The former owner of the finger was trying to rewire some arcane panel one-handed, the other hand in his mouth. It took Murchison a moment to convince the man to let him have the hand—actually, it took a hard tug, he was so focused on making the repair. Applying a pressure dressing, Murchison saw there must be another wayward digit. Someone would find it.
Scanning the crowd for someone else in need of his services, Murchison found himself eye to eye with Anastasia. A dark mark, sure to be a massive bruise, stretched from her temple to the corner of her jaw.
"Thought you were in your 'Mech."
She was not amused. "Raphael?" she demanded of the captain.
"Port drives went to full burn, starboard drives shut down," Raphael reported crisply. Then he sighed and shook his head. "We tried to realign with attitude thrust- ers, get the thrust under us, but controls developed a variable delay between command and execution, impossible to compensate. Port drives got shut down in engineering, we couldn't do it from here.
"Present status is ballistic arc—long fall. Maybe long enough for us to get engines online."
The communications panel banged into Murchison's hip. His inner ear told him he was spinning as unsecured tools and people all over the bridge began falling toward the wall and ceiling.
One-tenth gravity, Murchison estimated inexpertly. The steering thrusters?
"What the hell did you do?"
Recognizing the slurred speech, Murchison snapped his head to the main engineering station. Carter was clinging to the edge of the open console, looking terrified and—victorious.
"Bloody hell!"
Murchison was peripherally aware of Anastasia's startled glance at his curse, but he ignored her. Pulling himself against the spin's angular acceleration, he clawed his way toward Carter. She must have followed his focus. Faster and stronger, she flowed past him toward the little computer specialist.
Alerted by the chief engineer's shout, a repair tech grabbed Carter—one arm around his throat, the other gripping a stanchion.
Carter's eyes were fixed on Anastasia, his face contorted.
"I only wanted you," Carter said, his voice literally strangled by the other tech. "But your damn luck."
"I've got him," Murchison said, grabbing his arm. "Get back to work."
The repair tech loosed his grip and turned back to an open access that was now "up" in the gentle gravity of the spin. The rotation seemed to change. Murchison guessed the thrusters were still firing, tumbling them as they fell through space.
Carter stank of urine.
"What is going on?" Anastasia demanded.
"Did you kill anybody in a planetary militia driving an AgroMech recently?" Murchison asked rhetorically. "She was pregnant, this is her husband."
Anastasia stared.
"You're Clan," Murchison said. "No Clan warrior would ever put bond cords on his own wrist and walk into an enemy's camp. And no Clanner would question a bondsman who said his bondholder had ordered him to work maintenance—especially if the bondsman was highly skilled."
A new technician shouldered Murchison aside— ignoring the drama and his commander in his determination to save the falling ship.
"Carter's a civilian, never held a weapon in his life," Murchison said, making way. "He came at you the only way he could.
"I've been Clan so long I missed it." Murchison looked at Carter's profile. The man was dangerously gray. "He told us he was here because we'd killed his wife."
"I did not waste fire on an unarmed AgroMech," Anastasia said, pulling herself out of the way of a tech pushing a new control assembly ahead of her.
"Your command," Carter said.
To Murchison's amazement, Anastasia nodded, conceding the point.
"I only wanted you," Carter repeated, his voice still strangled. "Now we all go together."
Murchison braced himself against the engineer's chair and thrust two fingers against Carter's neck. A flutter, a vibration like a bee in a bottle.
"He's in fib," Murchison said. Then explained: "Heart muscle spasming, no blood circulating. If we weren't in zero gee—"
He pushed off the console, pulling Carter against the dizzy spin.
"I need to get him to the infirmary . . ." Anastasia did not move out of his way. "It looks like you go first," she said to the technician. He grinned, a sickly look as motor control failed, but his eyes were triumphant. "I go to my wife," he said. "You go to hell."
DropShip Diligence
Above New Canton
The Wasati pilot's eyes were wide in her dark face. She did not look at the controls as her long fingers moved, tapping contacts, adjusting knobs with the speed and subtlety of a concert pianist. Mehta knew what she was doing, could have done it himself, but not as quickly— and not with his eyes fixed on the wildly gyrating images on the viewscreen.
The Diligence lunged right and the restraint harness cut into Mehta's left shoulder and ribs.
On the screen the Outpost seemed to slow in its wild dance as the stars beyond it began to jig and jump in no apparent rhythm.
A slam forward, the blood rushing to his face, then a giant hand pressing him so hard he could not breathe. One side of the viewscreen hazed red. then white, blotting out the stars. Alarms hooted.
Mehta realized the Octopus was burning through the upper atmosphere. Too fast. And at the wrong angle. The DropShip was designed to descend atop the column of its main engines' thrust, not slice in parallel to the ground. If the air caught hold they'd tumble helplessly until they broke apart or hit the ground.
He felt a tremor building in the pit of his stomach, a vibration he hoped was imaginary—until a loose lighting panel began rattling in sympathy. He could see status lights across the engineering board go yellow as sensors throughout the ship reported impending disaster.
The pilot continued to watch the screen, ignoring the cacophony around her as her fingers continued to shift, adjust.
Mehta hit the release on his restraint harness, determined to reach her, to try and pull the ship out of its death dive. Angular acceleration held him, turning his arms to lead and the air around him to molasses. It was all he could do to pull himself to the front edge of his chair.
Reaching the madwoman at the controls was beyond him.
The staccato rattle of the light panel faded, the trembling in his gut subsided. On the viewscreen the fiery glow retreated from the frame as the wildly spinning stars reasserted themselves against the blackness.
Centered, the Outpost turned in leisurely loops.
"Next round does us," the Wasati at operations said. "Eighty-three seconds to hard air."
"Then let's do it now."
"Impetuous hussy."
"Just remember what to do with your hands."
Mehta looked to Leroux. His inner ear told him the DropShip around them was spiraling through two axes, while it was clear from the tumbling image on the screen that they were not fully synchronized with the larger vessel. By all he understood of physics and navigation, trying to grapple now was suicide.
Star Captain Leroux met his look with one of calm resolve. Almost. Though composed, his face was without color and the knuckles of the fingers gripping the arms of the command chair were white. Physics and navigation. Angular acceleration held them immobile and, even if they could reach the controls, neither of them was pilot enough to get the Diligence out of the mess the Wasati had put them in.
On the screen New Canton appeared behind the Outpost. Mehta's inner ear could not ignore the sight of the madly spinning quilt of blues and browns and white and he had to look away. The pilot's dark face seemed to glow with a silver sheen in the reflected planet light.
"When it clears the horizon," she said.
"Ready and willing," answered her partner in madness.
"Coeur du Loup, this is Diligence," Star Captain Le- roux announced, his voice raised for the bridge microphone. "Brace for grapple."
"Liam?" answered a voice. "Do you know what the hell you're do
ing?"
Leroux opened his mouth, then closed it again.
A fist punched Mehta in the pit of his stomach, slamming him back. The arm of his chair gouging into his kidney reminded him his safety harness was undone. He grabbed hold as the deck slid up and out from under him.
The Outpost-class DropShip suddenly bloated, filling the screen.
Mehta lost his grip as gravity suddenly reversed. Sliding out of his chair he slammed into the edge of the console. He grabbed his shoulders, taking the impact on his arms across his chest rather than risk touching a control.
The clang of metal on metal rang through the bridge. Someone cursed.
Mehta got his arms out from between his body and the control station with difficulty and, reaching wide, was able to grip a pair of vertical supports. Unable to hold his head up against the angular acceleration, Mehta rested his chin on the panel in front of him, trying to keep his spine aligned. His inner ear told him the Diligence was weaving and dodging through impossible maneuvers.
They had to be twisting against three types of rotation, fighting physics and fate to keep their main drive between the ship in their grasp and the hungry planet below. His aerospace reflexes identified acceleration curves of half a gravity to twice normal—and three terrifying heartbeats of negative gee while every engine and thruster on the Diligence burned full bore.
The stuff of legend and his view of the action was restricted to the pilot's left hand as she nursed the controls.
He was fascinated to discover she could adjust fuel flow with her thumb and index linger and toggle a secondary thruster with her little finger at the same time. If he lived through this he was going to have to get longer fingers. Which thought alerted him to the fact that blood was not reaching his brain. Perception and judgment were slipping—common dangers in high-gee maneuvers that lasted . . . Hours? Days?
He wondered if being aware of dementia meant the oxygen starvation wasn't severe. He didn't realize he'd relaxed until gravity reversed again and he became a projectile. Midtrajectory, the gravity dropped to a fraction of standard long enough for him to rotate end for end and grab a safety ring. Breaking an emergency restraint out of its wall pouch, he strapped himself to the bulkhead before the next maneuver reinvented down.
From his new vantage, against the rear bulkhead and sideways relative to the deck, Mehta could see the emergency was winding down. Thrust was constant as the tug pushed the DropShip into orbit, the engineer was speaking into her throat mic, apparently telling off repair crews, and the tall Wasati who had been crouched over his controls at operations was straightening up. rotating apparently kinked shoulders.
The pilot sagged in her chair, still flying the ship but no longer in hyper focus.
The viewscreen was divided, showing several views from waist cameras since the nose recorder's view was limited to the Coeur du Loup's hull. The stars beyond the DropShip were steady—they were in level flight. One of the arms of the Octopus was bent backward and—Mehta had to count twice to be sure—one was missing completely.
A shark shape appeared at the edge of one image. Mehta recognized a Broadsword moving in to rendezvous. That had to be a Wolf Hunter DropShip. Anastasia Kerensky was not going to be aboard the Coeur du Loup long.
"Orbital insertion," the pilot announced, her voice weary. "Rig for zero gee."
A final slap at the controls and Mehta became a balloon bumping gently against the bulkhead.
"Captain Leroux?" Star Colonel Xera's voice came over the bridge speaker.
"Aff, Star Colonel?"
"Was that the act of bondsmen?"
Leroux didn't even pause to consider. He turned his head to catch Mehta's eye and nodded.
As Leroux undid his restraints and floated to the tall man at operations, Mehta pushed himself from the bulkhead, sailing toward the woman at helm.
Hooking his leg around a stanchion, he caught her arm as it floated above the controls. The flesh of her wrist felt smooth beneath his fingers, as though lightly oiled.
She was limp, exhausted from the crisis, and looked at him with uncomprehending eyes. Eyes that flickered in alarm as he drew his dagger.
Without bothering to reassure her, Mehta slid the flat of the blade along her skin, slipping it beneath the bond cord. With a flick of his wrist, he welcomed Nyota into the Steel Wolves.
Epilogue
Port City, Java Island
New Canton
Former Prefecture VI
22 October 3136
Thaddeus Marik considered the circle of faces at the conference table. The planetary governor had taken over the executive meeting room of the corporate headquarters of one of the major agro-fisheries to discuss the future. This meeting was a far cry from the triumphal entry he'd anticipated, but that they were having it at all indicated the situation was still salvageable.
"While we appreciate your fleet coming to our rescue," Governor Balantine was saying to General Renee Beauchamp of the Tall Trees Unified Task Force, "we are not in need of rescuing. Though it appeared there was an assault on our world, it apparently was a conflict between two Clan factions, which had no bearing on New Canton."
Thaddeus boggled slightly at the woman's ability to overlook the fact that they were meeting here because the Steel Wolves still occupied their industrial center— and planetary seat of government—in South Port.
True, there was no fighting taking place, but that was because New Canton had agreed to let the Steel Wolves take what they needed in exchange for promises of no collateral damage. They would have to wait until after the raiders were gone to assess how well they'd kept their end of the bargain.
"Your mobilization on our behalf when you first heard of the impending conflict is admirable both in its selflessness and its alacrity," the governor continued. "And we are indebted to you for your intent. However, we do not see that this incident provides a reasonable basis for a more formalized agreement between New Canton and your government."
"Madame Governor, it was your luck these raiders were only after supplies and not wanting to take over your world. You can't count on that happening every time," Beauchamp replied, the woman's naturally blunt speech pattern contrasting with the governor's for- malese. "We were on hand, ready, and willing to come to your aid. The Republic was in no position to be any of those things. If y'all were to come on board, though, this kind of response would be the norm."
"However, your response was not—if I understand my military advisors correctly—sufficient to the situation," Balantine said. "Is it not true the larger of the Clan factions outnumbered your force by a significant margin?"
"That, I think, speaks to how New Canton joining the Tall Trees Union could benefit all parties concerned," Thaddeus spoke up for the first time. "Your industrial base and robust economy would make possible a more effective military for mutual protection.
"Your commitment to the defense of the region is well known. An alliance of this type would only serve to strengthen your position both militarily and politically."
"Do you speak for The Republic, Paladin?" the governor asked with unaccustomed directness.
"I speak as one who knows The Republic," Thaddeus answered carefully. "The need of worlds to defend themselves until The Republic restabilizes the region is understood."
"Faint assurances, Paladin Marik."
"However, all that I am at liberty to give."
The governor considered him for a long moment before turning back to Beauchamp.
That was as it should be. Let them sort it out on their own, with as little input from outside as possible. If they should become a little less trusting of The Republic in the process—a little less blindly loyal—so much the better.
Thaddeus' mind was already on other worlds—and data crystals in Green's keeping—as he half-listened to the negotiations around the table.
DropShip Roofvogel
New Canton orbit
Former Prefecture VI
"Varnoff Fetladral." Star
Colonel Xera said, raising her voice to the overhead bridge microphone.
"Aff."
If Varnoff noted the lack of title in her address, his tone did not reveal it. He was on the surface of New Canton, ostensibly overseeing the stripping of South Port. She still could not believe the New Cantonese had meekly submitted to the sacking of their industrial capital. The logic of Spheroids continued to elude her.
"I have learned your promise to Anastasia Kerensky of zellbrigen was false," she said. "That you intended to betray her."
"She was not Clan—worse, she had betrayed all that was Clan." Varnoff's voice grew louder. Xera listened to the lack of self-control, knew others heard it, too. "She did not deserve zellbrigen."
"Then was not the honorable course to tell her so?" Xera asked, not bothering to look at the assembled Star captains around her. "Refuse and meet in open combat rather than betray her with false oaths?"
"She did not deserve honor," Varnoff responded. "And she proved her cowardice by turning and running when her boasts were put to the test.
"You were wrong to release her ship to her," he added. "The Coeur du Loup was my isorla."
Now Xera did lower her eyes, meeting the gaze of several Star captains in turn.
Varnoff had made the same accusation of cowardice when Anastasia Kerensky informed the Steel Wolves of the sabotage. She had requested the zellbrigen be delayed only until she could be sure her BattleMech was not similarly booby-trapped.
"A warrior's honor does not depend on others," Xera said aloud. "An oath is binding on the one who makes it because of his honor—not his opinion of another."
Varnoff chuckled—a low and dangerous sound.
"Are you challenging me to a Trial of Grievance, Xera?" he asked. "Or a Trial of Position?"
"Neither," she answered. "By your own testimony your oaths are without value and your trials based on treachery. If ever we meet in combat, it will be melee. All that I have against all that you have."
Wolf Hunters Page 31
