"I almost had a heart attack, did I?" Phil said. "Well, you might ask Rico who spilled the full cup of coffee in his lap."
McCade laughed. "That sounds like Cy all right. How did he manage to reach
Pegasus
?"
"Said there wasn't anything to it," Rico replied. "Bein' a cyborg, all he needs is a little O
2
for his brain, and he's got that in a tank, so vacuum don't bother him a bit. He just locked onto a departing yacht, waited till they were free of Joyo's Roid, and squirted himself in our direction. It took him a few days . . . but he made it."
McCade tried to imagine what that would be like, launching yourself on a one-way trip toward a target you couldn't see, days passing as your precious reserve of power slowly dwindled away, knowing if you didn't find the ship you'd never make it back. It would take an incredible amount of guts.
McCade looked around. "So where's Cy?"
Rico shrugged. "We offered to bring him along, but he said he had unfinished business on Joyo's Roid, something about beating the odds. So as we headed this way, we dropped him off real close to the Roid. Last we saw him he was lockin' onta an incoming yacht. Crazy little beggar."
McCade shook his head sadly. Like most inveterate gamblers Cy just couldn't quit. Well, maybe one day he'd win really big. McCade hoped so.
His thoughts were interrupted as the computer announced the ship was ready to lift and started a countdown. All three men checked to make sure their harnesses were secure, and then someone dumped a couple of anvils onto McCade's chest, and
Pegasus
roared toward the sky, riding a lance of orange-red flame.
They hadn't even cleared Worm's thin atmosphere when every proximity alarm on the ship started hooting, buzzing, or flashing. Someone was waiting for them in space, and when it comes to unexpected visitors, it's always best to assume the worst. Pinned to his chair by the ship's acceleration, McCade armed all weapons systems verbally, and struggled to see through blurred vision.
As
Pegasus
broke free of Worm's gravity the ship's computer quickly scanned the immediate area, evaluated the available data, and gave itself permission to use emergency voice simulation. "Prepare to surrender or abandon ship. Estimated time to total annihilation is one minute 43.2 seconds. Enemy forces include one major warship, cruiser or better, two lesser vessels, and a full wing of Interceptors. All ships provide a 99.9 percent match to Imperial design. Probability for successful engagement, none. Probability for successful escape, none. The autobar and showers will be closed until further notice. This ship's manufacturer will not be held responsible for damage incurred during contra-indicated combat."
"You'd better get that thing fixed, Sam, or I swear I'm gonna rip out its mother board, and dance on it," Phil growled as he unsnapped his harness, and half floated, half climbed up and into the top weapons turret. If they decided to fight, the computer would control the ship's main armament, since no mere human could track and hit multiple targets traveling at thousands of miles per hour. Not unless they got very close. That's when the ship's secondary armament could make the difference.
"Damn," Rico said in amazement as he scanned all the blips on their detector screens. "Where the hell did
they
come from? We weren't followed from Joyo's Roid, and they weren't here when we went dirtside."
Rico's questions went unanswered. Then the com set buzzed, and McCade flicked it on. The screen faded up from black to reveal a stern-looking naval officer. Her black hair was heavily streaked with gray, her eyebrows met just above her hooked nose, and her mouth was a hard straight line. "I'm Captain Edith Queet, commanding officer of the Imperial Cruiser
Neptune.
Cut your drives and prepare to be boarded."
McCade tapped a few keys, and
Pegasus
went into a series of stomach-wrenching evasive maneuvers, only barely escaping the massive tractor beams which lashed out from
Neptune.
In fact one came so close to lock-on that it rattled McCade's teeth.
Doing his best to assume a nonchalant expression, McCade switched the com set to send. "Captain, I'm afraid you're mistaken regarding your current tactical situation. It is you, not I, who should cut your drives and prepare for boarding. Otherwise I shall be forced to destroy your entire fleet."
Rico made a choking noise, and Phil shook his head in pained amusement.
Suddenly Queet's face disappeared to be replaced by Claudia's. There was no mistaking her blond hair, cold blue eyes, and bad temper. "Cut the crap, McCade, or we'll turn your pathetic little ship into so much free metal."
"My, but we're a bit testy lately," McCade replied, his eyes narrowing. "It must be a rough day for the royal retinue. As for blasting my ship . . . go right ahead. But keep in mind that your brother might be aboard, and then again, he might not. That's why you haven't blasted us already, isn't it? You don't mind killing him, but what if he's still out there somewhere? What if I'm going after him right now?"
"Cut your drives, McCade, or I swear I'll blast you, and sift the pieces for my beloved brother."
McCade's eyes flicked to his readouts and back to the screen. Just a little more time.
Pegasus
needed more velocity before she could go hyper. "Right . . . just give me a minute here . . . one of your tractor beams came damn close, and I'm having control problems. How the hell did you find us anyway?"
To his surprise she took the bait. "When you started barging around Joyo's Roid, Joyo tried to check you out with his operatives on Earth, and one of them works for me. I sent Major Tellor to check it out; he ran a check on Joyo's computer, found the glitch where you accessed it, and the rest was easy. Knowing my brother's pathetic sense of humor, it didn't take long to see through his Idono H. Farigo nonsense."
Suddenly a computer-coordinated net of tractor beams flashed out from Claudia's fleet, just as McCade's fingers danced over the control board. She'd been stalling too, and had almost succeeded, but the tractor beams fell slightly short.
Pegasus
leapt outward, still steadily picking up speed.
"Damn you, McCade! I'll triple whatever they're paying you!"
"Thanks, your imperial wonderfulness, but no thanks. I'll see you around." And with that, McCade's stomach lurched, and he felt a brief moment of disorientation.
Pegasus
had entered hyperspace. Outside, the stars suddenly disappeared. Inside the ship's screens showed computer simulations of how the stars should look, would look, if the
Pegasus
wasn't traveling faster than the speed of light.
McCade lit a cigar, and leaned back, slowly allowing his muscles to relax. They were safe for the moment. Without the coordinates for their destination, Claudia couldn't follow, and by the time she did, he'd have the prince and heading for Terra.
"Is the bar open?" he demanded.
"Affirmative," the computer replied. Was it McCade's imagination, or was there a grudging tone to the machine's reply?
McCade shrugged off his harness and headed for the tiny lounge. Phil and Rico were right behind. "It would appear our troubles are over, gentlemen. The last one into the lounge cooks dinner!"
As she watched
Pegasus
disappear off her screens into hyperspace, Claudia swore and clenched her fists. "Damn that man. When I catch him he'll die by inches. Captain Queet, I want a report on that message torp, and I want it now."
Captain Queet nodded, and spoke softly into her headset. Around her the bridge crew literally sat at attention, eyes locked on their screens and multicolored indicator lights. By remaining perfectly still, and performing flawlessly, each hoped to avoid being singled out for one of Claudia's caustic remarks.
Lady Linnea stood toward the rear of the cavernous bridge, doing her best to maintain an expression of aristocratic superiority, while inwardly giving thanks that McCade had escaped. Had Alexander been with him? There was no way to tell, but she knew that if Claudia caught him, he'd soon be dead. Over the last month she'd become more and more obsessed with taking the throne, and now Linnea was convinced she'd stop at nothing to get it. She shivered, praying that wherever Alexander was, he'd never fall into his sister's hands.
Linnea's thoughts were interrupted as Captain Queet looked up, and smiled. "Crypto's very close, Your Highness. They're having trouble with the message, but they've got the coordinates."
"Excellent!" Claudia snapped, eyes gleaming. "Tell them I'm coming down." She spun on her heel, and marched off the bridge. Linnea reluctantly followed. Lately Claudia insisted she stay nearby. The more dictatorial Claudia became, the more she seemed to need Linnea's reassurance, and the harder it was to give.
When they entered the corridor, Major Tellor, plus a full squad of marines, snapped to attention. As Claudia and Linnea passed, they fell in behind, their heavy boots hitting the deck in perfect cadence. Claudia rarely went anywhere without her bodyguard anymore. Maybe her own treachery led her to expect it from others. The thought made a hollow space in the pit of Linnea's stomach. Could she know?
When Claudia and her party entered the crypto lab, Lieutenant Chang barely glanced up from his work. Anyone else would have been dressed down, or even disciplined for such a breach of etiquette, but not Chang. At twenty-five, he was already a legendary genius and eccentric. A long series of frustrated instructors and commanding officers had finally given up, realizing that in order to exploit his brilliance, they'd have to put up with his personality. It was a high price for a military organization to pay, but Chang was worth it, because when it came to cryptology he was the very best. His long lank hair hung down into the inner workings of the long slender torpedo while smoke, from a non-reg dope stick, curled up and around his head. Long slender fingers made a final adjustment, and then he straightened up, wiping his hands on an already filthy uniform. Chang's almond-shaped eyes regarded Claudia with the same friendly enthusiasm he offered the lowliest ratings. "Hi, Princess, step right over here and I'll print out what we've got so far."
Claudia struggled mightily, and just barely managed to ignore Chang's familiarity.
At the cryptologist's touch, a printer began to whir, and while it spit out plastic fax, Chang provided a cheerful stream of conversation. "She's a beaut, isn't she?" he asked, indicating the torpedo. Its long black hull rested on four supports. Claudia knew it consisted of a drive, hyperdrive, and mega-memory. A minicomputer provided guidance and control. It was the mega-memory that held whatever secrets had been entrusted to it. At the moment, a maze of multicolored wires led from the mega-memory's circuitry to some specialized crypto equipment, which in turn was linked to the ship's main computer. Blithely ignoring Claudia's pained expression, Chang continued his monologue.
"I guess she gave our Interceptor jockeys a real run for their money. She was just about to go hyper when they threw some light tractors on her. I figure somebody's got something real important to say, because unlike our converted jobs, this baby was really designed to carry the mail. Someday we'll figure out how to punch com messages through hyperspace and these suckers will become so much scrap. Don't get me wrong though, you can't get anything better than a torp from Techno. I mean that sucker's built. It took me two hours to defeat the electromechanical traps, and another three to get around all the stuff hidden in the programming. Still," he added happily, "I showed those Techno types a thing or two."
The printer stopped whirring, and Chang ripped off the fax. Proudly he handed it to Claudia. She found herself looking at the words "Wind World," and a long string of numbers. "There you go, Princess, that's where the torp was headed, and although we haven't broken their message code yet, you'll notice they didn't try to encode proper names. For example, 'McCade,' and 'Farigo,' appear more than once. Does that help?"
Claudia's face broke into a rare smile. "It certainly does, Lieutenant, no, make that Lieutenant Commander, Chang. You've been a very big help indeed! Please feed those coordinates to the bridge, and tell Captain Queet I want to reach the Wind World in record time."
Claudia watched Chang as he called the bridge, and neither saw Lady Linnea as she slipped away on an errand of her own.
McCade had never liked hyperspace shifts in general. The whole concept of leaving normal space for some other reality, which only a few mathematicians understood, bothered him. But to do it without nav beacons seemed especially stupid. Oh, he'd done it often enough, one didn't have much choice out along the frontier, but he didn't like it. He preferred the situation in toward the Empire, where nav beacons marked all the major trade routes, and were taken for granted. Once each sixty seconds the beacons automatically shunted from normal, to hyperspace, then back. Meanwhile each nav beacon broadcast its own distinctive signal, thereby marking a proven entry and exit point. It was a very useful system. Unfortunately this was the rim, and one helluva a long way from any trade route, so they weren't going to run into any nav beacons. Of course as long as you had good coordinates you didn't really need a beacon. And they had the coordinates provided by Walker. "Which means we're in good shape," the optimistic McCade told himself.
"Sure," the pessimistic McCade answered, "but Walker was under a lot of pressure when he sent Rico those coordinates. What if he made a mistake? What if he transposed two digits for example? You might come out of hyperspace right in the middle of a sun . . . and that could be a tad uncomfortable. So why not just forget the whole thing and go home?"
The discussion was suddenly rendered academic, as the computer cut the ship's hyperdrive, and slipped
Pegasus
into normal space. There was a brief moment of nausea, followed by subtle changes in all the viewscreens as they switched from simulated to real space.
Rico gave a low whistle. "Well, ol' sport, your friend certainly liked 'em tight."