The Service of the Sword

Judith rose and cradled Dinah's head against her. She saw gray lips move, bent her head to listen.

'We're safe?' Dinah whispered.

'Safe,' Judith managed a stiff smile.

'I think,' Dinah coughed. 'I will never see the Promised Land, but my daughters . . .'

'Will!' Judith completed fiercely when the other woman could not draw breath. 'As will you.'

'Moses . . .'

'You call me that,' Judith said, 'but you are truly Moses, I was only your handmaid.'

Dinah's lips twisted in what might have been a wry smile, might only have been pain.

'Moses never saw . . .'

'The Promised Land?' Judith finished. 'Moses doubted God, but you never did. God will send one more miracle.'

But Dinah was very still now, and slowly, one by one, the telltales on her suit shifted to red, then black.

Judith, who had not lost control for one moment during those interminable hours of flight and battle, bent her head and wept.

Carlie kept her gaze locked on the sensor boards, but there was no sign that either Psalms or Proverbs had followed them into hyper. Certainly Proverbs had shown signs of a drive malfunction, but Psalms might have had enough. She supposed they'd know someday, but right now it was enough to give her report.

'No sign of pursuit, Captain.'

'Very good, Lieutenant. Com, contact Captain Judith.'

Tab Tilson's voice held such concern when he spoke, that Carlie jerked her head around to look.

'Captain, Odelia—that's their com officer—says Captain Judith isn't available right now and would you talk to her?'

Captain Boniece blinked, but adjusted to the odd request.

'Put her on screen.'

The screen took shape of image of a plain woman with round features and long hair drawn into a knot at the back of her head. Her eyes were red from weeping, but her expression tightened with determination as she looked at Captain Boniece.

'How may I help you?'

She sounded like she was offering to serve drinks, not in apparent command of a fighting ship's bridge.

'I had hoped to speak with Captain Judith,' Boniece replied. 'We registered no hits on the bridge. Is she . . .'

Odelia interrupted before Boniece could finish his rather awkward query.

'She lives, but Dinah . . .' She paused and gulped, tears welling back in her eyes. 'Dinah is dying. Her heart.'

Carlie doubted that Captain Boniece could make any more of this than she could, but he adapted smoothly.

'Medical emergency. It may be we can help. I'll send coordinates for taking Aaron's Rod out of the grav wave. Then our ships can rendezvous, and I'll extend every assistance my ship can offer. Is Mr. Winton available?'

'He is also with Dinah,' Odelia said. 'But I can link you to any or all of your other men.'

Carlie saw Boniece relax marginally, and realized that he had been dreading that his men—like the Silesian smugglers—might have been killed by these fanatics.

'Give me PO O'Donnel,' he said.

Michael Winton came aboard Intransigent shortly after the two ships left the grav wave. He looked tired and thinner, but Carlie Dunsinane thought that impossibly he might well have grown several inches. Maybe it was that he now walked straighter, his head held like a prince—or like the Navy officer he'd proven himself worthy to be.

They'd already had his report, transmitted as soon as the immediate crisis was over. Reading between the lines of his neat prose it had been a tough couple of hours.

Simply put, Aaron's Rod was a good ship for her type, but she'd never been intended for the punishment she'd taken during that Exodus. For days to come there would be repairs to make, systems to bring back on-line. Though Michael never said so, Captain Boniece had been wise to leave the four Intransigent crewmen on board. Without their skills, Aaron's Rod could never have won that deadly race.

Even so there were the wounded and dead. Few enough if this had been a military action, but in this close-knit community of rebels, each loss had been felt as if it had been of, well, a sister.

Worst, perhaps, had been the heart attack suffered by Dinah, senior wife of Ephraim Templeton, and, Carlie now realized, the true leader of the Exodus. Judith had been ship's captain, but Dinah had been admiral. Her collapse, just when the Sisterhood should have been able to feel joy at their release, had nearly broken them.

Carlie watched as Michael turned to take one end of the stretcher being extended out of the pinnace's side hatch. The other end was held by a green-eyed girl who Carlie realized with a shock was Captain Judith.

She covered her own reaction by stepping forward with the grav-assisted stretcher she'd brought from sickbay, no one questioning that an ATO would do the job of a medical attendant. The attendants were there, though, as was Surgeon Commander Kiah Rink, who immediately took charge.

'You'll save Dinah?' Judith asked, reaching out to Rink. 'Tell us you will.'

'I'll do what I can,' Rink said, bending over the stretcher and taking readings, 'and I'll do it better if you'll let me get her and my other patients to sickbay.'

She softened.

'The oxygen was a good idea. So were the rest of the measures you took. You've done all you can. Let it go.'

'Michael did it,' Judith said, looking at him with pride. 'Came to the bridge when we called for a medic. He had one of the kits from your pinnace. Your medicine is far better than Masadan medicine—and he had been trained that a woman needs different care than does a man.'

Michael was too dark to show a blush, but Carlie had the distinct impression he was coloring.

'Why don't both of you escort the wounded to sickbay,' she suggested. 'Mr. Winton, when the wounded are settled, please escort Captain Judith to Captain Boniece, then report to me.'

'I must return to my ship!' Judith protested.

'If you'll permit, Captain, we'll send over a relief crew,' Carlie said. 'I have one standing by, all women, under Commander Umeko Palmer, our own XO.'

Judith smiled.

'Thank you for your consideration. I will accept your relief crew, but it does not need to be all women. The Sisterhood does not mind men—not if they are Manticorans.'

With One Stone by Timothy Zahn

It was Silesian space.

It was escort duty for convoys of Her Majesty's merchant marine.

It was going to be boring as hell.

Lieutenant (Senior Grade) Rafael Cardones stifled a sigh as the Star Knight–class heavy cruiser HMS Fearless slid smoothly into its slot in Sphinx orbit. It wasn't fair, and