Crossways (15 page)

“Damn!” Ben made a course adjustment toward the cruiser.

“What?” Cara said. That thing had ten times their firepower.

“That's our platinum down there,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “We lose Olyanda to the Trust and it's going to take forever to pay off all those loans. I've got an idea to help even the odds. Prepare to jump to foldspace.”

“We're still in Olyanda's upper atmosphere.” Kitty's voice rose to a squeak.

“How long to the missiles, Cara?” Ben asked.

“One minute fifty.”

Cara broadcast a shipwide alert.
*Prepare for foldspace. It's going to be a rocky transition. Strap in or hold on tight.*

Ben cranked up the jump drive.

“One minute ten.”

“Nearly there,” Ben said.

The cruiser loomed closer.

“Ah, gotcha.” Ben fixed his eyes on the forward screen. “Gwala, stand by, punch us a passage through the gnats. Yan, what's the range on that cruiser?”

“Seventy klicks.”

“I want to get close enough to kiss her.”

Oh, shit
. Cara realized what Ben was trying to do. They'd sucked the missile into foldspace, now Ben was going to try and take out a cruiser by doing the same. It would even up the numbers for the Crossways fleet and give them a chance of holding out until the reinforcements arrived, but it might wreck
Solar Wind
in the process.

*Ben—*

He looked perfectly calm, perfectly focused. He flicked a glance in her direction and gave her a tight half-nod. Nothing else betrayed his emotions.

She cleared her throat to try and steady her voice. “Thirty-five seconds.”

“Thirty klicks,” Yan said.

Oleg Staple's broadcast cut in.
*
Solar Wind
I've got missiles launching on your tail in thirty, twenty-five, twenty . . . *

*Thanks, Staple, trying to do you a favor as we leave,*
Ben said.
*Stand by.*

“Ten klicks,” Yan said.

“Ten seconds to missile launch,” Cara said. *Five. Three. Two. Missiles away.*

“Close enough.”

Ben slammed open the jump drive and they seemed to collapse sideways, sucked through a space that was too small.

“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. Trust cruiser
Simonides
, Captain James Duran requesting assistance.”

A ship's distress beacon flashes a message on the forward screen at the same time as the audio message overrides normal comms.

Ben has successfully dragged the cruiser through into the Folds with them. Drawing them away from the battle is Ben's primary objective. He doesn't want to kill the crew, but without a gate beacon to latch onto they'll never be able to find a way out of the Folds. How many on board?

Friends or enemies, you never leave anyone to die in space if there is an option.

“Captain Duran, stand by.” Cara opens up the comm link both ways, almost surprised that it operates so well in foldspace. There's hardly any lag at all, half a second maybe.

She looks toward Ben.

He shrugs, nods and touches the vox control on his collar. “
Simonides
, Captain Duran, this is Ben Benjamin of the
Solar Wind
.”

“Benjamin. What happened?”

“You got caught in our jump drive wake, Duran. Sorry about that.”

“Like hell you are.”

“Well, you were trying to kill us.”

“You've got me there.”

“Have you got a Psi-1 Navigator on board?” Ben asks.

“Negative. Psi-3. Do you?”

“Affirmative.” Ben smiles. “Stand by and we'll try and hook you up to a gate beacon.”

There's a pause. “Thanks, Benjamin.”

Ben switches off his vox and looks up. “How long since we entered foldspace?”

“Subjective time four minutes,” Kitty answers.

“Yan, take the helm while I search for a nav beacon. Just hold her steady.”

“You do know where we are, right, Boss?” Yan asks.

“Sure, we're between here and there. It's where we'll end up that we need to know.”

Ben reaches out with his senses. He can feel the tides of foldspace. Things are moving out there, sliding between the eddies, but there's no jump gate beacon within reach. The Folds are never the same twice and any vessel entering by a jump gate usually has a choice of two or three different exit points. They've not only come in via the
Solar Wind
's jump drive, but they've entered from within Olyanda's upper atmosphere, something not technically possible, or at least not desirable unless you have a death wish.

When he opens his eyes, Ben realizes everyone is staring at him, but it's nothing to do with the swarm of void creatures that have gathered around his head. He doubts that they're visible to anyone else.

He shivers. “How long now, Cara?”

“Five minutes thirty.”

He nods. The longer they stay in the Folds the less chance they have of coming out the other side. He can get
Solar Wind
out right now, but only by leaving Duran and the
Simonides
behind. Ships have been lost in the Folds before. It's an occupational hazard of flying the vast deeps but . . . not on his watch, not if he can help it.

He taps his vox and opens up the comms channel to the
Simonides
again. “Duran.”

“Benjamin, where are you? Our instruments are showing . . . things swimming about out there as well as in here. I think it's only illusion but . . . Hell, what was that?”

The conversation turns chaotic as something happens on the
Simonides'
flight deck to interrupt Duran's calm.

“There is something out there, Benjamin. Can't you feel it?”

“There's always something out there. The trick is not to let it see that you've noticed. Don't draw its attention.”

Whether it's real or not, a Navigator learns to ignore it lest it take too keen an interest in the intruding ship.

“Have you found us a gate beacon?” Duran asks.

“No. There isn't one.”

“You can't just leave us . . .”

“I don't intend to,” Ben says. “Maintain your course. I'm going to swing you out on our coattails like I brought you in.”

“You must be mad. You can't maneuver that closely in here. You'll kill us all. We should abandon ship and try and shuttle our crew across to you.”

“Without a Psi-1 Navigator? You'd be lost as soon as you launched. You'd rather we left you?”

“No. Please, no.”

“Keep steady then.”

Ben takes over the ship from Yan. To be honest, he's not sure he can do it, but he has to try. He can't imagine a worse way to die, cut off from all hope of assistance until the ship's life support fails. It could take weeks or months or even years, but no one would ever come to the rescue and eventually everything would break down and people would die like his parents had died.

“What's happening up there?” Captain Tengue asks. “It's like the seventh layer of hell down here. There are . . . things. Are we getting out of the Folds any time soon?”

“Soon enough,” Ben says, shaking his head at Gwala. “Stand by.”

“You know what you're doing, right?” Cara asks.

“I hope so,” he says.

Cara's nails cut into the palms of her hands. Either this move will always be remembered as the Benjamin Maneuver or both ships will be scattered to atoms in the next minute and a half.

“What's happening up there?” Tengue asks again from the hold, his voice harsh.

“You really don't want to know, Cap,” Gwala answers, his eyes showing too much white.

“Benjamin!” Tengue tries to get Ben's attention.

“Not now!” Cara cuts in. “Give him some space.” She severs Tengue's audio connection to the flight deck.

Ben pulls up the holographic nav screen, not entirely reliable in the Folds, but a rough indication of how close the two ships are. Cara's screen mirrors it.

“How close do you need to be?” she asks.

“Maybe three klicks, but to be safe, less than one. If I don't get him on the first go there won't be a second chance. Watch that blip on the screen. Call time and distance as you see it.”

“Six minutes forty-five. Fifty-two klicks and closing.”

Ben makes a slight adjustment to their course.

“Seven minutes, ten. Thirty-eight klicks and closing.”

“Seven minutes thirty. Fifteen klicks and holding.”

“We're much closer than fifteen klicks by the feel of it,” Ben says.

“What?”

“We're too damn close. The instruments are wrong.”

“Pull out, Boss,” Kitty squeaks.

“Hold your nerve. We need to be kissing close.” Ben grins, but the mirth doesn't reach his eyes despite his flash of white teeth. “Fucking close, in fact.”

“Remember the missile.” He makes another slight adjustment. “Here we go!”

The prow of the
Solar Wind
nudges the
Simonides
amidships, but instead of the shudder of hull on hull the
Solar Wind
cleaves cleanly through the other ship like a hot knife through butter. For a frozen moment the
Simonides'
bridge appears on the
Solar Wind
's flight deck like a hologram. The two ships slide through and past each other as if neither is solid, each a ghost to the other. Ben and Duran come face-to-face and Duran's expression is a mask of horror, but he pulls himself together and salutes. Ben nods an acknowledgment. Then they are past and the
Solar Wind
is coming out the other side as Ben fires up the jump drive and roars out into real space.

“So that's the Benjamin Maneuver,” Cara said, fighting off a wave of dizziness.

“Huh?” Ben looked gray.

“I'll tell you later. It's better than the other scenario I had in mind.”

She opened up communications and winced at the onslaught of protests from the mercs and questions from Ronan in the med bay.

“Time?” Ben asked.

“Seven minutes in the Folds and . . .” She checked and
checked again, hardly believing. “Ten hours twenty-four minutes elapsed time in realspace.”

“A ratio of one to something close on eighty-nine. Highest yet,” he said. “Log it.”

How did he work it out so fast?

“Where's Kitty?” Cara counted heads.

“You are one crazy son-of-a-bitch, Benjamin,” Gwala said.

“Let's see if I'm crazy enough. Cara, did we bring her out?”

“Captain Duran?” Cara broadcast.

“Safe in realspace. Did we dream that?”

“If you did, so did we,” Ben said. “I've had a theory about foldspace for a while, never got to test it quite so intimately before.”

“Ben, where's Kitty?” Cara asked.
*Kitty?*

*Here!*
Kitty Keely replied.

*Where?*

*On the
Simonides
. I got scooped up when the two ships merged and here I am.*