Yangis and Berd glared at each other, then Yangis laughed: artificial, and harsh.
“Damn, Arbai, you always were so smooth. Can you believe this lady? And I had the stupidity to divorce her!”
“I divorced you, dear,” Arbai said gently.
More hard laughter.
“Fine, fine, we’ll do it according to the lady’s preference.”
Berd simply kept staring, then he blinked once, exhaled slowly, and nodded his head.
“That’s a reasonable compromise. Let me inform my men.”
Berd floated back to where his people were.
With his back turned, he raised a hand and chopped it once, downward through the air.
Arbai’s smile dropped, and she screamed a warning.
Too late. The Ambit League men were faster on the draw.
Firearms chattered and banged like Thor’s hammer on an iron sky.
Arbai felt something hot tear into her stomach and then she was flipped end-over-end back against the far bulkhead, where she curled in on the wound and gagged, unable to speak.
Looking out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Ambit League men all poised on the balls of their feet—grip soles holding them tightly against the recoil of their weapons. Only three of them had been hit, and they were being rushed back down the gangway by their comrades, leaving only Berd and his executive .
“Sorry,” Berd said as the moans of Yangis’s wounded and dead filled the compartment. “This Archangel armor is too important to the League. We can’t afford to have anyone—much less scum like yourselves—left alive to speak of its whereabouts. We’ll be taking all the suits now, and this ship as well. I should tell you that you ought to get used to my ‘rusty bucket’, because once we’ve moved our flag to the Broadbill, your bodies will be in the Goshawk when she reenters.”
Berd turned and motioned for his executive to follow him back down the gangway.
Arbai would have shed tears if the pain in her gut had not been so intense. She couldn’t speak, and could barely move. Heavy fluid leaked between her fingers and began to form hot blobs of dark redness that floated away into the air—to mix with that of the others, who’d all been shot to pieces.
Stupid, Arbai thought. Should have left a few of us elsewhere, to come in as a second wave, if the first wave went down.
Then she saw Yangis. Her ex-husband was slowly revolving in the air, three holes in his chest. But his eyes were blinking.
Arbai mouthed his name.
Yangis appeared to mouth something to Arbai too.
She tried to muster a smile. Was he saying her name?
Then Yangis managed a ferocious, bloody grin.
She noticed the remote was in his right hand.
Ah. Right.
Arbai closed her eyes, and hoped she’d be dead before the blast happened.
Chapter 15
Back on the bridge, Pitman quickly cleaned his hands, and then linked himself into the intra-ship communications network through his headset.
He began ordering his people to an even higher level of alert, with guards at all the entrances to the cargo bay, by the hatches to the engine room, and of course, watching the corridor to the bridge’s lone lift.
Finally, Pitman called up six of his most trusted troops, who met him in the officers’ mess just off the bridge. In full armament.
Pitman looked at his team as they adjusted their gear.
“Does everyone understand? I want this little whore dead ... I want her burned out of the ventilation system and gutted like a fish.”
Pitman’s people nodded and smiled. Like him, they were hungry for the hunt. There wasn’t an Ambit League partisan on the ship who didn’t hate the CAF.
Pitman slapped them on their shoulders and they trooped off towards the sole functional lift that serviced the bridge. Each carried a minimum of two weapons, various heat and motion sensing gear, plus full plate vests and helmets that could stop a rifle round.
Pitman used the AV unit in the wall—one of the few on the ship that still worked properly—to call up a diagram of the Goshawk’s internal architecture. They separated the ship up into sectors, then began mapping where the prey had most recently been sighted, versus where Gabriella’s body had been found. A strategy was devised to begin tackling the problem in a systematic fashion. No more random, bumbling search sweeps.
“Remember, she’s just one woman,” Garth said, his eyes jumping from face to stolid face. They all nodded solemnly.
“It will be done,” one of them said.
“See that it is,” Pitman said.
Pitman turned away from his men and walked through the adjoining passage back to the bridge proper. A guest had been brought to join the commander.
A huge, dark-skinned young man was looking straight at Pitman with eyes that only partially concealed the young man’s hostility. The prisoner never blinked as he stared at Pitman.
Pitman resisted the urge to strike the prisoner with a closed fist.
“I am afraid you don’t understand your predicament,” Berd was saying in a reasonable tone.
“How’s that?” the young man asked.
“Because, dear sir, it’s only a matter of time before my people catch up with your lady friend who is making such a mess of my ship down below. If you can convince her to come out of hiding and surrender peacefully, I can see to it that you’re both repatriated to a neutral site. In due time, of course.”
“And why should I believe you’ll do any such thing?” the prisoner asked.
“Son,” Berd said, his face assuming a somewhat pained, fatherly expression, “I am afraid that you’re in no position to doubt me. Because I can assure you, if that woman you came with is not brought to bear soon, for every one of my crew she hurts, I’m going to take it out on you. Or, rather, I will have my first officer take it out on you. And believe me, when I give him an order, he’s very good at what he does. Isn’t that right, Pitman?”
“Yessir,” was all Pitman said, eyeing the largish youth, who’d had his ankles and wrists shackled ever since he’d been dragged aboard.
The prisoner didn’t say a word. He simply stared at the floor.
“Son,” Berd said, “my people tell me your friend has managed to secure one of our headsets, so all I have to do is put you on the network in order for her to hear you. So, do we have an agreement?”
The prisoner remained silent.
“Hello?” Berd said, only this time a bit more sharply.
He glanced up at Pitman. Face red. Then pointed at the prisoner and mimed punching his fist into a palm.
Pitman smiled. He was going to get a little recreation, to ease the suffering of his recent loss.
Chapter 16
Kal sat in the darkness, trying to let herself rest. But she couldn’t. The adrenaline in her veins was like amphetamine. She’d been wired up for hours, and remained wired. Unable to properly navigate the ship, and searching blindly from compartment to compartment, she was beginning to fear that she’d never locate Tim, until he was either dead, or they caught her. In which case she was as good as dead, and Tim right along with her.
Her headset crackled to life.
“This is Commander Berd to all crew members ...”
Kal listened carefully.
“As you know, a lone female survivor from the Broadbill has come aboard and is harassing us internally. I have reason to suspect this woman is a military operative from the CAF, not a smuggler. I realize it is galling to us all that we must suffer having this ... person, running loose in the bowels of our vessel. With your help I hope to have the problem resolved quickly, so that we can finish the job we came here for, and return our precious cargo to our Ambit League comrades who can do the most good with it.
“Until then, though, I want total intra-ship communications silence. All relays and requests will be made face-to-face. Our visitor has one of our headsets, so she will hear anything we say on the network. Cut her out of the network, an
d she stands much less of a chance of evading and/or ambushing us. Anyone breaking this order without direct permission from the bridge will suffer the consequences. Do not let me down. Commander Berd, for the Ambit League, out.”
Suddenly Kal’s headset went totally dead, and she smacked a fist onto the hull plating.
She needed a plan of action. And fast.
Chapter 17
Kal and Tim were barely halfway to the compartment in the communications module—where they’d stowed their space suits—when a loud concussion shook the Broadbill.
The ship’s automated emergency claxon began to sound.
“Decompression!” Tim yelled, noticing the color of the flashing lights that suddenly sprang to life at intervals along the ceiling.
“Or worse,” Kal said.
“What could have happened?” Tim asked, his head suddenly swiveling back and forth in panic.
The klaxon changed pitch, and the emergency light changed color.
“Radiological alarm too!” Tim shouted.
“Shit,” Kal cursed. “The reactor on the cradle ship. Either it blew itself, or someone blew it for us.
“But what can we—“
A terrible wind kicked up, drowning out Tim’s words.
“Move!” Kal yelled. “Now!”
They both grabbed what handholds they could, and fought their way up the corridor. Meter by painful meter. There was an emergency locker just ahead. There would be emergency environment suits in there. Perhaps Kal and Tim could reach them in time to avoid having the air sucked from their lungs.
Kal clawed her way past a black and yellow striped threshold.
Why hadn’t the internal emergency doors sealed?
As if to answer Kal’s mental question, a thick steel door suddenly descended from the ceiling. Since Tim had been two meters behind he could only watch helplessly as the door slammed shut between them.
Kal felt the rush of air lessen, but not abate entirely.
Screaming Tim’s name, she turned back to the door and began to beat on it with her fists.
“Tim! Oh my God, no, no!”
Rumbles and groans throughout the ship told Kal that the Broadbill was in very deep trouble.
When the ship itself began to jerk violently and spin, it was all Kal could do to worm her way towards the nearest lifeboat hatch, which was rimmed by red and white caution striping. She passed through the hatch and had the good sense to hit the large red handle in the lifeboat’s roof. The hatch slammed shut, and suddenly the lifeboat itself was being hurled into the universe.
Chapter 18
Kal sat in the dark. Her eyes and ears wide open, waiting for the slightest sound.
It was eerie.
Before, while the radios had been active, she had at least been able to gather a fly-on-the-wall picture of what was happening inside the ship.
Now, however, she was isolated and out of information. The advantage—temporarily gained, right after she’d taken the headset—was gone, and the whole ship had a collective itchy trigger finger with Kal’s name on it. The longer she sat and stared into the darkness, the more she became paranoid.
Minutes ticked by agonizingly, and finally she couldn’t take it anymore. She had to move. But where? Navigating the neglected, darkened compartments of the ship was like moving through a maze with a blindfold on. Without a layout of the structure to orientate with, and a big arrow indicating Kal Reardon, You Are Here, any guess she might make as to where she was, or where she was trying to go, was almost useless.
But she absolutely could not risk moving about in the main corridors. It would be a near certain death sentence.
What to do ...
Kal couldn’t think straight. She was too tired, too exhausted, and too amped up on her own fear, combined with desperation to reach Tim.
Her head settled onto her knees—drawn up to her chest—and she fell asleep.
When her head popped up again, Kal had been in the midst of an old dream from her war days. Not a battle dream per se, but something from training. When she’d been maneuvering with her platoon against dummy targets, using the textbook call signs and lingo to execute the platoon’s operations order.
Kal found herself desperately hoping for a platoon now.
Even a moderately armed couple of CAF mobile infantry squads would be able to rip the ancient, decrepit ship to pieces within minutes.
Or at least scare crud out of the crew.
Wait ...
Kal suddenly realized she’d been looking at her predicament from the wrong perspective.
The seed of an idea sprang forth, like hot sparks.
And Kal was up and moving again.
***
Kal watched nervously through the ductwork grill plate as a particularly large privateer sauntered past. It had taken a small eternity to wind her way back towards the main cargo hold. Several times she’d had to make quick detours to avoid the sweep patrol that appeared to be making a coordinated effort to smoke her out. It wouldn’t be long before she took one wrong turn too many, and found herself staring down the barrel of somebody’s weapon.
Therefore, it was now or never.
Kal gently pushed on the grill plate with her legs until it popped free. Only, instead of letting it clatter to the deck, she caught it in both hands and eased it down to the deck with as little noise as she could muster.
The space in front of the grill plate was dominated by interstellar shipping crates of various sizes, which had all been salvaged from the downed hulk of the Broadbill. Kal couldn’t tell if they were ordinary crates, or the unmarked specialized crates she had seen upon first boarding: the ones that held the different pieces of Archangel armor.
Kal looked around carefully, unable to tell—in the stacks of crates—whether or not any of the privateers could see her.
She girded herself, and dared to stand up and look into the nearest crate.
Damn, it was empty.
The next nearest was empty, too.
Was she too late? Had they evacuated the crates and moved all of the Archangel armor to a different, more secure location within the ship?
Footsteps on metal.
Kal ducked down behind a stack of crates that was three high, and waited until the footsteps had diminished.
With her heart pounding in her throat, Kal turned around and examined the stack which was providing her cover. Like most commercial crates of similar design, these were roughly two meters on a side, and all sides had small access panels that could be detached if you had the right tools. In the case of the crate that was directly in front of Kal, the side hatch appeared to have been recently opened and re-sealed—the paint around the edges had flaked, revealing bright metal.
Kal teased at the latches with her thumb and forefinger.
One of the latches came loose.
Elated—and scared to death of being heard or seen—Kal popped another latch, and then another. When the last latch came free, she eased the side panel away and laid it on the ground. Inside, the crate was pitch black. So Kal reached in and felt around. Something very hard, smooth, and heavy was in the way. Grasping it as best as she could, Kal pulled the thing out and looked at it.
It was a helmet.
A brand new, very fancy-looking helmet. With an expensive and intricate-looking interface at the neck, where data feeds and motor networking would engage. Not a lot different from the conventional armor suits Kal had trained on.
Footsteps again. Coming towards her.
Kal momentarily considered fleeing back into the ductwork.
No good. She wouldn’t make it in time.
Instead, she crawled into the crate, and pulled the access panel up behind her. Unable to seal the latches from the inside, she held the panel in place with the tips of her fingers and waited in desperate silence while the footsteps approach her crate, and then stopped in front of it.
Kal all but fainted.
But then, a voice spoke.
“If
you tell ‘em once you tell ‘em a thousand times, don’t half-ass it when you’re doing a job. Now look at this container here, someone’s replaced the panel without dogging the latches. If I knew which one of these lazy sons-of-bitches was slacking around here, I’d break his nose.”
One by one, the latches were all snapped tight.
And Kal was locked inside.
Safe? For the moment?
She felt around until she once again found the object that felt like the helmet.
She slid it onto her head and allowed herself a tiny hint of a smile.
Chapter 19
Tim Osterhaudt sat slumped in his confined seat on the bridge of the Goshawk. His head hung low and blood oozed from several large gashes on his face and upper torso. Pitman, and Pitman’s commander, Karl Berd, sat on the edge of a console a few meters away, each staring unblinkingly at their captive.
“Who is your partner?” Berd said with an icy hint to his voice. “I really don’t want to have to unleash my first officer again.”
Tim clenched up inside for a second as he contemplated the pain. Would it do any good to talk? He’d almost cracked during the first beating. Would he be able to withstand the second?
Ordinarily Tim would have stuck to his principles, and not wished to harm anyone.
But after the way Pitman had laid into him, Tim was beginning to have second thoughts about his philosophy. For the first time since he’d been a teenager in school, Tim genuinely wanted to retaliate. Hit back. No, not just hit back. Cave Pitman’s skull in with a wrench. Knock him down and beat him senseless.
It was embarrassing to be having such barbaric thoughts.
But Tim realized he could not help it. Not after the way Pitman had savaged him, and for no reason other than that Tim was powerless to do anything about it. Talk or no talk, the Ambit League people were going to beat him again. Perhaps even to death. Regardless of what came out of his mouth. Of this Tim was certain. So, he kept his mouth shut, and waited, dismally, for the renewal of blows.
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