Primary operations had been moved to the reserve bridge. Priscilla, in charge of Second Team, was at station on the main—no, Shan corrected himself—on the trade bridge. He gritted his teeth and ran the board checks with a thoroughness they scarcely required, since it was the third check he'd initiated within the last half-hour.
The mood on the reserve bridge was of tension harnessed into purpose. The mood of the captain was of frantic worry degenerating into terror.
Shan closed his eyes, deliberately removing himself from board-drill and bridge, and ran the Healer's mental exercise for distance under duress and calmness under calamity.
He sighed once, centered in an unruffled crystalline pool, then opened his eyes again to the reserve bridge.
Or the "war bridge" as Uncle Daav had used to call it—most likely to tease Shan's father. Shan's recollection of Daav yos'Phelium was sparse, and memory's eyes had lately tried to translate the barely remembered features into Val Con's well-known and beloved face.
Val Con, who they were to meet at Lytaxin. Val Con, who would be delm—and quickly, it was to be hoped, so he might sort this mess they found themselves in and show the clan its enemy.
Val Con, who had supposedly killed a man to gain his spaceship, who had warned Shan away from "appalling danger" while the Passage was being rigged for death—
"We break Jump within the twelve, Captain," Ren Zel said quietly from second board, and Shan pushed all such thoughts away, even the growing fear that Val Con had not managed his murder, and was himself dead on some backworld—aye, and his lifemate buried with him.
"I have the mark," he told Ren Zel. "Prime to me, second string through four toggled in sequence. Courier boat thirteen is cleared to depart the instant we break—your call, pilot."
Ren Zel flashed a look over-full with dark surprise, then inclined his head. "Captain."
"Trade bridge standing by, Captain," Priscilla's voice was calm as always, but the corner of the screen that should have contained her image was gray, gray, Jump gray.
"Acknowledge," he murmured. "Reserve bridge is sequenced backup boards two through four. Trade bridge should stand ready to take fifth string—captain's bridge?"
"Monitoring, Captain." Seth was as matter-of-fact as if they'd been discussing routine shuttle maintenance. Or as if he didn't know that matters would be very bad indeed by the time control of the ship shunted to the captain's bridge.
Ten seconds to break-out, by the countdown at the bottom right of the screen . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . .
There was no room now for silly worries; no room for anything but the weary, familiar, bone-known drill while the ship gave one last gasp around them and the gray screens shattered into stars and an alarm went bong and . . .
"Courier, hold!" Ren Zel commanded and the collision warning howled as the main screen filled with the image of the tumbling abandoned weapons pod. . .
"All shields!" Shan called out even as his hands slapped the toggles.
The screen flashed, blurred—and the ship shook as the tremendous energy of the explosion bathed the Passage in radiation so fierce the shields flared.
"Air loss, Captain," Priscilla reported from the trade bridge. "Pod dock holed—emergency seals on."
"Get it!" Shan commanded, scanning the gauges, shifting a finger to touch another control. "Tower. Rusty, what do we have?"
"Ears," came the laconic reply; "but not many. You're carrying lots of stuff in the shield fields, Captain, and it's blocking most incoming. . ."
The main screen showed a throbbing blue-green shimmer with an occasional lightning-like flash. Shan flicked a glance at the filtering gauge and nearly gasped at the energy required to dim the scintillations to this near-blinding brightness.
"Mother attend us!" Priscilla cried. "Shan—"
"I see it." He flicked toggles, shunting computer time to the analysis board, which gobbled every nanosecond greedily—and offered up a schematic of the problem: The pod's energy and remaining ionized mass was caught between the shield layers, trapping the ship within a hollow sphere of deadly energy. If that searing plasma touched the Passage—
"Ren Zel, cycle the outer shield down to 200 kilogauss if you please. I'll take the inner up as high as I dare—and then you'll cut entire. On my mark."
"Yes, Captain."
"Mark."
"Two, Captain. One, Captain. Half. Quarter. Tenth—down!"
Shan nodded, though Ren Zel was too busy to see, and phased the inner shield up. The maneuver was chancy, placing the lighter coils of the meteor shields at risk—but that was minor for the moment—
He felt it then, as would the rest of the crew: the grate of a piercing headache as the magnetic and other fields phased in, coursed through the controlled shield and leaked into the ship.
Shan grimaced and cut back, watching the main screen as he did, seeing the filtering levels falling, falling. . .
"Engineering, magnetics check. All nonessential crew, magnetics check!" Priscilla's voice cracked over general in-ship as Shan brought the shields to a more reasonable level and the remains of the weapons pod blew into space like the gaseous nebular remnant of a supernova.
"Air report!"
"Under control, Captain. The pod bay took a direct strike from debris—a twelve centimeter hole and twenty centimeters of fracture."
Shan shuddered. Debris coming through an armored pod door with that much force—he could have lost a dozen people!
"We've got a temporary patch up," Priscilla continued. "We can replace that whole wall with a modular fix once we're—"
"Position report, Captain. Tactical report, Captain." Ren Zel's voice betrayed nothing, pitched exactly loud enough to override Priscilla's report.
"Tactical?" Shan asked.
"Tactical," Ren Zel affirmed. "There are warships all over this system. . ."
"Tower here! Shan, this feed—" snapped Rusty, quickly followed by Liaden-accented Trade: " . . . system is under attack by Yxtrang. Repeat, this system is under attack by Yxtrang. All shipping be warned. Flee and bring aid. This message by order of Erob."
"That's from a booster transmitter somewhere about six hours out," Rusty said. "I—"
"Bastards! Got you now! Ah-hah! We got you now!"
"No chatter!" Shan called out against Seth's bloodthirsty glee, and looked to Ren Zel, who was coolly accessing the military files available to his key.
"Hold a moment, pilot," he said quietly. "I have additional information here."
IDs blossomed across the long-screen as he shunted the auxiliary files available to the captain and first mate.
What Shan noticed first was the battleship, flanked by two cruisers.
The second thing he noticed were the swarm of smaller vessels, in-system strike-ships, clustered around the dreadnought like bees around a teel blossom.
The portion of his mind not engaged on the level of sight nudged him into awareness that the feed from the system beacon was still coming through, and that he was hearing—music. Heartbreakingly familiar music.
Val Con had made it to Erob.
It was Priscilla who noticed the other thing, and who said it quietly, on private line from her station to his.
"They've landed on Lytaxin, Shan."
Shan nodded and leaned back in the pilot's chair.
"So they have, Priscilla," he said, staring at the tactical screen, where the blockade was outlined, ship by deadly ship, cutting the Dutiful Passage off from Val Con—and from Korval's future.
He sighed.
"So they have."
The annunciator sounded as Shan began the calculations necessary for the final definition of the secondary equation. He called "Come!" without taking notice of the fact and dove deeper into the beguiling intricacies of vector-graphs, real-time movement, gravitational fluctuations, relative mass ratios, velocity transfer rate, and the potentiality of random speed shift.
A spiraling approach such as the Passage was currently committed to was impossibly complicated even without an Yxtrang armada between them and the target planet, he thought hazily, manipulating factors of seven. The math comp suggested applying a factor of 267 to shift potential and he OKed that with a finger-tap.
Not that the Yxtrang had taken any particular note of the battleship in their midst, after an initial flutter of radio exclamation. It was to be expected, however, that they were reserving their most serious displeasure for the Passage's closest approach, and if one extrapolated a grav-flux rate directly proportional to the movement of the primary natural satellite. . .
Equation framed, the computer announced some little time later. Shan blinked at the screen.
"So you say." He sighed and leaned back, calling up a Healer's relaxation drill to chase away the ache in shoulders and back.
"Well," he said to the computer, tapping the go key. "If you think you've got it framed, let's see it, don't be shy."
"Captain?"
"Eh?" He glanced up, blinked the larger room into focus, and blinked again as he discovered the figure of his foster son, perched uneasily on the edge of one of the two visitor's chairs across the desk.
"Hello, Gordy. I didn't hear you come in, but I expect I must have let you in, mustn't I? Math does such very odd things to one's perceptions, don't you find?"
"Sometimes." Gordy's face was paler than usual and showing heretofore unsuspected lines. He pointed at Shan's computer. "I've been doing some math myself, if you've got a minute to check me."
Such seriousness. One should not have lines of grimness sharpening one's features at nineteen. Shan sighed and extended a long arm, saving the frame with a rapid series of keystrokes. He glanced up again.
"The name of your file is?"
"Murder."
Shan stared, ran a quick scan of that utterly serious emotive pattern and lifted both brows. "Auspicious."
The corners of Gordy's mouth tightened, in no way a smile, and he folded his hands tightly together on his knee. "Yessir."
Murder was a series of three interlocking equations, as deceptively simple as haiku. Shan's hands went cold on the keypad as he scanned them. He looked at Gordy, sitting so still he fairly quivered with strain.
"These are quite attractive. Would you mind awfully if I frame my own set?"
Some of the stress eased from the boy's eyes. "I was hoping you would."
"Fine. A few moments' grace, please. Get yourself something to drink, child—and bring me a glass of the red, if you will."
"Yes, Father." Melant'i shift—and of a sort one rarely had from Gordy, who was after all a halfling, and full of a great many useless notions regarding dignity. Shan returned his attention to the screen.
Fifteen minutes later, he sat back and picked up his glass, tasting the wine before he looked across at the waiting boy.
"I regret to say that your projections seem accurate in the extreme. My own calculations indicate explosive conditions reached eight nanoseconds before your model, but I suspect this is merely a reflection of the difference in our ages. Youth is ever optimistic."
Again, the tightening of the mouth, while the brown eyes shone with abrupt tears.
"I ran a sim," he said, voice grating huskily and then cracking. "Worst case, we lose everybody, Shan."
"Precisely why it's called worst case." He tipped back in his chair and had another sip of wine. "Don't look so ill, child. You've served warning. The patch on that thrice-damned pod is an unacceptable stress point. If we have to maneuver suddenly—if we have to maneuver and fire at the same time—poof! As you say, we lose everybody." He shrugged.
"Nothing for it but to go out and do a proper fix."
Gordy stared. "With all those Yxtrang out there?"
"Well," said Shan, with a casualness Priscilla would have known was all sham, "I don't expect they're going to be leaving soon, do you?"
"You are not going out there to repair that pod mount!"
Shan paused with the wine glass halfway to his lips, face etched in disbelief. "Your pardon, Priscilla? I cannot believe that I heard you correctly."
Black eyes flashed and her mouth tightened ominously. "You heard me."
"Well, if you will have it, I did." He moved to the bar and set the untasted glass next to the decanter of red before turning to her again, a frown on his face. "Need I remind you that I am captain of this vessel?"
"All the more reason for you to stay away and let someone else do it!" she cried, body taut as a harpstring, projecting passion with such force Shan's teeth ached.
He took a deep breath. "I suppose you have someone else in mind?" He inquired, keeping any hint of irony out of his voice.
Priscilla glared. "Yes, I do. Me."
"Oh, much better!" he approved, and the irony this time was impossible to leash.
He was warned by the flare of heat against his cheek, had time to think a thought and reach before the wine erupted from the goblet and, given direction by Priscilla's fury, smashed into a storm of blood-red droplets a whisker's breadth from his face.
"Oh dear," Shan said softly, looking down at the carpet. "We seem to have made a mess, Priscilla."
"A mess. . ." She was looking a trifle dazed, as well she might. The amount of finely tuned energy required to move a coherent volume of wine the specified distance with such rapidity and without breaking the goblet was certainly considerable. She closed her eyes and whispered something Shan thought sounded suspiciously like, "Mother grant me patience," before opening them again.
"Shan," she said carefully; "what is that?"
"That?" He caught the glimmer of what his construct must look like to her Inner Eyes and smiled.
"Oh, that! Well, I don't know how it should happen, Priscilla, but I became concerned that you might be going to dash a glass of wine into my face. Given the conviction, I thought it expedient to arrange for a shield of sorts. Pretty clever I thought it, too, especially on such short notice. But now I perceive that I should have arranged for something a bit more—encompassing—for here's the carpet, all spotted up and—"
"Damn the carpet! Shan—" Passion of a different sort broke and he found his eyes full even as hers spilled over and she was that quickly across the room, cupping his face in her hands.
"Shan, for sweet love's sake, don't go out there! Something—something horrible—will happen. I—"
Gently, he put his own hands up, running his fingers into her black curls and looking closely into her eyes. "A foretelling, Priscilla? Something that you know is true?"
His palms were wet with her tears. He saw the uncertainty in the back of her eyes before she shook her head. "I—I'm not sure." Passion flared once more. "Let me do it. The tests—"
"The tests show that you rate either excellent in manipulation and very good on speed or very good in manipulation and excellent in speed. The same tests show that the captain rates consistently excellent in both manipulation and speed. We have two Master pilots on this ship—the captain and the first mate. It's sensible to have one with the ship at all times. Since I out-test you on the repair module—just barely, I admit it!—and since speed and manipulative excellence are both very likely to be factors in making the needed repairs, I am the best choice." He sighed and dropped all shields, letting her see the truth in him.
"This is no act of heroism, I swear it to you. If Ren Zel, Seth, or Thrina were more able, the task would be theirs."
Priscilla's face was troubled. "But not mine," she murmured.
Truth was truth, and only truth was owed, between lifemates. "Only," he admitted, "under severest compulsion."
She stepped away from him, shaking her head. "You'd rather make me watch you die."
"But I have no intention of dying, Priscilla!" he cried, with counterfeit gaiety.
And felt her pain in his own heart, twisting like a sudden knife.
Outside repair was tedious, nerve-wracking work, in this case made more nerve-wracking by the interested presence of several Yxtrang warships. That the residents of the warships were more than a little vocal in their interest had early on moved Shan to cut his open beams to three: direct to the Passage, direct to Seth, and conference.
Seth was assigned as pointguard between Shan and the interested enemy, a task he undertook with a worrisome degree of enthusiasm. However, though two flights of insystem fighters had passed foolishly close to the edge of the Passage's range during the last few hours of welding, sweating and swearing, Seth, the Passage and the Yxtrang had all managed to keep fingers from firing studs. Shan indiscriminately thanked every god and goddess he could think of for this rare display of moderation on all sides, and sweated even more in the heavy-duty suit, in an agony to finish before someone mislaid their common sense.
"I believe that's sealed," he murmured at too long last. "Ren Zel, check me, if you please. I don't really feel up to coming back outside tomorrow to patch the keyhole."
"Equations set and sim running, Captain." Ren Zel's smooth-toned and proper Liaden voice was as bracing as a cool breeze. "We have compliance to the one hundredth and fifth percentile, Captain."
Relief so exquisite it was almost pain. "Wonderful. Seth, my sharpshooter, we're going back inside. Allow me, in the fullness of time, to buy you a glass of that reprehensible rotgut you drink."
"You're on—ah, hell, here we go again. Yxtrang flight-squad just inside eyes-screen eight. Must be flying school today."
"Let's hope it's not target practice, shall we?"
"They've been real polite so far," Seth commented. "I'll swing out and give you some room, Captain. The sooner I get a glass of rotgut in my hand, the happier I'm going to be."
"Spoken like a sane man, Mr. Johnson. Back off to vector sigma-eight-three, and I'll slide around to Bay Six."
"Gotcha. Changing vector—now."
"Passage note following vectors and track. Intend to intersect with Bay Six in—Seth! Screen four!"
Two of the Yxtrang craft had peeled out of formation, local velocity increasing to an insane level. Seth threw his own vessel into an evasive tumble that should have skated him toward the Passage's well-protected belly and safety. Of a sort.
But Seth did not chose the life-saving maneuver. Instead, his tumble spun him away from the Passage, vectoring with the Yxtrang fighters.
One came after him, gun turrets tracking as they held the target despite the craft's maneuvering. The second fighter kept on—a straight, one would have said suicidal, run in toward the heart of the Passage. Toward Shan.
Multiple voices filled the void's radio frequencies. Shan's "Seth, return to ship!" was nearly overwhelmed by Priscilla's calm, "Safety interlocks off, full battle condition. On my mark, gunners."
Seth's voice broke into the end of Priscilla's instructions, on the dedicated beam between the lifeboats. "One family's enough. I'm on your man. They're after the lock."
It was all true in the tumbling way things happen in space; Seth's course had altered enough that his gun was tracking the lead enemy, the ship tracking him began to maneuver its way closer, and the lead Yxtrang was closing rapidly on both Shan and the lock he'd need to enter.
"Your screen six," came Priscilla's calm voice, this time tinged with an ice that made even Shan's blood run cold. "This is the attack. Gunners, your mark. Three and Five spot Seth. Teams Four and Six spot the captain. Everyone else—standard defense."
Screen six showed a flight of five fighters whose meandering courses had suddenly become one.
The fighter tracking Shan veered away from the collision course, and Shan's reflexes brought him back toward the lock, and then away, away. . .
"Shan, we. . ."
"Can't risk an open lock. I'll loop around and see. . ."
"They're pairing up on you, Shan," came Seth's warning.
Shan felt a momentary touch of love so sweet and full it nearly overwhelmed him. Then he felt a wrenching he understood all too well; Priscilla had gone behind her strongest shields, as she must. As he must.
"Shan, close in on pod four!" Seth urged.
Shan cursed the little lifeboat: fighter it was not, despite the add-on guns. More massive than the fighters by dint of its planetary capability, it was never meant to fight a space battle.
His stabbed at the release button, flinging the valuable remote repair unit into space to gain a measure of response.
"Shan!"
Seth's scream came at the instant the first Yxtrang fired; then there was static and a missile to be dodged and another. Shan felt the g-forces pushing him sideways as the little craft answered helm and then the first Yxtrang ship was pieces in the void as Seth's elation echoed across the radio and the second Yxtrang was turning ever so quickly for another run at Shan.
Shan's screens glared bright as Dutiful Passage went to war.
The very first concern was the larger fighter flight; the two that were behind that, closing at high speed with some larger ships intermingled, would wait.
Priscilla ignored the screen that showed Shan's ship: he'd done as Seth suggested and closed in on the Passage as best he could. Her concern now was weapon-mix and security; it wouldn't do to show their full capability quite yet.
"Team Two," she said quietly into her mike. "Fire at will."
The ship's automatics cut in. She felt the minute tremble as the guns began their rapid fire and the ship compensated. It would be seconds before the Yxtrang crossed their path, and a good radar system might give them warning. Priscilla spoke to the mike again.
"Team Three, wide area coverage around Team Two's center. If you get a veer, target it in."
"Cluster incoming; looks serious." This from Ken Rik on the inner bridge.
Priscilla's attention snapped to screen three—several of the larger ships further out had launched their weapons and were already dropping away from their escort of fighters. Too far for a missile shot. Still.
"Team One, your target is the hindmost of the midrange ships in Sector Three; your next target is next closest to us. You are cleared for two bursts each. At will."
Her eyes had already found the sight she wanted to see: Shan's boat close in to the Passage, firing an occasional burst toward something out of her sight.
The next screen showed it: Seth was still hanging away from the Passage, staying between Shan and the remaining fighter from the original attack group. He seemed to have earned some respect from the Yxtrang pilot.
A shudder went through the ship, followed by another.
"Team One. Bursts away, Priscilla," Vilobar's voice in her ear was calm. Perhaps he was calm. Inner senses stringently locked away, she chose to believe so.
The beams were a battleship's weapon. The beams—pulses actually—technically moved at just under the speed of light and carried with them a baleful mixture of particles, magnetic flux, and high speed atomic nuclei. She looked to her screens.
Unanticipated, Team One's bursts tore through the incoming cluster of missiles, and a few of the intervening fighters as well, leaving behind an awful shadow of explosions. A moment more, and the hindmost ship was incandescent fog.
Radio noise, already full of sputters and crackles from the first beam's passage through the Yxtrang, became a roar and hiss, and a second roaring followed as the second of the midrange ships followed its sister to vacuum.
"Fleas! Fleas!" Seth's voice was insistent in her ear. "Fleas!"
She slapped the switch, grabbed the screen and saw Seth's boat madly whirling and firing.
Watching, she thanked the Goddess for Seth, for his loyalty, and behind her Wall, among that which was locked away for this while, she feared—terribly—for his life.
For, in fighting to stay between Shan and the enemy, Seth had encountered a horde of the stealthy fleas—one-man ships barely more than a powered and hyper-armed space suit.
On visual she saw what she feared: his boat was dodging a dozen or more of the things, and though he had speed, they were a cloud around him, each firing and trying to attach weapons meant to mine a warship's hull.
"Seth!"
That was Shan, and now his boat was closing, firing, whirling, ramming.
"Twenty-three, Shan." Seth said. He might have been counting cargo pallets. Then, sharper—"I see their mother!"
The little boat whirled purposefully, the guns firing at a small dark spot in space as it picked up speed. Out, out, into the cloud of fleas and beyond. Away from the Passage.
"No!" Shan's voice was strong with Command. It made no difference.
The side of Seth's boat erupted. It spun, then—incredibly—straightened course, moving yet toward a nearly invisible spot against the stars.
"Damn," Seth said, and he was gasping. "Drinks are on me! Thirty-three." A pause. "Don't do anything stupid, Shan."
Then Seth's boat crumpled and exploded against the dark plastic mother ship of the Yxtrang fleas.
"Priscilla!" Shan's voice, high and hoarse.
"Teams Five and Three. Take it out." The ship shuddered and the bursts were away. The fleas' mother died in a flare of vapor.
"Priscilla, accelerate," Shan—no, the captain said into her ear. "There's a cloud of fleas closing on you."
His boat was spinning, moving, dodging, guns flaring—and each move taking him further and further from the Passage. From safety.
"Shan—"
"That is an order," he said, cold in command. "Accelerate!"
"Yes, Captain." Behind the Wall, she screamed and railed and rent her garments in anguish.
On the war bridge, she spoke quietly into her microphone, relaying the order to accelerate.
She had memorized this computer code seven Standards ago, offering at the same time a prayer to the Goddess, that she would never need to use it. Her fingers shook as she entered it now, but there was no shame in that. Neither the Goddess nor melant'i demanded fearlessness in the performance of duty, merely that duty was done.
The screen blanked as she entered the last digit, taking even the window at the bottom right corner, which elucidated the progress of lifeboat number four toward the planet surface. There was silence in the captain's office, as if the Passage were mulling over her request, and more than half-inclined to refuse it. Priscilla folded her cold hands together on the wooden desk, waiting.
The Passage made up its mind with a beep and a flash of letters on her screen.
DUTIFUL PASSAGE OFFICER ALTERATION ROUTINE.
BEGIN RUN:
RANK: CAPTAIN
HISTORY: SHAN YOS'GALAN, CLAN KORVAL
ER THOM YOS'GALAN, CLAN KORVAL
SAE ZAR YOS'GALAN, CLAN KORVAL
CANDIDATE: PRISCILLA DELACROIX Y MENDOZA,
CLAN KORVAL
HISTORY: PET LIBRARIAN
PILOT THIRD CLASS,
TRAINING SECOND CLASS
SECOND MATE
PILOT SECOND CLASS,
TRAINING FIRST CLASS
FIRST MATE
PILOT FIRST CLASS, TRAINING MASTER
ACCEPT: COMMUNICATIONS MODULE
EMERGENCY MODULE
LIBRARY MODULE
OVERRIDE MODULE
NAVIGATION MODULE
WEAPONS MODULE
MAIN COMP
ACCEPT: PRISCILLA DELACROIX Y MENDOZA,
CLAN KORVAL
RANK: CAPTAIN
ADJUSTMENT: CAPTAIN'S KEY FILE
ACCEPT
AUXILIARY INFORMATION: RANKS FIRST MATE, SECOND MATE, THIRD MATE UNMANNED. HIGH RISK CONDITION NOTED. OPTIMUM SOLUTION: APPOINT OFFICERS: FIRST MATE, SECOND MATE, THIRD MATE.
MINIMUM SOLUTION TO UNACCEPTABLE RISK CONDITION: APPOINT FIRST MATE.
END RUN
The screen blanked once more. Priscilla extended a hand that still showed a tendency to quiver and tapped in a retrieval request. A heartbeat later, Plan B lit her screen.
A changing array of safeplaces shall be maintained at all times, in the event of immediate, catastrophic threat to the Clan. There is no shame in strategic retreat. Even Jela sometimes ran from his enemies, the better to defeat them, tomorrow.
Keep the children safe. Honor without love is stupidity.
This by the hand of Cantra yos'Phelium, Captain and Delm, in the Third Year after Planetfall.
The screen beeped, indicating the existence of an auxiliary file. Priscilla accessed it with the touch of a key.
This message was not nearly so ancient. In fact, it was mere weeks old, dispatched by Nova yos'Galan, Korval's first speaker in trust, to Shan yos'Galan, captain and thodelm.
Plan B is in effect. Assume our enemy omnipresent and dedicated to Korval's utter ruin. Contact no one, for we cannot know which alliances stand firm and which are rotted out from the core by the work of our enemy. Arm the Passage. Secure yourself. Repeat: Plan B is in effect.
Keep safe, brother.
Priscilla sat back in Shan's chair, staring at the screen. They had armed the Passage. They were, as far as conditions allowed, secure. The ban on radio contact was subject to captain's interpretation, given those same conditions. She touched another key, sealing the files once more. The diagram of Shan's descent to Lytaxin reappeared in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Eyes closed, she considered priorities.
The ship's priority, that there be at least one other in the command chain, should the captain fail, was best acted on at once. The radio . . . She reached out and flipped a toggle.
"Tower."
"Rusty, this is the captain," she said quietly.
There was a short, electric pause, then a respectful, almost somber, "Yes, ma'am."
"Please do me the favor," she continued, hearing her own voice take on Shan's speech pattern, "of constructing an anonymous message to the appropriate authorities regarding Lytaxin's situation."
"Yes, ma'am," he said again, then: "I'm assuming we don't want to give away our name or our location."
"That's exactly what we don't want, Rusty. Can you do it?"
"Take a little fiddling, but—yeah. I can do it. You want to review before implementation?"
"Please."
"Will do," he said, and his voice was brighter, as if the promise of a problem he was able to master had cheered him up. "Tower out."
"Thank you, Rusty. Captain out."
The screen on the side of the desk was live, displaying the current crew roster, but the decision had been made before ever she keyed in the request to see that document.
Priscilla sighed. Ten Standards she and Shan had captained the Passage between them. To name another to take the place she had made for herself, as duty demanded that she take Shan's rightful role was—not easy. Yet it must be done, for the safety of ship, crew, and kin. The temple had schooled her well in duty, before she had ever dreamed of Liad.
Priscilla closed her eyes and called up an old exercise—one of the first taught to novices in temple, honing her anxiety into purpose. She had barely opened her eyes again when the door chime sounded.
"Come," she said, and the door, obedient to the captain's voice, slid open.
"Acting Captain." He bowed respect from the center of the room and straightened, awaiting her notice.
She took a moment to consider him: A medium tall man, as Liadens measured height, skin an unblemished medium gold, hair and eyes a matching medium brown, neither beautiful nor ugly, not fat nor yet thin. He wore no rings of rank nor any more simple adornment. His shirt was plain and pale, his trousers dark, his boots comfortable and well tended.
He was a pilot of some note—first class verging on Master—and she knew him for a quick and incisive thinker. The information that he possessed humor would have startled many of his crewmates, but none of those would have said his judgment was unsound, or that his temperament was other than steady.
He was also inclined toward austerity, which was worrisome, Priscilla allowed, even when it was austerity applied to the best good of ship and crew.
From her seat behind the desk, she inclined her head and moved a hand toward the pair of visitor's chairs.
"I have a proposal to put before you, my friend," she said in mild, modeless Terran. "Will you sit and listen to me for a moment?"
"Gladly," he responded. His Terran was heavily accented, though his comprehension was excellent. He took the chair nearest the corner of the desk and folded his hands neatly upon his knee.
Priscilla closed her eyes briefly, opened them and considered Ren Zel's quiet face. She remained, perforce, behind her Wall, reduced to reading the emotions of others from the shifting clues of expression and bodyline. Like most Liadens, Ren Zel was a master at keeping his emotions well away from his face.
"An announcement will be made to the entire crew within the hour," she said, and took a breath, enough air, certainly, to force the few words out. "The ship has accepted me as captain."
Face smooth, Ren Zel inclined his head. "Has there been—word—of Captain yos'Galan?"
Priscilla shook her head, gesturing at her screen and the diagram describing the descent of lifeboat number four. "He will make planetfall within the next few hours. After the lifeboat is stable, we'll rig a punchbeam. For the moment, we—assume—that Captain yos'Galan is alive, but unavailable to us. Circumstances dictate that the ship be served by a full captain." "Assume," Ren Zel said, voice expressing interest without judgment, which was only prudent from a man reared in a culture where a judgment expressed outside of one's proper area of concern might well result in honor-feud. Priscilla was free to ignore him, but she would have to stretch—and endanger her own melant'i—to read insult into his question.
"Assume," she repeated, and smiled with good intent, if limited success. "Understand that I am—shielded away. Without Healer skill. There are exercises I must soon undertake so that I may serve the ship as it must be served, but for the moment, I have no more knowledge of Captain yos'Galan's safety than what I can read from the tracking computer and from my own desires."
Something moved in the brown eyes. She thought it might have been pity. "I understand. Forgive me. I had not intended to cause you pain."
"You have a right to ask—to know. Shan is your captain, after all."
"Indeed, I owe him my life," Ren Zel murmured. "And yourself, as well."
In lieu of being able to pay Shan directly, Priscilla thought wryly and deliberately suppressed the shudder of anxiety. She lay her hands flat on the desktop and looked at him.
"Then perhaps you will find this proposal even more interesting," she said and tipped her head, seeing wariness at the back of his eyes.
"You know that we are short-handed, that we have been short-handed since the Passage became a full-scale battlewagon."
Ren Zel inclined his head. "And with the loss of Pilot Johnson and Captain yos'Galan we become less rich in resource."
"Exactly. In a ship—rich in resource—the second mate would move to first, third to second, and a third mate would be chosen by the captain."
"We do not have this luxury of personnel," he agreed. "We are at war."
She nodded. "The ship requires a first mate and the captain must decide who will serve the ship best. I propose yourself for first mate, unless you can think of a compelling reason why you shouldn't be."
Shock stripped his face naked. He sat—just sat—and stared at her for the space of three heartbeats. He closed his eyes then, and sat through two heartbeats more. He opened his eyes and they were distant, his face without expression. When he spoke, it was in High Liaden, in the mode called Outsider.
"The captain is reminded that one is clanless, with neither name nor kin nor melant'i to support one. The ship is best served by one who is alive."
"The captain recalls most vividly that you have been reft of your birthright," Priscilla said carefully, following him into Liaden, but only so far as Comrade mode. "The captain points out that your piloting license bears a name—Ren Zel dea'Judan. The captain fails of recalling a single instance of that name being dishonored in the several years of our association. The melant'i which you embody is pure. The ship can be no better served."
There were tears in the medium brown eyes and she dared not unshield, even to offer comfort. Instead, she sat and waited while he mastered himself, while he thought it through, and when he rose to bow acceptance.
"Captain, I am honored. I will serve willingly, with all my heart."
She stood from behind the desk and returned his bow, reaching into High Liaden for the ritual phrase spoken by a delm when accepting a new member into the clan.
"I see you, Ren Zel dea'Judan, First Mate. The ship rejoices."
Tears again, hidden by a hasty bow. "Captain."
She smiled slightly and shook her head. "First lesson," she said in Terran.
Quickly, he looked up, brown eyes bright. "Yes?"
"My name is Priscilla," she said, and held her hand out to him.
The crew, at battle stations, accepted her ascendancy to captain and Ren Zel's appointment as first mate with somber approval. She had detailed their mission: to take up defensive orbit about the planet and await the aid that surely must come in response to Rusty's carefully anonymous pinbeams.
"In the meantime," she said, "Captain yos'Galan's lifeboat has entered atmosphere. We will attempt to establish a dialog via laser packet when he comes to ground and we are sure his position is stable."
"Why not just use the radio?" That was Gordy, face tight, voice harsh with pain.
"The Yxtrang may ride our radio wave down to the planet surface and discover the location of an object we value," Ren Zel murmured, before she could frame a reply. "They have surely marked that one pod escaped the battle, and they must wonder after its worth. A laser burst is not so easy to follow, so we may shield Captain yos'Galan while informing him of our vigilance."
In the screen, Gordy nodded, jerkily. "I see. Thank you."
"Other questions?" Priscilla asked, and there were none, so she released them to their duties or their rest, then turned to Ren Zel.
"First Mate, the shift is yours."
He bowed, accepting the duty. Priscilla hesitated.
"Ren Zel."
He looked up.
"I—there are preparations that I must make," she said, slowly. "Preparations which are . . . of the dramliz. I will be in my cabin for the next few hours, but I will not be available to you." She bit her lip, and added that most dangerous of Terran phrases, "I'm sorry."
He moved his hand lightly, as if clearing the air of a faint wisp of smoke. "Necessity. I, to my duty. You, to yours."
She smiled, then. Almost she laughed. Practical Ren Zel.
"Of course. How could I have forgotten? Good shift, my friend."
"Good shift, Priscilla."
Self-healed, and whole once more, Priscilla drew a breath in trance slightly deeper than the one before. Her lips moved. The voice of her body whispered a word.
Weapons Hall leapt up around her, mile-thick walls breathing chill and fell purpose.
One did not seek this place lightly. Many—most—of those trained as Sintian Witches never had need to come here, though all were taught the way. It was the peculiar misfortune of those who had been born Moonhawk to know the way to Weapons Hall all too well.
Priscilla moved silently over the stone floor, her cloak pulled tight against the chill. At the end of the hall, she paused, frowning down at a blood-bright spot against the worn rock bench. Bending, she picked up a round wooden counter like those used in gaming houses, bright red in the center, but losing its paint along the rim. She smiled slightly and curled her fingers over the token, feeling it warm against her skin, and moved forward once more, to the long, weapon-hung wall.
The tale is that, for every art of healing, for every spell of joy a Witch masters, there is a weapon hung in the Hall, which is its dire opposite.
The tale is true.
Priscilla walked the long, weapon-thick wall. Three times, she put out her hand and when she lowered it, a portion of the wall stood bare. At the end of the Hall, weapons chosen, she closed her eyes and raised her arms and was gone from that place that was nowhere and nowhen.
In the bed she shared with Shan, Priscilla's body stirred. Breath and heartbeat quickened. Black eyes opened. Blinked.
She stretched, then, fully back in the body, and noticed that her right hand was clenched tight. Raising it, she carefully opened her fingers and looked in wonder at the round wooden counter, brave crimson enamel worn away around the rim.
To her newly wakened, battle-honed senses, the little token vibrated with power, with . . . presence. Carefully, she opened her thought to the artifact—and nearly cried aloud with wonder.
The wood was alive with Shan's presence.
She held it in her hand while she dressed, loath to surrender even so tenuous and strange a link with him. When she had wriggled, one-handed, into her shirt, she slid the token into her sleeve-pocket, taking care with the seal.
It wasn't until she had stamped into her boots and gone into the 'fresher to splash water on her face that it occurred to her to wonder what Shan might have found awaiting his hand, in the Witches' Hall of Weapons.