Fen grabbed Pir by his other shoulder. “Take your hand with us, Pir. Perhaps the doctor can reattach it. I am sorry, but there is nothing else we can do right now.”
Pir nodded mutely, eyes now glazed. He picked up his hand and stared at it as if he’d never seen it before. He cradled the hand against his chest.
The foursome waited another minute, but no one else entered the intersection.
“That should buy Kalen some time. Let us go after the one that got past us and then head for the hangar.”
If the fortress is pictured as a two-dimensional map with the hangar at the geographic southern point and possessing two entrances at the northern end of the hangar, Sue and her team waited outside the northeastern entrance. At the same time, Kalen’s people approached the northwestern entrance from the north. They were chased by Jern Ishtawahl, who in turn was pursued by Fen’s team. Two squads of Ishtawahl’s guards converged on the hangar from the northeast and northwest, while Mynax’s team circled back from the northwest.
Sue, Sonn, and Berjelar still hadn’t come to a decision about how to proceed when the decision was made for them.
One of the just-freed prisoners shouted and pointed. “There!” Two of the armed prisoners in the rear of the group fired at the lead guards approaching from behind, but missed. The guards ducked back around the curve and fired a return volley, killing one of the prisoners.
A tall, black-bearded man with a burned cheek picked up the weapon and shot back. “We can’t stay here in the hallway. We’re too exposed!”
“You are right,” Sue replied. “We have to charge the hangar. When we get inside, everyone stay together—those with weapons on the outside to protect the group. We will look for cover when we get there.”
A shot from the guards behind them downed another prisoner. The sounds of blaster fire continued to grow closer from the crossing corridor. They were out of time.
“Go, go go!” Sue shouted from the far side of the doorway.
She waved the other escapees through with her free hand. The unarmed ones went first with Sonn and Berjelar, while the other armed members of the group continued to trade fire with the guards.
One by one, all entered through the doorway, until only Sue was left. She fired one last time at the guards before ducking through herself. At the last moment, she saw movement out of the corner of her eyes, coming down the main corridor. She turned her weapon to shoot and barely held back in time.
“Kalen! This way! Be careful, there are guards approaching from your left!”
She fired a salvo back in that direction around the doorframe, to keep the guards from approaching.
“Sue! Good to see you,” Kalen yelled back, breathing hard. “Thanks for the warning!”
Seconds later, he halted at the intersection and fired around the corner in the guards’ direction.
He called back over his shoulder to the rest of his team. “Hurry. Stay low. There are guards shooting from the left.”
He and Sue stepped up the rate of fire to hold the guards back. Nude—carrying Merry, Dr. Felmendar, and the rest shot across the intersection one or two at a time, until all but Kalen were across and into the hangar. Then, firing as fast as the gun could manage, he dashed across, too. A return shot trimmed off a piece of his sleeve just above the elbow, but only managed to singe the hairs on his arm.
Now he and Sue raced to catch up with the others, heading for a stack of crates to the left of the big pirate ship.
The ship pivoted the APCs, aiming them at the group running across the hangar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Hal paused, his attention focused on the sensors and his mind poised over the virtual trigger to the APCs.
I can’t fire unless I’m sure they’re pirates. Some are armed and some aren’t. I need a way to identify them. There are so many of them. They can’t all be prisoners, can they?
Wait!
Among the group were two Chan’Yi, who stood head-and-shoulders above most of the escapees. One of them carried a bundle.
Merry! That’s Nude carrying her. And the other is Sue. Kalen must in there, somewhere. Please tell me he’s okay and— There he is! Thank God. Spelvin must have found them. But where is he? None of this group is wearing a spacesuit.
Damn! They’re still out there somewhere looking for Kalen. I’d better call him. But first….
He dropped shields and toggled the microphone and the external speakers.
“Kalen! Nude! Head for the big ship. It’s ours.”
Behind the fleeing escapees a handful of guards followed, weapons ablaze.
“Hal?” Kalen’s eyes bugged out. “Son of a bitch! That’s Hal’s voice! Where the hell did he come from? Everyone, keep running. Head for the ship. The cavalry’s here.” A huge grin split his face.
The crowd veered to the right. Two fell from blaster fire. Those with weapons continued to shoot behind them at the zigzagging guards.
Fen, Loc, Slouv, and Pir continued to chase Jern Ishtawahl. They rounded the last curve in the corridor to see him standing in the doorway to the hangar watching the guards forge ahead. Fen took careful aim at the Alberian’s head and squeezed the firing button.
Whether through pure luck, or incredible peripheral vision, the scaly green head pulled back in the last split-second and the shot whizzed past, missing him by millimeters. He dove backward, out of view of those in the crossing corridor.
Fen’s team dashed for the intersection and raised their weapons, just as a squad of guards coming from the other direction appeared, raising their own blasters. Now outnumbered, Fen and the others sent a volley the guards’ way, and rushed through the ruined doorway into the hangar.
Now what? Fen wondered. Did we just put ourselves in even more danger?
He looked ahead to see the APCs of the big ship ahead swiveling in their direction.
“Kalen!” He hollered to the group in front, which was just beginning to board the ship.
Captain Jeffries turned his head toward Fen and waved his party on toward the ship.
They picked up the pace, now that they knew safety lay ahead.
And then Glon’Slouv’Moul fell, a smoking hole in his back. The tall Chan’Yi was simply too big a target for the guards to miss at that range, firing through the other doorway.
The cannons of the big ship turned toward the guards and obliterated three of them, widening the doorway by taking out a section of wall to the left. Two other corpses were just visible to the left of the hole.
The remaining guards and Jern Ishtawahl drew a bead on the backs of Fen Donue, Loc Pordu, and Pir Seploo. In a moment they’d all be dead.
Several blaster shots coming from the left struck first, one of them hitting and killing a guard before he could fire. The other guard and the Alberian were startled enough that they missed their shots. They dashed to the right, behind the wall between the two doorways.
Fen and Loc half-carried, half-dragged Slouv into the ship, right behind Pir. Fen held no hope that the Chan’Yi was still alive, but neither would he leave him behind to the tender mercies of the pirates.
As they did this, the ship’s APCs turned toward the center section of wall behind which the remaining guards hid. A second later, they fired, blowing a huge hole through the wall. Pieces of the remaining Melphim guard confirmed that she was dead, but there was no sign of the Alberian. On the other hand, the corner of another intersection, just to the right of the hole, was visible.
Fen sighed in relief as he and Loc passed beyond the airlock and into the ship.
Damn! I think that was Ishtawahl. But I missed him. Hal sighed in frustration, then smiled. No matter. In a few minutes he’ll be dead anyway.
The ship’s sensors picked up more motion by the blown-out doorway on the left. Hal turned the guns that way and prepared to fire.
Shit! He opened a comm. link. “Spelvin! You might call and warn a guy before bursting in like that! Jeez! I almost blew you and the rest of the team into nex
t year!”
“Sorry, Hal,” Mynax replied. “I’m not quite used to these newfangled wireless implant thingamajigs.”
Hal burst out laughing, more from relief than from the weak joke.
“It looks like we missed most of the party, but we took out one of the guards for you. Request permission to board without being blown up.”
Hal laughed again. “Permission granted. But make it double-time. There’s no telling who’s coming to the party next.”
“Be right there. I hope you kept a candle in the window to light our way home.”
“Nope, but I kept a couple of cannons warmed up in your absence.”
“Close enough.”
Jern Ishtawahl stood with his back against a wall, panting, unable to believe just how close he’d come to death yet again.
No matter. I am alive and whole. This so-called impregnable fortress is ruined. It is time to move on and start over. But there is no time to get to one of the other hangars—the radioactive dust cannot be far from here. Where can I go?
Of course—the command center. It has its own air purification system and the blast doors will keep out the radiation until the next ship arrives.
Ishtawahl ran at top speed until he reached the command center. He used his implant to enter his override code and unlock the sealed blast door. It opened ponderously, almost as if teasing him with its slowness. As soon as he was inside, he commanded the door to close behind him.
As always, the command center was buzzing with activity, although with fewer personnel than usual. Some had been caught outside during shift-change, when the radiation sensors automatically locked the door.
Fortunately, MekFensal was still on duty.
“Mek! Status.”
“Sir, according to the internal sensors, more than half of the fortress is irradiated already. It looks like at least two-thirds will be contaminated before the radioactive dust settles and stops spreading.”
“Casualties?”
MekFensal grimaced. “It is difficult to tell, exactly, but I would estimate thirty to fifty percent so far. More over time. It all depends on how many can get to the clean areas before receiving a fatal dose.”
Ishtawahl nodded his understanding of the situation. “Regrettable.”
“At least the radiation alarms worked as designed, sounding all over the fortress. It could have been worse.”
Ishtawahl nodded again, this time in agreement. “How are we set in here?”
“Reasonably good, sir. We have enough food to last at least two weeks, more if we ration. Water and air are recycled, so they will last indefinitely. We also have independent backup power for lighting, equipment, and heat. We should be fine until the next incoming ship. We can leave with them. We just have to warn them about the radiation when they arrive and have them bring us extra spacesuits.”
“Good. When is the next ship scheduled to arrive?”
“Four days.”
“Excellent. Jeffries may have won this battle, but the war is not yet over.”
Hal toggled the intercom from the pilot’s couch. “Giffen? How are you coming?”
“Almost ready, sir. Give me another minute.”
“Perfect. Let me know when you’re ready.”
“Will do.”
“Care to fill me in on the plan?” Kalen asked.
“No time right now,” Hal replied. “Suffice it to say, it’ll be quite warm in here in a few minutes. It’s time to go.”
With everyone aboard and the shields back up, he raised the ship off the deck and backed out of the hangar to a range of a thousand meters. He then sidled the ship until it was in line with his target.
“Ready, sir,” Giffen called out.
“Good. Thanks. Let’s get it loaded.”
Because the missile wasn’t in the ship’s magazine it had to be loaded manually, which took longer. But inside of three minutes it was safely ensconced in one of the starboard missile tubes.
“Missile loaded.”
“Thank you Giffen. Did you manage to lower the yield? We don’t want it too powerful.”
“Yes sir, as much as I could by reconfiguring the timing of the shaped charges to be suboptimal and—”
“Excellent. Thank you, Giffen. Now sit back, everyone, and watch the viewscreen. This should be fun.”
Hal looked over his shoulder at Kalen and Mynax. Mynax knew what was coming; Kalen didn’t.
“Say goodbye to the pirate fortress.”
Hal fired the missile, which Giffen had modified to use the minimum possible thrust. It entered the hangar, flew through what was left of the right-hand doorway, and down the main corridor.
Aboard Queen Anne’s Revenge, Hal powered the shields to maximum and gave the ship a command. It rose relative to the hangar opening, stopping three kilometers “above” and using the bulk of the asteroid itself to protect the ship.
After three seconds, the engine shut off and the missile coasted, skipping on the smooth floor. It glanced off subtle curves in the walls where the old mining tunnel hadn’t been entirely straightened for more civilized use, heading deep into the heart of the asteroid and slowing from friction. A thick coating of lubricating grease helped it along. The deeper the missile went, the slower it traveled.
It ground to a stop just short of an intersection, rocking slightly as it settled.
The former prisoners watching from the bridge and elsewhere in the ship waited for the big bang. After ten seconds passed and nothing happened, some of the escapees looked at one another in puzzlement.
Kalen glanced at Mynax with eyebrows raised.
Mynax merely smiled.
Hal consulted the ship’s chronometer.
“Five…four…three…two…one….”
Deep inside Smuggler’s Cove, a timer reached zero, a relay made contact, and a number of shaped explosive charges ignited. These crushed the subcritical shell of plutonium into a smaller, denser, supercritical mass in the core, or “pit.” This began a cascade of neutrons smashing into nearby plutonium atoms, which in turn released bursts of neutrons at an exponential rate. The horrific consequences of these actions were now unstoppable.
An infinitesimal fraction of a second later, the warhead erupted in nuclear hell, hotter than the core of a star and expanding at hypersonic speeds. Within a tenth of a second, it had vaporized much of the surrounding rock. But because of the density and thickness of the asteroid, the energy couldn’t expand quickly enough to dissipate. Instead, it attempted to escape through the tunnels, the shock wave racing outward from ground-zero like a ravening satanic demon, consuming everything in its path. The beast rent the very atoms of the atmosphere into superheated plasma, slagged or incinerated doors, vaporized warehouse supplies, flashed through barracks and mess halls, and blew vehicles and equipment ahead like bullets down a rifle barrel. Nothing could survive being touched by the fiery fingers of this Angel of Death. The stone corridors and chambers were scoured clean of all the embellishments of people and polished smooth. Throughout most of the asteroid, all that remained was primordial rock.
Within seconds, atomic flame brighter than the surface of the sun jetted out through two of the three hangars and other accessways, accompanied by an intense burst of X-rays, hurling ships and debris ahead into vacuum, to splatter against the inner asteroid shield wall. Although the nuclear fire shot out of both ends of the asteroid, the proximity of the explosion to one end meant that much more of the blast came out that end than the other. The pressure wave acted like a rocket engine, pushing the asteroid in the opposite direction—slowly at first, and then faster, until the asteroid smashed into the inner shield wall hard enough to shove aside two of the smaller asteroids and crash into three others.
The raging storm went on and on, and then it was over.
After forty seconds, the flames were out and the fortress was dead. Whatever equipment the blast itself hadn’t destroyed, the intense electromagnetic pulse fried, including the fortress’s automated defense
systems, power plants, and artificial gravity generators. The missile launchers, cannons, and other weapons remained intact, still mounted to the exterior of the asteroid; but the sensors and the controls that operated the weapons were dead.
Without power, the force field generators protecting the hangars failed, venting all remaining atmosphere into space. Hundreds of pirates had eluded the radiation from the lab explosion; dozens of those even survived the atomic blast in protected areas far from ground zero. Very few had time to find airtight accommodations before it was too late.
Hal turned to the others in the bridge of Queen Anne’s Revenge, on one hand grimly satisfied at the destruction of the pirate fortress, and on the other sick to his stomach at the loss of life, however necessary. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper.
“Phase 4 complete. All we have left is Phase 5, the Great Escape.”
Inside the fortress’ command center, behind blast doors, Jern Ishtawahl and the others sat in near-darkness. Only a green glow illuminated the Pit.
“What in Tammen’s name happened?” Ishtawahl asked.
Mek shrugged. “Judging by the readings before the sensors stopped working, I would say someone detonated a nuke inside the fortress. That is what knocked out our power.”
Ishtawahl frowned. “WHAT? But how? The last working nuke was loaded aboard Tro’s ship hours ago— Ah. Someone has taken the ship.” He sighed. “So much for independent backup power. What is our status now?”
“Not good,” Mek sighed. “The blast door saved us—we must not have been in direct line of the blast—but only for now. It is still warm in here, but without power, it will cool soon enough. It will be well below freezing in here within hours. And without power, the air processor is offline, so we will get no new air, and what we have will be depleted in a few hours. Even if there is a safe haven somewhere in the fortress, there is no way to open the blast door from inside without power.”
My Other Car is a Spaceship Page 34