“No kidding.” The clang of a fist hitting metal came from the direction of Mac’s voice. “Hello!” he shouted. “Is anyone there? Can you hear us?”
Del walked forward, holding his hands in front of him, striving for calm despite his racing pulse. His palms hit a bulkhead and he felt his way along it. When he reached what he thought was the place where their food came, he scraped the surface, dug at it, pounded, but nothing worked.
“Come on,” he muttered. The siren kept screaming. Del hit the bulkhead with his fist. “Let us out!” he yelled. He kept waiting for a new siren to add its voice to the clamor, the warning that the hull had been breached, the whoosh of air rushing out of the cargo bay out into space—along with him and Mac.
“I can’t hear a blasted thing over that alarm,” Mac said.
For lack of a better idea, Del shouted in Highton. “Ship, answer! What is the emergency?”
A booming metallic voice spoke. “This ship is under attack. Proceed to the lifeboats.”
“We can’t proceed,” Del said, startled that it had actually answered. “We’re locked in here.”
“You are prisoners.”
“Yeah, well, we’re going to be dead prisoners pretty soon.”
“Entrance opened,” the ship said.
The wall glowed as a hatchway appeared nearby. It wasn’t rectangular or oval, like on Earth ships, but an elongated octagon. Harsh light slanted into the cargo bay. Squinting, Del held up his hand to protect his dark-adapted eyes.
“Come on.” Mac grabbed his arm. “Let’s go.”
They ran through the hatchway and into an octagonal-shaped corridor with bulkheads like burnished white gold. Glowing blue rails ran along them at waist height. At regular intervals, red tiles flashed in the walls, pulsating with the vibration of the siren.
“Do you recognize any of this?” Mac asked as they ran, shielding their eyes. “Is it like Tarex’s yacht?”
“Not at all. It’s bigger, a rotation ship maybe.” Del pointed ahead, where the deck sloped upward until the disappeared behind the curved ceiling. “I think we’re in the wheel.”
“It looks military to me,” Mac said. “Definitely not Allied.”
The ship’s metallic voice spoke. “You will find shuttles in bay six on this level.” The blue rail on the wall turned emerald. “Follow the green pointers.”
Del kept running. “I haven’t seen a single crew member.”
“My guess?” Mac said. “This entire ship is being run by the five people who took us.”
“That’s nuts. They wouldn’t jeopardize the mission with such a small crew.”
“It was probably that or nothing.” Mac was breathing hard. “If this is ESComm, it must have taken years, decades even, to infiltrate Allied Space Command with agents high enough to position themselves on your guard detail. That could make this a desperation move, the hope that they can succeed in kidnapping you even without a full crew.”
Del continued to run, though he held back his full speed so Mac could keep up. “This ship could stop us.”
“Right now, I’d bet its priority is getting you out of here alive and still a prisoner.”
“And we’re helping it,” Del muttered. His eyes had recovered enough that he could see the hall without squinting. The ceiling looked exactly like the deck, with gold and silver panels. If the ship stopped rotating, the “gravity” would cease and bottom could just as well be top.
They reached an intersection where corridors branched off right and left, up and down. The green rail curved into a shaft above them like a glowing emerald pathway.
“Ship!” Del said in Highton. “Can you give us a ladder?”
The chute above them whirred, and a ladder slid down from its rim until it clanged the deck at Del’s feet. He climbed upward with Mac right behind him. At the top, they clambered out into a docking bay filled with small, gleaming ships, silver and blue, each with a black puma emblazoned on its hull.
“Gorgeous,” Del said as they jogged across the bay. He spoke to Mac in English. “You were in the Air Force before you retired, right? Can you fly one of these?”
“I’ve no idea.” Mac slowed down as they ran into the midst of ships. “These aren’t lifeboats. Some look like single-pilot reconnaissance craft.” He paused by a sleek beauty. “This is a racer. It’s meant to go fast.” He ran his hand over the hull. “I don’t see a way inside, though.”
Del spoke in Highton. “Ship! We need to board this craft.”
“You may board,” the ship said. A molecular airlock shimmered in the racer’s hull and vanished, revealing an interior crammed with equipment and seats for a pilot, co-pilot, and two passengers. “I’m coding your travel route into the racer’s AI.”
Del swore under his breath. Although an AI wasn’t as smart as an EI, it could easily take him and Mac to wherever the Traders wanted.
“We can pilot the racer,” Del told the mothership.
“That is unacceptable,” the ship answered.
Sirens continued to blare, and somewhere a clanging vibrated through the ship. Mac paused in the hatchway. “If a battle is going on out there, we may have a rough ride.”
“We won’t have any options,” Del said. “The mothership is locking us out of the racer’s controls.”
“If we stay here,” Mac said, “we could be killed by whoever is attacking this ship.”
“Maybe they’ve come for us,” Del said. If they launched into space, they might wrest control away from the racer AI. Then they could go where they wanted, assuming no one shot them down. But if they couldn’t control of the racer, it would take them away, either saving their lives or stealing them out from under the noses of their rescuers.
“We don’t know who is attacking,” Mac said. “Allieds? ESComm? ISC?”
“If someone has come to rescue us,” Del said, “we can meet up with them better if we’re in the racer than if we’re running around this ship.”
“Not if the racer won’t let us communicate with them. They might blow us up.”
“They might blow up this entire mothership!”
Mac clenched the side of the hatchway. “If they came to rescue us, they won’t do that.”
“Then they wouldn’t blow up a racer, either,” Del said. “If this really is a Eubian ship, it would rather kill us than let us be rescued. It’s that gruesome death-before-capture Trader thing.”
Mac smacked his palm against the hull. “I wish that damn alarm would stop screaming! It’s impossible to think straight.”
“What the hell,” Del said. “Let’s go! We’ll take our chances.”
“Deal.” Mac strode into the racer and Del jumped up after him. The moment he was onboard, the airlock reformed behind him, solidifying into the double-layered hull.
The racer spoke, sounding less metallic than the mothership. “Seat yourselves in the pilot and co-pilot’s chair. I will activate your exoskeletons.”
Del dropped into the co-pilot’s seat. He wasn’t sure he wanted his “exoskeleton” activated, whatever that meant, but he understood too little about star ships to know whether or not he needed it. His chair whirred and a cage folded around his body, enclosing him in a flexible network of struts, equipment, and virtual reality gear. A heads-up display lowered over his head, flooding him with data. He shoved it back so he could see the cockpit. Three-dimensional glyphs formed in the air, along with star maps and confusing displays of graphs and machine parts. One panel glowed with what looked like a weapons manifest.
“Uh, Mac,” he said. “This is military.”
Mac was studying the panels around his seat. “It’s fast. That’s what we need.”
“Yeah, fast and armed. It’s a freaking warship.”
“That, too.” Mac was toggling panels on the pilot’s controls, running through displays. “It’s been two decades since I’ve flown a fighter. Back then, we had even less data about ESComm space craft than we do now, and what little we knew then doesn’t match w
hat I’m seeing here.”
“Can you fly this thing?”
“I can’t even get into the nav system. Look at that!” Mac pointed to a display of stars and numbers evolving in the air. “The AI is plotting our course. I can’t make it stop.”
The hum of engines rumbled through the craft, while lights pulsed in green, red, gold and blue. Mac swung his seat around to Del, ensconced in his exoskeleton like a fighter pilot. “If that’s your people out there, they would have brought Jag fighters, yes?”
“Hell, yeah.” Even with as little familiarity as Del had with the military, he knew Jag squads were the most effective units for in-close military operations. He ought to know. Four of his siblings had been fighter pilots: his sister Soz, his brother Kelric, his brother Althor, and his half brother Kurj, his namesake.
“Jagernauts are all telepaths, right?” Mac asked. “With their abilities enhanced by neural implants and links to their ships.”
“I’m not supposed to tell you anything about that,” Del said.
Clangs came from outside as the racer slid along its launch rail.
“Del, listen,” Mac said. “When we’re out of the mothership, nothing solid will be blocking your mind except the racer’s hull. I want you to drop your mental barriers and blast this area with a message. If any telepaths are out there, you might reach them.”
“I might,” Del said. “But the chances aren’t great. The electromagnetic fields of our brains fall off as the Coulomb force. That means that within a few meters of wherever we are, our reception of other people’s minds goes essentially to zero.”
“For normal people, yes. But don’t other telepaths have a better chance of picking you up? Especially Jagernauts, with all that augmentation you’re not supposed to talk about.”
Mac had a point. “They might.”
“Prepare for launch,” the racer said. Its front screens activated, showing the docking bay. The bay doors opened like mammoth jigsaw puzzle pieces pulling apart and a rumble shook through the ship. With a jerk that shoved Del back in his seat, the racer surged forward, hurtling along its rail. As the g-forces increased, the exoskeleton compensated, cushioning Del’s body. In a roar of engines, the racer shot past the bay doors and into space.
They hurtled out of a huge ship, a wheel rotating around a hub. Projections covered its hull, weapons ports and other structures Del didn’t recognize.
They were in the midst of a battle.
Small ships were firing on the wheel, gold and black vessels that darted around it, making up in speed what they lacked in size. Among them, deadliest of all, were four single-pilot fighters that glowed like alabaster. Jags. Smart missiles raced through space and beams flared. An incandescent explosion silently burst on the wheel and sent debris hurtling out into space.
“Those are Skolian ships attacking the wheel!” Del said.
Mac nodded, intent on his controls. “See if you can reach them.”
Del closed his eyes and tried to lower his barriers. He had spent so much of his life making sure his defenses protected him, blocking the onslaught of emotions from other people, that it was difficult to let go. His adrenaline-pushed agitation made it hard to focus.
Calm, he thought. Stay calm. His shields began to fade. He felt vulnerable, exposed to attack, but he kept working. When his shields were all the way down, he “shouted,” This is Prince Del-Kurj! We’re in ESComm racer QT8. Don’t fire on us! Mac Tyler and I are prisoners in the racer. We have no nav control. Don’t shoot! He repeated it message over and over again, imagining his thoughts projected in all directions.
After what felt like an eternity, Mac said, “Are you getting anything?”
Del opened his eyes. The forward screens showed them racing away from the battle. According to a display on his armrest, only one minute had passed since he started.
“I sent a message,” he said. “I’ve no idea if anyone caught it.”
“Try again,” Mac said.
“Okay.” Marshalling his strength, he shouted: This is Del-Kurj. We’re prisoners in racer QT8. If you’re out there, if you pick this up, you have to stop the racer.
A woman’s voice burst into the cockpit, speaking Skolian Flag. “Racer QT8, this is Secondary Panquai, captain of ISC Blackhawk Squadron. We are receiving you. Good work! We can pick you up more easily out here. I’ll dock with your ship and tow you in.”
The racer spoke. “Onboard communication systems breached.”
Del grinned. “You bet.”
“Do not respond to Blackhawk,” the racer told him.
Mac was touching different panels, trying something, Del didn’t know what, but he would have bet his next royalty payment it was the ship-to-ship comm. Sure enough, the lights on the comm panel suddenly flared green.
“This is Mac Tyler,” he said. “Panquai, can you read me?”
“We’re receiving,” Panquai answered. “Is Prince Del-Kurj with you?”
“I’m right here,” Del said.
“Your racer is preparing to fire on us,” she told him. “It’s also preparing to invert.”
Damn! One racer couldn’t outgun a full Jag squad, but if it inverted out of normal space into superluminal space, the Jags would never catch it. The screens showed them arrowing away from the wheel ship accompanied by four Jag starfighters. Two ESComm ships were in pursuit, drones probably if Mac was right that the wheel ship had almost no crew. They couldn’t keep up with the racer or the Jags.
“Panquai, what do you want us to do?” Mac asked.
“We’re trying to break into the nav-attack system,” she said. “It’s too damn well protected.”
Mac spoke in heavily accented Highton. “Racer, release nav and weapons.”
“Negative,” the racer responded. “If the Jags try to gain control of me, I will fire on them.”
“You not have chance against Jag squad,” Mac said. “You know this.”
“I calculate a two percent probability that I can defeat them,” the racer said. “I calculate a eighty-six percent probability that Prince Del-Kurj and yourself would be killed in such an engagement. I have informed Blackhawk Squadron that I am prepared to fight, and that if they damage my systems, I will detonate myself and kill you both.”
“For flaming sake!” Del said. “Don’t do that.”
A woman’s thought came into Del’s mind. Prince Del-Kurj, this is Secondary Panquai. Can you receive me?
Del jerked at the unexpectedly clear message. He had never interacted with a telepath while their abilities were being enhanced by the neural technology of a Jag starfighter.
Yes, he thought. I’m receiving you.
We’re going to try something, she thought. I want you to envision, in your mind, the displays all around you. Let me see them.
Del focused on the panels, creating pictures in his mind. Is it coming through?
It’s blurred. Can you project more clearly?
Del added more details to his mental picture. How’s that?
Better, she said. My mind is converting the pictures into data my Jag can download. Anything you see, no matter how small, might help. We don’t have much time; your racer will invert within minutes.
Do you want me to look at the pilot’s controls, too?
If you can. But yours should duplicate his.
Del concentrated harder, forming images of the controls in his mind. Mac watched him, staying silent; probably he knew Del was in a link with the Jagernaut.
Good! Panquai suddenly thought. We have enough. Now open the nav-attack console and do the same for its interior circuitry. The AI will try to stop you, but it’s easier to confuse than an EI. Distract it.
Del glanced at Mac. “Can you open the weapons and navigation panels?”
“Open it, yes. But I can’t transfer control from the ship to you. We’re locked out.”
“That’s okay,” Del said. “Just bother the AI as much as you can.”
As Mac unfastened a panel from his controls,
the racer said, “Stop doing that.”
“We play hopscotch,” Mac answered.
Prince Del-Kurj, get as much as you can as fast as you can, Panquai thought.
“No you aren’t playing hopscotch,” the racer told Mac. “Replace that panel.”
Del focused on the silvery circuits that Mac had uncovered. He knew nothing about the tech, and he wasn’t sure his image was accurate, but he supplied as many details as he could.
“You see, this is problem,” Mac told the racer in stilted Highton. “This panel, I not wish to replace. Your refusing to give us ship defies the Jabberwocky and Mad Hatter. If you fall down a rabbit hole, you are really in a mole hole, which is maybe a black hole, which means you are trapped forever and elongated infinitely.”
“That makes no sense,” the racer said. “You’re mixing references to children’s stories from the culture of Earth with theoretical astrophysics in a clumsy attempt to confuse me.”
“Am I?” Mac said. “To me, military context is obvious.”
“The Mad Hatter has a military context?”
“Well, obviously,” Mac said. “Why think you he is mad?”
“There is no military context!” the racer said. “Cease your actions or I will flood the cockpit with sleeping gas.”
“You won’t,” Mac said. “You want no harm for either of us, especially not Prince Del-Kurj.”
“Gas released,” the racer said.
“Shit,” Del muttered. Panquai, the racer is gassing us. I don’t know if I’m allergic.
We’re getting close, she thought. Hang in there. Send images for as long as you can.
Del struggled to concentrate. That little white conduit, maybe that was important. The symbols there, he didn’t recognize what they meant, but Panquai might. The gas continued to hiss, until he sagged back in his seat, dizzy and nauseous. Panquai . . . can’t keep my eyes open . . .
It’s all right, Panquai said. Hang on!
“Preparing to invert,” the racer said.
“No!” Mac said. Del managed to open his eyes enough to see Mac struggling to sit forward.
“Mister Tyler, I’m locking your exoskeleton,” the racer said.