Schism: Part One of Triad (46 page)

Perspiration gathered on his forehead. Do your best.

Working. Then: Temporal correction complete.

And?

I find no trace of Blackstar Squadron.

A bead of sweat ran down Althor’s temple. Are you sure about your calculations?

Some uncertainty exists in them.

Is it possible that—

Contact!

Althor’s pulse surged. He wondered if the Jag had simulated its own excitement.

Steel’s thought came into his mind. Althor? Is that you?

Althor sent him an image of his warrior in armor and disk mail. Greetings, sir.

Steel sent back his psicon, a steel girder. You all right?

Rne. At least now that he had regained his place in spacetime. I contacted a telop at Onyx.

Anything interesting?

He badly wants us to arrive early.

Think they’re in trouble?

It’s possible. Althor thought back to the exchange. Very possible.

Steel directed his thought to the rest of the link. Jags, recalculate our route so we drop out of inversion closer in to Onyx.

Won’t it be risky to reinvert so close to space habitats? Belldaughter asked.

Do what you can to minimize the danger, Steel thought But get in as close as you can. The shorter our sublight travel, the sooner we reach Onyx.

Preparing to reinvert, Redstarthought

Engage shrouds, Steel thought.

Engaged. The responses came from all four Jags in a light speed pulse of thought. They were in the most accelerated mode possible for the human brain.

In superluminal space, they didn’t need shrouds, but in subluminal space, the squad would partially disappear. Blackbody shielding shrouded die hulls and they stopped reflecting light Holographic surfacing on the ship projected images of the stars as if nothing occupied mat space. Other systems hid them from radio waves, microwaves, and ultraviolet probes. They even created false echoes to fool neutrinos, which passed through just about anything.

Invert, Steel thought.

Althor fired the photon thrusters. The only way he knew Redstar went in and out of quasis was by the discontinuous change in speed on his displays. The Jag decelerated in a series of jumps he perceived as a continuous process.

The stars jerked forward, converging on a point in front of the ship. Their colors shifted into ultraviolet and disappeared. Blackstar Squadron roared out of inversion in perfect formation—

Straight into a swarm of ESComm warships.

Their shrouds provided a disguise, but every time the Jags accelerated, their exhaust gave away their position. The

Traders knew they had arrived. The attack chilled Althor; Onyx was a major Skolian complex, eight space habitats with millions of people. This was no minor skirmish.

It was an act of war.

Redstar identified the attacking ships: three Wasp corvettes and eight Solos.

Although Solos were the closest ESComm equivalent to a Jag, they had no access to Kyle space because they carried no psions. The Traders had only one use for empaths and telepaths: as providers. They used the pain of such slaves to transcend. They considered psions unstable and found the concept of their serving on war craft ludicrous. Even if they had been willing to put mem on the ships, they had too few psions to risk any significant number of them that way.

Althor readily admitted psions had a disadvantage; they felt the emotions of their enemies and compatriots alike. Applicants to the academy underwent extensive analysis in meir entrance exams to see if they could endure that empathic onslaught. Even so, the suicide rate of Jagernauts was the highest of any ISC personnel. But every loss the J-Force suffered only hardened the resolve of its remaining Jagernauts to protect their people from the Aristos.

Taus incoming, Redstar thought.

Evade! Althor answered. Release dust. Tau missiles carried inversion drives, which made them notoriously hard to catch or destroy. If another missile came too close, the tau jumped out of spacetime. Redstar’s dust consisted of microscopic bomblets that could protect Redstar and beleaguer the taus enough to slow them down.

Quasis jump, Redstar thought.

Nausea surged in Althor from the Jag throwing him into quasis too fast. A tau had detonated against their hull. The ship couldn’t change state during quasis, so nothing could blow it up, but no quasis was perfect. The explosion weakened the Jag. A few more hits and the quasis would fail, leaving him defenseless.

Fire MIRVs, Almor thought. MIRVs, or multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles, were small ships as well as

bombs. They used only conventional rockets, so they couldn’t invert, but that made them smaller and lighter. He could carry many more MIRVs than taus.

Hurtling through space at relativistic speeds, Redstar released a swarm of MIRVs. They spread outward in a cone at 92 percent of light speed, giving mem the energy equivalent of megaton bombs. Stats poured into Althor’s node far faster man his unaugmented brain could have absorbed. ESComm taus were catching Blackstar MBRVs. The taus inverted with their captured missiles, reinverted as they closed on the Jags—and exploded both themselves and their MJJRV captives in violent bursts of energy.

It could have done serious damage to the squad. However, the jump through superluminal space had thrown off the taus. If ESComm could have controlled their taus while me missiles were going through inversion, the evasive tactics of the Jags might have failed. But the taus came out a fraction of a second too late, after the Jags had shot through that volume of space.

Quasis jump, Redstar thought.

Althor swallowed the bile in his throat. Redstar had veered into such an abrupt course change to evade a tau, the quasis had kicked in to protect him from the lethal acceleration.

ESComm tau detonated to port, Redstar thought It missed! He had another few seconds of life. They had already shot past the Onyx stations. Althor brought Redstar around for another go at the ESComm ships. Fighting in space was like jousting in three dimensions, with beams and smart missiles. He hurtled past a Solo at almost the speed of light, their times dilated relative to each other. The Solo registered as a rotating, flattened coin on Althor’s holoscreens. It released a tau—

His stomach wrenched as Redstar jumped into superluminal space. He thought, This is for you, rather, and dropped out of inversion, his MIRVs blasting ahead of his Jag.

Althor felt his opponent die.

The pilot’s terror blasted Althor’s mind—and cut off with chilling finality.

Solo destroyed, Redstarthought.

Althor groaned and lost his grasp on his mindscape. In a rush of memory, he was sixteen again, above the Plains of Tyroll, that day he had slaughtered an army with one carbine. He had suffered every shattering death. He had been so frightened, so desperate. His father’s cousin, Avaril Valdoria, would never give up until he killed his enemy, the Dalvador Bard, Althor’s father.

So Althor had ended it all. He had ensured that neither his father nor his brothers would ever have to ride in that barbaric war again.

—doria, respond! Are you all right? Steel’s voice echoed through the psilink.

Althor swallowed. Fine, sir.

Relief came from Steel’s mind. Good work.

Not good enough, though. Stats about the battle flowed through his mindscape: ESComm had done great damage to Onyx, neutralizing its defenses. To stop the destruction of the stations, Blackstar still had to take on seven Solos and three Wasps.

Redstar had exhausted its supply of MIRVs. Time to joust.

Prime Annihilators, Althor thought. They accelerated antiprotons, focusing the beam through foils where it picked up positrons. Beams were easier to evade than missiles, since they couldn’t chase their target, but they offered a better offense against quasis shields; annihilating matter in qua-sis was easier than deforming it with missile strikes. Althor headed toward a Solo like a knight with his lance ready.

Warning. Redstar highlighted part of his mindscape to show an unmanned drone on intercept course.

Fire, Althor thought.

His Annihilator blasted the drone. Its mag-shields deflected some of the antiprotons, but many hit their target. The resulting annihilations created brutally energetic photons, pion showers, and high-energy processes.

Particles and radiation tore through the drone. They hit the antimatter fuel bottles, and the drone detonated in a burst of plasma. Part of it vanished with the eerie sucked away effect created when real matter collapsed into the complex space within a Klein fuel bottle.

Warning! Blackstar’s EI thought. Greenstar has been detected.

No problem, Wellmark answered. As a Wasp raced toward her Jag, she saturated the volume of space around Greenstar with smart dust. Although a Wasp was small compared to most ships, it dwarfed a Jag. Its crew rode in the head and thorax. A stalk separated those compartments from its detachable abdomen, which carried antimatter plasma. Usually a Wasp attacked planets or other large bodies. When jettisoned, its abdomen plunged into its target, drilling its “stinger” in to bury itself. Then it released its plasma and blew its target into smithereens. It could obliterate a Jag a hundred times over, but ESComm wouldn’t waste an entire Wasp on one ship. They probably intended these for the Onyx stations.

Solos on approach, Redstar thought. Three ESComm fighters were moving in to defend the Wasp.

Althor and Belldaughter, cover Wellmark, Steel thought.

I’m on the Beta Solo, Belldaughter thought. One of the Solos turned gold.

On Gamma, Althor thought. His Solo turned red.

On Alpha, Steel thought. The third Solo turned black.

As Althor went at the Solo, it changed course, cutting him off from the Wasp.

Another section of his mindscape registered Wellmark’s tau hurtling toward the Wasp.

Fire Annihilator, Althor thought. He and the Solo hurtled by each other, appearing to flip over as they passed, meir time dilated relative to each other. They fired at the same instant, their Els compensating for the relativistic effects that became so dramatic at these speeds.

Quasis jump, Redstar thought.

Althor’s head swam from the jumps. The Solo had hit him dead-oil and Redstar’s quasis system was weakening. The Jag could take only one or two more hits.

One of Steel’s taus exploded a Solo, and its pilot’s death reverberated in Althor’s mind, though less violently than

when one of his shots succeeded. He wasn’t as focused on Steel’s target.

The Wasp caught Wellmark’s tau with an Annihilate shot. As her missile exploded, the Wasp went into quasis and remained whole, speeding onward, a rigid body in motion. Althor waited until it dropped out of quasis—and fired both his taus into its abdomen.

Wasp in quasis, Redstarsaid.

Damn! He had just wasted his only taus.

Then, suddenly, the Wasp’s quasis collapsed. Antimatter plasma spewed outward and its abdomen exploded in a swath of destruction that wiped out the head and thorax as well. Althor went rigid as he felt the crew of the Wasp die—

Blackstar exploded.

Wellmark’s mental scream ripped through their link, Al-thor’s mindscape went dark, and Belldaughter’s cry reverberated over his comm. Althor reeled, his link with the squad shattered. His mindscape tried to reform, sparking with erratic lights, jagged and unstable. Stats poured through it too raggedly for him to absorb. In real space, alarms blared in the cockpit and emergency lights flashed on his controls.

Wellmark’s thought cut through the chaos. Squadron, regroup! Orient to Greenstar.

Althor’s Jag answered when he couldn’t. Redstar reoriented.

Goldstar reoriented.

Invent Wellmark thought.

Althor vomited when Redstar inverted. His Jag hurtled through superluminal space, following a trajectory downloaded by Greenstar to Redstar. His exoskeleton whirred as tiny scrubber bots embedded in its mesh cleaned him up.

Wellmark’s thought came raggedly. Report.

Althor clenched the arms of his pilot’s chair. I’m here.

And I. Belldaughter’s thought shook.

We have to go back, Wellmark’s struggle to project confidence felt tangible in their link. We only put out one Wasp. If we don’t destroy the other two, they will demolish Onyx.

Althor took a deep breath. Six Solos remained and two Wasps. Their chances of taking out all those ships were slim to none, and they all knew it. But they had to try.

Do either of you have any taus left? Wellmark asked.

I’ve both mine, Belldaughter thought.

None here, Althor answered. MIRVs gone, too. I’ve Annihilators.

I’ve two. Wellmark paused for a fraction of a second. Belldaughter and I will release our remaining MIRVs as we come out of inversion. Althor, cover us with your Annihilators while we go after the Wasps. She took a breath he sensed rather man heard. If that doesn ‘t work, we ‘11 all try Annihilators.

Understood, Akhor thought. Belldaughter echoed his reply. None of them could risk thinking about what the loss of Steel meant to their squad. If they survived this battle, they could mourn him properly.

Go, Wellmark thought.

They blasted out of inversion preceded by their last MIRVs. The Onyx stations were firing Annihilators at the Wasps and Solos, but the ESComm ships had disabled most of their defenses.

Wellmark and Belldaughter each went after a Wasp and Althor blasted the Solos that dogged their progress. Redstar hurtled through a complicated evasion pattern with killer accelerations. The quasis jumps made him so ill he could barely think. The ESComm ships followed just as bizarre evasion patterns against his shots.

Quasis jump, Redstar thought. Then: Solo quasis failed.

Althor’s beam stabbed the Solo dead on. His forward holomap lit with a flash of light—but it was too much for one Solo—

Got it! Wellmark shouted mentally. One Wasp down—

Greenstar exploded.

Althor screamed as his map lit with a burst of light.

Althor! Belldaughter’s frantic thought exploded. Answer!