Sprite was a registered ID, on the ship-lists. The spook could check her out in the flick of a key. Silver Dream could, maybe, if Marie was lucky, decide that Sprite was a legitimate freighter, just happening in, by some cosmic luck, and ignore it, like a good, quiet spook.
Or the spook could figure it was Corinthian faking ID, or that it was something else faking ID, and factor them into its targeting decisions.
Ordnance from Corinthian should go right past Sprite, out into the dark. The numbers showing now were a miss by an absolute hair. Inerts or not, Sprite sensors should pick some thing up when that volley went past their bows. And Silver Dream might not be sure which ship it came from.
Figure it, Mischa Hawkins. Figure we’re not firing at you. Read the ambient. Look out at the dark, you damn fool, just once in your life, look out there and ask yourself the right question.
There’s fire coming the other way. Move the damn ship.
Burst from the trim jets. He snatched after another nutri-pack.
Get the ship into mate with their supply dump, yeah. They’d always dropped close. Capella was good.
Always made it well inside an hour. Put the card in, that was one thing. Always put the card in. It credited them, when they used it again, at Viking—along with the cargo always waiting for them here.
Capella had never mentioned that the old hulk had a kill-function.
Not your friend, hell.
But enter a code called HAVOC in that hulk, on their Fleet navigator’s say-so, a code of that nature, into what she now admitted was armed, and she didn’t tell you specifically what it did or where its hostile action stopped?
Not unless they had no… bloody… choice.
—v—
THE EMERGENCY SIREN WAS WAILING through the ship, Duran was on com, ordering Sprite’s kids’ loft to take immediate emergency procedures, Paxton had been on a second ago saying they’d jumped short, nobody knew what the hell had happened, or why they’d dropped short of their intention, except a rough drop and then something going past them, so high-mass, meaning fast, that they couldn’t figure what it was. “Satisfied?” Mischa spared breath to ask her. “Satisfied?”
“Change coordinates. “ Marie pounded the counter above
Mischa’s console softly with a clenched fist, tried to slow her breaths. A post-jump headache and an adrenaline overload didn’t help. “Get us down, dammit. Get us up, get us out of the plane of fire.”
“Somebody’s back there,” Paxton was saying, and Sully, helm, was yelling at Mischa, off-com,
“It was missiles, it’s a heave-to order! It could be Military, one of them is bound to be the Military, chasing Corinthian—we can’t go shooting at shadows, dammit!”
“Track point of origin,” Marie said.
“We can’t go firing—”
“Sully, just shut up!” Mischa, off-corn himself. “I heard you! Get a point of origin!” Mischa was sweating. “Shut that damn siren off! God!”
“Hindmost is Corinthian, “ Marie said.
“Corinthian, Corinthian, I’m sick to death of Corinthian, I’m sick to death of Bowe, I’m sick to death of you and that damn kid! I don’t want to hear about him, I don’t want to hear any more of your damn ideas, Marie, just sit down and keep your mouth shut! You don’t know anything about missiles, you don’t know what you’ve stirred up, you got us into this mess, now, just get the hell back to your finagling damn deals and leave ops to people who know what they’re doing.”
“Mischa,—get us out of—”
Proximity klaxon went off. Marie looked up, stared at the screens, some of which flared red, winced, but it was less than the blink of an eye.
Whatever it was, second volley, had passed them into the dark.
“Where is he? Damn him, where is he?”
“They’re not targeting us,” Marie said. “We’re still alive.”
“They’re firing at the Military,” Sully said.
“Sully, for God’s sake,—Marie,—shut up!”
“Mischa. “ Marie rapped the console, got a calm word in. “Take us out of plane. Now. Settle who and where later.”
“Sit down! We’re going on to Viking, we’ll meet Bowe there, if that’s what it takes. We’ll do it where there’s police.”