was the age-etched shape of a landing cradle.
“Entering an active g-field,” Piet reported, taking over the controls. “Docking jets adjusting…”
THE KADER
INBOUND TO THE PINHOLE
Hadeishi listened intently to the z-suit radio, his throatmike replaced by a vocoder Cajeme had assembled from the components of an entertainment 3-v scavenged from the main mess deck. As he listened, the eager voice of a Khaiden Kabil Rezei aboard the battleship Sokamak buzzed away into silence.
“Yes, my lord.” Mitsuharu keyed into a v-pane on his display. A second later, the ’coder produced a yipping bark ending in a sibilant growl. To Hadeishi’s poorly trained ear, it sounded like proper Khadesh… “One of the Imperial capsules had a scientist aboard-he sought to barter service-and questioning has revealed a way to detect the Wall-of-Knives. I am bringing him to you now with his instrumentation.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Hadeishi observed the other officers standing watch in Command were keeping their mouths shut, as ordered. They were, however, grinning and signing “victory” to one another. Morale is good, he thought, waiting for a response. As befits those snatched from Mictlantecuhtli ’s dreadful embrace.
The Kader plowed through the dust at a swift pace, transit deflectors up full, shrouding the ship in a cascade of brilliant interference. The Pinhole was now only moments away. The Hayalet -class battleships deployed around the broken hulk of the Imperial research station showed clearly on her sensors.
Five minutes to deceleration burn, Thai-i Inudo keyed to each of the other stations.
Hadeishi bid proper farewell to the hunt-lord, then closed the circuit. I miss Captain De Molay. But she has her ship back, only a little worse for wear. The old woman had not been happy about the mess they’d left behind on the Wilful, but accepted it as the cost of survival. A handful of the walking wounded had been left with her as well, to crew the little freighter.
In their last conversation, on comm between the two ships, she fixed him with a bellicose stare, saying, “If you were my fosterling, I would rap your knuckles sharply, Chu-sa. You play recklessly, risking yourself at every turn-but I cannot fault your consideration for the other children. They are always in your thoughts, and you are always the first to offer them a hand up from the ground. I hope-and I doubt we will meet again-that you will consider that your life may be just as precious, to others.”
The Wilful had slipped away hours before, vanishing into the vastness of the kuub, leaving no trace of its passing which the Kader ’s sensors could detect.
“All stations secure?” Mitsuharu asked on the command channel. A frenzy of confused activity followed amongst the Imperials on the unfamiliar bridge. “Weapons-confirm that guns are cold? Missile racks and penetrator pods are locked down? All hands, brace for combat acceleration.”
A ragged chorus of Hai, Chu-sa arose, both in Command and on the channel from downdeck.
Hadeishi nodded to Inudo. “Pilot, point-and-a-quarter to ventral. Begin deceleration burn.”
The Thai-i rotated a glyph on his display just a fraction and then slid a gauge lower. “ Hai, kyo. Point-and-a- quarter, ventral. Beginning deceleration burn.”
On the plot, the Kader ’s icon closed swiftly with that of the Sokamak, the largest of the Khaid battleships. Lovelace’s translation of the ’cast chatter had gleaned only fragmentary information for Hadeishi, but he knew some of the ship designators now, and a little bit about his enemy. He knew that one of the more vocal Khaid commanders was named Zah’ar, and he had at least two rivals. The late, unlamented captain of the Kader had been Begh-Adag-and that fellow seemed to have been the least respected of the clan-lords involved in this escapade.
“ Chu-sa, point-and-a-half turned. Deceleration burn complete.” Inudo shook out his shoulders and hurriedly called up a new slate of course and speed settings on a side pane.
“ Joto-Heiso Cupan, ready shuttle in bay three for launch,” Hadeishi said into the throatmike. “Damage control parties, starboard wing, stand by for decompression.”
The chief petty officer from the Asama tapped in amongst the chorus of Hai, kyo from the damage control teams. “Shuttle in bay three, ready for launch, Chu-sa.”
The light cruiser matched velocity with the Sokamak, and the shuttle jetted away on an intercept course for the battleship. A v-pane on his console showed Mitsuharu the boat-bay-three doors cycling closed.
“Shuttle away, kyo,” Cupan confirmed.
Hadeishi shifted uncomfortably in the shockchair, one eye on a replay of the missing battle-cruiser’s escape, the other on a series of panels showing thermal readings from the profusion of broken ships, fusion detonations, and other hot-spots in the immediate area. The dust clouds, which seemed to have thickened around the invisible Barrier, were slowly shifting color as the component particles soaked up the hard radiation.
“Pilot, turn two points to starboard, one point dorsal.”
Inudo nodded, his neck shining with sweat. “ Hai, kyo. Two points starboard, one dorsal.”
The Kader ’s maneuvering thrusters flared briefly as she turned away from running parallel with the Sokamak, her nose angling towards the entrance to the Pinhole itself. There, the walls of dust were burning with a deep orange and azure, making a sea of fire to blind the unwary eye.
Against this background, Hadeishi thought, the thrust-signature of our so-able friend would be nearly undetectable if one did not know exactly what to look for.
But Lovelace and Tocoztic had painstakingly reassembled the course taken by the battle-cruiser, and now Mitsuharu was watching for traces of her drive plume wending its way amongst the hidden shoals and reefs of the depthless ocean.
Musashi stands poised on the bridge at Windlodge, goose-feathers brushing the enamel of his cheek-guard, the Iroquois swarming up the levee in a numberless, copper-skinned mass. One of their ohnkanetoten surges through the ranks of charging pike men astride a roan stallion… sun-dogs gleaming from his garishly ornamented plate-mail, his long sword shining silver in the summer light.
THE NANIWA
OUTBOUND FROM THE CHIMALACATL
The battle-cruiser had clawed its way back up out of the interlocking g-fields wrapped around the singularity in realspace, finally reaching a point where the hypercoil could punch them through to transluminal. In Command, Kosho sat in her shockchair, one slim leg crossed over the other, watching the threatwell rotate slowly. The cloud of broken ships was fast approaching as they climbed gradient, and the sight of such colossal devastation weighed heavily on her thoughts. Helsdon, having completed his mandatory sleep cycle, was sitting at the Nav station with Thai-i Olin. Together they had reconfigured nearly half of the shipskin to watch for the kind of quantum disturbances the engineer suspected heralded the movement or presence of the Barrier threads.
Better than nothing, Susan thought tiredly, but I am already missing Doctor Anderssen’s presence.
She paced over to their console. “Any luck, Kikan-shi?”
“There must be a defensive Thread array associated with the Sunflower,” Helsdon muttered, one pale hand trembling over a plot of the broken armada. “Most of these ships were cut apart, just as ours were…”
“An attack?” Kosho leaned over his shoulder, puzzled. “They’re bunched together so tightly…”
“No…” Helsdon replied, scratching nervously at a week’s beard. “They’ve fallen into a balance point in the gravitation of this system. This is an eddy of flotsam… the ships might have all been destroyed out by the Barrier itself… or even closer to the artifact.”
“Why not a battle?”
Helsdon seemed to shrink, shoulders hunching in, and an expression of pain flitting across his face. “These weren’t warships, Chu-sa.” His stylus tapped unevenly across the control panes and a series of comp-projected
