The Dragon Circle (46 page)

“Communication with
Jupiter
has to take priority,” she announced.

The noncoms met this demand with loud protests and indignation.

“We can sort out units after we recover the crystals. I know you are missing friends, people you care deeply about. We can only hope they have landed in friendly territory. But we have no hope of reuniting any of you until we get those crystals back. Now disperse and see to your gear.” She leveled a stern gaze at each of them.

They snapped to attention, saluted smartly, turned, and departed on a quick march.

The sergeant heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said realigning some of the handhelds. “Maintenance has been slack on the landers. We've been too peaceful for too long. There are parts missing. Weird atmospheric fluctuations and a lack of satellites are interfering with communications. I think that green layer in the upper atmosphere is creating havoc.”

“Are the missing parts a lack of maintenance or sabotage?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. First landing party had all their comms and weapons stolen by the locals the first night, then returned—inoperative. I vote for sabotage.”

“Can you reach
Jupiter
?”

“Sometimes. But even if I can get through, there is no guarantee the captain will answer.” He began fiddling with and adjusting his units.

“Why wouldn't a comm officer answer a hail from the surface?”

“Captain's the only one left aboard. Who knows what she's doing to maintain orbit. Might be too busy to answer.”

“Keep trying to reach her. If she answers, tell her I'm on my way up with the captured smuggler's shuttle
Rover
.” Kat took off at a run for her brother's vessel. She could not allow mud and drizzle and discomfort to slow her down.

“Take a squad with you,” Josh Kohler called as she hastened away. “Start salvaging what you can.”

Kat grunted a noncommittal reply as she ran.

The shuttle was fast. Faster than any lander designed by a GTE engineer. Almost as fast as a two-man scout, or even one of the new cyber-fighters where the controls were linked to the pilot's brain synapses. Commands happened as fast as thought. Still, the trip took hours. Far too long.

With the dragons at his beck and call, Konner could easily have eluded M'Berra's squad and returned to the clearing. A few more hours would see the crystals connected and buried. The confusion field would snap into place soon after.

When
Jupiter
finally came into view, Kat shook her head in dismay. The cruiser was a mess. It listed at an odd angle, half pointed toward the planet below. It no longer spun to generate gravity. The troops had fled the ship with too much haste to secure bay doors. Only a few lights showed in those open bays. It looked dead.

She had less time to save the ship than she thought.

Kat prayed that Captain Leonard had kept enough power generating to provide atmosphere.

She docked without challenge. In the back of the shuttle she found an EVA suit that fit remarkably well. Her uniform EVA had to be custom tailored to her tall frame.

Atmosphere did not register on the suit until she found the bridge. The first air lock did not want to close behind her. She slammed the panel with her fist. Sparks flew. Her faceplate instantly polarized and her helmet light dimmed. After a few moments her vision cleared and she found the door closed.

Another fist to another control brought air into the lock. When it reached point zero five atmospheres, Kat dared release her faceplate. And wished she hadn't. The air smelled stale, as if the scrubbers were overtaxed or only working at half capacity.

Another few moments brought the pressure up and the inner door creaked open slowly.

Lieutenant Commander Amanda Leonard swung her chair to face the door, a needle pistol in her hand. A huge bruise covered the right side of her face and swelled that eye closed. Her upper lip curled in a sneer.

“So you've come to finish the job your brothers started,” she snarled and tightened her finger on the pistol.

“M
ASTER MARTIN.” His Super Snooper, en‘hanced with the latest features thanks to his friend Gerald, appeared on the screen in front of the graph Martin was building showing shipping lanes of the Galactic Free Market.

“What?” Martin replied querulously. He almost had enough data to put this portion of the program into the hologram star map he and Bruce and Jane were composing.

“I have detected activation of the rescue beacon assigned to Melinda Fortesque's agent-at-large, Sam Eyeam.”

“Where?” Martin sat forward eagerly. He sent his graphs into the background. The Sam Eyeam could be anywhere in the known galaxy. But Martin was willing to bet that Melinda had sent him in search of Konner O'Hara, to keep him from returning to Aurora in time for the custody hearing.

“Unknown. The signal is faint and irregular.”

“Guess.”

“Star charts do not extend to the location suggested.”

What to do? “My dad needs help. I know it.”

“May I suggest, Master Martin, extrapolation from the merchant charts.”

“Yes!” He'd designed the project to show anomalies in the ever-changing borders among the GTE, the Free Merchants, and the Kree Empire.

A three-dimensional swirl of colored lights appeared in the far corner of the room. The hologram had swelled since the last time he'd set it into motion. GTE solar systems appeared in blue, the Free Merchant stars in green, and the enemy empire in red. Known jump points flashed yellow. The chart nearly filled the room. Even then, the vast distances between stars were hardly representative.

As he examined the troubled borders, several stars changed color, from red to green, green to red, and blue gobbled up three from each. Aurora changed from blue to green and back again in less than one digital minute. Melinda frequently used the threat to withdraw from the GTE as leverage in negotiating trade concessions or waivers in the judicial system. Martin had no idea what today's switch involved.

He hoped his mother's threats did not have anything to do with the custody hearing coming up in just a few days. Or worse, the arrest and conviction of Konner O'Hara.

“Scaramouch, show me the beacon.”

“Insufficient data.”

“Extrapolate.”

“Insufficient power.”

“What?” Martin pulled up a diagnostic. Sure enough, the huge mapping program and holographic display had eaten up almost all of his spare memory and speed.

Dared he ask Melinda for a few upgrades?

No. “Melinda can't be involved in this in any way,” he muttered to himself.

He called Bruce and Jane. Neither one had a solution.

Martin paced the room. He wandered through the hologram, watching the changes in colors, looking at how the jump points connected star systems in seemingly random patterns.

Crystal drives made jumps possible, bridging the light-years. Crystals made near instantaneous communications between the planets possible. Crystals . . .

“Scaramouch, locate souvenir crystal from camp.” The icon of two fencers moved back and forth across the screen.

Two years ago Konner had given him a tiny crystal, a miniature of a king stone. “My dad said it would be a tangible reminder of our friendship.”

Perhaps it was something more.

Experiments on integrating crystals into computer components had drifted through the scientific journals several times over the last decade. Always the government had classified such experiments as top secret and made the growth of miniature crystals illegal.

Martin did not question how Konner O'Hara had come by such a thing.

“Your crystal is secreted inside your personal terminal.” The computer's voice sounded almost animated.

Of course. Martin had been hiding childhood treasures in there for years. He'd cleaned it all out last year on his birthday, feeling too old for such things. But he'd left the crystal there. It was more than just a memento from a favorite camp counselor.

He yanked open the wall panel revealing the guts of the machine. He remembered now that he had hidden the crystal, about the length of his palm, here, because this was one place Melinda would not search, one place his tutors and companions had no need to access. Konner and his unique gift were parts of his life he had always needed to keep separate and secret from his mother and her flunkies.

He reached deep into the recess, fumbling around for the cool, glassy feel of the faceted crystal. He brushed his knuckles against . . . could it be? . . . a Klip. Cautiously he drew out the thumbnail-sized clamp. It remained attached to one wire. The primary wire.

Melinda was tapping into his programs. At the same time, she drained memory and power from his system to severely limit his capabilities.

Anywhere else in the GTE this little device would be illegal. So was murder.

Melinda had gotten away with both here on Aurora where she owned everything.

Not anymore.

With cold determination, Martin slipped the clamp off the primary wire. Nothing changed overtly. No alarms beeped and no surge of power changed the holographic display. He dropped the Klip back into its hidey-hole.

Then he retrieved the crystal. He dredged up from memory the last report he'd read on crystal experimentation. If he placed it between the processor and the Q drive, connected to both by fiber optics . . .

Where would he get nitrogen to bathe the crystal?

No, this was not a crystal star drive. The mini crystal would not be a monopole seeking an opposite pole in an array of crystals. This was a single king stone that wanted to be connected to a mother stone.

He connected it to the communications port where it could tap into whatever theoretical energy bigger king stones used to connect to the rest of the universe.

Instantly the hologram of a star map began filling in details. New stars and jump points appeared. Star systems Martin had not charted became blue, green, or red.

The entire thing shifted and rotated to a new alignment.

“North!” Martin chortled. “My crystal is now galactic north.”

And then the jump points changed. Some remained stable and yellow. New ones wandered, taking on paler colors. Some became so intense they changed to orange.

Martin noticed very pale lines of white connecting the jump points to their destinations.

And at the core of it all remained a huge blank spot with no jump points entering or leaving. It stood strategically bordered by all three political entities.

“Scaramouch, what is this hole?” Martin asked his computer.

“Define hole?” the computer replied.

“This area without any stars.” He circled the dimensions of the hole. It was big enough to contain fifteen or twenty star systems, but none showed.

“Unknown. No charts exist for that area.”

“Scaramouch, correlate the distress beacon with this area.” Martin tapped his foot anxiously while he waited for the computer to make calculations. It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time.

Finally a tiny violet light blinked at him from an area of the hole farthest away from Earth. But only a few jumps from Aurora.

“Scaramouch, highlight jump points into this area.”

“All known jump points shown.” The area remained free of entry.

“Scaramouch, calculate probability of a black hole in this area.”

“Insufficient data,” the computer replied.

“Martin?” Melinda Fortesque appeared on the vid screen. “I need you in my office immediately.” She did not sound happy.

“What is it, Melinda?” he asked, careful not to call her “Mother.”

“Stop questioning my orders and come here,” she snapped. Her image disappeared so quickly he almost heard the pixels pop.

“Uh-oh, she sounds mad. Really, really mad. She must have discovered the Klip is now disconnected.” Martin hastened from the residential wing to Melinda's office. He paused at her door long enough to straighten his rumpled shirt and trousers and run his fingers through his hair.

His mind spun with lies. He plastered a blank expression of supposed innocence upon his face.

Melinda, of course, was impeccably groomed, wearing one of her expensive suits. This one had a longish skirt rather than her usual trousers. Who did she intend to impress? Certainly not Martin.

“What is this?” Melinda thrust a handheld screen at Martin without preamble.

The harbormaster's calendar lay before him, the date of Martin's last birthday highlighted. And a week later the date of Konner O'Hara's banishment from Aurora stood out in bold red letters.

“Looks like a calendar.” Martin shrugged and returned the screen to his mother's desk. He bit his cheeks rather than ask her about the Klip.

Maybe she hadn't discovered it yet.

“Do not feign ignorance with me, Martin. Your computer's telltales are all over that entry.” She tapped the entry regarding Konner.

Martin opted for silence. He tried to keep his face bland and his eyes level. He'd learned the art of a masterful stare from the best. His mother.

“You moved the entry,” she accused.

He maintained his silence.

“I have to respect your perseverance, if not your actions. Do you know who this man is?”

“Yes, Mother, I do.”

She returned his silence. He knew he could not out-stubborn her in this mood.

“Martin Konner O'Hara is my father. You cannot keep me away from him after my fourteenth birthday.”

“Yes, I can. He will not arrive in time for your birthday. He will never arrive in Aurora. My latest intelligence says that he is dead. Killed in a battle with the Imperial Military Police five months ago. I have just received a copy of his official death certificate on file with the GTE. Any man appearing with his name is an obvious imposter and will be arrested and extradited immediately.”