Crossways (2 page)

Cara noticed and gave him a half smile, her gray-blue eyes crinkling at the corners.

Sane enough.

He dragged his mind away from Cara's smile back to the job at hand.

“You have the coordinates, Kitty?”

“I do.”

“Okay, take us to Chenon.”

She nodded. “Estimated flight time eighteen hours.”

*You trust the rookie with your shiny new toy?*
Cara asked mind-to-mind as Kitty linked to the ship's systems.

*Ronan did a psych evaluation and gave her a clean bill of health. Whatever's wrong with Alphacorp, it isn't their flight
training program. She's a sound Navigator and a good pilot—in realspace anyway—Ari van Blaiden was wasting her talents having her run errands just because he liked her ass.*

*She's lucky she never needed to get on the wrong side of him.*

*Like you did.*
It was as close as he ever came to asking.

*Yeah.*

*About that . . . *

*When I'm good and ready.*

*Whatever you say.*

She gave him another half-smile.

“So . . . Chenon,” Cara said aloud. “Security's pretty tight as I recall. How do you propose we get at Crowder?”

“Quickly, before news of what happened on Olyanda breaks. I'm gambling that he'll still be holding his breath hoping everyone is dead as planned.”

“And if he isn't?” Cara frowned.

“Well, I guess we'll have to improvise.”

Crowder was their best chance of locating the diverted ark, carrying thirty thousand missing settlers frozen in cryo. Ben had vowed to find them.

“Ship ahead. Closing fast,” Kitty said.

“Identification?”

“It's not broadcasting any.”

“Assessment.” Ben turned to
tactical
where Vijay Gupta, grizzled veteran of many military campaigns prior to joining the Trust as a security specialist, was quietly checking out
Solar Wind
's armaments.

“No weapons lock at present, but she's running hot, torpedoes primed and ready. Do you want me to—”

“Stand by until we see her intent.”

“Got it, Boss.”

“Cara?”

“Trying to contact them now. Unidentified vessel, you are on a direct intercept course, please state your identity and purpose.” No response. “Unidentified vessel, you are on—”

“
Solar Wind
, this is the Monitor Ship
Lomax
. You are impounded by law. Please stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

Ben tried to control the adrenaline spike. The Monitors should be the good guys, independent law-keepers, but too often they were just the instrument of the megacorps. They relied on levies from the colonies to fill gaps where their fleet was thinly spread, which often put planetary interests over interstellar law. He'd been in the Monitors himself in what seemed like another life. He'd joined up to make a difference and found the law was not the way to go about it.

*How in seven hells did they know we were coming?*
Cara asked.
*Maybe the mercs back on Olyanda have a long-range Telepath we don't know about.*

*How doesn't matter,*
Ben said.
*They know, which means Crowder knows.*

Gupta's hands twitched toward weapons control.

“Stand down, Gupta.” Ben held up a hand. “Once we fire on a Monitor ship we're beyond the point of no return. Cara, patch me in.” He opened the vox channel on the collar of his buddysuit. Play the innocent for starters. “MS
Lomax
, what are your grounds? We're civilian vessel
Solar Wind
out of Xerxos heading for Chenon. Our course is filed with—”

“
Solar Wind
, we know exactly who you are and what you are. There's a code red quarantine notice out for you, and in addition we have warrants for the arrest of Reska Benjamin, Cara Carlinni, and your crew. Three hundred persons in all.”

“Do we look big enough to carry a crew of three hundred?”

“Transmit us a full crew list,
Solar Wind
, and stand by to be taken to the nearest quarantine station.”

“I want to see your warrant.”

“Transmitting now.”

“Got it,” Cara said.

An official-looking document flashed up on the screen, long and detailed, with mug shots. A quarantine notice followed it, saying that
Solar Wind
was transporting plague carriers from Olyanda.

Ben switched off his vox while he skimmed the warrant. “Murder, terrorism, armed insurrection, hijacking, grand theft, and kidnapping.” He raised one eyebrow. “Crowder must be getting desperate. Maybe I'll admit to grand theft.” He patted the control pad. “Or does the acquisition of the
Solar Wind
come under hijacking? Personally I regard her as spoils of war.”

“This is serious!” Cara snapped at him.

“And I'm taking it seriously, believe me, but let's find out exactly what we're up against. Patch me into
Lomax
, please.”

She did.

He touched the vox again. “MS
Lomax
, the plague on Olyanda was a malicious false report.”

“You know I can't take that for an answer.”

“Okay, then, another question: who am I supposed to have kidnapped?”

“Forty thousand Ecolibrian settlers. You don't know that, Benjamin?” It was a different voice on the comm now.

It wasn't the words that bothered him. He muted his vox again. “Shit!” He looked at Cara and shook his head. “I know that voice.” He hit transmit again without waiting for a response from her. “Sergei, when did they bring you back from the Rim? They must be getting desperate.”

“That's Prime Alexandrov to you, Benjamin. Why am I not surprised to see you on the wrong side of the law? It was only a matter of time.”

“You seem to forget which one of us was taking bribes back in the day.”

“Unproven. And I don't forget anything, including three months in rehab. You, however, broke every rule in the book.”

“I bent them a little, but only when they didn't make sense.”

Cara didn't interrupt with anything that might be overheard, but she quickly stood and moved to stand behind Ben, her hand on his good shoulder.

*It's a commercial warrant,*
she said on a tight telepathic band.

*Alphacorp or the Trust?*

There was a slight pause.
*Trust,*
she said.

*At least it's not both. The day that Alphacorp and the Trust start talking to each other we're screwed.*

“Their missile ports have opened,” Gupta said, reaching for the weapons controls.

Ben muted his vox again and shook his head. “Much as I'd like to fry Alexandrov, stand down. There are a hundred
Monitors on that ship who are just doing their job. Kitty, bring the jump drive online. Quick as you can.”

Ben squeezed Cara's fingers and then he let her go to focus on the ship. “Everyone sit down and strap in.”

Cara slid back into her seat and broadcast telepathically to the crew to alert them to prepare for the jump to foldspace without giving away their intent to the
Lomax
. Though they had cabins for thirty they were running a skeleton crew on this trip.

“
Lomax
, stand down your weapons, we will comply,” Ben broadcast.

*We will?*
Cara asked.

*Course not.*
He closed down his vox.

The
Lomax
fired an energy pulse. It went wide.

“Is that the best they can do?” Kitty asked.

“That was just a warning shot,” Ben replied. “The next one won't go wide. Is the jump drive online yet?”

“Thirty seconds,” Kitty said.

“We might not have thirty seconds.”

*Hold fire, Lomax. We're complying.*
Cara sent out a verbal and a mental broadcast that hit every Telepath in the Monitor ship. Even if Alexandrov had a personal grudge against Ben, his crew should make sure he stuck to protocol.

Or not.

“Hard shell torpedo launched,” Gupta said. “Twenty-five seconds to impact.”

“Twenty seconds,” Kitty said without prompting.

*Lomax, you're not playing by the book,*
Ben broadcast via Cara's telepathic link.
*Who's your Second?*

*Second Officer Jessop, here, Ben.*

*Jess? Is that you? That prime of yours is going to get you killed. Pull away now.*

*Too late. Sorry, Ben.*

*No, I'm sorry. Hold on to your hat, Jess. Bumpy ride coming up. Stay out of our wake. Give my best to your kid when you see her again.*

Ben engaged the jump drive and felt the yawning pull of the Folds.

Cara is used to transiting foldspace through gates. Does a jumpship access different regions of the Folds? The
disorientation is worse and the visions more vivid on
Solar Wind
. She feels as if she's being turned inside out. First the ship is perfectly still and she's sucked into her own personal vortex, then the whole thing reverses and she's still while the ship whirls. She closes her eyes, realizes they are already closed, and forces them open. The flight deck looks normal except for the crew, all in various stages of trauma. Gupta has spun his chair around away from the weapons control, but the chair itself has turned two-seventy degrees, and now his hand is clawing for the board. Luckily he can't reach it. Ben has both of his hands clamped on the arms of his chair and he's pushing himself back, away from something only he can see.

“Five seconds to impact,” the onboard computer announces calmly.

No. Surely they've left the torpedo behind them in realspace. They are deep inside the Folds now, safely away from the MS
Lomax
.

“Four.”

Bloody hell, what's the matter with the system? Does it think they are still in realspace or . . . Cara freezes. It's theoretically possible that when the jump drive fired, it sucked in anything in close proximity. Oh fuck! They've pulled the torpedo into foldspace with them.

“Three.”

She manages to turn toward Ben.

“Two.”

He wrenches his head around to meet her eyes, nods and mouths, “It will be all right.” His voice catches up with her ears a split second later.

“One.”

The nose of a hard shell torpedo punches through the bulkhead silently and in slow motion, but there's no rending of metal and ceramics, no explosive decompression sucking the air out of the flight deck, no flash of light or searing heat. Instead the torpedo pierces the flight deck and shoots out of the far bulkhead like a ghost, leaving not a trace.

Ben grins, white teeth contrasting against warm brown skin, a mixture of relief and smug I-told-you-so.

“To Crossways,” he says, his voice still half a second behind, like a badly synchronized vid.

Where they should have been heading all along, Cara
thinks. Ben's anxious to find the missing ark ship, but it has been lost for months already. The settlers are either dead or they'll wait a few more days. They need a little recovery time after the events on Olyanda. Hell, her rib is only half-healed and Ben's shoulder must be hurting more than he lets on. She glances across at him again, but he's focused on finding the right exit point from foldspace. Please let him do it before the ghost of Ari van Blaiden finds her again.

She wonders what will happen to her and Ben now that Ari is dead. Can they reclaim their relationship? Maybe too much has happened.

Ben's making light of it, but sooner or later it will come to a head.