<Is it open?>
<No. It is locked.>
<Open it, if you can. Do you have the right codes?>
<Disisto has a priority access code, but to use it now would only forewarn them that you are coming.>
Roche nodded. <How about communications between the dock and the rest of Galine Four? Can you interrupt them?>
<Yes, although they already know that you are at liberty aboard the station.>
<Then we’ll have to play it carefully.> She paused as another pressure door slid aside. The map the Box had given her indicated two more doors between them and the secondary dock. <If Shak’ni guesses where we’re headed and manages to get a squad in before us, we’ll be cut off.>
<That won’t happen. I will self-destruct what remains of the scutter and create another hull breach if necessary. Decompression takes precedence over security problems; not even Shak’ni can change that.>
<At least they’ve got their priorities in order.> Roche smiled grimly, and thought about Maii and Cane, captives of Rufo. <I only wish I could say the same about us...>
* * *
The secondary dock lay five meters past the final pressure door. As they passed through it, Roche tightened her grip on Disisto’s hand.
“You so much as raise an eyebrow without my say-so,” she said, “and I will shoot you. Okay?”
Disisto grimaced slightly. “I never doubted for a moment that you would, Commander.”
“Good.” She waved Mavalhin and Haid ahead of her. “We need to whittle their numbers down. Myer, I want you to go first and tell them you’ve come to get help from the main dock. The Box will kill communications, so they won’t be able to check. Tell them a fire’s responsible. Reinforcements have been cut off, and all hands are needed to help put it out.”
“And if they don’t believe me?”
“They can’t afford not to. A fire in the main dock will spread quickly, regardless of pressure doors.”
He nodded at Haid. “Where will he be?”
She pointed at a corner past the entrance to the dock. “But I’ll be watching, Myer, so don’t even think of trying anything.”
He grinned uneasily. “As trusting as ever, I see.”
Roche pulled Disisto around the corner, with Haid not far behind <Okay, Box. Kill communications, and get ready to open that airlock.>
<At your command.>
From her overhead perspective of the dock, Roche watched as Mavalhin hurried into the control room. She couldn’t hear much of what was being said, but Mavalhin’s animated behavior along with the responsive body language from the guards themselves gave her an idea of what was happening. Two of the five personnel seemed skeptical, but the others appeared to accept his story. After a few moments two of the security guards, along with one of the technicians, followed Mavalhin out of the room, moving up the hallway toward the open pressure door. The guards and technician stepped through the door a second before Mavalhin, but instead of following, he jumped back.
The door slid shut, cutting them off.
Roche tugged her prisoner out of hiding. “Okay. We go in. Haid, you first, then Myer. I’ll be right behind you.”
The remaining security guard looked up as soon as Haid ran into the room, and in a moment his pistol was up and firing. Haid rolled behind a desk, out of harm’s way, but Mavalhin caught a bolt in the shoulder that sent him flying, screaming in pain.
Roche rounded the door at the same instant, dragging Disisto with her. Her opening fire caught the guard in the chest. He collapsed back into a chair, his gun still firing. The weapon discharged noisily into the ceiling six more times before his trigger finger fell slack.
The lone technician backed away with his hands raised and a look of terror on his face.
Haid appeared from behind the desk. “Thanks, Morgan. Guess my reflexes are still a little rusty.”
“Don’t mention it,” she muttered, keeping an eye on the technician and Disisto, while at the same time trying to determine exactly how seriously Mavalhin had been hurt.
<Box, open the airlock.>
The door slid open with a hiss, revealing a standard umbilical corridor on the far side.
<Can you seal the entrance in here?> she asked.
<Let’s hope it’s enough.> She waved her pistol at the technician, gesturing for him to lie facedown on the floor. “Haid, knock him out.”
Next Roche checked on Mavalhin. The pilot had been shot in the left shoulder. Blood leaked from between his fingers where he clutched the wound. She forced him to let go, and pulled the charred edges of the hole in his uniform aside.
The wound was deep but cauterized enough to keep blood loss to a minimum, otherwise he would already be slipping into shock. His eyes, when they met hers, were full of panic.
“Glad you came with us, huh?” Her smile was intended to allay his obvious fear. Despite his pain, he managed a half-smile in return. Roche stood, wiping her hands on her black uniform. “When Haid’s ready, we’ll board Daybreak and be on our way. Once we’re out of here, we’ll see what medical facilities we have and patch you up, okay?”
He nodded and struggled to his feet. Disisto followed obediently as Roche guided the pilot to the umbilical.
“I’m done,” said Haid, stepping over the technician.
“Right. Through here.” She prodded Disisto to go ahead of her. <Box, once we’re in, seal the airlock.>
<Yes, Morgan.>
The umbilical was only half as long as the ones at the main dock. At the far end, the courier’s airlock was sealed shut. Roche let go of Disisto for a moment, and placed her palm-link against it, hoping that she remembered the emergency COE codes well enough to fool the onboard AI.
After a moment of rapid dialogue, the airlock hissed and slid open. Taking hold of Disisto again, she entered the courier vessel.
Daybreak was little different from the many small cruisers she had flown in her years with COE Intelligence. It had room for a crew of eight and forty-two passengers, plus a small cargo hold at the rear. The bridge—cramped to Roche after her time on the Ana Vereine—was at the rounded nose of the craft and held crash-seats for five. The interior was dimly lit and purely functional. A standby screen glowed at the pilot’s station, but otherwise the controls were dead.
Haid helped Mavalhin into an empty couch and strapped the brace tight, ignoring the wince of pain it provoked. Roche put Disisto into the copilot’s position and lashed his hand to the palm-link. Sitting next to him, she opened her own link to the vessel’s command systems, and thereby back to the Box. The craft accepted her COE overrides without complaint.
<Was Myer telling the truth?> she asked. <Will it fly?>
<All systems are green—except for the slow-jump drive, which is dead, and weapons systems, which are nonexistent. I am initiating a start-up sequence which will have the ship flight-ready in six minutes.>
The main screen showed a forward view of the dock, past the dry dock and a section of the outer shell. Lights began to flicker on the consoles. Roche tried to follow them, but the Box worked too rapidly.
Within seconds the reactor began supplying power to the main thrusters, preparing them for rapid burn, and as it did, Roche was touched by a sense of déjà vu.
The situation reminded her of the time she and Cane had escaped from the Midnight with Maii and Veden captive. Then, as now, the Box had been in control of the craft—and much more besides, it had turned out.
<This time,> she warned the AI, <don’t blow anything up>
The Box did not respond immediately. <Box?>
<I’m sorry, Morgan,> it finally said. <The Ana Vereine is receiving fire from cannon on Galine Four. We are camouflaged, but are hampered by the necessity to remain nearby in order to assist your launch.>
<You can’t destroy the cannon?>
<I am attempting to do so as we speak. However, there are many of them, and I am hesitant to damage the station too much while Cane and Maii are
within.>
She checked the countdown on the main display. Only a minute had passed.
<How long can you hold off the attack?>
<Long enough. But you will need to launch with haste.>
<Understood.> She turned in her seat. “Myer, what are those codes? Myer?”
The pilot stirred. “What—?”
“The codes! What are they?”
“Oh... 16433051: Cold Sleep.” She turned back to the main console and fed the sequence into the main AI. It accepted the code without protest, and relayed the command to the secondary dock. Twenty seconds later, the umbilical disengaged and retracted into its housing.
<Okay, Box. We’re clear at this end. As soon as the drives are able, we can leave.> She began preparing the navigation systems for departure, plotting a route from the main dock to a potential rendezvous with the Ana Vereine.
<There is one other thing,> the Box said.
She didn’t stop working. <I’m listening.>
<I am picking up a broad-band distress signal from the xenoarchaeological base on Mok.>
She stopped. <The double-jovian?>
<Yes.>
<What does it say?>
<The message is very brief, repeated every fifteen seconds. It states only that assistance is urgently required.>
<Does it carry an ID tag?>
<A generic civilian code commonly used by independent mining collectives.>
Outriggers. Roche absorbed the detail with interest. Rufo had suggested that they might be active in the vicinity of the double-jovian.
<I don’t have time to deal with this now, Box, but we’ll need to check it out as soon as possible. If there are other survivors here, they’re bound to be more help than Rufo.>
<Agreed.>
The timer showed two minutes remaining before launch.
“This could be rough,” she said, directing her words at Haid but intending them for Disisto and Mavalhin as well. Getting out of the dock was only half the problem; if Galine Four was firing on the Ana Vereine, it would probably try the same on Daybreak—and the courier had neither shields nor weaponry.
An alarm began to ping on the main console. She glanced at it, and realized that someone was trying to hail them.
<Dock security is aware of your present location,> said the Box.
<Inevitable, I guess,> she said. <There’s nothing they can do, though, is there?>
<The secondary dock is still sealed, and their movements are restricted by pressure doors to—>
“Morgan.” Haid’s soft voice carried with it a warning that made her look up immediately. He was pointing at the main screen.
Two figures in pressure suits were climbing onto the lip of the dry dock, carrying a swivel-mounted energy weapon between them.
“Damn!” Roche glanced at the clock again. One minute. If the security officers managed to place the weapon in time, they would have a clear shot at Daybreak as it passed overhead.
“Maybe we could gain time by answering the hail?” suggested Haid.
Roche shook her head, continuing to ready the ship for launch. “That won’t stop them.” She nodded toward the two figures. “And I sure as hell don’t need the distraction right now.”
The thrum of the thrusters grew louder. Normally she would have used attitude jets to move the ship away from the wall of the dock, giving it a less cluttered path and minimizing damage in its wake—but this would forewarn the guards of the ship’s imminent departure. Neither did she care how much damage she left behind.
The countdown clicked to single figures just as the gun was mounted.
Roche nudged the ship forward, ignoring the rough trajectory she had plotted and flying purely on manual. Attitude jets turned it slightly to present as small a cross-section to the gun as possible. Behind it, the guards moved into position.
When the counter reached zero, she directed Daybreak as fast as it would go straight for the impromptu gun emplacement.
Acceleration pushed her back into the seat, hard. Beside her, Disisto braced himself against the arms of the crash-couch. Mavalhin moaned at the pressure on his injured shoulder.
Light flashed in the main screen, and two muffled cracks pierced the roar of the thrusters. For the briefest of moments the gun loomed large in the main screen as the ship raced toward it, then Roche wrenched the ship to her left, away from the wall. Behind them, the energy-wash from Daybreak’s thrusters left a thick black scar on the dry dock. Nothing remained of the two guards.
<The station has launched interceptors from emergency egress bays,> the Box said.
<Singleships?> Roche asked, although she already guessed the answer. The interceptors couldn’t be large to have come from escape-launchers.
<Yes.>
<How many?>
<Fifteen.>
Daybreak cleared the lip of the outer shell, and suddenly all ahead was black: no stars, no navigational clues at all apart from the distant reddish sun. Roche swept the courier in a tight arc away from where the Box’s telemetry data indicated the Ana Vereine was positioned; predictability in battle was a trap she had learned to avoid.
Two specks of light visible over the piecemeal curve of the station instantly moved toward Daybreak. More converged from the far side.
Roche cursed silently to herself as she counted the incoming ships. Half their number alone would have been a problem. The tiny, dartlike craft had none of the brute force of the Ana Vereine—were, in fact, less powerful even than Daybreak—but they were far more maneuverable. Armed, they could play a significant part in any battle.
In a matter of moments, the singleships reached firing range, and began to pepper the space around the courier with energy. The shots that struck home jolted the ship, provoking more protests from Mavalhin. Roche watched the damage board closely as she flew, but so far nothing crucial had been hit.
<Can’t you destroy them?> she asked the Box.
<I will, once I am in position.>
The ship lurched as cannon fire struck it from the rear. Roche grunted and sent it angling away from its previous course, spiraling erratically to reduce the chances of being hit again. Luckily the damage was minor: a sensor or two, a small percentage of hull integrity; nothing life-threatening.
But the cannon fire was intense. It was only a matter of time before she miscalculated—or the targeters behind the cannon had a stroke of luck—and the courier was seriously damaged. If that happened, they would be dead.
Roche had no time to consider attempting to dock with the Ana Vereine, or even determining its location. She just kept her attention focused behind them, on the bobbing singleships and flashing cannon emplacements. Behind the flashes of light narrowly missing the courier, Galine Four loomed like a malignant, worm-eaten moon, much too close for comfort and receding only slowly.
Then something dark blotted the station from view. The black shape angled between Daybreak and the singleships harassing it, effectively acting as a shield against the cannon fire. From within the blackness came a barrage of retaliatory fire, destroying first one singleship that attempted to pass it, then another.
Not wasting the opportunity, Roche spurred the courier onward, putting all available energy into increasing their velocity away from the station. <Perfect timing, Box!>
<Save some of the credit for me, Morgan.> Roche smiled at the sound of Kajic’s voice in her head. <It’s a team effort, you know.>
The Ana Vereine, camouflaged black, thrust itself into close engagement with Galine Four. Although considerably outsized, it had been designed as a weapon of war, and looked it. Its angular outline was visible through the camouflage like a many-legged shadow blotting out the station’s gray. The sheer power of its weaponry outshone that of the dim, red sun, casting the scene in a variety of short-lived colors, each blindingly bright.
<We will cover you as long as we can, Morgan,> said the Box. <I suggest you maximize the distance between yourself and Galine Four while the opportunity exists.>
&nb
sp; <Already doing so,> she replied. <What about you?>
<When you are a sufficient distance away, we will disengage. We can outrun any vessel at their disposal, and will use the camouflage to its maximum advantage.>
<Are you taking much damage, Uri?>
<Medium to light,> Kajic replied. <We can last a few minutes longer before it becomes a problem.>
<Are you sure? I don’t want you to do anything too dangerous.>
<I won’t, I assure you. Remember, I’m the one getting hurt here. If I was going to risk serious damage, it would have to be for something a bit more noble than just letting you escape.>
<I suggest you continue along your current trajectory,> said the Box. <We will hold here as long as possible, then flee in another direction. I have already sent drones to disrupt your afterwash. That way, they will be unable to follow you—assuming, of course, they do not detect your drive emissions directly.>
<I’ll feather the wash as soon as you leave,> she said. <That’ll reduce the chances of them spotting us. But what about communications? Even on tightbeam, there’s a chance they’ll overhear.>
<A good point, Morgan. I suggest we maintain radio silence for three hours, just to be certain.>
<Agreed. Unless there’s an emergency, I’ll speak to you then.> She took one last look at the Ana Vereine. <Take care of yourselves.>
<We will, Morgan.> Kajic’s voice sounded alive with the thrill of battle. <Speak to you in three hours.>
The line went dead, and Roche returned her attention to slipping away from the station.
* * *
Only after Galine Four become barely a blip on the courier’s rear scanner screen did Roche finally feel safe enough to let Daybreak fly itself. Programming it to follow a course through the relative cover of Autoville—where, this far out in the system, a solid body every million kilometers constituted a crowded environment—she unlocked her harness and stepped out of the crash-couch.