mind was set on the remembering, each move, each turn, each small instruction.
“Go,” the Dreamer bade her.
She rose and hurried, called Bluetooth, called others, every hisa within the
sound of her voice.
iii
Norway; 0130 hrs. md.; 1330 hrs. a.
Com sputtered; vacant longscan suddenly erupted in solid blips. Norway veered
tighter into her curve. Signy caught at the console and the cushion with the
taste of blood in her mouth. They red-lighted, stress alarms ringing. Josh and
Konstantin were clinging desperately to a hold halfway down the aisle, lost it,
slid. “Norway, Norway speaking, Unioners. Hold fire. Hold fire. You want a way
in, follow me.”
There was the obligatory silence while com traveled and caught up to them.
“Say further.”
Words, not shots.
“This is Mallory of Norway. I’m going over, you hear me? Run with me a space and
I’ll fill you in. Mazian’s in the process of blowing Pell and running for Sol.
It’s already started. I’ve got your agent Joshua Talley and the younger
Konstantin aboard. You’re going to lose yourself a station if you hold off. You
don’t listen to me and you’re going to have yourself an Earth-based war.”
There was a moment of dead silence from the other side. The armscomp board was
lit and tracking.
“This is Azov of Unity. What’s your proposal, Norway? And how do we trust you?”
“We ran; you’ve got that signal. I’ll lead back in. You run tail guard, Unity,
the whole lot of you. Mazian won’t stand to fight here or anywhere in the
neighborhood. He can’t afford it, you understand me?”
The silence was longer this time. “They’re tracking with us,” scan advised her.
“Hard as we can, Mr. Graff.”
Norway skimmed the edge of disaster, red-lighting in little flickers of stress
that flesh protested, heart pounding, hands trembling in maintaining necessary
control, experienced crew holding up together in sustained agony while combat
synch and inertia warred. Calm and steady, hold it together on the long, long
curve, keep the velocity they had gathered as much as possible, headed for Pell…
They had a tail guard for certain, Union headed right at their backside all at
max… to blow them as readily as they meant to blow Mazian.
“Come on,” she muttered to Graff, “keep our way, hold onto it. We need all we’ve
got.”
“Scan caution,” a calm voice advised her and Graff; long-scan flickered with
hazed green and gold… obstacles in their path, still in comp’s memory and shown
to be right where comp remembered them, give or take a freighter’s slow
progress. Short-haul freighters. They were getting their chatter, as-received, a
squeal of conversation and panic that deepened as they came in on it
Graff threaded them. Norway shot through the interstices on a computer-aimed
straight course and red-lighted to home again on Pell. The Unioners came after
and all missed with a rush that would stop hearts on the dead-slow freighters. A
deep howl of terror had reached them, vanished again.
Norway… Norway… Norway… their own comp was sending frantically, and if their
riderships survived, they would rally to that summons.
Blips flashed red and solid ahead of them, too fast for freighters. Comp howled
warnings. Mazian was loose. Europe, India, Atlantic, Africa, Pacific.
“Where’s Australia?” she snapped at Graff. That recognition code had not come
through with the others. “’Ware of them!”
Graff must have heard. There was no time for chat. The Fleet was massed and
collision-coursed for them. Their rider-ships were locked to, all home to
mothers, readied for jump, that grace at least.
“Mallory,” she heard Mazian’s voice over com. Graff heard too and dropped them
in a sickening maneuver that comp transferred into armscomp’s aim: they ripped a
pattern of fire at Europe as fire came back at them and the hull sang. G slammed
at them fighting contrary stresses, and of a sudden fire erupted aft. Union had
plowed in, disregarding their safety, not savvy of their comp signals, and
hungry for targets. “Out!” she ordered helm, and Norway maneuvered with all
bearable angle, finding no precentage in this fight. Alarms rang. Pell and
Downbelow lay ahead, minutes ahead at near-C.
They kept veering, comp calculating and recalculating that marginal curve.