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  The assembled captains looked at one another, then a forest of arms went up to ask for details.

  “No, no. No questions.” Cuaxicali shook his head nervously. “This is a matter of the utmost security. There is no other information available at this time save what I’ve shown you—a copy of these astronomical charts has already been commed to your navigators.”

  “Surely you can tell us what sort of peril to expect?” a loud voice boomed across the conference room.

  “I could,” Cuaxicali agreed, attempting a consoling smile. “But for safety’s sake I will not.”

  A red-haired Chu-sa whom Susan remembered vaguely from Chapultepec stood up and asked, “Begging your pardon, Scientist Cuaxicali, but please explain how can it be safe to not know the nature of our opponent? Or even what it looks like?”

  An ill-disguised snort of laughter erupted at the back of the conference room.

  Cuaxicali’s face changed abruptly into a sort of maroon-olive. Susan was not sure she’d seen the exact shade before, on anyone, anywhere.

  Chu-sho Xocoyotl stood up and surveyed the assembled officers with one raised eyebrow. The room settled down.

  “That is all. Return to your ships. Patrol patterns will be distributed by third watch.”

  * * *

  Five hours later, as second watch was winding down, Koshō was back on the Command deck in a fresh uniform, her hair slick from a fast shower. For the moment, the bridge was double-staffed as the crew prepared for turnover. Amid all of the commotion, she had taken a moment to comm up the two officers she remembered from the Academy. Both of them—Muldoon on the Falchion and Tloc on the Axe—had been surprised to hear from her.

  “Not often you high-flying battle-cruiser commanders take the time to say hello to the plow horses,” said Muldoon after they’d confirmed a private channel and triggered their own encryption. “But it’s good to see you again, Koshō-tzin.”

  “Likewise,” grumbled Tloc. The Ciguayan captain had acquired a bad set of burn scars on the side of his face since graduation day. “How did you get on Xocoyotl’s bad side? I’ve never heard him rip a junior officer like that before.”

  “I gave him some advice,” Susan said, shaking her head slightly. “I should have known better.”

  Muldoon laughed. “Admirals know all and see all, remember? Just like the upper form prefects on Grasshopper Hill. The Runner said you’d been the wise woman behind that formation change during transit—but I didn’t think he’d take it so hard.”

  Tloc grimaced. “I’m on my second posting with him—he knows best and likes it that way.”

  Koshō frowned, feeling worse for having the extent of her misstep made so clear. “My last commander would’ve expected me to suggest a better course, if I saw one.”

  “Then you were lucky.” Muldoon’s normally lively tone flattened. “I heard Hadeishi was beached. That’s too bad, everyone said he was a fine ship-handler.”

  Susan nodded, once. “Too good, sometimes. I have been reminded—repeatedly—that being very good can lead to believing you can do the impossible one more time than you can.”

  Both men nodded, sobered. “That’s the truth,” Tloc said, touching the side of his face.

  “So what about this mess?” Koshō felt the memory of Hadeishi weighing on her. “What does Painal the Runner say about this most secret of secrets?”

  Muldoon perked up, laying one finger alongside his nose. “My money is on a quantum-level distortion. We could see it from here, except it’s invisible to our sensor suite.”

  “How could—” Susan started to ask, but Tloc interjected:

  “My information says a gravitational distortion’s been detected around a huge volume, all of it clogged with nova debris. Almost impenetrable to scanning … just to twist the screw another thread.”

  “And I’ve heard if you run into this phenomena you get cut to bits.” Muldoon made a throat-cutting gesture. “Word is a pair of Survey ships tried to break through and ended up literally dissected.”

  Susan frowned. “Do these lost ships have names? Any detail at all?”

  “Not yet, but give me some time,” Tloc replied. “I’ve got about a ton of chocolatl and kaffe in personal stowage.”

  Ten minutes later, after arranging a trade to keep the kitchen happy, Koshō signed off. The second watch was in the process of leaving Command, most yawning, some already busy in conversation with their fellows. The comm duty officer and the assistant navigator were a step slow and Susan beckoned them over.

  “Rumor says a pair of Survey scouts caught hold of the Chu-sho’s phenomena by the sharp end. See if you can pick out any wrecked ships in the immediate vicinity. They ought to be the other side of the Can. Keep your eyes open for anything out of place. Something very odd killed those scouts—and I’d like to avoid the same fate.”

  * * *

  The quiet of the off-watch officer’s mess was broken by a soft voice: “Chu-sa Koshō?”

  Susan looked up from her cup of tea. It was Navigator’s Assistant Llang, trying to suppress a huge grin. Susan beckoned her over. “We’ve got ’em, kyo.” Llang blurted, comp clutched to her chest. “All three. It’s—”

  “Not to be discussed here.” Koshō silenced the girl with a sharp look. The Chu-sa picked up her tea and guided the young Thai-i back out the door at a brisk walk. “Let’s use my station on the bridge instead.”

  In the lift, as the decklights blurred past, Susan considered the young Tagalog lieutenant. This was the girl’s second duty posting—she’d come recommended from the Mac Allan, a frigate working shipping lane patrols around Alpha Centauri—and Koshō was sure she had very little political experience. After a moment she said quietly, “There may be those aboard Naniwa who will have lost friends or family in those ships. We do not want to break such sad news in a casual way.”

  Third watch should have found the bridge nearly deserted, but when the lift doors rotated away, every duty station was staffed and there were four or five extra bodies present, holding up the walls and checking console diagnostics that had been checked only the day before. Oc Chac nodded as she approached.

  “Show me.” Koshō nodded to Llang, who slipped into a seat at the comm and sensor station. The Thai-i’s stylus skittered across the control surfaces with admirable speed. Immediately a series of navigation diagrams appeared and a holo rotated into view, showing the science platform, the debris clouds in the immediate vicinity and then—three sharp taps zoomed the focus far, far down, showing an indistinct smear a goodly distance from the Can, deep into the area marked off by the Mirror as out-of-bounds.

  “Kyo, it’s really hard to see—the remains of the ships are just more radioactive junk in with all of this other radioactive junk, but we believe that this—”

  Llang tapped once more, and a camera overlay sprang up, showing a sort of empty wedge in the cloud.

  “That this was the Kiev after she lost reactor containment. The scout must have been traveling within gun range of the Korkunov—that’s this other gap off her starboard. When they blew, the force of the explosion actually cleared an area in the nebular cloud. The densities of material around the edges of each of these gaps sort of approximate the mass of the ships themselves. At least we think that’s right. And look at this—the Calexico has been cut clean in half!” Llang looked up, her face filled with mingled horror and awe. “Have you ever seen anything like that before, Chu-sa?”

  Susan stared at the enhanced, high-contrast image and marveled at the clean edge of the ship’s wound. “How far away is this?”

  “Three light-minutes beyond the Can, kyo, just at the edge of sensor range in the cloud.” The Thai-i grimaced. “Too much grit to see if there’s anything else out beyond them.…”

  Susan compared the plots and the information from the morning’s briefing. Her frown deepened.

  “There’s an opening,” she said, clenching her hands, which had suddenly gone cold. “Survey and the Mirror advance elements
have been here at least a week—they’ll have seen what we see, guessed what we guess. Their danger zone is well on this side of all three of those ships. The Kiev must have blundered into a failed component of the weapon’s array, leaving just the tiniest gap … but not big enough to avoid destruction when they stepped out-of-bounds.”

  Sho-sa Chac considered the plot, eyes fixed on the Mirror research ships now snugged up against the station. “They’ll be going in, Chu-sa, and someone will have to play watchdog … pray to the Lady of Tepeyac we avoid such a fate!”

  For her part, Koshō felt claustrophobic. The emptiness around her ship seemed suddenly confined, filled with invisible walls. “Keep the coordinates of this … barrier … in the threatwell at all times,” she decided, caution pricked by the object lesson of the three wrecked survey ships. “If we need to maneuver at speed, we don’t want to interpenetrate by accident.”

  “Hai, Chu-sa!” Llang was very quick to agree. The others nodded vigorously.

  “What else?” Koshō felt the tactical problem beginning to turn over in her mind, options shifting in and out of consideration, alternatives discarded as quickly as they suggested themselves.

  Llang tapped through a series of detailed views of the area around the Mirror station itself. “Kyo, the only other thing we’ve found is this … probably a good third of the Calexico is the core of the Can itself. Looks like they dragged half of the scout back out of the danger zone and cut away the damaged sections. The other two ships lost containment on their reactors, but by some miracle the Calexico’s power plant survived.”

  “Frugal.” Koshō clicked her teeth together. “Someone must have survived the attack or they’d never have found this opening … not without losing another dozen ships blundering around in the dark. Ask around, Sho-sa Oc. See if you can get names.”

  “Hai, kyo!” The Mayan nodded, his face impassive. But as he strode away, Susan caught a fragment of a prayer, muttered under the man’s breath: “Hear us, O Xbalanque. Lend us your clever mind and subtle hand. Guide us in this foul Darkness which over you has no power.”

  Now, she thought, feeling the bone-deep ache of being up too long and running on too many cups of tea. That makes me feel so much better. May it settle his mind, for it does nothing for mine.

  His image of a whirlwind of knives barring the dark road to Xibalba remained with her.

  ABOARD THE QALAK

  IN THE KUUB

  Inside the Khaid ship, Hadeishi and the other prisoners were hurried out of the main airlock—a fresh squad of Khaiden marines was crowding into the space, preparing to board the Wilful—and immediately down a side passage. As soon as the hatchway groaned shut behind them—Mitsuharu’s ear caught the distinctive sound of a pump working overtime to compensate for a fouled hydraulic line—he lifted his head in the dim, fetid darkness and glanced around.

  The last time he’d been aboard a Khaiden raider his Fleet sensibilities had been affronted by how poorly maintained the alien ships were. And his reaction had been mild compared to the outrage shown by the Engineering team he’d put aboard … that captured heavy cruiser couldn’t have been salvaged without a complete interior rebuild. Much of this, he believed, sprang from the paucity of resources afflicting the ill-defined and disorganized Khaid polity. Fleet intelligence bulletins indicated the hostile power was more a fragile alliance of feuding clans and stations than a real nation. In particular, they lacked a unified industrial base—most of their ships were captured, or stolen—and repair facilities were few and far between.

  In the same situation, Mitsuharu believed he’d have taken pains to keep his ship—or ships, if he were some lucky Khaiden warlord—in the best possible condition. But then, he suspected the Khaid might do just that, for ships they had built themselves. But for a stolen ship? Some alien vessel jury-rigged to allow Khaiden operation? There was no reason to spend more than the most minimal resources on a captive vessel; particularly when it would likely be destroyed in the next raid.

  Now, seeing the interior of the Qalak, he guessed they were being herded down to a holding facility—and from the look of the piping overhead, and the steadily growing heat, it would be close on to a thermocouple station. Then the guard behind Hadeishi interrupted his train of thought with a hard jab to the shoulder with a zmetgun.

  Hadeishi fell clumsily, knocking into the sailor in front of him. The man turned, snarling. Mitsuharu took the opportunity to lose his footing and fall down. The guard kicked him, catching Hadeishi on the thigh, and then turned to warn off the sailor.

  Curled up on the decking, Mitsuharu pulled his cuffed wrists under both tucked-in legs and—once his hands were in front of him—jimmied the bolt-cutters from his tool belt. Groaning with effort, he managed to twist the steel chain into the cutting blade. Seconds later, a heavy gloved hand seized his shoulder and dragged him up.

  “Suk korek!” A throaty alien voice snarled in his earbug. At such short range, the conductive comm system in his suit was picking up the ’cast from the Khaid’s radio. Hadeishi turned, keeping his head down, and gritted his teeth. The cheap steel in the cuffs was resisting the cutters, and the tight pressure on his wrists was sending sharp, bright pains up his arms. “Napiyorzun?”

  That’s done it, Mitsuharu gasped. A sharp ping! echoed in his helmet and his hands were free.

  The Khaid reversed his zmetgun and made to slam the metal stock into Hadeishi’s chest, but the Nisei officer bounced up and slashed the alien across the neck of its z-suit with the heavy cutters. The blow sent a shock up both arms, but the creature’s trachea—or equivalent—ruptured. Dark blue-black blood suddenly gushed from the Khaiden’s mouth, sloshing into the bottom of his neck-ring. Its wide-spaced eyes—set into a skull resembling nothing so much as an Afriqan meerkat mated with a hyena’s coloring—glazed with pain.

  That was enough—Hadeishi smashed the tool down on the Khaid’s gun hand, knocking the zmetgun free. The rifle skittered away on the metal decking. At the same moment, the lead guard—who had whirled at the gurgling cry from his fellow—triggered a burst from his weapon. The first of the sailors was lunging at the Khaid and caught the burst full in the chest and face. Shattered z-suit material, clothing, and blood sprayed back. The second two men rushed the guard, heads down. Hadeishi darted in behind them, desperate to silence the Khaid before he could sound an alarm. The guard knocked one sailor aside, then fired wildly—missing everything—and Mitsuharu speared the cutters into his faceplate.

  Glassite splintered, turning the clear material milky white, but did not shatter.

  Hadeishi hurled himself to the side as the zmetgun roared, barrel smoking red hot, and a spray of flechettes ripped across the ceiling of the passageway.

  This is taking too long, flitted across Mitsuharu’s mind as he backhanded the Khaid’s helmet with the cutters. This time the blunt tool caught the creature in the join between neck-ring and the helmet proper. The z-suit gel—much the same technology as in a Fleet rig and designed to ablate high velocity impacts—gave way and metal jarred on bone. The Khaid staggered, clawing at its neck, and the other two sailors—hands now free—tore its zmetgun away.

  One of them, his own faceplate washed red with blood, jammed the rifle barrel into the guard’s chest and triggered a burst. The corpse jumped and flechettes spalled across the deck.

  “Back to the ship,” snarled the other sailor. He’d recovered the other zmetgun and ammunition.

  “No!” barked Hadeishi, without thinking. He still had the cutters clenched in both hands and his whole body was shaking with adrenaline. Every instinct screamed to tear down the passage and lose themselves in the environmental conduits sure to be spidering out from the thermocouple into the rest of the ship. “We need to go down deck and look for a shuttle bay.”

  “Idiot,” growled the other sailor, now armed himself. “Our only way home is the Wilful—and we can’t let the Khaid capture her. A shuttle will only make a quick coffin.…”

  “There are—”
Hadeishi fell silent. Both men had already run back up the passage towards the main airlock. He shook his head once, and then snatched up the equipment belt from the nearest Khaid, something that looked like a document pouch on the creature’s thigh and—using the bolt cutters with a sharp, violent jerk—the guard’s right forearm. Then he ran in the opposite direction.

  * * *

  Past the next set of hatchways, Mitsuharu found himself at the top of a gangway leading “down” and paused for a moment to crack open his helmet. The smell of the alien ship was violently awful, but he forced down the urge to vomit and let the heat flowing up from the shaft wash over him.

  Definitely a heat exchanger below and that sound—There was a gargling sort of wail echoing from the dripping walls.—will be the holding cells we were destined for. Now I do need that shuttle bay.

  Which posed a dilemma: his Khadesh was limited to the barest courtesies—the human palate and tongue couldn’t really duplicate the high-pitched yelping and growl undertone that characterized the diplomatic language used by the clans—and he couldn’t read most of their written language. The ship itself, even if stolen from another starfaring race, wasn’t a model he recognized, so he was going to have a hard time guessing where to find the nearest shuttle bay.

  From in here, he realized. I need to get outside, where I can make better time.…

  He cocked his head, listening again, and now—very distantly—he heard something like the roar of gunfire. Some of the overhead lights flickered and Hadeishi felt certain the sailors from the Wilful had found an honorable death.

  No more distractions for the enemy. He picked a corridor that seemed—if he was not entirely turned around—to lead outward towards shipskin, and ran swiftly along, watching the maze of pipes and conduits overhead as he moved. A dozen meters on, a big pipe emerged from the floor and disappeared through the wall to the left. It was banded with bright mauve stripes and covered with blocky lettering.

  Mitsuharu slowed, turning his wristband over to let the temperature sensor pick up the ambient radiation from the conduit. Five-degree spike, he saw. Just what I need.