Gretchen's mouth twisted into an expression of complete disgust. "You're…you're not interested in justice at all. You're no more than an antibody!"
"Hah!" A sharp laugh escaped the old man. He grinned, teeth very white in the dim light beneath the overhang. "I am. A good word to describe what must be done for our tribe to survive. An antibody." He laid back down, chuckling to himself.
Aboard the Palenque
Parker ran his finger up a control gauge on the main pilot's panel and felt a subdued, distant roar shiver through the frame of the ship. "Commencing turnover," he announced on the public comm. "We are in z-g for sixty-five seconds."
The navigational display showed the Temple-class starship begin to tumble in place, a constellation of maneuvering drives on the engineering ring blazing with light. Parker watched silently, chewing on a rolled-up tube of plastic he'd scavenged from Anderssen's kit. Tastes better than the tabac, he thought, feeling a twinge of nervous urgency. His medband beeped sullenly, refusing to dispense more nicotine into his system. The pilot scratched at a red abrasion along the edge of the silver unit. Freakin' company medical policy…it's my religious right. Goddamit.
"Turnover complete," he said, sliding the maneuver drive control back to zero. Another set of readouts was rapidly spiraling down to nothing as the ship completed the roll. The flare of exhaust guttered out, equalizing the ship's forward momentum. Parker grunted in satisfaction. "Ship at…full stop. Main engines zero thrust. Maneuvering drives zero thrust."
The view in the main display had shifted, following the rotation of the ship, and a red spark glowed among black velvet and diamonds. Parker dialed up the magnification, causing the half-disc of Ephesus Three to swim into closer view. "Better."
He turned, looking over his shoulder at the captain's station. Magdalena was barely visible, hunched down in her nest of blankets and quilts, only the thin yellow slits of her eyes visible. "Orders, mon capitaine?" Parker tried to look properly attentive, which was difficult given his unshaven face, sallow complexion and weary, fatigue-smudged eyes.
"I'm not the pack leader," she hissed in response. Her fur was getting matted too. "But we should stay."
"Okay," Parker said amiably. "I can nudge us into a long parking orbit, maybe spiral us back in a little bit at a time."
Commander's privy comm made an abrupt squeaking sound and Magdalena swung her chair around, scanning the feeds from various shipboard cameras. "Isoroku is coming topship," she said briskly, the tight fur around her nose wrinkling up. "With one of the Marines. Fitzsimmons."
"Starting delay one," Parker replied, as he tapped a series of glyphs on his panel, initiating a detailed diagnostic test of the ship's hyperspace generators. "That's four hours at least."
Magdalena was also in motion, keying a private channel to their Welshman, who appeared on camera in the mess area of the habitat ring. Several of the scientists were also in the galley, trying to make an appetizing lunch from Fleet emergency rations and the remains of expedition supplies. "Bandao-tzin – Isoroku is heading to the bridge. He won't be happy we haven't left the system yet – see if you can locate Heicho Deckard. I can't find him on camera."
The gunner set down a cup of coffee and nodded, though he did not look up at the overhead. Instead, he said good-bye to Doctor Sinclair and wandered out into the main accessway, hands in the pockets of his jacket. Magdalena hoped he could run down the stray Marine quickly. She was a little on edge to be letting them run loose in the pack-ship.
The main door into the bridge cycled open, letting light from the access tube spill across a deck still showing gaping holes from their efforts to replace the damaged conduits. Magdalena wiped her hand across the surveillance v-panes and the entire panel went dark. She and Parker looked up with interest as Thai-i Isoroku pulled himself through the hatchway and kicked off to reach the edge of the command station. The Marine gunso followed, his hair a black, oily cloud behind his head, barely restrained by a snakeskin strap. Maggie thought Fitzsimmons looked a little worn down by the effort of restoring the engineering deck to service, though she supposed he might be worrying a little bit about Golden-hair. As he should!
"Repairs are complete." Isoroku's voice was gravelly and unused to conversation. He stared at Parker with narrow eyes, stonelike features showing nothing but incipient displeasure. "Transit status?"
"Running a preflight check right now," Parker said, concentrating on his control panel. "Should be finished in three, four hours."
"A waste of time," the engineer growled. "We've just finished tuning and adjusting every downside system – there's no reason to test them all again!"
"Procedure," Magdalena said, avoiding Fitzsimmons's searching gaze. The Marine was frowning a little and trying to get a good look at her control panel. "I'm sure everything will go smoothly with the test."
Isoroku turned his stone-hard expression on her and the Hesht felt a shiver of adrenaline. By conscious effort, she kept her ruff from stiffening, though facing a member of a strange pack without the restraining ritual of meeting-with-claws-sheathed made her queasy. "Our orders are to make transit from this system," the engineer said in a harsh voice, "for Ctesiphon Station as soon as possible. Both the main drive and the hyperspace gradient generator are now in working order. Pilot, have you plotted an entry vector and course?"
"He has not," Magdalena said, before Parker could reply. Her ears flattened back against her skull. She took care to speak slowly and carefully. "We are in no hurry, Isoroku-tzin. Nothing untoward has occurred on Ephesus Three or in the outer system. We are now at minimum safe distance for a transit, which means we can make gradient to hyperspace in minutes."
"We have our orders," the engineer said, a slight tic starting under one bloodshot eye. "The tlamatinime was very clear in his desire. This ship is to leave immediately. The Cornuelle will be following us with all speed."
"I understand your desire to rejoin your crew," Magdalena said, feeling her limbs tremble with the prickling rush of hunting-blood. "But I will not abandon my pack-leader in the midst of a desert with no hope of retrieval. The Cornuelle -"
"- will pick them up," Isoroku said in a sharp tone. He pulled himself sideways to the end of the command panel. Magdalena's chair turned smoothly, following him. Both of her hands – hidden under the blankets – flexed, claws sliding in and out of bony sheaths of cartilage. Deep grooves were already cut in the fabric.
"If they can," Magdalena said, black lips curling back from shining white teeth. "Yet the long-fang is far away, hunting among the flying mountains, farther than we from the planet. If something happens, then chaguh Hadeishi will have to race back at full acceleration to succor my pack-leader and your judge. The eldest- and-wisest wanted us to be quiet, Isoroku-tzin." She smiled, showing triple rows of curving white teeth. "Heshatun know something about being quiet. We will wait out here, for a few days, and see what happens."
"Our orders -" Isoroku's voice rose appreciably, twin spots of color appearing on his pockmarked cheeks.