by Diann Read
Weil pulled his arms over Nemec’s head, around his neck. His body lay against Nemec’s back, and Nemec wrapped arms around his legs so he rode piggyback.
He blacked out at the jarring of Nemec’s pace. Knew nothing else until hands lowering him to the ground roused him. Someone put the drinking bottle to his mouth. He pushed it away with both tied hands. “I can’t. I’ll throw up.”
“You’ve got to,” Weil said. “You’ll dehydrate if you don’t.”
This time he lay stretched on the floor of a dark tunnel and Weil crouched beside him, applying wet cloths again. He sipped cautiously at the nearly empty drinking bottle.
As his senses cleared he became aware of machinery sounds in the distance, and the dirty smell of burning. He said, “We’re where?”
“Malin Point,” said Weil.
Nemec joined them. “This is where it’s going to get tough,” he said. “I’m going in to check out the complex and cause a distraction. Wait for me here. If there’s anything you can do to help Tristan travel more easily, do it. When I come back we’ll have to move fast.”
“What about Security?” asked Weil.
“That patrol is going on up the main cavern. It’s about a mile ahead of us now.”
Tristan heard the surgeon’s sigh of relief.
After Nemec left, Weil cut the strips binding Tristan’s wrists and pulled the brace out of his backpack.
“No,” Tristan said.
“You’re going to need it, kid.”
He grimaced as the surgeon helped him sit up, wrapped the brace around him, secured its straps. “That hurts!” he said.
“I’m sorry. It’ll hurt worse without it.”
Weil pulled the dermal infusers out on the backpack’s flap. Most had been used by now. He selected two, pulled the cap from one. “This is more antibiotic.”
Tristan’s shoulders felt bruised. He twisted his face away as Weil reached for his arm.
“I’m going to give you a stimulant, too,” the surgeon said, uncapping the second cylinder. “Let’s see your other arm now.” Pressing it to Tristan’s shoulder, he said, “This’ll trigger your adrenaline and help you keep going.”
“Why didn’t you give me that when we first started?” Tristan demanded.
“Because it has a drawback,” Weil said. “It’ll increase the pain.”
It made Tristan restless, too. He couldn’t lie still, couldn’t sit. He tried to gain his feet, holding onto the wall, and staggered. When Weil caught him by the arm to steady him, he jerked away. “Leave me alone!”
He started at a noise up the tunnel and stiffened. Nemec appeared, brandishing his sidearm and panting. “Come on! I shut down the containment field in the cellblock. The prisoners are trying to take the control room. That should keep Security busy long enough for us to reach the loading bays.”
* *
The shouting and thumping outside the control room crescendoed. Captain Krotkin pressed the commceiver harder to one ear and covered his other ear with his hand. “We’ve had a power loss!” he shouted into the pickup. “The whole cellblock is down and we’ve got a mass breakout! Get some reinforcements out here!”
He paused, straining to hear over steady banging at the door. “Say again, Command Post? . . . No, we don’t know what caused it! There aren’t any failure lights. They’re storming the control room! We need reinforcements!”
Someone in the Command Post must have turned up the volume; the voice that came through the commceiver boomed loud and clear. “Negative on the reinforcements, Malin Point. We have reason to believe your unexplained power loss may have been caused by the fugitives from the headquarters dispensary. They were last noted heading in your direction.”
A veil of static dropped over Krotkin’s channel and another voice cut in. “All patrols to quadrant delta-five! I say again, all patrols to delta-five!”
Twenty
The tunnel made a corner and then became two, one going up, the other down. Nemec chose the one that rose.
Tristan clenched his teeth, leaning into the climb. The knot in his back had become a fireball, and his heart beat too hard and too fast. He could feel it against his ribs. It made him breathe too quickly.
The machinery noise grew louder, a thrum of compressors and scream of valves, until Tristan’s head throbbed. The smells of heat and lubricants turned the air bitter, turned his stomach.
He made it to the top of the ramp only because Weil and Pulou half carried him. He stood panting between them while Nemec ran his sensor around a door marked D-5 UTILITY PLANT, and saw him abruptly freeze. Touching his receiver plug, Nemec listened for a moment and let his jaw tighten.
“What is it?” Weil asked.
“They’re diverting Security from the cellblock to the loading bays.” Nemec waved at the door’s trigger. The door scraped open. He urged Weil and Tristan and Pulou through and switched off its automation. “Keep going,” he said, “straight up the passage. This door won’t hold indefinitely as a pressure shield would, but it’ll buy us some time.”
The passage grew narrow and dim. It echoed with the shriek and thump of machinery, and Pulou grimaced and pinned his ears back.
It grew hot. Very hot. Tristan’s mouth burned, but he had emptied the drinking bottle.
“This passage opens into the loading area,” Nemec said. “It’s a ring of five launch bays. The one they use for passengers has a lift from the mine complex below, and they’re sending Security troops up in it. We could step out of here into a fire fight.”
He moved swiftly forward with his pistol in his hand. “If we do, I’ll draw their fire while you get to the nearest cargo boat. We’ll be setting a course for the other moon.” He looked at each of them. “Got that?”
Tristan felt winded. He could only swallow and nod.
The passage ended at another automatic door with a pressure shield for back-up, a necessity this near the moon’s surface. Nemec eyed it, scowling, before he said, “Get behind me!” and waved the automatic door open.
Ribbons of energy sizzled across the loading area from several nooks and corners, searing holes into the walls and floor of the passage before the door slid closed again.
“Security’s in position out there,” Nemec said.
A series of muffled explosions began at the far end of the passage behind them: energy weapons blasting at its automatic door.
“They’re closing from the rear, too,” he said. “Let’s go! The nearest bay is to your left as you go through this door.” He pulled the receiver plug from his ear and adjusted a dial until it buzzed like a tsigi. “Simulated bomb,” he said with a tight smile. “When I throw this out, run! There’s plenty of cover. Stay low, keep moving, and don’t clump together.”
Up the passage behind them, the blasting had stopped. They heard bootfalls instead, coming closer.
Nemec waved at the door trigger and rose up just enough to lob the receiver into a maze of starter carts and ore chutes. Its buzz filled the concourse.
A dozen Security troops dove for cover.
“Go!” Nemec said through his teeth. He twisted around, pistol leveled, to guard their backs.
Pulou, teeth bared and eyes wide with tsaa’chi, pulled Tristan’s arm over his shoulder. “Run!” he hissed. “Run!” He ducked behind an ore chute, dragging Tristan with him. Yards away, the chute disappeared through a dark arch into a launch bay.
“Hey!” A shout rang across the concourse. “Hey, there they go!”
A bolt of energy seared across the top of the chute and smashed into the wall behind them. Its burst sent fragments of concrete flying.
Still at the mouth of the passage, Nemec squeezed off a shot at the sniper and gave Weil a shove as he spun to take aim at their pursuers in the passage.
The whole concourse flashed with flying energy, concentrated on the passage entrance. Bursts gone wild shattered off the pressure door’s frame. One exploded on its trigger—
—and the shield slammed closed, sealing Nemec inside the passage.
Weil leaped for the cover of the ore chute. A burst caught him in midair, in the shoulder. Its impact smashed him to the wall, marking it with blood as he crumpled. He didn’t move.
“Weil! No!”
The scream startled Tristan; it took a moment for him to realize he had shouted. But Pulou pushed at him and panted, “Go! Run!”
Bolts followed them under the arch, glanced from the ore chute, shattered off the walls. Pulou fell headlong, taking Tristan down with him. The fall slammed the breath from his body, made his consciousness reel.
White heat screamed over their heads. It lit the launch bay beyond with a shower of sparks as it struck the deck. It showered the shuttle that waited with three of its cargo holds closed, the fourth still open.
Pulou grimaced, gaining his feet. His mane stood on end, his eyes half crazed. He staggered, pulling Tristan up. He hyperventilated, and his breath rattled from his chest. “Run!” he said. “Run!”
They tumbled up the ramp to the shuttle’s cockpit in a hail of fire. Panting, Tristan swiped twice at the hatch closure before he managed to punch it. The ramp bumped as it folded itself, clunked and hissed as its pressure seals locked.
A volley of energy ricocheted off the shuttle’s hull and crisscrossed the launch bay like trapped lightning.
Tristan dragged himself up from his knees and pushed Pulou toward the copilot’s seat. “Strap in!” he panted. “Gotta—get us—out of here!”
He winced, gasped, as he dropped into the pilot’s seat. Fumbling for the harness, he saw Pulou doing the same, confusedly, awkwardly. “This way,” Tristan said, reaching for the clasps.
The gan only nodded, watching him. The wildness had left his eyes; the nictitating membrane showed in their corners instead. He still breathed through his mouth, too quickly and with his tongue showing.
Sporadic bursts of energy showered the craft, each sounding like a small explosion.
Teeth locked, Tristan snatched up the headset from its hook and put it on. Swept the instrumentation with a glance and released a breath of relief: it had the same configuration as the academy’s training shuttles.
One hand ran over the console, found the systems check switch, flipped it on. Blue readouts filled a tiny screen. All systems showed green except a light that warned of one cargo hatch still open. Two coolant reservoirs read low but all engines had maximum fuel levels. Tristan pulled the manual lever to close the cargo hatch.
“Start engines,” he said under his breath, and toggled the switches.
In the dark of the launch bay, pink clouds erupted from beneath the craft as the engines screamed to life. The barrage of fire broke off and several dark shapes leaped clear.
Out of habit, Tristan keyed the comms pickup. “Control, this is—”
He stopped abruptly, released the button. “No, it’ll give us away!” Locking his teeth again, he hit the bay dome’s remote control button.
Warning horns blared through the launch bay. Lights flashed over its entry. The gunmen, shadows in motion, dashed for the arch before its pressure door slammed down.
Above him, the dome’s fins began to spiral slowly open, showing space beyond: stars, and the mottled light of the second moon.
Tristan spread his hand over the row of thruster switches, eased them up one fraction, then another, and felt a tremor as their roar crescendoed and the hole full of sky expanded.
Blue letters began flashing on his screen:
DOME OVERRIDE ACTIVATED
He glanced up. The fins, like petals of a flower, stood half open. In his earphones, Control said, “Malin zero-five, abort launch sequence! You are not cleared for launch! I say again, you are not cleared for launch!”
The eye of space began to contract.
“No!” Tristan shouted it. “No!” He shoved at the thruster switches with a shaking hand, missed the three on the end—
The craft lifted sideways; the attitude indicator showed an angle of fifty-four degrees. The bay wall loomed up, tilting before his canopy.
Cadets who do that don’t get their crests, Coborn had told him once, even if they live to tell about it.
The impact threw him against his harness. He heard a crash and shriek of metal on metal, and the shuttle rolled. He caught a glimpse of twisted fins on opposite edges of the dome’s eye as the shuttle momentarily hung inverted over it, and realized he wouldn’t have cleared it at all if he had lifted correctly.
He took the row of switches with both hands. As the craft completed its roll, so its thrusters pointed at the surface, he fired them all.
Its leap flattened him back in the seat, leaving him breathless. His vision tunneled.
A trilling and a flashing red light on the console snapped him back to awareness. His gaze shot to the traffic scope, then out of the canopy.
Another shuttle, its red and white anti-collision lights flashing against the starfield, banked hard to avoid him, mere yards away. Through his headset he heard, “Control, this is Malin zero-three. Where’re your heads? You had us on a collision course with another ship!”
Suddenly weak, Tristan let his hands slide from the console. He couldn’t control their shaking. They felt hot and dry. But he must have been sweating; his soaked tunic clung to his back again, burning, itching. He shut out the voice rattling through the headset, ordering him to return, and closed his eyes for a moment.
A new voice in the earphones made him jump. “Malin zero-five, this is System Defense, Bravo Station. You are in violation of regulations nine-one-point-nine, nine-one-point-seven-three-delta, and nine-one-point-eight—”
Tristan stared, then keyed his comms. “Shove off, Defense! I’m operating under regulation nine-one-point-three-bravo. A pilot in command may deviate from any rule to the extent required to meet the emergency!”
“Malin zero-five,” said System Defense, “you are ordered to return to your point of departure and surrender to the authorities. Failure to comply will warrant destruction of your ship.”
“Destruction?” Tristan stiffened in the seat.
“Malin zero-five.” The voice remained impassive. “We are launching fighters with orders to engage and destroy. I say again, we are launching fighters with orders to engage and destroy. Acknowledge, over.”
Tristan checked his traffic scope. Empty, for the moment. With a hand that shook, he switched off the radio, tore off the headset, and reached again for the thrusters. “Hold on, Pulou,” he said. “They’re coming after us.”
He couldn’t outrun them; he knew that. But he rolled the shuttle like an attack ship over its target and aimed it at the second moon.
In a few minutes a beep from the traffic scope begged his attention. A point of light blinked at its edge, one hundred ninety-five degrees relative to his heading. The fighters! Clenching his teeth, he gave the shuttle full throttle.
The beep grew louder, faster. Tristan glanced down. The single blip of light had become two, close together and crossing the scope’s outer ring toward the middle one. Closing the distance.
When the pair of blips split into four and penetrated the scope’s inner ring, Tristan wrenched around in his seat, trying for a visual fix. Position lights blinked against the starfield. The fighters had come in high, ranging from one-seventy to one-ninety degrees relative to his heading and flying in fluid four formation. The leaders drew close enough to turn the warning beep into a trill.
Tristan caught a flash at his periphery. They were firing on him! He reached out to activate deflector shields.
The shuttle didn’t have any. His hand froze over the emergency release for the cargo holds.
The craft rocked at the hit. Hands hard on the thruster switches, Tristan brought it out of its tumble, and stared at a pair of damage lights blinking on the console. His starboard aft thruster had been hit.
Manipulating the switches, he put the shuttle into
a series of banks and rolls, altering attitude and heading at random, trying to shake his pursuers.
The lead and one wingman stuck with him. Their blips hovered near the center of the traffic scope, practically at point-blank range.
Tristan reached for the deflector shields’ switch again. Again his hand closed on the cargo release lever.
Three of the cargo holds are full.
Yanking the lever back, he shoved the shuttle into a spinning dive.
He heard thunks somewhere aft of the cockpit, a few moments of scraping and sucking sounds, and jettison lights flashed on the console.
A silent explosion blossomed at the shuttle’s one-eighty, then another, nearly close enough to be a secondary of the first. Their light reflected red against the cockpit canopy.
Pulling the shuttle up, Tristan glanced over his shoulder and saw two fireballs dissipating in a cloud of chunk ore that tumbled and spread like an asteroid field. He saw the remaining wingmen bank clear of it, one rocking as if he’d been hit.
Tristan let out his breath in a rush. His heartbeat shook his whole body.
He didn’t relax. The traffic scope showed the two fighters regrouping.
They flanked the shuttle this time, keeping their distance but staying within firing range. Tristan fingered the thruster switches, jerking his craft about as if in a storm, rocking it on its longitudinal axis.
The blast that connected was sheer chance. It sent the shuttle into a flat spin that threw Tristan into the console and pinned him there. The starfield whirled in Doppler circles beyond his canopy.
Pressed to the instruments, stomach in his throat, Tristan dragged one hand to the thrust switches. Malfunction lights blinked over most of them. He toggled the ones that remained to counter the spin and kept swallowing down the gorge that burned in his throat.
As thrusters slowed the craft and the pressure began to ease, Tristan pushed himself back, panting, and scanned his console.
Half the cockpit flashed red. A diagram on the screen showed depressurization lights in all but three compartments. The cockpit was sealed off. Structural stress lights blinked at six points. Only three of eight engines remained.
The traffic monitor still worked. Its beep matched the throb of the damage lights. Tristan glanced at the scope.
A third blip filled it now, bearing seventy-five degrees on his relative vertical and closing fast on a collision course. Its position put his shuttle at the center of a diminishing triangle, between it and the fighters.