“We’re tracking a number of slow-moving spacecraft that seem to have left Phobos before the main attack commenced.”
“Why?” asked Cassandra. “Were you thinking of anyone in particular?”
“I had a friend…” Auger said, faltering. “I didn’t really know her very well, but I want to believe she got away in time.”
“I’m afraid I can’t offer any guarantees,” Cassandra said. Perhaps reading something in her face, she continued, “However, it seems at least plausible that some people—”
“There’s a good chance she made it,” Tunguska said.
“Never mind,” Auger said. The last thing she needed right now was empty reassurance. She would just have to hope that Skellsgard had been on one of those early ships. “Just give me a straight answer to my next question. Who’s winning?”
“If you don’t mind,” Tunguska said, addressing Cassandra, “I really need to focus on the task in hand, or the answer to her question is not going to be one we’d all wish for.” He nodded at Floyd and Auger. “It was nice to meet you. I hope you both make it home safely.”
He turned his head back to face the table and closed his eyes.
“I’ll answer your question,” Cassandra said. “There is no clear outcome in sight. If it was a straight contest between Polity and Thresher assets, there’d be little doubt of victory for the Polities, at least around Mars. But the moderates are siding with the Threshers. So far, that’s evening things out.”
“Then let’s hope things reach a stalemate,” Auger said.
Floyd, standing beside her, had said nothing so far. But he still nodded, evidently sharing her concern.
Cassandra shook her head. “Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. The moderates have deployed all their assets into the inner system, but the aggressors still have forces in reserve. They’re on high-burn approaches even as we speak.”
“But this is insane,” Auger said. “They might have the military strength to take Mars from us, and they might even have the means to capture Tanglewood and the rest of the inner system. But the moderates won’t let them do that without a fight, and they still have that little scorched-earth problem to worry about.”
“What scorched-earth problem?” Floyd asked.
“My side ringed Earth with bombs,” Auger said. “Insurance against the Slashers trying to take it out of our hands again.”
“You mean you’d blow up the planet rather than let someone else have it?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“I hate to tell you this, Auger, but you’re all as crazy as each other.”
“Bet you’re sorry you signed up for this now, aren’t you, Floyd?” Not waiting for his answer, Auger turned back to Cassandra. “Where are we in this sorry little mess?”
“Oh, we’re nowhere near Mars now,” the girl said. “We’ve been on our own high-burn trajectory ever since we snatched you out of the atmosphere.”
Another icon dropped into the image, about halfway between Mars and Earth, which were both situated on the same side of the Sun.
“That’s us?”
“That’s us,” Cassandra confirmed. “Maintaining a high-burn trajectory, with a second ship just behind us.”
“A high-burn trajectory?” Auger shook her head. “It doesn’t even feel as if we’re moving.”
“Trust me, we’re moving. We’re also executing some rather violent evasive patterns.”
Something wasn’t right. Auger had heard many things about the Slashers’ advanced technology, but she had never heard that they had developed the means to nullify acceleration. Perhaps they were even further ahead of the USNE than intelligence had ever suggested.
“What do you know about this second ship?” she asked.
“We think it might be one of Niagara’s allies, or possibly the man himself. It’s a Polity design, part of the original concentration of aggressor elements. It may be responding to Caliskan’s signal from Tanglewood.”
“We have to get to him first,” Auger said.
“That’s more or less the idea,” Cassandra replied laconically. “We’d be there in eight hours under optimum conditions. Unfortunately, the ship behind us is doing its best to make life difficult. These violent evasive manoeuvres are costing us time and engine fatigue.”
“Maybe I’m missing something,” Auger said, “but I don’t feel any violent evasive manoeuvres.”
“Mm.” Cassandra said thoughtfully. “There’s something you need to see, I think.”
“What?”
Cassandra led them across the chamber and opened a door into another corridor. A little way along, she stopped at a smooth expanse of convex walling and created an observation window. “I may as well show you something else on the way. Apart from the two of you, there are eighteen other casualties on this ship.”
Auger brightened, remembering Skellsgard. Perhaps she was safe after all, despite Cassandra’s doubts. “Refugees from Phobos?”
“Not directly, no. I’m sorry—I know you want good news about your friend, and I would give it to you if I could.”
The observation window overlooked a large interior chamber. Cassandra made the lights come on, revealing the stubby, streamlined form of a Thresher-manufactured spacecraft: the kind that could skim in and out of an atmosphere and land on a planetary surface, such as Mars or Titan, or on one of the high-altitude landing towers on Venus. It was about twenty metres in length, just small enough to fit into the bay. The shuttle had bulky thrust nacelles and bulging insectile undercarriage pods; against the scorched white skin, Auger could make out a green flying horse logo near the black heat-absorbent panelling of the nose.
“That’s a Pegasus Intersolar ship,” she said.
“Yes,” Cassandra said. “As a matter of fact, it’s a transatmospheric shuttle from the liner Twentieth Century Limited.”
The ship was braced into the chamber on enormous shock-absorbing pistons, gripping it from all angles. Even as Auger watched, the ship lurched one way and then another, as if subject to immense lateral forces. “I took the Twentieth to Phobos,” she said, feeling slightly seasick. “What’s one of its shuttles doing here?”
“The liner was hijacked. Hostile ships made rendezvous and hard docking beyond reach of systemwide law enforcement.”
“Slasher forces?”
“Not obviously so. According to eyewitnesses, they behaved just like your run-of-the-mill extralegal agents. Pirates, in other words. Luckily, the liner was running at nowhere near maximum capacity. There was room for most of the passengers and crew to escape on shuttles.”
“And the pirates just let them go?” Auger asked incredulously.
“They had nothing to gain by butchering those on board. There wasn’t enough room for everyone on the shuttles, and some of the crew elected to remain aboard. They were allowed into a secure compartment with life-support capability and provisions. That’s where the ones who stayed aboard were all found, when the Twentieth drifted within reach of Thresher police.”
Auger thought she had misheard her. “Drifted?”
“She had been gutted,” Cassandra said. “Stripped of her entire drive assembly.”
“That’s insane.”
“Oh, there was some attempt to dress up the piracy as being for the usual reasons,” she said, “but it was all cover, really. The main thing they were after was the drive core.”
“But why would anyone want the drive core of an old junkheap like the Twentieth? The Slashers will happily sell anyone a more efficient engine, provided they stump up the costs.”
“That’s precisely what bothered me,” Cassandra said. “The entire operation to steal the Twentieth’s engine must have been quite expensive in its own right. Several ships had to make that rendezvous, including one large enough to contain the entire drive assembly. It’s not the sort of thing you dismantle.”