Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE January, 2115 Aboard LPS Venera
CHAPTER TWO Aboard G.O.S. Ariadne
CHAPTER THREE June, 2115
Ariadne
On Approach to Outpost's Surface
CHAPTER FOUR March, 2116 Navy Castle On The Planet Kennedy
CHAPTER FIVE March, 2116 Guardian Contact Base on Surface of Outpost
CHAPTER SIX April, 2116 The Planet Bandwidth
CHAPTER SEVEN Chralray Village: the Current Nihilist Camp
CHAPTER EIGHT Guardian Contact Base, Outpost
CHAPTER NINE Guardian Contact Base, Outpost
CHAPTER TEN The Planet Bandwidth
CHAPTER ELEVEN Aboard Ariadne
CHAPTER TWELVE Aboard HMS Impervious, in Orbit of Britannica
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Aboard Impervious
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Deep Space, Britannic Star System
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Survey Service HQ on Columbia, Kennedy's Natural Satellite.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Survey Service Base, Columbia
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Guardian Contact Base, Outpost
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Survey Service Base, Columbia
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Aboard Far Shore, En Route to Columbia
Survey Service Base Comm Center
CHAPTER TWENTY Ariadne
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE On Outpost, Eight Hundred Kilometers North of Guardian Contact Camp
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Nova Sol System Barycenter
Aboard G.O.S. Ariadne
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Outpost
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Outpost, Nihilist Encampment
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Bary center
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Aboard RKS Eagle
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Eagle, Hangar Deck
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Aboard the Sick Moose
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Outpost
CHAPTER THIRTY Outpost, Refiner Camp
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Aboard Ariadne
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Outpost, Refiner Camp
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Aboard Reunion, En Route from Outpost Orbit to Refiner Camp
Ariadne
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Guardian Contact Base
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
RKS Eagle
Zeus Orbital Command Station, Circling the Planet Capital
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Captain's Cabin, Aboard the Eagle
Eagle
Aboard GSS Adversary, the Guardian Fleet Flagship
TFCC, Eagle
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Barycenter Battle Zone
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Starsight
Ariadne
Reunion
Nike Station, Orbiting Outpost
Reunion
Task Force Command Center, Eagle
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE Aboard Starsight
CHAPTER FORTY Reunion, Surface of Outpost
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Zeus Station, Orbiting Capital
Aboard Reunion, En Route from Outpost to Capital
Starsight
Reunion
Starsight
Reunion
Starsight
Reunion
Starsight
Reunion
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO Eagle
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Back Cover
Cover
To Table of Contents
CAPTAIN TO THE BRIDGE!
RED ALERT!
ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS!
THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
CAPTAIN TO THE BRI—
The first impact was felt more than heard, a booming, shaking roar that knocked them off their feet. The lights died, and, through the bulkhead that led to Hangar One, they heard the horrible sound of air whistling away into space, of screams and cries and alarm bells dying off when the air that carried them had vanished into space.
"Oh my God, they've hulled Hangar One," Sir George said, his voice deep with shock. "They're all dead in there. My God."
Joslyn climbed to her feet. The gloomy red of the emergency lighting system flickered on, and she saw Sir George striding purposefully across the deck, toward the airlock at the aft end and the nearest way to the bridge.
ROGUE POWERS
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 1986 by Roger MacBride Allen
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises 260 Fifth Avenue New York, N.Y. 10001
First printing, September 1986
ISBN: 0-671-65584-1
Cover art by Alan Gutierrez
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by SIMON & SCHUSTER TRADE PUBLISHING GROUP 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10020
Scanned and proofed by eBookMan version 1.0
Dedication
For Mom, who shared her love, taught me self-confidence, and gave me the world's greatest middle name.
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE January, 2115 Aboard LPS Venera
CHAPTER TWO Aboard G.O.S. Ariadne
CHAPTER THREE June, 2115
Ariadne
On Approach to Outpost's Surface
CHAPTER FOUR March, 2116 Navy Castle On The Planet Kennedy
CHAPTER FIVE March, 2116 Guardian Contact Base on Surface of Outpost
CHAPTER SIX April, 2116 The Planet Bandwidth
CHAPTER SEVEN Chralray Village: the Current Nihilist Camp
CHAPTER EIGHT Guardian Contact Base, Outpost
CHAPTER NINE Guardian Contact Base, Outpost
CHAPTER TEN The Planet Bandwidth
CHAPTER ELEVEN Aboard Ariadne
CHAPTER TWELVE Aboard HMS Impervious, in Orbit of Britannica
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Aboard Impervious
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Deep Space, Britannic Star System
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Survey Service HQ on Columbia, Kennedy's Natural Satellite.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Survey Service Base, Columbia
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Guardian Contact Base, Outpost
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Survey Service Base, Columbia
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Aboard Far Shore, En Route to Columbia
Survey Service Base Comm Center
CHAPTER TWENTY Ariadne
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE On Outpost, Eight Hundred Kilometers North of Guardian Contact Camp
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Nova Sol System Barycenter
Aboard G.O.S. Ariadne
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Outpost
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Outpost, Nihilist Encampment
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Bary center
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Aboard RKS Eagle
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Eagle, Hangar Deck
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Aboard the Sick Moose
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Outpost
CHAPTER THIRTY Outpost, Refiner Camp
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Aboard Ariadne
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Outpost, Refiner Camp
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Aboard Reunion, En Route from Outpost Orbit to Refiner Camp
Ariadne
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Guardian Contact Base
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
RKS Eagle
Zeus Orbital Command Station, Circling the Planet Capital
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Captain's Cabin, Aboard the Eagle
Eagle
Aboard GSS
TFCC, Eagle
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Barycenter Battle Zone
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Starsight
Ariadne
Reunion
Nike Station, Orbiting Outpost
Reunion
Task Force Command Center, Eagle
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE Aboard Starsight
CHAPTER FORTY Reunion, Surface of Outpost
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Zeus Station, Orbiting Capital
Aboard Reunion, En Route from Outpost to Capital
Starsight
Reunion
Starsight
Reunion
Starsight
Reunion
Starsight
Reunion
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO Eagle
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Back Cover
CHAPTER ONE January, 2115 Aboard LPS Venera
The ship stank.
The Venera s ventilation system had been shot up two days after the hijacking, when the Survey Service students had tried to get the ship back. The students had failed, of course: They were armed with only a few side arms the Guardians hadn't found, and the Guards controlled the ship, had all the heavy guns, had all the advantages. The Guards had killed a few more Survey personnel, taken the side arms, spaced the bodies, confined the survivors to their cabins, and that was that.
But the Guards were stupid enough to fire heavy ammo through life-support equipment. Now, twenty-one days after the hijacking, the air pumps wheezed and shuddered instead of humming. The scrubbers weren't working properly and the whole ship was rich with the smell of bodies and fear and burned-out machinery. Everyone had a headache, which probably meant that the carbon dioxide count was going up. And the water was starting to smell like the bottom of a pond. The few members of Venera’s crew who were still alive could probably have patched things up, but they were confined to quarters, two to a cabin, like everyone else. Either the Guards couldn't do the repairs or they didn't care how bad things got.
The Guardians were human and spoke English. But no one in the League had ever heard of them. Somewhere, somehow, out among the uncharted stars, the Guardians must have gone off to settle their own world and hide from the rest of humanity. At least that was one theory that made sense. The Guards themselves didn't explain anything.
Lieutenant Lucille Calder, Royal Australian Navy, was locked up in her cabin, but she was a good enough pilot to feel the clumsiness in the way the Guards handled the Venera's controls. She knew how much fuel the Venera had carried. She carefully timed the burns the Guards made and estimated how many gravities of thrust they used. She kept a rough running account in her head of how much fuel this thumb-fingered crowd of barbarians was wasting as they corrected and over-corrected and re-corrected their errors. Bad piloting wouldn't kill them just yet—there was still a fair amount of fuel left. On the other hand, the fouled air and water might be enough to do them in very soon. For the sake of Guardian and prisoner alike, Venera had to get somewhere fast.
But Lucy and the other survivors of the hijacking had no idea where Venera was being taken. The viewscreens were shut off, so there were no stars to look at—whatever good that would have done—and there was no real way of telling if they had remained in normal space or made one or more jumps into C2 space, where the ship's velocity was kicked up to the square of the speed of light. Lucy knew nothing, could do nothing, could see nothing. She didn't like it.
She stared across the tiny cabin at her bunkmate, Cynthia Wu. Ensign Wu was from High Singapore's tiny Defense Force, an outfit with little more to do than track the endless stream of cargo ships that called on the huge Earth-orbiting city. She was used to waiting, to dull patches. Lucy wasn't so lucky. The deep-space fleet of the Royal Australian Navy had trained her for command, for quick decisions and independent action. She needed to be in control, to have some effect on what happened to her. She needed a viewport to see out of, an idea of where they were going, an idea of why they were being taken there. She wanted to know who these surly men were who called themselves the Guardians. She had to know what they wanted with the Venera—and whether or not she would live through this.
And she wanted a shower. Lucy's mother was an Australian aborigine, and her father the descendant of British stock. They had raised her on a huge range station, a sheep ranch, at the edge of the desert, where the Sun baked down and made a person sweat and smell. Both Mom and Dad had come from families where you weren't allowed to bring that odor inside. That's why there was a showerbath outside. And now Lucy had been indoors with the smell of many unwashed bodies—including her own— for the better part of a month.
Lucille Calder was a short, stocky woman, dark-complexioned with short-cropped, brownish-blond hair. With a pug nose and a hint of a double chin, she would never be called pretty, but she didn't much care about that. Pretty wasn't her job.
For the thousandth time, Lucy looked across the cabin and watched Wu calmly turn over the page of her book and continue reading. For the thousandth time, Lucy overcame the urge to grab the book out of Wu's hand and heave it at the bulkhead. But even at the moment she was ready to commit mayhem against her cabin-mate, Lucy knew Cynthia Wu was probably the best person she could have been locked up with. Wu had patience, and faith in the power of logic and the careful examination of possibilities. Those were things Lucy had to learn from somewhere.
Lucy wished the ship was under spin so she could at least pace the deck. It was hard to expend nervous energy in zero-gee without literally bouncing off the walls. She undid the restraint line that held her to her bunk and pushed herself toward the hatch. There was a peephole in it that let you see out into the corridor. Not that anything was ever out there but another gray bulkhead. Floating in mid-air, she sighed and peered out the hole. Nothing there—
Quite suddenly, she found herself pasted to the deck, a roaring noise filling the cabin. The goddamned Guards had fired the main engines without any warning again. Lucy swore to herself and got up off the deck. She hit the stopwatch function on her wrist-aid and began timing the burn. It felt like a shade under a standard gee and a half this time.
Wu didn't even look up from her book. Lucy wondered which of the two of them was being more foolish: Wu, for doing nothing at all, or she, for fussing over thrusts and burn times that wouldn't really tell her anything useful.
But this burn went on a long time. By Lucy's timing, the engines fired for twenty minutes and a few seconds. In the ringing silence after the roar of the engines, she worked out the resulting acceleration in her head—about eighteen kilometers a second. That meant something. No reasonable flight between two points in a star system would require such a big change in velocity. On the other hand, eighteen klicks a second was a fairly modest relative motion between two stars.
It had to mean that the Venera had indeed made a C2 jump. Venera must be matching velocity in a new star system. "Cynthia," she said quietly. "We're here." Wu looked at her sharply. "How do you know?" "That was a burn to match velocity between two star systems, and if you're trying to hide where you're going, you do that after you get to the new star. Besides, that burn must have just about emptied the tanks. They wouldn't risk running out of fuel unless they were in range of their own people." Wu closed her book. "God, Luce, I think you're right." The two of them waited in silence, listening, attentive, for an hour or more. Then, suddenly, there was a series of bumps and jumps as the Guardian pilot used the trim thrusters to fine-tune his course. For a long time, there was no sound but the complaints of the overstrained ventilation system. Finally, more bumps and stutters from the trim thrusters and then, far-off and faint, a series of dull thunks and clanks.
"Docking collar," Lucy said.
There was a series of sharper clacking noises. "And there go the capture latches," Wu said.
They could hear voices now, bellowing, yelling, the sounds of every gangway crew that had ever brought a ship
into port and secured her in a berth. The air changed, became cleaner, sweeter, as die ship's air mingled with the atmosphere of whatever it was they had docked to.
They heard the rattle of keys and the sound of angry, urgent voices. Finally, the hatch to their cabin slammed open, and a man in battle armor hung in the hatchway. "Get your stuff and move," he barked, his voice made deep and booming by the suit's speaker system. "Head to the main sternward hatch and through the airlock into the station. Do what any Guard tells you to do and you might not get hurt." He turned, grabbed at a handhold, and pulled himself down to the next cabin without looking to see what Lucy and Cynthia did.
Lucy had a mad impulse to race after him, to smash the faceplate on his suit, to demand an explanation, to run like hell, to do something, anything—and then she turned to see Wu calmly packing up her few belonging into her duffle bag. Lucy pulled herself to her locker and did the same. She would have to learn patience, if she wanted to live.
The stern airlock was a knot of chaos. Guardians in battle-armor took no nonsense, answered no questions, did nothing but grab at their prisoners and heave them through the hatch and down a connecting tunnel. There was a viewport by the airlock, and Lucy managed to get a quick peek through it. She caught a quick glimpse of a fair-sized orbital station of some sort. The Guards were still grabbing anyone who didn't move fast enough to please them. Lucy decided that she didn't need some metal-clad goon groping her, and got through the tunnel unassisted.