confound maneuvers already in progress, lessening the chance of Mazian’s success
even further?
He rose, paced again the bowed floor of what looked to be his final prison. A
second message then. An outrageous demand. If Union was as self-convinced as the
mannequins, as humorlessly convinced of their purpose, they might let it pass if
it fit their demands.
“Considering merger of Company interest with Union in trade agreements,” he
composed in his head. “Negotiations far advanced; as earnest of good faith in
negotiations, cease all military operations; cease fire and accept truce. Stand
by for further instructions.”
Treachery… to drive Mazian into retreat, into the kind of scattered resistance
Earth needed at this stage. It was the only hope.
BOOK THREE
^
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter One
« ^ »
i
In approach to Pell: 10/4/52; 1145 hrs.
Pell.
Norway moved as the Fleet moved, hurling their mass into realspace in synch. Com
and scan flurried into action, searching for the mote which was giant Tibet,
which had jumped in before them, advance guard, in this rout.
“Affirmative,” com sent to command with comforting swiftness. Tibet was where
she was supposed to be, intact, probe untouched by any hostile activity. Ships
were scattered about the system, commerce, quickly evaporating bluster from some
self-claimed militia. Tibet had had one merchanter skip out in panic, and that
was bad news. They needed no tale-bearers running to Union; but possibly that
was the last place a merchanter wanted to head at the moment
And a moment later confirmation snapped out from Europe, from the flagship’s
operations: they were in safe space with no action probable.
“Getting com out of Pell itself now,” Graff relayed to her post at controls,
still listening. “Sounds good.”
Signy reached across the board and keyed signal to the rider-captains, advising
them. Fast to Norway’s hull, so many parasites, they did not kick loose. Com was
receiving direct and frantic id’s from the militia ships scrambling out of their
projected course as they came insystem dangerously fast, out of system plane.
The Fleet itself was more than nervous, running as they were in one body,
probing their way into the last secure area they hoped to have left.
They were nine now. Chenel’s Libya was debris and vapor, and Keu’s India had
lost two of its four riders.
They were in full retreat, had run from the debacle at Viking, seeking a place
to draw breath. They all had scars; Norway had a vane trailing a cloud of
metallic viscera, if they still had the vane at all after jump. There were dead
aboard, three techs who had been in that section. They had not had time to vent
them, not even to clean up the area, had run, saved the ship, the Fleet, such as
remained of Company power. Signy’s boards still flashed with red lights. She
passed the order to damage control to dispose of the corpses, whatever of them
they could find.
Here too there might have been an ambush—was not, would not be. She stared at
the lights in front of her, looked at the board, with the drugs still weighting
her senses, numbing her fingers as she manipulated controls to take back
Norway’s governance from comp synch. They had scarcely engaged at Viking, had
turned tail and run—Mazian’s decision. She had never questioned, had respected
the man for strategic genius—for years. They had lost a ship, and he had pulled
them, after months of planning, after maneuvers that had taken four months and
unreckoned lives to set up.
Had pulled them from a fight from which their nerves were still jangled, from a
fight which they could have won.
She had not the heart to look beside her to meet Graff’s eyes, or Di’s, or the
faces of the others on the bridge; and no answer for them. Had none for herself.
Mazian had another idea… something. She was desperate to believe that there was
sane reason for the abort.
Get out quickly, redo it. Replan it. Only this time they had been pushed out of
all their supply lines, had given up all the stations from which they had drawn