the Demarchist ship ahead of it.
That doesn’t make any sense. The shipmaster should have destroyed her for violating a Contested Volume.
Clavain responded. [The shipmaster threatened to do just that, but Bax ignored her. She promised the shipmaster she wasn’t going to steal hydrogen, but made it pretty clear she wasn’t about to turn around either.]
Either very brave or very stupid.
[Or very lucky,] Clavain countered. [Clearly the shipmaster didn’t have the ammunition to back up her threat. She must have used up her last missile during some earlier engagement.]
Skade considered this, anticipating Clavain’s reasoning. If the shipmaster really had fired her last missile, she would be desperately keen to keep that information from Nightshade. An unarmed ship was ripe for boarding. Even this late in the war, there were still useful intelligence gains to be made from the capture of an enemy ship, quite apart from the prospect of recruiting her crew.
You think the shipmaster was hoping the freighter would do as she said. She detected Clavain’s assent before his answer formed in her head.
[Yes. Once Bax shone her radar on to the Demarchist ship, the shipmaster had no choice but to make some kind of response. Firing a missile would have been the usual course of action — she’d have been fully within her rights — but at the very least she had to warn the freighter to back off. That didn’t work — for whatever reason Bax wasn’t sufficiently intimidated. That immediately put the shipmaster in a compromised position. She’d barked, but she sure as hell couldn’t bite.]
Remontoire completed his line of thinking. [Clavain’s right. She has no missiles. And now we know.]
Skade knew what they had in mind. Even though it had already begun to dive into the atmosphere, the Demarchist ship was still within easy range of Nightshade’s missiles. A kill could not be guaranteed, but the odds were a lot better than even. Yet Remontoire and Clavain did not want to shoot the enemy down. They wanted to wait until it had emerged from the atmosphere, slow and heavy with fuel, but still no better armed than it had been before. They wanted to board it, suck data from its memory banks and turn its crew into recruits for the Mother Nest.
I can’t consent to a boarding operation. The risks to Nightshade outweigh any possible benefits.
She sensed Clavain trying to probe her mind. [Why, Skade? Is there something that makes this ship unusually precious? If so, isn’t it a little odd that no one told me?]
That’s a matter for the Closed Council, Clavain. You had your chance to join us.
[But even if he had, he wouldn’t know everything, would he?]
Her attention flicked angrily to Remontoire. You know that I’m here on Closed Council business, Remontoire. That is all that matters.
[But I’m Closed Council and even I don’t know exactly what you’re doing here. What is it, Skade — a secret operation for the Inner Sanctum?]
Skade seethed, thinking how much simpler things would be if she never had to deal with old Conjoiners. This ship is precious, yes. It’s a prototype, and prototypes are always valuable. But you knew that anyway. Of course we don’t want to lose it in a petty engagement.
[There’s clearly more to it than that, though.]
Perhaps, Clavain, but now isn’t the time to discuss it. Allocate a spread of missiles for the Demarchist ship, and spare another for the freighter.
[No. We’ll wait for both ships to come out the other side. Assuming either survives, then we’ll act.]
I can’t allow that. So be it, then. She had hoped it would not come to this, but Clavain was forcing her hand. Skade concentrated, issuing a complex series of neural commands. She felt the distant acknowledgement of the weapons systems recognising her authority and submitting to her will. Her control was imprecise, lacking the finesse and immediacy with which she addressed her own machines, but it would suffice; all she had to do was launch a few missiles.
[Skade…?]
It was Clavain; he must have sensed that she was overriding his control of the weapons. She felt his surprise at the fact that she could do it at all. Skade assigned the spread, the hunter-seeker missiles quivering in their launch racks.
Then another voice spoke quietly in her head. [No, Skade.]
It was the Night Council.
What?
[Release control of the weapons. Do as Clavain wishes. It will serve us better in the long run.]
No, I…
The Night Council’s tone became more strident. [Release the weapons, Skade.]
Furious, feeling the sting of reprimand, Skade did as she was told.
Antoinette reached her father’s coffin. It was lashed to the cargo-bay storage lattice, precisely as it had been when she had shown it to the proxy.
She placed one gloved hand on the upper surface of the casket. Through the glass of the viewing window she could see his profile. The family resemblance was quite evident, though age and gravity had shaped his features into an exaggerated masculine caricature of her own. His eyes were closed and the expression on his face, what she could see of it, was almost one of bored calm. It would have been typical of her father to snooze through all the excitement, she thought. She remembered the sound of his snoring filling the flight deck. Once she had even caught him peering at her through nearly closed eyelids, just pretending to be asleep. Watching to see how she handled whatever crisis was in progress; knowing that one day she would have to do it all herself.
Antoinette checked the rigging that bound the coffin to the lattice. It was secure; nothing had come adrift during the recent manoeuvres.
‘Beast…’ she said.
‘Little Miss?’
‘I’m down in the hold.’
‘One is uncomfortably aware of that, Little Miss.’
‘I’d like you to take us subsonic. Call me when we’re there, will you?’
She had steeled herself for a protest, but none came. She felt the ship pitch, her inner ear struggling to differentiate between deceleration and descent. Storm Bird was not really flying now. Its shape generated very little aerodynamic lift, so it had to support itself by vectoring thrust downwards. The vacuum- filled hold had provided some buoyant lift until now, but she had never planned on going deep with a depressurised hold.
Antoinette was acutely aware that she really should have been dead by now. The Demarchist shipmaster should have shot her out of the sky. And the pursuing spider ship should have attacked before she had time to dive into the atmosphere. Even the dive should have killed her. It had not been the gentle, controlled insertion she had always planned, but more of a furious scramble to get beneath the clouds, riding the vortex that the Demarchist ship had already carved. She had appraised the damage as soon as level flight had been restored, and the news was not good. If she made it back to the Rust Belt, and that was a big ‘if — the spiders were still out there, after all — then Xavier was going to be very, very busy for the next few months.
Well, at least it would keep him out of trouble.
‘Subsonic now, Little Miss,’ Beast reported.
‘Good.’ For the third time, Antoinette made sure that she was bound to the lattice as securely as the coffin, and then checked her suit settings again. ‘Open the number-one bay door, will you?’
‘Just a moment, Little Miss.’
