“Lieutenant Commander Delucey, I demand an explanation. Where is your commanding officer? Why have we not been able to speak with him?”
“I’m not familiar with the layout of this ship, sir.”
“Put Commander Reese of the Aztec on!” Nyrom snapped. What had happened all of a sudden? Up until now Delucey had always been a capable, first-rate officer.
“He’s conferring with the scientific delegation in another part of the ship, sir.”
“Connect me to him, then!” Nyrom exploded.
What seemed an interminable wait ensued. Finally, Reese’s face appeared on the screen. “General?”
“Commander Reese, I want an explanation. Where is Major Ulak?”
Reese looked puzzled. “The major? He’s been waiting for your approval of the nominations list.”
“We haven’t received any list yet.”
“That’s strange. I—”
“What is going on over there? I warn you, Commander, if I don’t get a satisfactory answer right now, I’ll put a full crew aboard your ship and have you and everyone else there locked up for the remainder of the voyage. . . .”
Across the floor, an operator at one of the watch consoles called out suddenly, “Surveillance alert! Permission to report?”
Walsh looked over from the group that Nyrom had just left. “Go ahead.”
“Sensors are showing thermal signatures on the Aztec’s maneuvering thrusters. Radar indicates attitude altering. She’s starting to move, sir.”
“Commander Reese, what’s happening?” Nyrom demanded. “Your ship is moving out of station. What in hell do you think you’re doing? Do I have to remind you that we are an armed vessel?”
“Moving? That’s absurd. Let me check.”
But it was clearly true. On the large screen, the Aztec was starting to swing visibly, its tail coming around to bear in Trojan’s direction.
“I don’t know what they’re up to,” Grasse called back from the monitor station.
“Prepare for action. Issue a final warning,” Valcroix said to Walsh. “If they ignore it, fire to disable, not destroy.”
Walsh addressed the Chief Armaments Officer. “Deploy secondary lasers for low kill on stern section. Bring close-range disablers to launch readiness. Pods to Orange standby.”
On the screen Aztec’s stern was now full-face toward the Trojan. “Aztec firing main drive,” the watch operator sang out.
“They must be insane,” Walsh murmured, shaking his head. “There’s no way they can hope to get out of range of what we’re carrying.”
“Secondary lasers locked on stern section, twenty percent power,” the CAO reported. “Ready to fire. Awaiting orders.”
“Aztec has cut main drive.”
Walsh’s face creased in bemusement. “It doesn’t make any sense. If they’re—”
“What—?”
“Argh!”
“Jesus Christ!”
It was as if a gigantic, invisible hammer had struck the ship. The entire floor bucked sideways suddenly, sending everyone who had been standing sprawling across the floor and in heaps on top of each other, and pitching console operators from their seats. Loose items flew in torrents off shelves and worktops and tumbled across the floor. Closet doors burst open; drawers slid out and fell off their runners. The air was filled with the juddering and groans of distorted structures protesting. Some figures managed to untangle themselves and pull themselves back to their feet . . . just in time to be bowled over by the next jolt. When they tried to rise again, their bodies felt unnaturally heavy, causing them to flounder more and lose coordination. A lighting fixture detached from its recess in the ceiling and shattered across the floor.
* * *
Trojan had the general form of a stepped axle carrying a wheel at the thicker end. The wheel consisted of six spokes with various functional modules at the ends, interconnected by a communications ring. “Down” within the module decks meant outward, the force defining it being generated by a slow rotation of the whole structure. When the ship was accelerating under thrust, the spokes trailed back, tilting the module decks at the correct angle to create a normal gravity simulation.
It had been Tanya’s suggestion to position Aztec in a direction tangential to Trojan’s wheel and direct Wernstecki’s stern-pointing AG beam at the approaching side of it, thus speeding it up. But since gravity, like any force, is a two-way affair, this also had the effect of drawing Aztec in the opposite direction, toward Trojan. Aztec, however, had one factor working for it that Trojan didn’t: Its main drive was aligned with Wernstecki’s beam and when fired would oppose it. Hence, using the analogy Wernstecki had given when he first described his inspiration to the others, Aztec had the equivalent of something to dig its heels into when throwing its grapnel and jerking on the line.