There was nothing to do but settle in to the routine aboard the ship. I would deal with our pursuers when the time came. I started radioing ahead but could not get through yet; we were still too far out. We were headed for Darrington Station in the Leading Jovian Trojan. This was where my parents were stationed when I left so long ago, but they were probably no longer there. They had probably gone back to Cincan after their tour at Darrington. It was occupied by the OPOs, but where else could they go? Cincan was their home.
I couldn’t contact Darrington yet, but I could pick up broadcasts from EarthNet. Darah and I were sitting around in the galley one day listening to the EarthNet. There was a commercial on, and then Bent in the Middle came on, singing their latest hit, a traditional ballad called “Bye Bye Bye”. Darah groaned when she heard them.
“Jen, I just have one question.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“How can Bent in the Middle be so popular, when everyone hates them so much?”
We both pondered this deep philosophical mystery as the commercial ended and the news came on. More ominous news, both good and bad. Earth had broken the OPO occupation of New Eden, sending in armed troops. That was the good news. The OPOs had strenuously fought back and there were high casualties. That was the bad news. There was fighting going on at Cincan as well, but as yet there was no word on the outcome. The OPOs were apparently deeply dug in there. I turned it off; I couldn’t listen to it anymore.
“We’ve really messed things up, haven’t we?” asked Darah.
I thought she was talking about us personally, here in the Saint Anne. “There’s still hope that we can be rescued before they catch up with us.”
“No, I mean us, Dannelon, the Outer Planets. We got greedy. We thought we could take over, and look what’s happened, people are getting killed.”
“It’s not your fault, Darah”, I began.
“No, it’s my father’s fault”, she said. “He’s not an evil man, Jen. I’ve grown up loving him, he’s my father. I realize now he’s responsible for this whole thing. For you, for the occupations, for the fighting, for everything. How could he do this?”
There was nothing I could say. My own personal opinion of Zaro would not help. It couldn’t be easy for her, to come to the realization that her father was a greedy, evil little man. My opinion was that he was a sociopath to boot, but I would not bring that up. There was just one small bit, one small consolation that I could throw in.
“Your father is not solely responsible. He may have participated, but there are many others involved in this as well.” I realized how uncomforting it was as I said it. I just shut up. There truly was nothing I could say to ease my friend’s suffering.
We were two weeks out when I finally got in touch with Darrington. It did not go well. Here was an OPO registered ship coming right at them at full speed. For all Darrington knew, we were OPOs and we were hostile. I frantically explained who I was, and that I was being chased. They asked for passwords I didn’t know. They asked deeply personal questions that only I would know the answers to. They said they’d get back to me. They didn’t. Instead, they sent ships, four high-speed ships, military from the looks of things. I saw them on my long-range lasar as they set out from the station. I asked my IMP to do the calculations; we were nine days away from interception by the Darrington ships; but we were only seven days away from interception by the OPO ship. So close, but we still weren’t going to make it.
I spent a sleepless night considering alternatives. I had told Darah that I would never go back to Dannelon, that I would blow the ship up instead. I had said it with such conviction then. Now I wondered whether I had the courage to back up my words. It was not just me. My friends were in this as well. Did I have the right to make such a decision for them? No, never. All right, assuming I could get Sandy and Darah off the ship, did I have the courage to blow myself up? I couldn’t answer that question. My heart gave me one answer, my mind gave me a different one. I went around and around with it all night. The only right course of action was to get my friends off the ship. The Saint Anne had three lifeboats. The largest could carry the three of them with some crowding.
I considered using Darah and Sandy as hostages. I could threaten to blow up the ship with them on it. I ruled that option out. If Zaro was aboard the pursuing OPO ship, he would guess that I wouldn’t be able to carry out that threat. Would he bet his children’s lives on such a guess? I thought he just might, he was that much of a psycho. I couldn’t risk it. On the other hand, if the OPO ship got to me first, they could use me as a hostage against the oncoming Darrington ships. That would work, Zaro made a much more effective threat to hostages than me. I slept on it.
The next morning, I had decided what had to be done. I told Darah to go to the lounge to Sandy and Yeldon, that I would meet them there in a minute. I went back to my stateroom and got the gun I had taken from Sandy. I went to the lounge, and the three of them were there. I trained the gun on them.
“I want the three of you to get into the big lifeboat,” I said without preamble. I raised the gun. I had unloaded it before I left my stateroom, but none of them knew that. They probably knew that I wouldn’t, couldn’t, use it on them. I just wanted it with me to let them know I was dead serious.
Both Darah and Sandy made perfunctory objections. They figured out real quick that I could buy some time by putting them out in the lifeboat. Our pursuers would be forced to slow down to pick them up. Sandy had been following the chase. He closed his eyes as his Halo made the calculations.
“Jen, the best case scenario still has the OPO ship intercepting four hours before your ships arrive. You can’t buy yourself enough time. You may as well just leave us onboard.”
Darah remembered our conversation of a few days ago. “Jen, you can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking. Jen, no, you can’t do it. I won’t go! I’m staying here with you!”
Sandy looked at her in puzzlement. Darah blurted out: “Sandy, she’s going to blow up the ship! Stop her! Don’t let her do it!”
Sandy stood there, passing his gaze back and forth between her and me. He thought for a long time. He didn’t say a word. He just stood there thinking. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision. He took a deep breath. “Come on, Darah, let’s get in the lifeboat.”
“No!” she yelled. “I won’t do it.”
Sandy came to her and hugged her and whispered something in her ear. His hug became a grip. He held her and lifted her as she was struggling and started walking out of the lounge. Yeldon came over and grabbed her kicking feet. Darah was screaming now, “No, No, No”. They carried her over to the lifeboat bay and put her in, then got in themselves. It was a tight fit. They would survive; the OPO ship would pick them up before they suffered much discomfort. I closed the hatch, and shut off the sound of Darah’s screams. I backed off, and gave the silent command that sent the lifeboat flying into space. I was now alone.
I had programmed the lifeboat to use its limited thrust to kill its speed relative to the Saint Anne. The OPO ship would be forced to slow down to pick them up. That is, if they decided to pick them up. As Sandy had surmised, that wouldn’t give me enough time for the Darrington ships to reach me first. I sat in the lounge, staring out the view port, as I waited the few hours for the OPO ship to reach the lifeboat. When it came within range, I nervously waited to see if they would pick the lifeboat up. If they did, then I had a few more hours. If they didn’t, then it was all over. I watched the scene in the ship’s monitor.
The OPO ship came up alongside the lifeboat. They were passing it; oh my god, they were not going to stop! But then they turned their ship and fired their rockets to kill some of their speed. They came up alongside the lifeboat and docked with it. It didn’t take long. They docked, transferred the three from the lifeboat into their ship, and disembarked in just five minutes. They then turned their ship and started thrusting again in my direction. They would be here within two hours, and the Darrington ships would take four hours. At least the kids were safe. Out of all this, at least they would survive.
I sat back down in the lounge, thinking. Could I do it? The Saint Anne did not have “self-destruct” circuits; the idea was as ridiculous as putting a bomb in a bicycle. However, I could crank up the power to an overload. That overload would overheat the engines, and they would eventually blow up. The effect would be the same as a “self-destruct” circuit. The trick was to override the governor preventing a power overload. This was software, and it was therefore child’s play for me. I had my virtual hand on the button. Yes, I could do it. I could push that button. I would indeed never return to Dannelon, to the circles of hell.
As the OPO ship drew ever closer, they trained their sensors on the Saint Anne. They were watching closely when a lifeboat burst out of the body of the Saint Anne and sped off at right angles to the course of her mother ship. The captain of the OPO ship figured it for a decoy and stayed on course. If he was wrong, they could circle back and pick up the lifeboat. Now something stranger happened. The Saint Anne was getting hot. Hotter and hotter. At the same time, she appeared to be breaking up. A large piece of her hull broke off from near her tail, and slowly separated from her. Another piece broke off from the side, and another appeared to blow off from the front of the ship.
At that moment, the captain’s sensors told him that the Saint Anne’s temperature had redlined; it had gone straight up and off the scale. Before he could move a muscle, it exploded. A brilliant flash overloaded his sensors, and they went into whiteout. They slowly faded, precious minutes elapsing before he could make out the scene in front of him again. By that time, the Saint Anne was gone. All that was left was debris; pieces of the ship, both large and small. The captain cursed. He turned and made for the lifeboat that had separated moments before. It took him precious minutes to reach the lifeboat. It took him more precious minutes to dock with the lifeboat and discover that it was empty. He turned back and searched the debris from the ship. More precious minutes. The ships from Darrington would be there very soon, and the captain didn’t have the hostage he needed to protect himself from them. He decided that he needed to get out, to head back to Dannelon. He turned his ship and began the long trip home.
His sensors had searched the pieces of the ship one my one. They didn’t have the sensitivity to give him much detail about these pieces. They couldn’t tell him about the third lifeboat from the Saint Anne; it was shielded from view by the hull piece that had blown off from the forward section. That piece had also protected it from the explosion. The lifeboat drifted away from the scene.
The OPO ship was accelerating now. The Darrington ships were now closer to the scene than the OPO ship. That one remaining lifeboat started transmitting a signal. It transmitted a distress signal to the Darrington ship. But, it also transmitted a signal back to the OPO ship. It was a recording of a broadcast picked up earlier that day. It was Bent in the Middle, singing their hit rendition of that old standard, “Bye Bye Bye”. That message made it to its intended recipient.