The Kassa Gambit Read Online Free PDF

eliminating possibilities. He started over, on the other hand, and then froze.
    “Tracking. Captain, it has to be an optical tracking system. That’s why all the other mines came after us when we turned on the fusion engine—we were the brightest thing in the sky. That’s why the decoys failed—they don’t look like us. And that’s how the Ulysses escaped—it blinded the mine.”
    Stanton spoke up, his voice coming to Kyle both through the headset and from across the bridge. “Captain Falling, could you give us an estimate on your laser’s output?”
    A brief pause before she answered. “Twenty megawatts.”
    “Acknowledged, Captain.” The delay was a clue that there was something interesting in her answer; the dryness of Stanton’s reply confirmed it. That they were trying to hide this from Kyle just made it all the more interesting.
    Stanton cut his link to the conversation, and addressed his bridge. “Gunnery, calculate luminosity for a twenty-meg beam at one meter, and then tell me how wide we can get and still match it.”
    He took off his goggles to face Kyle. “Commander, I have a plan. I intend to make a vector directly for one of the mines. At the last minute we will disable it with laser fire. This will allow us to slip through their screen. Do I have your permission to proceed?”
    Kyle suspended his call to the Ulysses, also. He didn’t want the enigmatic Captain Falling in this part of the conversation. “And if the laser doesn’t work?”
    Stanton didn’t even bother to shrug. “Then we die. In six minutes, instead of twenty-one.”
    “Don’t you think you’re staking an awful lot on a brief conversation with a woman you’ve never met?”
    The contempt was back, deep in Stanton’s eyes. Obviously, he felt no mere police officer could understand or appreciate the fraternity shared by all true spacers. But Kyle was unable to dredge up any sympathy. Kyle had plenty of experience with the alleged fraternity of professions, from cops to robbers to politicians and every shade in between. It had left him severely unimpressed with unwritten codes of honor.
    “Do you have any other suggestions, Commander?”
    If this was what the League had sent him for, then the woman was a League agent trying to save his life. Unless she was a plant, sent to make sure he died. He had enemies in the League—everyone in the League had enemies—and one of them could have arranged this, given the woman this clever story to lure them into making the wrong choice.
    He hated having to make decisions without adequate evidence, but in this case, it was easy. There weren’t any other options.
    “No, Captain, I do not. You may proceed at your discretion.”
    “Then find a place to hang on, Commander. You have thirty seconds.”
    Kyle retreated from the bridge, fleeing to his private stateroom. Over the intercom he asked the comm officer to let him know when the last possible moment to launch a report capsule would be. Strapping himself into a chair, he tried to compose what might be his final message.
    What should he say, and who should he say it to?
    His allies in the police force, the shadowy handful of men and women that sought to thwart the seemingly unstoppable rise of the League, would receive all the message they needed from his death. Anything he might say or even hint to them could only increase their risk of being discovered by the League.
    His father would also be content with the mere fact of his death. They would tell the old man that his son had died in the line of duty, serving the police, the League, and the glory of Altair. That would be enough; that was all his father had ever expected. All he had ever wanted.
    In this last moment, all Kyle had to reach out to was the League. And if they wanted him here, then they didn’t want him recording indiscriminate facts without knowing who would hear them. If he lived through this, he would need their favor. He had to continue to act like a loyal