Part 59 (2/2)

Angelma.s.s one will, too.”

He looked across the table; and suddenly, it seemed to Forsythe, he wasn't carrying his years nearly so well anymore. ”Unless there are special codes that would be needed, High Senator?”

Forsythe shook his head. ”No codes, Commodore,” he said. ”No one expected any of this to be of military significance.”

Lles.h.i.+ nodded. ”Mr. Campbell?”

”Signal sent,” Campbell reported. ”Seraph net... is up and running. We're painting a diagnostic, but it seems to be functioning properly. Time to Angelma.s.s net activation, approximately twenty-one minutes.”

”We'll want to be ready to jump the minute it's up,” Telthorst warned. ”We don't want Kosta shutting it down again before we can get through.”

”Commodore?” Campbell asked.

”You have your instructions, Mr. Campbell,” Lles.h.i.+ confirmed quietly. ”Prepare the Komitadji for catapult. You'll need to recalibrate their equipment for our ma.s.s.”

”Already on it, sir.”

”And make sure all weapons are standing ready,” Telthorst added. ”Energy weapons and missiles both.”

He looked at Forsythe. ”Because I doubt we'll be able to talk the traitor out of this scheme,” he added softly. ”In fact, I doubt it's even worth trying.”

Blindly, his wide eyes fixed on Telthorst, Ronyon clutched at Forsythe's sleeve. What's he talking about, he signed urgently. What does he mean?

”He's talking about shooting at Jereko and Chandris, Ronyon,” Forsythe told him. ”He's talking about killing them without even offering them a chance to surrender.”

Ronyon's mouth fell open, and an odd choking sound escaped from this throat. ”Treason to the Pax has always carried the death penalty, High Senator,” Telthorst said coolly. ”Something you should keep very much in mind.”

He again looked around the table. ”And as long as we have a few minutes, let's discuss the disposition of the rest of Seraph system.”

CHAPTER 44.

The clock was down to fifteen and a half minutes, and the gamma-spark static was becoming deafening by the time everything was finally ready.

”This had better work, Kosta,” Chandris shouted as she strapped into her seat, wincing as a particularly loud crack sounded from somewhere in the console in front of her. ”If it doesn't, I don't think we're going to have time to get to the Gazelle and get out of here. You sure as h.e.l.l won't have time to apologize.”

”It'll work,” Kosta shouted back from beside her. Chandris couldn't read his voice over the noise, but the hands clenched into taut fists in front of him didn't exactly inspire her with confidence.

”Well, if it doesn't, it was nice knowing you,” she called, reaching over and putting her hand on his closest fist. ”I mean that.”

For a moment he seemed to hesitate, the hardness of his fist under her hand wavering. Then, abruptly, he unclenched his hand and wrapped it around hers, gripping it tightly as they watched the clock count down to zero.

And as it did so, an entire panel of monitor lights went solid red.

Chandris held her breath, straining to hear what was happening back there. But between the noise of the gamma sparks and the sheer distance from where they were at the far end of the catapult section she couldn't make anything out. She thought back over the steps of her reprogramming job, wondering if she could have frogged it up somewhere. If she'd missed a safety and the escape pods shut down...

”There!” Kosta shouted, squeezing her hand even tighter. ”Feel that?”

Chandris frowned. And then she did: a gentle vibration running through the deck beneath her chair. A vibration that was slowly but steadily growing in strength.

She s.h.i.+fted her attention to the midhull visual monitor. Beneath the blizzard of radiation static, she could just make out the double ring of escape pods still attached to the midway tunnel. At the base of one of them, where the pod attached to the hull, she thought she could see a faint flickering of fire from a slightly imperfect seating connection as its drive tried to push it away from the station.

Its drive trying to push it outward, but its attaching clamps continuing to hold it firmly in place. If the pod was a sentient being, the odd thought occurred to her, it would probably be getting extremely frustrated about now. ”What happens if the clamps break before the pods burn all the way through the wall?” she asked.

”It should still work,” Kosta called. ”That much heat alone-”

And then, without warning, the image vanished in a flash of white light. Simultaneously, the deck under Chandris bucked like a scalded cat, there was a bubbling roar from behind her, and she found herself being shoved gently but firmly back into her seat.

”It worked!” Kosta shouted. ”Look at that! It worked!”

Chandris squinted at the snow on the monitor. But she didn't have to see anything to know that Kosta's crazy plan had indeed worked. The escape pods, all firing together against the relatively thin hull where they were connected, had burned through or heated through and ignited the fuel canisters she and Kosta had stacked in the midway tunnel. The resulting explosion had broken the station in two, giving their catapult end a solid push forward in their orbit as it simultaneously shoved the net end hard in the other direction.

The essence of a rocket, she remembered from her first page of reading aboard the Xirrus, was to take part of your s.h.i.+p and throw it in the opposite direction from where you wanted to go. Kosta had merely taken the definition to its logical extreme.

Only instead of throwing away the exhaust products of burned fuel, he had thrown away half their s.h.i.+p.

”Look's like we've picked up a slow yaw roll,” Kosta reported, peering at another of the snow-covered displays. ”Nothing serious, I don't think.”

”I think the camera just went out,” Chandris added as the faint image on the display was replaced by pure static. The acceleration pressure on her had eased back now, but the inertial readings indicated that they had picked up a nice bit of extra speed. ”Either that or the radiation got to it.”

”Probably the explosion,” Kosta said. ”Looks like it took out that whole emplacement.”

Chandris swallowed. The camera position in question was a good ways forward of the midway tunnel. ”Just how much of the station are you expecting us to lose here?”

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