The gimbaled acceleration cages creaked slightly as the weight came off them. “Clear of the ring,” Eruken reported. “Clear ofPerigee .” The berths were staggered slightly so thatCorona wouldn’t be swatted out of the sky by the tail of the next ship moored to the ring, but still it was always a relief to know that the danger was past.
“Pilot, zero our momentum,” Martinez said. He didn’t wantCorona to keep floating out into space, where it would make a perfect slow-moving target. He presumed that the Naxids wouldn’t fire their antimatter missiles, since an antimatter warhead exploding on top ofCorona would vaporize not only the target, but the dockyards, all the moored warships, and a chunk of the accelerator ring. But the point-defense lasers carried by the warships could be used offensively againstCorona, and so could the antiproton beams carried by some of the larger ships. Though the lasers probably weren’t powerful enough to kill the frigate, Martinez wasn’t as confident about the antiproton beams, and any kind of damage might be fatal to his plans.
Defense against the antiproton beams was the strong magnetic field used in any case byCorona to repel radiation. Martinez ordered it turned on, not that it would help against a point-blank strike from one of the enemy beams.
He felt himself nudge gently against his restraining straps, then float free again. Eruken had killedCorona’s residual momentum, and the frigate was now hovering with the ring rotating ahead of its nose.
“Pilot, maneuvering thrusters,” he said. “Take us directly south of the ring.”
Again that nudge against the straps. “Maneuvering due south, my lord.”
Martinez pressed keypads. “Navigation,” he said, “I’m sending you a course plot for Wormhole Four. Please load it into your computers.”
“Ah—yes, my lord.” Diem was looking at his displays a little wild-eyed, and Martinez remembered that he was only a trainee and hadn’t yet certified for Navigator/Second.
With himself, that madetwo inexperienced navigators in Command, Martinez realized. Not a good thing under the circumstances.
Vonderheydte’s voice came from behind Martinez, and Martinez jumped: he’d forgotten someone was back there.
“I’m hearing complaints from the captain’s cook, my lord,” Vonderheydte said. “Low gravity’s making a wreck out of his dinner. He says his sauce anglais is on the ceiling now.”
“Comm, tell the cook to batten everything down and get to an acceleration couch. We’re going to be pulling some gees.” He turned to Eruken. “Pilot, signal crew to secure for hard acceleration.”
Ear-blasting alarms whooped out, wailing up and down the scale. Personnel had been killed for not getting into their acceleration couches in time, and Martinez wanted to give them as much warning as possible.
The alarm faded, leaving a gaping silence in its wake. Diem was looking over the navigation plot with what seemed growing desperation, while Eruken gazed at his controls and gnawed his lip. Mabumba cast a glance over his shoulder at Martinez, and his gaze seemed to center on the pistol that lay near-weightless against his thigh.
None of them, Martinez realized, knew what was going on. Nor did anyone else on the ship.
“Comm: general announcement,” he said, and when he spoke again he heard his own voice echo back to him from the ship’s public address system.
“This is Lieutenant Martinez in Command,” he said. “I regret to tell you that a few minutes ago there was a mutiny on Magaria’s ring. The mutineers took advantage of the absence of so many of the officers and crews on the Festival of Sport, and they boarded and seized most of the ships on the station.” Martinez licked his lips. “Probably all ships, aside from our own. It is now our duty to takeCorona to Zanshaa in order to alert the Fleet and the government to the danger presented by the mutiny, and to aid the Fleet in recapturing the lost ships.”
Well, Martinez thought, that took care of the facts. But somehow he felt the deep inadequacy of his words. A reallygreat leader, he thought, would make an inspiring speech at this point, would fire the crew to their utmost exertions and win their undying loyalty through the eloquence of his words. He wondered if he, Gareth Martinez, could ever be such a leader.
What the hell, he thought. It seemed worth finding out.
“One further thought,” he said. “Because the rebels have seized control of Magaria’s ring, they are now in a position to bring overwhelming power onto the planet below. We must therefore consider that Captain Tarafah and the rest of the crew are lost, and can only hope that their captors will treat them decently…”
Well,this is cheerful, he thought in the deep silence that followed. He had better strew a bit of hope in the crew’s path before they all committed suicide or vowed to join the mutineers.
“There are only a few of us left on the ship,” Martinez said. “We are going into extreme danger. We’re going to have to stand extra watches and work extra hard for the long days it will take us to get to Zanshaa, but I want you to understand that the captain and the other captives will be cheering for us to succeed. Becausewe’re theCorona’s team now—we’rethe Coronas. And it’s up to us to play hard and score the winning goal. End transmission.”
He wanted to cringe into his seat as he brought the transmission to an end, and he felt his skin flush with mortification. Whatever had possessed him to end with that ghastly sports metaphor? This wasn’t eloquence, this was some kind of hideous, hackneyed cant that deserved nothing from the crouchbacks but derision. He should have made his announcement about the rebellion and then just shut up.
But as he looked around the control room, he saw that it seemed to have gone all right. Mabumba was looking at his displays with what seemed genuine resolve instead of casting covert glances at Martinez’s gun. Eruken had straightened in his chair and was holding the thruster controls with determination. Even Tracy and Clarke—who had little to do, really, but gaze at their radar plots—seemed more intent on their work, and Kelly, who as weapons officer had even less to do, looked positively cheerful.
Only Diem was unhappy, but then, Diem was probably transfixed by horror at the navigation plot Martinez had given him and hadn’t heard a word.
Perhaps the crew had lower standards for oratory than the Master of Rhetoric at Martinez’s old academy.
His sleeve display chimed and he answered.
“Alikhan, my lord. I’ve completed that little errand you sent me on.”
The display didn’t show Alikhan’s face, but instead the gaping front of Koslowski’s safe, with the door removed.
“Yes, Alikhan?” Martinez said.
“Nothing, my lord. Negative.”
Panic began to stroke Martinez’s nerves with feathery fingers. The Fleet had wisely made it impossible for a junior lieutenant such as himself to dischargeCorona’s awesome weaponry on his own initiative. The captain and each of the lieutenants carried keys with codes to unlock the frigate’s weapons, but no less than three of the four keys had to be turned at the same moment in order for the weapons to be fired.
Even the defensive weapons, the point-defense lasers, were useless without the three keys. And the odds were, the Naxid ships were going to be firing at him very soon.
“Have you checked everywhere else?” Martinez asked. “The drawers? Under the mattress?”
“Yes, my lord. Still negative. I can go to the captain’s office and repeat the procedure.”
“No, I’ve got to accelerate.”
“If you can give me two minutes, I can at least get the equipment there. When acceleration starts, I can jump in the captain’s rack. It won’t be as comfortable as a proper acceleration couch, but it’ll serve.”
For the couple hours of life that remains to us, Martinez thought.
“Very good,” he said. “You’ve got two minutes.” And broke transmission.
“We’ve cleared the ring,” Eruken reported.
“Pilot, zero our momentum.”
“Zero our momentum, my lord.”
“Two minutes to acceleration. Mark.”
“Mark two minutes to acceleration,” Mabumba said, but Diem raised a hand, like a boy at school asking permission to leave the classroom.
“My lord?” he said. “I’ve been looking at your plot and, ah…” An exaggerated grimace distorted his thin, pale face, as if he were anticipating being whacked on the head for his presumption. “It’s illegal,” he said. “You’re—
