systems, intended for close defence work. And his distortion field couldn’t reach that far. The visual spectrum provided him with the greatest coverage. He could see the Navy’s Adamist ships accelerating up out of the star’s enormous gravity field, little sparks of light, actually brighter than the photosphere.
After half an hour, three more fusion drives ignited around the station. Two of them started to follow the Navy squadron. The last one took a different course altogether; curving round the star’s southern hemisphere on a very high inclination trajectory.
Etchells opened his beak wide to let out an imaginary warble of success. Whatever it was doing, the lone starship had to be the reason behind the Navy’s strange action. He issued a flurry of instructions to the other hellhawks. Despite his brute-boy attitude, Etchells had actually absorbed a great deal of information from his host’s mentality. The facade of toughness was a deliberate ploy—always let your opponents believe you’re dumber than you are. Becoming Kiera’s most dependable and trusted hellhawk made sure she wouldn’t risk him on those mad seeding flights, or any other dangerous actions. Convoy escort was about the safest duty to pull.
Wasted decades spent bumming round pointless mercenary actions across the Confederation, had taught him to disguise his true potential. Survival was dependent on intelligence and the lowest cunning, not worthy courage. And he knew for sure that surviving his current situation was going to take a great deal of ingenuity. Like Rocio in the
So he bided his time, keeping a giant yellowing eye open for some opportunity to save his own ass, and to hell with his comrades.
The Navy’s unconventional behaviour might just be the break he’d been looking for.
When the last three starships were thirty thousand kilometres from the antimatter station, it exploded with a violence which outshone the prominence arching through the chromosphere below. As if in acknowledgement of their defeat, the hellhawks swallowed away.
The voidhawks analysed the way their distortion fields applied energy against space-time to open a wormhole interstice. All five hellhawks appeared to be heading back to New California.
They have left the remaining frigates extremely vulnerable,auster,
Hold your position. If you attack they will just jump clear. We could harass them all the way home, but there is no tactical advantage to be gained from that. Our objective has been accomplished.
Very well.
Syrinx.
Yes, Rhoecus.
Thank you.
Etchells didn’t believe the voidhawks would follow, certainly not instantaneously. The hellhawks all swallowed ten light-years clear of the star, then swallowed again three seconds later. Unless a voidhawk had been with them to observe the second swallow, there was no way of knowing where they’d gone.
Four of them carried on back to New California. Etchells returned directly to the star, emerging twenty-two million kilometres above its south pole. With the voidhawks all clustered together in their twenty-five million kilometre equatorial orbit, there was no way they could detect his wormhole terminus opening and closing. His position was ideal to observe the Navy starships flying out from their low orbit. His sensor blisters didn’t have to focus against the overwhelming white blaze. Even his headache started to fade.
He did keep a cursory watch on the Navy ships as they rose out of the gravity field, but it was the lone ship heading south that interested him. When it was twenty million kilometres from the star its drive cut out. Etchells projected its course, and started to check his captured spatial memories. Given its jump alignment there were twenty possible Confederation systems it could be heading for. And one other. Hesperi-LN. The Tyrathca planet.
Chapter 12
Fifteen minutes Courtney sat up at the bar waiting. Four men offered to buy her a drink. Not as many as usual, but then there were very few civilians abroad these days. Even the Blue Orchid was suffering from the scare stories flashing across the net, its numbers well down. Normally it would be jammed at this time of night; the kind of not-quite-sleazy club where lower-middle management could hang out after work and not have to worry if someone else from the company saw them. Courtney had been in a lot worse than this. The doormen didn’t give her any hassle even though her ass was virtually hanging out of her cocktail dress. Courtney liked the dress, cool black fabric with straps on the front to hold her titties up high, and more cross straps down the cut out back. It made her look hot, without being too cheap.
Banneth said she looked good wearing it. Best thing the sect had ever done putting her in this dress; she’d never been so fem before. And it worked. There hadn’t been a night she didn’t deliver for them. Sometimes twice. It was a good gig, taking the men back to one of the student rent hotels where the sect had squeezed the manager. Then as soon as the mark’s pants were off, Billy-Joe, Rav, and Julie would storm in and kick the shit out of him. Then when he was unconscious Billy-Joe took a recording of his biolectric pattern and emptied his credit disk.
She’d done much the same thing for all of the last three years since her brother introduced her to the Light Bringer. Except to start with she’d attracted paedopervs, who mostly had their own dens to take her to, or just hauled her into the dark end of a downtown alley. Those days, it had been Quinn Dexter who pimped her. In a strange way, she’d always been safer with him in charge. No matter how big a sicko the man was, Quinn had always arrived in time.
Now she was fifteen, and too big to pass for a juvenile any more. Banneth had switched the hormones she took. This new batch didn’t prevent her breasts from growing; quite the opposite, they promoted development. She’d still got a skinny frame, but now she was huge with it. In the last nine months her targets had changed completely. It wasn’t the pervs who wanted her now, just the losers. Courtney reckoned she’d come out of the alteration okay. Big tits was one of the mildest modifications Banneth made to sect members.
The fifth man to ask if she was all right and did her glass need freshening had what it took. Overweight, round face with perspiration on his brow, hair slicked back with gel, a good suit cleaned too often. His expression was hesitant, ready for a slapdown. Courtney drained her glass, and held it out to him, smiling. “Thanks.”
He was too fat to dance. That was a shame, she liked to dance. So that meant having to sit and listen to about an hour of bitching—his boss, his family, his apartment; how none of it was going right for him. The drone was so she’d see he was a real genuine guy who’d had a couple of bad breaks lately, hoping for the sympathy fuck.
She made all the right sounds at the right places. After this time working the arcology’s clubs she could probably have filled in his life story just by looking at him. Proof of that: she never chose wrong. They always had a loaded disk. After the hour and three drinks he had enough nerve to make his innocent suggestion. To his utter surprise the answer was a demure smile and a hurried nod.
It wasn’t far to the student hall, which was good. Courtney didn’t like getting into a cab with them; there was too much chance Billy-Joe might lose her. She didn’t look to see if the three sect members were trailing after her down the street. They’d be there. This was a real smooth routine now.
Twice though, she thought she heard footsteps following. Real distinctive, regular thuds of someone using a lot of metal in their heels. Dumb idea, there was a whole bunch of people walking along the street. When she did snatch a look, there was no one she could see that looked like a cop. Just a bunch of civilians scurrying around,
