Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

Which meant that if they could knock out the kick-pod catapult, it would be another five and a half hours before the other four Empyreal systems would even begin to suspect anything was wrong.

If. "You've received our up-to-date sensor readings?"

"Received and calibrated in," Horvak said. "We're aligned and green."

"Good." Lleshi shifted his gaze to the display showing the Balaniki. "You may fire when ready."

"Yes, sir. Thunderhead: fire."

There was nothing to see, really; only a half-imagined flicker of movement just before the circle of warning lights around the opening in the Balaniki's nose went out. But the sensor display showed what human eyes were too slow to catch: the slender black missile that had been launched from the mass driver running the entire length of the Balaniki's centerline, now hurling toward the distant planet. Lleshi looked back at the main display, silently counting down the seconds; and abruptly, the missile's solid-fuel core ignited, burning with incredible ferocity and adding to the missile's already blistering velocity at an acceleration that would have crushed a human crew.

It would take the Komitadji over two days to reach Lorelei from here. The remnants of the Thunderhead missile would make that same trip in just under an hour.

At which point, if the sensor data and computer calculations were correct, the warhead would fragment into a cloud of ultrafast hundred-gram particles and slam into Lorelei's kick-pod catapult, shattering it and cutting off the Empyreals' fastest method of contacting the outside universe.

On a Pax world, Lleshi knew, confusion and sheer bureaucratic inertia would delay the launch of an emergency kick pod at least that long. On an Empyreal world, under angel influence, there was no way to know if the Thunderhead would be in time.

Or, for that matter, whether the Thunderhead would even hit its target. If it had been misaimed, or if unexpected gravitational or solar wind forces deflected it even slightly off its proper course, those hundred-gram weights could conceivably slam full into the planet Lorelei itself at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

And if they did, the destruction the doomsday pod had caused out here among the small number of EmDef defenders would be multiplied a thousandfold among the people of that world.

Innocent people. People whose salvation from the angel threat was the purported reason for this military activity in the first place.

"We're wasting time, Commodore," Telthorst said impatiently.

Unfortunately, this time the little man was right. The Thunderhead missile and Lorelei were now in the hands of the laughing fates. Whether or not the alert went out on the kick-pod catapult, the Komitadji's next task was the same: to capture and secure the main catapult running in orbit ahead of Lorelei.

Preferably before the Lorelei government got its act together and got a ship up there and out of the system. But to capture and hold it nonetheless. "Acceleration alert," he ordered. "Lay in a minimumtime course for Lorelei."

And as the acceleration warning sounded and the big ship began to move, he wondered vaguely what had happened to Kosta.

The hospital corridor was quiet, its lighting slightly muted to late-night levels, as Chandris slipped in through the stairwell door. More importantly for her purposes, the area also seemed to be deserted.

No, not completely. There was a more brightly lit alcove area just off the center of the corridor behind a wide window-shaped service opening, and as she eased the stairwell door closed behind her she heard the faint sound of shuffling feet and papers.

Still, as long as she stayed at this end of the hallway—and as long as none of the duty nurses poked their heads out through the service window—she ought to make it okay. Moving as quietly as she could, she headed down the corridor, hugging the wall and trying to look all directions at once. It was a job more suited to a kitty-lifter than a lowly con artist like herself, and she was beginning to sweat by the time she reached her target door. Easing it open, she slipped inside.

The room lights had been turned completely off, but there was enough of a glow from the indicators on the various medical monitors for her to make out the outline of the big man lying motionlessly beneath the blankets. She was halfway across the room, concentrating on not finding anything to bang her shins on, when she spotted the other figure sitting half propped up in a chair beside the bed, clearly asleep. Hesitating only a moment, she changed direction and circled the end of the bed to the chair. She reached out to the other's shoulder, wondering belatedly if this had been such a good idea after all, and gently squeezed. "Ornina?" she whispered.

The woman awoke with a start. "What—?"

"Shh, it's all right," Chandris hastened to assure her. "It's just me, Chandris."

Ornina sagged tiredly in her chair. "Oh, Chandris, you startled me," she said with a sigh. "Wait, let me get the light."

"No, don't," Chandris said. "I don't want to wake up Hanan."

"It's all right," Hanan said from the bed. "I'm already awake."

Chandris grimaced. "I'm sorry," she apologized as Ornina groped for the small light on the bedside table and flicked it on. The glow was dim, but Chandris still blinked a couple of times before her eyes adjusted. "I was trying to be quiet."

"And you succeeded admirably," Hanan said, his voice as cheerful as always. But his face in the faint light was drawn and seemed to Chandris to be deathly pale. "I just don't sleep well in hospitals, that's all. Probably the food."

"We missed you here earlier tonight," Ornina said. "Visiting hours—" She squinted at her watch.

"Aren't they over yet?"

"Long over," Chandris admitted, feeling even more uncomfortable about this intrusion. "And I wouldn't have bothered you so late at night except—look, I need some advice."

"You've come to the right place," Hanan said, nodding toward the other guest chair against the back wall. He did not, Chandris noted uneasily, raise a hand to point to it, as he normally would have. Not a good sign. "Pull up a chair and tell us all about it."

Chandris took a deep breath. "The reason I wasn't here earlier—"

She broke off as, behind her across the room, the door swung stealthily open and a figure slipped inside. She spun around, automatically scrambling for a cover story to tell the nurse—

"Ah," Kosta said lamely, his face a study in awkward surprise. "Uh—"

"Is it a party?" Hanan said cheerfully into Kosta's discomfiture. "I love parties."

"What are you doing here?" Chandris demanded.

"I'm sorry," Kosta said, sounding thoroughly chagrined now. "I'll go."

"No, please," Ornina said, getting up from her chair. "Here; sit down."

"No, no," Kosta said hastily. "I'll go. I just thought..."

The pieces suddenly clicked. "You thought I came here for Ronyon's angel, didn't you?" Chandris accused. "You followed me from the Institute."

Even in the dim light she could see Kosta's face redden. "Do you blame me?" he countered. "You tell me to trust you; and then you head straight here to the hospital. What was I supposed to think?"

"Whoa, everyone," Hanan cut in. "Could we get a little annotation on this argument? For starters, what do you mean, Ronyon's angel? Don't you mean High Senator Forsythe's angel?"

"Forsythe isn't wearing an angel," Chandris told him. "Ronyon's got it. I was thinking that since everything about that was illegal anyway, one good crime deserved another."

"Or to put it another way, she was planning to steal it," Kosta said. "She's been planning it as far back as the Gazelle."

"Oh, Chandris," Ornina said. The sorrow and disappointment in her voice was like a twisted knife in Chandris's stomach. "Please. Don't."