In the Balance

Blips appeared on the head-up display that reflected into Gefron’s eyes from the inside of the killercraft’s windscreen. “Some of the Big Uglies on the ground must have spotted us,” the flight leader said. “They’re sending aircraft up to try to keep us away from Ploesti.” His mouth fell open in amusement at the absurdity of the idea.

The other two pilots in the flight confirmed that their electronics saw the Tosevite aircraft, too. Xarol observed, “They’re sending up a lot of aircraft.”

“This fuel is important to them,” Gefron answered. “They know they have to try to protect it. What they don’t know is that they can’t. We’ll have to show them.”

He studied the velocity vectors of the planes the Big Uglies were flying. A couple were the new jets the Deutsche had started throwing into the air. They were fast enough to have been troublesome if they were equipped with radar. As it was, he knew they were there while they still groped for him.

“I’ll take the jets,” he told the other males. “You two handle the ones with the revolving airfoils. Knock down a few and keep going; we haven’t any time to waste toying with them.”

He chose targets for his missiles, gave them to the computer.

When the tone from the speaker taped to his hearing diaphragm told him the computer had acquired them, he touched the firing button. The killercraft bucked slightly as the wingtip missiles leapt away.

One of the jets never knew what hit it. He watched electronically as a missile swatted it out of the air. The other Tosevite pilot must have spotted the missile meant for him. He tried to dive away from it, but his aircraft wasn’t fast enough for that. He went down, too.

Gefron’s wingmales salvoed all their missiles, wingtip and pylon both, at the Deutsch aircraft That blasted a gaping hole in their formation, through which the killercraft flew. Rolvar and Xarol shouted excitedly; they hadn’t seen so much opposition since the war was new.

Gefron was pleased, too, but also a little worried. The Big Ugly pilots weren’t fleeing; they were trying to regroup in the wake of the killercraft. Returning to base, only he would have missiles left to fire at them.

It shouldn’t matter, Gefron told himself. If we can’t get by them with our speed, altitude, radar and cannon, we don’t deserve to conquer this planet. But it was one more thing to worry about.

He studied the radar display. “Approaching target,” he said. “Remember, the Deutsche have set up a dummy target north of the real installation. If you bomb that one, by mistake, I promise that you’ll never get your, tailstumps into a killercraft again as long as you live.”

The real Ploesti lay in a little vale. Gefron had it on his radar set. He peered through the windscreen, ready to paint the assigned refineries with his laser to guide the bombs in. But instead of the towers of the refineries and petroleum wells, the big squat cylinders that stored refined hydrocarbons, all he saw was a spreading, thickening cloud of gray-black smoke. He hissed. The Deutsche weren’t playing fair.

His wingmales noticed the problem at the same time he did. “What are we stupposed to do now?” Rolyar asked. “How can we light up the targets through all that junk?”

Gefron wanted to abort the mission and fly back to base. But, because he was the flight leader, anything that went wrong would get blamed on him. “We’ll bomb anyway,” he declared. “Whatever in the smoke we hit will hurt the Deutsche somehow.”

“Truth,” Xarol declared. The flight went on. Gefron turned on the laser targeting system in the hope it would penetrate the smoke or find some clear patches through which to acquire accurate targets for the bombs his killercraft carried under its wings. No luck-instead of the steady tone he wanted to hear, all he got was the complaintng warble of a system that couldn’t lock on.

The Deutsch antiaircraft guns that lined the ridges on either side of the petroleum wells and refineries opened up with everything they had. More smoke dotted the sky, now in big black puffs around and mostly behind the flight of killercraft: the Big Uglies at the guns weren’t leading the Race’s aircraft quite enough.

Even so, the display of firepower was impressive. The bursts from exploding Tosevite shells seemed close enough together for Gefron to get out of his aircraft and walk across them. Once or twice he heard sharp rattles, like gravel bouncing off sheet metal. It wasn’t gravel, though; it was fragments of shell casing punching holes in his fuselage and wing. He anxiously scanned the instrument panel for damage lights. None came on.