bitterness. I need Isoroku here to advise me, not stuck on a civilian pleasure barge – he knows engine patterns better than anyone. The replay showed a wash of decaying, once-excited particle byproducts of the refinery's main drive meandering through the debris field. 'Hayes, come look at this.'
The weapons officer was at his side as fast as humanly possible.
'A Tyr-class refinery is almost ten times our size,' Hadeishi remarked, contemplating the plot. 'Her helmsman is following a path of least density, trying to keep incidental meteoroid impacts to a minimum as she moves through the field. But look, here the refinery suddenly shifts course into close proximity with this cloud of debris.'
Hayes nodded. 'They must have picked something up.' A stylus in his blunt fingers sketched a new trajectory on the panel. 'They're cutting through a 'hedge' into another area with less debris. A clear lane between the larger planetesimals.'
'And we lose the trail at the edge of the 'lane.'' Hadeishi grimaced. 'Could they have picked up the outrider?'
The weapons officer shook his head. 'No, Chu-sa. The decay rates indicate we're still days behind them. They must have reacted to something on long-range scan.'
Hadeishi settled deeper into his chair, stroking his beard. 'Break down those decay rates and all the data we have on their engine plume. If they've badgered and know someone is looking for them, we need to get a solid estimate on how far they might have gone on minimum power.'
'Not very far,' Hayes said, tapping his stylus on the panel. 'Think about how much mass they're moving. Even empty, a Tyr is a behemoth. I think they scooted into this 'lane' so they could coast and gain some distance. Somewhere out here -' the stylus sketched a box in the 'clear' area '- there's a pocket of engine exhaust.'
'Because they corrected course,' Hadeishi said, 'either for distance or vector.'
'I could send Outrider Two into the lane,' Hayes offered dubiously.
'No.' Hadeishi shook his head slightly. 'There's no reason to try and hide a course change if you don't drop a sensor relay – or a proximity mine – behind to welcome a pursuer. The refinery captain is not a fool. His cartel wouldn't entrust so much expensive equipment to a novice. He'll pick a random vector, pile on velocity and coast again until he has to maneuver to avoid a collision.'
The chu-sa paused, considering the cloud of amber dots for a moment. Then he nodded again, this time to himself. Hayes waited patiently, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders square.
'Hold drone Two on station until Three arrives.' Hadeishi's voice had lost its contemplative tone. His mind was made up. 'Recycle drone One as quickly as it can be refueled. The Cornuelle will proceed at one-third power to catch up. I want all three drones ready on point when we reach Two's current location. We will advance in a box formation, scanning the surrounding debris clouds for evidence of a third course change.'
'Hai, Chu-sa!' Hayes's jaw tightened and a gleam lit in the young officer's eyes.
Hadeishi waved him away and slumped back in the shockchair, staring into the threat-well.
Now we close with the enemy, he thought, troubled. Does he know we're here? Is he reckless? Is he wary?
That was the question. A prudent, patient captain would simply wait for an opportunity to make hyperspace gradient out of the system when no one could see him. But an angry man, or a reckless commander…A ship that large could carry a great deal of mischief in secondary storage. A single proximity mine could cripple the Cornuelle. Two or three might kill her, if the cruiser happened to blunder into a flower-box detonation.
The ceiling lights in Hadeishi's cabin were dark, the only illumination cast from a small table lamp on his desk. Mitsuharu knelt on a cotton mat, facing the wall opposite his bed. Two framed pictures – not modern holos, but yellowed paper, cracking with age – sat within a small alcove. An empty incense burner lay before the photographs; an old man and a middle-aged woman in formal dress. Both seemed grim, their faces composed, though in his memory they were always smiling.
'At dusk, I often climb to the peak of Kugami.' Mitsu bent his head, palms pressed together, fingertips against his brow. Stringy black hair fell in a cloud around his shoulders. He rarely let his ponytail go unbound, but certain devotions required an expression of sacrifice. He thought the loss of personal control an adequate offering. 'Deer bellow, their voices soaked up by piles of maple leaves…'
The sharp, pungent smell of incense should fill the air around him, but the air recyclers worked overtime already. Mitsu accepted the absence of pine and rose-wood as another sacrifice. His lips barely moved, offering the last of Ryukan's ancient poem to his mother and his father. '…lying undisturbed at the foot of the mountain.'
What chant settled the racing hearts of my ancestors, Mitsu wondered, rising from his knees, when they rode into the high grass to fight the Dakota and the Iroquois? A deep bow followed and he closed the alcove with the tip of his finger. A metal plate sealed the little shrine, protecting the contents against a sudden loss of pressure or the g-shock of combat.
Hadeishi ran a hand across the spines of his books. His personal quarters should, by tradition, be spartan and bare. He was sure Sho-sa Kosho's cabin was a perfect example of approved Zen minimalism – all plain gray and white surfaces, perhaps small portraits of the Emperor and the Shogun, her tatami, the door to the closet always closed. Mitsu smoothed his beard, looking around at the terrible mess he'd made of this place. Every wall was covered with bookcases – well-built ones too, Isoroku was a dab hand for structural modifications – and every shelf was packed with storage crystals, audio-sticks, hand- drawn paintings in ink, paper-bound volumes, boxes of letters, Heshtic scrolls and paw-books, even things he'd found in the markets of Baldur, Marduk or New Malta. He was sure some of them held writing, but then again – who knew what they truly were? Laundry lists? Accounts of land disputes from some dead, forgotten world?
My whole life is here, he thought, aware of lingering sadness. If the Cornuelle dies, all this will be gone.
Hadeishi sat cross-legged on the tatami, picking up a hand-held comp. The pad came alive with his touch, displaying a set of ship schematics. Frowning, Mitsu considered the builder's diagrams for a standard-issue Tyr refinery. What a monster, he thought – and not for the first time – panning through screen after screen of floorplans. We could almost fit the Cornuelle into the main boat bay. The thought was amusing, but not helpful. He narrowed the view displayed on the pad to those sections housing the meteoroid defense system.
'Looks like an old Koningsborg-class battle cruiser point-defense array,' he said wryly aloud after a half hour of examination. Finding the circuits had taken some effort – the sheer size of a Tyr made finding a single system difficult. 'Hmm. But spread out over far more surface area.'
He paused, brow furrowing in thought. How big is the crew for this leviathan?
Another hour passed before Mitsu found something like a crew-requirements list. Then he raised an eyebrow in cautious surprise.
Thai-i HuГ©mac slid down a gangway ladder into first platoon's sleeping deck and found the narrow room unexpectedly crowded. A small, wiry man with prominent cheekbones and the coppery- bronze coloring typical of the Tlaxcallan highlands, the senior Marine lieutenant went unnoticed for a moment. A crowd of Marines in off-duty fatigues, all hulking backs and shoulders, filled the walkway between rows of bunks on either side. Smoke curled against the ceiling and bit the eyes of the men lying on the top, staring avidly down at something in the middle of the barracks.
HuГ©mac stood quietly for a moment, cataloging the number of violations of shipside regulation visible to his experienced eye. He was impressed by the hushed, pregnant silence filling the room. The senior lieutenant had been wondering where all of second platoon had dissapeared too, but now he guessed the entire Marine contingent on the Cornuelle was packed into this one compartment.
A single voice, hoarse and pleading, rose above the quiet susurration of so many men and women breathing. 'Oh great lord, oh gracious master, blessed Five Flowers. Look on these poor, pitiful subjects, see their smooth black bodies, their empty eyes, count the holes in their bellies. See them, see the four houses, see the black squares and the red. Please, master of flowers, giver of gifts, fickle one! Bless these five subjects, give them swift legs, strong hearts and every mercy!'
