"So?" Vice Admiral Horth managed not to snarl. "We've got thirty, forty arrivals a day in this system."
"Yes, ma'am, but these two both look like Fleet drives. Neither is scheduled, and they're coming in very, very fast on reciprocal bearings. If they're headed for rendezvous here, they must be planning crash turnovers."
"Crash turnovers?" Horth swung her feet out of bed and fumbled for her slippers with them. "What sort of vectors are we talking about?"
"The more distant bogey's turning just over fourteen hundred lights and bears roughly oh- seven-three by three-five-oh, ma'am; the closer one is making; twelve-sixty lights from two-fivefive by oh-oh-three. Unless they change heading after they break sublight, they'll meet right at Soissons."
Horth frowned in surprise. Two Fleet units headed for rendezvous here and no one had even mentioned them to Traffic Control? But then the speeds registered. Twelve hundred times light- speed was moving it even for a dispatch boat, but nothing moved at fourteen hundred lights except—
She forgot her slippers and reached for her uniform.
"ETAs?' she snapped.
"If they both go for minimum distance turnover from Franconia's Powell limit, Bogey One— the closer one— will drop sublight at approximately ten-forty-one hours, ma'am. Bogey Two will do the same at eleven-forty-six."
"Um." Horth slid out of her nightgown and started climbing into clothes. "All right. Alert all fortress commanders. We've got time, but I want all forts on standby by ten hundred hours. Then get hold of Admiral Marat. See if he's completed that estimate of the alpha synth's capabilities and get it to me ASAP." She zipped her blouse and reached for her tunic. "Is Admiral Gomez back from Ithuriel with the Capital Squadron?"
"No, ma'am. The maneuvers aren't due to end until late tomorrow."
"Damn. Admiral Brinkman?"
"He's already aboard Orbit One for your morning conference, ma'am."
"Ask him to join me in PriCon immediately, but I don't see any reason to wake the governor general so soon."
"Yes, ma'am."
Horth grunted and cut the circuit, and her face was worried. They hadn't managed to keep that lunatic from stealing the alpha synth. Somehow, even after all the fire control upgrades since, she didn't think they'd do a lot better keeping her out.
-=0=-***-=0=
The ponderous orbital forts of the Franconia System lumbered to life and began their equipment tests. People were people, and the crazy drop commando had been the butt of tasteless jokes for months; now she was coming back, and Alicia DeVries' madness was no longer an amusing subject. -=0=-***-=0=
A half-crippled starship sped through wormhole space, vibrating to the harsh music of a damaged Fasset drive far too long on emergency overboost. One sleek flank was battered and broken. Splintered structural members and shattered weapons gaped through rent plating, the slagged remnants of a cargo shuttle were fused to a twisted shuttle rack, and there was silence on its flight deck. Its AI hugged her wordless sorrow, and a bodiless spirit four thousand years out of her own time brooded in mute anguish over the evil she had wrought. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say. The arguments had been exhausted long ago, and the woman in the command chair no longer even heard them. Her uniform was stained and sour, her skin oily, her hair unwashed and lank, and her red-rimmed eyes blazed with fixed, emerald fire.
The starship Megarea hurtled onward, and madness sat at her controls.
-=0=-***-=0=
"Hoo, boy! Look at that sucker," Lieutenant Anders muttered at his post in Tracking. Bogey One had timed its turnover perfectly; now it was sublight, ninety-three light-minutes from Orbit One and decelerating at thirteen hundred gravities. Whoever that was, he must have been in one hell of a hurry to get here. He was going to overshoot Soissons by almost a light-hour before he could kill his velocity, even at that deceleration.
-=0=-***-=0=
The dispatch boat was crowded. Keita hadn't even asked Tannis to stay behind—he recognized the impossible when he saw it—and Inspector Suares had been almost as insistent. Keita didn't really need him, for his own legal authority was more than sufficient for the distasteful task in hand, but having a Criminal Branch chief inspector in the background couldn't hurt. Ben Belkassem hadn't insisted on anything; he'd simply arrived aboard with an expression even Keita wouldn't have cared to cross.
All of which meant they'd been living in one another's pockets for almost a week now, since the eight-man craft had designed accommodations for only two passengers. They'd packed themselves in somehow—and, at the moment, it seemed everyone aboard was crowded onto the flight deck.
"How do I play the com angle, Sir Arthur?" the lieutenant commanding the dispatch boat asked. "They won't expect anything from us for thirty minutes or so, but the way we're coming in has to've made them curious."
"You've got urgent dispatches," Keita rumbled. "Don't say a word about who's onboard. If anyone asks, lie. I don't want anyone knowing we're here—or why—until I'm actually aboard that fortress."
"Yes, sir. I—" The lieutenant paused and pressed his synth link headset to his temple, then gestured at a screen. Unarmed dispatch boats had neither the need nor the room for a warship's elaborate displays, but the view screen doubled as a plot when required. Now it flashed to life with a small-scale display of the Franconia System. The blue star of their Fasset drive moved only slowly on the display's scale, but a second star rushed to meet them at an incredible supralight velocity. Numbers scrolled across the bottom of the screen, then stopped and blinked with the computers' best guess.
If that other ship executed a crash turnover of its own, it would drop sublight in sixty-four minutes at a range of two-point-eight light-hours.
-=0=-***-=0=
"Well, Bogey One's a dispatch boat, all right," Lieutenant Anders announced as Perimeter Tracking's light-speed sensors finally confirmed the gravity signature analysis. The watch officer nodded and turned to pass the information in-system to Orbit One, and Anders swung his attention back to Bogey Two. He had no idea why that dispatch boat had arrived just now, yet he couldn't shake the conviction that it had to have something to do with Bogey Two—and he knew what Bogey Two had to be.
"Jesus!" he muttered to the woman at the next console as Bogey Two streaked towards Franconia's stellar Powell limit. "If she doesn't flip in about fifteen seconds, she's gonna have fried Fasset drive for lunch."
-=0=-***-=0=
"Are we ready, Admiral?"
"As we can be, Governor." Vice Admiral Horth sat in her command chair, already wearing her headset, and studied her plot. "I wish I knew what she's up to this time around."
"It doesn't really matter, does it, Becky?" Sir Amos Brinkman asked, and Horth shook her head with a sigh.
"No, Amos. I don't suppose it does," she said softly.
-=0=-***-=0=
"Coming up on turnover," Megarea murmured hopelessly. "Please, can't we—?"
"No!" Alicia DeVries' contralto was as harsh and gaunt as her face. Cords showed in her throat, and somewhere deep inside she wept for her cruelty to Megarea, but the tears were far away and lost. "Just do it!" she snarled.
-=0=-***-=0=
"It's got to be Alley. But how did she get here so soon?"
"I don't know, Tannis," Keita replied. "Coming in on that vector after the way she wormholed out... . It just doesn't seem possible. She must have had her drive red-lined all the way here."
"Should we warn Orbit One?" Ben Belkassem asked quietly.
Keita stood silent for a moment, then shook his head. "No. They already have her course plotted. Nothing we can tell them could change their defensive responses, and the truth would only disorganize their command structure at the critical moment." He glanced at the lieutenant. "Continue your deceleration, Captain, but have your com section ready. We'll just barely have the range to reach her when she breaks sublight."