"And no relay beacons out here to alert other ships to our escape," Mical Turco added.
"Unless Fleet set up multiple ambushes," Tal pointed out. Silence while the three old friends digested that one.
"So you think all the gates could be trapped?" Dorn asked.
Tal ran his hands through his hair. "We have to assume so."
"How about we sneak through the blockade, courtesy of K'kadi?" Mical suggested.
"We may have to chance it," Tal returned, "but I have a feeling three days isn't much recovery time for either of our wizards."
Dorn pursed his lips. "Would Kiolani know?"
"I have a feeling combat is new to all of them," Tal said. "Only trial and error is going to tell us how far they can go and for how long."
Dorn huffed a short breath. "And error isn't possible with Fleet firing everything it's got." Grimly, Tal nodded.
"I thought K'kadi seemed in pretty good shape," Mical offered.
"Until he tried to stand up," Dorn growled. "I had to get Distler to help him back to his quarters."
"And Kass has always indicated he's not as stable as she would like," Tal said. "She's been working with him, but it may be asking too much. We have both ends of the next two jumps to worry about, plus whatever might be waiting for us on Tat. Not to mention the possibility someone leaked word of our route back to Blue Moon."
"Never!" Mical roared. "Tal, you know damn well none of our crew would betray us."
"Right now I'm operating on worst case-I don't have a choice."
"Well . . . fyd! Come on, Captain, we haven't given up our lives to the rebellion to die out here in the middle of nowhere."
"Never said we were." Tal took a long pull on his ripka, lowered the bottle to the table with exaggerated care. "But if we don't consider ‘worst case,' we could end up in pok up to our necks."
Over his friends' grumbles, Tal thought he heard a noise. He lifted a hand for quiet. A knock on his door, not a confident one. Someone aware of the seriousness of intruding on the captain when his privacy field was engaged .
Tal pressed a button on his comm unit and the door slid open, revealing a wide-eyed Kass Kiolani, obviously horrified to discover he had company. "Come, Kiolani," he said in a rush before she could dash off.
"I beg your pardon," Kass murmured, "but I really need to speak with you."
It must be important to bring a reluctant virgin to his quarters. Unfortunately, he feared his sudden high hopes and Kass's reason were not the same. But he let hope surface. "In private?" he inquired smoothly.
"I believe you would prefer to have your officers hear what I have to say," Kass returned, dashing Tal's ego, but igniting a flare of interest in S'sorrokan. Had his little Psyclid found a way out of the Empire's trap?
"Please sit." He waved a hand toward the leather sofa and sat down beside her. His officers resumed their seats across from them. Tal popped the cap on a bottle of ripka. "And now," he said as he handed it to her, "tell me you've come up with yet another miracle to get us home in one piece."
Kass took a swallow then fingered the bottle for a moment before slowly lowering it to the table. "We have a history, the four of us," she said. "You took me to the Archives and brought me out again, saving my life twice over. And I believe what I learned during the years I spent there may be what saves us now."
Kass frowned, knuckling her hands under her chin. "You're not going to like it, Captain, but what I'm suggesting will get us back to Blue Moon undetected."
"Why won't I like it?" he inquired without heat.
"Because we have to bypass Tatarus."
"Impossible! I need Scorpio."
"Then find another way to get her back to Blue Moon, preferably just the ship without the crew. I don't trust them!"
"Fyd!" Dorn exclaimed. "You think Tegge betrayed us?"
"I don't know," Kass returned, "but I doubt Fleet sends a cruiser and two hunterships to the far end of the sector on drunken rumors in a bar."
"I can't give up Scorpio," Tal declared, damping an urge to shout. "And, besides, Tegge's as solid as they come."
"Solid for whom?" Kass shot back.
"What was your idea, Kiolani?" Dorn inserted before Tal could respond. "Let's hear it before we shoot it down."
Eyes narrowed, Kass drew a deep breath. Batani witch, Tal thought, she wouldn't even look at him.
"I've always been interested in navigation," she said, focusing on Dorn and Mical. "So while I had access to the Archives, I spent a great deal of time studying our whole quadrant, not just the Nebulon Sector. I memorized the coordinates of every wormhole ever recorded, paying particular attention to old explorers' and smugglers' logs. Granted, some of the wormholes may be hard to find or far from an easy ride. Some may even be gone, in which case we'll have to improvise, but I believe I can get us home on routes Regula Prime forgot hundreds of years ago, if they ever knew of them at all."
"You memorized them?" Mical Turco stared at Kass as if she'd just turned into a three-headed Hydron.
"It is part of my talent," Kass replied modestly, peeping at him from under her long black lashes. "I have an unusually retentive memory."
Dorn glanced at Tal. "You could send a volunteer crew to Tat aboard Gemma."
"No! You want me to slink off through some moldy old tunnel through space while I send some of my people on a possible suicide mission?"
"If you're right and Tegge's stand-up, then it's not a suicide mission," Kass pointed out oh-so-sweetly.
"I never said I'm infallible," Tal ground out. "I leave that for Psyclids, who have such a very high opinion of themselves."
Silence. Four bottles of ripka raised, four throats swallowing, four bottles plunked back on the small table. "Kiolani," Tal said at last, "do you, by any chance, have an alternate route to Tat?"
"Not alternate enough. It's a fairly well-known smugglers' route. Tat is a major player in what might be called the-ah-barter system."
"Smugglers we can handle."
"If Fleet's going all out to get Astarte," Dorn said, "they might cover that gate too. And if not, they'll be waiting for us at Tat."
"You can't take Scorpio right out from under their noses," Kass said. "And if Tegge turns on us-recall the ancient tale of the frog and the scorpion! We haven't a chance. Go home, Tal, I beg you. Don't let them lop the head off the rebellion."
"On the other hand," Mical said, "if Tegge's for real, then Fleet might not have any idea we're returning to Tat. They'll expect us to take 591 back toward Reg space."
"Do not encourage him!" Kass snapped.
"Best guess where Fleet will be waiting?" Tal asked, studying each of his officers in turn, including the most junior.
"They're not going to beat us to either 591 or 828," Dorn said. "Mondragon fooled them good."
"Nor to the smuggler's route," Kass added. "Even I never dreamed Jagan could lead them so far astray," she added with a note of pride Tal could have done without.
"So worst case," Tal summed up. "If we divert to Tat and give Fleet time to catch up and fresh ships sent from home, they could be waiting for us at both 828 and 591."
"Attacking us is new," Mical offered. "They've mostly ignored us, like we didn't exist."
"A step up," Dorn agreed with wry smile. "Guess the stings are beginning to hurt."
Tal raised a blond brow in his First Officer's direction. "So why am I not smiling?" He leaned against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes, picturing in three dimensions the long route home. With the next jump-whichever one he decided to take-they would be back in the Nebulon Sector of the quadrant, half of it under the control of Regula Prime. If Fleet was determined on a serious hunt for S'sorrokan . . .
"Kass, what tricks do you have on the other side of Tat?"
"My best tricks involve avoiding Tat altogether."
"Kiolani, answer the question!
Mouth pursed in a clear case of the sulks, Kass intoned, "The old trader wormholes aren't numbered. They're named for the person who discovered them. The hole nearest here is Renner. At the other end we're seven days from a jump that will take us around the far side of Regula Prime and on to a third that leads almost directly back to Psyclid-a backgate, if you will, well known to our merchant captains, but long kept as our own special secret."
"There's a gate near Psyclid?" Dorn exclaimed. "No way. We would have found it."
"Like Blue Moon, it has its own ridó. Only our Psyclid captains know how to pierce it," Kass returned in a softly superior tone that grated on Tal like fingernails on glass.