“Thank you, sir,” Joshua replied. He triggered the fusion drives. The simple course over to the station had been plotted for
hours. Accelerate, flip, and decelerate. They were already inside the station’s umbra and commencing final rendezvous manoeuvres
when the Organization’s convoy arrived.
______
“Eleven of them, sir,” Lieutenant Rhoecus said. “Confirmed emergence twenty-three million miles out from the star, eighty-nine
million miles from the station.”
“Threat assessment?” the admiral enquired. How typical, he thought, that something should come along to thwart the squadron’s
mission once again.
“Minimal.” The Edenist liaison officer appeared almost happy. “
Ilex
and
Oenone
report there are five hellhawks and six frigates in the enemy formation. Their hellhawks can’t swallow down to us, not at
this altitude. And even if we assume the frigates are armed with antimatter combat wasps, they would take hours to reach us
accelerating continually. I’ve never heard of a combat wasp that has an hour’s fuel in it.”
“They’d have to be custom built,” Grese said. “Which is unlikely for Capone. And even if they do exist, we can evade them
easily at this distance.”
“Then Calvert can carry on?” the admiral asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Kroeber, inform the
Lady Macbeth
to proceed as planned. I’d appreciate it if the good captain didn’t dawdle.”
“Aye, sir.”
Meredith reviewed the tactical display. The
Oenone
was barely five million kilometres from the cluster of Organization ships. “Lieutenant Rhoecus, voidhawks to group together
twenty-five million kilometres directly above the antimatter station. I don’t want them isolated, it might give the hellhawks
ideas. Commander Kroeber, move the rest of the squadron up to rendezvous with the voidhawks, the frigates in high inclination
orbits to meet us there. Two of our frigates to remain with the station until
Lady Macbeth
has completed her fuelling. Once they’re at a safe distance, the station is to be destroyed.”
“Aye, sir.”
Meredith instructed the tactical computer to compile options. The resulting assessment just about matched his own opinion.
The two sides were evenly matched. He had more ships, but the Organization was expected to be armed with antimatter combat
wasps. And if he did order the squadron up to intercept, it would take hours to reach them. The Organization ships could simply
jump away, leaving only the voidhawks to pursue them—who would then be outgunned.
Effectively, it was a stand-off. Neither side could do much to affect the other.
Yet I cannot allow them to go unchallenged, Meredith thought, it sets a bad precedent. “Lieutenant Grese? What do we know
about the non-possessed crews on board Organization ships? Just how much of a hold does Capone have on them?”
“According to the debriefings we’ve conducted; they all have family being held captive on Monterey. Capone is very careful
about who is given command authority over antimatter. So far it’s a strategy that’s worked for him. A number of crews on ordinary
Organization starships have managed to eliminate their possessed officers and desert. But we’ve never had any indication of
attempted mutiny on ships equipped with antimatter.”
“Pity,” Meredith grunted as the
Arikara
started to accelerate up to the rendezvous with the voidhawks. “Nevertheless, I’ll issue them with the same ultimatum as
the station was given. Who knows, the opportunity to capitulate might be enough to spark a small rebellion.”
______
Etchells listened to the admiral’s message as it was beamed out to the convoy. Slippery, vague promises of pardons and safe
passage. None of it was relevant to him.
We repeat Edenism’s offer to you,
the voidhawks added.
You may transfer your host’s personality over to us, and we will provide your nutrient fluid. All we ask in return is your
help in finding a satisfactory resolution.
Don’t any of you bastards even answer,
Etchells warned his fellow hellhawks.
They’re running scared. They wouldn’t make that kind of offer unless they were absolutely desperate.
He could sense the uncertainty rumbling through their affinity bond. But none of them were brave enough to challenge him directly.
Satisfied he’d kept them in line for now, Etchells asked the convoy’s commander what he intended to do. Withdraw, came the
answer, there’s nothing else we can do.
Etchells wasn’t so sure. The Navy hadn’t destroyed the station. And that went against everything the Confederation stood for.
There had to be a phenomenal reason for such a change of policy. We should stay, he told the convoy commander. They cannot
engage us for hours yet. That gives us a chance to discover what they are doing here. If they’re going to start using antimatter
against us, Capone should be told. Reluctantly, the commander agreed. However, he did order the Adamist ships to accelerate
towards a new jump coordinate that would take them back to New California, leaving the hellhawks to observe the station.
It was difficult to look directly into that dangerous glare. Etchells’s sensor blisters began to suffer from glare spots,
similar to purple after-images which plagued human eyes. He started to roll lazily, flicking his ebony wingtips to bank against
the gusts of solar particles, switching the view between the blisters. Even then, concentrating on that tiny speck millions
of kilometres away was inordinately stressful. A headache began to pound away inside his stolen neurone structure.
None of the electronic sensors loaded into his cargo cradles were any use, they were mostly military systems, intended for
close defence work. And his distortion field couldn’t reach that far. The visual spectrum provided him with the greatest coverage.
He could see the Navy’s Adamist ships accelerating up out of the star’s enormous gravity field, little sparks of light, actually
brighter than the photosphere.
After half an hour, three more fusion drives ignited around the station. Two of them started to follow the Navy squadron.
The last one took a different course altogether; curving round the star’s southern hemisphere on a very high inclination trajectory.
Etchells opened his beak wide to let out an imaginary warble of success. Whatever it was doing, the lone starship had to be
the reason behind the Navy’s strange action. He issued a flurry of instructions to the other hellhawks. Despite his brute-boy
attitude, Etchells had actually absorbed a great deal of information from his host’s mentality. The facade of toughness was
a deliberate ploy—always let your opponents believe you’re dumber than you are. Becoming Kiera’s most dependable and trusted
hellhawk made sure she wouldn’t risk him on those mad seeding flights, or any other dangerous actions. Convoy escort was about
the safest duty to pull.
Wasted decades spent bumming round pointless mercenary actions across the Confederation, had taught him to disguise his true
potential. Survival was dependent on intelligence and the lowest cunning, not worthy courage. And he knew for sure that surviving
his current situation was going to take a great deal of ingenuity. Like Rocio in the
Mindori
, he had come to admire his new bitek form, finding it utterly superior to a human body. Quite how he could hang on to it
was a question he’d been unable to resolve. There would be no place for hellhawks in the place where possessed took their
planets to escape the universe, he was sure. And the Confederation would never rest until they’d solved the problem of how
to evict souls back into the beyond permanently.
So he bided his time, keeping a giant yellowing eye open for some opportunity to save his own ass, and to hell with his comrades.
The Navy’s unconventional behaviour might just be the break he’d been looking for.
When the last three starships were thirty thousand kilometres from the antimatter station, it exploded with a violence which
outshone the prominence arching through the chromosphere below. As if in acknowledgement of their defeat, the hellhawks swallowed
away.
The voidhawks analysed the way their distortion fields applied energy against space-time to open a wormhole interstice. All
five hellhawks appeared to be heading back to New California.
They have left the remaining frigates extremely vulnerable,
Auster,
Ilex
’s captain, reported to Rhoecus.
What are the admiral’s orders?
Hold your position. If you attack they will just jump clear. We could harass them all the way home, but there is no tactical
advantage to be gained from that. Our objective has been accomplished.
Very well.
Syrinx.
Yes, Rhoecus.
Oenone
is cleared to rendezvous with the
Lady Macbeth
. The admiral wishes you both bon voyage.
Thank you.
______
Etchells didn’t believe the voidhawks would follow, certainly not instantaneously. The hellhawks all swallowed ten light-years
clear of the star, then swallowed again three seconds later. Unless a voidhawk had been with them to observe the second swallow,
there was no way of knowing where they’d gone.
Four of them carried on back to New California. Etchells returned directly to the star, emerging twenty-two million kilometres
above its south pole. With the voidhawks all clustered together in their twenty-five million kilometre equatorial orbit, there
was no way they could detect his wormhole terminus opening and closing. His position was ideal to observe the Navy starships
flying out from their low orbit. His sensor blisters didn’t have to focus against the overwhelming white blaze. Even his headache
started to fade.
He did keep a cursory watch on the Navy ships as they rose out of the gravity field, but it was the lone ship heading south
that interested him. When it was twenty million kilometres from the star its drive cut out. Etchells projected its course,
and started to check his captured spatial memories. Given its jump alignment there were twenty possible Confederation systems
it could be heading for. And one other. Hesperi-LN. The Tyrathca planet.
Fifteen minutes Courtney sat up at the bar waiting. Four men offered to buy her a drink. Not as many as usual, but then there
were very few civilians abroad these days. Even the Blue Orchid was suffering from the scare stories flashing across the net,
its numbers well down. Normally it would be jammed at this time of night; the kind of not-quite-sleazy club where lower-middle
management could hang out after work and not have to worry if someone else from the company saw them. Courtney had been in
a lot worse than this. The doormen didn’t give her any hassle even though her ass was virtually hanging out of her cocktail
dress. Courtney liked the dress, cool black fabric with straps on the front to hold her titties up high, and more cross straps
down the cut out back. It made her look hot, without being too cheap.
Banneth said she looked good wearing it. Best thing the sect had ever done putting her in this dress; she’d never been so
fem before. And it worked. There hadn’t been a night she didn’t deliver for them. Sometimes twice. It was a good gig, taking
the men back to one of the student rent hotels where the sect had squeezed the manager. Then as soon as the mark’s pants were
off, Billy-Joe, Rav, and Julie would storm in and kick the shit out of him. Then when he was unconscious Billy-Joe took a
recording of his biolectric pattern and emptied his credit disk.
She’d done much the same thing for all of the last three years since her brother introduced her to the Light Bringer. Except
to start with she’d attracted paedopervs, who mostly had their own dens to take her to, or just hauled her into the dark end
of a downtown alley. Those days, it had been Quinn Dexter who pimped her. In a strange way, she’d always been safer with him
in charge. No matter how big a sicko the man was, Quinn had always arrived in time.
Now she was fifteen, and too big to pass for a juvenile any more. Banneth had switched the hormones she took. This new batch
didn’t prevent her breasts from growing; quite the opposite, they promoted development. She’d still got a skinny frame, but
now she was huge with it. In the last nine months her targets had changed completely. It wasn’t the pervs who wanted her now,
just the losers. Courtney reckoned she’d come out of the alteration okay. Big tits was one of the mildest modifications Banneth
made to sect members.
The fifth man to ask if she was all right and did her glass need freshening had what it took. Overweight, round face with
perspiration on his brow, hair slicked back with gel, a good suit cleaned too often. His expression was hesitant, ready for
a slapdown. Courtney drained her glass, and held it out to him, smiling. “Thanks.”
He was too fat to dance. That was a shame, she liked to dance. So that meant having to sit and listen to about an hour of
bitching—his boss, his family, his apartment; how none of it was going right for him. The drone was so she’d see he was a
real genuine guy who’d had a couple of bad breaks lately, hoping for the sympathy fuck.
She made all the right sounds at the right places. After this time working the arcology’s clubs she could probably have filled
in his life story just by looking at him. Proof of that: she never chose wrong. They always had a loaded disk. After the hour
and three drinks he had enough nerve to make his innocent suggestion. To his utter surprise the answer was a demure smile
and a hurried nod.
It wasn’t far to the student hall, which was good. Courtney didn’t like getting into a cab with them; there was too much chance
Billy-Joe might lose her. She didn’t look to see if the three sect members were trailing after her down the street. They’d
be there. This was a real smooth routine now.
Twice though, she thought she heard footsteps following. Real distinctive, regular thuds of someone using a lot of metal in
their heels. Dumb idea, there was a whole bunch of people walking along the street. When she did snatch a look, there was
no one she could see that looked like a cop. Just a bunch of civilians scurrying around, making out their stupid lives meant
something.