Daring

52

Kris was locked in tight at her Weapons station as they went through the next jump.

And for good cause.

They landed dangerously close to Iteeche territory, and . . . maybe worse . . . the area where the Iteeche scout ships had vanished. Kris hoped that the flaming-hot datum they’d left way the other end of the galaxy would attract aliens away from this corner of space, but you could never tell who had gotten The Word, and who hadn’t.

Nelly was wrong about the odds of hitting two rocky systems. Or maybe Nelly was right and Captain Drago was also right about Kris’s having exhausted the Longknife supply of luck.

“All rocks,” Chief Beni reported. “Not even a small gas bag in sight.”

“Jump points,” the captain snapped.

“Only one other new fuzzy one,” the chief replied.

“Give Sulwan a course heading. Navigator, aim us there, and spare the reaction mass.”

Sulwan’s usual prompt response was slow in coming. She worked her board for a long time. Then muttered a few curse words and started all over again. Finally, she broke into a victorious grin and turned to face the captain. “Sir. If we use .05-gee acceleration and the proper vectors, we should make the jump in eighteen hours, Captain.”

“Do it, ma’am,” he ordered, and it was done. Then the skipper turned to Kris.

“Does that computer of yours have any kind of idea where we are?”

“Nelly?” Kris said.

“This is interesting,” the computer replied.

“What’s that mean?” Kris said, discovering that her stomach could get an even more sinking feeling than it had habitually had since that huge mother ship entered Kris’s life.

“Well, we’re getting back into the area where our chart should be more accurate. This star system is on our charts, both your grampa’s and mine and that other one we don’t talk about.”

“That sounds good, Nelly. Why the long face?” Captain Drago said.

“Well, there should be a whole lot more star system here. At least nine planets, some really huge, and I only count four dinky rock ones. There also ought to be several old-style jumps and another fuzzy one besides the one we’re headed for. Somebody robbed this system blind in the last million or so years.

“A thirteen-billion-year-old universe,” Sulwan said with a sigh, “and something in the last million years wrecks this system and makes a mess of my fine navigation. Don’t you hate it when that happens?”

“Yes,” Captain Drago snapped. Clearly, the situation was way beyond where he wanted to hear jokes.

“Captain,” Nelly said timidly.

“Yes.” His words were sharp, but not quite sharp enough to take a head off . . . if Nelly had one.

“I think next jump, if you have Navigator Sulwan hold our revolutions to twenty per minute clockwise, that we should jump closer to the middle of the probability cone rather than the outside.”

“Wouldn’t that put us likely in Iteeche territory?” the captain said.

“Yes, sir. But we’re more likely to get help there than we are out in vacant space,” the computer said.

The captain gnawed his lower lip some more and glanced at Kris.

“We do have an Imperial Representative if we have to do some talking. And you said it’s essential that we make a report to King Raymond. The risk seems worth it to me,” Kris said.

“Be it on your head,” he said. “Sulwan, hold our revolutions to twenty clockwise next jump.”

“Yes, sir.”

An acceleration of .05 gee is close enough to zero gee to hardly make a difference, but it’s far enough to make moving around a potential pain. The high-gee carts were brought out, locked down at stations, and most of the crew spent their time sleeping at their battle stations.

Kris ordered her laser crews to stay at their battle stations with no more than half sleeping at any time.

There was something about the hairs on the back of her neck. Maybe it was the not-quite-zero gee. Maybe it was being this close to Iteeche territory.

Or maybe it was just that her hair was growing out during this long cruise, and she needed a haircut.

Whatever it was Kris stayed at her battle station and waited for whatever came next.

But the only thing that came her way was the next jump, exactly eighteen hours later.