Starplex

The holographic bubble re-formed, beginning as a burst of whiteness all around them, then settling down to the exterior view, dominated by the green star, the rest obscured by the pursuing tendrils of dark matter.

Keith looked in vain for any sign of the Rum Runner.

Thor's voice: "Ten seconds to shortcut insertion, mark. Nine. Eight."

Lianne's voice, overtop, coming from the public-address speakers. "We should have full power back in sixty seconds. Prepare—"

"Two. One. Contact!" The red emergency lighting flickered.

The shortcut appeared like a ring of violet arcing around them, visible above their heads and beneath their feet, as the infinitesimal point expanded to swallow the massive ship.

Everything to the stern of the ring was the now familiar sky of the green star and the pursuing dark matter. But in front of the ring was an almost completely black sky. The passage through the shortcut took only a few moments as Starplex hurtled through at breakneck speed.

Keith shuddered as he realized what had happened.

Rhombus's lights swirled in patterns of astonishment. Lianne made a small sound in her throat. Jag was reflexively smoothing his fur.

All around was black emptiness, except for an indistinct white oval and three smaller white splotches high above their heads, and a handful of fainter white smudges tossed at random against the night.

They had emerged in the empty void of intergalactic space.

The white splotches weren't stars; they were whole galaxies.

And not one of them looked like the Milky Way.

Chapter XVIII

Rissa felt her throat constricting as the Rum Runner was flung away from Starplex.

"What happened?" she called.

But Longbottle was too busy to answer. He was twisting and turning in his tank, fighting to bring the ship under control. On her monitors, Rissa saw the green star swelling ahead of them, its surface a roiling ocean of fiery emerald, jade, and malachite. She fought down a wave of panic, and tried to assess for herself what had gone wrong. There's no way Keith would have cut power to the tractor beam, so either Gawst had used some sort of interfering transmission to sever the tractor, or Starplex had suffered a power failure. Either way, they'd been hurled away from the mothership, and almost directly toward the star. Through the clear wall between her air-filled chamber and Longbottle's water-filled one, Rissa saw the dolphin sharply arching his body in what seemed to be a painful way, and bashing the side of his head against the opposite wall, as if by that sheer additional effort he could force the ship in the direction he wanted it to go.

Rissa looked at her monitors, and her heart skipped a beat. She saw Starplex disappear through the shortcut to— to wherever it had gone. The great ship's windows were dark, confirming that a power failure must have occurred. If the ship was truly without power, Rissa hoped it had come through the shortcut network at New Beijing or Flatland — where there would be other vessels to help it.

Otherwise, it might not be able to return through whatever exit it emerged from — and a search of all the active exits might not be completed before Starplex's batteries ran out, leaving it without life support.

But Rissa only had a few moments to think about the fate of her husband and colleagues; the Rum Runner was still heading toward the green star.

The bow window had already darkened considerably, trying to filter out the inferno ahead of them. Longbottle was still struggling with the controls attached to his flukes and fins. Suddenly he flipped around in his tank, and Rissa saw the green star wheel away from view.

Longbottle was bringing the main engines around to face the star, and firing them as brakes. The ship rattled; Rissa could see Longbottle disabling emergency cutoffs with presses of his snout.

"Sharks!" shrieked Longbottle. At first, Rissa thought it was just a swear word for the dolphin, but then she saw what he was referring to: tendrils of dark matter were now obscuring half the sky, the gray spheres within the miasma of luster-quark gravel like the knots on a cat-o'-nine-tails.

Longbottle twisted to his right, and the ship followed suit.

But soon a much more sharply defined blackness obscured their view.

"Ship of Gawst," said Longbottle.

"Damn," said Rissa. She brought her hands down on the two grips that controlled the geological laser. She wasn't going to fire unless he did, but—. Ruby dots on Gawst's hull. Rissa moved her thumb over the laser's twin triggers.

Longbottle must have seen her do that. "ACS jets," he said. "Not lasers. He, too, tries to get away from darmats."

The view in the window changed again as Longbottle altered the Rum Runner's course. Green star to the rear, enemy ship to port, darmats to starboard and coming in above and below. There was only one course possible.

Longbottle jabbed controls with his snout. "To the shortcut!" he shouted in his high-pitched voice.