by Jake Elwood
"By the numbers," Harper said, and a pair of marines dropped through the opening. They landed in the assault shuttle and moved forward, and two more marines dropped down.
"Wait here until I calls you," Harper said, then dropped into the shuttle. More marines went in, two by two, until only three remained. Harper's voice in his ear said, "Mr. Thrush, if you please."
Tom took a deep breath and jumped into the shuttle.
It was a long, narrow craft with an empty aisle down the middle and marines on either side, their backs pressed to the bulkheads. Tom mimicked them, standing shoulder to shoulder with an anonymous armored figure. The last marines dropped in from above and the shuttle went dark as the ceiling hatch slid shut.
Tom couldn't see anything as they launched, but he felt a punch of thrust from aft that made him sway sideways, the mass of an armored shoulder beside him keeping him upright. The shuttle seemed to drop, but he knew that was just the loss of ship's gravity. His boot magnets kept his feet on the deck plates.
The shuttle would be plunging fast at the pirate ship, relying on speed to foil any gunners who might be taking aim. Speed and a low profile. That was the reason for the shuttle's long, narrow shape, Tom realized. Most of the little craft's armor would be concentrated on the forward end, the only part of the ship directly exposed to enemy fire as she closed on an enemy ship.
If they were taking fire now, he could neither hear nor feel it. A faint glow came from a strip of lights along the ceiling, and he could make out the marines around him, stolid and calm. Did that mean the pirates weren't shooting?
Their armor was like the shuttle's armor, he realized. Their helmets were thickest on top, and heavy plates curved over the tops of their shoulders. It was to protect them as they hurtled head-first toward an enemy ship, for hot approaches without a shuttle.
He was trying to imagine what kind of courage a person would need to make that kind of assault when a metallic clang echoed through the shuttle and he felt the deck plates jerk against the soles of his boots. Light flooded the nose of the shuttle and the first two marines surged forward, clambering through a dilating hatch.
"Airlock's clear," said a woman's tense voice.
The next pair of marines followed them through.
"Got some Bravoes," a man said. "They has their hands up."
Two more marines went through the hatch, then two more. Tom started to move, and the marine across from him stopped him with a hand on his chest. She shook her head, and Tom paused, fidgeting. A stencil on her helmet gave her name. O'Hare. She was apparently his minder.
"Bridge is secure," said a voice.
"Section Two secure."
"Section One secure."
"Looks like they've decided to play nice," said Harper's voice over the radio. "Bring the lieutenant aboard."
O'Hare led the way down the shuttle and through the hatch. Tom ducked through the opening and straightened up, taking his first look at a pirate ship.
His first impression was of gloom. Dark lighting panels lined the ceiling; the only light came from emergency strips along the bulkheads at ankle height. He was in a corridor, much narrower than anything on the Kestrel. An armored marine could brush both sides of the corridor at once, and two marines would have to flatten themselves against the bulkheads if they wanted to pass.
Tom followed O'Hare, not sure if he was going forward or aft. He was not a particularly tall man, but he had to twist his head sideways to avoid loops of cable and sections of pipe that ran along the ceiling. The whole ship felt gloomy and claustrophobic, and he shook his head, wondering how anyone could live on a ship like this.
He stepped through a doorway – not a hatch, since there was no sign of a pressure door – and into some kind of mess hall. By the way the bulkheads curved in on either side, this room was the full width of the ship. A long table ran the length of the room, maybe a dozen paces, and prisoners lined both sides of the table. There were more than a dozen of them, sitting on chairs, elbows on the table, leaning forward with their hands on either side of their heads. They wore mismatched vac suits without helmets, and they looked weary and defeated.
A marine stood at either end of the table, watching the prisoners, most of whom stared at the table in front of them. A young woman in the middle, though, lifted her head and looked at Tom. "You," she said. "You're an officer."
"Quiet," snapped the marine at the head of the table, and O'Hare pointed the barrel of her laser rifle at the woman's head.
"Do I look like I'm escaping?" the woman said impatiently. To Tom she said, "When you fired on us, you might have started a leak in the-"
O'Hare reached the woman in two long strides, silencing her with a hard jab to the ribs with the barrel of her rifle. The woman grunted, then twisted around to glare at her. O'Hare said, "Eyes front," and lifted her rifle, reversing it as if she was about to strike with the butt of the weapon.
"Wait." The words were out of Tom's mouth before he had time to think. O'Hare lowered her rifle, looking at him. The faceplate on her helmet was retracted, he saw. He checked the indicator lights on the inside of his helmet. A green triangle told him the air in the room was breathable. He retracted his faceplate. "Let her speak."
"What's going on?" said Harper's voice over the radio.
"It's under control," said the O'Hare. Then she looked at Tom expectantly.
Every nerve in his body told him to keep quiet, to defer to the marines with their air of dangerous competence. Brady's words echoed in his mind. I expect you to stay out of the way of the marines and follow their suggestions without hesitation.
But maybe, just maybe, this was a situation that called for a naval officer's expertise.
He used the wrist controls on his suit to turn off the helmet mic, then said, "Let her speak."
"Thank you." The young woman gave him a cold look that told him her gratitude didn't extend too far. "I've been trying to talk to these apes, but listening skills aren't exactly an area of strength for 'em." She had an accent that reminded him of the marines, like a Daphne accent, but stronger. "When you fired on us, you put a round through the firebox." She jerked her head, pointing back the way Tom had come in. "I was assessing the damage when your goons here came barging in and herded everyone into the kitchen."
Tom glanced at the bulkhead behind her and saw sinks and chiller cabinets. The mess hall was apparently also the kitchen.
"Your shot tore up some pipes," she went on. "I don't know which ones. We might be leaking fluoron gas."
"There's no gas," said O'Hare. She tapped her helmet. "My helmet shows clean and green."
The prisoner shot her an impatient look. "We also might-"
"Shut up," snapped a man across the table from her. "Let 'em all die!"
O'Hare brought her laser rifle to her shoulder, taking careful aim at the center of the man's face. "Didn't you ever learn about waiting your turn when other folks are talking? I'm about ready to give you a sharp lesson."
He lapsed into silence, glaring at her.
"He makes a good point," the young woman said bitterly. "I don't mind seeing the whole lot of you blown into the next world. But the Free Bird's a good ship, and she deserves better." She looked up and down the table. "Besides, the rest of us are still on board." She grimaced. "There's a chance you ruptured the Sigma line. It's heavier than air. Your helmet sensors won't pick it up until it's neck-deep."
"And Sigma gas is flammable," Tom said. He looked at O'Hare. "Do we have a way to scan for that?"
She lifted her elbows in a shrug. "We can bring a scanner over from the Kestrel."
"I have a scanner," the woman said.
"You're not going anywhere," O'Hare told her.
She made a face. "There's a tool cabinet aft." She jerked her head in the same direction as before. "It's bright yellow. It's also about a meter from the gaping hole you meatheads shot in the wall."
Tom looked at O'Hare. He couldn't see much of her face through the helmet, but he could
see enough to know she was frowning. "I don't know, Lieutenant. What if it's some kind of booby trap? She wants you to open the yellow cabinet, and it's wired to a grenade."
"So let me open the cabinet," the woman said.
Tom looked from her to O'Hare, and for the first time felt the burden of command. "It's a risk," he said. "But so is a Sigma leak." He headed for the corridor. "If you hear a grenade go off, shoot her."
The woman gave a derisive snort as Tom headed down the corridor. He heard the thump of boots behind him and said, "I've got this. Stay in the kitchen with the others."
"Sure, Sir," said O'Hare. "But I know more about bombs and booby traps than you do." The sound of her footsteps continued without a pause. Since she clearly wasn’t going to turn back he decided not to press the issue.
They passed the airlock where they'd come in. Another marine lounged in the hatchway, watching with relaxed alertness. Tom kept going, sure for some reason that he couldn’t quite explain that he was going aft.
The "firebox" was a small compartment just forward of the engine, a couple of paces aft of the airlock. It was a small space; the marine who stood there pretty much filled it. Emergency patches covered breaches in the deck and ceiling. A chaotic tangle of cables and pipes covered the ceiling, several of them torn or ruptured.
The yellow cabinet was bolted to the aft bulkhead with the doors hanging open.
"No grenade, apparently," Tom said. "Excuse me. I need into that cabinet."
The marine had to open a hatch beside the cabinet and back halfway into the engine room to make space for Tom. O'Hare waited in the corridor behind him. He explored the cabinet, which was filled with worn-looking and mismatched tools. Everything was clean, he saw, and neatly stowed. He'd expected pirates to be sloppy, but this was the tool set of an engineer who cared.
The gas scanner was a scuffed device the size of a thick sandwich. He turned it over in his hands, wondering if it could be a grenade in disguise, then snorted at his own foolishness. Nevertheless, he held his breath as he turned the scanner on.
A green light appeared on the front of the device. Nothing else happened.
Tom fiddled with the controls and learned that the air in the firebox was mostly nitrogen, with the usual amounts of oxygen and carbon dioxide. There were trace amounts of smoke, and fire suppression chemicals. Apparently the pirates had been busy in the few minutes between the hull breach and the arrival of the marines.
He knelt, holding the scanner close to the deck plates.
The light on the front turned amber.
"Interesting."
"What?" O'Hare's voice was surprisingly tense. "What's interesting?"
"There's trace amounts of Sigma gas. Not enough to do more than make a nice, bright flash. Looks like they've got a slow leak."
O'Hare emptied her lungs in a gusty sigh. "Can you fix it?"
"I think so," Tom said. "But flammable gas leaks are like boarding hostile ships. They're a job for professionals. We should bring some techs over from the Kestrel."
"Lieutenant Harper?" she said, her voice echoing through the helmet radio. Tom listened as she gave Harper a quick summary of the situation.
"Thrush," Harper said. "Find the leak and do a quick patch, if you can do it safely. We'll get a repair crew over here to do a proper job, but it'll take a while. See if you can keep the problem contained in the meantime."
"Right," he said, and got to work.
Chapter 17
With help from the scanner he found the leak, a long split in a section of pipe that had twisted when the Kestrel's projectile buckled the hull plate behind it. He found a tube of sealant in the yellow cabinet and patched the split, then waved the gas detector around, trying to decide if things were getting worse.
"How does it look, Lieutenant?"
He looked at O'Hare. "Good, I think."
"Are you sure?" she said. "You don't look like you're sure."
"I'm just thinking." When she made a go on gesture he said, "Right now there isn't much gas. But it could be slowly accumulating, which means eventually there would be enough to be dangerous."
O'Hare nodded.
"So maybe we should ignite what's there right now. Burn it away before it gets worse."
She said, her voice heavy with doubt, "You wants to deliberately light a cloud of flammable gas inside a damaged ship full of prisoners and marines?"
"Yes." He realized he was grinning like a fool and decided he didn't care. "I can almost persuade myself it would be a good idea, too." He laughed. "But the real reason I want to do it is because it would be awesome!"
O'Hare laughed. "God help us, now you're starting to think like a marine."
He squeezed himself through the hatch at the back of the firebox and examined the claustrophobic engine room. He waved the gas detector around, found nothing unusual, then took a sniff of the air. He smelled oil and dirt and a hint of what might have been incense.
"I'm done here," he told O'Hare as he returned to the firebox. She led the way back to the kitchen.
The prisoners were taking turns removing their vac suits, heaping them on the table. Beneath the suits they wore a hodgepodge of clothing, some of it ragged, some reasonably nice. Green was the predominant color. Several prisoners wore green shirts or jackets. One man had a green and red plaid bandana around his neck. A woman wore a lime kerchief over her hair.
A mural covered the forward bulkhead, a painting of a brilliant emerald flag billowing in front of a blue sky. The flag featured four stars in an off-center diamond. Tom stared at it, frowning. "I've seen this before. In the feeds."
"It's the flag of the Free Planets," said a familiar voice. The woman who'd warned him about the Sigma leak was in the process of peeling off her vac suit under the watchful eye of a marine. Beneath it she wore a jumpsuit the color of a ripe avocado.
"The Free Planets," Tom said. "Isn't that one of those insurrectionist organizations?"
Her face turned red. "You bloody-" She took a step toward Tom, pausing when O'Hare stepped in front of him.
"Easy, now," said O'Hare. "He doesn’t know any better." The woman looked as if she wanted to lunge at Tom, but the vac suit slid down past her hips and she looked down, then started pushing at the suit, pulling a leg free.
"Let's go to the bridge, shall we, Sir?" O'Hare said firmly, planting a hand on Tom's chest and pushing. "I think we's done here."
He turned and ducked through the next hatch, certain he'd put his foot in it but not sure how. Behind him O'Hare started chuckling, which didn't help.
The bridge was more like a cockpit, with two seats but only room for one person to be comfortable. Harper filled most of the available space. Windows surrounded him on three sides, giving a dramatic view of a flickering yellow energy storm in the distance. "We'll do an umbilical docking," he said into his bracer. "They're preparing the brig. Scan everyone one more time. I don't want anyone sneaking anything onto the Kestrel."
An umbilical docking meant linking the two ships with a flexible tube several meters long. The tube would hold air and let the prisoners clamber through without vac suits. Umbilicals were usually used for rough breaches – when the marines cut their way in instead of using a lock – or for incompatible docking rings.
"Why not dock the ships directly?" Tom said.
O'Hare shook her head. Harper said, "We never do that with a fresh capture. Maybe they've got a nuke under the deck plates and we haven't found it yet."
Tom nodded his understanding. The pirates wouldn’t have a nuke, but they might have a big conventional bomb. A major explosion on the pirate ship would do terrible damage to the Kestrel if the ships were joined. The shock wave would be transferred from hull to hull. If the ships were separated, though, the only damage would be from shrapnel.
Vacuum couldn't transmit shock waves. In theory, a ship could survive even a close miss from a nuclear missile. There would be heat from the explosion, but starships were designed to handle heat. Radiation would t
ake its toll, and the EMP pulse would fry a lot of electronics, but the actual explosion would be harmless.
It was a theory that had never been tested. Every spacefaring nation signed the Centauri Accords, agreeing not to use nuclear weapons. Without the Accords, a war could reduce half the settled planets in the galaxy to radioactive cinders.
"I think I've learned what I can here, which isn't much." Harper heaved himself up out of his seat and looked at Tom. "Why don't you see what you can find out?"
Tom dropped into the second bridge seat, a smaller chair that looked distinctly less comfortable than the seat Harper had just vacated. Harper squeezed past him and headed aft, and Tom changed seats.
The pilot's chair was deeply padded, and he was able to reach every control in the cockpit without getting up. He tried to wake up the main display panel.
"Hey, Sugar. What can I do for a big strong man like you?"
He blinked in surprise. A woman's face, shoulders, and chest filled the screen. She wore nothing but a filmy brassiere, and she pouted as she waited for him to reply.
"Hello," said Tom.
"Hi, sailor." She winked and blew him a kiss.
"Are you the ship AI?"
She nodded. "You can call me Cindy." Her hand came up to touch her chest. "I'm at your service."
"Right." He shook his head. "Can you give me full control over the ship, please?"
"Sorry, Sugar." She smirked. "It’s like I told your big, brawny friend. The captain told me to lock out everyone I didn't recognize."
"Don’t call me Sugar," he muttered. "My name is Tom."
"Sorry, Darling. I can't call you 'Tom' unless you tell me to."
"Call me Tom," he said patiently.
"Sure thing, Tom." Her fingertip traced the edge of her brassiere. "Do you have any other … desires I should know about?"
"Yes," he snapped. "Knock it off with the whole seductive vamp thing."
She flickered, the coy smile vanishing from her lips.
"Can you wear, I don't know, proper clothing?"
"Yes." Her voice was cool, businesslike. "Are you instructing me to change my appearance?"