“Why not? We planned for it. We would have destroyed the Alchemist and signalled the Confederation Navy for help. You know that. And as for this fable about the dead being alive . . .”
“Mother Mary. We can barely pick up your signal now, and I knew where to look. What sort of condition would you be in five years from now? Besides, there might not be any Confederation left in another five months, let alone five years.”
“Better that than risk others learning how to build an Alchemist.”
“Nobody is going to learn from me.”
“Of course not, but there are so many temptations for governments now the knowledge of its existence has leaked.”
“It leaked thirty years ago, and the technology is still safe. This rescue mission is designed to clear up the last loose end.”
“Alkad, you’re asking too much. I’m sorry my answer has to be no. If you try to rendezvous I will switch off the confinement chambers. We still have a quantity of antimatter left.”
“No!” Alkad yelled. “Peter’s on board.”
“Then stay away.”
“Captain Prager, this is Captain Calvert. I’d like to offer a simple solution.”
“Please do,” Prager answered.
“Shoot the Alchemist down into the gas giant. We’ll pick you up after it’s gone. Because I can assure you, I’m not going to come anywhere near the Beezling with that kind of threat hanging over me.”
“I’d like to, Captain, but it will take some time to check over the Alchemist’s carrier vehicle. Then the antimatter would have to be reloaded. And even if it still works, you might be able to intercept it.”
“That’s a very unhealthy case of paranoia you’ve got there, Captain.”
“One that has kept me alive for thirty years.”
“All right, try this. If we were possessed or simply wanted to acquire Alchemist technology we wouldn’t even have come here. We already have the doc. You’re military, you know there are a great many ways information can be extracted from unwilling donors. And we certainly wouldn’t have thrown in a crazy story like the possessed to confuse the issue. But we’re not possessed, or even hostile to you, so we told you the truth. So I’ll tell you what. If you’re still not convinced that we want to end the Alchemist threat, then go right ahead and kamikaze.”
“No!” Alkad yelled.
“Quiet, Doc. First though, Captain, you put this Peter Adul character in a spacesuit, boot him out the airlock, and let us pick him up. He cannot be allowed to die, not if he knows how to build an Alchemist. The possessed would have him then. Guarding against that technology leakage is part of your duty, too, now. Once we have him, I’ll blow you to shit myself if that’s what it takes.”
“You would, too, wouldn’t you?” Prager asked.
“Jesus, yes. After what I’ve been through chasing the doc, it’ll be a pleasure to finish this properly.”
“It may be just the lousy reception I’m getting, but you look very young, Captain Calvert.”
“Compared to most starship captains, I probably am. But I’m also the only option you have. You either die, or you come with me.”
“Kyle,” Alkad pleaded. “For Mary’s sake!”
“Very well. Captain Calvert, you can rendezvous with the Beezling and take my crew off. After that the Beezling will be scuttled with the Alchemist on board.”
Joshua heard someone on the bridge let out a heavy breath. “Thank you, Captain.”
“Christ, what an ungrateful bastard,” Liol complained. “Just make sure you invoice him a huge rescue bill, Josh.”
“Well that finally settles that question,” Ashly chuckled. “You’re definitely a Calvert, Liol.”
The Beezling was in a sorry state. That became increasingly apparent on Lady Mac ’s final approach phase, when they were rising up behind it from a slightly lower orbit. Both ships were deep inside the penumbra now, although the gigantic orange and white crescent they were fleeing from still cast a glorious coronal glow across them. It was enough for Lady Mac ’s visual sensors to provide a detailed image while they were still ten kilometres away.
Almost the entire lower quarter of the warship’s fuselage plates were missing, with only a simple silver petal pattern left surrounding the drive tubes. The hexagonal stress structure was clearly visible, fencing in black and tarnished chrome segments of machinery. Some units were obviously foreign, jutting up through the centre of the hexagons where they’d been hurriedly inserted to complement or enhance original components. From the midsection forward, the fuselage was relatively intact. There was very little protective foam remaining, just a few dabs of blackened cinderlike flakes. Long silvery scars etched across the dark monobonded silicon told the story of multiple particle impacts. There were hundreds of small craters where the fuselage’s molecular-binding generators had suffered localized overloads. Punctures whose vapour and shrapnel had been absorbed by whatever module or tank was directly underneath. None of the delicate sensor clusters had survived. Only two thermo-dump panels were extended, and they were badly battered; one had a large chunk missing, as if something had taken a bite out of it.
“I’m registering a strong magnetic emission,” Beaulieu said as they closed the last kilometre. “But the ship’s thermal and electrical activity is minimal. Apart from an auxiliary fusion generator and three confinement chambers the Beezling is basically inert.”
“No thruster activity, either,” said Liol. “They’ve picked up a tumble. One rotation every eight minutes nineteen seconds.”
Joshua checked the radar return, computing a vector around the crippled old ship so he could reach its airlock. “I can dock and stabilize you,” he datavised to Captain Prager.
“Not much point,” Prager replied. “Our airlock chamber was breached by particle impact; and I doubt the latches will work anyway. If you just hold station we’ll transfer across in suits.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Captain,” Beaulieu said. “Two fusion drives. They’re on an approach vector.”
“Jesus!” He accessed the sensors. Half of the image was a ghostly apricot-coloured ocean illuminated by the planetary-sized aurora borealis storms which floated serenely above it. The nighttime sky which vaulted it was a perfect orrery dome of stars where the only movement came from tiny moons racing along their ordained pathways. Red icons were bracketing two of the brighter stars just outside the ecliptic. When Joshua keyed in the infrared they became brilliant. Purple vector lines sprouted out of them, projecting their trajectory in towards him.
“Approximately two hundred thousand kilometres away,” Beaulieu said, her synthesized voice sounding completely uncaring. “I think I can confirm the drive signatures; it appears to be our old friends the Urschel and the Raimo . Both plasma exhausts have very similar instabilities. If not them, then there are certainly possessed on board.”
“Who else?” Ashly grunted morosely.
Alkad looked around frantically, trying to make eye contact with the crew. They were all looking at Joshua as he lay on his couch, eyes closed, his flat brow producing neat parallel furrows as he frowned in concentration. “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Take the survivors on board and run. Those ships are too far away to threaten us.”
Sarha waved her hand in annoyance. “They are now,” she said in a low voice. “They won’t be for long. And we’re too close to the gas giant to jump out. We need to be another hundred and thirty thousand kilometres away. In other words, up where they are. That means we can’t boost straight up; we’d fly straight into them.”
“So . . . what then?”
Sarha pointed a finger at Joshua. “He’ll tell us. If there’s a vector out of here, Joshua will find it.”
Alkad was surprised by the amount of respect in the normally volatile crew woman. But then all of the crew were regarding their captain with the kind of hushed expectancy that was usually the province of holy gurus. It made Alkad very uneasy.
Joshua’s eyes flipped open. “We have a problem,” he announced grimly. “Their altitude gives them too much tactical advantage. I can’t find us a vector.” A small regretful dip at the corner of his mouth. “There isn’t even a convenient Lagrange point this time. And I wouldn’t like to risk it anyway, not while we’re so close to a gas giant as big as this one.”
“Fly a slingshot,” Liol said. “Dive straight at the gas giant and go for a jump on the other side.”
“That’s over three hundred thousand kilometres away. Lady Mac can probably accelerate harder than the Organization ships, but they’ve got antimatter combat wasps, remember. Forty-five-gee acceleration; we’d never make it.”
“Christ.”
“Beaulieu, put a com beam on them,” Joshua said. “If they respond, ask them what they want. I’m sure we know, but if nothing else I’d like confirmation.”
“Yes, Captain.”