Downbelow Station

instruction.

“Go,” the Dreamer bade her.

She rose and hurried, called Bluetooth, called others, every hisa within the sound of her voice.

iii

Norway; 0130 hrs. md.; 1330 hrs. a.

Com sputtered; vacant longscan suddenly erupted in solid blips. Norway veered tighter into her curve. Signy caught at the console and the cushion with the taste of blood in her mouth. They red-lighted, stress alarms ringing. Josh and Konstantin were clinging desperately to a hold halfway down the aisle, lost it, slid. “Norway, Norway speaking, Unioners. Hold fire. Hold fire. You want a way in, follow me.”

There was the obligatory silence while com traveled and caught up to them.

“Say further.”

Words, not shots.

“This is Mallory of Norway. I’m going over, you hear me? Run with me a space and I’ll fill you in. Mazian’s in the process of blowing Pell and running for Sol. It’s already started. I’ve got your agent Joshua Talley and the younger Konstantin aboard. You’re going to lose yourself a station if you hold off. You don’t listen to me and you’re going to have yourself an Earth-based war.”

There was a moment of dead silence from the other side. The armscomp board was lit and tracking.

“This is Azov of Unity. What’s your proposal, Norway? And how do we trust you?”

“We ran; you’ve got that signal. I’ll lead back in. You run tail guard, Unity, the whole lot of you. Mazian won’t stand to fight here or anywhere in the neighborhood. He can’t afford it, you understand me?”

The silence was longer this time. “They’re tracking with us,” scan advised her.

“Hard as we can, Mr. Graff.”

Norway skimmed the edge of disaster, red-lighting in little flickers of stress that flesh protested, heart pounding, hands trembling in maintaining necessary control, experienced crew holding up together in sustained agony while combat synch and inertia warred. Calm and steady, hold it together on the long, long curve, keep the velocity they had gathered as much as possible, headed for Pell… They had a tail guard for certain, Union headed right at their backside all at max… to blow them as readily as they meant to blow Mazian.

“Come on,” she muttered to Graff, “keep our way, hold onto it. We need all we’ve got.”

“Scan caution,” a calm voice advised her and Graff; long-scan flickered with hazed green and gold… obstacles in their path, still in comp’s memory and shown to be right where comp remembered them, give or take a freighter’s slow progress. Short-haul freighters. They were getting their chatter, as-received, a squeal of conversation and panic that deepened as they came in on it

Graff threaded them. Norway shot through the interstices on a computer-aimed straight course and red-lighted to home again on Pell. The Unioners came after and all missed with a rush that would stop hearts on the dead-slow freighters. A deep howl of terror had reached them, vanished again.

Norway… Norway… Norway… their own comp was sending frantically, and if their riderships survived, they would rally to that summons.

Blips flashed red and solid ahead of them, too fast for freighters. Comp howled warnings. Mazian was loose. Europe, India, Atlantic, Africa, Pacific.

“Where’s Australia?” she snapped at Graff. That recognition code had not come through with the others. “’Ware of them!”

Graff must have heard. There was no time for chat. The Fleet was massed and collision-coursed for them. Their rider-ships were locked to, all home to mothers, readied for jump, that grace at least.

“Mallory,” she heard Mazian’s voice over com. Graff heard too and dropped them in a sickening maneuver that comp transferred into armscomp’s aim: they ripped a pattern of fire at Europe as fire came back at them and the hull sang. G slammed at them fighting contrary stresses, and of a sudden fire erupted aft. Union had plowed in, disregarding their safety, not savvy of their comp signals, and hungry for targets. “Out!” she ordered helm, and Norway maneuvered with all bearable angle, finding no precentage in this fight. Alarms rang. Pell and Downbelow lay ahead, minutes ahead at near-C.

They kept veering, comp calculating and recalculating that marginal curve.

A carrier blip exploded onto them, underside. Norway held to its necessary course, boards flaring red, alarms ringing, collision with a world imminent and too much speed to dump in time.

And of a sudden there were other blips, small and coming hard in a ring nose on to them.

Norway… Norway… Norway… their comp flashed.

Their own riders.

“Keep on!” she yelled at Graff over a cheer from the bridge. Comp took the maneuver as hard as the ship could bear, a move that tore at human bodies and made nightmare of half a dozen seconds. They started dumping speed hard, with Australia coming dead at them through the needle’s eye of their riders, riderless itself or with none deployed.

“Barrage,” she said, swallowing the taste of blood. The screens flashed terror: it was collision imminent fore and aft, a C-approximate ship bearing right down their tail and equally locked in escape curve from Pell. Fifty-fifty what maneuver would impact them, up, down, or straight on.

Graff dropped: topside fired and Australia whipped over as fields sent instruments into chaos. The hull moaned and the whole ship jolted.

Maneuver continued; suddenly there was breakup on scan, dust screaming over their hull. “Where are they?” Graff yelled at the scan tech. Signy bit through her lip and winced, sucked at the blood. Australia could have dumped chaff; could have blown; they kept dumping speed, her order unchanged.

“… cleared Pell,” a rider voice came to them, what their own scan was beginning to show as they cleared the danger themselves. “And lost a vane… think Edger’s lost a vane.”

There was no way they could see; Australia was on long-scan: it was the nature of the chaff they reckoned. “Form up,” she ordered her riders, feeling more secure with them about Norway like four extra arms. Edger could not risk further damage now, not if a vane was gone; not for any revenge.

“They’re going for jump,” she heard. It was a Union voice, none that she knew — a foreign accent. Suddenly there was a vast coldness in her gut, a knowledge that it was all beyond recall.

Be thorough, Mazian had taught her, teaching her most that she knew. No half-measures.

She leaned back in the cushion. All over Norway there was silence.

iv

Pell: sector blue one, number 0475

Lily at least remained. Alicia Lukas-Konstantin let her eyes move about the walls, last of all to the small module, part of the molded white of the bed itself, two lights, one on, one off, one green, one red. Red now. They were on internal systems.

Power was threatened. Lily did not know, perhaps; she managed the machines, but what powered them was likely to be mysterious to her. And the Downer’s eyes remained calm, her hand remained gentle, stroking her hair, a remaining contact with the living.

Angelo’s gifts, the structures about her, had proven as stubborn as her own brain. The screens kept changing, the machines kept pumping life through her veins, and Lily stayed.

There was an off switch. If she asked Lily, Lily, ignorant, would push it. But that was cruel, to one who believed in her.

She did not.

v

Norway

Carefully, Damon left his place, felt his way dizzily past the banks of instruments and the techs to reach Mallory. He hurt; an arm was torn, his neck ached in its joints. There could not be a soul on Norway spared such misery, the techs, Mallory herself. She turned bleak eyes on him from her place at the main boards, powered her cushion about to look at him, nodded slightly.

“So you’ve got your wish,” she said. “Union’s in. They don’t need to track Mazian now. They know for certain where he’s gone. I’m betting they’ll find a base at Pell valuable; they’ll save your station, Mr. Konstantin, no question now. And it’s high time we got ourselves out of here.”

“You said,” he reminded her quietly, “you’d let me off.”

Her eyes darkened. “Don’t press your luck. So maybe I’ll dump you and your Unioner friend on some merchanter when it suits me. If it suits me. Ever.”

“My home,” he said. He had gathered his arguments; but his voice shook, destroying logic. “My station… I belong back there.”