The Kassa Gambit

sainthood.

The comm channel lit up again.

“Ulysses, this is Monterey Traffic Control. We would like you to return to the spaceport to answer some questions.”

A human voice, but not recognizable as Dejae’s. Traffic Control didn’t stint on its filters. The monks on Monterey had been concealing their identity for a very long time.

“I’m terribly sorry.” She was, but not for them. For Garcia. “We’ve already passed turnaround. We can’t abort now. It’s not physically possible.” Garcia had bought them the time they needed.

“We understand that. However, this is a serious matter. We are dispatching a patrol boat to follow you through the node. We require that you reverse velocity on the other side, and return with the vessel.”

“I don’t think I can. I’ve already plotted a vector through the next node, and my current velocity presumes making that hop.” She’d been running on maximum acceleration since liftoff. They would streak across X785 like a meteorite, unable to stop before the next node even if they wanted to. There was no margin of error. She was trusting the orbital data from the Launceston with their lives.

“Our vessel is equipped with grappling lines and fusion power. It will assist you with velocity management.”

They wanted her bad.

“If you cannot correct your course, then you will be required to abandon ship and board your crew on our vessel.”

Really bad.

“Well, if it’s that important, I guess we’ll have to.” She signed out.

After a few minutes, they called back.

“Ulysses, we note that you are continuing to accelerate. This is not acceptable. Begin your deceleration now, or we will be forced to ask the Launceston to intervene.”

“I’m sorry, Monterey. The Launceston just chewed me out on the regs for course corrections during node approaches.” That, of course, had been the point of Stanton’s little lecture. “I’m not going through that again. We’ll see you on the other side. Ulysses out.”

She turned off the comm.

Kyle was grinning, in a very unfriendly way.

“What are you so happy about?”

“They’re trying to stop us. That’s good news.”

“How do you figure?”

“It means we can still hurt them.”

EIGHTEEN Hammer

Four long days, but not long enough. He didn’t want them to end.

Not because there was trouble waiting for them on the other side. The Monterian ship would be only hours behind them. The Launceston might well feel compelled to enforce the law. There were many bad things that would start happening once they left the node. But those were not the reasons Kyle found himself resisting the passage of each hour.

Being with Prudence, a part of her crew, a part of her ship. A part of her family. They were together without friction, without suspicion. For the first time in his life, Kyle wasn’t playing a role, wasn’t trying to present the image he thought others wanted to see. There was no reason to try. Jorgun didn’t care, and Prudence couldn’t be fooled. And the absence of Garcia drew them together, like a hole in the ground that needed to be filled.

He wanted to win through to the next node for the most selfish of reasons. Because then he would have more time in node-space. Only two and a half days, but beggars could not complain.

The ancients had been right. Heaven was a place in the sky, where nothing bad could touch you. But not for long; never for long enough.

“Listen to that.” Prudence played a warbling hiss for him through her comm console. She’d been analyzing the data on his blue pod for the last five hours. He’d helped her with the technical settings, but mostly he’d sat next to her and soaked up her presence.

“I’m not a computer,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“It doesn’t mean anything to the computer, either. But it shouldn’t be there. It’s not cosmic radiation or planetary comm. And it’s at the right time. This signal was sent out by the invading fleet, on a wide beam, throughout the whole system.”

“Why would they broadcast their presence?” He kept asking why a lot. Everything these monks did was ass- backwards and upside down.

“I don’t have a clue. It’s an encrypted signal. But Altair should have computers that can crack it.”

“I’ll hand it over to the Launceston, then. They’ll get there sooner than we will.”

“Yes, they will,” she said cryptically.

A yellow light on her console turned on, accompanied by a gentle but insistent tone. It was the worst sound Kyle could imagine. It signaled the end of their vacation.

“Normal space in fifteen minutes. Put on your best smiles, boys. You need to convince the Launceston to give you a ride.”

A cold panic washed over him. “What?”

“Think about it, Kyle. I can’t stop that patrol boat from catching us. What I can do is put Jorgun and you on the Launceston, out of their reach. I’ll surrender, and take the Ulysses back to Monterey. It will be four more days before they find out they were swindled. You’ll be safe by then.”

“I’m not leaving you, Prudence.”

“It’s not your choice.”

“You can get on the Launceston with us.”

She turned her face partly away. “I’m not leaving my ship.”

“It’s just a ship! It’s not worth dying for. With the information you have to sell, Altair will buy you a new one.”

“Kyle, it won’t work. If I’m not on the Ulysses, they’ll know something is up. They’ll attack the Launceston.”

“So what? It’s armed. It can fight.”

“But it might not win.”

Kyle stared at her, unable to rationally cope with the prospect of losing her.

“Kyle, we can’t take the chance. You have to warn Altair before it’s too late. You don’t understand. You don’t understand.”

“Psychotic clones are trying to take over my planet. What part do I not fucking understand?”

She stared past him, into some distant memory.

“The monks think they won’t kill anyone. But when they have complete power, they’ll forget. They’ll get impatient. There will be problems … and genocide will look like a solution. In twenty years, Kyle, there will be ovens.”

He reached out, to hold her, but she pushed him away, tears pouring down her face.

“I can’t lose you and Jorgun that way. I can’t lose another family to the fire.”

“You can’t stop it by dying!” His fingers were numb, all feeling and strength gone out of his hands.

“They might not kill me right away. And if you win, then you can rescue me. You can be my knight in shining armor.” She said it with a wan smile, the kind of smile that would have comforted Jorgun. It didn’t comfort him.