by J. L. Doty
“Incoming,” Gant shouted, “Dead ahead.”
Maggie changed course, and on Sierka’s console the navigational readouts swung wildly. The power demand skyrocketed as a warhead flared nearby and the shields took priority. Sierka ordered, “Return to course, Miss Votak,” and Maggie obeyed.
“A close one,” Gant hissed. “Came out of nowhere. Must have been a long shot.”
York turned, leaned over her shoulder, looked at the scan trace that remained.
“Ballin,” Sierka screamed hysterically. “I told you to get off my bridge.”
York started shaking his head, not at Sierka, but at what he saw, or didn’t see, on Gant’s console: no transition history for that warhead.
Sierka screamed, “Don’t you argue with me. Get off this bridge now, or I’ll have you arrested and shot.”
The answer came to York so quickly he was moving before he realized it. He switched his headset to the command channel so they could all hear him. “There’s a hunter-killer out there,” he growled. “Running silent somewhere dead ahead. Maggie, take evasive action. Anda watch your scans closely, stand by to divert all power to the shields. Rame we need that transition.”
“Shut up,” Sierka screamed. York had his back to Sierka, heard him shout, didn’t see him climb up from behind the captain’s console with a wrench in one hand.
Someone shouted, “York, look out.”
Preoccupied with the scan readout he was slow to react, turned around just as Sierka swung the wrench at him and it slammed into his face just above his left eye. It wasn’t a heavy wrench, but backed by Sierka’s fist it knocked him back against Gant’s console, a small trickle of blood trailing down through the scars around his chrome eye. “Get off my bridge,” Sierka screamed.
Rame called out, “Commander.”
“You shut up too!”
York glanced down at Rame’s console, saw the Drone readouts swinging wildly as they approached transition.
“But Commander,” Rame pleaded. “The—”
“Shut up. All of you.”
Jondee’s voice interrupted them all. “Transition in twenty seconds and counting. Nineteen . . . Eighteen . . .”
York shouted in Sierka’s face, “He’s trying to tell you you’re going to lose the drones, you idiot.”
Sierka froze, seemed unable to give the right order, unable to give any order. York leaned over the com console, slammed his fist down on a switch, shouted over the command channel, “Drones in.”
“Eight,” Jondee continued. “Seven . . . Six . . . Five . . . Four . . .”
“Drones are in,” Gant acknowledged as the clang of the shutting drone bays echoed through the hull.
“Three . . . Two . . . One . . .”
York felt that strange sensation that always came at the moment of transition, the same feeling he’d felt when the hunter-killer had spit its warhead into transition.
“Transition. One-point-two lights and accelerating.”
For a moment they all hesitated, breathed a collective sigh of relief as Cinesstar left the Dumark system behind.
“Mister Ballin, get off my bridge. Now! That’s an order.”
York turned slowly toward Sierka, looked at him carefully, wanted to kill him, but instead raised his hand to salute. “Aye, aye, sir.”
Sierka didn’t return the salute. “Get out of here.”
York turned toward the lift, edged his way carefully past Andow and the empress, touched the sensor at the lift hatch and stepped through as it opened. Inside the lift he hesitated. He was still wearing the vac suit, minus the helmet and gauntlets, and he had to slide the seal ring at the end of the suit arm past his wrist to see his watch. Less than two hours ago he’d awakened in the Drop Zone, and now all the adrenaline and drugs and stress threatened to catch up with him. For a moment he thought he felt the hunter-killer make transition behind them, but realized he was hallucinating again.
They could probably use help in Engineering. He focused on that thought, used the action of programming the lift destination to bring him back to reality, and when, an instant later, the lift doors popped open in front of him, he had at least restored himself to the appearance of control.
“Transition,” Ducan Soe said calmly. “We’re right in their wake, might be able to get off a good shot, maybe burn ‘em.”
Jewel Thaaline shook her head slowly. “Belay that,” she said, looking at her console. “We’re both in transition; we’re blind; he’s blind.”
“But we have a pretty good idea where he is,” Soe argued. “We can shove one up his ass and he won’t even know what hit him.”
Jewel continued to shake her head. “He knows we’re here, behind him somewhere. He just doesn’t know exactly where.”
Soe looked up from his console angrily. “Impossible. We vectored that warhead so they’d think it was a long shot from somewhere else.”
Still she shook her head. “That evasive action he took, just before transition. That was for us. He knows we’re here. He’s probably holding his crew on alert, waiting for us to try something, give away our position. And if we give him a nice accurate targeting vector, with the kind of firepower he’s got, he’ll squash us.”
“But how could he know?”
That was bothering Jewel also; how could he know? She thought about that for a long moment, but it was Innay who gave her the answer. “He’s one of us.”
Jewel smiled and nodded. “Exactly. He probably served on an imper hunter-killer sometime. He knows our tricks.”
“So what do we do?” Soe asked.
“We sit tight,” Jewel said. “We hang on his tail, run clean and silent, don’t give him anything to shoot at, wait for him to make a mistake. Maybe he’ll have trouble. He’s headed into the Directorate. He’ll want to change that as soon as possible. Maybe he’ll try a course change. And maybe he won’t be patient enough to swing around slowly, and we’ll catch enough flaring to really pin him down. Then we’ll have a sure hit, and we’ll take him. Clean, easy, neat.”
CHAPTER 12: REALITY LOST
Add’kas’adanna needed all of her training to contain her anger. It helped that Kaffair was doing the shouting for her, though he seemed unable to penetrate Ninda’s smug demeanor. Zort could only stare, too frightened to say anything.
“That was insanity,” Kaffair shouted. “A waste of ships and manpower and resources. And for what, to capture a princess worth nothing.”
Kaffair looked at Add’kas’adanna and she knew he blamed her as much as Ninda. He didn’t know Ninda had given the orders, overridden her own command structure, had literally orchestrated the entire fiasco at Dumark. He hadn’t wanted the princess at all, wanted something or someone else on that ship. And he was willing to throw every warship in the vicinity at that imper just to destroy whatever it was.
Kaffair demanded of Add’kas’adanna, “And what were the results? Did you destroy that ship?”
“Invaradin?” Add’kas’adanna said, controlling her voice. “No. Invaradin escaped, though badly damaged. But during the fighting it became obvious Invaradin and the other imperial warships were trying to protect another ship. We have no identification on her, but she too escaped. We can assume she was used to evacuate the princess.”
“We can assume,” Kaffair shouted, mimicking her. “Tell me, where is this ship now?”
Add’kas’adanna shook her head. “We don’t know. We know her approximate heading when she up-transited out of the system—she’s headed this way, by the way. And we believe some of our ships were able to follow, but we’ve had no contact from them so we’re certain of nothing.”
Add’kas’adanna was sure of one thing: whatever sort of opposing plots Kaffair and Ninda had hatched, the answer was on that imper ship.
“And are you diverting more ships from their regular patrols to capture this one ship?”
Add’kas’adanna looked at him coldly. “We don’t have to. She’s coming our way. We need only wait.”
One marine and one of Cappik’s people were badly contaminated. Notay had already gotten Kalee up from Hangar Deck to take care of the two injured men, and when York got there he pulled Notay aside, shouted above the noise, “How bad are they?”
Notay shouted back, “Don’t know yet, sir.”
“Can we get more help from Palevi?”
“If you order it, sir, but he’s got his hands full down on Hangar Deck: a couple hundred civilians along with injured and wounded.”
Cappik stepped between them, shouted above the noise, “Anyone here with time in a contamination suit?”
York nodded. “Me. Several hundred hours.”
“Then get one and make yourself useful.”
With York and his marines added to his crew, Cappik had thirty-one people and sixteen contamination suits. But there were only seven of them with enough experience to work in the hottest areas. Cappik put the less experienced to work cleaning up where they could, working in shifts and spelling one another when possible, while York and those with more experience spent the next twenty-seven hours sealed in their suits, working under varying degrees of exposure.
The worst of the contamination was around the damaged feed channel at the starboard chamber. Cappik had blown the evacuation seals around that chamber, so there was no air to conduct heat, but it had still melted through the deck, and it constantly threatened to do more. York paid particular attention to the constantly redlined readouts in his headgear. The flexible fabric of the suit also began to glow under the radiation bombarding it, and as the shielding imbedded in it demanded more power from his reactor pack, it began to hum with an unsettling whine. Twice his suit overheated, and he had to withdraw to let it cool down while others worked on.
After the first ten or twelve hours Kalee kept them all jacked up on phets, though the drugs didn’t do much for their tempers. More than once Cappik requested help from the bridge, but was told in no uncertain terms they also had their hands full up there. When they finally got the feed channel sealed and under control, York had spent the last four hours wedged into an access shaft trying to hold onto a cutting torch without taking off someone’s arm. And when Cappik gave the all clear none of them had any energy left to do more than strip off the contamination suits and sit down in the first available spot.
York found a spot out of the way against a bulkhead in a maintenance closet next to a small robot, tried to relax and knew from experience the phets wouldn’t let him sleep. A young woman stepped into the hatchway of the maintenance closet. She was one of Cappik’s people, obviously as exhausted as York, and likewise showing the angry symptoms of the phets. She pointed a finger at York. “You got us into this, god damn it! If it hadn’t been for you we’d all be safe on Dumark Station right now.”
A few more of Cappik’s people gathered behind her, some showing anger, others more cautious with the marines still about.
York closed his eyes, recalled the seconds immediately following their liftoff from Dumark. Mentally he’d been in combat mode, carefully filtering out anything that didn’t pose a threat to his immediate responsibilities, though on a secondary level he’d been conscious of other events, like the warhead strikes on Dumark Station.
York opened his eyes. “You’d be dead.”
Kalee stepped up beside her, pressed an injector against her arm. She flinched slightly as he pulled the trigger. She demanded, “What do you mean by that?”
Kalee stepped past her, leaned down and fired a dose into York’s arm. York spoke calmly. “Dumark Station’s gone, or if there’s anything left it’s just slag and vapor. She took several direct hits as we were lifting off—big warheads, in the one hundred megatonne range.”
Kalee stepped out of the maintenance closet, started circulating among the small crowd behind the young woman, firing phet antidote into everyone he could find. York’s revelation had taken the fire out of the young woman’s anger, and stunned, she turned away as he closed his eyes.
The phet antidote was just beginning to take effect when Cappik leaned through the hatchway. “I got a man named Lord Sierka on a screen. Says he’s the captain. He’s madder’n hell. Wants to talk to you.”
York picked himself up, staggered to the screen. As the phets wore off he felt a fog settling over his mind.
Sierka smiled as he demanded, “Where have you been?”
York shook his head groggily. “I was helping them clean up down here.”
Sierka’s eyes narrowed and the smile broadened into a grin. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, Ballin. You’re under arrest. The charge is mutiny. Take yourself to the brig and confine yourself there until further notice.”
York was too tired to say anything other than, “Very good, sir.”
A few minutes later, in a deserted security section on an all but empty ship, he picked out a cell, folded a chair down out of the wall, sat down for just a moment to pull off his boots. He fell asleep sitting there.
“What happened?” Edvard demanded angrily, leaning heavily on Rochefort’s desk. “What in God’s name happened?”
Rochefort shook his head, shuffled through half a dozen reports in front of him. “I don’t know. Information is too sketchy. Apparently Dumark’s been hit, a major strike.”
“What about her?”
Rochefort continued to shake his head, waved one of the reports at Edvard. “Nothing. All this data’s been thrown together hastily. Just summaries, and no one would think to mention a servant.” Rochefort stopped shaking his head, frowned intently. “It doesn’t make sense—a major strike on Dumark—not unless the Directorate knows everything.”
Edvard shivered, turned away from Rochefort’s desk and dropped tiredly into a seat. “What do we do now?”
Rochefort shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do until we know more. I’ve got a man on Dumark. If he’s still alive he’ll get through to us shortly and we’ll at least know what actually happened. In any case, Abraxa will send an AI team in without delay. I’ve also got a man in AI. I’ll make sure he’s part of that team. But beyond that, all we can do is wait.”
Canon Lynna bowed deeply as he entered Bortha’s office. “Your Holiness, I have news from Dumark.”
“Is it good?” Bortha asked.
Lynna shrugged. “That remains to be seen, Your Holiness.”
Bortha stood, smiled and crossed the room to a small bar. “Join me in a glass of sherra, and we’ll discuss it.”
Lynna nodded humbly. The old pontiff was in a good mood today. “You honor me, Your Holiness.”
Lynna waited patiently while Bortha poured a reddish brown liquid into two small, long stemmed, crystalline glasses. He made a show of carefully eyeing the amounts, as if he were performing the ceremonial offerings of a high-church service. Then he turned and handed one to Lynna. They each took a small sip—the taste was quite pleasant, though Lynna was not accustomed to such expensive treats.
“Now,” Bortha said as he returned to his desk and sat down. “You were saying?”
Lynna placed the glass of sherra on the edge of Bortha’s desk, consulted his notes carefully. “I received a message from Proverb Serrin, prelate of the diocese of Dumark. He was able to confirm that the Directorate attacked Dumark with a massive strike force. The embassy, however, was evacuated by an unknown imperial ship. There ensued a heated battle between the ships defending Dumark and the Directorate strike force. Beyond that we know nothing.”
Bortha frowned. “What of this unknown ship?”
Lynna stopped consulting his notes, retrieved his glass of sherra fr
om the edge of Bortha’s desk. “To the best of our knowledge the only imperial warships on or around Dumark Station were the Invaradin, the Nostran, and the Irriahm. And it has been confirmed none of them were this mysterious ship.”
Bortha’s frown deepened. “Then we know nothing?”
Lynna shrugged. “I suspect Abraxa knows more than we, or will shortly, but for the time being that information hasn’t yet been intercepted by my sources. We must be patient, Your Holiness, though I think we’ll not have long to wait.”
Bortha smiled and stood. “Excellent, Lynna. I knew I could count on you. And tell that proverb on Dumark to continue to investigate, learn everything he can, and keep us informed.”
Lynna took a breath and sighed deeply. “I fear that will not be possible, Your Holiness. Apparently Proverb Serrin suffered severe radiation poisoning, and will shortly be under the protection of the Divine Maker himself.”
Bargan Abraxa listened carefully to the pretty, young AI captain standing in front of his desk. “. . . Invaradin and Nostran were badly damaged, and Irriahm was lost with all hands. We’ve made direct contact with Nostran’s commanding officer, and from him we learned Cassandra and Lady d’Hart were evacuated on H.M.S. Cinesstar along with most of the embassy staff. Cinesstar was almost completely gutted in combat some months ago, then towed into orbit around Dumark, were she’d undergone complete refitting. She had no crew, but apparently one of Invaradin’s junior officers took command of her with a skeleton crew of some kind, and actually landed her on Dumark’s surface to evacuate the embassy.”
Abraxa allowed an eyebrow to rise slightly. “A bold move, and a dangerous one.”
“Yes, Your Grace. In any case, while Invaradin, Nostran, and Irriahm fought a rear guard action, Cinesstar retreated in the only direction possible. When she made transition she was headed straight into Directorate territory, and there’s been no contact with her since.”
