*
Time wore away, moment by unhappy moment, and the air grew steadily more foul. Rus toiled on, dragging loops and hanks and clots of cabling through the ship, cutting and splicing, measuring and testing, now and then sipping delicately from a respirator mask. The rest of the crew lay motionless, and panted. The ship’s chronometer snipped off each expiring second.
Finally, with only minutes to go before the Dubious Profit was due to emerge into the Issoar system, Rus came to the cockpit and declared that he had done all he could. “All told, I’ve shuffled enough energy around this tub to crack a moon in half,” he said to Hesperus. “Why we’re not enjoying a grandstand view of the inside of our own cosmic fireball, I don’t know. We should be. I can show you the mathematics.” He swayed, slightly. “Sweet death, maybe it did happen: maybe we’re all dead, and for my sins against the laws of physics I’m doomed to spend eternity on this scrap-iron ship of fools.”
Hesperus and Stepan were running through the last-minute arrival checks, dragging in ragged breaths and struggling to concentrate. Hesperus looked back over his shoulder at his engineer. Rus’s scales were pallid, his lips grey. “Very … very good, Mr Rus. All systems seem nominal. Or at least, as nominal as can be expected.” He turned back, and tapped at his console. “The laser … seems to have cooled, substantially …”
Rus groaned. “Don’t ask. Just … don’t ask. I have done things no engineer should ever have to do – to the ship, to my principles, to basic common sense. I can’t escape it: I have finally become a true member of your twiddle-brained crew. You’ve broken me, Hesperus. I hope you’re happy.” The chronometer chimed: one minute to go. “I’ll be in the engine room.” Head bowed, he slumped out of the cockpit.
The last seconds ticked away. Hesperus glanced across at Stepan: the navigator sat half-stunned, chewing at his jacket collar. Hesperus heaved another breath, and another. The air felt thick, and hot; a stew of fear and sweat and rank desperation. The viewscreen flashed into life, and the Dubious Profit erupted into Issoar space in a dazzling spray of radiation.
Instrumentation clicked on, as the ship’s systems grasped at the new reality all around. Hesperus spun up the engines, and – as he felt them bite into Issorvan spacetime – he punched at the torus drive. The stars shimmered as the Profit leapt forward, skimming towards the distant planet—
—and then locked immobile again, moments later, as the mass alarm blinked on. When the surrounding space was flat enough, the Profit could cruise up near to lightspeed; but any local disturbance – a nearby mass large enough to make a significant dent in spacetime, say, or another ship with a similar reactionless drive – and she was forced to creep along at a mere fraction of c.
Hesperus groaned. On the scanner, a single blip had appeared. A ship, warping into Issoar behind him. He slammed his hand against the console, and jabbed a finger at the scanner. “Stepan. We have company.” He flicked the screen to the rear view, picking out the delta shape of a Mamba’s hull, gleaming like a dagger in the blue Cherenkov glow of the Dubious Profit’s engines. A patch of stars trembled next to it; there was a bright flash, and a second Mamba appeared. The attack alarm warbled, detecting a weapons lock. Hesperus returned the compliment, keying the new arrivals into his targeting computer. The Mambas speared forward, fanning out.
Then came the moment he had been dreading: spacetime rippled, shuddered, bulged and burst apart in a blinding ball of light. The huge shark-shape of the Fractal Sacrifice poured out of witchspace, its long, predatory bow nosing round, homing in on the Dubious Profit.
Stepan gave a single, mewling yelp, almost swallowing the sodden fabric of his collar. Hesperus nodded. “I’ve seen it before.” He clicked to the forward view again, and peered desperately into the scanner’s little illuminated sphere. On either side, the Mambas sprang ahead, overhauling the Profit, arcing around like a pair of hunting dogs: astern, the Fractal Sacrifice cruised behind them. All three blips burned a hostile red. Not a single other ship was present in the local volume: not a convoy, not a lone trader, and certainly not Hesperus’s hoped-for patrol of police Viper interceptors. Hesperus cursed, fluently, soundlessly, heaping horror on Arae, Issoar, the Co-operative, the atmospheric reprocessors, Rus, fate, time and space. He drew a sobbing breath, clutched at the controls, and prepared to fight for his life.
The Mambas came at him, their lasers sparkling against the Profit’s forward shields. Hesperus pulled the ship up into a tumbling spiral: behind, the Fractal Sacrifice angled upwards, edging closer. At least she did not seem to be faster than the Profit; even with those titanic engines, her massive bulk seemed ponderous. Maybe there was still a chance. He had to keep his distance from her, despite the attentions of the two Mamba fighters. Hesperus pushed the Profit’s nose down again, keeping the Fractal Sacrifice astern.
To port and starboard, the Mambas swung lazily around, snapping fire at the Profit’s flanks. “Stepan,” Hesperus wheezed, sending the ship into a roll. “Missiles. The Mambas are locked in: launch the missiles, one on each, on my mark.”
Stepan made a muffled noise of assent, twisting the arming keys for the Dubious Profit’s two homing missiles. Currently the tubes held what the dealer had assured him were the very latest Faulcon de Lacey ship-to-ship ordnance, hardened against electronic countermeasures, and each easily sufficient to destroy a light fighter. If they hit. If they worked at all.
The Mambas raced past, curving away, preparing for another pass. Hesperus spun the ship about her central axis, aiming her broad belly towards one of the fighters. “Tube one, fire!” The Profit shuddered as the first missile burst from her, leaping off towards the hostile vessel. Hesperus leaned hard over, keeping her rolling. “Tube two, fire!” The second missile soared out, darting towards the other Mamba. Alarm signals burbled around the cockpit, and the scanner image pulsed and swayed: the Fractal Sacrifice, detecting missile launches, had triggered an ECM burst, filling the local volume with a storm of electromagnetic disruption, designed to fry the missiles’ tiny brains. The first missile detonated, a livid orange flash. The second seemed to stumble, hesitate – then surged on. Hesperus coughed, and gasped, and swung the Profit’s nose towards the first Mamba, which had turned again to face him. Behind him, the second fighter wrenched itself across the sky, darting side to side as the surviving missile stabbed towards it. The Fractal Sacrifice swam nearer.
Laser fire splashed and spattered across the Profit’s bows: her generators thundered, driving energy into the shields. Hesperus jerked and twisted the controls, nailing the fighter into his gunsights. The Profit’s laser blazed, burning across space and hammering the Mamba. The fighter staggered, dodged, and dived away. Hesperus slowed the ship, drove the Profit’s bows down, and accelerated in pursuit. Again, the Fractal Sacrifice manoeuvred behind, closing the angle.
“Missile two – hit!” cried Stepan, eyes on the scanner. “Got him!”
Settling the gunsights onto the fleeing fighter’s tail, Hesperus gave a croaking laugh. He jammed down the triggers: the Mamba’s hull glowed, boiled, and ripped apart into a cloud of flying fragments. “And got this one, too.” Then he hissed: the Fractal Sacrifice loomed closer yet. Worse, it now stood between the Dubious Profit and the planet Issoar.
“Hesperus.” A light, mocking voice came from the comms. “Are you still there? I wonder that you have not burst that rusted canister you call a ship … or ruptured your own filthy hide, and spilt the rotten contents of your carcase. I suppose the latter is too much to hope for. Doubtless I shall have to undertake that task myself.”
Hesperus heaved at the control yoke, looping the Profit away, and redlining the engines. The Fractal Sacrifice swayed, settling on course behind them. It drew no nearer, but it didn’t seem to be falling away, either. He flicked at the communicator, as if it might bite or burn him. “Ah … Arae—queen—your Majesty?” he said. “Please, Majesty, I beg you: let us go! What can it profit you to destroy such a poor, insignificant, abject, wretched ?
??” Was the Fractal Sacrifice edging closer?
“Profit!” Arae’s voice sang from the comms. “It’s not always about profit, Hesperus. Not in the here and now, at any rate. Sometimes, it is better to let immediate profit take a back seat, hmm? To invest for the future. One might enlarge one’s cargo bay, for example. Or do a favour for a fellow merchant. Or buy protection from some local brigand with a pretty gift.” She paused. “Here, though: here I am protecting what I have built. Unlike you, I must maintain my reputation, not forever flee from it. After your insult to me – to my station, to my realm – I find that your continued survival is too high a cost for me to bear. Fear is a valuable commodity: but it is volatile, and stocks can crash all too easily.” She sighed. “But do not let anyone say I lack mercy: if your crew, now, feed you out of your airlock in small pieces, then possibly—”
Hesperus snapped off the communicator, glancing sidelong at Stepan. He was grateful there was no external communicator in the engine room.
“Wow,” said Stepan, looking back at him. “Mad Arae!”
“Mad, yes, mad indeed,” said Hesperus. “Quite, quite mad. Totally untrustworthy and unreliable, can’t believe a single word she says.”
The rear shields screeched suddenly, as laser fire pounded at the ship. The range was still extreme, but Arae’s gunnery was precise. Alarms trilled and whooped as Hesperus yanked the Profit onto a reeling evasive course.
He was being driven ever further away from Issoar, from the main route from witchpoint to the planet, and from the possibility of succour. Worse, the Fractal Sacrifice had – perhaps – the slightest edge on the Dubious Profit in speed. Time and again, Arae’s laser blazed against his stern, forcing him to dodge and roll; each time he did so, the Fractal Sacrifice crept closer – and as the distance narrowed, the laser fire grew yet more accurate.
The air supply in the cockpit was scant, forcing Hesperus to fight for every breath. Stepan too sat gasping, struggling to focus. In desperation, Hesperus heaved back hard on the yoke, dragging the ship onto a perpendicular course. Flicking the screen to the rear view, he saw the Fractal Sacrifice’s nose swing upwards in anticipation. Quickly, he slammed the engines down to almost nothing, twirled the Profit through one hundred and eighty degrees, then rammed the drive back up to full speed. The Fractal Sacrifice, caught unawares, swayed, then smoothly looped around, settling once more onto a pursuit course. At minimum thrust, he could out-turn the larger vessel. He had gained a few klicks extra distance; not much, but it was something. If he could repeat that trick a few more times, then perhaps … the Fractal Sacrifice’s laser whipped out again, and again, and once more he had to jink and swerve.
He tried the manoeuvre again, picking a moment when the Fractal Sacrifice looked committed to a turn, then cutting off his engines to reverse course. This time, though, a seething violet glow gushed out from the engine housings of the pursuing ship, and the Fractal Sacrifice plunged forwards at a terrifying rate, rushing down on the Dubious Profit as she swung end over end. Hesperus had arrived in Issoar with his quirium fuel tanks virtually empty; all but a trace had been expended punching out the wormhole from Lerela. The Fractal Sacrifice, though, had ridden free, following in the Profit’s wake: her tanks were full. Unleashed in instantaneous explosions, quirium could gouge out wormholes; but injected and expended through a ship’s torus drive, it could – while it lasted – give a ship a massive boost to its velocity through normal space. Clearly, Arae could overhaul him any time she wanted.
Hesperus gave a wordless yell, and Stepan clutched at the console, his eyes screwed shut. The Fractal Sacrifice ballooned in the viewscreen, falling down on them like a meteor. Fighting with the control yoke, Hesperus spun the Profit, pouring energy into the ship’s labouring engines. The Fractal Sacrifice lanced past, a weak and watery reflection of the Dubious Profit visible in her gleaming hull. The vast ship’s stern shot by, engines pouring out a hellish purple radiation. Then the turrets which dotted her stern opened fire, sending up a barrage of plasma bolts that smashed against the Profit’s shields. The generators howled in protest, and a chorus of alarms began to shriek in sympathy.
Gulping at the rancid air, Hesperus flung the Profit away from the storm of plasma. The Fractal Sacrifice no longer stood between him and the planet: maybe – just maybe—
Stepan gave a strangled croak, flapping one hand towards the scanner. The savage red spark that represented the Fractal Sacrifice was rushing down on them again. Desperately Hesperus pulled on the controls; once again, the Fractal Sacrifice skimmed past them, missing them by scant metres; once again, from her stern, a torrent of plasma crashed out, thundering into the Dubious Profit. Red and amber warnings flared across Hesperus’s instruments. His vision swam; blood pounded in his ears. In front, the Fractal Sacrifice looped around once more, and began another run.
Hesperus screamed. The monstrous bulk of Arae’s ship filled his gunsights, and he poured laser fire against it. The Fractal Sacrifice’s shields glowed a little brighter. He jammed open the fuel injectors, spraying the last drops from his tanks into his engines. The Dubious Profit lurched forwards on a collision course. He struck off the cover guarding the cargo ejection system, and smashed down his hand on the release. Twenty-two tonnes of prime red wango were vomited up from the belly of the ship.
The Dubious Profit’s fuel injectors cut out, exhausted; her laser beat in vain against the Fractal Sacrifice’s shields.
Hesperus dragged on the yoke, sliding the Profit onto a new vector.
Twenty-two tonnes of prime red wango, moving with a relative velocity close to the speed of light, struck the onrushing Fractal Sacrifice’s shields and turned instantly into plasma.
Twenty-two tons of plasma, give or take, still moving at the same relative velocity, burst through those shields and slammed into the Fractal Sacrifice’s hull, slicing through duralium, burning brighter than the stars, slashing out a trail of horrifying destruction through the bowels of the ship.
The Dubious Profit slithered past: this time, no hail of fire rose up around them. But Hesperus had other concerns. A thick fug filled the cockpit; he coughed and choked, clawing at his throat. “Fire … fire … Stepan …”
The navigator, eyes wide, shook his head. “’S not fire,” he said. “Steam.” Condensation was pouring off the instrumentation, and Hesperus’s whiskers drooped with moisture. Stepan pointed up at the bulkhead: although the cockpit was clearing, gouts of steam still drooled from the ventilation ducts.
Hesperus blinked, and wiped his eyes. He peered at the scanner, and clicked the screen to the rear view again. The Fractal Sacrifice rolled in space, a livid, burning gash carved across her flank. As he watched, the huge ship trembled, and plasma jetted from her engine manifold. She bulged, once, twice – then split apart and vanished in a wash of light that overloaded the Profit’s filters and turned the screen momentarily black. When vision returned, nothing remained except an expanding shell of sparkling motes, fading out against the stars.
A squeaking, chittering noise caught Hesperus’s attention: two pairs of blue dots – tinged perhaps a little pink – peeped out at him from the misty ventilator grille. “Hespus?” cheeped a voice. “Hespus captain sir commander? Lord?” The dots blinked, slowly, and dipped low. “Money we not want, we happy, we work again, we pay rent! Please?”