Wing Commander #07 False Color by William Forstchen (best books to read in life .txt) 📕

knot of flight wing personnel were helping the marines load up on the shuttle. Harper was among them, swapping low-velocity projectile weapons for marine lasers. In the open flight deck, in ambush, lasers had been the best weapons to use, but if the marines were going to fight a boarding action in the smaller confines of a Kilrathi escort, they'd want weapons less likely to cause accidental structural or equipment damage. Using magnetic pulses to fire small projectiles at variable initial velocities, the Marscorp MPR-27 was the best possible weapon for the job. Bondarevsky joined Harper, explaining the situation. The aide nodded cheerfully. "I'm with you, sir," he said.

"Me, too." That was Alexandra Travis. He hadn't even seen her there, passing out webgear hung with grenades and extra magazines. He remembered that she had been one of the party surveying the downed Cat ship on Nargrast, but he shook his head.

"Harper and I can handle it, Amazon," he said, using the nickname she'd picked up after the fight with the pirates.

"You said it was a volunteer mission," she said stubbornly. "I'm volunteering." She lowered her voice. "Look, Captain, you might need an extra person who knows that layout . . ."

There wasn't time for arguments. "Fine. Gear up and get aboard. Harper, leave off this detail and give Buss Marchand my compliments. She can deploy the symphony now."

Harper grinned and hurried off to carry his message. The frantic preparations went on.

Captured Kilrathi Shuttle Near Jump Point Nine, Vordran System 2356 hours (CST)

The shuttle made contact with the Kilrathi escort with only the gentlest of bumps, and Bondarevsky momentarily forget his apprehension as he silently praised the skill of the Cat pilot, Jorkad Ian Mraal. Stiff and pompous he may have been, but he was also one hell of a good flier.

They had needed a Cat to be visible in the shuttle's cockpit, and Jorkad had volunteered for the job. Though he wasn't part of the Cadre, he was fanatically loyal to Prince Murragh, and had developed a genuine liking for many of the humans in the flight wing. Bondarevsky had been faintly concerned at what might happen if his new-found allegiance was tested too hard, but so far he'd done an admirable job.

The operation was moving into the final phase now. The broadcasts from Mjollnir had shifted to reporting that all was well with the shuttle, except for a minor problem with the computer and communications systems. Jorkad had bolstered the story by using a searchlight semaphore code to communicate with the escort on the way across, the same technique Graham had used when they'd first encountered him at Vaku. An obviously Kilrathi pilot, flashing a well-known emergency semaphore code from the cockpit of the shuttle, should have been reassuring to the captain of the picket boat. At least they had allowed the shuttle to dock, and no further messages had been hypercast regarding the carrier.

They wanted only one additional message to be sent from the picket boat, and that would have to be one of their own composition, since they hadn't been able to keep the suspicious captain from investigating. Now the trick was to capture the escort with its communications codes intact, so that they could transmit the word to Baka Kar that the carrier was a friend. In the meantime, nothing further could be allowed to go out.

Bondarevsky checked his wrist computer's timepiece, In another thirty seconds . . .

When the countdown hit zero, he nodded to Colonel Bhaktadil. "They should be starting," he said.

While the shuttle had made its way across the gap between the two vessels, a second plane had lifted from the far side of the Mjollnir. A Zartoth EW craft had remained loitering in the shadow of the carrier. Now it would be accelerating toward the escort, looking like a Vaktoth fighter out on routine patrol. But it would be starting the "symphony" they had planned, a full-spectrum jamming effort to block all possible communications from the escort.

Right about now the captain and crew would know their suspicions had been right after all . . .

Bhaktadil strode to the head of the loading ramp, kicking the pedal that operated the ventral door. As it slid open he calmly pulled a grenade from his webgear and dropped it through the gap. Five seconds later it exploded in a blinding flash of light and a deafening clap of noise. The flash-bang wasn't designed to do damage, only to distract and disorient.

The marines poured down the ramp, guns at the ready. A few shots echoed from below as they took care of their stunned targets. After a moment Gunnery Sergeant Martin called up that the docking area was secured. Bhaktadil led Bondarevsky, Harper, and Travis down to join his men.

The small docking compartment was crowded. Thirty-six marines, their colonel, and the three Navy officers de a fair-sized party to be crowded in this one fairly small chamber. At Bhaktadil's signal one of the marines hot-wired the door. It slid open, and a pair of his men rolled through the opening with their MPRs blazing away on full auto. The others followed after the two on point announced the corridor clear.

It proceeded like that for the first few minutes, with the marines leapfrogging their way forward, trying to get to the bridge. But they ran into a stiff pocket of resistance in the warren of control rooms under the main bridge, where ten or twelve Kilrathi with small arms contested their approach from cover. The marines bogged down, unable to clear the Cats from the strong position without risking unacceptable casualties.

Bhaktadil dropped to a crouch beside Bondarevsky and Travis. "Any suggestions?" he asked coolly.

The two Navy officers exchanged looks. "Seems to me I remember some kind of an access tunnel running from somewhere around here to the rear of the bridge," Travis said, frowning.

Bondarevsky nodded. "You're right. I remember it too." He called up a tiny schematic on the screen of his wrist