"Looks pretty ugly, sir."
"Nothing permanent, Hobbes. The Al doubts you'll even need a servo-prosthetic. But you'll be limping until we get back to Legis and get some new ligaments put in you."
Back to Legis. The engagement was truly over then. No more monstrosities had emerged from Rix space to threaten them. It was hard to believe.
"Just ligaments?" she wondered. It had felt as if the kneecap had been shattered. She must have weighed more than three hundred kilos when she'd fallen.
"Well," Zai admitted, "ligaments and a hypercarbon kneecap. If you plan on taking any more strolls at five gees, I would recommend you get a pair of those."
She smiled. Then images returned to her mind from the fiery moments of the blackbody drone attack. Dead bodies on the bridge. Blood in the air.
"How many casualties, sir?"
"All told, eighty-one of us died," he said. "All three bridge pilots, and Gunner Wilson." Eighty-one. A bloodbath. Between her three engagements-- hostage rescue, the first pass of the battlecruiser, and the blackbod-ies--the crew of the frigate was more than a third gone.
"I should have listened to you, Hobbes," Zai said. "Removing the armor from around the bridge almost cost us the Lynx entire."
"No, sir. It was my mistake. I shouldn't have gone to six gees. That was too much with the AG already failing." She shut her eyes, reliving the moment. If only she'd ordered a slower ramp-up to three gees, the AG might have held.
"You couldn't have foreseen that, Hobbes," the captain assured her. "The Rix plan was brilliant--mutual destruction. The battle-cruiser released a hundred and twenty-eight drones just before they self-destructed. Full blackbody types. Enough to tear the Lynx to pieces. We were saved by Data Master Kax, who stayed alert while the rest of us were celebrating. He spotted them and warned Tyre."
Hobbes furrowed her brow. Hadn't Kax been blinded?
"And you too, Hobbes," Zai continued. "You got us out before the drones could cut us to pieces. Every kilometer between Lynx and the blackbodies saved lives. No one died from the acceleration."
Hobbes felt a moment of relief. At least her rashness hadn't killed anyone. "But there were a few injuries, I'll bet, sir."
"Purely from the acceleration? Only a hundred or so. Your knee's just about the worst, though. Every other member of my crew has the sense not to stand up in five gravities."
She smiled wanly at the captain's teasing. Hobbes's memory of her mutinous thoughts was hazy. The fierce conflict that had raged within her seemed now like a phantasm, a stress reaction rather than a true failure of will.
"And we've captured it," Zai said.
It took Hobbes's mind a moment to grasp this. "The object, sir?"
Captain Zai nodded. "We've got artificial gravity again, as you may have noticed. We have the thing under tow."
Her eyebrows rose. Easy gravitons were swamped in the proximity of supermassive objects like planets. But on something like the Rix object, which massed only a hundred billion tons or so, they could get purchase, she supposed. But the ship would be straining like the devil to make any headway.
"What vector are we making, sir?"
"Practically nothing. But four heavy cargo tugs are under construction on Legis," he said. "Between them and the Lynx, we'll be able to accelerate the object at almost a full gee."
Hobbes nodded. The frigate's powerful drive was her most advanced feature. If it weren't for the fragility of humans and equipment inside, and the limits of AG when it came to dampening high gravities, the Lynx could accelerate like a remote drone. With a few cargo tugs thrown in, and additional darkmatter scoops to provide reaction mass, the frigate could move a small planetoid.
"The object is already making two thousand klicks per second into Imperial space, sir," Hobbes said, calling a tactical display into the air before her. "We should be able to get it up to point-nine constant in under a year."
Zai smiled at her enthusiasm. "It'll take a hell of a lot of reaction mass, Hobbes. You might want to include darkmatter variation in your math."
"But where are we taking her, sir? Trentor Base?"
"We're going Home."
Hobbes's mouth fell open. All the way Home again. She could see the quiet happiness in Laurent's eyes. Whoever his secret lover was, she was back on the Imperial capital.
A trip to Home would take ten years Absolute. The war might well be over for the crew of the Lynx.
Of course, for many of them, the war was over already. Katherie wondered how many of the honored dead were suitable for reanima-tion, and how many were gone forever.
She suddenly felt exhausted again, despite her five cycles of hyper-sleep. Her mind couldn't take in any more information. The simple facts were overwhelming enough. The Lynx had survived, accomplished her mission, and captured a war prize that might well change Imperial technology forever. Laurent Zai was still alive, still an elevated hero, and Katherie Hobbes, it seemed, was not a traitor.
Things were better than she would have been expected.
But Hobbes knew the next time she woke, she would have to face the details of the situation: endless components to be repaired; preparations for the long trip home; assistance in the rebuilding of Legis's infostructure. Learning how to walk again.
And she would have to read the names of the dead. Friends, colleagues, and crewmates. She closed her eyes, deciding not to call up the casualty list yet. That could wait.
"I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Hobbes," Zai said. "You must be--"
"Tired, sir. But thank you for seeing me."
"Thank you, Hobbes."
"For what, sir?"
"For never doubting me," Laurent said softly. "Through all this madness."
"Never, sir."
Never again.
Marine Private
The prisoner offered no resistance as she was led onto the Lynx.
She emerged from the airlock with alien grace, her step like a courtesan's from a storydream back on Private Bassiritz's home world. But the marine realized after a moment that her tiny steps were not a sign of humility, but the result of shackles. The woman's 245 ankles were bound with two interwoven sheaths of hypercarbon fiber. Her hands were concealed by a garment that stretched around her like a straightjacket, as if she were hugging herself to keep out the cold. A stun collar was clasped around her neck. The Legis Militia guard who escorted her carried the collar's remote outstretched before him, a totem to ward off evil.