Starplex (26 page)

The pilots of the incoming Waldahud ships were realizing that they were in trouble. One of them aborted what had clearly been 'an attack run toward Starplex, and was now veering off at a steep angle. Another fired its braking jets, the exhausts four ruby pinpricks against the blackness. But the darmats continued to reach for them, long, puffy fingers against the night.

If the ships had been able to use hyperdrive, they could have escaped.

But the gravity well from the green star, and the shallower but still significant wells created by the darmats, prevented that.

The farthest of the new fighters was now only a few kilometers ahead of one of the dark-matter tendrils. Keith watched as the gap was closed, the ship disappearing within the fog of gravel.

Thor provided a schematic, showing the fighter's position within the streamer--a streamer that now was no longer reaching forward, but had started pulling back, its gravity dragging the Waldahud vessel with it .

. .

Soon a second dark-matter tentacle had enveloped another Waldahud ship.

A third fighter was trying desperately to get away; Keith could see the flash of explosive bolts as it jettisoned its weapons clusters in order to decrease its overall mass. But the dark matter was still gaining on it, Meanwhile, the two tendrils that had already caught ships were still pulling back, and--that was curious--had begun curling in on themselves, archirig away, like cobras made of ash.

The third small ship was finally caught, and its gray finger started pulling back, too. The giant Waldahud ship was also being approached from above and below by separate dark-matter tentacles. Only the fifth new ship seemed likely to get away, although Keith's heart was pounding as he saw that Rissa and Longbottle were now pursuing it. His son's face flashed in front of his eyes--still a kid at nineteen, the goatee notwithstanding. How would he break the news to him if his mother got killed?

The first two tentacles had arched back into semicircles, the cups of which were facing away from the green star. At the same moment as the large vessel was engulfed by the two converging streamers that had been pursuing it, the first of the dark-matter fingers snapped forward like a whip. The Waldahud fighter that had been embedded in it shot ahead, out of the tentacle, tumbling end over end. Keith saw the pinpoint lights of ACS jets firing, but the ship's wild rotation continued unabated Keith's jaw fell open. Good Christ--!

--as the ship was flung directly toward the green star.

The vessel continued to rotate over and over as the distance between it and the star diminished rapidly. The pilot finally managed to gain control, but he was too close to the 1.5-million-kilometer-wide ball of fire. Prominences licked toward the incoming projectile-- --and the ship turned to vapor in the star's upper atmosphere.

Keith shouted, "Rhombus, hail our probeships!"

"Channel open."

"Return to Starplex!" said Keith. "All ships, return at once to Starplex!"

Four probeships acknowledged and changed course, but one was still pursuing its target.

"Rissa!" Keith shouted. "Turn back!"

Suddenly the second dark-matter whip cracked across the night, sending another Waldahud ship hurtling toward the green star. Keith's head kept snapping left and right between the twin horrors of Rissa's ship receding from Starplex and the fighter's head-over-heels rush toward destruction.

The Rum Runner was corkscrewing wildly as it approached the enemy vessel. Laser fire from the Waldahud's rear cannons kept missing the probeship, or glancing off its force screens. But, after a moment, the firing stopped as the Waldahudin aboard presumably became absorbed in the spectacle they, too, were no doubt monitoring.

The second ship the darmats had tossed toward the sun was rapidly reaching its destination. Lifeboats popped away from it, but their puny motors weren't strong enough to let them achieve orbit around the star.

The last sight the dying Waldahu-din probably saw on their monitor screens was the star's strange dumbbell-shaped sunspots, gray-black splotches against a hell of liquid jade.

The PDQ and the Dakterth were returning to Starplex now. Of course, they had to approach from above or below to avoid the torus of hail surrounding the ship. Rhombus was using tractor beams to pull them down onto the flat surface of the central disk. There was no way to get them into the docking bays--the ice prevented that--but there were emergency docking clamps on both faces of the disk.

Rum Runner was still giving chase. "Rissa!" shouted Keith into his mike. "For God's sake, Rissa--come home!"

Suddenly the Rum Runner's laser erupted, PHANTOM dutifully drawing in its beam on the holographic display. It swept across the starscape.

Rissa's aim was perfect, severing the ship's engine pod from the craft in one clean slice.

The pod tumbled against the night, a puff of expelled gas around it shining like a halo of emeralds. And suddenly-- The pod flared brilliantly, brighter even than the nearby star, as it went up in a fusion explosion. Longbottle executed a crazed arcing maneuver to avoid the expanding ball of plasma, then began a laser-straight path for Starplex. The engineless Waldahud ship shot away at an oblique angle under momentum, unable to maneuver.

The third dark-matter whip cracked, sending another Waldahud fighter pinwheeling across the firmament. As this one passed by, Keith saw that several of its hull plates had been deliberately blown away; the crew had apparently preferred opening the ship to vacuum over cooking alive as they plunged into the sun.

Next the combined double finger that had enveloped the huge Waldahud ship began to rotate around its midpoint, playing out into a spiral design like a galaxy as it did so, turning faster and faster. PHANTOM

showed the location of the ship buried within one arm of the spinning mass. The rotation became more and more rapid, until finally, like an athlete throwing a discus, the dark matter hurtled the giant ship away from it. The bigger ship managed to regain control before it impacted the sun, but as it startedto alter its course, the white fusion flames of its exhaust stark against the green inferno, a giant prominence arched upward from the photosphere, engulfing it.

"Four of our five probeships are safely clamped to our hull," reported Rhombus. "And the Rum Runner will be back in eleven minutes."

Keith let out a heavy sigh. "Excellent. We must have everyone out of the lower decks by now, right?"

"The final elevator is on its way up," said Lianne. "Give it another thirty seconds."

"Okay. Keep the lower decks at zero-g so no more water will flow down.

Thor, stop spinning the ship."

"Will do."

"Director," said Rhombus, "Gawst's ship has attached itself to the surface of our hull. He's holding in place with a tractor beam."

Keith smiled "Fancy that--a prisoner of war." He spoke loudly.

"Excellent work, everyone. Thor, Lianne, Rhombus--excellent."

He paused. "Thank God the darmats sided with us.

I guess it never hurts to be on speaking terms with the stuff that makes up most of the universe, and--"

"Jesus.!" Thor's voice.

Keith's head snapped up to face the pilot. He'd spoken too soon.

Tendrils of dark matter were now closing on Starplex.

"We're next," said Rhombus.

"But we're orders of magnitude bigger than the Waldahud ships," said Thor. "Surely they can't toss us into the star?"

"Only a third of the dark matter participated in the attack on the Waldahud forces," said Rhombus. "If it all comes after us--PHANTOM, can they do it?"

"Yes."

"Hail Cat's Eye," said Keith. "I better talk to him."

"Locating vacant frequency," said Rhombus. "Transmitting . . . No response."

"Thor, get us out of here," said Keith.

"Course?"

Keith considered for half a second. "Toward the shortcut."

But he immediately realized that dark-matter tendrils had already started to intervene between Starplex and that invisible point in space.

"No, change that," he snapped.

"Bring us in close to the green star, in the opposite direction.

And get Jag down here, PHANTOM."

"You ordered him barred from this room, sir," said the computer.

"I know that. I'm giving you new instructions. Get him down here right away."

There was a moment's silence while PHANTOM conferred with Jag. "He is on his way."

"What're you got in mind?" asked Rhombus. Dark matter was approaching Starplex on three sides, like a fist closing around a bug.

"Hopefully, a way to get out of here--if it doesn't kill us."

The starfield split open, and Jag walked in. For the first time, Keith saw a look of humility on the Waldahud's face.

Jag had presumably been watching the space battle, and had seen his compatriots slammed into the emerald star. But still some of the old defiance was in his voice as he looked suspiciously at Keith. "What do you want?"

"I want," said Keith, his voice tightly controlled, "to slingshot Starplex around the green star, and hurtle it into the shortcut from the far side."

"Jesus God," said Thor.

Jag grunted a similar sentiment in his own language.

"Can it be done?" said Keith. "Will it work?"

"I--I don't know," said Jag. "I would normally like a few hours to do the calculations for something like that."

"You don't have hours--you've got minutes. Will it work?"

"I do not--yes. Maybe."

"Melondent," said Keith, "transfer control back to Jag's station."

"So doing," said the dolphin.

Jag slipped into his usual spot. "Central Computer," he barked, "put our trajectory on this monitor."

"You are barred from issuing nonhousekeeping commands," said PHANTOM.

"Override!" snapped Keith. "Jag's house arrest is suspended until further notice."

The requested schematic appeared. Jag squinted at it.

"Magnor?"

"Yes?" said Thor.

"We have only perhaps ten minutes until we are engulfed.

You will need to fire all our ventral thrusters. Copy my monitor six in touch-screen mode."

Thor pressed buttons. "Okay."

Jag ran a flat finger in an arc along the schematic. "Can you manage a course like that?"

"You mean on manual?"

"Yes, on manual. We have no time to program the run."

"I--yes, I can do it."

"Execute it. Execute it now!"

"Director?"

"How long until the Rum Runner is anchored to our hull?"

"Four minutes," said Rhombus.

"We don't have the time to wait for her," said Jag.

Keith turned to snap at Jag, but stopped himself. "Options?"

he said generally to the people on bridge.

"I can put a tractor beam on the Rum Runner," said Rhombus. "I won't be able to haul her in before we hit the shortcut, but she should be dragged over to it with us and hopefully Longbottle can pilot it through."

the"o that. Thor, get us out of here."

Starplex rushed toward the star at an oblique angle.

"Thrusters on full," said Thor.

"There's another problem we still have to deal with," said Jag, turning to Keith. "There's a good chance that I can get us to the shortcut, but once there, we'll just plunge through it. W, '

e won t have any time to slow down and do a controlled approach at a specific angle, and with our deck-seventy hyperscope array damaged I can't even predict which exit' we'll pop out of. It could be anywhere."

The dark-matter fingers were still stretching toward Starplex. "In a few minutes, anywhere will be preferable to this place," said Keith.

"Just get us out of here."

The ship began to careen around the star. Half of the bridge hologram showed the green orb, its granular surface detail and dumbbell sunspots visible. Most of the rest of the view was cloudy, with dark-matter tendrils eclipsing the background stars. "Rhombus, do you have a solid lock on the Rum Runner?"

"It's still four hundred kilometers away, and dark matter is starting to intervene, but, yes, I've got it."

Keith breathed a sigh of relief. "Good work. Have you been able to contact Cat's Eye, or any darmat?."

"They're still ignoring our hails," said Rhombus.

"We can't go in as close to the star as I would like,"'said Jag.

"There's not enough water left in the ocean deck to make an effective shield, and our force screens are still burned out. There's a thirty-percent chance that the darmats will ensnare us."

Keith felt his heart pounding in his chest. Starplex continued to swing around the star in a parabolic course, the tendrils still stretching toward it. The Rum Runner was indicated in the hole bubble as a tiny square, with an animated yellow tractor beam lancing out to it. The starfield wheeled--Thor was angling the ship as they grazed the star's atmosphere.

Finally, Starplex reached the cusp of the parabola and, picking up enormous velocity from slingshoting around the star, raced toward the shortcut. In the hole bubble, PHANTOM brightened the yellow tractor-beam animation, indicating that additional power was being pumped into it.

Starplex's course, four hundred kilometers closer to the star, was significantly different from the path the Rum Runner would have been following if it had been leoping around the orb under its own momentum.

"Two minutes to contact with the shortcut, mark," said Rhombus.

"We've never gone through a shortcut this fast before--no one has," said Jag. "People should secure themselves, or at least hold on to something."

"Lianne, pass on that recommendation to all aboard," said Keith.

"All personnel," said Lianne's voice, reverberating over the speakers,

"brace for possible turbulence."

Suddenly a large, irregular object eclipsed part of the view. "Gawst's ship," said Lianne. "He's pushed off our hull. Probably thinks we've all gone insane."

"I could grab him with another tractor," said Rhombus.

Keith smiled. "No, let him go. If he thinks his chances are better with the darmats, that's fine by me."

"Eighty seconds, mark," said Rhombus, orange clamps rising up from the invisible floor to hold on to his wheels.