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She walked the dark limbo of the forward hold, round the cylinder rim, into the eitherway world of the ridership crews, a place like home, a memory of other days, when she had had her quarters in such a place, this bizarre section where the crews of the insystem fighters, their mechanics, prep crews, lived in their own private world. A whole other command existed here, right way up at the moment, under rotation, ceiling down the rare times they were docked. Two of the eight crews were here, Quevedo’s and Almarshad’s, of Odin and Thor; four were off duty; two were riding null up in the frame… or inside their ships, because locking crews through the special lift out of the rotation cylinder took one rotation of the hull, and they could not spare that time if they jumped into trouble. Riding null through jump — she recalled that experience well enough. Not the pleasantest way to travel, but it was always someone’s job. They had no intent to deploy the riders here at Omicron, or two more sets of them would have been up there in the can, as they called it, in that exile. “All’s as it should be,” she said to those in demi-prep. “Rest, relax, keep off the liquor; we’re still on standby and will be while we’re here. Don’t know when we’ll be ordered out or with how much warning. Could have to scramble, but far from likely. My guess is we don’t make mission jump without some time for rest. This operation is on our timetable, not Union’s.”
There was no quibble. She took the lift up to main level, walked the shorter distance around to number one corridor, her legs still rubbery, but the drugs were losing their numbing effect. She went to her own office/quarters, paced the floor a time, finally lay down on the cot and rested, just to shut her eyes and let the tension ebb, the nervous energy that jump always threw into her, because usually it meant coming out into combat, snapping decisions rapidly, kill or die.
Not this time; this was the pla
Rest a while; sleep if they could. She could not. She was glad when the summons came.
It was a strange feeling, to stand again in the corridors of Europe, stranger still to find herself in the company of all the others seated in the flagship’s council room… an eerie and panicky feeling, this meeting of all of them who had been working together unmet these many years, who had so zealously avoided each other’s vicinities except for brief rendezvous for the passing of orders ship to ship. In recent years it was unlikely that Mazian himself had known where all his fleet was, whether particular ships survived the missions on which they were sent… or what mad operations they might be undertaking solo. They had been less a fleet than a guerrilla operation, skulking and striking and ru
Now they were here, the last ten, the survivors of the maneuvers — herself; Tom Edger of Australia, lean and grim-faced; big Mika Kreshov of Atlantic, perpetually scowling; Carlo Mendez of North Pole, a small, dark man of quiet ma
And Conrad Mazian. Silver-haired with rejuv, a tall, handsome man in dark blue, who leaned his arms on the table and swept a slow glance over them. It was intended for effect; possibly it was sincere affection, that open look. Dramatic sense and Mazian were inseparable; the man lived by it. Knowing him, knowing the ma
No preliminaries, no statement of welcome, just that look and a nod. “Folders are in front of you,” Mazian said. “Closest security: codes and coordinates are in those. Carry them back with you and familiarize your key perso
It had had to take Viking whole, with all the internal complications of a station never evacuated… take it latest, because by ramming stations down Union’s gullet in their own rapid sequence, they had dictated the sequence and direction of Union’s moves of ships and perso
Viking had been last.
Central to the others, with desolation about it, stations struggling to survive.
“All indication is,” Mazian said softly, “that they have decided to fortify Viking; logical choice: Viking’s the only one with its comp files complete, the only one where they’ve had a chance to round up all the dissidents, all the resistance, where they could apply their police tactics and card everyone, instantly. Now it’s all clean, all sanitary for their base of operations; we’ve let them throw a lot into it; we take out Viking, and hit at the others, that are hanging by a thread in terms of viability… and then there’s nothing but far waste between us and Fargone; between Pell and Union. We make expansion inconvenient, costly; we herd the beast to its wider pastures in the other direction… while we can. You have your specific instructions in the folders. The fine details may have to be improvised within certain limits, according to what might turn up in your sectors. Norway, Libya, India, unit one; Europe, Tibet, Pacific, two; North Pole, Atlantic, Africa, three; Australia has its own business. If we’re lucky we won’t face anything at our rear, but every contingency is covered. This is going to be a long session; that’s why I let you rest. We’ll simulate until there are no more questions.”
Signy drew a slow breath and released it, opened the folder and in the silence Mazian afforded them to do so, sca