Digs made do with a single self-conscious nod. Clearly he was feeling very raw. But also very determined. “I was right, wasn’t I? You’re a Talent.”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“All the monitors are extreme sensitives, of course. But I don’t know if more than a handful are real Talents. Maybe not that many.” He eyed Wander swiftly, then turned away. Afraid that his gift of trust would be rejected. Forced to ask, nonetheless. “Do you see that stuff he’s asking about?”
“Shadowlanes,” Wander said. “All the time.”
Digs’ gaze fastened upon him, his eyes glittering with the excitement of knowing the barriers were down. “And the thing at Avanti that shook up the other monitors?”
Wander took a deep breath and committed. “A gift from my girl. Her name is Consuela. She’s a Talent too.”
“Amazing,” Digs breathed. “She’s on Avanti?”
“She was.” The risk was tremendous, but he had to take it. This was his only chance of communicating with her again. “She’s on a ship now.”
“The Avenger. Yeah, I reported to the diplomat about that.” A worried frown. “I think they’re planning something.”
“They’re in for a surprise,” Wander replied.
“Yeah?” A fierce light came and went. “They coming to rescue you?”
Another breath. “They’re going to try.”
Digs leaned across the table, his white-knuckled hands striving to etch furrows in the polished surface. He rasped, “Take me with you.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Consuela.”
The soft voice filtered through the fog in her head. She rolled over, groaned as the thumping pain resumed in her temples.
A gentle hand raised her up, fitted a cup to her mouth. “Drink this.”
She accepted the syrupy liquid, allowed the hand to ease her back down, taking none of the strain herself. She waited, coasting in the half-asleep state, until she felt the pain begin to subside. She opened her eyes to find Adriana smiling down at her, with Dunlevy standing behind her.
Adriana asked, “Better?”
“Much.” She nodded, glad to find the movement did not cause the pain to return.
“I would have given it to you sooner, but we thought it best to let you rest. Would you like coffee?”
“Oh yes.” She struggled upright, rubbed her face. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Almost twelve hours,” Dunlevy replied. “We decided it was the best thing.”
“Twelve hours.” She struggled to make sense of the jumble in her head. “But that means—”
“It was a total success,” he replied. “Our ship heaved to out of range of their sensors and sent the Blades and transports out and around for a surprise rear attack. The stun-bolts were as effective as the Avanti engineers promised. The troopers boarded while the pirates were still unconscious and captured both vessels without losing a man or a Blade.”
She accepted the cup of coffee from Adriana with a grateful smile. “Where are we now?”
“According to the navigator’s best estimates, less than two hours from the pirate base. They need you on the flight deck, Consuela. We must be sure our ships are on target. And we have to get a better fix on what their defenses are.”
She forced herself to her feet, ignored the wave of fatigue that rolled over her, asked, “Ships?”
Dunlevy gave her a tired but satisfied smile. “We have a little surprise in store for the people up ahead.”
****
“Final open communication,” Guns said, his voice barely above a whisper, as though unseen ears up ahead might already be listening. “By the count, Knights. Run through your ops.”
“Blade Three,” Rick replied when it was his turn. “Take out the northern generators at mark minus fifteen seconds. When the shields go, hit the upper battery after Blade Six, then strafe with stunners at full bore.”
He listened to the other leaders sound off. Each Blade was acting as a separate force, spread out thin in order to blanket the entire planet. Not really a planet, more a giant ball of ice and rock and iron, probably a comet that had strayed too far from some distant sun. Now parked in permanent orbit, haven to a pirate force that formerly had six ships by present count.
Two of them were now in their hands.
“Hit on the mark, Blades, and hit hard,” Guns ordered, when the sound-off was complete. “Tuck, ready at your end?”
“Aye, armed to the teeth and champing at the bit.”
“You know your attack points.”
“We’ll be hitting them on the money, don’t you worry.”
“Right.” This close to the mark, neither professional had time for rivalry. “Captain, all systems are go.”
“Strike hard and fast,” Arnol said. “Good luck, warriors.”
“Thank you, Skipper. Full alert, Blades. Silent running from here on in. Senior Weapons Officer signing off.”
Warrior. Rick focused on trailing the second captured pirate ship, holding himself in tight position just clear of its blast. The captain had called him a warrior. He felt the surging power of guns armed and ready, the Blade’s energy tuned to the maximum and connected to him through circuits so tight he could truly call the enormous force his own. All questions and doubts were put aside in the adrenaline-surging moment. Warrior.
Through the transparent visor he made visual contact with the target. It was a top-heavy globe, glinting black and evil in the starlight. The pirate ship he used as a shield matched it perfectly, an awkwardly constructed battleship never meant to leave deep space, with weaponry jutting from every imaginable portal. The pirate crew were locked in one of the Avenger’s lower holds, the transfer made after the vessels had been secured and the enemy’s controls powered down, so that none of the foes ever saw who had attacked and overpowered their vessels. Tuck’s ground troops were now being transported in the requisitioned ships, armed to the teeth and prepared for null-grav battle.
Rick flew in perfect tandem to the enemy’s ship. His relatively tiny Blade nestled between two massive cannons, he watched the ice globe approach. He checked his chrono, counted off the seconds, then on the timepoint shot forward like an impatient greyhound. He sensed more than marked the other Blades surging forward in tight array.
He had the generators locked on target when his internal alarm squealed as a ground-based cannon began tracking him. But too late. He fired the first phaser, powered up, fired again, shouted as both blasts struck home and the globe’s shields shimmered once, then disappeared.
The cannons faltered in their tracking, then resumed hunting using alternate power. But Rick’s squadron was in place, and the cannons were melted with two neutron missiles before they could get off their first shot.
Then disaster struck.
The largest of the pirate vessels entered into combat with Guns and another Blade, but while struggling to deflect the attack and launch missiles of its own, a rear hold disgorged a dozen misshapen robot attack-pods.
“Enemy pods!” Rick broke formation, raced forward as the first sent a bright flame shooting toward one of the Blades. “Knight Four, disengage and help Guns!”
“Busy,” came the gasped reply. “Cannons located aft of Tuck’s attack point.”
“Blade Seven here,” came the terse reply. “Engaging mother ship.”
“Engaging pods,” Rick said. There was too much risk of striking another Blade to launch a phaser or missile. He channeled all his power to the energy lance and roared to the attack.
A flaming sword seared the blackness ahead of his ship, a continual beam of fiery power. Without pause or hesitation he rammed straight through the first robot pod, scattering wreckage in every direction. A sharp swerve, turn, and another pod became a cloud of expanding metal.
“Blade Three!” Guns roared at him. “Rear shield!”
He canceled the lance, sent all power surging into a second protective barrier at his back. A single instant later he felt s
omething slam into him with such force his Blade was sent spinning uncontrollably. Rick struggled to pull back into controlled flight, and realized he had spun in too close to the mother ship. Instead of trying to disengage he refocused the secondary shields forward, rammed the drive to full power, and struck the ship with the full force of thirty gravities’ acceleration.
There was a shrieking blast of friction energy as the two shields collided. Then he was through, his Blade slicing the vessel like a knife through butter. Out the other end, no time to turn and inspect his handiwork, no time, for ahead lay two further drones, lances at the ready.
Rick shouted in defiance, switched power back to his lance, and raced to the attack.
The first robot pod’s operator clearly did not expect the outnumbered single vessel to charge, and hesitated just long enough for Rick to mount over its sword and dive. But the second was cagier, operated by a seasoned fighter through comm-link, who raced forward and would have made a kill had Rick’s reactions been a millisecond slower. But he managed to deflect the first thrust, slammed forward in an attack of his own, then made the mistake of wincing as the lances engaged in a deluge of fiery sparks.
The pod had intended this, for without an instant’s hesitation it continued the swing, around and around and accelerating to a force that would slice Rick’s Blade in half. But as the lance descended with terrifying force, another Blade appeared from nowhere, lance blazing, and smashed down upon the pod, blowing it away.
A breathless Guns demanded, “You all right, lad?”
“Yes,” Rick panted. “Thanks.”
“Tuck here,” came the growled report. “Station secured. Communications destroyed. Ships under guard. Call in Avenger.”
“Avenger here,” Arnol said, his voice clipped with tension. “What are our casualties?”
“Ground troops report all intact.”
“Blades, sound off,” Guns ordered.
One by one the ships responded, their exultation louder with each man. There was a moment’s silence before Guns said, his voice ringing with pride, “All hands accounted for, Skipper.”
“Arnol here. Outstanding, warriors. You have just made history. Congratulations.”
Chapter Twenty
Consuela had the flight deck almost to herself. The skeleton crew, the only others in the control room with her, remained at their stations with little to do. They were two days from landfall on Selanus, and no further shadowlanes had been detected crossing their path. At Selanus they would halt long enough to deliver their load of trade goods, just as their manifest declared, and then make the n-space jump, guided by Dunlevy, for the Yalla system.
They had made good time since returning to the lightway, and would arrive at Selanus well within their margin of believable error, especially for the vessel’s maiden voyage.
The pirate vessels had been crammed to the brim with every person found on the ice-bound globe. The Avenger crew had made the transfers through sealed passageways so that none of the prisoners could identify the attacking vessel. Then their drives had been melted down. They had been linked together, and were now being towed to the intersection with the lightway by two of the Avenger’s sturdy troop carriers. Avanti had been notified and was sending one of its few remaining vessels to make the pick-up.
Then the globe had been mined with its own stash of weaponry and blown to smithereens.
Consuela checked the chrono. Three hours until the ship’s brief downtime came to an end. In the meanwhile, most of the crew enjoyed a sleep approaching coma. But she had slept all she needed to. Besides, another task awaited her.
She fitted the headset into place and gradually began increasing the power-gain. She allowed her senses to expand outward, then focused upon a single point on the lightway, the next juncture where Wander had said he would search for a message.
There she began weaving another heart song, but this one was very different from the first. There was triumph this time. And determination. And righteous anger, and fierce pride in both herself and all the others with whom she had struggled. And longing. And yearning. And hope. And love.
And three words.
I am coming.
Part III
Heart Chaser
Chapter One
Eleven days had passed since their successful attack on the pirate stronghold. Eleven days of powering along the lightway course, headed for the Solarus system. Eleven days without another contact with pirates or a single message from Wander.
The silence took its toll on Consuela. She kept up steady watches, searching the darkness of space with her heightened sensibilities. Yet in truth the danger of pirates did not keep her in the control room as much as the hope of another word from Wander.
Sleep did not come easy to her during that eleven-day voyage. Her dreams were filled with images of Wander crying out to her, the message lost because she was not listening. She remained tired much of the time and gradually became more withdrawn.
On the last day before their arrival at Solarus, Consuela remained at her station for hours after her watch had ended. Captain Arnol had warned her that as Solarus contained a Hegemony military base, she would not be able to search far afield. There would be too great a danger of being detected. So she stayed and she searched until her weariness rose and fell like great waves and she stumbled out of the control room and fell into her bed.
The dream that came upon her then was so vivid that she felt as though she had returned home to Baltimore. And yet Consuela knew she was dreaming. She stayed locked in this in-between state until she was awoken by the chiming of her communicator.
She did not want to wake up. The dream was both powerful and radiant. But the chiming refused to go away, until she managed to rise and key the switch and hear the order for her to report immediately to the control room.
Consuela arrived just in time to hear Captain Arnol sternly announce, “It appears that we are faced with the unexpected.”
Consuela settled into the chair beside Pilot Dunlevy and fought to bring herself to full alert. Under ordinary circumstances their pilot station was spaciously comfortable, yet now five chairs encircled the console. Guns and Rick sat on Dunlevy’s other side, their gazes as focused as rifle barrels.
“You’re saying we’ve hit trouble,” Guns, the senior weapons officer, said.
“Not yet,” Arnol responded. “Not necessarily.”
Consuela struggled to set aside the lingering remnants of her dream—or had it been a dream? She was not sure. She had seen little that she recognized, but the experience had been so vivid that she wondered if she had actually been back on Earth.
“It could be a routine garrison inspection,” Dunlevy agreed. But his tone did not match his words.
Consuela swept sleep-tousled hair back from her face. The summons had carried such an urgent note that she had leapt from her bunk, slipped on her robe, and rushed to the pilot station. But still her mind was caught in tendrils of the image she had left behind.
She glanced over at Rick, who responded with a grin. Her only companion from Earth was as reckless as he was handsome and possessed the courage required of a good combat pilot. That was the position he held now. Back home, he had been a local football star. She seldom thought of those things nowadays, what with everything that was pressing on her here. But the dream still lingered, and with it all the memories of Earth and her life before the sudden transition.
Guns leaned his elbows on the console and said, “Are you talking about Imperial troopers?”
“If it were only dragoons, we would have little cause for concern. Solarus is home to a substantial garrison, so we would expect to find them everywhere,” Arnol replied. He turned to Dunlevy, the ship’s chief pilot. Captain Arnol ordered, “Tell them.”
“When we came out of n-space I made the standard check-in with the watch communicator at the Solarus main port,” Dunlevy told them. “We had decided, Arnol and I, that it was time to announce formally that a pilot travelle
d with the Avenger. Otherwise we would not be granted permission to transport direct from here to Yalla.”
“The tower’s making trouble,” Guns muttered.
“Not as we expected. Just after I made the report, suddenly there was absolute panic in the tower. The communicator went berserk and started babbling like a novice scout. I was able to linger and listen in.” Dunlevy’s face looked as though it had aged ten years. “Two Imperial battleships appeared out of n-space directly above the port, with no notice whatsoever, and demanded immediate docking.”
“We do not yet know whether our arrival and theirs are connected,” Arnol reminded them.
“Captain!” the watch officer sang out. “We are now within range of their local communications.”
“Request assignment of a parking orbit,” Arnol ordered. And to the group, “We need time to plan.”
A moment’s delay, then, “Request denied, Skipper.”
Arnol swiveled his chair fully about. “Remind Solarus port that Avenger is a ship designed for mining a gas giant, and that our dimensions will totally dwarf their port.”
Their spaceship was indeed a mining vessel, one shaped like a top and as tall as the valley where it had been constructed was deep. But it was also a battleship, secretly designed and armed to fight the pirates that had been ravaging the planet of Avanti. An on-planet inspection could not be risked.
After another moment’s delay, the watch officer reported, “Solarus port acknowledges message and says it is relaying orders for us to make for Docking Station Five.”
“Relaying orders, is it,” Guns muttered. “And with two Imperial battleships just landed?”
“Not good,” Arnol agreed worriedly.
“Never heard the like,” Guns went on, “not within the empire’s center and this far from a trouble spot.”
“No, nor I,” Arnol agreed. He turned back and said to the officer, “Confirm receipt of orders. And thank them. Make it sound as though we are pleased with the offer of landing space. Request as swift a turnaround as possible. Inform Solarus we wish to off-load cargo and immediately make way for Yalla.” He started to turn back, then checked himself. “And maintain constant watch over all comm-links. Let me know of any unusual traffic.”
The Dream Voyagers Page 26