Kosho turned back to Gretchen. “Anderssen- tzin, you have the con.”
Deep in the bowels of the ship, reaction mass channels opened fractionally and the main maneuver engines roared as Holloway advanced both of his speed controls. The Naniwa surged ahead, building v as fast as she could. The internal frame, already battered by multiple missile impacts, groaned with the stress. In every compartment, crewmen secured their stations and prepared for a rough ride.
***
At the navigation console, Gretchen settled back, letting the holocast unfold before her. Attached directly to the shipnet’s fastest interfaces, node 3^3 3 seemed to expand, releasing hundreds of the processing nodes which had previously been inactive or inaccessible. The discovery algorithm she’d loaded into her own field comp had mutated, evolved, and returned, rippling across the Imperial systems with blinding speed. Her model was now tremendously detailed, with some kind of interpolative subprocess filling in the gaps in the quantum data feeding back from the battle-cruiser’s sensor suite.
The science probes had been lost in the fighting, though in comparison to the Naniwa ’s shipskin, they were tiny black birds, pecking at a leviathan wall of basalt blocks. The warship drank data with every surface, and node 3^3 3 swallowed it up just as fast. There was only one jarring note in the rising symphony. Gretchen was suddenly aware that something was out of place in the block pressed between her fingers.
You’re broken, she realized, feeling that same rushing sense of rightness which had first come to her when the last fragment of an Old High Martian Period III bowl had fit into place on Old Mars and the entire object was whole and perfect in her hands, restored after five thousand years of separation. This piece of you is out of place. She felt the mechanism-was it like a clock? No, more a series of orbitals constantly in motion like the arms of an astrolabe, each ring a pressure-wave interlocking with the others in their emptiness-slip and slide under her attention. But then, when she focused her internal image of what should be, the whirling rings suddenly conformed to the pattern she desired.
The block seemed to change, under her fingertips, though she was sure nothing visible about it had altered, and felt-for the first time-as though it was in proper form. Unblemished, unbroken, at last intact.
In her elevated state, Anderssen’s perceptions shifted, the command deck and the tiny humans there falling away, her vision expanding to taste the dust clouds, the wreckage, the hot flare of the ship’s drives like brilliant jeweled stars. Agitated waves spun away from them as they built velocity, shifting the dust, even brushing the threaded veil which lay ahead, stirring its components with a hot wind.
The gap-the Pinhole-loomed, no more than a long jagged gap of darkness within darkness.
***
Prince Xochitl’s evac-capsule sped away from the wreck of the Tlemitl, the momentum imparted by the launch rail carrying them forward. Through one of the viewports Xochitl could see the great ship, now cut neatly into three sections, receding, plumes of burning atmosphere jetting from the black hull. A Khaid cruiser-now no more than a shattered hulk-was within sight as well. The Prince, his helmet faceplate levered up, bit at the corner of his thumb and considered a nav-plot on his tiny control console. There were other capsules in range, and at the edge of sensor capacity, an able-bodied Khaiden destroyer was edging back out of the danger area.
“We cannot detect the threads,” rasped a voice from behind him. Xochitl turned, surprised to see the engineer crouching in the door of the miniscule bridge. Looking more haggard than ever, fear radiating from him in waves, Helsdon gestured at the viewport. “Our sensors just aren’t designed to recognize such a distortion of quantum law. You will want to halt our movement, before we strike one of them.”
Though he was feeling something that-in a lesser mortal-might be termed terror, the Prince essayed a feeble joke: “There are laws at the quantum level?”
“As far as these pitiful computers are concerned, there are.” Helsdon squeezed in beside Xochitl, ignoring centuries of protocol and policy which would have relegated the commoner to some distant precinct of the Prince’s daily routine. The engineer’s fingers trembled as he jacked a hand-comp into the control console. “We were right in the middle of reprogramming everything to ignore known laws, to assume that the Planck-length components of these threads were… well then, you shut us down.” Helsdon laughed ghoulishly, his own fear cutting through any sense of social hierarchy.
Xochitl stiffened, his jaw clenching. Whom do you think you address, Anglishman? No one reproves me. Not even the Imperial family. It is not permitted. My father depends on my judgment. He sent me here to secure this situation. He Then the Prince realized his mind was wandering, even his exocortex had fallen silent while his human consciousness whirled in a dozen directions.
«Cognitive capability is impaired,» the exo finally announced, « by chemical reactions to the perception of incipient destruction. Injecting stabilizing compounds.» Xochitl felt a cool tickling sensation in his wrists and raised his hands in confusion. A moment passed before the thudding of his heart slowed and his mind cleared.
When the Prince focused again on the engineer, Helsdon was looking up at him in puzzlement, and as if at an equal. You shall not think me incapable of the task! Xochitl took a deep breath. “Can this sensor array be reconfigured? Tweaked to detect the barrier?”
“It will be slow work.” Helsdon squinted at the intentionally simple capsule controls. “But we-” He paused, staring at the navigational plot. “Isn’t that one of ours?”
***
Kosho watched with interest as the Khaid flotilla in the area around the Pinhole-at last-reacted to the Naniwa ’s approach. Intermittent bursts of message traffic came and went on the enemy channel and now they were chattering away again. The enemy battleships began to accelerate, swirling out and away from the entrance to the gap like a flock of huge, ungainly birds. Her eyes narrowed to see they were keeping reasonable cohesion and spacing, even when forced to redeploy from disorder.
But they had reacted a little too slowly, given her approaching speed.
“Salvo one away,” Konev reported, and the rumbling echo of launch rails discharging followed hard on his words.
A flight of shipkillers winged away from the Naniwa in a black wedge-exhausting the last of her ready magazines. Konev had been refining their attack vector for the past sixteen minutes and a formation of the remote platforms winged in, leading the swarm of Tessen missiles. With the response time from the remotes looping back through the main t-relay, the weapons officer had shortened his reaction time to the counter-missile storm erupting from the lead battleships. They had also pushed forward the reach of Naniwa ’s countermeasures.
“Lead remotes going to rapid-fire,” the Thai-i announced.
The flare of antimatter detonations began to spark in the darkness, almost lost against the fantastic roil of colors from the dust clouds. The Naniwa ’s course shifted a point, driving hard against the edge of the Khaid formation, running in hot behind the glare of the sprint missiles discharged from the remote platforms. A secondary cloud of anti-missile munitions had also hared away from the remotes and these slashed into the midst of the Khaiden point-defense, confusing their targeting and ripping up their own counter-missile launch.
The wave of Tessens hammered into the most exposed of the Khaid battleships. A cluster of brilliant flares erupted, each shipkiller warhead separating into dozens of laser emitters. A stabbing white glare rippled from one end of the Khaid battlewagon to the other, shredding shipskin and gun nacelles, cracking open the hardpoints at each rail launcher. The ship shuddered, veering off, and then two of the big maneuver drives blew apart, disgorging clouds of debris.
“Secondary remotes going to full burn… now.”
The other Khaiden ships burst away from the impact point, assuming she was trying to catch them edge-on, where their own fire would be blocked by friendly ships. Missiles and beam-weapons licked out at the speeding
Imperial ship. The Naniwa swerved, punching into the dispersing formation where the battleship had fallen from line. The battle-cruiser’s beam-weapons lashed across the nearest Khaiden battleship. Anion impacts rippled over the flank of the bulky ebon vessel, but Kosho had no interest in going toe to toe with such a behemoth. Instead, the Naniwa slipped past, spewing a tight cloud of decoys-the last of the scavenged remotes-that raced off at a sharp angle, breaking for open space, away from the Barrier.
The Khaid ships swung round, belching more shipkillers and penetrators, their formation coalescing again. The Naniwa, engines dead for the moment, plunged into the Pinhole along the drive-plume of the stricken battleship. Only moments from crossing the Barrier line, Kosho jerked back from her executive threatwell as the entire constellation of icons and designators shifted abruptly. Looking up at the main holocast, she saw the familiar symbols winking out, replaced by a crude new array of glyphs flaring to life in the holo.
“What-”
Holloway pointed at Gretchen, his face ashen. Most of the navigator’s v-panes now showed a stream of unintelligible symbols and distorted images. “Shift piloting control to console two,” Susan barked, startling the Command watch from stunned panic.
“No,” Gretchen choked out, barely able to speak. The information density flowing across her v-displays was so dense, even with the assistance of the oliohuiqui to focus her mind she could barely process a tenth of the flood of images, sounds, models, and diagrams rushing past. She was grappling with an overwhelming-and terrifying-sensation that node 3^3 3 had woken from some ancient sleep. That the interfaces she had discovered-and prodded and poked-had been operating in some quiescent, dumbed-down state. Now, with the flood of information rolling in from the Naniwa ’s sensor array, the device had improved itself, or recalled capabilities long left idle.
Now she was giddily happy that the only communications method between her and the machine was a keypad-a stylus-what her visual perception could reveal. A more direct connection, she was sure, would have rendered her insensate. And mad, very definitely mad.
“I can’t fly this thing,” Anderssen gasped. “I’ll draw a path. You’ll have to follow.”
“Piloting control to console one,” Kosho commanded, settling her shoulders. Holloway was frozen, agog at the transformation of his control surfaces. In the threatwell, patterns of constantly shifting veils were beginning to emerge from the confusion of symbols and diagrams. Susan tried to focus, finding the hubbub amongst the Command crew distracting and the gelatinlike fluidity of the new control surfaces difficult to grasp.
Despite this, the Naniwa plunged through the Pinhole and into the unknown spaces beyond. Kosho’s grasp of the new controls-and of the information contorting her threatwell-grew rapidly. Her hands light on the flight interface, she sidestepped past both a stricken Khaiden destroyer and the spray of filaments which had torn the warship to shreds.
To Susan’s right, on the second tier of Command, Anderssen was beginning to groan in a peculiar way, as though iron nails were being driven into her eyes.
***
Down in medical, Hummingbird opened one eye to a bare slit. He’d heard nothing for the past fifteen minutes, which augured well. The second eye opened and he turned his head gently. No one was in sight-not a marine guard, not a medical officer, not even his lovely assistant. Alone at last, the old Mexica sat up, moving slowly, letting his heartbeat return to normal, blood flow resuming.
The poor vitals showing on the med-panel ticked up to normal after a few minutes. The nauallis listened again-now hearing and feeling the vibrations of a ship operating at high velocity-ignored the warning lights blinking on the med-panel, and jacked his remaining comp into the nearest access port. Then he lay back down, clasped both hands on his chest, and closed his eyes again.
Streams of data played out on the inside of his eyelids, including a navigational feed of the various ships in motion around the periphery of the Pinhole. His t-relay-despite being bounced around a bit-was still in operation. A quick diagnostic check indicated the unit was receiving and transmitting. Good. Hummingbird gauged distances and times, then toggled open a subaudible channel.
Have done, winged out into the night, directly to one of the Khaid command ships.
***
“It is ours,” Xochitl snarled as his exo whispered the name of the approaching Imperial ship and her commander, along with pertinent details of crew, tonnage, and weapons systems. “Set an intercept course, Engineer, and speedily, too. She’s faster than Lucifer himself and will not wait!”
He turned away from the engineer, his exo supplying a visual overlay for the communications controls in the capsule. Ghostly images emerged in his sight, highlighting the necessary mechanisms. The Prince keyed up a comm channel and sought handshake with the fast-approaching battle-cruiser.
Behind the Naniwa, the Khaid fleet-now minus another battleship-had regrouped again. This time they did not speed in pursuit, but watched with interest, waiting for the reckless Imperial commander to obliterate his ship in the same spectacular way that had consumed so many of their fellows. The Khaid destroyers were already beginning to withdraw to a safe distance.
***
“Incoming comm,” Chu-i Pucatli blurted in surprise. “Flash traffic from the Flag!”
The corner of Kosho’s lip curled up. Her whole attention was devoted to gentling the battle-cruiser through the drifting shoals of threads as fast as Gretchen could pump navigational data into the threatwell. Holloway-the only officer now at loose ends on the bridge-was obliged to take the call and blanched to find himself face-to-face with a ragged-looking Imperial Prince in smoke-stained combat armor. A cluster of other faces peered over the Tlatocapilli ’s shoulders, and none of them looked at all well.
“Slow and take us aboard, ” the Prince demanded. “I’m transmitting our coordinates now.”
A winking dot appeared in the threatwell, drifting steadily towards an effusion of threads.
“We’re maneuvering to intercept you…” Xochitl continued, pausing to wipe his forehead. He was sweating profusely.
“No!” Holloway turned, staring hopelessly at his captain. “ Chu-sa
… it’s the Gensui! He’s on that evac-”
“Tell him to stop and wait.” Kosho’s patience had long since reached its limit. In her hands the battle-cruiser jerked and jumped from side to side, swerving around individual threads. Her nerves were stretched tight, tensed for the instant when she missed one of the deadly filaments and the Naniwa squealed in agony as armor and shipskin parted before an unbreakable razor. “ Thai-i, if you can devise a way to bring them aboard at speed-I’m open to suggestions-but I am not slowing down. Not for him.”
The Wilful
Well away from the Khaid squadron concentrated at the Pinhole, the little freighter went about her salvage work. She loitered amongst the dust clouds, letting the dim violet glow wash over her, while the passive sensors on the hull boom listened hopefully for the sound of Imperial distress beacons, or the drive signatures of shuttles or other Fleet boats.
On deck two, the pair of Fleet ratings arrived at the medical closet, their companion unconscious between them. Captain De Molay was standing at the entrance to the medbay, one hand clutching the edge of the platform, the other resting on the grip of her Bulldog. Her pallor matched theirs, though she was in better color than the man who’d lost his foot.
“Stop right there, Sho-i.”
All of the Falchion crewmen halted, their eyes fixed on the remarkably steady muzzle of the Webley. The ensign managed a “ Hai, kyo! ” and the start of a salute. The other Joto-hei just stared, struggling to support the wounded man.
“At ease, gentlemen,” she said, lowering the pistol. “And raise your faceplates. I’m breathing decent air. Let your recyclers take a rest-you may need them again! I’m not going to shoot you. At least, not yet.”
The two able-bodied men opened their helmets. Together, they hoisted the wounded sailor
into the med-bay, though his limbs were limp and difficult to manage. De Molay examined the severed foot, which was tightly bound in someone’s shirt. The fabric was caked with blood. Her lips drew into a tight, pale line. “Has this man had treatment?” Her sharp gray eyes raked over each of them in turn.
“Only the tourniquet,” the Sho-i said wearily. “I lost my medpack and trauma kit when we blew atmosphere. There were only the most minimal supplies on the shuttle…”
“You’re a medic, then?” De Molay took the opportunity to slide to the floor, breathing fast, and get her back to the wall. “Your name, please.”
“ Hai, kyo. I’m Ensign Galliand, gun-i from the Falchion and this is Gunner’s Mate Tadohao.”
“Well met, gentlemen,” she said, then gestured weakly at the med closet controls. “Do what you can for him…”
Galliand wiped his face, which was caked with soot and sweat, then began unsealing the injured man’s z-suit. Tadohao joined in, holding the man steady. After a few moments, medpacks were secured to the damaged leg and their status lights were winking amber. The corpsman paused again, using some antiseptic towelettes from the bay to clean his hands and the rest of his face. Tadohao didn’t seem to mind the grime, hunkering down beside De Molay with his head in his hands.
“I am Captain De Molay,” the old woman said. “Your z-suits are severely damaged. The Falchion was destroyed?”
Galliand nodded. “She’s gone, kyo. We were in the throughway between the forward magazines and the gun-deck-Tado and I were clearing out some men wounded when one of the launch rails jammed with a sprint missile in the tube. No one noticed it had hung fire, and then the weapon blew-taking out the whole rail and an adjacent compartment. Then we got hit by something big and the throughway was engulfed in flame. The Thai-i dragged us out-I must have been unconscious for a bit-but we made it to a cargo shuttle.” He shook his head, only just beginning to grasp what had happened. “Risen Christ, that was close!”
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