“Passing the plane, Kez Maefele. Sixteen hours to the strand. Shall we take off the tumble?”
“Not yet.” Ghosts off tumbling Stealth surfaces were more likely to filter out of a detection system than those off a steady surface.
One of his people said, “Been a long time, hasn’t it? I forgot how tense it gets.”
Turtle nodded. They had done this often in the old days, mostly going in to attack, usually against watchers less alert.
He tried to calculate the position of the rock causing the excitement. Not that far away. That was not good.
Course adjustments had the rider running straight at the false Guardship. What detection and comm capacity were mounted there? He would not have bothered, himself.
He would know soon enough.
He was tempted to take it out as he passed, as a rude farewell, but that was not a Ku sort of gesture.
Thirteen hours. The fighter had faded from detection and had become one probability point among dozens deduced from comm transmissions. The riderships were fading. Nothing lay between them and the strand but the decoy, four hours away.
Eleven hours. Nothing but probability points on screen. They were through. He gave permission to stabilize ship. “Twenty minutes to drive on line. Five percent.” That would not generate enough emissions to stand out against the background of the universe. He would kick it up gradually....
“Kez Maefele!”
“I have it.”
The interceptor had come out of nowhere, burning a hole through vacuum, headed toward VII Gemina, running with nothing but nav scan extended.
Crack! It was gone.
“The IFF steal worked.” Turtle sighed. “I was afraid we hadn’t gotten enough data.” It was another old trick, stealing the enemy’s mutual identification signals. “They must have an emergency aboard.”
WarAvocat was exhausted. It remained only for Aleas to cry uncle....
“Anomaly, WarAvocat.”
“Hunh?” The air had spoken.
Everyone in Hall of the Watchers froze, stared with wide, terrified eyes.
Damn! What a time for it to happen. “Explain, please.”
Inbound interceptor DZ539, with a medical emergency, nearly collided with a rider. IFF exchange went normally but rider JV47 is supposed to be on station several hours away. Comm check shows JV47 maintaining station properly.”
“Goma Maradak!” WarAvocat swore.
“What?” Aleas asked.
“The Goma Maradak waste space. We used it for training during the Ku Wars. It resembled places the Ku liked to hide. When XXV Iberica went in, the Dire Radiant was hiding there. They stole IFF signals, took a dozen ships into rider bays.... They stole IFF throughout the war. And now he’s pulled it again, walking right through pretending to be one of us.”
But when he ran data from the region, he could not find a hint of anything to support his suspicion. If Kez Maefele had come through, he had done so like a ghost.
Aleas thought, attacked the problem from a different perspective. She input the tumbling rider exiting the Starbase end space, the probe blossom, the missiles that had been detected at this end, and told Gemina to see if the known data forbade them being linked or made it impossible for that anomalous contact to be the Ku.
— 138 —
The rise in comm chatter was ominous. Turtle altered course a hair. “Get me a pod of missiles ready.” His people knew what to do. It would be a twist on another old trick. Several began the complicated programming.
Before they finished, the probability points on screen had shown drive sign. “That IFF didn’t fool them,” Turtle said. “Though they had to think about it for a while.”
“What’re you going to do?” Provik asked.
“Put a pod of missiles out running the vectors we were making when the interceptor spotted us. On scan they’ll echo like a rider. They’ll provide an IFF feedback. Another old trick.”
“What about us?”
“We’ll vanish. If the pod does its job, they’ll think we’re dead.”
Aleas had called in the secondaries to VII Gemina’s right and had sent riders from the center to the left. It would be hours before recovery was complete and the Guardship could move to the center of action.
“Contact report came. Right where it ought to be. IFF responder IDing ridership JV47.”
“That isn’t a VII Gemina rider,” WarAvocat said.
“Could the interceptor have made a mistake?”
“Of course. They were preoccupied. But I’ll bet they didn’t.”
Aleas moved ships to close a pocket around the contact. “You want them alive?” She knew he did.
He was troubled. This had developed too passively.
Aleas ordered a fighter closer to the target. There was a chance the Outsider really was crippled.
It did not respond to comm attempts, except for the automated IFF. It looked too cold to support life. “You think they might be dead?”
“No.” Because he did not want the Ku to evade him that way, either. Nor any of the others... He tried not to think about the artifact.
“We’ll know once Probe takes a look.”
The fighter drifted closer, ignored. Then, “I’m getting weird drive readings. Like they’re in bad shape. Starting to move. Turning toward the Web.”
WarAvocat was acutely aware that he was hearing news twelve minutes old. Neither he nor Aleas could control what was happening.
The fighter reported the rider’s drives behaving increasingly erratically. The senior officer present ordered the fighter to fire across the rider’s nose. The fighter closed in. “Can’t see them yet. Must be running high SCAM. Wait. There’s a drive glow....”
A static blast overrode the signal.
Turtle eased the rider up to the array proclaiming itself a Guardship. It was bigger than he had hoped.
Provik and his girlfriend, Blessed and the Valerena, were EVA. Only they could squeeze into Outsider suits. They floated ahead, on tethers, opened a passage through the decoy’s titanium and filament frame. Turtle nudged the rider through. The people outside closed up behind.
Provik and his woman anchored the array to the rider. Blessed and the Valerena made connections so its broadcast output could be controlled from the ship. Both tasks took hours.
Turtle greeted them when they returned. “Good job. The pod just blew. From all the cursing it looks like they bought it.”
He went to the bridge, gently nudged the array toward the strand. He programmed the decoy’s output to decline gradually.
It would take longer to escape this way, but he felt good about his chances. Hell. They might even pull out now.
He settled down to rest, tried not to think about hunger.
WarAvocat retreated to his quarters to sulk. He slept for twelve hours. And awakened with the conviction that the Ku was not dead. But he could produce no rational support for the feeling.
“Access, Colonel Jo Klass. Klass, WarAvocat. Meet me in the aliens’ quarters.”
He stepped into the passageway — and found himself face to face with a naked woman, the most beautiful, erotically stimulating women he’d ever seen. She smiled as she passed.
He stared. No woman aboard VII Gemina looked that good. None ever had.
His voice squeaked. “Tawn?”
She smiled over her shoulder, turned into a cross corridor. He ran after her. When he turned the corner he saw no one.
Aleas would shit.
He wandered off to keep his appointment, bemused. That was enough to make you forget other women existed.
For a few minutes, anyway.
WarAvocat tightened his nostrils. He’d never get used to the smell. He told Klass. “There were several people on that rider they both knew. I want to know if they can be found the way Seeker found you.”
Klass was puzzled. “But they’re dead. I heard they tried to run on a bad drive and blew their Q.”
“Indulge me, Colonel.”
>
— 139 —
Turtle glared at the screen. VII Gemina had no reason to hang around but it was, still running random rider patrols. He could not get enough from their comm chatter to understand why.
Their presence kept him moving at a crawl. He was two hours from the strand. He would take this for one more, then he would run.
He had been telling himself that for eight hours. Gut it out another hour before making the run.
One of his nonKu said, “Kez Maefele, I’m getting a ghost. Not like anything I’ve ever seen.”
Turtle’s stomach grumbled as he bestirred himself.... “That’s a Guardship trying to run silent. They know we’re here. Stand by for violent maneuvers.” He surveyed screens. They had put out another decoy, then had sneaked around to get between him and the strand. Only you could not sneak with something that big.
The drives were warm. All go. “Ready?” He slammed it into the red. The rider ripped the decoy apart.
Immediately the screens sparkled with radiation from drives. He was not surprised. He would have sneaked up from behind, too. They would be decelerating to match his pace.
“Head straight for the strand. They won’t shoot right away.” He eased back on the acceleration. Had to hold something back. He would need it soon.
Jo stood on the operating bridge of a ridership clad in lightweight EVA armor used for boarding operations. She shared her post with Group Commander Colonel Haget. He had reverted to the Haget of old. They might never have met.
His task was to catch the Ku’s rider. Hers was to capture the Ku.
She said, “WarAvocat guessed right again.”
Haget grunted..
“That bastard can move.”
“We had a running start.”
No point being there with him. She joined AnyKaat and her troops, real soldiers who understood what it meant to be soldiers. AnyKaat was sweating. “Relax. Pretend it’s Merod Schene.”
“But it isn’t Merod Schene. And we aren’t up against retarded bastards.”
“True.” There were Ku aboard that rider.
“Boarders, stand by,” came by overhead.
Why the hell did WarAvocat want them alive?
Twenty riders in the pack, too close to escape. But not shooting. WarAvocat wanted prisoners.
Turtle felt he had no right to make a decision for everyone. “Listen up, please. We’re trapped. We’re one hour thirty-nine minutes from the strand with VII Gemina moving into our path. We have a slim chance because they want to capture us. If we go for that chance, we’ll have to fight. If we fight, the odds are they’ll kill us. Our deaths would have only symbolic value. Do we fight or surrender?”
His Ku did not hesitate. “We fight. They will kill us anyway.” The other soldiers agreed, as did Provik and his woman. Midnight and the Valerena disagreed. Which left Blessed.
“Put the women into an escape pod. Blessed, you have till it releases.”
Three minutes later the pod was away. Blessed Tregesser was not aboard it.
“First bunch closing.”
Four of them, in from each quarter. He had not yet fired. Neither had they. Why hadn’t they hit his vanes?
He waited till they were too close to raise screens.
He hit the two nearest with missiles, slammed on maximum dump, shot the other two in their drives, rotated ship violently and pushed it into the red, headed out the side of the pocket.
Metal shrieked. The rider staggered. Some rider commander with more guts than brains had permitted a collision and had grappled. Turtle could not break free. He put on violent pitch, roll, and yaw to keep another from grappling. The other ship fought him, but he had the more potent drives.
His soldiers went to greet the boarders.
That damned Haget was a madman. But he’d sure done his part.
The sucker was in place. Jo blew the charges, sliced a hole through the other hull. The assault squads charged. She and AnyKaat went over behind the first platoon.
There was a dramatic shift in gravitational attitude.
The Ku had exploited that moment of disorientation thoroughly. The first two squads had been slaughtered. Would a hundred soldiers be enough?
“AnyKaat. Move out aft. Come on, people! Move!”
The woman nearest her shed flesh and fire.
“Colonel Klass is aboard,” the air said. “JV83 is collecting the escape pod.”
“Very well.” WarAvocat was confident the artifact would be aboard. He knew the Ku that well.
Where the hell was Aleas? No one had seen her for hours.
Never had his people been so distracted and grim. They could not keep their minds on business. Damn Gemina! Why now?
There was no way to still their fears.
Four Ku stepped out of nowhere and killed the six Guardship soldiers guarding the connection with their rider. The four went across and killed their way toward the rider’s bridge.
AnyKaat was lost. Her helmet had gone out. She had dumped it. She had no way of knowing how Jo was doing.
Two-thirds of her force had been killed, mainly in hand-to-hand fighting. They had taken no prisoners. She had seen only two enemy dead.
The drive aft had stalled at a cross passage. Someone around there had killed three soldiers already, hitting them with inhuman quickness and accuracy when they tried the corner.
A soldier signed that he would throw a grenade and they should all charge. She nodded. He threw.
The grenade came back as they moved.
The mass of bodies shielded her from the worst, but concussion stunned her. She wobbled into the cross corridor, found herself face to face with Blessed Tregesser, Lupo Provik, and Provik’s girlfriend. The girlfriend’s eyes got big. She smiled. “This is for Merod Schene.”
AnyKaat joined Degas in the shadows.
Turtle continued wriggling so no other rider could grapple. He hit another two with his last two missiles. He got the drives of three more with his cannon. He dodged attacks on his own drives and vanes.
He was better than they, yes, but still their efforts seemed half-hearted. Why?
Comm. The team he had sent aboard the ridership. “We have the bridge, Kez Maefele.”
“Sabotage it and come back.”
“I can’t. Too badly hurt. The others are on their way. Stand by to seal the breach.”
“Right.” It was a warrior’s choice.
A red pinlight lighted. The patch was on. The light turned green. The patch was airtight.
The ridership turned loose.
Turtle slammed it into the red, raised screen, shot out of the crowd. The Ku who controlled the other rider hurled it between two others and blew the Q.
Twenty-six minutes to the strand. He was ahead of the pack and gaining. He put on all the ECM, SCAM, and Stealth he had.
VII Gemina sat squarely astride his path.
The hatchway ripped open. A squat, ragged Guardship soldier stumbled through. He moved. She shot his seat. “Told you I’d come, Ku.”
He slid around, darted in, knocked the weapon from her hand, kicked. “And I cautioned you that that would be fatal.”
The light went out of her eyes.
WarAvocat watched the Outsider rider hurtle closer. A report came saying the escape pod had contained the artifact and a second woman. “Ready the Hellspinners,” he ordered. Why the hell wouldn’t the Ku give up?
Twelve riders lost or damaged. A hundred boarders wiped out, probably. To what purpose?
He did not comprehend. Though now he knew he could have gone shitstorm in that end space.
Enough was enough. If the Ku insisted, then die he would.
“Access, the Deified Aleas Notable.”
After a long pause, a strained, “Yes?”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Here.” From one of the screens reserved for the Deified.
“What have you done?”
“I nearly lost my objectivity, Hanaver. I had to come back.”
<
br /> “But...”
“Don’t argue. There’s no point. You have a task to complete. Complete it.” She vanished.
He faced the wall display, sliced off the pain.
The Ku was coming like he meant to smash through VII Gemina.
He suffered an epiphany. He would not long survive the Ku. That was there in the way Aleas told him he had a job to finish.
The incoming rider adjusted course. The Ku would have to do more if he was not to overshoot the strand....
He laughed. “You bastard! I’ve seen this trick before.” The Ku would threaten collision till he raised screen, then would slide past without a shot being fired, too fast for the Hellspinners. Or, if the screen stayed down, he would run in on the skin of the Guardship, too close and fast to track accurately, holding himself in with strands of artificial gravity — till he decided to let loose and whipped off at some unpredictable angle.
WarAvocat gave orders.
Beams licked out. Shells ricocheted off the rider’s screen. A few Hellspinners rolled, just for effect. The rider came in like a Lock Runner.
It passed inside screen limit.
WarAvocat raised screen.
The Ku was trapped inside.
Provik said, “It didn’t work.”
“Not this time.” Turtle dumped velocity as violently as possible. He kept an eye on the surface of the Guardship. It took four orbits to shed speed. He put the rider down in a wasteland of battle damage, set SCAM to blend, cycled down as far as he could. “They can’t detect us here from inside or out. They’ll have to send searchers. Let’s hope they make a mistake before they find us.” He fought off weariness. “We have work to do. Those bodies have to go. Their equipment and weapons and rations have to be collected.”
WarAvocat watched the riders straggle in, ignoring the scrutiny of the Deified and live crew, wondering what next.
What next was the Ku would wait for him to screw up while he waited for them to get hungry and make their own mistake.
He issued general orders, said, “Bring the prisoners to my quarters when they arrive.” The hell with what anybody thought.