Meanwhile, the unrelenting clusters from my Impactor shot came around and went after the Solo. His decoy dust countered, some of it igniting the bomblets. As we hurtled away, my Jag released its own cloud of decoy dust that spread behind us in a cone, leaving a wake of explosions.
Gold hit, Blackstar thought.
Gold, report, I thought.
Lost mag-shields and Annihilators, Helda answered.
I needed only one look at her display. It was lit up with alarms like a holiday decoration. Helda, get out of here. Go back to headquarters and report. Rex, cover her.
Got it, Rex thought.
Green hit, Blackstar thought.
Taas? It looked like he had taken less damage than Helda had taken.
I’m fine, he thought—and punctuated it with a hit on a drone. In one flashing detonation, it became a note in the history files.
Solo approaching to port, Blackstar warned.
I snapped my attention to the Solo. Impactor, firing pattern K. Release decoy dust.
This new Solo evaded my shot. Its pilot fired his Impactor, but instead of targeting my Jag, he aimed to my port side—and nearly hit us as my ship jumped to almost that exact position.
Damn! This pilot was good. Evasive pattern Q!
Die, sweet Jagernaut.
The thought from the Solo’s pilot hit me like a weapon. No telepath sent it, no one remotely resembling a telepath. But it formed with such single-minded intensity, I had no choice but receive it in my boosted state. It blanketed me with suffocating, choking scorn, and a lust so intense I reeled.
Die, sweet Jagernaut. Die. Slowly. In terrible pain.
The masters had come. This pilot was an Aristo warrior.
Fire Impactor! I struggled to free myself from the Aristo’s concentration. I couldn’t do it. The only way would be to disengage my brain from Blackstar, which was suicide.
The Solo veered in his evasive pattern, and I only winged his ship. Several of my Impactor clusters exploded on impact, but the Solo remained secure in stasis.
A second Solo suddenly registered on my detectors, matching velocity with my Jag as adeptly as the first. Its pilot’s “voice” came to me: Die, Jagernaut.
—I was falling, falling, falling into a cavity, a dark hole, caught, trapped—
Blocking, Blackstar thought.
I gasped as my sense of falling receded. Fire, Impac—
As I came out of stasis, the Jag bucked, ramming my shoulder into the cushioned exoskeleton. Alarms blared in the cockpit and flashed on my mindscape.
We took a hit from the first Solo, Blackstar thought. It destroyed our starboard Impactor.
Sweet Jagernaut. The thought slid across my mind like an oily caress. You’re mine.
The second Aristo him, hungering: Mine.
And then, gods almighty, a third thought penetrated: Die, little Jagernaut—and a third Solo materialized, firing out of a stealth approach even Blackstar hadn’t detected.
I shouted a desperate thought at Blackstar. Evade!
The Jag shuddered violently as alarms blared.
Hit to starboard, Blackstar thought. Annihilators no longer functional.
Fire taus, I thought.
My taus surged out of their cannon maws, jumping in and out of stasis as they streaked toward the Aristo ships. The first Solo destroyed the tau I sent after it. The second Solo took off with the tau in pursuit. My third tau found its target—and the Solo detonated in a fierce blast.
Anger from one of the first Solo pilot blasted my mind. Die, Jagernaut! In agony.
—and the second Solo jumped out of inversion, blasting the area with high energy exhaust that could demolish my Jag—
—and that second Solo exploded in a flash of radiation.
Got him! Rex thought. I’ll—
Red hit, Blackstar thought.
REX! Stats for his Jag reeled through my mind: shields down to 8 percent, hull cohesion 4 percent. His antimatter containment fields teetered on the brink of collapse.
Fury at the Aristos burst over me, cold and icy. Fire tau, I thought. Get the bastard.
But even as my last cannon discharged, the Solo that had hit Rex also fired a tau. It matched velocity with my tau, caught it—and inverted. The two missiles reappeared to starboard and detonated together, their explosion blanked from my mind as Blackstar threw me into stasis.
Drones to port, Blackstar thought—and I was fleeing two drones, their Impactor fire crossing in space where I had been a second earlier. They hit each other instead and both exploded. I was nauseous from being clapped in and out of stasis. My node was trying to compensate by spurring my traumatized brain to release endorphins, but it wasn’t enough.
Warning. Blackstar showed me a Solo accelerating toward the sun, up to relativistic speeds.
Catch it, I thought, and we leapt desperately after the Solo. I had no taus, no Annihilators, nothing. If I had to, I would ram the Jag down its—
Goldstar appeared so fast that if it hadn’t been for Blackstar, I wouldn’t have understood what happened. I knew only that the Solo exploded as if it had been slammed by an invisible cannon shooting straight at its nose. Blackstar told me the rest; Helda had read the position of the Solo straight from my mind—and jumped out of inversion directly in front of it with a precision impossible except for a ship in a Jag link. She came out at 80 percent of light speed, blasting the Solo with her exhaust, and before the Trader even finished exploding, she was gone.
It was damn near suicide. Had her calculations been off by even a few meters, she would have come out on top of the Solo, destroying herself as well as it. A miscalculation in the other direction and she would have destroyed either my ship or what little remained of Rex’s Jag.
I had time neither to curse at her for disobeying orders nor to voice my rush of gratitude. The Jag lurched sickeningly, throwing me against the inside of the exoskeleton.
Hit to starboard, Blackstar thought.
Stats told it all: that shot had nearly finished us. One more hit, and we would be no more than radiation and expanding gas.
Soz. Rex’s though came to my mind, dim but clear.
He was alive! Alive. I fought the urge to laugh, then to cry.
Suddenly Blackstar ignited the thrusters—and we leapt away from an Annihilator beam the instant before a Solo fired at us.
Lucky Jagernaut. The thought penetrated my mind, taunting, hungry, sliding like oil as the Solo hurtled away from us.
I drew in a ragged breath. It wasn’t the first time Blackstar had anticipated a shot from an enemy ship. The Traders knew our weakness, that during combat our boosted state made our minds vulnerable. They played it to the hilt, taunting, baiting, jabbing at us. But any pilot who concentrated too hard on a boosted Jagernaut, particularly one with my experience and stratospheric Kyle rating, took that chance that his link would work in reverse, too. Through it, Blackstar had picked up the Aristo’s more guarded thoughts—including his intent to fire.
Sweat dripped down my temples. Gold, get back to headquarters. You hear me, Helda? NOW. No more heroics. You may be the only one who can get in a report.
I’m gone, Helda thought.
The Traders who had fired on Blackstar were both out of range. Not that it mattered. I had nothing to shoot them with. As far as my scans could determine, those two were the last enemy ships. The drone was on intercept with Taas, and the Solo was accelerating toward the sun.
Based on its trajectory, Blackstar thought, I calculate the Solo will invert and jump back into the battle almost on top of Redstar.
Redstar. Rex’s Jag—which was drifting helplessly in space.
Intercept it, I thought. Catch that slime scum.
Blackstar threw me into stasis. Again. Again. I was sick with the lurching jumps, my mind dizzy, my throat dry. A prong clicked down from my helmet, and water ran into my mouth.
We have no weapons, Blackstar thought.
Pump our positron fuel into an Annihilator, I thought
.
The Annihilators are no longer functional.
Then dump the blasted positrons into anything that will hold them. Load it into a tau cannon.
I can use a fuel bottle. But it won’t stay together for long.
It won’t need to.
Solo inverting.
Follow it.
Then I dropped my mental blocks. I opened my mind to the Solo pilot in as if I were the drain in a barrel filled with acid. He poured into my mind like a caustic whirlpool: Pain, Jagernaut. Pain and fear and terror. Die—
We inverted, and Blackstar remained locked to the Solo through my link with its pilot. We screamed silently through imaginary space, chasing the Solo as it came around and headed to Tams.
Reinvert, I thought.
We jumped out a split second earlier then the Solo, but I couldn’t maneuver into position to use my exhaust. As the Solo reinverted, I thought, Fire that fuel bottle into the maw of its tau cannon. Then get us the hell out of here.
In the same instant that my makeshift missile plunged into the Solo’s cannon maw, the Solo fired a tau missile. My antimatter fuel bottle and its tau smashed into each other—and Solo vanished in a furious blast of radiation.
Ten drones approaching from dayside of Tams, Blackstar thought.
TEN? Gods almighty. How long until they’re within firing range?
Four minutes. Only three minutes remain until the air in Rex Blackstone’s emergency tanks will be exhausted.
I gulped in a breath. Green, report.
The drone that was chasing me stopped droning, he thought.
Taas, you have to get that EI to the rebels. You have four minutes to get down, make the drop, and get out.
Got it, Taas said.
Soz, don’t be a fool. Rex’s thought came dimly. You go in. Have Green cover you.
I nudged closer to Rex’s ship, maneuvering as carefully as my Jag could manage, until we almost touched. Release accordion, I thought. Connect to Red.
Released, Blackstar answered.
Damn it, Soz, Rex thought. Tams is more important than one aging Jagernaut. Go in with Taas. He can’t do it alone.
You should have more faith in him.
The accordion unfolded from my airlock. As it clanked onto Rex’s Jag, Blackstar thought, Air pressure in Red at zero atmosphere. I’m sealing your space suit. One point two minutes of air remain in Blackstone’s suit tanks.
Rex, get into the accordion, I thought.
I can’t move, Rex answered.
Blackstar, open Redstar. Then release me.
Done.
As the exoskeleton snapped away from my body, I squeezed out of my chair and the cockpit membrane, and literally threw myself across the cabin. Blackstar opened both the inner and outer airlock doors. I shot past them and into the accordion bridge that stretched to Rex’s Jag like a tunnel. The airlock to his Jag was wide open. I hurtled into Red—and into chaos.
Equipment floated everywhere, knocking past me. A section of the inner hull had buckled inward. Rex struggling to pull himself out of the pilot’s seat, which had gone dead, its exoskeleton jammed around his body. He grabbed my arms, and with both of us working we dragged him out. Even free of the chair, his legs trailed uselessly behind him. I tried to contact him with my suit radio, but it didn’t work.
Blackstar spoke. “Red has no more air in his suit tanks or emergency reserve.”
I could see Rex’s face through his helmet, see him gasping. He propelled himself through the ship and into the accordion like a human missile. He hurtled into the airlock of my Jag with me close behind. As Blackstar closed the outer door, Rex hit a side wall of the airlock and went limp.
“Blackstar, air.” I grabbed Rex, clawing at his spacesuit. The two of us careened out of the airlock and into the cabin, tumbling out of control.
Rex’s helmet came off in my hands. As we butted up against a bulkhead, I yanked off my own helmet. I anchored our bodies by wrapping my legs around the med cradle unfolding from the hull. Grabbing Rex’s head, I pinched his nose and breathed into his mouth, a big breath for his big lungs. Breathe in. Out. In. Out. Rex, breathe. Gods, breathe.
“The approaching drones will be within firing range in forty-five seconds,” Blackstar said.
In. Out—
Rex gasped in a huge, shuddering breath. As I let go of his nose, his eyes opened and he looked up at me, his face pale in the cold light of the cabin.
“Take care of Rex.” Even as I spoke, the medcradle was enveloping him in its embrace.
“Thirty-two seconds until drones are within range,” Blackstar said. “They have a lock on us.”
I dove into the cockpit and yanked myself into the pilot’s seat. The instant I plugged into the ship, I blasted out a thought: Taas pull out. Now!
No answer.
Drones firing, Blackstar thought.
Acceleration slammed me back—
Gasping, I reeled with the aftershock of having been in stasis for too long. Fixing the quantum state of a human being for that much time could be disastrous; when it relaxed, it had to respond to the forces in its surroundings. If they had changed too much, catastrophic fluctuations of the readjusting system could tear a person apart on the atomic level. My molecules managed to stay together, but I felt like hell. My vision was so bleared, I couldn’t read my controls, but the mindscape told me what I needed to know; Blackstar had jumped into inversion in one step, keeping us in stasis the entire time.
Greenstar, report, I thought. Taas?
No answer.
I can’t get a fix on Green, Blackstar thought.
Gold?
Nothing there, either, Blackstar answered.
No! Neither Helda nor Taas would willingly drop out of the link. Helda might have landed, but given the damage to her ship, it was more likely it had collapsed.
How is Rex? I asked.
His life functions are ceasing.
Help him!
He needs more help than I can provide.
NO! Had I succeeded in doing nothing with this desperation run except kill my squad? Not after all we had been through together. I couldn’t bear it.
Blackstar, put us back into stasis. For Rex, neither time dilation nor any other relativistic effect made one whit of difference. It mattered only how long he was trapped here on the Jag. Don’t bring us out until we get to a hospital than can save him.
Neither you nor Commander Blackstone may survive another—
Does he have any chance of surviving if you don’t put him in stasis?
No. But you do.
Put us in stasis. Then break every transit-time record ever made getting to the hospital.
VII
Aftermath
I threw up when we came out of stasis.
Sterilizers in my spacesuit whirred, cleaning the mess. We hurtled into the Dieshan system, plowing through its layers of security by blasting out my clearances. I brought the Jag down on the hospital roof in the middle of the night in a glare of flood lamps. Rex lay in the medcradle, its huge arms buffering him while intravenous threads trailed into his limbs through sockets in his space suit.
As I opened the airlock, people ran across the roof. Within seconds they were loading Rex into an air-stretcher. I went with them, jogging by the stretcher while doctors tried to take readings on me.
It all happened too fast. We were running down a white corridor toward Surgery; then I was in a circular room with white walls, surrounded by meds in white uniforms. One tried to take me into another room. When he wouldn’t let go, I rolled him over my hip, and he hit the ground with a resounding thump, his hospital jumpsuit ripping along the seams. Three other meds, two women and a man, grabbed my arms. The one I had thrown climbed to his feet, and a third medwoman tried to press an air syringe against my arm.
“Stop it,” I yanked my arm away from her syringe. I had to know what happened to Rex.
“Primary Valdoria, please.” The woman with the syringe brushed disarrayed grey
curls out of her eyes. “You need medical atten—”
“Put that damned syringe down,” I said. “Or I’ll have you thrown into prison for attacking an Imperial heir.”
The woman blanched and lowered her arm. But that was as far as she relented. When the other meds tried taking me to a chair, I swore at them.
“Sit,” the syringe-wielding woman told me. “Relax.”
Was she crazy? Rex was dying and this madwoman wanted me to relax? I tried to twist away from the meds, but they kept hold of me.
“Soz.” A hand came down heavy on my shoulder.
I turned in the grip of the meds and looked up.
Helda.
I closed my eyes, then opened them again. Saints above and almighty. I hadn’t killed them all.
“Did you report?” I asked. I wanted to shed tears, but I couldn’t do that in front of these people.
“Ya.” She hesitated. “Taas?”
“He didn’t respond when I told him to pull out.”
“Damn.” She exhaled. “I am sorry.”
Softly I said, “So am I.” Sorry didn’t begin to say it.
Helda indicated a curving white sofa against the curving white wall. “You wait with me?”
I nodded, and jerked my arms away from the meds, who finally let go, apparently trusting Helda to keep me from disturbing the peace. So she and I sat on the sofa.
Then we waited.
And waited.
We sat for eight hours. Someone asked if I wanted to watch Rex’s operations on a holoscreen. I said no. I didn’t think I could bear it. Later someone asked me questions, taking my report. Then they went away. During all those long hours I kept reliving the battle, the moments when I gave Taas his orders, Helda hers. Or Rex. I kept thinking of other scenarios, other commands I could have issued that might have changed the way it ended, given them and Tams a chance to live.