And whether he succeeded or failed, the plate’s polarization was ruined. If Mikka had been forced to raise Trumpet’s dispersion field, he would be defenseless against the EM agony of the boson storm.
He wanted to believe he’d never done anything this stupid in his whole life. The idea conveyed a peculiar reassurance. Nevertheless he knew this was only the culmination of a long series of terrified decisions and cruel mistakes. He wouldn’t be where he was if he hadn’t done that and that and that; if he hadn’t fled from violence to violence across all the years of his life.
Whatever happened now, he would have to face it without the comfort of a convenient lie.
In a minute he was done. Live or die, there was nothing else he could do. He put the laser in a belt pouch so that he could reach it easily.
Dios had already suited himself; sealed his helmet; adjusted his hips in the jets’ waldo harness. He, Davies, and Vector were ready to go.
Fiercely Angus set his own helmet in place, locked it to the suit’s neck-ring, and powered up his systems, filling the thin material with atmosphere and circulation.
Status indicators inside his helmet came to life. Most of them flashed danger at him. But the integrity blip showed green.
For now.
“Angus.” Davies’ voice crackled in his speakers. “Can you see?”
“No,” Angus admitted. His faceplate was almost completely opaque: it blinded him like a cataract. “There’s a strip along the edges I can use,” enough visibility to let him deal with the airlock, “that’s all.” Words stuck in his throat. He had to force himself to say, “I’ll need help.”
Help finding his way across the gap to the command module.
“No problem.” Dios sounded like he couldn’t stop grinning. “What are friends for?”
Angus wanted to explain exactly what he thought of the UMCP director’s “friendship.” But he didn’t have time. And he’d forgotten that part of himself.
He’d taken too long, concentrated too hard. He knew the danger, but he’d ignored it. He was helpless as a child when he heard servos open one of the far doors of the hold.
He yelped a warning; tried to wheel away from threats he couldn’t see. Bodies blundered against him, blocked his way. Vector yelled, “Look out!” His cry rang in Angus’ helmet, carried on the leading edge of impact fire.
Insanely precise, Angus’ computer sorted through the roar and identified three guns, all blasting at once.
Hands shoved him aside. Simultaneously he heard a raw shout from Warden and the hard punch of return fire from Davies’ rifle. Then a wall of force seemed to land on him out of nowhere. It drove him backward until he slammed against the bulkhead. Something—or somebody—seemed to hold him there.
“Cover, Davies!” Dios howled. “God damn it, get to cover!”
Davies’ gun blazed incessantly, as if he were laying down a barrage.
Angus couldn’t see. They were all about to die because he’d taken too long; and he couldn’t fucking see.
Desperation and his zone implants filled him with a transcendental rage. In an instant he crossed the gap between mortality and violence.
With one blow of his fist, he shattered his opaque faceplate. Shook shards of plexulose out of his face.
Found himself hidden against the bulkhead behind what was left of Vector’s body.
Blood sprayed everywhere from Vector’s shattered limbs and crumpled chest. Wounds like bomb craters gaped in his torn suit, his mangled flesh. He must have been hit by the combined force of all three enemy rifles.
Must have jumped in front of Angus to protect him because he couldn’t see—
With his peripheral vision Angus saw Warden emerge from the airlock, take hold of Davies, and heave him by main strength toward the thin cover inside the iris. Impact fire answered furiously, slashing the air, scoring the bulkhead. But Davies’ return fire had forced the Amnion to dodge and scatter. He and then Warden reached the airlock intact.
Curses Angus hardly heard bubbled in his chest, frothed in his throat. Vector was already dead; beyond pain. Angus reached up, unsealed Vector’s helmet and stripped it aside. Then he strode unarmed away from the bulkhead toward his assailants, holding up Vector’s corpse as a shield.
His computer was right: there were three of them. As he advanced they shifted their attention from the airlock. Blast after blast, their rifles pounded Vector to pulp in his arms.
He’d used a weapon like that to kill Captain Davies Hyland, Morn’s father.
He knew what impact rifles were for.
One of the guns lay on the floor no more than ten meters ahead of him, beside the body of the Amnioni which had carried it earlier. He felt the power of every blow that struck Vector; but he stalked forward remorselessly, augmented by rage. When he reached the rifle he stooped to snatch it up.
Then he activated his suit jets, released Vector, and jumped.
Davies fired wildly to cover him as he arced into the air. His jets weren’t strong enough to overcome the defensive’s thrust g; but they lifted him higher than the Amnion expected. Taken by surprise—and distracted by Davies—the Amnion aimed too low. Their beams slashed death beneath Angus’ feet.
Quick as a machine, and accurate as targ, he picked them off from above before they could recover. Riding the pressure of his jets, he hit them onetwothree. Killed them all. They were dead by the time he passed the top of his arc and started downward.
The Amnion will not forget it.
The sight of their spewing blood left him as cold as deep space. He checked their bodies to see if they carried PCRs and pickups. They didn’t. So they hadn’t called for more help. Too bad. He was in the mood to kill any number of them.
You will never be safe.
But Warden shouted across the hold, asking him if he was all right. Davies cried out Vector’s name, then swore and sobbed as if something inside him had broken.
Angus didn’t have time for more killing.
He used his jets to help him hurry toward the place where he’d discarded Vector’s helmet. When he saw that it was undamaged, he replaced his own with it; sealed it to the neck-ring of his suit. At once the status indicators began to flash green as they took power from his suit.
Vector had volunteered to stay behind once too often.
“Angus, ” Davies cried softly. “Oh, Vector. God, Vector! Angus, he saved—”
Angus took his son by the arm, shook him roughly. “Tell me later!” he snapped. “We don’t have time for this!”
“He’s right, Davies.” Warden’s voice found an echo of loss in the helmet speakers. “We need to go.”
Angus didn’t wait for them. Grimly he moved into the airlock.
The inner iris was still open: he’d done so much damage to the wiring earlier that Calm Horizons couldn’t override it. But that posed another hazard. When he opened the outer seal, explosive decompression would vent the entire cargo hold through this relatively constricted passage. He and Davies and Warden would be hurled outward like rounds from a projectile cannon. If the blast itself didn’t kill or stun them, they would be in danger of shooting far past the module and Trumpet; or of colliding with those vessels hard enough to crush ordinary human tissue and bone.
Nevertheless Angus didn’t hesitate. He was too angry for doubt; too cold. As Davies and Warden joined him, he positioned himself in the center of the airlock and focused his EM vision on the circuitry which controlled the outer iris.
Dios stood beside him and clipped their belts to each other; fixed his fate to Angus’. Davies did the same on the other side.
There was nothing else they could do; no other precautions they could take. In the small space of the airlock the constant fury of Calm Horizons’ matter cannon barrage mounted like endless lightning.
Angus grabbed the laser from his pouch; sighted his prosthesis; ran calculations and adjustments through his computer. As if he were committing murder, he pressed the firing stud.
 
; As soon as the iris began to cycle open, a hard fist of atmosphere flung him and his companions like debris out into the embattled dark.
MIKKA
Somewhere underneath her exhaustion and loss, her physical pain and tearing sorrow, Mikka Vasaczk found the will to survive.
To some extent she was held together by drugs. She’d taken enough stim and hype to convulse a weaker woman; pushed her body far past her normal limits with chemical enhancements. But that only helped her stay awake. It didn’t make her strong.
And her efforts to accept Ciro’s intentions didn’t give her strength. She recognized that his need to follow the logic of his distress to its conclusion was more compulsory than life. Yet he was her brother: he was all she had. Letting him go did little to help her live.
In part she was sustained by the companionable sound of Captain Ubikwe’s voice. By intercom from the command module, he talked to her constantly, feeding her information and commentary in a deep, comfortable rumble which soothed her strained nerves. Apparently the last of his personal concerns had been relieved by Ciro’s departure. He gave the impression that he was no longer worried about anything.
He couldn’t possibly be as sure as he seemed. She refused to believe it. Nevertheless he projected nothing but confidence and relaxation as he described Angus’ progress toward Calm Horizons’ airlock; or UMCHO’s attack on Suka Bator, and the withering fire of Min Donner’s response to the station; or Ciro’s awkward—but effective—journey with his grenade. He warned Mikka cheerfully when he was ready to break the grip of Calm Horizons’ docking seals so that Angus could reach the airlock. He told her everything she needed to know in order to power up Trumpet’s drives safely; charge her guns; prepare the dispersion field generator.
He couldn’t restrain a fierce cheer when the Amnioni’s proton cannon abruptly exploded, shattering itself to scrap in a hail of quantum discontinuities and debris, as well as ripping a brutal hole in the big defensive’s hulls. And after that he was briefly silent while Calm Horizons’ matter cannon roared violence at every human target they could reach. Instead of talking he routed scan and status data to her screens so she could watch the assault; so she could see that Min Donner kept her promise not to strike back while Angus tried to rescue Davies, Vector, and Warden Dios. At the same time he brought up thrust to hold the module and Trumpet close to the Amnioni’s airlock—and below her field of fire—as Calm Horizons’ drives raged for acceleration.
He must have been desperately busy. He had to reestablish contact with UMCPHQ and Punisher, and coordinate their tactical input with his own maneuvers. But after only a couple of minutes his voice came back on Mikka’s intercom.
“Well, thank God for slow brisance thrust, that’s all I can say,” he announced happily. “At this rate we’ll be able to keep up with her, at least for a few minutes.
“Looks like Ciro almost missed his chance,” he went on with no discernible anxiety. “Guess he didn’t expect that big fucker to burn when she did. But his jets saved him. He’s on the hull now. And he’s got his grenade tethered.
“I wonder what Vestabule would do if someone told him he’s taken on a little extra cargo. Might be fun to see an Amnioni go spaceshit crazy.”
Mikka didn’t reply. She couldn’t think of anything she could bear to say.
Apparently Captain Ubikwe didn’t expect a response. He talked on as if he trusted her completely. First he described the efforts of UMCPHQ and Director Dormer’s cordon to fend off Calm Horizons’ fire. Then he relayed everything he could glean about the damage to UMCHO.
According to UMCPHQ Center, Holt Fasner’s station had lost firepower and thrust; most of its operational capability. But the bulk of the platform remained intact. Distress flares indicated a high percentage of survivors.
Reports from Earth confirmed that the GCES was safe. Suka Bator hadn’t suffered any significant destruction: Min’s counterattack had prevented UMCHO from sustaining its barrage.
That supplied another small piece of Mikka’s will to endure. She cared about the Council only in the abstract. But the fact that Holt Fasner had felt compelled to attack Suka Bator meant to her that Morn had succeeded; that Morn’s story had persuaded the GCES to reconsider the fundamental structure of power in human space. And Morn’s determination to expose the crimes of the UMCP mattered to Mikka. It affected her in ways she could hardly name. Without Morn she would never have turned against Nick. Instead both she and Ciro would almost certainly have died with Captain’s Fancy and Billingate.
The course she’d chosen in Morn’s name, under Morn’s influence, had exacted a terrible price. She’d paid blood for it herself. Ciro was about to pay with his life. Nevertheless it was better than staying with Nick: supporting his crimes, enabling his betrayals, while he scorned her for the simple reason that she couldn’t heal the wounds Sorus Chatelaine had cut into him. Despite the cost, she didn’t regret anything Morn had persuaded her to do, directly or indirectly.
Morn’s success gave a touch of vindication to Mikka’s part in making it possible. That helped her cling to life when her brother had already chosen to die.
Ultimately, however, her commitment to survival arose from another, more essential source. Drugs kept her awake. Captain Ubikwe’s voice kept her company. Accepting Ciro’s sacrifice helped her manage her grief. Morn’s vindication confirmed that she’d made the right decisions. Yet in the end it was something else that swayed her. She held the frayed and weary strands of her spirit together because Angus, Vector, Davies, Warden Dios, and Dolph Ubikwe would all die if she didn’t.
At the core she was a woman who served. Nick and Captain’s Fancy; her brother; Morn: she was the sum and culmination of her loyalties. They defined her. Without them she could hardly say that she’d ever existed.
Morn had asked her to do this. People she valued—especially Davies and Vector—were depending on her. In the deepest part of her heart, she would rather die than let them down.
So she did everything that had been asked of her, even though her brother was lost to her, and her throat knotted with sobs whenever she thought of him. She powered up Trumpet’s drives: slowly at first, leaking energy into them by minor increments so that she wouldn’t attract Calm Horizons’ notice; then as fast as she could while the defensive was distracted by Director Donner’s attack on UMCHO. She charged the gap scout’s matter cannon, even though she couldn’t imagine being able to use them. She ran complex calculations through the helm computer, measuring the module’s mass and Trumpet’s thrust against the potential hunger of a singularity fed by Calm Horizons’ great bulk. And she made herself as proficient as circumstances allowed with the dispersion field generator.
The command module had neither the raw power nor the defenses to save any of them. And Captain Ubikwe was far too busy to cover for her. Whether this mission lived or died rested in Mikka Vasaczk’s exhausted hands.
Alone on Trumpet’s bridge, alone aboard the gap scout, she readied herself to carry out Angus’ orders.
How much time did she have left? Not much, apparently. According to Dolph, Angus had made his way through the Amnioni’s airlock. He would either find Davies, Vector, and Warden Dios or not; rescue them or not; emerge from the huge defensive or not. But no matter what happened, it wouldn’t take long.
She surprised herself by hoping that Ciro wouldn’t lose heart—or patience—and react too soon. All their lives depended on him as much as on her.
Abruptly Captain Ubikwe called out from her intercom, “I just heard from Davies!” Complex excitement crackled in the speakers. “They’ve reached the airlock. Vestabule is dead! Angus is going to cut the lock circuits to get out.
“My airlock is open. I’m ready for them. Weil go the second they’re aboard.”
He would reorient the module and Trumpet to put the gap scout’s more powerful thrust between them and Calm Horizons. The rest would be up to her.
“I’m set, Captain,” she told him so he wouldn’t think
she’d fallen asleep. “If it can be done, I’ll do it.”
“Mikka—” he began, then faltered unexpectedly. When he spoke again, strain complicated his eagerness. “They lost Vector. The Amnion killed him.”
She groaned. Oh, God. Vector. Poor arthritic, valiant Vector Shaheed: brilliant as a geneticist, but barely adequate as an engineer: kind, humorous, and calm. Ciro’s teacher. Morn’s friend. Even though he was hopeless in a fight, he’d volunteered for this mission before anyone else.
I’ve always wanted to be the savior of humankind.
She might have wept if Dolph hadn’t continued talking.
“I know Angus told Ciro to wait for his signal. But we’re running out of time. You’d better tell him to get back here. We can use your guns to set off the grenade.”
The captain must have believed Ciro meant to return. No one had told him otherwise.
Mikka swallowed a knot of tears. Even if Vector was dead, Davies and Angus still needed her.
“I can’t!” she answered. “I’ve run projections on the effects of that grenade. If we want to escape that much g, we need more distance.” But distance would bring them within reach of Calm Horizons’ cannon. “That means we need the dispersion field. And I can’t fire through it.”
Beyond the gap scout, Calm Horizons’ guns raged. The shields and sinks of Min’s ships—and UMCPHQ—lit Trumpet’s scan like a pyrotechnics display: blooms and bursts of power, flowers of violence, coruscating up and down the spectrum, shedding color and emission on every bandwidth the instruments could receive. But Mikka didn’t look at the fireshow, for the same reason that she didn’t use her sensors to keep track of Ciro. She needed her attention for other things.
For an instant Dolph was silent. The intercom seemed to convey shock; outrage. Then he growled through his teeth, “Mikka, are you telling me Ciro has to stay here? He has to set off the grenade in person?”
Dully she replied, “If the rest of us want to live.”
There was no other way. When Calm Horizons’ matter cannon failed to kill the module and Trumpet, the defensive would use impact guns, lasers, torpedoes. Then the task of destroying her would fall to Min Dormer’s ships. The Amnioni might do incalculable damage before she died.