The Stone Dogs (47 page)

The superconductor field-coils in the plate swept out magnetic fingers, cupping and guiding the blaze of charged particles into a sword of light and energy, stripping out power for the next pulse.

The thrust plate surged forward against its magnetic buffers.

And the multi-thousand-tonne mass of the warship
moved.

"Burn normal. Flow normal at fifty-seven percent capacity.

Point nine-eight G."

"Comin' up on target. Closin'. Preparin' fo' fire mission.

Execute."

Needles of coherent light raked across the lines that held the sail to the
Pathfinder.
The single-crystal sapphire filaments sublimed and parted in tiny puffs of vapor, but no change showed in the giant bedsheet of the sail; it would be hours before the vast slow pressure of the photon wind made a noticeable difference. It was otherwise with the
Pathfinder
itself. A dozen railgun slugs sleeted through the control chamber, and the steel-alloy outer hull rang like a tin roof under hail. The missiles punched through and out the other side without slowing perceptibly, leaving plate-sized holes; the edges shone red as air rushed past, turning to a mist of crystals that glittered in the unwavering light of the sun. Light flickered briefly within as systems shorted and arced.

Other slugs impacted the nozzle of the plasma drive, turning the titanium alloy to twisted shards. A finger of neutral particles stabbed, cut across the lines that connected the arc to the main power torus.
Pathfinder
tumbled.

"STAND BY FOR ZERO GRAVITY." The subliminal thuttering roar of the drive ceased, leaving only the quiet drone of the ventilators. "STAND BY FOR MANEUVER." Attitude jets slammed with twisting force, and the cruiser switched end for end. "STAND BY FOR ACCELERATION. EIGHTEEN-SECOND

BURN. THREE SECONDS TO BURN. BURN." Longer and harder this time; they were killing part of their initial speed and matching trajectories as well. The sound was duller, more mass going onto the thrust plate.

"Matched, closin'," the Drive Officer said. The attitude jets fired again, briefly. "Stable in matchin' orbit, five-point-two klicks."

Yolande keyed the exterior visual display, switching to a magnification that put her at an apparent ten meters from the Alliance vessel. "Well done," she said to the bridge; it looked precisely as she had specified. "Ah," Flames were stabbing out from parts of the can-shaped transport, and the tumbling slowed and stopped. "Nice of him." She hit the control, and the combat braces folded away from her with a sigh of hydraulics. "Number One, boardin' party to the forward lock. Sensors?"

"She's dead in space, apart from those attitude jets. Internal pressure normal except on the control deck, that's vacuum.

Doan' think much damage to internal systems."

"Weapons, connectors away."

" Makin' it so. Off."

Two of her screens slaved to the Weapons station showed a rushing telemetered view of the enemy vessel, as the tiny rockets carried the connectors. Their heads held pickups and sundry other equipment; mostly, they were very powerful electromagnets. The cables themselves were no mere ropes: optical fibers, superconductor power-lines, ultrapure metal and boron and carbon, armored sheathing, the whole strong enough to support many times the cruiser's weight in a one-C field.

"Ah, human-level heat sources in the control chamber. Three, suited. Multiple elsewhere in the hull."

"Very well," Yolande said. "Maintain position, prepare to grapple when the target's secured." That was doctrine, and only sensible. The
Subotai
and her crew represented an unthinkable investment of the resources of the Race.

She rose, secured her boots to the floor. "Number Two, carry on. Boardin' party, I'll be with yo' shortly."

Janet had been squealing with excitement when Cindy returned to the cabin, Iris solemn and earnestly trying to remember what she had been told about emergency drills. It was still hard to believe, how different twins were; or how complete and yet alien a personality could be at five…

Then they both quieted, sensing her seriousness. She zipped them quickly into their skinsuits; Fred had paid out-of-pocket for those luxuries, rather than rely on bubble-cocoons, and now she blessed the extravagance as she worked her way into her own. These were civilian models, little changed from the original porous-plastic leotards the first astronauts had worn. The fabric was cool and tight against her flesh, with a little chafing at groin and armpits where the pads completed the seal. She helped her daughters on with the backpacks, then checked her own; the helmets could be left off but close to hand, for now. God forbid they should have to use them, but if they did every minute could count.

"Come on, punkins," she said, guiding them to the pallet that occupied most of the stemside wall of their cubicle and strapping them in. "Mommy's going to tell you a story."

They settled in on either side of her; she had just begun to search her memory when the sound came. A monstrous ringing hail, like trip-hammers in a forging mill, toning through the metal beneath and around them, like being
inside
a bell. The
Pathfinder
was seized and wrenched, the unfamiliar sensation of weight pulling at them from a dozen different directions, inside a steel shell sent bounding downhill. The locking bolts on the door shot home with a metallic clangor, and even over the ringing of the hull she could hear the wailing of the alarm klaxon and the slamming of airtight doors throughout the ship. Her skin prickled.

"Mom! Mommeee!" Janet shrieked. Iris had gone chalk-pale, her eyes full circles, and her panting was rapid and breathy.

"Meteor swarm, O sweet mercy of God, let it be a meteor swarm!" she whispered under her breath. Their stateroom was the first-class model, with a porthole. The light that stabbed through it into her eyes was like mocking laughter; there was only one thing in the human universe that made that actinic blue-white light, that spearhead-shaped scar across the stars. A nuclear pulsedrive.

"Shhh, shhh,
mommy's here, darlings." She used hands and voice and quieted them to whimpering by the time the reaction jets fired and the ship shuddered back to stability. Just in time, she found a moment to think.
I'm feeling sick and Iris looks
green.
They were all on antinausea drugs, and it took some powerful tinkering with the inner ear to override those.

The
Pathfinder
drifted and steadied. Cindy looked out the port again, blinking against the afterimage of fire that strobed across her sight, against the tears of pain. Then she jammed her knuckles into her mouth and bit down, welcoming pain to beat down the stab of desperation, the whining sound that threatened to break free of her throat. The shape that drifted model-tiny there was familiar, very familiar from the lectures she had attended before signing on with the Project—she was the Commandant's wife as well as a biologist. A Draka cruiser, the third-generation type. A Great Khan, and the only things in the solar system which could match it were a month's journey away.

Cindy Lefarge felt the world greying away from the corners of her eyes, a rippling on her skin as the hairs struggled to stand erect. Bile shot into the back of her throat, acrid and stinging as she remembered other things from those lectures.
No
. A voice spoke in the back of her mind, a voice like her grandmother's.
Y'

got yore duty, gal, so do it
! She had the children to protect.

"Jannie, Iris, listen to me." The small faces turned towards her, pale blue eyes and freckles and the floating wisps of black hair. "You girls are going to have to be very brave for mommy.

Just like real grown-up people, so daddy will be proud of you.

This is really, really important, you understand?"

They looked up from where her arms cradled them against her shoulders. Iris nodded, swallowing and clenching trembling lips. Janet bobbed her head vigorously. "You bet, mom," she said. "I'm gonna be a soldier like dad, someday. So I gotta be brave, right?"

She pulled them closer. Twin lights sparkled from the Draka cruiser, seeming to drift toward her and then rush apart in a V.

She closed her eyes, waiting for the final wash of nuclear flame, but all that came was two deep-toned
chunnng
sounds. The
Pathfinder
jerked again, rotating so that the Domination warship was out of her view. The overhead speaker came to life with a series of gurgles and squawks, then settled into the voice of Captain Hayakawa; calm as ever, but a little tinny, as if he was speaking from inside a skinsuit helmet.

"Attention, please. We have been attacked by a Draka deepspace warship. The engines have been disabled, our communications are down, and the sail has been cut loose. The main passenger compartment has not been holed, I repeat, not been holed. Please remain calm, and stay in your cabins. This is the safest place for all civilians at the moment."

"Ceres and Earth will soon detect what has happened and."

"SKREEKKKKKAAWWK."—" The noise built to an ear-hurting squeal and then died.

Cindy Guzman Lefarge bent her head over those of her children and prayed.

"Assault party ready," the Centurion from
Batu
said.

Yolande nodded assent as she secured the straps on the last of her body armor. It was fairly light (weight didn't matter here but mass certainly did); segmented sandwiches of ablative antiradar, optically perfect flexmirror, sapphire thread, synthetics. Not quite as much protection as the massive cermet stuff heavy infantry wore on dirtside, but easier to handle. She settled the helmet on her shoulders, checked the seal to the neck-ring, and swiveled her eyes to read the various displays. She could slave them to the pickups in any warrior's pack, call up information—the usual data-overload.

The boarding commandos were grouped in Hangar B, the portside half of the chamber just below the nosecap of the cruiser. The Great Khans carried one eighty-tonne auxiliary, but it was stored in vacuum on the starboard, leaving B free as a workspace where systems could be brought up and overhauled in shirtsleeve conditions. Both hangars connected with the big axial workway that ran through the center of the vessel right down to the thrust equalizers, nine-tenths the length of the ship. Now this one was crowded with the score of Draka who would put this particular piece of Yankeedom under the Yoke.

Her lips drew back behind the visor, and she slid her hand into the sleeve of the reaction gun clipped to her thigh. A faint translucent red bead sprang into being on the inside of her faceplate as she wrapped her fingers around the pistol grip, framed by aiming lines. The bulk of the chunky weapon lay rightside on her arm, connected to her backpack by an armored conduit. It was dual-purpose: a jet for short-range maneuvering and a weapon that fired glass-tungsten bullets and balanced them with a shower of plastic confetti backwards.

"Right," she said, over the command push. "Listen, people.

There were certain things that had to be repeated, even with Citizen troops. "This is a raid; we want intelligence data, not bodies or loot. Go in,
immobilize
whoever you find, get theys up to the big compartment just rearward of the control deck. Then we'll sweep up everythin' of interest, and get out." Make it fast, make it clean, do not kill anyone less'n yo' have to, do not waste any time. Service to the State!"

"Glory to the Race!"

"Execute." There was a prickling feeling all over her skin as the pressure in the hangar dropped; nothing between her flesh and vacuum but the layer of elastic material that kept her blood from
except the
woven superconductor radiation shield and the
armor and the thermal layer and
boiling— —oh, shut up
Yolanda,
she told herself. An eagerness awoke, like having her hands on the controls of a fighter back in the old days.

The pads inside her suit inflated. Combat-feeling: a little like being horny, a little like nausea, a lot like wanting to piss. Her surroundings took on the bleak sharpness of vacuum, but she knew the unnatural clarity would be there even if there was air.

Donar,
I could have the suit monitor my bloodstream and tell
me how hopped-up I am
, she thought.

The Centurion's voice. "By lochoi!"

Hers was first. "Follow me," she said, taking a long shallow dive through the hangar door. Out into the access tunnel, three meters across, a geometric tube of blue striplights and handholds two hundred meters sternward of her feet. She pointed her reaction gun toward the open docking ring over her head and pressed once. Heated gas pulsed backward; she stopped herself with a reverse jolt at the exit and swung around to face the enemy ship, adjusting perception until it was below her. The dark, slug-dented surface of the control deck swam before her eyes, jiggling with the distance and magnification.

She fixed the red aiming-spot on the surface and reached across to key the reaction gun.

Locked
strobed across her vision. "Slave your rg's to mine,"

she told the others, crouching. It would adjust the thrust nozzle to compensate for any movement short of turning ninety degrees out of line, now. Yolande took a deep breath. "Let's—
go."

The hull of the Alliance ship thunked dully under their boots, sound vibrating up her bones for lack of air.

"Let's take a look," she said.

"Yo'." A crewman slid a long limber rod through one of the impact holes.

She called up a miniature rectangle of vision keyed to the fiber-optic periscope, fisheye distorted but it would do. Dark, with the chilly silver look of light-enhancement. A drifting corpse, legs missing at the knee where flesh and skinsuit had fought a hypervelocity missile and lost badly. Grains of freeze-dried blood still drifted brown nearby. Wrecked equipment, a very elementary-looking control system, none of the fabled Alliance high technology.
Of course, they want to
build these cheap and quick,
she thought. The Domination had no equivalent class of vessel; the closest were unmanned freighters. The Draka economy did not produce the same set of incentives as the Alliance's nearly laissez-faire system.