Galaxy Blues (27 page)

I pushed that out of my mind. Keeping my eyes fixed on the instrument panels, I kicked up the engine, coaxing the shuttle closer to the rendezvous point. The next few minutes were as harrowing as any in my life, but the next time I looked up, it seemed as if the
Pride
was hanging motionless directly before us, its docking collar a big, fat bull's-eye that a rookie couldn't have missed.

I was just about to let out a sigh of relief when Doc's voice came over the com.
“Jules, is your cabin still depressurized?”

“Roger that.” I'd been too busy to think about that. “Want us to pressurize?”

“Affirmative. I'll be waiting for you at the airlock. Over.”

“Copy. Over.” I glanced at Rain. “What do you think that's all about?”

“Guess he wants to save time by not having us cycle through.”
She reached up to the environmental control panel.
“I'll handle this. Just keep your eyes on the road.”

She needn't have worried. A few final squirts of the thrusters, and a couple of minutes later there was the welcome jolt of the docking flanges connecting. I shut down the engine and major systems, then reached forward to pat the instrument panel.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” I whispered. “You're a good girl.”

I didn't know it then, but those were my last words to
Lucy
. Doc was waiting for us at the airlock, just as he said he'd be. As soon as we were aboard, he slammed the hatch shut behind us.

“Sorry, Jules,” he said, unable to look me in the eye, “but we're going to have to ditch her.”

“What?” Rain and I had already removed our helmets; I gaped at him, not believing what I'd just heard. “Why do you…?”

“Skipper's orders. We can't spare the extra mass, so…”

I was about to argue with him when Ted's voice came over my headset.
“Jules! Get up here now! We've got an emergency!”

VII

I headed straight for the bridge, leaving Rain behind to help Doc jettison
Lucy
. There wasn't enough time to pay last respects; I'd grieve for the loss of my ride later, if and when we survived. Ted hadn't told me what happened, and he didn't need to: when the captain says jump, everyone makes like a frog.

I was halfway up the access shaft before I realized that I was still using the handrails. If we were in zero g, that meant the ship was still coasting. Now that Rain and I were safely back aboard, though, the main engine should have been fired and the
Pride
would have been at full thrust. I was trying to figure this out when the bridge hatch slammed open and Emily came through, her left arm curled around something that, at first glance, looked like a bundle of clothes upon which someone had spilled ketchup.

“Make a hole!” she yelled. “Coming through!”

I flattened myself against the shaft as much as possible; hard to do, since I was still wearing my EVA gear. When she got closer, I saw that the object in tow was a person: Ali Youssef, unconscious, with a bloodstained shirt wrapped around his chest as a makeshift bandage.

“What the hell…?”

“Jas attacked him.” Emily squeezed past me, using her free hand to grasp the rails. “No time to explain. Get up top…Ted needs you to take the helm.” Before I could get anything more out of her, she continued to haul Ali down to Deck Three, no doubt taking him to the med bay. She glanced back at me, saw that I'd frozen. “Move!”

That snapped me out of it. Hand over hand, I scrambled the rest of the way up the shaft. The hatch was open; I sailed headfirst through the manhole, nearly spraining my wrist as I grabbed a ceiling rail to brake myself. Ted was on the other side of the console, floating next to the helm station. He was bare-chested, and I realized that it was his shirt that Ali was wearing as a chest bandage.

“Come here and take over.” He didn't raise his voice, nor did he need to. “Course is already laid in…you just need to take the stick.”

I was wondering why he hadn't done so himself when I saw the stun gun in his right hand, and that he was using it to cover Mahamatasja Jas Sa-Fhadda. The Prime Emissary was backed against hisher couch; heshe was still wearing hisher weapon around hisher wrist. Behind himher, Morgan Goldstein cowered against the bulkhead; for once he was speechless, apparently terrified by whatever had just happened.

“Skipper, what…?”

“Just do it.” Ted grabbed a ceiling rail and pulled himself toward the engineering station, carefully keeping his distance from Jas. “I'll watch Jas. Just…”

“I assure you, Captain, I mean you no harm.” The voice that emerged from Jas's environment suit was pitched higher than I'd heard before. “I was only defending myself. Mr. Youssef…”

“Shut up.” Ted didn't take his eyes from himher. “Jules…”

“I'm on it.” Suspended within the holotank was an image of Kasimasta; one glance told me that the Annihilator was way too close to our own position. Pushing myself off the bulkhead, I sailed straight through the miniature black hole, an irony that might have been poetic if I'd been in the mood for any such thing. Just then, though, my main concern was taking control of the helm and getting us away from the Annihilator.

I grabbed hold of Ali's seat and shoved it back as far as I could. Since I was still wearing my suit, there was no way I could sit down, so instead I anchored myself by shoving the toes of my boots within the foot rail below the console. Bending over it, I quickly studied the comp readouts. They confirmed what Ted had told me; our course was set, and all I needed to do was bring the ship around, point it in the right direction, and fire the main engine.

Silently thanking Ali for having shown me how to operate the helm, I pulled off my gloves, tossed them aside, and rested my right hand on the trackball. A faint tremor passed through the ship as I carefully rotated the ball, firing the maneuvering thrusters until the
Pride
was brought back into proper trim. Once the
x
,
y
, and
z
axes were aligned, I locked in the heading, then flipped back the cover of the ignition key. No time to sound general quarters; I'd just have to hope that everyone below was holding on to something.

“Main engine ignition, on your mark,” I said, glancing up at Ted.

“Mark.” He didn't take his eyes from Jas.

A deep breath, and then I turned the key. Green lights flashed across console as the hull gently shuddered. I took hold of the thrust control bar and pushed it forward, and the shudder became a smooth, steady vibration. An invisible hand tried to push me over; nothing I could do about that, though, except adjust my stance, hang on to the edge of console, and not let the g-force make me fall down.

For the moment, it seemed as if everything was fine. Then there was a sudden jolt, as if something had hit the ship from behind. An instant later, there was a gentle rattle against the outer hull, almost as if we'd run into sleet. I glanced up at the overhead screen where the view from the aft cam was displayed, and what I saw nearly gave me a heart attack. Kasimasta completely filled the screen, the vast band of its accretion belt rushing toward us. What we'd just felt was its bow shock; the rattle was the sound of sand and dust hitting the ship.

“Ted!” I snapped. “The deflector…!”

“Got it.” He reached down to adjust the forward deflector, turning it up to full intensity. The rattle subsided as the field expanded to clear a path for us, but it didn't do anything for Kasimasta's gravity well. The
Pride
was shaking like a tree limb caught in the wind; all around us, I could hear deck plates groaning. If only the main engine had been fired sooner…

No time to worry about that now. The ship was only a few seconds away from being pulled into the accretion belt. Whatever we were going to do, we needed to do it fast.

I prodded my headset. “Rain, are you and Doc ready to detach
Lucy
?”

“Roger that. Inner hatch sealed, outer hatch still open, cradle and docking collar disengaged.”

I looked at Ted again. He nodded, then snapped a pair of switches, and an instant later there was a hard kick from the port side as
Loose Lucy
was jettisoned. Now I understood why Doc had insisted that we repressurize the cabin; the blowout helped knock the shuttle away from the ship.

“Sorry,
Lucy
,” I muttered. “You were a good old bird.”

Ted glanced at me. He said nothing, but his face was grim. We'd lightened our load by a couple of hundred tons, but even that wouldn't be enough to save us. One way or another, we had to find a way to outrun Kasimasta.

All at once, I figured out how to do it…and found myself grinning. Raising my eyes from the controls, I looked across the compartment at Morgan. “Say, Mr. Goldstein…how much would you give me to save your life?”

He stared back at me. “What?”

“You heard what I said. How much would you give me to…?”

“Anything!” He couldn't believe that this was a matter open to discussion. “Whatever you want…just do it!”

“Thank you.” I looked at Ted again. “How about you, skipper? Anything you'd like from Mr. Goldstein in exchange for his life?”

For a second, Ted gaped at me as if I'd just lost my mind. Then he caught on. “Sure,” he said, his right hand creeping across the engineering console. “I can think of one or two…”

“For God's sake!” Morgan glanced at the nearest window. “Whatever you want, you can have it. Just hurry…!”

“Very well, then.” Ted rested his fingertips on a pair of switches, then snapped them. “Jettisoning cargo modules.”

If Morgan had any objections—and I had no doubt that he did—they were lost in the warning alarm of the emergency pyros being fired. Two hard thumps, and Cargo One and Cargo Two were decoupled from the hub. I glanced up at the screens in time to see two massive cylinders tumble away from the ship, taking with them forty crates of alien knickknacks.

Morgan stared in horror as his payload fell toward Kasimasta. For something that he'd once derided as being all but worthless, he certainly seemed upset at their sacrifice. He didn't seem to notice the abrupt change of velocity as the
Pride
, now having shed nearly one-fourth of its mass, surged forward. Leave it to a businessman to put a higher value on his merchandise than his own life.

I held my breath as I watched my instruments. The delta-V was steadily increasing, just as I thought it would. Another brief tremor as the
Pride
crossed the bow shock once more, and then we were racing away from Kasimasta, accelerating beyond the reach of its accretion belt.

The ship stopped shaking, and I slowly let out my breath. “I think we're going to make it,” I murmured, then I looked over at Ted. “Now…would someone mind telling me why I'm here?”

Ted wiped sweat from his forehead. “Ali lost his temper and attacked Jas, and Jas shot him. That's pretty much it, in a nutshell.”

“For the love of…” I'd seen this coming, sure, but nonetheless I couldn't believe it. “Why?”

“Heshe said that we should have left you behind, made a run for it to save ourselves.” Ted glared at Jas. “Perhaps that's something the
hjadd
do, Prime Emissary,” he added, his voice rising in anger, “but we humans have a slightly higher standard.”

“It was only an observation, Captain.” Jas settled into hisher couch. “Nothing more. I did not expect your pilot to react so violently.”

“Yes, well…your own reaction left something to be desired.” Ted looked at Morgan. “Mr. Goldstein…Morgan…if you're through crying over spilled milk, you can make yourself useful and disarm your friend.”

Morgan's eyes widened. “I can't…”

“Yes, you will…or I'll be tempted to lessen our load by a few more kilos.” Ted hefted the stunner. “Glad I had this squirreled away. Never thought I'd actually have to use it, though.”

I nodded, but said nothing. Although it wasn't standard operating procedure, ship captains often concealed a sidearm somewhere aboard the bridge, in the event of mutiny or that someone might make a hijack attempt. Such occurrences were so rare, most spacers considered them unlikely. This time, though, I was glad my CO had erred on the side of caution.

Morgan hesitated, then turned to Jas. The Prime Emissary had already removed hisher bracelet; heshe pushed something on its side that might have been a safety catch, then surrendered the weapon to Morgan. “My most profound apologies, Captain. It was never my intent to put this ship in danger.”

“Right.” Ted stood up and walked over to Morgan, who reluctantly gave the bracelet to him. “Now go below to your cabin. I'll summon you once we rendezvous with the starbridge.” The Prime Emissary rose from hisher seat, started toward the manhole. “And, Jas…next time we jump, no tricks.”

Jas said nothing, but hisher head briefly moved back and forth in the
hjadd
affirmative. Then heshe disappeared down the access shaft, with Morgan behind him. Ted watched them go, then sighed as he dropped the bracelet on the seat behind him.

“God, what a nightmare.” He shoved the stunner into his belt, then massaged his eyes with his fingertips. “If I ever let an alien aboard this ship again…”

“You and me both.” Then I chuckled. “Hey…trade you a spacesuit for a shirt.”

Ted looked at me, and a wry grin slowly appeared on his face. “Go on, get out of here.” Going over to the helm, he pulled up the seat and sat down. “I'll stand watch…but just do me one favor.”

“What's that?”

He rubbed at the goose pimples on his arms. “Fetch me another shirt. I'm freezing.”

VIII

I went below to the ready room and got out of my suit, then went up to Deck Three and dropped by the med bay to check on Ali. Emily was still with him; she'd managed to carry our pilot to the autodoc, where she'd placed him on the table and activated the system. When I found her, she was standing outside the surgical cell, gazing through the window as the 'bot's insectile hands stitched the wounds in Ali's chest. He was being kept sedated, with a gas mask over his face and IV lines feeding fluids into his veins.

“He caught four darts,” Emily said, motioning to a small kidney tray on the table next to the autodoc. “Lucky they didn't have enough forward velocity to pierce the rib cage, or he'd be dead by now.”

I peered at the tray. Within it were four bloodstained flechettes, each no larger than a fingernail yet razor-sharp. Apparently human bones were a little tougher than a
hjadd's
, because a couple of them looked as if they had fractured upon impact. Still, it was enough to make my blood turn cold. “And Jas shot him because…?”