Empire & Ecolitan (29 page)

“Beta control.” Jimjoy forced the words out distinctly, in an effort to confuse the issue. “Dauntless two, departing as precleared. Mission omega orange four. Mission omega orange four. Sector radian blue. Sector radian blue.”

“Dauntless two, this is Medallion Strike. Interrogative omega authorization. Interrogative omega authorization.”

The Special Operative would have awarded the watch officer a medal, had he been on the other side. With all the dullards in the Impie fleet, he had to have blasted past one of the few bright stars.

“Medallion Strike, two here. Authorization filed with beta control. Authorization filed with beta control.”

Jimjoy checked the acceleration and the separation from the cruiser. He needed more time. The courier, despite its headlong acceleration and increasing velocity, was still well within range of the cruiser's long-range torps.

“Dauntless two, this is Medallion Strike. Interrogative omega authorization. Interrogative authorization. Medallion Strike stands Radian Crown. I say again Radian Crown.”

Worse luck. Not only was the cruiser alert, but the ship was carrying the Imperial sector command.

“Medallion Strike, Dauntless two. Request authorization for interrogatory. Omega mission tee plus cleared.”

Jimjoy grinned as he keyed off the transmission.

Even with instantaneous recall, it would take a few instants more for them to react to his perfectly legitimate, if foolhardy, inquiry. Had he been captaining an actual omega rush mission, he would have been well within his rights to ask for disclosure authorization. The sector Commander might have seen that he never again saw an assignment closer to Terra than the Far Rim, but he could have requested it.

Jimjoy rechecked the separation. Then he began rekeying the jump parameters. Next he checked the perceived special density, on the off chance that the courier might be able to try an early jump.

The density was higher than average for his solar separation. Within the confines of the acceleration shell, he frowned, waiting for the authorization he knew the cruiser would have back at him.

“Dauntless two. Medallion Strike vice Radian Crown. Authorization follows. Authorization follows. Delta victor slash five four theta. Delta victor slash five four theta. Request immediate your omega authorization. Immediate your omega authorization.”

The Special Operative slowly sucked in air, thinking as he did. Finally he keyed the transmitter.

“Medallion Strike vice Radian Crown, this is Dauntless two. Omega authorization filed with beta control. Filed beta control. Omega authorization as filed follows.” Jimjoy swallowed as he began to repeat the code, based on what he remembered from a far earlier authorization and updated from his more recent experiences.

“Gamma slash seven four slash four seven omega theta. I say again. Gamma slash seven four slash four seven omega theta.”

Inputting the authentications would take only seconds, but it might take up to several minutes before the recheck was complete. Jimjoy hoped so, yet there was little he could do but coax the maximum sustained speed from the courier's drive and hope that the bogus authentication he had given had retained some semblance of accuracy.

He scanned the board before him, ignoring the anxious woman pressed into the copilot's shell. From his own instruments, Jimjoy could see that the cruiser had still not broken orbit. Nor were there any EDI traces for any of the smaller ships near the orbit control station. But the audio was suspiciously quiet.

With a second thought, he boosted the gain on the rear detectors, risking a burnout in seeking such sensitivity.

“Hades!”

He transferred all power from habitability and services into the drive, struggling to maintain consciousness against the immediate eight-plus gees that pressed him deeper into the couch, so deep that he thought he could feel every wrinkle in the couch liner scoring him like a knife.

HHHHSTTTTT!!!

The board went blank with the overload, but the immense pressure across his chest reassuringly continued.

Hssssssttt!

Jimjoy could only see the narrowest section of the board before him and barely feel the fingertip controls. But he waited until the blackness threatened to engulf him before he disengaged the bypass.

“Uhhhhhh…”

He realized that the groaning sound belonged to him and closed his mouth.

The screens swam back into sight from the swirling blackness, and he wondered why it was so difficult to move.

“Hades…” He fumbled for the fingertip controls, realizing that the bypass disengagement had only returned the acceleration to the preprogrammed three-gee level. The gravity dropped to a fractional gee level. He hoped enough power remained for jump and reentry.

He swallowed, that simple act made more difficult by the dryness of his throat and the soreness of his entire body. The bruises he would have…

1734. He had been out for only a few minutes. His fingers slowly began to check the ship's systems and reserves. Power was down to less than forty percent—adequate if he didn't have to evade anyone on the other end. None of the rear screens functioned, but the system checkouts indicated that the problem was in the sensors and receptors. He nodded minimally, remembering that he had never lowered the gain.

Moving his head slowly to the side, he looked at the still-limp figure in the copilot's shell.

Luren was breathing.

He strained to look behind him, but he could not see without unstrapping. He hoped the courier pilot was doing as well as Luren.

After completing the damage control scan, he waited for the results to script out.

Jimjoy saw the figures and permitted himself the luxury of a tight smile.

Dauntless two,
His Imperial Majesty's Ship Darmetier
, was functional, if overstressed, and on course to the nearest jump point in the New Kansaw system.

He checked the EDI readouts, since the rear screens were inoperative, and nodded at the EDI traces. Rather than send the battle cruiser after the torps, the Commander, or the bright watch officer, had dispatched the other courier, either to attempt to track or, more likely, to report the piracy of the
Darmetier
to Headquarters.

Definitely no turning back, reflected Jimjoy. The remaining question was whether he could persuade Accord, or the Institute, not to turn him over to the Empire.

The stakes were getting high enough that the Empire just might offer enough for one renegade to make it worthwhile for even the most discontented colonial government.

On the other hand, while the Impies might suspect the catastrophes had been caused by one Jimjoy Wright, there was little hard proof, especially since New Kansaw Base no longer existed—no fingerprints, no records.

Jimjoy pushed away those thoughts and returned his attention to the controls. One thing at a time.

Jump was approaching, and with the power drains he had placed on the courier, he needed a good jump. A very good jump.

Luren groaned, but Jimjoy did not look over at her. In less than fifteen standard minutes, he would have plenty of time, since jumps were not traceable, except with far more sophisticated equipment than possessed by the distant
Pike
.

He sighed and began to make the necessary entries and calculations.

C
LING…CLING…CLING
.

At the first chime of the red-framed screen at the corner of the heavy wooden desk, the Admiral did not even look away from his own work on the main screen. With the second, he frowned. With the third, he put his own calculations on hold and reached for the emergency screen.

“Admiral, sir,” stammered the Headquarters commlink watch officer. “Sorry to bother you, but Radian Crown has reported a major uprising on New Kansaw…”

The Admiral pursed his lips but said nothing, nodding his head for the woman to continue.

“Do you want the detailed status report or the executive summary, sir?”

“Both,” replied the senior officer. “Both, if you will. Feed them right through.”

“Yes, Admiral. Immediately, sir.”

“That will be all, Captain Harfoos.”

“Yes, sir.”

The red-framed screen blanked momentarily, then displayed a title—
Executive Summary—New Kansaw Anomaly
.

Cling
.

The Admiral tapped the controls on his own screen, shunting his work into storage and calling up the reports from the emergency communications system. The
Executive Summary
appeared on the screen before him, and the smaller emergency screen again blanked, and stayed blank.

The Admiral began to read, unconsciously rubbing his forehead as he finished the first page of the summary.

New Kansaw—either the rebels had proved too difficult for the talents of that Major Wright…or, even worse, he and Commander Hersnik had vastly underestimated Wright, and Wright had thrown in with the rebels.

The Admiral frowned as he began the second page of the summary. At the end of the three pages, he called up the body of the report.

By the time he had finished the complete report, he had the beginnings of a headache. He immediately routed a copy of the summary to Hersnik, mostly to give the Commander enough information to make the Admiral's next step a bit easier.

Rubbing his forehead again, he tilted his head sideways, then accessed the report again, searching for one section.

He nodded thoughtfully as he reread the part about the destruction of New Kansaw Main Base. That fit, and it had to be Wright, although he doubted that the Service would ever be able to prove the man had actually invoked the Masada safeguards. Because the issue was clearly under seal, he would not have to go public. But action was necessary, beyond a doubt.

How Wright had discovered the Masada safeguards was another question that would also never be known.

The Admiral sighed as he checked another section for the second time, then reread the conclusion, which lingered on the screen a moment before the Admiral relinquished it to permanent storage.

He shook his head slowly at the language.

“With the limited energy reserves on the
Darmetier
and the lack of atmospheric landing capabilities, the Service anticipates recovery of the vessel in the near future.”

J
IMJOY'S FOREHEAD WAS
still damp from the fresher, as was his hair. But at least he was clean, and shaved, for the first time in days.

The flight suit he wore had belonged to one of the crew members who had presumably been in New Kansaw orbit control at the time Jimjoy had appropriated the
Darmetier
. The suit's original owner was slightly shorter than Jimjoy, but a shade bulkier, and the difference in fit was not noticeable except that the flight suit's legs only reached down past the tops of his boots.

He glanced over at the control board, then at the woman in the copilot's seat, whose curly brown hair was already dry. Jimjoy had suggested that she use the facilities first once they had emerged from the jump, during the time when he was setting up the inbound course.

“You actually look presentable, Major.”

“Jimjoy. Service wouldn't have me back except for an execution.”

“Don't you deserve it?”

“Hades…but…probably so, at least technically.”

“Technically? How about ethically?”

Jimjoy eased himself back into the control couch. “Ethically? Not sure about that.” He did not say more, but the question sounded more like something a certain Ecolitan Andruz might have asked. Still might ask, if he ever got back to Accord. And he really didn't have an answer that would satisfy Luren or Thelina. Especially Thelina.

He sighed, and checked the board. He still had to get back to Accord. The brief recharge from the cleanliness and warmth imparted by the fresher was already beginning to fade, and he could feel the weight of the days of fatigue building behind his personal controls.

For another few hours, perhaps, he would be able to override it. Postpone payment for a time, but only for a time. His eyes were bloodshot and felt like they had been sand-blasted. His legs felt like he wore twenty-kilo boots.

Still, once he got to Accord and locked in—

He frowned, wanting to pound his forehead.

“Hades!” He'd forgotten the simplest thing, the last hurdle. And the most troublesome.

“Now what—?” asked the rebel in the copilot's seat tiredly. “Another battle? Another set of impartial killings?”

Jimjoy ignored her. His problem was simple. Simple and impossible. So simple he had totally ignored the obvious.

His fingers touched the controls, and he studied the display screen before him. Just under three standard hours until he was within the defense perimeter of Accord. Just under four hours of power left in the
Darmetier
.

The problem was that Accord orbit control was Imperial territory.

Stupid of him…subconsciously believing that once he got to Accord his problems would be over. And the
Darmetier
was a spacecraft only, with no atmospheric capability.

He sighed.

“What's the problem?” Luren asked tiredly.

“How to get through Accord orbit control. It's an Imperial station.”

“Walk through. No one could have traveled any faster than we have. How would they know?”

“Not exactly the problem. This is an Imperial ship. I have no Imperial I.D. except my own, and that isn't usable. You and Kordel have none. Even if we could fake our way through and onto a down shuttle, it wouldn't take much to trace our steps. Then the Accord locals would have to return us.”

“I wish you'd thought of this earlier, Mr. Kill-them-all-and-think-later. Is there any place else we can go?”

“With four hours of power left?”

Still, Jimjoy called up the navigational display and studied the representation of the system.

Suddenly he grinned. Maybe…just maybe…he could work it out.

“What's so funny?” snapped Luren. Her red-rimmed eyes peered out from the dark circles in her face.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing! You don't tell us anything. You have a drugged Imperial Lieutenant tied up, and Kordel's virtually catatonic, and you're laughing.”

“You're also alive,” snapped the pilot.

Luren sighed and closed her mouth.

Jimjoy thought of another possible problem with his tentative solution, and his hands and fingers moved more quickly. He would have to plot a nearly powerless approach to avoid a telltale EDI track. Finally he had the figures on the screen.

“Strap in.”

“Again?”

“Just for a minute or two. We're headed somewhere safer,” he said, not adding the words, “I hope.”

As the acceleration pressed him into the shell, he continued to watch as the course change took effect. Then he cut the power down to the absolute minimum for habitability. Any Imperial detectors might have detected the burst of energy, but not the directional change toward the fourth planet's second moon, the one with the Ecolitan research station.

The next problem would be deceleration behind the planet to mask the radiation from the Accord orbit control detectors. And that would make the approach tricky, as well as hard on both of them, since he could not afford to make gradual changes. A gradual powered approach would hand the Impies a road map.

His initial power surges could have been a ship outjumping or merely passing through, unlikely as it might seem…but only so long as there were no energy tracks traced in-system.

He leaned back in the couch and watched the screens.

“Now what?”

“We wait.”

“Until when?”

“Until we get there…”

Luren gave him a disgusted look. “Do you mind if I check Kordel?”

“Not at all. At least an hour before anything else happens.”

As Luren fumbled with the straps, he wondered how he would explain it all to the Ecolitans, or to Thelina, assuming he ever managed to see her again. He was assuming there were no Imperial ships in the vicinity of Permana, the fourth planet. If there were, they were all dead. He shrugged and leaned back in the couch.

“…I said, he's fine…”

“…un…what?” Jimjoy jerked himself awake, realizing he had not remembered dozing off. He lurched to check the time—less than an hour had passed.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he mumbled. “Under the circumstances.” He rubbed his neck to ease the stiffness and to lessen the pounding in his temples.

Then his hands reached for the navigational display controls. He began to replot the
Darmetier
's position. Surprisingly, the courier was within the envelope he had earlier plotted.

The next step was to program the ship's tight-beam burst sender. With the correct focus and reduced power, he should be able to contact the Ecolitan Base without alerting anyone else.

He checked the ship's position again. Still too early for comm contact.

“Would you stop tapping your fingers, Major?”

“Not Major, just Jimjoy.”

“Fine, Mr. Just-Jimjoy. Would you stop tapping your fingers? It's bad enough sitting here watching you fidget, without listening as well.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you're not, but thanks, anyway.”

Jimjoy studied the nav screen again.

“You're tapping your fingers again…”

He sighed.

“What are you waiting for?”

“For us to get close enough to get rescued.”

“Rescued? I thought we had plenty of power.”

“Not that much, not now. And we need to be rescued in order to escape the Impies.”

Luren looked away. Jimjoy did not volunteer more, instead checked both the screens and his calculations again.

The broadband audio frequencies remained in a hissing near silence.

Finally, Jimjoy cleared his throat, checked the power outputs, and triggered the tight-beam sender. “Nader Base, Nader Base…blue Mayday…blue…Sendak…failure…estimate…arrival…estimate…”

“Mayday? Is it that serious?”

“Only if we don't get rescued.”

“Aren't you ever truthful?”

“I am this time. We need to be rescued.”

Luren shook her head again, refusing to meet his eyes.

Jimjoy watched as her eyes rested on the display screens, watched as she tried to make sense of the information remaining on the screen.

“Unidentified ship, unidentified ship, this is Nader Base, Nader Base. Request your status and estimated arrival. Request your status and estimated arrival.” The woman's voice was no-nonsense, but the phrasing was decidedly non-Imperial.

Jimjoy ignored the transmission. Instead, he continued to monitor the courier's instruments, particularly the EDI.

“Why aren't you answering?”

“Because they expect me to. Because any Impie on a fishing expedition would respond immediately, and because any ship with the power level I just used wouldn't be able to hear the Nader transmission.”

Jimjoy checked the closure rate and the angle between Permana and Accord. He had another five minutes before he could pour on the remaining power to kill their inbound vector.

“Unidentified ship, this is Nader Base. Request your status and estimated arrival time. Status and estimated arrival time.”

Again Jimjoy ignored the transmission, continuing to monitor the
Darmetier
's screens and to watch Luren squirm uneasily in the copilot's seat.

After a time, he touched the comm controls.

“Nader Base…blue…blue Mayday…arm…Sendak…arrival in one…say again…one…”

“You don't let anyone know the whole truth, do you?”

Jimjoy looked over at the young woman, about to answer. Then he closed his mouth.

“You don't lie, either, exactly. You never let anyone know everything if you can help it.”

“You may be right.” He did not look at her, but at the navigational plot, which showed the
Darmetier
had finally coasted in behind the bulk of Permana. “Strap in again.”

Luren said nothing, but he could hear the rustle of the harness and the shifting of weight.

“You ready?”

“I'm fine, Major.”

Jimjoy did not argue about the title, but touched the stud to start the preprogrammed decel. The pressure pushed him into his seat, and the blackness narrowed his vision to a tunnel that kept trying to close in on him. He fought it until the pressure eased.

Cling
.

He shook his head to concentrate, and was rewarded with an increasing throbbing in his temples as he studied the board, noting the postjump entrance of another ship in the Accord system. He began to calculate its inbound path against the standard parameters.

The throbbing eased fractionally as he realized the inbound ship was Accordan and on course for Accord proper.

“Unidentified ship. Unidentified ship. This is Nader Base. This is Nader Base. Standing by for your arrival. Do you need medical assistance? Do you need medical assistance?”

Jimjoy nodded in response to the inquiry, but made no move to respond.

He continued to check the plot screen, trying to calculate whether he needed to step up the decel before the ship cleared the section of transit blocking a direct screen from Accord. Finally he stabbed the override and was jolted back farther into the shell.

“…uuuffffff…” Luren protested.

He eased up on the extra decel and checked the parameters for near orbit around the moon. Given the six-hundred-kay diameter of Thalos, the orbit would have to be close indeed.

As he touched the controls again, the
Darmetier
shivered, once…twice…

“Unidentified ship, unidentified ship—”

“Nader Base, Nader…tier…medical…say again…med…stance…arrival ten…”

“This is Nader Base. Nader Base. Say again. Say again.”

Jimjoy ignored the request. The base had already picked up the burst of power from the
Darmetier
, which would pinpoint the ship's location.

He was gambling that the Ecolitans would notify the Institute by their own courier, but not the Imperial orbit control station off Accord. From what he had seen on his guided tours of Accord, the Ecolitans, even plain local citizens, tried to avoid letting the Empire know anything.

With a mirthless smile, he monitored the last stages of his near powerless approach to the airless moon that orbited Permana, the fourth planet of the Accord system, and home to an Ecolitan mining-and-research operation.

“Ohhhh…” The gasp came from Luren as he called up the front visual. Thalos filled nearly a quarter of the main screen.

As she took in the view, Jimjoy scanned the board. The courier's EDI detection system was picking up energy sources—both in space and on the satellite itself. Those from the satellite were barely detectable, something he might have expected, given the Ecolitans' consciousness of energy usage.

He frowned as he studied the two point sources in space, in orbit around Thalos, each roughly one-third of an orbit from the other, indicating the possibility of a third identical source.

Needleboats! With their only use that of space-to-space combat, the majority of Imperial needleboats were in storage. Those on his screens appeared marginally different. Why would the Accordans be using needleboats? And where had they obtained them?

Pushing those questions away, he focused on the delicate last stages of his manual approach, trying to use the last of his power to establish a generally stable orbit and hoping that the Ecolitans would ask questions first.

The sweat beaded up on his forehead. He wiped it clean with his forearm, not taking his eyes off the screens and the readouts before him.

“Gentle…now…power…” The words slipped from his lips as he tried to fuse with the board, fingers adjusting, correcting, using the minimal power available, as if each erg were the last the courier possessed. He had already dropped all the screens and cut off the internal grav field.

“There!” He sat back, bouncing in his straps in the null gee, then wiped his forehead and leaned forward to reestablish a minimal gee in the courier for as long as the energy lasted. He took a deep breath and relaxed. But only for an instant.