"Are you going to escort me?"
"No, Miss Saunder. Orders. Low profile. The general requests your cooperation."
In exchange for extending the franchise and backing Saunder Enterprises for decades, Councilman Ames now expected a payoff. Keep the scandal hidden. Handle this delicately. No major calling-out of the Fleet. All Brenna Saunder had to do was stop a catastrophe in the making and cram the lid back on it before the political mess blew up in someone's face.
One of the blank-faced intelligence officers moved closer to her. "We're expediting. Your ship's been refueled, Miss Saunder. We added a booster."
Brenna exulted. Top power! With a Space Fleet booster primed onto Chase One's potential, she would come close to matching anything in space—anything, save the Vahnaj ship if it went to faster-than-light speeds.
"Thanks," Brenna muttered. Clutching the code matrix wafer, she kicked off and sailed down the boarding tunnel. There were no maintenance people in sight. Space Fleet had secured the bay for their operations: adding a booster, and who knew what else, to a civilian ship. Brenna raced through the boarding routine, grateful for years of practice. As she snapped the safety webbing, she heard an on-going murmur on the Traffic Control screens. An out-of-frame argument was in progress. Then a Space Fleet officer moved into view. Her face was just as unreadable as the intelligence officers'. She was probably part of the same espionage team, and she had suddenly usurped Hiber-Ship's traffic controllers' position. "This is Class A-One Priority," the officer said, quashing the last complaints from the civilians in the control section. "Clearance for this launch only." The woman was reading her boards expertly, moving small traffic out of Brenna's way. Brenna saw an unnaturally clear field, straight from the launch tunnel. "You are okay to depart, SE Chase Ship..."
Brenna switched to manual, taking charge of the helm personally. The blast along the cavernous, well-lighted docking bay was dangerously fast for such close quarters. Every scrap of her experience came into play. She was part of the machine, as she would be on an FTL test run, peeling out of the tunnel and curving away on a wild vector.
She dropped the top-secret matrix wafer into the com slot and activated the systems. Brenna didn't know how long it would be before Quol-Bez or Councilman Ames responded. They must be frantic to know what was going on. They had smoothed the path for her as much as they could, with Space Fleet riding roughshod over Hiber-Ship Base's regulations. Yet Quol-Bez was on Mars, and Councilman Ames might still be on duty on Earth. Both planets were light-minutes from Jovian orbit, and time was the thing in shortest supply for all of them right now.
Chase One was a comet! Brenna opened the propulsion systems up wide, her hands everywhere on the guidance system, feeding new programs. The sleek little craft shot Sunward, fast leaving Hiber-Ship Base behind. Brenna avoided the computerized links, only using her on-board monitors for the heavy stuff. She didn't know who was in on this, but the fewer signals anyone outside could pick up from her ship, the better.
She had never felt such power at her fingertips. Booster systems! The limit in sub-light-speed velocity, for human technology, so far. Brenna scanned the maps, locking in her destination, clumsy in her haste.
The com winked on. Split screen. Quol-Bez and Ames appeared side by side. In actuality, they could be on different planets, millions of kilometers from each other. The images were unsteady, affected by the coding devices. Brenna heard a faint, eerie echo—the scrambled audio and video signals as they would sound to anyone without a decoder wafer. The voices were a bit distorted to Brenna, but understandable. They talked over each other's words, each eager to tell his story.
"Sorry about this, girl. No time to prepare you," Ames was saying.
"Ver-y dif-fi-cult, Brenna. They must not. I do not wish ... the ter-ri-ble con-se-quen-ces ... and the treaty..."
There was no point in Brenna's talking back to them. She was too far from signal origin. It would take too long for the exchange. She would have to wait until their message was complete and see if anything needed to be said, then relay everything at once—and wait another interminable interval for their reply. The laws of space and distance.
"Heavy territory," Councilman Ames said, veiling his meaning as much as possible, despite the code. "We have a problem. I imagine you've guessed it. We ... uh ... were fooled by some hijackers. Excellent fakes and top-secret materiel involved. We didn't know the merchandise had been removed until an informant tipped us off." Merchandise! Quol-Bez's Vahnaj ship! "We've been able to pinpoint the time at which the removal occurred. Those who pulled the trick on us are using ... uh ... disguises." That was what Ames had meant by top-secret materiel. The Vahnaj ship and those who had stolen her—riding a Breakthrough Unlimited Chase ship—were now hidden even from Space Fleet as they made their way to an unknown destination. Unknown to Space Fleet, anyway! "Uh ... we rather hoped you could act as an intermediary for us. We're willing to negotiate a ransom as soon as possible. The Ambassador tells me you understand the necessity for fast action. It's essential this not ... uh ... get out of hand. We've been hailing them constantly. The parties haven't responded, and we are unable to locate them due to the ... disguises." Councilman Ames let some of his true feelings slip past the code talk. "I hope to hell you know where they are, or this whole thing is going to come apart on us, if it hasn't already!"
Brenna was already way ahead of him, putting the puzzle pieces together, the overheard scraps of conversations to which she should have listened. She aligned her nav systems as fast as she could. She had to reach her destination before Joe, Adele, and Shoje started tampering with the Vahnaj ship.
"We'll keep hands off. The Ambassador requested it specifically. It's your baby, girl." Ames hesitated. "We hoped Tumaini could tell us..." He had broken his own rules. Now that he had let the name of one of the conspirators slip, he went ahead, trusting the code matrix to protect the message. "Unfortunately, some cretin tried to corner him, and Beno made a run for it. He didn't make it. Sorry. I promise you the officer who stepped beyond his orders will pay, girl. I dislike incompetents..."
Brenna was suspended in high vacuum; nothingness swamped her marrow and brain.
Tumaini. No...!
Ames was still talking. "... well planned, I'll give them that. And somebody fed them a lot of help and secret equipment to pull this off, too. Beno used a holo-mode to make Space Fleet Traffic think two of your Chase ships were on that routine mission out to your mothballed FTL hop station. Had their flight plans filed right on time. Cute. Then we got the tip and knew who the hijackers were—but by then it was too late. If Beno just hadn't run..."
Tumaini Beno, drawing potential pursuit away from his comrades, and dying for it. He had sacrificed himself, taking the risk, for the greater cause. Nausea and grief boiled within Brenna. Tumaini, dead! She realized, too late, that he had been the ringleader, not for evil purposes, but for the goal of Breakthrough Unlimited. Faster-than-light travel at any price—even at the cost of his life. He had shown the others the way: "After all, what can they do to us after we crack the Vahnaj ship's secrets? It'll be ancient history!" She seemed to hear his voice, that strong Mweran accent. Tumaini was the junior pilots' second idol, next to Morgan. What would his death do to them?
And treacherous conspirators had led them into this. Unknown agents with their own ugly motives, whispering, "Go ahead! You can do it. Count on us. We'll steal the devices you need, play hijacker. Grab the Vahnaj ship...
Brenna furiously brushed away angry tears, concentrating on the job at hand.
Chase One's added boosters gave Brenna a bit more power, pushing her into the couch, the acceleration climbing toward two gees.
Elapsed time? Okay. On target. Maybe a bit ahead. She would have to start decelerating approximately five hours from now. At least she knew the junior pilots were coming from farther away than she was. Fortunately! She had to get there before they had a chance to...
If only she had a graviton spin resonance drive abo
ard this ship! A working FTL drive! She could get there hours ahead of them and be waiting when they pulled in.
Dreams.
Brenna prayed that dream wouldn't turn out as badly as so many others had for her over the past months.
Quol-Bez was talking to her. "Brenna, this must be prevented. Councilman Ames in-forms me that our friends have already used the sub-light drive on my vessel..." Despite the terrible situation, Brenna grinned. Top pilots! They had cracked the secrets of the alien's sub-c propulsion system and put its controls to work. Score one for Joe and the team. But they weren't likely to make many more such successful scores. They would be cocky, after that initial success, and think they could figure out any Vahnaj machinery. "Once the faster-than-light systems are opened," Quol-Bez went on, "cer-tain actions must be taken, or ... I fear our friends will not know that." No, only a Vahnaj would. And Quol-Bez wasn't riding with the three young pilots, couldn't warn them what not to touch and order them off the ship before it was too late. "In-ex-or-able, Brenna. In your time se-quence, ten minutes. It is de-signed to limit..." Homo sapiens to their own Solar System? "The opui-sir-can func-tion will not en-gage." Vahnaj FTL drive. Forbidden. And deadly. "It will..." The alien broke off, wagging his head from side to side. The solemn gesture was more frightening than anything else he might have said.
"They'll go up like a miniature nova," Councilman Ames put in, pulling no punches.
Brenna was tightening the vector, hoping to cut off travel time. She put a reply message through the code matrix, even though Ames and Quol-Bez hadn't ended their signal. Obviously they weren't going to tell her anything else of use. She could find out the details later ... she hoped.
"I'm on my way. Councilman, hold off the dogs. My people are sharp. If they sniff Space Fleet, they'll try to make a run for it. Let me go in alone. It's the only way, the only chance..."
Quite suddenly, Morgan appeared on the monitor screen. The shimmering, coded image softened the effect of the too-pale skin, the tracery of veins, the mannequin's face, and the eyes that never blinked. But the force behind the stiff features and the artificial voice was Morgan. For a heartbeat, he was back with her again, unchanged. "Brenna, the flaw is gone. We can't lose you, too. Please! Take care. Don't..." He had to pause and gulp for breath, his failing lungs shutting off his attempt to speak.
Brenna fought back fresh tears. This wasn't the time. She added a few words to her coded message. "I will, Morgan. You, too. Don't worry. We new dogs know a lot of old tricks, remember? Stand by. Will complete message after the test run."
There was no need to veil her intentions in talk like that. But somehow it felt better. Test run. A test with one purpose—survival.
Brenna muted the com. The code wafer even quieted Space Fleet's normal traffic chatter. The computers were keeping track of where ferry ships and patrols were running. Brenna saw she need have no worries about collision; she was far off the regular vectors by now, and getting farther below the ecliptic every minute.
Pieces of the puzzle and bits of past conversations—dovetailing. "... run her out to an old hijackers' hide-out..."
Eighty-five Ores. One of hundreds of pockmarked lumps floating endlessly through the Solar System. This particular chunk of rock was conveniently close to Lower Quadrant Sector Eleven, where Quol-Bez's ship had been parked. Too close! And Brenna was too far away.
Under normal flight speeds, she couldn't reach the unnamed asteroid in less than eighteen hours, even though she was heading Sunward and had help from Sol. Now, with the boosters, she was chewing the ETA down by quarters of an hour at a time.
Joe, Adele, and Nagata didn't have the advantage of Space Fleet propulsion boosters, and they were nursing an alien spacecraft alongside Chase Two. They would be moving carefully, not wanting to attract undue attention to their masking devices.
How did they ever think they were going to get away with this! She would ask them later.
Eight hours to rendezvous...
Seven and a half...
Six...
Shaving the seconds, cutting corners wherever possible, ready on deceleration stage.
Com silence shattered. Another message, coming in on a different transmitter from Quol-Bez's and Councilman Ames'. Yuri. His image wavered like the others, but the color was sharper. He was a lot closer to her than the Ambassador or Ames had been when they broadcast their messages.
"Brenna, Morgan told me. I will be there..."
She tried to tell him it was no use. He couldn't close the gap in time to do any good. Nothing changed. His vector was a third line, arrowing toward Eighty-five Ores. Win or lose, he was rushing to meet her.
Three hours...
Two…
In all the years of her childhood and adolescence and adulthood, Brenna had never hated the vastness of space. She had always reveled in those infinite horizons. Now she cursed the distances.
She began talking ahead of the ship when she was one hour out and closing. The slow-moving asteroid wasn't visible yet, except as a bracketed grid on the nav monitors. But Brenna prayed one of the three eager young pilots had left a circuit open. She spoke in clear, not trusting her juniors to be listening on a guarded channel.
"Chase Two, this is Brenna. Do you copy? I am on course direct to your position. ETA, forty-two minutes. Do you copy? Dammit, Joe, answer me! Adele! Shoje!"
She kept it up almost ten minutes before she received an answer. The asteroid was coming up on her visual scans fast. At two gees, it had taken her five hours to slow down. She couldn't risk plowing into Eighty-five Ores. That would throw the whole mess into the fire! What had Ames said about a miniature nova? If she collided with the hijackers' abandoned hide-out, she would likely trigger off not only her own ship's power plant but those in Chase Two and the Vahnaj ship—all together, in one magnificent final display.
"Brenna?" Adele Zyto peered at her incredulously. The image was crystal clear, the voice painfully loud, since Brenna was practically on top of them.
"Get out of there! Now! The damned thing's going to blow if you try to tear it down!"
Joe Habich was leaning over Adele's shoulder. He, too, gawked at Brenna as if she were the last person he had anticipated seeing. "We thought you were..."
"I'm not! I'm here, coming in fast. Get into Chase Two and bail out of there right now!"
"How did you...?"
Brenna wanted to scream imprecations at them. Had they tampered with the alien ship? Was it already too late to save them and save herself? Ten kilometers and closing. At this range, she would be engulfed in any explosion by an FTL drive. Brenna could see the small asteroid and detect the rocky hangar hollowed out of the cosmic dust mote. There were lights showing behind the life-support barrier. Brenna envisioned the three pilots out of their Chase ship, perhaps out of their space-suits, wandering around in the once-busy hijackers' lair, congratulating themselves on pulling off this crazy stunt.
"Never mind! Listen to me. That ship's rigged to blow if you dig into her guts. I thought you knew it. Your contact with those crooked politicians damned well knows! You've been set up. Now, get out of there..."
All three faces were on her com screens now. Brenna watched a split-second shift take place down there on that rock —amazement, doubt, and then consternation and signs of panic. Belief! Thank God—they believed her!
"Get out!" Brenna shrieked. "Have you touched that ship?"
"We ... we just opened her FTL unit..."
"When?"
They hadn't been watching the time, of course. It had never occurred to them they might be starting a countdown for their own deaths. The Vahnaj ship's drive wasn't engaged. Therefore she couldn't be dangerous. Right?
Brenna was yelling at them. They were running, slapping helmet faceplates down, sealing Chase Two, firing her up.
Ten minutes, Quol-Bez had said. Brenna trusted him. He would have no reason to lie. He wanted to save lives—the lives of Morgan's young friends and admirers.
Chase O
ne was still closing with the asteroid, forward momentum almost down to that of the overgrown rock. The life-support doors were opening—and a great cloud of accumulated debris exploded out in the escaping air. For a nanosecond, Brenna's heart stopped. She thought it was the prelude to a fireball, one that would wash over her and the other Chase ship and devour them. Instead, she realized the junior pilots had carelessly triggered explosive decompression within the hangar in their haste to get out. Chase Two soared ahead of the billowing junk, making her escape from the hijackers' hide-out. And behind her, borne out of the hangar by the exhausted atmosphere within, floated the Vahnaj ship.
Following Chase Two! As if she had a murderous will of her own and wasn't going to let them get away without punishment for their crime! Ames wanted to save the Vahnaj ship, if possible. Brenna simply wanted to save them!
Brenna screamed at her navigation panels, reprogramming frantically. Vernier thrusters fired, altering her course. So slowly! Gradually, she was paralleling the Chase ship's escape vector. Brenna had the power to outrun them, with the boosters Space Fleet had added to her ship. But she hung alongside Chase Two, nursemaiding, darting horrified glances at the figures on her screens.
"Light her tail!" Brenna roared. "Get moving!"
"We ... we were powered down..." Joe explained, desperation making his voice crack a trifle.
"Let me..." Adele was the steadiest of the three, overriding their confusion. Brenna saw the acceleration rate starting to build.
How long did they have, though?
They were still on top of the damned asteroid—and the Vahnaj ship was still pursuing them, tumbling, blasted at right angles to the hollowed-out rock.
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