Downbelow Station

Had pulled them from a fight from which their nerves were still jangled, from a fight which they could have won.

She had not the heart to look beside her to meet Graff’s eyes, or Di’s, or the faces of the others on the bridge; and no answer for them. Had none for herself. Mazian had another idea… something. She was desperate to believe that there was sane reason for the abort.

Get out quickly, redo it. Replan it. Only this time they had been pushed out of all their supply lines, had given up all the stations from which they had drawn goods.

It was possible Mazian’s nerve had broken. She insisted otherwise to herself, but reckoned inwardly what moves she would have called, what she would have done, in command of the Fleet. What any of them could have done better than had been done. Everything had worked according to plan. And Mazian had aborted. Mazian, that they worshipped.

Blood was in her mouth. She had bitten her lip through.

“Receiving approach instructions from Pell via Europe,” com told her.

“Graff,” she said, “take it over.” She reserved her own attention to the screens and the emergency com link she had plugged into her ear, direct link with Mazian when he should decide finally to use it, when he should decide to communicate with the Fleet, which he had not, silent since the orders which had hurled them out of a battle they had not lost.

It was a routine approach, all routine. She received clearance through Mazian’s com, keyed the order to her rider captains, scattering Norway’s fighters as other ships of the Fleet were shedding their own, backup crews ma

Com chatter continued out of Pell; go slow, station pleaded with them, Pell was a crowded vicinity. There was nothing from Mazian himself.

ii

Mazian — Mazian himself, and not Union, not another convoy. The whole Fleet was coming in.

Word ran through the station corridors with the speed of every uncontrolled cha

Damon studied the monitors and intermittently paced the floors of dock command blue. Elene was there, seated at the com console, holding the plug to her ear and frowning in concentrated dispute with someone. Merchanters were in a state of panic; the militarized ones were an impulse away from bolting entirely, in dread of being swept up by the Fleet, crews and ships as well impressed to service. Others dreaded confiscations, of supplies, of arms, of equipment and perso

“Dean,” he hailed the man in charge, “call me alterday shift. If we can’t pull them off Q, we still can’t leave those freighter docks open to easy intrusion. Put some live bodies in the way. Uniform some of the supervisory staff if you haven’t enough. General call-up; get those docks secure and make sure you keep the Downers out of there.”

“Your office authorizes it.”

“It authorizes it.” There was hesitation on the other end; there were supposed to be papers, counter-signatures from the main office. Stationmaster could do it; stationmaster’s office had its hands full trying to make sense out of this situation. His father was on com trying to stall off the Fleet with argument.

“Get me a signed paper when you can,” Dean Gihan said “I’ll get them there.”

Damon breathed a soft hiss, shut down the contact, paced more, paused again behind Elene’s chair, leaning on the back of it. She leaned back in a moment’s lull, half-turned to touch his hand. Her face had been white when he had come into the room. She had recovered her color and her composure. Techs kept busy, dispensing the finer details of orders to the dock crews below, preparations for station central to start shifting freighters out of berth to accommodate the Fleet. Chaos — there were not only freighters in dock, there were a hundred merchanters assigned permanent orbit with the station about Downbelow, a drifting cloud of freighters for which there had been no room. Nine ships of vast size were moving in on that, sending ships off dock out into it. Mazian’s com was firing a steady catechism of questions and authorizations at Pell, as yet refusing to specify what he wanted or where he meant to dock, if he meant to dock at all.

Us next? The nightmare was with them. Evacuation. Pregnancy was no state in which to contemplate a refugee journey to God knew where, through jump — to some long-abandoned Hinder Star station; to Sol, to Earth… He thought of Hansford. Thought of Elene… in that. Of what had been civilized men when they started. “Maybe we won,” a tech said. He blinked, realized that too for a possibility, but not possible… they had always known at heart that it was impossible, that Union had grown too big, that the Fleet could give them years, as it had until now, but not victory, never that. The carriers would not have come in in this number, not for any other reason than retreat.

He reckoned their chances if Pell refused evacuation; reckoned what awaited any Konstantin in Union hands. The military would never let him stay behind. He set his hand on Elene’s shoulder, his heart beating fit to break, realizing the possiblity of being separated, losing her and the baby. He would be put aboard under arrest if there were an evacuation, the same way as it had happened on other stations, to get vital perso

For Elene, for Pell, for all the dreams they had had, he would have fought.

But he did not know where to begin.

iii

Signy had it visual now, the hubbed ring of Pell’s Station, the distant moon, the bright jewel of Downbelow, cloud-swirled. They had long since dumped velocity, moved in with dreamlike slowness compared to their former speed, as the station’s smooth shape resolved itself into the chaos of angles its surface was.

Freighters were jammed into every berth of the visible side, docking and standby. There was incredible clutter on scan, and they were moving slowly because it took that long for these sluggish ships to clear an approach for them. Every merchanter which had not been swept into Union hands had to be hereabouts, at station, in pattern, or farther out, or hovering off in the deep just out of system. Graff still had controls, a tedious business now. Unprecedented crowding and traffic. Chaos indeed. She was afraid, when she analyzed the growing tautness at her gut. Anger had cooled and she was afraid with a helplessness she was not accustomed to feel… a wish that by someone very wise and at some time long ago, other choices had been made, which would have saved them all from this moment, and this place, and the choices they had left.

“Carriers North Pole and Tibet will stand off from station,” the notification came from Europe. “Assume patrol.”