A Dark and Hungry God Arises (63 page)

'Come on!'

'Mikka. ' Sib sounded calm, almost resigned. He'd worn out his fear. Two minutes or twenty, it doesn't make any difference. We can't outrun those guns. Even if we reach the ship - even if we get aboard. One hit will crumple her like an empty canister. '

He looked back toward the lift bunker, then returned his gaze to the warship. 'I wish Angus was here. I would like to hear him tell us why he thought this was ever going to work. '

'I don't care!' Mikka cried. 'You can't just stand here and watch yourself die! You've got to at least run!

'I promised Pup I was coming back!'

Wheeling away, she sprinted over the stones in the direction of the docks and Trumpet.

Nick went on peering upward as if he thought he should be able to see his ship somewhere.

'Morn, are you there?'

The voice in her helmet sounded like Angus'. But it couldn't be; he was gone; and anyway it was too young for Angus, too scared.

'I heard Nick. I heard Mikka and Sib. Are you with them? Where are you?

'Morn, where are you?'

Davies.

He was nearby - within reach of her suit's receiver.

Angus had told her the truth.

She'd believed that she would never see her son again.

Now he was about to be killed. Like Sib and Mikka and Nick, like Morn herself, he would be hammered to pulp among the rocks. Then the rocks would melt in the after-heat of the blast, and the pulp would burn down to ash and cinders until it fused with the stone.

'Jets, ' she panted. 'The jets. ' Her hands and legs came under her as if they were in someone else's control; she tottered upright. 'They're faster. It's worth a try. '

Slapping at her chestplate, she activated the jet harness.

The first burst of compressed gas lifted her in a long bound past Sib. One careful cock of her hips; another burst: restrained only by g, she vaulted to Mikka's side just as Mikka activated her own jets and sprang ahead.

But Sib wasn't coming.

'Wait, ' he muttered distantly. 'I don't know how to use these things. I can't handle them. '

Morn turned to help him -

Davies, I'm sorry!

- turned in time to see a piece of the void catch fire.

It was too sudden to be understood: the synapses of her brain couldn't keep up with it. Nevertheless training and experience identified what was happening as she witnessed it.

Two separate cannon blazed almost simultaneously —

guns from different ships. The first burned toward the source of the second: it hit, spewing coruscation like a solar flare; emissions on every conceivable wavelength. If Thanatos Minor had possessed an atmosphere, the concussion might have deafened her.

At nearly the same instant the second cannon drove a lance of light-constant destruction down on Tranquil Hegemony.

That blast reached Morn: it rolled through the rock, staggering her. A noiseless visceral shriek poured off Tranquil Hegemony's sides as if the ship were dying; as if she were being scorched alive.

The heavens went immediately black; the void engulfed the embattled ships. But Tranquil Hegemony remained visible in the glare of the arc lamps and the glow of her own running lights.

The first shot must have affected the targ of the second by some small fraction of a degree. Tranquil Hegemony hadn't suffered a direct hit. One bulging section of her side had been torn open: the shriek was the tangible tremor of escaping atmosphere commingled with warning sirens, battle klaxons, and the automatic yowl of interior seals. She was hurt; badly hurt.

Yet Morn knew at a glance that the warship hadn't been crippled. She may still have been space-worthy: she was certainly capable of firing her guns.

After faltering for a few seconds, her searchlights stopped quartering the surface and swept away to focus like targeting lasers on Trumpet.

Without warning Nick began to howl:

'You bitch!'

'Morn!' Davies' voice rang in her ears. 'Are you there?'

'Yes. ' She could hardly force herself to speak; her voice scraped from her throat like a wounded thing. We're coming. '

'That must have been Liete, ' Mikka gasped. 'Goddamn it, how could she miss? Even Simper can run targ better than that. Malda could do it in her sleep!'

'Captain's Fancy was hit, ' Sib breathed thinly. 'I saw it.

That must be what went wrong. '

'Take cover. ' Morn did her best to make Davies hear her. 'I don't know where. Not on Trumpet. They're going to pulverize her as soon as damage control seals that hole and re-routes their systems. Try one of the empty berths.

Maybe you can find an access hatch and get inside. '

'Morn, there's no point. ' She recognized Vector easily.

'It'll be like trying to take cover on a battlefield. Operations was ready to kill us before all this started. Now they've lost communications. They're desperate in there.

They'll ash anything that moves first, and wonder what it was later. '

In spite of what he'd just said, she could tell that he was smiling as he added, 'Still, it's nice to hear your voice. '

Nick had stopped howling, but he didn't move. Rigid with fury or despair, he faced the dark heavens and remained motionless, gripping his fists at his sides.

'Come on, ' Mikka breathed into her pickup. 'Even if I'm as good as dead, I want to keep my promises. '

In a gust of compressed gas, she headed toward the docks and Trumpet.

Morn made no effort to get Nick's attention. Let him stand there until his ship turned cold and came apart.

There was nothing she could do for him - and she wouldn't have done it if there had been. He still had her zone implant control.

Instead she went to help Sib manage his jets.

She didn't need to hurry now: she knew that. She would die when Tranquil Hegemony was ready to kill her.

Nothing could change that. Nevertheless she wanted to get as far as possible from the warship and everything Amnion; she wanted to stand beside her son, and the few people who had taken pity on her, when she died.

Mikka had already reached the concrete by the time Morn got Sib moving. Riding their jets, she and the data first left Nick behind. As if they were alone on the rock

- as if they were ghosts with nothing left to trouble them

- they let the hiss of compressed gas carry them toward Trumpet. Sib had dropped his handgun; after a moment Morn realized that she'd lost her rifle somewhere. But they didn't need weapons anymore. Like Mikka ahead of them, they took no notice of the possibility that the Bill or even the Amnion might send guards out after them.

That danger had ceased to have any meaning.

Once she paused to look back at Nick. Small and slumped against the looming bulk of Tranquil Hegemony, he'd broken out of his rictus and was moving slowly away from the warship. Maybe he, too, had decided he didn't want to be alone when he died.

After she and Sib gained the concrete, they were able to travel more quickly. As his handling of his jets improved, he began to skim forward as if he were skipping. With a shrug and a ghost's smile, she scudded beside him. When she died, she would be free, at last and forever.

No doubt Tranquil Hegemony was holding fire until the Amnion could be sure they would hit all their targets with one blast. Skimming and prancing like lunatic children, Morn and Sib crossed the arc-lit docks until they were close enough to see Mikka and three other people illuminated by searchlights in front of a Needle-class gap scout which must have been Trumpet.

She deactivated her jets and slowed to a walk. A step or two later, Sib did the same.

'Morn?' Davies asked. He sounded plaintive; scarcely able to believe that she was there. 'Morn?'

She didn't know which of the four he was: she was still too far away to recognize individuals through the polarization of their faceplates. She raised a hand to identify herself. When he also raised his hand, she smiled quietly, even though he couldn't see it.

'Why don't they get it over with?' Pup muttered tightly. 'What are they waiting for?'

No one answered him.

As if she were at peace, Morn turned to watch Tranquil Hegemony kill them all.

From a distance of at least three k, the warship looked smaller; less fatal. Morn could no longer distinguish the gunports: she could barely see the guns themselves. If her faceplate hadn't protected her from the stabbing intensity of the searchlights, she wouldn't have been able to see the ship at all. Nevertheless the range was trivial for matter cannon. Even badly designed guns wouldn't suffer enough dispersion to weaken their impact for several thousand k - and nothing the Amnion made was badly designed.

At least a thousand meters away across the concrete, Nick also had turned to watch. Some intuition must have warned him to look back at the charged shape of the warship.

Like Morn, he must have seen the flame of thrust like a torch in the void.

At once he began to howl again as if his heart were being torn out.

Suddenly the searchlights cut off. For an instant the changed illumination confused Morn's vision. Through the residual incandescence, she thought she saw Tranquil Hegemony's guns wheel in their ports, fighting to re-orient themselves.

The torch overhead grew longer, plunging like a comet.

Mis-aimed and useless, lasers from the warship's sides emblazoned the heavens. She'd been taken too much by surprise. And she was already hurt. She couldn't defend herself.

At the last second Mikka cried frantically, 'Liete!'

Thrust flaming, Captain's Fancy came down like a scream out of the deep dark. Lasers caught up with her before she hit, but they were too late. Truer than her own targ, she sledgehammered straight into the center of the damaged warship.

Without transition both vessels were transformed from poised, rigid metal to pure fire and brisance.

Morn lost sight of the cataclysm momentarily: she was falling and couldn't look. The uncontained detonation of Captain's Fancy's drive and Tranquil Hegemony's weapons sent a shock-wave through the rock and the concrete as if they were water. Stone shattered; concrete cracked and buckled like ice; the surface under Morn bucked so hard that she stumbled to her knees. Arc lamps fizzled and spat; some of them died. Steam plumed from wounds like volcanic vents in Billingate's structural integrity.

By the time she lurched back to her feet, Captain's Fancy and Tranquil Hegemony had collapsed into each other. Visual echoes of flame streaked the dark, but the fire itself died rapidly as its energy and the vacuum devoured the last of the spilled oxygen.

Nick was closer to the point of impact: the shock-wave had knocked him flat on his back. Except for the palpable grinding of concrete as it settled into new shapes, there was no sound anywhere but the prolonged outcry of his anguish.

Then Mikka sighed, 'Oh, Liete.' Tears filled her voice; but Morn couldn't tell whether they were tears of relief or loss.

'Come on,' Sib murmured. He plucked at Morn's arm, touched Mikka's shoulder. 'Let's go aboard. We still have to get out of here somehow.'

Finally Nick's protest choked away into silence.

Instead of moving toward the ship, Mikka went to her brother and wrapped her arms around him fiercely.

'Sib's right.' Vector spoke in tense bursts, as if he had difficulty breathing. 'Calm Horizons is still out there.

So is Soar. And the Bill - probably isn't feeling very charitable. They won't want to let us get away with this.'

Left-over flame seemed to echo in Morn's head. She feared that if she tried to move she would lose her balance again. Captain's Fancy was gone: nothing remained of the place where she'd abandoned herself to Nick, perfected her zone implant addiction and fought for her son's life except twisted metal and ruin. Liete Corregio, Pastille, Simper, Alba Parmute, Carmel, Karster, Lind -

the dead were too many to be numbered. At last she understood that it was all too expensive. This terrible expenditure of lives and pain had to stop.

'She's Angus' ship,' she breathed like a memory of fire.

'But he put Mikka in command, ' Sib said as if that changed everything.

Mikka, Morn thought, not Nick. Angus hadn't given her away again. He was still himself enough to distrust Nick.

When she turned, she found Davies beside her.

'Where is he?' her son asked. 'Is he coming back?'

'I don't know. ' If she could have forgotten the blaze and concussion of impact, she might have wept. 'He broke into my cell. ' He gave me a weapon, but I lost it.

Then he went somewhere. '

'He's going to rejoin us if he can. ' Mikka's tone was harsh; as guttural as a groan. Scourging herself into motion, she let go of Pup and faced Morn. 'He set a time-limit. If he isn't back by then, we're supposed to leave without him.

'Come on. ' She gestured stiffly toward Trumpet. 'Let's see if we can keep his ship in one piece until his time runs out. '

Through his faceplate, Morn saw Davies nod grimly.

With her vision distorted by polarization, she couldn't tell the difference between him and his father.

Pulling Pup after him, Vector went first. His suit didn't disguise the arthritic stiffness of his movements; his joints must have hurt acutely as he climbed the handgrips up Trumpet's side. When he rounded the curve, Sib and then Mikka followed; Morn and Davies brought up the rear.

From the elevation of the airlock, Morn looked across the docks to see what Nick was doing.

He'd regained his feet; turned his back on the charred wreck of his ship. Alone and awkward across the riven concrete, he picked his way toward Trumpet. Every step was slow - even from this distance, he appeared to be in pain - but he came steadily, carrying his loss like a pallbearer.

Distinctly Davies said, 'This is our chance to get rid of him. We can seal him out. Let the Bill have him - if he can find his way inside. '

Seal him out —

A pain of her own twisted around Morn's heart. Like Angus, Nick had done things to her which she would never forgive. And he had her black box.

Coming to help her had been Angus' idea, not Nick's.