The Rifter's Covenant by Sherwood Smith, Dave Trowbridge Page B

demanded.”
    Norio used the
ensuing delay to step behind the command pod and lay his hands on Hreem’s
shoulder, probing for the shakrian points. The captain’s muscles had set to the
rigidity of stone. Norio smiled at the screen.
    “Hmmm. Hah. I see.”
Neyvla-khan’s skeptical twitch of the upper lip said liar . His gaze slid away from Norio’s. “Well, then, surely you will
not object to a minor course adjustment?”
    Hreem’s jet of
amusement warmed Norio, who hummed at the slight relaxation in the muscles
under his hands. The captain had noticed Neyvla-khan’s discomfiture as well.
“Not at all, Brother. In fact, it would be our honor to escort you.”
    Hreem forgot Norio
as he tabbed off the communicator and began issuing orders. The Lith skipped again, and the main
viewscreen gradually filled with windows, echoing the complicated tactical
moves he’d ordered to maintain the balance of exposure to the Barcan weapons,
without yielding the superior position of an inner orbit to his rival.
    He began to relax
under Norio’s steady massage as the new tactical position of his fleet took
shape without incident. They hadn’t gained anything on Neyvla-khan, but they
hadn’t lost anything, either—and the two fleets were evenly matched.
    Hreem tensed,
remembering unfinished business. “Where’s that chatzing Lochiel?” he grumbled.
“She’s two days overdue.” With another destroyer, the balance of power would be
his, especially with the advantage of surprise. “Dyasil!”
    “I’m squirtin’
pulses outsystem whenever I can without any of Neyvla-khan’s gang seeing ’em.
But it’s gonna be hard for her to tightbeam us back with all the skipping we’re
doing.”
    Hreem pounded his
fist lightly on the command pod. That was the weak spot in his plan, which he’d
overlooked when he dispatched Lochiel to Charterly’s cache to pick up what
weapons she could. If she contacted him via a ship, Neyvla-khan would get
suspicious. But how would she manage to signal him? The Lith was never in one spot very long, and its course was random—it
had to be. A tightbeam would probably miss them, and Neyvla-khan would see a
broadbeam com—it wouldn’t matter that he couldn’t read it.
    Norio’s narrow
hands probed harder at the pressure points in his shoulders, and Hreem tried to
relax.
    “You will find a
way, Jala,” the tempath said softly. “And perhaps Riolo will come through for
us.”
    On the screen, a
last, solitary ship passed the orbit of Barca’s outer moon, heading inward. Now
both fleets were within its compass.
    Hreem issued more
orders, more to have something to do than out of any tactical necessity.
    Norio felt him
relaxing further, then two blips of light ignited on the screen. No, three—a
red light blinked on the outer moon as well. They formed the apices of an
equilateral triangle, centered on the planet.
    Hreem sat upright
with a startled oath. “What the chatzing hell is that?” He poised his hand over
the skip pad, but the light in it died. Erbee’s skinny hands blurred on his
scan console.
    “Metije! Where’s
the skip?” Sweat prickled on Hreem’s brow.
    “Resonance pulse,
Captain,” Erbee interrupted. “They just popped the resonance field out to the
outer moon.”
    “Chatzing
generators—why didn’t you—” Hreem began,
    Erbee shook his
head violently. “Nobody knew about ’em. We got no skip. They got us. They got
us all.” Erbee’s voice scaled up high and raw.
    Norio vibrated
harshly as he breathed in the mountain of terror on the bridge. Hreem shook him
off, a pulse of irritation at Norio’s pleasure. He is what he is. “Carcason!”
Hreem glared at the navigator. “Get us out of here!”
    As the Flower of Lith accelerated, turning away
from the planet and heading back toward translunar space, Dyasil’s console
bleeped again.
    “Message incoming
from Barca.”
    Hreem bit down on
an oath. “Put the chatzers on.” When the head and shoulders of a