Part 14 (2/2)

They bounced apart, spewing pieces and smoke, then began their long fall to the ground. Baliza didn't take her eyes off them until they both plunged through the roof of a building three streets away. Smoke boiled up, and she imagined she heard screams.

”Come on, girl,” said Feragga irritably. ”You can't do anything for them. It's wasting their deaths not to use the time they gave you! It's Detcharn's men who were coming for me. If what's happening is what I thought might happen, he'll be too busy to send more until we're-”

Baliza cursed, then glared at Feragga. ”Old woman, just exactly what did you think might happen? And I want an answer, or we don't move an inch off this roof!”

Faragga grinned. ”That would really be cutting off your toes to spite your feet, now wouldn't it? But indeed, you ought to know. I suspect you'll be finding out from someone else before long, but-” She broke off, as Baliza let out a gasp as if she'd been punched in the stomach. Somehow she knew what had to be coming.

”It's time you knew. Your father the Sky Master Blade has come back. He's probably stamping Detcharn and the rocket base into the ground right now.”

”My fa-ther?” It was a croak. She'd known it, but still she couldn't face hearing ”Your father's come back” said like ”The sun will rise tomorrow.”

”You probably know him as Voros,” Feragga went on. ”But it's Blade all right. His Doimari daughter Moshra got it out of his mind. There's no doubt about it. ”I-Lord's sake girl, what's gotten into you?”

Baliza shook herself like a wet dog. ”Sorry. It's-going to take a little-for me to get used to it.”

”Then do it elsewhere. Right now, you stop standing there like you're seeing your first naked man, and get this skybarge moving. Otherwise your father's going to get a message about your glorious death, and a fine welcome-home present that'll be for him!”

Baliza said nothing, but she was at the controls in a moment. In another minute, the lifter was climbing swiftly into a temporarily empty sky.

Chapter 26.

Far off on the horizon, Blade saw the towers of the city of Doimar. The sight actually made him breathe easier. They were now as close to the enemy's heart as they were going to get. They still hadn't met opposition or even suspicion.

Blade would have breathed still easier if there hadn't been quite so many lifters in the air. So far none of them were asking awkward questions, but if somebody did get suspicious, he could quickly call up strong reinforcements.

However, the Doimari would hardly sit quiet and twiddle their thumbs in the face of the raiders' victory. It was inevitable that they would be rus.h.i.+ng around both on the ground and in the air, like ants from a kicked anthill. As long as they weren't any better organized, Blade thought he and his people had a reasonably good chance of getting out. They'd done their work, no matter what happened now, but Blade didn't like unnecessary kamikaze missions.

Ezarn had finished checking out the turret laser and p.r.o.nounced it ”tight and ready.” Now he sat cross-legged beside Cheeky, doing the same check on his captured Doimari laser. With both side doors open, Ezarn could fire out either one, and the laser was powerful enough to hurt a lifter.

Doimar and the bee-swarm of lifters over it sank below the horizon. The raiders were alone over countryside that was mostly farms, with patches of forest. Slowly the patches of forest grew larger, then grew together. In another few hours they would be outside the area which Doimar tried to control. They could go to ground in a forest which would hide them like a haystack hiding a needle, and wait until the hunt died down. Then they could swing far to the south and head for home. It would not be too different from the route Blade had used in escaping from Doimar with Kareena, except that they would be flying instead of using a hovercraft.

”Voros,” said Ezarn quietly. ”We're being followed.”

Blade s.h.i.+fted position so that he could see out one of the side doors. Ezarn was right. A Doimari military lifter was overhauling them quickly. From its nose jutted the muzzle of a heavy laser. In a fixed mount, it wouldn't be as easy to aim as the one in Blade's turret, but it would be much more powerful. It could knock one of the raiders' lifters out of the sky with a single hit, or at least kill everyone aboard it.

Baliza had just discovered the big laser mounted in the nose of her lifter when she saw the three other machines a mile ahead. She mentally kicked herself for not having done a more thorough inspection of her prize long before this. Here she was facing Doimari she almost certainly would have to fight or outrun, and she hadn't even checked out her main weapon!

She was starting that overdue check when she saw something familiar about one of the lifters ahead. It had a turret-mounted laser forward just like one of the machines sent to Voros. And all three lifters were smoke-blackened and scarred, as if they'd recently been in a fight-or near an explosion ....

Baliza fed power to the propellers and put the nose of her lifter down. With gravity aiding thrust, she rapidly caught up with the three machines and slid under them. Down here the turret of the landing machine couldn't bear on her, and n.o.body could lean out far enough to shoot without risking a fall.

”What Law-forsaken rat's in your brain, girl-?” began Feragga. Then Baliza pulled her machine up to fly parallel to the leader and only a few yards away.

”Well, I'll be b.u.g.g.e.red with a file,” said Feragga softly. ”Fine place for a family reunion this is, I must say.” They both recognized the Sky Master Blade at the controls of the turreted lifter. For a moment which seemed to go on for hours, father and daughter stared at each other through the windows and across the empty air.

Then Blade seemed to shrug, smiled, and raised one hand in an open-palmed signal of greeting.

When Blade saw his daughter at the controls of the lifter alongside, and Feragga strapped in her wheelchair, his breath went out with a whoooosh. The secret of his ident.i.ty and probably the Dimension X secret were so far up the spout they'd probably never get back down again. The idea of Feragga not telling Baliza the truth about ”Voros” was too ridiculous to contemplate.

So that question was settled. But-what were Baliza and Feragga doing out here in the same lifter? Was his daughter kidnapping Feragga or rescuing her? Rescuing, probably-Blade now saw the hefty laser in Feragga's lap. And her grin as she recognized him didn't look like a prisoner's, either.

Time to settle that question when they'd landed and he and the others could get off and talk quietly. He'd be d.a.m.ned if he was going to reveal his ident.i.ty over the radio hundreds of miles inside Doimar! The secret was out, but maybe he could still keep it from getting too far out.

He signaled that Baliza should take position at the rear of the line. She nodded, and her machine started dropping back. As it did, Blade saw Ezarn staring hard at him.

”Voros, that was Baliza, wasn't it?”

”Unless she's got a twin, yes.”

”And the other woman, the old one. That was Feragga, wasn't it?”

”As far as I can tell, yes.”

”Wonder how far that is, Voros. Wonder if you are really a-Voros, in fact.”

Ezarn wouldn't do anything violent or dangerous even if he wasn't told the truth. But he'd been too good a soldier and too loyal a friend to be told anything else. He deserved the truth more than anybody in this Dimension except the young woman who'd already found it out.

”I am-” he began then Ezarn shouted: ”Look out!”

A laser beam ripped past. It came from below and off to the right. As Ezarn sprang into the turret, Blade spotted the Doimari lifter rising from behind a clump of tall trees in the forest below.

So did Ezarn. The turret lazer went tsssrrpppp! and a piece of the other lifter's hull glowed, then peeled away. It slammed against the trees, but its own laser was also turret-mounted. In spite of the unstable platform under him, the turret gunner shot back. Smoke, hot air, and bits of molten metal sprayed back at Ezarn as the enemy beam took off the barrel of his laser.

Ezarn fell back into the cabin, coughing, cursing, and beating out burning spots on his clothes. He was making so much noise that Blade was fairly sure he wasn't badly hurt. Cheeky squalled in rage and alarm but had the sense to stay out from underfoot.

Then Blade saw two more lifters rising from the bank of a small river. He didn't know if the detachment's commander was trigger-happy or if he'd been warned somehow. If he was attacking on his own initiative and his detachment was wiped out, the raiders might still escape.

Not if Blade used his radio, though. He'd just have to trust to Baliza's good sense, to make her pick sound tactics. ”Ezarn, get your own laser and stand ready by the doors. I'm going down under them.”

”Right, Voros!” Ezarn scrambled into position so fast that Blade stopped worrying about his being hurt. He concentrated on the controls, putting the lifter into a dive with the propellers wide open.

He'd covered half the distance to the enemy before they saw him coming.

The attack was a complete surprise to Baliza. Before she'd recovered from the surprise, the first enemy lifter had plunged to the ground and exploded. Then she saw her father's lifter, plunging straight at the other two enemies.

”May the Laws protect us,” she breathed. She saw again the sight of the two Intelligence men, ramming the enemy at the cost of their own lives. She imagined her father falling down through the sky in a smashed lifter, his body crushed and charred but still horribly alive after it struck. She heard his screams-then let out one of her own.

”No!”

The Doimari would have both her and her father or neither of them.

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