The Last Dancer

by The Last Dancer (new ed) (mobi)

  Jimmy lifted an eyebrow.

  Trent grinned at him. "L-5. Peaceforcer Heaven."

  "Very strange behavior. They're pretty sure who we are, the SpaceFarers who've been pretending to be Space Force." Trent shrugged. "They do have the same initials. Start with the same word yet. You'd think that one of them would have sued the other by now. Trademark infringement or something. So anyway, we're Bad Guys. But we're heading toward Spacebase One, PKF territory. Why? Why, oh why? Can you guess?"

  Jimmy shook his head.

  "We're going to hide behind it for most of a second, if things work out. Also it's confusing. The folks at L-4 won't understand it. We're Bad Guys, but we're not running. Maybe we're not Bad Guys, maybe we're Good Guys. Or innocent bystanders. We're heading toward Spacebase One; maybe we're Peaceforcers? What could possibly be going on?" Trent chuckled aloud, got a glare from the Captain. "Look at the holo, Jimmy."

  In the central panel of the viewholo, the dwindling image of Halfway vanished. In its place a holo of the Lew Alton appeared. "Now, this is the interesting thing about the Lew Alton. It looks normal enough, landing fins, needle nose, silver hull for heat dissipation, obviously intended for use in atmosphere; but it uses mass drivers instead of a torch, and the silver on the hull is a mirror that can be turned off." Three long, slender tubes ran down the length of the ship, flaring open at each end. "The mass drivers boost in both directions, too. The Lew Alton can accelerate and brake without undergoing turnover; you just change the direction of thrust through the mass drivers."

  The viewholo returned to its prior view. "We're mildly stupid, we don't know yet that there's a bunch of badass Space Force commandos headed our way. Now we're sweeping with radar, really ugly radar signature, we had to make up a special radar antenna to get it; boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Wait, what's this? On our radar we get back the signature of five Space Force craft headed our way. Now we get a little scared and we check it out, maybe our radar's not very sensitive, so we sweep them again, a signal so loud it's like we're shouting in their face. Damn, we're amateurs. Stoopid stoopid.

  "Now we're thinking it over. Should we run away?"

  "Outspeakers," said Captain Saunders. "PREPARE FOR TURNOVER IN TEN SECONDS."

  "Wait, what's this? The ship full of Bad Guys is going into turnover!"

  Thrust ceased, and the ship hung in free fall for several seconds before beginning a long, slow, one hundred and eighty degree tumble. The bridge seemed to twitch; it made the muscles in Jimmy's stomach twitch in sympathy. "The bridge floats free inside the ship; all the passenger compartments do, and they turn to face into the direction of thrust. Otherwise you could end up hanging on your seatbelt at eight gees."

  It took most of a minute before the ship had completely turned around. The Captain voice: "THREE THOUSAND CEPSSA IN TEN SECONDS."

  "Now we're panicking," Trent announced. "Turning tail and running away."

  After a brief pause, Captain Saunders said in a conversational voice, "There they go. They just--" She fell briefly silent as acceleration kicked up to three gees. "--just pumped it up to fifteen gees acceleration."

  "Trent?"

  "Hang tight, Jimmy. They'll figure it out in a bit, and when they do, they'll probably send missiles."

  Jimmy said very quietly, "I don't understand."

  "They can't catch us now. We're running toward them, but they think we're running away; they're so far away from us all they could make out by telescope was the fact that we went through turnover. So right now we're accelerating toward each other; shortly they're going to notice that the Doppler signature on our radar is wrong. It might be a bit before that happens, they might notice real soon."

  Four minutes passed. Five. Six. The silence on the bridge was thick with shared tension.

  One of the crew said, "They just cut acceleration."

  "They just realized. They're never going to catch us now; they've already picked up so much velocity that by the time they've gone through turnover, decelerated to zero, and headed back after us, we'll be having tea at Venus. The only chance they have is to send missiles after us. If they do that right now we're in bad shape, so first we try and talk them into chasing us some more." Trent grinned cheek to cheek, said aloud, "Captain, have they beamcast to us?"

  "Not yet."

  "Can I get a maser to them?"

  Captain Saunders nodded. "Go ahead; we're beaming."

  Trent said, "This is the Collective Ship Lew Alton, commanding officer Captain Hera Saunders. To the Space Force craft chasing us, hello."

  Three seconds pause, the lightspeed delay from L-4 to near-Earth. "Captain Saunders, this is Colonel Jurgen Hanhela of the United Nations Space Force. Cease your acceleration and stand by to be boarded, or we will destroy you."

  "You're not speaking to Captain Saunders, Colonel."

  He took the bait: "To whom am I speaking?"

  "Trent," said Trent. "Trent the Uncatchable."

  Dead silence from the other end.

  "Give it your best shot, sucker." Trent made a cutting gesture, and after a moment said, "Well? If they stop and think about it, they won't do it."

  Saunders nodded. "I know. If--" The old woman abruptly laughed. "Idiots! They're going into turnover!"

  "A chance to catch the Uncatchable," Trent whispered. "They know they're faster than us; how could they possibly resist?"

  In the holofield, the sparks showing the fusion rockets of the five craft had abruptly relit.

  "All right," said Captain Saunders. "Outspeakers. IMPACT FIELDS COMING UP; 6,000 CEPSSA IN TEN SECONDS."

  They passed the task force, which was still decelerating, doing four hundred thousand klicks an hour. By the time the task force had killed its forward velocity, they were three-quarters of the way to Spacebase One at L-5, and moving at a good speed.

  Jimmy Ramirez, struggling for breath against slightly better than six gees acceleration, found it difficult to follow Trent's voice. "We'll be out of their line of sight for all of about a second. We're going to buzz Spacebase One at about fifty klicks distance; as soon as we're past it, during that second they can't see us because of Spacebase One's bulk, we're going to go dead. The hull paint goes black, the mass drivers shut down, the radar antenna with the ugly signature gets shipped away on a beacon, giving away the odd boop or two to betray its position. When they do send the missiles--and they will--they send them after the beacon. We hope."

  Jimmy Ramirez, fighting for air, did not make the mistake of trying to nod.

  Space Force sent their missiles while the Lew Alton was still three minutes away from L-5. The missiles chased the Collective craft at a hundred and fifty gees.

  The ship passed Spacebase One, with the missiles gaining on it. It happened nearly instantaneously; drop, blackness, all at once; the immense weight lifted itself off Jimmy Ramirez's chest, and he found himself floating gently in his acceleration chair.

  He heard the distant clang of the beacon disengaging from the ship.

  Trent's voice: "Captain, how long until impact?"

  In the darkness the woman's voice seemed to echo in Jimmy's ears. "Not less than one minute, no more than one and a half."

  "Jimmy, you okay?"

  "Yeah."

  "Good. Okay. So these three lawyers are zooming along a country road and they get into an accident with a gravedigger. So the gravedigger pulls himself out of his car and he's okay, but the lawyers are kind of messed up, so he buries them, right there, and walks into town and calls the Sheriff. 'Sheriff,' he says, 'terrible accident I just had. Three lawyers in it, they was all dead, so I buried them.' Sheriff says, 'What? You went ahead and buried them already? Are you sure they was dead?' Gravedigger says reluctantly, 'Well, they said they wasn't, but you know how those fellas lie.'"

  Jimmy stared into the darkness. "I forgot you told these sorts of jokes. Now I remember why--"

  Weightlessness.

  Quiet.

  Jimmy Ramirez returned to consciousness slowly, the tan
g of blood in his mouth.

  His head throbbed.

  Dim, gentle illumination, of glowpaint set low, lit the bridge around them.

  Trent, at his side, said, "Now you remember why what?"

  "Huh?"

  Trent held up a hand. "How many fingers?"

  "Eight. What happened?"

  "Something banged you in the head, I'm not sure what. Some things came loose in the blast."

  "Did we get away?"

  "Yeah. I thought we would. Space Force nosed around for a bit, but they couldn't find us, cold black hulk that we are. And somewhat off course from their own missiles, that didn't hurt. They turned back and went home about half an hour ago; right about now they're boasting to half the System that they blew up Trent the Uncatchable. They're going to be real embarrassed tomorrow. How many fingers?"

  "Uh--five?"

  "Better. We'll give it a bit, and then, when we're sure it's safe, we'll fire up the mass drivers and correct course for Venus."

  "Did we lose anybody?"

  "Almost."

  "Who?"

  "You. If whatever hit you had hit a little lower, it probably would have snapped your neck instead of just giving you a concussion."

  "Oh."

  "Aside from you, not too bad. Some broken bones, sprains, like that. What usually happens when a tin can gets shaken up. When the medbot is done setting bones it'll be up here for you."

  "Hanging around with you genies," said Jimmy slowly, "is not safe."

  "The concussion's not bad; and we'll stop off at Mars to get you a new foot. Nice hospitals at Mars, maybe you'll like it there."

  "Do you?"

  Trent was silent a moment. "Well, no. It can be real hard to find good places to go dancing."

  "How about the Belt?"

  "Better. There's some nice stuff in the Belt. Nothing like New York, but--" Trent shrugged. "Nice. Mahliya Kutura lives out there. She's seriously nice. And only a little crazy."

  "You miss Earth?"

  Trent said, "Yes. And so will you."

  Jimmy spoke around the throbbing in his head. "I suppose I'll get used to it."

  Trent said simply, "We'll be back."

  * * *

  64.

  At 8:15 a.m., on the morning of July the Fourth, Mohammed Vance sat alone, in the darkness of his office half a klick below the surface of Capitol City, and studied holos.

  They had lost all of Japan; most of Greater Los Angeles was in rebel hands. Insurrections were scattered across the length of Occupied America, from Miami up through Maine on the East Coast, throughout the Midwest, and from Portland to Ensenada on the West Coast; but the clear focus of the rebel efforts was California. Sensible; it was what Vance had expected, the way Vance would have structured it himself. The lack of mandatory Automated Traffic Control in Los Angeles gave the rebels a clear advantage; it was no surprise that they'd overrun L.A. County so quickly. The rebels clearly knew where their advantages were; PKF targets first, and then TransCon.

  They'd been losing ATC cells all morning. Most of Ventura County was lost to TransCon, and cells up and down the coast were dropping off of the grid.

  The PKF armories in Los Angeles and Sacramento were in Reb hands; fighting in San Francisco, the home of the State Governor General, was going badly. The spysats showed that something was going on at Navajo Spaceport. Vance did not know what, as it was impossible to get a hold of anybody out there. He must assume that Navajo Spaceport, as well as LAX, was in enemy hands.

  And upstairs, rebels still had almost half the laser cannon; since being resupplied by the Johnny Rebs, shipping up out of LAX, the Japanese holding the remaining cannon had dug in, and Space Force had been reclaiming the cannon ever more slowly. In the last eight hours, only one.

  It was almost true, as the rebels claimed, that they had taken over the chain of InfoNet Relay Stations. Apparently the Halfway Relay Station alone was controlled by Space Force; Vance did not know who in Space Force had had the foresight to take that step, but when this was over he would find out, and thank the man personally. His job, difficult now, would have been made more so if the Net had gone down.

  DataWatch might not have minded; Vance had seen their contingency plans. But DataWatch was only a small part of the PKF, and Vance could not find it in him to much regret DataWatch's missed opportunity.

  Messy, Vance concluded, but it could have been far worse. Even when the rebels started directing laser cannon against civilian targets--and they would, for Vance would have in their place--the damage would be within acceptable limits.

  At 8:30 a.m. his systerm announced a call. It was the officer from Internal Affairs. Vance listened without interrupting the man, said finally, "Well done," and rose from behind his desk. "Command, mirror on." He checked his appearance in the mirror: a tall man with black Elite eyes, wearing the gray of PKF combat fatigues, the uniform of the Unification War. He would be the only one in Strategic Planning who would be dressed so, and it should send a message.

  He walked without hurry down the bustling corridors toward Strategic Planning, entered Planning and moved down toward the podium at the far end of the room. The gentle murmur of voices quieted slightly at his appearance, quieted a bit more when he ascended to the podium.

  Most of those present were gathered around the tactical table in the center of the room, which showed a three-dimensional map of Earth and near-Earth space. Four Commissionaires present, Vance noted, three of them senior to him, all of them older; he was still quite young for a Commissionaire, only forty-seven.

  At forty he had been, by four years, the youngest Commissionaire in PKF history.

  "Officers," said Vance quietly, not waiting for the babble to die down. "This afternoon, at 3 p.m., we will boost from Unification Spaceport. Before 4 p.m. we will be dropping, via semiballistic, into the city of Santa Monica. We will proceed eastward down Wilshire Boulevard, securing the city as we go, until we have passed completely through Los Angeles. We will commit our entire forces to this operation; all troops, all support personnel, all carriers, all semiballistics, all laser cannon which Space Force has recovered. We have two thousand three hundred Elite who can be reassigned on such short notice; all will be reassigned. Plans for the attack will be distributed before 9 a.m. By noon I want your written responses delivered to my office, expressing any reservations you may have concerning the course of action."

  By the time he was done speaking complete silence had fallen throughout Strategic Planning. Commissionaire Rouen, senior of the Commissionaires present, broke the silence. "That's not according to the plans, Mohammed. We are going to do a slow roll down from the north--"

  "Indeed it is not according to the plans," said Vance. "I am changing them."

  The woman shook her head, seemed almost amused. "Christine won't allow it, Mohammed. These plans have been laid for most of a month."

  Vance did not raise his voice. "Elite Commander Christine Mirabeau," said Mohammed Vance, "was arrested for treason against the Unification at 8:22 a.m. this morning." To their stunned silence, he said, "I want written responses by noon. You'd best get to work."

  He left abruptly.

  Christian J. Summers floated in black space, laser cradled in his arms, a tether attaching him to the bulk of the InfoNet Relay Station at his back.

  Awaiting the arrival of the Space Force troops.

  He was about to die, and he knew it.

  Earth glowed blue and white beneath his feet. Arrayed around him were fifteen other Johnny Rebs, tucked into the shadow (such as it was with full Earth beneath them) on the side of the Relay Station facing away from the sun. A tight fit; the Relay Station was only a talk-to-me, one of the smaller and older stations.

  They were all Rebs; he had taken no Claw with him on this mission, only men and women he had known and trusted for many years. Now he regretted it. It would have hurt less if he had dragged a group of strangers to their deaths. According to the plan, they should have been picked up a good two hours a
go. Clearly something had gone wrong with the plan. He did not even know what; only that the Halfway Relay Station had not gone down along with the rest. The ship that was supposed to come get them was the same ship that had been slotted to deliver the Halfway Relay Station task force.

  They could have tried to head back on the HuskySleds they'd come in, but the sleds were not fast, and would only take them back to their staging point at Halfway's Edge.

  Summers knew they would never make it back to the Edge. Space Force would destroy their sleds on the way back. Their only hope for survival lay in returning to Earth before Space Force arrived; and to do that, they needed pickup.

  But pickup was two hours late, and he was certain now that it would not come.

  Half an hour ago he'd lit the rockets on the sleds, and sent them down toward Earth below them; one fewer sign of their presence.

  "Chris?"

  The voice in his ears was that of Janna Anderson, the daughter of two of his oldest friends. He was glad he would die with her, and not have to face her parents with her death on his hands. "Yes?"

  She pointed. "Look."

  Summers followed her gesture. Nothing but stars--

  Half a dozen stars winked out. Summers followed the patch of blackness moving across the emptiness. "Okay. This is it, my friends. They're coming in black, with their drive dead. If we're lucky the lack of the sleds will fool them into believing we've packed up and moved on." It was a mistake he would not have made himself, and despite his contempt for Space Force, did not expect from them. The talk-to-me's heat exchange radiators got rid of heat acquired from sunlight; the radiators were on the satellite's shady side, away from the sun, along with the Rebs. The radiators might prevent Space Force from acquiring an IR image; deep radar would be useless against the backdrop of the Relay Station's metal. Visible light would be Space Force's best bet.

  The blackness loomed larger, blocked out more and more stars as the ship approached. Now it was close enough Chris Summers could see the bright sharp bursts of its small maneuvering rockets. "Rifles ready--"