Shadow of Victory - eARC Read Online Free Page B

directly through SEOM’s airspace. Public or not, that air belonged to SEOM, and everybody damned well knew it!
    “Probably another lorry trying to avoid that pileup on the South Approach, Ma’am,” the controller replied, putting her own thoughts into words. “Hard to be sure, of course. ATC’s being even slower than usual updating the feeds. Probably too busy trying to sort out the mess.”
    “Well I don’t give a damn how busy Traffic Control is!” Lewandowska snapped. “That’s our airspace, and I’m sick and tired of having frigging gypsies drift through it anytime they damn well please!”
    The controller considered—briefly—pointing out that there weren’t that many gypsy air lorries working the spaceport these days. The big transport lines had frozen them out again, and it was going to be months, at least, before they started getting a toe back into those particular waters. God only knew what they’d find to survive on in the meantime. In fact, quite a few of them probably wouldn’t survive at all. That always happened when the big boys shut down their access again. But it wasn’t his business to tell Wiktoria Lewandowska anything she didn’t want to hear.
    “Tell him to clear our space right damned now,” she commanded.
    “Already tried, Ma’am. He’s not answering on any of the standard freight channels.”
    “He’s not?” Lewandowska turned her eyes from the display to glare at the unfortunate controller. “Why the hell not?”
    “I don’t know, Ma’am,” the controller replied, very carefully not adding How the hell am I supposed to know? to his answer.
    “Well, we’ll just see about that!” Lewandowska stepped back and keyed her personal com. “Give me Perimeter One,” she said.
    * * *
    Andrzej Bicukowski frowned and killed another fifty kilometers per hour of airspeed. It wasn’t unheard of for Lądowisko Air Traffic Control to get behind in the outlying sectors of the system capital, but it was unusual for them to drop the ball this close in to the heart of the city. Especially this close to the spaceport. The oligarchowie didn’t like it when their flight plans got screwed up, but it looked like that pileup on the South Approach must be even worse than he’d thought it was. Over a dozen emergency vehicles were headed into it now, and it sounded as if the automated system had gone on the fritz again. Every professional driver and pilot in Lądowisko knew the entire system needed to be replaced, but convincing the people who controlled the credit flow to spend the necessary money wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.
    “Lądowisko Spaceport Control,” he said into his mike again, hoping like hell there might be at least one human backing up the automatics. “Marianna Tours One-Zero-Niner requests copy confirmation of flight plan update. Repeat, Marianna Tours One-Zero-Niner requests copy confirmation of flight plan update.”
    He sat back, the fingers of one hand drumming lightly on the control column, then growled a mild obscenity under his breath as a red icon pulsed in his HUD.
    Great! Not enough they won’t talk to me, but now the transponder’s gone down! What a time for the update feeds to shut down!
    He slowed the airbus still further, going to Visual Flight Rules. Fortunately, visibility was excellent.
    * * *
    “Yes, Control,” Kazimierz Łukaszewski said. “Perimeter One copies.”
    He punched the button, dropping his orbiting air car out of automatic and checked his displays. There it was. The fat-assed orange icon lumbering across SEOM’s private airspace wasn’t even trying to clear the perimeter quickly. It was just ambling right through the middle of the airspace SEOM paid perfectly good money for. Ms. Lewandowska was right. It was about damned time the gypsies learned their lesson.
    * * *
    Lieutenant Ludwik Kezczyński, Siły Zbrojne Włocławka , growled in disgust and came around for another circle of the spaceport. He’d just completed a