Old Soldiers

"I have to admit," Hawthorne continued, "that I still have to pinch myself sometimes to be sure I'm not dreaming that we actually managed to pull this off."

"Locating Kuan Yin, you mean?"

"Well, that, too, of course," Hawthorne said with a shrug. "But I was thinking about finding anyone alive aboard her. Or, for that matter, being alive ourselves. Which we wouldn't be, ma'am, without you and the Bolos."

His tone, Maneka was relieved to note, was simply factual, almost conversational, without the near-veneration she got from some of the other colonists. That would have been even more difficult for her to cope with coming from one of the tiny handful of other surviving regular officers. Especially since he was no more aware than any other human member of the expedition that she'd held her fire until after the initial Melconian attack on the transports.

"We're not out of the woods yet," she pointed out. "We've got a long way to go."

"Understood, ma'am." Hawthorne nodded and began to say something else, then stopped and turned away with a brief smile to acknowledge his astrogator's formal report of readiness to proceed.

Maneka smiled back, but her mind was busy replaying her conversation with Agnelli when the two of them had decided—and she was relieved that it truly had been a joint decision—to execute a radical course change and continue their voyage for at least another full Standard Year before settling upon a new homeworld. It would extend their journey for three Standard Months beyond the duration originally contemplated in their mission orders, but those orders had always granted Agnelli and his military commander the authority to extend their flight time. And the fact that they didn't know how long the Melconians had trailed them before attacking or whether or not they had dispatched a courier ship home with news of what they'd discovered made both of them very nervous. If the Melconians were able to accurately project even a rough base course for the convoy, it would increase the Imperial Navy's chance of finding them exponentially. So even though it would reduce the safety margin provided by the transports' supplies, no one in the colony fleet wanted to stop any closer to explored space than they had to.

"Actually, ma'am," Hawthorne said, returning his attention to her, "I'm still astonished that we found anyone alive aboard Kuan Yin." He shook his head. "Hanover did damned well with what she had left, but the Dog Boys really ripped the hell out of her. The Compton Yard really builds them, doesn't it?"

"That they do, Ed," she agreed. "That they do. And thank God for it!"

Hawthorne nodded solemnly and rapped his knuckles gently on the small square of natural wood he'd had mounted in the center of his command chair's right arm rest. Maneka smiled at the superstitious gesture, but she shared his astonishment at the survival of any of Kuan Yin's complement. Despite the horrendous damage the hospital ship had absorbed, almost thirty-five percent of her total complement had lived through the attack. More than three-quarters of the survivors were trained medical perso

The Governor had obviously been very close to his son-in-law, and William Watson-Agnelli's death had hit him almost as hard as it had hit his daughter. Yet having Allison restored to him literally from beyond the grave had done wonders for him, and by Lazarus' estimates, the literally priceless medical equipment and supplies the convoy had spent three weeks salvaging from the broken wreck—not to mention the even more desperately needed physicians themselves—had increased the colony's ultimate probability of survival from eighty percent to eighty-seven percent. It would still take at least two years from the time they reached their destination to put all that equipment back on-line, and longer than that to replace the equipment which had been impossible to salvage, but at least they had a far better starting point than they would have had otherwise.

"We're ready to proceed, Captain Trevor," Hawthorne said formally, reporting to the military commander empowered to authorize the movement.

"Very well, Captain Hawthorne. Please signal the fleet to do so."

"Yes, ma'am."

The surviving vessels vanished like soap bubbles, disappearing once again into hyper, and the abandoned, lightless hulk which had once been named Kuan Yin was left to drift, lost and lonely, in the endless interstellar dark.

2

"Stand by to execute," Lieutenant Hawthorne said.

"Standing by, aye, aye, sir," Lieutenant Jackson Lewis, his executive officer acknowledged crisply.

"Execute," Hawthorne said.

"Aye, aye, sir," Lewis said, and looked courteously at the visual pickup of Thermopylae's AI.

"Execute the maneuver, Iona," he said.

"Executing maneuver, aye, sir," the AI's pleasant contralto said almost musically, with the Navy's odd fetish for archaic formality, and Maneka sat quietly in the assistant astrogator's bridge chair, watching as Thermopylae swung suddenly but smoothly about to retrace her course.

The timing for the maneuver had been randomly generated by Lazarus, and she felt confident that no one could have predicted the moment at which it would be executed. If, as had become increasingly unlikely, there truly were a surviving Melconian starship anywhere in the vicinity, it would be as surprised as any other unit of the colony fleet by Thermopylae's abrupt course change.

In many ways, it was very tempting to execute the maneuver herself through Lazarus' control of Thermopylae's maneuvering systems. That, however, would have come under the heading of a Bad Idea, she thought with a slight, crooked smile as she watched the repeater plot in front of her. Edmund Hawthorne had proven even more flexible than she'd hoped, but stepping all over any commanding officer's prerogatives was bound to generate friction, or at least resentment. Either of which was something she could do without forever.

Thermopylae settled on her new heading, and Lazarus' sensors reached out to sweep the convoy's back trail. If there were, in fact, anyone following, he would almost certainly be trailing from somewhere astern. That would put him in the best position to observe course changes ... and to evade any sensor sweeps like this one.

"Sensor sweep!"

Captain Na-Tharla's head jerked up at the a

"Execute Evasion One!" Lieutenant Hasak Ha-Shathar, Death Descending's executive officer barked. Ha-Shathar had the watch, and Na-Tharla's ears rose in approval at his immediate response to the warning. It was far from the first time one of the Humans' Bolo transports had doubled back, and he wished the accursed things would at least operate on some sort of predictable schedule. Death Descending's sensor section and Ha-Shathar's reaction speed had probably been sufficient again—this time. But if the Humans kept this up long enough, sooner or later they were entirely too likely to get lucky.

Na-Tharla stepped through the hatch and crossed briskly to his own command station. Ha-Shathar glanced up at him, one ear half-cocked, but Na-Tharla flattened his own ears briefly in answer to the unvoiced question. Ha-Shathar was doing everything right, and Na-Tharla was confident he would continue to do so.

Death Descending altered course as Ha-Shathar had ordered. The Melconian transport was larger than the Human ship sweeping back towards it, and less maneuverable under its main drive. But the Human ship was at least as detectable, and Death Descending's sensors had been tracking it literally for weeks now. They knew exactly what to look for, and they had picked up its course change almost instantly. That was sufficient warning to allow Ha-Shathar to change heading, sweeping away from the oncoming Human transport and its accursed Bolo at an acute angle without ever quite exposing Death Descending's own vulnerable after aspect to the enemy's sensors. Na-Tharla watched narrowly as the gap between the two vessels first narrowed, then began gradually to open once again with no indication that the Humans had detected his ship ... this time.