Korval's Game (26 page)

One came after him, gun turrets tracking as they held the target despite the craft’s maneuvering. The second fighter kept on—a straight, one would have said suicidal, run in toward the heart of the
Passage
. Toward Shan.

Multiple voices filled the void’s radio frequencies. Shan’s “Seth, return to ship!” was nearly overwhelmed by Priscilla’s calm, “Safety interlocks off, full battle condition. On my mark, gunners.”

Seth’s voice broke into the end of Priscilla’s instructions, on the dedicated beam between the lifeboats. “One family’s enough. I’m on your man. They’re after the lock.”

It was all true in the tumbling way things happen in space; Seth’s course had altered enough that his gun was tracking the lead enemy, the ship tracking him began to maneuver its way closer, and the lead Yxtrang was closing rapidly on both Shan and the lock he’d need to enter.

“Your screen six,” came Priscilla’s calm voice, this time tinged with an ice that made even Shan’s blood run cold. “This is the attack. Gunners, your mark. Three and Five spot Seth. Teams Four and Six spot the captain. Everyone else—standard defense.”

Screen six showed a flight of five fighters whose meandering courses had suddenly become one.

The fighter tracking Shan veered away from the collision course, and Shan’s reflexes brought him back toward the lock, and then away, away. . .

“Shan, we . . .”

“Can’t risk an open lock. I’ll loop around and see . . .”

“They’re pairing up on you, Shan,” came Seth’s warning.

Shan felt a momentary touch of love so sweet and full it nearly overwhelmed him. Then he felt a wrenching he understood all too well; Priscilla had gone behind her strongest shields, as she must. As he must.

“Shan, close in on pod four!” Seth urged.

Shan cursed the little lifeboat: fighter it was not, despite the add-on guns. More massive than the fighters by dint of its planetary capability, it was never meant to fight a space battle.

His stabbed at the release button, flinging the valuable remote repair unit into space to gain a measure of response.

“Shan!”

Seth’s scream came at the instant the first Yxtrang fired; then there was static and a missile to be dodged and another. Shan felt the g-forces pushing him sideways as the little craft answered helm and then the first Yxtrang ship was pieces in the void as Seth’s elation echoed across the radio and the second Yxtrang was turning ever so quickly for another run at Shan.

Shan’s screens glared bright as
Dutiful Passage
went to war.

***

The very first concern
was the larger fighter flight; the two that were behind that, closing at high speed with some larger ships intermingled, would wait.

Priscilla ignored the screen that showed Shan’s ship: he’d done as Seth suggested and closed in on the
Passage
as best he could. Her concern now was weapon-mix and security; it wouldn’t do to show their full capability quite yet.

“Team Two,” she said quietly into her mike. “Fire at will.”

The ship’s automatics cut in. She felt the minute tremble as the guns began their rapid fire and the ship compensated. It would be seconds before the Yxtrang crossed their path, and a good radar system might give them warning. Priscilla spoke to the mike again.

“Team Three, wide area coverage around Team Two’s center. If you get a veer, target it in.”

“Cluster incoming; looks serious.” This from Ken Rik on the inner bridge.

Priscilla’s attention snapped to screen three—several of the larger ships further out had launched their weapons and were already dropping away from their escort of fighters. Too far for a missile shot. Still.

“Team One, your target is the hindmost of the midrange ships in Sector Three; your next target is next closest to us. You are cleared for two bursts each. At will.”

Her eyes had already found the sight she wanted to see: Shan’s boat close in to the
Passage
, firing an occasional burst toward something out of her sight.

The next screen showed it: Seth was still hanging away from the
Passage
, staying between Shan and the remaining fighter from the original attack group. He seemed to have earned some respect from the Yxtrang pilot.

A shudder went through the ship, followed by another.

“Team One. Bursts away, Priscilla,” Vilobar’s voice in her ear was calm. Perhaps he was calm. Inner senses stringently locked away, she chose to believe so.

The beams were a battleship’s weapon. The beams—pulses actually—technically moved at just under the speed of light and carried with them a baleful mixture of particles, magnetic flux, and high speed atomic nuclei. She looked to her screens.

Unanticipated, Team One’s bursts tore through the incoming cluster of missiles, and a few of the intervening fighters as well, leaving behind an awful shadow of explosions. A moment more, and the hindmost ship was incandescent fog.

Radio noise, already full of sputters and crackles from the first beam’s passage through the Yxtrang, became a roar and hiss, and a second roaring followed as the second of the midrange ships followed its sister to vacuum.

“Fleas! Fleas!” Seth’s voice was insistent in her ear. “Fleas!”

She slapped the switch, grabbed the screen and saw Seth’s boat madly whirling and firing.

Watching, she thanked the Goddess for Seth, for his loyalty, and behind her Wall, among that which was locked away for this while, she feared—terribly—for his life.

For, in fighting to stay between Shan and the enemy, Seth had encountered a horde of the stealthy fleas—one-man ships barely more than a powered and hyper-armed space suit.

On visual she saw what she feared: his boat was dodging a dozen or more of the things, and though he had speed, they were a cloud around him, each firing and trying to attach weapons meant to mine a warship’s hull.

“Seth!”

That was Shan, and now his boat was closing, firing, whirling, ramming.

“Twenty-three, Shan.” Seth said. He might have been counting cargo pallets. Then, sharper—“I see their mother!”

The little boat whirled purposefully, the guns firing at a small dark spot in space as it picked up speed. Out, out, into the cloud of fleas and beyond. Away from the
Passage
.

“No!” Shan’s voice was strong with Command. It made no difference.

The side of Seth’s boat erupted. It spun, then—incredibly—straightened course, moving yet toward a nearly invisible spot against the stars.

“Damn,” Seth said, and he was gasping. “Drinks are on me! Thirty-three.” A pause. “Don’t do anything stupid, Shan.”

Then Seth’s boat crumpled and exploded against the dark plastic mother ship of the Yxtrang fleas.

“Priscilla!” Shan’s voice, high and hoarse.

“Teams Five and Three. Take it out.” The ship shuddered and the bursts were away. The fleas’ mother died in a flare of vapor.

“Priscilla, accelerate,” Shan—no,
the captain
said into her ear. “There’s a cloud of fleas closing on you.”

His boat was spinning, moving, dodging, guns flaring—and each move taking him further and further from the
Passage
. From safety.

“Shan—”

“That is an order,” he said, cold in command. “Accelerate!”

“Yes, Captain.” Behind the Wall, she screamed and railed and rent her garments in anguish.

On the war bridge, she spoke quietly into her microphone, relaying the order to accelerate.

***

She had memorized
this computer code seven Standards ago, offering at the same time a prayer to the Goddess, that she would never need to use it. Her fingers shook as she entered it now, but there was no shame in that. Neither the Goddess nor melant’i demanded fearlessness in the performance of duty, merely that duty was done.

The screen blanked as she entered the last digit, taking even the window at the bottom right corner, which elucidated the progress of lifeboat number four toward the planet surface. There was silence in the captain’s office, as if the
Passage
were mulling over her request, and more than half-inclined to refuse it. Priscilla folded her cold hands together on the wooden desk, waiting.

The
Passage
made up its mind with a beep and a flash of letters on her screen.

DUTIFUL PASSAGE OFFICER ALTERATION ROUTINE.

BEGIN RUN:

RANK: CAPTAIN

HISTORY: SHAN YOS’GALAN, CLAN KORVAL

ER THOM YOS’GALAN, CLAN KORVAL

SAE ZAR YOS’GALAN, CLAN KORVAL

CANDIDATE: PRISCILLA DELACROIX Y MENDOZA,

CLAN KORVAL

HISTORY: PET LIBRARIAN

PILOT THIRD CLASS,

TRAINING SECOND CLASS

SECOND MATE

PILOT SECOND CLASS,

TRAINING FIRST CLASS

FIRST MATE

PILOT FIRST CLASS, TRAINING MASTER

ACCEPT: COMMUNICATIONS MODULE

EMERGENCY MODULE

LIBRARY MODULE

OVERRIDE MODULE

NAVIGATION MODULE

WEAPONS MODULE

MAIN COMP

ACCEPT: PRISCILLA DELACROIX Y MENDOZA,

CLAN KORVAL

RANK: CAPTAIN

ADJUSTMENT: CAPTAIN’S KEY FILE

ACCEPT

AUXILIARY INFORMATION: RANKS FIRST MATE, SECOND MATE, THIRD MATE UNMANNED. HIGH RISK CONDITION NOTED. OPTIMUM SOLUTION: APPOINT OFFICERS: FIRST MATE, SECOND MATE, THIRD MATE.

MINIMUM SOLUTION TO UNACCEPTABLE RISK CONDITION: APPOINT FIRST MATE.

END RUN

The screen blanked once more. Priscilla extended a hand that still showed a tendency to quiver and tapped in a retrieval request. A heartbeat later, Plan B lit her screen.

A changing array of safeplaces shall be maintained at all times, in the event of immediate, catastrophic threat to the Clan. There is no shame in strategic retreat. Even Jela sometimes ran from his enemies, the better to defeat them, tomorrow.

Keep the children safe. Honor without love is stupidity.

This by the hand of Cantra yos’Phelium, Captain and Delm, in the Third Year after Planetfall.

The screen beeped, indicating the existence of an auxiliary file. Priscilla accessed it with the touch of a key.

This message was not nearly so ancient. In fact, it was mere weeks old, dispatched by Nova yos’Galan, Korval’s first speaker in trust, to Shan yos’Galan, captain and thodelm.

Plan B is in effect. Assume our enemy omnipresent and dedicated to Korval’s utter ruin. Contact no one, for we cannot know which alliances stand firm and which are rotted out from the core by the work of our enemy. Arm the
Passage.
Secure yourself. Repeat: Plan B is in effect.

Keep safe, brother.

Priscilla sat back in Shan’s chair, staring at the screen. They had armed the
Passage
. They were, as far as conditions allowed, secure. The ban on radio contact was subject to captain’s interpretation, given those same conditions. She touched another key, sealing the files once more. The diagram of Shan’s descent to Lytaxin reappeared in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Eyes closed, she considered priorities.

The ship’s priority, that there be at least one other in the command chain, should the captain fail, was best acted on at once. The radio . . . She reached out and flipped a toggle.

“Tower.”

“Rusty, this is the captain,” she said quietly.

There was a short, electric pause, then a respectful, almost somber, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Please do me the favor,” she continued, hearing her own voice take on Shan’s speech pattern, “of constructing an anonymous message to the appropriate authorities regarding Lytaxin’s situation.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said again, then: “I’m assuming we don’t want to give away our name or our location.”

“That’s exactly what we don’t want, Rusty. Can you do it?”

“Take a little fiddling, but—yeah. I can do it. You want to review before implementation?”

“Please.”

“Will do,” he said, and his voice was brighter, as if the promise of a problem he was able to master had cheered him up. “Tower out.”

“Thank you, Rusty. Captain out.”

***

The screen
on the side of the desk was live, displaying the current crew roster, but the decision had been made before ever she keyed in the request to see that document.

Priscilla sighed. Ten Standards she and Shan had captained the
Passage
between them. To name another to take the place she had made for herself, as duty demanded that she take Shan’s rightful role was—not easy. Yet it must be done, for the safety of ship, crew, and kin. The temple had schooled her well in duty, before she had ever dreamed of Liad.

Priscilla closed her eyes and called up an old exercise—one of the first taught to novices in temple, honing her anxiety into purpose. She had barely opened her eyes again when the door chime sounded.

“Come,” she said, and the door, obedient to the captain’s voice, slid open.

“Acting Captain.” He bowed respect from the center of the room and straightened, awaiting her notice.

She took a moment to consider him: A medium tall man, as Liadens measured height, skin an unblemished medium gold, hair and eyes a matching medium brown, neither beautiful nor ugly, not fat nor yet thin. He wore no rings of rank nor any more simple adornment. His shirt was plain and pale, his trousers dark, his boots comfortable and well tended.

He was a pilot of some note—first class verging on Master—and she knew him for a quick and incisive thinker. The information that he possessed humor would have startled many of his crewmates, but none of those would have said his judgment was unsound, or that his temperament was other than steady.

He was also inclined toward austerity, which was worrisome, Priscilla allowed, even when it was austerity applied to the best good of ship and crew.

From her seat behind the desk, she inclined her head and moved a hand toward the pair of visitor’s chairs.

“I have a proposal to put before you, my friend,” she said in mild, modeless Terran. “Will you sit and listen to me for a moment?”

“Gladly,” he responded. His Terran was heavily accented, though his comprehension was excellent. He took the chair nearest the corner of the desk and folded his hands neatly upon his knee.