Dreamspy. Jacqueline Lichtenberg
//Six ships! Your Gita One is under attack.// Ckam’s attention went to close focus. Kyllikki strained to follow what was happening on the retreating ship. Meanwhile, her hands flew over her own board, alerting Prosperity’s bridge crew and the Captain minutes before lightspeed transmissions could reach them. A moment later, without any volition, she received another image from Ckam’s mind, the illicit contact suddenly wide open between them, showing her Ckam’s displays.
Six fighters were streaking by Otroub on a heading that would intersect Prosperity at the edge of the Barkyr system, outside local defenses. Two of them were laying down fire at the rapidly maneuvering Gita One, and two more were firing directly on Otroub.
Gita One’s Com Officer yelled a telepathic warning that pierced through Ckam’s mind and lanced into Kyllikki’s awareness like an electric shock. Suddenly, Kyllikki was deadly calm, her mental voice firm as she announced, //Gita Two, Gita Three, this is Prosperity. Gita One and Otroub are under attack by six incoming ships which will intercept Prosperity.// She added speed and course figures. //Barkyr Defense, I have relay from Gita One. Bogeys on trajectory intercept your Station Prime, one-oh-two-mark-six-seven. Advisement; use all force. Shall I repeat.//
//Alert acknowledged, Prosperity. One-oh-two-mark-six-seven. All force. Advise Gita One—//
White pain smashed through Kyllikki’s eyes, a stark searing heat so hot it made death welcome. No. That’s Etha’s pain. She’s closer. The relayed pain hardly touched the icy core of calm within Kyllikki. //Barkyr Defense. Gita One is destroyed.// She made sure the escorts heard also as she tapped the data into Prosperity’s bridge display.
The two remaining escorts near Prosperity were struggling to maneuver around the wallowing liner to meet the incoming ships. The attackers were small, but moving so fast they must have materialized at full velocity somewhere nearby, planning to nail Barkyr’s Station Prime without slowing, then head directly into their next dive point. They were going too fast to change direction, and so were simply taking advantage of the chance to destroy two Metaji ships that happened to be in their path.
In the back of Kyllikki’s mind, Ckam’s awareness of the evacuation sirens on Otroub blatting away mixed with Gita Two’s Captain snarling, “I don’t care if we have to ram them. We’re going to stop them! Override!” Barkyr Defense cut across it all: //Stand clear, Gita Two and Three. We got ‘em.// And, from the very distant colony planet, a nonhuman mentality added, //It’s a diversion. Give me a full scan.//
That must be a Paitsmun telepath. Inanely, Kyllikki recognized the mental tones of her overheard critic, who had no human gene in his body, and who must also be Paitsmun.
And then, for the second time, the world was wiped out in heat, pain, and an unbearable white light that illuminated her bones and sizzled through her guts. She hadn’t realized how deep into Ckam she’d been until she died with her. The darkness was so welcome.
Kyllikki came to draped over her screen’s housing, unbidden tears of pain leaking from her eyes, her own gasping sounding in her ears. Then her mind cleared.
“—llikki, you all right? This is Captain Brev. Answer or I’ll override your seals!” His voice faded. “Lee! Where is Lee? Get him in there!” Then louder: “Com Third!”
“Here, Captain.” Aloud and mentally, she sent to all points. //“Otroub has been destroyed. Com Officer Etha Ckam is dead with all hands...correction. There is one survivor. In a pod. Unconscious. The passenger. I presume.”//
There was no harm broadcasting that. The attackers couldn’t very well turn around and finish the job. They were now bearing down on Prosperity.
Kyllikki had never been so close to death before and was surprised that her hands were steadier than they’d been all day, despite the real pain that burned through her whole body. She tapped into the helm screens and brought up the spectrum display. Minutes out of date, it had just begun to show Gita One and Otroub as expanding clouds of debris. I was out that long? No wonder the Captain was upset. There was no life-pod distress beacon out there. Defective pod?
Nearby, the six attackers showed as streaks of light surrounded by a flashing array of arcane military symbols.
Six Teleod ships. And someone coordinating their attack. Has to be a master telepath coordinating. Not Family, though a middling-good coordinator. Expendable.
All at once, she knew what she had to do and did it.
Mentally, she summoned the proper key image, swallowed the exquisite nostalgia, and ventured through the image into the working realm, a “place” none of the Metaji had the keys or the training to reach.
In a nearby segment of the working realm, the master telepath had created a large cave, a comfortable private space. His presence filled it with multi-sensory gestalts, his orders. To enter his space was to know his plans. Kyllikki lurked in the “shadows,” striving to grasp his tactical thinking without revealing the presence of a Laila Family telepath.
Her ears registered a voice from her console, jarring her partially away from the realm. She groped for the balance of bilocation. It’s been so long! But in seconds, the skill came back and she was hearing with her ears and apperceiving the working realm simultaneously.
“—knowledge, Com Third, this is the Captain. Abandon that Window. You have ninety seconds. Acknowledge.”
She knew the Window’s radiation shielding wasn’t meant to absorb weapons fire, but then neither was the ship’s. Inside, she’d be virtually blind and hardly any safer. “With all respect, Captain, I’ve a job to do here.”
“That was an order, Com Third!”
Then the Teleod telepath caught her attention with a command image. //On my mark, execute.//
As the six ships acknowledged the order, she retreated from the working realm, fumbling for the way to speak to her allies again. //Gita Two, Gita Three, Station Prime, Barkyr, this is Prosperity. I’ve broken their code. The two lead ships will be firing jump-cannon, the next two lightspeed projectors, and the trailing two will lay down a field of proximity devices.//
The jump-cannon was a particularly nasty weapon. The energy knot it fired dived through a space warp and appeared inside the defenses of the target.
//This is Gita Three. Thanks, Prosperity.//
The two fighters fired maneuvering jets in unison, altering trajectory by the tiniest increment. They’re going to ram! Kyllikki didn’t have a tactical display, just the helm tracker with gross estimates on an overlay, but she knew the escort intended to take out the jump-cannons.
Determined to distract the enemy coordinator until it was too late, she retraced her steps into the working realm. The key image she had dismissed still lurked, clean and precise, in her foreconscious, as if she’d never missed a daily exercise at these skills.
She moved into the periphery of the Teleod coordinator’s working awareness, feigning clumsy stealth. He started, and turned on her. //Who—Korachi!// he swore. //A spy! They’ve broken into the realm!//
She retreated, darkening her key image by an act of trained will, simultaneously building a wall of silver bricks around herself, tensing for the mental blow she knew he’d launched at her. Simultaneously, she flung herself under her workstation and curled into a ball.
Before the coordinator’s attack connected, the two escorts smashed into the two lead ships.
Four telepaths died simultaneously, inadvertently amplifying the death-screams of the others who died with them. The four remaining telepaths on the other Teleod ships filled the working realm with magnified pain.
The working realm’s key image floating in Kyllikki’s consciousness, so dark she was not even aware of the outlines, suddenly flared, limned with intense light. It burned itself into her, leaving an afterimage. The echo of the two Metaji telepaths death-screams deafened her. Her body was outlined in pain, shaken by sound, burned by light.
Still,