Might, she was thinking, might, the instant their scan narrowed on them, and
longscan started showing what they were into… veer off and jump. If scan techs
on Tibet and North Pole fed the right data into longscan, if the picture on
their scopes did not show Mazian and help coming right on Union’s tail,
misinterpreting their maneuver as one of following…
The Fleet slowed further. Scan showed a fade-out among the merchanters, that
slow-motion flight having reached jump limit. They bled away, Pell’s life,
drifting off into the deep.
She dead-reckoned time factors, Union’s speed, proliferation of their image,
Tibet’s and North Pole’s velocity incoming. About now, about now, Tibet should
be figuring it out, realizing Union was on them. If their scan was telling them
truth…
Their own scan kept showing history for a moment, then locked up, stationary,
longscan having run out of speculations. Head to head, yellow haze, while red
lines tracked through that haze, the real scan they were getting.
Closer. The red line reached decision-critical—kept going. Head on. Signy sat
and watched, as all of them had to watch. Her fist was clenched and she
restrained herself from hitting something, the board, the cushion, something.
It happened; they watched it happen, what had happened already, the futile
defense, the overwhelming assault. Two carriers. Seven riders, to a man. In
forty and more years the Fleet had never lost ships so wretchedly.
Tibet rammed… Kant hurled his carrier into jump near the mass of his enemies and
took his own riders and a Union carrier into oblivion… there was a sudden gap in
scan… a grim cheer at that; and again when North Pole and her riders hurtled
through the midst of the Unioners…
They almost made it through Kant’s hole. Then that image became a scatter of
images. North Pole’s comp signal that had begun a sending… ceased abruptly.
Signy had not cheered, only nodded slowly each time to no one in particular,
remembering the men and women aboard, names known… despising the situation they
were handed. Longscan resolved itself, question answered. The surviving images
that were Union kept on running, hit jump, vanished from the screens. The
Unioners would be back, reinforced, eventually, simply calling in more ships.
The Fleet had won, had held on, but now they were seven; seven ships.
And the next time and the next it would happen. Union could sacrifice ships.
Union ships prowled the fringes of the system and they dared not go out hunting
them. We’ve lost, she addressed Mazian silently. Do you know that? We’ve lost.
“Pell,” Mazian’s voice came quietly over com, “is under riot conditions. We do
not know the situation there. We are faced with disorder. Hold pattern. We
cannot rule out another strike.”
But suddenly lights flashed on Norway’s boards; a whole sector sprang to renewed
independence. Norway was loosed from comp synch. Orders flashed to the screen,
comp-sent.
… secure base.
She was loosed. Africa was. Two ships, to go back and take a disordered station
while the rest kept to their perimeter and room to maneuver.
She punched general com. “Di, arm and suit. We’ve got to take ourselves a berth,
every trooper we’ve got on the line. Suit alterday crew to guard the docks.
We’re going in after the troops we had to leave.”
A shout erupted from that link, many-voiced, angry, frustrated troops suddenly
needed again, in something they were hot to do.
“Graff,” she said.
They red-lighted despite the troops in prep below, pulled stress in coming about
and headed deadon for the station. Porey’s Africa pulled out of pattern in her
wake.
vii
Pell Central
“… Give us docking access,” Mallory’s voice came over com, “and open doors to
central, or we start taking out sections of this station.”
Collision, the screens flashed. White-faced techs sat at their posts, and Jon
gripped the back of the chair at com, paralyzed in the realization of carriers
hurtling dead at Pell’s midline.
“Sir!” someone screamed.
Vid had them, shining masses filling all the screen, monsters bearing down on
them, a wall of dark finally that split apart and passed the cameras above and
below station. Boards erupted in static and sirens wailed as the carriers