Dishonorable Treason was another matter. Punishment was summary execution, preferrably at the location of offense, usually by fellow officers filing the charge.
The eyes of his first officer bored through his skull. Gahiani kept his own gaze rigidly on the viewscreen. Not by the merest flicker did he betray his discomfort from that steady stare. Hamin had no particular grudge against him, but Hamin never deviated from the strict line of duty. If he saw treason, he would act, swiftly and without mercy. Gahiani fought the urge to wipe his forehead. He did not even give way to the need to tap his fingertips on the arm of his chair. There was one chance to justify his actions into Honorable Treason, thus saving himself and his family from total disgrace. He waited, his strong captain’s nerves standing him in good stead now as the shuttle moved away from the ship with infinite slowness.
The crew was standing by, awaiting his orders. Silence hung over the bridge, broken only by occasional in-ship communications chatter.
Gahiani watched the lengthening distance. The shuttle was increasing speed and turning now to take a course heading. He stared at its squat lines, broadside now, his vision blurring slightly. There. He blinked. He swallowed twice to make sure his voice would come out steady and low.
“Gunnery.”
“Sir!”
“Sight shuttlecraft.”
Bewilderment flashed over the bridge. The gunnery officer was young, but well-trained. His hesitation was barely perceptible as he complied with the order.
“Target sighted.”
“Lock on. Howsers two and four.”
“Aft howsers locking on.”
There were several eyes watching the captain now. Gahiani smiled very slightly, the smile his people knew well, the smile of a Gahiani warrior in battle. He squinted, slightly breathless from the anger that could no longer be restrained. The Sedkethran would pay for shaming him, for trying to use him! His hand clenched in his lap.
“Fire.”
The viewscreen showed two green blips racing toward the shuttlecraft. Seconds later, the shuttle exploded in vivid color. Gahiani sat back in his chair with a satisfied grunt.
“Helm.”
“Sir!”
“Lay in a return course to Dena Minor. Top speed.”
As the ship heeled about, Hamin approached the captain. “An inexplicable little exercise, Captain.”
“Yes.” Gahiani looked at him coolly. He was safe now. Hamin had no grounds on which to suspect him. The relief was overwhelming. He need not avert his eyes from the lock of his mother’s hair in shame when he returned to his quarters. “Don’t worry, First. Falmah-Al will receive her explanations when we return.”
It was a dismissal. Frowning slightly, Hamin rubbed the back of his ear.
“Have I the Captain’s permission to personally inspect the hangar doors? Internal checks registered a slight malfunction on my board during shuttle departure.”
“Anything serious?”
“No. But it should be checked.”
Gahiani hesitated, uncertain whether Hamin was still suspicious and intended to look about the hangar deck for evidence. But the captain was unwilling to return to Falmah-Al’s wrath with sticking hangar doors. He knew she would want to come immediately aboard. Any delays would only fan her anger.
“Permission,” he said, and was relieved when Hamin immediately left the bridge.
“What?” said Ellisne.
“Hush!” Quickly Brock placed a finger across her lips and pressed her back into the shadows of a bulkhead rib as a crewmember came hurtling down the well on a cushion of air. It was Hamin, the first officer. Brock grinned. His plan was working.
“He’s heading toward the hangar.”
“Are you still in control?” asked Ellisne worriedly.
Brock nodded. His mind followed Hamin’s like a light leash. There had never been any question of trusting the captain. At the first opportunity, Brock had ambushed the first officer, deftly removed the mental protector with surgical instruments stolen from the ship’s infirmary, and taken control of Hamin’s mind. There was no malfunction of the hangar bay doors. But Hamin believed there was, just as in a few minutes Hamin would believe he had fixed the problem when in reality he would be assisting the departure of a second shuttle.
“Come,” he said. “We’d better reach the hangar deck before he does.”
Ellisne drew a deep breath, her face smudged with exhaustion, and flicked them to the cold cavernous expanse of the hangar. All illumination except sporadically placed safety lights was off, and the two remaining shuttles locked on their pads glowed a soft white in the gloom. Brock took Ellisne’s hand as she swayed wearily against him and pulled her across the distance to the side of the nearest shuttle.
He was asking too much of her. Her strength was nearly spent. If he did not let her rest soon, her atrox might well be damaged. It was smaller than his and not designed for such frequent flicking of more than one person. He paused despite the desperate need to hurry and pressed his fingertips against the nerve points of her throat, sending some of his strength into her. She shivered and clutched gratefully at his hand. Her eyes opened with a slight flutter.
“Just a little longer, beloved,” he whispered. “Then you may rest.”
She nodded, and he turned away to release the hatch lock. The click and whir as it lowered echoed loudly in the silence around them. Brock swore in Chaimu and hastily pushed Ellisne up the steps. Hamin was coming. He heard the series of airlocks opening and closing. With a slight jump, Brock grasped the upper edge of the hatch and pulled himself inside, slamming his hand on the lock. Hydraulics hissed as the hatch slid shut and locked. Ellisne was standing in the entrance to the cockpit, eyes shut, drifting in and out of reality. For a moment Brock froze, unsure of what to do with her. She had had no sleep since they left Daijahl Imperial. There simply were no suspensor plates available for her use. It had caught up with her, and even the meditation techniques he had shown her so that she could rest without lapsing from this dimension were no longer sufficient.
“Ellisne!” he said sharply, aware on another level of Hamin crouching to open an access panel under the deck controls. “Ellisne! You must stay awake! I cannot support you and control Hamin at the same time. Ellisne! Stay awake just a little longer. We are not far from Felca. Try.”
Her eyes opened and fell shut again. She was drifting seriously now. He could barely see her. “No resources left,” she mumbled.
He had no choice but to risk everything. Swiftly, he reached out for her hand. His fingers passed through. Concentrating, he focused harder, dropping all control on Hamin, and managed to drift just enough to match her. He clutched her hand, his mind and strength shooting into her, drawing her back, sharing more than he himself could afford to give. She steadied just as he felt himself weaken dangerously. An unexpected pain in his chest made him pull back sharply. She swayed against him, although he could barely hold onto her. Then she pushed away and clung to the bulkhead, straightening her slender form.
“I’m all right, Brock,” she said. “Can you get him back?”
“I don’t know.”
Stumbling into the cockpit, Brock dropped heavily into the seat and closed his eyes. Fighting off the drag of fatigue, he sent his mind leaping out to find Hamin’s. The first officer was halfway out the airlock!
Come back.
This time, unlike before, there was resistance from Hamin as though he realized he had been invaded. Trembling from the effort, Brock grasped the sides of his seat and focused, slamming all his mentality against the other, whose resistance abruptly crumpled. There was no more time for finesse. He could no longer afford to be careful not to damage Hamin’s mind. They had to escape before his strength gave out. Brock had given nearly everything to Ellisne. He wasn’t sure he could go on.
But he had to go on. He had to last. If he didn’t make it to Felca, no one anywhere would have a chance to stop Falmah-Al. Pushing away the need for sleep, the lack of sufficient f
ood, and the weight of sheer exhaustion, he drove Hamin back to the controls, forcing him to alter circuitry so that hangar activity would not register on bridge instrumentation.
Now, he commanded as soon as Hamin’s hands completed the task. Hamin responded, and pressurization warnings flashed across the dark expanse of the bay as the doors slowly opened.
Brock had the shuttle engines warming, and sat there willing the machines to hurry as the magnetic coil holding the shuttle turned the craft, which was then drawn down a magnetic line preparatory for the slingshot effect designed to launch the shuttle away from the ship without requiring utilization of precious shuttle fuel until the craft was underway. Brock sat tensely at the controls. The slightest suspicion from anyone on the bridge, and the doors would slam shut from direct override. A random scan aft by ship’s sensors, and the shuttle would be detected and blown to bits as the decoy had been. This was a wild gamble, a reckless ploy with only the slightest chance of success. For, even if he did manage to escape, there might or might not be sufficient fuel to reach Felca. He did not trust his calculations. But he had to try.
His console blipped, bringing his attention back to the job at hand. “Brace yourself, Ellisne,” he said, taking a firm grip on the controls.
With a rumble, the launch slung the shuttle out into space. The viewscreen filled with the gigantic image of the cruiser. His mouth dry, Brock hit maximum speed, and the shuttle vibrated with a shrill whine of protest. But she was well-built, this little craft, and his trust in the excellence of Colonid workmanship was justified. Reaching across the pit, Brock flicked on rear scanners in violation of the rule against an open viewscreen for a solitary pilot. His hands trembled slightly as he rechecked his course headings and nudged the shuttle by forty degrees to comply before switching to automatic and allowing the computer to take over. Even then he did not relax. Mentally he was counting, his nerves stretching tautly in anticipation of howser fire. If it came, it would be now.
He sensed the link between his mind and Hamin’s crumbling. Brock broke it with a slight frown, aware that the first officer’s mind had not been strong enough for such powerful domination, however temporary. Brock bared his teeth in the Chaimu way.
“Brock?” called Ellisne. “Is it working? Are we safe?”
“Cuh,” grunted Brock, sagging back in his seat with relief as the range increased steadily between them and the Im Naga. “She’s moving away. She hasn’t sighted us. Great Meir above, she’s going into implosion drive!”
“It worked!” cried Ellisne, coming into the cockpit to impulsively fling her arms around Brock from behind his seat. Her smooth cheek rested briefly against his temple. “They had only to look out to see us, but they are already gone.”
Brock grinned. “This is Quadrant One. No doubt they were too nervous to stay here a moment more than necessary. They wouldn’t want to run into Heldfleet and have to fight a pitched battle by themselves, especially when they are supposed to be standing by Falmah-Al.”
“Do you really think Heldfleet has ships in this area?” she asked, smoothing his hair back from his forehead.
Brock sighed, allowing himself the luxury of relaxing beneath her gentle touch. “I hope so. The greatest concentration must be here. The inhabited planets in this quadrant are more numerous and better defended than Daijahl Imperial was. Colonid penetration into this quadrant has never been very successful.”
“You and Rho tried sending out communications earlier without response. What if Heldfleet isn’t here either?”
Her voice was troubled. Brock grasped her hand in reassurance.
“They have not all been destroyed,” he said.
“Are you linked in any way?”
He nodded. “Not directly, but upon occasion I served as a conduit between the suprin and Esmir Eondal.”
“Brock!” she gasped. “That is a dangerous thing—”
‘‘Another Forbidden?” he asked teasingly, but she shook her head sternly at him. Her eyes were dark with a reprimand.
“Even for you, there are some things better left untried, beloved.”
The amusement, small though it had been, abruptly died in his throat. He thought of the sacrifice to save the suprin, made too late, and exacting too great a cost physically. “Yes,” he said quietly. His hand tightened upon hers. “Ellisne, if we do reach Felca, you know I must—”
His voice trailed off suddenly as he stared at the viewscreen. An unmistakable shimmer in the space fabric lay directly ahead in their path.
“Brock, what is it—”
“Abort! Abort!” blared the computer alarm. “Direct interception. Collision course.”
Brock reached for the controls, but before he could retract from automatic, all functions abruptly shut down. Ellisne’s fingers dug into his shoulders like claws; her bewilderment collided with his panic.
“What is it?”
“Ship,” he said, punching vainly at unresponsive controls. “Coming out of implosion.”
“The Im Naga?
“I don’t know.” He slammed a fist onto the dead board. “Damn this thing! Why won’t it respond?”
“Isn’t it an automatic shut down to avoid collision?”
“Yes.” He glanced at her, his mind frantically sorting through the information gleaned from the pilot Molaud for an answer. But his panic was blocking the overlay. He couldn’t remember anything, and they were still sweeping headlong into the ship’s path.
It materialized in front of them, so immense and so close the viewscreen could not compensate to bring all of it into focus.
“We aren’t stopping,” said Ellisne, suddenly comprehending.
“Inertia. And without power I can’t move us out of the way. What stupid engineer designed this?” He threw himself half out of his seat and slammed a hand down on the communications board. “Dead. Everything’s dead except the viewscreen.”
“It’s not the Im Naga,” said Ellisne, her eyes locked on the viewscreen, now totally filled with the wedge-shaped ship bearing down on them. “Who?”
Distracted, Brock gave up his frantic efforts to reactivate power and gave the viewscreen his attention. His breath caught in his throat. “A wedge from a cluster ship!”
“You mean, one of ours!”
“It’s turning,” said Brock, his hands gripping the edge of his seat so hard they ached. “Yes, it’s coming about, trying to avoid us. But there’s no time. We’re too close. We’ll graze it.”
“Brock—”
The flattened, slightly convex side of the ship wheeled across in front of them. Immense cluster ships were not designed for lightning speed or maneuverability, but the one hundred component wedges which formed each cluster ship were. There was nothing in the galaxy that could match them for quickness. But even so, Brock held his breath, certain there was not enough time.
Then he saw the bay yawning like an opened mouth in the side of the ship.
“Lath muk shal!” he shouted in Chaimu, leaping from his seat and nearly knocking Ellisne down in the crowded space. “It intercepted us this close on purpose. It knew our systems would shut down. It’s trying to catch us. Great Meir—”
“Brock—”
He whirled and caught her by the arms, propelling her out of the cockpit and into the nearest seat in the passenger section. “Strap in. Quickly! Don’t argue! If they succeed, it’s going to be one rough stop.”
She thrust his helping hands away. “Strap yourself in! I can flick to negate the force of a crash. You can’t. Brock, stop fussing with me and take care of yourself—”
A loud crack drowned out the rest of her sentence, and suddenly the shuttle lurched violently as it was snared. Brock tumbled bodily over the top of the seat he was reaching for, then was slammed into the hard back of the seat as the shuttle’s impetus reversed. Stunned by the impact, he threw out a hand, grasped something, and tried to lever himself up. But the g-forces were too strong. Ellisne’s mind was shouting at his, but he was too dazed to res
pond. Around him welled a shrill noise, the scream of the shuttle’s passage through air. It must be inside the wedge. And then he thought, No! Not yet! We’re still going too fast. They’ll never stop us.
He had seen this maneuver before, swift wedges darting about in deadly fights, swooping in to swallow enemy craft on the wing. He had stood on the observation deck overlooking the hangar, his entire body tensed in readiness to pluck the suprin away from such a dangerous place, his eyes locked in fascination as the quarry came screaming into the bay and struck the internal forcefield that acted as a gigantic catcher’s net, stopping and absorbing the tremendous forces of impact. Sometimes enemy craft survived capture; other times they exploded. The occupants were sometimes intact and sometimes jelly.
Ellisne! Flick out! Flick out! We’re going too fast. We aren’t going to make it!
Hanging desperately onto the bolted base of the seat, his face ground into the carpeted deck that stank of dirt, smoke, and cleaner, Brock tried one last time to pull himself up and reach for the safety restraints. He could not see Ellisne. But he felt the tug of her will upon his and fought her off.
I won’t leave you, Brock! If I can just reach you we will flick together.
You can’t help me. Get out! He was almost sobbing aloud with despair at her stubbornness. All his life he had searched for someone to share with, someone willing to understand, to return freely the emotions he had taught himself to feel, who did not fear what he reached for or what he was. She must go. She must live.
Beloved—
Go! It was a cry from his soul. His mind seemed to swell, to burst as though by sheer willpower alone he thrust her away, making her obey him and flick to safety. For the first time in long, long days he felt his atrox, throbbing with life and not withered and useless in his chest. Hope leapt through him. Was it healed? Could he save himself as well?
But there was no chance to try, for just then the shuttle bucked, the nose flying up, and slammed belly first into the forcefield, flipping over on its back and crashing straight down to the bottom of the hangar bay. And all was still, and black, and silent.
The Goda War Page 19