"Ready on my order for evac launch," she said.
On her display, the ESComm sphere began to shrink and fade as its s.h.i.+ps accelerated inward and then vanished into inversion. Data reeled off in her mind; hundreds of Trader s.h.i.+ps inverted, thousands, hundreds of thousands.
"Three ESComm battle cruisers inverted," Oppendayer said.
Tahota studied the sphere. Only forty-six ESComm vessels remained yet to invert, the largest cruisers, monsters the size of cities.
"Admiral!" Oppendayer said. "We"ve got ESComm Stingers dropping into normal s.p.a.ce out at only seventeen million kilometers."
d.a.m.n. They had come in faster than she expected. "Launch the evac!" The last ESComm weapons platforms had yet to invert, but she dared wait no longer.
The evac force surged out from Onyx like spherical light waves diverging from a point source. The bigger the area of s.p.a.ce they scattered across, the harder they would be to catch.
Raines cupped his hand to his ear. "Admiral, we"ve got about 10 percent of the ESComm fleet now, at about fifteen million kilometers out from Onyx in a spherical distribution."
Oppendayer spoke in her ear comm. "The forward wave of our evac force is inverting. Jag starfighters, Wasps-there go the Asps. Cobras-we"ve got a destroyer into inversion."
At her side, Raines swore. "And we"ve got ESComm Stingers on approach to Onyx. The first wave of their weapons fire will hit the evac in forty-six seconds."
"Oppendayer, get our s.h.i.+ps out of here," Tahota said.
"We"re 60 percent inverted," Oppendayer said. "Seventy-two. Eighty. Eighty-eight."
Her display showed which of her s.h.i.+ps hadn"t yet made it: the battle cruisers, still lumbering up to inversion speed. "Come on," she muttered. "Go!"
Raines said, "About 30 percent of ESComm fleet now on approach to Onyx."
Three ISC cruisers remained. As Tahota watched, two inverted. Only the largest, Pharaoh"s s.h.i.+eld, remained.
"Oppendayer, get out of here," Tahota said.
"s.h.i.+eld hasn"t enough speed," he said.
"Do it anyway."
"ESComm Annihilator fire incident on s.h.i.+eld," Raines said.
No answer came from Oppendayer as the cruiser went into quasis. On Tahota"s display, beams of energy highlighted in red hit Pharaoh"s s.h.i.+eld. One deck of the cruiser imploded, only a fraction of the mighty s.h.i.+p"s girth, but a warning of its overtaxed quasis.
"s.h.i.+eld, invert, d.a.m.n it!" Tahota said. "Now!"
With a ripple of s.p.a.cetime, the giant cruiser melted out of s.p.a.ce, flowing around a singularity in reality. The s.h.i.+p was large enough that the effect wasn"t instantaneous; it poured out of the real universe.
Then it was gone.
As a cheer went up from the bay, Raines spoke to Tahota in a low voice. "Evac fleet launched, Admiral."
Tahota let out a breath. She raised her voice and directed her next words to the 400 thousand volunteers still at Onyx. "Make your Klein bottles."
All around her, in the bay and on the monitors, she saw soldiers directing their attention to palmtops, gauntlets, and control bands as they went to work.
At her side, Raines said, "We"ve got 90 percent of the ESComm fleet converging on Onyx."
Tahota nodded, intent on the data flowing into her spinal nodes. The overlap between the emergence of the ESComm vessels and the departure of the evac s.h.i.+ps had been too big. But the evacuation was out of her hands now. All she could do was pray.
Then Raines said, "The ESComm battle cruiser Flagstone is hailing New Metropoli. Admiral Kaliga on comm."
Tahota stared at him. "Xirad Kaliga? The admiral who commands ESComm?"
"Not that Kaliga," Raines said. "A cousin, apparently."
"Put him on," Tahota said.
A four-meter screen lowered from the ceiling until it hung about five meters in front of Tahota. An image formed on it, a tall officer in a black uniform and knee boots, with carnelian ribbing on his sleeves. His gaunt face had a cold Highton ascetism.
Tahota nodded. "Admiral Kaliga."
"So," he said, "The infamous Starjack Tahota."
Tahota hardly thought she rated "infamous." She was more known for her organizational skills. Given that those skills were all focused on waging war against ESComm, though, she supposed that could qualify her for infamy from their point of view.
"We accept your terms of surrender," Tahota said.
"You haven"t much choice," Kaliga told her. "It"s remarkable, in fact. A base that had 300 thousand s.h.i.+ps to defend it now has none."
"Remarkable," Tahota agreed.
"Did you really expect that game to work?" he asked. "Tuck your tails and run? We caught the pups, you know."
She felt a sinking sensation. "I don"t know what you mean."
"No? Can you see the screen behind me?" He motioned to someone outside her field of view, and Tahota"s screen suddenly filled with the image of an ISC frigate tethered to an ESComm destroyer. She recognized the frigate. It was one of her evac s.h.i.+ps.
d.a.m.n. "Yes. I see it."
"Watch," Kaliga said.
Tahota watched. The two s.h.i.+ps continued to drift in s.p.a.ce.
An ISC officer spoke in her ear comm. "Admiral Tahota, this is Major Byr. I may be able to eavesdrop on the comm chatter among the ESComm s.h.i.+ps. It"s scrambled, but I think I can break their code."
She didn"t want to speak into her comm with Kaliga watching, so she sent a thought to one of her nodes. Can you link me to Byr?
Yes, it answered. I can transmit to the picoweb in the hull of New Metropoli, which can then link to his console.
Major Byr, can you read me? Tahota thought.
"Loud and clear," he said.
Get that spy line on their chatter.
Out in s.p.a.ce, the captured ISC frigate drifted next to the ESComm destroyer that tethered it. Still nothing- The explosion made no sound. The frigate simply disappeared in a burst of debris and radiation. The ESComm s.h.i.+p remained unaffected, having gone into quasis.
Tahota clenched her teeth. Next to her, Raines muttered, "So much for Halstaad."
Kaliga appeared on the screen again. "You were foolish, Admiral, trying to deceive us."
"You had no cause to destroy that s.h.i.+p," Tahota said. "You"ve also just violated the Halstaad Code of War."
Dryly Kaliga said, "You can lodge a complaint with ESComm."
Major Byr spoke in her ear. "Admiral, according to my sensors, they only have a handful of ISC s.h.i.+ps out there."
Good work, she thought. Byr"s information implied three possibilities: ESComm had destroyed the evac s.h.i.+ps, taken them elsewhere-or missed them altogether. She prayed it was the last.
Admiral Kaliga put his hand on his ear and tilted his head. For a moment Tahota feared he was listening to her chatter with Byr. Then he said, "Double Klein bottles, Admiral Tahota? What were you thinking?"
"I"ve no idea what you"re talking about," she said.
"I"m sure you do." He listened on his comm again, then laughed. "Good G.o.ds. Hiding Klein bottles inside bigger Klein bottles." He dropped his hand. "How bizarre."
"I see." Tahota let a note of strain enter her voice. It wasn"t hard, given the situation.
"We"ve taken your fuel bottles out of the silly Klein fields you put them in," he said.
"Admiral Tahota!" Byr said. "They"re moving the Lock."
On her display in the observation bay Tahota could see the Lock surrounded by the specks of ESComm s.h.i.+ps. The Lock"s huge thrusters were firing, propelling it away from Onyx.
"Admiral, I"m disappointed," Kaliga said.
"Disappointed?" Tahota asked.
"We"ve downloaded the Onyx web into ours," he said. "Your codes were far too easy to break."
Is he bluffing? Tahota asked Byr.
"Sorry," Byr said. "It"s true. They have everything."
"That gambit with the bottles was foolish," Kaliga said.
"What gambit?" Tahota asked.
"We have your "secured" orders. Hiding antimatter in double Klein bottles was hardly likely to fool our sensors or stop us from freezing the self-destructs."
Tahota blew out a gust of air. "So."
"Yes. So. Your ploy failed." Kaliga put his hand to his ear. "We dock at New Metropoli in four minutes. Prepare for boarding."
Boarding. Boarding. Tahota contemplated the implications of becoming an ESComm prisoner and sweat beaded on her forehead.
"Admiral Tahota," Byr said in her ear comm. "I"ve got that spy line on their comm."
Pipe it through, Tahota thought.
A woman"s voice came over her comm, speaking Eubic. "Over seven billion Klein bottles. G.o.ds only know what they thought they could do with them."
"Double-check the bottles," a man said. "Look for anything-trick triggers, hidden web links, anything unusual."
"We deactivated their links to the Onyx web," the woman said. "We found self-destruct triggers, but our quasis generators countered them."
Tahota lost the rest of the chatter as Kaliga spoke to her. "Admiral, we have the Lock secured." Triumph glinted in his eyes. "Here is something for you to ponder while you await my guards, my dear Starjack. Eube has a Lock and Key now. Think on it."
Tahota didn"t want to think on it. Nor did she like being called My dear Starjack by a Highton Aristo.
Kaliga"s image disappeared, leaving the screen blank. The chatter from the spy line was still going. "We"ve run double and triple checks," the woman was saying. "The bottles look normal."
The next voice on the line surprised Tahota. It was Kaliga. "Warn the troops boarding the stations to be careful anyway."
Out in s.p.a.ce, the Lock was shrinking to a point as it accelerated toward inversion, attended by its ESComm captors. The other habitats huddled around New Metropoli. A flash of light came from a station on the outer edge of the cl.u.s.ter.
Tahota stiffened. No! Not now.
Kaliga spoke on the spy link. "What the h.e.l.l was that?"
"One of the Klein bottles had an instability in its field," someone said.
"Is it part of a self-destruct sequence?" Kaliga asked.
"Apparently not," another voice said. "Faulty equipment. The Klein field had a flaw."
"I don"t like it," Kaliga said. "Put me through to Arez."
After a pause, a voice said, "Colonel Arez here."
"Are you ready to invert the Lock?" Kaliga asked.
"Speed-wise, yes," Arez said. "But I"m concerned about our proximity to Onyx. Inverting a platform this size will cause s.p.a.cetime ripples all over this area. It could damage the other habitats."
"That doesn"t matter," Kaliga said. "As long as we get the Lock. Invert now."
"Yes, sir. Engaging."
Tahota directed a message to Major Byr: Can you show me the Lock on long-range sensors?
"I"m not sure," Byr said. "I"m losing my link here. ESComm has most of-wait, here we go. Incoming."
Got it, Tahota thought. A detailed view of the Lock came up on her display. As she watched, the s.p.a.ce station melted out of reality. It was astonis.h.i.+ngly beautiful, like watching sparkles liquefy and run through s.p.a.ce in rivers of radiance. Then the light faded into blackness and the Lock was gone.