Starplex

She was tethered to the rear wall — the one that was shared with the engineering torus — and the tether was pulled taut as the ship's rotation flung her outward toward the inside of the curving space door. The bay's floor, crisscrossed with landing reference markers, was more than a dozen meters below her feet, and its roof, covered with lighting panels and housings for winches, was a dozen meters above her head.

"Open cha

"I understand," said Jessica. She reached to her waist and let out more tether. Keith watched breathlessly as she moved through the air across the bay. She wasn't wasting any time; meters of additional tether appeared each second. She finally reached the far side of the bay, slamming against the curving surface of the space door. For a horrible moment, Keith thought she'd been knocked unconscious by the impact, but she soon recovered from the blow and fought to bring the heavy geological laser into position. She was having trouble holding the unit steady. When she fired, her first shot crossed her own tether line, severing it at its midpoint. Fifteen meters of nylon line came crashing down at her; the other fifteen meters whipped around far over her head like a narrow yellow snake. She was now pi

Fong's second shot went equally wild, taking out a junction box for the in-bay lighting system. Everything was plunged into darkness.

"Jessica!"

"I'm still here, Keith. God, this is awkward."

In the frame, all that was visible was black — black, and then a pinprick of ruby, as the laser found the rear wall.

Keith watched as the metal began to glow, soften, ripple — - and then-The sound of water rushing through, like a high-pressure fire hose.

Jessica continued to shoot the laser, perforating a giant square along the rear wall. A hole here, move the laser a centimeter, another hole, shoot again, over and over — The emergency lights came on, bathing the entire bay in red.

Seawater erupted from the rear wall. The perforated square of bulkhead metal peeled back, then tore free, flinging across the bay, propelled by a geyser of water behind it.

Keith cringed. It looked as-though the metal wall fragment was going to slap against Jessica, who was already being pummeled by wild fists of water, but she, too, must have seen it coming. There was an explosion of flame behind her, scorching the wall. She'd been smart enough to put on a suit with a thruster pack, and had fired herself up and away just in time. The bay was filling with water, starting at the space door and rising in toward the interior wall Jessica was soon slapped back against the door.

Once the bay had filled, Keith spoke to her once more.

"Okay, now turn around and drill a.hole about ten centimeters in diameter in the outer docking-bay door. Hold the beam emitter right against the door; you don't want to boil the water around you."

"Will do," she said, her space suit now a diving suit. She stood on the space door and held the gray metal cone of .her geological laser like a jackhammer. She then fired down between her feet. Soon, part of the space door was glowing cherry red, then white-hot, and then, and then…

Starplex spun like a top against the night, green starlight winking off its hull.

The five remaining Waldahud ships were approaching.

Two of the ships were. coming in from above and three from below, heading toward the ring of docking bays. Doubtless the ship was rotating too fast for any of the Waldahud pilots to notice the tiny incandescent spot in the middle of the door to bay sixteen, a spot that glowed, flared, and burned away.

And suddenly — Water began to spray out into space, flinging away from the rapidly rotating ship. And as it hit vacuum, it evaporated immediately into vapor, and then, once enough vapor had accumulated to make for considerable pressure, the water recondensed into liquid, the plankton, salt crystals, and oceanic detritus providing seeds for droplet formation, and then here, shaded from the green star by the intervening dark-matter field, it froze into ice — Millions upon millions of ice pellets, flinging away from Starplex at high speed, propelled by the explosive force of all the water behind and by the centrifugal force of the rapidly rotating ship. Countless diamonds against the night, winking green in the light of the nearby star — The first Waldahud ship was hit by a barrage of ice chunks, that ship's speed toward Starplex being added to the pellets' own velocity, making for a truly high-speed collision. The initial half-dozen chunks were deflected by the ship's force screens, shields designed for guarding against single microme-teoroid impacts, not a sustained onslaughtn-Ice pellets ripped through the Waldahud hull like teeth through flesh, tearing up the habitat, expelled air freezing and adding to the hailstorm in space On the bridge, Keith called out, "Now, Thor! Rock the ship!"

Thor compliedew streamer of ice chunks angled off in a different direction, impacting a second Waldahud ship, ripping it open. Then a third ship exploded, a silent flower against the dark background, as frozen bullets ripped into the tanks containing its atmospheric-maneuvering fuel.

Thor rocked the ship the other way, and ice pellets were flung toward the fourth remaining ship. By this time, its pilot had come up with a counterstrategy. He rotated his own ship so that its fusion exhaust cone faced toward Starplex, and he fired his main engine, melting the ice into water drops, which immediately boiled into vapor before they could hit his ship.

But the pilot of one of the other remaining ships had been unprepared for this maneuver, or too preoccupied with saving his own tail by heading toward the shortcut. His course took him in the path of his comrade's fusion exhaust, and the white-hot flames tore into his vessel.

It exploded, leaving only two ships — one of which was Gawst's.

The expanding ring of water pellets deflected most of the ship debris away from Starplex, but the crew of the Waldahud craft that had tried the fusion-exhaust trick wasn't so lucky. A large, jagged piece of hull rammed into their shipt it spi

Gawst's ship was still intact, holding station with a tractor beam beneath the central disk. There was no way Thor could aim the ice-pellet stream there. Still, Starplex could keep spi

"Uh-oh." PHANTOM's translation of the rippling lights on Rhombus.

Thor looked up. "God damn," he said.

Emerging from behind the limb of the green star were one… two .

. . five more Waldahud fighters. Gawst had not been fool enough to use all his forces on the initial attack. One of the newcomers was a giant, ten times the size of the smaller probecraft.

Starplex's five dolphin-piloted ships had backed off, avoiding the ice barrage. But now they were linking up in formation, and heading toward the approaching attack force, determined to get to it before it could get to their mothership.