Crisis Read online

  “Half of light speed? It will approach us in minutes! Match velocity! Ready an intercept!”

  Throb himself longed to be suited and jetting, but it was two lesser crewmen who drifted in space, waiting as the silvery pod approached them. It swam beneath them slowly; they dropped down to it and attached the grapple. “Haul in!”

  The winch sang, and the mile-long cable began to pull in, bringing the pod with it.

  “It is not a lifeboat,” the crewman reported. “Can it be a coffin?”

  “Perhaps; the Fleet honor their . . .”

  “Ship appears!”

  Throb spun about. On the display a spot of light moved where none had been before. “Battle stations! It cannot be a friend!”

  It was not. It approached rapidly, dot swelling to a discernible oblong. Magnification showed them a foreshortened view of ...

  “The same silhouette as the murderer of our captain! Attack!”

  “The cable will snap, Captain. We will lose the pod.”

  Throb cursed, then said, “We must wait for him–but fire as soon as he is within range.”

  Fire blossomed from the Merchantman’s nose.

  “Shields up!” Throb shrilled. “Can you crank that winch no faster?”

  “It comes at top speed, Lieutenant.”

  “So does the Merchant! Forward batteries! Fire!”

  The screen went lurid as their own shields drank up the attacker’s energy bolt. It cleared, to show the enemy adazzle as their bolt struck his defenses–but the next bolt did not strike at them, but a little to the side.

  “He shoots at the pod!” Throb screamed. “It must be of vast importance! Toward it, maximum thrust!”

  Their ship surged to the side; the screen went scarlet as Throb shielded the pod with his own ship. Then he felt a slight shudder, and a crewman shouted, “Pod aboard! Expedition recovered!”

  The sensor op howled, “Two more ships appear! They accelerate toward us!”

  “The coward has called for help!” Throb spat. “But we shall not leave without wounding him, at the least! Evasive action! All batteries fire when clear! Torpedoes away–fire one! Fire two! Fire three!”

  The ship rocked, shot forward, dived, rolled, shot on again, leaving a trail of energy bolts speeding toward the Merchantman. His screens glowed red, then orange, yellow, white ...

  A new star lit the night.

  “He is dead!” Throb crowed. “My captain, savor this first sip of the draft of vengeance!”

  “We must live to bear him a full cup,” the helmsman snapped.

  “Jump!” Throb shouted. “Set course for Barataria!”

  The whole ship seemed to turn itself inside out, then right side in. The crew sagged in their seats, the pitch of battle ebbing.

  Then Throb loosed his webbing and rose, turning toward the aft hatch. “Let us see what fish we have caught.”

  The medic stood by, hypos ready, as the mechanics cracked the seal. Air hissed into vacuum, and they lifted the top half of the pod. Motors hummed as hidden machinery began to revive the occupant.

  “A human!” Throb spat.

  “With the uniform of the Fleet,” the doctor reminded him. “He is badly wounded.”

  “Heal him then! He must talk!”

  The medic bent over the pod, striving to recall what little he knew of human medicine.

  Throb waited, the minutes dragging, cursing the slowness of revival.

  Finally, the human’s eyelids fluttered, then opened. He looked around him, frowning, not understanding ...

  Then his eyes widened in recognition, and he screamed.

  The doctor jammed the hypo bulb against the inside of his elbow and squeezed. The sedative shot into his bloodstream, and his eyes closed, returning to sleep.

  “When he wakes,” Throb hissed, “assure him he is among friends. Nay, we will even swear to return him to his own kind–for he is a survivor of the ship that fought against our captain’s enemy. And call me–I shall want to ask him questions. With warmth, with respect–but with insistence.”

  * * *

  “Globin.”

  The voice pulled him up from the depths of nonexistence; a strong grip hauled him out of the dear darkness he longed for. “The Council has need of your knowledge. You must meet with them, Globin.”

  “”Why?” he muttered through a mouth that felt as though it were made of cotton. “Why should I?”

  “For Goodheart’s sake.”

  * * *

  The lieutenants looked up, six of them, as Globin came in, ashen-faced, glary-eyed, leaning on a cane and the doctor’s arm. They were six.

  Globin made seven.

  “What need have we of this intruder?” Hemo said with a contemptuous twist of his head.

  “Well asked,” Globin croaked, glowering. “What need? Why pull me out of the death I crave?”

  Even Hemo stared, shocked.

  It was Throb, strangely, who spoke to him gently. “Our captain is dead, Globin. You must help us find the slime-sheet who slew him.”

  “To what purpose?” Globin looked up, almost indignant. “Why must I? For what?”

  “Why,” said Hemo contemptuously, “to slay them, of course.”

  “Revenge?” Globin sat bolt-still, eyes widening. “Do you speak of revenge?”

  “Of course!” Hemo spat. “Is your species so bovine that I must speak it aloud for you? Certainly, revenge!”

  And the cause burst white-hot within Globin, bringing him upright in his chair, returning a beat to his heart and heat to his blood. He would not die, but live–for revenge!

  * * *

  They told him the way of it–their signalmen had broken Sales’s code, and Throb had been wrong–the Alliance had broadcast the entire event, even as it had happened, as much of it as they had seen. Still, Throb had not believed. He had demanded Goodheart’s last known course, had saturated that sector with calls to his captain–encoded, of course, and relayed through the network of satellite repeaters that Globin had designed to prevent any Fleet ship from tracing Barataria by its emissions. Failing to receive answer, he had dredged the vector of Sales’s transmission from the signal records and filled space with calls to his captain–but there had been no answer. Even then, unsatisfied, he had taken a ship and gone to search–

  * * *

  “No answer?” Globin exclaimed. “To so much effort? How long have I been unconscious then?”

  “Two days, Globin,” Throb said softly.

  “Two days!” Globin bowed his head. “Two days I lazed in that soft darkness while my captain’s killers escaped!”

  “Two days while I wasted time proving the signal’s truth,” Throb corrected. “But I found a medical pod, with a crewman of the Fleet who had been wounded, and frozen till he could come to hospital. We could not save him, but he lived long enough to tell us the truth of what he saw. I am convinced. The captain is dead, Globin.”

  Globin bowed his head, grief upwelling again.

  “He is dead.” Then Throb hissed his indictment: “But you are alive. Globin, find me his killers.”

  * * *

  “You must come, Globin.”

  Globin didn’t even take his eyes from the display. “Leave me. I have almost determined where the captain met his ... his last enemy.”

  The crewman was silent a moment out of respect, then pressed, “I greatly dislike to intrude on so vital a moment–but if you do not come, there may be another death. Many.”

  Globin sat still, eyes on the display.

  Then, slowly, he turned. “Whose ship is at hazard?”

  “Hemo’s,” said the courier. “Come quickly, Lieutenant.”

  * * *

  Globin came into the central communications hall one pace behind the courier. He saw Throb, Serum, and the other three gathered around the main display screen, gazing up at the image of Hemo.

  “I will not!” the giant face raged. “If his killers will come anywhere, they will come here!”

&nbs
p; “The captain would not have wished . . .”

  “The captain would wish to be avenged! You cannot tell me where his slayers lie. Globin cannot tell me where they lie! Here I stay, till they come, or death does!”

  Globin stepped up behind Throb. “How has he done this?”

  Throb whirled, and there was the faintest ghost of relief in his eyes before pride masked it. But he did not say, “Thank the gods,” or “You have come!”–all he said was, “He is a captain, and one of the lieutenants. Who could say him nay if he took his own ship and sped? The captain is gone.”

  Globin could have said something about the Council, but it would have been worthless–the Khalia were fiercely independent; only their personal loyalty to Goodheart had kept them disciplined. They were feudal; the liegeman’s bond was everything. Without it, there was no cohesion.

  So Globin said none of that; he only asked, “Where is he?”

  “On a line between Khalia and the coordinates from which the captain’s death signal came.” Throb took a breath, then said, “I have persuaded, I have worked upon his fellow-feelings, his duty to his crew, to us! He will not be moved.”

  Globin nodded. “You have appealed to his emotions. You wish me to appeal to his reason.”

  “Yes, such of it as he has left! Globin, make him see his folly!”

  Globin frowned, and moved slightly to the side, into the video’s pickup field. “Why, Hemo?”

  Aboard the pirate ship Hemo saw Globin’s form behind Throb’s, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. “You ask me this, human? You, whose race slew my captain?”

  “I denounce them as cowards,” Globin said without hesitation. “Hemo, why?”

  The Khalian glared at him, then growled, “There were Merchant agents among the Khalia, were there not? And ships must have come to bring new ones among them, to contact them, to take them away for reassignment.”

  “True. But they are gone. The Merchants called all their agents back when Khalia fell.”

  “Fool!” Hemo raged. “Can you truly believe that? Can you think that the vile traitors did not leave a few of their kind, to infiltrate your own bloody Fleet and suborn whom they could?”

  Globin was still, eyes glazing in that look Hemo knew so well, the look of sudden, total concentration on an idea. He nearly spat with contempt–any warrior who let his mind wander so would die in an instant.

  Throb saw that, too. On the screen he urged, “It is nonsense, Globin. How could they hope to succeed?”

  “By deception,” the human answered slowly. “In this much, Hemo makes sense.”

  Hemo felt a surge of glee that Globin supported his idea–and hated himself for it.

  But the human was stepping closer to the camera, frowning. “Yet those who would have stayed would have been volunteers for death. They would have known that their Merchant leaders could not come to fetch them–it would be death, with the Fleet convoy around Khalia. Hemo, the idea is well founded, and we will find a way to lead the Fleet to examine their own, to discover the traitors—but the Merchants will not come again to Khalia. You waste time, you waste fuel and air. Come back.”

  “You would deter me from our only chance at revenge?” Hemo screamed. “Do not speak to me, traitor! Do not seek to weaken the resolve of a . . .”

  Off the screen an alarm hooted.

  Hemo whirled about. His sentry was pointing at the display and shrilling, “Enemies! They come!”

  “Accelerate toward them! Battle stations, all! Prepare to launch torpedoes, prepare laser cannon!” Then Hemo turned to the signalman. “Route all sensor output into the transmission link to Barataria!”

  The signalman hesitated. “The enemy will trace us by them, Lieutenant–and Barataria with us.“

  “They cannot–we have the new communications system that the Merchants cannot detect!” The signalman still hesitated, so Hemo said it though it galled him: “Globin made it! Signals, use it!”

  In Barataria the screen suddenly divided into quarters, one showing the view of space as seen from Hemo’s bridge, one showing a polar projection of the area of space comprising the enemy ships and his own, a third showing an ecliptic projection, all four ships edge-on–and the largest showing Hemo’s gloating face, spinning to grin at them. “Look and see! Will not come, will they? Wastrel, am I? Now comes revenge!” With a savage gesture he turned to howl commands. “Torpedoes, fire when we near maximum range! Battery one, fire at medium range!”

  “There are three of them,” the sentry reported.

  On the screen Globin and Throb saw the single blip of the Merchantman divide into three. The space view jumped, and jumped again, until the ships were visible across the kilometers, reflecting starlight. The view jumped again, singling out one enemy as it sheered to the side, momentarily in profile . . .

  “It is the same!” Hemo crowed. “Their silhouette, it is the same as that of the ships that slew the captain! They are Merchantmen indeed!”

  “Record,” Throb snapped to the signalman, suddenly remembering the values of propaganda.

  “Recording already, since the alarm,” the technician answered.

  “They’re surrounding him,” Globin said, voice low and tense.

  On the screen, two of the Merchantmen had shot out to the side. Disregarding them, Hemo hurtled head-on toward the central ship–and the other two pulled in behind and to either side.

  “They surround you, Hemo!” Throb shouted.

  “Battery one, fire at the nearest!” Hemo sang. “Battery two, fire to starboard!”

  Beams of ruby light stabbed out from each side of the pirate ship, to coruscate against the Merchantmen’s shields. A yellow ray lanced out from its nose, toward the central Merchant ship–yellow, to show a torpedo. But a red pencil from the central ship touched the yellow line, and fire burst where the two lines intersected.

  “Torpedo destroyed,” reported the forward fire control. “Fire two!” Hemo answered.

  Then the ruby beam from the forward ship lanced out past the explosion, to lick wildfire across Hemo’s forward screens. Scarlet rays shot out from each of the flanking ships, englobing the pirate.

  “Hemo, no!” Throb moaned. “They will overload your screens, they will roast you!”

  But the pirate ship shot to the side, then upward, and the ruby beams winked out, for fear of hitting one another. They realigned instantly, catching Hemo again–then winked out again as he moved, then began to blink as the pirate ship danced in a wild and unpredictable dervish whirl, now here, now there–and always, always, lancing back at its enemies with fire and torpedo. Golden bursts showered the enemy’s screens; lances of fire kept them glowing.

  “He will explode his reactor, he will empty his batteries!” Throb groaned. “For he cannot keep up this mad dance forever! He will empty his arsenal, he will be void of torpedoes! He must withdraw!”

  “He cannot,” Serum said simply.

  And the Merchantmen were beginning to close in. Closer and closer they came, tightening the circle in which Hemo’s ship danced, desperate and maddening. The ruby beams became shorter, shorter . . .

  But their screens glowed more brightly, for each of Herne’s bolts loaded them more heavily.

  Then, suddenly, the central Merchantman shot forward in a ramming rush. At the same moment the two side ships stabbed simultaneous lances of light.

  “Up!” Hemo barked. “Rotate!”

  The cruiser spun end for end, and the ecliptic display showed it suddenly high above the plane in which the three Merchantmen tightened their noose–

  And on the polar display, two ruby lances found each other.

  “Well done!” Throb cried. “Oh, well done! He maneuvered them so that they were in line, and knew it not! Oh, well done!”

  “How brave,” Globin whispered. “How valiant.” He felt humbled by Hemo’s daring, his contempt of death–almost, his yearning for it.

  Then scarlet spat from the remaining ship, scoring Hemo’s vessel
.

  Pandemonium broke loose, shrills and screeches as two dozen Khalians all gave the alarm at once.

  “Be still!” Hemo howled. “Batteries, fire at will! Keep him away! Damage control, what news?”

  “Tail gone,” the damage control officer snapped. “All leads and tubes blocked, and atmosphere is contained, but the rocket drive is gone.”

  “He cannot maneuver,” Throb moaned.

  On the screen Hemo’s face composed itself into a mask of determination. “We will die, then–but we will take our enemy with us if we can. Batteries, at the slightest chance–fire!”

  “He will not give them that chance,” Serum breathed.

  And it seemed the Merchantman would not. He fishtailed slowly about the disabled pirate in a long arc, always moving, never predictable, but taking his time, choosing the most vulnerable spot for his next, and final, bite. Even as he did, he spat torpedoes, compelling Hemo’s cannoneers to use up energy licking at them with their Iasers–and the Merchantman’s own cannon streaked out, heating the weakened screens white-hot, breaking through to score Hemo’s ship, to nibble at its hide.

  “Can you not help him, Globin?” Throb demanded.

  But Globin stood as though in a trance, eyes gazing far away, mind working. He knew that even though they could not receive the Merchant’s signals, there was every chance that he could hear them. After all, it was the Merchants who had given the Khalia their communications apparatus–and might already have broken Globin’s new transmission mode and deciphered his new code. They might be listening to every word the pirates said. He had to tell Hemo what to do, but in such a way that the Merchant would not understand ...

  “Hemo,” Globin snapped, “jump! Half-degree cube!”

  There was silence for a second; then Hemo shrilled, “Navigation! Jump! Half a degree, cubed!”

  Globin stared at the screen, holding his breath, while Throb demanded, “What does he mean?”