Storm at Eldala

with Joel at the port's systems. We'd know right away if they had.'

'Well,' Enda said and turned to Gabriel. 'Now we must make our choices. We will not be getting any Rivendale-originating data to take with us on this run. Nor do I see much point in waiting here until our competition has left.'

'Not when the I.I. ship is due to arrive in another two days,' Gabriel said. He was sitting in one of the sitting room chairs with his feet up and his arms folded. 'I don't see why we should linger with not one, but two, of someone's covert agents sitting out there and waiting to see what we do. We ought to hop and makethem do something, if only to annoy them.' Helm laughed at that. 'All right. Hop where?'

'I'd be tempted to say back to Grith,' Gabriel said, 'but that seems too predictable. Also, I've seen enough of Corrivale for a while.'

'You could do Aegis in three starfalls,' said Helm. 'It'd make sense, anyway. Once there you could see if there's any datafor Corrivale or Terivine and haul it back out.'

'It is not a bad idea,' said Enda. 'Unscheduled courier runs pay ten or fifteen percent better than the scheduled ones.'

Gabriel was thinking more along the lines of how busy a system Aegis was, and how much easier it would be to lose a stalker or two there than here. 'All right,' he said. 'Aegis in three starfalls, twenty light-years and some small change. Is there an established 'tween-jump recharge point?' 'There are a couple spots that people use,' said Helm, 'just out by themselves in empty space. Star called Mikoa on your second-to-last jump.'

'Fine,' Gabriel said and headed forward to talk to the piloting computers.

After checking the coordinates and the timings, he came back to the sitting room and said, 'Helm, how soon would you feel like leaving?'

'Any time.' He paused. 'Delde Sota says nothing would keep her here except the food, but she's had enough beef lichen to last her a month or so.'

'Well, then,' Gabriel said, looking over at Enda, 'anything else that needs to be done before we leave? Did you get enough canned vegetables?'

Enda sighed and said, 'The ones I was interested in were not canned, and like Delde Sota, I think I have had enough of them for the moment. When we come back this way again under less pressing circumstances, I shall see about bringing some away with us. Meantime, let us go.' 'Right,' Helm said. 'Four hours from now? Most everyone'll be in bed. No comms activity within an hour of the takeoff time. We'll do a fast heat-up to give them least warning. You'll want to program the preheat sequence for your system drive into the computer. Want a time tick?'

'Hold on and you can give it to me in the cockpit,' Gabriel said, getting up to go forward again. 'Wait. If we want our two ladies to follow us, shouldn't we give them plenty of warning?'

'We shouldn't give them too much of a warning,' said Helm. 'If they're any good, they'll catch up. In fact, how fast they catch up will indicate how good they are. If they're inept, I'd sooner find out this way.' Gabriel laughed and went up to the cockpit again. A few minutes later,Sunshine's departure time was set. They would warm engines for exactly three minutes, then take off and make starfall about twenty minutes later.

'This way you've got time for a few last errands,' Helm said.

'I'm not leaving the ship,' Gabriel said. 'I've had enough of Rivendale for now.'

He glanced over at Enda. She shook her head. 'Let's get out of here.'

Chapter Five

FOUR HOURS LATER, Gabriel and Enda were in the pilots' seats, strapped in and waiting for Sunshine's preheat cycle to start. Rivendale's long afternoon was finally shading toward evening. The sun was well down below the jagged peaks, and the eastern sky was slowly purpling. Gabriel stretched in the straps and looked out the windows. 'It's a pretty place,' he said, 'but it's trying. So much day gets to be a nuisance, and I wouldn't even want to think about a week's worth of night. How can anyone live here and stay sane?'

'Obviously they manage,' said Enda, 'though I think I prefer shorter days myself.' The ship wenthhup around them, a soft awakening hum, and half the system indicators that had been dormant or gray in the 3D display now began to show power readings as they slowly escalated. Gabriel glanced over atLongshot. With the sunset glancing off her windshield, it was hard to see inside; but he thought he caught a flash of motion — probably Helm giving him a thumbs-up. He returned the gesture and looked around outside the ship.

At the port building, a male figure came out the front door, looked at them curiously. After a few seconds, another human, shorter and rounder than the first, came out and looked as well. The two looked at the ships. One of them pointed; the other gestured. 'Two minutes,' Gabriel said.

One of the two humans went back inside. A few moments later,Sunshine's comms chirped. Someone was hailing them.

'Oops,' Gabriel said, reaching out to kill the local network connection. 'Another systems failure. We really ought to have that looked at when we make port again.' 'Somewhere else,' Enda said, smiling.

Another half minute ticked by, and another. The man who had gone in now came out, and he and his companion stood watching the ships. They made no move to come any closer.

'Thirty seconds,' Enda said, reaching into the 3D display to touch one of the driver displays into 'query' mode. The telltale folded itself into a wider display of ship's power levels, all showing 100 % or better. 'Everything is as it should be.' 'Good,' Gabriel said.

He was looking around the field for any sign of activity, and also watching the street that led up to Sunbreak town proper. There was no sign of anyone. Am I. spoiling someone's sleep over there? he thought. Wouldn't that be a terrible thing?

'Ten seconds,' Enda said. 'Do you want to take her up, or shall I?' 'You have control,' Gabriel said. 'I'm going to get into the fighting field.'

Enda put her eyebrows up as Gabriel reached into that part of the display. 'No harm in that,' she said. 'Five seconds.'

The final countdown bled away, Enda said, 'Now,' andSunshine lifted straight up, gracefully but with rapidly increasing speed. That was very much Enda's piloting style as Gabriel had observed it. Smooth acceleration, but plenty of it. Up they went, through layers of mist, over the rapidly widening terrain of jagged peaks, and up into Terivine's orange light again. With Helm pacing them off to starboard, they cleared the peaks and slanted low over the beautiful but hostile landscape. Gabriel perceived all this briefly as visual input while the fighting field was still settling over him. When it took as a schematic, bright lines and curves stitched against diagrammatic darkness with lines of galactic latitude and longitude. 'Out of atmosphere,' Enda said.

Gabriel shifted his body in the seat to get the feeling of where his weapons were. The rail gun was reporting almost ready, and the plasma cannons were hot. 'That didn't take long,' he commented.

'With their gravity, I would be surprised if it did,' Enda said as she spunSunshine on her axis to point away from Terivine and Rivendale, out toward the point where they had agreed with Helm they would make starfall. 'Anything of interest behind us?'

Gabriel looked back at Rivendale in the fighting schematic and said, 'Nothing coming, at least not at the moment.'

He jumped then as the alarms howled. Something was coming, but not from the direction in which Gabriel was looking. The virtual display whipped around to show him the direction from which the threat now approached. Gabriel had instructed the display to disallowLongshot but to alert him of anything of unknown mass over a ton. Here came something, a small tight knot of light in the display with a 'comet's tail' spread out behind it to illustrate course and speed.

'Another ship, all right,' Gabriel said, and felt around him for the paired joysticks that were his preferred method for handling the plasma cannons.