This Day All Gods Die (89 page)

and below her field of fire—

as Calm Horizons'

drives raged for acceleration.

He must have been desperately busy. He had to reestablish contact with UMCPHQ and Punisher, and coordinate their tactical input with his own maneuvers. But after only a couple of minutes his voice came back on Mikka's intercom.

"Well, thank God for slow brisance thrust, that's all I can say," he announced happily. "At this rate we'll be able to keep up with her, at least for a few minutes.

"Looks like Ciro almost missed his chance," he went on with no discernible anxiety. "Guess he didn't expect that big fucker to burn when she did. But his jets saved him. He's on the hull now. And he's got his grenade tethered.

"I wonder what Vestabule would do if someone told him he's taken on a little extra cargo. Might be fun to see an Amnioni go spaceshit crazy."

Mikka didn't reply. She couldn't think of anything she could bear to say.

Apparently Captain Ubikwe didn't expect a response. He talked on as if he trusted her completely. First he described the efforts of UMCPHQ and Director Donner's cordon to fend off Calm Horizons' fire. Then he relayed everything he could glean about the damage to UMCHO.

According to UMCPHQ Center, Holt Fasner's station had lost firepower and thrust; most of its operational capability.

But the bulk of the platform remained intact. Distress flares indicated a high percentage of survivors.

Reports from Earth confirmed that the GCES was safe.

Suka Bator hadn't suffered any significant destruction: Min's counterattack had prevented UMCHO from sustaining its barrage.

That supplied another small piece of Mikka's will to endure. She cared about the Council only in the abstract. But the fact that Holt Fasner had felt compelled to attack Suka Bator meant to her that Morn had succeeded; that Morn's story had persuaded the GCES to reconsider the fundamental structure of power in human space. And Morn's determination to expose the crimes of the UMCP mattered to Mikka. It affected her in ways she could hardly name. Without Morn she would never have turned against Nick. Instead both she and Ciro would almost certainly have died with Captain's Fancy and Billingate.

The course she'd chosen in Morn's name, under Morn's influence, had exacted a terrible price. She'd paid blood for it herself. Ciro was about to pay with his life. Nevertheless it was better than staying with Nick: supporting his crimes, enabling his betrayals, while he scorned her for the simple reason that she couldn't heal the wounds Sorus Chatelaine had cut into him. Despite the cost, she didn't regret anything Morn had persuaded her to do, directly or indirectly.

Morn's success gave a touch of vindication to Mikka's part in making it possible. That helped her cling to life when her brother had already chosen to die.

Ultimately, however, her commitment to survival arose from another, more essential source. Drugs kept her awake.

Captain Ubikwe's voice kept her company. Accepting Ciro's sacrifice helped her manage her grief. Morn's vindication confirmed that she'd made the right decisions. Yet in the end it was something else that swayed her. She held the frayed and weary strands of her spirit together because Angus, Vector, Davies, Warden Dios, and Dolph Ubikwe would all die if she didn't.

At the core she was a woman who served. Nick and Captain's Fancy; her brother; Morn: she was the sum and culmination of her loyalties. They defined her. Without them she could hardly say that she'd ever existed.

Morn had asked her to do this. People she valued—

espe-

cially Davies and Vector—

were depending on her. In the deep-

est part of her heart, she would rather die than let them down.

So she did everything that had been asked of her, even though her brother was lost to her, and her throat knotted with sobs whenever she thought of him. She powered up Trumpet's drives: slowly at first, leaking energy into them by minor increments so that she wouldn't attract Calm Horizons' notice; then as fast as she could while the defensive was distracted by Director Donner's attack on UMCHO. She charged the gap scout's matter cannon, even though she couldn't imagine being able to use them. She ran complex calculations through the helm computer, measuring the module's mass and Trumpet's thrust against the potential hunger of a singularity fed by Calm Horizons' great bulk. And she made herself as proficient as circumstances allowed with the dispersion field generator.

The command module had neither the raw power nor the defenses to save any of them. And Captain Ubikwe was far too busy to cover for her. Whether this mission lived or died rested in Mikka Vasaczk's exhausted hands.

Alone on Trumpet's bridge, alone aboard the gap scout, she readied herself to carry out Angus' orders.

How much time did she have left? Not much, apparently.

According to Dolph, Angus had made his way through the Amnioni's airlock. He would either find Davies, Vector, and Warden Dios or not; rescue them or not; emerge from the huge defensive or not. But no matter what happened, it wouldn't take long.

She surprised herself by hoping that Ciro wouldn't lose heart—

or patience—

and react too soon. All their lives de-

pended on him as much as on her.

Abruptly Captain Ubikwe called out from her intercom,

"I just heard from Davies!" Complex excitement crackled in the speakers. "They've reached the airlock. Vestabule is dead!

Angus is going to cut the lock circuits to get out.

"My airlock is open. I'm ready for them. We'll go the second they're aboard."

He would reorient the module and Trumpet to put the gap scout's more powerful thrust between them and Calm Horizons. The rest would be up to her.

"I'm set, Captain," she told him so he wouldn't think she'd fallen asleep. "If it can be done, I'll do it."

"Mikka—

" he began, then faltered unexpectedly. When he spoke again, strain complicated his eagerness. "They lost Vector. The Amnion killed him."

She groaned. Oh, God. Vector. Poor arthritic, valiant Vector Shaheed: brilliant as a geneticist, but barely adequate as an engineer: kind, humorous, and calm. Ciro's teacher. Morn's friend. Even though he was hopeless in a fight, he'd volunteered for this mission before anyone else.

I've always wanted to be the savior of humankind.

She might have wept if Dolph hadn't continued talking.

"I know Angus told Ciro to wait for his signal. But we're running out of time. You'd better tell him to get back here. We can use your guns to set off the grenade."

The captain must have believed Ciro meant to return. No one had told him otherwise.

Mikka swallowed a knot of tears. Even if Vector was dead, Davies and Angus still needed her.

"I can't," she answered. "I've run projections on the effects of that grenade. If we want to escape that much g, we need more distance." But distance would bring them within reach of Calm Horizons' cannon. "That means we need the dispersion field. And I can't fire through it."

Beyond the gap scout, Calm Horizons' guns raged. The shields and sinks of Min's ships—

and UMCPHQ—

lit Trum-

pet's scan like a pyrotechnics display: blooms and bursts of power, flowers of violence, coruscating up and down the spectrum, shedding color and emission on every bandwidth the instruments could receive. But Mikka didn't look at the fireshow, for the same reason that she didn't use her sensors to keep track of Ciro. She needed her attention for other things.

For an instant Dolph was silent. The intercom seemed to convey shock; outrage. Then he growled through his teeth,

"Mikka, are you telling me Ciro has to stay here? He has to set off the grenade in person?"

Dully she replied, "If the rest of us want to live."

There was no other way. When Calm Horizons' matter cannon failed to kill the module and Trumpet, the defensive would use impact guns, lasers, torpedoes. Then the task of destroying her would fall to Min Donner's ships. The Amnioni might do incalculable damage before she died.

"He'll be killed!" the captain protested. "We might as well murder him."

The cruelty of being asked to defend Ciro's decision turned some of Mikka's grief to anger. "He volunteered," she snapped. "It was his idea."

"Then it's suicide," the deep voice countered.

Abruptly she started to yell. "No, it's not!" She hardly knew what had ignited in her, but it exploded like the impact of Calm Horizons' guns. She seemed to fling a lifetime of pain and anger into the intercom pickup. "It's heroism, you self-righteous sonofabitch! If he were a cop, you would call it valor above and beyond the call of fucking duty!"

Shaken by her own fury, she stopped.

Dolph didn't respond directly. He may have understood her; guessed the implications of a life spent as an illegal. Or he may have realized that no answer of his would help her.

"Christ!" he muttered. "This must be what he had in mind from the beginning. He's been talking about it for days.

"How long ago did you realize—

? No, don't tell me. I

don't want to know.

"God, Mikka," he finished, "I just hope you aren't feeling that valorous. I'm still not ready to die."

Mikka Vasaczk sank her teeth into her lower lip until she tasted blood. Damn it, Ciro! she groaned. Do you have any idea what all this valor is costing me?

She was not a gentle woman. Under other circumstances she might have asked her brother that question aloud—

and

demanded a reply. But she didn't have time.

Suddenly Dolph reported, "Here they come! And they're moving fast. Too fast. That's one hell of a decompression blast. If they don't brake, they'll—

"

Events had begun to accelerate out of control. A rush of expelled atmosphere carried them headlong toward the brink of success or disaster.

"Yes!" the captain crowed. "One of them is using his jets. Now they all are. Braking. Adjusting to reach us. Shit, that was close. A few more seconds at that velocity, and they would have hit too hard to live through it."

Mikka rested her hands on the command board. She'd already planned her vector away from the locus of g, at an angle to the grenade so that centrifugal force would help the small ships win free. And she'd programmed everything to two keys: one for thrust and helm; one for the dispersion field.

All she had to do was wait—

Angus and the others must have covered the distance at an insane rate. Sooner than she would have believed possible, she heard his voice from the intercom, gasping with urgency and relief. "We're in! We made it!"

But he didn't pause to savor his survival. Instead he panted, "Now or never, Mikka! Get your brother back. Or leave him. Just make up your mind!"

He understood Ciro's condition as well as she did. Nevertheless he passed the decision to her as if it belonged to her; as if she'd ever had any say in the matter.

She swallowed blood to reply; but Dolph answered for her. "We can't do that, Angus." Trying to spare her. "If we stay near enough to use our guns we won't escape the black hole. And we're losing position. Calm Horizons is pulling away. Even if we burn, we're going to cross her fire horizon before Ciro can get here."

Yet Angus insisted, "Mikka?" Apparently he wanted to hear it from her. "He's your brother."

Somehow Mikka mustered the instinct for action with which she'd earned her place as Nick's command second.

"I'll tell him." That talent may have been the only part of herself she'd ever truly respected.

"Secure for hard g. This is going to be rough."

"She's right," Captain Ubikwe rumbled in confirmation.

"I'm initiating reorientation now." Then he added, "Welcome aboard, Director."

She heard an unfamiliar voice in a hurry respond,

"Thank you, Captain. This is turning into a real thrill ride."

Dolph snorted a laugh; and at once inertia pushed Mikka against her armrest as he fired maneuvering thrust, turning the command module and Trumpet to align the gap scout's tubes.

While the two vessels swung to their new attitude, she keyed her pickup to Ciro's frequency. "Ciro, can you hear me?" Her voice glowered like a threat despite her grief. "It's time."

To her surprise, he answered immediately.

"I hear you, Mikka."

Across the static of Calm Horizons' barrage he sounded distant and frail; utterly alone.

"They're back," she said. "All except Vector. The Amnion killed him." Ciro had loved Vector. Quickly she continued, "But we got Dios. We're on our way."

Through her teeth she added, "I told Angus I would give you the signal. I wanted a chance to say good-bye."

For a moment he didn't say anything. If he felt Vector's loss, he didn't show it. Instead he offered simply, "Good-bye, Mikka."

The finality in his voice made her think that he was about to silence his transmitter.

"Listen to me!" she rasped. "In a few seconds we're going to burn. Watch our thrust torch." Otherwise Trumpet would be hard to spot against the background of the battle.

"And wait! We need distance. Wait until you see Calm Horizons open fire on us. Then kill that fucker."

Now he didn't hesitate. "I'm on it." Without transition his voice took on a new quality—

a sound like the grip of his

hands on his impact rifle. "Thanks, Mikka. I have to finish what Captain Chatelaine started. And pay them back for Vector. I'm glad I can try to save you at the same time."

His last words carried past the emission-roar of guns; the killing emptiness of the gap between them.

"I love you."

Mikka said, "I love you, too, Ciro." But she couldn't hear herself. She'd already touched her first key; and the fierce thunder of Trumpet's drive drowned her out.

That was the only escape

he'd been able to imagine for himself. Board the gap scout before Mikka started burning: close the airlocks connecting the two vessels. Then he might stand a chance. If Ciro's grenade devoured Calm Horizons—

and Trumpet'5 thrust was