Exultant dc-2

by Stephen Baxter

  Two cherry-red beams lanced out beneath the fleeing ship. Their paths were deflected in arcs, extraordinarily elegant, by Chandra’s ferocious gravity. Pirius, glancing down, saw the triangulating starbreakers slice through the netting as they passed, like burning scalpels passing through flesh. The intersection point should have been at about the level of the event horizon, but he couldn’t make it out.

  “We’re doing a lot of damage,” Cabel reported. “Those flak batteries are definitely growing interested.”

  “Never mind the flak,” Pirius growled. “There’s nothing we can do about the flak. Prepare the weapon. Bilson, are we at the right altitude?”

  “I can’t tell,” Bilson said. “It’s not working — not the way it’s supposed to. There’s some kind of distortion when the beams pass through that netting.”

  Cabel said, “We’re running out of time—”

  Lethe, Pirius thought. To have come all this way and to fail, here… He held the ship steady on its course. “Do your best.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cherry-red light flooded Pirius’s cockpit.

  “They found us!” Cabel yelled.

  He was right; the ship was about to be triangulated by two, three, four starbreakers. Pirius snapped, “I need an answer, Navigator!”

  “Now!” Bilson screamed.

  “Engineer! Fire!”

  Cabel didn’t acknowledge, but Pirius felt the shudder, familiar from training, as the cannon was fired, and twin point black holes shot out of the heavy muzzles mounted on the greenship’s main hull.

  Once the shells were away Pirius relaxed his grip on the manual controls. The ship lifted itself up and away, twisting to evade attack, its CTC processor enabling it to respond faster than any human reaction. The cherry-red starbreaker glow dissipated.

  Pirius lay back and sucked in a deep breath. Still alive.

  The greenship shuddered, as if it were a toy boat bobbing on a bathtub.

  “That was the detonation,” Cabel said.

  Bilson was silent for a few seconds, gathering data. Then he said, “No damage. The weapon worked, but we must have missed the horizon.”

  Pirius felt a heavy despair descend. “All right,” he said. “Keep gathering data. Maybe we can figure this out yet.”

  “I didn’t screw up, Pilot,” Bilson said miserably. “I gave you the best I could.”

  “I know,” Pirius said wearily. He believed him. But he knew that Bilson would blame himself for this for the rest of his life. “We still have work to do. We have six more chances, six more ships. The others will need our help. Keep your heads up. All right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Cabel said blankly.

  “Navigator?”

  “Sir.”

  The mood among the remaining crews, at their station high above the plain of the accretion disc, was bleak.

  Torec tried to make the best of it. “Whoever went in first was almost bound to fail. But we learned a lot.”

  Bilson remained very down. “We didn’t know about that mesh. We can’t see through it, and our starbreakers are distorted by it somehow, so we can’t aim. And we haven’t got time to rewrite the attack plan.”

  “He’s right,” said Pirius Blue. “Those flak batteries didn’t see you coming in, but they chased you back out, Red. And the ops room say there are nightfighters on the way.”

  “We have to go back in,” said Pirius Red. “Now, before it gets any worse.”

  “I’ll go,” said Jees abruptly. It was the first time she had spoken since Pirius’s return.

  Pirius Red said, “But your ship’s configured to carry the grav shield.”

  “We don’t need it on the way back. We’ll just be running for home.”

  “No, but your bird will wallow even more than the rest.”

  “Then I’m expendable. And I’m your best pilot,” she said simply. “If anybody can make this work, I can.”

  Torec pointed out: “Pirius. She has a Silver Ghost on board.”

  “That’s irrelevant,” Jees snapped. “Its presence doesn’t affect the operation of the weapon. And now that we’re done with the shield, its usefulness is at an end. The Ghost is just cargo now; it has no say.”

  “She has a point,” Pirius Blue said.

  But, Pirius Red thought, the Ghost was probably listening to every word.

  He called his second flight commander. “Burden? What’s your recommendation?” But, though his comm channel was clearly open, Burden didn’t reply. Again Pirius felt a flicker of unease.

  “Come on, Pirius,” Jees said evenly. “We need a decision.”

  Enough. “Go,” he said.

  Jees had evidently been waiting for the go-ahead. Her ship immediately looped out of formation and streaked down toward the accretion disc.

  She got about as far as Pirius had. Then starbreaker beams from those Sugar Lump flak stations, four of them probed for her. She held her position, got her own range-finding starbreakers working, and reported doing a little more damage to the net. But her green spark winked out before she even launched her bombs.

  When it was over, just minutes after Jees had left the formation, Pirius forced himself to speak.

  “Okay. Okay. Maybe there’s another way.”

  Enduring Hope was still on the balcony with Nilis, Kimmer, Luru Parz.

  When the news of the second failure, and the loss of Jees and her crew, filtered through to the ops room, Nilis was distraught. He wandered along the walkway, wringing his hands and wiping the soft flesh of his face. “Oh no,” he said, over and over. “Oh no, oh no. It’s my fault. We are failing, and their lives are burning up like sparks, and all for nothing…” It was a distressing sight. But Enduring Hope reminded himself that Nilis was, at heart, a civilian, with a civilian’s lack of understanding of war.

  Marshal Kimmer did not react, either to the bad news from the target or to Nilis’s loss of control. There was little he could do to shape the course of events, but in this difficult time he was a pillar of rectitude, Enduring Hope thought, a model of strength and determination. Hope had never thought much of Kimmer as a commander, what little he had seen of him; but this dark moment seemed to be bringing out the best in him.

  Pila came hurrying along the walkway. She whispered to the Commissary, something about results concerning the nature of Chandra. Nilis looked shocked, and immediately followed her off the walkway and out of the ops room.

  Enduring Hope was simply baffled. What in the universe could be more important than to be here, in these next few crucial minutes? But he felt relieved Nilis and his emotional turmoil were gone.

  Luru Parz watched suspiciously.

  The Marshal himself tapped Hope on the shoulder. “Engineer. Look. Your friend is going back in — Pirius.”

  Hope was a bit overwhelmed to be prompted by a Marshal. But he asked: “Which one? Sir.”

  “Both of them.”

  “This time we send two ships in,” Pirius Red said. “Not just one at a time. I’ll go first.”

  Torec said, “You’ve used up your weapon.”

  “I know. I’ll go in to guide. Bilson, you’ve been there. We know we’ve breached that netting; maybe Jees managed to make the hole bigger. What if we could pass the starbreakers through that breach? We’d have a short time of free flight, not blocked by the net. We might see enough to hit the event horizon. What do you think?”

  Bilson was very subdued. “It’s possible. It would be a very short time. Less than a second—”

  “All right. Which is why whoever is going in will need a spotter.”

  Torec said, “So who makes the bomb run?”

  Pirius took a breath. He wondered how long he could keep making these decisions; he felt as if he was sentencing another crew to death. But he had to make a choice. “Burden — are you ready?”

  There was no reply. And as the seconds ticked by, Pirius suddenly understood that there would be none. He brought up a Virtual image of Burden’s face. Behind his skinsui
t visor Burden’s face was ghost pale, as if drained of blood.

  Burden’s navigator whispered, “He’s been like this since we passed SO-2. I didn’t want to sav—”

  Pirius Blue said, “Burden. Burden. Quero!”

  Burden’s eyes flickered. He licked his lips, and forced a smile. “I’m sorry.” His voice was a hoarse croak, his throat evidently closed up.

  Red said, “He’s frozen. Lethe. Blue, did you know about this?”

  Blue sighed. “No. But I wondered… It happened before, didn’t it, Burden?”

  Burden seemed to be loosening a little. “Yes. It happened before.”

  “And that’s why you got busted down to the penal divisions on Quin. Cohl was right to be suspicious of you.”

  “I never lied to you—”

  “But you never told me the full truth, did you? It was nothing to do with your unorthodoxy.”

  “That didn’t help. But, yes. I froze up. Just like this. People died, you know. Because of me, because I froze. I don’t understand it. I can fight on a Rock. I can fight my way out of those blood-soaked trenches. I can save lives. But up here, in a greenship—”

  “And that’s why you kept busting your balls in combat missions? You were punishing yourself.”

  “Lethe,” Torec snarled. “And that garbage about timelike infinity — did you mean any of it?”

  “I gave hope,” he said quietly. “And it gave me hope. That some day it will all be put right. People died because of me.”

  Blue said, “Down on the Rocks, you saved far more.”

  “The arithmetic of death doesn’t work like that,” Burden said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Torec said.

  “I let you down, Squadron Leader.”

  “Yes,” Red said with feeling. “Yes, you did.”

  “When you asked me to join you, and then to be a flight commander, I couldn’t refuse. It was such a noble thing to attempt, such a right thing. I wanted to be part of it. I just hoped I’d be able to get through it.”

  “Well, you haven’t,” Torec said bitterly.

  Red said, “Guys, we don’t have time for this.”

  “I’ll make the run,” said Blue immediately.

  Red said, “Why? To save face for your buddy?”

  “No. Because I’m the better choice for a two-ship run anyhow. Think about it, Red. We’re the same person. If we go in together, communication’s going to be essential. If we can’t understand each other, who can?”

  Red said, “But—”

  “I know what you intend to do,” Pirius Blue said. “While I drop my bombs, you’ll draw the flak. That’s what you’re really planning, isn’t it, Red? You see, I told you I understood you.”

  Pirius sighed. “All right. Cabel. Bilson. Yes, I intend to draw the flak away from Blue. Maybe that way we’ll give him a chance of succeeding with the mission. But you’ve been down there already. If you don’t think you can do this again—”

  “Count me in,” Cabel said immediately.

  Bilson was clearly having a lot more difficulty. But the navigator sighed raggedly. “You did say that if we screwed up today we’d be back tomorrow. Let’s get it over.”

  “Good man,” Pirius said warmly.

  “Let’s do it,” Blue said. His ship broke immediately out of the formation.

  Pirius grasped his controls, and the two ships settled side by side.

  Burden said, “I just want to say—”

  “Later,” Red snapped.

  Torec whispered, “Godspeed.”

  Blue asked, “What does that mean?”

  “Something I learned on Earth. Very old, I think.”

  “No good-byes,” Pirius Red said. “Ten minutes, we’ll be back.”

  Torec forced a laugh. “Knowing my luck, both of you. Or neither…”

  In formation, the two ships swept down through the great hollow toward the shining puddle of the accretion disc.

  Once again Red found himself flying low over the accretion disc; once again the event horizon itself rose like a malevolent sun before him. But this time Blue’s ship was a green spark off his port bow.

  Blue opened a private loop to Red. “Of course,” he said, “if we both get killed down here, then nothing will be left of me — of you.”

  “That would be simpler,” Red said.

  “That it would. Take care of Torec if—”

  “And you,” Red called. “Good luck, brother.”

  “Yes — Lethe! I’m in flak!”

  Pirius Red glanced across. Two, three, four starbreaker beams were raking the sky, trying to triangulate on Blue’s ship. Red yanked his ship sideways, cutting between. To his satisfaction, two or three of the beams started to track him, while the others lost Blue, who ducked below his nominal course. But if one of those beams touched him, however briefly, he would be done.

  Red began to weave back and forth, the CTC pulling the ship through a rapid evasion pattern faster than any human pilot could — faster than a Xeelee, Pirius thought. But the starbreakers tracked after him.

  Cabel growled, “I think I’m going to lose my breakfast.”

  Pirius shouted, “But it’s working. Bilson! Keep tracking — it’s your job to guide Blue in.”

  “Understood, Pilot.”

  “Coming up on that netting,” Pirius Blue reported. “Wow — I don’t think I believed it — a contiguous structure light-minutes across! The Xeelee have been busy… Red, I’m in flak again.”

  Pirius, following his evasive course, had drifted too far from his temporal twin. No time to get back under sublight.

  He punched his controls. The ship jumped, a big FTL jump of a light-second or so. He heard the blister hull creak, and his displays lit up with red flags; you weren’t supposed to make such jumps in spacetime this turbulent. But it had worked, and he had lodged himself just in front of Pirius Blue.

  And once again the flak beams were focused on him. He laughed out loud. “Bring it on!”

  Bilson said, “I lost the lock.”

  “Then get it back,” Pirius shouted. “Come on, navigator, we’re almost there.”

  “I have it. I have it!” A starbreaker speared out from the greenship’s weapons pod, and hit a stretch of netting some distance before the two fleeing ships.

  “I’ve got it,” Blue called. “Good work, Bilson. But we need to have a word about your flying, Red.”

  “Have you got the event horizon?”

  Blue said quietly, “We have a fix.”

  Pirius’s cabin flared with cherry-red light. The starbreakers were close. He ignored the glow, overrode the automatics, and held the ship to its line. “Only a few seconds more, crew—”

  The blister shuddered around him, and a telltale blared. He had lost one nacelle, one crew blister: it was Cabel, probably the best engineer in the squadron, gone, burned away, a scrap of flesh in this tremendous tumult of energy. Regret stabbed, but he had no time now, no time. Still he stuck to his line. “Blue, drop the damn bombs—”

  “Gone!” Blue called.

  Pirius hurled the ship sideways. But the starbreakers tracked him, and still the ship shuddered.

  Blue reported, “Gone and — Lethe!”

  “What? Blue, I can’t see.”

  “The black holes converged — we picked up the gravity wave pulse, right on the event horizon. And the Xeelee — Lethe, it’s working!… Oh.” He sounded oddly disappointed.

  Pirius wrenched his ship around once more. “Blue! Report.”

  “The flak has got me. I can’t maneuver — I’m wallowing like a hog—”

  “Blue!”

  “I always did want to be remembered,” Blue said.

  “So did I.”

  “Maybe we will be after all. Good-bye, brother. Tell Nilis…” But his voice winked out, and Pirius heard no more, nothing but Bilson’s quiet sobbing.

  In the ops room the cheering was loud.

  That netting around the event horizon looked as if it had been punch
ed open by a vast fist. The surface beneath, a mist of sheets and threads of plasma falling into the event horizon, was awash with waves of density that flared brightly — some were so dense, the monitors said, that hydrogen fusion was briefly sparking. These waves were caused by oscillations of the event horizon itself, where it had been struck a mighty punch by the coalescing black holes of Blue’s cannon. All around this part of Chandra, intense pulses of gravitational waves were washing out, and it was those waves that were wreaking such damage on the netting structure, far overwhelming the feeble human efforts.

  It was Nilis’s moment of triumph. When Enduring Hope looked for the Commissary, he was nowhere to be seen.

  Luru Parz watched, her eyes cold.

  “Lethe, Nilis was right,” Marshal Kimmer said. “It worked! Where is that oaf? Commissary!”

  At last Nilis came running onto the walkway. He was carrying a data desk which he waved in the air. He hurried up to Kimmer. “Marshal! I have it at last. Those final images of the web structure were the key — I knew there was more to this black hole than we suspected!”

  Kimmer evidently didn’t know what he was talking about, and didn’t care. He wrapped one arm around Nilis’s shoulders. “Commissary, you old fool! Unlike you, I have no imagination. I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it. But you’ve done it! You’ve ripped a hole in that peculiar Xeelee nest — and we still have four armed ships left to finish the job. By the time we’re done that black hole will be as naked as the day it was formed, and the Xeelee will have nowhere to hide. I tell you, if you told me you had found a way to beat the Xeelee in a bare-knuckle fight I’d believe you now!”

  Nilis pulled away forcibly. When he spoke, it was practically a shriek. “Marshal — listen to me. We have to call off the attack?

  Kimmer, shocked, was silenced.

  Luru Parz said, “And the remaining ships—”

  “Call them home. Let no more lives be lost today.”

  Kimmer looked thunderous. “You had better explain yourself, Commissary.”

  Nilis waved his data desk. “I told you. I have it!”