Once there, most carefully, he unclipped himself from his own tether, clipping the tether to the ring on the pod. The lock into the pod would barely accommodate the armor, and one locking would almost exhaust the pod’s extra-atmospheric capability. But then, no one would be needing that after Van adjusted the controls and settings.
Once inside the pod, stripped of all couches and habitability save basic atmospherics in order to accommodate the welter of equipment that Van had to move around, Van opened the helmet, and removed the gauntlets. Then he eased into position, half-floating before the control panel—and the even larger panel above it that controlled the flux generator.
The link to the Joyau was faint, but clear. Van ran a check, then took the positional information from the Joyau. Using the pod screens and comparing them to the relayed information, Van pulsed the steering jets until he had the pod oriented on Solis. Next came the course line settings, and then modifications to the jump generator. Then he had to set up the remote operation. Sweat pooled inside the armor, especially on his back, giving him the sense that he was wearing an icy jacket.
After another twenty minutes, he was ready to leave. Slowly, and carefully, he eased away from the controls, making his way back toward the minuscule lock. He sealed the helmet and donned the gauntlets once more, then slipped into the pod lock, careful to seal the inner door.
Atmosphere puffed out around him as he emerged from the pod. He had to be careful to clip the return tether to his armor first, and then unclip the other two tethers from the pod without exerting force on it, so that it floated free of the Joyau, but in the orientation most favorable for the programmed course.
Then Van pulled himself back to the Joyau, where he reeled in the other two tethers and closed the cargo lock. He repressurized the hold and waited until the heat indicators reached amber before he took off the helmet. The air still froze his nostrils as he took a breath.
Even before he was out of the armor, he linked into the shipnet.
There were three corvettes coming at him from out-system, with less than ten minutes before they were within torp range. Van had no idea where they had come from, unless they had translated from the far side of the system, but that was an academic question. He just left the armor on the floor of the passageway and dashed to the cockpit and strapped in.
Then he ran the checklist for the pod and began the sequence—a sequence that would take three minutes.
Eight minutes before intruders are within torp range, the shipnet informed Van.
That left Van with less than five minutes. He couldn’t move the Joyau far from the pod, not without risking disturbing it and disrupting all his work—and the chances for success.
Are you sure you want to do this? Van pushed away that thought, recalling the devastation the Republic had created on Sulyn and the massacre of the Keltyr ships that had not been allowed to surrender—ships that had never even tried to attack the Republic.
One minute before the pod was go.
Van began to bring up full power on the Joyau’s fusactors. At the same time, he set up the precalculated jump coordinates. They’d be off some, but he wasn’t going to have time to refine them, not the way matters were going.
The pod vanished, and Van instantly poured full acceleration through the drives, a force that pressed him into the command couch, because he’d sacrificed the power for ship gravity to the drives and shields.
The monitors showed the three corvettes converging on the Joyau, and Van could see that he was moving all too slowly. The three corvettes had fired their torps simultaneously.
Van checked the EDIs, focused on Solis itself, looking to see whether the device had worked. But the screens went blank under the flare of energy that sheeted over the Joyau as the RSF torps began impacting Van’s shields. The secondary generator flared amber for a long moment, before slowly dropping back into the green.
Another wave of torps was on the way, but in the momentary clearing, Van could see the massive EDI surge from Solis, and he gave the command. Jump!
At that moment, energy from the second salvo of Republic torps flared against the shields, and Van could feel the secondary generator fail even as normspace vanished. The very jumpspace around the Joyau buckled, and the ship seemed to bend in half, then collapse inward, squeezing Van into a point.
Black turned a searing red, a blood-and pain-filled red that was somehow also white, even as white turned to an icy-deep-space-freezing black, and the pain from both ran through every nerve in Van’s body, an endless nerve-electric torture.
The Joyau dropped into normspace with a sickening lurch.
Van could barely breathe, and he could feel the entire shipnet burning through his nerves. Every sensor pulsed along his arms. Miniature knives twisted themselves deep into his skull. Every energy source shown on the EDIs pulsed pain. Through the pain, he could sense that the ship was mostly structurally sound. At least, he thought it was.
Where was he?
Slowly, he tried to remember. Minutes later—or was it hours?—he recalled the jump system coordinates—the uninhabited system on the return to Perdya. Except…he had the feeling that he shouldn’t be heading to Perdya.
What could he do?
Trystin had mentioned…something.
Slowly, concentrating on a thought at a time, he programmed the Joyau for a jump to Dharel. Each mental pulse sent an echo of pain back through his neck and skull.
Finally, he thought
