Shadowline-The Starfishers Trilogy I

by Glen Cook

  Michael would try to involve the Legion. Merc wars made great holo entertainment. He had grown rich covering them. He had engineered a few to have something to tape.

  Knowing what Michael wanted was inadequate forewarning. He was devious. His manipulations might not be recognizable.

  The Traffic Comm man established contact with Dee's pursuer.

  "Cassius. Who is he?"

  "Lawrence Abhoussi. One of Richard's best."

  "Richard must have sent him out blind. He's surprised to see me."

  "Characteristic." Hawksblood was a demon for secrecy.

  Storm keyed for sound. "Commander Abhoussi, you're entering restricted space."

  The Ship's Commander replied, "We did note the automatic warnings, Colonel. But we were given explicit orders. We have to capture the yacht."

  "Polite, anyway," Storm whispered.

  "And scared."

  The Legion had burned respect into Hawksblood's men. And vice versa.

  "I know the ship, Commander. My daughter-in-law is aboard. I have to extend her my protection. Why don't you pursue your quarrel with her master after he leaves? If the ship is stolen, I'll let you send in a skeleton crew to collect her."

  Abhoussi grew pale. Storm's defenses were formidable. "My orders are explicit, Colonel Storm. I'm to recover the vessel and everyone aboard her."

  "This is getting dangerous, Gneaus," Cassius burred.

  Storm nodded. "I know your employer, Commander. He's a disciplinarian, but he'll make allowances when you explain why you lost the yacht." Storm killed the sound. "I'm trying to give him an out, Cassius."

  "He knows."

  The Ship's Commander paused before replying. He kept glancing off screen. Finally, he keyed for sound and said, "I'm sorry, Colonel Storm. I have no option."

  "Damn," Cassius said.

  "I'm sorry too, then. Good-bye, Commander." Storm broke the link. "Fire Control, activate the passive defenses. Don't take the cruiser under fire unless she looks like she'll catch Dee." He rose, started toward the elevators. The dogs rose as he approached.

  "Father!" Benjamin called. "Hold on. They've gone Norm." Storm turned. "Abhoussi's inherent velocity is aligned with Dee's and he's closing fast. He's accelerating. Catch point about nine hundred thousand kilometers out."

  "Computer?" Storm asked the air.

  "Active," a Cassius-like voice replied.

  "You following the current situation?"

  "Affirmative."

  "Analysis please."

  The machine confirmed Benjamin's assessment. It added, "Smaller target is decelerating on a line of approach to the ingress locks. Traffic Comm has docking control. Larger target still accelerating in line of approach. Probability nine-zero plus: Intent is to take hyper with the smaller vessel within its influential sphere."

  "Free missiles," Storm ordered. "This Abhoussi is damned smart," he told Cassius. "He jumped on the only chance he's got."

  By snagging Dee with his more powerful influential field Abhoussi could neutralize the yacht's drive and drag her beyond the range of Storm's superior weaponry. He could then drop hyper and deal with Michael at his leisure.

  It was a tactic as old as spatial warfare, though a dangerous one. Both ships could be destroyed if either's drives were far out of synch.

  "That man was a McGraw," Cassius guessed. "Only a pirate would have the nerve to try it."

  "Free guns on the outstations," Storm ordered. "Commence action. You're right, Cassius. He's got guts. Pity he's wasting them."

  "Some people fear Richard Hawksblood more than they fear Gneaus Storm," Cassius observed laconically. "Then again, he could know something you don't. You haven't analyzed his chances. He comped them while he was talking to you."

  "Right. Computer. Analyze success probabilities for the assumed mission of the larger target, henceforth desig Enemy, Bogey One."

  Practically trampling Storm's final words, the computer replied, "With Traffic control of Friendly, probability six five plus. Without Traffic control, probability four seven plus. Analysis of random minetracks incomplete."

  "Pretty good," Cassius observed. "I'd buy those odds myself."

  "And win. He's got the jump on us. Traffic, put Dee on his own hooks. Cassius, take the gun-control master."

  Storm himself assumed control of the master board commanding the mines and missiles protecting the planetoid. "Computer. Probability of Enemy success with new board control." The machine was a cryocyborg unit. It could enter the skills of known human operators into its probability equations.

  "With Friendly free of Traffic control and analysis of random minetracks complete, probability three one plus."

  Storm was pleased. He and Cassius made a difference.

  He did not like the ever-present plus. The computer was weighting the probability shift in Abhoussi's favor.

  Storm examined his board. None of his active mines or hunter-killer missiles would pass close enough to Abhoussi to detonate. The weapons in line of approach were inactive for Michael's sake.

  He blew several nearby mines. Maybe he could rattle Abhoussi.

  He suspected the plus was being awarded because Abhoussi was performing better than the average Ship's Commander profiled in the computer. Richard did not hire average men. No merc captain did.

  Storm punched more fire buttons. He did no good. Abhoussi was crawling into Michael's safety shadow. The only sure way to stop him was to activate weaponry in the approach path.

  "Bogey One, probability of success, four two plus," the computer announced, and almost immediately raised its ante to four three, four four, and four five. Storm cursed softly and continuously.

  "Time to jump?" he demanded.

  "Twenty-three seconds optimum." Then the computer added, "Hit, beam, remote station twelve. Field anomalies indicate a temporary reduction of efficiency in Bogey One drives. Probability of Enemy success, three one steady."

  Storm smiled. "Good shooting, Cassius."

  Cassius was too busy to acknowledge the applause. He bent over his master console with the intensity of a virtuoso pianist, totally immersed in his art, webbing Abhoussi with beams of destruction.

  Storm turned to his own master, secured it. He had not rattled Abhoussi at all.

  He leaned back and watched Cassius while fighting off visions of Pollyanna being crisped by Abhoussi's weaponry. Hawksblood's man was firing only in self-defense, but might have orders to kill if he could not capture.

  The odds against Abhoussi lengthened. Storm fidgeted. He placed little faith in computer analyses. He had beaten their odds when they had been five-to-one against him. The best games machines, with brains cyborged in, could not take into account all the human factors of a battle situation.

  "Hit, beam," the computer announced. "Drive anomalies. Bogey One no longer accelerating. Probability of generator damage seven zero plus."

  "Catch time," Storm asked. It had been telescoping, but Abhoussi had been hand-over-handing it up the slope.

  "Eleven seconds."

  Storm smiled. Abhoussi was climbing an ever-steepening slope. One more perfect shot from Cassius would do it.

  Again he paid his chief of staff his due. The man was not just trying for hits, he was sharpshooting Abhoussi's facility for dragging Michael off to neutral space. And that at a time when he could have eased up and allowed his most hated enemy to perish.

  Storm grabbed a mike, called the ingress locks. "Get a boat ready for rescue work. Have it crewed and standing by for astrogational instruction. Is Lucifer there yet?" He cut off before he received a reply. The computer was chattering again.

  "Hit, beam. Major drive anomalies. Probability of generator damage nine zero plus. Probability of Enemy success, one three minus."

  Storm moved to Traffic. "Contact the cruiser," he told the watchstander.

  "Bogey One commencing evasive maneuvering," the computer continued. "Probability that Enemy is attempting to disengage, nine five plus." Abhoussi had accepted defea
t.

  Establishing the comm link took longer than the action had. Abhoussi was more interested in survival than in chitchat.

  When the pale-faced Ship's Commander finally responded, Storm asked, "Can you manage your generators yourselves, Commander? Any casualties you can't handle? I have a rescue boat standing by."

  Abhoussi gulped air, replied, "We'll manage, Colonel. We took no casualties."

  "All right." Storm blanked off. "Cease firing," he ordered.

  The order was unnecessary. Cassius had secured his gun board.

  Was Abhoussi telling the truth? He had the feel of a man who would let his people die the death-without-resurrection before putting them into the hands of an enemy capable of using them against his employer later.

  Storm called the ingress locks again. "Cancel the boat alert. We won't need it." Then, "Cassius, let's go meet Michael. He'll have an interesting story. Might even tell the truth."

  "Good show, gentlemen," Cassius told the watchstanders. "Run a full systems check before you go off duty. See that Supply and Weapons know which mines and missiles to replace." His hard gaze darted from face to face. No one met it.

  Storm peered into the shadows. The ravenshrike had concealed itself. It was alert.

  "I think we did all right," he told Cassius as they followed the dogs into an elevator. "It was my kind of battle. Nobody got hurt."

  "They should all be so chesslike."

  A shadow moved in the shadows of a corner of Combat. The eyes of Storm's ravenshrike burned as they watched Homer and Benjamin. Homer slipped into the still warm seat before the mines and missiles board. The blind man caressed trigger switches and status boards with his sensitive fingers. He listened for his sporadic psi. He depressed an activation key, paused, tripped a fire switch.

  Daggers of flame scarred the deep space night two light seconds from the Fortress. A swarm of hyper-capable seeker missiles went looking for Commander Abhoussi's cruiser.

  The vessel had not traveled far.

  Alarms screamed aboard the warship. Automatic weapons responded.

  Constellations vanished behind a veil of fire. Abhoussi's engineers seized their only chance. They kicked in the damaged generators. The cruiser twisted away into hyperspace, leaving fragments of itself behind. The seekers, unaware of the cruiser's destination, began cutting lazy search patterns over half-light-year quadrants.

  Homer's faint and seldom reliable psi touched upon a remote, short-lived scream. He leaned back and smiled at an aghast Benjamin. "It's done."

  "Ah, Homer . . . " Benjamin could not think of anything to say. He could not meet the eyes of the watchstanders.

  Their faces were long and grey. Storm was going to cut their hearts out for not stopping this.

  The ravenshrike shuddered as it sensed the psionic scream and the pure disgust of the Center watch. It wrapped itself in wings and shadow, closed its eyes, and awaited its master's return.

  Fifteen: 3020 AD

  Frog's rescue became high drama. Blake's crews reached him only after he had idled down and gone on intravenous and drugs in an extended, deep sleep free of the distress and pain of radiation sickness. He had emptied his oxygen tanks.

  His rescuers had to tunnel under his crawler to reach his belly hatch. They found it fouled with splash scale. They stung a heated hose through his tractor skin into his oxy main. A couple of Blake hogs chipped the scale off his hatch. Others sprayed the tunnel walls with a quick-setting epoxy. They scabbed a pumper trunk over the tunnel mouth and flooded it with breathables.

  They had to do it the hard way. Near the end, too pained to think straight, Frog had shed his hotsuit again. His stupidity came near costing him his life.

  The expenses of the rescue came out of Blake's PR budget. The holonetnews snoops were on the scene, their cameras purring. The head office saw itself picking up a lot of cheap advertising. The name Blake Mining and Metals would get exposure all over Confederation.

  Old Frog had gotten more than he had bargained for. He had not impressed just a little girl and the people of his home town. He was a seven-day news wonder Confederation-wide. His adventure was being broadcast live from Edgeward. Taping crews braved the Shadowline to get his rescue recorded for later broadcast.

  He would have been amused and disgusted had he known about it. It was not quite the notoriety he had been seeking.

  Sixteen: 3031 AD

  Mouse hovered on the fringes of Pollyanna's welcome-home party, attracted by the gaiety, repelled by Benjamin and Homer and what they had tried to do. Academy was all grey discipline and the absence of humor. He needed a little singing and dancing. The younger people were doing both, and building some mighty hangovers while they were at it.

  Their elders frowned around the party's edges like thunderheads grumbling on grey horizons. Their faces were marked by an uneasiness bordering on dread. They're standing there like brooding guardian idols in some Bronze Age temple, Mouse thought. Like the tongueless crows of doom.

  He tried to laugh at his own gloomy perception. His father's moods must be catching.

  Storm, Cassius, and the other old ones had just come from a staff meeting. Mouse had not been permitted to attend. He guessed they had discussed the twins first.

  There had been one hell of a traffic load through Instel Communications. Hawksblood had, apparently, been consulted. He could not guess what had been decided. Cassius had had only enough time to whisper the news that the cruiser had survived. Barely.

  Then the Vice President for Procurement of Blake Mining and Metals, of Edgeward City on Blackworld, had made a contract presentation.

  Mouse could guess the drift. Everyone had come from the meeting damp with apprehension. He could smell their anger and distress. Richard had not been understanding. Blake's man had tried a little arm-twisting.

  A squeaky Dee-giggle rippled across the room. Good old Uncle Michael was the life of the party.

  His loud, flashy presence was doing nothing for anybody's nerves. Amid the dour, ascetically clad soldiers he was a focus of peacock brightness, raucous as a macaw. At the moment he was a clown vainly trying for a laugh from his brother's staff. The sour, sullen, sometimes hateful, sometimes suspicious stares of Storm, Cassius, and Wulf and Helmut Darksword intimidated him not at all. Storm's sons he ignored completely, except for the occasional puzzled glance at Lucifer or Mouse.

  Lucifer was more sour than his father. He moved with a stiff tension that bespoke rage under incomplete control. He watched Michael with deadly eyes. He snapped and snarled, threatening to go off like some unpredictable bomb. He should have been overjoyed to have his wife home.

  Mouse's presence was a puzzling anomaly to everyone. He was enjoying their baffled reactions. They knew he was supposed to be at Academy. They knew that even midshipmen who were the sons of men as well known and respected as Gneaus Storm did not receive leave time without strings being pulled at stratospheric levels. Michael's nervous gaze returned to him again and again.

  Dee was sharply observant behind his clown mask. His eyes never stopped roving. And Mouse seldom let his attention stray far from Dee.

  Michael was worried.

  Mouse sensed his uncle's nervousness. He felt a hundred other emotional eddies. He was enveloped by an oppressive sense of descending fate, as heavy as age itself.

  Hatred for Michael Dee. Distrust of the Blake Vice President. Worry about Richard. Benjamin almost obsessive in his dread of what his father would do about his part in the attack on the Hawksblood cruiser. Lucifer, marginally psychotic, confusing his feelings about his wife, his father, Dee, Hawksblood, Benjamin, and distracted by suspicion, jealousy, and self-loathing. Homer . . . Homer was being Homer.

  Mouse wondered if his father was making a mistake by letting Benjamin stew. Ben was not as well balanced as he liked to pretend. He had nightmares constantly. Now he seemed to be sliding into a daytime obsession with the dream.

  Benjamin dreamed about his own death. For years he had laughed the dreams
off. The attack on Hawksblood's ship seemed to have made a believer of him. He was running scared.

  Mouse glanced at his brother. Benjamin never had taken him in. Ben was nothing but flashy façade. Mouse felt nothing but pity.

  The brothers Darksword also had the disease of the moment. They were mad at everybody. Like Storm, they had expected The Broken Wings to be their last campaign. They had expected to live out their lives as gentlemen farmers on a remote, pastoral world far from the cares of the Iron Legion. They were overdue to leave the Fortress already, but ties two centuries deep had proven difficult to break.

  Mouse looked at his father.

  Storm had been motionless, brooding, for almost an hour. Now he was shaking like a big dog coming out of the water. He skewered the mining executive with a deadly glance. Mouse moved along the wall behind his father, the better to hear.

  "We can buy a little time on this thing. Helmut. Wulf. Cassius."

  Michael Dee appeared to lean slightly, to stretch an ear.

  Storm said, "Kill the Blackworlder. Neatly. See that the corpse reaches Helga Dee. Without her knowing the source."

  The condemned man was too stunned to protest.

  "You did say Helga's World was mentioned in those papers Richard said he found, didn't you, Cassius?"

  "Yes."

  "And again on Michael's ship." Storm stared down at Michael Dee. One droplet of sweat rolled down Dee's temple. He looked a little pale.

  Michael Dee was the financial power behind his daughter Helga, who managed that cold clerical principality called Festung Todesangst on Helga's World. He and his daughter had just been assigned a potentially embarrassing piece of property.

  Mouse stared at his father's back. Not even he could so cold-bloodedly order a death!

  "Blow Michael's ship, too," Storm ordered. "Make it look like Abhoussi got close enough for their fields to brush. Have Benjamin and Lucifer take care of it. It's time they paid their dues."

  The brothers Darksword seized the executive's arms. They remained impassive as they marched the Blackworlder to his doom. They might have been two old gentlemen off for an afternoon stroll with a friend.