Strider's Galaxy (41 page)

Little sparkles of communication flashed in from other vessels of the secondary Helgiolath fleet. She assumed the Images were able to understand what they meant, and were operating themselves and the remnants of the Main Computer accordingly.

Polyaggle was still on the command deck, and clearly comprehended what was going on more than Strider did. Lan Yi was waiting around as if he wanted to be given a job to do, but at the moment Strider couldn't think of one to give him. She and the rest of her officers were too busy trying to stay on top of things as they and several thousand other vessels moved slowly, hopefully grouping not too obtrusively, towards Qitanefermeartha.

Abruptly their velocity picked up. However things were going for the bulk of the rebel fleet—the displays of that battle in the Pocket were now such a jumble of constantly changing statistics and graphic images that it was impossible to make sense of them—Kortland must have decided that the Autarchy's defenses were as fully engaged as they were going to get. Although she had no real religion, Strider found herself praying briefly to Umbel that the Autarch's cruisers were taking the brunt of the damage. The ancient species didn't like the Helgiolath very much, but she liked the Autarchy even less. Many of the Autarchy's people were probably conscripts—if not slaves—which meant that they, as individuals, hardly deserved to die; but then neither did the Helgiolath troopers. Every time one of the Autarch's warcruisers went down it was another step towards the end of the tyranny. Every time a Helgiolath warcruiser met its explosive end, by contrast, the more likely it was that the tyrannization would continue. The equation wasn't hard to solve. Even so, Strider found herself morally uneasy about the death that the rebels were dealing out.

Which she herself might soon be dealing out.

#

The
Santa Maria
found itself at the spearhead of the secondary attack—as always, Kortland was regarding the Humans as expendable. There was nothing Strider could do about it: the commands of his central puter were being obeyed to the letter by the Images.

Suddenly the situation went beyond some limit of her patience. To hell with just hanging around passively hoping for nothing better than to not get obliterated. She was fed up with the way Kortland was treating her and her personnel as expendable surrogate Helgiolath. She was in command of the entirety of one of The Wondervale's sentient species, just as Kortland was. It was time she started behaving accordingly—time to move from the passive to the active.

The volunteers for ground action were already in place.

Through a communications Pocket, she established contact with Segrill.

"Are you still with us?" she said.

The alien's voice, when he spoke, sounded puzzled. "We surround your craft," he said. "Of course we are with you."

"What I meant was, are you still prepared to act in concert with us?"

There was a note of relief in Segrill's reply. "Yes. That has been agreed. We Trok keep to our agreements."

"Then I think it's about time that I took the
Santa Maria
out from under Kortland's control."
Assuming the Images will cooperate,
Strider added mentally.

WE ACCORD WITH YOUR ANALYSIS,
said Ten Per Cent Extra Free.

"This is reasonable," said Segrill.

"I want to go for it," she said. "I don't just want to be the cannon fodder up front. I want us to be the ones who lead the assault."

"My species has little reason to love the Autarchy," said Segrill. "I will collaborate with you in any way you wish."

"Then let's leave the rest of the pack behind."

"This would please my people."

"Ten Per Cent Extra Free," said Strider, "I want you to increase our acceleration even further."

Certainly.

She cut communications with Segrill and moved to another Pocket. In it she could see, almost immediately, the
Santa Maria
begin to move away from the rest of the wedge of warcruisers. Small darts of light around the image of her ship showed that the swarm of Trok fighters was doing likewise. This was probably the stupidest thing she had ever done in her life—and it might be the last thing—but she didn't regret it. Attack was the best form of defense. Or something.

"Shouldn't we have discussed this move?" said O'Sondheim from somewhere behind her.

"No," she said.

She amplified the representation of Qitanefermeartha in her Pocket. Aside from the vast domed city, the planet looked much like Earth's Moon—although rather less hospitable. Behind the visual image, the Pocket was gabbling out data, the only important part of which, as far as Strider was concerned, was that there were only forty-nine warcruisers still waiting in orbit around the planet. Kortland's tactics had succeeded admirably. Hell, but right now she was in such a mood that she felt she could take out all forty-nine single-handed.

The speed with which the
Santa Maria
was moving ahead of the other rebel vessels had become giddying, even in the representation offered by the Pocket.

She sent a mental instruction to the Images, and Segrill's face appeared in her Pocket above the display of the
Santa Maria
's position relative to the rest of the fleet.

"Once we're within a few light-seconds of those babies," she said, "they're going to start opening fire on us. They probably won't notice you. That's when I want you to strike."

"This is understood." The Trok was concentrating hard on something else—presumably the instrumentation of his fighter. "If it were otherwise we wouldn't be here."

"Gonna be a rocky ride," said Strider.

"Too true," said Segrill. "Gonna be even rockier if you keep interrupting me."

"Stay in contact."

"Will do."

She maintained the image of Segrill's face in the Pocket but focused on the graphic display at the base. The
Santa Maria
was now closer to Qitanefermeartha than it was to the Helgiolath vessels trailing behind it. Spots of light told her that the Autarchy had finally noticed her ship's approach and were sending out a further flotilla of ballistics. They didn't worry her. The
Santa Maria
's defensive shield had soaked up the energies of all the impacting ballistics so far, and she was pretty certain it would continue to do so—the Images would have told her had it been otherwise.

More of a hazard were the forty-nine warcruisers.

She wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. Chances were that she and all her personnel would die, but that had been the case ever since they'd emerged into The Wondervale. This was probably their best shot to stay alive. She hoped so.

"Danny," she said, "here is what I want you to do."

#

The disc of Qitanefermeartha more than filled the view-window now, but Strider didn't have the time to admire it. Face deep in her Pocket, she was busy watching the disposition of the guarding warcruisers. As yet they didn't seem to regard the solitary craft as much of a threat, and the longer they continued to feel that way the better it suited Strider. By now they must have spotted that there was a fleet of several thousand vessels behind her. One ship alone could do little damage to Qitanefermeartha, they must be reasoning: ground defenses could repel it easily enough—if it was even worth their trying to do so. Better to concentrate on the imminent arrival of the main force.

Fingers crossed, Leonie.

"Segrill," she said out loud into the Pocket.

The alien turned his attention towards her. Seeing just his face in the Pocket, it was hard to remember how tiny he actually was.

"Now is the time?" he said.

"Yes. One of my Images will enter your squadron and give you any navigational assistance you require."

"We don't need any, Strider. You forget that we Trok have been a spacefaring species for several thousand years. We know what we are doing."

There was no discourtesy in the response, but even so Strider felt rebuked.
Sizeist!
she said to herself.

"Good luck from here, Segrill."

"See you downside if we both make it, Strider. If not . . ." The alien showed her his teeth in what she assumed was a smile.

Within seconds the Trok swarm was off. She imagined the little craft as being like stinging bees, and the Images therefore represented them in her Pocket as exactly that. The fighters spread out with astonishing rapidity towards Qitanefermeartha and then in both directions along the rough line of the planet's equator, the belt in which almost all of the warcruisers still orbited. She hoped the Autarchy wasn't able to monitor the course of the Trok fighters as clearly as she was: if so, they were dead before they even started.

There was a peculiar trace of guilt in her: the Trok craft were so small and the warcruisers were so large. Then she remembered what Segrill had just said about having been a spacefaring species for so many thousands of years. Yeah, it was a contest of equals.

Things became even more equal when the first warcruiser went up. Strider, fascinated despite herself, amplified the representation in the Pocket. The huge ship was peeling itself open as if someone were cutting it apart with a knife. When the knife got to the drive unit at the rear the effects were spectacular.

So you were worried about the Trok, Leonie?
she thought.

"Any chances of one or more of you three going at these bastards, like you did around Spindrift?" she asked the Images.

IT WOULD BE MOST UNWISE. YOU NEED US AMONG YOU.
It was Angler who was speaking this time. He was the Image whom she knew least well, if it could be said that she knew any of the Images at all.
Even more so in a short while.

"How short a while?"

If you wish to take the best advantage of the circumstances, we would suggest that you disengage within the next ten minutes.

Another Autarchy warcruiser seemed to be splitting itself open, almost as if it wanted to do so.

YOU MUST MOVE QUICKLY, BEFORE THE REST OF THE FLEET ARRIVES. AS SOON AS IT DOES, THE
SANTA MARIA
IS CERTAIN TO BECOME THE OBJECT OF ENEMY FIREPOWER.

"Who's staying with the
Santa Maria
?"

WE ARE,
warbled Heartfire and Angler together.

"Look after Danny and the rest," she said.

WE WILL.

"He's not that bad."

Um.

"He's not."

Silence.

She pulled herself away from the Pocket—possibly this was the final time she would ever do this—and barked to the command deck in general: "Anyone who's volunteered for ground duty, it's time to move it."

Nelson and Leander moved immediately towards the lockers along the wall. Lan Yi was already suited up except for his helmet, which surprised Strider: she'd hardly thought of him as a warrior. Pinocchio was nowhere to be seen, which startled her even more: where the fuck had the bot got to? She didn't have time to worry about things like this if the urgency in the Images' paired voices were anything to go by. Polyaggle had vanished as well: the Spindrifter had probably separated up into her component bits again so that she could re-infest the remnants of the Main Computer. Strider herself jostled past Leander and dragged her suit from its locker.

The
Santa Maria
was going to be left with a skeleton crew, she thought dourly. Not the funniest of her jokes, in the circumstances.

Going down in the elevator she felt herself shaking all over. Way back when they'd been in orbit around Ganymede she'd done all the practices a shuttle pilot should do, but that had been several years ago. Before that she'd shuttled between Phobos and Mars, as part of her training. It seemed a very long time in the past. Did she still have the reflexive speed of reaction that she'd developed then?

There was only one way to find out.

First stop off: Nelson.

Second stop off: Leander.

Third stop off: Strider herself. She hoped Pinocchio had lined up someone good for the fourth shuttle.

Four suited figures turned to look at her as she burst through the lock into the bay where Shuttle A awaited her. Their visors masked their faces entirely, so that she could recognize none of them—except one, the alien design of whose suit betrayed her identity.

"
No
, Polyaggle!" yelled Strider as she raced across the floor of the blister towards the shuttle. "If
you
die your whole goddam
species
dies."

The Spindrifter made no sign of having heard her. Dammit—the Images seemed always to be deserting her at the wrong moments. What to do? Leave it—that was the best thing. If the bloody alien wanted to kill herself that was her own affair. At least she was wearing a lazgun, so maybe she could take out a few of the enemy before they got her.

"Into the shuttle!" Strider shouted unnecessarily. The four were already following her.

She waited impatiently while the shuttle's outer lock door operated. The Images had made modifications here as well, and the whole cycle was very much shorter than it had originally been, but it still seemed to her to be taking forever. She just hoped the modifications hadn't been so dramatic that she no longer knew how to fly the craft at all.

Finally the five of them were permitted by the automatics to enter the lock. There was barely enough room for Strider to fit on her helmet as they waited for the inner door.

Helmet on, she tongued her suit radio. Shit—she should have remembered to plug in a commlink. Too late now. There'd be some on the shuttle—probably in the first-aid box.
You're a creature of a different era, Leonie my gal, and sometimes you shouldn't be.

"If you want to back out, this is your last opportunity," she said.

There were assorted mumbles of dissent. No one was backing out. She felt atavistically proud of them.

The lock's inner door opened—at last.

The Images had made the interior of the shuttle roomier, but hadn't thought to add any extra seating. Strider threw herself into the pilot's chair and pointed Polyaggle towards the other. The remaining three personnel would have to fend for themselves as best they could in the space behind the seats.