Forever Shores (31 page)

Even as Tom worked the boom, he saw that signature burst into flame, saw the Hawk go as well.

‘Laser!' Marcham cried.

The Demi went seconds later, Jell immediately freeing the lines so
Sycorax
was past before the wreckage could settle and maim them further. They were building on 90 k's. They still had a chance.

That ninety became a desperate 100, then a hard-won 110 as the last precious photonics were added. Sallander had been saving them, sacrificing his brights and what few show kites he had rather than risk his final workhorses. Two death-lamps went up with them, spinning and flashing on their lines once they were past the spread.

No one had to be told what that meant. Endgame indeed. The Haldanian ships had to be visible through the glass at last, a clutch of glinting chalices under their flashing battle canopies, each with a red-wheel sigil at the break, all of them running on stored power and steadily gaining.

With the crew still at the booms, Sallander and Jell worked the lamps themselves, angling them to the sun as best they could, finding whatever ranged above their own rooster tail.

They scored hits against those mantles, but it was brief advantage. Laser struck the lamps, one, two, took the new photonics as well.
Sycorax
began slowing.

‘Give me a crew line to one of those parafoils!' Tom said. ‘They'll see me leave. May let you be.'

Sallander met Tom's gaze for a moment, just for a moment.

‘For it either way,' he said. ‘Witnesses, eh?'

‘Aye.' Tom knew it was so. No choice but to run.

But he caught a quick glance between Sallander and Jell again. These men worked to a time for another reason, Tom was sure of it.

‘What's ahead, Pat?'

‘Scraps of a plan, Tom. Buying all the time and distance we can.'

‘They have laser. Your hull, your platform—'

‘Want you alive, I'm figuring. They'll take our canopy and roll us to a stop first. Help Jell swing those photonics manually, eh?'

Tom did so, crowding Jell at the boss override to shift the two port lines by main force. Not much of a strategy but, with the bouquet harvested, there was ample room now. Tom rammed the handles to new lock-points in the slot; the crew used their booms to assist, extending then drawing back the lines so the kites made irregular arcs instead of riding steady.

‘Land anchors? Hedgehogs?' Tom asked.

‘Used 'em getting to you,' Jell said at his shoulder. ‘Supply modules, furniture, all we had. Not a fighting ship. No spares. We're leaner than we were, Captain.'

‘
Rynosseros
can owe.' Tom had to grin again.

‘She can,' Jell said.

Three more photonics went, strike, strike, strike. The Order's gun comps were good, and legal nowhere but on those sacred decks. The Haldanians commanded the sats too. Only Tom's presence prevented sky-strike, that much was clear. The dust wires trailing from
Sycorax
's travel platform were partly to keep the air above untidy and make sat-scan difficult, but everyone knew that random strikes from orbit would soon get
Sycorax
if their attackers decided to.

‘Seventy k's!' Sallander called.

Tom couldn't help himself. ‘Abandon at forty! Lock helm and jump!'

‘Phase up twenty,' Sallander said, as if he hadn't heard.

Jell touched the underside of the boss rig. ‘They'll know,' he reminded his captain, mere formality.

Sallander didn't hesitate. ‘Risk it!'

Jell activated something, and Tom understood the talk for what it was. ‘You're powered!'

‘Juggling, Tom. They've got sat-scan and laser. We need more time.'

‘But powered!'

Four kites left, yet
Sycorax
stayed at seventy.

Tom worked his handles in the slots, kept his two parafoils shifting. The crew toiled at their booms.

They
had
to know. Four kites and such a speed! The fleet strategists had to figure it out.

But what with the rooster tail and the dust wires trailing to dirty the air, perhaps those strategists weren't sure what they were getting.

‘Thirty count to white-out!' Sallander called, then: ‘Lose power!'

Again Jell touched the underside of the boss override.
Sycorax
began slowing, and just in time. Tom's two parafoils went.

‘Nearly, nearly,' Sallander said. ‘Smokescreen on!' He anticipated Tom's question. ‘No point till now. Too little fluid in the cans.'

Sycorax
began fouling its own trail, sent black smoke boiling out along the Road behind.

‘Now!' Sallander called, and Jell freed the last two lines, added power again.

‘You're shielded!' Tom accepted it all. This had to be something John Coyote and Dusein had arranged. They'd feigned otherwise, but—

‘Hold fast!' Jell shouted over the roar of their roadsong. Everyone responded.

Sycorax
moved to starboard, began leaving the Road. It was level terrain for the most part but for a clustering of low hills a kilometre away, crowned with a scattering of boulders and dross like Tom's intended shelter earlier.

The fleet was following, fitted with state of the art hydraulics, easily capable of any crossing
Sycorax
could manage.

And as the last of the smokescreen trailed away,
Sycorax
rolled to within a hundred metres of those hills with their crowns of rounded stones, slowly drawing to a complete stop. The fleet was nearly on them, Red Wheels straining, death-lamps and laser-batts spinning and glinting, terrifying to see.

No time now. No time even to abandon ship and reach the token shelter of those rocks. It was like his earlier predicament before
Sycorax
arrived.

The fleet deployed on approach, six ships taking up stationary positions in a wide circle so they had all-points vantage, two turned in, one out, two in, one out, the remaining three coming to within fifty metres before braking.

Sudden stillness then, the sense of it, just dust tails billowing and settling around them, quickly falling away, then the ticking of hull plates, even the creaking of lines and straining canopies on the Haldanian ships, clearly audible across the distance. The Red Wheel captains left full mantles aloft but reined in, not simply as a quick-escape precaution—those ships were powered—but to provide shade for the officers and crews on their decks. Death lamps flashed and spun at full extension, gorging on sunlight; laser-batts shifted in the bright air like the heads of poisonous poppies.

Silence and stillness enough.

Then a voice through a hailer, determined and uncompromising.

‘Attention,
Sycora
x
! You will leave your ship immediately and proceed to
Charkenter
, the vessel closest to you. In exactly three minutes, your ship will be destroyed. There is no negotiation. This order will not be repeated.'

The
Sycorax
crew stole quick glances at their captain on the quarterdeck but remained at their posts. When Tom turned to Sallander, the tall sandsman raised a hand.

‘Do nothing, Tom! Say nothing, please.'

‘They mean what they say, Pat. They can bring down your ship and still have me.'

‘I know.'

‘Then let me—'

‘Tom, you know they can hear what we say now we've stopped running. Watch the day.'

Tom did that, made himself study the shift of the dark canopies, the Red Wheels lifting and falling, listened to the sigh of breeze about the lines and transoms, to the ticking of hull plates and decking. Then he heard a new sound, a deep far-off droning, muffled but constant—no, building! Like engines, yes. Engines powering up! Not the laser-batts, though that was where he first looked.

Then the land beyond the perimeter burst open. Tom saw camouflage tarps flung aside, lids on makeshift frames, saw ships lift out of the land itself, appearing from ramps and hidden bunkers in the earth like demons, two, four, at least six charvis rising up like magic. Eight now, nine at least!

Not charvis. Not charvolants at all. Atabanques! Armed pirate ships without conventional canopies. Small, lean, raiders, plated, powered and, best of all, invisible to scan. They lofted death-lamps as they came, firing again and again, targeting the canopies of the Haldanian ships, the laser-batts first, enemy lamps second.

And from the other side of
Sycorax
, from the old round stones on the hills, came streaks of light, dazzling to see, accompanied by the scream of laser as they hit the travel platforms of the Order's ships.

No hulls struck yet. No sacrilege. Kites and platforms only. But a promise made. Surrender now! Save your ships!

Tom stared in amazement. Such a plan!

And knew who was behind it. The bringing down of the Gerias Kite, everything.

Tamis Hamm! Captain Ha-Ha himself, the great pirate. Funded by unnamed foreign conglomerates, governments, provocateurs, interested parties, using the same shielding tech he had used at Quaelitz, the same careful planning and deception. Had to be. Could only be. Tamas Hamm and the Restante Lady Say.

‘Ha-Ha!' Tom cried, ridiculous to hear, wonderful to shout into the day.

Sallander nodded. ‘Aye!'

‘But it's the Order, Pat!'

‘If not now, when?'

Tom didn't try to answer. If this were truly Captain Ha-Ha, then the Restante Lady Say
would
be with him, no doubt behind this too, the antique creop cylinder bearing all that remained of the ancient tribal dowager, Serenya Say. Only now could Tom grasp the sense of it, the scale and commitment, all that John Coyote had dared not reveal, may not—in true cell fashion—even have known of in all its detail.

Two veering atabanques went down to deck laser from two of the perimeter ships, but those Order ships were immediately struck by the laser points hidden in the rocks. Simple message. Strike our ships, we strike at yours!

Every Red Wheel canopy was burning now, fragmenting, falling, lines fouling then collapsing to the desert as the kite-heads burned away. All nine travel platforms smouldered. Two Haldanian hulls burned where hi-tech had hit them. Others sagged where supporting tech systems in their platforms had exploded upwards and maimed the ships they carried.

As for Ha-Ha's losses, one of the laser-struck atabanques had rolled and tumbled over itself; serious losses there. The other trailed dark smoke, but had righted itself using emergency hydraulics and now limped after the other seven raiders as they darted in and out of the crippled Haldanian fleet, striking at any resisting deck targets with death-lamps and laser.

Within three minutes of the camouflage lids flinging back,
Charkenter
sent up a single yellow kite: the official Stat Prevarican.
We surrender.

The atabanques ceased firing at once and slipped away into the smoke and heat shimmer, knowing that the blinded sats would be responding, lowering, tethering, sorting options, doing all they could to find their missing ships.

Still, three minutes and such a difference. The fleet was crippled. The laser points in the rocks ceased firing.

And now new pirate forces appeared, men and women in dark fighting leathers wearing fabulous inconnu masks that gave them heads like living jewels. They came from the hills, from the hidden bunkers, bearing their prized Nagamitsu swords and Matsumoto parrot guns. Moved quickly, these jewel-heads, knowing there was little time before new decisions were made and the yellow kite disregarded. They broke into teams and went from travel platform to travel platform, checking that all were truly crippled. Several explosions broke the silence as jewel-head crews made sure of their earlier work.

Tom turned to Sallander. ‘Where is
Almagest
?
Laughing Man
? Where's Ha-Ha's ship?'

‘Close, Captain. You'll see them soon.'

Them.

Yes, them. The Restante Lady Say. Who would have thought? Now, like this, ending the Line? But then, all life was the journey made, with or without purpose. Better with, knowing, accepting, choosing to choose or let be. But choosing. Obvious to say, but all life was that, filled with whatever came, whatever was served up. It was how you made sense of it, self from it that mattered.

Tom felt it then like part of his ranging thoughts—ghost footsteps in the mindline, coming near, probing, seeking. At last, here it was! He'd expected it, the Order's Clever Men seeking him out. Part of him had hoped for it, wanting to test it all again, needing to. And here it was, the distinctive prickling, tingling, expanding in that other part of him, other self, something softly stepping in the underline. Footsteps. Voice steps.
Are you there? Are you there?

Gently, subtly, so subtly done. Nothing forced, nothing sudden, nothing like the mind-shock of facing the Chialis Clever Men on the Air that terrible time, the all-engulfing bludgeoning rush of mind-war. There was a softness to this, a caress, a delicate breeze through an open window at night. Nothing harmful or intrusive. Just an asking.
Are you there? You, is it you?

But prelude to taking him all the same, Tom knew. Having him, crippling him at least. Shutting him down somehow and emptying him out. Had to be. And something important for them to try this now knowing he'd know. Perhaps to see
if
he'd know. To see how far his talent had developed. His greater knowing.

Tom turned to Sallander at the rail. ‘Pat, tell those jewel-heads! Tell Ha-Ha! Incapacitate their Clever Men now! It's urgent! They're trying to get me using the mindline. Tell—'

But the softness, the caress, the gentling breeze was everything in the instant. In one immense snuffing of the candle, he was gone.

He fought in that other place, though they did not want him to. Did not want him conscious. Wanted nothing from him then. Wanted their rogue lulled, sightless, mindless, selfless in limbo, a thing to trade back later for the physical Tom. Or else.