Tripoint, page 34
part #6 of Company Wars Series
"Shit…"
"No, now, listen, Tom. You listen. I got to drop us in solid at Tripoint, if I can fake him once. Use our mass to throw him, here. In one scenario, I won't throw him far enough and he'll be in our laps. In the one I want, we'll buy that time we need to dump mass. Depends on if Patrick reads my intention to drop us out, and if Patrick-bastard knows to a navigational precision just where that supply dump is. I do. "
Shook his head. "Can't do. " Didn't like what he was hearing. Didn't know you could control anything in hyperspace… he knew there were things you could do right at the edge of jump or drop, but… this… God…
"Bet our lives I can. Have to. Patrick's out there. And I can't wake Austin up to tell him how things in the universe have changed, you read me, Tommy-person? You got to read me, Tommy, pay attention."
"I hear."
"You got to tell Austin it's no doublecross. He doesn't trust me. And this time he's got to. This old hulk sits in the dark out there, you follow me? And it's got stuff inside for us to take and it's got loading racks we can offput stuff to, real fast."
"That's what those cans were, at Viking."
"Old, old cans, from the War. Salvage, legitimate salvage, if it didn't come from the Fleet. And ordinarily another ship comes to this old hulk and gets the cans we leave in trade, and takes our cans to somewhere else. But this isn't ordinary. Patrick's not our breed. You want to say Mazianni, Patrick's Mazianni, no question, not Fleet, Tommy. Not our friend. He's a damn pirate, he'll have found our old hulk before we're done, he's armed a helluva lot heavier than he looks, and there's one way out of this thing—put a certain key in that old wreck and give it the right code and she'll let you aboard and credit your offload. Give her another one and she remembers things she's otherwise forgot. Got to have that card in the slot and that message input, Tommy. If Patrick comes at us, and he will, got to have that message input. Then that old hulk's our friend. Then she'll give us authorizations we got to have, bottom line, got to have to survive. There's a port we can go to, trust me on this."
What other port? he asked himself. Out of Tripoint there was Mariner, or Viking, cheapest vector out, or there was Pell, priciest, fuel-wise.
But he was following most of it. At least… the cargo part. The mass they had to get rid of before they came in at Viking velocity-high and fuel-short, aimed at the sun.
And he believed there was something out there dogging them in hyperspace: he felt something he couldn't explain.
But moral argument and promises of deliverance from a person he didn't half trust himself? Not so easy.
He felt Capella straighten his collar.
"Tommy-person. If I say on com, we got to move, we got to move. Tell Austin—if I was against him—I'd have switched keys on him. You know I could've, if he doesn't. I can open any door on this ship, pick any pocket right now. He's got that key I'm talking about. I'll give him the code that answers that son of a bitch out there, the way I said. If everything goes wrong—he's got to use it. Tell him so. Understand?"
"Chance this Patrick does know… where we're going?"
"We see in the dark, lover. But not that well. Even figuring that old hulk's on the Pell reach and the Tripoint perimeter… that's a lot of space to search, for a quiet object. No. Odds are absolutely on him not knowing, especially the way he's riding us. He doesn't want to lose track of us. And if he's any appreciable distance past us, hard-ordnance is impossible for him. Not impossible for us. We'll fire right down his tail. That's what I'll try to do, position us where we got that chance. But Austin's going to come out with everything screwed. Cargo screwed. Extra ship in the soup. Man's going to be real damn mad at me."
"Not your fault."
"Yeah. But, you got to understand, I'm on real short credit with him."
"Don't understand."
"Since Chrissy's stunt at Pell? Both of us are on Austin's shit-list. I want you to know this one more detail: this little card Austin's got? Austin's got to offload that mass, that's one, because we're loaded, and Patrick isn't; and he's got to feed the old wreck that keycard real fast, close as I'm dropping us. Austin doesn't know that. It's not a detail he's ever needed to know. Keeps the suppliers honest, you understand. Now he has to know. That key-card gets the hold to open, in the lock slot. But in the cargo console slot, with the right code, that old wreck can write to that key-card—and he's got to get me that authorization, he's got to use that codeword before we get out of here. But if happens he doesn't believe me—Tommy, if he won't input or if he takes me off that nav board, we are screwed. I've got to be on the bridge. Beatrice has got to take the next figures I give her. If the captain orders me off the bridge, I tell you, I'm locking-down the navigation computers."
"You can't do that!"
"Oh, I can do it, Tommy, I can do it, and Bianco can probably crack my lock, given an hour or so. But Patrick'll blow us to hell first. Austin will figure that part with no prompt at all."
"God, you're crazy."
"I've been accused of that. But you watch me not talk, Tommy-sweet. Austin can ask me, pretty please. Austin can do what I say. " A hand brushed his forehead. "I just want somebody but me to know, if it happens. But, listen, if Austin's the man I think he is, he'll deliver that damn cargo. That card's his proof. His credit with the Fleet. Call it old-fashioned honor. I think they still use that word. He'll fight to keep it."
"How?" Consciousness came up for a moment. He saw her shadow against the running colors, solid mass, when nothing else was. Voices rang and echoed. Time might have passed. "I don't understand how you can do this. How. Drop us. Anywhere."
"Not much else you can control in this space, lover, just the power you can throw into the interface. Or dump off. Yeah, there's things I can do. Patrick-bastard's trying to hang back on me, not using the power he's got. It's an old trick, ride our wave and try to drop in behind us. He'd like to haul me down, but it's dangerous as hell, and say he can't do it without a gravity slope, so we're safe for the while. Besides, he knows I got to dump down anyway—and I know where and he doesn't. So when we hit the Tripoint slope, he'll expect I'll bobble the field and feint a drop. Wrong. I'll drop us for real, right out from under him. So if he doesn't read my mind, he's potentiating elsewhere. Same event-packet. Puts us time-wise near simultaneous, position-wise as far separate as I can fake him, the gods of physics know where: the variables are hell, and one of 'em's Patrick. Wish I knew if that ghosty freighter's an echo. If it's real, she'll come down, too. Just don't know where."
He was following it. Didn't want to, but he was—at least the part that said they were riding close with ships on entry.
Military stuff.
They didn't have to be boarded. Their own navigator was the breed an honest merchanter was most afraid of.
"Tommy-love, last warning, if Austin balks—h-a-v-o-c is the code he has to input to get us that authorization I need. Key-card in the cargo console slot while you input. Two should know that, down there. Tell him, if he asks, that Capella's not betrayed him. " Mouth covered his. Hand went down his side. Gentle touch. "You're such an honest lad, Tommy-person. And there are so few. Go below when they ask for help. Saby'll take you. They'll need every hand they've got down in cargo and they damn sure won't want you up where the computers are. Remember what I've said."
"Huh?"
"Saby can get you down to cargo. I want you there. You just insist. G'night, lover. See you. See you otherside. " Lips touched his again, passionately, deeply, gently. "Sweet, sweet dreams, Tommy."
Trank was worn thin. Didn't know long he'd waked, over all. Not long. Not often. Now he couldn't get his equilibrium. Couldn't rest, either, after the shadow was gone.
He lay there with sounds running through his brain, in the shifting chaos. Shutting the eyes didn't stop it. Colors kept going off, flashes, like pressure against the eyes. Thoughts kept going, turning back on each other, and he wanted to believe. Wanted to believe his night-walker was telling, however selectively, the truth.
Didn't know if it was scrambled logic, or if what you heard when the brain was flashing colors and rumbling with thunder that wasn't sound… had to stick in your head, and you couldn't discriminate what was lies.
Distances go down a tunnel, don't they?
Remember what I've said…
—iii—
SHIP DROPPED. LONG, long sequence. Body ached.
The whole of space seemed to bend.
Supposed to be a hard one, it was all right, it was supposed to be this way.
Then… he began to think it wasn't going right, that the ship was in trouble.
Something boomed through the hull. Vibration began—that experience didn't explain. He grabbed at Saby's hand, felt Saby's fingers bend around his.
He tried to keep his breaths deep and even. Dreams ran and melted color across his vision. Memories of sound. Memories of a lingering, deeply erotic kiss, a touch running over his skin.
Boom. Thump. His pulse pounded
A moment of profound hush, the air gone numb.
Hydraulics worked, somewhere in the frame. Wasn't cargo. Couldn't figure…
Third loud boom. He'd never heard a ship sound like that on entry.
"We are here. " A calm voice on com. Beatrice's, he thought, comforted by that icy competence. "Stay belted. We are in docking approach. Essential movement only. "
It didn't seem real. "Can't," he muttered, thinking he must have passed out a while, lost some hours of time. "Docking? We can't be, this soon."
"We hit real close to the target," Saby murmured. "Pella's good. She always does this one. " Her hand moved. He turned his head, making the whole universe seem to tilt. Saby had found the nutri-packs, he thought. He heard the rustling, reached to help her.
Pilot couldn't be better off. Trying to dock. The shakes crawling up a body's gut respected no occupation and no emergency, while Capella…
Dropping a ship straight into docking approach—couldn't do that, damn crazy woman… at Tripoint, no less, triple, unstable mass…
Computer lockdown.
Bloody hell…
Fingers were numb, on the seal of the packet Saby gave him.
Boom. Again.
Hands shook. "What is that?" he asked.
"That's us firing. " Saby's voice was faint. Scared-sounding. "We fired once as we came out. Inertial-mass ordnance goes a major fraction of light, then. Whoever we're shooting at… for him to fire upslope, 's too far for his missiles, even internal propulsions. He's got to hope we run into it. Seen this before, thanks. Don't like it."
Patrick, Capella had said—when had she said?—This Patrick, navigator. Like her. Another one that saw in the dark. Saw them—the way he'd seen—
Once you, you know, become aware…
Colors running. Sound coming at them… weaving back and forth, through bone and brain…
Another volley.
Couldn't get the damn 'pack tube free. Hands trembled. Saby was beside him, trying to get herself collected. They were lying in a nest of spent nutri-packs.
Gets cold. Gets lonely. Tommy-love.
—iv—
NOTE ON THE PRESSURE-SLATE: propped up and braced against Austin's number one monitor, in an all-too-familiar hand: I got us here. Spook rode us all the way, entrained a third ship of some kind, likely a light-armed freighter. Check screen. Sorry—Viking try was screwed, mass far exceeding brake with spook and freighter in packet.
FYI: hulk is heavy armed and will fire if we don't provide keycard in airlock slot as usual within one hour from our crossing her perimeter, with firing in system. Always true. Now you need to know. If, arriving in her perimeter, we move any direction but toward her—she is not our friend. Maneuver or delay of approach not advisable. Patrick wants the key-card. May try to cripple, not kill. Respectfully, sir, suggest you not bet the ship on it. PS. You want Patrick's ass, you put card in the wreck's cargo console slot, input code HAVOC. Absolute necessity you do this or we don't leave. Meanwhile will lay course for next point. Must offload all cargo mass to reach. Safe port—distance 7 lights. Capella.
"Bloody hell!"
He shot a look toward Capella's station. Capella's back was turned. The second chief navigator was busy. Austin took a swallow, forced it down, stared at the nav screen that came up on his second monitor, first-formed data.
There wasn't any port out of Tripoint that lay at seven lights. Not Pell. Not Viking. Loaded, they couldn't do it. Unloaded, even, it was a stretch for Corinthian.
And where, for God's sake? What dark spot in the universe was the woman calc'ing jump for?
Meanwhile the ship was trimming up, under Beatrice's hands, with increasing jolts of the attitude jets.
Hard jolt. Stomach heaved. He grabbed another nutri-pack from the clip, ripped the tube out, sucked down a mouthful of copper-tasting fluid as navigation data arrived suddenly on his screen, first re-make since the drop.
Never got used to notes turning up out of the dark.
Didn't like unscheduled problems arriving out of it, either.
Three ships. Corinthian, near the Object, all right, and inbound. At distance, about 2 seconds light beyond them on their vector, Silver Dream, and at 1 second's remove—
Sprite.
Shit. —Shit!
"Michaels!"
"Sir."
"That's Sprite. "
"Just saw that. Dropped in front of us. Fifteen hour climb for their missiles. We're still all right. "
A safe port, seven lights fucking distant? Off into the dark, to some Fleet refuge their navigator kept secret until now? A place no Union or Alliance optics had ever just happened to find, when optics had made a thorough scan of the edges of space?
"Nav. Why not Viking next?"
"Wouldn't risk it, sir, if that freighter survives. "
"Nerves, nav. Plot Viking, as an in-case."
"Yes, sir. But if that freighter gets out of here, they'll report. They got a good position to see where we're working. Our cargo-site… is blown, less they and Patrick both go to hell. And, sir, the Fleet said when they sent me… there's a place you could go. I need that little card validated, captain-sir, and I can take you there, safe and sure. But I got to have the card. So does Patrick. "
Give the bastard the card, was the thought in his mind. Second chief's refuge at seven lights could just as well be a trap. Crew taken. Ship confiscated for military refit. Rumor held it still happened.
And Capella wanted to take them off into the dark, getting them clear of this faction of the Fleet, while the other faction, Capella's faction, was going to reward them with some damn secret port for protecting a key-card to a hulk that, if they got out of this, a freighter now knew for what it was?
Dammittobloodyhell…
Not a chance, not a damn chance he'd heard all the truth from the second chief yet.
And the Hawkins ship?
Firing was still going on, periodic boom as ordnance left Corinthian.
Corinthian had fired at Silver Dream initially from a high-energy point. Inertial-mass cannon-balls or self-propelled nukes were equally deadly at that v. And they'd sent—were still sending, at intervals—swarms of inerts after that ship. Hindmost had the advantage in that regard.
Their inerts might equally well hit Sprite. The freighter had shed all relative v, and they were close enough to be in danger—he hadn't seen the fire-path calc'ed, but both Sprite and Silver Dream had dropped late, beyond them.
Silver Dream had likewise dumped hard, then spent time on an instant evasive maneuver, expecting those inerts to be traveling up their backside, no question: the ship was a survivor, to be this old in the game. Two seconds off from their informational wavefront. Patrick knew where they were, no question.
But even powered missiles weren't an option for Patrick to use, not from a retreating vector at two light-seconds remove—a single light-second or so past its target was worse luck for a starship than a light-hour: Silver Dream's stardrive couldn't jump short enough to close the gap, Patrick's launch platform was negative v relative to his target, and Patrick's only choice now was a hard realspace run up to meaningful speed, with Corinthian ordnance coming right down his path.
He had to reposition for his run in.
Meanwhile a noisy damn Hawkins freighter was flooding its stupid Sprite-Sprite-Sprite ID out into the EM ambient because Sprite didn't have a damn cut-off.
And Sprite, carrying a Pell-origin drift?
God, it was surreal. What wasn't Sprite hauling, that it could have reached Pell and all but over-jumped them coming back toward Viking again, until their collective mass snagged it into system-drop with them? Low-mass cargo for sure.
Marie Hawkins' hate? Marie Hawkins' obsession?
He blinked, swallowed another metallic mouthful of liquid and a shudder raced through his gut, maybe the nutrient, maybe the realization of a ship full of fools and a handful of genuine innocents sitting out there noisier than very hell, at a single degree of separation from their position relative to the spook, the spook maneuvering to bear down on them and consequently on Sprite as fast as Patrick could get here, God help the woman, and God help her whole ship.
Sprite was a registered ID, on the ship-lists. The spook could check her out in the flick of a key. Silver Dream could, maybe, if Marie was lucky, decide that Sprite was a legitimate freighter, just happening in, by some cosmic luck, and ignore it, like a good, quiet spook.
Or the spook could figure it was Corinthian faking ID, or that it was something else faking ID, and factor them into its targeting decisions.
Ordnance from Corinthian should go right past Sprite, out into the dark. The numbers showing now were a miss by an absolute hair. Inerts or not, Sprite sensors should pick some thing up when that volley went past their bows. And Silver Dream might not be sure which ship it came from.
Figure it, Mischa Hawkins. Figure we're not firing at you. Read the ambient. Look out at the dark, you damn fool, just once in your life, look out there and ask yourself the right question.
