On Basilisk Station

Another missile exploded just short of the ship, and he winced as the huge fireball blossomed astern. They must be out of laser heads. That had been a standard megaton-range warhead, and that could be very, very bad news. The standard nukes weren't stand-off weapons; they had to get in much closer to inflict damage, which gave the laser clusters more time to kill them, but a near-miss from one of those monsters could wreak untold havoc.

Sweat beaded his forehead, and he wiped at it irritably. His ship was far more powerful than Harrington's. He'd reduced her cruiser to a wreck—she had to be some kind of wizard just to hold it together, much less go on shooting at him! He longed to turn on her, finish her off, and get the hell away to safety, but all the old arguments against a close-range action remained.

Or did they?

He cocked his head, eyes narrowed as he rubbed his chin in speculation. She was still on his tail, yes, but she was firing only single missiles at a time, even if she was firing at shorter intervals, and the fact that she was using standard nukes was a clear sign her forward magazines were ru

Unless . . . Unless he'd hurt her even worse than he knew? Maybe that was why she was still charging straight up his wake. Could his hits have gone in further aft than he'd thought? Been spread over a wider area and wrecked her broadside armament or fire control? It was a possibility. Perhaps even a probability, given the way her forward fire had dropped. If she hadn't lost most of her broadside firepower, then she damned well ought to be using it instead of lunging doggedly forward through his missiles like a punch-drunk fighter while he pounded her!

And if that was true, then he might—

Sirius heaved like a shipwrecked galleon.

"Yes!" Rafael Cardones screamed, and Honor felt her own heart leap as the savage boil of light erupted just off the Q-ship's starboard quarter.

"Heavy damage aft. Fourteen dead in Missile Two-Five. No contact at all with Two-Four or Two-Six. Sir, we've lost a beta node; our acceleration is dropping."

Lieutenant Commander Jamal was white-faced, his voice flat with a strained, u

The two ships raced onward, ripping at one another with thermonuclear fire, shedding debris, streaming atmosphere like trails of blood. The big freighter began to twist and writhe in ever more violent evasion as her tiny, battered foe clung stubbornly to her heels. Sirius was reduced to three-missile salvos, and Fearless was overhauling more and more quickly.

Lieutenant Montoya made himself stand back, shutting his ears to the groans and sobs about him while his sick berth attendants cut Lieutenant Webster out of his suit. He couldn't look at the mass of wounded. The hatch was locked open, and burned and broken bodies spilled out of his cramped sickbay's bunks. They were lying in the passages now, covering the decks, and more and more of them were unprotected even by the transparent tents of emergency environmental slips. His mind shuddered away from the thought of what would happen if sickbay lost pressure now, and he stepped closer to the table as Webster's suit was stripped away. One of his assistants ran a sterilizer/depilator over the lieutenant's chest while the other looked up from her monitors to meet Montoya's eyes.

"Not good, Sir. We've got at least two ribs in his left lung. It's completely collapsed, and it looks like we may have splinter damage to his heart, too."

Montoya nodded grimly and reached for a scalpel.

"All right—heave!"

Sally MacBride bent her own back to the struggle, and the seventy-ton missile floated across the passage. The overhead tractor rails were out, and the passage was open to space. Her vac-suited people grunted and strained, manhandling the ten-meter-long projectile, leaning their weight desperately against it to point it down the shaft to Missile Two's magazine. The counter-grav collars reduced its weight to zero, but they couldn't do anything about momentum and inertia.

MacBride's own feet scrabbled against the deck as she leaned back against the drag wire, hauling the nose around by pure, brute force while Horace Harkness threw himself against it from the other side, and the long, lethal shape began to pivot toward her.

Another savage concussion shook the ship, smashing the boat bay to wreckage, and the missile twisted like a malevolent beast. It broke away from its handlers, swinging like a huge, enraged tusk, and MacBride hurled herself desperately to one side.

She almost got clear. Almost. Seventy tons of mass slammed into her, crushing her right thigh and pelvis against the bulkhead like a sledgehammer on an anvil, and she shrieked her agony into her com as the missile rolled and ground against her.

Then Harkness was there. He stood on the missile, shoulders braced against the bulkhead, heels jammed hard into a recessed service panel, and his explosive grunt of strain could be heard even through MacBride's screams. Veins stood out like cables on his temples as his back straightened with a lunging, convulsive snap, forcing the floating missile off her, and the bosun fell to the deck in a broken, moaning heap.

Her work party rushed forward, bending over her, and Harkness punched and slapped them away.

"Get back on those frigging drag lines!" the petty officer snarled. "We need this bird moved!"

The ratings staggered back, clutched numbly at wires, and heaved, and Harkness himself crouched over the bosun. Her face was white, her cheekbones standing out like knobs of ivory, but her eyes were open and her teeth were locked in a rictus of agony against her screams. He pressed her med panel, flooding her system with painkillers, and she shuddered in relief while blood ran down her chin where her teeth had bitten through her lip. He patted her shoulder awkwardly.

"Corpsman to Missile Two!" he grated, and blinked away furious tears even as he hurled himself back into the battle with the missile.

Dominica Santos skidded to a halt just inside the forward reactor compartment, and her eyes widened. The damage that had cut Damage Central's links to Fusion One was appallingly evident. A jagged, meter-wide rent had been slashed through the primary control systems from a hit on the far side of the hull, ripping the compartment's inboard bulkhead like a saw-toothed knife. Only one of her power gang was still alive, and she was trapped. The woman's hands thrust weakly at the buckled frame member pi

"How bad are you hurt, Earnhardt?" Santos was already reaching for the backup computers as she spoke.

"I'm not hurt at all, damn it!" Earnhardt snapped. She sounded far more angry than afraid. "I just can't get out from under this thing!"

"Well, sit tight, and I'll do what I can in a minute," Santos said absently, her gloved fingers already feeding commands into the computers. "I've got other things on my mind right now."

"Fucking A," Earnhardt agreed hoarsely, and Santos managed a strained grin.

It vanished an instant later as scarlet damage codes flashed before her. Her face tightened. Whatever had ripped through the primary systems must have sent a power surge through the backups. Half her command files were scrambled or completely wiped.