It took ten minutes or so for the three inebriates to be stuffed into their suits and strapped down, and a little longer for the cooks to secure the galley. Then Martinez ordered increased acceleration, to four gees this time—his tummy, he realized,was a little full for six gravities to sit on it.
Hours passed. Martinez spent his time obsessively studying the displays, watching Magaria’s ring on its slow rotation about its planet, speculating about the Naxids’ lack of activity.
“My lord,” Tracy reported from her station. “Judge Kybiqhas increased acceleration.”
Kybiqwas the cruiser that Fanaghee had placed en route to Wormhole 1, blockingCorona’s escape to Zanshaa.
“Heading for the wormhole?” Martinez asked as he paged through the various displays to find the one that showedKybiq.
“No, my lord. Its heading is for Barbas”—the planet next out from Magaria, a sort of failed gas giant, huge, with a solid core and an atmosphere of furious storms. At the moment, its orbit placed it nearly between Magaria and Wormhole 1, which led to the most direct route to Zanshaa. For the next several months Barbas would be convenient for a slingshot maneuver, by which traffic outbound from Magaria would pick up speed by slinging themselves around it en route to the wormhole.
“Any alteration in course?”
“No, my lord.”
Martinez found theJudge Kybiq on his display, and as he stared at it, he felt a nervous little suspicion begin to grow in his mind. Why was the Naxid cruiser increasing its speed for the wormhole? Why was it suddenly so urgent to head to Zanshaa?
A few minutes with the plotting computer confirmed his suspicions.Kybiq had been accelerating out of Magaria for three days, and it was traveling faster thanCorona even though its accelerations hadn’t been quite so brutal. It was possible that the cruiser could swing around the near side of Barbas and hurl itself for Wormhole 1.
It was equally possible, and a good deal more probable, thatJudge Kybiq could make a slight, last-minute alteration of course, then slingshot itself around thefar side of Barbas and head for Wormhole 4 and an interception ofCorona.
The navplot computer did the math. Depending on how fastKybiq accelerated, it would be three to five days before it could make its slingshot, and then another eight or ten days before the interception. Martinez plotted the worst-case scenario. How hard would he have to accelerate to beat the cruiser to the wormhole?
Not bad. To beat theKybiq by half a day, even if the cruiser advanced at chest-crushing acceleration,Corona would only have to average a constant 3.8 gees for the next fourteen days. He was exceeding that now, and he’d set the pace before he even knew he was in a race.
He didn’t want the Naxids to know he was on to their trick, however, so for the next three days he kept to a regular schedule: accelerating a steady four gees except during mealtimes, when he reduced to a single gravity; with occasional, regular bursts of up to six gees three times a day, for half an hour each time. His body ached, and his ligaments made popping and crackling sounds whenever he moved, butCorona’s crew was staying the course, if not precisely thriving.
By the timeKybiq screamed through its turn around Barbas, subjecting its suffering crew to accelerations in excess of eleven gravities while it was in the planet’s gravity well,Corona had a comfortable lead, and Martinez pulled even farther ahead by increasing the duration of the six-gravity bursts.Kybiq increased its acceleration, but Martinez was able to increase his own proportionally in order to maintain his lead—no matter what the cruiser did, it was going to lose the race, and Martinez took what comfort he could from the knowledge that however much he and his people were suffering, the Naxids’ sufferings were worse.
The acceleration was a dreary grind, however. His body ached and his mind felt dulled. His sleep was uneasy, with suggestive and distasteful dreams, and his waking hours filled with the leaden weight and unwashed stench of his own body.
Martinez knew the Naxids had surrendered the race when they opened fire again. The ships around the ring station fired 190 missiles, and then, sometime later,Kybiq fired two salvos of thirty-two each and then cut its acceleration, giving up the race officially. The barrages were well-planned this time, each missile taking a separate track to converge on theCorona, from many different angles, within the space of about an hour. By the time they encountered the runaway frigate, they’d be traveling much faster than attacking missles had on the first day, and would be much more difficult to hit.
Martinez had over two days in which to plan his defenses. He, Kelly, Alikhan, and other technical-minded crew conferred, ran simulations, conferred again. Martinez began firing his defensive barrages when the missiles were five hours out, and the results simplified things when it came time to use the lasers.
By this time he was too tired to care much how it all turned out. The wild elation of the first day’s escape had faded beneath the relentless crush of gravity, and it seemed that death would be a release from weariness and the constant struggle simply to breathe. The display filled with a confusing overlay of explosions and clouds of deadly radiation. He and Kelly and anyone who felt qualified crewed one of the defensive lasers, with the rest turned to automatic: Corona was surrounded with its own spiderweb of light, each radial line terminating in an explosion. When in doubt, Martinez launched missiles.
The fight went on for hours while the Naxid missiles vanished one by one in sheets of flame and fountains of angry gamma rays. More missiles flew through the expanding, opaque clouds, and had to be located and destroyed.Corona’s powerful radars hammered out, trying to locate the dodging, weaving parcels of deadly antimatter. The missiles crept closer and closer. Countermissiles leaped off the rails. Lasers flashed in the darkness. Martinez fired, wiped sweat from his eyes, and sought wildly on the displays for another oncoming warhead, certain that he was missing something—but then he heard a tired whoop from Kelly, who was looking at him with a faded version of her once-brilliant smile, and he realized he’d won, that the missiles were finally gone and that he and theCorona were free.
He ordered the ship to decelerate to half a gravity and that a meal be served. He further ordered the spirit locker opened and gave everyone, even his three troublemakers, a shot of their favorite poison. They cheered him; wearily, but they cheered him. Exhausted pride glowed in his breast at the sound of their massed shouts.
There was no question of a recreational with Kelly: they were both too weary.
Fifteen days and four hours after departing Magaria station,Corona entered Magaria Wormhole 4 and made an instantaneous transit to the Paswal system. The frigate had twenty crew counting her lieutenant commandant, and thirty-one missiles left. She was traveling just short of twotenths of the speed of light, and could expect to dock at Zanshaa’s ring in about another month, depending on how hard Martinez wanted to press her acceleration and deceleration.
Right now he didn’t want to press anything. He sent his report via comm laser to the wormhole relay station on the far side of the system, showered himself clean, reduced gravity still further, to a tenth of a gee, and floated to sleep in his own bed for the first time since he’d stolenCorona, fifteen days ago on the Festival of Sport.
TWELVE
Captain Lord Richard Li was a witness to the moment that saved Zanshaa and the Home Fleet. Fleet Commander Jarlath, trying to get to the bottom of construction delays at the ring dockyard, had called a meeting of dock administrators, civilian contractors, and the officers of ships building and in refit, but his temper rose at the vague answers he received from the administrators and the contractors.