The line tugged her to a halt. She had played it out, the far end now in Girten’s hand. Ayana went a few bounds further, as far as the linens still wadded in her hand would allow, then turned. The corridor behind—two thirds of the distance between the forbidden compartment and the bridge—was now decorated by the twisting braid of sheets and blankets. And still, no suppressive gas. As Eku had expected, the largely autonomous security system would be more likely to interpret her actions as some species of irrational biot behavior, rather than a threat.
Until now. Ayana reached into the utility pocket on her thigh, pulled out emergency flares harvested from the suit lockers. She snapped off the caps, suddenly had a handful of incandescent pink flames.
She sprinted back down the passageway, flinging them onto the accelerant-inundated cloth. Girten met her halfway, having done the same with his flares, just as a steady hiss rose above the breathy rush of growing flames. Fire retardant mist started jetting into the corridor, along with suppressant gas.
Ayana reversed direction yet again and ran toward the bridge, skirting the winding trail of flame.
* * *
Riordan dodged in to smack the back of the repairbot. The chair-leg wasn’t going to do it any real damage, but it kept the machine occupied.
“Gas!” shouted Duncan as the bot rotated back toward Riordan and accelerated abruptly.
No more monkey in the middle, I guess. Riordan yanked out his soaked wash towel, clamped it over his nose and mouth, turned, and ran. Behind, he could hear Newton and Yaargraukh grunting on the other side of the open iris valve, laboring to pull the disabled bot out of the way. He glanced to check on their progress, discovered that the repairbot chasing him had halved the distance. Shit! Dora, where the hell are—?
Beyond the onrushing repairbot, beyond where Duncan had joined Yaargraukh and Newton to finally muscle the inert unit aside, a lithe, space-suited figure came sprinting around the corner. Through the visor of the helmet, Caine saw Dora Veriden’s eyes widen. With her free hand, she yanked the Ruger from its shoulder holster and squeezed off three hasty shots, aiming low.
Only one of the bullets hit the bot chasing Riordan, but that was enough. As Eku had predicted, and Dora had gambled, the robot halted, spun back around, accelerated toward her. A firearm trumped any number of ineffectual, club-armed attackers.
Dora just grinned, backed up, pitons in her left hand, pistol in her right. Bannor appeared around the corner behind her, carrying the spacesuits and a sprayer.
Newton was slumping sideways; when the gas hit, his paint-frozen arm hadn’t been able to reach his own soaked towel. Duncan had his cloth over the lower half of his face, wobbled slightly as he moved to the far side of the passageway and slashed his club weakly at the automaton. Since it was faster to dodge the human than run it over, the bot merely flinched away from Duncan’s attack as it sped past the open iris valve.
Yaargraukh emerged from the compartment directly behind it. His left hand clutched a towel over the blunt end of his long head; the other was raised and ready.
And holding a thirty-five-kilogram dumbbell from Bannor’s set.
Maybe it was the gas, but to Caine, it seemed that everything happened in a dreamlike ballet of simultaneity. Dora retreated a further step. Bannor jumped forward, a plume of paint reaching out toward the bot. Yaargraukh leaped at its back, his fist bringing the dumbbell down in a sudden arc. The sound of the impact wasn’t like those typically heard in melees; it was as loud and metallic and ragged as a car crash.
Riordan’s knees felt weak, started buckling as the repairbot veered sharply into the bulkhead closest to Bannor, just before Yaargraukh brought the dumbbell down again, this time over his head with both hands. Metal panels, parts, and sparks flew up as the weight crashed down into the top of the unit. It sagged and was still.
The world tilted. Caine felt passive pressure on his right shoulder; he’d slumped against the wall. Dora raced past, holding Bannor’s sprayer. Bannor came running behind her, but seemed slow. He stopped to fit a helmet over Duncan’s lolling head, rolled out one of the Dornaani spacesuits. Then he rose and came toward Riordan. Slowly. So slowly. Even as he loomed close, Bannor’s face began to fade away…
Suddenly his face was back. Riordan was wearing a space helmet, had a rebreather jammed between his teeth, was groggily shoving his arms into the sleeves of a Dornaani-made spacesuit.
“We’ve gotta move,” Rulaine shouted. “You ready?”
Caine’s tongue and consciousness pushed up through layers of cotton and cobwebs. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
MARCH 2125
DEEP SPACE, BD+13 778
Dora raced up the corridor into an omnidirectional blizzard of fine, flame retardant mist. After taking five long, deerlike strides into the murk, her helmet’s thermal imaging picked out two dim silhouettes slumped against the portside bulkhead: Tagawa and Girten. So no reinforcements up near the bridge. No surprise. Still, have to get them out of the smoke ASAP. Assuming we live to do it.
As she passed the last guttering blankets and sheets, Veriden switched the hammer to her right hand and muttered at her vac suit’s smart system. “Seal in body heat. No venting.” Which, in combination with the thermally opaque mist, would render her nearly invisible to the ship’s IR sensors. Between that and the smoke, the video pickups wouldn’t be faring much better. But she’d only know if it would keep her safe at the end of her sprint.
Which she finished, without incident, next to the bridge’s outsized iris valve.
Crouching and flattening against the bulkhead beside it, she waited, body heat rising in her suit.
* * *
Riordan picked up his spray can as Yaargraukh approached, helping Duncan; his knees were still wobbly. Solsohn looked up the corridor; just ten meters forward, it was a gray mass of mist and smoke. “Bastard’ll still zee uz through dat,” he slurred. “Gotta shift to therm-thermal seal. No IR sign.”
Riordan patted Solsohn on the shoulder. “Not the plan, Duncan. We want Hsontlosh to see us approach. Remember? Right now, the suits are just for protection.”
Duncan’s head sagged down, then raised slightly: probably the best nod he could manage. “Yeah. Right.”
Riordan wondered if Duncan remembered any of the plan at this point. But at least he was up and moving. “You hang back with Yaargraukh.”
The Hkh’Rkh’s voice was muffled by the towel over his long nose. “Caine Riordan, one last time, I ask you to reconsider. Allow me to walk in the first rank. The proxrovs could be armed. They might kill—”
“Yaargraukh, every one of us is at risk. But you’re the only one who’s got the power to put our enemies out of action. Until you’ve got a target, you’ve got to stay screened in the rear.” He glanced at Bannor. “Besides, Colonel Rulaine and I would get bored back there. Right?”
Bannor grinned. “You tell such pretty lies. You have your suit set for reactive resistance?”
“Just switched it on.” Caine returned the smile, wondered if it would be his last. “Let’s go.”
* * *
As on most ships, the bridge’s iris valve was so thick that it was impossible to hear anything going on behind it. Consequently, Dora had no warning before it whispered open.
But she knew what it meant: Hsontlosh was sending out his proxrovs. They would be as blind as the ship’s sensors, but at close range, their audio would be unimpaired. Even though she was sealed inside a suit that did not even have its ventilator running, Dora held her breath as the first one exited. It was unarmed.
She suppressed a sigh of relief as the anthropomorphic robot walked into the mist. She continued to wait.
As expected, the second proxrov emerged a few moments later. This one stopped in the doorway, holding some kind of gun. Eku hadn’t known if Hsontlosh actually possessed a personal weapon, much less what it might be. A brief glance wasn’t any help. Dora didn’t recognize anything except the barrel. But
if she wound up looking down that part of the firearm, or whatever it was, she was pretty certain she was as good as dead. She felt sweat roll down from her brow, was suddenly struck by a pang of fear and misgiving. Damn it, I should have holstered the Ruger, freed both hands for the hammer.
But there was no time to make that change, or even fully process the regret. The proxrov moved one step forward, weapon carried at the hip. Or rather, the armature that passed for one. It surveyed the corridor. Its high-autonomy system decided to take another, bolder step into the wall of mist and smoke.
* * *
Riordan and Bannor stayed to either side of the corridor, sprayers at the ready, unable to see more than a dim silhouette of each other. Radios off, they had to rely on external speakers. Even though any sound would tell their enemy where they were, live radios would have been the electronic equivalent of painting bull’s-eyes on themselves. Besides, the proxrov would know when contact was imminent—its own thermal imaging and the corridor’s IR sensors would pick them out, despite their suits and the fog. So the humans’ only reasonable strategy was to keep advancing until…
A faint sound—a footstep?—and then the grayness in front of Riordan darkened, hardened into an anthropomorphic shape.
“Contact!” Caine shouted, leaping back as far as he could. He lost his footing, fell backward.
The proxrov pursued, but not fast enough to catch hold of Riordan before another shape emerged from the murk: Bannor, who leaped across the corridor toward the robot’s side, got his arms around its hip armature.
The proxrov didn’t go down. Not a surprise: although well under two meters tall, it massed well over one hundred kilograms. Which was why Bannor dropped his grip and slid under the easy reach of the proxrov’s powerful hands.
Riordan scrambled to his feet, but Duncan was already rushing past him.
Steadying itself with one hand against the bulkhead wall, the anthrobot raised its free fist, adjusting to hit Bannor…
Duncan crashed into the machine’s upper torso, dragging it along the wall and backward. With Bannor’s arms still locked around its legs, it went down.
Riordan rolled up into a sprinter’s crouch as Yaargraukh’s feet started pounding closer. Caine ran to where the three humanoid forms were struggling on the deck. The bot’s left hand was now on Bannor’s left arm, squeezing with almost as much force as a Hkh’Rkh. But the Dornaani suit’s reactive hardening compensated against that grasp. Even so, Rulaine grunted in pain as Riordan found an opening and jammed the sprayer down into the proxrov’s face. He squeezed the trigger, moving the flow down into the neck articulation.
The proxrov didn’t seem to react for a moment, was probably calculating and weighing options, then threw Duncan off bodily, freeing a hand to wipe at its sensors.
Caine yelled, “Yaargraukh!” and stepped quickly to the side.
Just as the proxrov’s somewhat crude hands cleared its video sensors, a hulking shape loomed out of the mists behind Riordan. Its right arm flashed down, capped by what appeared to be a double-headed hammer of immense proportions.
The dumbbell missed the proxrov’s head, caught its shoulder instead. The arm holding Bannor’s arm went limp. Duncan rolled up to his feet, unsteadily preparing to dive back at the machine. Riordan prepared to do the same—
But was stopped by Bannor’s voice. “We’ve got this one. Go! Take the bridge!”
* * *
As the armed proxrov stepped past her, Dora didn’t stop to think. She acted.
Knowing that the proxrov’s audio sensors would detect her instantly, she stood and swung the hammer in one smooth movement.
The robot was already turning when the head of the hammer struck the side of its neck. The proxrov staggered to the side.
Dora flipped the hammer around, drew it back again.
The automaton righted itself, bringing up its weapon.
Veriden sidestepped to stay on its flank and swung the hammer’s sharp, curved back-spike into the rear of its neck. It penetrated the thinner, articulated metal. Fluid—coolant?—jetted out as the proxrov continued to pivot, firing the weapon as it tracked after Dora, each projectile digging a divot out of the bulkhead. Dora waltzed along with the faltering machine, got further around its turning flank, struck again.
The pick-end lodged in its neck. The proxrov froze and began to topple.
Veriden grabbed its weapon arm as it tilted toward the deck, swinging her weight against the direction of robot’s fall so that it landed just where she wanted it.
Across the threshold of the bridge’s open iris valve.
* * *
Bannor shifted his grip, slipped behind the damaged proxrov, but it rolled out of his double-armed hold. Duncan, who was now holding its thighs, could hardly keep from being bucked and sent flying. Again.
“Yaargraukh,” Bannor grunted as the proxrov squirmed into a position where it could use a knee against him, “any time now.”
The Hkh’Rkh’s reply sounded tight, anxious—a tone completely unfamiliar to Rulaine. “I could miss.”
“And we could die.” A sudden inspiration. “I’m going to help Duncan with the legs.” The proxrov’s knee caught Bannor in the gut, winded him, might have ruptured something.
“Understood.”
Bannor didn’t try to speak, didn’t try to coordinate, didn’t know if he’d survive another blow like the last. He opened his grip just long enough to slip his arms down to join Duncan in grasping the machine’s upper legs.
The proxrov, discovering that it had unimpeded range of motion from the hip up, spun quickly, jackknifing to bring its good arm into striking position upon the humans.
Yaargraukh slammed the dumbbell down into the machine’s suddenly exposed center of mass. Its shell now partially caved in, the proxrov changed tactics. Rather than striking the humans, it was trying to extricate itself.
Another hammer blow fell, this time hitting the juncture between its neck and its head. The proxrov flinched, faltered.
“Get clear,” Yaargraukh rasped, snout fully exposed to the gas.
Bannor turned his head, saw the immense torso of the Hkh’Rkh rise up, the dumbbell held in both hands.
He dove aside, shouting for Duncan to do the same.
* * *
The smoke thinned so suddenly that Riordan barely saw the yawning iris valve in time to slow down before charging straight into Dora.
She rose up from the proxrov she was straddling. “Can’t figure out the pocket cannon this proxrov was using. So all I’ve got is this.” She drew her Ruger.
Riordan nodded, said, “I’m sure that will do,” just before the ship plunged into darkness. A moment later, amber-colored emergency lights flickered to life. Having lost control of the ship, Hsontlosh had crashed its systems.
Caine popped his helmet, glanced at Dora. “You ready?” She nodded. He stepped over the remains of the proxrov. Dora followed.
Hsontlosh was standing at the navigation console, more interested in the readouts than in them. Behind the loji, the shift-chronometer was ticking down steadily. Caine knew enough Dornaani to read it: five minutes left. “Terminate the shift, Hsontlosh.”
He seemed genuinely unconcerned. “I shall not. On the other hand, if you lay down your weapons, I will consider concealing any two of your party from the Ktor when I meet them. Those two will be allowed to return to the Collective.”
Riordan shook his head. “Even if I believed you, we stick together.”
“So you choose collective suicide, then. A pity. I realize that you might have considered the offer more favorably if I could have made you one of its beneficiaries. However, I’m afraid that’s not possible, Commodore Riordan. You are, after all, the commodity in which my buyers are most interested.”
Dora raised the gun into a two-handed grip, fixed on the point directly between the loji’s eyes. “You’d better start thinking about cutting a whole new deal. With us. Who knows? We might even let you live.”
&n
bsp; “Ms. Veriden, your bravado is not only entertaining, but proof that homo sapiens’ reflex toward barbarity is matched only by its capacity for self-delusion. I will not make any new arrangements. This exchange has been almost a year in the planning. Its success ensures me lavish resources in perpetuity. Conversely, disappointing the independent agents with whom I have made my arrangements would lead to an outcome far more grim than any with which you might threaten me. But lastly, I will not terminate the countdown because I have no need to do so.
“Eku may have explained that the shift cannot be halted unless I manually enter a code that will reconnect the drive to the ship’s systems. Without that connection, the drive remains isolated from all controls. Including, therefore, your universal override key. If you attempt to disable or destroy the drive, the capacitors will still discharge on schedule and vaporize the ship. If you attempt to tamper with the capacitors themselves, again, the system breach discharges them. So you are without recourse.”
Dora shook her head. “Doesn’t look that way from where I’m standing.” She leveled the Ruger meaningfully. “I see two knees and two elbows that I can blow apart. Unless you are a whole lot tougher than you look, you’ll be begging us to let you enter that code before I can fire a third shot.”
Hsontlosh folded his hands patiently. “You seem to be unaware of the position in which I am standing, Ms. Veriden.”
Riordan raised his chin. “I know where you are standing.”
“Of course; Eku would certainly have informed you.”
“I also spent the better part of a year on another Custodial ship. The bridge layout is not dissimilar. Including the location of the navigation console.”
Hsontlosh backed up until he was brushing against the controls behind him. “Then you know that if Ms. Veriden should miss and hit the console…”
“I won’t miss, asshole.”
“…or the projectile penetrates my body and, again, damages the navigation system, you will be committing suicide.”
Marque of Caine Page 52