Peter Telep - Pilgrim stars

"Ouch," Sinatra said dryly as the two fighters vaporized in a rolling carpet of contiguous explosions.

Another Rapier sliced across Angel's cone of fire, and she banked on a wall of vacuum to follow. A guided missile veered after the Rapier, accelerated at the last second, then jammed itself up the fighter's port exhaust cone. She grimaced as sophisticated machinery became scorched scrap metal. Then the strange absence of blips on her radar scope drew her attention. Six blue dots appeared on the display, with a quartet of enemy contacts shifting off to port.

"The rest are buggin'," Gangsta said. "Descending to escort position."

"All of you shift to escort." Angel turned on a wing and thundered off to catch up with the merchantman. She opened a comm channel, general frequency. "Angel to Diligent, copy."

Blair appeared on her Visual Display Unit, and suddenly his absence felt more like years than weeks. He looked somewhat leaner, his face more haggard, more lined, his hair a little longer than she preferred. What was with that robe? And hadn't he lost his Pilgrim cross? "Commander," he said stiffly. "Lieutenant Marshall and I have five civilians on board."

"Marshall's alive?"

The blond jock shoved Blair away from the camera. "Lieutenant Todd 'Maniac' Marshall back from the dead, ma'am!"

"You would've liked your memorial service, Maniac. Lot of women were there. What did you do? Score with half the crew?"

"Those days are behind me."

"Really."

"Is Zarya with you? I can't find her private channel."

"Commander?" Bishop said, breaking into the link. "Check out the supercruiser."

Angel looked to starboard, where nearly a kilometer away the grand capital ship seemed to cower before the faceless black head of the well.

"Hey, Commander? I asked you a question," Maniac said. "Is Zarya with you?"

Blair pulled up a telescopic image of the supercruiser. He held his breath as she soared at Point of No Return velocity toward a gravitic winter storm consuming thousands of metallic leaves. Its power ghastly, breathtaking, even beautiful, the gravity well marked an ebony dimple in a sheet of space otherwise illumined by Earth's pale blue glow.

"She cut the transmission," Maniac cried, scowling from the copilot's chair. "You believe that? I think something's happened to Zarya."

"The Olympus has reached the jump point," Merlin said. "In about five seconds it'll tear apart just like that Snakeir we baited into Scylla. And still no word from Commodore Taggart. I'm continuing to hail on all frequencies." He cocked a thumb back at the viewport. "Our capital ships are opening tubes. If the well doesn't get the Olympus, the torpedoes will."

Scores of white lines stretched from the string of Confederation ships and crossed each other's trajectories in a patchwork of residue that needled on toward the supercruiser. So startling was the image of the well, the fleeing ship, and the horde of pursuing torpedoes that Blair had trouble watching.

Paladin's not on board. He's not.

The Olympus began pulsating with light, as though waves of gravity lapped at her bending and coruscating hull. Her wedge-shaped bow seemed to tuck itself in, and her mountainous superstructure began to flatten toward her antimatter guns, as though she shied from the enormity of her fate.

And then…

… with a blinding flare that enveloped her from bow to stern…

She jumped the well and vanished. Blair stared dumbstruck at his display. "They jumped."

"They what?" Maniac asked.

"They jumped. They weren't torn apart. They jumped the goddamned well."

"Son of a bitch! Taggart lied to us! The bastard lied!"

SOL SECTOR.TERRA QUADRANT.PLANET EARTH.CS CONCORDIA.

2654.130.0800 HOURS CONFEDERATION STANDARD TIME

Blair and Maniac stood at parade rest in the Concordia's wardroom. They had been debriefed by Captain Gerald back on the Tiger Claw, had submitted their After Action Reports to Admiral Tolwyn only a few hours prior, and had just completed a verbal defense of those reports to the admiral, to Commodore Bellegarde, and to Space Marshal Gregarov. The questions had been probing, and many had concerned Paladin. Blair had repeatedly felt the need to qualify his answers, but Belle-garde or Gregarov would lean forward in their chairs and cut him off before he could fully explain. It seemed that at least two of his inquisitors had already condemned the commodore. As had Maniac.

Blair had insisted that his wingman remain as unbiased as possible and only report the facts-which Maniac had done until the concluding paragraph of his report, wherein he offered his own scathing critique of Paladin's actions. Worse still, Maniac had refused to show Blair the report before submitting it, and only during the meeting had Blair learned of the incendiary notes. Blair decided that once they were outside in the corridor, he would throttle Maniac to within a heartbeat of his life, then tear him that new breathing hole he had promised while back on the Olympus.

"Well, then, lieutenants. Do you have anything to add?" Tol-wyn's gray eyes wore a noticeable sheen, and while the admiral had carefully guarded his tone during most of the meeting, his words now rang sullenly.

"No, sir," Maniac replied.

Blair cleared his throat. "Sir, since you have accepted Lieutenant Marshall's report, which contains his opinion of Commodore Taggart's character, I respectfully request a moment to offer my own observations."

"We're concerned with the facts, Mr. Blair. Nothing more."

"I know that, sir. And I understand that you might consider my opinion biased because I'm half Pilgrim, but I deserve an opportunity to speak."

Gregarov raised a hand at Tolwyn. "Go ahead, Lieutenant."

"I haven't known the commodore for very long, but I've never met a man more loyal or one with a clearer sense of mission. Whatever happened out there, I'm certain that it's in the best interests of the Confederation. You can't ignore the commodore's reputation for reliability-and loyalty. Don't condemn him before you really know what happened. That's all."

The admiral fixed Blair with a hard gaze. "Lieutenant, according to your own report, Commodore Taggart was the only one who could've programmed that hopper drive. He had locked everyone else out of the system. His orders were to seize control of that vessel and return it to the Confederation. By feeding in those jump coordinates, the commodore committed an act of treason-one for which he will be executed."

"Sir, you don't know if that was an act of treason."

"He had the opportunity to deliver the ship to us," Gregarov said with a raised finger. "He could have shut down the drive. He did not. We have no choice but to regard him as a traitor and fugitive."

"But you don't know the whole story."

Tolwyn stood. "Thank you for those thoughts, Mr. Blair. We'll need to meet with you again in the next few days. You'll be taken off your roster until our inquiry is complete. Dismissed."

Blair waited until he and Maniac were about twenty meters from the wardroom hatch, then he whirled, took Maniac's neck in his grip, dug a thumb into the bandage covering Maniac's flesh wound, then drove the skinny jock into the bulkhead. "Do you know what you just did?"

"Let… go!" Even with both hands locked around Blair's wrist, Maniac could not break free

"When they find him, they're going to execute him."

"Good," Maniac wheezed.

Tearing his hand away, Blair swore then pounded down the corridor.

"Hey, Chris? He chose the Pilgrims. Deal with it."

"We don't know that."

"You mean you don't have any doubts? Come on…"

Blair rounded a corner-and nearly ran into Angel. "I got tired of waiting around that hatch, so I went and got something to eat," she explained.