So now Martinez knew why he'd suddenly found himself floating. The engines had quit, apparently on their own, and in the middle of a battle.
He pulled his displays down from over his head, heard them lock, began a study of the brief fight.
The Battle of Arkhan-Dohg, from the first alarm, when a targeting laser had painted the squadron, to the destruction of the last incoming missile, had taken a little less than three minutes.
'One failure in the point-defense array,' Husayn reported from the weapons station. 'Antiproton gun three failed after one shot.'
'Just like Harzapid,' muttered Mersenne.
'How many decoys do we have in the tubes?' Martinez asked Husayn.
'Three, my lord.'
'Fire them immediately. We want to get decoys ahead of the squadron in case the Naxids have a followup attack.'
The Command crew looked a little hollow-eyed at this possibility.
'Decoys fired, my lord. Tubes cleared. Decoys proceeding normally under chemical rockets to safety point.'
'Replace them in the tubes with another set of decoys,' Martinez added.
Primary command crew were drifting through the hatch and quietly taking up their stations. Alikhan arrived lugging Martinez' vac suit by a strap. Martinez told him to report to the weapons bays after putting the suit in one of the vac suit lockers: he didn't have time to put it on right now.
'I've commenced a countdown on engines two and three,' Mersenne reported. 'We're at five minutes twenty- one.'
'Proceed.'
'My lord,' Husayn said, 'decoys' antimatter engines have ignited. All decoys maneuvering normally.'
'My lord,' said Signaler Roh, 'Judge Arslan queries our status.'
'Tell them we experienced a premature engine shutdown,' Martinez said. 'Tell them we expect no long-term problem.'
'Yes, lord captain. Ah-Squadcom Chen wants to speak with you.'
'Put her on my board.'
'Yes, lord captain.'
Martinez hadn't strapped on the close-fitting cap that held his earphones, virtual array, and medical sensors, so Michi's voice came out of the speaker on Martinez' display, and was audible to everyone in command.
'Captain Martinez,' she said, 'what the hell just happened?'
Martinez reported in as few words as possible. Michi listened with an intent, inward look on here face. 'Very well,' she said. 'I'll order the rest of the squadron to take defensive positions around us until we're maneuverable again.'
Martinez nodded. 'May I recommend that you order more decoy launches?'
'Lieutenant Prasad's already taken care of that.' Michi's head tilted as she looked into her display. 'Captain,' she said, 'you look like you got run over by a herd of bison.'
'Acceleration threw me down a companion.'
'Are you all right? Shall I page Doctor Xi to Command?'
'I'm sure he's busy enough where he is.'
She nodded. 'Find out who painted us with that laser,' she said, 'and blow him the fuck up.'
'Yes, my lady.'
'And take out the wormhole stations as well. I'm not having them spotting for the enemy.'
It's uncivilized, Michi had said when she'd first raised the possibility of destroying wormhole stations. She'd occasionally done it in the past, to preserve secrecy concerning Chenforce's movements, but she'd left most of them alone.
Nothing like being shot at, Martinez thought, to rub away these refined little scruples.
The orange end-stamp came onto the display, signaling that Michi had broken the collection.
'Sensors,' Martinez said, 'are we still being hit by that laser?'
'No, my lord,' Pan said. 'They switched off as soon as the last missiles were destroyed-and because their information is limited by the speed of light, they don't know what happened here yet. So they must have had advanced warning concerning exactly when to light us up, and when to stop.'
'Did you get a bearing?'
'It would help if I could communicate with the other ships and triangulate.'
'Do so.' Martinez turned to Husayn. 'Weapons, target wormhole stations one, two, and three. Take them all out, one missile each. Don't wait for my command, just do it.'
'Yes, lord captain.'
Martinez let himself float for a moment in his harness and considered the order he'd just given. It was uncivilized. The wormhole stations not only maintained communication between the worlds, they acted to stabilize the wormholes by balancing the mass moved through them in either direction. Commerce would be slowed to a crawl through wormholes that were in danger of becoming unbalanced.
With the destruction of its wormhole stations, Arkhan-Dohg would in effect be blockaded. It was a blockade that would continue until new stations were both built and equipped with the massive asteroid-sized chunks of matter they used to keep the wormholes in balance. The war might have been over for some time before Arkhan- Dohg saw another merchant vessel.
'One minute to engine ignition, my lord,' Mersenne said.
'Hold at ten seconds.' Martinez hesitated, then said, 'We can proceed on two engines without trouble?'
Mersenne's tone was confident. 'Yes, my lord.'
'Missiles launched and proceeding on chemical rockets. Tubes clear.'
'Roh, put me through to the squadcom.'
'Yes, my lord.'
Ida Li's face appeared on Martinez' display. 'You have a message for Lady Michi?'
'Just that we'll have two engines online in less than a minute. Does the lady squadcom have a heading for us?'
'Stand by.'
The screen blanked, and when an image returned it was that of Chandra Prasad. 'I'm sending course coordinates to your pilot's station now. Acceleration one-tenth of a gravity, until we're sure the engines don't cut out again.'
'Understood. Mersenne, sound the warning for acceleration.'
There were a few moments of genuine suspense waiting for the engine countdown to conclude, and then there was a distant rumble and a slight kick that sent the acceleration cages slowly tumbling until they settled at their deadpoints. Computers balanced the angle of thrust of the two engines to compensate for the loss of the third. Acceleration was gradually increased until one constant gravity was maintained.
'Engines performance normative,' Mersenne said.
'Very good.'
'My lord.' It was Pan. 'We've tracked the origin of that targeting laser. It was Arkhan Station Three.'
Arkhan, with its relatively small population, didn't rate a full accelerator ring around the planet, but instead had three geosynchronous stations tethered to the planet's equator by elevator cables. Station One had a modest-sized accelerator ring grappled to it, like a gold band attached to a diamond.
'Husayn,' Martinez said, 'one missile to target Station Three, please.'
As the missile was launched he supposed the Naxids had no right to be surprised. Squadcom Chene had made it clear that anything that fired on it would be destroyed, be it ship, station, or ring.
He hoped the Naxids had evacuated the station's thousands of civilians before putting them in a crossfire, but he suspected they hadn't. The Naxids, so far as he could tell, never had a Plan B-if Plan A didn't work, they just tried Plan A all over again, only with greater sincerity.
'My lord,' said Roh. 'I have a message from Rigger Jukes.'
'Yes?' Martinez couldn't imagine what the artist wanted.
'He asks permission to enter your quarters and inspect the paintings for damage.'
