Against the blackness beyond the bulk of McKenna Shipyards, a brief spider thread of azure traced the space between two motes. A few degrees to the left another mote was bracketed by tiny flashes of orange.
“What was that?” Brogden asked on their workteam channel. Armis cut down the volume on the general frequency. It was a white noise of questions and exclamations anyway.
“An Excalibur hit another with lasers at eleven o’clock relative,” Armis snapped, his words clipped with tension. “And an Overlord took missiles at ten.”
“How can you tell who’s who?” Brogden’s partner demanded, her voice suspicious. “They all look alike.”
“Standard orbital formation,” Armis tried not to sound like he was pointing out the obvious. “The Excaliburs are in close orbit, the Overlords farther out. Look at the relative velocities.”
“Spacer voodoo,” Brogden murmured darkly, aware Armis heard the aside as clearly as his partner. “Just take his word for it.”
“Attention Merchant Cadets,” Master Roberton’s voice cut across the babble on the general channel. “Return immediately to station. All exercises are cancelled. Stand by for emergency rescue procedures.”
They’d been expecting this, or something like it, since Admiral Kerr had commandeered the Robert Davion. But expecting it and having it actually happen were two very different things.
“McKenna Station, the Shipyards and the Merchant Marine Academy are neutral,” Master Roberton’s voice was firm. “Remember that. When the time comes, we’re going to help all who need it, regardless of their—”
An expanding ball of flaming gas threw an assembly gantry into sudden silhouette.
“They’re shooting at us!” someone shouted over the chorus of curses.
They weren’t, Armis realized. At least not directly. The flare was the Mule he’d seen earlier, mortally wounded and trying desperately to not collide with the shipyard. Spewing fire and atmosphere, the ungainly spheroid, a jagged rip laying its cargo bay open to space, twisted upwards, trying to clear the construction frame.
It almost made it, would have made it if the hull had been intact. The ragged edge of the hull breach snagged the topmost gantry, ripping the hundred meter structure from its moorings.
Armis was the first to realize where it was going.
“Brogden! Allison!” he yelled, remembering the woman’s name at last. “Jump to your sled! Fast burn, eight o’clock relative!”
He saw the two cadets slap their belt packs, jettisoning their safety lines, and leap clear of the water tank. Their shoulder jets flared, seeming pitifully feeble before the ponderous approach of the gantry, but fast enough. One made the sled, dropping into the control harness, but the other arced suddenly to the left, swinging wildly away from the utility craft.
“Release your safety line!”
“It’s got my leg,” Brogden snapped. “Get out of here, Ali! Go, go, go!”
He bent, trying to reach the line fouled around his leg as Allison obediently gunned the sled. Scooting up and away, she headed down orbit, above the trajectory of the massive ferrosteel frame.
In deceptively slow motion, the gantry slammed into the water cylinder. The heavy metal frame bent, but only slightly, imparting nearly all of its kinetic energy. Brogden’s safety line popped like a whip, jerking the cadet savagely.
The cylinder began to tumble down orbit.
Armis wasted a heartbeat determining it would pass about a hundred meters behind his palette before he could move. He swung the harpoon around and, calculating the vectors almost by instinct, fired the adhesive line across the cylinder’s path.
Stooping quickly, he levered the quick-release catches anchoring the harpoon to the palette, letting his magnetic boots and back absorb the torque. Once it was free, he straddled the harpoon’s support post, the square base behind his thighs.
Judging he still had about a dozen seconds, he let out the suit’s leg cinches and triggered the patching foam. For once his size worked in his favor and the frothing sealant filled the space around his legs. His extra half dozen centimeters of padding gelled just as the harpoon line snapped taut.
Whiplash nearly separated his skull from his spine. He was sure that without the foam padding his legs would have broken.
Fighting the impulse to climb along the line hand over hand, he activated the harpoon’s winch. Climbing would have been faster, but there was no point in arriving five minutes earlier if he was too exhausted to be any good once he got there.
“Brogden,” he called over the team channel. “Brog, you still with us?”
“Hunh?” Brogden’s voice.
Ahead Armis could see the cadet’s suit still swinging at the end of its safety line. Neither cadet had enough mass to affect the water cylinder’s course appreciably.
His comm unit flashed for attention. Academy administration on his individual channel. He chinned to the secure frequency.
“Merchant Cadet Tolan.”
“Disengage, Tolan,” came the order he’d expected, but not the Old Man. The Academy’s Commandant never sounded that hard and clipped. “Let the rescue sleds do their job.”
“Rescue sleds are out of position, sir,” Armis replied. “Besides, it’s too late.”
Actually, it wasn’t, yet; not for him. He had another twenty, maybe thirty seconds before his point of no return. But Brogden, tethered to the mass of the water tank, didn’t have a choice.
“Cadet Tolan, this is McKenna Station Control.” No wonder Armis hadn’t recognized the voice. “You are ordered to sever that line. Disengage.”
“No can do, sir,” Armis was proud of his level tone. “I’m all he’s got.”
“Cadet ...”
“Sir,” Armis cut the officer off, “Impact was from up orbit. He’s retrograde. I figure atmosphere in twenty minutes.”
For a moment the frequency was silent. Did they really think he hadn’t realized the water cylinder, and Brogden, had been knocked form orbit by the impact?
“We make it twenty-two minutes,” the watch officer said at last. His voice was gentler. “What do you intend to do?”
“I’m giving that some thought, sir,” Armis replied.
“Understood,” Station Control said. “Let us know how we can assist.”
“Aye, aye.”
His point of no return, the last moment when he could leap free and not be pulled down into the atmosphere by the plunging cylinder came
