listening to the quiet voice of the ghost in Lucy’s comp assure her she was
doing it right.
“We go for them?” Neill asked, an optimistic assessment of their speed and their
firepower.
“Ought to get there eventually,” she said. “Mark they don’t run us down. Just
keep our targets straight” She asked comp for armaments, keying in that
function.
“Sandy,” comp objected, “are you sure of this?”
She keyed the affirmative and uncapped the switches. A distressing red color
dyed her hand from the ready light It was a clumsy system… a computer/scan synch
that was decent at low velocities, fit for nullpoint arguments, but nothing
else.
“Got another one,” Neill said. And, “Lord, it’s Mallory!”
Her hand shook above the fire buttons. She looked at scan, a flick of the eye
that was in Norway’s terms several planetary diameters duration. The garble
sorted itself out in com; and then she saw the angle on scan.
She fired, a flat pressure of her hand, at what she reckoned for the Mazianni’s
backside, a minuscule sting at a giant with two giant freighters coming on at
the Mazianni and its companion, and a carrier of its own class in its wake.
Other blips developed; riderships were deployed.
And then something was coming at the pattern broadside: “Union ship,” she heard
reported into her ear… and suddenly everything broke up, sensors out, a wail of
alarm through Lucy’s systems.
It passed. She still had her hand on controls. “Hello, Sandy,” comp said
pleasantly, sorting itself into sense again. Scan had not. They had ships
dislocated from last estimated position. The ID signals started coming in again.
“That’s Dublin,” Neill said, “and Finity. Norway and her riders. Liberty. That
was a Union ship that just passed us…”
“Outbound,” Deirdre exclaimed. “Lord, they’re running, the Mazianni are taking
out of there… and that Mazianni freighter’s blown. …”
She sat still, with the adrenalin surge still going hot and cold through her
limbs and an alarming tendency to shake.
“Do we contact?” Neill asked. “Allie, it’s Dublin out there.”
“Put me through,” she said; and when she heard the steady calm of Dublin’s Com
One, she still felt no elation, “Dublin com, this is Lucy, We’ve got two
missing, request help in boarding the station and searching.”
“We copy, Lucy,” Not—who is this? Not—hello, Allison Reilly, Ship to ship and
all business. “Do you need assistance aboard?”
“Negative. All safe aboard.”
“This is Norway com,” another voice broke in. “Ridership Odin will establish
dock; nonmilitary personnel will stay at distance. Repeat—”
She had cut the engines. She rolled Lucy into an axis turn and cut them in
again, defying the military order. Let them enforce it. Let Norway put a shot
toward them in front of witnesses, after all else Norway had done. She heard
objection, ignored it.
“Dublin, this is Lucy. Request explanation this setup.”
“Abort that chatter,” Norway said.
“Hang you, Norway—”
A ridership passed them, cutting off communication for the moment—faster than
they could possibly move. Norway had followed. Lucy clawed her slow way against
her own momentum, and there was a silence over Lucy’s bridge, no of triumph at
all.
She had won. And found her size in the universe, that she counted for nothing.
Even from Dublin there was no answer.
They’ve got them,” the report came in via Norway com, even while Lucy was easing
her way into a troop assisted dock. And in a little time more: “They’re in sorry
shape. We’re making a transfer to our own medical facilities.”
“How bad?” Allison asked. “Norway, Lucy requests information.”
“When available. Request you don’t tie up this station. Norway has other
operations.”
She choked on that, concentrated her attention on the approaching dock, listened
to Deirdre giving range.
Norway sat in dock; the Union carrier Liberty was in system somewhere, poised to
take care of trouble if the Mazianni had a thought of coming in again. Dublin
and Finity moved in with uncommon agility.
“They can’t be hauling,” Deirdre said. “They came down too fast.”
“Copy that,” Allison said, and paid attention to business, smothering the anger
and the outrage that boiled up through her thinking. No merchanter ran empty