by Chris Bunch
‘Then he vacates for parts unknown, and fame and fortune, in the third ship with the Lumina.’
‘Why did he not use the ship’s weapons to destroy the other two, and leave a completely clean trail?’
‘I don’t know,’ Wolfe said. ‘But I can make a pretty close guess.
‘Murder doesn’t come as easy as people think it does. Especially the first time out. It scrambles the brain a trifle. I remember serving a bounty once on a woman who murdered her family for the death benefits and then forged their names on bank records after it was already known they were dead.
‘Our friend managed to commit eleven murders successfully. Now he’s suddenly up to his bellybutton in gore. These were people who were his shipmates, maybe even his friends until a few hours ago.
‘All he wants is out and away.’
‘I do not understand all of your words,’ Jadera said. ‘But it appears you are making sense.’
‘I do,’ Taen said. ‘He is.’
‘So our man flees with the Lumina. What would he do with it? Sell it?’ Wolfe asked.
‘He might think of doing that,’ Jadera said. ‘But it would certainly take a measure of time to do. Particularly if any of the details were known in the Federation. But more likely he would, especially if he spent some time considering the stone, thinking into it, and understanding what it was telling him, realize it could be used to get him far greater riches than just selling it could ever bring.’
‘What could it give an unskilled man, one untrained in using a Lumina?’ Joshua asked.
‘It could give him certain insights, feelings that he could follow. What someone intended, what someone was really planning, really thinking. It is likely that a man who would think of killing, who did kill, would be encouraged by the Lumina to go in evil ways. It, of course, is unconstricted by human or Al’ar customs or laws.’
‘So he’s gone to ground somewhere and is busy trying to become the Great Nefarious Something-Or-Other. I can think of a couple of ways to go looking for him,’ Wolfe went on. ‘But first we’ve got to worry about the Chitet.
‘I said before that I thought there was a Chitet mole - sorry for the slang, an agent - among the men and women on these ships. Some time between the discovery of the Lumina aboard the ship and the killings, he or she managed to dump a report off into N-space.
‘The Chitet got that report. That’s what put them in motion, looking for anything resembling a Lumina or anything like an Al’ar, since they were specifically interested in the Mother Lumina.
‘Now, if they believe this is the root of all Al’ar power . . . no wonder they’ve been getting a little testy lately.
‘Next the Federation hears about all this activity, and it’s wandering around trying to figure out what the hell is going on. That’s why they came to me.’
‘Yes,’ Jadera said. ‘That makes uncommonly logical progression. So what we must do is find out more about this scout team so we are able to track the murderer and recover our Lumina. You said you knew of some ways.’
‘I do. That’s why we’ll need this ship. It’ll give me a starting point - inside the Federation. I’ll start by -’
A warning shrilled in his speaker.
It came from the Serex.
‘Jadera . . . our sensors report transmissions coming from the ship you are aboard, being broadcast into N-space.’
‘Son of a bitch,’ Joshua swore. ‘Somebody boobytrapped this goddamned thing.’
Taen and Jadera looked about, as if they would be able to see the source of the transmission.
Breathe . . . feel . . . reach out . . .
The Lumina was warm against Joshua’s skin.
He saw the vibrations their hurried questions made in the air, felt the waves the transmission from the Al’ar ship, and something else.
He pushed past the Al’ar and pulled the inner lock door open. He reached under the sill of the outer lock door and pulled out a black, soft cylinder about a foot long that had been worm-curled out of sight.
‘Kill it!’ he ordered, and threw it on the deck.
Taen’s sidearm came out, and he touched the firing stud.
The air shattered with the blast as the bolt struck the transmitter, and the metal deck seared.
There was silence.
‘Back to your ship, Jadera, Taen,’ Wolfe ordered. ‘Somebody already found these ships and set a little alarm between the time you Al’ar came here and now. Maybe they were hoping the murderer’d come back to the scent. I’ll bet the bug was set by the Chitet.
‘That transmitter’s shouting for backup, and I’ll bet it’s not far away. The Chitet have everything riding on this card.’
‘What will you do?’ Jadera asked.
‘They’ll want to track whoever was here. They can’t know about the Guardians. You two return to the planet. I’ll hang on here and give them something to chase.’
‘You are being foolish,’ Jadera said. ‘We can fight them with the Serex.’
‘They’ll be coming in something big, too big for you. Goddammit, they’re buying battleships! Let them chase me around for a while. If I could run rings around your watchdogs in the war, I know I can play the fox with these sobersides.’
Jadera hesitated, then closed his faceplate.
‘Come on, Taen,’ Wolfe said. ‘I’ll get back as quickly as I can.’
‘No,’ the Al’ar said. ‘My life, my death, my doom are with you. I shall remain.’
Wolfe started to snarl something, then stopped.
After a moment, a smile came, went.
‘You have my gratitude. And it’s nice to have another damned fool around. Now get unsuited and strap in as best you can. I’ll try to figure out master pilot tactics in what time we’ve got left. Life’s going to get very interesting.’
Ten minutes after the Serex vanished into N-space, something shimmered on one of the scoutship’s screens.
Joshua didn’t need to key the Jane’s-ID sensor.
It was the sleek, mottled darkness of a monstrous battlecruiser, only light-seconds distant.
FIFTEEN
‘Those goddamned Chitet have too much money - or know too many of the right people,’ Wolfe swore.
‘You know that ship?’
‘Know of it. Class of three. Laid down during the war, never finished. It was designed to beat up most of your ships and outrun anything it couldn’t kill.
‘Let’s see what kind of legs it’s got after we give ’em something to think about.’
Wolfe touched sensors and felt the scoutship lurch as two missiles fired, jumped briefly into N-space, emerged and exploded.
Two miniature suns - solar flares - blossomed.
‘Now if they’re blinded, they won’t know just where we’re going. I hope . . .’
Wolfe cut in the scout’s stardrive and sent it into hyperspace.
The familiar sensations came, were gone, and the ship was in another part of the galaxy.
Joshua keyed another jump location, and as he did space blurred and the Chitet warship appeared.
‘Son of a bitch! He had time to get a tracer on us! I didn’t know beancounters made good E-warfare types.’
Again he touched the jump sensor, and again the scout went in, out of N-space.
Wolfe swung to another panel, opened the com net, set it to scan.
‘Let’s see if anybody out there’s talking. Maybe we can find somebody to hide behind.’
There was nothing but the snarling static of the stars around them, then: ‘Unknown ship, Unknown ship, this is the Chitet Police Vessel Udayana. Please respond.’
‘The hell with you, sweetheart,’ Wolfe snarled.
‘Unknown vessel, this is the Udayana. Be advised the pickup in your ship detected Al’ar speech. Stand by for a patch transmission.’
‘What is this?’
‘I guess their bug was better than I thought,’ Wolfe said. ‘And now they’re getting cute.’
A new voice came over t
he com. ‘This is Chitet Authority Coordinator Dina Kur. I have been told there is an Al’ar aboard the vessel I am addressing. You are best advised to surrender immediately. We intend no harm, but rather a mutual sharing of knowledge.’
‘Yes,’ Taen agreed. ‘I share my knowledge of everything with them, and they share their knowledge of pain-causing with me.’
Wolfe looked at the Al’ar in some astonishment. ‘I think you just made a joke.’
‘Impossible. You are deluded from the strain.’
‘That’s twice.’
‘You have the word of the Chitet government,’ the com went on. ‘Here is a recorded message, intended for you, made by our Master Speaker.’
Another voice came: ‘This is Master Speaker Matteos Athelstan, addressing either Joshua Wolfe or a member of the Al’ar race. You have now been contacted by a high-ranking representative of our government and told that we wish to obtain certain data. We will guarantee both of you shelter from your Federation pursuers and sanctuary against any charges by the Federation.
‘The Chitet are an old and honorable culture, and we wish to welcome you. Please do as the conveyor of this message instructs you.’
After a pause, Kur’s calm tenor came back. ‘That was our Master Speaker. You have five minutes to prepare to obey the commands of the vessel that is tracking you. This is the last option to avoid possible violence. Please use logic, and realize there is no benefit to be gained by further resistance.’
‘Jump, One Who Fights From Shadows. There is no benefit to be gained from these people.’
Wolfe obeyed.
The next time they came out of N-space they saw the Udayana - and three other, smaller ships in a fingers formation.
Wolfe launched a missile, and two of the Chitet ships sent out countermissiles.
As he readied the controls for another jump, the Udayana launched. Wolfe slammed the jump button as the missile broke out of N-space and detonated.
The edge of the shockwave caught them just as they entered hyperspace, and the scoutship rocked and tumbled in reality as well as their hyperspace-altered perceptions.
‘The hounds are a little close,’ Wolfe said. ‘I’m not as good a fox as I used to be.’
‘What direction are you moving us in?’
‘Toward the Federation. We’re well into it now. I hoped that they’d break off if company was around, but I’m not very lucky today.’ Wolfe took a deep breath. ‘There’s another option.’
‘Which is?’
‘I can call for help to the Federation. To Cisco.’
‘That would be not sane.’
‘Of course not. But the Chitet are going to kill us for sure. Maybe with FI we can have time to lie to them for a while.’
Taen thought. ‘Or, maybe, if they materialize in time, we can use the confusion to slip between the two forces.’
‘Even better.’
Wolfe jumped twice in rapid succession.
Now they hung in space near an occupied system - their com scanner blipped through transmission groups on several channels.
Joshua scribbled code groups from memory, then set controls on the com to the special frequency Cisco had given him and opened his mike.
‘X20FM . . . DL3WW . . . DO098 . . . PLM2X . . .’
He finished the groups and punched in another jump.
‘Let’s get close to their sun and tart around there. Give us some time to stall.’
When they came out of hyperspace, a planet was just ‘above’ them, about the size of Wolfe’s thumbnail.
‘I didn’t know I could shave it this near a planet,’ he muttered. ‘Taen, can you drive this thing?’
‘I have been watching you,’ the Al’ar said. ‘And I was cross-trained on older Federation vessels. I can try, as long as the Chitet do not make an attack.’
‘I don’t have them on any screen,’ Wolfe said. ‘Maybe we lost them. But I won’t bet on it. Keep about this distance offworld, so we can jump.’
He went to the chart table, opened it, and pulled out a catalog. ‘If I knew what I was looking for . . .’
Ten minutes later the com beeped at them.
‘I could do with a little luck right now,’ Wolfe said, and touched the RECEIVE sensor.
The screen lit, and it was Cisco’s face, disheveled, sleepy.
‘Broadcasting en clair, Wolfe. We have a monitor on your frequency and he got me up. All code groups came through except one. Understood your problem.
‘Suggest immediate rendezvous. Will be there on same item I was aboard last meeting to provide security. Standing by.’
‘Just that goddamned frigate you were pooting around in before? Come on, Cisco.’ Wolfe keyed the SEND sensor.
‘Cisco, this is Wolfe. We’re being chased by a battlecruiser. I say again, a frigging battlecruiser, with three smaller friends. Same wonderful people as before if that part of the message got garbled. You better get ahold of the nearest Federation base and get some serious backup. Stand by for rendezvous point.’
He returned to the catalog, thumbed pages. ‘Oh-ho. Maybe this.’
He took a microfiche from a cabinet. Its label read: OFFWORLD WEAPONS STATIONS - TAURUS SECTOR - COORDINATES, DESCRIPTIONS. CLASSIFICATION: MOST SECRET.
‘I think I have the Chitet ships onscreen now,’ Taen said.
Wolfe paid no attention as he slipped the microfiche into a viewer and scanned.
‘Now this might do us up fine,’ he murmured, and went to a screen. ‘Just reachable. All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ve got us a place to duck into until Cisco and his friends show up.’
‘What is it?’
‘You’ll see.’
Wolfe went to the com and sent hastily coded coordinates through it, then replaced Taen at the controls.
‘Now we go to ground. Or if they’ve scrapped our den out, we get killed.’
Once more the scoutship shimmered into hyperspace.
SIXTEEN
The abandoned orbital fortress was a double-sided tetrahedron, Command-and-Control capsules set above and below the five weapons/living positions. The circular stations were connected by tubeways. It sat just beyond the three Federation worlds it had been built to defend, in the same orbital plane.
Wolfe and Taen stood in the scoutship’s lock, waiting as the ship closed on the station. Both of them had booster packs for their suit drives.
The Udayana had not yet come out of hyperspace when the scout’s autopilot spun the ship, and the secondary drive hissed, killing the ship’s velocity.
‘Four . . . three . . . two . . . let’s go.’
The Al’ar and human pushed away from their ship as it spun on its gyros once again and, at full drive, shot away toward the closest Federation planet.
Wolfe killed his remaining relative velocity, then aimed himself at the station. Taen was a dozen yards behind.
They were a few hundred yards from the station when the ranging radar on Wolfe’s suit bonged and a pointer appeared on his faceplate.
The Chitet ship had just come out of hyperdrive and was closing on them. Seconds later, space distorted in three other places and the Udayana’s smaller escorts flashed into being.
Taen and Joshua braked, landed on the fort’s outer skin, and crouched toward the nearest lock.
It was sealed.
Wolfe muttered, unclipped a blaster. He touched his helmet to Taen’s. ‘I’ll cut our way in when - if - they go right on by like they’re supposed to.’
The Udayana closed on the fortress. Wolfe found himself holding his breath.
He saw the white glare of braking jets.
‘Son of a bitch,’ he muttered. ‘They always chase the wrong thing in the romances.’
He pointed the blaster at the seal, fired briefly, wedged the lock door open, and the two slid inside.
‘Did they set any wards when they closed this station down?’ Taen asked.
‘Damfino,’ Wolfe said. ‘If they did, we’ll surely run into t
hem, the way our luck’s been running. I just hope they didn’t see the gun go off.’
He shone a light briefly on the lock’s interior, aimed carefully and blew the inner dog away, then flattened against the lock wall.
Air howled past, subsided, and Wolfe felt the clang as still-functioning damage portals closed inside the fortress. He forced the inner lock door open, and the two went into the station.
There was an emergency repair box on the bulkhead near the lock door, and Wolfe closed the inner lock door and slid a patch over the hand-size hole he’d blown in it.
He went to the damage portal, found the entryway, and opened it.
Taen followed him, touched his helmet to Wolfe’s. ‘What now?’
‘Now we get out of the tin cans. I’d rather take a chance on breathing space than not be able to fight.’
Silently the two unsuited.
‘I assume they will be boarding us,’ Taen said. ‘All we have to do is make their lives as miserable and short as possible until the Federation appears.’
‘If the Federation appears,’ Wolfe corrected. ‘And if they bring something bigger than Cisco’s spit-kit.’
‘I am looking forward to this,’ Taen said. ‘It goes against my nature to always be running, as I have since my people left this space.’
Wolfe didn’t answer, but knelt and put his hands flat on the deck.
He felt pain, fear, death.
He stood, looked at the Al’ar, and half smiled.
‘There are worse walls to have your back against. Now let’s see how badly they defanged this beauty.’
The Udayana’s cargo bay was filled with men and women. They stood quietly in ranks, waiting for the commands to begin their well-planned attack.
A speaker crackled: ‘Seal suits.’
Faceplates clicked.
‘We will use the station’s docking bay to debark. Make your last checks on your weaponry.’
There was no need to respond.
‘I have been informed,’ the voice said through a hundred suit speakers, ‘that Authority Coordinator Kur has decided to personally take charge of the prisoners when they are taken.
‘This is a chance to win high status and recognition. Our enemy will use any strategy, any deception to take us, to make us allow our emotions to rule and then destroy us.
