I could tell it was no bluff. They would go only so far to protect their trinkets. And they were not fools. They knew I would never return these items. Ten heartbeats. If we tried to board with the crate, they would fire at once. If we set it down… they would fire, but perhaps more hesitantly for fear of hitting the crate. And the cutter's guns were still a point in our favour.
'Back up to the ramp,' I whispered to Bequin and Fischig. Throw the crate down when I say'
Are you sure?'
'Do as I say. Midas?'
'Ready drive, ready cannons.'
'Now!'
The crate crashed over in the dust. The cutter's engines shrieked into power. They didn't wait ten heartbeats. The three of us were on the ramp, and the ramp was swinging shut under us, and the cutter was lifting around us. A fusillade of weapons fire hammered off the hull. The cutter's cannons roared.
The cutter swung hard about, and we tumbled as the deck pitched. Fischig cried out and fell on the ramp, spilling half out of the gently closing entryway. I grabbed him and hauled him inside before his dangling legs could be severed by the vicing ramp or shot by the enemy below.
We were away. I could tell by the angle of the deck and the vibration of the ship's frame that Midas was accelerating hard and keeping low, letting the landscape shield us from the ground fire. Alarm lights flashed in the crew-bay, indicating damage.
'Strap yourself in!' I yelled at Aemos, who was attempting to rise to assist us. 'Fischig, get Bequin in a harness! Yourself too!'
The chastener pulled the terrified girl across the deck and into a seat. I clambered forward, along the companionway, and up into the cockpit.
Midas was pulling on the controls, taking us higher. The blotchy landscape of Damask flickered past beneath us. I dropped into the seat beside him.
'How close?'
The fighters have peeled back, on a direct intercept course. They have altitude in their favour.'
'How close?'
'Six minutes to intercept. Damn!'
What?'
He pointed to the main tactical screen. Behind the smaller bright cursors, larger shapes were moving against the three-dimensional magnetic map of the planet's magnetosphere. Their fleet's moving too. The capital ships. And that's two more fighter wings launched/
They don't want us to get away, do they?' he added.
"With what we know?'
'They won't let us out of the system alive, will they?'
'Midas, I think I've told you the answer to that.'
He grinned, white teeth contrasting sharply with his dark skin in the cabin's half-light.
We're going to have some fun, then,' he decided. His bare hands, sparkling with the inlay of Glavian bio-circuits, darted across the controls, adjusting our course.
'Ideas?' I asked.
'A few possibles. Let me massage the data.'
What?'
Trust me, Gregor, if we've even a shred of hope of getting out of the Damask system alive, it'll be through skill and subtlety. Shut up and let me compute their speeds and intercept vectors.'
We took damage from the ground fire,' I persisted. That hopelessness was seeping into me again, the feeling of having no ability to influence the situation.
'Minor, just minor/ he said distractedly. 'The servitors have got it covered/
He made a course change. From the screen, I saw this brought us around almost side on to the chasing fleet components, drastically reducing their time to intercept and firing range.
What are you doing?'
'Playing the percentages. Playing safe/
The bright globe of Damask was dropping away beneath us, and we were driving out into planetary space beyond the highest orbit points at full thrust.
'See?' he said. Another light had appeared on the tactical screen, moving around ahead of us.
'Standard Imperial battlefleet dispersal. There's always a picket ship positioned on the blind side of the subject world. If we'd kept straight on we'd have flown right into its fire-field/
Lights flashed out in the void beyond the cockpit windows. The picket ship, a medium frigate, was firing anyway, running interference, driving us on.
'It's launched fighters/ Midas reported in a sing-song voice. 'Range in two. Chasers have range in four/
