Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  I wondered if I’d done the right thing, leaving Cerevare here. But it was her decision to make, I reminded myself.

  I had to avert my eyes from the screens around the bridge. It seemed that on every side, torpedoes and particle beams flared on impact or explosions lit up the screens. The multicoloured bursts of light burned my eyes more than I’d admit. Whatever super-booster the Chron doctor had given me was dissipating quickly now and symptoms of whatever was wrong with me cascaded back. My headache had returned with a vengeance, and a horrible knot of pressure pulsed at the base of my skull. Pins and needles pricked my legs. I hoped I wouldn’t have to get up out of the big chair anytime soon.

  “Hull’s intact,” Viss said finally from the auxiliary engineering station. “I don’t know how they managed to miss us, sitting right here on the side of the station, but we got lucky. The station’s shields must have offered us some protection. Drives coming online.”

  “Rei, you ready to go?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Scans haven’t picked up anything untoward on the ship. I guess those guys didn’t have time to plant anything nasty here—or that wasn’t their intention after all. As soon as Viss gives the word, we are out of here. Also, the Corvids’ activator drive has apparently finished converting all our navigational data. I don’t know if or when we might want to use it, but it’s there.”

  Gerazan had taken the co-pilot’s seat next to her, even though I knew he wasn’t a flyer. I wasn’t going to tell him to move, though.

  Yuskeya was still with Maja in First Aid—I didn’t even want to think about the horrible burns and broken ribs my daughter had suffered. She’d told me Maja would be all right, and I had to believe her. Hirin had taken the seat at the navigation console. He and I had learned the basics of most of the fundamental functions of flying a far trader, so he could fill in for Yuskeya while she was busy being a medic.

  “Course to the next wormhole is laid in, Captain,” he said formally. Yuskeya had given him a shot for pain, but I hated to see the odd, protective way he held his body, cradling his injured arm.

  My head filled with a dozen scenarios of PrimeCorp thugs and “bad” Chron waiting to ambush us, jury-rigged bombs in the cargo pods, sabotage in the drives—but with a mental effort I pushed them aside. Rei had said the ship was clean, and I had to take her word for it. We had to get out of here and get home. The number of days we’d been away already gnawed at me—what were PrimeCorp and their Chron allies planning? Was an attack on Nearspace imminent? Would Mother be a target, as the message Jahelia Sord had delivered—how long ago that seemed now!—had implied? I blinked away a persistent blurriness that had begun to creep into my peripheral vision, as one more nagging question raised its head. How long could I survive without treatment?

  I scanned the bridge, struck by a sudden thought. Where had Jahelia Sord gone?

  She sauntered out of First Aid and took an unused skimchair on the opposite side of the bridge. “Visiting the head, Captain. Nothing nefarious on my mind. We’ll have to get the corridors open soon, though. It’s a pretty tight squeeze having to go through First Aid.”

  “All drives are online and ready to go,” Viss said.

  Baden came out of First Aid then too, and took his seat at the comm board. His lips were set in a thin, hard line, and worry creased his forehead.

  “Any change, Baden?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady and calm.

  He shook his head. “Yuskeya says she’s all right,” he said. “I’m just mad as hell, that’s all.”

  “Me too. Let’s get out of here so we can stick it to PrimeCorp, okej?”

  “Nothing I’d like better.”

  “You’ve got weapons, since Hirin’s at the nav board,” I told him. Not to mention that Hirin wasn’t in any shape to handle targeting and firing, but I didn’t need to say it. “Rei, watch for an opening in the fighting—if there’s any such thing—and get us out of here.”

  “With pleasure, Captain.”

  “Yuskeya,” I said over the ship’s comm. “We’re about to move, so hold on tight.”

  “We’re all right in here.”

  Rei worked her magic. She eased us away from the Chron station with the maneuvering jets, and as soon as we were at a safe distance, she kicked in the burst drive. We leapt past a Chron ship that darted into our path on the tail of a PrimeCorp starrunner, but they both ignored us. Then we ran for the wormhole. I had an eerie shudder of déja vu. We’d already tried once to make it to this wormhole, and been shut down completely. Would we make it this time?

  “Two ships have broken off from the fight at the station and are in pursuit,” Baden said. “One PrimeCorp cruiser, and one Chron.”

  “We can outrun the cruiser,” Viss said with confidence.

  “But we didn’t outrun the last Chron ship that tried to catch us.” The memory of everyone falling flashed jarringly in my mind again.

  “The PrimeCorp ship is signalling us,” Baden said. “Do they really think we’re going to answer?”

  “Yes, we are,” I said, half-surprising even myself. “Make the connection, Baden. Audio only.” Hirin frowned at me, but I ignored him. I felt strangely euphoric, palms tingling as if the excitement were a tangible thing. “Rei, Viss, give it everything you’ve got as soon as I’m done talking to them. We’ve got the extra juice the Corvids gave us. You’ll know when I’m done.”

  “—must halt immediately,” a voice from the PrimeCorp ship demanded. Whoever he was, he sounded angry, and a bit hysterical.

  “You halt immediately,” I shot back. “I have a Protectorate Commander on board, as well as evidence of PrimeCorp’s involvement with the Chron. And I have a message for you to relay to Chairman Alin Sedmamin for me,” I added. “Please make certain he knows exactly where the message originated. The message is: go to hell.”

  The Tane Ikai surged forward, the Corvid enhancements kicking in. Unfortunately, the PrimeCorp ship jumped ahead, too, faster than I thought was possible for its size. The Chron ship stuck close beside it.

  “You shouldn’t have baited them, Luta,” Hirin said reprovingly. “They won’t rest until they catch us, now.”

  “They weren’t planning to let us go anyway,” I said, and the Tane Ikai shivered suddenly, as if something had bumped up against it.

  “PrimeCorp ship is firing on us, Captain,” Baden reported. “They’re still too far behind to do any real damage.”

  “Shields at maximum, Viss?”

  “Full on,” he confirmed. “But we’re drawing a lot of power. You want full shields and all the drives ready to call on at a moment’s notice. We can’t keep that up indefinitely.”

  “I don’t need it indefinitely. Only until we make it through the wormhole. They can’t follow us through the asteroid field on the other side, right?”

  “That’s the theory,” Hirin said.

  “And now we’re going to need weapons, too, Viss. I don’t want to hear any excuses. Just make it happen.”

  I didn’t think I’d spoken sharply, but an uncomfortable silence descended on the bridge. Well, damn them all, I thought. I’m trying to keep us all alive, here. Aloud, I said, “Baden, get ready to fire from the rear torpedo bays. Get a lock on the PrimeCorp ship if you can.”

  “The Chron ship’s more dangerous,” Hirin said. “If they have the same beam as the ship that stopped us before—”

  I glared at him, sweat suddenly breaking out all over my body. How dare he make me look foolish? But I caught myself before I said anything. That was a crazy way to be thinking. It was just like—

  —just like before, when I was getting sick. Paranoid. Angry. We’d blamed it on the bioscavs, but they were supposedly gone, now. But the symptoms were not.

  I stifled my angry reply and tried to focus on the quiet, reasonable part of my brain. “They may not have the same tech, but good point, Hirin. Baden, target the Chron ship if you can.”

  Another jolt shook the ship, still weak, but worrisome. “Fire
at will, Baden. Hirin, how far to the wormhole?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes, if we push the burst drive,” he said.

  The ship vibrated as the torps released, slicing toward our pursuers. One went wide, but the rear viewscreen showed a flicker as the other impacted the Chron shields.

  They must have fired when we did, because we took another hit to our shields. A hard one, this time. Some of the screens flickered, and Rei swore under her breath.

  “Sorry, Captain,” Viss said. “We don’t have enough power to keep everything at full. The shields are the weakest link.”

  “What if we took the maneuvering jets offline until we’re close to the wormhole?”

  I caught the glance Rei and Viss cast at each other. “It’s doable, sure,” Rei said carefully. “We’d have to make sure our heading is dead-on before we shut them down. And we’ll have no maneuverability if those ships catch up to us or anything unexpected comes up.”

  Damne, of course she was right. My mind seemed to be racing headlong into ideas without concern for vital details or consequences. The tingling in my palms crept slowly up the backs of my arms now, making them feel electrified. I swallowed hard, shoving the sensation to the periphery of my consciousness, forcing myself to concentrate.

  “No, you’re right. Baden, they haven’t backed off. Maybe we need to concentrate on trying to take them out.”

  “Aye, Captain.” The telltale vibration signalled the volley, and I watched with satisfaction as both torps hit home. The ships came on. I thought we might be pulling away from them, but with agonizing slowness. As long as these Chron didn’t have that light-beam weapon the others had . . .

  But it was the PrimeCorp ship that leapt ahead as I watched, eating up the empty space between us. Two more torps flashed out from their hull, and I gripped the arms of the chair, waiting for the impact so I could tell Baden to fire again. This time they’d be closer, we’d be sure to hit. We’d see if that would stop the bastardos.

  I didn’t get the chance. The torps slammed into our weak shields and the impact threw me sideways, knocking my breath away. In the same instant the screens grew intensely bright, then flickered out, along with every other light on the bridge. I heard yelling and thumps, felt the ship swerve wildly to starwise, and then there was nothing but a terrible silence.

  VISS GOT THE lights up incredibly fast—within seconds, leaving me blinking at the chaos of my bridge. But it wasn’t the same as before. We weren’t collapsing, falling unconscious. This was only a power issue. We could deal with that.

  The returning light pricked my eyes, bringing tears, but they didn’t stop me from seeing something that made my heart almost stop.

  Rei sprawled, apparently unconscious, across the pilot’s board, her long chestnut hair covering her face like a shroud. Gerazan had been thrown out of his skimchair. He scrambled crablike over to her.

  “Switching all power to shields,” Viss said in a voice thick with suppressed anger.

  “What the hell?” came Yuskeya’s voice over the comm from First Aid.

  “You all right?” Viss barked the question at her without waiting for me to say anything.

  “We’re fine in here. Do you need me out there?”

  Viss glanced at Hirin, who’d managed to stay in his chair at the nav board. He looked a little shaken, but okay. “Better get out here. Rei needs you.”

  “Luta!” Hirin’s voice snapped me out of my fog. “We have to get moving again. You’ve got to pilot.”

  The ship shuddered under the impact of two more torpedoes. With the shields at maximum we were safe, but the blows to the shields pushed the ship into a slow turn while we coasted.

  I hadn’t had many moments of perfect clarity in the last few hours, but I had one now. “I can’t,” I said, holding up my hands for him to see. They’d begun a tremor that shook them from wrist to fingertip. “I’m too sick. I’d kill us all, I know I would.”

  “Then what—” Hirin glanced down at his own arm, still in the makeshift sling. He was the only other pilot in the Tane Ikai’s crew.

  But I still had at least a temporary clarity. I swung my chair around. We had one other pilot on board. Not, strictly speaking, crew.

  “Sord, you’re a pilot. Are you up to it?”

  She sprang out of her chair and ran the few feet to the pilot’s board. Gerazan already had Rei out of the chair and on the floor, brushing her hair away from her face.

  “Thought you’d never ask,” Sord said, sliding into the seat.

  “I’m trusting you,” I said.

  “Our fortunes are still aligned, Captain,” she said. “No need to worry.”

  “Pursuing ships coming up fast,” Baden noted.

  “What do we have for power?” Sord asked.

  “Everything. Now get us moving,” Viss snapped, one eye on the viewscreen showing the ships behind us as he routed energy with sharp taps of his fingers on the console. I knew he was cranky at not having access to his precious engineering deck, but I wanted every inch of the ship searched before we took any chances.

  Yuskeya ran out of First Aid with a medkit in hand. She did a double-take when she saw Jahelia Sord in the pilot’s chair, but recovered and knelt beside Rei. Gerazan had her head on his lap and had taken one of her hands in his. Her pale skin contrasted horribly with the dark swirls of her pridattii. I tore my eyes away, the trembling in my hands worsening. I pressed them flat on the arms of my chair to try and still them. What had happened to Rei—whatever it was—it was my fault.

  Sord’s fingers flew over the board as fluidly as Rei’s, and the Tane Ikai leapt forward. We’d been swung about forty-five degrees away from the wormhole when the torps hit us, but she played the maneuvering jets like a fine instrument and the ship veered toward its course. I watched a torpedo from the PrimeCorp ship sail by without hitting us and wanted to cheer. Once we straightened out, we flew as straight and smooth toward the wormhole as if Rei had been piloting.

  Yuskeya caught and held my gaze. “She’s breathing fine, heart rate’s good. I’d say she took some kind of feedback hit from the drive overflow when the power went, but I think she’ll be all right.”

  “Should you try to get her into First Aid?”

  “No room, with Maja in there.”

  I felt ridiculous. How could I have forgotten—even for a heartbeat—that my daughter was in there, wounded?

  “I’ll sit with her,” Gerazan said. “Not like I was doing anything helpful, anyway.”

  “We could try to get her to her quarters,” Yuskeya suggested.

  “I think she’s comfortable enough here,” Gerazan said. “Let’s not move her. She might come around any minute, right? It’s not worth unsealing the bridge.”

  “Pursuing ships aren’t gaining any more, but not giving up, either,” Baden said. “Should I fire again?”

  My anger at the ships chasing us had faded. Unfortunately it had taken much of my strength with it, and I felt shaky as a newborn kitten. I lifted a hand from the armrest tentatively; the tremors had stopped, leaving my muscles fatigued and achy. I shook my head. “Let’s put everything into the drives, and get out of here. They shouldn’t be able to follow us through the wormhole, anyway—we’ve got the coordinates for the asteroid field at the other end, but they don’t.”

  “Drives and shields, then,” Viss said, and the ship shivered a little as our speed increased.

  We continued that way as one tense moment followed another. Sord said little, completely intent on getting us to the wormhole as fast as possible. Gerazan stayed on the floor with Rei. Yuskeya went to First Aid and fetched a blanket for her, then returned to check on Maja.

  The ships chasing us fired a few more torpedoes. Only one hit, but it barely rattled the strengthened shields. Little by little, they receded, losing the ground they’d gained on us. Silently I berated myself for allowing them that little victory—it was my fault Rei was hurt. If I hadn’t given in to my anger, wanted to return fire at them, if I’d con
centrated on getting us out of there—

  “These Chron don’t seem to have that same light beam thing, anyway,” Hirin said, breaking the silence. “They’d have stopped us by now if they did.”

  “Wow, we got lucky on one front,” Baden said.

  “Two, if you count having me on board to drive this thing when no-one else could,” Sord drawled, “but I guess that’s hardly worth mentioning.”

  “Gee, thanks for saving your own azeno along with ours.” Baden’s voice dripped mock sincerity.

  “That’s enough, children, we’re coming up on the wormhole,” Hirin said. “I’ve activated the coordinates Fha gave us—Yuskeya already had them in here. Sord, are you up to this?”

  “Gramps, if you knew how many skips I’ve run—never mind. I’ll be a good little pilot and say, ‘Yes, sir.’”

  “Skip drive is ready,” Viss said.

  “Ships still in pursuit,” Baden said. “They must see that we’re about to make the skip.”

  “I wonder why they stopped firing on us?” Gerazan said. “Think they ran out of ammunition?”

  “Could be. Or they realized it wasn’t doing any good.”

  “So why keep following us?”

  “PrimeCorp and the Chron,” I said. “The one thing they have in common is—they never give up.”

  “Initializing skip drive,” Jahelia Sord said. “I’ll switch to auto as soon as we’re through the wormhole, to get us past the asteroids, is that right?”

  “Right,” I told her. “We should have some breathing room then, we’ll get Rei sorted out and make a plan for getting—”

  “PrimeCorp ship is firing on us!” Baden yelped. “Particle beam, maybe. It’s lighting up the shields!”

  It was too late to stop or turn. The dark mouth of the wormhole swallowed us, and the spill of colours swirled across the viewscreens. Remembering the last time I’d seen a ship fire an energy weapon into a wormhole, I wondered if it was the last thing any of us would ever see.