"Run!" Sinklar growled, grabbing Gretta's hand and pounding off across the roof, jumping cable housing, ventilation pipes and recirculation fans. He could hear MacRuder thudding along behind. At each step, his head threatened to explode. Lances of agony tore up his frayed nerves and seared the bottom of his brain.
The clouds grayed with dawn, casting weak light where they huddled, shivering, on a mining laser supply company roof. They waited, belly down, mostly covered by a brick chimney. Cold, wet, and hungry, Sinklar studied the faces of his companions. "Hell of a rescue."
"Think they'll ever come to get us?" Gretta wondered, eyes baggy. Her face had streaked with mud and grime, etched by the places where sweat had run from beneath her helmet. A tangle of curly brown hair hung to one side of her face. Almost enough to mar her beauty — almost.
"Been two days," MacRuder sighed, red-rimmed eyes haggard. "That long since the bastards hit us."
"I'm out of charge for my rifle," Gretta said, curiously unconcerned.
"I'm close to out," MacRuder confided. "Maybe a shot or two left."
"And here comes trouble." Sinklar struggled weakly to get his rifle up as men streamed out along one side of the building. His first shot took a man's leg off.
MacRuder got a hit as the pursuers went to ground. "That's it. Gun's dead!"
"I'll hold them while I can." Sinklar squinted, seeing how perilously low his own weapon registered.
"Hey, Sink," MacRuder called. "I know I gave you a lot of grief for being. well, you know, different. I mean all your book learning kept us alive. Thanks, buddy."
Gretta added with a grin, "Get us out of this alive, Sinklar, and I swear, I'll kiss you on the spot and marry you to boot!"
"Yeah, right!" He blew a vent tube apart and killed the man hiding behind it. A whiff of smoke went up. Something in his mind reacted to that. What was it he should know about.
"Mac? Stil got your flare unit?" A sudden thought began to nag at him. Yes, that was it. Just a chance to even the odds a little.
"Here." He felt the flare unit pressed into his hand. Blaster bolts and the eerie tingle of pulse beams whirring around his head, Sinklar settled the flare tube on his rifle and fired a phosphorous flare into the exposed roof lining. Immediately, it began to billow black smoke as yellow flames licked out of the burning chemical. The roofing crackled and ignited.
"So they get us," Sinklar declared dully. "We'll keep them occupied for a while."
He got two more before they pulled the circle tight. A blaster bolt clipped his helmet and stunned him. Gretta and MacRuder tried to burrow into the roof, knives in their hands in the off hope anyone proved stupid enough to get close.
The roof jumped from a thundering blast. Big stuff here already? What for? Three marines with empty assault rifles?
A man screamed. The roof jumped and heaved again.
Ready to die, Sinklar blinked his eyes and swallowed dryly. Dazed from the hit to his helmet, he roared his rage and stood. Reeling on his feet, he sprayed blaster fire across the roof as men ran through swirls of smoke. Huge sections of the burning roof ripped and tore under heavy blaster fire. He was still bellowing, unaware his rifle had emptied, when the patrol craft settled next to him.
He turned, trigger still pressed to charge the armored vehicle — only to have MacRuder pull him down, shouting
in his good ear, "It's one of ours! Sink, they're on our side! They saw the
smoke and came to investigatr'
The Itreatic Asteroids: No more than tumbling rock, they had been the guts of a giant planet that had been sundered more than a half billion years ago. No one knew if the records of the first human scientists who had come to the Itreatic Asteroids still existed. Originally intrigued at the dense metal concentrations, they had determined exactly what gravitic forces had ripped the giant ancestral planet apart and spread the pieces far and wide to mingle with the suddenly homeless moons. Now the Itreatic Belt formed a giant band of dust and debris that circled the Twin Titans— a system composed of a pulsating RR Lyrae-type binary. The terrestrials had studied the suns — spectrally so poor in metals compared to the Itreatic Asteroid Belt — made their notes, and vanished into the curvature of time and space.
The blue giants continued to blast out immense light and radiation, sufficient to provide the Itreatic Asteroids with enough energy to support a colony on the metal-rich chunks of rock and free-tumbling crater-pocked moons. To them, Staffa kar Therma had originally come. With his wealth, he had hired the engineers, equipment, and technicians to build a colony. With mirrors they channeled and condensed the actinic light of the Twin Titans and melted and smelted some of the best alloys in Free Space. Zero g negativeatmosphere labs manufactured high temperature syalon ceramics stronger than the finest alloy steels. His labs had developed epitaxial fabrication and nanotechnology in order to craft thallium oxide superconductors so sophisticated that no one in Free Space could reproduce them, let alone offer a competitive product. The only n-faceted gallium arsenide computer components came from Staffa's labs.
To that far corner of Free Space — strategically blocked on three sides by the Forbidden Borders — the Lord Commander brought his fleets for rest and relaxation. Staffa's private domain — the Itreatic Asteroids had become a fortress haven.
Staffa sat in the command chair, watching as Chryslas null-singularity drive unbent the universe around the battle-
ship. Ahead, the Twin Titans appeared, a welcome beacon to calm the torments and doubts with which the Praetor had saddled him. The newly familiar mood swings continued to plague him as his mind sought equilibrium. Fatigue lay like a sodden weight on his soul. Where once he'd been of a single mind, doubt now vied with guilt and depression, then, within hours, he'd experience giddy optimism. With each mood swing, his brain would access forgotten neural pathways, behaviors triggered by the chemical codes.
/ could control it with drugs, but what would I do to myself? Am I nothing more than a machine — a monster? And if my son still lives? What legacy can I give him?
His gray eyes shifted to the screens to see the rest of the fleet, including the damaged Jinx Mistress, flickering into existence behind the flagship. It would be good to rest. The Myklene campaign — while short and succinct — had drained each and every crewmember. A tangible tension had crackled in the very air as they approached the target. Never had the Companions challenged the might of so great a power as Myklene. Success had hinged on a rapid all-or-nothing strike calculated to paralyze the mighty Myklenian fleet and demoralize the Praetor's huge defenses. That long jump in from Sassa had left even the best of friends emotionally wrung out.
"First Officer, alert the monitors." Staffa slouched in the command chair, elbow propped on one gray-clad knee. He could see where First Officer Lynette Helmutt leaned back in the comm chair, eyes closed in that semitrance of mental communication with the ship's computers.
The first officer's voice, instead of issuing from her throat and mouth, came through the comm speakers. Similarly, she had heard Staffa's voice through the ship's pickups. "Monitors alerted, Lord Commander. Deceleration initiated at 40 g. Consequent Delta V dump sequences initiated. We're roger 001 on course relay. Monitors report condition green at home and welcome back."
"Acknowledged, First Officer, send my regards." Staffa fingered the growth of beard that had begun to crop up on his cheeks. How long had it been since he'd had a beard? Thirty years? More? Time had treated him in such a manner that memories consisted of a kaleidoscopic rush of events and places and fights and political negotiations. All that is,
except that brief time he'd shared with Chrysla and the briefer moments with his infant son.