Retreat, hell! We're just attacking in the opposite direction
—U.S. Marine Corps commander, Changjin Reservoir, Korea
I'm just too damned old for this. Renner gradually became aware . . .
. . . Cynthia was swearing in a loose-lipped mumble. Her body covered Bury's, obscenely, kissing . . . breath for him, squeeze his rib cage closed, blow into his mouth, squeeze . . .
Freddy said, "Atropos calling."
"Put'm through. . . . Hello, Rawlins." ' ;.
"Commodore, you're a flawless diamond on black velvet. Brilliant blue-white."
"Flattering. Ss'a quote—" From a historical novel, The Taking of Serpens Peak, just before the ship exploded. "Any threats here?"
"We're clear. Bandit Group One-Two-Three pulled well back from the Medina ships. East India is still holding the Crazy Eddie point for us, but not with enough ship to defeat what's coming here. Byzantium hasn't got here yet. Nobody's shooting at us. What's our move?"
Renner's eyes were properly focusing now.
"General order: Make for the Crazy Eddie point. Keep station with Sinbad. Are we in communication with the Motie fleet?"
"Yes. I'll relay."
Bury was trying to sit up. Cynthia braced him.
Renner didn't recognize the Motie on-screen. A young Mediator, presumably male. "Commander Rawlins has informed us that a large Khanate war fleet, too large for our power, will arrive here through the Sister within the hour," the Motie said. "I am ready to convey your instructions to our Master."
"Avoid combat with the main fleet," Renner said. "Preserve your power, but we want you to take out any command ship that comes through. We expect the main Khanate fleet to chase us. As long as it does, leave it alone, but we don't want that fleet to get new instructions.
"Same for the Jump point. Make it expensive to go back through the Sister. Their main war fleet can do anything it wants to, and you can't stop them, but you can stop them reporting back to the Masters on the other side with anything short of a real battle group. Do that, please."
"Instruction received. Stand by for acknowledgment."
What else? "Townsend, get us moving toward the Crazy Eddie point. Cynthia, how much can he stand?"
"Pulse is strong."
"Anything," Bury said. "Kevin, do what you must. It is now in the hands of Allah."
"Yeah." And I think I'm too old for this. "Run up to one gee, Townsend. There's a stunt I want to try."
The communications screen lit again. "Your instructions will be obeyed," the Mediator said. "We will do what we can."
"Thank you. Rawlins, you stay with us."
"I can boost harder than you can."
"I thought of that, but no. I need you with us."
"You're assuming they're sending their whole fleet."
"I sure hope so," Renner said. "The warships anyway." His last observation in the red dwarf system was of the Master ships making for Bury's Star at low thrust. It didn't look as if they'd be coming back to the Mote system soon. And as long as the Warriors were chasing Sinbad—
"We're bait," he said to no one in particular.
After Rawlins rang off, Renner looked around his ship. Horace was breathing by himself, eyes open, jaw slack, full of funny chemicals. Borloi extract, no doubt: no prohibition in the Koran against borloi. It was amazing that he could talk at all.
Freddy had recovered from Jump shock with stunning speed. Renner resented that. Glenda Ruth Blaine still looked as if she'd been blackjacked. The Moties were worse off, still keening in pain and angst. That couldn't last. Renner needed them.
The Empire ships fell toward the Crazy Eddie point at zero gee, following forty-five minutes of thrust. Renner couldn't tell them how long that would last. Cynthia was leading Horace Bury through a program of stretches. Joyce was preparing a sketch lunch. Nobody had ever asked if the reporter could cook. She could.
Telescopes aboard Atropos, then aboard Sinbad, observed small hot ships emerging through an invisible hole at high velocity and high acceleration. They dimmed, reducing thrust while they sought their targets. Presently they flared and moved at low acceleration toward the position of Bandits One-Two-Three.
"It worked."
"Why are you whispering? Call Atropos."
Freddy cleared his throat. "Yessir."
"They can't have taken time to refuel," Renner told Rawlins. "They're burning fuel they can't spare. Which means we can beat them to the Crazy Eddie point at anything above one point one gee."
"If they chase us."
"Yeah. Assume they will."
"Then their best bet is to take it easy," Rawlins said. "A stern chase is a long chase. Easy to use all your fuel in the chase and have none for the battle. Of course, they won't know where you're headed." Pause. "Or if they do figure it out, they won't know why."
"Okay. All we have to do is make sure they don't cripple us. I want to beat them to the Crazy Eddie point, but not by much, and I want to make sure we have plenty of maneuvering fuel when they catch up to us. Meanwhile, maintain your watch. You, too, Freddy. I want to know instantly if large ships with cooler exhaust and lower acceleration come through."
"Aye, aye, sir." Rawlins signed off.
At least he didn't ask if I know what I'm doing.
An hour later Freddy saw the Khanate Warriors turning. "They've found us," he said. "Somehow."
Renner grinned widely. "They've found us and they're chasing us. Stand by for acceleration. Horace, how does one standard gee sound? We'll take it up slowly."
"Heavenly," Bury said.
"Stand by." Weight returned slowly.
"There," Freddy said. "You can unstrap now. It should be steady enough."
Behind Sinbad, little dots of fusion flame now numbered over a hundred and rising. As many more Khanate ships had not turned: they were still on route toward the massed Khanate allies, Bandits One-Two-Three. Other lights . . . what were they doing? Converging, then going out one by one.
Renner said, "Omar, get on the horn to our forces around the Sister. Orders unchanged: leave the main fleet alone, but watch for stragglers. Keep it expensive going through the Sister, but stay alive."
"Fleet in being," Victoria said.
"Right—where did you learn that phrase?"
"It was in one of the books MacArthur left behind. The reference
was to sea power, but—"
"Mahan," Joyce said. "He wrote before space travel."
"Oh. Victoria, I need your help."
"Yes, Kevin."
"I need some work done. Get the Engineers on it. We need some alterations in Sinbad's Langston Field. Townsend can show you what we need."
"Right away."
"Horace, how are you feeling?"
"I've been better, Kevin. I've been altering my will. I will need you to witness that it is my work, and that I am in my right mind."
"Bizarre. You never were before."
"Kevin, you will need to be convincing. Truly. Now say, 'Horace Bury was in his right mind,' without smiling."
"Maybe another approach. Tonight, Igor, we must build a convincing duplicate of Kevin Renner."
"May we have doglike devotion this time, Master? I wanted dog-like devotion last time."
Glenda Ruth was staring. It was something, to have shaken Glenda Ruth Blaine.
"But it might interfere with his sense of humor, Igor!"
"Yes, Master, yes, yes! Please may we interfere with his sense of humor. . . . I don't have the energy, Kevin."
"Yeah. Give me a sanity check, Horace. Glenda Ruth, listen up. Here's what I have in mind. . . ."
Joyce's hand was steady as she poured tea into Cynthia's cup. Acceleration was down to one-half gravity for the moment, but she didn't expect that to last. For the past ten hours there had been sudden and random accelerations as Sinbad avoided different attacks from the hundreds of ships following.
"If someone tells me that 'a stern chase is a long chase' one more time," Joyce said, "I'll scream." She sipped carefully, then looked at the older woman, not bothering to conceal her curiosity. "You've been with Bury a long time. Is it always like this?"
Cynthia's smile might have been painted on. "Not precisely. When my uncle Nabil offered me service with His Excellency, I knew we would face many enemies, but few of them had warships. Mostly we are concerned with assassination."
"What's it like, working for a man who has that many enemies?"
"He has enemies because he is a great man," Cynthia said. "I feel honored to serve him. When I graduated from medical school—"
Joyce was startled and showed it despite her news training. "You're a doctor?"
"Yes. Does that seem so unlikely?"
"Well, no, but—yes, actually. I thought you were a bodyguard."
Cynthia's smile softened. "I do that as well. But you were supposed to assume I am a concubine. Thank you, I will have more tea."
"I'm supposed to think you're a concubine. Are you?"
"The appearance is a professional duty. Nothing else is required."
Which could mean anything. "It must be a strange career for a doctor."
"Call it my first career. I will have others after I retire from His Excellency's service. And think of the stories I can tell my children!" Cynthia's laugh was almost inaudible. "Of course first I will have to find a father for them."
Joyce laughed. "Looking at you, I wouldn't think that would be so hard to do."
Cynthia shrugged. "I have no difficulty finding lovers. And our culture is changing. Not just on Levant."
"That's for sure." Joyce looked around Sinbad's crowded lounge, humans and aliens, magnate and aristocrats and naval officer, and grinned. "That's for damned sure."
The Empire ships fled across the Mote system. For Joyce it had been three days of trying to make sense out of myriad details.
Sinbad and Atropos had jumped into Mote system, then accelerated toward the inner system for forty-five minutes, then coasted. Minutes later the Khanate Warrior ships had poured through an invisible hole, paused, then blasted away in the wrong direction. They'd used up an hour's fuel—but at low thrust—before they found Sinbad and Atropos.
Since then it had been a race; but there were nuances.
Bury's couch was located near the door to the control cabin. It made a convenient gathering point when the cabin door was open. When Freddy went over to tell Bury what was happening, Joyce went to listen—and noticed that Glenda Ruth didn't come over until after Joyce had joined the party.
"We laid low. Got them moving in the wrong direction for a while," Freddy said. "Odds are they can recognize our exhaust, so we didn't give them one. Maybe they found Atropos's old-style Langston Field. But this much for sure, they're chasing us."
"Flattering," Glenda Ruth said.
Freddy didn't answer.
"Getting all our enemies into one bunch," Bury said. "It is not the first time. On Tabletop—but that was a long time ago."
"Yeah. Well, it isn't quite working," Freddy said. "We've got maybe a hundred twenty on our tail, out of a thousand. Three hundred kept going; they've just about reached the Bandit cluster. We still don't know what they think they're guarding, but never mind that. I've lost five hundred of the buggers."
Kevin Renner said, "They haven't disappeared. It only means they're not under thrust."
"What are they doing?" Glenda Ruth asked.
Freddy shrugged. Kevin said, "Something else. Something interesting."
Horace Bury spoke suddenly. "The thing to remember is that
we've won."
Joyce said, "I beg your pardon?"
"The Khanate Axis will not pass Agamemnon. Will not burst free into the Empire. They can never reclaim that option. Now their only hope is to replace the Medina Alliance. Well, what of that? They must reproduce Medina's agreements and fulfill them as best they can. They must even be overcooperative, to cover promises they might be expected to remember."
Joyce thought that through. "But they'd have to kill us all. And our friends."
"Silence every voice, yes. But the Empire of Man is safe now. The Mote will be organized according to our wishes and custom. We have won that war now," said Horace Bury. "We have protected the Empire of Man, indeed."
And Kevin Renner was trying to swallow a laugh; but why?
Wait— "You could do it!" Joyce cried. "I mean, I'm being very unprofessional here, but—if push came to shove, if they've got us in a box, you could still negotiate. The Empire could get what it wants from the Khanate instead."
They were looking at her. Joyce was sorry she'd spoken. Nobody spoke until Renner said, "Yup."
"Would you? Rather than, um, die?"
"No."
Now the eyes turned away, and only Glenda Ruth sighed in relief. Joyce thought, Why not? and said, "Okay."
"We don't want to teach the wrong lesson here, Joyce. Treachery can become habit-forming."
Five days: part acceleration, part coasting, Sinbad and Atropos led the enemy fleet across Motie space. Five days to observe, not just the battle, but the people.
Freddy Townsend was busy, too busy to talk . . . but it was more than that.
Freddy was avoiding Glenda Ruth, just a bit. Joyce was willing to learn why, but she hadn't thought of an excuse to probe. And Freddy would clam up a bit when Joyce was wearing her "reporter" hat.
But he would talk to both women. Joyce found herself coming on to him a little; when she caught herself at that, or when Glenda Ruth did, she would back off; but she could loosen his tongue that way. There was so much to understand, and Freddy was her best source of information.
"But this is the part we're wondering about," Freddy said, and with a woman peering over each shoulder, he moved his cursor about the screen. "Here, a quarter of the fleet turned around to chase us. Another third went on to join the Bandit cluster, the Khanate allies that never went through. What are they after? Why did they think they'd find Sinbad and Atropos in that direction?"
"Fuel," Kevin Renner said without turning around. "They must be desperate for fuel by now. They're trading time for fuel."
"The rest of them turned off their drives. That lasted for hours. Then we got this." Freddy put the cursor on a tight pattern of blue-white points, like a cityscape or the work lights on a half-built factory. "And that's been following us, changing as it goes."
Again Kevin spoke without turning. "We think those ships are all linked up into one framework. They'd have broken up some ships to build it. It took them ten hours. Then they came after us."
"If Empire ships tried that, they'd come apart like nose wipes in the rain," Freddy said. "Even so, they're only doing a fifth of a gee. Hundreds of ships are following them from Bandit cluster, linking up."
"Fuel ships, of course. I bet they're dropping stuff on the way, too. Empty ships. Spare troops. They'll keep some framework to make their structure stronger. Unless I'm crazy. Jesus, Freddy, I wish we could see that thing better."
"It looks a lot like Vermin City, backlit," Freddy said. "Not much pattern, and that changes every minute. Okay, Joyce, Group A is still in the lead. They'll reach us first, yes? We have to outrace them."
"First, but with dry tanks. Group A can't maneuver," Kevin said. "That's not going to hurt them, unfortunately, because they've guessed where we're going. Group B might get to us late, but with fuel to maneuver."
"You're guessing, Commodore."
"But it's what Moties would do," Glenda Ruth said. "The ships they start with won't be the ships that attack you."
"Keep a watch. I want to close my eyes for an hour."
"Yessir. Hold it! Commodore?"
Drive lights flared where the cursor lay. "I see it," Kevin said. "See if you can get a better picture. I have the watch."
"What is it, Kevin?" Bury demanded. "Won't know for an hour," Renner said.
They were building a sketchy dinner when they heard Freddy whoop. Joyce reset the oven before she followed Glenda Ruth.
Freddy was grinning. "Sanity check. We've been right all along. What do you see?"
Behind the tight pattern of blue lights that was Khanate Group B was a looser pattern, a score of drive lights well spread out and shifting in intensity. Kevin said, "Two of those just went out. Shot down by our guys?"
Freddy looked. "Our allies aren't anywhere near. It's possible, of course. Warriors are just bloody damned good at killing. . . . Enhanced view, Screen Two."
"Right. Khanate rescue ships, Freddy. They're towing that cylinder now. Rescue or salvage. And the rest are still coming . . . and there goes another pair. They're merging. Group B must be leaving garbage and personnel clear across the sky."
"That'll hurt 'em."
"It will if our allies have anything to say about it. They're losing mass, losing numbers, losing firepower, all to get the fuel to reach us. You agree? It's us the Warrior ships are after. The Empire ships."
"Yessir."
"I should talk to Atropos."
Joyce found the next hour even more confusing. It was frustrating: she had her news equipment, nothing was being kept from her, but she wasn't getting a story she could tell.
"The only thing that still concerns me is this," she heard Renner telling Atropos. "When we go through the Crazy Eddie point, we have to know that no Master ship has given the Warrior ships new orders. Otherwise we'll be abandoning the Mote system to the Khanate."
And that made sense, but how to lay it out for a viewer? If we lose, you'll never know it. Even we may never know. If we returned via New Cal and that little orange star, a year from now we could be talking to a replacement Eudoxus speaking for a replacement Medina. All Moties look alike, but these are the good guys and—?
"Maybe later," she said to Bury. "Maybe I'll understand later."
"And perhaps you never will," Bury said.
"If we lose—"
"Yes, of course, but even if we win. It has happened to me." And he launched into another tale of his terrible past, a skewed view of Empire history that Joyce could never have bought with pearls and rubies.
There had been incidents. Sometimes the Khanate fleet beamed laser light at them, forcing Sinbad and Atropos to take turns shadowing each other. Renner and Townsend had at first considered this a mere annoyance.
"Probably tryin' to distract us," Freddy said in one of the rare intervals he was off duty. Commodore Renner kept Freddy Town-send busy. When he did get a break, he often used the opportunity to talk to Horace Bury; and when that happened, Joyce invited herself into the party.
"They've scattered their fleet," Joyce said. "Some of the ships used all their power and now can't keep up. Why would they do that, Freddy?"
Freddy said, "I can tell you what they're doing, but why is out of my department. You'll be famous even if you don't know why."
Horace Bury chuckled. "I should instruct my brokers to invest in your network. You will have the highest ratings in Imperial history, I think."
"A few weeks ago I would have resented your saying that," Joyce said. "And even more resented it if you'd actually bought stock in IBC."
"And now?"
Joyce shrugged. "It's your ship, and we're all on it."
"Besides, his brokers will already have made the investments," Glenda Ruth said.
"Cautiously. They'll buy too little," Bury said. "After all, it was not certain that we would be bringing Miss Trujillo to the Mote."
"Or that we'd come out alive," Joyce said.
"Well, if we don't, it won't matter if the investment's no good," Freddy said.
"Oh, Freddy, that's silly," Glenda Ruth said. "His Excellency—" "Acceleration warning. Action stations." "Oh, Lord, what now?" Freddy demanded.
"It's a big mess of junk under high velocity," Renner said.
Most of the leading Khanate ships were in deceleration mode at high thrust. Most of them. A few were burning fuel at a prodigious rate and converting that to energy beamed at Sinbad; and out of the glare of that beam came a dark mass on a collision course.
"We'll have to dodge," Freddy said. Sinbad began to turn.
"Yeah. Horace, Group A ran up to maximum velocity and then stripped their ships. It could be mostly fuel tanks. Freddy's turning the ship."
"It won't cost us too much fuel."
"No, but I should— Atropos calling, good." Joyce heard Renner setting a direction for the other ship. Sinbad and Atropos would diverge.
Four minutes later—the lightspeed gap—Group A's junk pile pulled into two masses. They'd armed it with motors. Freddy spoke of raping his lizard; Renner called Atropos and ordered a laser barrage.
Four minutes later the junk pile flared with the light of Atropos's barrage. An instant later it flashed a hundred times as bright! The camera overloaded and burned out before Freddy could enfold Sinbad in the Langston Field. Glenda Ruth was cowering with an arm over her eyes, and Joyce was waiting for glowing spots to disappear. She knew better than to interrupt Freddy or Kevin.
Freddy spoke anyway. "They had a mirror. The clever little . . . nightmares waited for our beam and then threw it back at us. It's way dimmer now, but they're still throwing sunlight at us. It's nothing, Glenda Ruth. Just another goddamn nuisance attack."
And more to understand. Medina Alliance ships trailed the Khanate fleet, darted in toward it with a reckless expenditure of resources, fired lasers and missiles, then darted away again, fuel gone, coasting away from the battle to be rescued by unarmed ships from other clans.
"Another major development," Joyce dictated. "There's a big fleet, two hundred ships and more, trailing the Khanate war fleet. They're rescuing ships that run out of fuel. Khanate and Alliance ships alike, they're retrieving stragglers. We thought they were Khanate allies, but they're not. They're neutrals.
"We've changed Mote politics like nothing else in their history. A hundred families and clans in cooperation, hundreds more gathering their strength, but all of them staying uncommitted.
"Our Motie allies say this is a good sign.
"Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo, Imperial Post-Tribune Syndicate."
"We are ninety minutes from the Alderson point everyone calls the Crazy Eddie point. The Moties are getting nervous. No one likes Jump shock much, but our Motie friends really dread it. We can hope the prospect makes the Khanate Warriors nervous.
"The situation is this: Sinbad and Atropos are on course for the Jump point and decelerating. The leading elements of a war fleet from Byzantium, the most powerful of our allies, have already reached the Crazy Eddie point and are standing by for orders.
"Meanwhile, things are happening in the pursuing fleet." Joyce zoomed in on a screen.
The structure they'd been calling Khanate B was under heavy deceleration. The tremendous junk pile was no longer a single object. The bright sparks of fusion drives were separating in pairs.
Another screen showed a blurry picture relayed from Atropos: two Khanate ships docked and remained docked until one reconstructed ship began to decelerate, leaving part of its mass as debris.
"We don't know what this means," Joyce said. Reporterspeak for I don't know. Kevin and Freddy had given over arguing about it, but Renner had taken time off to talk with Bury. Marooned faceup in a water bed at high gee, Horace Bury could at least use the entertainment. Joyce turned the camera on them; they didn't notice.
"So what have we got?" Renner said. "Group A boosted to high velocity, coasted, and is now under deceleration. Classic. They'd get to the Crazy Eddie point about the same time we do, but we can fix that."
Bury wasn't asking, so Joyce did. "How?"
Renner's glance showed his irritation. "Low thrust deceleration now, high thrust later, brings us in sooner. They can't play that game. They're at max thrust with no spare fuel."
"But high thrust—"
"As Allah wills, Joyce. What of Group B, Kevin?"
"Aye, there's the rub. They never turned off their drives. They did low thrust forever, right up to midpoint turnover, and dropped mass every step of the way. Fuel tanks, Engineers, that mirror thing, who knows? It looks like they'll get to the Crazy Eddie point just behind Group A, but with plenty of fuel to spare. If we miss our Jump, I'd say we're dead. So, we're forced to jump."
"If so, Kevin, they've made themselves very vulnerable to Medina. The Medina forces will face seven hundred Khanate ships strung in a long line. Is this a winning strategy? They must do more than silence all human voices. They must control the Sister. When the Empire comes again, the Khanate must speak first."
"You're missing something," said Glenda Ruth Blaine.
An odd source, but— Kevin said, "Okay. What?"
"I don't know." She perched on the edge of the water bed and scratched behind Ali Baba's ear. "But they're Warriors. They're following a Master's orders, but that doesn't make them silly. Remember their mission and look again."
Cynthia knew how to prepare Turkish coffee. Bury sipped his and said, "Fuel matters here. The Khanate ships are depleted. Are we? Base Six is following us, of course."
"They'll be a hundred and ten hours late. They can rescue any ship that ran dry, but that doesn't help us fight. Still, we could refuel from a Medina ship. I don't think we even need to. And we'll go through the Crazy Eddie point at three hundred per, just like last time, with the East India ships to triangulate for us."
"Ah!"
Cynthia snapped alert. "Excellency?"
"I'm all right, Cynthia. Kevin, the debris. The mass, the junk left over when two ships merged at a thousand klicks per second. Set Atropos to tracking the course of the junk. You'll find that a mass equivalent to over a hundred spacecraft is on course to pass straight through the Crazy Eddie point just when we would like to do that."
"Okay, lie down already. Freddy?"
"I'm on it." Freddy Townsend was working his control board hard. A screen lit: Rawlins's talker.
Now why am I less scared than I was? Renner wondered. Because my people are getting the right answers?
No, more: because Horace Bury's mind is alive and alert.
While Freddy was at work, Renner said, "Omar, I need that debris blocked somehow. The only ships that have to go through the Crazy Eddie point are Atropos and Sinbad. Will you inform Medina's Masters?"
"I will learn," Omar said.
Now no one had time to explain things, and her questions were distracting. Joyce could only record everything and hope to make sense of it later. "We've heard about the 'fog of war,' " Joyce dictated. "It's all too real. I don't know what's going on, and neither does anyone else, not really. Sometimes you just have to make choices and stick with them."
With twenty minutes to go, Kevin gave the order to strap in. The Khanate ships' stream of high-V debris couldn't be far away.
"I have a feed from Atropos," Freddy said. "On Screen Three."
Star-sprinkled black. Kevin said, "I don't . . ." One bluer than the others. That stellar background . . .? "Freddy, it's a Master ship that's just popped through. Now prove me wrong."
Medina called. "We have a Khanate Master ship just emerged from the Sister. One ship only. It made no attempt to communicate, so our man has fired on it. He reports an overpowered shield."
"One lousy Master. That's all it takes," Renner said. "We're dead."
Bury was chuckling. "Why, Kevin?"
"This whole thing falls apart if the Khanate Warriors get the right orders. Here's a Master, just in time, and hell, it's even too late for us to abort!"
Bury was laughing with some effort. "Yes, Kevin, they can send orders to their Warriors, but what would they say? What can they learn in time, across a lightspeed gap of thirty-eight minutes?"
Medina was still speaking, had said something about the barrage. Renner hadn't caught it. "What did he say, Freddy?"
"The Warriors will solve it. Hold to the plan."
Pity Omar hadn't been at the comm. The lightspeed gap was already too great to get any answers. Eight minutes. Everyone strapped in? "Joyce! Strap in!"
"Okay, Skipper." She'd been standing on her chair to get altitude, photographing them at work. She dropped and strapped in, cheerful as hell, hugging the camera like her own baby.
The Khanate Master ship was still in view, glowing fiercely bright in green. Medina's forces must be bathing her in energy. She'd never get a message through that.
The feed from twenty East India ships was providing good triangulation: he would hit the point dead center. Bury was doing sava-sama, but his heartbeat and brain-wave displays were all over the place. Scared. Calling his attention to it would be worse than useless. Behind Sinbad a darkness was growing . . . black dots crowding out the stars. What the hell?
Two minutes. And weird lighting effects among the black dots, sparks in rainbow colors.
The Byzantium fleet! They were blocking the Khanate barrage, catching the stuff with their Langston Fields.
And the Crazy Eddie point was here, now, unseen, passing at three hundred klicks per second as Freddy touched the contact.
Orange murk looked in through the screens. Renner, bemused and groggy, enjoyed the appearance of a mechanical hell in which men and monsters writhed in torment and confusion. But his memory was already organizing itself, and he barked, though it came out a croak, "Townsend."
"Renner. Captain. Get us behind Atropos?"
"When I start the drive."
Sinbad was coming alive again, but slowly. Now Atropos was a black near-circle against white light, unmistakable, a few hundred miles distant . . . almost toward the core of Murcheson's Eye, according to Sinbad's instruments.
Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to get ready, then all hell. There was a lot to do, but some of it would have to wait for the Motie Engineers, and they were flat out of action.
Communications. "Atropos, this is Sinbad. Atropos, this is Sin-bad, Sinbad, Sinbad . . ."
It would just be dawning on Joyce Mei-Ling Trujillo that they were inside a star. Wonder and terror and a reflex reach for the camera. Glenda Ruth was a basket case, no better off than the Moties. "Atropos, this is Sinbad . . ." Others were moving. Renner craned his head around. At least Bury wasn't thrashing. "Atropos, this is Sinbad . . ."
Bury was too still. "Cynthia!"
She was already loose, pulling herself against him, fingers on his throat. "No pulse."
"Do something. Sorry, of course you will." The drive test lights blinked green. Renner enabled the drive. "Move her, Townsend."
"Aye, aye. Acceleration. Stand by."
"Sinbad, this is Atropos."
"Blaine. Good. Situation unchanged as of our Jump time."
"Unchanged as of your Jump time. Acknowledged, sir."
"Report."
"Yes, sir. We're broadcasting on Fleet hailing frequencies. Nobody's shot at us yet. That may be a good sign."
"Not shooting, but not answering."
"No answer yet, Commodore."
Where the hell was Weigle and the Crazy Eddie Squadron? Silly question. Weigle could be anywhere. "Keep trying. We'll hide behind you when we get there."
"Right. I'll leave the channel open."
More movements behind him. Cynthia had reattached the medical systems to Bury. He thrashed suddenly, and quieted. Electric shock. Still dead. Skeletal metal arms lifted from the box, for the first time in Kevin's memory, and began to work on Horace Bury.
Ali Baba howled in terror.
"Victoria. Glenda Ruth. Anyone," Kevin shouted.
"Yes, Kevin." Renner turned joyfully. It was Bury's voice! It was Omar.
Not Omar's fault. Renner said, "When the Engineers recover, make sure the Flinger is ready and loaded, and keep double-checking the Field generator." They had rebuilt the Field generator, altered it so that it would not expand and present a larger surface area to the wispy superhot starstuff around them. Now it matched all the Crazy Eddie Squadron ships, including Atropos.
"Stand clear!" Cynthia shouted. "Glenda Ruth, take Ali Baba! Clear!" Horace Bury thrashed again. Once more.
Glenda Ruth made crooning noises. The medical-panel lights glowed, but no sign of heart or brain activity. Dead panel, or—
Glenda Ruth said, "Kevin, Cynthia, my God, stop! He's dead!"
You never know— Kevin bit it back. She would know.
They were alongside Atropos now. Townsend matched velocities.
"Stay alongside," Renner said. "Blaine."
"Sir?"
"I'm changing the plan. If I'm going to use the Flinger at all, it'll have to be before we build up too much heat, so we'll stay alongside you for the first phase of the battle."
"Yes, sir?"
"Keep relaying data."
"Aye, aye, sir. Data relay set," Blaine said.
"Got it. Any luck contacting the Fleet?"
"Not yet. Any further orders, sir?"
Renner looked back into the cabin once more. "Yes. I'm canceling the instructions on avoiding high gees. Use any acceleration the tactical situation demands."
They saw through the eyes of Atropos. A black dot popped into place, then another, then two more. A green thread from Atropos to one of the intruders. The intruder's Field flared, expanded.
"It's working," Renner said. "The Khanate ships have an expanding Langston Field, which is great for most battles, but in here when it expands, it picks up even more heat."
"Could they have done what you did?" Joyce asked. "Got their Engineers to rebuild it?"
"Omar?"
"No data. I would not have thought of it."
More black dots. "Freddy, stand by the flinger. We'll aim for the center of the cluster."
"Right."
The black dot expanded, ran through colors, and vanished. Atropos's green thread moved to another ship.
"Atropos."
"Aye, aye, Commodore."
Not Blaine. "Tell your skipper we'll commence firing when we have twenty-five targets. Watch the data link for exact time."
"You will fire when you have twenty-five, that's two five, targets. Observe data link for exact time. Aye, aye, sir."
Joyce's camera was running. Why not? What could it matter now if everyone learned that Sinbad carried nuclear weapons?"
"We've got another edge," Renner said. "Imperial Autonetics has developed a ship's coating that only becomes a superconductor at forty-four hundred Kelvin. That's two hundred degrees cooler than what it takes to soften the hull. I can run a superconducting wire into Sinbad's water tank and then vent the steam.
"In short, we can stay alive a long time."
"We may need to," Freddy said. "Twenty-four."
"Load."
"Erecting the Flinger. Loading. Wow, it's warm out there. Fire. Retracting the Flinger into the Field."
A timer began on Renner's console. Twenty-nine seconds. Twenty-eight . . .
A bright star within the star. Twenty black dots expanded, stretched, added their stored heat to the white glare. Green lines converged on another. It flashed and was gone.
And thirty more ships appeared.
"Stand by Flinger," Renner said.
Scattered across a brilliant orange sky were sixty to seventy colored balloons. The eye couldn't tell their distance: sizes varied too widely. Most were red. Fewer were orange, and those faded into invisibility until they grew hotter. A handful were green and blue, inflating as their temperature rose, until one or another made a brief nova. It was a kindergarten astronomy class, the stars color-coded to their places on the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram.
". . . Three. Two. One. Bingo," Freddy droned.
Another flare. Red and yellow bubbles inflated suddenly, green, blue, flashflashflash.
"How many is that?" Joyce demanded.
"Counting what Atropos bagged, over a hundred."
"Should we be cheering? Sorry, Glenda Ruth . . ."
"It's all right. They're only Warriors. To the Moties they're valuable property, but—"
"Retracted. Seven warheads left," Freddy said. "Timing's about right, we'll be too hot to use it pretty soon. Captain, I have to say this is easier than I thought it would be."
"Too easy," Renner said. "Atropos, let me speak with Captain Rawlins, please."
"Rawlins here."
"This was Group A, agreed?"
"Yes."
"I think it's time to get the hell out of here before the B group arrives."
"Agreed. What course?"
"Out of the star. Head for the Jump point to New Gal. I'll lead. And keep calling for the Fleet."
"To New Cal. Damn right we'll keep calling! Acceleration?" "Two gee's?" "Good enough."
"Here they come!" The Atropos talker was shouting. "Hundreds of them!" Then in a calmer voice, "Sinbad, this is Atropos. Enemy fleet coming through the Alderson point. The count is three hundred ships. We are firing torpedoes."
"Maybe this would be a good time to use our last loads," Town-send said.
"I hate to fire ourselves dry, but, yeah." Renner touched keys. "Atropos, designate us a target group, please."
The screen jumped, and a ring appeared indicating a cluster of ships moving together at high velocity away from the Jump point. Other ships were appearing every second.
"Hail Mary," Freddy Townsend said. "Okay, I've got a solution . . . erecting . . . on the way. Eighty-nine seconds." The timers began the countdown. "Of course you know we can't fight all those ships."
"All true," Renner said. "Of course we don't have to."
"They're not going to give up," Joyce said. "Oniar, Victoria, can't they see they've been defeated? It won't do them any good to destroy us now!"
"They have their orders," Glenda Ruth said. "Victoria, do Warriors ever question a Master's orders? Joyce is right, this can't do them any good, not now. Whatever they do to us, they get back to the Mote overheated and out of fuel, and the Alliance fleets will be waiting. Do they know that?"
"They know it better than you," Victoria said.
"And they have their orders." Glenda Ruth shuddered.
"I think it is more than that," Omar said. "If they return, it will be the first time that Mote ships have done that. Many neutrals will join them just for that reason. And if a sizable group comes over to them—"
"Bandwagon," Joyce said. "Glenda Ruth, you agree?"
"I guess I have to."
"I have a new target group for you," Atropos said.
"Engaging."
"Rawlins here. Commodore, we're getting no answer from the Fleet, and we're going to be overwhelmed."
"Suggestions?"
"Run for it while we can. Pop back into the Mote system, where we have allies."
"It's not much of a chance."
"More than we have now," Rawlins said. "Sir."
"Actually, it's a good plan, for you," Renner said. "It won't work for us, we don't have the acceleration, but— Yeah. You do that. Commander Rawlins, I'm ordering you to detached service. Your mission is to survive and report to any Imperial fleet."
"Just a minute—"
"No, we don't have any time at all. I'm staying on course. You run like hell. Rawlins, somebody's got to survive this. Our Moties analyze it this way. If the enemy gets back alive, the neutrals will join the Khanate. We can't let that happen! Rawlins, you get back into the Mote system and let everyone know the Empire is coming!"
There was a long pause. "Aye, aye, sir. Godspeed."
"Godspeed. Freddy, get the Flinger ready."
"Sinbad's last stand," Freddy said. He nodded toward Bury. "I guess he deserves a Viking's funeral. Only there's no dog at his feet."
The cameras went dark. "We've lost the link to Atropos," Joyce dictated quietly.
"No shadow from Atropos now," Renner said. "Our field temp's going up. Stand by, you'll have to fire blind after I get a quick look."
"I've got a tentative target group. Give me a look to be sure. Right. Launching. Retracting. Captain, I think that's it for the Flinger."
"Agreed."
"I hate being blind!" Joyce shouted.
"Who doesn't?" Freddy said.
"In the days before superconductors, we'd be getting burn-throughs now," Renner said. "I recall the battle off New Chicago. Captain Blaine—Commander then—got his arm half-burned off. Now we sit here comfortable."
"Whoopee. How long do we have?" Glenda Ruth asked.
"Hour anyway," Renner said.
"The Engineers are rebuilding cameras," Victoria said. "And I am informed there is a new antenna ready that might be able to communicate with your other ship."
"Bless you," Renner said. "Antenna, Freddy. I don't much like blind either."
"Identify yourself."
"What the hell? God damn! Imperial Fleet, this is Imperial auxiliary destroyer Sinbad, Commodore Kevin Renner commanding."
A short delay, then the regular communications screen lit. "Imperial Fleet, this is INSS Atropos, William Hiram Rawlins. We are part of the task force Agamemnon, detached to duty with Commodore Renner."
"Are there other Imperial ships with you?"
"None. Atropos and Sinbad," Renner shouted. "Get us a data link and I'll prove who we are."
"I may have a better way. Put Lieutenant Blaine on."
"Atropos here. Here's Blaine. Admiral, if you're going to help us, you better be damn quick about it! We're in trouble."
"We can see that. Blaine, who am I?"
"Captain Damon Collins," Blaine's voice answered quickly.
"Right. Blaine, tell me something a Motie wouldn't know."
"Poker. That first game. I know how you beat me, Captain."
"Remind me."
Renner made sure the mike was off. "I hope it's not a long story."
But Blaine was talking fast. "I'd never played Big Squeeze before. High-low, six cards plus a replacement. We had our six. I was showing two little pair up, and two down cards. You had three hearts and a something, club six maybe—"
"It's coming back."
"—nothing bigger than a nine. I threw a down card. You threw the nine of hearts. Pulled the jack of hearts. We declared, both high. You had the flush."
"You swore you'd never figure out how I did that."
"I worked it out after the next game. What happened was, you already had your flush, but you had a shot at low hand, too. I was betting like I had a full house. You believed me. You threw your flush away and got it back with your low hand ruined. 'Rape my lizard,' you said to yourself—"
"And beat you for the very last time."
"Fyunch(click)."
"Enough," another voice said. "Is it Blaine?" "Definitely, Admiral."
"Sinbad and Atropos. Converge on the Flag. We're sending escorts. All squadrons, engage enemy closely."