Rimrunners (41 page)

And after a few seconds: "We copy forty—" . She cut back to channel B on manual,

said to Fitch, "Just dropped into Fleet-com. They're 'lagged from each other,

they're moving."

On the retreat. Fast.

Standard ops. Rider-captain's standing orders, always—cover your carrier. If a

situation goes to hell, tac-squads are on their own, cover your carrier—

No way out for them now. They're trapped. They know it. Carrier's stuck in

system.

"Time to get ourselves deep in station," Fitch said. "We're going to hear from

that carrier, round-trip, damn soon. Keu's not going to take this real

passive.—Come on, Yeager, dammit…"

She ignored the pull on her arm, muttered, "Go to hell. Sir." And tried to

think, tried to remember where you could detach the main cables, and figure how

you could set up that kind of a trap and spring it without being where you could

see when to throw a switch, and you could, from Engineering—but not without

monitoring the core didn't have and there hadn't been time to set up. So it had

to be the dirty way—a hands-on job, where you could see your targets, get them

all where you wanted them. Then throw the power on. And maybe go with it.

She walked out on the grid, turned her helmet light on, heard, "Damn fool," out

of Fitch, and just kept walking, sweating, hoping like hell the cable had burned

itself away, which, by all she could figure, it had—

She scanned the shadows, sweeping her light from side to side, scared to keep to

the grid, which might be melted through and loose, a broken connection that she

might accidentally bridge with a step—scared of that and scared to step off the

walkway and risk running into that cable in the dark.

Sun swept slowly past again, threw light and shadow onto the wreckage of the

core: gridwork and pipe and the glare of sun on ice where a conduit had sprayed

surfaces, ice-glare on bodies, ice coating white armor—

Long hanging shapes from one core-bundle, pieces of burned hose—

Or free-hanging power cable.

Surfaces glazed in ice, bodies embedded in it, shadow again as the sun passed

the area.

She looked around, swept her light past the ominous shape of cables, saw motion

bracketed, spun around with the AP in hand, fire-bracket and motion-bracket

overlapped as her hand centered—

Civ hardsuit! God!

Shot slammed into her, knocked her down, smoke hanging in a cloud as she came up

again, motion in the smoke, smoke from her shot, smoke from his—

She froze with the gun aimed up, he froze with his level, a nerve-twitch off,

that was all that had missed him—a figure up against the forward bulkhead, man

with a rifle and no lights, just sun-bounce shining off the girders, off his

suit-surfaces, a hardsuit that never would have survived a direct hit.

He had to have figured it out, then, or he was out of shells: he wasn't firing

again, was just wedged in there, into what cover the bulkhead and the shadow of

the struts afforded.

"NG?" She tried Loki's frequency. She wasn't sure he could hear, wasn't sure NG

was hearing anything or seeing anything that wasn't years back, some other

boarding—

People in armor—

She let her gun down, lifted her left hand, walked back along the grid with a

stutter in her motion, shaking in every joint—

Signed to him, Come out.

She saw him lift the gun again.

And stop.

She beckoned again. Slowly NG started hauling himself up under the hardsuit's

stationside weight.

Her motion-sensor suddenly bracketed something else—Fitch standing in the core

access doorway, she hoped to hell it was Fitch.

NG staggered as far as the walk. She got his arm, helped him up onto the grid,

patted his shoulder as she steered him toward the door.

Fitch said, "Get our asses out of here, dammit."

Fact was, she suddenly realized, Fitch didn't know the reverse toggle on the

cable-grip.

Fact was, Fitch was mad as hell about it.

Till they got downside and halfway across the docks and had sudden contact with

Orsini coming in on their com, telling them that something big had just dropped

into system, using Mallory's ID.

She grabbed NG, brought his helmet into contact with hers, yelled it at him till

he understood it, "Norway's dropped into system! Riders deployed! We got help,

understand? India's low-V, Keu hasn't got a chance."

First time, maybe, NG was really sure which of them was which.

He damn sure wouldn't have put his arms around Fitch.

CHAPTER 3O

« ^

Lines of refugees again, scared people, headed out into the patch-together tube

that crossed Green dock, waiting, with their meager belongings, line moving only

now and again, but you couldn't tell them to wait anywhere else, people had a

ship waiting out there that could take them, and people wouldn't follow

instructions and take numbers and wait for the next shuttle out, they just

jammed up and made their line and wouldn't leave it.

It was worth a riot to argue with it. Wolfe said let 'em, Neihart, whose ship

was the biggest that had come in, said let 'em, Mallory was God knew where.

The jam-up in the corridor played hob with ship's personnel trying to get back

and forth, you had to bust people out of their priorities, which meant upset,

panicky stationers, but people got out of the way of Loki crew, figuring, Bet

supposed, they were about one jump worse than Mallory's bunch and only one

better than Keu's.

They got out of her way when she went down to the docks, they moved their

baggage over and gave her a clear path.

But she stopped when she recognized a man in line and recognized the woman next

on.

Man looked up, worried-looking.

"Mr. Ely," she said. She didn't put out her hand till he did: a lot of

stationers weren't anxious to be friends.

"Ms. Yeager," he said, and: "My wife, Hally Kyle."

"Ms. Kyle, pleased to meet you." She saw Nan Jodree offer her hand, too, at her

left, turned and took a cold-as-ice, still steady grip.

"Good to see you," Nan said. "Good to see you, Bet."

"Tried to find you," she said. "Mate of mine said he'd seen you on the list, but

things were pretty scrambled."

"Going out again," Nan said.

"I got to bust ahead of you," she said. "I do apologize, I got to be on this

one. Going back to Pell, too, they're going to ferry us, at least our front end.

All that matters of a ship, anyhow… You all right?"

"We will be," Ely said. "You? We were worried about you, Bet."

"I'm fine," she said. They were sounding the board-call. "Damn, I got to get

down there—See you at Pell!—Nice meeting you, Ms. Kyle."

Bernstein was upset, patches all over, jury-rigged messes patched into the

can-hauler's hull, three weeks to do that linkup, and Smith said it was all

right, Bernie said it was a hell of a mess, Musa said he'd seen worse—

Mostly, she figured, it was better than they'd been going to do, on their own.

Better than they had done, getting into Thule.

Lot of the boards were shut down. Systems was mostly dark. Most of the ship just

wasn't there, her tail-section due to take a ride into Thule's sun, along with

Thule Station.

Piece of history going away.

She walked up to NG, said, "How's it going?"

NG made this little frustrated shrug, said, "What I got's fine…"

That'd been the strange thing, NG'd had his chance, Neihart had heard what he'd

done, offered him a berth, Bernie'd said. On Finity's End.

NG'd said, "No. Thanks."

Bernie'd been a little off-put, Neihart's trying to steal his Systems man, but

Bernie had said to her and Musa, "I don't understand him."

NG didn't explain himself, to her or to Musa, never mentioned it.

She said, now, finally, because her conscience hurt her, "Heard you had an

offer."

He said, shaking his head, "Bernie outbid them."

« The End »