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Melchior's history, and you're through, Cap. Melchior's no fun at all."
Sabatini sighed and just sat down in the middle of the floor. Then, suddenly,
he reached up, removed his headset, and tossed it against a wail, where it
struck and fell to the floor. Chow Mai picked it up and put it in China's
hands. She smiled and put it on. "Pilot can you home on me?"
"I have you locked in, yes."
"Then you be my eyes, if you can spare the attention. I will need to get
around this ship without falling over people and things."
"I am capable of quadrillions of simultaneous operations," the pilot
responded.
"Doing that will be no hardship, even in battle."
"Good. Switch yourself into the public address system so all may hear you and
leave this on an independent channel for personal use." She hesitated a
moment.
"You know, we can't just keep calling you pilot. Pilots are common. You are a
free individual and partner. You should have your own name. Do you have a
preference?"
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"None. I have never felt the need one way or the other, but I will take a name
if that makes it easier on the rest. Any name you suggest."
"What about Star Eagle?" Cloud Dancer suggested. "He is surely a chief here."
"Very well," China replied. "What do you think of it? It is a good name in
English and in Mandarin."
"I like it. Very well. I am Star Eagle."
"Birds," Sabatini mumbled. "All these damned birds. Nighthawks, Ravens, and
Nightingales, and now the ship's an Eagle."
Arnold Nagy studied the charts. Melchior's chief of security was pretty pissed
about being the man in charge when the first successful breakout occurred, and
he didn't want it to go much further.
"You know where they're headed?" the aide asked him.
"Yeah, it's not hard. That's why we blinded the genius girl. She had to do all
her queries by voice. She was looking into all the old universe ships
drydocked around Jupiter. She's smart, but I don't think that was a blind.
They really don't have much choice. There are one or two starcraft in the
system now, but they're crawling with robot maintenance. These mothball ships
are the only chance out."
"Can they really steal one? They've been in orbit for centuries, so it's not
even clear they'll work or won't need a lot of service before they'll work.
Even then, the pilots will be absolute slaves to Master System."
"We checked China's mindprint, and she knows how, all right. If they can get
to one of them and on board, she can take 'em over. The trick will be even
getting that far. There's protection on those babies, isn't there?"
"All the ships themselves are in vacuum condition for storage, and minimal
maintenance power is being fed through light collectors aimed at Jupiter. They
don't need much in shutdown. They themselves don't have any armament to speak
of, but they carry a dozen small automated fighter craft that will react to
any threat. They're fast, they work as one, and they have more than enough
speed and muscle to take care of an old scow like the inmates are flying. The
moment they don't give the correct hailing control codes, those fighters will
be activated.
Just as important, Master System will be notified."
"Screw Master System. Even at the speed of light it'll be a while before
Master
System can get anything approaching real power there. The fighters will have
to do it, if they activate. The trouble is, what if they somehow have the
control codes?"
"You think that's possible?"
"How can I rule anything out after what's happened? Run this through the
computer. Project a course that will take them in to the mothball fleet from
here without Master System's alert or detection. Give me the estimated speed
and arrival date and time. Then figure how long we would need to get there
with a straight-line trajectory. Also give me any Master System ships capable
of intercept."
It took only a few seconds. "Assuming they take close-in risks to traffic
control to gain time, the worst case is that they would arrive in forty-six
days from now. We could make it straight there in forty if we had the ships.
Master
System shows no ships that could make it any faster. It's the mothball
fighters or nothing."
"Like hell. What can we get our hands on quickly?"
"Depends on how you define quickly. The Star of Islam is due in four days, but
it's as old a tub as our quarry and carries only two standard guns, forward
top and underside aft. Other than that we have the Getaway craft sitting on
the asteroid Clebus, but they're still three days away because of the current
orbital paths."
"They're well armed, though, and really nasty," Nagy noted. "Small, fast,
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maneuverable. Three days... All right, get 'em over here. We'll attach them to
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