Kosho felt her stomach quail and the lighting in Command pulsed twice as the battle-cruiser dropped gradient into realspace. Brisk, well-practiced chatter flowed across the bridge stations as the officers of the watch confirmed they had made transit properly, that ship’s systems were on-line and they had a solid navigational fix. The threatwell began to refresh as the remote watching the Pinhole unspooled the last eight hours of captured data. Oc Chac was working his checklist in a low fast voice, ensuring they still had maneuvering drives, nothing had lost pressure or vented during the transition, and all compartments were secure for combat.
Only Pucatli was frowning, and the tense line of his head drew Susan’s eye like a magnet from her consideration of the survey plot. “Comms?”
Puzzlement clouded the Chu-i ’s face. “ Chu-sa, there’s a recorded transmission on one-hundred-ten you need to hear.”
Kosho tapped her earbug, cycling channel. Immediately, she heard: All Imperial evac capsules, converge on this signal…
“An Imperial broadcast! Someone’s alive? How could…”
We have captured a Khaid vessel and come to take you home. Converge upon this signal with all haste. The familiar voice spoke quickly, concisely. It hummed with adrenaline; its familiar tone was inextricably connected in her mind, in her body, to imminent violence and battle. Susan’s gaze tracked back to the threatwell-but there was nothing to be seen. The gravity-plot around the Pinhole remained quiescent.
“Mitsuharu?” she said aloud, without meaning to. Oc Chac-who had switched his own earbug to listen in-caught her eye, his head canted in a questioning pose.
Kosho replied to the unspoken question. “The Khaiden are not alone outside the Pinhole. That is the voice of a Fleet officer well known to me-it seems he is gathering up the fallen. But…” She paused, rewinding the message. “He can only have one ship under his command, and one taken from the enemy at that.” Despite herself, she started to grin in delight.
Oc Chac shook his head in astonishment. “A tremendous feat, if true. But, Chu-sa, this could easily be a trick-a stratagem of the Khaid to lure us into a trap!”
“It could.” Kosho straightened her shoulders, trying to quell a fierce and unexpected joy blooming in her heart. “But this officer was recently forced to the beach and the Fates would truly be against us if the Khaid intelligence services were so far-thinking as to capture his voice patterns for use against me. No, fantastic as it sounds I believe that Chu-sa Mitsuharu Hadeishi is-somehow!-beyond the Barrier, that he has captured a Khaid ship, and is using that same vessel to recover our lost evac capsules.”
The Mayan’s expression became dour. “Sounds brave as the deeds of Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the heroic stories of my people, but doomed, surely. There is a full Khaid fleet at the other end of the Pinhole, Kyo. And against them, one ship will not last long at all…”
Susan laughed out loud. “Your twin heroes were fashioned from mortals who excelled at contests to the death, Sho-sa. In this living world, there is no ship commander more likely to achieve the impossible than the man whose voice we’ve just heard.”
Then her expression darkened, lips drawing tight. “But more likely, the Khaid fleet is no longer waiting outside the Barrier. No-they have likely found a way through as well, and will soon be upon us. Then we will be the lone lion amongst the wolf pack.”
Kosho turned to the pilot. “ Sho-i Holloway, bring us about and prep the coil to punch gradient. We need room to maneuver. Weapons, prep your launchers!”