Part 21 (1/2)

But his relief was short-lived.

Suddenly, the exterior view on his screen was webbed with crawling streamers of light, and the image began to break up.

”We are entering the ionosphere,” came Lossin's voice. ”Activating sand s.h.i.+elds.”

An armored shutter, designed for regions of s.p.a.ce heavy with micrometeorites, snapped across Dane's external view, which then went black. Moments later it was replaced by a graph of the planet's electrical fields, and Dane stared at his screen in disbelief-the Solar Queen was only twenty-five kilometers up, less than half the normal alt.i.tude of the ionosphere's lower boundary!

”Stotz! Tau! You getting these readings?” came Rip's taut voice.

”Affirmative.” Stotz's voice was flat with tension.

Dane felt his own stress increasing again, like an invisible vise clamped round his skull as he tapped a query into his computer. The answer that popped up made his jaw tighten: the wild fluctuations of the planet's geomagnetic field were beyond anything reported on any planet listed in the s.h.i.+p's library computer.

Dane windowed up a view of the bridge. Rip Shannon looked as tense as Dane felt. His profile was severe, his hands moving swift and sure over the command console as the Queen struggled to gain alt.i.tude.

As Dane watched, for a moment he felt an echo in his mind-Rip watching him watch, and the flicker of vertigo this caused made him shut his eyes. He then felt an answering sense of displacement from Jasper-but nothing from Ali. For that, Dane thought grimly, he was grateful.

Then alarm thrilled through him as Lossin's console bleeped for attention.

”Retrofire detected, ten mark thirty-two, nine hundred kilometers-” The,Tath Trader's report ceased for a moment. Lossin bent over the com console. ”Exiting ionosphere,” he said then. ”Trace lost.” Dane could hear his puzzlement.

Over the com came a quick exchange. ”We're still lifting at max, aren't we?”

”Yes, then how-”

”Belay the chatter,” Rip said curtly, his rudeness, so rare, underscoring the tension.

Silence.

The Solar Queen shuddered, then seemed to slow, as though she had hit something; but at their speed, Dane knew, a collision with anything more solid than rarified gas would have destroyed the s.h.i.+p.

The sand s.h.i.+elds snapped open again, and the external image flickered, s.h.i.+fting dizzily until it came to rest on what looked like an elongated tornado of flame twisting up into s.p.a.ce across the cloud-wrapped, lightning-webbed surface of Hesprid IV, dwindling to invisibility near a gleaming point of light.

”Blaster fire, two-ninety mark thirteen, ninety kilometers out.” Lossin's voice sounded odd-almost thin.

Was it fear, excitement, Dane wondered? The sweat popping out on his own brow argued for the former.

”Ninety!” Stotz exclaimed over the comlink.

Dane realized they'd not known just how powerful colloid blasters were; that information was heavily cla.s.sified by the Patrol. Now they had a good idea, and it was far worse than anyone had a.s.sumed.

”Closer, we cook,” Tooe murmured, her voice high.

Dane looked over, saw her huge yellow eyes watching him, her crest stiff. He nodded reluctantly; if they could feel the effects of a miss ninety kilometers out, a near miss would leave little more of the Queen than vapor and droplets of condensing hull metal.

Dane turned his gaze back to his screen and stared at the dissipating flare of the pirate weapon. What chance did they have now?

”It won't be so bad if we can get farther out,” Stotz said suddenly. ”Less atmosphere means less shock wave and radiation normal to the beam.”

”Can't yet,” Rip said, his voice tense. ”Higher means slower, more time for them to lock onto us. I'm taking us at least one orbit around, so I can try to lose them in the EM glare over the cielanite islands. Anyway, the beams can't be very accurate with this h.e.l.lish magnetic storm going on.”

Then as Dane and Tooe watched on their screens, he matched action to words and throttled back the jets, adjusting them to just match the tenuous grip of the atmosphere, keeping the Queen in a low, fast orbit.

Dane's harness creaked as acceleration fell to zero. They were in free fall. An atavistic part of his brain gibbered in ter-ror for a moment as two ancient nightmares awoke together: a predator's chase, and falling.

The sensation intensified briefly as the psi link woke. Now all four of them were there, but almost instantly they disappeared again.

Another flare of light erupted from the pursuing s.h.i.+p, still only a point of light, now closer to the limb of the planet below as it fell behind the Solar Queen. But this time the deadly beam twisted up and away from the planet. And at its terminus, the point- of light faded out.

”Dane, what happened?” Tooe demanded. ”Pirate blow up?”

”Intruder entering magnetopause,” came Lossin's laconic tones.

”No,” said Dane, as his heart slowed and understanding came. ”He flew into Hesprid's shadow.”

And Jasper's voice came over the comlink, the calm voice of the teacher: ”The particle shock wave near the terminator deflected his beam.”

”Conductivity rising,” i-ossin cut in as, once again, coronal discharge crawled across the external view and the sand s.h.i.+elds snapped shut. The Tath had apparently linked them to s.h.i.+p's sensors. *.

To distract himself from the growing sensation of helplessness, Dane explained to Tooe how the flood of particles from the restless sun bent around the planet, creating a kind of bow wave in s.p.a.ce.

Tooe seemed equally glad for the distraction. She listened carefully, her sensitive crest flickering, then she gave a quick nod, and said, ”So pirate beam hit that and was deflected?”

”Yes,” Dane said. ”Unfortunately we can't rely on that happening again.”

”Sections, confirm condition reports,” Rip's voice interrupted.

Dane welcomed the new distraction as he listened to the terse reports of the others, and scanned his instruments as he awaited his turn.

”Jet temperature at sixty-three percent and holding,” Jasper reported.

”Engines at ninety-eight percent,” Johan Stotz said. ”Still within parameters.”

”All secure,” Dane reported when his turn came. ”No breakage detected.”

And all the while, furnis.h.i.+ng a ba.s.s harmony to the quick interchanges of the crew, the jets hissed and rumbled, keeping the Queen aloft against atmospheric friction, almost orbit, not quite flight.

”Hull temperature seven hundred fifty-five degrees and holding,” said Tau from his station in the dispensary. ”Refrigeration at fifty-five percent capacity, two hundred fifty minutes to discharge at this rate.”

There was nowhere for the heat building in the hull to go-the refrigeration system would store it in pressurized tanks for another four hours before it had to be expelled through the jets, which would cut their efficiency in half during the discharge cycle. But they'd be away from the planet long before then. Or dead, Dane thought bleakly.

And again he felt a ripple of reaction from the three others, sharper this time. Ali was first to Cut it out, then Jasper; Rip was so preoccupied his focus functioned as a kind of s.h.i.+eld.

Dane shook his head to free it of the inevitable vertigo that accompanied those links, and he looked at his screen. The sand s.h.i.+elds were open again, and ahead of the s.h.i.+p, Dane could see a light glowing over the nightside curve of the planet, about twenty degrees off the port side of the Queen. Unlike the violent lightning, diffuse circles and chains of light like negatives of bacterial cultures that flickered in constant crawling motion underneath the clouds far below, this glow was constant.

When the ionization rose again, cutting off the external view, Lossin suddenly reported, ”Retrofire, one-seventy mark eighty, four hundred kilometers.”