Free Firemask: Book Two of the Last Legion Series by Chris Bunch Page B

to shelter before the ship could retaliate, and we’ve got some support fire from them.”
    “They keep trying to close the lock,” another man said. “I’m holding down EMERGENCY OVERRIDE.”
    “Next?” Poynton said.
    “You can’t run,” Redruth said smugly. “My gunners’ll drop you before you make ten meters.”
    “Then we’d better kill you now,” Poynton said.
    Redruth paled as Rao leveled the pistol.
    • • •
    “I have you, I have you, oh Lordy lord now I have you,” Ben Dill crooned as the
aksai
swooped on a Kuran patrol boat. He thumbed the firing button three times, and missiles hissed away.
    The patrol boat went to full power, tried to jump into stardrive, didn’t make it as one missile blew its nose off, then the second homed on the engine room, and the ship became a geometrically perfect ball of flaming gas.
    “Ho-ho,” Dill shouted into his mike. “First blood for Ben!”
    • • •
    “
Corfe, Corfe,
this is
Corfe-Two,
” the panicked patrol boat’s commander broadcast. “
Corfe-Three
destroyed by Musth … there’s too many of ‘em, all attacking!
Corfe-Four
under attack as well!”
    A missile launched by one of Dill’s wingmen blew up half a kilometer away, and the man flinched, reflexively slamming his ship into stardrive.
    • • •
    Rao heard movement, stuck his pistol around, and slammed half a dozen rounds down the corridor without looking to see who it was.
    “We’re dead if we stay here,” Rao decided. “Out of here, and run for that hangar! Stay spread out!”
    Fearful faces peered at him, then obediently clattered down the gangway.
    Rao’s eyes were on them, and Redruth seized the moment, knocking the
caud
sideways, then darting back into the corridor, into a compartment, and sliding the door shut.
    “Bastard!” and Rao went after the others.
    • • •
    A Kuran gunner saw the running men and women, switched his target acquisition to manual, and swiveled the guns down toward them.
    Yoshitaro’s Cooke popped up above a transport lifter, and his gunner sent 150 rounds into the position before the man could open fire.
    Moments later the Council members ran into the hangar, through it, and out the other side.
Caud
Rao was last. He crouched, blew the rest of his pistol magazine into the open lock of the
Corfe,
doing no good but no harm either.
    Then he was gone, after the others, as cannon shells ripped through the tarmac where he’d been.
    • • •
    “Close the lock,” Celidon ordered. “Why was this not done — ”
    He broke off, realizing the stupidity of blame-finding until later.
    Another com clicked.
    “Bridge, this is Gunnery Compartment Thirteen. We have the Protector safely …” There was a clatter of static, then Redruth’s voice: “Celidon! Lift the ship out of here! They’ve trapped us!”
    Celidon forced calm.
    “Captain, prepare for lift. Take it straight out over the ocean, then into stardrive as soon as we clear atmosphere.”
    “Yessir.”
    “Have all patrol ships pull in to support us.”
    “Yessir.”
    Celidon noted pressure in his ears, realized the lock was … finally … shut.
    “You … Section Leader … three men to Gunnery Thirteen, and escort the Protector to the bridge!”
    “Sir!”
    Celidon felt the flagship come clear of the ground, heard the subdued whine of the antigravs.
    • • •
    Ben Dill flashed through the outer atmosphere, his screens showing Camp Mahan far below. He held the zoom sensor in, saw the
Corfe
as it started to move.
    He punched the missile firing button as he plunged down, through thirty-thousand meters at some impossible Mach number, felt the
aksai
wiggle as all his missiles ripple-fired, and realized he was about to make a crescent-sized hole in D-Cumbre, slid sensors back, cut power, and the Musth fighting ship bucked, shuddered, began trying to pull out of its dive, fighting compressibility, barely on the edge of control.
    The missiles, intended for air-to-air or space use, lost the