The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (109 page)

He
glanced back at her. Humour and darkness glinted in his eyes. “Maybe if you and
I get out and push, Director Donner,” he commented sardonically, “we can save a
couple of minutes.”

Before
she could retort, however, he turned away. Speaking to the rest of the bridge,
he went on more sternly, “I don’t think a little extra speed is going to help
us. Even if we were at our best, we wouldn’t be able to get where we need to go
fast enough. But Director Donner is right.
Trumpet
has earned anything
we can do for her.

“That
Amnioni knows something we don’t. Otherwise we would still be dodging proton
beams. It’s time to get ready.

“Engage
laser tracking,” he told Glessen on targ. “Program torpedoes. And see if you
can find a way to pack more charge into the matter cannon. Brace yourself to
fire everything on my order. If we want to cover
Trumpet
and survive the
experience, we’d better be serious about it.

“Try to
triangulate, Cray,” he continued. “Calculate reflection vectors or something.
And give Porson anything you get. It would be particularly useful if we could
locate that gap scout.

“As for
you, Sergei —” Dolph chewed his lower lip for a moment, thinking hard. Then he
said, “When I give targ the order, I want you to stop evasive action. That’ll
make Glessen’s job easier. And if we want our friend to concentrate on us, we
might as well give her the best target we can.”

His
people obeyed as if he hadn’t just commanded suicide.

He was
doing as much as he could: Min knew that. She approved, despite the risk. And
yet her whole body burned like her hands to
go faster
; fast enough to
fend off
Trumpet’s
doom.

Morn
Hyland was a
cop
; a UMCPED ensign. In the performance of her duties, she’d
given humankind a staggering gift: an effective defence against the Amnion.

Min
Donner couldn’t bear the thought of letting her be killed.

“Help
me out, Porson,” Dolph rumbled. “Where is
Trumpet
? I’ll take guesswork
if you don’t have real data.”

“Something
—” Porson muttered over his readouts. “Just hints —”

A
moment later, however, he said more strongly, “I don’t know, Captain. That
looks like two ships.”

Blips
in tentative colours appeared on the scan schematic which showed the relative
positions of
Punisher
, the Amnioni, and the seething margin of the
swarm.

“
Two?
”
Captain Ubikwe demanded.

The
scan officer nodded. “But I can’t be sure. Unless I’m seeing ghosts, they’re
keeping themselves occluded.

“One of
them must be
Trumpet
. The emission match is pretty close. I just can’t
tell which one she is.”

Dolph
flung a look at Min, but she shook her head. If one was
Trumpet
, the
other might be the ship which had followed her out of forbidden space. Or the
vessel might be Hashi Lebwohl’s mercenary. She had no way of knowing.

Her
nausea increased. She needed work, activity; something to occupy her mind so
that she could forget the distress in her gut. That other ship was a threat.
Whoever she was, she would attack
Trumpet
as soon as she got the chance.

“Are
they together?” Captain Ubikwe asked Porson.

“From our
point of view, Captain, they might as well be. But they’re still in the
fringes. Using the stones for cover. Stationary, it looks like. Down there that
much distance is considerable. There may be enough rock in the way to keep them
from scanning each other.”

Then
the scan officer flinched as he saw new data scrolling down his readouts. “Captain,
that other ship — She could be the one we saw coming in from forbidden space.
Before we left the Com-Mine belt. Her signature is close, but it doesn’t quite
match. Could be damage. If she’s half-crippled, she might look like that.”

Not
Free
Lunch
.

Another
Amnioni? An illegal working for the Amnion?

God,
how had either of them found
Trumpet
?

Dolph’s
tone took on an edge. “Be ready, Glessen,” he warned. “Our friend is going to
fire. When we see which target she picks, we’ll know which of those two ships
is
Trumpet
.”‘

“I’ve
already got her, Captain!” Cray put in excitedly. She assigned a label to one
of the blips on the scan display. It indicated that
Trumpet
was the
nearer of the two ships — nearer by an insignificant thirty or forty k. “That
broadcast can’t be coming from the other ship,” she explained. “The reflection
vectors are wrong.”

“Good.”
He grinned his approval. “Porson,” he went on at once, “I can’t tell by that
schematic. Is
Trumpet
occluded from our friend?”

“Looks
like it, Captain,” Porson answered.

“Good
again. Now —”

Before
he could finish, emission numbers along one of the screens flared in new
directions. At the same instant the scan display showed a detonation among the
rocks of the swarm; a concussion as vehement as a bomb. Hard radiation and
brisance globed outward like the effects of a thermonuclear explosion.

The
blast wiped
Trumpet’s
blip off the screen as if the gap scout had ceased
to exist.

Afire
with alarm, Min strained against her belts; fought
Punisher’s
wrenching
stagger so that she could see the numbers clearly, understand what they meant.

“Proton
cannon!” Porson cried. “The defensive fired! Direct hit!
Trumpet
is —”

Gone.
Smashed. No mere gap scout could survive a direct hit by a super-light proton
cannon.

But an
instant later the scan officer yelled, “No! She’s there, I see her! The
defensive hit rock!”

Then he
called urgently, “Captain, that was
Trumpet’s
cover! She’s wide open!”

“Now, Glessen!”
Dolph ordered; loud and sharp as breaking granite. “
Everything!
”

Immediately
the targ officer leaned his palms onto his board as if he were pushing all his
keys at once.

At the
same time the cruiser’s stumbling rush stabilised as Patrice simplified her
manoeuvres; pulled her onto a direct heading toward her goal.

Lasers
wailed into the dark in coherent streams.
Punisher
lurched as flights of
torpedoes blasted from their cradles. The hull-burn of the matter cannon
sharpened like screaming as Glessen fed every possible joule of charge to the
guns. With every force and weapon she possessed,
Punisher
hammered at
the Amnioni, striving at the outer limit of her strength to attack the big
defensive so hard that the alien would have no choice except to deal with her,
try to beat her, before firing on
Trumpet
again.

It
couldn’t work.
Punisher
was too far away; lacked the sheer might she
needed to coerce reactions from the Amnioni. The defensive had already shown
her capacity to withstand continuous matter cannon fire. Lasers could be
deflected by glazed surfaces, stymied by shields — or ripped completely apart
by the chaotic energies unleashed when matter cannon bursts struck particle
sinks. And torpedoes were too slow; limited by thrust to spacenormal speeds.

The
best
Punisher
could do wouldn’t stop the Amnioni.

And
Trumpet
had no more cover. She didn’t have time to run. Even at full burn, she couldn’t
acquire enough velocity to go into tach. Her image on scan shone hot with
emissions as her drive roared, hurling her into motion on a line past
Punisher
toward open space; blazing desperately for speed. But she was too late;
inevitably too slow: the alien’s targ would track her with ease.

As soon
as the defensive recharged her proton gun —

Then,
without warning, new numbers blazed on the screens: new force vectors streaked
the vacuum.

“Jesus!”
Porson shouted. “The other ship! The one from forbidden space. She’s firing!

“
She’s
firing at the defensive!
”

Impossible,
it was all impossible, the other ship was an enemy. Yet Min saw the truth on
the screens faster than Porson could say it aloud. From out of the swarm the
unidentified vessel delivered a massive barrage at the Amnioni.

If the
alien warship had cross-linked her sinks in order to handle
Punisher’s
attack, this new onslaught would catch her unprotected; virtually defenceless —

“More,
Glessen!” Dolph roared like a thruster tube through the din. “Don’t let up!”

Punisher’s
unremitting assault on one side; the stranger’s blast on the other
—

“She’s
hit!” Porson called. “She’s hurt! The defensive is hurt! We’re overloading her
sinks! We’re starting to get through!”

118
seconds to recharge the proton cannon. Min saw a countdown on the displays;
held her breath. Could
Punisher
and the other ship damage the Amnioni
fast enough to prevent another blast?

No. The
time was nearly gone.

Perched
on a torch of thrust, the gap scout scrambled out of the swarm, accelerating at
a killing rate. But her escape window would close in eight seconds.

“
Do
it, you bastard!
” Captain Ubikwe raged at the defensive.

Five.

“
Save
yourself!
”

Two.
One.

The
alien’s super-light proton cannon spoke again.

A
coruscating flare of emissions bloomed on
Punisher’s
scan as
Trumpet’s
unexpected ally broke open and fell into oblivion. In milliseconds her hulls
cracked wide, spuming atmosphere to feed the static of the swarm; her drive
imploded, its energies driven in on themselves; released power crackled across
the rocks. Bodies and hopes too small to be discerned at this range were
flashburned to powder. A heartbeat later all that remained of her was the
residue of destruction.

The
Amnioni had saved herself. That made sense. She was hurt; lurching with pain.
If she’d fired at the gap scout instead — a moving target rather than a
stationary one — she might have missed. Then she might not have lived long
enough to know whether
Trumpet
was dead.

And the
gap scout’s broadcast would reach VI.

But now
the small ship had another 118 second window.

It
sufficed. Min knew that before Bydell’s calculations confirmed it. At this rate
of acceleration,
Trumpet
could survive. She would have enough velocity
to engage her gap drive effectively in another eighty seconds. And her
automatic helm controls were more than adequate to carry her safely out of the
Massif-5 system, even if all her people were unconscious.

“Well,
that’s
a relief,” Captain Ubikwe murmured almost softly. “I must admit, I was
starting to worry.”

Yet he
didn’t delay. The Amnioni’s proton cannon might be turned on
Punisher
next — especially now that the cruiser was in a better position to cover
Trumpet
.

“Sergei,”
he instructed promptly, “I think this might be a good time to resume evasive
action. Just because our friend is hurt doesn’t mean she can’t hit us.”

No.
With an effort, Min straightened herself in her g-seat. No. The defensive had
known where
Trumpet
would emerge from the swarm. She might know where
Trumpet
was headed now. And she might have other allies — allies she didn’t expect.
Hashi’s mercenary,
Free Lunch
, remained unaccounted for. That ship might
be somewhere in the vicinity, waiting for her chance to strike.

Punisher
still had work to do.

“I
think, Captain Ubikwe,” Min countered, “this might be a good time to get the
hell out of here.”

He
wheeled his station to face her. He may have been about to protest, Get out of
here? And leave an Amnion warship running loose in human space? But she didn’t
give him time to speak.

“
Trumpet
needs us,” she pronounced, summoning her full authority. “What you call ‘our
friend’ could decide to go in pursuit. She’ll have to do it from a standing
start, but she might try it anyway.

“And we
haven’t seen
Free Lunch
yet. If she’s watching all this, she knows
Trumpet’s
alive. She can still try to fulfil her contract.

“This
is our chance to get ahead of them both.”

Their chance
to make sure humankind didn’t lose what the gap scout’s people had to give.

Fortunately
Dolph understood her. He didn’t require a time-consuming explanation.

“All
right.” He nodded decisively. “We’ll let VI’s gunboats have that defensive. If
she sticks around long enough for them to find her.

“Bring
us about, Sergei,” he ordered. “Let’s see if we can catch
Trumpet
before
she produces any more surprises.”