Event Horizon (Hellgate) (22 page)

A code known only to the nameless military AI at the core of the
Kiev
, and to the command corps itself. It would identify the
Wastrel
, and a handful of the ship’s vast complement who had been waiting days to hear it would respond.

The atmosphere in the Ops room was electric. Marin was intent on Vidal now, watching him pace to and fro near the workstation from which he controlled Tactical, where the need arose. Did his fingers itch to bring the
Wastrel
’s weapons online, power up the geocannon and the dense Arago fields? Marin knew Travers was feeling the same instinct, but it would have been a bad mistake. The last thing they wanted to do was set a ship the size of the tug onto an intercept course with the
Kiev
, with live weapons systems – the
Kiev
would be on battle alert in moments.

A pulse beat in Marin’s temple as he joined Travers by the dormant Tactical workstation. Vidal dropped into the chair there and laced his fingers at his middle to stop their fidgeting. He was clad in dark blue, and the color made him seem paler, more gaunt, in the backwash of light from multiple screens and threedees. Of them all, Vaurien and Tarrant seemed the least apprehensive as the big ship dropped gently out of e-space and the highband began to transmit.

At this distance the yellow star of Omaru was big enough to appear as a small disk in the navtank, while Omaru itself was a blue-white orb attended by its two moons, Rashid and Bahrain. The fourth planet, Shikoku – a pocket-sized gas giant with a core of liquid metallic hydrogen buried deep beneath swirling layers of methane and ammonia – was far on the other side of the sun, its eight moons flitting like sparks around it. Assorted smelters, dockyards, transit platforms, freight logistics pens, were marked with their beacon numbers; and before them all, ranged between the
Wastrel
and Omaru itself, were the ships of the Fleet blockade. Ten cruisers and frigates, a flurry of non-combatant barges and transports plus the unarmed Fleet tender
Solapur
and, looming over them like a blue whale, the super-carrier itself.

“Etienne, confirm we are transmitting,” Vaurien said softly.

“Transmitting IFF on designated frequency,” the AI assured him. “The
Kiev
is tracking us. Standby.”

“Christ, I don’t believe this,” Travers murmured. “We must be crazy.”

Marin took a step closer, so his shoulder was hard, warm, against Travers’s chest. Neil’s hand closed about his upper arm and Marin looked along at Rusch, who had slipped in a combug and was listening intently. Deliberately, he did not ask the question.
You’re sure about this?

From the engine deck Ingersol’s voice said tersely, “We’re at Weimann ignition minus eight seconds … your call, Richard, but make it soon. We’re about one skinny half minute outside the Weimann exclusion zone, and we don’t want to be making a run for it on sublight!”

“All right.” Vaurien’s face was immobile as he watched the tank.

And then Etienne: “
Kiev
acknowledges IFF. Standby.”

Rusch let out a soft sound of gratitude, and Tarrant leaned both palms on the side of the tank, the only expression of relief he would permit. No flicker of expression crossed his face. Marin was aware of the pulse drumming in his ears as they waited, and moments later the comm said, with the measured voice of a woman whose calm was surreal,

“
Skygge
soldat
, this is
slottet
gate.”

“Code.” Travers’s tonguetip moistened his lips.

“It’s ancestral Norwegian,” Jazinsky whispered. “Way back, my family came out from Scandinavia. They were Danish, but the languages were close as cousins.”

“
Velkommen
solskinn
,” Rusch responded. “Status?”

“Waiting for you. Condition is
Skynd
. Scan for your acquisition signal.”

A soft chime from Etienne acknowledged the guidance beacon. “Got it,” Rusch said at once. “We’re on our way in.” She turned back from the navtank and took a long deep breath, perhaps to calm nerves that were harping like steel strings. She was looking at Vidal now. “We’re on.
Skynd
means, make it quick.”

“Showtime,” Marin said with a look at Travers that mocked them both – for the audacity, the ambition, and the healthy dread underlying both.

Vidal stood and stretched his shoulders. “Hangar 2.”

And Gillian Perlman: “We’re hot. And I’m seeing the landing signal.”

“Colonel Tarrant?” Vidal gestured back toward the executive elevator which had brought the party up. “Any time.”

Both palms smoothed the breast of the impeccable jacket; his eyes closed for a moment. Then Alec Tarrant was as poker faced as Garret, and gave Rusch a formal half-bow. “She was your ship, Colonel. In many ways she still is. After you.”

The Trofeo had been serviced only hours earlier. The engines still shimmered and the cockpit lights were dimmed to flight readiness. The hatch was open, the ramp extended, and Judith Fargo stood beside it. Like Perlman, she was in blue service fatigues with no unit or ship badge to identify them. Her face was grim as she greeted Travers, and Marin heard her whisper, “I hope you know what you’re doing, boss.”

“Have a little faith, Jude,” Travers told her as he and Marin stepped aside to let the others go aboard. Tarrant, Shapiro, Vidal and Rusch sat in the back of the aircraft, and Travers gestured for Marin to go ahead of him, let him close the hatch.

With eight aboard she was loaded beyond any capacity offering comfort, but the flight was so brief, Marin was unconcerned. From his seat, he had a view of the pilot’s systems, and he saw that Perlman had already handed over to the automatics. A hangar gaped open in the belly of the
Kiev
, waiting for them.

“The hangar is – or was – my own,” Rusch was saying. “My private hangar, the most secure on the ship. Technically, she’s still waiting for a new commander to take my place. In fact, my information is that Fleet is still trying to locate me in various medical institutions on Velcastra. They’re due to be issued the death certificate! At this time, my Executive Officer remains in command, and before any of you asks the question – yes, you can trust her implicitly.”

As she spoke the hangar blew down to a few percent pressure, and with a lightstorm of spinners the hatch slid open. The Trofeo lifted with a bass growl of engines, and Marin ducked his head to see through the side ’ports, watch the carrier come up out of the night of space.

“
Wastrel
,” Vaurien’s voice whispered over the encrypted comm. “We’re pulling out, on schedule. Good luck.”

“Luck?” Rusch echoed. “Oh, I hope not.”

“Luck,” Shapiro said darkly, “has no place where we’re going.”

The leviathan shape of the carrier loomed up like a shadow cast on the star-bright backdrop of this quadrant. The Trofeo rolled over to approach the waiting hangar, and Marin murmured a curse as he saw the
Kiev
from way below the keel and a thousand meters aft. The engines were idling, a dull cherry red, and a thousand lights were scattered across the vast hull. Four thousand men and women worked aboard; and almost every one of them, with the exception of the officer corps, was a conscript from the Middle Heavens and the Deep Sky itself. Therein lay the magic, and Shapiro was right. Luck should be irrelevant.

A scant half minute after the lift engines ramped up aboard the
Wastrel
, the Trofeo thrust her blunt nose into the blue-white lights of a small hangar. Two private planes had been stack-parked on the aft wall, in Arago clamps, to make space. Marin recognized Rusch’s aircraft, but the other was new, an electric blue Murchison
Sukaiburēdo
with silver scallops, a high vee tail and the big, curved cockpit canopy of a civilian ‘joy toy.’

“Damn, Patricia took delivery,” Rusch said with wry admiration. “She used to talk about that plane every day.”

“Where’s she going to fly it to, off the carrier?” Travers was unimpressed.

“That’s not the point, is it?” Marin leaned back as the
Torpheo
turned to fit the tight available space and dropped onto its landing struts. “The point is, it’s
here
, and you sit in it, and polish it, and dream about
not
being here.”

“Therapy,” Shapiro decided.

“Healthy.” Vidal was cramped into the corner by the hatch. If he had been any less underweight, he would not have fit there. “Pat always did have her head screwed on the right way around.” He looked over at Travers and Marin. “You didn’t get the chance to meet many of the command corps, the last time you were here. Major Patricia Haugen, the XO – and if anyone was going to step into Alexis’s place, Pat would be my choice.” He looked along at Tarrant. “Feet planted firmly in reality, Colonial family back through five generations, and a burning desire for this war to be over.”

“Hence, the plane,” Marin concluded as Travers disarmed the hatch.

It swung out and up while the ramp extended, and Neil held up a hand to stop the others. “Stay where you are. Perlman, keep her on standby. Curtis?”

They stepped out together. Marin’s sinuses prickled on the cold air and sharp tang of machines, the chemistry of working spaceplanes. The hangar was empty. The only movement was a little drone which lifted its scanner-head to see if it was needed, and then folded back out of sight. Marin’s hands rode close to his weapons, but he drew neither as he and Travers walked the hangar.

Travers was busy with a handy, and after a second sweep he touched his combug. “We’re clean. Colonel Rusch, proceed.”

She had been waiting for the signal and over the comm, warbling and distorting with encryption, she said, “
Skygge
for å
fortsette
.”

The ancestral Norwegian was like words of high magic. The inner hatch growled open at once, though it stopped a meter through its track. Beyond, in a wash of warm-toned illumination from the passage, Marin saw three faces. Since he and Travers had spent so brief a time on this ship’s upper deck’s – officer country – he was astonished to recognize two of them.

One belonged to Theresa Carson, the Personnel Officer who had welcomed him and Neil aboard, on the assignment where they flew with the Delta Dragons. She was as pale and anxious as he remembered, still ash blond with shadowed eyes and restless hands. At her shoulder was one of the Dragons themselves, and as he saw Gina Rogan he began to relax.

“Hey, Gee.” Vidal had just made his way from the Trofeo and was chafing his hands against the lingering cold. “Long time, no see, kiddo.”

For a moment it seemed Rogan might be looking at a ghost. Marin saw sheer disbelief on her dark face, and her head shook minutely. She spoke with the accent of Louverne, and her tone was sharp. “Mick? It can’t be. Fuckitall, you were – they told us you were
dead
. We saw your memorial service, from Velcastra!”

He held out both arms and looked down at himself, still so thin, with hair that had only just begun to grow back, the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes where harsh hangar lights played cruel tricks. “The reports were close to right. It’s a long story, but I survived. Tell you about it later. Let me guess, they bumped you up to CAT leader when I vamoosed?”

“I was the next in line, and not too shot up to do the job.” Rogan stepped into the hangar.

The new Carrier Air Taskforce commander was just as Marin recalled, a tall woman about his own age, with cropped copper hair and diamond stud earrings, the big hands of an artisan and the long bones of an athlete. Brown eyes roved on, over Marin and Travers, and she was silent until the rest of the party had stepped down from the plane. “Curtis, Neil,” she said in a rasp as Harrison Shapiro appeared. “I always knew there was more to you two than just a couple of replacement bodies for the Close Defense Squadron, one of them with a damn’ nasty habit.”

“Yeah, sorry about all that,” Marin said without much real regret. “Game addiction – it was a good cover story, and it got us where we needed to be.”