“I’ll . . . ,” Bradley said in a choked voice. He pulled another grenade stick from his belt.
Kowacs was so calm that he could visualize the whole planet, nightside and day, shots and screams and the filthy white glare of explosions.
“No, Top,” he said.
He was aware of every one of the ninety-seven Marines in his Headhunters, the living and the dead, even though only Bradley and Sienkiewicz were within range of his helmet’s locator. He was walking back to the cockpit, carrying The Riva with him; ignoring the chance of a bullet nailing him as he stepped in front of the airlock—ignoring the burst Sienkiewicz ripped out at the target her light amplifier had showed her.
“Cap’n?” said the field first, suddenly more concerned than angry.
Kowacs dropped the prisoner into the chair out of which he’d been jerked.
“Fly us,” he ordered flatly. Then he added, “Helmet. Project. Course to target. Out,” and a glowing map hung in front of the ship’s holographic controls, quivering when Kowacs’ helmet quivered and moved the tiny projection head. The pentagonal air-defense site shone bright green against a mauve background.
“Fly us there. Land us in the middle of it with the airlock facing the pit in the center.’
The Riva’s hands made the same initial gestures as before: raising thrust to alternate jets, making the holographic map shiver in wider arcs. He didn’t speak.
“Sir, have, ah . . . ,” Sergeant Bradley said. He was too good a soldier—and too good a friend—to let anger rule him when he saw his commanding officer in this unreadable mood. “Have our boys captured the place? Because otherwise, the missile batt’ries . . . ?”
He knew Kowacs hadn’t gotten any report. Knew also there was no way in hell the One-Twenty-First was going to capture the hardened installation—not after they’d been scattered by the emergency drop and left without the belt-fed plasma weapons that could’ve taken apart the concrete walls.
The ship see-sawed free with a sucking noise from beneath her hull. All six thrust indicators shot upward. A streak of blue flashed as the vessel shook violently, but the hologram cleared.
They began to build forward speed. Air screamed past the open lock.
“Their computers’ll identify us as friendly,” Kowacs said.
His eyes were open, but they weren’t focused on anything in particular. His left hand was on the prisoner’s shoulder as if one friend with another. The muzzle of the sub-machine gun was socketed in The Riva’s ear. “There’ll be a lock-out to keep ’em from blasting friendlies, won’t there, Riva old buddy?”
“There is, but they can override it,” barked the prisoner nervously. He was too aware of the gun to turn toward the Headhunters as he spoke. “Look, I can take us to a safe place and you can summon your superiors. I’m very valuable, more valuable than you may dream.”
“Naw, we gotta pull out what’s left of a Jeffersonian assault company,” Kowacs said calmly. “We’ll do it fast. Weasels don’t think about electronics when you surprise ’em”
“This is madness!” the pilot shouted. “They’ll surely kill us all!” There were tears of desperation in his eyes, but his hands kept the ship along the course unreeling on the holographic map.
In two minutes, maybe three, they’d be there. No longer’n that.
“If we can’t do it, nobody will,” Kowacs said. “The Weasels’ll finish ’em off, every damn one of ’em.”
Light bloomed with dazzling immediacy a few kilometers behind the ship. The two Marines braced themselves; their prisoner squeezed lower in his acceleration pod.
The vessel pitched. Cabin pressure shot up momentarily as the pressure wave caught them and passed on to flatten trees in an expanding arc.
They were still under control.
Sienkiewicz stepped into the cockpit, moving carefully because of her size and the way the open airlock made the ship flutter in low-level flight. The empty tube of her plasma weapon, slung at buttocks height, dribbled a vaporous fairy-track of ionized metal behind her.
“I just take orders, Miklos,” Sienkiewicz said, marking the words as a lie by using Kowacs’ first name. “But it was them decidin’ to do it their own way that got ’em where they are. I don’t see why anybody else needs to die for some anarchist from Jefferson.”