Nightfall_at_Algemron

I am being reprogrammed, he thought. More, I am being rebuilt into something else—a weapon—but whose finger is on the trigger?
If it's not mine, Gabriel thought, it's not going to be anybody's.
He reached into his pocket and could find nothing there by feel but the prickle of glasswork. Gabriel fished it out and then stared.
The stone was inside the delicate shell of glasswork now. How the devil did it get in there? Gabriel thought. It was too big to have fit through any of that latticework.
Regardless, it was in there now, and the whole business was glowing softly, pulsing with his heartbeat. As he watched, the latticework itself was fitting more and more snugly around the stone.
He shook his head and put the stone away. Enda was looking tense.
"Yes," she said. "Before you ask, I should tell you that I can feel it. It is changing you, and I fear that it will try to change anyone else who gets too close. Gabriel, it makes me very afraid."
"Not half as scared as it makes me," he said softly. "I'm really in it this time, Enda. Danwell was nothing to this. I'm afraid to go to sleep, now. Will I still be me when I wake up?"
She had no answer for him. For Enda, that was most unusual. Gabriel found himself becoming more frightened than ever.
There was nothing to do but cope with it, for there were other plans to be made. Gabriel reached out into the center display and triggered the comms link to Longshot and Lalique.
"Helm," he said, "Angela, this needs to be a short stop. We'll check the outgoing data manifest and be on our way."
"Right," Helm said. "Where to?"
"Aegis," Gabriel said. "Best bet, anyway. Lorand Kharls has been based there recently, and there's the drivesat relay to reach him if he's not. More to the point, the Concord's there in some force. I'll." He had been feverishly doing math in his head over the many ways "several hundred hours" could be construed. "I'll have to turn myself in when we get there," he said. There was the admission, final. All the
hopes of the last year came crashing down behind it. "Once I do, and tell them what's about to happen, all hell will break loose and Concord cruisers will head out for Algemron. I only hope it won't be too late. We'll. look, there's no need for you guys to get into the middle of this."
"Buddy," Helm said, "you need to get one thing straight. Concord or not, we're staying with you. Haven't come this far with you with all this crap going on to lose sight of you now."
"Goes double for us," Angela said. "This is a poor time to expect us to run off and try to save our own skins. Someone has to be nearby who saw what you've been doing the last little while and makes sure you get credit for it. One of your witnesses might be dead, but not all of them."
He glanced at Enda. You had to have known they would say that, he clearly heard her think, and you know my answer, too.
Gabriel let out a long breath that was mostly unhappy, but not entirely. He really wished they would all take themselves somewhere safe.
"There is nowhere safe, Gabriel," Enda said aloud, partly for the others' benefit. "If the powers that have created the kroath and the powers that attempted to wipe us out at Dan-well are now coming out in force, then nowhere from the Verge to the Stellar Ring will be safe for long. There is no point in running and hiding. Any hiding place would be at best temporary. Better to be at the sharp end of things. That way, if death comes head on, at least it can be clearly perceived and prepared for."
There was no arguing with that.
"I'm not wild about the death part," Angela said, "but Enda's right about the rest of it. Charlotte then for about an hour, and as soon as your transfer's done, let's go to ground and sit tight until our drives finish charging, then straight out of here and make for Aegis."
It was all they could do at the moment. It would be late afternoon in Charlotte when they landed there, and Gabriel's stomach, making its own bid for attention through the tinkling and buzzing going on in Gabriel's head, growled expressively and said something to him about dinner.
He let out a breath's worth of amusement and reached into the display to activate comms again, running one finger down the rolling list of text and lighting on the one for the port infotrading officer at Charlotte. "Tabin," he said, "you have that outgoing manifest for me?"
There was a pause. "Forward it over to you in a moment, Sunshine," said a male voice, not Tabin's.
Gabriel sat and drummed his fingers on the arm of the pilot's couch and let out a sigh. That was when the shadow passed over his mind.
He groped at the image, got a grip on it, pulled it close and clear. Oh, gods, he thought. Big, bulky, long and sleek, weapon ports opening as it dropped down through the upper layers of atmosphere. He had seen that shape before, awash in drivespace, heading toward Danwell. There was only one of them this time, but in the present circumstances, one was no improvement on three or more. One VoidCorp cruiser was more than enough to make their lives annoying, and it was heading straight for them.
He thrust his hand into the display again and pulled the fighting field down over him while Enda stared at him in astonishment. She then caught the tenor of his mind and started to do the same.
"Helm," Gabriel yelled down comms, "we've got company! Get out of here!"
"What?" Helm said. "Nothing showing on—"
He fell silent for an instant and then started to curse.
"Dammit, Gabriel, how'd you see that thing coming?" Angela yelled at him. "Grawl, hurry up!"
"Don't try it!" Gabriel cried. "You idiots, forget it! It's me they're after! What are you going to try to do, fight a cruiser?"
"Watch me," Helm said. There was considerable enjoyment in his tone of voice. "I have a cherry bomb or so in the hold that I've been waiting for a special occasion to use."
"Helm, no!" Gabriel yelled. "This isn't the time! Think about the people down there in Charlotte. You'll toast the whole lot of them!"
Helm swore again. Gabriel was in swearing mode himself, but he could at least try to get away. "Split up!" he yelled, "Get out of atmosphere and make yourselves scarce in the system fringes. When your drives are charged, make starfall, and we'll see you at the place we agreed!"
Where the Marines will arrest me, right in my father's back yard, Gabriel thought, feeling completely heartsick as he reached over his shoulder for the controls for the rail gun. When fighting in the field he didn't need the virtual aids any more, but sometimes they were comforting. In the field he saw the gridwork of Charlotte laid down underneath him at the edge of the horizon, overlaid on the green and red lines of planet latitude and longitude. Above him, the sleek-shaped mass of the VoidCorp cruiser was coming down fast on system drive, its weapons hot and ready.
Tracked again! They tracked us again! There was no point in swearing now. It was too frustrating. The only ones who could afford starfall/starrise detection equipment were the very ones you would typically be running away from. They have to have been following us from Algemron, Gabriel thought, or even Aegis. The idea made the hair stand up all over him. This VoidCorp ship had been following them through those long jumps into the darkness, into places where it could have caught Sunshine and the other two ships, and no one else would ever have been the wiser. Then a thought still worse occurred. They should have been able to catch up with us easily, Gabriel thought. Why didn't they?