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couriers from groundside, who brought him flimsies of info that UET hadn't
cared to trust to the airwaves, and in turn he
gravely handed over printed (but still coded) readouts of the report that had
Admiral Saldeen's slightly-edited signature on it. Groundside had had Tregare
rerun that report to them, over tightbeam link, several times. But they
couldn't seem to get the glitches out of it. Somehow
Tregare wasn't too surprised.
When the second group was ready to leave, someone came running to join them.
Panting a little, she said, "Catch a ride groundside with you? I was on the
earlier shuttle and missed it going back. Met an old friend, we got to
talking. " She turned to Tregare. "Captain, I owe you an apology. May I speak
with you a moment?"
Everybody was standing at the main airlocks inside hatch. Tregare motioned the
others into the lock and drew Renni Lofall off to one side, out of earshot.
"What the hell you think you're doing?"
With bright-colored lapels, epaulets, sleeve and leg stripes affixed to her
jumpsuit, she looked the perfect courier: no denying that much. How had she
done it? No time to ask. She said. "I
told you I might be getting off. This is my move. You won't spoil it?"
He grinned. "Couldn't if I wanted to. Hope it works, is all. " He looked
around. "Nobody's watching. Kiss good-bye, Renni. " They did that, and again;
then he said, "Groundside, what'll you do? Do you have contacts to help you,
once you land?"
"All set, yes. And " She hugged him. "It's been good, Bran. "
"Yeah. Same here. " What else? "You " But no more time.
From the airlock someone was beckoning; she had to run. "Good luck, Lofall. "
Then the inner hatch closed, and she was gone.
* * *
Finally the
Alexander was signaled ahead to a supply dock. Tregare sat monitoring Tinheads
record of the loading process. As he watched he felt grateful to Renni
Lofall for insisting on taking inventory. It wasn't that
Inconnu had been short of anything in a way that could endanger the ship but
he'd have felt stupid if, halfway between someplace and no place, he'd run out
of soap or something. Now, thanks to Lofall, he wouldn't.
The input of solid supplies was nearing its end. So now was where push came to
shove.
Because having topped off fuel and water tanks at the
Arachne, he couldn't accommodate much more of either item. And when that fact
became evident, someone in UET HQ would want to know why.
He had his story, of course: the Admiral's orders. But on a hunch he'd held it
back, and he wondered if maybe the hunch had been wrong.
Now, as the ship undocked and instructions came for the
Alexander to move ahead and take on water, on the forward screen Bran saw a
triangle of three ships approaching. What he didn't like was that their path
wasn't far from his own intended course for leaving here.
And then Bran really didn't like it. Because on hi-mag, his main screen showed
one of the nearing ships to be the
MacArthur.
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And over a monitor came Arger Korbeith's gravel voice.
"Alexander, hell! That ship is the
Tamurlaine!"
And Korbeiths ships cut abruptly toward intercept.
There wasn't time to tell the supply station anything at all. Cutting his
offship-send, Tregare told Gonnelson which way to point
Inconnu and said, "Junior Lee. Fire the Drive, redline max.
Now!" Slowly at first, Inconnu turned and moved.
It wasn't the comm-tech's fault; lacking other instructions the man obeyed
Korbeith's transmitted order for two-way visual. The Butcher hadn't changed;
that craggy yellowed face would probably look much the same in its coffin.
Tregare could see Korbeith squint and blink at what he saw in
Inconnu's control area; then the man nodded and yelled, "Damn it, all ships!
You've just resupplied an Escaped ship. And your Captain Dietrich Armiger is
the pirate, Bran
Tregare. " Glaring, he yelled, "I see you, Tregare, you snot! Once, you got
away from this ship alive. Not again, though. " He cut voice-send, but Bran
saw him barking orders. To his own crew and to his other ships, they'd be.
So Bran gave a few of his own. "Cut Drive to half-max, Junior Lee I need some
time before this fight. " And, "Gonnelson, head us straight for the center of
their triangle. " Tregare moved to another console, one that gave him more
tools to work with. On intercom he called, "Anybody in Scout Bay Two, say so
fast and get out faster. " He activated the enabling circuits that would let
him run that scoutship as a remote-control drone, then as no answer came to
his order, opened the bay and fired up the scout's Drive. Only on idle, for
the moment, and now he told Junior Lee Beauregard to run ships Drive at
redline again. Well, a little under, he wanted, but Junior Lee knew that.
There hadn't been time, what with all the rest of it, to get gunners up to the
projector turrets, so Tregare slaved all his projectors to his own console.
Hoping the turret controls were sitting on neutral, because from here he had
no heterodyne control but only traverse and override capability, he fired
three energy bursts straight ahead, just to get his heterodyne up toward peak
range. Then, watching Korbeiths delta of killer ships approach, he waited.
Not for long. Korbeiths group opened fire early. This near to Earth,
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