Mark sighed with reluctance. “No, you can’t.”

“Thank you. And if you can’t do that, you can’t figure out a nova bomb either.”

“You might get a handle on the principles.”

“You might indeed. Good point. The physics is all derivative of existing theories, so yes. You understand how the theory works, like knowing e-equals-m-c-squared is what makes an atom bomb work, not that it tells you how to build one. But you have the notion, and then half an hour later you get to see one in action as good old Nigel turns your star into an expanding sphere of ultra-hard radiation and plasma. So I repeat: What’s the point?”

“MorningLightMountain has other outposts.”

“Which are currently being targeted by the remaining frigates in the firewall operation.” Ozzie took a breath. He was almost in pain from the way Mark was slowly mellowing. “Nigel is going to commit genocide on behalf of our species, and the terrible thing is most of us are going to be cheering him on. We’ll still be alive; well, whoopee-do on that front, but the human race will no longer have a soul. That dies along with MorningLightMountain. Mark, this flight is the only chance we have to retain our humanity. It is hugely risky. Crazy even: I admit that. I’m gambling my life on it because I have that right, and once again I apologize for making you personally part of that gamble. The thing is this is such a gamble that Nigel is totally opposed to it, and I even respect him for that. These are very frightening times, Mark. But I cannot let this tiny little chance slip away from us. I have to try and get the barrier generator up and running again.”

“I see that, sure, but…”

“If I’m a traitor, it doesn’t matter because the human race will survive thanks to Nigel and the ships following us. But, man, think on this: if I’m not a traitor and we reestablish the barrier, then we win, too, and win the right way. Isn’t that worth something to you? Anything?”

The answer was a long time coming; and when Mark did finally speak the words sounded like they were being ripped out painfully. “I dunno. This restarting the generator idea, it sounds like a long shot.”

“Longest in human history. That’s why I’m the one doing it. Come on, dude, you don’t think anybody with a grain of sense is gonna be busting his balls like this, do you?”

“Guess not.” There was the faintest grin on Mark’s face.

“My man.” Ozzie put his hand out for a high-five. Mark stared at it mystified. “Okay,” Ozzie said. “So, like please tell me how I get the quantumbuster launch mechanism to work? Goddamn, it’s been killing me.”

“You mean you couldn’t launch the missile anyway?”

“No,” Ozzie admitted.

There was another long pause, then Mark gave a confident chuckle. “Well well. That makes me captain, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

“Okay, maybe not captain. We split the duty. You keep control of the drive. Give me control of the missiles.”

“What?”

“I can fix the launch mechanism, but if you want me to do it, you first have to give me fire authority.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“If you take us to the Dark Fortress and find a target inside it, I’ll launch a quantumbuster at it, and I’ll even cheer it on. If you try to deliver this ship and its technology to MorningLightMountain I blow us up. That’s the deal. You trust me, don’t you?”

“Son of a bitch. How close are you to Nigel, a genetic doppelgänger?”

“Do you want your chance at the barrier generator or not?”

Ozzie couldn’t see a way out. “Have you found a solution to the launch system problem?” he asked the SIsubroutine.

“No. According to my analysis routines the system should function. It does not. This is a paradox beyond available processing power to resolve.”

“All right, Mark, you can have access to the weapons systems.”

“You mean control of the weapons systems.”

“Whatever, yeah.” Ozzie’s virtual hands moved across symbols, granting Mark access to the weapons. He watched Mark establish connections into the network, then encrypt the whole weapons section.

“Can you break that?” he asked the SIsubroutine.

“No. It would require more processing power than the ship possesses.”

“Figures,” Ozzie muttered. Data was flowing out of the magazine mechanism control arrays to Mark’s insert.

“What’s that?” Mark queried.

“Just figuring out how you’re going to fix the launcher.”

“It was at an angle.”

“Excuse me?” Ozzie’s virtual vision followed a few small files Mark was now downloading into the array governing the electromuscle arms.

“Everyone thinks electromuscle segments are the same,” Mark said. “They’re not. Two identical lengths nearly always have different traction ratings. It’s down to minor instabilities in the manufacturing processes. Some batches come out weak, some strong, so the producers always build in a five percent traction overcapacity. That means they have to be balanced, especially in cases like this when you’ve got a missile being gripped by seven different arms. There, see? When they latched on to the missile in the magazine at different strengths they were actually tilting it.”

“Uh huh,” Ozzie said weakly.

“No wonder it wouldn’t slide into the launch tube, it was at a hell of a slant. There we go, that fix should recalibrate and equalize the traction. I wrote it years ago to balance the hoist arms on a friend’s tow truck.”

Ozzie’s virtual vision showed the quantumbuster missile slide into the launch tube amid a flood of green symbols. “Son of a bitch.” A patch for a tow truck! “It works.”

Mark gave him a slightly apologetic grin. “It’s what I do.”

The timer in Ozzie’s virtual vision had counted off forty-two seconds since Mark took command of the weapons. Two days smashing my head against a rock and I got nowhere; and I’m supposed to be a fucking genius. “Mark, thank you, man. You do realize we’ll have to go through with the flight into the Dark Fortress now?”

“Yeah, I know. But my survival chances haven’t been terribly high for a while now, have they?”

“I guess not. Uh, is there any of that lunch box left?”

“No. But there’s all the meals in the emergency survival lockers. They taste quite good, actually.”

Ozzie smiled. It was a good way of preventing the stressed whimper rushing out of his throat.

***

Oscar came out of the memory implant the way he shook off his nightly bad dream. Head rocking from side to side, trying to rise up off the couch, not quite certain where he was and what was real. He was sure his hand was still closed around a joystick while long flexible white wings curved up on either side of him as the wind raged outside. He blinked against the strong light, making out blurred figures standing at the end of the couch. Faces came into focus.

Something wrong.

Jamas and Kieran looked both scared and angry, never a good combination especially as they had their ion carbines jabbed into Wilson and Anna. Wilson’s emotions were under complete control, allowing him to put out just the right amount of tolerant dismay. Anna was quietly furious, her OCtattoos flexing in and out of visibility like a carnivore’s fangs in the prelude to a kill. If Kieran’s carbine muzzle ever slipped away from her ribs he’d probably wind up very dead very fast. By the look of him, he knew that, too.

“What’s happened?” Oscar asked. The feeling of flying was smoothing out, leaving him with a bad headache.

“Adam’s dead,” Wilson said flatly.

“And one of you Starflyer fucks killed him,” Kieran shouted; the carbine was shoved harder into Anna’s side.

The falling sensation returned to Oscar’s limbs with a rush. He gave Wilson a dumbfounded stare. “No.”

“You were here in the hangar with him,” Jamas said.

Bring the joystick back carefully, allow the wings time to respond as you plummet down helplessly in a microburst. Airflow around the fuselage changes as the plyplastic adjusts in long twists. “Where is he?” Oscar demanded hoarsely.