Inadvertently, perhaps, Min had given her confirmation. The ED director might have ceded Punisher to her for any number of reasons; but fear and uncertainty weren’t among them.
One way or another, the UMCP had delivered Morn to Nick. Nick had been allowed to take her off Com-Mine. Yet Angus’ programming had compelled him to rescue her.
And later the same transmission which had supplied Nick with Angus’ priority-codes had also enabled her and Davies to end Nick’s control. Now Angus had blocked those codes altogether.
Could Holt Fasner know that as well? Min believed not.
Could Warden Dios? Angus had said he did.
But when UMCPDA welded Angus, Warden had in decision by staking everything on the people she knew best. Angus and Davies. Mikka and Vector. Herself.
From Captain Ubikwe’s g-seat she replied to Min and the rest of the bridge.
“That’s true,” she admitted slowly. “But this whole discussion is beside the point.” I’ll back you all the way. “I’m in command. And I don’t care what you think about it.” But I’ve already been welded once. I won’t go through it again. “I’ve made my decision.
“I’m satisfied with Angus’ explanation.”
Harsh relief flared in Angus’ eyes, and Davies winced; but she didn’t pause.
“I command this ship,” she insisted, “and I’m going to command her until we do what we’re going home for. Ciro will stay here, on the bridge.” Away from the grenades. “We’ll all stay here. But I won’t consider myself under your authority again until we’ve done the job we set out to do.”
Without flinching she met Min Donner’s gaze—and her own shame.
For a long moment no one spoke. No one appeared to move. Then Captain Ubikwe shifted his weight. Still scowling, he muttered in a heavy voice, “I don’t know about you, Min, but I’m practically dying to find out what that ‘job’ is.”
Slowly Min turned toward him. Her hard eyes and strict mouth revealed nothing: whatever she felt was contained by a smoldering self-discipline. She let him see that she was sure—of herself; of what she wanted. Then she shifted her gaze back to Morn.
“It still matters what I think,” she pronounced. “Don’t tell yourself it doesn’t. You don’t command the UMCP—or UMCPHQ. If you want me to let this go, you’ll have to convince me.” Before Morn could ask, How? she went on, “Tell me what happened to Ciro. Tell me about Nick Succorso and Sib Mackern.”
She might have been saying, Tell me what kind of people you’ve become.
The question surprised Morn. And yet it made perfect sense to her. Like her, the ED director had to take a position based on less than complete information. Morn hadn’t revealed what she meant to do. How else could Min make her own decisions?
Morn desperately did not want to lose the tenuous acceptance Min had granted her so far. Min was right: Morn needed her.
“Captain,” Patrice murmured cautiously to Dolph, “we’re three minutes from our new tach window.”
Captain Ubikwe didn’t acknowledge him. Neither did Min. For them, as for everyone else on the bridge, Morn’s answer took precedence.
She kept it as brief as she could. Three minutes wasn’t much time—and she didn’t want to dwell on the pain of losing Sib; or of Ciro’s crisis.
In a few quick sentences, she explained who Sorus Chatelaine and Soar were; why they worked for the Amnion; why Nick hated them. Then she described Sorus’ attempt to stop Trumpet by using Ciro; Nick’s reaction when he lost control of Angus; the destruction of Deaner Beckmann’s installation; Soar’s pursuit through the swarm; Ciro’s cure. She told why Nick had been allowed to set an EVA ambush for Soar—and why Sib had gone with him. She admitted that Ciro had sabotaged Trumpet’s drives.
Yet even that short summary made her chest swell with distress. Anger mounted in her voice because she hurt. When she finished, she demanded harshly, “Are you satisfied, Director Donner? Do you think I like where we are, or what we have to do?”
She expected a harsh retort. Angus seemed to brace himself to support her. Mikka glowered as if she meant to explode if anyone criticized her brother.
But Min’s reply was mild: she sounded almost sad. “‘Satisfied’?” she asked. “Not really. But I don’t blame you for that. I’ll accept the consequences of whatever you want to do.”
At once she faced Dolph again. “The answer is no, Captain. I’m not going to oppose Ensign Hyland’s command. We’ve come this far with her. We’ll go a little farther.”
A thin sigh passed around the bridge. Relief or regret: Morn couldn’t tell which.
Min’s assent was provisional at best; but Morn found that she was content with it.
Captain Ubikwe Shrugged. “In that case, Ensign Hyland,” he remarked in a bass rumble, “I think you’d better tell the ship we’re about to go into tach.”
Davies shook his head. “Damn it,” he protested under his breath. He seemed unsure of himself in some way. And everything Morn and Angus and Min did appeared to increase his doubt. He peered at the handgun in his fist, grimaced, and abruptly shoved it into one of his pockets. “Why didn’t you just say so? Why did we have to go through all this?”
Morn didn’t respond. She was in command now; more than she’d ever been before. She had her duties to think about.
“Prepare for tach, helm,” she ordered, knowing she would be obeyed. “Data, warn the rest of the ship that we’re going to drop internal spin.” Around Earth, space was usually too busy to tolerate navigational errors and poor maneuverability.
A moment later she added, “Communications, prepare Vector Shaheed’s message for immediate transmission. I want to start broadcasting as soon as we resume tard.”
Min cocked an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she put in quickly.
Angus snorted. “I’m sure you wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” Morn asked.
The ED director gave her a bleak smile. “I think it’s called ‘look before you leap.’ You can’t know what you’re getting into. Hell, I don’t. How could you? It won’t hurt you to take a few readings, listen to the transmission traffic, before you make up your mind.”
“Hell, yes,” Angus sneered. “That way you can still hope something’ll happen to stop us.”
But Morn didn’t hesitate. “All right.” She believed that in some oblique, unspoken way Min was on her side. “Communications, hold that broadcast for the time being.”
Once the data officer—her name was Bydell—had alerted the ship, Morn tapped keys to disengage internal spin. Hydraulic systems eased g out of the cruiser as her rotation slid to a stop within her hulls. Except for the muffled sighing of the pumps and servos, the process should have been silent. But this time it wasn’t. A faint grinding like a visceral shudder carried briefly through the bulkheads. Spin ended with a tangible jolt.
Punisher’s core displacement was getting worse.
Min Donner and Captain Ubikwe took g-seats along the walls, belted themselves in. Davies followed their example. Mikka glared miserably at Ciro for a moment, then kicked off He nodded as she swore at him, closed his belts, then coasted to a seat herself.
Only Angus remained standing. Anchored on the edge of the command board with a cyborg’s strength, he waited where he was, watching the display screens and the quick scroll of the readouts. His stance was charged and expectant, as if he were guarding Morn—or guarding against her.
“Fifteen seconds to tach,” Patrice announced.
“Fifteen seconds to Earth,” Davies muttered to himself. “If that’s really where we end up.”
Ten.
Instinctively Morn held her breath. In the measureless instant when the gap field dislocated her across the light-years, she wouldn’t feel anything: no one ever did. The discontinuity which had exposed the flaw of gap-sickness in her brain took place in a realm of physics which human senses couldn’t register. And yet most people were like her: they held their breath, or tensed in some other
way. Nerves and ganglia reacted with an almost cellular fear—a dread like humankind’s genetic abhorrence of the Amnion—to the prospect of being torn without transition from one place to another billions of k apart.
Five.
Scan, data, and helm maintained a stream of status reports, their voices low.
Nothing changed until Porson shouted frantically from scan that Punisher had dropped short of her intended coordinates in UMCPHQ’s dedicated gap range by 40,000 k. And Calm Horizons was there ahead of her.
WARDEN
Warden rode in the control cabin of his shuttle as the small craft carried him out toward the impending bulk of the Amnion defensive. There was nothing for him to do in the space he was supposed to occupy—the so-called director’s cabin—and he couldn’t bear to sit idle. He didn’t want to spend the time watching some remorseless chronometer tick his life away.
Unfortunately he had no duties here, either. His crew was more than competent for the simple task of ferrying him out to Calm Horizons. Nevertheless he could occupy himself by studying the scan displays and command readouts; following the slow concentration of his ships around the defensive; analyzing the Amnioni’s heavy profile for signs of damage or weakness.
As a matter of course the shuttle’s instruments were linked to Earth’s scan net. He could watch for Punisher and Trumpet.
The longer they took to arrive, the weaker Calm Horizons’ position would become. Eventually Sledgehammer would be in place to unleash the force of her guns. Then Marc Bator. But after that she would die quickly. Even UMCPHQ might survive the battle.
If Trumpet stayed away long enough, Calm Horizons would have nothing left to bargain with except the Council’s survival—and Warden’s life.
Angus’ programming had been written to restrict the conditions under which he could return to Earth. He couldn’t make that decision for himself: it had to be imposed on him by some authority his datacore recognized. If Nick Succorso didn’t order it—and if Trumpet managed to evade Punisher, so that Min Donner had no chance to intervene—Angus might stay away indefinitely.
In another life—a saner, cleaner existence—Warden would have been praying with all his heart to see no sign of Trumpet on the scan net.
In this life, however, his prayers were of another kind.
He needed Morn. Here. Now.
Why else had he undermined Holt’s direct orders by giving Morn and Davies the means to oppose Nick?—the means to return to Earth? At tremendous cost he’d created a window of vulnerability for Holt Fasner: a small, elusive gap in the Dragon’s normally impregnable defenses. But Koina wouldn’t be able to hold that window open long. Without Morn—and without concrete evidence from either Hashi or Chief Mandich—she would eventually fail.
And if the Council died, the outcome of this crisis might be the exact opposite of the one Warden had pursued with so much pain. Holt himself might well become the government. At present there was no other power which could make decisions for humankind in a time of war. If Marc Vestabule lost what he hoped to gain by negotiating with Warden, the consequences for humanity would be catastrophic.
Despite his sworn duty to oppose the Amnion, Warden Dios hoped desperately that Trumpet would arrive soon. And that the gap scout’s people would feel compelled to comply with Vestabule’s demands.
Therefore he needed Min. He might convince himself that he had the right and the power to command Morn Hyland; but he had no authority over her son—or Vector Shaheed. And he could no longer trust Angus’ priority-codes. If Davies or Morn had freed themselves from Nick, they would be able to countermand any order Warden gave Angus.
Warden needed Min to make Trumpet’s people obey him.
Still the scan net gave no hint of Punisher or the gap scout. Gunboats and pocket cruisers tightened their paltry cordon around the Amnioni. Adventurous lumbered toward the defense from the far side of the planet. Barring some disaster, Valor would be in range soon. The net showed Sledgehammer on her Earth-bound burn. But Punisher and Trumpet were beyond the reach of Earth’s instruments anywhere in the solar system.
The shuttle had a crew of three: command, scan, communications. At other times the UMCP director traveled with aides and guards; his own communications techs; Various UMCP officers. But for this trip he’d left everyone except the crew behind. Jeopardizing the smallest possible number of lives—
Abruptly command cleared his throat. “Twenty minutes, Director. They’ve assigned us a docking port. I can put it on a screen if you want to see it.”
Warden shook his head. He didn’t care what the port looked like. After a moment he asked communications, “Is CEO Fasner still yelling at us?”
“Home Office is, Director,” communications answered. “Not the CEO in person. He’s given up.”
“Have they bothered to mention what he wants?”
“You’re ordered to reply, Director. That’s all.”
“Too bad,” Warden muttered sardonically. “It might have been interesting to hear him tell me I’m fired. If I had that on record, he would have trouble explaining it to the Council.”
Legally Holt could fire the UMCP director. But the timing would look bad; very bad. The Members might think that Holt Fasner didn’t want Warden to keep them alive.
Warden wasn’t willing to take the risk, however. Holt might give him orders which would make sense to the Council, but which Warden couldn’t or wouldn’t obey. Then Holt would have an excuse he could hide behind for replacing Warden.
“Contact HO once I board Calm Horizons,” Warden instructed communications. “Tell the CEO that under the War Powers provisions of the UMCP charter I’m not authorized—much less required—to discuss my actions with civilians.” law,” he admitted to his crew. “But maybe it’ll make Holt leave you alone.”
The chronometer gave him eighteen minutes.
Punisher and Trumpet weren’t anywhere on the net.
Command squirmed as if he sat on an uncomfortable secret. “I think you should take a look at the docking port, Director.”
Warden frowned over a twist of apprehension. “Why is that?” The man’s awkwardness worried him. Had he missed something?
Command glanced quickly at scan. Scan jerked a nod of agreement.
“Just let me show you, Director,” command said.
Warden folded his arms over his chest to contain his anxiety. “So show me.”
Quickly command tapped keys. In a moment net schematics scrolled off the main display, and were replaced by a tight video image of Calm Horizons’ flank. Under other circumstances there would have been nothing to see. The darkness of space was almost absolute. But the defensive had already lit her docking lamps. A wash of incandescence etched her knurled, inhuman skin.
Warden studied the display because that was what command and scan—and communications?—wanted him to do.
“It’s a docking port,” he observed impersonally, as if what he saw had nothing to do with him. “Their airlock doesn’t fit ours. Neither do their grapples and clamps. But that looks like an adjustable seal. And we can flex our own. I won’t need an EVA suit.” He cocked an eyebrow at command. “What else do you want me to notice?”
“There, sir.” With a twitch of his hand, command indicated an imprecise bulge at the edge of the screen; the edge of the light. “That’s her proton gun. The emitter.”
Sixteen minutes.
“So?” Warden prodded.
Command turned to scan for help.
“They have us on targ, Director,” scan put in stiffly. “Guns like theirs, they could fry us in seconds. But if we wait until we’re close—another ten minutes—we’ll be under their fire horizon. We could veer off, burn—”
“We could crash into that emitter, sir,” command finished. “Wreck it.”
Wreck—
Oh, shit. New fears cut at Warden’s heart. For several seconds he couldn’t respond. A clean death—A chance to leave Holt Fasner and the corruption of the UMCP and humankind??
?s future to someone else; someone who didn’t have so much shame feeding like a corrosive on his lacerated conscience. Veer off, burn, crash. Die like a hero. Let Morn and Angus, Hashi and Min and Koina pick up the pieces if they could.
But if he did that—he, Warden Dios, who had clawed these wounds into his own soul—there would be nothing clean about it. It would be a coward’s death: an abandonment of all the people who had the most right to rely on him.
For him no death would ever be clean unless he took Holt Fasner down with him.
At last he regained his voice. “And what happens to us?” he asked gruffly.
“Well, Director”—command swallowed a lump of discomfort—“we’re dead, I guess. This craft wasn’t built for collision.
“But I’m not sure you’re ever coming back, sir,” he went on. “I’m not even sure we are. Once you’re aboard, they can finish us pretty easily.” He hesitated, then faced Warden squarely. “It might be more useful to take out their proton gun.”
Warden paused as if to consider the idea. “If we do that, we’ll save the Council,” he mused. “So far, so good. But we’ll kill UMCPHQ. Any other station in range will take damage. Some of our ships will die.” For the sake of his crew, he made an effort to sound clear; sure. “If we burn that defensive’s bridges for her, she won’t have any choice. She’ll have to hurt us as much as she can before she dies.”
He wanted to stop there. The strain of projecting the confidence his people needed hurt him. But the shrouded fear in scan’s eyes, and the stubborn set of command’s jaw, told him that he had to continue.
“I have a pretty good idea what she wants,” he stated. “And I think I know how to deal with it. If I’m right, I can keep almost all of us alive. Whether or not I come back”—he shrugged—“isn’t germane.”
Intending reassurance, he added, “You’re safe enough. Calm Horizons doesn’t want to provoke a fight. She won’t attack you.”
But command reacted with flustered indignation, as if Warden had accused him of cowardice. “That isn’t what I—”