Downbelow Station

“They could be waiting out there,” Josh said.

He reckoned that. He reached a hand up, pushed the switch. Nothing happened. Closed, the door had locked itself. He took his card from his pocket, hesitated, pushed it in the slot and the buttons stayed dead. If anyone in central had any desire to know where he was, he had just given the information to them. He knew that.

“Looks like we’re staying,” Josh said.

The sirens had stopped. Damon edged over, chanced a look out the scarred window, trying to see through the opaque slashes and the light diffraction. Something stirred, far across the docks, one furtive figure, another. The com overhead gave out a burst of static as if it were trying to come on and went silent again.

vi

Militia freighters scattered, stationary nightmare. One of them blew like a tiny sun, flared on vid and died while com pickup sputtered static. The hail of particles incandesced in Norway’s path and some of the bigger ones rang against the hull, a scream of passing matter.

No fancy turns: dead-on targets and armscomp lacing into them. A Union rider went out the way the merchanter had, and Norway’s four riders rolled, whipped out on a vector concerted with Norway and pulled fire, a steady barrage that pocked a Union carrier paralleling them for one visible instant.

“Get him!” Signy yelled at her armscomper when the fire paused; it erupted over her words and pasted into the spot the ru

“Good!” the belly spotter shouted into com general. “Solid hit…”

There were wails as Norway half-rolled and swung into a new zig. Merchanters leaked past them, headed out as if they were a tableau frozen in space: They were doing the moving, whipped through the interstices of that still-standing race and went after the Union ships, keeping them zigging, keeping them from gathering room for a run.

Feint and strike: like their entry… a ship to draw them, attack from another vector. Tibet and North Pole were headed in to intercept, had been coming from the first moment scan image had reached them: longscan had just revised their position, set them as much closer, reckoning they would go at max.

Union moved. That scan had reached them in the same instant; shifted vector right into the fire they were laying down, Norway, Atlantic, Australia… Union lost riders, took damage, going rimward in spite of fire, going at Tibet and North Pole. There was a ringing oath over com, Mazian’s voice pouring out a stream of obscenity. Twelve carriers left of the fourteen that had come in, a cloud of riderships and dart-ships, bore away from station and into their two outru

“Hit their heels!” Porey’s deep voice came through.

“Negative, negative,” Mazian snapped back. “Hold your positions.” Comp still had them in synch; Europe’s command signal drew them unwillingly with Mazian. They watched the Union fleet pass their zone of fire, heading for Tibet and North Pole. Behind them, a flare of energy reached them: static that cleared… “Got him!” com echoed. Pacific must have taken out that crippled Union carrier some minutes back. There were other things possible across the system, that they could lose track of. Could lose Pell. One strike could take it out, if that was Union’s intent.

Signy flexed a hand, wiped her face, keyed to Graff, and he took up controls on the instant — they were dumping velocity again, pulling maneuvers in concert with Mazian. Protests garbled over com. “Negative,” Mazian repeated. There was a hush throughout Norway.

“They haven’t a chance,” Graff muttered too audibly. “They should have come in sooner… should have come in — ”

“Hindsight, Mr. Graff. Take it as it falls.” Signy dialed up general com. “Can’t move out of here. If it’s a feint, one ship could come in and wipe Pell. We can’t help them… can’t risk any more of us than we’re already about to lose. They’ve got an option… they’ve still got room to run.”

Might, she was thinking, might, the instant their scan narrowed on them, and longscan started showing what they were into… veer off and jump. If scan techs on Tibet and North Pole fed the right data into longscan, if the picture on their scopes did not show Mazian and help coming right on Union’s tail, misinterpreting their maneuver as one of following…

The Fleet slowed further. Scan showed a fade-out among the merchanters, that slow-motion flight having reached jump limit. They bled away, Pell’s life, drifting off into the deep.

She dead-reckoned time factors, Union’s speed, proliferation of their image, Tibet’s and North Pole’s velocity incoming. About now, about now, Tibet should be figuring it out, realizing Union was on them. If their scan was telling them truth…

Their own scan kept showing history for a moment, then locked up, stationary, longscan having run out of speculations. Head to head, yellow haze, while red lines tracked through that haze, the real scan they were getting.

Closer. The red line reached decision-critical — kept going. Head on. Signy sat and watched, as all of them had to watch. Her fist was clenched and she restrained herself from hitting something, the board, the cushion, something.

It happened; they watched it happen, what had happened already, the futile defense, the overwhelming assault. Two carriers. Seven riders, to a man. In forty and more years the Fleet had never lost ships so wretchedly.

Tibet rammed… Kant hurled his carrier into jump near the mass of his enemies and took his own riders and a Union carrier into oblivion… there was a sudden gap in scan… a grim cheer at that; and again when North Pole and her riders hurtled through the midst of the Unioners…

They almost made it through Kant’s hole. Then that image became a scatter of images. North Pole’s comp signal that had begun a sending… ceased abruptly.

Signy had not cheered, only nodded slowly each time to no one in particular, remembering the men and women aboard, names known… despising the situation they were handed. Longscan resolved itself, question answered. The surviving images that were Union kept on ru

And the next time and the next it would happen. Union could sacrifice ships. Union ships prowled the fringes of the system and they dared not go out hunting them. We’ve lost, she addressed Mazian silently. Do you know that? We’ve lost.

“Pell,” Mazian’s voice came quietly over com, “is under riot conditions. We do not know the situation there. We are faced with disorder. Hold pattern. We ca

But suddenly lights flashed on Norway’s boards; a whole sector sprang to renewed independence. Norway was loosed from comp synch. Orders flashed to the screen, comp-sent.

… secure base.

She was loosed. Africa was. Two ships, to go back and take a disordered station while the rest kept to their perimeter and room to maneuver.

She punched general com. “Di, arm and suit. We’ve got to take ourselves a berth, every trooper we’ve got on the line. Suit alterday crew to guard the docks. We’re going in after the troops we had to leave.”