Timothy Zahn: Warhorse

Demarco threw him a look that was pure strained patience. “No. A space horse.”

“If a rather puny one,” Ferrol added, studying his own readouts. It was small, come to think of it. In fact, unless the computer had completely scrooned up the distance calculation—

And abruptly, a shiver ran up his back. “That’s a calf, Mai.”

Demarco peered at the display. “I’ll be damned.”

Ferrol licked his upper lip, his heart beginning to thud in his ears as he keyed the general intercom. A space horse calf. Young, impressionable… and maybe, just maybe, trainable. “Captain to crew: we’ve got a target. Starting our approach now.”

He paused. “Look real sharp, gentlemen. I want this one.”

At the helm Demarco teased the drive into operation, and Ferrol felt Reese’s eyes on him. “If you have something to say, Reese, say it and then shut up.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other gesture toward the cylindrical creature now centered on the main display. “You hoping a calf won’t have the same fear of human beings that adult space horses do?” he asked.

So the man had operational brain cells, after all. “That’s the way it works with other animals,” he said shortly. “It’s called imprinting.”

“If the calf is young enough,” Reese agreed cautiously. “Whatever ‘young enough’

means in this case.”

“You want a debate, go back to the Senate,” Ferrol told him absently. “Right now, we have more important things to do.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, Mai; let’s go.”

They approached at a fraction of their usual stalking speed, with the result that it took them nearly an hour to drift into netting range. Excessive and unnecessary caution, perhaps—at no time did the calf show any signs at all of nervousness, much less panic—but they had the time to spare and there was no percentage here in taking chances. Besides which, there was no way to know whether a calf on the verge of spooking would exhibit the same signs of distress that an adult space horse would.

“Net guns ready,” Demarco announced. “Range to target… 1.4 kilometers. Plates at full charge.”

Ferrol consciously relaxed his jaw muscles. This was it. “Stand by, primary gun.

Ready… fire.”

Beneath him, the Scapa Flow bucked once as, on the tactical display, the missile shape of the coiled net appeared, dead on target for the calf, its tether lines snaking along behind it. Ferrol held his breath, his eyes on the calf. Just a few more seconds, he mentally urged it. Stay put just a few more seconds. On the screen the missile shape was disintegrating, unwrapping into an almost insubstantially thin mesh as it neared the calf. Just a few more seconds…

And, too late, the calf noticed the object hurling toward it. The missile—or what was left of it—jerked as it was telekened to a halt… but the strands of the mesh were far too thin for the creature to get an adequate grip on. An instant later the net hit, wrapping itself solidly around the calf—

“Stun it!” Ferrol snapped.

The Scapa Flow bucked again, far more violently this time, as the netted calf tried to pull away from its captor; but even as Ferrol was slammed back into his seat cushions he heard the muffled crack! of the Scapa Flow’s huge capacitors. On the screen, the net flared briefly with coronal discharge… and the calf stopped moving.

Across the bridge, Reese swore reverently under his breath. “You did it. You really did it.”

Ferrol wiped a hand across his mouth. “Assuming we haven’t killed it, yes. Mai?”

Demarco spread his hands. “Who can tell with a space horse? Nothing obviously wrong with it, though.”

“Good.”

A flashing light caught Ferrol’s attention: the Scapa Flow’s middle hull, now highly positively charged from the capacitors’ discharge, was threatening to arc to the outer hull. “Shorting to outer hull,” Demarco announced, reaching for the proper switch.

“Hold it a minute,” Ferrol ordered, the hairs on the back of his neck tingling with unpleasant premonition. Shorting the middle and outer hulls together would leave the outer hull positively charged until it collected enough solar wind electrons to neutralize the imbalance … leaving the Mitsuushi inoperable until the process was complete. “Give me a full scan of the immediate area first,” he told Demarco.

“Look for indications that the ship we tagged earlier might be skulking around out there.”

Demarco gave a curt nod and busied himself at the scanners. Ferrol waited, trying to ignore the flashing arc-danger warning, and after a minute Demarco straightened up. “Looks clear,” he reported. “Of course, he could be hanging way back somewhere with a Mitsuushi intercept loop already programmed in.”

Ferrol chewed at his lower lip. A distinct possibility… “All right,” he said slowly.

“Short to outer hull; then isolate the middle hull again and start the capacitors charging again. Better charge the backup set, too.”

Demarco threw him a puzzled look, but nodded. “Right.” Another crack!—“Charge drained to outer hull,” he announced. “Outer hull now isolated…

charging commencing.”

“Good,” Ferrol said, shifting his attention back to the space horse calf and keying for the air lock ready room. “Townne, you and Hlinka better get moving—I want the space horse secured for travel in half an hour.”

“Acknowledged, Chay—”

“Anomalous motion!” Demarco snapped. “Five thousand kilometers out, coming straight toward us.”

“What?” Reese gasped. “God, Ferrol—”

On Ferrol’s board the laser comm light went on. “Unidentified ship,” a quiet voice came over the speaker, “this is Captain Haml Roman aboard the C.S.S. Dryden.

You’re ordered to shut down your drive and prepare to be boarded.”

“I see I was right,” Ferrol commented into the brittle silence. “It was an unusually patient captain. I guess you’d better belay that securing party, Townne.”

“My God, Ferrol,” Reese breathed. “You’re not going to surrender, are you? God, if I’m caught here—”

“Shut up or leave the bridge,” Ferrol cut him off evenly, his eyes flicking across the readouts. The warship wasn’t moving very quickly, but even at its current speed it would be within reasonable boarding range in ten minutes or less, with boarders knocking at the hatches five minutes after that. The Scapa Flow wouldn’t be going anywhere on Mitsuushi before then, either: the outer sensors indicated the Dryden had its ion beams playing across the Scapa Flow’s hull, charging it and its attached Mitsuushi ring to uselessness.

Or rather, trying to charge it. At the moment, the earlier discharge from the capacitors had the hull already holding just about all the charge it could, with the Dryden’s beams largely being deflected uselessly off into space. A situation entirely to Ferrol’s liking… and one his opposite number on the Dryden might well have missed. “Capacitor status, Mai.”

“Main set shows three minutes to full charge,” Demarco reported. “Another four on the backups.”

Ferrol nodded, keying a countdown on his board timer where he could keep an eye on it. This was going to be tight. “Let’s see if we can stall him a little,” he said to no one in particular.

He tapped for comm control and the Scappa Flow’s brand-new Domino III voice refractor, feeling a flicker of grim satisfaction at his own foresight in persuading the Senator to shell out the cash for the latter. With the Domino subtly altering the tones and frequency levels of his voice, the ship out there could analyze it forever without getting anything they could match up against a voiceprint file. The Senator had maintained the gadget was a waste of money; Ferrol had convinced him otherwise.