The Phoenix in Flight (32 page)

Hreem fingered his weapon, eyeing the door of the bridge
nervously as the comm crackled to life with the sizzling roar of blaster fire
and a medley of screams and shouts. “Power deck,” said Dyasil.

Everyone on the bridge listened without moving—even the
monitors still at their consoles half turned, as if by that they could untangle
the confusion of battle heard and not seen.

Hreem realized that not all the sound was coming from the
com. With a savage slash of his arm, he motioned Dyasil to cut it off—and now
the sound continued through the sealed hatch. The door pinged and crackled as
jac-fire seared its other side. Hreem crouched behind his command pod as the
rest of the crew found what shelter they could, jacs trained on the door.

The sound died away. Now there was only a muffled tapping at
the hatch. Hreem tried to swallow as fear rose in his throat like a tide of
sickness. This was too real, this was the fate he’d known was inevitable even
when denying it, in those too-quiet hours of sleepless darkness that no one
save Norio knew of.

Then, with a blast of sound so loud that it gripped his head
in a ringing vise of abrupt silence, twin jets of blue-white flame punched
through the hatch, spraying gouts of melted metal into the bridge. Hreem yelped
as a splash of clinging flame sank into his forehead. Someone screamed shrilly.

Stout hooks snaked through each of the holes and sank into
the metal of the hatch. With a grinding screech of protest the hatch crumpled
outward and vanished, clattering off the walls and deck of the corridor as the
two Marines threw it behind them, the servos of their armor whining loudly.

The first Marine through the hatch was met by concentrated
jac-fire, which splashed off his blue-gleaming armor in a welter of heat and
light. “Hit the faceplate, you stupid blits!” Hreem shrieked as the bulky
figure stepped aside and triggered its heavy firejac.

The almost solid beam from the weapon, which was far larger
than could be carried without servos, carved a flaming groove across the floor
and into the already damaged console where Alluwan had been, undoing with
ferocious speed the jury-rigged repairs of only hours ago. Then, as Hreem and
his crew watched dumbfounded, it retraced its path back toward the Marine
wielding the jac and blew a hole through the deck as the menacing armored
figure slowly crumpled to its knees. Several seconds later, the jac exhausted
its charge and fell silent, leaving a gaping, molten-edged hole in the deck.
The Marine remained kneeling.

In the doorway, the other Marine stood silently, firejac
half-raised. No one moved for a moment until, with a snarl of fear and
incomprehension, Hreem triggered his jac into the Marine’s faceplate. The
refractory dyplast withstood the blast for a moment, as the Marine began to
fall backward, so that the plasma beam traced a shallow groove across the
faceplate as the heavily armored figure fell onto its back.

Now the bridge was almost silent, save for the hiss and spit
of an electrical fire in the twice-ruined console, and the moaning of someone
badly burned. Hreem remained kneeling for a time, watching the two Panarchists
suspiciously. There was no movement. After a time he got to his feet and walked
cautiously out the hatch to the downed Marine—the deck around the other was too
hot to approach. The crew muttered approbation as, after a momentary pause,
Hreem raised his boot and brought it down heel-first on the Marine’s faceplate.
His heel-claw shattered the heat-grayed dyplast and plunged through.

Blood oozed slowly from the ragged wounds inflicted by the
tines of the claw on the Marine’s face, which was barely recognizable as male,
probably around forty. His eyes, mouth, and pores seeped blood: his face was
bright red, as from a savage sunburn, and the sour stink of vomit rose from the
open helmet.
They must have caught it when the
Korion
blew.
A
great heaviness lifted from Hreem’s heart, and the awful, pride-devouring realization
of his fear and helplessness vanished, leaving not even a memory. Hreem looked
up at the screen as the drone of another missile discharging burred through the
bridge. The Marines had failed there, too.

Then he looked around at the ghastly carnage the Marines had
made of the crew defending the bridge—blackened corpses tightly melted into
heat-constricted armor, with thick redness oozing through cracked flesh. Only a
few of the fallen Marines showed jac damage—some of them might even still be
alive, though not for long, thought Hreem. With a strangled curse he pointed
his firejac into the unconscious Marine’s helmet and triggered it.

A shadow flickered on the edge of Hreem’s vision. He glanced
up into Norio’s face. The tempath’s eyes were wide and manic; Hreem saw his own
reflection twinned in those shining dark orbs, corpse-lit by the flaring light
from within the Marine’s helmet, wreathed in smoke and the sweet stench of
vaporizing flesh. It was a terrifying sight, enough to jolt Hreem out of his rage.

Hreem released the trigger and straightened up slowly. In
the unnatural quiet, he heard Norio’s breathing, and his soft laugh.

“Satiation, Jala,” Norio whispered, looking around the
blast-damaged room, and at the techs writhing in pain or frozen in shock.

None of them would meet the tempath’s hot gaze. Dyasil
flinched away when Norio moved, his robes flaring, to bend and touch a dying
crewman, tenderly brushing the man’s hair back from his eyes. He squatted on
his heels next to the man, waiting. The tempath’s breath hissed between his
teeth as the tech finally spasmed and died. When Norio straightened, he sent a
considering look at Hreem, then glided off the bridge.

Dyasil licked cracked lips as he shot another assessing look
at his captain, and Hreem remembered the Marine’s attack on the computer.
Another time Hreem might have handed Dyasil over to Norio for his failure to
halt it, but not now.
One thing’s for sure; that damned Barcan trog isn’t
gonna get to hide in his cabin anymore.

His gaze went to the screens.
The price for this is
coming out of your hide, Faseult.
Out loud: “Dyasil, Erbee—find out what
happened on the power deck. Get me a status report ship-wide. Get Riolo working
on the computers.” Hreem’s voice was mild, almost drained of emotion, and both
techs turned tiredly to their tasks. “Metije, medtechs. Get them out of here.”
He waved his firejac at the dead and wounded.

Slowly the bridge came back to normal, as reports came in
from the rest of the ship of similar success against the invaders, but when the
relief crew came to the bridge, they had to step around Hreem, who stood,
firejac still in hand, looking dully around at the wreckage of his ship.

... the cat’s remaining eye glared insensately at him as
it crouched on his chest, sucking the breath from his lungs. He struggled for
air, its claws dug into his chest, but his limbs did not respond to his mind’s
frantic commands...

The pressure abated and the mind-battering roar ceased. As
his vision cleared, Deralze got a blurry impression of something black whirling
away. Then the beast’s yellow eye resolved into a status light on Osri’s
console and a mild jar announced the separation of the booster. His chest
expanded convulsively in a deep gasp, and the tearing ache in his lungs began
to fade.

Where did
that
come from?

A legend flashed on Osri’s screen: SKIP MINUS 21 SECONDS.

They were in the most vulnerable phase of their boost, on
internal power, their acceleration fallen to a mere hundredth of its original
value. Were they now a target on some Rifter’s screens? They’d never know,
Deralze decided, watching the countdown. Osri stirred restlessly in the command
pod but said nothing. Their coms were off.

Ares.
Would the news of the Krysarch’s disappearance
have reached there yet?
Probably.
What an irony: as a loyal Panarchist,
Deralze had never risen high enough to rate even a visit there; as a prisoner,
he would know the place well.

Deralze glanced at Brandon’s profile. The Krysarch was
intent on Osri’s screens.

Deralze thought about the flight from Arthelion to Charvann.
He had taken care to find a yacht that afforded comforts and diversions, but
Brandon had shown little interest in these, and he’d scarcely slept in the
palatial cabin.

During the last week, Brandon had holed up on the bridge,
studying navigation chips. But that first week, he’d prowled around and around,
discharging ten years of pent-up emotions by talking almost without cease about
Markham and their Academy days. He went back into their shared past, making
Deralze laugh and laugh again as Brandon recounted every joke, trick, and
score-off designed by two fertile minds dedicated to having the most fun within
constraining circumstances.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out what must have happened.
Only Semion would have had the power and reach to ruin his own brother and
Markham, but why? And how? Either someone had cheated on tests in their names,
or the entire system was rotten right up to the Panarch.

In any case, Deralze had kept the Poets plot to himself,
preferring to tell Brandon and Markham both once they safely reached Dis.

Now that they were on their way, Deralze comprehended, with
a sickening inward pang, just how little he wanted to go to Ares and just how
impossible it was that he should not. Now he would never have that chance to
tell them, but his reticence still insured one thing: Brandon could not be
implicated in the Poets plot. His having left his Enkainion was going to create
enough difficulties on Ares. Deralze wasn’t much on history, but he couldn’t
remember ever having heard of a Krysarch running out on an Enkainion hours
before it was to begin.

Deralze knew his own future, as a deserter with a warrant
against his name issued by the Aerenarch. He’d be wrung inside out, every scrap
of knowledge plumbed. Fine. He took full responsibility for his decisions—and
his interrogators would hear his own reasons why. But Brandon would not take
blame for something he was completely ignorant of.

And here was the biggest irony, he thought as the countdown
reached the single numbers: if the bomb did go off, the fact that he’d rescued
the Krysarch, for whatever reasons, would be enough to keep him from being put
up against a wall.

Then the countdown reached zero.

The designers of the little courier had wasted no effort on
cushioning the first skip, but the head-bloating sensation was compounded and
then overwhelmed by a near-simultaneous blow to the ship. The impact caused Deralze’s
suit to go rigid and nearly blacked him out. Through the haze of a
near-blinding headache he saw Osri’s console go red. The hum of the fiveskip
was coarse and wavering.

Osri wrung his hands and flexed them: they’d been poised
above the console and the suit had not altogether cushioned the impact. In
front of him a diagnostic window popped up on the screen. Brandon had been
staring at it for some time.

The meaning of the first two messages hit Deralze.

PSEUDO-VELOCITY 5 CEE. CERENKOV SUPPRESSION NIL.

That’s months just to the next system, and the Rifters
can see us. We can’t get to Ares that way.

Can’t get to Ares...

Brandon twisted around, his blue eyes lambent in the light
from Osri’s console. “Dis,” he said.

Deralze tried to suppress the laugh that forced its way up
from his chest. Yet another ironic twist, the gift of a Rifter missile. Markham
would be waiting for them.

Deralze smiled at the image of the young Highdweller adopted
from nowhere by the Archon of Lusor—his crooked smile, his lanky frame and
precise movements expressing an unaffected elegance that his enemies
interpreted as the posturing of a dandy, but which was in fact the natural
demeanor of a young man more at home in his body than anyone Deralze had ever
known.
I wonder how his Rifter friends see him?

I wonder how fast he’d get us out of range of that
destroyer?...

Osri’s hands were again paused hesitantly above the pads,
slowly touching here and there.

Brandon’s fingers drummed spasmodically on his pod arms.

Why was Osri wasting time trying to further diagnose the
problem? If they kept moving in a straight line, even the worst ship’s captain
could zap them.

Brandon glanced back at Deralze, his expression unreadable.
How would Brandon convince Osri Omilov to take the ship to Dis without
explaining what the place was?
Even though it
is
the quickest way to
Ares.

Deralze’s gut twisted again. He knew what the blank look on
Brandon’s face meant. They would indeed see Markham, but they wouldn’t join
him. The Krysarch was bound by honor now to reach Ares—bound by the Archon’s
ring, stowed behind him in the tiny locker along with the gnostor’s artifact,
and the promise he had made when he accepted it.

Would Markham understand? Could he afford to? Deralze
considered Hreem the Faithless’s sneering face again.
No. Markham would not
serve under that one.
Deralze felt the stirrings of hope.

Brandon activated his com switch. “They can track us, can’t
they?”

Osri responded by opening his channel.

He must have heard the careful neutrality in Brandon’s
voice, for he replied with barely a trace of stiffness: “Yes. And our high
end’s destabilized. I’m trying to damp it.”

“Perhaps a drunkwalk would be a good idea?” Brandon’s voice
was quiet, almost diffident.

Osri’s back stiffened—his pride was too easily touched.

“I think I know what I’m doing,” he said with some asperity
.
“That would make the engines even more unstable. As it is, any course
change would cost us a full three hundred seconds before we could skip.” Osri
added with the superiority of the instructor in navigation, where all numbers
are pure and simulation is equivalent to experience. “A Rifter is hardly likely
to be a good enough navigator to intercept us on the skip, but even a novice
could zap us under geeplane alone.”