Starplex

The Rumrunner was corkscrewing wildly as it approached the enemy vessel. Laser fire from the Waldahud’s rear cannons kept missing the probeship, or glancing off its force screens. But, after a moment, the firing stopped as the Waldahudin aboard presumably became absorbed in the spectacle they, too, were no doubt monitoring.

The second ship the darmats had tossed toward the sun was rapidly reaching its destination. Lifeboats popped away from it, but their puny motors weren’t strong enough to let them achieve orbit around the star. The last sight the dying Waldahudin probably saw on their monitor screens was the star’s strange dumbbell-shaped sunspots, gray-black splotches against a hell of liquid jade.

The PDQ and the Dakterth were returning to Starplex now. Of course, they had to approach from above or below to avoid the torus of hail surrounding the ship. Rhombus was using tractor beams to pull them down onto the flat surface of the central disk. There was no way to get them into the docking bays—the ice prevented that—but there were emergency docking clamps on both faces of the disk.

Rumrunner was still giving chase. “Rissa!” shouted Keith into his mike. “For God’s sake, Rissa—come home!”

Suddenly the Rumrunner’s laser erupted, PHANTOM dutifully drawing in its beam on the holographic display. It swept across the starscape. Rissa’s aim was perfect, severing the ship’s engine pod from the craft in one clean slice. The pod tumbled against the night, a puff of expelled gas around it shining like a halo of emeralds. And suddenly—

The pod flared brilliantly, brighter even than the nearby star, as it went up in a fusion explosion. Longbottle executed a crazed arcing maneuver to avoid the expanding ball of plasma, then began a laser-straight path for Starplex. The engineless Waldahud ship shot away at an oblique angle under momentum, unable to maneuver.

The third dark-matter whip cracked, sending another Waldahud fighter pinwheeling across the firmament. As this one passed by, Keith saw that several of its hull plates had been deliberately blown away; the crew had apparently preferred opening the ship to vacuum over cooking alive as they plunged into the sun.

Next the combined double finger that had enveloped the huge Waldahud ship began to rotate around its midpoint, playing out into a spiral design like a galaxy as it did so, turning faster and faster. PHANTOM showed the location of the ship buried within one arm of the spinning mass. The rotation became more and more rapid, until finally, like an athlete throwing a discus, the dark matter hurtled the giant ship away from it. The bigger ship managed to regain control before it impacted the sun, but as it started to alter its course, the white fusion flames of its exhaust stark against the green inferno, a giant prominence arched upward from the photosphere, engulfing it.

“Four of our five probeships are safely clamped to our hull,” reported Rhombus. “And the Rumrunner will be back in eleven minutes.”

Keith let out a heavy sigh. “Excellent. We must have everyone out of the lower decks by now, right?”

“The final elevator is on its way up,” said Lianne. “Give it another thirty seconds.”

“Okay. Keep the lower decks at zero-g so no more water will flow down. Thor, stop spinning the ship.”

“Will do.”

“Director,” said Rhombus, “Gawst’s ship has attached itself to the surface of our hull. He’s holding in place with a tractor beam.”

Keith smiled. “Fancy that—a prisoner of war.” He spoke loudly. “Excellent work, everyone. Thor, Lianne, Rhombus—excellent.” He paused. “Thank God the darmats sided with us. I guess it never hurts to be on speaking terms with the stuff that makes up most of the universe, and—”

“Jesus!” Thor’s voice.

Keith’s head snapped up to face the pilot. He’d spoken too soon. Tendrils of dark matter were now closing on Starplex.

“We’re next,” said Rhombus.

“But we’re orders of magnitude bigger than the Waldahud ships,” said Thor. “Surely they can’t toss us into the star?”

“Only a third of the dark matter participated in the attack on the Waldahud forces,” said Rhombus. “If it all comes after us—PHANTOM, can they do it?”

“Yes.”

“Hail Cat’s Eye,” said Keith. “I better talk to him.”

“Locating vacant frequency,” said Rhombus. “Transmitting… No response.”

“Thor, get us out of here,” said Keith.

“Course?”

Keith considered for half a second. “Toward the shortcut.” But he immediately realized that dark-matter tendrils had already started to intervene between Starplex and that invisible point in space. “No, change that,” he snapped. “Bring us in close to the green star, in the opposite direction. And get Jag down here, PHANTOM.”

“You ordered him barred from this room, sir,” said the computer.

“I know that. I’m giving you new instructions. Get him down here right away.”

There was a moment’s silence while PHANTOM conferred with Jag. “He is on his way.”