“The captain would wish to be avenged! You cannot tell me where his slayers lie. Globin cannot tell me where they lie! Here I stay, till they come, or death does!”
Globin stepped up behind Throb. “How has he done this?”
Throb whirled, and there was the faintest ghost of relief in his eyes before pride masked it. But he did not say, “Thank the gods,” or “You have come!”–all he said was, “He is a captain, and one of the lieutenants. Who could say him nay if he took his own ship and sped? The captain is gone.”
Globin could have said something about the Council, but it would have been worthless–the Khalia were fiercely independent; only their personal loyalty to Goodheart had kept them disciplined. They were feudal; the liegeman’s bond was everything. Without it, there was no cohesion.
So Globin said none of that; he only asked, “Where is he?”
“On a line between Khalia and the coordinates from which the captain’s death signal came.” Throb took a breath, then said, “I have persuaded, I have worked upon his fellow-feelings, his duty to his crew, to us! He will not be moved.”
Globin nodded. “You have appealed to his emotions. You wish me to appeal to his reason.”
“Yes, such of it as he has left! Globin, make him see his folly!”
Globin frowned, and moved slightly to the side, into the video’s pickup field. “Why, Hemo?”
Aboard the pirate ship Hemo saw Globin’s form behind Throb’s, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. “You ask me this, human? You, whose race slew my captain?”
“I denounce them as cowards,” Globin said without hesitation. “Hemo, why?”
The Khalian glared at him, then growled, “There were Merchant agents among the Khalia, were there not? And ships must have come to bring new ones among them, to contact them, to take them away for reassignment.”
“True. But they are gone. The Merchants called all their agents back when Khalia fell.”
“Fool!” Hemo raged. “Can you truly believe that? Can you think that the vile traitors did not leave a few of their kind, to infiltrate your own bloody Fleet and suborn whom they could?”
Globin was still, eyes glazing in that look Hemo knew so well, the look of sudden, total concentration on an idea. He nearly spat with contempt–any warrior who let his mind wander so would die in an instant.
Throb saw that, too. On the screen he urged, “It is nonsense, Globin. How could they hope to succeed?”
“By deception,” the human answered slowly. “In this much, Hemo makes sense.”
Hemo felt a surge of glee that Globin supported his idea–and hated himself for it.
But the human was stepping closer to the camera, frowning. “Yet those who would have stayed would have been volunteers for death. They would have known that their Merchant leaders could not come to fetch them–it would be death, with the Fleet convoy around Khalia. Hemo, the idea is well founded, and we will find a way to lead the Fleet to examine their own, to discover the traitors—but the Merchants will not come again to Khalia. You waste time, you waste fuel and air. Come back.”
“You would deter me from our only chance at revenge?” Hemo screamed. “Do not speak to me, traitor! Do not seek to weaken the resolve of a . . .”
Off the screen an alarm hooted.
Hemo whirled about. His sentry was pointing at the display and shrilling, “Enemies! They come!”
“Accelerate toward them! Battle stations, all! Prepare to launch torpedoes, prepare laser cannon!” Then Hemo turned to the signalman. “Route all sensor output into the transmission link to Barataria!”
The signalman hesitated. “The enemy will trace us by them, Lieutenant–and Barataria with us.“
“They cannot–we have the new communications system that the Merchants cannot detect!” The signalman still hesitated, so Hemo said it though it galled him: “Globin made it! Signals, use it!”
In Barataria the screen suddenly divided into quarters, one showing the view of space as seen from Hemo’s bridge, one showing a polar projection of the area of space comprising the enemy ships and his own, a third showing an ecliptic projection, all four ships edge-on–and the largest showing Hemo’s gloating face, spinning to grin at them. “Look and see! Will not come, will they? Wastrel, am I? Now comes revenge!” With a savage gesture he turned to howl commands. “Torpedoes, fire when we near maximum range! Battery one, fire at medium range!”
“There are three of them,” the sentry reported.
On the screen Globin and Throb saw the single blip of the Merchantman divide into three. The space view jumped, and jumped again, until the ships were visible across the kilometers, reflecting starlight. The view jumped again, singling out one enemy as it sheered to the side, momentarily in profile . . .
“It is the same!” Hemo crowed. “Their silhouette, it is the same as that of the ships that slew the captain! They are Merchantmen indeed!”
“Record,” Throb snapped to the signalman, suddenly remembering the values of propaganda.
“Recording already, since the alarm,” the technician answered.
“They’re surrounding him,” Globin said, voice low and tense.
On the screen, two of the Merchantmen had shot out to the side. Disregarding them, Hemo hurtled head-on toward the central ship–and the other two pulled in behind and to either side.
“They surround you, Hemo!” Throb shouted.
“Battery one, fire at the nearest!” Hemo sang. “Battery two, fire to starboard!”
Beams of ruby light stabbed out from each side of the pirate ship, to coruscate against the Merchantmen’s shields. A yellow ray lanced out from its nose, toward the central Merchant ship–yellow, to show a torpedo. But a red pencil from the central ship touched the yellow line, and fire burst where the two lines intersected.
“Torpedo destroyed,” reported the forward fire control. “Fire two!” Hemo answered.
Then the ruby beam from the forward ship lanced out past the explosion, to lick wildfire across Hemo’s forward screens. Scarlet rays shot out from each of the flanking ships, englobing the pirate.
“Hemo, no!” Throb moaned. “They will overload your screens, they will roast you!”
But the pirate ship shot to the side, then upward, and the ruby beams winked out, for fear of hitting one another. They realigned instantly, catching Hemo again–then winked out again as he moved, then began to blink as the pirate ship danced in a wild and unpredictable dervish whirl, now here, now there–and always, always, lancing back at its enemies with fire and torpedo. Golden bursts showered the enemy’s screens; lances of fire kept them glowing.
“He will explode his reactor, he will empty his batteries!” Throb groaned. “For he cannot keep up this mad dance forever! He will empty his arsenal, he will be void of torpedoes! He must withdraw!”
“He cannot,” Serum said simply.
And the Merchantmen were beginning to close in. Closer and closer they came, tightening the circle in which Hemo’s ship danced, desperate and maddening. The ruby beams became shorter, shorter . . .
But their screens glowed more brightly, for each of Herne’s bolts loaded them more heavily.
Then, suddenly, the central Merchantman shot forward in a ramming rush. At the same moment the two side ships stabbed simultaneous lances of light.
“Up!” Hemo barked. “Rotate!”
The cruiser spun end for end, and the ecliptic display showed it suddenly high above the plane in which the three Merchantmen tightened their noose–
And on the polar display, two ruby lances found each other.
“Well done!” Throb cried. “Oh, well done! He maneuvered them so that they were in line, and knew it not! Oh, well done!”
“How brave,” Globin whispered. “How valiant.” He felt humbled by Hemo’s daring, his contempt of death–almost, his yearning for it.