Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

"No," Trilling breathed, staring in disbelief. To lose her again, here, now, just as they were about to get back together? "No!" he snarled, breaking into a run. A middle-aged pedestrian gaped at him; without a second thought, Trilling shoved him viciously out of his way, every gram of his concentration focused on the accelerating line car. He had to catch it. He had to.

But it was no use. He was too far away, and the line car's computer brain too stupid to recognize true love when it saw it. The vehicle picked up speed and vanished around a corner.

And she was gone.

Slowly, reluctantly, Trilling slowed down, trotting to a bitter halt. After all this time...

He looked across the street. That was the building Chandris had come out of. Stardust Metals, Inc., the bronze plaque beside the door said. Some hoity corporation, probably, with more money than anyone had a right to have.

So what had Chandris been doing in there?

He smiled. No, he hadn't lost her again. Of course not. Far from it. The outfit she'd been wearing had to be for some track she was scoring in there. Unless the whole thing was finished and she was ready to hop, she'd be back.

And when she did, they'd be together again. They'd have the cash from this track to run away with, and they would never be apart again. That was probably what Chandris had in mind, in fact. To score a track right here and now so that she and Trilling could run away together.

She was always so thoughtful that way. It proved just how much she loved him.

He glanced around, then headed down the street toward a narrow alleyway where the corner of a trash bin was visible. No, she would be back. All he had to do was find someplace to settle down and wait.

And then they would be together again. Forever.

"ETA to catapult, five minutes," Campbell announced. "Speed has eased up to twenty-one hundred.

Looks like we've picked up a little gravitational acceleration."

"Acknowledged," Lleshi said, glancing over his own boards. Everything was ready; all systems showed green. For the past two days the Komitadji had been following a standard, minimum-time acc/dec course, driving at constant acceleration toward the distant catapult for the first half of the distance, then flipping over and decelerating at the same rate. Trying to beat the slower spaceliner to the catapult.

It had been a long, hard race, and it was coming down now to a laser-etched finish. But Lleshi had run the numbers, and the Komitadji was going to win.

"Commodore Lleshi!"

Lleshi bit down hard on the first words that sprang to mind. "Yes, Mr. Telthorst?"

"What in the name of the laughing fates is going on here?" the Adjutor snarled, hobbling to an awkward stop in the slight gravity of the Komitadji's slow rotation. "We're supposed to be heading for that catapult out there."

"And we are," Lleshi said. "Our ETA is just under five minutes."

"Then why are we in free-flight?" Telthorst demanded. "Our speed relative to the catapult—" he squinted at Lleshi's board "—it's over two thousand kilometers per hour. We should be decelerating—should have been decelerating the whole way."

He jabbed an accusing finger toward the tactical display. "Now we're too close. We can't possibly decelerate the rest of our speed away fast enough."

"No, we can't," Lleshi agreed. "I didn't intend to."

"Really," Telthorst said frostily. "May I ask what exactly you did intend to do, then? Wave at the station as we shot past it?"

Lleshi gestured to the tactical display. "The spaceliner out there has a catapult ETA of nineteen minutes," he said. "A standard acc/dec run, if I had stayed with that, would have had us arriving nearly ten minutes behind it."

"The Empyreals already know we're here, Commodore," Telthorst bit out. "They sent a courier ship into the system, remember?"

"Two of them, actually," Lleshi corrected. "A second courier hit the net about eighteen hours ago, while you were sleeping."

Telthorst's eyes narrowed. "Why wasn't I told?"

"It wasn't necessary," Lleshi said. "As with the first, the Balaniki captured it without trouble. Captain Horvak has the crew aboard for questioning; if he'd learned anything he would have relayed it to me."

"And of course you would have relayed it to me?"

"Of course." Lleshi felt the corner of his lip twist. "Don't worry, this ship was also captured undamaged," he couldn't resist adding.

For a moment Telthorst just looked at him. "We'll ignore that for the moment, Commodore," he said at last. "You're supposed to keep me fully informed—fully informed—on all aspects of this operation. But we'll ignore that."

He jabbed again at the tactical display. "What we will not ignore is that this whole silly race has been a waste from the very first. A waste of time and fuel, neither of which we have to spare. It doesn't make a half-penny's worth of difference if that spaceliner gets away; and now it appears you aren't even going to get that half-penny's worth of profit out of it."

"On the contrary," Lleshi told him. "It could make a great deal of difference. And the spaceliner isn't going to get away."

"Really." Telthorst looked over at the main display, now showing the view aft toward the catapult they were racing toward. "Then you'd better plan to wave extra hard at it," he said. "Because in a few seconds you're going to have your first and last close-up look at it."

"I'm aware of the timing, thank you," Lleshi said. "SeTO?"

"Board is green, Commodore," Campbell said briskly. "Long tubes ready for launch."

"Long tubes?" Telthorst echoed, looking like he'd been hit in the face. "You're wasting Hellfire missiles on a spaceliner?"

"Hardly," Lleshi said, smiling tightly. "Hellfires aren't the only things on a warship that can be launched through the long tubes."

Telthorst's face was a twist of confusion. "What in hell's bank are you talking about?"

"Just watch," Lleshi advised. The timer clicked down to zero—"Fighters: launch."

From the cluster of tubes along the big ship's centerline came a faint rumbling growl, more felt than heard, as the mass-driver launching electromagnets activated. In his mind's eye Lleshi could see the wave of fighters riding that magnetic wave, accelerating through the Komitadji's core at a punishing ten gravities. They reached speed and shot out the bow of the ship, traveling at twenty-one hundred kilometers per hour.

Or rather, they came from the tubes at twenty-one hundred relative to the Komitadji. Since the Komitadji was traveling backwards at that same speed, the fighters emerged effectively stationary between the catapult and incoming spaceliner.

In perfect position to draw a line in the sand.

"Full deceleration," Lleshi ordered. "Fighter command?"

"Fighters moving to interdiction positions," the fighter commander called as the roar of the Komitadji's engines began to rattle the command deck. "Giving challenge to the spaceliner."

"Catapult lasers responding," Campbell reported, a touch of contempt in his voice. "Looks like basic meteor defenses. Pitiful."

"They're still powerful enough to cause damage," Telthorst pointed out stiffly. "Those fighters are expensive, too."

"Instruct the fighters to stay clear as best they can," Lleshi ordered. Telthorst's precious money be damned; he simply didn't want to waste valuable pilots. "We'll have plenty of time to deal with the catapult defenses once we've finished decelerating and can get back to the station."

"And then?" Telthorst demanded, challenge in his voice.

Lleshi smiled. "Then perhaps I can make you that half-penny's worth of profit."

"We've shut down all the nets except the one here," General Akhmed said, tapping a spot on the tactical display. "That will give us only one entrypoint to defend. Our destroyers are arranged thusly—" he indicated the green triangles hovering protectively around each of the four catapult ships "—with support ships and fighters forming defensive screens. It's a standard three-layer defense, easily capable of holding long enough for the catapult ships to send any intruder packing."