BattleTech: The Spider Dances: The Proliferation Cycle #6 by Jason Schmetzer

Author:Jason Schmetzer
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2019-09-20T05:00:00+00:00

Danilov hated himself.

Captain bar-Danan came to stand behind his chair. Danilov looked up at him, then back down at his console. He pointed. “Dagger Lead, sir. He was headed back, but now he’s broken formation and is headed for orbit.”

The captain reached past Danilov’s shoulder and stabbed the comm switch. “Dagger Lead, Barter Control, over.” He waited. Danilov watched the green carets separate. Kane’s fighter had broken away from its wingman without alerting the other pilot—and that meant he was far out of weapons range, even if Dagger Two was inclined to shoot down his wingman. The planes were identical—one wasn’t going to catch the other.

When next Danilov looked up, there were two more men behind bar-Danan. The black-clad man’s nametape read nehru. The general’s tag said vocaine. Both of them ignored him, their eyes intent on the two separated green carets.

“Dagger Two, Control. Respond, please.”

“You think it’s him?” Danilov heard Vocaine ask quietly. Him? Have they broken Kane’s ID already?

“Control, Dagger Two.”

“Two, how read, over?”

“Five-by, Control.”

“Two, where’s your pal going?”

“No idea, Control. He just took off. He’s not answering my comms, either.”

Bar-Danan bit back half a curse. He glanced at Vocaine and Nehru, then stared down at Danilov. Danilov met his stare but said nothing. He might make it. He might—and then I can wait, and there’ll be no danger—

Bar-Danan straightened. “Two, can you get him?”

“Control?”

“Can you catch him? Can you bring him down?”

“Sir—”

“I asked you a question, pilot.”

The anger in the pilot’s voice was palpable even across the radio. “Sir, his plane is just as fast as mine. Unless he turns, no. I can’t catch him.”

Bar-Danan closed his eyes, then opened them. “Roger that, Two. Keep on him.” He toggled the microphone off and, after shaking his head at Danilov, turned. “Sirs, there’s nothing I can do. Perhaps if we’d had high-orbit interceptors standing by—”

Nehru cleared his throat. “If I may, Captain?”

Bar-Danan blinked, then shrugged. “If you can change the laws of gravity, Colonel…”

Nehru smiled, then looked down at Danilov. He had piercing eyes—not colorful, just smart. Eyes that didn’t miss things. His voice, when it was directed right at you, was modulated in just a way that you didn’t want to say anything against it. “Might I borrow your console?”

Danilov slipped his headset off and stood. “Of course.” His mind was racing. What could he do? Kane was free. Unless there was a navy ship in orbit he didn’t know about. Or some secret flight of Inspectorate super-pilots.

Nehru called up the information on Kane’s fighter. He selected the airframe’s maintenance designator and copied it to a clipboard, then opened a new communication window. Several keystrokes later—keystrokes that Danilov, who’d worked that console every day for months, couldn’t follow—a black-backed, lightning-bolt-and-sword insignia splash screen flashed, and then a small window appeared. Nehru copied the airframe data into the new field and pressed execute. Then he cleared the screen and sat back, crossing his arms. Only the radar tracking screen remained, with its two green carets.

One green caret.

Danilov stared.

“Control!” Dagger Two shouted.

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