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IV. pleyver: space force medical station

Beka saw the hinges of the door glow red. “Here they come!” she shouted as the door fell inward. The clerk/comptech beside her hadn’t moved. “Fire, damn you!”

The flare launcher went off with a whump, and the attackers charged in through smoke and blazing light.

You’ve only got a little time before their eyes adjust, Beka thought. Make the most of it.

She heard the clerk/comptech shout a warning as she stood up for a clear line of sight on the attackers’ point man. A blaster bolt burned into the stack of boxes with a sound like water hitting hot metal. She ignored it and fired, smiling with satisfaction as she saw the bolt connect.

Got you, you bastard! She aimed and fired again.

A harsh grating noise broke her concentration. She looked to the right and saw the lift doors opening. They must have climbed down the shaft, she thought. Peyte fired off another flare toward the new sound, and the blaster beams that had been coming from the Professor’s position switched from the stair door to the lift entrance.

Peyte’s flare exploded into deep crimson flame. Over by the stairway door, meanwhile, his first star was guttering out. The white light faded and died. Seconds later five attackers burst out of the smoke in front of the barricade, looming enormous against the bloodred light of the second flare.

They’re right on top of us! Beka shot the first one, and then another, but the other three kept coming. She took aim at the closest, and fired again.

Nothing happened.

No charge. You’ve had it, my girl.

She threw the useless weapon full force at the nearest of her assailants. The heavy blaster hit him squarely in the forehead, and he went down. She heard the sound of the flare launcher going off again beside her. The star hit one of the two remaining men in the belly. He screamed—a high, rising note that got inside her skull and wouldn’t stop—and began to roll on the floor.

Beka drew her knife and braced herself as the last man leaped over the barricade and tackled her. He was almost as big as her brother Ari, and had momentum on his side. She went down backward with him on top, and barely remembered to fall the way the Professor had taught her.

She felt a muscle in her leg twist anyway as she hit the concrete, with the big man landing on top of her at full length.

“What the hell?” she heard him grunt, on a note of surprise. “This one’s a bitch!”

She shoved the dagger home between his ribs.

His heavy body went limp, pressing her down on the floor. She cursed in every language she knew, and half-pushed, half-squirmed her way out.

The clerk/comptech was staring at her. Beka thought for a moment that he’d heard the dead man’s last words, and felt a surge of blind panic. Then she followed his eyes down to the bloody knife she’d pulled from the man’s side as she wiggled free, and understood.

She gave Peyte what she hoped was a reassuring smile. The young man flinched. She shrugged. The hell with it, then.

She stood the rest of the way up and took a deep breath. The lieutenant commander would have to hear her from up in the front, and the Professor from wherever he had moved to since he’d fired last.

“Fall back!” she shouted. “Fall back!”


Tarnekep’s voice came to Jessan over the sound of blaster fire. “Fall back! Fall back!”

About time, Jessan thought, and headed for the second pile of boxes. He was the first one there; a moment later, by the faint light still glowing off the interior wall, he could see Peyte coming, with Tarnekep limping alongside half-supported by the clerk/comptech’s shoulder.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, as soon as they got close enough.

“No,” said Peyte. “Just a twisted leg—not too bad. One of the bastards got over the barricade and jumped him.”

“Let me have a look,” said Jessan. He went down on one knee and reached out to make an examination by touch in the near-dark.

Tarnekep pulled away in a move that had his bad leg almost buckling, and the dying light glinted off a knife blade in the Mandeynan’s hand.

“You keep your damned hands off of me!”

Jessan drew his hand back and stood up slowly. “That’s fresh blood,” he said, in as calm and even a voice as he could manage. “Yours?”

“Of course not.”

But the knife didn’t go away, and Jessan watched the Mandeynan’s tense face for a stretched-out moment before another voice said, “Gently, Tarnekep. The young man meant no harm.”

Tarnekep gave a long sigh, and Jessan saw the lean frame relax. The four of them leaned against the packing crates while the last light from the star-flares faded and died.

Muffled sounds came from the darkness toward the front of the bay. “How’s the charge in your blaster, Commander?” the Professor asked.

“Damn near flat, I’m afraid.”

“Then you’ll need to make every shot count. But still—better to shoot as though you have all the charge in the world, than to let them know you’re running out. Tarnekep?”

“I ran dry up front,” said the gunfighter.

“Stay out of it unless they overrun us. Peyte—how many more flares do you have?”

“We’re down to the last one.”

“Save it, then.”

More noises drifted toward them from the forward part of the cargo bay.

“Commander,” murmured the Professor, “if you would be so good as to throw out a piece of your spare change . . . ”

Jessan fumbled in his pocket for a tenth-credit bit, and tossed it out over the crates in the direction of the rustling noises. The coin hit the concrete with a high, metallic chink, and a blaster beam lanced out at the sound.

The Professor fired at the source of the bolt. By the brief light of the shot, Jessan saw a man fall to the floor—dead or cowering, he couldn’t say.

Another beam flashed up through the stacks of boxes. Jessan fired back, with no result that he could see. The firing speeded up and began to work its way closer, shot by shot. He and the Professor were soon returning to fire alternately between them, and there was no time left to wonder about results.

“My compliments,” said the Professor, when the interchange slackened for a moment. “For a medic, you shoot well.”

“You’ve guessed my guilty secret,” said Jessan. “I was on the Academy target team, the year we went to the Galactic finals. But believe me—” Two beams passed close above his head, and he threw himself against the boxes. “—I made a habit of standing at the other end of the range back then.”

“It’s only a matter of time before they rush us,” said Tarnekep’s voice out of the darkness near his ear.

“You’re just saying that to cheer me up,” replied Jessan under his breath. “I’d hate to think—what’s that noise?”

A pause followed. The Professor traded blaster bolts with someone unseen out in the darkened bay, and the faint sound grew steadily louder.

“Light orbit-to-atmosphere cargo craft, putting down on jets,” said Tarnekep, with more emotion in his cool voice than Jessan had heard all evening. “Your shuttle’s coming.”

“Right,” said Jessan. “I don’t know about the two of you—but when the Midnight Special pulls out, the Space Force is going to be on it.”

“You won’t get any argument from us, Commander,” said the Professor. “Time to fall back to the doors. Peyte, if you would be so good as to lend Tarnekep your shoulder again and move on out ahead—”

“No trouble.”

“Excellent.”

Jessan heard the clerk/comptech and the Mandeynan moving off at a limp-and-shuffle.

“Commander, you and I will have to cover the rear. I anticipate a rush as soon as our friends hear the shuttle and realize we’re leaving.”

“We can always hope they’re deaf and stupid,” said Jessan. And then, as at least five blaster beams lit up the air in front of him from positions uncomfortably close—“No, I guess they’re not. Let’s get going.”

“Wait for a count of five, then move back,” said the Professor, fading off into the darkness.

“Right,” said Jessan, to the air where the older man had been a second earlier. He directed a beam of his own into the darkness and began a subvocal count.

One . . . two . . . fire again . . .  three . . . damn, that came close! . . . four . . . standing here lighting myself up like a holosign at midnight, I must be crazy . . . five, and move!

A blaster fired from behind him—the Professor, that would be, taking up the job of providing cover. Jessan loped past him toward the doors, counting as he went. On five, he stopped running and began firing to another count, until once again the Professor’s blaster lit up the darkness.

A long-legged man in no particular hurry could cross the clinic’s cargo bay from lift doors to blast doors in a little over a Standard minute, and run it in less. In objective time, Jessan realized, their leapfrogging journey back to the auxiliary door couldn’t be taking much longer—which fails to explain, he thought, caroming off a metal crate he’d forgotten was in the way and swearing in High Khesatan, Galcenian, and Nammerinish backwater-talk all at once, why enough time’s gone by since we started for hell to freeze over and all my hair to go grey.

He found the back wall by running into it, and was so grateful for its presence that he didn’t bother to swear this time. He only sagged against the reinforced plast-block, breathing hard, until he could ask, “Are we all here?”

“All present or accounted for, Doc,” said Peyte, “And Namron’s still with us.”

“Had it easy,” came the petty officer’s faint voice from the floor. “Only had to lie here and watch the fireworks. Must have been . . . fun up front.”

“A laugh a minute,” Jessan assured him.

“Tarnekep,” said the Professor, “you have good ears. Has our taxi landed?”

“She’s down,” said the Mandeynan. “But let’s give them a while longer to open up and lower the ramp.”

“Can you walk on that leg?” Jessan asked.

He heard the gunfighter laugh, a bit shakily. “The question is, can I run on it?”

“Adrenaline’s a marvelous thing,” said Jessan. “Run now, pay later—but I think you’d better take my blaster and let Peyte and me carry Namron.”

Whatever Tarnekep might have said was cut short by a whoop from Peyte. “Here they come, Doc!”

Jessan slapped his blaster into the Mandeynan’s lean, sinewy hand, then bent with Peyte to scoop up Namron, one of them under each of the petty officer’s arms.

They backed up to the auxiliary door, and Jessan reached around to slap the ID plate. He heard the locks click over, and threw his shoulder against the opening lever. The door swung open. He and Peyte half-backed, half-fell with Namron out onto the apron around the shuttle pad. Tarnekep and the Professor followed, firing back into the darkened bay.

“Son of a bitch!” Peyte yelled, as a blaster beam flashed past them out of the bay. The bolt came so close that Jessan could see Peyte’s indignant expression by its light. The clerk/comptech lifted his flare launcher and fired their last flare back into the doorway.

“Come on,” said Jessan to the comptech. With Namron hanging limp between them, they turned and ran awkwardly toward the shuttle. The supply craft sat door open and ramp down in the center of the landing pad. Its pilot and flight engineer stood together at the top of the ramp, paralyzed by the scene.

Jessan had to admit the sight was spectacular. Sizzling rays of red, green, and blue-white came from the auxiliary door and from both sides of the pad, filling the air around the shuttle with a brilliant, deadly interlace of colored fire. By the intermittent, strobe-effect light, he could see the Professor and Tarnekep running on either side of him and Peyte, and firing as they ran.

“Space Force!” Jessan shouted at the shuttle crew over the whine of the blasters. “We’re Space Force! Let us in!”

One of the two figures on the ramp moved to do something—raise the ramp, toggle on the force field, duck out of the way, Jessan never knew. From out of the darkness came the ugly snarl of a crew-served energy gun, and one of the colored beams threading the darkness with light went into the doorway and brought down pilot and engineer together. One of the figures fell forward off the ramp onto the pad, and the next flash of light showed his head a blackened lump. The other staggered as the bolt hit, grabbed the frame of the door, and sank backward into the darkness as Tarnekep and the Professor reached the top of the ramp.

The one on the ground’s dead for sure, Jessan told himself, as he and Peyte dragged Namron the last few steps over the threshold. The one inside . . . get the door shut first, and then take a look.

He hit the Raise Ramp button as soon as his boots touched the deckplates. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tarnekep slam down the Close Door lever with a doubled fist and vanish in the direction of the cockpit controls.

“This one’s still breathing,” said Peyte, from the floor.

“Great. Let’s get her and Namron strapped down in the passenger compartment.”

They carried first Namron and then the shuttle crew member back into the passenger/cargo area. Namron looked like hell, but he was still alive—barring accidents, he’d probably make it to draw his pension after all. The shuttle crew member had caught the sideshock from the heavy beam that had killed her partner; her burns were nasty but not fatal.

“Watch those straps!”

“Sorry, Doc.”

No time now to pick out cloth from skin . . .  give her a general-purpose antibiotic and a painkiller, and sort things out when we get to High Station.

“Pass me the first-aid kit.”

“I don’t see one, Doc.”

“You’re standing on it, that’s why—pass it over.”

He’d finished taking care of the two casualties and was about to strap in for lift-off himself when the Professor reappeared. “Commander—could you come forward, please?”

“These two need me here.”

“Do you know the passwords and procedure to get us into the Space Force docks on High Station?”

“Yes,” said Jessan. “But—”

“Then these two need you more where you can get at the comm panel.”

He’s got a point, Jessan admitted to himself. “All right, I’m coming. Peyte, the casualties are all yours. Squawk if anything changes.”

“Right, Doc. Be seein’ you.”

Jessan followed the Professor forward. The older man took the fold-down seat at the right rear of the cabin, which left only the copilot’s seat to the right of Tarnekep. Jessan slid in and strapped down.

“How’s it going?”

“Shut up,” said Tarnekep, without looking away from the control panel. “I’ve never flown one of these before.”

It might have been the first time he’d seen the controls, but the Mandeynan was doing a preflight run-up without benefit of checklist just the same. Space Force would have lifted the certification of any pilot who got caught cutting so many corners—if any Space Force pilot had dared to try it in the first place—but Tarnekep carried it out with an impression of competence that Jessan found oddly familiar.

Now where have I . . . never mind. He knows what he’s doing, so let him be.

The medic looked away from Tarnekep’s intent profile—with no eye patch visible, the sharply cut features didn’t look so much vicious as plain dead-tired—and watched the external scan screens instead.

He wasn’t encouraged by what he saw. Peyte’s last flare had torched off the cartons inside the bay. The flickering red light illuminated teams of men at work out on the pad. One group was trying to burn through the shuttle’s hull by means of concentrated blaster fire on a single point. Another group was busy at the airlock door with a torch. A third group was doing something just out of sight of the scan, down around the landing legs. Somehow, the fact that exactly what they were up to wasn’t visible made Jessan more nervous than the activities of all the others put together.

Tarnekep finished his check-and-flip of the major systems and looked up at the scans. “Fry, you sons of bitches,” he said, and hit the jets.

Sudden acceleration pressed Jessan back into his seat—far too much boost for a craft with casualties on board. Just as he was about to protest, Tarnekep cut the power, flipped the craft onto its back, and began a rapid sideslip. Then, just as suddenly, the Mandeynan hit the boosters and headed for orbit.

I haven’t had a ride like this since I left Nammerin, thought Jessan. And a good thing, too. He cleared his throat and asked quietly, “What was that trick in honor of?”

“In case they fired off a heat seeker,” Tarnekep muttered, still intent on the controls.

“Oh,” said Jessan, and abandoned the subject.


The shuttle exited the atmosphere in a pop-up, and then went into a flat dive to orbit, gaining speed all the while. Tarnekep was muttering under his breath. “No sign of High Station—must be farside right now. Commander—what’s the frequency for Space Force Control?”

“One fifty-six point two,” he answered. “Why?”

“Get on it, and tell them that we’re coming in.” The Mandeynan didn’t wait for a reply, but went back to muttering over the console readouts. “Where the hell is High Station . . . ah, there’s the bastard. Here we go.”

The long fingers played over the shuttle’s controls. With a touch of the lateral jets, the craft was falling around the planet along a new and fractionally different orbit.

Jessan pulled his attention away from Tarnekep’s disturbingly familiar piloting to pick up the shuttle’s external comm link. He keyed in the Space Force restricted channel.

“High Station Pad, High Station Pad, this is Medical Station Pleyver actual, over.”

“Roger Medical Station, go,” replied the tinny voice of the comm link.

How do I put this? he wondered. Oh, well—details now, explain later.

“Pad, I’m in trouble. I have casualties on board. Request you call dirtside Security and ask them to investigate the site of the former Space Force Medical Station. Over.”

Silence from the comm link.

“Do we have a problem?” asked Tarnekep.

“Shouldn’t have,” said Jessan. “Right now, they’ll be matching my call against my voicefile to see if I’m really me.”

The comm link spoke up again. “Med Station, this is High Station Pad. Request you authenticate. Over.”

“Pad,” Jessan said again, “this is Med Station Pleyver. I authenticate one-five-seven. Request you authenticate. Over.”

“I authenticate three-five-two,” said the comm link. “Commander, are you all right? Over.”

“I’m fine,” said Jessan, “but I’ve got four casualties—”

The Professor’s quiet voice came from behind him. “Two casualties—we won’t be staying.”

“Correction, two casualties, and there’s been an attack on the clinic. Recommend you go to General Quarters. Over.”

“We are going to General Quarters at this time,” said the comm link. “Awaiting your report, out.” The link clicked off.

Jessan gave a deep sigh. “And that should get us home safe . . . but I hate to think of the paperwork.”

Tarnekep laughed briefly. “If you don’t like paperwork, you’re working for the wrong firm.” A pause, and then, as the massive artificial moon came up over the rim of the planet, “There she is: Pleyver’s better half.”

High Station Pleyver had been one of the first of the orbiting communities built in the economic boom that followed the end of the Magewar. By now the enormous, gaudy globe housed everything from spacedocks to luxury hotels, and had only historical ties to the world below. Most of the time, in fact, the planet and its late-born satellite competed for the lucrative spacing trade.

Tarnekep looked at the station, and then at the console readouts. He did calculations in his head—if he did any at all—and fired the aft and lateral jets. The shuttle skidded obediently into a matching orbit for the approach.

It was a maneuver held at a higher speed than Jessan had ever seen, and done with casual, almost unconscious ease. He’d only known one other pilot who worked with such effortless assurance—and his friend Ari had gotten both his technique and his reflexes from the Magewar’s most famous starpilot.

“If I didn’t know better,” Jessan said aloud, “from the way you fly this ship I’d say your last name ought to be Metadi.”

The quiet in the shuttle cockpit congealed into a profound stillness. Jessan felt a cold sensation growing in the pit of his stomach. I think I’ve just said something very stupid. Next to him, without looking away from the forward screens, Tarnekep drew the blaster he’d taken from Jessan earlier and pointed it at the medic’s head.

“I meant that as a compliment, you know,” Jessan said, holding himself perfectly still. “The suggestion was only figurative.”

The muzzle of the blaster didn’t waver. On the other hand, he was still alive, which counted for something. Jessan looked more closely at the pale, intense profile of the man on his left.

Ari Rosselin-Metadi, who was bigger than just about anybody, would stand at least a foot taller than the Mandeynan, with a massiveness of bone and muscle lacking in the slim and wiry Tarnekep. In both men, though, the arrogant line of nose and chin could have come off any Eritiboran coin ever struck—which let out any chance that the gunfighter might have been one of the General’s youthful indiscretions come home to roost.

Ari’s only brother is an apprentice Adept back on Galcen, I remember him saying so—and whatever this one may be, he’s certainly no Adept. That leaves . . . no, that’s impossible.

Jessan looked again. The Mandeynan’s accent—pure aristocratic Galcenian, mixed with Gyfferan whenever he swore or talked piloting—could have been Ari’s; but Tarnekep’s voice was a light, clear tenor, instead of Ari Rosselin-Metadi’s rumbling bass. And the gunfighter’s loose Mandeynan shirt, with its elaborate cravat and ruffled cuffs, masked the lines of the torso and hid the betraying structures of neck and wrist.

Wrong. It’s not impossible. If it were impossible, she wouldn’t be pointing a blaster at your head right now.

“Beka Rosselin-Metadi,” he said. “I sent your brother a Card of Grief when I learned of your death.”

She didn’t say anything. The shuttle held on its course for the High Station Pad, and what he could see of the pilot’s face was as closed and unreadable as before.

He felt no surprise, only a kind of inevitability, when he heard the Professor speak up behind him. “Commander,” said the soft, polite voice, in an accent he recognized too late as prewar Court Entiboran, “I’m afraid you’ll be coming with us.”



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