Perfect, she thought. The Draka warships had drawn the Alliance craft on just enough; the enemy vessels were slightly faster than hers, and more nimble, but they were farther from base and so obliged to be sparing with their burns. A perfect matching-velocity flip, which meant they must pursue or quit, and pursue precisely in line with the Draka ships for fear of presenting a vulnerable flank. The asteroid was coming up rapidly; the fog of energetic particles around it negated her enemy’s superior sensors, too; she did not need to detect much, here.
“Distance,” she said.
“Two-hundred-twenty klicks. Transit of asteroid in seventy-one seconds, ten klicks clearage.” Just enough to avoid the worst of the fusion-bomb explosions.
Nothing for it but to wait; all the orders were given, the personnel ready. Sweat soaked into the permeable fabric of her skinsuit, under the armpits and down the flanks, chill in the moving air the ventilators sent across her body. Sixty seconds. Life or death decided in one minute; victory and glory, or eternal shame. Genius, or a goat. Which I wouldn’t be there to see. Bones of the White Christ, this sort of thing sounds better in retrospect. Adventure is somebody else in deep shit far, far away.
Fifty seconds. Snappdove had thought she was insane, for a while. Maybe I was. Dammit, they are pressing home their pursuit. The Alliance wanted to damage her; the only way to do it was to chase her cruisers off far enough that they could do a firing pass at the asteroid and its work force as they turned and fled themselves. A two-body problem with only one solution.
Ten. Five. The pursuers maintaining position with beautiful precision; those were good ships and well-trained crews. Three. Two. Past.
“Now!” she shouted, superfluously.
“DECELERATION,” the speakers sounded. It wrenched at her, throwing her forward against the combat cocoon. Reaction mass was being vented from the forward ports, run through the heat dumpers to vaporize. Not nearly so powerful as the drive, but enough to check their headlong flight. The main drives of the Alliance craft lit in a brief blossom of flame, just enough to match.
And the asteroid was turning. A mass of billions of tonnes is very difficult indeed to move out of its accustomed orbit; it had taken dozens of fusion weapons to spend that much energy. It is much easier to pivot such a mass about its center of gravity; while the hydrogen-bomb flare had hidden them, the cargo vessels had nestled their bows into holes excavated in the rock and ice of the asteroid’s crust. A cruiser could not have done it without self-destruction, but the haulers had been modified to act as pusher tugs at need. Now four drives flared, and the lumpy dark potato shape pivoted with elephantine delicacy. Toward Subotai’s pursuer, blinded by its own drive for the crucial seconds. Fusion blossomed behind the rock’s assigned stern, and the products of it washed out tens of kilometers; charged particles, gamma radiation striking metal and sleeting through as secondary radiation and heat. Through shielding, through the reaction-mass baffles around the command center; tripping relays, overloading circuits, ripping the nervous systems of the human crew as well.
“MANEUVER.” Subotai flipped end over end. “DECELERATION.” The main drive roared, a deeper thrumming note as it poured reaction mass onto the plate and spat out fission pellets at twice the normal rate. The cruiser slowed with a violence that stressed the frame to its limits, as if the ship were sinking into some yielding but elastic substance. Crippled, the Alliance vessel overshot. Weapons flashed out at ranges so short that response time was minimal, from both directions, for the wounded ship was not yet dead.
“Overheat, disperser three.”
“Gatling six not reporting.”
“Penetration! Pressure loss in reaction baffle nine.”
“Wotan, get that missile, get it, get it.” Rising tension, until the close-in gatlings sprayed the homing rocket’s path with high-velocity metal. It exploded in a flower of nuclear flame, and the radiation alarms shrilled.
Yolande felt the cruiser shake and tone around her, like a vast mechanical beast crying out in pain. Sectors flicked from green to amber to red on the screens; but the Alliance ship was suffering worse, its defenses shattered.
“Hit!” Railgun slugs sleeted into the Washington’s heat dispersers. “Hit!” Parasite bombs dropped away from the Subotai’s stern, into the neutron flux of the drive; their own small bomblets detonated, and the long metal bundles converted energy into X-ray laser spikes.
“She’s losing air,” the Sensor Officer reported. “Overheat in her reaction mass tanks—pressure burst—losing longitudinal stability—she’s tumbling!”
Lasers raked across the enemy; armor sublimed into vapor and the computers held the beams on, chewing deeper. The particle guns snapped; sparks flickered along the cartwheeling form of the Alliance cruiser. Then the exterior screens darkened.
“Something got through,” the Weapons Officer said softly, and consulted his screens. “Secondary effects . . . her fuel pellets just went.”
A cheer went through the Subotai, a moment’s savage howl of triumph.
“Stow that!” Yolande snapped. “Sensors, report.”
“The Bolivar’s breaking and runnin’ fo’ it, ma’am.” Only sensible; with two ships to her one, the Draka could bracket and overwhelm her.
“Damage Control?”
“Ship fully functional. Missin’ one gatling turret. Three dead, seven injured.” Yolande winced inwardly. Shit. “Slow leaks in two sectors of the reaction mass tank. Seventy-one percent nominal. Drive full, remainder weapons systems full.”
“Number Two, shape fo’ pursuit.” There was a momentary pause in the drive, and it resumed at normal high-burn rates. Stars crawled across the screens as the attitude jets adjusted their bearing. “If Bolivar gets back within the orbit of Luna, they’ll do it with dry tanks an’ scratches on that shiny new thrust plate.” A pulsedrive ship could move on fuel pellets alone; the first generation had, using vaporized graphite from the lining of the plate as reaction mass. It was neither recommended, good for the frame, nor safe.
“Oh, and all hands,” she said, switching to the command push, “well done.”
Chapter Fifteen
SPIN HABITAT SEVEN, CENTRAL BELT
BETWEEN THE ORBITS OF MARS AND JUPITER
JANUARY 4, 1983
Habitat Seven was the latest and largest of the Project’s constructs, half a kilometer across and two long; nickel-iron was cheap, and easy to work with big enough mirrors. Now the former lump of metal-rich rock was a spinning tube, closed at either end, with a glowing cylinder of woven glass filament running down its center. There was atmosphere inside, and part of the inner surface had already been transformed; gravity was .5 G, as much as was practical or necessary. Grass grew in squares of nutrient-rich dust, and hopeful flowers. Individual houses were going up, foamed rock poured into molds; there were dozens of different floor plans.