the engine. Her tube rose into the air, while his own, scorched from her flaming exhaust, began to shut down. The last thing he saw was her tube, still on a defective autopilot, tumbling back into braking attitude, but yawing and rolling like a snuffed candle discarded into a cloud-spackled sky.

Completely fried, Flex’s tumbler lost power, and the crash net deployed prematurely, draping uselessly over his legs. In utter blackness, he felt the tumbler chopping branches away from the canopy.

He wished that he had broken silence before losing power, if only to say good-bye. What more was there to lose?