The viewscreen came on and it was Jynn. The focus pulled back to show that she was in a floater, next to a Tauran.
The Tauran pointed to the windows next to Jynn. Vague through the snow, you could just make out the twin shuttle launch towers.
“Please proceed,” the Tauran said. “Three seconds after you launch, this woman and I will be killed by your radiation.”
“Do it,” Jynn said. “Just go.”
“I don’t think you will,” the Tauran said. “That would be inhuman. Murder in cold blood.”
Marygay was next to me, in the copilot seat. “Jynn–” she started.
“You don’t have any choice,” Jynn said evenly. “For the next part to work, you have to show…what you’re willing to do.”
We looked at each other, both frozen. “Do what she says,” Max whispered.
Suddenly, Jynn’s elbow jabbed out and drove into the Tauran’s throat. Her wrists were bound with metal handcuffs; she twisted them around its neck and jerked sideways with a loud crack.
She pulled the inert creature down across her lap and reached sideways for the floater controls. It whined and her image bobbed. “Give me thirty seconds,” she shouted over the straining motor. “No, twenty–I’ll be behind the main building. Get the hell out of here!”
“You come here!” Marygay said. “We can wait!” Maybe she didn’t hear. But she didn’t answer, and her image disappeared.
In her place, the calm image of a male Man in a grey tunic. “If you attempt to launch, we will shoot you down. Don’t waste your lives and our shuttle.”
“Even if you could do it,” I said, “you probably wouldn’t.” I checked my watch; I’d give her the full thirty seconds. “You don’t have any anti-spacecraft or antiaircraft weapons here.”
“We have them in orbit,” he said. “You will all die.”
“Bullshit,” I said, and turned half around to face the others. “He’s bluffing. Stalling for time.”
Po’s face was ashen. “Even if he is not. We’ve come this far. Let’s finish it.”
“That’s right,” Teresa said. “Whatever happens.”
Thirty seconds. “Hold on.” I slammed the FIRE switch down.
There was a tremendous roar and the gee force went from one to three in the short time it took us to clear the launch tube. Snow streamed away from the front viewport and was suddenly gone, replaced with bright sunshine.
The shuttle rolled over for orbital insertion, and the solid-looking clouds of the storm drifted away. The sky darkened from cobalt to indigo.
They might well have weapons in orbit, I knew. Even if they were antiques left over from the Forever War, they could do the job.
But there was absolutely nothing I could do to affect that. No evasive maneuvers or counterattacks or even clever arguments. A kind of tentative and temporary calmness settled over me, that I remembered from combat: you may only be alive for the next few seconds, but whatever happens, it will just happen. I carefully tilted my head against the acceleration and could see the strained half-smile on Marygay’s face; she was in the same state.
Then the sky turned black, and we were still alive. The roar abated and then was silent. We floated through space in free fall.
I looked back. “Everybody okay?” They murmured tentative assent, though some of them looked pretty bad. The anti-nausea medicine worked for most people, but of course space travel wasn’t the only stress they were going through.
We watched the Time Warp grow from brightest star to nonstellar sparkle to a hard bright image that grew and then loomed. The automated part of our trip ended with a not-quite-human voice telling me that control would be surrendered to me in ten seconds…nine…and so forth.
Actually, it was responsibility rather than “control” that had been transferred to me; the shuttle’s radar still mediated the rate of approach to the docking area. I kept my right hand gripped on a dead-man’s switch; if anything seemed wrong, I would let go, and the previous moment’s maneuvers would be quickly reversed.
The airlocks mated with a reassuring metallic snap, and my ears popped as our air pressure dropped to match the thin but oxygen-rich mixture in the Time Warp.