The Service of the Sword

running the compensator with no safety margin at all. That would enormously increase the possibility that it might fail and kill them all . . . but it would also give Judith at least half again the acceleration she'd been able to maintain so far.

'Good,' Michael approved as warmly as he could. 'On your way, then.'

O'Donnel nodded and went jogging away behind his guide while Michael turned back to the other two crewmen.

'As for us, I think we'll serve best as damage control,' he went on, both to them and the listening Zaneta. 'Can you introduce us to the Chief, Ma'am?'

Zaneta did so. Rena proved to be Ephraim's third wife. Michael couldn't help but wonder both how many women Ephraim had married, and what kind of man he was that they were willing to risk so much to get away from him.

He didn't ask. Rena made him rather nervous.

A battle from below decks, rather than the bridge, proved to be a strange and elusive thing, a little like a very bad nightmare where everything shifts at the least prompting.

Michael's first assignment was to repair a set of overheating relays for one of the impeller nodes. O'Donnel was obviously doing his job with the compensator, Michael reflected. Aaron's Rod was no longer crawling by anyone's estimate. In fact, he doubted that even when she turned privateer she'd ever needed to pour on the heat this way.

Chief Lorne was diverted to sickbay when Michael learned that he'd done time as a sick berth assistant before becoming a coxswain. So far, the Sisters had been unreasonably lucky, and Michael knew it. The most frightened might have required sedation, but no one had been seriously injured during the escape. Yet. But, then, Aaron's Rod hadn't taken any hits yet, either.

With Lorne in sickbay and O'Donnel nursing the ship's compensator, PO Parello, Lorne's copilot, ended up in gunnery checking a hinky laser mount. That left them spread out over the entire ship, but their personal coms kept all four of them in close contact.

The absence of titles and the first names that were all the women gave for identification created a sense of intimacy almost immediately. If it hadn't been that Zaneta followed him everywhere, Michael might even have felt accepted. Even she soon tucked her weapon in its holster, and held leads and lines without comment.

Then a missile impact rocked Aaron's Rod. Michael froze, waiting for Rena's report.

'Aft cargo hold breached,' she snapped. 'Seals holding. Mr. Winton, anything on that pinnace of yours?'

They'd already handed out the med kits, vac suits, and anything else from the pinnace's stores that Michael thought could help even the odds.

'No problem,' he said.

Another shudder went through and this time Rena paled.

'Sheared off one of the lasers. We've lost two Sisters in gunnery control. Teresa is taking Dara to sickbay.'

Michael waited to be sent, but Rena just gave him a sad smile.

'Nothing we can do for a part that's missing. Teresa sealed the compartment and we're not losing much.'

More reports came in. Michael found himself down in Engineering, flat on his belly reprogramming software to divert around a damaged circuit. His universe resolved into small problems, each intensely important while it lasted, each superseded by yet another problem as overtaxed systems collapsed under the strain of compensating for their fellows.

He wondered why Intransigent wasn't doing more to protect them, and discovered to his shock that she was soaking up most of the damage. He'd forgotten how vulnerable these older model ships were. Forgotten if he'd ever known . . . 

And the nightmare kept going on.

When she could spare a glance from her own duties, Judith felt nothing but awe for what Intransigent was doing. The light cruiser was keeping Proverbs at bay with nothing more—at least so it seemed—than her presence. Psalms had slipped around, but very few of the missiles Gideon Templeton lobbed relentlessly at the ship carrying his mother, step- mothers, and even a few of his children, got through.

Judith remembered her lessons and did her best to keep the cruiser's wedge between Aaron's Rod and incoming fire. She was fully aware that she wasn't managing it as well as a properly trained helmswoman might have, just as she knew that her inexperience kept her from rolling Aaron's Rod with the sort of confidence that would have used the privateer's own wedge with proper efficiency. But she was doing the best she could. She knew that . . . and so did any God who might actually be listening.

Besides, she had other things to worry about, as well. Along with Dinah, she was also responsible for point defense, fighting to intercept the incoming fire that got past Intransigent. They did well, but she was aware of how the older woman was slowing, her breathing becoming labored.

'Dinah, you need to rest,' Judith said.

'I will have time enough to rest,' Dinah said. 'How far to the hyper limit?'

'Fifteen minutes.'

'I can last fifteen minutes,' Dinah insisted.

Judith couldn't press. She needed to do so much. Odelia had received coordinates for their translation into hyper-space from Captain Boniece, but Judith still had to put them in. She had to adapt her tactics, such as they were, to systems that kept failing. Sherlyn's sensors were only giving partial information as missile strikes wiped away external feed.

Yet minute by minute, the hyper limit approached. Something had happened, for Psalms was no longer following so closely. Maybe Intransigent had gotten frustrated and fired on it. Maybe even the Havenite modifications to the Masadan engineering couldn't take the strain.

Five.

'Odelia, tell Naomi to have the passengers prepare for translation into hyper.'

Four.

'Judith! Proverbs is dropping back. Sensors show . . . I'm not sure what they show. I think a drive is out.'

Three.

'We're leaking atmosphere from aft. Life support isn't happy about it.'

Two.

'Judith . . .'

Dinah's face was very gray. When Judith grabbed her, she saw the read-outs on the older woman's vac suit were flickering from green to amber.

'My heart . . . I can't breathe . . .'

One.

'Hyper limit fifty-nine seconds,' the computer intoned.

Judith thrust Dinah into the captain's chair, praying to a God she desperately wanted to believe in for one more miracle. She took a moment to fasten the straps on the frighteningly limp figure.

'Odelia, we need a medic on the bridge. Now! I think Dinah's having a heart attack.'

'Thirty seconds.'

Judith could hear Odelia calling for a medic, giving the warnings, signaling Intransigent that they'd resume contact after they'd translated into hyper. She leaned to the astrogation panel, pressed the buttons as she had done so many times in sims.

There was a strange feeling and the universe seemed to hiccup abruptly. She had the impression of distant cheering coming over open com links. The bridge was strangely quiet.