“Mom! Mommeee!” Janet shrieked. Iris had gone chalk-pale, her eyes full circles, and her panting was rapid and breathy.
“Meteor swarm, O sweet mercy of God, let it be a meteor swarm!” she whispered under her breath. Their stateroom was the first-class model, with a porthole. The light that stabbed through it into her eyes was like mocking laughter; there was only one thing in the human universe that made that actinic blue-white light, that spearhead-shaped scar across the stars. A nuclear pulsedrive.
“Shhh, shhh, Mommy’s here, darlings.” She used hands and voice and quieted them to whimpering by the time the reaction jets fired and the ship shuddered back to stability. Just in time, she found a moment to think. I’m feeling sick and Iris looks green. They were all on antinausea drugs, and it took some powerful tinkering with the inner ear to override those.
The Pathfinder drifted and steadied. Cindy looked out the port again, blinking against the afterimage of fire that strobed across her sight, against the tears of pain. Then she jammed her knuckles into her mouth and bit down, welcoming pain to beat down the stab of desperation, the whining sound that threatened to break free of her throat. The shape that drifted model-tiny there was familiar, very familiar from the lectures she had attended before signing on with the Project—she was the Commandant’s wife as well as a biologist. A Draka cruiser, the third-generation type. A Great Khan, and the only things in the solar system which could match it were a month’s journey away.
Cindy Lefarge felt the world graying away from the corners of her eyes, a rippling on her shin as the hairs struggled to stand erect. Bile shot into the back of her throat, acrid and stinging as she remembered other things from those lectures. No. A voice spoke in the back of her mind, a voice like her grandmother’s. Y’ got yore duty, gal, so do it! She had the children to protect.
“Jannie, Iris, listen to me.” The small faces turned toward her, pale blue eyes and freckles and the floating wisps of black hair. “You girls are going to have to be very brave for Mommy. Just like real grown-up people, so Daddy will be proud of you. This is really, really important, you understand?”
They looked up from where her arms cradled them against her shoulders. Iris nodded, swallowing and clenching trembling lips. Janet bobbed her head vigorously. “You bet, Mom,” she said. “I’m gonna be a soldier like Dad, someday. So I gotta be brave, right?”
She pulled them closer. Twin lights sparkled from the Draka cruiser, seeming to drift toward her and then rush apart in a V. She closed her eyes, waiting for the final wash of nuclear flame, but all that came was two deep-toned chunnng sounds. The Pathfinder jerked again, rotating so that the Domination warship was out of her view. The overhead speaker came to life with a series of gurgles and squawks, then settled into the voice of Captain Hayakawa; calm as ever, but a little tinny, as if he was speaking from inside a skinsuit helmet.
“Attention, please. We have been attacked by a Draka deep-space warship. The engines have been disabled, our communications are down, and the sail has been cut loose. The main passenger compartment has not been holed, I repeat, not been holed. Please remain calm, and stay in your cabins. This is the safest place for all civilians at the moment. Ceres and Earth will soon detect what has happened and SKREEKKKKAAWWK-” The noise built to an ear-hurting squeal and then died.
Cindy Guzman Lefarge bent her head over those of her children and prayed.
“Assault party ready,” the Centurion from Batu said.
Yolande nodded assent as she secured the straps on the last of her body armor. It was fairly light (weight didn’t matter here but mass certainly did), segmented sandwiches of ablative antiradar, optically perfect flexmirror, sapphire thread, synthetics. Not quite as much protection as the massive cermet stuff heavy infantry wore on dirtside, but easier to handle. She settled the helmet on her shoulders, checked the seal to the neck ring, and swiveled her eyes to read the various displays. She could slave them to the pickups in any warrior’s pack, call up information—the usual data overload.
The boarding commandos were grouped in Hangar B, the portside half of the chamber just below the nosecap of the cruiser. The Great Khans carried one eighty-tonne auxiliary, but it was stored in vacuum on the starboard, leaving B free as a workspace where systems could be brought up and overhauled in shirt-sleeve conditions. Both hangars connected with the big axial workway that ran through the center of the vessel right down to the thrust equalizers, nine-tenths the length of the ship. Now this one was crowded with the score of Draka who would put this particular piece of Yankeedom under the Yoke.
Her lips drew back behind the visor, and she slid her hand into the sleeve of the reaction gun clipped to her thigh. A faint translucent red bead sprang into being on the inside of her faceplate as she wrapped her fingers around the pistol grip, framed by aiming lines. The bulk of the chunky weapon lay rightside on her arm, connected to her backpack by an armored conduit. It was dual-purpose: a jet for short-range maneuvering and a weapon that fired glass-tungsten bullets and balanced them with a shower of plastic confetti backwards.
“Right,” she said, over the command push. “Listen, people.” There were certain things that had to be repeated, even with Citizen troops. “This is a raid; we want intelligence data, not bodies or loot. Go in, immobilize whoever you find, get theys up to the big compartment just rearward of the control deck. Then we’ll sweep up everythin’ of interest, and get out. Make it fast, make it clean, do not kill anyone lessen you have to, do not waste any time. Service to the State!”
“Glory to the Race!”
“Execute.” There was a prickling feeling all over her skin as the pressure in the hangar dropped; nothing between her flesh and vacuum but the layer of elastic material that kept her blood from boiling—except the woven superconductor radiation shield and the armor and the thermal layer and—oh, shut up, Yolande, she told herself. An eagerness awoke, like having her hands on the controls of a fighter back in the old days.
The pads inside her suit inflated. Combat-feeling: a little like being horny, a little like nausea, a lot like wanting to piss. The surroundings took on the bleak sharpness of vacuum, but she knew the unnatural clarity would be there even if there was air. Donar, I could have the suit monitor my bloodstream and tell me how hopped-up I am, she thought.
The Centurion’s voice. “By lochoi!”
Hers was first. “Follow me,” she said, taking a long shallow dive through the hangar door. Out into the access tunnel, three meters across, a geometric tube of blue striplights and handholds two hundred meters sternward of her feet. She pointed her reaction gun toward the open docking ring over her head and pressed once. Heated gas pulsed backward; she stopped herself with a reverse jolt at the exit and swung around to face the enemy ship, adjusting perception until it was below her. The dark, slug-dented surface of the control deck swam before her eyes, jiggling with the distance and magnification. She fixed the red aiming spot on the surface and reached across to key the reaction gun.
Locked strobed across her vision. “Slave your rgs to mine,” she told the others, crouching. It would adjust the thrust nozzle to compensate for any movement short of turning ninety degrees out of line, now. Yolande took a deep breath. “Let’s—go.”