A ragged chorus of Hai, Chu-sa arose, both in Command and on the channel from downdeck.
Hadeishi nodded to Inudo. “Pilot, point-and-a-quarter to ventral. Begin deceleration burn.”
The Thai-i rotated a glyph on his display just a fraction and then slid a gauge lower. “ Hai, kyo. Point-and-a-quarter, ventral. Beginning deceleration burn.”
On the plot, the Kader ’s icon closed swiftly with that of the Sokamak, the largest of the Khaid battleships. Lovelace’s translation of the ’cast chatter had gleaned only fragmentary information for Hadeishi, but he knew some of the ship designators now, and a little bit about his enemy. He knew that one of the more vocal Khaid commanders was named Zah’ar, and he had at least two rivals. The late, unlamented captain of the Kader had been Begh-Adag-and that fellow seemed to have been the least respected of the clan-lords involved in this escapade.
“ Chu-sa, point-and-a-half turned. Deceleration burn complete.” Inudo shook out his shoulders and hurriedly called up a new slate of course and speed settings on a side pane.
“ Joto-Heiso Cupan, ready shuttle in bay three for launch,” Hadeishi said into the throatmike. “Damage control parties, starboard wing, stand by for decompression.”
The chief petty officer from the Asama tapped in amongst the chorus of Hai, kyo from the damage control teams. “Shuttle in bay three, ready for launch, Chu-sa.”
The light cruiser matched velocity with the Sokamak, and the shuttle jetted away on an intercept course for the battleship. A v-pane on his console showed Mitsuharu the boat-bay-three doors cycling closed.
“Shuttle away, kyo,” Cupan confirmed.
Hadeishi shifted uncomfortably in the shockchair, one eye on a replay of the missing battle-cruiser’s escape, the other on a series of panels showing thermal readings from the profusion of broken ships, fusion detonations, and other hot-spots in the immediate area. The dust clouds, which seemed to have thickened around the invisible Barrier, were slowly shifting color as the component particles soaked up the hard radiation.
“Pilot, turn two points to starboard, one point dorsal.”
Inudo nodded, his neck shining with sweat. “ Hai, kyo. Two points starboard, one dorsal.”
The Kader ’s maneuvering thrusters flared briefly as she turned away from running parallel with the Sokamak, her nose angling towards the entrance to the Pinhole itself. There, the walls of dust were burning with a deep orange and azure, making a sea of fire to blind the unwary eye.
Against this background, Hadeishi thought, the thrust-signature of our so-able friend would be nearly undetectable if one did not know exactly what to look for.
But Lovelace and Tocoztic had painstakingly reassembled the course taken by the battle-cruiser, and now Mitsuharu was watching for traces of her drive plume wending its way amongst the hidden shoals and reefs of the depthless ocean.
Musashi stands poised on the bridge at Windlodge, goose-feathers brushing the enamel of his cheek-guard, the Iroquois swarming up the levee in a numberless, copper-skinned mass. One of their ohnkanetoten surges through the ranks of charging pike men astride a roan stallion… sun-dogs gleaming from his garishly ornamented plate-mail, his long sword shining silver in the summer light.
The battle-cruiser had clawed its way back up out of the interlocking g-fields wrapped around the singularity in realspace, finally reaching a point where the hypercoil could punch them through to transluminal. In Command, Kosho sat in her shockchair, one slim leg crossed over the other, watching the threatwell rotate slowly. The cloud of broken ships was fast approaching as they climbed gradient, and the sight of such colossal devastation weighed heavily on her thoughts. Helsdon, having completed his mandatory sleep cycle, was sitting at the Nav station with Thai-i Olin. Together they had reconfigured nearly half of the shipskin to watch for the kind of quantum disturbances the engineer suspected heralded the movement or presence of the Barrier threads.
Better than nothing, Susan thought tiredly, but I am already missing Doctor Anderssen’s presence.
She paced over to their console. “Any luck, Kikan-shi?”
“There must be a defensive Thread array associated with the Sunflower,” Helsdon muttered, one pale hand trembling over a plot of the broken armada. “Most of these ships were cut apart, just as ours were…”
“An attack?” Kosho leaned over his shoulder, puzzled. “They’re bunched together so tightly…”
“No…” Helsdon replied, scratching nervously at a week’s beard. “They’ve fallen into a balance point in the gravitation of this system. This is an eddy of flotsam… the ships might have all been destroyed out by the Barrier itself… or even closer to the artifact.”
“Why not a battle?”
Helsdon seemed to shrink, shoulders hunching in, and an expression of pain flitting across his face. “These weren’t warships, Chu-sa.” His stylus tapped unevenly across the control panes and a series of comp-projected reconstructions sprang to life. The alien craft were revealed as sixty-kilometer-long trihedrons with bulky drive fairings at the rear.
“Tens of thousands of cargo containers-suspension pods, I would guess-are held in each of those three lobes. But that’s only what we see nearby in this image. In the whole of the debris swirl, there are over four thousand ships, the comp says…”
Kosho’s eyes widened, taking in the lift capacity of the dead fleet. “Troop transports for a million-man army?”
“Colony ships?” Helsdon shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe refugees? A million isn’t much to lift from some dying world-but it’s sure better than what we could pull together.”
“Was all this a fortress?” Susan wondered softly, her eyes turning to the system plot and the delicate balance of the brown dwarves, the singularity, and the Chimalacatl. “It must have been, hidden behind the wall of knives. But not a refuge, not in the end…” Her voice strengthened. “Engineer, can you find out if these ships were empty or full when they were destroyed?”
Helsdon nodded. Kosho turned to Oc Chac. “Meanwhile, we need another way out of this pocket, one that is not barred by the enemy. You’ve the search-pattern set?”
“ Hai, Chu-sa… starting from the Pinhole and spiraling out.”
“Excellent.” Susan nodded approval.
“But Chu-sa, if what Engineer Helsdon mentioned is true-if the whipping knives destroyed this great fleet of souls-why haven’t we been attacked?”
“I do not know, Sho-sa, but I hope our luck holds.” Kosho returned to her station, intending to comm up Engineering and see how Hennig was getting along, then stopped, looking quizzically around Command. S omething’s not right… Frowning, she tapped open a v-pane showing the guest quarters, then scanned through a series of empty cabins with rising alarm. Damn his scrawny bones! She commed Ship Security, “Thai-i, can you determine if either of our diplomatic guests are available to meet me in the command bridge conference room? This is urgent.”
Beside her, Oc Chac glanced up nervously, saw her stormy expression, and ducked back to the search pattern. Five minutes went by with no word from the brig. “Very well,” Susan said. “Full speed ahead, Sho-sa. We’ve no time to waste.” Hummingbird would not have taken that “ambassador” with him-contravening the Prince’s express order-if the creature were not part of the old witch’s plan. Another ugly thought came to her. He has his own ship-if he knows a way out of here, then we’ve been left behind to decoy and delay the Khaid. But even so-I would not trade places with Sayu now.
Forty minutes after the Moulins was secured in the landing cradle and Captain Locke’s crew had completed their set-down checklist, the marine fire team disembarked from the freighter in full combat armor, assault rifles at the ready. They confirmed what the exterior cameras had already shown Gretchen and the others on the bridge.