"Maybe I do," Maniac answered. "Maybe when Aristee knows the cats are going to take possession, she'll blow it up. We die, yeah. But the Confederation wins."
Blair stifled a laugh. "You're so full of shit, Maniac. You love yourself too much. You want to win and live."
"I'm not going back to that cell. I'm not going to sit around while this ass-kisser undermines the Confederation and everything we believe in. Mr. Taggart? You have five seconds to break off."
"You do this, and maybe I'll come in behind you and wax your ass," Blair said.
Maniac gritted his teeth and snorted. "You've got the aim but not the balls. Hey, Taggart? You're out of time."
As Maniac throttled up and brought the burners on line, his skin crawled as he thought about being burned alive.
"Todd! Don't do it!" Blair unbuckled his oxygen mask and vigorously shook his head.
Disregarding the display, Maniac forged on, two guided missiles ready to drop away from his wings and alter the Olympus's destiny. He eyed the supercruiser's aftmost antimatter cannon. The second he saw it flash, he would thumb off the missiles.
"Listen to me, Todd. We might just die anyway. All we can do is try to outrun the Kilrathi and tie up as many of their fighters as we can. Didn't you say that you'd rather be killed by the Kilrathi?"
Clever trick, Blair. Twisting my words. I said I'd rather get killed by the cats than by our own people, but when I said our own people, I wasn't talking about Pilgrims. They might as well be the Kilrathi.
"Lieutenant Marshall, I'm locked on to your fighter, as is the cannon above me," the commodore said. "Even if you get off your missiles before we smoke you, we'll still have time to take them out. Young man, I want you to take a deep breath and think."
"That's all I've been doing. Now I'm going to take a deep breath and act."
Like a pair of yellow eyes fringed in blue, the Olympus's massive ion engines swelled into view, with the shimmering dot of the commodore's Rapier swerving like a pendulum between them.
"I am right on your six," Blair suddenly said. "Locked on to your stubborn butt. Let's call this and fight the real enemy."
"Like I thought," Maniac muttered. "I'm alone."
The antimatter cannon flashed.
Maniac flicked his thumb twice on the secondary weapons trigger while using his free hand to flick aside the safety and punch the ejection button. Half-muffled explosions ringed the cockpit, and Maniac felt his shoulders slam toward his chest as the pod's thrusters swept him up and away from the Rapier-
Just a few breaths before a gleaming net of antimatter fire devoured the stubby-winged fighter.
To the stern, a phosphorescent thorn of debris nearly caught Blair's Rapier before he banked to dodge it.
Maniac fixed his gaze on the antimatter cannon as it swiveled to track him. A pair of flashes to his four o'clock revealed that the commodore had, in fact, intercepted the guided missiles.
"I'm wheeling around to get you," Blair said. "I'll tow you back in."
But the commodore apparently had something else in mind. "Stay where you are, Mr. Blair."
As Maniac stared down the barrels of the antimatter cannon and pried as much thrust as he could out of the pod's meager engines, putting more distance between himself and that cannon, he decided what he would do if another flash came. He armed the self-destruct system, routing control to his stick. One tap on the primary weapons trigger would end his life-and at least he would be the one to do that, a pilot to the end, not wasted by traitors, his death the ultimate act of defiance. He jerked away the HUD viewer, unbuckled his mask. The VDU remained dark. Instruments ticked, beeped, and hummed, and the pod's thrusters issued their rhythmic bursts. It took but another second for the moment to unravel the remnants of his nerves. "C'mon? What are you waiting for? Fire!"
"Brotur Syllian?" Paladin called, using the general frequency for Maniac's benefit. "Is your cannon locked on to the pod?"
"It is, Brotur. Awaiting your order."
"Release lock. New target: incoming cruiser. Compute firing solution now," Paladin said tersely. "Mr. Blair? Take Lieutenant Marshall to the Olympus. Reload and refuel, then get back in the fight."
"Aye-aye, sir."
"Hey, Blair," Maniac called, having switched to the private channel. "Now that they've let down their guard, you can make your own run."
"Are you drunk, dense, or deaf? The plan won't work."
"I've revised the plan. It's now about getting Aristee to destroy the ship."
"I know the commodore's working on a better way out of this. I just know it."
Maniac fell back hard against his seat as Blair's retrieval beam clutched the pod, shifted it behind Blair's fighter, then began towing it toward the aft flight deck's launch and landing tunnel. "Blair, when are you going to realize that we can't trust Taggart anymore?"
"Don't write him off yet. Just give him more time."
"We've been there. How much more? A year? Two? A lifetime? This 'more time' bullshit is just that."
"Well, this is interesting. The commodore just told me that they have another Rapier for you. It's an old F44-A but still functional. He wants you in it and out here ASAP."
"Proves my point what an idiot he is. Now he's going to put me back in another Rapier? Hell, I'll just make another run at the engines."
"You're going to be a little too busy for that. Check your scope. Here they come now."
A dense band of blips crept up from the bottom of Maniac's radar display. The commodore had said that nearly two hundred Kilrathi fighters were inbound, but the words hadn't seemed real.
Now the radar image provided one hell of a reality check.
"I'm sorry, Sostur, but there is no way you can make us do this. We've already seen what it's done to Brotur Zimbaka and the rest. We won't help under any circumstances."
Aristee stepped farther into Karista Mullens's meager quarters. Dozens of oil paintings of scantily-clad Pilgrim dancers leaned against the bulkheads, along with a sundry of homemade musical instruments, including the Pilgrim soultom and soultar, variations on the ancient drum and guitar. Aristee nearly tripped over a stack of smaller, unframed artwork piled beside a standard issue desk chair. "I won't explain it again. I won't ask you again. You say you and the others won't help under any circumstances? Then I'll gather you up, take you to an airlock, and jettison you one by one. No, strike that. That's too clumsy and slow. I'll take you down to the flight deck and have you stroll through an energy curtain. That's quicker, and we'll have a little audience."
Mullens, her back pressed against a hatch leading into the latrine, seemed to expect such a threat and gave a microscopic nod. "We're prepared to die."
"Maybe you are because you've met your pair and he's not, well, he's not all that you've dreamed of. But the others? I don't think they're ready to die-especially the younger ones-and none of you are ready to watch your broturs and sosturs lose their lives."
"You won't kill us. You need us."
"But if you won't help me, then you're worthless. Most of you lack military training. Not one of you is a pilot-except Blair- and he's out there. You consume resources and return nothing save for your artistic diversions. We can live without them."
"But you won't live. None of us will. Maybe that is Ivar Chu's will. Maybe we shouldn't fight it."
"It's not his will that we die," Aristee said, nearly tasting the bitterness and futility of the notion. "If you want to know his will, then speak with the protur."
"We don't recognize that man as the protur." Aristee held back her snicker; no sense in wasting any more emotion on the woman. "We're finished here. You and the others will be taken to the flight deck." She went for the exit, then halted under a thought. "You've assumed a position of leadership among them. It's not easy to watch your people die. I'll be sure to kill you last, so you'll understand exactly what I mean."