Aboard Reunion, En Route from Outpost to Capital
Lucy had seen it, seen it with her own eyes through the computer-aimed long-range camera, as Reunion headed for deep space. Ariadne was still there in orbit, nothing but the bloody comm antennae gone! She spent the long hours of boost celebrating that, deep in her heart, Johnson Gustav was alive!
Joslyn snuck another quick peek at Lucy, and smiled. Joz was pretty good at reading expressions, and true love was an easy one to spot. And it did tend to crop up in the oddest times and places.
But there was other work now. They were well clear of Outpost, far enough from her gravity well to make the jump. When Joslyn hit one last button, the computer would take over and fling them across C2, to whatever awaited them. "Mac," she said, "it's now or never. We go?"
Mac's face was stern and solemn, and he was an honest enough man to let a little fear show through as well. But he looked at his lovely wife and grinned—a brave, open smile, because living with love and courage and faith was the only worthwhile way to live. "We go. I love you, Joz."
"And I love you, Mac. Always." She had to blink away the tears as she hit the button.
The bootleg C2 box beneath the lower deck grabbed at space around Reunion, carried the ship for an incredibly brief moment, and dropped them down deep inside the Capital system.
Mac shushed the cheer that came from Charlie and Pete in the lower cabin. "Hold the applause down there!" he shouted. "We've got at least ten minutes before we're sure the missiles aren't coming."
"Screw that, Mac," Pete's voice came back. "If the missiles come for me, they'll catch me while I'm glad I'm alive!"
Joslyn powered up the radar. The Guards knew right where they were anyway, and trying to hide wouldn't exactly inspire confidence. "Space is clear as best I can tell, Pete. Go ahead and cheer."
"Cynthia," Mac called, "use the radio and tell the Guards to kick in the defense screen again, just to prove we're sincere."
"Will do, Mac."
Mac turned to the two hot pilots, Joslyn and Lucy, trying to be cool, calm, rational. There was far too much at stake to for him to get excited and make a wrong move. "Okay, here we are. And since we're not a radioactive cloud, we must be doing something right. So, how do we find Starsight?"
"And, short of ramming, how do we stop them?" Joslyn asked. "We have lasers if we get within range for them, but no torps or any other sort of weapons."
"I was afraid you'd bring that up," Mac said, in what he hoped was a cheerful sounding voice. "But one thing at s time—we've gotta find them first. Lucy. Try and think like a Nihilist. Never been in space before, probably getting your plots from a Guard astrogator who knows the straight-fine route takes you right though the barycenter and the battle zone. Where do you go? What's your flight path?"
Lucy shut her eyes and concentrated. "I'd say they'd tend to a very simple and conservative route, and also assume they'd change course somewhere along the line. That way, if the Guards got wind of them, they'd still have a chance to avoid interception. But they can't have any very sophisticated ideas about how to hide in space. Which makes waiting until the Guards are busy elsewhere very smart. If the Guards were in any shape to fly, the Nihilists wouldn't have a chance." Lucy powered up the tactical display and fiddled with a joy stick to sketch things in as Mac and Joslyn watched on their repeaters. "I'd say put us here. I figure they'd head in this way, looping back to come in straight over the southern hemisphere. It brings them in right over the populated areas to give the plague a chance, and they don't approach the planet straight from Outpost. But that's a long-odds guess, Mac. No guarantees."
"But it makes sense, and we've been on the long end of the odds for quite a piece now. Do it. Put us there, and we watch and wait."