Rogue Powers (55 page)

George squirmed in the visitor's chair and felt the cold sweat of fear pouring out of his body. He was just a dumb engineer who liked playing with gadgets and didn't like to see people get hurt. Now he was mixed up in the fate of worlds. And, intentionally or not, he
had
betrayed Mac and the League. George
knew,
deep down in his gut, that League people had died because of his run for Capital. Who could blame Mac if he did scheme for revenge, if this was all an elaborate plot to get the Capital defenses down so the League fleet could pour through and bomb the planet down to radioactive cinders? The League had just demonstrated they could and would blow up a planet. If George wrongly trusted Mac, Capital was a corpse of a world.

But this was
Mac.
And if George wrongly distrusted Mac, Capital was just as doomed by the Nihilist plague. George was plenty ready to believe they could invent a disease that could wipe everyone out. The risks were equally balanced.

And then, suddenly, in the middle of his knot of fear and turmoil, George found his answer. George could kill millions if he answered either way and was wrong. He had no control over that. But he, and only he, had control over whether he had faith in people. And if Mac was telling the truth, then Mac was deliberately putting his life in George's hands.

George decided he could live with himself, somehow, if millions died because he made an honest mistake. But he couldn't live with himself if he let a friend down. You had to have a little faith in people. Admiral Thomas had scrawled that across the bottom of George's Britannic Navy commission papers. Well, if he had betrayed the admiral's trust, here was the time to make amends.

"I trust Mac Larson," George said in a strong, firm voice that was nonetheless near tears. "I would, and do, trust Terrance MacKenzie Larson with my life and the life of every human being on this planet."

Phillips stared hard at George, and realized the fifty-fifty odds, the head-or-tails gamble with the fate of Capital was now in his hands.

Then Phillips remembered that he trusted George Prigot. Trust was trust—there was no middle ground to it, no way to water it down and have it be any use to anyone. He reached out and picked up the intercom phone. "Get me the defense control room,” he said.

Both men felt a great burden rise off their shoulders. It was up to others now.

Lucy had
seen
it, seen it with her own eyes through the computer-aimed long-range camera, as
Reunion
headed for deep space.
Ariadne
was still there in orbit, nothing but the bloody comm antennae gone! She spent the long hours of boost celebrating that, deep in her heart, Johnson Gustav was alive!

Joslyn snuck another quick peek at Lucy, and smiled. Joz was pretty good at reading expressions, and true love was an easy one to spot. And it did tend to crop up in the oddest times and places.

But there was other work now. They were well clear of Outpost, far enough from her gravity well to make the jump. When Joslyn hit one last button, the computer would take over and fling them across C
²
, to whatever awaited them. "Mac," she said, "it's now or never. We go?"

Mac's face was stern and solemn, and he was an honest enough man to let a little fear show through as well. But he looked at his lovely wife and grinned—a brave, open smile, because living with love and courage and faith was the only worthwhile way
to
live. "We go. I love you, Joz."

"And I love you, Mac. Always." She had to blink away the tears as she hit the button.

The bootleg C
²
box beneath the lower deck grabbed at space around
Reunion,
carried the ship for an incredibly brief moment, and dropped them down deep inside the Capital system.

Mac shushed the cheer that came from Charlie and Pete in the lower cabin. "Hold the applause down there!" he shouted. "We've got at least ten minutes before we're sure the missiles aren't coming."

"Screw that, Mac," Pete's voice came back. "If the missiles come for me, they'll catch me while I'm glad I'm alive!"

Joslyn powered up the radar. The Guards knew right where they were anyway, and trying to hide wouldn't exactly inspire confidence. "Space is clear as best I can tell, Pete. Go ahead and cheer."

"Cynthia," Mac called, "use the radio and tell the Guards
to kick in the defense screen again, just to prove we're sincere."

"Will do, Mac."

Mac turned to the two hot pilots, Joslyn and Lucy, trying to be cool, calm, rational. There was far too much at stake to for him to get excited and make a wrong move. "Okay, here we are. And since we're not a radioactive cloud, we must be doing something right. So, how do we find
Starsight?"

"And, short of ramming, how do we stop them?" Joslyn asked. "We have lasers if we get within range for them, but no torps or any other sort of weapons."

"I was afraid you'd bring that up," Mac said, in what he hoped was a cheerful sounding voice. "But one thing at s time—we've gotta find them first. Lucy. Try and think like a Nihilist. Never been in space before, probably getting your plots from a Guard astrogator who knows the straight-fine route takes you right though the barycenter and the battle zone. Where do you go? What's your flight path?"

Lucy shut her eyes and concentrated. "I'd say they'd tend to a very simple and conservative route, and also assume they'd change course somewhere along the line. That way, if the Guards got wind of them, they'd still have a chance to avoid interception. But they can't have any very sophisticated ideas about how to hide in space. Which makes waiting until the Guards are busy elsewhere very smart. If the Guards were in any shape to fly, the Nihilists wouldn't have a chance." Lucy powered up the tactical display and fiddled with a joy stick to sketch things in as Mac and Joslyn watched on their repeaters. "I'd say put us
here.
I figure they'd head in
this
way, looping back to come in straight over the southern hemisphere. It brings them in right over the populated areas to give the plague a chance, and they don't approach the planet straight from Outpost. But that's a long-odds guess, Mac. No guarantees."

"But it makes sense, and we've been on the long end of the odds for quite a piece now. Do it. Put us there, and we watch and wait."

The long journey down the space Road was nearly at an end. The lovely globe of Capital grew in the viewscreen. It was time to slow the ship. L'etmlich swung the ship around and fired the fusion engine.

"Fusion light!" Cynthia cried, after hours of watching a screen that snowed nothing. It had been a long and wearing wait. "Lucy, go in for xenopsychology—they're headed almost right down the path you figured."

"Range and rate!" Joslyn demanded.

"Stand by, still tracking. But they lit awfully close. Hang on, getting a Doppler. Okay, here come the numbers to your screen, Joslyn. Call it about seventy thousand kilometers from the planet and closing at five hundred klicks a second. If they hold course, they'll pass about twenty thousand klicks in front of us. Heavy gee-load, but I'll need a better track to give any good figures."

"Are our movements shielded by their fusion plume?"

"No way. We're in plain sight. But I don't get any active radar from them. I doubt they'll spot us unless we advertise. They're nearly in decent laser range."

Mac thought fast. If the lasers didn't work, the Nihilists would still be out there—and they'd know someone was gunning for them. But if they could take
Starsight
out here and now—"Lasers," he said, with more confidence than he felt. There were times he hated being a commanding officer.

L'anijmeb shouted in surprise. The image of Capital in the viewscreen turned a bright, horrid red, and then the screen died altogether.

Romero would have jumped straight out of his crash couch, but for the safety harness. "Laser attack!" he cried. That terrible flash in the barycenter—that was the
League.

They had won, and now they had taken over the skies of Capital itself. "Put the ship in a slow roll, spread the heat evenly! And pitch us around, run for the planet! Drop and get out of here!"

D'etallis almost told the human to shut up, but then she remembered who aboard knew the most about space, fool or not. "L'anijmeb. Do what it says. And kindly use the radar to find our attacker."

"Damn it!" Cynthia cried. "Real even heat pattern. I think they're rolling the ship. Fusion light gone, radar on, they'll have spotted us for sure now. Whoa! Fusion light, right down our nose! Now they're running. Diving for the planet—accelerating instead of braking."

"Chase 'em, Joslyn!” Mac yelled. "Lucy! Crank up the damn lasers right into their fusion flame. Try to overheat them!"

Joslyn powered up Reunion's own engines and quickly brought them up to full thrust. Slowly, they started to gain on the Nihilist ship. She watched the fusion light ahead of her on the scopes. She pitched up and back— hard, suddenly.
Starsight
had come about, trying to fry
Reunion
in her exhaust.

"Skin temps high and going up!" Cynthia shouted.

An alarm sounded, and Lucy slapped the cut-off. "Mac, we've lost the laser. I think we caught the edge of their fusion plume and that overheated it.

"Mac, how the hell do we play this one?" Joslyn yelled over the roar of the engines.

Sweet Jesus. Mac stared hard at the screen, and felt his heart hammering in his chest. Damn it, there was only one chance, no time to fiddle with this tactic or that. He had to call it right the first time. A stern chase was no good, not with these short ranges. All the advantages were with the pursued. But how to outguess an alien pilot? And they had to get that ship in space. If they chased her into the atmosphere, blowing
Starsight
up would probably serve to throw the plague germs into the atmosphere.

The planet was coming up fast now. Okay. Cool, calm, collected thought. Those were inexperienced pilots up ahead. Someone with lots of entry practice could take a ship down with all ship stresses shoved right up to the limit, but could a green jockey? "Run a hot-box on them, Joslyn. Put their backs to the wall on entry. Back off, then jump down their goddamned throats. Try and force them to dive too hot."

L'anijmeb was scared. The planet as getting close, very close. They had to start braking
now
if they were to survive. D'anijmeb swung the ship around and started into the braking pattern.
Starsight
slowed her headlong rush. Gradually, all too gradually, she decreased her madcap speed to a sane level. Behind her, her pursuer matched her maneuver for maneuver, but hanging far back.

Now,
Starsight
was a bare one thousand kilometers above the cloud tops, and her pursuer was far above, no longer interfering. L'anijmeb didn't even know exactly how long a kilometer was, but that almost didn't matter. She just had to follow the meters, keep within the tolerance the Guards had taught her. Now nine hundred klicks. Eight hundred. She snorted nervously through her blowhole and wished endlessly that someone else could do this job. Seven hundred, six hundred klicks; five hundred, four hundred fifty, four hundred. Very close now, and maybe they had slowed enough.

Mac watched the meters, the screens, the planet rising up around them. They were headed straight in. The Nihilists would have to keep braking if they were to survive.

But the same was true of
Reunion.

"Do it, Joz," he said. "Rush 'em. Give it everything you have."

D'etallis's face crinkled in pleasure. They had outrun them. They were nearly there. No point in even bothering to land. Three hundred klicks. They could fire the plague shell out the airlock while they were hovering. More effective, and probably safer all around—

That loathsome Romero screamed again, and pointed at the radar screen.

D'etallis's jaw dropped in horror.

The chase ship had reversed thrust again, and was diving, accelerating, straight for
Starsight.

Eight-gees. For a brief moment, nine. Watching her space-track
and Starsight
and her attitude and her skin temps all at once, Joslyn dove nose first for her enemy. The two ships closed at a terrifying rate, dead for each other. Split seconds from a crash, Joslyn spun ship one last time. There was no radar to guide her; she aimed her fusion flame by luck and feel.