Dragon Ship

by Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

  “Target the holds, then, and the missile pods if they show any. And . . . target all beams on that ship and prepare to fire when they can be brought to bear!”

  The ship jolted around Theo—and she felt warm, as if Bechimo’s air control was slowing. Then, ordinary progress, with the g-press of extra acceleration still upon them.

  Into that came Bechimo’s voice, and then Joyita’s.

  “Long-range particle beams, Pilot, from the other ships. They can sap my shielding over time.”

  “I have a signal, I have a signal, Pilot. They are trying to contact us!”

  Another jolt, and the outer vids showed Bechimo wreathed in purple again.

  “Target One has fired as well,” said Bechimo. “If they coordinate their beams, my shields will not last.”

  There was an image now in the main screen, a dark courier with no markings—

  Target One. The jamming had stopped and the radio noise gave way to Joyita’s filtered feed:

  “Bechimo, Korval cannot aid you here. You must cease firing and permit us to board. We are from Liad’s Department of the Interior. Your only hope to survive this system is to turn yourself over to proper representatives of Liad!”

  Clarence muttered; Theo cursed, and found Kara looking at her.

  Necessity, Theo signed, and saw it echoed, with a bow.

  “Accelerate but keep the planned course,” she told Bechimo. “Bounce us around if it’ll help mess up their targeting.”

  “Neutrino emissions have increased from Target One, Pilot.”

  Bechimo jolted again, but it was his doing . . . She hoped.

  “Bechimo, fire until they give way, or until they’re gone. As much shield as we have, no spare, until we’re through. If need be, run the course through them. Start now.”

  Hevelin clung to her arm, not in fear, it seemed, but exultation. He shared bits, fragments, of charging norbears, of spaceship screens full of emergency signs, of an aircraft’s sudden flameout, of Theo’s own memory of facing would-be kidnappers, of—

  “Bechimo,” Target One again, “at my mark you will have twenty-five seconds to surrender.”

  “Nineteen seconds to passage, Pilot,” said Bechimo.

  Bechimo rocked. The vids showed tantalizing evidence that they were firing; waves and pulses of color phased about them. There were sounds Bechimo never made as the shields absorbed energy and threw it off, rattling and—

  An unfamiliar sound; an unfamiliar—frightening—monotone voice: Collision alert, collision alert, collision alert.

  “Missiles launched against us. Neutrino alert!”

  “Counter!” Theo snapped, aware that interception at this rate was unlikely, but the screen was unforgiving in showing six missiles on course for them.

  A bare hand’s width from Clarence there was a sharp snap, his key gave up a blue spark, and a line of vivid blue ran across the board.

  “Dammit!” He snatched his left hand back, slapped the board with his right. “Kara! Take Second!”

  “Emergency,” Bechimo stated. “Board three live, gravity change! Damage report, we have one forward beam working. Neutrino alert!”

  “I have it,” Kara said. “Clarence—damage?”

  Theo punched all-fire into the beams, felt another surface hit from the enemy; the screen showing a roiling of Bechimo’s skin somewhere over their head.

  The acceleration alert sounded barely ahead of acceleration that pressed them into their seats, crushing Hevelin against Theo’s chest, it—

  “Breathing,” Clarence said. “Burnt. Board—dunno. No time to pull it now!”

  “Seven seconds.”

  Missiles exploded before them. In the screens the color pushed away—and away again, toward the approaching enemy and the walls in front, above and below that were ships the size of worldlets.

  The view on the screen wheeled. They were released from one pressure, flung to the left, hard, hard, hard as the ship spun and Theo knew they had the slot open if they—vids showed their side beams lashing out and their rear beams and—

  Target One shredded; meteor shield alerts went off unremarked in the din of collision alerts and acceleration alerts, Bechimo’s voice soaring above it all—“Retargeting, Pilot.”

  They went between the Vitrans, damage lights flashing and there wasn’t any time to consider what to do; they were still taking fire from the remaining ships behind, giving back what fire they could . . .

  “Incoming!” snapped Clarence, still alive to what the screens showed as they cleared the ore ships, incoming Orsec ships, firing heedless of their proximity to the ore vessels, firing four on one . . .

  They were in the clear—clear enough.

  Theo gathered her breath, untoggled a button, slapped it, and yelled, “Go!”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Bechimo

  Patient Win Ton yo’Vala

  Function Change Percentage Report: Treatment Location #13

  General Therapeutic Regime: Cleanse to remaster

  Status: Complete

  — • —

  “What just happened?” Kara asked, very calmly.

  “We Jumped,” Theo said, snatching at her board, pulling in local scan info. “Check for comm traffic, please, Board Three.”

  The screens showed . . . nothing. A comprehensive and chilling nothingness that would have been terrifying if it hadn’t been, strangely, familiar.

  Screen Six . . . was empty, as flat and ungiving as a blacked-out window.

  “Bechimo!” she snapped. “Report!”

  “Yes, Pilot. Assessing damage. Shields at half. Weapons live, forward beams reduced to one of three operational. Life support one hundred percent. I have several anomalous and potentially hazardous skin-surface disruptions which may be sensor errors or actual difficulties. An in-depth full ship analysis is indicated.”

  “Where’s Joyita?” Theo asked.

  “Currently assisting in the assessment of damage, Pilot.”

  “This is where you brought us—me—before, isn’t it?” Theo asked, frowning down at sensors that gave her readings of dust and emptiness for light-minutes in all directions.

  “Yes, Pilot. Coordinates known to myself. This is a safe harbor. Pilot ven’Arith, there will be no comm traffic here.”

  “How did we Jump out of that?” Kara asked, still calm. Maybe, Theo thought, a little too calm.

  She threw a look over her shoulder.

  Kara looked back at her, blue eyes wide, face slightly pale.

  “I’m not completely sure,” Theo said, sitting back in her chair and glaring at the empty screens. “Scholar—I talked to a scholar of subrational math at Surebleak. She thought the drive settings might be . . . nonstandard, and also wondered after some subetheric boosting, but—there was no conclusion. She’d wanted to examine the settings, but time was short, and it didn’t happen.”

  Theo sighed and ran her hand through her hair. Now was not the time to mention Father’s lifemate.

  “You been here before, Theo?” Clarence asked.

  She turned to him, relieved to have a question she could answer without ambiguity.

  Well, almost without ambiguity.

  “When I first boarded Bechimo,” she said, “at Gondola. We were pressed by . . . by enemies.” She gave Clarence a straight look. “I’d gone into port as Uncle’s courier. Near as I could figure, these pilots had a grudge.”

  He nodded. “The Uncle’s one to wake strong emotions in some folk,” he allowed.

  “So, anyway. We were pressed, I was wounded.” She looked over her shoulder to Kara, who had regained some of her color. “Pretty badly wounded. We lifted, Bechimo and I, and, just when I thought we were clean away, a ship—” She swallowed, and took a hard breath. “Corsair, like the ones we just had on us. We didn’t have much choice but to take . . . decisive action. And after, Bechimo—Jumped. To this location. At the time, it was his plan to hang here for eight or nine months Standard, until it might be safe to kind of slink aroun
d the edges of the galaxy, but I had . . . duty—to my employer, to Win Ton, to . . . other people. In the end, we left again, after only a couple days to regroup. It took some discussion, though.”

  Clarence looked grave at that, and shook his head at the screens.

  “I can’t say I’m finding fault with the lack of company,” he said slowly. “Considering the hospitality we was just being shown. On the other hand, it’s not the kind of welcoming place makes a pilot think of putting off his wings and sitting down, either.”

  “It’s . . . eerie,” Kara said.

  “It is safe,” Bechimo said, sounding both breathless and decisive. “I extrapolated this location and arrived at it. Never have I met another ship here, though occasionally there is flotsam.”

  “Pilot O’Berin, are you in pain?”

  “I’ll keep,” Clarence said. “Been burnt worse and more for less gain. What kind of flotsam, Theo?”

  “Hardware and shred,” Theo said, out of memory. “Ships, not whole. Ceramic couplers. Wire. A teapot.” She met Clarence’s eyes. “The teapot’s in the galley—the white one that feels too light for its size. Apparently it was notable for having come through whole.”

  “And where,” asked Kara, “do these things . . . come from?”

  Theo sighed. “Bechimo would have me understand that they Jumped in from another galaxy,” she said. “I’m not sure we agreed on that, and I never did see the math.”

  She frowned suddenly, her eye caught by a change on her board. A status light, modestly hidden away in a high grouping of low-priority functions, had gone from yellow to blue.

  At the same moment, Screen Six flickered, and Joyita joined them. His hair was too short to become disordered, but he nonetheless projected a definite air of dishevelment.

  “Pilot,” he said, meeting her eyes firmly. “The Remastering Unit has opened.”

  — • —

  A chime was sounding inside his ear, incessant and annoying.

  Win Ton yo’Vala opened his eyes. Directly above him, as he lay on his back, was what appeared to be the hood of an autodoc.

  But no, he remembered. The autodocs had failed, and so he had been remanded by the Scouts to the Uncle, with his more powerful, and less legal, unit.

  Alas, the Uncle had also not been equal to the task of reuniting Win Ton with his health, and thus he was passed along to someone else, and another device, which was his last chance at survival.

  Recalling that, he now placed himself, his thoughts nimble sharp. He was on Bechimo, the ship he had waked and the reason the Scouts had gone to such extraordinary lengths to preserve one who had dishonored his service.

  The Scouts wanted Bechimo, and Win Ton was to deliver it.

  He shivered, which brought to his attention the facts that the air was not precisely warm where he lay—and that he was naked.

  Another shiver brought the realization that, along with the sharpness of his thoughts, he felt . . .

  He felt . . .

  Well.

  Cautiously, he raised his hand before his face, seeing a smooth golden appendage, five shapely digits, short nails glowing a healthy pinkish gold. Tears rose to his eyes as he recalled this hand as he had last seen it—fingernails like chips of ice, knuckles and finger joints misshapen and without strength.

  Had it worked, then? he wondered. Had the final device, aboard Bechimo, a forbidden device carried and concealed by a device far and away more disturbing—had it . . . was he . . . cured?

  It seemed impossible. Indeed, it seemed just a litle like an anticlimax. He remembered now. Remembered coming into this room—being carried into this room—by Theo. She had undressed him, his swollen fingers useless. Then, she had pressed him to sit on the edge of the unit. She had embraced him, and he had almost wanted to return the kindness.

  But what he had really wanted, and what she had finally given him, was the opportunity to inch into the embrace of the device, and watch the lid settle, inexorable and implacable, over him. The temperature began to cool rapidly, and he felt his consciousness slipping away.

  This, he had told himself, is how it ends. I will never wake up again.

  And so he had gone away with the cold, and he had not woken.

  Until now. Whole. Well.

  And so very much in debt.

  “Less Pilot yo’Vala,” a voice addressed him—a light voice, bearing no obvious gender, and seeming to issue from above him and to the right. “Do you require assistance?”

  “Bechimo?” he asked.

  “Yes, Pilot. Do you require assistance?”

  “I suppose I should test that,” he said, flippant in a rush of well-being. “A moment, of your very great goodness.”

  He rolled, briskly, off the edge of the pallet on which he lay, twisted so that he might land on his feet as he had done dozens of times from ships’ bunks and his own bed in his clan’s house.

  His feet hit the floor.

  Then they slid out from beneath him, and he fell, graceless and astonished.

  “Less Pilot, are you injured?”

  “I would say, only my pride,” answered Win Ton, taking quick stock and leveraging himself up with one hand on the pallet he had so recently quit.

  This time when he gained his feet, he kept them, and sighed with relief and chagrin.

  “I suppose I was too ambitious,” he said, his eye falling on a locker limned in green. Mindful of his steps, he crossed to the locker and pulled out his leathers.

  “Pilot Waitley is on her way to greet you,” Bechimo said.

  Win Ton hastily pulled his shirt over his head, and snatched at his pants, supple fingers making short work of seals and fastenings.

  It was perhaps unfortunate that he had not quite finished with his boots when the hatch was suddenly undogged and a wiry woman stepped into the room, her fine yellow hair disordered.

  Perhaps after all, Win Ton thought, looking up to meet space-black eyes, the boots were fortunate. His position forestalled what might have been a full-body contact he was not certain he wanted.

  “Win Ton,” she said, and stopped, perhaps to recruit her emotions, or merely to catch her breath. “How do you feel?”

  “Why, now that you are arrived, improved by twelve!” he said gallantly. “And before your arrival”—he bent to finish with his boot—“I had been trying to recall if ever in my life before I had felt so well.”

  Something moved in those dark eyes; he was not precisely certain what. And that disturbed him somewhat, for Theo had always been so very easy to read. He recalled then, a detail that Uncle had given him, during his waking moments, before he was transferred to Bechimo and his last hope of survival.

  Theo was of Korval.

  He rose and made her a bow as between comrades, which they had been, and was thus neither impertinent nor dismissive.

  She returned it, in mode, with proper timing, adding a concise and elegant gesture which acknowledged also a pillow-friend.

  His Theo, thought Win Ton, the Theo he had last seen at Volmer, when he had confessed to her what he had woken and how he had involved her in it, had nothing so nuanced in her simple repertory of courtesy.

  “Am I to learn that you have found your father?” he inquired, the memory of that last sharing of tea and secrets coming back to him with the immediacy of something experienced yesterday.

  “He was with the delm of Korval,” Theo said calmly.

  “It was fortunate, then, that you had decided to go to Korval,” Win Ton said solemnly.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” she agreed, and took a step forward, as if irresistibly drawn. He waited, holding his breath as her fingers skimmed his cheek, touched a brow and rose, even higher, to rest upon his head.

  Now, he felt the erring child, affectionately disciplined by an amused elder, and wasn’t certain but that he would rather she had thrown herself upon him, as had seemed her first inclination.

  “Your hair,” she said. “It will grow back.”

  Ah, that was th
e amusement, was it? His hair had fallen out.

  “If I am bald from this day forward, I shall count it a small price,” he told her, and meant it.

  “I think it will grow,” she said seriously. “You’re not bald. Your hair is merely very short.” She stepped back, dropped her hand, suddenly all business.

  “I think you’d better come meet the rest of the crew,” she said, “and get something to eat, if you’re hungry. You’ve come awake at an exciting time; we’re just out of an attack, and about to do damage assessment.”

  “Perhaps I can help,” he said, turning to go with her out of the cubicle.

  “Maybe you can,” she said cordially.

  “But who attacked you, Theo?” he asked, as they moved along the hallway. He spotted handholds and tuck-ins with approval, and without surprise. Though he didn’t recognize the hall from his former passage through it, his impression of Bechimo from their all-too-brief acquaintance had been of a neat and shipshape vessel, well-considered and well-built.

  “I think the Deparment of the Interior is targeting us,” she said from slightly ahead of him. “They attacked me on Gondola—the same kind of ships—and Val Con, my brother, says that they’re in pursuit of Korval and the allies of Korval.” She looked at him over her shoulder.

  “Since we’re contracted to check out a loop for Master Trader yos’Galan, that makes us allies of Korval.”

  “Of course, being Korval’s own sister means nothing,” Win Ton said cordially.

  “Well, but I don’t think they know that,” Theo said pensively. “Unless—well, I guess they could have a DNA sample. I did bleed a lot over at least one of them.”

  “Ah,” he said, stepping through a hatch after her, and following her down a corridor that was definitely familiar. “It’s probably best to assume that they do know, Theo, and—”

  She turned to look at him, walking backward down the hall as briskly as if she had eyes in back of her head.

  “It was the Department of the Interior,” Win Ton told her serious pale face, “which had desired Bechimo with such ardor that they . . . captured me and sought to persuade my candor.”

  “Oh,” said Theo, frowning. “Was it?”