The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (91 page)

She had
impact guns for close combat; matter cannon for strikes at greater range;
plasma torpedoes; static mines. And — amazingly — she also carried singularity
grenades; devices at once so dangerous and so difficult to use that Morn’s
instructors in the Academy had dismissed their value in actual combat.
Theoretically, under the right conditions, they detonated to form black holes —
tiny instances of mass so dense that their gravitic fields could suck down
anything within their event horizons. Practically, however, the right
conditions were nearly impossible to obtain. The grenade only produced a black
hole if it detonated in the presence of enough other power — for instance, if
the grenade went off inside an active thruster tube. Without external energies
to feed it, the singularity was so tiny that it consumed itself and winked away
before it could do any damage.

The
fact that Hashi Lebwohl — or Warden Dios — had seen fit to supply
Trumpet
with singularity grenades made Morn shiver so hard the muscles in her abdomen
cramped.

They
had expected the gap scout to fight for her life. Probably alone — and probably
against massive odds.

What
other expectations did they have for her?

“Done,”
Vector announced suddenly. Satisfaction and eagerness sharpened his voice. “I’m
copying it to your board,” he told Angus. “You can start transmitting whenever
you want.

“Assuming
we get the chance,” he added while he relayed his results. “Which I certainly
hope we will. All this talk about fighting
Soar
and not being ashamed of
ourselves” — he glanced pointedly at Davies, who ignored him — “is fine as far
as it goes, but this message is a more effective weapon than any gun.”

Morn
nodded dully. He was right: his information about UMCPDA’s mutagen immunity
drug was the most important thing
Trumpet
carried. In the end transmitting
his message mattered more than whether or not the ship survived; whether Angus
could be trusted, or Sib died; whether Morn or Davies lost their souls.

The
minute that data reached anyone who could understand it and disseminate it, the
entire complex of plots and imperialism which humankind and the Amnion played
out against each other would be transformed.

Warden
Dios might come down. The entire UMCP might topple. Holt Fasner himself could
be threatened. And the Amnion would suffer a blow which might force them to end
this war now, by attack or retreat, while they still had the chance.

Whatever
else happened, whatever it cost,
Trumpet
needed to transmit Vector’s
message.

“Got
it,” Angus answered when the data transfer was complete. “We’re set to
broadcast as soon as we get out of this swarm. We’ll spray it in all directions
like a distress call. Eventually every receiver in the system will pick it up.”
He bared his teeth. “That way whoever wants to stop us will know they’ve
already lost.

“Now
get off the bridge.”

Vector
frowned as if Angus had insulted him.

“Where
you’re sitting isn’t exactly a combat station,” Angus explained. “You’ll be
dead meat as soon as we hit hard g. Probably wreck the console, too. Go web
yourself into your bunk.”

“Ah,”
Vector sighed in comprehension. “Of course.” He nodded. Projecting an air of
pain, as if a flare-up of arthritis had settled in his joints while he worked,
he undipped his zero-g belt, drifted off his seat.

Instead
of moving for the companionway, however, he floated toward Angus’ station. When
he reached it, he caught the arm of the g-seat. Facing the displays instead of
Angus, he remarked wearily, “I didn’t think I would ever say this, but I miss
the days when I could stay on the bridge. If I’m going to die out here, I want
to see it coming — God knows why. Maybe I hope I’ll have time to seek
absolution at the last minute.” He smiled crookedly. “I wouldn’t want to risk
repenting prematurely.

“Will
you tell us what’s happening?” He was looking at Morn, but his question must
have been meant for Angus. “Mikka probably wants to know. I certainly do.”

“If I
have time,” Angus retorted impatiently. “Just go.”

Vector
sighed again; shrugged. “Right.”

From
Angus’ g-seat he launched himself stiffly toward the companionway. In a moment
he’d climbed the rails and moved into the midship passage out of sight.

Seeing
him go like that, alone and unapplauded, touched Morn with sadness. He’d
accomplished so much, and received so little for it. No matter what crimes he
might have helped Nick commit, he didn’t need absolution; not as far as she was
concerned. He’d already done something better than repenting.

“He
could have stayed,” she murmured. “It wouldn’t have hurt us to give him a
little companionship.”

“No, he
couldn’t,” Angus growled, concentrating on his board and the screens. “You
should go, too. This isn’t safe.”

His
tone scraped a sore place in her, a raw nerve of panic. Urgency flushed her
skin. He’d seen something, felt something —

“What
is it?”

“I’m
getting a scan echo.” Angus’ hands spidered over his board, scuttling to
sharpen images and data. “If it isn’t a ghost, there’s another ship out here.”

Davies
gripped the edges of his console. “Is it
Soar
? Has she caught up with us
this fast?”

“It’s
an echo,” Angus returned sourly. “It doesn’t have a fucking emission signature.

“I mean
it,” he shot at Morn. “Get off the bridge. I’ve already seen what you’re like
under heavy g. I don’t want to repeat the experience.”

As if
she were obedient, abraded with panic, she pushed off from the bulkhead in the
direction of the companionway. But when she reached the rails, she reversed her
trajectory, rebounded to the back of Angus’ g-seat.

Whether
or not the ship survived —

She had
no intention of leaving unless he physically forced her away.

Despite
her fear, she believed she could prevent him from doing that.

“You’re
spending too much time on the guns,” Angus snapped at Davies. “Concentrate on
our defences.”
Trumpet
had glazed surfaces to deflect lasers, energy
shields to absorb impact fire, particle sinks to weaken matter cannon blasts. “The
cops’re experimenting with dispersion fields. Might be more effective against
matter cannon. There.”

He hit
keys, jerked data onto the screen Davies used.

“But
they aren’t automatic. If they were, we couldn’t fire through them. You have to
be ready.”

Davies
looked up, studied the information. “All right,” he muttered. “I’m on it.”

A small
part of Morn’s mind was filled with wonder. A dispersion field was an elegant
idea: project an energy wave to disrupt the matter beam before it took on mass
from its target; disperse the forces. As Angus had said, however, none of
Trumpet’s
guns could be fired while the field was being projected. And the resulting
boson bleed-off would be staggering.

The
rest of her simply held to the back of Angus’ station as if she were praying.

Past
his shoulder she could see his readouts; his efforts to identify the scan echo.
He was fast — God, he was
fast.
She’d never seen anyone run a board so
swiftly. In some sense, he
was
a machine: a nearly integral extension of
his ship.

Elusive
and undifferentiated, the echo seemed to flee under his fingers, becoming
something else whenever he snatched at it. Yet it was too persistent to be a
ghost. The conditions which could produce a ghost through the swarm’s static
were evanescent: a false image would have vanished as suddenly as it appeared.

“I’m
getting a profile.” Angus might have spoken to himself. “Doesn’t look like
Soar
.
Not as big. Damn this static.

“It’s
almost familiar. Shit, almost —”

Familiar?
Was it
Punisher
? Not likely: not if the ship was smaller than
Soar
.

Morn
couldn’t stay silent. She had to say, “If she isn’t
Soar
, she might not
be hostile.”

“That’s
naive,” Davies snorted without glancing at her. “Whoever she is, she’s illegal.
Around here she couldn’t be anything else. And by now she must know the Lab’s
gone. She’ll have to assume we had something to do with it. She’ll shoot first,
worry about the consequences later.

“Besides,
we can’t be sure
Soar’s
alone.” He sounded more like his father all the
time. Leaving Morn behind — “She had plenty of friends back on Billingate.”

“I told
you,” Angus snapped at Morn, “to
get off the bridge.
”

But he
didn’t move to make her go. Maybe he assumed she would obey. Instead he thumbed
his intercom, opened a ship-wide channel. “Secure for combat. Somebody’s after
us.”

How
long before
Trumpet
reached the fringes of the swarm? Angus had left a
navigation schematic running on one of the displays. Projections indicated that
she had at least an hour to go. But she could do it in less — maybe much less —
if Angus accelerated; ran helm with the same inhuman speed and precision he
used to analyse scan.

Angus,
Morn meant to say, go faster. Get us out of here. We’ll be harder to hit. And
we need to reach a place where we can start broadcasting.

The
words stuck in her throat.

Without
warning, the ship’s alarms shrilled. One of the screens broke up, scrambling to
display new input: then it started scrolling data too fast for Mom to read.

“There!”
Angus barked. “God damn it, I’ve seen that signature before!”

Scan
had located another vessel, nudging her way between the rocks ahead.

She
emerged from behind an asteroid large enough to occlude a battlewagon,
navigational thrust roaring to orient her on the gap scout. She was big, not
the size of
Soar
, but several orders of magnitude bigger than
Trumpet
,
possibly a merchanter, more likely an illegal hauler. Her emissions shouted
signs of power: drive ready to burn; charged guns.

Davies’
hands came down on his keys so hard that his shoulders hunched and his torso
wrenched against his belts. Instantly
Trumpet
unleashed a barrage of
impact and matter cannon fire.

He hadn’t
taken enough time to focus targ: his need to strike had betrayed him. Impact
blasts licked along the other ship’s hull or skidded past her: the matter
cannon shot wide.

At once
the ship nearly vanished from scan as asteroids burst like fragmentation bombs,
filling the void with tons of debris which yowled and ricocheted up and down
the spectrum.

Bombardments
of rock clanged off
Trumpet’s
skin and shields. The whole ship cried
like a carillon.

A
heartbeat later the gap scout staggered and went blind as the other ship’s
matter cannon covered her like the fall of an avalanche.

The
scan displays crackled and spat with distortion. Metal stress rang through the
hulls: klaxons squalled like demented spirits. Hammering keys, Angus hauled
Trumpet
out of the line of fire, practically cartwheeling her in a blaze of thrust to
put stone between her and the other ship’s guns.

. Morn
knew what he was doing, even though she couldn’t see or hear him. She knew
because her feet lifted from the deck; her own weight snatched her hands off
the back of his g-seat as if her strength were trivial.

Helpless
as a cork, she swirled in the air and dove headlong toward the starboard
bulkhead.

She
tucked her head, arched her shoulder; turned in time to avoid shattering the
bones of her head. Still her mass hit with its own hard g.

The
impact slapped her flat, pounded the air from her lungs, drove the blood from
her brain. She seemed to slip out of herself as if she were being sucked into
the wall.

Somewhere
nearby she heard Davies shouting.

“It
works! That dispersion field works!”

No
wonder
Trumpet
had gone blind. Her sensors and sifters couldn’t see
anything except the raving chaos at the heart of the matter beam.

I’ve
seen that signature —

Then
Morn lost consciousness. She never knew whether the other ship fired again.

DARRIN

D
arrin Scroyle stared at the chaos which had taken the place of his
scan displays; for a moment he froze. Around him his people gaped in
astonishment and alarm.

Trumpet
was gone. Disappeared in boson madness. Until the sensors cleared,
Free
Lunch
was blind and deaf; she might as well be weaponless. Scan and data
fought with their instruments and programs, struggling to see through the
particle storm; but it was too intense for them. And too unfamiliar —
Free
Lunch
had never encountered anything like this before.