In a Small Room by Barrdwing
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All copyrights belong to the original creators . . .but I own up to Teresa and Keefer

Nerve Center Control can be an astonishingly cold and unfriendly place when there are no voices to soften its hard planes and edges. The masses of instrumentation loomed over me, clicking and beeping like a flock of metal chickens as they discussed their tasks with each other. The only machine paying any attention to me was 1-Rover-1, who sat squarely facing me and silently glared.

Looks like I stuck my foot in my mouth good and deep. Shit. The Can hadn't said a word for many minutes, not even to comment on the standoff developing out in the asteroid belt. I don't mind backing down when I know I've said something rude or just plain stupid: there's no point in defending bad ground, after all. But as I stood there with some insecure corner of mind looping the conversation through my head over and over, I only got madder. I didn't say anything wrong, dammitalltohell. Shifting my weight against the bulkhead, I glared at the oblivious back of the Tin Can's dome head. What bug's up your butt anyway? How am I supposed to know what I can and can't ask? You start out like the Fount of Knowledge, then dry up without warning . . . hell, that's not it. It's that I make one little tactical observation and all of a sudden I'm Homo sapiens non grata. Are you so infatuated with G-force that you can't handle anyone criticizing them?

Well . . . no. I squirmed a little, admitting that that wasn't right either. He's protective, is what. Like . . . pff, like they were his adopted kids. I suggested that they should've been brainwashed, and he blew a fuse. I scowled, dropping my eyes reluctantly. It still would have been the most sensible thing to do, but hell. They are just people, under all the hype the rags pile on them. Not robots or humanoids, despite those implants and alterations, and never mind that nobody else on the planet has had their basic geno-plan messed around with so thoroughly: they're still a trillion base-pairs away from being constructs. And they had the right to decide whether or not they'd be Îconditionedâ to handle the killing better.

Maybe they do have their own reasons for fighting. Really, they'd have to. It wouldn't surprise me--there were so many war orphans back at the beginning--some pretty grisly stories, too. If I were them I'd be pissed if anyone came nosing about wanting to know the details. I scowled. Idiot. Learn to think before you go asking questions, all right?

OK, I was out of line. But I am not apologizing to this waddling tub of spare parts.

The Tin Can worked on--he undoubtedly would have called it working--although he spent a lot more time staring at his screens than actually touching the control boards. I stared out the porthole letting my mind run around off its leash (Is it a porthole if it isn't round? Can you call it a window if it looks out underwater?) and watching the fish. They were fairly interesting. And I tried very hard to ignore the bank of screens off to my right: the Phoenix's camera array, live. If I didn't watch, I wouldn't be driven to ask questions about what was going on.

Mr. Cold Steel Shoulder might decide to take offense again. And I might get myself bounced out of here with a big black mark on my record, for bashing up an expensive piece of equipment.

"Ah-ha!" the Can burst out suddenly, making me jump. "The miners have managed to mobilize after all. Good for them!"

Resolution went out the window . . . porthole . . . whatever. I swung around on one heel to scan the ship's-camera array and blinked. Two of those screens displayed points-of-view that could not possibly be anchored on the Phoenix. One showed the Phoenix itself, a small blue-and-red toy moving in the background while unfamiliar ships plunged past in the foreground, some close enough to show the scarred sides and battered paint reminiscent of long years of work in the Belt. The other provided a sort of bird's-eye view of those ships massing together in an untidy wall, facing something much larger.

Spectra. Not that that was a difficult deduction. For one, it was the only thing firing: small brilliant lights blazed away from it, haloing the behemoth in a rapidly diffusing cloud of rocket exhaust. The mining ships began spreading out, belatedly, even as the missiles began finding marks among them. Shimmers of tumbling metal sprayed across the formation, plus one fireball. Only one.

"They're playing with them!"

"Actually, Spectra is finding its range," the Tin Can replied. "They are not particularly good shots, I've noticed."

"Doesn't matter; with the miners clumped like that all they have to do is fire in that general direction." I grimaced as a missile clearly bent its course to pursue a lumbering hauler. "Smart missiles. Great."

"Consider, however, the advantages of such a close formation." The Can coasted forward, looking like a tubby ice-skater. A spindly metal arm waved at an area down in the right lower corner of the screen. "The heat signatures are very confusing. See? That missile is completely lost. It can't decide which ship to follow, and I can tell you it's not going to hit any of them before its engine burns out."

"Which leaves it free to coast around and wait for someone to run into it instead," I countered. "And . . . shit! They're nuts!" A large number of the mining ships had suddenly shifted course, diving in at the Spectran craft from several sides. The Spectran responded immediately, ports popping open all over to release a barrage of missiles. I shot the Can a frantic look, stomach curling. "This is going to be a slaughter! Those miners aren't even--"

Light blared from the screen, jerking my attention back. It was virtually impossible to make anything out for several long seconds: instead of spreading out in fountains of glittering debris, the light remained blindingly bright. At first I thought it some new superweapon of Spectra's, designed to take out just such an attack from all sides. Then the light faded out, raggedly, and through tearing eyes I saw little dark shapes climbing away from the glowing hull of the Spectran ship.

"They have the tools of their trade," the Can said rather smugly. "Powerful lasers, designed for cutting up asteroids. Unfortunately, they won't be able to do more than irritate the enemy with those."

He seemed to be right. Already the larger ship's hull was dulling, darkening to its original hues. Purple, blue, and scarlet. The other reason identifying this ship as Spectran was a breeze.

The giant fish flexed its long spine and turned its wall-eyed gaze on a cluster of fleeing ships. I caught a glimpse of rows of missiles lined up along its jaws like fangs, angled forward in their cradles, ready to rack up and fire. Rockets bloomed along the spines of its portside fin, stabilizing the ship's roll, and the ungodly thing drove forward with a wash of flame from the engines flanking its tail.

"Barracuda, I believe." The Can, clearly on an entirely different frequency, rubbed musingly beneath his voxbox. "Not a bad design, really."

You want some paper so you can take notes? I rolled my eyes in disgust. Here we were watching a bunch of desperate miners stage a suicide attack, and this metal idiot was busy critiquing the enemy ship?

That's real oxygen going up in flames out there, pal; real human body parts getting spread across the Belt in little tiny bits done extra crispy. You talk a good line about war and killing Being Bad Things . . . but only when it's your own favorite people getting involved. The rest of the lot can just go hang, can't they?

"Two casualties . . . ." Now the Can was playing scoreboard. "I count four ships with hull damage and another with an erratic flight pattern. It may have lost its external field, and that isn't good. Do you see it, Doctor?"

"Yeah." Its own mates were giving it a wide berth. "But exactly how much does a mining ship depend on its field? They're not fighters."

"Considerably. While crude, a mining ship's field protects it from impacts over a wide range of particle mass. Without shielding, a ship in that battlefield is nothing more than an explosion waiting for a place to happen." The Can eyed the limping miner. "I do hope they are able to get it locked down long enough to return to base. I can't see a rescue attempt succeeding under conditions like these."

"Take some fast talking to get an R-squad into their ship at all," I muttered--the things had no armament, not even makeshift. Sitting duckâ described their chances pretty adequately. The miners, on the other hand, were putting up a surprisingly convincing fight. They had broken up into pairs and trios and were harrying the Spectran craft like terriers at a bull. The barracuda countered with brief salvos of missiles, but the miners had learned to guard each other's backs and were actually detonating the missiles with their lasers.

Unfortunately, they weren't turning the enemy ship back. The barracuda was nearly upon Ceres Base by now, and maneuvering into what looked like attack position. Its huge pale eyes glowed in Sol's distant light.

"Here it comes," the Tin Can muttered tightly. "Now we'll see whether they're actually after the ore depots or simply trying to do damage."

I tore my eyes away from that screen to search the others, hoping to see that the Phoenix had closed to within missile range. But the view of the bridge only showed the team sitting in their seats, eyes locked on the main viewscreen. G1 had caught his lower lip between his teeth and his eyes were hard. G3 and G4 looked worried; G5's face had closed over, still as a stone, his focus clearly on his instruments. All I could see of G2 was a hostile set of eyes glaring past G4's chair. Ceres-the-asteroid filled the lower three-quarters of the Phoenix's viewscreen, but the struggling minersâ ships were still no more than the bright blots of their drives and the occasional streak of laser. The latter were very bright: plenty of debris in the area by now.

"They're not going to make it in time, are they."

The Can cocked an antenna at me almost fiercely. "Not to prevent the initial attack, no," he snapped. "But they will be in position for counterattack in just a few minutes. Spectra won't have time to do much damage before they're forced to turn and fight!"

Whoo. I turned back to the screens, folding my arms. Definite sensitive spot, there. Make note: Do not criticize G-force around the Tin Can. On-screen, the barracuda had come about, setting itself nose-to-nose with Ceres Base. Delicate feathers of flame danced on its fintips as it positioned itself with meticulous care, matching the asteroid's gentle tumble. The miners still buzzed frantically around it, but the hulking ship refused to pay them any heed, not even bothering to spit missiles at the ones that careered insanely past its snout. And then Spectra made its move.

I threw an arm up with a startled yelp as pure, raw-edged waves of light poured across most of the screens. The Tin Can too emitted a strange sound, somewhere between gurgle and buzz, and fairly dove for his control board. Metal hands slapped at the keys while I peeked cautiously past my arm at the screen bank, trying to make out some kind of useful detail.

"It must be a force ray!" the Can was babbling. "Hold on, Doctor; I'm trying to filter it down, at least. There's no way to reduce it completely. Don't look directly at the screens; you could burn your retinas. Let me . . . there!" He lifted his hands from the board, turned back to the screens. "Oh, my."

Understatement of the century, I thought, squinting painfully through a regular welling of tears as my outraged eyes reacted belatedly. Bilious light still washed across the screens with a peculiar crawling motion, an effect so bizarre that my stomach twitched uneasily. Far more unsettling, however, was the condition of Ceres Base. Buildings had collapsed in upon themselves; antenna towers drooped like wilting flower stems. The landing field was a lake of bubbling liquid plasta. Not a single ship remained groundside: they had either sunk into the field or been converted into the thick smoke rapidly diffusing away from Ceres's airless sphere.

"Damage, then," I murmured. And it was a good thing Ceres Base extended well down into the asteroid itself. If some of its personnel had had the sense to go deep--as anyone with the brains of a rabbit would have done--maybe the rock had shielded them.

"This is terrible," the Can breathed. "But it simply doesn't make sense. They didn't even spare the warehouses! They're making no effort to turn and run; they must know that G-force is on their way and will certainly press them to fight now. What possible use was a display like that?"

I wrinkled my brow. "I take it this," jerked a thumb at the devastated base, "was rather more extreme than you anticipated?"

"Far more extreme." The robot swivelled his head back and forth. "I simply do not see what they intended to achieve. This is almost like a suicide mission, but Spectra would never waste a ship of that size on such a ploy. The waste of resources alone would be enough to stop them."

"Not the waste of life?" I muttered dryly. "No, of course not. But maybe this ship is operating on autopilot or by remote."

"A ship that big? I hardly think so." The Can shook his head again. "But I was referring to hard resources, Doctor: that would be metals, alloys, electronics . . . the actual physical components of that ship."

"Then something stinks here." I gave the screen with the best view of the Spectran ship a hard look. "Something's wrong. We've got a live Spectran crew up there destroying supplies they could have looted, just to provoke a fight; you don't have to tell me that that doesn't match their psychological profile. What are they really up to?"

"Inviting attack. Advantages." The Tin Can went still. "Selection of the time of attack, battle ground, enemy approach vector. Emotional response of the enemy and/or target personnel. Ambush. Distraction. Suicide weapon. Feint and withdrawal. Commitment of enemy resources." He hummed a moment. "Posits: Spectra has developed a new superweapon which is most effective in outer space; intends to take out the Phoenix. Spectra has arranged a sneak attack to be made on Earth or some other target while the Phoenix is occupied in the Belt. Spectra is depending upon panic to force the Team into fighting under suboptimal conditions. Ambush by ships currently moving in via timewarp. Possibly . . . ."

I tuned him out before my head started to spin again. There was one thing he'd mentioned that stuck in my mind, and I wanted to mull it over: distraction, feint-and-withdrawal. When combined with that lameass course they'd taken into the system, it really started to look reasonable. Suppose they'd kicked something off the tailgate near MS 83? The only problem with that, as far as I could see, was the complete uselessness of such an act. The Can had referred to MS 83 as a has-been, no longer in operation. Presumably its mining zone was played out; the base, if not actually abandoned, would be manned by only a skeleton crew. Easy to take over . . . but again, why? It wasn't even in a strategic location!

"Of course, we should consider the possibility that Spectra has begun hiring off-world strategists again. Or drawing upon the talent of its subject planets." The Can sighed. "Since Corog's disgrace, Zoltar has shown little interest in Sigma Minor, but the natives of that world make formidable leaders and fighters. I would much rather not have to worry about them."

"Heavy-worlders." I had to agree with him there. Take a nice Earth-like planet with a G field of more than about one point two, colonize it with species that evolved under lighter fields, and you start getting life with a certain attitude. Accustomed to fighting for every step they take, bred for the muscle and bone mass it takes to bear up under the strain . . . damn right they're formidable. Don't piss them off. Sigma Minorians in particular refused to even admit their virtual slave status. Cunning enough to turn an embarrassment into a twisted sort of pride, and call themselves "allies" of Spectra. Yeah. If Zoltar was smart, he'd call on them.

Please God he doesn't figure that out.

"So we have a new problem." I dragged my thoughts back into line. "We don't know who's manning that ship for certain, or who's in charge. Without that information, how can we make any predictions about what they're likely to do or not do?"

"It is not a new problem," the Can retorted. "I operate under that complication every day. What we can do, and should do, is determine as many possibilities as we can and use our powers of observation. Within the opening moves of a battle, I can determine whether or not a Spectran captain is in control of that ship. That alone will assign new levels of probability to our list of postulations."

"And we ought to have it figured out just about the time the battle's finished," I growled under my breath, eyeing him sidelong. What kind of statistics/analysis programs have you got, shorty, to make you think you can Sherlock Holmes their battle plan via long-distance camera?

New motion on one of those camera screens recalled my attention in a hurry. The Spectran ship had begun a slow turn, pivoting above the wreckage of Ceres Base as if guarding its kill. Seen from the Phoenix's cameras, it frankly hulked: the disparity in size between the two ships was obvious. I grimaced anew, feeling my stomach drop uneasily.

Light flared in the giant fish's mouth. Then it promptly dropped off the bottom of the Phoenix's viewscreen display, as the smaller ship went into a neck-popping climb. Engines shrieked tinnily from a speaker I hadn't even noticed, making me jump.

"Get the drop on them, Tiny!" G1's voice rapped out above the howl.

"I guess this answers your question, Mark," G2 grated; on the number eight screen I could see his sardonic expression as he braced himself, trying not to get thrown sideways out of his seat. "They really are going for a frontal assault this time."

"Thanks, Jason," G1 said dryly. "You can come forward and give them our answer anytime."

"They'd better move fast," 7-Zark-7 fretted. "That Spectran ship isn't waiting around to see what they'll do: it's seizing the initiative!"

I didn't need that pointed out to me. The Spectran had left its parking orbit over Ceres Base and was moving up on the Phoenix's tail. One of the screens displaying the POV from a camera stationed somewhere near Ceres Base itself flashed out, leaving a dim afterimage of a little fish shape fading in one corner; I had just enough time to register the change before it came alive again. Blue-tinged flame churned in the foreground, half-obscuring a wall-eyed demon face with a fanged mouth lit from within. I twitched back a step involuntarily.

"Oh, I hate seeing the tail camera pick something up," moaned the Can. "It's never good news!"

"Just about sent me into V-tach," I muttered, drawing some deep breaths and trying to get my heart to slow down. Who's the lucky soul gets to monitor outside cams? So far as I could tell, none of the stations on the Phoenix's bridge had a multiscreen array like this one, but surely somebody had that duty. Pity them, whoever they are. A view like that's damned disturbing.

Well, yes. That would be the point, wouldn't it?

The Phoenix executed a loop and roll that sent the stars wheeling on the screens--unfortunately in varying directions--and forced me to look away. When I glanced cautiously back, it was to see two vivid lights arrowing away from the Phoenix, dwindling towards the nape of the giant fish. G-force had somehow gotten well above the other ship, a maneuver that must have put considerable strain on the Phoenix's gravity and inertial compensation systems, but they'd managed it. I grinned as the missiles smashed home just behind the fish's right eye and expanded into dramatic domes of fiery light.

"Oh, well done, Jason!" 7-Zark-7 cried. 1-Rover-1 added a brassy bay that sounded like a trumpet with two pair of socks stuffed into it. But when the light faded out, I couldn't see so much as a black spot on the other ship's paint job. My jaw dropped.

"There's thirty pounds of Tango one-ninety in each of those missiles!" I rounded on the robots; 1-Rover-1 gave a muffled squeak and nearly fell over. His master looked at me oddly. "How can they just blow like that and not leave a mark?" I demanded. "The Bird Missiles make paste of any armor Earth can produce!"

"Yes, that is true," 7-Zark-7 allowed, "but Spectra has always excelled at shipbuilding. It is not unusual for the Team's first shots to have no effect. They know that they have to figure out the other ship's weak points."

I glowered. "We fight, and we sweat, cramming those thirty pounds into that little missile: it's tighter than my granny's vinyl corset in there and Upstairs still keeps sending memos down telling us to find a way to pack in more. Weapons-chief has been screaming for permission to design a larger shell for two years now but Anderson still won't bend. We could give him another quarter-KT of power and up the range by fifty percent if he'd just let us use that Buteo design of Ivan's, but no, he wants the Sparhawk." I threw my hands in the air, turned away to glare at the screens. "So we keep sending the team out with underpowered missiles. This is ridiculous."

"If the Team wants more power, they have the Spur Missiles," 7-Zark-7 reminded me.

"They're another designer's disaster," I retorted, glancing at him. "One tool trying to perform too many functions. Anderson wanted a more powerful missile. He also wanted attack-and-infiltration craft. So he approved the Super, which can do both." On-screen, the Phoenix fired again. I paused to watch the Bird go poof against the fish's left pectoral fin and melt away into nothing. "But the Phoenix can only carry two. So they wait and wait before using them, and that's almost as bad as not having the blasted things at all!"

7-Zark-7 fixed me with what appeared to be a disapproving eye. "Doctor, I don't intend to disparage your pride in your profession, but you're forgetting one very important thing." He gestured with surprising grace at the screen. "To use any kind of tool well requires skill. And, I assure you, G-force has plenty of that. Consider where Jason has been aiming: at the eyes, fins, and sides of the head." The hand looped again, indicating each zone. "The command center of a Spectran ship is always in the head, and often their primary or most dangerous weapon as well. While of course such structures will be well-armored, they are still far better target sites than the body, which is mostly auxiliary functions and fuel tanks. The tanks will be the best-protected of all. The head, on the other hand, contains the sensor array--and sensors mean delicate equipment." The hand lifted, fell in a dismissing gesture. "Even if those first shots do not damage the ship's bridge, there is a good chance that they will cripple its ability to assess its surroundings, or its ability to fight. Force-ray lenses make particularly good targets. Although very hard to break, even a good crack will render the weapon useless."

"Useless," I repeated under my breath, chuckling. A nice way of putting it. Useless, unless they want to switch it on and let the unfocused waves shake everyone and everything to bits. An effective way to keep your enemies from capturing ship or personnel.

"So you see," the Can went on inexorably, "Jason has not been wasting ammunition at all. There's no point in taking the Phoenix in to close range if a shot from farther out will do the job. The vibrations from these preliminary shots may even jar some things loose on the Spectran bridge, and hinder their ability to fight back. Pretty soon now the Phoenix will make a scouting sweep over the other ship, to look for structural weak points."

"But it'd be nice if they didn't have to," I insisted. The little Pollyanna was missing the point completely. "Doesn't it make sense to you? Give the team a better missile, and they won't have to fly right up to the lion's mouth just to see where they can use the thing. It'd sure be a lot safer for them!"

The Can's antennae fell a little. "That is true. I don't like watching them risk their lives so often, myself. My gyros would spin a lot more steadily if only they weren't constantly in danger. But, unfortunately, there's nothing to be done about it." He reached out and tapped a finger on one of the screens, indicating the Phoenix's dorsal missile rack. "In order to load larger missiles, we'd have to redesign the racking and firing mechanisms. And the Phoenix would no longer be able to carry so many; a point I believe you brought up earlier." One antenna rose a little. "So you see, unless we also design a larger Phoenix, switching to a larger missile creates bigger problems than it solves."

I snorted. "So design a bigger Phoenix. What's so tough about that?"

Somewhat to my dismay, the Tin Can went into gales of tittering. I flushed and looked around the room, anywhere but at that bug-eyed bullet who kept glancing from me to the viewscreen and trying to speak, then losing it again. Both hands twitched in random jerks.

Must've overloaded his compensation programming, I thought in disgust, clenching a fist that I really wanted to apply to the top of the Can's head. All right, whatânâell is it that I don't know about the Phoenix that makes what I said so damned funny?

"I--I really . . . must . . . apologize, Doctor," the Can managed at last, voxbox lights flickering erratically. "It's just . . . what you said--heeheeheehee--as if we could just design a larger Phoenix. Oh, my. It's not so simple as that."

"Really," I growled, and turned back to the screens before I gave in to temptation. My eyes focused on the little images without genuinely seeing them for a few seconds. Then an alarm went off in my head and I blinked, looked again. "Hey! What the--?"

"Oh, this isn't typical of them at all." The Tin Can eyed the screens, sounding taken aback. "How very strange."

Strange was just the beginning, if you asked me. Somehow in the few minutes we'd spent talking, the entire tide of battle had shifted. The Spectran ship was now locked into a full-power burn, legging it away from the Phoenix at a steady acceleration. The Phoenix pursued it.

"Running away." I folded my arms, nonplussed. "So what've we got here? Mutiny? Or maybe Zoltar's not present and his long-distance leadership skills just bit the dust."

"Or possibly," the Can said slowly, "this is all part of their plan. Notice the course they are following."

"Huh?" Maybe that was easy for someone with a grid of insystem space in his head, but I had no idea what heading they were on. Finally I thought to squint back over my shoulder at the quad-screen on the far wall. The upper left screen had switched to a schematic of a wedge of local space including Mars and a section of the Belt. Red marked the Spectran's incoming course, orange its sudden deviation, and flashing yellow the present one.

"So they're backtracking. Big deal."

"I don't understand it," the Can persisted. "I can't see any logical reason for them to do that. Therefore--quod erat demonstrandum--something has to be afoot."

Some proof, I snorted to myself. Ever consider that you might miss some part of the equation? Nobody's infallible. "Whoever said Zoltar was logical?" I countered instead, trying to make a joke out of it.

The Can missed it. Not surprising.

"Oh, but he is. Remarkably logical, for an organic life-form." Pause; one antenna wobbled uncertainly. "Hmm. I must admit he has his share of unconventional ideas . . . but still, Zoltar is one of the most thorough planners I've ever met. Well, not met, exactly . . . ."

"I know what you mean," I sighed. A robot that has slips of the tongue. What is this world coming to?

"Anyway," the Can plowed on, "Zoltar just doesn't do things without good reason. His battle plans are most impressive when viewed in an entirely objective manner. He has more contingency plans than I have modulators. Things only begin to go wrong when his men lose confidence." One hand gestured at the screens, fluttered helplessly. "This is not a panicked retreat. And they still seem to be echoing their inbound course. He must be planning something!"

"So why don't we wait and see what comes next?"

"But . . . ."

"Look," I glared at him, "sometimes all you can do is sit and watch things happen for a while. If you're out of your depth, stop trying to put a pattern on things and wait for the real pattern to surface. Otherwise you're just going to color everything you see, put a bias on it."

The Can's antennae drooped a little and he turned away, fixing his optics on the screens. "Perhaps you are right, Doctor," he murmured.

Well you don't have to sound as if you're having a tooth pulled. I rolled my eyes, feeling a flush of irritation prickle past my ears. We watched in mutual strained silence as the Spectran continued to flee away from the Phoenix, following a course that did not actually retrace their attacking vector but certainly paralleled it reasonably well. Matter of fact--I squinted at the plot--it looked as if the two lines would intersect somewhere along the dashed region marking the Spectran's earlier picojump string.

He's right, I admitted reluctantly, shooting the Can a sidewise glance. That course doesn't make sense. If Zoltar's as good a planner as the Can thinks, he should've had jump vectors laid in for points all along his projected course. There's no way they could be just aiming for a reference point that far back along their inbound vector. Something is wrong.

The minutes crawled down my spine. Finally, finally, the Spectran did something. A brilliant flash arrowed away from the monster-fish's flank, headed dead for a little speck I'd completely forgotten about. A quiet moan escaped the Tin Can as the megamissile or cluster turned into a bubble of glare on the surface of MS 83.

What in hell was that for?

Five seconds later, the Spectran's engine flare turned brilliant white, expanded, and vanished. They'd gone to warp.

"It's so sad," the Can murmured sanctimoniously. "A final gesture of defiance by Zoltar, I'm afraid. He just can't stand to be driven off without getting in the last word."

On-screen, the Phoenix cut its engines back but continued hopefully along its previous vector for several minutes more. At last it wheeled and blazed off. The com whistled.

"Phoenix to Nerve Center." G1 sounded irritated. "I don't suppose you caught any hints as to what Zoltar's up to, Zark?"

". . . cut and run like that," G2 was growling in the background. "I don't like it!"

"I'm afraid not, Commander." The Can's antennae drooped profoundly.

On the front bridge view, G1 glared up through his visor at the comscreen. Then he sighed a little, flicking two fingers in dismissal. "Sorry, Zark. Don't depolarize over all this. Zoltar's just playing it sneaky again, and I'm sick of his little games."

"He must have left a clue somewhere," G3 cut in. The Can perked up at that.

"Quite right, Princess. I'll get right on it. I don't intend to rest until I've figured out just what is going on."

G1 managed a semi-smile. "That's all anyone could ask, Zark. Phoenix out."

The Can swung away from the screens and waddled in a businesslike manner for the doorway. "Princess was right," he said in a stubborn tone of voice. "There have to be indicators of what Zoltar is up to. We're going to check camera footage, sensor scans, in-system and out-system monitoring rigs--the works, Doctor. We're going to find them!"

I suppressed a profound groan as I followed him into the den of Memory One. And somehow I just know he's going to forget that humans need little amenities like meals, sleep, and trips to the head. Something nyapped behind me and I pulled aside to let 1-Rover-1 rotor past, rear in the air. Gods. Well, on the plus side: at least the Can's too upset to go flying around the place.

I think I better count whatever blessings I can find.
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