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bedcoverings had turned to snowdrifts, and he was frozen in place. The bear
tried to chip him out, but its blunt arms were too soft to make an impression
on the ice-covered drifts. Then he heard rumbling, and looked up, to see an
avalanche poised to crash down on him like some kind of slow-motion wave. The
avalanche rumbled, and Tia-the-bear growled back, interposing herself between
him and the tumbling snow.
"Alex, wake up!"
He floundered awake, flailing at the bedclothes, hitting the light button more
by accident than anything else. He blinked as the light came up full, blinding
him, his legs trapped in a tangle of sheets and blankets.
"What?" he said, his tongue too thick for his mouth. "Who? Where?"
"Alex," Tia said, her voice strained, but excited. "Alex, I have been trying
to get you to wake up for fifteen minutes! There's a CenSec ship
Upstairs, and it's beating the tail off those two pirates!"
CenSec? Spirits of space-
"What happened?" he asked, grabbing for clothing and pulling it on.
"From the beginning, "
"The first I knew of it was when one of the pirates sent a warning down to the
ship here to stay under cover and quiet. I got the impression that they
thought it was just an ordinary Survey ship, until it locked onto one of them
and started blasting." Tia had brought up all of her systems again; fresher
air was moving briskly through the ventilator, all the lights and boards were
up and active in the main cabin. "That was when all the scans stopped, and I
started breaking loose. I ran that freeze-thaw cycle you suggested, and a
couple of minutes ago, I fired the engines. I can definitely move, and I'm
pretty sure I can pull out of here without too much trouble. I might lose some
paint and some bits of things on my surface, but nothing that can'tbe
repaired."
"What about Upstairs?" he asked, running for his chair without stopping for
shoes or even socks, and strapping himself down.
"Good news and bad news. The CenSec ship looks like its going to take both the
pirates," she replied. "The bad news is that while I can receive, I
can't seem to broadcast. The ice might have jammed something, I can't tell."
"All right; we can move, and the ambush Upstairs is being taken care of." Alex
clipped the last of his restraint belts in place; when Tia moved, it could be
abruptly, and with little warning. "But if we can't broadcast, we can't warn
CenSec that there's another ship down here. We can't even identify ourselves
as a friend. And we'll be a sitting duck for the pirates if we try to rise.
They can just hide in their blinds and ambush the CenSec ship, then wait to
see if we come out of hiding, as soon as we clear their horizon they can pot
us."
Alex considered the problem as dispassionately as he could. "Can we stay below
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their horizon until we're out of range?"
Tia threw up a map as an answer. If the pirate chose to pursue them, there was
no way that she could stay out of range of medium guns, and they had to assume
that was what the pirate had.
"There has to be a way to keep them on the ground, somehow," Alex muttered,
chewing a hangnail, aware that with every second that passed their window of
opportunity was closing. "What's going on Upstairs?"
"The first ship is heavily damaged. If I'm reading the tactics right, the
CenSec ship is going to move in for the kill, provided the other pirate gives
him a chance."
Alex turned his attention back to their own problem. "If we could just cripple
them, throw enough rocks down on them or, wait a minute. Bring up the views of
the building they're hiding in, the ones you got from my camera."
Tia obeyed, and Alex studied the situation carefully, matching pictures with
memory. "Interesting thing about those hills. See how some of them look broken
off, as if those tips get too heavy to support after a while? I bet that's
because the winds come in from different directions and scour out under the
crests once in a while. Can you give me a better shot of the hills overhanging
those buildings?"
"No problem." The viewpoint pulled back, displaying one of those wave-crest
hills overshadowing the building with the partial roof. "Alex!" she exclaimed.
"You see it too," he said with satisfaction. "All right girl, think we can
pull this off?"
For answer, she revved her engines. "Be a nice change to hit back, for once!"
"Then let's lift!"
The engines built from a quiet purr to a bone-deep, bass rumble, more felt
than heard. Tia pulled in her landing gear, then began rocking herself by
engaging null-grav, first on the starboard, then on the port side, each time
rolling a little more. Alex did what he could, playing with the attitude jets,
trying to undercut some of the ice.
Her nose rose, until Alex tilted back in his chair at about a forty-five
degree angle. That was when Tia cut loose with the full power of her rear
thrusters.
"We're moving!" she shouted over the roar of her own engines, engines normally
reserved only for in-atmosphere flight. There was no sensation of movement,
but Alex clearly heard the scrape of ice along her hull, and winced, knowing
that without a long stint in dry dock, Tia would look worse than
Hank's old trampfreighter.
Suddenly, they were free.
Tia killed the engines and engaged full null-gee drive, hovering just above
the surface of the snow in eerie silence.
"CenSec got the first ship; the other one jumped them. It looks pretty
even," Tia said shortly, as Alex heard the whine of the landing gear being
dropped again. "So far, no one has noticed us. Are you braced?"
"Go for it," he replied. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Hold on," she said shortly.
She shot skyward, going for altitude. She knew the capabilities of her hull
better than Alex did; he was going to leave this in her hands. The hill they
wanted was less than a kilometer away, when they'd gotten high enough, Tia
nosed over and dove for it. She aimed straight for the crest, as if it were a
target and she a projectile.
Sudden fear clutched at his throat, his heart going a million beats per
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