“Where are you taking us?” De Molay asked, watching his face intently through the monitor. Now that she was lying down and had proper meds, her color was improving rapidly. The trauma unit had also dispensed a drinking tube of complex carbohydrate-based rehydration fluid. This substance was a lambent green, but the old woman didn’t seem to mind the taste.
“There are Imperial evac-pods within range,” Hadeishi answered, eyes flitting from screen to screen. “And this ship needs a crew to be useful.”
De Molay did not respond immediately, though Hadeishi could hear her breathing tensely as he double-checked the feed from the scanners. Their immediate area seemed to be clear of combat-he couldn’t pick up any missile drive plumes, anion beam spikes, or the gravity dimples of mainline starships. But then, the sensor suite on this barge is… limited. His fingers tapped briskly on the console.
“You should take us out of here, back into hyperspace-” De Molay was frowning.
“Not while we can rescue some of these men.” Mitsuharu felt strange-alive again, with the v-panes of a starship under his fingers. He felt the hum of the engines through the deck, the tickle of a comm implant snug in his ear canal. But he had a sensation of riding in emptiness, alone on a deserted road, astride a strange horse with no known companions. Where is the chatter of my crew? Where is Susan’s slim, fierce shape at the secondary console? There are only ghosts.
“We’re not equipped to fight, Engineer. This is not an IMN ship of war!”
“I know.” Hadeishi settled himself in the command chair, feeling the cracked leather dig at his skin. Even the shape of the civilian shockchair was odd and unfamiliar. The console was too far away for his taste, and could not be adjusted. There was no threatwell, or even a holotank to give him a working view of the field of battle!
Dishes rattled in the kitchen of the little noodle shop. Musashi was hungry-starved would be a better word, he thought-and was busy shoveling udon into his mouth, feeling the first hot rush of chicken broth like the wind from Nirvana, with a pair of chopsticks. The yakuza, four of them, entered with unusual swiftness, their faces blank as Nogaku masks, and before even he could react, their leader had snatched up his bokuto and hurled the wooden blade away, out into the night-shrouded street.
“This is the one,” the gangster barked, his own katana rasping from a cheap bamboo sheath. His arms bulged with muscle, gorgeously colored tattoos peeking from beneath both kimono sleeves.
Musashi looked up, expressing dumb astonishment and curled his left hand around the bowl of soup. “The one, what?”
“Haiiiii!” The other three yakuza drew their swords with a great flourish, kicking mats and tables aside.
Musashi turned slowly to face them, rising with the bowl in one hand, the chopsticks between his middle fingers in the other. “Pardon?”
But the scanner display was dusted with the signatures of evac-capsules. Mitsuharu lifted his hand towards the screen: “We’re the only chance they have to escape a slow agonizing death, or slavery. We’ll save as many as we can, before we have to run.”
“I gather Command has spoken,” De Molay replied, her expression pinched.
“You bear a simple cross of silver at your breast, Sencho. Would you leave all these travelers abandoned in the dark, prey to our enemies? Where is your charity then?”
The old woman did not reply, her eyes narrowing to tight slits.
Mitsuharu shook his head. “I cannot abandon them, kyo. We go forward.”
The Naniwa
“The fool! He should swing back to meet us.”
In her executive ’well, Susan watched the Tlemitl barrel towards the Pinhole, closely followed by a phalanx of Khaid battleships, the entire conglomeration ablaze with the snap of beam-weapons, streaking missiles, and the constant stuttering flare of fusion detonations. The massive radiation signature from the battle was threatening to wash out passive scans and hide the whole affray from view.
“They’re not going to make it,” she hissed to herself. Dragging her attention away from the doomed flagship, Kosho checked in with the repair crew cutting away the door to cabin nine on deck six. A medical team was lifting the body of the Swedish woman and the old nauallis out on stretchers. Susan tapped her earbug, jaw clenched. “Are either of them alive?”
In the v-pane, the gun-i holding a medpack to the old Mexica’s chest nodded, Yes.
Anderssen raised her head feebly, a bronze-colored comp clasped tight to her chest. “Captain, you’ve… got to slow the ship…” She coughed as the medical team loaded the stretcher onto a grav-cart. “The outer surface of the Barrier shifts and moves, billowing like a sail… or a permeable membrane… it’s not stable. All of the Mirror data is outdated, too old to use.”
“Get her to medical,” Kosho snapped, “stabilized and jacked into shipnet with her comp!”
What next? she wondered, turning back to the threatwell. “Pucatli! Get me someone on the flagship-I don’t care who, the kitchen staff supervisor will do!”
***
Three hundred thousand kilometers ahead, the Tlemitl swerved into the confines of the Pinhole. Susan could see they were following the pathway divined by the Mirror probes. But the newer information the Swedish woman had loaded into the Naniwa ’s nav system clearly showed one of the veils had begun to occlude the opening. The phalanx of Khaid battleships and lighter elements charged in directly behind the crippled dreadnaught and catastrophe ensued.
Kosho couldn’t help but grin ferally as first one and then a dozen of the enemy ships interpenetrated with the invisible Barrier-a rippling string of icons winked out abruptly on her ’well plot. Moments later, the camera views on the side panels studded with the blue-white flare of ships disintegrating. A storm of chatter erupted on a channel Pucatli had picked out of the storm of electromagnetic noise. Susan couldn’t understand the Khaid traffic-the message bursts were encrypted and in a tongue foreign to her-but the cadence of the staticky noise said nothing but panic.
For another minute the Tlemitl dodged and weaved, exercising her maneuver engines to the utmost, following a corkscrew path known only to-and then the dreadnaught brushed against one of the invisible threads. The battle-shields, which were mostly active at that moment, did nothing to prevent nearly a third of the behemoth from being cloven away in one dumbfounding instant.
At this distance, on the cameras, there was nothing to see but a jagged smear of light where the hull rupture was decompressing explosively.
On the Naniwa ’s bridge, however, there was loud confusion. Konev and Holloway, who had access to enhanced telemetry feeds from the battle-cruiser’s sensors, shouted aloud in alarm. Pucatli and the others turned, staring at Kosho in raw, open fear. The threatwell updated, showing the enemy ships in disarray.
“What happened, Chu-sa?” The comm officer ventured. “The Khaid battleships-”
“Are gone,” Susan said steadily. “Holloway- tzin, tracking update please.”
“Ten containment failures, kyo,” the navigator reported, shaken. “Three more badly damaged and losing way. The Khaid battle-group is trying to reverse course. The Tlemitl… she’s… she’s a dead ship, Chu-sa. Battlecast status is flickering in and out, but the last report says she’s lost nearly a quarter of her compartments. Reactors are intact, but her drives are dead. She’s coasting…”
Belching atmosphere and debris, the giant ship spun inexorably into another thread. Aboard the Naniwa, the Command crew watched in horror as another infinitely thin razor dissected the super-dreadnaught, shearing through decks, bulkheads, hapless crewmen… Now they were close enough for the cameras to interpolate, picking out the disintegrating flagship through iridescent streamers of dust.
“Gods,” Konev blurted, his face shining with sweat. “They’re sure to lose containment now!”
We’re alone, Kosho thought, forcing herself to look away. A tight knot was forming in her stomach. The Khaid are as badly shaken as we are-but they still outnumber me by five to one, at l
east.
The Tlemitl
Emergency lighting sputtered, flickering on and off in a red-lit haze, along the corridor. Helsdon rotated slowly in midair, disoriented. Then his eyes caught on a doorway swinging past and his mind snapped back into focus. “We’ve lost the g-decking,” he wheezed, suddenly aware that his chest and side were throbbing with pain. “Damage control team, report.”
A chorus of groans and cursing answered him. The engineer tucked in, giving himself a little momentum, and his boots adhered to the nearest surface. Stable, he found himself standing on the wall of the passageway. Debris was loose everywhere, filling the air with clouds of paper, broken bits of furniture, loose shoes-anything which hadn’t been secured when the Tlemitl had suffered an enormous blow.
Swallowing against a very dry throat, Helsdon retrieved his hand-comp-which was attached by a retractable cord to his tool-belt-and thumbed the device awake. Status lights flickered and then a display came up. “Power is down across the whole grid,” he said aloud. The others were gathering, hauling themselves along the walls and floor. “No gravity, no environmental control.” He blinked rapidly.
“What the hell happened?” One of the midshipmen was staring around wildly.
“We hit the-we hit the phenomena,” Helsdon croaked, feeling a horrible constriction in his chest. “Part of the ship-most of the ship?-has been cut away from-from us.”
A cook caught his shoulder, holding the engineer steady. “We’ve gotta get off, chief.”
“There’s nowhere to go,” Helsdon whispered, watching his hand-comp scan uselessly for a live shipnet node. “The reactors are in shutdown, but who knows how long that will last?”
“Help the chief, he’s hurt.” The cook gestured for the midshipmen to lay hands on the engineer. “Anyone see an evac capsule sign? That way? Chop-chop, everyone, let’s go.”
***
A grav-sled had been thrown the length of the entryway to the flag admiral’s quarters, smashing into the stone pillars framing the monumental door. Broken chunks of stone floated in a slow eddy, making Xochitl’s progress difficult. Both sets of mural walls had shattered, adding a glittering drift of glassite which flared and shimmered in the suit lights as he moved. One of his Jaguars led the way, combat suit jets puffing whitely, and another followed. Here in officer’s country, the internal damage seemed worse-there had been more ornamentation to rip free from the walls and smash into things-than down on the deck holding secondary command.
His men hadn’t asked what had happened, but the Prince had an excellent idea.
«The Mirror plotting data was flawed,» his exo supplied, completing his thought.
“I know,” he whispered, forgetting to concentrate on the thought-interface between them. “I know.”
The Jaguar sergeant in the lead pushed aside the fallen statuary-his powered combat armor made the task possible-and forced open the door beyond. Xochitl swung through the opening, thankful for the moment that they were in z-g. With proper EVA gear, they had made very swift progress through the wreckage. The sitting room beyond was utterly destroyed-tables, screens, personal artifacts all jumbled together in a drifting cloud of flotsam-but in one corner, curled up into a turtle-like shell, was a larger-than-human figure in a dark metallic z-suit. In their suit-lights, the metal surface gleamed with thousands of tiny, incised glyphs and markings. Their meanings were unknown to the Prince.
«Recording,» the exocortex reported, tucking away thirty seconds of high definition video for later analysis. «Seven hundred and twenty-nine distinct ideograms identified. Spawning subtasks to collate comparisons against known Hjogadim character sets.»
Xochitl drifted close to the figure-careful not to touch the alien z-suit-and oriented himself face-to-face. The suit mask was almost opaque, but he could make out the gleam of helmet lights flickering in a pair of deep-set eyes.
“Come, Esteemed One,” Xochitl commanded, barely polite. “We must get you to safety.”
He was answered by a long, violent harangue in a lilting, sing-song tongue, and entirely inhuman growling. The noise was abrasively loud on point-to-point comm. The Prince grimaced, his ears ringing, and then he gestured at the two Jaguar Knights.
“No one can stay here, Esteemed One. We’re taking you to a place of safety.”
The Knights seized the creature’s shoulders and kicked off, carrying the Hjo towards the door. There was another outburst of growling and snarling, interspersed with a long tirade in the unknown tongue. But the Hjo remained tightly curled up, trying to hide its long tapering head, and this made it possible for the two Ocelotl to hustle the alien along.
Back outside, once they’d left the security corridor and its intrinsic shielding, Xochitl’s exo conjured up a deck plan in his field of view. “Ah, good,” the Prince said aloud on the local comm circuit. “There’s an escape pod rail not far from here.”
The Jaguars looked at him, puzzled. Their sergeant gestured at the comp built into his suit. “Nothing on shipnet, my lord. Everything’s down…”
“No matter, Cuauhhuehueh, I’ve a backup copy. This way.”
They turned left, jetting down a main corridor-large enough to drive two grav-sleds side-by-side-filled with drifting debris. Constellations of smoke globules parted before them, bumping into their facemasks as they sped along. Though they passed scattered corpses and even some wounded, Xochitl did not stop. Hidden by his facemask, the Prince’s expression was set and hard.
The Naniwa
Susan watched her bank of displays with a fixed, stony glare. The threatwell showed their situation only too well. On the hull of the once-great Firearrow, the last of the battle-shield projectors flickered and died. The Khaid ships which had survived the reckless pursuit were underway at last, pulling back from the unexpected weapon which had consumed their fellows. From what she saw on her ’well they would be successful in escaping the trap if they just reversed along their own drive trails.
They’re going to figure this out pretty fast, she mused, her thoughts filled with foreboding. They’ve got too much data on hand, and now they have the time to let it all sink in…
But for the moment, her way forward was clear. Behind, however, the flotilla of destroyers that had been nipping at the Naniwa ’s heels was still there, slowly closing range, their beam weapons snapping past or flaring out as the aft point-defense knocked them down. None of these hounds had the missile throw-weight to punch past her counter-missiles and Konev had gathered up fifteen or sixteen remote weapons platforms initially deployed by the Tokiwa and Asama in the early stages of the battle.
The platforms were low on munitions, but still had some capacity left. They were keeping pace, extending both her missile intercept envelope and the battle-cruiser’s sensor range, and in this kind of knife-fight Kosho would take anything she could get. Susan sat stiffly, back ramrod straight, and her eyes flickered across the arrayed data one more time. “We need to determine if there are any survivors,” she said softly, drawing Oc Chac’s attention. “We can take on several thousand, if we triple-bunk.”
The Mayan shook his head in dismay. “ Chu-sa! We’ll overtax environmentals in a few days with that sort of passenger load! Only we remain,” he ventured. “We dare not help them-”
There is no time for reckless gestures, Susan realized, brow furrowing sharply. We have to get out.
“Status of our hypercoil? How long to make gradient?”
The Mayan Zosen stared at her blankly, one dark-complected finger pressed to his earbug. “ Kyo? ”
“How long,” she said steadily, staring at him with a cold, considering expression, “to make transit to hyperspace?”
Oc Chac swallowed, dark eyes darting to his status panel. “Coil is down, Kyo. We’ve taken fragmentation damage along cells nineteen to thirty-six.” He looked up, expression impassive. “I need two hours to make her right, Chu-sa.”
Susan nodded, looking back to the threatwell. “We have no more than thirty minutes before they com
e at us again, Sho-sa. Take direct command of the repair crews.”
“ Hai, kyo! ” The engineer bolted from Command, speaking rapidly into his throatmike as he ran.
Plasma detonations blossomed in the threatwell, bracketing the Naniwa as she maneuvered.
“They’re getting our range, kyo,” Konev reported, voice hoarse. “We’ve lost two of the remotes.”
Susan’s gaze swept across her console. Though mauled, the battle-cruiser was still game for a fight, but against so many Khaid? Her eyes flicked up, fixing on the long-range sensors. The Pinhole was still abroil with radiation and shattered ships. Their emissions blocked any sign of what lay beyond in the ever thicker dust-clouds. She grimaced, tapping her earbug.
“Medical? Get our Swedish passenger up here-awake- right now! -with all of her possessions.”
***
Xochitl, the suited creature, and his Ocelomeh arrived at the evac-capsule cluster to find only one pod remaining. The other access-doors showed only empty cradles beyond thick glassite windows. The door to the last capsule was apparently stuck, as a motley collection of officers and ratings was banging away at the hatch with pry bars and other tools cribbed from the nearest damage control closet.
“Is it working?” the Jaguar Knight Cuauhhuehueh demanded, his voice booming on the local circuit.
A pale, sandy-haired man with Engineer’s insignia turned to face the Prince’s party. His light brown eyes registered the unit insignia of the Jaguars and his face grew still. “Yes. The capsule’s intact. The launch rails are clear and the release subsystems are showing green across the board. We just have to get the hatch open.”
Xochitl could see the pod was last in queue on the shared maglev launch tube. A rough ride out of Firearrow ’s guts. And then where?
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