Plan B

by Sharon

  "As you say, Lady. As you say." The old cargo master's voice held a note of near hysteria.

  "Ken Rik, that is not to be touched," Priscilla said, very carefully—very gently. "I have a feeling. . ."

  Shan shivered, though this was not the first time Priscilla's wizardly powers had saved a life.

  "A feeling?" he ventured.

  He heard the buzz of an open line, but it was nearly a minute before she spoke.

  "Intent," she said finally. "That one has malicious intent behind it. I—"

  "They all have malicious intent!" Ken Rik broke in, but Shan had already gotten his lifemate's meaning. The other devices had been set as—devices, hardware necessary to accomplish a goal. What Priscilla sensed around this latest trap was the lingering taste of anticipation and desire.

  Whoever had set that booby trap had wanted them to die.

  "Yes, friend," Priscilla was telling Ken Rik; "but you cannot see the pattern I have here on the screen. There's a density and—"

  "Spare me the obvious, girl," Ken Rik snapped. "It's a spiral, any fool can see that! And as it spirals in toward the power storage and capacitor banks it gets more and more dangerous. We dare not make one mistake in disarming them. We dare not believe we might even find them all! I haven't begun to look in the firing heads. . ."

  Out of view of everyone, Shan nodded. Someone had carefully planned the death of the Passage. Planned it to be mysterious and untraceable—an explosion in Jump, confined to the Jump locus—matrix—not much chance of survivors from that!

  "Ken Rik, mark your place, leave the access panels open and come to me here." He hadn't intended his tone to be so sharp, or the order so abrupt.

  "At once, Captain." Relief washed some of Ken Rik's terror away, but Shan scarcely noticed.

  "Priscilla, cut pod six to minimum power. Shift as many of the crew as possible to the opposite side of the ship. Discounting Ken Rik and myself, you have eight full pilots. Keep three with you, send one to the inner bridge, and station two outside my quarters, to be given access to the captain's controls, should necessity arise. You will have Gordy go to Storage Unit 117-A and remove what he finds there to the courier boat. Once back at the boat he is to go to internal power and be at battle stations with the other pilot.

  "And, Priscilla—please be good enough to pull and cross link every file we have on the theoretical and practical aspects of the mathematics of Jump."

  "The situation," Shan said carefully, "is quite awkward."

  He glanced up into the split-screen where nine serious faces watched him, even as he watched them: Gordy, his foster-son—and Priscilla's—tight-lipped and gray-faced beside the large eyes and dark face of Thrina Makami; Vilobar, mustache shiny with sweat; Seth, laconic as always; Priscilla. . .

  It was hard not to watch Priscilla. He would have rather been on the bridge, where he could take comfort from her presence, but the melant'i of the situation was plain. Resources needed to be spread out as much as possible. Both ship and crew had a better chance if at least one pilot survived—

  "Weapons pod six has been—mined. Booby-trapped. Sabotaged while in storage."

  There was a brief outburst of anger and fear; Shan raised his hand and quieted the noise.

  "Who? It doesn't matter for the moment. How? Apparently under the guise of maintenance the proper fittings were from time to time replaced with fittings containing built-in bombs. How did we know? I received a coded pinbeam from—an impeccable source. Claiming the pod seems to have set a number of rumors into motion, not the least of which is that the galaxy should soon hear of the destruction of a major Liaden trade vessel under mysterious circumstances.

  "As far as we are able to determine, there are more than fifteen explosive devices on board, all designed to do some damage, several designed to do maximum damage. The difficulty is that the devices have a variety of timers and triggers associated with them—at least one appears to be Jump-activated—and we very probably have not seen all the devices. Master Ken Rik believes the chance of finding and disabling all these traps before Jump-end is vanishingly low."

  He looked at each of the nine serious faces in turn. No one seemed unduly distressed. He glanced down at his hands, big, brown, clever hands, folded quietly, the Master Trader's amethyst shining like a small purple sun in the light of the instrument panel. He looked back at the screen.

  "In normal space I would merely reset shields and take the calculated risk that we would be far enough away from the thing when it exploded—or use it for target practice if it didn't.

  "Here, we have a different situation. We are, as you all know, in Jump, and cannot maneuver. On the other hand, the physical laws regulating Jump suggest that an explosion in the connected pod will release the energy therein which will then duly fill up the Jump locus-matrix with itself, the total energy/mass equivalency of the system not being altered. Does anyone disagree?"

  Nine dismayed faces reflected agreement.

  Shan sighed.

  "The captain sees no immediate clear answer either. I suggest each command location consider alternatives for the next twelve minutes, on my mark. We shall then reconvene. Pilots, I give you my mark . . . three—two—one—now!"

  "Pogo stick!" Vilobar protested, smoothing his mustache nervously. "I can't see how—"

  "No arguments," Shan directed. "We're taking ideas now."

  "No, but the springs—if rocket thrust won't work maybe springs will!" Gordy pelted on, overriding both the older pilot and the captain. "Put them in the connecting passage, compressed, attached to the support arm. Cut the connections—the springs will uncompress and push the pod away. Then we retract the support arm. . ."

  ". . . use the pod's own screens, if we can trust them. Once we achieve separation it depends on philosophy. Will energy flow through the whole system, or does loss of physical congruency stop energy flow?"

  Seth looked up from his scrawled notes, and gave a wry grin. "If it works we'll give the philosophers and physicists plenty to argue about."

  ". . . cut the entire pod mount away, if we must," Ren Zel said rapidly. "The power expenditure is within tolerances, as is the weakening of overall ship structure. We'd likely lose the cutting team. . ." He glanced up, eyes bleak in a politely expressionless Liaden face. "Necessity, Captain."

  This, too, Shan limited to twelve minutes; there really was not enough time to decide how much time there was.

  Shan stared at a screen filled with a growing forest of landing struts, braces, jacked platforms, and the occasional shadow that was one of the volunteers, making fine adjustments, doing the best they could to get even pressure.

  Ken Rik had charge of the volunteer team. There had to be a pilot in it, and an old first classer, Ken Rik had said with a sobering lack of his usual vitriol, would be less missed by ship and crew—if something went awry—than a master pilot. Even a master pilot who was a thorough young idiot.

  Shan watched and waited. On his second screen he saw Priscilla, likewise waiting, and was surprised by a surge of longing so intense his eyes teared. He was going to have to do something soon about adjusting priorities; this keeping the ship's first and second officer apart for security considerations didn't have the feel of a long-term working solution.

  "That's the last," Ken Rik announced from within the pod, still in that disturbingly calm tone. "We're coming out now, Captain."

  "Fine," Shan said. "Each of you count off as you come into the hall. We don't want to leave anyone in there with that thing."

  He touched a key, bringing up an image of the pod's basewall, and increased magnification until the painted markers loomed—one mark every half-meter, to allow measurement of a movement the instruments could not detect in Jump. Movement that could not happen in Jump.

  According to one theory.

  Shan sighed. He'd calculated that they would achieve a separation rate of just under one half meter per second, under normal conditions. Who knew how fast the rate would be in Jump, where the
re was neither speed, nor distance, nor direction—assuming Gordy's "pogo stick" worked at all?

  "Five." Rusty's voice in the count-off reflected nothing but exhaustion and Shan felt a burst of affectionate sympathy for the pudgy radio tech. Then it was Ken Rik, signaling into the camera, speaking over the com.

  "Everyone clear, Captain. Give us twelve seconds to clear the hall. . ."

  "You have forty-eight, starting with my mark. Three—two—one . . . mark. Priscilla?"

  "On it, Captain. At minus twelve seconds we start powerdown. The pod sequencer will cut the meteor shield for twenty-four seconds, after which collision shields come up."

  "Effectively sealing the ship off at pod six access hall while pod six tumbles down to hell. We hope." He shook his head, noted Ken Rik's all clear—twenty-two seconds—and glanced back to screen two.

  "Please allow the ship's log to show that Gordon Arbuthnot is confirmed this day as pilot third class and entered as a candidate for provisional second class."

  The crew, on battle stations, got a twenty-four second warning, for what it was worth.

  The Passage gave a slight—even a familiar—shrug as the external pod clamps were withdrawn. Nothing changed on the screens.

  Twelve seconds. Nine. Six. Three. Two. One. Shrug . . . the internal pod clamps withdrew—

  His prime screen showed dozens of landing struts flexing, jack stands kicking sideways, platforms shaking—and there was the tiniest of lurches, as the third screen showed the markings on the basewall: one half meter . . . one meter . . . more. . .

  The monitor showed a half-second blur as the pod twisted under the uneven push.

  And then there was gray. Jump gray. No pod. No basewall. No hastily painted measurements. Gray.

  Priscilla was looking at him from screen two.

  "Instruments have lost the pod, Captain. No reading from docking radar, Jump-matrix screen shows no change. Meteor shield goes up in six seconds . . . we've got a report from inertial guidance comp: point-two-five meter per second adjustment."

  So. For good or for ill. Whatever they had done was done, and the outcome was upon the knees of the gods. Shan reached for the controls and shut down the grayed screens.

  "Thank you, Priscilla. I suggest we meet in our cabin for lunch. We have six hours to Jump-break and I will spend at least one with you."

  Lytaxin: Erob's Combat Practice Grounds

  In the distance was the tree, gift of Korval. Beyond that, the house, and well beyond that, the foothills and small mountain range named Dragon's Back. Somewhere there, on the lower of the mountain humps, was another gift of Korval.

  This was a tower. Called Dragon's Tooth for reasons none could give, it currently housed three spotters, a circumstance that had charged Win Den tel'Vosti with glee.

  "A fine use we make of Korval's contract-suite, eh! Well enough, niece Miri, that you come to us lifemated, else you and your term-husband would have taken residence in Dragon's Tooth, and nothing either might do to prevent it!"

  "Pretty far to walk for breakfast," Miri commented, which observation tel'Vosti was pleased to greet with laughter.

  On the other side of the Dragon's Back was rough country indeed, and beyond that occasional farms and forestry plantations. The Yxtrang had not penetrated there as yet and the spotters in the Dragon's Tooth were looking down at and beyond the tree, and Erob's House. Using a good telescope they kept watch on movements close to the coast, ignoring the fields below the house itself, where only those expected yet trod. The mists of morning made the observer's job difficult, the Yxtrang destruction of most of the satellites in orbit made it vitally necessary.

  "Heh up!" Miri's voice echoed over the grounds and the members of Unit 1, Lytaxin Combined Forces, fell back from defending and attacking positions and turned to face their captain.

  "Rotation!" Miri commanded, and those who had been defenders last round moved left to pair off with a new partner.

  "Ain't proper training if they just work with one partner," Miri had said at the beginning. "We'll keep shifting 'em around, make 'em learn as much as they can; force 'em to be flexible. Maybe. . ."

  Maybe, Val Con thought now, drifting along the line with seeming randomness in his role as the captain's second, just maybe some of them would survive.

  Survival, of course, was problematical for all, though a measure of luck had attended the deployment of the Yxtrang invasion force. The majority of invaders had landed nearer the coast, with a mere battalion or so landing within striking distance of Erob's lands, though the Loop assured Val Con that a battalion of battle-hardened Yxtrang was likely sufficient to the task of overcoming the remnants of the mercenary units and Unit 1, Lytaxin Combined Forces.

  Miri had nicknamed her command the "Lytaxin Irregulars," which was a comment after all on the state of most of the defending forces facing Lytaxin's tidy little difficulty. Aside from one of Jason's crack units, even the named and recognized forces were amalgams and hastily restaffed shadows of standing merc units. Val Con sighed, hid the Loop's predictions away in a corner of his mind, and came to attention with the rest of the troop on Miri's command.

  "Partners A, C, E," Miri shouted. "Defend!"

  His assignment this drill was the overseeing and correction of the attackers, speaking with the captain's authority and his own expertise in hand-to-hand technique. It was an assignment like most of the others he carried within the troop where he held no rank other than that of scout—and of Miri's partner.

  The field was silent, awaiting the captain's next order. Val Con closed his eyes, recalling the Yxtrang landing.

  He and Miri had been running to warn the Erob when the flight of attack craft circling overhead drove them to cover. The attackers dove toward the airfield, which sustained several passes before ter'Meulen's plane had risen in challenge. By then, the biggest roar in the sky had been the approach of the troop and transport ship.

  Stupidly, the Yxtrang had attempted to take Fosterling out with a strafing run. The awesome fall of wreckage from the sky had been the result of that error—and the local keep's salvation.

  Then came thunder from the sky and thunder from the ground as Fosterling replied to an attack from a space-based enemy. Valiant vessel—and all, eventually for naught. His ship was gone. Clonak ter'Meulen's heir was gone. The remnant of Erob's air fleet was gone. And he, a pilot of Korval, was grounded, charged with training children in the arts of death.

  "Heh, go!" Miri commanded and the field went from absolute stillness to frenzied motion. Several pairs did absolutely the wrong thing. Miri headed for Trianna and Ilvin, as Val Con cut off An Der's charge with a sharp "Hold!"

  "An overhead approach is acceptable for machete or broadsword," he told the boy's bruised blue eyes. "It is an inefficient technique for survival blade, in that it leaves the attacker vulnerable to a fighter with longer reach. Given the likelihood that the opponent you may eventually face with this blade will be considerably larger than you, the proper thrust is low, to surprise and injure, while making of yourself the smallest possible target. Then, an upthrust to chest or throat—thus." He demonstrated the sequence against an imaginary giant, reversed the blade and stepped aside. "The drill, if you please. Use your brain; terror wins no battles."

  The boy took the weapon, bowed as student to honored instructor, and again faced his partner. Val Con watched them execute a far more reasoned drill and then moved down-line, pausing as necessary to correct, demonstrate, encourage.

  "Heh, up!" The command rang out and all movement stopped.

  "Drill done!" Miri called. "Return knives to Kol Vus. All at liberty until mess-call."

  Val Con felt his shoulders sag in relief. It was amazingly tiring, this training of children and the Housebound. He began to walk toward Miri, and saw Emrith Tiazan and Win Den tel'Vosti bearing down on her from the opposite edge of the field.

  "Scout!" The big voice bellowed from behind, booming with excitement. Val Con ground his teeth and kept walking; he had
no wish to deal with Jason Carmody at this instant.

  "Hey, Scout!" Jason insisted. "Over here, double-time! Got something to show you! Number one priority!"

  That was final, then. Val Con sighed. A commander's priority outweighed any desire a man might have to protect his lady from the stresses of dealing with her kin.

  He turned, and very nearly stared.

  Jase grinned and dragged a sleeve across his forehead, leaving a streak of grime. His well-kept ponytail was in disarray, fine golden hairs pulled loose from the ribbon and standing out from his big head like an aura. His leathers were muddy and scuffed; there was a purpling bruise on one tan cheek, just above the beard-line; and his wide azure eyes were full of demonic glee.

  "Look a sight, I'll wager," he said cheerfully. "Wasn't time to find my ball dress, though. This is hot, my son—got somebody you need to talk to!"

  Val Con's heart stuttered. Shan? he thought, then nearly laughed.

  Yes, he told himself, very likely. As if Shan is so lacking in wits he'd endanger his ship and the a'nadelm's life by running an Yxtrang blockade.

  "You there, Scout?" Jason's eyes were sharp on him.

  Val Con raised an eyebrow. "I am here, Commander. The question is: Where is this someone I must talk to?"

  "Icehouse." The grin cracked free again, wild with pride. "Man, wait'll you—Hey, Captain Redhead!"

  "Jase," Miri's voice was quiet, and a little husky from shouting practice commands. She smiled at Val Con and slid a comfortable arm around his waist.

  "They're lookin' good out there, darlin'. When you figure on turning 'em loose to whip ass?"

  Miri tipped her head and Val Con felt a sharpening in his own psyche, as if he was engaged in weighing values he recognized on some level past mere thought.

  "Can take some heat, if you got it to share," Miri was telling Jason, calmly. "Ain't up to a pressure-cooker, but I figure to hold our own in a spat."

  "Might have something to share, at that. Depends on what the Scout can get out of—"

  "And what," demanded Emrith Tiazan arriving on Win Den tel'Vosti's arm, "is of such importance that Captain Robertson must need turn her back on me and walk away?"