Thomas Harlan - House of Reeds

"Hai," Smith swallowed, focusing on the status pane. His hand was poised over an override glyph of an eagle twisted around the pads of a cactus. "Ready for burn."

Out of habit, Hadeishi cleared his throat. "All hands stand by for two-minute burn."

He slid four fingers up the controls for the engine array. The ship trembled to life again. Vibrations cascaded through the hull and decking, riding up into his spine. Hadeishi closed his eyes, ignoring the readouts and graphs. His fingers moved delicately, adjusting thrust.

"Altitude stabilizing," Smith whispered, watching the captain's thin fingers making minute adjustments, altering second by second. Some of the motions were almost invisible.

"Eyes on the fuel feed!" Hadeishi snapped. Cornuelle began to drag against the atmosphere, against gravity, her nose coming up, prow breaking free from vanishingly thin waves of air. The Chu-sa began to surge more thrust to the lower drive nacelles. The ship's vibration changed pitch. A groaning sound began to shudder through the decking and the Chu-sa backed off a fraction. His fingers were beginning to tremble. A cramp stabbed in his left calf.

"Fuel is good," Smith said, blinking sweat out of his eyes. "Burn is clean. Fuel exchanger is holding."

"Advancing to thirty percent," Hadeishi announced. "Everyone hold on."

Two forefingers slid up, the subsonic roar of anti-matter annihilating ratcheted up into the audible range. The console began to shiver, making the rank badge dance loose from the crevice where the captain had secured it. Outside, the black hull of the ship began to glow, here and there, as atmospheric particles collided at higher and higher velocities.

"Fuel is holding," Smith declared, watching the reservoirs sink lower. Without the comp to microcontrol the reaction chambers, too much fuel was dumping into the system. "We're going to clog if we keep this up…" he warned.

"I know." Sweat purled down the side of Hadeishi's nose. "Twenty seconds."

The Cornuelle evened out. The Chu-sa cut to just two drives, and then feathered them back. He could feel the ship settle, the vibration in her hull idling down, bulkheads shifting and stretching. Gravity clutched at him in an infinitesimal way, tugging at his sleeve. Hadeishi glanced at the Navplot, saw the ship had reached a nominally safe orbit and breathed out.

"Engines all stop," he ordered himself. All four controls slid to zero with a careful, controlled movement. "All stop."

The ship creaked, bulkheads shifted minutely and the deck ceased to vibrate.

The Cornuelle coasted into a new orbit.

"Get down to Engineering," Hadeishi said to Smith. "Take all six drives off-line. Main power to minimal – and make sure someone has pulled the plug on point defense and the shipskin!"

The Chu-sa stared at the Navplot with a wan, haggard face. Something was approaching. He could see the flare of engines against the curve of the world on a feed from one of the forward maneuvering cameras. Smith leaned over his shoulder, clinging to the railing.

"Go on!" Hadeishi slumped back into the stiff confines of the chair. His eyes were fixed on the burning mote speeding towards him. At least someone survived groundside… I hope it's one of ours.

The lone Navplot v-pane emitted a warning tone. Hadeishi blinked awake and was instantly furious with himself for falling asleep. Smith had not returned from engineering and the two ratings on the bridge turned to stare at him, expecting a command response to the warning.

The Chu-sa stared at the plot, saw dozens of transit signatures appearing in a series of evenly spaced concentric circles and relaxed a little.

"A fleet battle group," he said, realizing neither of the ratings had an active Navplot on their consoles. "Villeneuve must be returning from Keshewan with Tecaltan 88. Is our point defense finally off-line?"

The midshipman at the weapons panel bobbed her head, face sheened with sweat.

"Good." He tapped his comm thread to engineering. "Yoyontzin, do we have broadband commcast capability?"

Ah, soon, kyo. Soon. We're trying to decouple the external comm array from the power grid for the shipskin and point defense. Isoroku says…he says we'll be done as soon as we're done!

Hadeishi started to laugh, relieved, then coughed, feeling his chest constrict. "Ah, that hurts!"

On his plot, the ident codes of a cloud of destroyers, cruisers and battlecruisers began to firm up. The mass of dreadnaughts, fleet tenders and troop ships in the middle of the globe were still indistinct behind a screen of countermeasures, but the Chu-sa could tell the Flingers-of-Stone had dropped into the system 'hot' and ready for battle.

The jarring realization reminded him of the Flower Priests and their plot. Villeneuve knew. He knew and his operations officer knew. His fingers curled into a tight claw on the armrest. They left us here to be expendable. So they could return – at a pre-planned time, or summoned by a relay drone waiting at the transit limit – just in time to rescue the situation on the planet. And be welcomed as heroes.

The muscle in the side of his neck spasmed and both of the ratings on the bridge looked away, purely terrified by the expression on Hadeishi's face.

Shuttle three drifted across the starboard ventral drive cowling of the Cornuelle , maneuvering to mate hatch with the access door beside boat bay two. In the boat's airlock, Sho-sa Kosho watched the cruiser glide past, face impassive, teeth clenched tight.

She looks horrible , Susan thought. The outer hull of the light cruiser was ripped and shattered, huge gouges torn from the shipskin, revealing tangled metal and ruptured compartments. Debris tinged and clanged from the shuttle, sending a queer ringing noise through the cargo compartment. The Sho-sa clicked her teeth.

"Kosho to the Cornuelle , come in please. Anyone? Come in."

There was a sputtering echo of static. Then a voice made itself recognizable out of the distortion. Sho-sa Kosho? Is that you? This is Yoyontzin in Engineering! Are you outside the hull?

"I'm here with shuttle three," she replied, wondering how bad things were aboard if an engineer-second was running communications. "Are the boat bay doors working?"

No, kyo. Nearly everything is dead. We've got a system infection. We do have power in the mains, but the Chu-sa says the weapons arrays and tracking are malfunctioning, so shipskin and most systems are unpowered for safety.

"I see." Susan turned to look at Felix and Helsdon, who were standing behind her. The cargo bay itself was crowded with the enormous shape of a reinforced cargo bladder. Water shimmered inside the translucent plastic, gently sloshing from side to side. "We're not going to be unloading today," she declared, "but I'm going across. Helsdon, do you feel well enough to come with me? Isoroku could use your help on damage control."

"Of course, kyo ." Helsdon's z-suit and gear were charred and still marked with soot, but he had managed the shuttle flight up from Parus. "With this much damage, the Thai-i will need another six pairs of hands."

Susan nodded. " Heicho , with power down and the ship chewed to ribbons, we're not finding any medical attention for the wounded here. Take this shuttle back and shift everyone to the cantonment. Regimental medical can take care of them. Just make sure no one steals their boots. Understood?"

"Hai, kyo ." The Marine nodded dully. She was exhausted and her armor was glassy with heat damage and scored with bullet splashes and bright, metallic scars made by Jehanan sword blades.