LITMIR.BIZ

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make it back, sir,” Higgins said with a grin, “but we won’t have enough left over to fill a java cup.”

      “Like I thought. Helm, is the Centaurian ship pacing us?”

      The astrogator shook his head. “They were running a parallel course when we left orbit, sir, but they’ve disappeared. I assume they’ve lighted out of sensor range. Our tracker beams can’t touch them.”

      “Sir,” Jennings, the comtech, broke in, “I’ve got the short-range commbanks working now, and I’m getting an alien signal. Close, and on scramble.”

      “Ignore it,” Stern said. “Rojoks use an emergency code like that to get a fix on enemy ships.”

      “It doesn’t read like a Rojok signal, sir. There’s…”

      “I said, ignore it.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      He got up and flexed his shoulders while he checked the starmaps over the astrogation console in the cramped nose of the sleek starship. The headache was better now, although there seemed to be blank pieces of his life even behind the pain—pieces he didn’t have time to mourn. His brow furrowed. There were no patterns to indicate an intruder, but Chacon’s ships sometimes appeared like ghosts. He felt uneasy, and he’d learned to trust instinct more than machinery.

      “Higgins, slow us down to quarter-light and take the ship on bearing 6.25, mark one.”

      “Yes, sir.” Higgins gave the order to the astrogator. “Expecting trouble, Captain?”

      “I’m always expecting trouble, Higgins. Steady as she goes.”

      “Sir,” the comtech said, “that alien signal’s back. It’s in English this time, in the clear.”

      Stern sighed angrily. “Oh, hell, what’s it say?”

      “It’s a distress call from the Vegan Paraguard ship, Lyrae. They’re under attack from a Rojok squad and their weaponry is out.”

      “Location?”

      “They didn’t give it, sir. Shall I request…?”

      “No!” He slammed down into the command chair. “Under no circumstances are you to reply to that message! Astrogator, prime the auxiliary power units. We may have to make a run for it.”

      “Sir?”

      “Mister, if you were surrounded by a squadron of Rojok ships, and you had time for a single distress call, would you be stupid enough to omit your coordinates?”

      “Not me, sir,” the astrogator said, shaking his head. “Not unless I was trying to home in on a commbeam by sending it.”

      “Exactly. Prime those units. Jennings,” he shot at the comtech, “do your sensors register any other ships in the immediate area?”

      “No, sir. Just a meteor—an ‘iron’ judging by the density. Strange. I don’t remember any on the advance scans…”

      “Meteor?” He snapped a code into the console at his elbow and glanced over the up-to-date Tri-Fleet starcharts. No meteors or other celestial bodies were charted on the screen. That didn’t mean a rogue asteroid or meteor couldn’t be out there. Even so, he had a feel for navigation in space that many of his fellows in the Academy had envied. He knew that it was a trap.

      “Throw a modifier on your scanners,” he told Jennings, “and tie in the master computer for analysis. I think we’ve located our ‘friend in distress.’”

      “Yes, sir.” Jennings’s slender hands flew over the controls. He smiled. “Well, I’ll be a—there they are, sir. Two of them, Rojok configuration. Heading toward us at two sublights, using a meteor holoscreen to mask their signals.”

      Stern grinned, feeling confident now. “Hold your course, astrogator. Weaponry, tie in your emerillium boosters and give me the best widescan spray pattern you can manage. Fire on my signal. Higgins, bring us down to half-sublight and hold.”

      “Aye, sir.”

      Stern leaned back in his chair, keeping his eyes glued to the short-range scanner screen on his console. As he watched the approach of the “meteor” he had to grudgingly admire the strategy of the Rojok captain piloting that lead ship.

      The Rojok vessels drew closer by the second. Tension grew on the bridge. The crew was accustomed to these confrontations, but the effect of battle was still the same. Fear, quiet terror, dry throats were all a part of space conflicts. Retreat was impossible once combat was engaged. Where was there to go, except into cold space? Uncertainty rippled through the crew. No commander, no matter how capable, could guarantee the outcome of a battle.

      The Rojoks, depending on their “meteor skin” disguise to camouflage them, were beginning to make their run. To an untrained eye, the only disturbance among the bright stars would have been a wayward little meteor feeling its way to oblivion. But Stern knew, and was ready.

      “Weaponry, stand by,” he called.

      “Ready, sir.”

      “Watch your screen. Give him five seconds into the run, then lock on to him.”

      “Counting, sir. One…two…three…four…”

      Before he could voice the final number, a violent shock wave hit the Bellatrix and threw it careening off course. Stern’s back slammed into the arm of his chair and he fell with a racking thud to the deck as the generators that maintained the pressurized interior hit a blip. He was on his feet before the full effect of the bruising ride hit his suddenly throbbing temples.

      “Grab the helm, Mister!” He hit the intercom switch. “Weaponry, post two,” he called into the intership lock, “can you lock on to him?”

      “Yes, sir. Got him!”

      “Fire all tubes!”

      The ship lurched as the condensed tubes emitting emerillium waves left the ship, pitching the crew against the bulkheads. Stern grabbed his chair and threw himself into it.

      “Helm, divert to secondary course!” he barked.

      “Leaving over, sir!”

      “Weaponry, success of strike?”

      “We hit one of them, sir, amidships,” the weaponry officer reported. “But the others…”

      “Line up your pattern and fire when ready!”

      “But, sir,” the officer argued over the screen, “we don’t have anything left to hit them with! The hit we took blew hell out of our boosters. We’re paralyzed aft!”

      “Helm, can we outrun him?” Stern shot at the astrogator.

      “We can try, sir, providing we have enough fuel to throw to the auxiliary units. Leaving over now.”

      Stern’s hands bit into the soft plastiglas of the chair arms as the big ship began to lurch forward with a humming surge of power. “Come on, baby,” he whispered, as if the ship were a female he could coax. “Come on.”

      “He’s tailing us, sir,” the astrogator called over his shoulder. “He’s barely a parsec behind and closing. When he makes half that distance, he’ll fire. And we can’t make any more speed.”

      Speed, Stern thought furiously. Dammit, speed!

      His hand went to his head, to the blinding pain that gripped him when he tried to think, to reason…He fought it. And a flash got through.

      “Helm, hard right flank and slow to sublight!” he barked. “Quick, dammit!”

      “Yes, sir!”

      The astrogator dived for the control, and seconds later the huge ship lurched like a fish out of water. Stern ground his teeth as the braking spools were engaged, bringing the force of thirty G’s down onto his chest. He could barely

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