Legacy by Steve White Read Free Book Online Page A

called out "Missiles away!" and they felt a slight lurch as a brace of deadly little rockets dropped away and howled toward the approaching fighters—only to vanish in sunlike fireballs, detonated by the bogies' antimissile lasers. The Talon-6s—identification was now positive, according to the computer—flashed through the afterglow of the blasts, wobbling slightly from the turbulence. It gave Sarnac an idea.
    "Frank," he called, breaking the other's string of curses. "On my command, launch two more missiles. And both of you stand by for a rough ride." They knew what that could mean with Sarnac at the controls. Then he yelled "Launch!" and cut the grav-repulsors that were providing their lift.
    The shuttle's stubby wings and horizontal stabilizers were never intended to serve alone as lifting surfaces at low altitude. But nobody—not even Sarnac—was crazy enough to try what he had in mind on gravs. As the hostiles were momentarily blinded by the flare of exploding missiles, he went to full throttle with the fusion drive and, relying on sheer forward velocity to keep them in the air, he turned the shuttle over in a quick barrel roll.
    In the forward viewport the universe seemed to rotate, the forest horizon swinging up and displacing the sky. Fighting the G-forces for consciousness, he heard a strangled "Holy shit!" from Frank and a stream of Russian—better for both praying and cursing than either Mandarin or Standard International English—from Natalya.
    Then they were level again, at little more than treetop altitude, and he engaged the gravs. The terrain below was getting more hilly as they roared further inland, and he didn't want to rely on the airfoils as he brought the shuttle around onto the new course he hoped would lose their pursuers, who hopefully wouldn't realize what had happened until it was too late.
    "Bob," Natalya began.
    "Yeah, I see them." Two silvery gleams high in the royal blue sky, sweeping around onto an intercept vector. The Talon-6 was large for a single-seat fighter—anything designed for Korvaasha had to be large—and not too maneuverable. But it was overpowered—even by military standards—and it carried a large weapon load, including the missiles that were beginning to appear on his tactical readout.
    Their one antimissile laser lashed out under computer control—human reflexes were far too slow—and missiles flowered in blossoms of flame as Sarnac tried evasive action. But there were too many missiles.
    He felt a slender hand squeeze his left shoulder. "It was a good try, Bob," Natalya said calmly.
    "Damn' straight," Frank added, as a missile slid through their defenses. Sarnac flung the shuttle sideways with a lateral manipulation of Danu's gravity, just as the proximity fuse activated. That last split-second maneuver probably saved their lives.
    The deep-blue sky turned sun-colored, and only automatic viewport polarization preserved their eyesight. Good thing our antirad shots are up to date , Sarnac thought, in a small, calm corner of his mind, knowing that they wouldn't live long enough to worry about radiation sickness. Then an ogre's fist of superheated air smote the shuttle, sending it staggering across the sky.
    Their enclosing couches kept them from being flung about the cabin to their deaths. But Sarnac was half-stunned as he fought to right the shuttle and restore grav repulsion to halt the sickening dropping sensation. A glance at the board told him that the fusion drive was a lost cause. The severed fuel feeds were the least of it.
    "Natasha's hurt!" Frank called out through clouds of acrid smoke and the crackle of savaged electronics.
    "I am not . . . not seriously," the Martian snapped. And, as if needing to prove it, she reported in a ragged voice. "Communications are dead. So are some of the sensors, but we've still got basic radar."
    Sarnac wasn't paying attention. As he struggled to keep them aloft with the dying gravs, he saw out of the corner of his right