Kill Station (31 page)

Then again, it was certainly convenient that they were hunting him down, rather than the other way around. It would save leg juice.

Lucretia is getting to me,
he thought. He pushed his jets, pushed until he felt faint. The ship
was
turning, but he was more flexible; he could turn more quickly, and did. He came down on its underside, where the struts were. It was another VW, not a Box this time, but one of the slightly more upmarket Passat ore haulers. It was a little

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more solidly built. Evan sighed and got out another of the grenades, slipped it down into the iondriver, and pushed off hurriedly.

The ship blew behind him. He curled up small to take as little of the force, or the debris, as possible; then straightened up and looked around him.

Off past HighLands there was a silent bloom of fire.

"That you?" Joss's voice said hurriedly in his ear.

"Not me. I was doing something else."

"One of my frozen ones blew. They must be pretty well stocked with bombs, too," Joss said, slightly admiring. "There's junk all over. How many did you get?"

"Three. But I'm kind of over on the far side of things at the moment."

"I wish I were," Joss said.

Come on,
Nosey,
honey. We can do it.

And if we don't, we're dead ducks!

There were two of them after him. The kingpin ship was not one of them. The problem with these ships was, they were engined to cope with the weaponry they were carrying; and they were shooting at Joss, and they were plainly not interested in merely crippling him and then going back about their business. He had them mad.

It might be wise to make them madder yet—but, for the moment, it seemed smart to just concentrate on staying alive. For one thing, if his ship were destroyed, control over the five frozen ships would lapse, and Evan would suddenly have them to worry about as well. He had sounded a little tired; it seemed like a good idea, Joss thought, to keep his own baddies to himself.

Also, staying alive had its points.

The two ships were quite close behind him, but though they might have engines twice the size of
Nosey's,
they weren't as maneuverable. He had been ducking and dodging all around them, which was one of the reasons they were so pissed off at him. He had also been letting them have the occasional shot at him, which was perhaps fool-228
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ish, but every time they missed, they were convinced that they would hit him the next time.

That would be all he'd need, sooner or later.

One of them was shooting at him again, right now, but he had seen it lining up on him and was already fifty meters sideways from that spot. The ship behind him started turning; the other started to try to pull ahead, to catch him in crossfire.

That was something he desperately did not want. He hammered at the console, diving down out of their plane and toward the Earth. This was officially a no-no, but he wanted them as far from HighLands as possible, and perhaps their own logic might suggest that it was safer to be away from the L5, at the moment, than near it. Though, on the other hand, some of their ships were suddenly mysteriously nonfunctional, and several others were scrap and frozen air. Surely this should suggest to them that someone knew what they were up to at this point.
If I were a suicidal fanatic,
Joss wondered,
what
would I do?

Phrased that way he dismissed the question. Joss kept diving toward Earth, but slowed a little bit. Behind him the others slowed too, but still followed. If he could manage to suggest that he were running out of steam, or was otherwise in trouble—

They were closing on him. For a few more seconds, he let them. "Tee," he said, "this might be it."

"Luck," she said.

"Come on now, honey," he said to
Nosey,
and swung her over hard on her side, harder than he had ever tried to before. She groaned with gees, the first time he had ever heard the ship make a noise like that.

The ships behind him tried to turn, but couldn't do it sharply enough. Joss threw
Nosey
back again, a sharp curve in the other direction, up and over, and kicked a missile loose.

It hit the ship that had been closest to him. The other one flew through its wreckage, scattering debris in all directions, and started to curve away.

Oh, no, you don't,
Joss thought, and headed after him.

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He would much rather have a suicidal fanatic chasing him than one heading back toward HighLands. And the problem was, there was still that eleventh ship out there, the group leader, just hanging there.
Am I
being allowed to do my worst,
Joss thought,
while that bozo waits for both me and Evan to be out
of the way, and then gets ready to nail the L5? Dammit, Lucretia, are you just going to sit there
and assume we're going to save your little five-billion-credit propaganda piece for you ?

That question, too, was answered by the lack of any other SP vessels in the area. Joss swore, and said

"Sorry,
Nosey,
I didn't mean you," and kept heading after the second bandit.

It ran. It ran fast, and didn't try to turn toward Joss. It did try to head toward Earth again, though.
Maybe
not so suicidal as I thought,
Joss said to himself.
Doubtless they have a bolt-hole down there. And
they know I can't follow.

Joss smiled.

In front of him, curving around and down toward the Earth, the bandit mining ship fled. He tore after it.

Joss did what he had always wanted to do, kicked the iondriv-ers up to maximum output. They were responding better than he would have thought—Mell's doing—he thought, and smiled harder.

Slowly he crept up behind the fleeing ship. The plex in front of him began to haze Up with heat from the outside.
Atmosphere,
Joss thought, and pressed harder, running right up the bandit's tail. He couldn't shoot: on sensing atmosphere, his weaponry locked down. He was barely fifty meters away, barely thirty—

This was too much for the bandit. He turned tail, skimmed up and out of atmosphere, and headed out toward space again, faster yet.

Nice engines,
Joss thought,
but not as nice as mine. "Go,
Nosey!
Go, honey!"
he shouted, pushing at the console as if that would help somehow. He was only a few meters away from having his missiles back. The ship in

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front of him put on another desperate burst and pulled ahead, just enough to break the lock again.

Joss could not possibly go any faster, and maneuverability was no use to him here. "Come on,
Nosey,"

he begged the ship, "come
on!!"

Its speed suddenly jumped by about five meters per second. It wasn't much but it was enough. The missile lock came on. Joss slammed the firing button, and threw
Nosey
sideways as sharply as he dared.

The ship in front of him blew up in three large explosions, its own and, Joss thought, those of the two bombs it was carrying.

He was panting as if he had been running a race.

"Got him," he said to Evan. "That's all but the head honcho."

But there was no answer.

"Evan?" said Joss.

Nothing.

"Evan??"

"Don't shout at him," Tee said in his ear. "He's busy. I'll patch you in."

EVAN'S HELM WAS TELLING HIM DISTURBING

things about the condition of his suit. He didn't have tune for them at the moment.

He was staring down the nose cannon of the last ship, the only one that had not been a mining vessel, but was new and shiny, a fine, sleek, small custom job. It was a ship that had money behind it—and money
in
it, Evan thought. He had headed for it, to see what could be done about it. It had seen him coming, which surprised him slightly, for he had been as careful as he knew how, and it had come for him, straight and slow, without firing. It had been hanging here, now, looking at him, for a couple of minutes.

He was tired of waiting. The conduit of the braided

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laser was looking straight at him, glowing slightly, in standby mode. He looked up past it, at the plex of the pilot's cabin, and kicked his helm radio on, wide-frequency.

"This is the Solar Police," he said. "Surrender immediately, and it will affect your treatment when you come to trial."

There was a pause, and then laughter came back.

"Officer," said the voice, "at this late date you cannot expect us to take you seriously."

"You might do me the courtesy," Evan said, "since I have so far done you that courtesy."

Another pause. "Officer—I did not catch your name."

"Glyndower," Evan said. "Owen Glyndower."

"Officer Glyndower. You will have to understand that we are going to carry out our operation whether you continue attempting to affect it or not."

' 'You would equally have to understand that I can hardly just let you sail away from here." Evan said.

"But you in particular, the leader of this group—Mr. Takawabara, is it not? That would have been the name that appears most often in your records back at your base; the name of the present head of the family. Of you, I would have expected better things."

There was a pause. Evan felt the sweat trickling down his forehead, past the telltale that was saying how little maneuvering fuel he had left to work with.

There was another silence. "You are surprisingly well informed, Officer Glyndower."

Evan smiled, and kept his voice hard. "Yes," he said. "What I don't understand is why you don't believe enough in what you're fighting for to come out and fight for yourself."

"The wise general," said the cool voice, "is not ruled by his passions, but by logic and the rules of battle."

"So Lao Tzu said. He also said, 'There is no joy in a victory won by the counsel of underlings and moneylenders.' "

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"Officer Glyndower, you cannot possibly know—"

' 'I know that the economic aspects of terrorism are not why
you're
interested in starting this massacre,"

Evan said. "You may fool your subordinates and your business partners with such talk, but not me. Even without having read through some of the more interesting manifestos in your computers, I know an old-fashioned rabid nationalist when I see one."

"Glyndower," said the voice, musing. "Yes, perhaps you might."

"None better," Evan said. "But I also know which parts of nationalism to reject. The hate, the fear. One can be Welsh, or Japanese, without having to waste tune servicing the old grudges and killing the old enemies, economic or otherwise. You, however, seem to prefer your nationalism whole and entire, with the useless old hates and prides retained."

"Why not?" said the voice, and its coolness was beginning to ebb away. "We have always been best,
known
that we were best; our craftsmanship has ruled the world for centuries now. But what are we?

Less than a house, less than a power, in something now much less than a country.''

"First among equals, surely."

"Who would be first among such equals?" The voice was full of scorn. "Nations of shopkeepers, races of power brokers and peasants who think themselves as good as everyone else. An etiolated world. Better to see them about their old business, squabbling and scrambling for power. It suited them better. And us."

"So you think," Evan said. "For all your proud words, though, you still won't fight. You're afraid. And your honor is lost to you. But you've fooled yourself into not even missing it."

"You have no knowledge of these matters.''

"I have the
only
knowledge that matters. I went into your place, and ransacked it, when I had evidence of the murders your people were doing. I left those of your peo-SPACE COPS
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pie who contested me lying in their blood. I took back the captive you took from me. I ripped two of your ships apart with my bare hands. I
am
the 'etiolated world', the pale imitation, the new order, everything you most hate and fear.

And you sit inside, protected by your guns, and don't dare confront me to find out whether your words are true." Evan let his scorn show in his voice now. "You are not worth as much as the least of the poor fools I killed today, who had given their word they'd fight for you—and died doing it, died believing in the vision that you showed them—and won't fight for. You are despicable, and if you were here before me, I would take your sword from you, and break it in front of your eyes."

"You would try," said the soft voice.

"Ask the men I killed today," said Evan, "how I tried."

There was a long, long pause.

"And when I kill you," said the voice, "what will you have gained?"

"When we fight," Evan said, "we'll both find where the real strength lies."

"If you know this much about me," said the voice, "you know how I am armed."

"I know what you wear, and what weapons come with it. How you're
armed
is another matter."

"Even if you should by some bizarre chance kill me," said Takawabara, "my people will not stop fighting. And I will not tell them to. They will destroy your precious station yet, and with it your all your nervous mock alliances."

"We can take care of your people," Evan said, quite calmly, more calmly than he had a right to be perhaps, since he had no idea how the station security people were doing. But this was not a time to betray any uncertainty. "Nothing is left, now, but this ship. And the man hiding inside it, behind the big gun.''

He paused, a bit out of breath.
Thank you, debating society,
he thought;
thank you, Classics 101. And thank
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