goods.
It was possible Mazian’s nerve had broken. She insisted otherwise to herself,
but reckoned inwardly what moves she would have called, what she would have
done, in command of the Fleet. What any of them could have done better than had
been done. Everything had worked according to plan. And Mazian had aborted.
Mazian, that they worshipped.
Blood was in her mouth. She had bitten her lip through.
“Receiving approach instructions from Pell via Europe,” com told her.
“Graff,” she said, “take it over.” She reserved her own attention to the screens
and the emergency com link she had plugged into her ear, direct link with Mazian
when he should decide finally to use it, when he should decide to communicate
with the Fleet, which he had not, silent since the orders which had hurled them
out of a battle they had not lost.
It was a routine approach, all routine. She received clearance through Mazian’s
com, keyed the order to her rider captains, scattering Norway’s fighters as
other ships of the Fleet were shedding their own, backup crews manning them this
time. The riders would keep an eye on the militia, blast any that threatened to
bolt, then come and dock to them after the great carriers were safely berthed at
station.
Com chatter continued out of Pell; go slow, station pleaded with them, Pell was
a crowded vicinity. There was nothing from Mazian himself.
ii
Pell: Blue Dock; 1200 hrs.
Mazian—Mazian himself, and not Union, not another convoy. The whole Fleet was
coming in.
Word ran through the station corridors with the speed of every uncontrolled
channel, through the station offices and the smallest gathering on the docks,
through Q as well, for there were leaks at the barriers, and screens showed the
situation there. Emotion ran from outright panic while there had been the
possibility of Union ships… to panic of a different flavor when they knew it for
what it was.
Damon studied the monitors and intermittently paced the floors of dock command
blue. Elene was there, seated at the com console, holding the plug to her ear
and frowning in concentrated dispute with someone. Merchanters were in a state
of panic; the militarized ones were an impulse away from bolting entirely, in
dread of being swept up by the Fleet, crews and ships as well impressed to
service. Others dreaded confiscations, of supplies, of arms, of equipment and
personnel. Such fears and complaints were his concern; he talked to some of
them, when he could offer any assurance. Legal Affairs was supposed to prevent
such confiscations by injunction, by writs and decrees. Decrees… against Mazian.
Merchanters knew what that was worth. He paced and fretted, finally went to com
and took another channel, contacting security.
“Dean,” he hailed the man in charge, “call me alterday shift. If we can’t pull
them off Q, we still can’t leave those freighter docks open to easy intrusion.
Put some live bodies in the way. Uniform some of the supervisory staff if you
haven’t enough. General call-up; get those docks secure and make sure you keep
the Downers out of there.”
“Your office authorizes it.”
“It authorizes it.” There was hesitation on the other end; there were supposed
to be papers, counter-signatures from the main office. Stationmaster could do
it; stationmaster’s office had its hands full trying to make sense out of this
situation. His father was on com trying to stall off the Fleet with argument.
“Get me a signed paper when you can,” Dean Gihan said “I’ll get them there.”
Damon breathed a soft hiss, shut down the contact, paced more, paused again
behind Elene’s chair, leaning on the back of it. She leaned back in a moment’s
lull, half-turned to touch his hand. Her face had been white when he had come
into the room. She had recovered her color and her composure. Techs kept busy,
dispensing the finer details of orders to the dock crews below, preparations for
station central to start shifting freighters out of berth to accommodate the
Fleet. Chaos—there were not only freighters in dock, there were a hundred
merchanters assigned permanent orbit with the station about Downbelow, a
drifting cloud of freighters for which there had been no room. Nine ships of