by Diana Palmer
“Grab the helm, Mister!” He hit the intercom switch. “Weaponry, post two,” he called into the intership lock, “can you lock on to him?”
“Yes, sir. Got him!”
“Fire all tubes!”
The ship lurched as the condensed tubes emitting emerillium waves left the ship, pitching the crew against the bulkheads. Stern grabbed his chair and threw himself into it.
“Helm, divert to secondary course!” he barked.
“Leaving over, sir!”
“Weaponry, success of strike?”
“We hit one of them, sir, amidships,” the weaponry officer reported. “But the others…”
“Line up your pattern and fire when ready!”
“But, sir,” the officer argued over the screen, “we don’t have anything left to hit them with! The hit we took blew hell out of our boosters. We’re paralyzed aft!”
“Helm, can we outrun him?” Stern shot at the astrogator.
“We can try, sir, providing we have enough fuel to throw to the auxiliary units. Leaving over now.”
Stern’s hands bit into the soft plastiglas of the chair arms as the big ship began to lurch forward with a humming surge of power. “Come on, baby,” he whispered, as if the ship were a female he could coax. “Come on.”
“He’s tailing us, sir,” the astrogator called over his shoulder. “He’s barely a parsec behind and closing. When he makes half that distance, he’ll fire. And we can’t make any more speed.”
Speed, Stern thought furiously. Dammit, speed!
His hand went to his head, to the blinding pain that gripped him when he tried to think, to reason…He fought it. And a flash got through.
“Helm, hard right flank and slow to sublight!” he barked. “Quick, dammit!”
“Yes, sir!”
The astrogator dived for the control, and seconds later the huge ship lurched like a fish out of water. Stern ground his teeth as the braking spools were engaged, bringing the force of thirty G’s down onto his chest. He could barely breathe, the pressure was so great.
The stars came blurring back into focus. The pressure eased. He pulled his aching body upright and gasped for breath. “The Rojok?” he asked quickly.
The astrogator turned with an apologetic shake of his head. “Sorry, sir. He’s on to us. He slowed as we did. He’s right behind us, and I can’t give you enough speed to ditch him. I’m…sorry, sir.”
Death. He could taste it. He could see in the faces of his crew that they, too, knew. Again, he fought the pain inside his head for a strategy, any strategy, that might spare the ship. But that, too, was a losing battle.
Wearily he looked around at the somber, set faces of the bridge crew. He sighed wearily. “If we die,” he said, “we do it like men. Any argument?”
The officers and crewmen shook their heads wordlessly.
He nodded. “Turn the ship, astrogator,” he said quietly.
“Course, sir?”
“Straight down the Rojok’s throat,” he replied, “with every ounce of speed you can manage.”
“Yes, sir.” The astrogator’s fingers whipped the controls into position. “Ready, sir.”
Stern fixed his eyes on the screen, at the oval Rojok ship hanging there in space like a fish waiting for a worm. His heart was climbing into his throat, and he felt a fear he hadn’t known existed. Familiar, this feeling. As if he’d been through that narrow door once before and dreaded repetition of it. The fear simulated panic, and he had to fight the urge to get up and run.
The pain, the searing pain in his mind, grew steadily. Something alien in his brain was fighting this decision. Trying with pain to force him to countermand his own commands.
His hands gripped the arms of his chair. He remembered Madeline and Hahnson down below and tried not to think about them. He straightened with a tremendous effort. Dignity first. It was the credo of the SSC. Even in death, he had to have the dignity of his command.
Almost blind with pain, he drew in a heavy sigh. “Astrogator,” he said in a gruff whisper. “Ahead full!”
The astrogator turned and met his eyes with a somber, resigned ghost of a smile. In it were admiration and honor. “Aye, sir.”
The flagship Morcai sliced through the stars like a giant metallic blade, her massive engines making far less noise than her first officer. Komak’s usual high spirits did as much for the weary bridge crew as the promise of shore leave. Only the Morcai’s stoic commander seemed to be unaffected by it.
Dtimun, sitting in his spoollike command chair, listened only halfheartedly. His mind was a galaxy away, on Enmehkmehk, home planet of the Rojok Dynasty. It was there that Chacon would surely take his captive—to Ahkmau, the infamous death camp on one of its moons where political prisoners were kept. The thought of Lyceria in such a place was torture, even to a career soldier’s trained mind.
“ETA Trimerius?” he asked the helmsman.
“Two mekkam, Commander,” was the reply.
Komak joined the older Centaurian, and the laughing green light left his eyes. They grew blue with concern. “Your eyes speak for you,” he told Dtimun, careful lest the others hear him. “I regret Lyceria’s capture. I know that the commander’s heart was soft for her.”
“My heart is soft for no one.” Dtimun’s darkened eyes belied the words. His gaze went to the main viewscreen. “Maliche, I could make more speed in a crippled scout! Are your gravs malfunctioning, helmsman?”
The pilot glanced at him. “I have not fired them, Commander,” he said, and his eyes went to Komak.
“I assumed,” Komak told the commander, “that you would wish a lesser speed to keep the Earth ship under surveillance. Should it encounter a Rojok patrol, its defense systems would render it incapable of a counterattack. Human ship designers make no allowance for stabilizing BEK gyros and reflectors such as ours.”
Dtimun glared at the younger Centaurian. “I will not play parent to an inferior shipload of aliens. I have no more love for humans than does the Rojok tyrant Mangus Lo, or his field marshal, Chacon.”
“Were it our race that Mangus Lo persecuted in his death camps,” Komak said quietly, “instead of the humans, I think your sympathies might find more interest in them.”
“By Simalichar, you try my patience!” Dtimun stood up. His chameleon eyes faded from a concerned blue to a questioning gray. “What merit can there be in a race whose entire history is preoccupied with pride in cruelty and contempt for life?”
Komak’s eyes went green with mischief. “I had not known that the commander’s library included textdiscs on human history.”
Dtimun ignored him.
Komak studied the older alien with respectful eyes. In a society where Clan was life itself, the commander wore no Clan insignia and claimed no allegiances. He was as mysterious as he was feared and respected by his men. In his years of commanding the Holconcom, no challenge to his authority had ever been given. Not even by the emperor, whom Dtimun treated with utter disdain. His ongoing feud with old Tnurat Alamantimichar, head of the Dectat, was legendary in the space services. No one knew what had started it. No one dared ask. But Komak knew things about him that the other crewmen didn’t. Dtimun was aware that Komak’s odd outbursts of insight had a basis in fact. It had been disconcerting when he realized that Komak knew more about him than he’d anticipated. As he thought about it, Dtimun glared at Komak.
“Commander,” the comtech called out, “the Earth ship has disengaged her lightsteds and is slowing to a crawl. I show two Rojok destroyers trailing her.”
Dtimun turned his angry eyes from Komak to the viewscreen at his semicircle console. The Rojoks were already firing when he engaged the video. The Earth ship hung as if dead in space, offering no resistance as salvo after salvo connected with her hull and sent her reeling to and fro. Then, with the suddenness of a cosmic storm, she turned slowly and began to pick up speed as she began a run that would take her on a collision course with the lead Rojok vessel.
“Is that b
lack-eyed captain of theirs a madman?” Dtimun growled. “What use can this strategy serve? Komak, check the energy scanner.”
Komak’s hands flew over the scanner switches on the command console. “His weaponry is useless,” he reported. “His fuel output reads less than one-quarter capacity and his repulsers are almost gone. I estimate two more hits will finish him.”
Dtimun watched the sleek starship bear down on the Rojok, so quickly that the enemy ship couldn’t possibly get out of the way in time. “I understand his motive,” he said. “A laudable last resort, but a hollow victory. Helmsman, hard about and prime main batteries!”
“Aye, sir.”
Dtimun dropped into the command chair with his long fingers barely touching the master weaponry control panel. It was going to require precision timing, this maneuver. If he fired too soon, the second Rojok vessel would have time to destroy the Earth ship. If he fired too late, the spray pattern would destroy both ships.
The Morcai began to bear down on the Rojoks like a flash of light, and the stars around her seemed to be speeding in the opposite direction in her wake.
“I register a scan,” Komak said quickly. “The Rojok has spotted us.”
Dtimun’s fingers tensed on the firing switch. “If he changes course,” he said tightly, “I may cost the human his ship. Helmsman, take me in on a deflect pattern, close range. Time will allow me only one shot. I want the best I can manage.”
“Yes, Commander. Leaving over now on deflect course. Engines ahead, full-drive.”
Dtimun focused his huge eyes on the screen. His long fingers curled around the firing switch. Out in space, the Rojok grew like a suddenly inflated balloon, filling the viewscreen.
Holt Stern sat quietly in his chair, watching the Rojok flash toward the Bellatrix, with a deceptive numbness in his chest. The bridge already had the feel of a morgue as each crew member spent his last seconds in stonelike aloneness, untouching, unspeaking. Stern clenched his teeth to hold back the fear. At least, he thought ironically, the headache would die with him. And then, the Rojok ship filled the viewscreen…
The Rojok came screaming in toward the Bellatrix. There was a final surge of power as Higgins ordered the astrogator to throw the throttle wide-open. Then, quite suddenly, a ball of green mist enveloped the enemy ship.
It took Stern precious seconds to realize what was happening. In a mind yielded to death, thought came slowly.
“Full about!” he barked at the astrogator, praying the man would recover fast enough to make the maneuver. A split second’s delay, and the Bellatrix would go up in atoms along with the Rojok.
“Aye, sir!” The astrogator’s thin, trembling hands seemed to hit the switches in slow motion.
Stern felt the huge starship vibrate like a running heart with the sudden braking. She bolted under the pressure, as if torn apart between time and speed. Then, with a recovery that was nothing short of miraculous, she began to turn and inch away from the doomed Rojok ship. In seconds that were centuries to her crew, she pulled away with a rippling burst of speed just as the Rojok ship exploded in silent fireworks out in the eternal night. The shock wave that came in her wake was enough to rattle the scanners on the bridge.
“God!” Stern breathed in mingled relief and gratitude.
“Sir, we’ve got the megatrons back in working order, now,” Higgins said quickly. “Not nearly up to par, but I think we’ve got enough charge to hit the other Rojok.”
“Lock on target and fire at will!” Stern told him.
“On target, Captain. Megas away!”
Stern watched the blue bolts fly into the second Rojok with boyish excitement. The resulting explosion was no less enjoyable than the first had been, and the colorful display produced nothing more than a light jar to the Bellatrix. Stern leaned back in his chair with a long, shuddering sigh.
“Good work, Higgins,” he told his exec. His eyes went to the astrogator and fished for a name, and was surprised when he couldn’t find it. “What’s your name, son?” he asked.
The astrogator gaped at him. “Why…it’s Crandall, sir.”
Stern nodded. “Crandall. Good man.”
“We’re lucky you spotted the first attack in time,” Higgins said with a grin at his commanding officer. “If you hadn’t, we’d be atoms by now.”
“Speaking of attacks,” Stern said, leaning forward, “where did that one come from?”
“Had to be the Centaurian,” Higgins replied. “But he’s…”
“Interspace comm coming in, sir,” the comtech broke in.
“Throw it over here, Jennings. Higgins, get me a damage report.”
“Yes, sir.”
Stern switched on the viewscreen, to be met with a pair of slightly amused pale green cat-eyes. “You present an interesting case for your race, Captain,” Dtimun said over the screen. “I had not credited it with such ingenuity. Status of your vessel?”
“Higgins?” Stern asked.
Higgins’s thin face seemed to grow longer. “Sir, we took a hit amidships. Damage control reports thirty injuries and fifty-five dead, including our Amazon unit,” he added, noting the specialized female attack squad that was regulation aboard all SSC vessels. Females served in combat, as well as in support units. Many former members of Amazon squads, like Madeline Ruszel, were now officers. A good many were assigned to SSC ships like the Bellatrix, although Stern had no female bridge crew on this particular mission due to rotation and R & R.
The Amazon units were the most well-known, the most respected of the SSC’s forward units. They were known even by outworlders like the misogynist Centaurians. Madeline Ruszel had started out in an Amazon unit before she felt an inexplicable urge to practice medicine and petitioned for the right to be sent to medical school. She had a soft spot for the Amazons, especially for the unit that served aboard the Bellatrix. Its commanding officer had gone through training with Madeline.
“Damn!” Stern cursed. Madeline was going to take the news hard. “All of them?”
“Yes, sir,” Higgins replied. “It gets worse. Our backup fuel units were destroyed, we have three crushed bulkheads, and our primary engine batteries are dead. We’ve also got grav holes that we have no means of plugging. We’re leaking atmosphere at a lethal rate. Unless that Centaurian ship has a repair deck, we’re…well, we’re finished, sir.”
Stern stared at him blankly. “In other words,” he said quietly, “we’re a dead ship.” He sighed and turned back to Dtimun’s image on the viewscreen. “Nice try, Commander, but you might as well have let the Rojoks take us out. We’d need two weeks in a shipyard just to begin repairs.”
“If you expect to find one this deep in captured territory, I withdraw my former statement regarding your ingenuity,” Dtimun replied. “Prepare for ship-to-ship lock. I’m evacuating your crew and complement to the Morcai.”
“With all due respect,” Stern protested, “you could just as easily throw a towbeam on us and…”
“Such a rescue operation is beyond the capability of my vessel,” Dtimun replied. “Considering our normal cruising speed, your ship would be ripped in two by the pressure. You have your orders.” The screen went blank.
Stern glanced around the somber bridge crew. Their faces were mildly accusing. He almost understood the feeling. The Bellatrix had been home for six years, and her deck had a familiar feel. But what could he do with such a damaged vessel except scuttle her?
“Higgins,” he said, rising, “order abandon ship and tell the medics to start loading their patients into the port escape hatches. Prepare for ship-to-ship lock.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Higgins replied halfheartedly.
“Something on your mind, Higgins?” Stern asked.
The executive officer eyed him quietly. “Just one thing, sir. We’re damaged, sure, but couldn’t we call for help?”
Stern felt sick. “We’d be a sitting duck, with Rojoks everywhere and no weapons. Dream on, son.”
“Yes, sir. I guess you’r
e right. I just hate giving up our ship.”
He watched his exec as he walked away, with growing resentment. For the first time he could remember, he felt a vague distaste for the entire crew.
3
The darkness had already fallen on Enmehkmehk when Lyceria was taken from the Rojok ship with her head solidly encased in an opaque helmet. Except for the bonds on her slender wrists, she might have passed for a female Rojok soldier in the thin copper armor she wore.
She knew better than to make an outcry. Her captors had warned her of the consequences. She followed them meekly, gracefully, through the gemstone streets, past the glowing multidome architecture that housed the barracks of Enmehkmehk’s largest military base. Maliche, she thought, surely they wouldn’t imprison her in a common soldier’s barracks! She was a member of the Royal Clan. It would be an outrage that would reverberate all the way home to Memcache, the home planet of the Centaurian Empire and the emperor, her father, himself! No power in space would save Mangus Lo from the Holconcom if she were harmed.
But it seemed that the Rojoks had no fear of her people, because the barracks were, indeed, her destination. She was taken into a small circular building adjacent to the main complex and thrown unceremoniously into a small compartment. A heavy door was lowered, and she found herself in complete darkness.
Her huge eyes dilated to let in the faint light, and she had her first look at her new surroundings.
There was nothing in the room except for a small synthesizer on the wall. But she could see two panels near it that would account for a retractable couch and toilet facilities. The floor under her was crystalline and cold, but it was spongy, too, and it broke her fall so that she didn’t even feel bruised. Perhaps its function was to absorb force, as well as sound. The walls seemed made of the same amber glowing crystal.
Her hands were still tied. Groggily she pulled her aching body up and walked cautiously to the synthesizer. Leaning against the cool wall, she touched the button to the left of the oval housing with her chin. A contoured couch inched its way out of the curved wall and spread onto the floor. She dropped down onto it, noting that it was made of the same shock-absorbing material as the floor and walls. She worked at her bonds. They were tight, but perhaps they could be loosened with some careful meditation.