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silence, flying and calculating at once, then shook herself.
"We may win, but the margin is small one percent, perhaps one-point-five, depending on when and
how we lose that pod." Her voice was somber.
"Shall we surrender, then?" Daav asked quietly.
There was a moment's hesitation, too short for him to be certain that the struggle he sensed was anything
other than his imagination. Her eyes lifted to his, green and wide.
"No."
"Good," he said, letting her see the pride he felt in her, and turned back to his board.
The play got tighter as the pirate ship's greater power-to-mass ratio began to tell. The pattern of attack
changed though:
Now the goal was interception. No fancy flying for extra points, no capture option, just interception.
"Daav. We have one hundred seventy-six seconds until Jump. They'll intercept in one hundred forty."
"I see. When they're 30 seconds behind, jettison Lot forty-seven. That should give us "
"The added acceleration will help, but they'll still catch us by fourteen seconds "
"But we'll be throwing things at them. They'll have to avoid."
"That's random I can't calculate."
"No surrender," Daav said earnestly.
"No surrender."
They were quiet then, each watching their screens. Daav fended off several more missile attacks. The
pirates were being more careful with their weapons now, and so was Daav. By his count they had
thirteen to launch and he had three&
"On my mark," Aelliana said calmly, "it's five. Mark. Four, three, two, one& "
The ship lurched as the pod fell away, looming huge in the simulated view screen. It tumbled behind them,
directly into the path of the oncoming pirates.
Daav counted to three and launched his last missiles.
"Oh," said Aelliana, "that's more mass away& I still don't think it's going to be Daav, a bad trajectory.
You've targeted the "
Two missiles skimmed the edge of the tumbling pod, dodged by and went on toward the pirate ship,
which was beginning evasion. The missiles followed, and the pirate launched four interceptors.
Daav's third missile hit the tumbling pod full center. The flare of explosion grew, brightened, grew still
more, expanding into a glowing rainbow cloud.
The Jump warning went off: Twelve seconds.
"What was it?" cried Aelliana.
"In a moment. They'll be firing the last of their yes. Avoidance pattern, please."
Through the glowing cloud came two missiles, though only one was on course for them. Aelliana used the
maneuvering rockets to spin the ship, hit acceleration, kept accelerating until the red warning light came
on.
They saw the simulated explosion fade into green nothingness behind them in the instant before the virtual
ship Jumped away.
Aelliana cheered.
The piloting chamber melted, the shock webbing retracted. Daav rose, looked about and sighed.
The pirates were gone.
"This way, Sed Ric," Yolan hissed, groping ahead in the thick darkness of the service corridor.
There! Her questing hand found the emptiness that meant the cross-hall. Another few minutes in this
stifling darkness and they would be free of the Virtual Arcade and the two undoubtedly angry marks they
had deserted at Pilot to Prince.
Yolan sighed. She hated the service corridors; the hot dark gave her horrors, calling forth ghosts and
hobgoblins from childhood stories. There were no ghosts or goblins, of course. She knew that. The
world held far more terrible things than mere monsters. Cops, for instance. Port proctors, for another.
Not to mention angry marks who had won a game they had no business to win and were now cheated of
their cash.
"Here." Sed Ric's voice rasped in her ear.
"Right. Stay close." She found his hand and held it to lead him, she told herself fiercely and groped
her way toward the cross-hall.
Slowly, she moved forward, free hand extended, fingers touching the wall. The wall ended, her fingers
stroked emptiness
Something grabbed her hand.
Yolan screamed.
"Well," an amused masculine voice said. "What a noise." Light snapped on and Yolan blinked, gasping
into silence.
Before them stood the very marks she and Sed Ric had just rooked of their rightful winnings. The man,
with his sharp, foxy face and his worn leathers, looked infuriatingly amused, though his fingers, now
around Yolan's arm, were surprisingly strong.
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