Ruler of Naught (28 page)

The effect on the
Hellrose
was more dramatic. The
frigate’s radiants flared into painful brightness as the ship abruptly
accelerated, heading past the wreck.

“Got him!” Lokri laughed. “Accelerating at fifty gees,
course 250 mark 32.”

Vi’ya tabbed her comm. “Jaim, bring the fiveskip back up.”

Moments later Jaim reported, “Fiveskip up.” Osri could almost
see the wave of relief sweep the bridge.

“He’s heading for Warlock,” said Brandon. “If he gets deep
enough into radius he’ll negate the advantage our fiveskip gives us.”

“We will deal with him before that,” Vi’ya said as her
fingers tapped rapidly at her console.

The starfield in the viewscreen slewed, Dis whirling overhead,
as the
Telvarna
spun about and accelerated away in the opposite
direction, to avoid exposing the little ship to the more powerful weapons of
the
Hellrose
. A short time later the
Telvarna
leapt into skip
briefly, came about, and skipped again. On the viewscreen a graphic windowed
up, showing a god’s-eye view of Warlock and its moons. The course of the
Telvarna
was taking it straight at the gas giant.

“Arkad, attack one coming up.”

Brandon’s hands barely moved on the keys. “Aft launcher
ready, missile barrage, wide dispersion. Aft cannon ready.” It was even more
disorienting to hear the naval bridge cadence on this Rifter ship.

The
Telvarna
shuddered out of skip.

“
Hellrose
detected: 182 mark 3, plus 12
light-seconds.”

The ship trembled as the Aerenarch loosed the missile barrage
and Osri could hear the faint susurration of the cooling pumps as the aft
cannon discharged a burst of plasma at maximum power: the
Telvarna
had
skipped ahead of the enemy, emerging between it and Warlock.

The starfield slewed again. This time a flash of orange announced
the nearness of the gas giant and its deadly gravitational well. The
Telvarna
leapt into skip again.

“Emergence minus nine seconds for attack two,” said Vi’ya,
echoing the bridge cadence just enough for Osri to wonder if Markham had taught
her before he was killed.

The seconds ticked by.

“Three, two, one, emergence.” Lokri’s voice overrode the
emergence bells. “Hellrose at 92 mark 7, plus one light-second.”

Brandon stabbed at his console and the aft cannon discharged
at the extreme of its sideways travel even as the ship slewed about to bring
the aft launcher into play. A frightful glare lit up the viewscreen and the
ship bucked, then jarred back into fivespace.

“Chatz! They hit us,” Marim squawked. “Just aft of the starboard
freight hatch.” Her fingers blurred on her console. “Teslas kept most of it
out, minor damage, no penetration.” She swiped her arm across her forehead.
“Too close.”

The
Telvarna
jarred into skip, then out, and
shuddered to another missile discharge. Then back into skip for a moment and
out.

“
Hellrose
at 168 mark 11, plus 9 light-seconds.”

The starfield slewed again, bringing a magnified image of
the frigate into view. A gout of light effaced the view.

“Missile impacts,” Lokri said, dead-voiced. “Evidence of
cannon hits.” He sent one lethal glance over at Vi’ya, and Osri remembered his
words: “No one is worth risking my life for.”
If we live through this
there’s going to be trouble later.

Osri forced his attention back to the screens. First the
plasma beams and then the missile barrages of the
Telvarna
had hit the
Hellrose
simultaneously from two directions—an advantage conferred on the smaller ship
by its still-functional fiveskip.

“He’s leaking, aft portside,” Marim reported.

The viewscreen flickered to a close-up of the frigate: a
bright cloud of ionized gas billowed from one side. Unable to deal with the
simultaneous attacks, the frigate had taken at least one hit.

It took many more as the smaller ship pursued it toward Warlock,
stinging again and again from two and three directions at once. The
Telvarna
,
too, took hits, and Marim vanished from the bridge. Osri could hear her cursing
over the comm as she crawled through the accessways, jury-rigging the circuitry
and coolant conduits to keep the ship running.

As the pursuit wore on, Lokri’s console lit from time to
time with incoming messages, but Vi’ya directed him to ignore them.

The two ships drew nearer and nearer to the gas giant,
cutting down on Vi’ya’s ability to skip ahead of their fleeing prey. Instead,
she began to concentrate on the frigate’s radiants, where the venting gases
that cooled its laboring engines created an area that the shields couldn’t
fully protect. The
Hellrose
yawed, accelerating crabwise in a vain
attempt to protect its weak spot, but the old frigate’s geeplane couldn’t open
enough of a vector.

“We’re getting close to radius,” said Lokri. “Too close.
We’re in the Bulge now, and the line is fuzzy.”

Osri looked closer at the tactical plot, noticing for the
first time that several of the moons of Warlock, including the largest, Pestis,
were lined up. Their course would take them into that alignment, where the
radius of Warlock would bulge outward in response to the gravitational pull of
the moons.

Osri swallowed in a wood-dry throat. It was difficult to predict
just how far out radius would extend beyond its normal reach—he hoped their
Dol’jharian captain would err on the side of caution.

Vi’ya didn’t reply for a moment. Then: “One more attack.
Arkad, I want a maximum effort on his radiants.”

Brandon studied his console. “If we can get within a tenth
light-second, I can weaken his shields with the lazplaz and follow up with
missiles. It won’t work from further out, his teslas respond too fast.” He
paused. “I don’t know if our shields can handle his response at that range.”

“Never mind,” said Lokri, with an unsteady laugh. “He’s
skipped.”

Vi’ya’s eyes locked with the dark Rifter’s.

Lokri looked away, then his shoulders tightened. “Emergence?”
He tabbed his console. “He fell out of skip, just a light-second further on!
Two oh eight mark 28, plus 3 light-seconds.”

The ship slewed around and the viewscreen flickered to maximum
magnification.

Osri choked. The frigate now resembled a sort of metallic
wattle-in-the-hole: a vast pudding of now-smooth metal surfaces pocked with
small holes from which sprouted obscenely bloated objects like pinkish
mushrooms which slowly collapsed, emitting puffs of vapor and ice crystals
that glittered in the light of the distant sun.

The Bulge had claimed the
Hellrose
, inverting the
frigate and its crew through strange dimensions into a horrible communion of
flesh and metal.

Vi’ya said nothing, nor did she move.

Even Marim stared silently at the screen, her expression
midway between a gloat and a wince.

Finally Vi’ya tabbed her console and the ship came about.

“Back to Dis,” she said.

o0o

“Is that missile ready, Arkad?”

Osri’s jaw ached from gritting his teeth.

“Ready,” Brandon said and moved aside, leaving his place to
Jaim. Above the console the knife still lay, but the braided hair was gone. The
main screen showed the
Sunflame
, little changed from its original ruin
by the destruction of its engines in the trap.

The Serapisti’s lips moved silently for a time. Then, with a
curiously gentle motion, he depressed the firing key.

Osri felt a mild jar in his viscera, and the screen showed
the missile streaking away toward the devastated ship. Moments later a glare of
light blacked out the screen for a moment, clearing to reveal a beautiful
sharp-edged rosette of light that slowly faded into oblivion.

“The Light-bearer receive them,” murmured Brandon.

Jaim glanced his way, then nodded in acknowledgment and
left the bridge, this time taking his knife with him.

“Marim,” commanded Vi’ya after he was gone, “set a course to
the fuel cache.”

A short time later Vi’ya engaged the skip for a short hop.
When the ship emerged Lokri tapped his console, then looked up. “Cache responds
empty.” He grimaced. “I guess Norton didn’t manage that before Hreem caught
him.”

“Then listen in on Charvann some more. We need all the information
we can get.” Vi’ya tabbed her console. “Marim, take the nav console and plot a
minimum fuel course to Rifthaven. Use one of these intermediate destinations,
or others if I’ve missed one.”

During the protracted silence that followed, Osri watched
Marim’s hands moving aimlessly across the console, apparently rechecking
settings and readouts. Her lower lip was red from where she’d been biting it.

After a particularly long pause she looked up. “Sorry,
Vi’ya—I can’t find a course with a positive margin, though there are a couple
where Finaygel might save us. Maybe if I get Firehead in here—”

“He’s too sick,” Montrose’s voice came over the comm.
“Delirious.”

Vi’ya checked her courses, a hint of a line appearing
between her eyes. “Lokri, anything more about Hreem or his gang?”

“There’s not much in the transponder dump. Some fragments
from various Syncs—scared and angry. Sounds like Hreem’s chatzers are running
wild.”

Vi’ya shrugged. “Then we’re committed.”

Lokri hesitated. “There’s one thing more. The discriminators
got deeper into that traffic about Hreem. He’s gone to Malachronte to take over
the
Maccabeus
.”

Marim whistled. “That’s all we need, Hreem chasing us in a
cruiser.”

“Good,” Lokri drawled, at his most hateful. “We’ll need someone
to come find us when we run out of fuel.” His hand indicated the blackness of
space beyond the system.

Vi’ya appeared to ignore him, merely checking Marim’s settings
through her console. Then she looked up at Osri.

“Take the nav console, Schoolboy. Your Arkad friend here
says you are an excellent navigator. I require you to plot a minimum fuel
course to Rifthaven via one of the intermediate destinations I’ve entered.”

Resentment washed through Osri. “And if I refuse?”

“There’s an airlock less than thirty meters from here. Your
life will last as long as it takes to drag you there.” Vi’ya’s tone was so
matter-of-fact that Osri couldn’t believe what she had said.

Marim and Lokri watched him, the woman curious, the man
merely waiting. With a mixture of outrage and fear flooding him, he turned to Brandon,
who rose and came to face Osri directly. “Their enemies are your enemies, Osri,
and mine. For the sake of your oath to my father, if nothing else, do as she
asks.”

It was a command from an Aerenarch, as direct as the
captain’s, and unlike hers, it could not be ignored unless Osri wished to be
forsworn.

Osri moved reluctantly to the nav console. As he began
studying the layout already set up, he felt a new thrill of fear.
There’s
almost no margin of error. Their fuel supply is perilously low.

He began setting up the search paths for the most efficient
course, taking into account fivespace attractors and anomalies, radiation densities,
and every other conceivable influence on the potential courses presented to
him. The familiar work soothed him, and he soon lost himself in the pleasure of
a difficult task well fitted to his talents.

An unknown time later he came out of his labors to awareness
of his surroundings. That was perhaps the hardest test of his talents as a
navigator he had ever faced. He locked in the course and faced the captain.

No one had moved. Vi’ya studied the course for a time.
“There is more margin here than I expected.”

Osri felt a surprising flash of pleasure at this comment,
which he recognized, from the little he knew of Vi’ya, as the equivalent of
fulsome praise.

She tapped her console. The starfield on the screen wheeled
about, then blanked as the ship engaged. She looked up at Osri, her face dead
calm, but her dark eyes wide and unblinking. “You are free to go now, Omilov.”

Osri walked off the bridge, but the silence behind him made
him linger in the accessway. Sensing danger, he looked back just in time to see
Vi’ya get up from her console and cross the bridge toward Lokri.

Beyond her, Marim sat, tense and still. Nearby, Brandon
watched, as always unreadable.

“My friend,” Vi’ya said softly, but her voice carried.

Lokri had risen, and backed a step or two, his lips parted
in a silent laugh. He held up his hands to Vi’ya, palms open, fingers spread.

Was the entire ship taken by some kind of madness? Osri
watched as Vi’ya backed Lokri up against a bulkhead.

“Friend,” Vi’ya said. “Let us share the fires together.” One
hand gripped Lokri’s shoulder, and he winced.

Her other hand stroked down his face, the nail on her little
finger scoring him from temple to jaw. Beads of blood sprang out on Lokri’s
skin, but he didn’t move, didn’t even seem to breathe, his light eyes locked
with Vi’ya’s dark ones.

She slid her hand down his arm, then gripped. Lokri stumbled
toward the hatch where Osri stood.

He did not stay to witness the rest of this interaction.
Retreating to the galley, he sat and watched uncomprehendingly as Lucifur
prowled, ears flicking, back and forth, back and forth. The two Arkad dogs were
nowhere in sight.

You are free to go, Omilov.

It was the first time she had ever used his name.

o0o

The
ting
of brass finger-cymbals summoned Ivard from
the darkness.

Where was he? His body yammered for succor: screaming yellow
fire in his back; a hissing violet tide pressing on his eyes; the mutter of a
curious green scent filling his nostrils. Panic bubbled in his throat, a nasty
green and burning slime until he saw Greywing’s second belt hanging on the hook
next to his bunk. He was in his bed in his cabin with Jaim. Only what was that
smell, and that sound?