“I thought I’d told you how I dealt with Neeves and Sipika in the Ruin Ring.”
“Oh,” Ashly said dryly. “You mean that was a true story?”
Joshua gave the pilot a wounded look.
“No response from the sunscoop,” Liol said. “And no change in thrust. They’re still going to burn through the knot in eight
minutes.”
“Okay, if that’s how they want it. Combat stations, please.”
Lady Mac
’s thermo dump panels folded down into their hull recesses. Joshua ignited the main fusion tubes, and closed on the sunscoop
at one and a half gees.
“This is going to be one very fast flyby,” he said. “ Sarha, you have primary fire control.”
“Aye, Captain,” she acknowledged. Her neuroiconic display was already showing her the sunscoop: a cluster of incandescent
globes sitting on top of an even brighter flame of plasma that stretched out over thirty kilometres before dissolving into
a hazy tip of blue ions. It descended relentlessly towards the vivid copper sunside like some gigantic insect stinger.
The flight computer datavised a stream of targeting data, overlaying her image with a bright purple grid. Under her guidance,
it split into five segments and wrapped each piece around one of the incandescent globes. She upped the power level from the
main tokamak generators and activated the maser cannon.
Lady Mac
swept past the sunscoop in a shallow curving trajectory, keeping a constant twenty kilometres away from the fusion plume.
Her masers fired at the five storage globes, each beam piercing clean through the radiant thermal dissipation material. Fissures
of darkness streaked out from the impact points. The beams began to chew round in a tight spiral, widening the holes. Whatever
the casing material was, its physical resistance to the microwaves was minimal. Ninety per cent of their energy went directly
into the massive reservoir of hydrocarbon fluid stored inside. It started boiling immediately, belching out clouds of hot
vapour. Pressure began to build up inside the globes, sending vast jets of blue-grey gas roaring out through the gashes.
“Delta-V change,” Liol reported. “The punctures are creating thrust. Christ, Josh, it works.”
“Thank you. Sarha, keep those lasers centred, I want to heat as much fluid as we can. Stand by, reducing thrust. Let’s try
and avoid coming back for a second pass.”
“Captain,” Beaulieu called. “The sunscoop drive is switching off.”
Lady Mac
’s combat sensor clusters tracked the sunscoop, showing Joshua the fusion plume dwindling away. “Shit, did we do that?”
“Negative,” Sarha said. “My shooting’s not that bad. Drive systems are intact.”
“Liol, give me a trajectory update please.”
“They’ve got a smart captain. Without the fusion drive, the gas plumes aren’t enough to kill their velocity. They’re going
to hit the knot. Impact in four minutes.”
“Damn it.” Joshua immediately began plotting a new vector, taking
Lady Mac
round for another pass. The starship began accelerating at four gees. He had to be careful their own plume didn’t wash across
the sunside webs.
“Sunscoop gas vents are reducing,” Ashly said. “The fluid must be cooling again. That thermal dissipation mechanism of theirs
is bloody good, Joshua. It’s worth giving them the ZTT drive in exchange for that.”
Lady Mac
was racing back towards the sunscoop. Sarha fired the masers again, to be rewarded by the sight of the gas jets thickening.
The glare of the storage globes fluoresced them a blazing silver-white as they emerged from the holes; then they shaded down
along their length until their diffuse tails shimmered cerise.
Two lasers struck
Lady Macbeth
, fired from somewhere on the diskcity’s sunside. Joshua rolled the ship fast as their thermal protection foam flash-evaporated,
scoring long black lines across the fuselage.
“No penetration,” Beaulieu called. “We can handle this energy level for eight minutes. Thermal reservoirs will be saturated
after that.”
“Acknowledged.” Joshua accelerated the starship at eight gees, heading back down to the sunside surface. Everyone tensed against
the crushing gravity as the sensors showed them the red and gold corrugations hurtling towards them.
Lady Mac
flattened out, flying parallel to the diskcity, sixty metres from the tops of the web tubes. Her fusion drive cut out, leaving
them in freefall.
“Lasers lost us,” Beaulieu said. “They can’t track us at this altitude.”
Behind them the sunscoop continued on its approach towards the knot. The five storage globes were glaring furiously as they
tried to throw off the energy imparted by
Lady Mac
’s masers during the second pass. Success was measured by the way the gas jets were slowly shrinking.
“It’s going to be close,” Liol said. “But I think we’ve done it.”
Joshua followed the flight computer’s plot. Watching the sunscoop’s relative velocity winding down, comparing the rate against
the declining gas vents. Flakes of grey slush had started to clot the ever-reducing gas jets. But it was going to work, he
told himself. The figures were tight, but the ship would reach zero relative velocity sixty kilometres above the diskcity.
Datavised alarms suddenly glared across his neuroiconic display.
Lady Mac
was under attack again. Energy impacts bloomed against the fuselage, ablating patches of foam in spurts of soot.
“Lasers again,” Beaulieu said. “They can’t stay on us for more than two or three seconds at a time, but there’s a lot of them.
They’re going for a coordinated saturation. Strikes are almost constant.”
“Quantook-LOU warned us the dominions would try to stop us leaving before we handed over the data,” Samuel said. “They must
think that’s what we’re doing.”
Joshua checked their vector. At their current velocity they’d fly over the rim in another hundred seconds. The course was
taking them a long way round from Anthi-CL. He datavised the flight computer for a tactical analysis. “The old girl can handle
this level of fire. We don’t need to jump clean yet.”
Lady Mac
’s sensors were still tracking the sunscoop ship. It was sixty-five kilometres away from the sunside, with its approach velocity
down to ten metres per second. The five jets from its storage globes were still active, though the rents weren’t squirting
gas any more. It was mainly liquid and slush pouring out now. At sixty-three kilometres, its velocity was two metres a second.
The vector reversed at sixty-one kilometres. For a moment the sunscoop was stationary, then it began to creep away from the
diskcity again at an almost unmeasurable velocity. By now the flow from the storage globes was reduced to a splutter of mushy
fluid dribbling away into space.
Its fusion drive ignited.
Joshua groaned in dismay as
Lady Mac
’s flight computer translated the sensor image into pure data, providing him with the figures for the plasma’s temperature,
luminosity, and flow rate. This time the sunscoop was using its full thrust. The tip of the plume seared its way downwards
as the giant ship began to accelerate away. There was never going to be time for the separation distance to increase beyond
the range of the plasma spear.
The drive flame hammered against the crown of the knot, instantly vaporizing every tube and foil sheet it touched. A blast
wave of superheated gas roared out through the tangle of tubes inside the knot, rupturing web junctions and sending shredded
tube fragments whirling deeper into the tangle. Slow structural ripples flexed their way across the sunside, radiating sinuously
out from the knot. Tubes cracked open around junctions and reinforcement ribs. Hundreds of fanshaped fountains of circulation
fluid and atmospheric gas howled out into space across an area fifty kilometres across, producing a stormy pellicle of crimson
mist which hung over the surface. Its centre was energized to azure blue by the fusion plume from the retreating sunscoop,
expanding in a perfectly symmetrical ring, swelling and fading as it raced away across the sunside.
The devastated Mosdva dominions around the knot retaliated. Every laser that remained functional was fired at the sunscoop.
Small petals of darkness opened across the glaring storage globes, distending. Sprays of molten metal drifted out from the
drive nozzle, followed by boiling globules of fluid. The plasma flame began to waver as it was contaminated by streaks of
impurity burning emerald and turquoise.
The thick shadows slithering over the storage globes merged together into funereal blemishes until the light was completely
extinguished. They shattered in unison, belching out thick wobbling rivers of hydrocarbon fluid. It began to evaporate under
the red giant’s unrelenting radiance, producing a surge of oily fog. A huge patch of shade crept over the sunside, defacing
its usual gleaming hue to a dusky claret.
“Christ,” Liol gasped. “Did we do that?”
“No,” Dahybi said. “But they’ll blame us anyway.”
“Ione?” Joshua asked. “Are you all right?” He concentrated on the general communication link. The view through the serjeants’
sensors was shaking badly. The effect of the sunscoop’s plasma strike against Lalarin-MG was the same as an earthquake. Tyrathca
breeders were scattered across the plaza, struggling to regain their footing. The soldiers had closed in on the three Mosdva,
prodding them with their big maser rifles.
“We’re okay,” she said. The serjeants began to scan round. “No sign of structural breakdown. The cylinder is still intact
and rotating.”
“That’s something.”
Above the serjeants, the Sleeping God’s effigy was moving in a circular bouncing motion, completely out of phase with the
cylinder’s rotation. The axial gantry securing it bent and stretched with frighteningly loud stress creaks.
Baulona-PWM walked unsteadily over to Quantook-LOU. The distributor of resources was suffering in the aftermath of the attack,
unable to lift himself up from the juddering plaza.
“Mosdva break their separation agreement,” Baulona-PWM said. “You damage Lalarin-MG. You kill our vassal castes. We will fire
our weapons at Tojolt-HI. You will be exterminated.”
“Wait,” Ione said. “You cannot exterminate Quantook-LOU. He is the only Mosdva willing to deal with you. Without him there
will be war. Billions of Tyrathca will die because you exterminated him. Their deaths will be your fault.”
“They will not die if you leave Mastrit-PJ. Do not give the Mosdva your faster-than-light drive. The Tyrathca here will survive.
The Sleeping God will come to aid us.”
“The Mosdva will be given our drive. That is why we have come, to bring balance to the galaxy. The Tyrathca from Tanjuntic-RI
were given the drive.”
“Tyrathca have faster-than-light drive?” Baulona-PWM demanded.
“Some of your worlds have it, yes. The technology is spreading slowly. Outside Mastrit-PJ your race is becoming powerful.
Humans and our xenoc allies will not permit that to happen. There must be balance and harmony between races, only then can
there be peace.”
Quantook-LOU heaved down a breath, but still made no effort to rise. “Humans are stupid,” he said. “Why did you give Tyrathca
the drive? Can you not see what they are?”
“We know what both of you are. That is why we are here. Now you must choose. Will you mediate a new agreement? Will you pursue
peace?”
“What will you do if we do not mediate an agreement?” Quantook-LOU asked.
“The balance will be enforced by us,” Ione said. “We will not tolerate war.”
“The Mosdva will mediate an agreement for peace,” Quantook-LOU said. “If the Tyrathca of Lalarin-MG do not wish to mediate
with me, I will find an enclave that will.”
“Baulona-PWM, what is your answer?” Ione asked.
“I will mediate,” the breeder said. “But the Mosdva still attack Lalarin-MG. They must stop. There can be no agreement if
we are dead.”
“Quantook-LOU, can you get the other dominions to withdraw?”
“I cannot. I must have the drive first, and the
Lady Macbeth
must leave. Only then will they be forced to ally with me.”
“You can’t have the drive until we have the Tyrathca information,” Ione said. “Baulona-PWM, how long will it take you to recover
the information necessary for the agreement?”
“I am uncertain where it is stored. Our old memory centres are no longer enabled. We would have to reactivate them.”
“Wonderful,” Joshua exclaimed. “Not even total catastrophe can loosen these bollockheads up. Beaulieu, what’s happened to
the trains?”
“Three of them are still en route, Captain. And the surviving Mosdva in spacesuits are still infiltrating the knot on the
darkside.”
“Jesus, we have to buy Ione some time.”
“We could go back to the knot and use our firepower to defend Lalarin-MG from the Mosdva troops,” Liol suggested.
“No.” Joshua rejected it automatically. It would be messy, he knew.
Lady Mac
might be the most powerful ship in the system, but she wasn’t invincible. They needed some way of isolating Lalarin-MG while
the Tyrathca breeders found the almanac. And maybe Quantook-LOU really could negotiate some kind of peace settlement. Nice
bonus.
He let the factors stream through his mind. With that arrogant Calvert certainty that they had to act on Lalarin-MG, it was
just a matter of running through options. Thinking what he had available to work with.
Joshua started chuckling wickedly.
Ashly closed his eyes in prayer. “Oh shit.”
“Syrinx,” Joshua called. “I need
Oenone
down here.”
______
One of the serjeants bent down beside Quantook-LOU. The distributor of resources had rolled partially on his side, which was
why he couldn’t right himself. His bodyweight was trapping his midlimb. Ione pushed his flank as hard as she dared; too much
pressure would snap his bones.
“I thank you,” Quantook-LOU said as his midlimb wriggled free. “You would make an excellent Mosdva. Even I am adrift among
your mediating strategies.”
“A compliment indeed. My prime requirement, however, remains unchanged.”