Praxis

ELEVEN

An officer may order the immediate death of a subordinate under which circumstances?

1. On recommendation of a duly appointed Court of Inquiry.

2. When the subordinate is found in arms against the lawful government.

3. When the officer possesses evidence that the subordinate is guilty of a capital crime.

4. Under any circumstances.

Sula touched her writing wand to the fourth and correct answer, then touched the icon that called for the next question. She knew that military law was so draconian, there was little room for error or laxity of interpretation.

She also knew that military law was a lot less draconian in practice than in theory. There were relatively few captains who went around offhandedly whacking the heads off their subordinates, because in theory every citizen was the client of a patron Peer whose duty it was to supervise their welfare. While from experience Sula knew that many Peers couldn’t be bothered with such duties, it nevertheless remained a possibility that if a Peer felt that one of his clients had been treated unjustly, he could make inquiries and cause trouble, and the result could be a suit in civil law that might drag on for decades. Captains who wanted to punish a subordinate severely would cover their backs by appointing a Court of Inquiry, and though they were not obliged to follow a court’s recommendations, they usually did if they wanted to avoid problems later on.

Sula sped through the next few questions secure in the knowledge that she was doing extremely well on the exams. Military law was her weakest subject barring interpretation of the Praxis, and so far the questions weren’t difficult.

A first definitely seemed within her grasp.

She tapped the butt end of her wand on the screen as she contemplated the next problem, which had to do with jurisdiction among the various military and paramilitary organizations on a ring station outside the military base proper, and then the door to the exam room banged open.

“Scuuuuum!”

Sula could thank years of conditioning for the fact that her mind continued to gnaw on the problem even as she leaped to her feet, chin high, throat bared.

“My lord?” The Daimong proctor seemed more flustered than the cadets. “Why are you-”

The intruder was Terran, and wore the uniform of a full captain. “We have an emergency situation,” he said. “The exams are canceled. All Fleet personnel are to report to their stations. Those who have no current assignment are to report to Ring Command, Personnel Section.”

“But my lord-” the Daimong protested.

“Now, scum!” The captain’s order was directed toward the cadets, not the exam proctor.

The cadets crowded for the exit. The problem of jurisdiction slowly faded from Sula’s mind, and she looked about her with growing astonishment.

The proctor appeared not to know what to do. She was making attempts to contact someone on her desk comm, but seemed to be having no success.

Emergency situation, Sula thought, and then ran to the changing room to get out of her robes and into her uniform. Despite the buzzing speculation of the other cadets, her mind was still trapped in the pattern of exam questions.

Examinations for lieutenant,she thought,have been canceled for the following reasons:

1. On the whim of a superior officer.

2. Because we say so.

3. Lieutenants’exams have never been canceled.

The correct answer, of course, was the third.

Lieutenants’exams have never been canceled.

Which meant that whatever was going on, it was big.

Coronaducked and darted and sped along the southern edge of Magaria’s ring, the slim form of the frigate obscured by the brilliance of its blazing tail of annihilated matter. Martinez felt himself pressed deeper and deeper into the acceleration couch, spreading into the supportive gel like a piece of putty pressed into a mold. The weight of the pistol was a fierce pain digging into his right hip.

He may have blacked out as acceleration approached ten gravities, butCorona didn’t stay at such speed for long, just enough to achieve escape velocity once it was time to dodge out from the ring station and onto a course for Magaria Wormhole 4.

He was using Magaria’s ring for cover, knowing that the Naxids would never dare fire at him for fear of hitting the ring. And when it was time to break cover and dash for the wormhole, he kept the rim directly betweenCorona and the Naxid squadrons.

Corona’sacceleration dropped to six gravities, which was misery for the crew, not because they lost consciousness, but because they retained it, and with it the discomfort of the ship’s desperate, blazing acceleration.

Eighteen minutes intoCorona’s escape, Martinez finally heard from the Naxids.

“Urgent message via communications laser, my lord.” Vonderheydte’s words came into Martinez’s earphones. “From Ring Command.”

The comm laser was necessary to punch a signal throughCorona’s hot plasma tail. “Tell them to stand by, I’ll speak in person,” Martinez said.

“Very good, my lord.”

“Are the intership radio channels still jammed?”

“No, my lord. Jamming dropped about two minutes ago, with the Coronas ahead three to one.”

Martinez smiled, and then his smile faded as he realized why the jamming had ceased. Seizure of the non-Naxid squadrons was complete, and it was no longer necessary to prevent the target ships from signaling their distress.

Coronawas truly alone now, in a hostile system.

He counted out two minutes-two more minutes in which the inevitable was delayed-and told Vonderheydte to patch Ring Command onto his displays. He waited until the winking light on his console told him he was being recorded.

“This is Martinez,” he said.

His display showed that his interlocutor was a Naxid in the uniform of a senior captain, whose speech was delayed only slightly by the message crossing the distance between them.

“Lord Lieutenant Martinez,” the Naxid said, “I am Senior Captain Deghbal, commanding Magaria Ring. You have departed the ring without permission, and engaged in reckless maneuvers that have endangered your ship and the station. You are ordered to return at once.”

“I thought Captain An-Char commanded the ring station,” Martinez said.

“Captain An-Char is unavailable.” The words were spoken after a slight hesitation. “I am in command of the ring. You are directed to return.”

“Can you can assure me that Lord Lieutenant Ondakaal is under arrest?” Martinez said. “He opened fire on my airlock guards and wounded one of them. He said that our ship was to be boarded and we were all to be killed.”

Deghbal reared slightly at this, and Martinez knew that his barefaced lie had caught the Naxid completely by surprise.

Anything to confuse the Naxids and get Ondakaal in trouble, he thought. And more important, to delay.Delay. Delay had to be his chief object now.

“Everything is now under control,” Deghbal said finally. “There is no reason to be alarmed. You may returnCorona to her berth.”

Martinez took a deep breath against the gravities that sat on his chest. “Lord Escap,” he said, “I have been instructed by my captain not to permit anyone aboard the ship without his express order. Can you get me that order?”

Anger added force to Deghbal’s reply. “Your captain’s permission is not necessary! My order alone should be sufficient!”

Martinez did his best to look as if he was seriously considering this line of argument. He gave the camera a plaintive look. “Well, Lord Escap,” he said, “I would really like my captain’s order on this.”

“I am your superior officer! You must obey my orders! If I am not obeyed, there will be unfortunate consequences for both your ship and yourself!”

Martinez wondered if anyone had ever actually disobeyed one of Deghbal’s orders before. Probably not. He hoped he could profit by Deghbal’s unfamiliarity with disobedience, and again tried to look as if he were pondering the escap’s words. Then he hardened his face into what he hoped was a kind of dim-witted, stubborn resolve.

“I want Captain Tarafah’s order,” he said. “I trust him to know what’s actually going on.” And then he frowned at the camera. “End transmission.”

I am enjoying this too much, Martinez thought, but still he pictured Deghbal cursing at the orangeEnd Transmission symbol appearing on his displays. Then he wondered if he’d overplayed his hand, if Deghbal would be angry enough simply to order a barrage of missiles to pursueCorona until the frigate was destroyed.

He looked toward Tracy and Clarke, who were monitoring the sensor screens, and said, “Screens, if you see missile tracks, let me knowfast. ”

Pinned by acceleration on their tandem couches, they rolled their heads toward him in wide-eyed surmise-though not related, so far as he knew, they looked very much alike, being dark-haired, broad-shouldered young women-and then turned their heads quickly back to their displays.

Martinez paged Alikhan, this time using the ship’s system rather than his sleeve display, a convenience that enabled Martinez to use his headset mic rather than having to talk into his sleeve button. Alikhan’s own sleeve button showed nothing but the ceiling in Tarafah’s cabin, the only view available as Alikhan lay in the captain’s bed under six gravities.

“Did you have any luck?”

Alikhan’s voice showed the strain of the gravities he was laboring under. “I got the gear to the captain’s cabin, my lord. But all I had time to do was search his desk-no luck there.”

“If I slow our acceleration to two gravities, do you think you could handle the-the gear?”

“I could, my lord.”

“Right. End transmission.” He raised his voice to carry to Eruken. “Engines. Reduce acceleration to two gravities.”

“Very good, my lord.” Plain relief dripped from Eruken’s words. The ferocity of the acceleration eased, andCorona’s frame groaned with the release of strain.

“My lord?” Vonderheydte’s query came into Martinez’s headset. “May I have permission to use the toilet? I was drinking coffee while I was censoring the mail, and-”

Martinez grinned. The commonplace trumped the dramatic every time. “Permission given,” he said. “Transfer the comm displays to my board while you’re gone. Be careful.”

Moving under two gravities was like walking with another person on your back. Sprains and breaks were common, and Martinez couldn’t afford injured personnel.Corona’s “doctor”-actually a pharmacist second class-was also the team doctor, and had been left behind on Magaria.

But he didn’t want the crew in Command to pee all over themselves either.

“Whoelse needs the toilet?” Most of the hands went up. High gees were hard on bladders.

Come to think of it, Martinez thought, he could use the toilet himself. He made a general announcement to the ship’s company that people would have some time to make ablutions, again with care.

IfCorona survived the next few hours, he’d put the crew into vac suits, with the necessary sanitary appliances built in.

Four crewmen had rotated in and out of the toilet before Alikhan reported in. “I’ve got the safe open, my lord. No luck.”

Black anger descended on Martinez. This failure had very possibly killed everyone. “Search the room,” he said. “Then his office.”

“Very good, my lord. Does he have a safe in his office?”

“I don’t know. If there is, you’ll know what to do.”

Martinez was last in rotation for the toilet. Stooped with the weight of gravity, he had just shuffled back into Command when the next transmission came from Ring Command. “It’s the elcap, my lord!” Vonderheydte proclaimed cheerfully, as if in the belief that Tarafah’s mere electronic presence would straighten out all misunderstandings and solve allCorona’s problems.

“Stand by,” Martinez said. He lowered himself gently into the couch, released the cage to gimbal to a more comfortable position, then lowered the displays to lock in front of him.

Martinez wondered if he shoutedWhere is your captain’s key? at some point in the conversation, whether Tarafah would have the chance to answer before the rebels flattened him or switched off. He wondered if Tarafah would even consider giving him the answer to the question.

And he wondered that if he so much as asked the question, would he be confirming Ring Command’s worst suspicions and immediately trigger a salvo of missiles aimed inCorona’s direction.

He decided he’d better not ask.

“Martinez here,” he answered.

Tarafah glowered at him from the display, which jerked and bobbed a little. It was probably someone else’s sleeve camera, since Tarafah was wearing sweats and had no sleeve rig of his own. Martinez heard crowd noises in the background. Tarafah was somewhere indoors, with institutional decor, and his voice echoed off the hard walls-probably he was in one of the rooms or corridors beneath the football stadium.

“What’s this I hear about you launchingCorona and going like a skyrocket all over the ring?” Tarafah demanded.

Delay, Martinez thought.

“I hear the Coronas are ahead three to one, my lord,” he said. “Congratulations, first of all-your careful planning is bearing fruit.”

“It’s four to one now,” Tarafah said. A touch of vanity tinged his anger.

“Sorensen to Villa to Yamana to Sorensen to Digby-and goal. Brilliant, my lord.”

“Thank you,” Tarafah grudged. “But I’ve got to get back to the team-we don’t want the Beijings to get another goal in the final minutes.”

“Yes, my lord. I’m sorry you were asked to leave the game.”

“My ship.” Tarafah’s eyes narrowed. “What about my ship?”

“Armed Naxids tried to board theCorona, my lord. I had to get her out of dock.”

Tarafah gave a dismissive look. “That’s been explained. It was a surprise inspection.”

“They werearmed, my lord,” Martinez said. “Why do inspectors need guns? And they were storming every ship on the station. Forty of them to every ship. Naxids.Only Naxids. With guns.”

Tarafah’s eyes cut away, to something or someone out of frame, and then back.

“Was it a Naxid who brought you the information, my lord?” Martinez inquired gently. “Are there Naxids with you now?”

Tarafah hesitated, and then his look hardened again. “Of course they’re Naxids,” he said finally. “They’re from Fleet Commander Fanaghee’s staff.” His tone turned accusing. “You’ve got thefleetcom involved, Martinez! Do you know howvast this is?” A loud cheer roared up from the nearby crowd, and impatience crossed his face. “I’ve got to get back to the game. Now you turnCorona around and get back to the station-everything will get straightened out once you get back.”

Martinez’s heart sank. This, he thought, is the precise moment at which any of this stops being fun.

“You’re saying this freely?” he asked. “Under no duress or compulsion?”

“Of course,” Tarafah snapped. “Now getCorona back to the rim and we’ll get everything settled.”

“Yes, my lord,” Martinez said, tasting the bitterness that striped his tongue at the knowledge of what he’d have to say next.

Delay, he told himself. Delay was all. Delay would justify everything.

“If you’ll just give me the code word,” he told Tarafah, “I’ll swing the ship around and start the deceleration.”

Tarafah had started to turn, ready to return the football pitch, but now he swung back to the camera. “The what?” he said.

Martinez tried to keep his face earnest. “The code word,” he said. “The code word you gave me last night.”

A snarl of frustration crossed Tarafah’s face. “What are you talking about, Martinez?”

“Remember?” Martinez said, sorrow and dread entering his heart even as he tried to keep his face earnest and eager. “Remember at dinner? When I raised my suspicions about the Naxid movements, you told me that no one was to boardCorona unless you gave the password.”

“I never gave you a password!” Tarafah said. “What are you driveling about?”

He seemed genuinely baffled. Sadness weighed on Martinez like the slow, inevitable pressure of gravity. Tarafah didn’t yet understand just how seriously he had been betrayed.

“The password that tells me that you’re free and uncoerced,” Martinez said. “You’ve got to give me the password, my lord, before I can turnCorona around.”

“I didn’t give you anything-” The camera on Tarafah jiggled. “-Anything of the sort. I-” He hesitated, his eyes cutting out of frame, then back. “I demand that you turnCorona around and return to the ring station!”

“Without the password?” Martinez said, and this time he allowed his sorrow to show. “I understand, Lord Elcap. End transmission.”

He could have kept the dialogue going for another few rounds, but he didn’t have the heart for it.

He had bought time, and he had bought it with his captain. It would take time for the Naxids to get a password out of Tarafah, the more so because the password did not exist.

For a moment Martinez gave himself up to the images of Tarafah being slashed with stun batons, battered, shackled, shot. He saw Tarafah lying in his blood, insisting through pain-clenched teeth that there was no password.

Delay.He had bought time, that was the important thing.

He paged Alikhan again. “Anything?”

“Therewas a safe in the elcap’s office, my lord. Nothing in it but documents.”

“Have you searched the office?”

“I’m doing so now, my lord.”

“Shall I send you help?”

“Can you trust anyone else for the job, my lord?”

The question brought Martinez up short. Whocould he trust? The captain’s and lieutenants’keys were the most dangerous items on the ship. It was a capital crime-one of those involving flaying and dismemberment-to possess a key that didn’t belong to you. Was there anyone on the crew who was truly convinced that it was necessary to get ahold of the keys, and actually obey the order?

Martinez considered the matter, then laughed as a possibility occurred to him. He checked the crew manifests to find where the crew action stations were, then paged Zhou and Knadjian. The two stared at him from the displays, surprise plain on their bruised faces.

“I want you to report to Alikhan in the captain’s office and follow his instructions,” he told them, to their further surprise.

Corona’smerry thugs should have a fine old time tearing the captain’s stateroom to bits.

“My lord!” Tracy, the sensor operator, gave a sudden surprised squeak. “Ferogashhas launched!”

A cruiser, roughly twiceCorona’s size. “Do you have a course?” Martinez asked.

“It hasn’t fired its torch, my lord. It’s just separated from the ring station.”

“Let me know if it goes anywhere.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The Naxids were planning something forFerogash, and Martinez was willing to venture thatCorona featured in that plan.

He thought a moment, then paged the captain’s secretary. “Saavedra,” he said, “you understand our situation.”

Saavedra gave him a careful look, lips pinched beneath broad mustachios. “I understand yourexplanation of the situation, Lord Lieutenant.”

Martinez found growing in himself a distinct lack of enthusiasm for warrant officers who made these sorts of rhetorical distinctions.

“Do you understand thatCorona is in danger?” he asked. “That we may be fired on?”

Saavedra gave a terse nod. “I understand, my lord.”

“In order to activate the defensive weaponry, I need the captain’s key. Do you know where the captain keeps it?”

Saavedra’s eyes hardened. His jaw firmed. “I donot, my lord.”

“Are you certain? The lives of everyone on this ship may be at stake.”

“I don’t know where the key is, my lord.”

“You’ve never come across it? You’ve never seen him take it off, or take it from a drawer, or from his safe…?”

“On the sole occasions on which I have seen the captain’s key, it has been around the captain’s neck.”

Martinez decided he didn’t like warrant officers who used excessively formal diction either. He considered visiting Saavedra in whatever compartment he sheltered in and blowing a hole in his knee in hopes a memory might leak out. But the fantasy was only that; he didn’t dare leave Command.

Sweet reason would have to prevail.

“I need you tothink,” Martinez urged. “Think about where the captain puts his valuables. Where he might hide something precious. Anything you can tell me.”

Saavedra looked imperiously from the display. “I shall consult my memory, my lord.”

“Consult away.” Disgusted. “End transmission.”

For the next fourteen minutesFerogash continued to drift away from the ring station without maneuvering. Alikhan reported no success, even after the two reinforcements arrived and Martinez suggested thumping the paneling for secret compartments and tearing open the captain’s pantry. If the office had been carpeted, he would have suggested ripping up the rugs.

Then another transmission came from Ring Command. “It’s Deghbal, my lord,” Vonderheydte reported.

“Tell him to stand by.”

Martinez counted a minute and a half, as much as he dared, then answered.

“This is Martinez, my lord.”

Deghbal’s black-on-green eyes glimmered in the lights of the ring’s command center. “Your captain has recalled the password he gave you,” he said. “The password is ‘offsides.’ ”

Martinez tried to look relieved, as if the word were the thing he desired most in all the world instead of the first thing Tarafah could think of when the pain finally grew too great to bear.

“Thank you, my lord,” Martinez breathed. “Now may I hear the word from Lord Elcap Tarafah himself?”

“Lord Tarafah is unavailable,” Deghbal said. “Your team has just won a victory, four points to one. The field is in turmoil. There is much celebration. I don’t believe we could locate Captain Tarafah even if we wished to.”

Martinez forced onto his face what he hoped was an ingratiating smile. “I’d still like to hear it from the captain, if I may.”

“You may not!” Deghbal’s response was immediate, and sharp. “This has gone on long enough. You will returnCorona to her berth at once.”

“I’d very much like to hear that from my captain.”

“You will return immediately!”Captain Deghbal’s voice contained the glottal throb that was the Naxid equivalent of a snarl.“There have been enough games today!” Deghbal leaned toward the camera, his black beaded lips drawn back. “If you fail in your obedience, I will order that your ship be fired upon.”

“Just because I want to speak to my captain?” Martinez said. He widened his eyes in feigned disbelief. “Just let me hear the word from my captain and everything will be fine.”

“Obey my order or face the consequences.” Deghbal reared back, his black-on-green eyes glaring.

Martinez said nothing, simply leaned back in his couch and looked impassively at the camera. He could think of no other way to delay things. He and Deghbal stared at each other for a long, long moment…Martinez counted eight seconds. Then Deghbal gave a contemptuous flick of one hand.

“End transmission.” The orangeEnd Transmission symbol appeared, and Martinez told the display to vanish.

Now we die, he thought.

But nothing happened right away.Corona’s engines burned on for another nine minutes before anything was heard from the ring station.

“Ferogashis maneuvering, my lord!” from Tracy.

“Ferogashfiring main engines!” echoed Clarke.

Martinez tried to control his suddenly leaping heart. “What course?”

“Zero-zero-one by zero-zero-one. Course due north, my lord. Two gravities and accelerating.” The 313-degree Shaa compass had no zero coordinate, but began instead with one, the odd number left over after factoring the prime number. The one, of course, stood for the One True Way of the Praxis.

Ferogashwasn’t chasing, it was heading north, the quickest way to clear the ring and open fire.

“Page crewman Saavedra,” Martinez said.

The warrant officer’s supercilious face appeared promptly.

“We’re about to be fired on by a cruiser twice our strength,” Martinez said. “If you’ve got any ideas about where the captain keeps his key, it’s time to let me know.”

“I have no idea, Lord Lieutenant,” Saavedra said. “I had no desire to know where the captain kept his key, and I paid no attention to it.”

“Missile flares!” Clarke called. “Three, five, six…eight missile tracks, my lord!”

“We’ve got eight missiles coming our way,” Martinez told Saavedra. “If you’ve got any ideas about the key, you’d better let me know.”

Saavedra stared stonily at Martinez. “You could surrender, my lord, and return to base,” he said. “I’m sure the fleetcom would order the missiles disarmed if you obeyed her command.”

The total, incorruptible bastard, Martinez snarled. Kneecapping was too good for him.

“Fourteen minutes to detonation, my lord,” Tracy said.

“You’ve got less than fourteen minutes to think of something we haven’t tried,” Martinez told Saavedra. “Then you can die with the rest of the crew.” He signed off and turned to Kelly. “Weapons. I want you to prepare to launch one of the pinnaces as a decoy.”

“Yes, my lord.” She hesitated, then turned her dark eyes to Martinez. “My lord, ah-how exactly would Ido that?”

“We fire the pinnace on the same course, but a slower speed. We hope the missiles lock onto the pinnace instead of us.”

Without the captain’s key, the two pinnaces were the only things Martinezcould launch. Unfortunately, they weren’t armed, so they were useless for offense, and the chances of one of the missiles mistaking a pinnace for the frigate were slim to none.

Kelly blinked at her console. “I think I can do that, my lord.”

“Good. Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll check your work.”

She seemed reassured. “Very good, my lord.”

Martinez called Alikhan. “Have you tried searching Koslowski’s cabin again?”

“We have, my lord.”

“Any new ideasat all? ”

“Nothing, my lord.”

“Right then. Get your people into the officers’ racks. I’m going to kick some gees.” To Mabumba. “Acceleration warning.”

The wailed cry of the acceleration warning sounded. “Very good, my lord.”

He increasedCorona’s acceleration to six gees while he tried desperately to think of a way to escape. The heavy gravity should have wearied him but his mind blazed with ideas-radical maneuvers, imaginative improvision of decoys, suicide pinnace dives into the ring station-all of them pointless. The only thing he’d succeeded at was slowing the rate at which the missiles were closing, and buying his crew a few more minutes’ life.

“Twelve minutes, my lord.”

Martinez realized that his mind was racing too quickly to actually be of any use, and he tried to slow himself down, go through everything he knew step by step.

Garcia had told him that Koslowski never wore his lieutenant’s key while playing football. Koslowski was the only one ofCorona’s officers who Martinez definitely knew wasn’t wearing his key, so that meant he should concentrate on Koslowski.

The sensible place for Koslowski to put his key would be in the safe in his cabin, but Koslowski hadn’t been that sensible. He hadn’t put it in any other obvious place in his cabin either. So where else could he have gone?

Where else didofficers go?

The wardroom. It was where the officers ate and relaxed. There was a locked pantry where the officers kept their drinks and delicacies.

But the wardroom was an insecure place, there were people in cleaning, and the wardroom steward and cook both had keys to the pantry. The wardroom seemed highly unlikely.

Perhaps Koslowski gave the key to someone he trusted. But the only likely candidates were on the team.

“Ten minutes, my lord.”

Fine, Martinez went on, but if officers weren’t going to be wearing their keys, they were supposed to return them to their captain. So on the assumption that Koslowski did what he was supposed to do, where did Tarafah put it?

Not in either of his safes. Not in his desk. Not in his drawers. Not under his mattress or in a secret compartment in the custom mahogany paneling of his walls.

He put it…around his neck. Martinez’s heart sank. He could picture it happening, picture Tarafah looping the elastic cord around his neck and tucking the key down the front of his sweats, to join his own captain’s key nestled against his chest hairs…

No. Martinez put the image firmly from his mind. The key had to be somewhere else.

“Nine minutes, my lord.” The words were spoken over a long, groaning shudder fromCorona’s stressed frame.

WouldFanaghee acceptCorona’s surrender? Martinez wondered. He could safely assume that she would want the frigate back, certainly. But-perhaps of more vital interest-would Fanaghee acceptMartinez’s surrender?

Martinez thought not. His blood would probably still be decorating the walls of Command when Fanaghee put her new captain on board. Perhaps it would be easier on everyone if he just took his sidearm and blew out his own brains.

No.Martinez put the thought out of his mind. Where was thekey?

He pictured Koslowski’s cabin, exactly like his own…small, the narrow gimbaled bed, the washstand, the large wardrobe that contained the formidable number of uniforms required, the chests with the grand amount of gear an officer was expected to carry with him from one posting to the next. The shelves, the small desk with its computer access.

There just wasn’t any room to hide something. A cabin wassmall.

He knew that the captain’s sleeping cabin was larger, though he’d never been in it, but he couldn’t imagine it would be very different.

And then there was the captain’s office. The desk, with its computer access. The safe. The shelves, and all the football trophies.

The trophies. The glittering objects, standing in his office and braced against high gee, that meant more to Lieutenant Captain Tarafah than anything else, including probably his command. The objects that he savored every day, that he probably caressed in secret.

Martinez was so transfixed by the memory of the trophies that he failed to hear the words that were spoken to him.

“Sorry?” he said absently. “Repeat, please.”

“I think I’ve configured the pinnace as you wished,” Kelly said.

“Right. Stand by.”

He paged Alikhan. “Did you check thetrophies? ” he demanded.

“My lord?”

“Did you look in the trophies? The Home Fleet Trophies arecups, aren’t they?”

He could hear Alikhan’s chagrin even through the strain that six gravities was putting on his voice.

“No, my lord. I didn’t think to look.”

“Engines!” Martinez cried. “Reduce acceleration to one gravity!”

“Reducing acceleration to one gravity, my lord,” Mabumba repeated.

Corona’sbeams groaned as the oppressive weight eased. Martinez gasped in air, grateful to breathe without labor. He took a half-dozen sweet breaths, then impatience drove him to demand information.

“What are you finding, Alikhan?”

“I’m trying to work the catch to the lid now, my lord.There …I’m reaching inside…”

In the silence that followed, even over the remorseless percussion of his heart, Martinez could hear the metallic scrape of Alikhan’s fingernails whispering against the inside of the cup. And then he heard Alikhan’s deep sigh, a sigh that to Martinez seemed filled with all the despair in the universe…

“Six minutes, my lord.” Tracy’s words were leaden.

“I’ve got them both, Lord Gareth,” said Alikhan in a voice of quiet exultation.

For an instant the hopelessness still clung like a shroud to Martinez’s mind, and then it was obliterated by an electric surge of triumph that almost had him whooping aloud.

“Activate the captain’s desk display,” he said. “Insert his key. Prepare to turn on my mark.Weapons! Kelly! Catch! ”

Cadet Kelly turned as Martinez fished in his pocket for Garcia’s key. The expression on her face was luminous, as if with glowing eyes she were seeing Martinez descend from heaven on rainbow clouds.

The cadet stretched out her lanky arms, and Martinez tossed her the key.

“Insert and turn on my mark.”

“Very good, my lord!”

Martinez opened his tunic and pulled his own key off over his head. He inserted the key into the silvery metal slot on the command console before him.

“Weapons. Alikhan. Turn on my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark.”

Kelly gave a dazzled smile as the weapons board lit up before her eyes. Another light appeared on Martinez’s board, indicating that the weapons were free.

“Alikhan, get to a rack and strap in.”

“Yes, my lord.”

And then, as frantic relief poured into his veins, Martinez turned to Kelly. “Power up point-defense lasers!” he called. “This isnot a drill!” Such was his haste that he had to keep himself from screaming the words like a lunatic.

“This is not a drill,” Kelly repeated through a broad, brilliant smile. “Powering up point-defense lasers.”

“Activate radars aft.”

“Radars activated aft, my lord.”

“This is not a drill. Charge missile battery one with antimatter.”

“This is not a drill. Charging missile battery one with antimatter…missiles charged, my lord.”

The missiles had been charged with their antimatter fuel, each unit consisting of a solid flake of antihydrogen that had been carefully doped with an excess of positrons, which allowed it to be suspended by static electricity inside a tiny etched silicon chip. The configuration was stable and would last for decades, and the chips were so diminutive, well beneath anything that could be seen with a conventional microscope, that as a mass they flowed like liquid. The antihydrogen served both as propellant for the missile and as the warhead-any fuel that didn’t get used up on the approach would go bang at the end of the journey.

The same antihydrogen fuel was used byCorona for its own propulsion, though larger ships used antihydrogen suspended in larger microchips, which provided more power to the engines.

“Screens,” Martinez asked, “what’s the dispersal on that salvo?”

“They’re clumped together, my lord,” Tracy responded.

Martinez pulled the radar tracks onto his own display. The oncoming missileswere clumped, flying as if in formation. One ofCorona’s missiles should suffice to knock them out, but he thought he should fire two just to be sure.

He pulled the weapons board into his own displays and began configuring the missiles. “We’ll fire battery one in salvos of two,” he explained to Kelly. “The first two will take care of the oncoming missiles. The next two will accelerate till they’re just short of the enemy missiles, then cut power and drift through the blast, coming out the far side, heading for the station but looking on the radars like debris-or so we’ll hope. The next pair will burn straight in for the ring station and probably get shot down, but may distract them from the second pair. The fourth pair we’ll keep in reserve.”

Kelly looked a little overwhelmed. “Yes, my lord,” she said finally.

“When you reload, load tube one with a decoy.”

Pressing keypads. “Yes, my lord.”

On a larger ship, there would be a tactical officer to take care of all these details. But as he spun his plans, as his fingers danced in the displays and tapped console pads, Martinez found that he was enjoying himself again, relishing the planning and the execution and, most of all, the little surprise he was planning to spring on the Naxids.

Blow everything. Garcia’s words echoed in his mind, and he felt his pleasure fade. It wasn’t just rebel Naxids on the ships he planned to destroy, it was their captive crews, and the military installations on the ring were only a small part of the huge structure: millions of civilians lived there as well. All would die if his clever little plan succeeded.

He stared for a moment into a dark, cold imagining: the flash, the fireball, the spray of gamma rays. The ring station rent apart, spinning out of control, parts flung into space, others dragged to flame and impact on the planet’s surface by the skyhook cables.

“Three minutes, my lord.” Tracy’s words cut through his reverie, and with a deliberate resolve he put aside the horror of his vision.

“This is not a drill,” Martinez said. “Fire tubes one and two.”

“One and two fired, my lord. This is not a drill.” The gauss rails flung the missiles into space, and the missiles reoriented and ignited. “Missiles fired and running normally.”

Martinez watched them fly away through his displays. “Weapons, this is not a drill. Fire three and four.”

The pair fired, and the next pair, all firing normally.

Martinez decided to put more distance between himself and any detonating antimatter. “Engines, high gravity warning.” The sirens wailed.

“High gee warning, my lord.”

Martinez ordered a resumption of the six-gravity acceleration.

Now we’ll see how they react, he thought as the leaden weights of gravity were added one by one to his chest.

The Naxids must have seen his missile launches, and known thatCorona had teeth. They had to understand that their dense-packed formation of eight offensive missiles would be obliterated byCorona’s counterfire. But it wasn’t too late to save their barrage: they could send orders to the individual missiles to diverge, to separate so they couldn’t all be knocked out at once.

But they didn’t.Corona’s first pair of missiles exploded right in the middle of the enemy salvo, destroying them all in the plasma fireball created when the exploding antihydrogen hit the tungsten surrounding the warhead. A wild, furious cloud of radiation erupted betweenCorona and Magaria, preventing eitherCorona or the Naxids from seeing what was happening on the other side.

The radiation gradually cooled and faded. The first objects the sensors could detect, through the weakening shroud, were the burning tails of missiles five and six heading for the ring; the second thing were missile tails as well, the second salvo of eight fired fromFerogash.

“Twenty-four minutes till impact, my lord.”

That gave Martinez a comfortable amount of time to deal with them. It wasn’t until four of those minutes had passed thatCorona’s radars finally detected missiles three and four falling toward the enemy with their torches extinguished, speed increasing as they were drawn toward Magaria by the invisible threads of gravity.

“The enemy salvo is still flying bunched up, my lord.”

The Naxids, their attack having failed once, were trying the same thing all over again. Martinez could only hope they’d keep this up.

As he stared at the displays he realized that both he and the Naxids were improvising. Standard fleet tactics assumed that both sides would be moving fast, perhaps at a significant fraction of the speed of light, on courses more or less converging. Tactics assumed that the largest problem would be to detect the exact location of enemy ships, since ships could alter their trajectory significantly from the moment any radar or ranging laser detected them until the signal returned to the sender. Since the distances involved made ship-killing lasers useless-at.3c, it did not take a lot of maneuvering to evade a beam of light that, however fast, moved only in a straight line-offensive action was taken with intelligent missiles that, with guidance, could chase their targets down. Lasers were relegated to last-ditch point-defense weaponry to be aimed at missiles homing in on a target. Missiles were maneuvered en route to the target, both to anticipate the target’s evasions and to avoid countermeasures, and they would maneuver behind exploding screens of antimatter that hid them from the enemy, and hid friendly squadrons as well.

So far as Martinez knew, no one had ever developed tactics based on one side running away, from a standing start, while the other stood still, firing missiles at what amounted to point-blank range, barely exceeding a light-second. The irony was that the tactical problem was so dead easy that all the sophisticated tactics developed over the centuries were useless. What the situation called for were ship-killing lasers, since the range was so short that evasion was impossible, but those big lasers didn’t exist. What remained was a slagging match, pure and simple, a giant and a dwarf hammering each other with fists from a range of a few inches.

In order to survive, Martinez thought, the dwarf had better think fast and stay nimble.

He configured two missiles to destroy the enemy salvo, then hesitated. One missile might be enough to do the job.

He had six reloads for each missile battery, making ninety-six altogether. He’d just burned six. He didn’t know how many missiles the enemy squadrons held, but there had to be thousands, with more stored in the huge magazines of Magaria’s ring station.

It might be that he couldn’t afford to spend more than one missile on the attacking salvo. The Naxids could fire eight missiles to his one and stay well ahead.

He decided to fire only the one missile.

“Two more missile tracks, my lord.”

These, Martinez decided, were aimed at his own fifth and sixth missiles, the ones targeted on the ring. He had anticipated these missiles being targeted and wasn’t upset at losing them. Instead he plotted the intersection points to make sure they could be useful to him. He fired his own missile and timed it to intercept the oncoming salvo before the enemy’s interceptors would hit his own missiles five and six.

At which point, now concealed from detection by the vast cloud of radiation shooting outward from the destruction of nine antimatter missiles, he fired his decoy, altered course twenty-three degrees to port, staying within the plane of the ecliptic, and pushed his acceleration to ten gees.

When the concealing cloud began to disperse, the enemy interceptors hit his own missiles five and six, providing two more concealing clouds that maskedCorona for several more minutes. When the radiation began to disperse, Martinez cut his own engines and drifted.

What the Naxids saw now on their screens was the decoy-a missile configured to reflect a radar image of approximately the same size asCorona — burning at a steady six gees acceleration onCorona’s own course. Their radars would also seeCorona, of course, but Martinez hoped they wouldn’t find him interesting. If he was just a symbol on their screens, they might not consider him worthy of investigation, not like the decoy that was so obviously attracting attention to itself. They might think he was a piece of debris, and only if they configured their sensors to show the actual size of the radar blip would they see thatCorona was the size of a frigate.

Throughout all this, Martinez remembered, missiles three and four were falling, silently, unobtrusively, toward Magaria. Lawn-green projectiles with deadly white footballs painted on the nose.

While he was waiting for the Naxids to respond, he made a general announcement and told everyone to get into their vac suits, only to receive a reply from Maheshwari.

“The engine room crew is already suited, my lord.”

It was the first word he’d had directly from Maheshwari sinceCorona had departed its berth.

“Very good,” Martinez said, for lack of anything better, then unstrapped to wrestle himself into the suit that had been hanging in Command’s suit locker all this time. As he was ripping off his trousers he encountered the pistol belt, and hesitated.

His crew, his little kingdom of nineteen souls, had followed him on this mad enterprise. Perhaps it was because of the habit of following orders, perhaps because of his calm pose of authority in a confusing situation…and maybe it was because they were afraid he might use the pistol. But they were all committed now, one way or another, and the pistol was a clumsy thing that had already scored a bruise on his hip.

He rolled up the pistol belt and stuffed the weapon into the suit locker.

He was partway through attaching the sanitary gear in the lower half of the suit when Clarke, who continued to watch the screens while her partner suited, gave a sudden shout.

“Missile tracks! Lots of them! FromFerogash, fromKashma, fromMajesty — they’reall firing, my lord!”

Martinez kicked himself into the suit and lunged for the command cage, then called up the sensor screens. Each ship in the Naxid squadrons had fired a salvo at exactly the same moment.

“Any of them headed forus? ” Martinez demanded.

“Ahh…it’s too early to tell, my lord.”

Martinez hung in the cage and continued to attach the sanitary gear while the situation developed, and it was soon obvious that the decoy hadn’t worked. Of the 164 missiles that had been fired, too many were heading directly forCorona, and too few for the decoy.

But the Naxids had made a mistake in firing so many all at the same moment. Although the weapons directors on the individual ships were taking care to maneuver their missiles from the start and not to let them fly in formation asFerogash had, still they were coming in one broad wave, and Martinez was able to tailor his defense to swat large numbers of enemy missiles out of the void with each interceptor he sent.

The Naxids would have done better to have each ship fire a salvo ten seconds apart, he thought. Then he would have had to use up a lot more missiles to intercept them.

Radiation clouds bloomed in the displays asCorona’s counterfire wiped out most of the Naxid onslaught. Fourteen enemy missiles survived, all of which were killed byCorona’s point-defense lasers. Cadet Kelly proved to have a knack with the lasers, anticipating the missiles’ jinks and knocking them down regardless.

By then the crew in Command were suited andCorona was under acceleration again, six gees for Wormhole 4. Martinez had eighty-one missiles left.

And he still had the two missiles falling toward Magaria’s ring, both of which he watched on the monitors with burning interest. If just one of them got home, the rebellion was over, along with the lives of about four or five million sentient beings.

Apparently, the Naxids eventually noticed at least one of the two missile-sized packages falling toward them, because missile four was hit by a defensive laser and destroyed, its antimatter contents spraying out in an uncontrolled fan, never quite managing a large explosion but creating a spectacular radiation cloud. The cloud must have confused enemy sensors, or their operators, because missile three was able to drift closer before it fired its engine and oriented on its target, the Fleet’s ring station.

Defensive lasers were tardy in responding, and caught the incoming missile only a few seconds from detonation. The missile blew anyway, just north of the ring station, causing a fireball nearly as powerful as if the missile had detonated normally. Martinez watched in knuckle-gnawing suspense as the radiation cloud engulfed the ring station like a wave flinging itself over the shore.

“Fire battery one,” Martinez ordered. Eight missiles leaped from the rails, oriented on the ring, and ignited. Martinez sent their targeting data as they sped on their way.

Again he gnawed a knuckle as he watched the radiation cloud slowly disperse from the ring station. The Magaria ring remained intact, a thin, brilliant silver band rolling around the planet without any sign of damage, without any visible fires or gaping holes in its structure.

What failed to occur was retaliation. The Naxids’ missile batteries remained silent.

It was the ring’s point-defense lasers that blew away theCorona’s eight-missile barrage, destroying all of them before they could endanger the ring.

But through it all, no ships fired. Martinez wondered in pure dazzled surprise if somehow he’d killed them.

Hours passed. Without the prospect of imminent death to focus his mind on escape, Martinez remembered his intention to get word out to the rest of the empire. The civilian ships in the system had just witnessed a spectacular combat, and were no doubt wondering whether they would be embroiled in the terrifying situation they had just seen engulf the Fleet and Magaria’s ring. Martinez sent messages to each of them via comm laser, explaining that Naxid mutineers had seized the ring station and the fleet, that the wormhole relay stations were also compromised, and he asked the ships’ captains to inform the nearest Fleet element as soon as they left the Magaria system.

It was fully five hours before Martinez found out the enemy weren’t all dead.Majesty of the Praxis, Fanaghee’s flagship, fired a full twelve-missile salvo, each missile taking a wildly different track towardCorona. The different tracks meant they arrived at different times, and provided plenty of time for Kelly and Martinez, working together, to hit them all with the defensive lasers-all save one, which targetedCorona’s hitherto useless decoy and blew it up.

The missiles, fired from a standing start, never gained enough speed en route to successfully evadeCorona’s defenses. Knocking them down became sport: Martinez found that he enjoyed the kind of synchrony into which he and Kelly fell as they chose and destroyed the targets; and he enjoyed her broad grin as she aimed and fired, and her little contralto yelp of triumph when she scored a hit.

After the missiles were disposed of, Martinez ordered the acceleration reduced to half a gravity and called the cooks to ask ifCorona’s victory feast was salvageable. The cooks’ opinion was that the captain’s and officers’ suppers, with their delicate sauces applied liberally to the kitchen walls during the period of zero gee, were probably beyond hope, but that the heartier meal intended for the crew was probably capable of resuscitation. Martinez told them to get busy in the kitchen, and when they reported success, told the crew they could take off their vacuum suits and go in shifts to dinner.

He ate on the second shift himself, after appointing Vonderheydte officer of the watch and leaving him strict instructions to call if anything changed. There were only eight crew eating on the second shift, served by the three cooks, and all ate in the enlisted mess, officers and enlisted together. The few diners made a lot of noise, however, and the mood was exuberant, the crew loudly thankful they’d evaded danger. Martinez noticed only one quiet crewman among the others, the captain’s secretary, Saavedra, who spoke little, frowned into his meal, and chewed with solemn deliberation.

Martinez sat opposite Kelly. The lanky cadet was still wearing the broad grin she’d displayed when splashing oncoming missiles, and Martinez found himself reliving the escape with her, missile for missile, shot for shot. Exhilarated with relief and the memory of shared terror, they diagrammed shots in the air with their hands and talked in a rush, each sentence tumbling over the one before.

I’m alive!Martinez thought. For the first time he allowed himself to bask in this miracle.I’m alive!

“I was terrified you wouldn’t use the key when I tossed it to you,” Martinez said. “I was afraid you’d stand on regulations and refuse.”

“When eight missiles were heading for us?” Kelly laughed. “I’m as devoted to the regs as anyone, but devotion can only go so far.”

Alive!Martinez thought. Joy bubbled through his blood like champagne.

He joined Kelly in the elevator that took them to Command deck. “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks for working so well with me.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and then added, “my lord.”

The elevator stopped and Martinez began to step out, then hesitated. Wild impulse fluttered in his chest. “I don’t mean to offend,” he said, “but would you like to drop another deck with me and, ah, celebrate our survival?”

The recreation chambers were one bulkhead below their feet. Kelly looked at him in surprise. “Aren’t our tummies a little full right now?” she said.

“You could get on top,” Martinez explained. “I wouldn’t have my weight on you that way.”

She barked a short, incredulous laugh, and gazed out of the elevator to the corridor outside, as if expecting an audience for this surprising comedy routine. “Well, Lord Lieutenant,” she said, “I have a guy on Zanshaa, and it seemsCorona’s going back there.”

“I understand.”

“And it’s a bad idea to get involved with a senior.”

“That’s wise,” Martinez nodded.

She looked up at him. Her black eyes glittered and her broad grin was still plastered to her face. “You know what?” she said. “The hell with all that. We’vealready broken all the rules.”

“That’s right,” Martinez agreed, “we have.”

The “biological recreational chambers”-so infamous outside the Fleet, and the subject of endless jokes both inside the Fleet and out-originated not in the lustful mind of some Fleet holejumper, but as an unstated confession of bewilderment by the Great Masters themselves. The Shaa, after their conquest of Terra, were perplexed by the varieties of sexuality displayed by their new conquests, and had wisely made no attempt to regulate any of its variety. Instead they’d insisted, in the most unsentimental, practical way, on minimizing the consequences: every Terran female had to be given a contraceptive implant at some point during her fourteenth year. Any woman having reached twenty-two, the age of maturity, could have the implant removed at any time by a physician, while younger women required the permission of a parent or guardian. The number of unwanted children, though not eliminated altogether, was at least brought within manageable levels.

The Fleet’s attitude toward sexuality was even less sentimental, if possible, than that of the Shaa. Though officially the Fleet claimed it didn’t care who coupled with whom, customs had developed over the centuries to restrain at least a few of the crew’s impulses. Division chiefs were discouraged from relations with their subordinates, because of the danger of coercion or of playing favorites. Relations between officers and enlisted were likewise discouraged, at least if they belonged to the same ship-Martinez’s connection with Warrant Officer Taen was well within the Fleet’s range of tolerance. And relations between the captain and any of his crew was not only considered a violation of custom, but bad luck as well.

A loophole served the officers, however, since they were allowed servants, with whom recreationals were unlimited. But this happened less often than an observer might expect: Martinez suspected that living with a paid companion in the close confines of a warship was too much like the least attractive aspects of a marriage-all the boredom and constraint of living intimately with a person one simply couldn’t escape, and all without the relaxation and charm of getting away from routine to visit a lover in her own place.

Coronahad eight recreation tubes, two of them forward and reserved for officers. Martinez properly logged himself into the recreation chamber so that Vonderheydte could page him if he was needed. Martinez was expecting missile launches or some other emergency any second, and there was little time for preliminary caresses or endearments. He was surprised at the desperate quality of his own desires, the unexpected fury of his lust. Kelly mirrored his urgency, lost in explosive pleasure nearly from the start, clutching at him with the little red-knuckled fists at the end of her long, slim forearms.Alive! he thought.Alive!

Afterward, with Kelly’s head resting on his chest, he wondered how long he dared remain here, how much he should permit himself to relax. He badly wanted to remain in the small tubelike room scented with the odors of clean sheets and the distant undertaste of disinfectant, to close his eyes, and to let the muscles bruised with high gravities relax into the mattress under the light weight of half a gravity. And he wondered how many of the other recreational tubes on the ship were occupied at that moment, with other crew celebrating their escape from death.

It wasn’t a call from Command that brought him to full alertness, but a nearby crash, a sound like the contents of an overfull closet spilling out. A crash that was followed immediately afterward by a long, bellowing laugh.

Well. this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Martinez dressed, left the tube, and followed the laughter to the captain’s cabin, where he found Zhou and Knadjian, along with their partner in crime, Ahmet. All three were stinking drunk on the captain’s liquor, and Zhou was sprawled on the floor, far beyond speech or movement.

“Hey there, Lieutenant!” Ahmet said with a wave. “Come join us!”

Sex wasn’t the only form of celebration, Martinez reminded himself.

At Martinez’s orders, they’d broken into everything in search of the captain’s key, and that apparently included the captain’s liquor store. Once released from duty for a meal, they’d made their way back to where they knew they could drink themselves into a coma.

Martinez paged Alikhan. “Get these people to couches, strap them in, and make sure they’re not in a position to touch a single control,” he said. “Then find every bottle of liquor on this ship, give it to the cooks, and see that it’s put under lock and key.”

“Very good, my lord.”

“That includes the stuff in my cabin. And in Garcia’s.”

“Yes, my lord. I’ll be there directly.”

Martinez rejoined Kelly briefly, and found her dressed and pulling on her shoes. He gave her foot a grateful squeeze-leaning into the tube, it was the only part of her he could reach-and thanked her, with all the sincerity he could muster, for joining him.

“It’s not like I didn’t have fun,” she said.

Martinez returned to Command, waited the few moments it took Kelly to return, then ordered everyone into vac suits for some sustained acceleration. It was best to put distance between them while the Naxids were inactive, he thought.

It took ten minutes or so for the three inebriates to be stuffed into their suits and strapped down, and a little longer for the cooks to secure the galley. Then Martinez ordered increased acceleration, to four gees this time-his tummy, he realized,was a little full for six gravities to sit on it.

Hours passed. Martinez spent his time obsessively studying the displays, watching Magaria’s ring on its slow rotation about its planet, speculating about the Naxids’ lack of activity.

“My lord,” Tracy reported from her station. “Judge Kybiqhas increased acceleration.”

Kybiqwas the cruiser that Fanaghee had placed en route to Wormhole 1, blockingCorona’s escape to Zanshaa.

“Heading for the wormhole?” Martinez asked as he paged through the various displays to find the one that showedKybiq.

“No, my lord. Its heading is for Barbas”-the planet next out from Magaria, a sort of failed gas giant, huge, with a solid core and an atmosphere of furious storms. At the moment, its orbit placed it nearly between Magaria and Wormhole 1, which led to the most direct route to Zanshaa. For the next several months Barbas would be convenient for a slingshot maneuver, by which traffic outbound from Magaria would pick up speed by slinging themselves around it en route to the wormhole.

“Any alteration in course?”

“No, my lord.”

Martinez found theJudge Kybiq on his display, and as he stared at it, he felt a nervous little suspicion begin to grow in his mind. Why was the Naxid cruiser increasing its speed for the wormhole? Why was it suddenly so urgent to head to Zanshaa?

A few minutes with the plotting computer confirmed his suspicions.Kybiq had been accelerating out of Magaria for three days, and it was traveling faster thanCorona even though its accelerations hadn’t been quite so brutal. It was possible that the cruiser could swing around the near side of Barbas and hurl itself for Wormhole 1.

It was equally possible, and a good deal more probable, thatJudge Kybiq could make a slight, last-minute alteration of course, then slingshot itself around thefar side of Barbas and head for Wormhole 4 and an interception ofCorona.

The navplot computer did the math. Depending on how fastKybiq accelerated, it would be three to five days before it could make its slingshot, and then another eight or ten days before the interception. Martinez plotted the worst-case scenario. How hard would he have to accelerate to beat the cruiser to the wormhole?

Not bad. To beat theKybiq by half a day, even if the cruiser advanced at chest-crushing acceleration,Corona would only have to average a constant 3.8 gees for the next fourteen days. He was exceeding that now, and he’d set the pace before he even knew he was in a race.

He didn’t want the Naxids to know he was on to their trick, however, so for the next three days he kept to a regular schedule: accelerating a steady four gees except during mealtimes, when he reduced to a single gravity; with occasional, regular bursts of up to six gees three times a day, for half an hour each time. His body ached, and his ligaments made popping and crackling sounds whenever he moved, butCorona’s crew was staying the course, if not precisely thriving.

By the timeKybiq screamed through its turn around Barbas, subjecting its suffering crew to accelerations in excess of eleven gravities while it was in the planet’s gravity well,Corona had a comfortable lead, and Martinez pulled even farther ahead by increasing the duration of the six-gravity bursts.Kybiq increased its acceleration, but Martinez was able to increase his own proportionally in order to maintain his lead-no matter what the cruiser did, it was going to lose the race, and Martinez took what comfort he could from the knowledge that however much he and his people were suffering, the Naxids’ sufferings were worse.

The acceleration was a dreary grind, however. His body ached and his mind felt dulled. His sleep was uneasy, with suggestive and distasteful dreams, and his waking hours filled with the leaden weight and unwashed stench of his own body.

Martinez knew the Naxids had surrendered the race when they opened fire again. The ships around the ring station fired 190 missiles, and then, sometime later,Kybiq fired two salvos of thirty-two each and then cut its acceleration, giving up the race officially. The barrages were well-planned this time, each missile taking a separate track to converge on the Corona, from many different angles, within the space of about an hour. By the time they encountered the runaway frigate, they’d be traveling much faster than attacking missles had on the first day, and would be much more difficult to hit.

Martinez had over two days in which to plan his defenses. He, Kelly, Alikhan, and other technical-minded crew conferred, ran simulations, conferred again. Martinez began firing his defensive barrages when the missiles were five hours out, and the results simplified things when it came time to use the lasers.

By this time he was too tired to care much how it all turned out. The wild elation of the first day’s escape had faded beneath the relentless crush of gravity, and it seemed that death would be a release from weariness and the constant struggle simply to breathe. The display filled with a confusing overlay of explosions and clouds of deadly radiation. He and Kelly and anyone who felt qualified crewed one of the defensive lasers, with the rest turned to automatic: Corona was surrounded with its own spiderweb of light, each radial line terminating in an explosion. When in doubt, Martinez launched missiles.

The fight went on for hours while the Naxid missiles vanished one by one in sheets of flame and fountains of angry gamma rays. More missiles flew through the expanding, opaque clouds, and had to be located and destroyed.Corona’s powerful radars hammered out, trying to locate the dodging, weaving parcels of deadly antimatter. The missiles crept closer and closer. Countermissiles leaped off the rails. Lasers flashed in the darkness. Martinez fired, wiped sweat from his eyes, and sought wildly on the displays for another oncoming warhead, certain that he was missing something-but then he heard a tired whoop from Kelly, who was looking at him with a faded version of her once-brilliant smile, and he realized he’d won, that the missiles were finally gone and that he and theCorona were free.

He ordered the ship to decelerate to half a gravity and that a meal be served. He further ordered the spirit locker opened and gave everyone, even his three troublemakers, a shot of their favorite poison. They cheered him; wearily, but they cheered him. Exhausted pride glowed in his breast at the sound of their massed shouts.

There was no question of a recreational with Kelly: they were both too weary.

Fifteen days and four hours after departing Magaria station,Corona entered Magaria Wormhole 4 and made an instantaneous transit to the Paswal system. The frigate had twenty crew counting her lieutenant commandant, and thirty-one missiles left. She was traveling just short of twotenths of the speed of light, and could expect to dock at Zanshaa’s ring in about another month, depending on how hard Martinez wanted to press her acceleration and deceleration.

Right now he didn’t want to press anything. He sent his report via comm laser to the wormhole relay station on the far side of the system, showered himself clean, reduced gravity still further, to a tenth of a gee, and floated to sleep in his own bed for the first time since he’d stolenCorona, fifteen days ago on the Festival of Sport.