That Way Lies Camelot (6 page)

Jensen dug in the pouch sewn into the Freer robe for another round of ammo. His fingers snagged in the fabric; he swore and wrestled them free, while from the deck, MacKenzie James broke his silence.

'Most Freer carry their weapons on a belt across their chests. The pouch is for pills to kill parasites, and the clip on the seam hangs their water skins.'

Jensen clamped his jaw tight, methodically busy with reloading. If Mac James chose to make conversation, he would have a purpose other than boredom.

'Godfrey, who's left to shoot but me?' The skip-runner never glanced at the corpse, oozing blood an arm's length from him.

Jensen snapped a fresh round into the magazine of the gun and tried to figure why Mac James might wish to distract him with chatter. Quite dangerously, the stakes had altered. He might hold the upper hand, but the captain was not entirely at his mercy. With
Marity'
s major controls stripped of function and her FTL hurtling her toward an unknown destination, Jensen shoved back the first, creeping stir of doubt. He could defeat the retina lock over the drive access hatch by dragging his captive down below and manhandling him up to the sensors. But disabling
Marity'
s FTL condensers would do no good if he had no inkling of her position. Jensen stepped over the mate's sprawled feet. Most of the screens were opaque, empty of data as the rest of the controls. As he surveyed the opened cowling and tightly racked maze of exposed boards, it occurred to him that Mac James might have prepared his own diabolical sort of defense:
Marity
was probably inoperable by any hand but her captain's. Jensen clenched his hands, rage at his predicament momentarily making him dizzy. He
would
come out of this on top, with the promotion he was long since due. Freshly determined, he searched out the stop-marker coordinates that glimmered on the navigational board.

The fix was still within Carsey Sector, and surprisingly familiar. That James would wish
Marity
to emerge only hours away from the wreckage he had left on Point Station bespoke unsettling confidence. Jensen hid his hands in his robe, too careful to give way to elation as he identified the fix as Castleton's World, a lifeless planet until recently, when Fleet Command had cut ground there for a large-scale outpost. Two squadrons patrolled there, with a dreadnought in synchronous orbit to maintain security for the duration of the construction.

Jensen turned slowly from the controls, starded to find that MacKenzie James seemed to be sleeping. Ripped with an irrational desire to destroy the man's nerveless peace, the Fleet officer said, 'Castleton's isn't the refuge you hoped for, not anymore.'

MacKenzie James replied without opening his eyes. 'You're not much in the confidence of your superiors, are you, boy? Or maybe the news is too recent, or the planned assault on Bethesda makes Fleet brass too busy to keep current.'

The assault on Bethesda was supposed to be top secret.
Horrified that a common skip-runner should be party to Fleet secrets, Jensen stiffened. He leveled the barrel of his pellet gun just as the gray eyes of his captive flicked open. They reflected a cold and bloodless amusement that made him ache to pull the trigger.

'Khalia,' said MacKenzie James with uninfected plainness. 'The new base on Castleton's was overrun, utterly, and stripped of all survivors.'

Disbelief made Jensen tremble. Even the hand which held his weapon was not exempt. The captain had to be lying, his words a ploy to provoke a careless reaction. Only Jensen made it a point never to be careless.

Mac James shrugged, if you aren't going to kill me out of pique, you might want to clear the remains of my mate from the bridge. Because unless you wish to become a slave of the Khalia, I'll need to reconnect some circuitry without tripping over dead meat.'

The sheer effrontery of the suggestion undid Jensen's poise. 'You think
I'm
a fool?'

Mac James stirred against the confines of his bonds. 'Yes, but how much of one
I'm
waiting to find out.'

Jensen's jaw jerked tight. He pointed his gun to the deck, viciously flipped on the safety, then turned his back on his prisoner. All sensor displays were lifeless; when
Marity
broke out of FTL, no method remained to determine whether the ships which would greet her were Fleet, or enemy; and hell only knew if the defensive shields had power. Jensen felt a detestable sense of helplessness. Mac James had him boxed; not being a hardware man, he lacked the knowledge to hack the electronics back into working order.

Mac James drawled lazily at his captor's back. 'The sensors and analog screens are operational, boy, but you'll need to engage the power switch.'

Jensen hesitated out of principle. The control panel might possibly be booby-trapped: Yet logic dictated that Mac James would hardly plot murder while still under restraint, not unless he planned to die slowly of dehydration. Alert for surprises, Jensen hunted among the controls and flipped the appropriate switch. The analog panel hummed to life, and snow hazed the monitor, while the sensors gathered data. Presently, the haze subsided to black, which was normal; no image would resolve until
Marity
re-entered normal space.

Jensen tried the power switches for weaponry, without success. The guidance computer also proved to be dead, and only the watching presence of MacKenzie James prevented Jensen from hammering the panels in frustration. The chrono
m
eter by
Marity's
autopilot alone showed any indicators, the most maddening of which informed that re-entry into sub-light at Castleton's was barely thirty minutes off.

Jensen paced. Careful to stay within the perimeters of
Marity's
artificial gravity, he avoided the congealing runnels of Evans's blood, and also that portion of deck included in MacKenzie's field of view. He dared not give the skip-runner captain his liberty. Yet to risk re-entry near a base under Khalian control without fire power or maneuverability begged the most terrible fate. Not least, a concern the young officer would never have, admitted out loud, was the fact he had never seen action against the enemy. Jensen had never doubted his courage. But the possibility of closing with the enemy in a small, converted merchanter like
Marity
frayed his confidence to tatters.

The chronometer on the autopilot clicked over; seven minutes to re-entry. Mac James once again appeared asleep. His behavior seemed inhuman, until Jensen recalled that
Marity
had docked at Point Station forty-eight hours before under emergency priorities. By the grimy, unkempt appearance of the captain's person, he probably had not slept while he effected repairs on his ship. Jensen himself had not rested for nearly as long, but excitement and stress had put him on a jag that precluded relaxation.

* * *

At a minute and a half to re-entry, MacKenzie James opened his eyes. The corpse of his mate lay undisturbed on the deck. Jensen stood at the analog screen, his gun clenched in anxious fingers. Beneath the Freer robe, his left hand gripped the keys to the nooses which secured MacKenzie James with white-knuckled indecision.

One minute to re-entry; Mac James quietly recommended pressing the toggle to unshutter the shield generators. Though to do so felt like capitulation, Jensen did not cling to foolish pride. A suspicion crossed the young officer's mind, that more of
Marity's
systems might be operational than the control monitors indicated. But no time remained to run cross-checks. The buzzer signalled phase-out of
Marity's
autopilot, and the eerie instant of suspension which heralded transition from FTL to normal space followed after. Jensen watched the analog screens with taut anticipation.

Castleton's appeared as a dun ball, mottled gray at the terminator; the larger of two moons showed as a sliver to dayside, but Jensen spared the scenery barely a glance. The sensors finished processing data, and the screen became peppered with silvery specks; scouts by their formation. Larger shapes nestled among them, unquestionably cruisers, with a third one tucked away behind the mass of Castleton's.

'Godfrey,' Mac James observed, his neck craned awkwardly to allow a view of the screens. 'They didn't waste time expanding their strike force, now did they?'

'They might not be Khalia!' Jensen snapped.

A buzzer clipped his outburst short. Lights flashed warning on the analog panels, and one of the flecks gained a faint halo of red.

'Well, Fleet or enemy, boy, one of them is about to fire on us.' Mac James shrugged irritably at his bonds. 'If you like slavery, or maybe even vivisection, just keep sitting there doing nothing.'

Jensen raged, uncertain;
Marity'
s sirens wailed with sudden violence, her shields crackling under the impact of a hit.

'Warning rocket,' Mac said tersely. 'Probably they're provoking to see whether we want a fight. Power up the transmitter, boy.'

Jensen hesitated.

'Do
it now!'
barked MacKenzie James, adamant as a Fleet rear admiral.

Another red halo bloomed on the analog screen. Jensen slapped the transmitter switch. The gabble of alien speech that issued from the speaker caused the last bit of color to drain from his face.

'Now listen carefully, boy,' said the hell-begotten captain from the floor. 'Do exactly as I tell you, or we'll both get our guts ripped out.'

'You planned this!' Jensen accused, horror sharpening the immediacy of their peril.

'Yes, now shut the hell up and listen!' MacKenzie said.

The patter of Khalian changed inflection, and a singsong voice in poorly pronounced wording began a demand for the surrender of
Marity
and all human personnel on board.

Still clutching pellet gun and keys, Jensen rubbed his hands over his blanched face.

'You will surrender my ship to the Khalia,' MacKenzie James instructed tersely. 'But add that you will submit only to a great captain, one who has proven his merit. That one, you will say, is the Khalia cruiser currently in orbit over the night side of Castleton's.'

Jensen lowered his hands, incredulity spread across his features.

Before he could draw breath to speak, Mac James cut in,
'Just do it!'

Instead Jensen spun and stabbed each of the firing studs in frenzied succession. Nothing happened.
Marity'
s weapons remained utterly unresponsive. Furious that his career should be finished without a single rocket fired in protest, and whipped by recognition that no option at all remained to him, Jensen crumbled at last into panic. 'Why disable the weaponry, man? Why, if you planned this cruise into an effing Khalian fleet?'

'I probably wanted to commit suicide.' MacKenzie's vicious sarcasm jarred like a slap. 'Maybe, though, I'll get slavery or vivisection instead.'

A shudder shook Jensen's frame as the voice on the transmitter changed from a demand for surrender to threats. Rather than be blasted to vapor, Jensen pressed the toggle to send. He surrendered
Marity
and all on board to the Khalia in a voice he barely recognized as his own. Only as an afterthought did he include MacKenzie James's stipulation: that prize rights and conquest be awarded to one of proven merit, the great captain who cruised the dark side of Castleton's.

The effect upon the Khalia was profound. By their belligerent and bloodthirsty reputation, Jensen expected the enemy would converge upon their prize without delay. Instead, the scout ships clustered tightly to their respective cruisers; as if locked in deadly partnership, the closer pair of warships wheeled and advanced upon the one which even now accelerated from the shadowed side of Castleton's.

'They'll challenge,' MacKenzie broke in, answering Jensen's puzzled frown. 'Khalian war leaders can't bear to defer without a fight. That lends you a very narrow margin to get this bucket operational. Which means my release, boy, because this is the only break you're going to get.'

Jensen rounded upon the captain. 'You never intended to surrender!'

Mac James returned a withering stare. Mollified by a knowledge of the enemy not even Fleet intelligence could equal, Jensen thumbed the safety toggle off his pellet gun. Then he took the release key in his other hand, stooped, and undipped the nooses from MacKenzie James's feet. The man shifted forward to better expose his hands; the noose was soaked with blood. Nerves, or tension, or sheer frustration had caused the skip-runner captain to wrench at his bonds until his wrists tore open. Jensen keyed the catches, a sick clench in his gut causing his guard to slip. In that instant, MacKenzie's elbow hammered upward into his face. A spin and a kick relieved Jensen of his weapon. The young officer crumpled to his knees. Feeling as if every knuckle in his hand were broken, he fumbled to pull the knife he had confiscated earlier.

Mac James reached it first, and tossed it rattling into a corner. Disregarding Jensen completely, he retrieved the fallen gun, discharged the single round into the stuffed seat of a crew couch, then hurled the weapon without ceremony down the companionway ladder. With no break in movement he bent over the opened cowling of the control panel and furiously began to work.

Lights flashed to life under the captain's ministrations, casting baleful light over his frowning features. To Jensen, who moaned through clenched teeth at his back, he said, 'Clear Evans out of here, boy. If I trip over him at the wrong moment, some Khalia butcher'll hack off your balls.'

Jensen obeyed to buy time, lull the captain into the belief he was cowed. Evans's corpse was already cool to the touch, his bulk limp and awkward to lift. Hampered by his injured hand, Jensen was forced to drag him. Blood from the dead man's shattered jaw smeared the white deck. Dizzied with pain from his hand, Jensen choked back a wave of nausea. He reeled into the nearest crew chair, just as
Marity
roared to life. MacKenzie James crowed over the controls like an elated child. Scarred fingers kicked in the accelerators.

On the analog screen, the first pair of cruisers closed to do battle, scout ships circling to one side like swarms of angry bees. Now and again the bolt of a plasma discharge flicked through the flashes of heavy rockets.

'They're pounding themselves to a pulp,' Jensen observed in amazement.

'Better hope they do.' MacKenzie twisted a lead, then punched up
Marity's
screens. 'The one who's not joining the cockfight will be on our butt quick, before the survivor calls challenge on him.'

'How do you know?' Jensen hated himself for the admiration which colored his tone. 'Where did you learn so much about the enemy?'

MacKenzie never glanced up from the controls. 'Evans could have told you. Right now,
I'm
too busy.' He flung himself into the adjoining pilot's chair, took the helm, and almost immediately
Marity
veered.

Still nauseous, Jensen sought stability in watching the analog monitor. As the attitude thrusters opened wide, the pared disk of Castleton's fell away, replaced briefly by space sprinkled with fixed stars, and the moving points of enemy warcraft. These were eclipsed in turn by the disk of Castleton's sun; MacKenzie flicked the stabilizers and banged the heel of his hand down, shoving the gravity drive into full acceleration.

Jensen made a sound in protest as several g's of force ground his body against the crew chair. 'Out of the frying pan,' he managed, before discomfort forced him silent.

MacKenzie James said nothing. His profile seemed motionless as laser-cut quartz in the lights off the monitors as
Marity
picked up speed. Fuelled by the gravitational field of Castleton's sun, she gained velocity at a rate that was frightening. Jensen battled for equilibrium. He was not the pilot that Shields was, but he could recognize when safe limits were transgressed. As if his worn old craft did not hurtle full tilt for annihilation in the fires of a star, Mac James sat back and flexed his scarred fingers in a manner that suggested habit. Then, as
Marity'
s course held stable, he shoved forward against the force of acceleration and busied himself again with the circuitry.

'Haven't you done enough?' Jensen demanded, mostly to distract himself from fear. With the Khalia behind, and the inferno of Castleton's star raging forward, what composure he had left was faked.

Mac James pulled a wire from the cowling and unceremoniously stripped it with his teeth. He twisted the bared end into a hook which he clamped to some unseen contact below. Another panel on
Marity'
s control boards flickered to light; satisfaction made her captain expansive. 'You're better endowed with luck than brains, boy. You're not going to burn. Just maybe you'll be spared the hell of being bait for Khalia as well.'

He added no explanation. But as the third Khalian warship swung to intercept, the captain responded with hair-raising innovation. He spun
Marity
into what seemed a suicidal trajectory toward Castleton's sun. Like some terrible vulture, the Khalian cruiser swung into position, shadowing their descent into the inferno. If Mac James even once tried his drive brake,
Marity'
s occupants would be weasel meat.

Jensen masked fright with bravado. 'You're sending yourself to hell, by way of the inferno.'

MacKenzie James said nothing. The staccato buzz of an alarm sounded, and the control board transformed to a field of warning lights. Caught in horrified absorption by the star swelling on the analog screen, Jensen almost forgot the Khalian warship until it fired.

The rocket lanced across the screens, violet against the glare of Castleton's star.

'My god,' Jensen said angrily. 'Do they believe in miracles, or what? They may as well vaporize us, for all that we can stop.'

'They think we're what we seem,' MacKenzie James said softly. 'A merchanter caught without escort.' He paused, as if that explained everything. A second Khalian rocket seared across the screens. In the fitful, flickering light of its passage, the captain seemed to recall that the man in the crumpled Freer robe who sweated in his crew chair was not his knowledgeable mate.

'The Khalia believe that we have chosen suicide rather than be captured. They fire to salute our courage, for by their honor code, our action is admirable.'

Which fit with the accuracy of truth, Jensen reasoned. With a crushing sense of frustration, he cursed the fact that he could not return the information to his superiors. Surely such knowledge would have earned him a commendation and promotion - but the closing proximity of Castleton's sun foreclosed any chance of survival.

MacKenzie James seemed peculiarly indifferent to the end his own subterfuge had created. Hunched like a bear over his controls, he grinned. 'Watch now.' But the corpse of the mate which oozed by the companionway showed as much enthusiasm as Jensen. 'In a moment, the Khalian ship will brake and pull off, just enough so she'll bounce off the gravity well at a tangent.'

'So what,' Jensen shot back. The captain was crazy; they'd melt just as handily by hydrogen fusion, but the man acted as if he was ignorant of the fundamental rules of physics.

'Now,' murmured Mac James. The Khalian cruiser shifted. His scarred hands moved at the controls, and
Marity
responded with a roar like a Chinese dragon. Jensen was tossed backward as her entire aft quarter opened up into a fireball.

Jensen saved himself from a bruising fall with the hand Mac James had injured. Pain exploded like white heat. His head spun and his vision momentarily went black.

'We're not a merchanter,' admonished MacKenzie James from the dark. By the time the officer's eyesight cleared,
Marity
had burned into a new trajectory, a searing arc that would carry her into a parabolic orbit just within survivable limits. This, with an antique mess of a drive unit that ran on explosive propellants - no sane captain would have such a relic on a space-going vessel.

'But the quick acceleration is damned handy in a pinch,' the skip-runner captain said brightly. 'It's saved my butt more than once.'