Lieutenant Cermo was waiting for him at the midships gridpoint. He saluted and said nothing about Killeen’s lateness, though
his irrepressible grin told Killeen that the point had not slipped by. Killeen did not return the smile and said
quietly, “Sound quarters.” The way Cermo’s mouth turned down in utter dismayed surprise brought forth a thin smile from Killeen.
But by that time Cermo had hurriedly turned away and tapped a quick signal into his wrist command, and so missed his Cap’n’s
amusement entirely.
TWO
He directed the assault from the hull itself—not so much because of Ling’s windbag advice, Killeen told himself, but because he truly did get a better feel of things out there.
So he stood, anchored by magnetic boots, as sunrise came.
Not the coming of sunlight from a rotating horizon, a spreading glory at morning. Instead, this false dawn came as a gradual waxing radiance, seen through billowing, thinning grit.
Killeen had noticed that soon Argo would pass across the last bank of clotted dust that hid Abraham’s Star from them. The swelling sunburst would come as the ship very nearly eclipsed the mech vehicle that was escorting them inward toward the star.
—Still don’t see why the mech won’t adjust for that,—Cermo sent from the control vault.
“It will. Question is, how fast?”
Killeen felt relaxed, almost buoyant. He had committed them, after a week of vexed, fretting worry. If they entered the inner system around Abraham’s Star with an armed mech vessel alongside, a mere quick command from elsewhere could obliterate Argo. Best take it out now. If that proved impossible, this was the time to know it.
He searched the quilted sky for a single figure.
—Approaching on assigned path,—Gianini sent.
This young woman had been chosen by Jocelyn to close with the mech. Killeen recalled that she came from Family Rook and knew her to be an able crewwoman. He followed standard practice in letting his lieutenants choose specific crew for jobs; they knew the intricacies of talent and disposition far better than he. Gianini had fought mechs back on Snowglade, was seasoned and twice wounded.
And Killeen found her—a distant dot that sparkled amber and yellow as Abraham’s Star began to cut through the shrouding clouds that hung over his shoulder, filling a quarter of the sky. The brooding mass had lightened from ebony to muted gray as it thinned. Shredded fingers of starshine cut the spaces around Argo. And Gianini sped toward the mech, using the sudden rise of brilliance at her back to mask her approach.
A tactic. A stratagem. A life.
A necessary risk, because the mech was too far away to hit with their weapons, which were designed for battles fought on land. Argo herself carried no weaponry, no defenses.
—I’ll hit it with microwave and IR, then the higher stuff.—Gianini’s voice was steady, almost unconcerned.
Killeen did not dare reply, and had ordered Cermo not to allow any transmissions from Argo, lest they attract the mech’s attention in the ship’s direction. Gianini’s directed transmissions back could not alert the mech vehicle, though.
As they had calculated, Abraham’s Star began to brim with waxy radiance. Rays refracted through Killeen’s helmet, sprinkling yellow across his lined face. He found he was clenching and unclenching his hands futilely.
Do it now, he thought. Now!
—Firing.—
He strained, but could see no change in either the dot that was Gianini or the dark point where the mech moved against the blue background glow of a molecular cloud.
—I can’t see any effect.—
Killeen grimaced. He wanted to give an order, if only to release his own tension. But what would he say? To be careful? A stupid, empty nattering. And even sending it might endanger her.
—Closing pretty fast.—
Gianini was a softening yellow dot approaching a vague darkness. Action in space had an eerie, dead-silent quality that unnerved Killeen. Death came sliding ballistically into the fragile shells that encased moist life.
Starshine from behind him swelled and blared and struck hard shadows across Argo’s hull. He felt how empty and barren space was, how it sucked human action into its infinite perspectives. Gianini was a single point among a countless plethora of similar meaningless points.
He shook off the thought, aching to do something, to be running and yelling and firing in the midst of a suddenly joined battle that he could feel.
But above him the dots coalesced in utter silence. That was all. No fervor, nothing solid, no sure reality.
Burnished sunlight raked the hull around him. Time ticked on. He squinted at the sky and tried to read meaning into mere twitches of random radiance.
—Well, if that don’t damn all.—
What? he thought. His heart leaped to hear Gianini’s voice, but her slow, almost lazy words could mean anything.
—This thing’s had its balls cut off. Ruined. All those antennas and launchers we saw in closeup, ’member? Their power source is all blowed away. Nothin’ here that works ’cept for some drive chambers and a mainmind. Guess that’s what led it our way.—
Killeen felt a breath he had been holding forever rush out of his chest. He chanced a transmission. “You’re sure it can’t shoot?”
—Naysay. Somethin’ pranged it good. A real mess it is here.—
“Back off, then.”
—You want I should skrag the mainmind?—
“Yeasay. Leave a charge on it.”
—Doin’ that now.—
“Get clean clear before you blow it.”
—I’ll put it close, be sure.—
