Pell.

Norway moved as the Fleet moved, hurling their mass into realspace in synch. Com and scan flurried into action, searching for the mote which was giant Tibet, which had jumped in before them, advance guard, in this rout.

“Affirmative,” com sent to command with comforting swiftness. Tibet was where she was supposed to be, intact, probe untouched by any hostile activity. Ships were scattered about the system, commerce, quickly evaporating bluster from some self-claimed militia. Tibet had had one merchanter skip out in panic, and that was bad news. They needed no tale-bearers running to Union; but possibly that was the last place a merchanter wanted to head at the moment

And a moment later confirmation snapped out from Europe, from the flagship’s operations: they were in safe space with no action probable.

“Getting com out of Pell itself now,” Graff relayed to her post at controls, still listening. “Sounds good.”

Signy reached across the board and keyed signal to the rider-captains, advising them. Fast to Norway’s hull, so many parasites, they did not kick loose. Com was receiving direct and frantic id’s from the militia ships scrambling out of their projected course as they came insystem dangerously fast, out of system plane. The Fleet itself was more than nervous, running as they were in one body, probing their way into the last secure area they hoped to have left.

They were nine now. Chenel’s Libya was debris and vapor, and Keu’s India had lost two of its four riders.

They were in full retreat, had run from the debacle at Viking, seeking a place to draw breath. They all had scars; Norway had a vane trailing a cloud of metallic viscera, if they still had the vane at all after jump. There were dead aboard, three techs who had been in that section. They had not had time to vent them, not even to clean up the area, had run, saved the ship, the Fleet, such as remained of Company power. Signy’s boards still flashed with red lights. She passed the order to damage control to dispose of the corpses, whatever of them they could find.

Here too there might have been an ambush — was not, would not be. She stared at the lights in front of her, looked at the board, with the drugs still weighting her senses, numbing her fingers as she manipulated controls to take back Norway’s governance from comp synch. They had scarcely engaged at Viking, had turned tail and run — Mazian’s decision. She had never questioned, had respected the man for strategic genius — for years. They had lost a ship, and he had pulled them, after months of planning, after maneuvers that had taken four months and unreckoned lives to set up.

Had pulled them from a fight from which their nerves were still jangled, from a fight which they could have won.

She had not the heart to look beside her to meet Graff’s eyes, or Di’s, or the faces of the others on the bridge; and no answer for them. Had none for herself. Mazian had another idea… something. She was desperate to believe that there was sane reason for the abort.

Get out quickly, redo it. Replan it. Only this time they had been pushed out of all their supply lines, had given up all the stations from which they had drawn goods.

It was possible Mazian’s nerve had broken. She insisted otherwise to herself, but reckoned inwardly what moves she would have called, what she would have done, in command of the Fleet. What any of them could have done better than had been done. Everything had worked according to plan. And Mazian had aborted. Mazian, that they worshipped.

Blood was in her mouth. She had bitten her lip through.

“Receiving approach instructions from Pell via Europe,” com told her.

“Graff,” she said, “take it over.” She reserved her own attention to the screens and the emergency com link she had plugged into her ear, direct link with Mazian when he should decide finally to use it, when he should decide to communicate with the Fleet, which he had not, silent since the orders which had hurled them out of a battle they had not lost.

It was a routine approach, all routine. She received clearance through Mazian’s com, keyed the order to her rider captains, scattering Norway’s fighters as other ships of the Fleet were shedding their own, backup crews manning them this time. The riders would keep an eye on the militia, blast any that threatened to bolt, then come and dock to them after the great carriers were safely berthed at station.

Com chatter continued out of Pell; go slow, station pleaded with them, Pell was a crowded vicinity. There was nothing from Mazian himself.