by Chris Walley
“That ship has new data on it.” There was a determined look in the brown eyes. “I want it. I want to be one of the first on the bridge. There may be battle plans, strategies. You have no idea what I could learn.” Vero glanced sharply around and then leaned close to Merral. “Look, it’s absolutely vital that I manage to access the ship’s computer before Betafor does. I want to be able to get the information before she can hide it from us.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to keep her busy.”
“I’ll try.”
Merral let his glance fall to the weapon his friend was carrying. Is he likely to be more of a threat than a help?
“Well, stay safe. Let others do the fighting.”
Finally they were ready. After consultation with Laura, Merral assembled everyone before him in the hangar. He sensed the tension in the sweaty air.
“Flight time will be a hundred and ten minutes. We stay in the topmost Below-Space most of the time and emerge only ten minutes before docking. It will be a tricky approach. A reminder: I want as near silence as we can get on the flight and total silence when we dock. Only on my order do you break out of hiding. Now Luke will pray for our mission, and when he has finished, take up your positions.”
The prayer was solemn but hopeful. But as he heard it, a strange thought seized Merral. Here, so far from the Assembly, are prayers answered? The idea was ludicrous, but somehow unsettling.
With Azeras squeezed beside him, Merral sat in the tiny cockpit as Laura powered up the craft. Then they opened the bay doors and slid outside into the empty grayness.
15
Merral braced himself as the ferry craft emerged from Below-Space just behind the Sacrifice, the dazzling white light of the engines so piercing that they had to engage a shutter on the screen. The theory is fine: there is so much radiation from the Sacrifice’s torchjets that we will be invisible to anyone watching the ship from Gerazon-Far or elsewhere. But will it work?
Soon they dipped below the glare to see ahead—and above them—the long, matte, silver-gray arrow with its weapons pods, cowls, and antennae glinting in the light of Sarata. It’s big. It’s very big. How dare we try to seize it? Merral prayed silently. O Lord, you commanded us to be brave and daring. Go ahead of us on this most dangerous venture. Help us to succeed.
“There they are,” Laura said, and Merral heard relief in her voice.
“What?”
“The lights.” Merral looked up at where she was pointing and saw brilliantly illuminated green lines pointing them toward a large gray funnel on the end of a short gantry.
“We are expected. And the starboard docking element is being extended.” Laura gestured at a screen. “They are offering to guide us in.” She smiled. “Suits me, Captain. Docking one strange vessel with another strange vessel is tough; I’m happy to let the computers do it.”
“How long before we dock?”
“Five minutes.”
“Okay, I’m going back there. As we agreed, keep the doors closed once we dock and stay out of sight. A female pilot would arouse suspicion.”
“Will do.”
Merral looked at Azeras and saw the man was pale. “I shouldn’t have come here, Captain,” he said almost under his breath and Merral glimpsed his chipped teeth. “Here, so near the heart of the Dominion.” There was unashamed fear in his words.
Trying to hide his own concerns, Merral patted him on his armor. “Sarudar, I don’t care for it either. But we are going to do what we have to do.”
If a warrior like him is scared, am I foolish not to be terrified? Merral moved back into the main compartment. “Docking in five minutes,” he said in a low tone to the four occupants. “Get into action mode now. Sergeant, glare at them. Or something.”
Lloyd puckered his face into a fierce look and stared at the three women. The first glared back, the second put her head in her hands, and the last, Miranda, stared straight ahead with a pale-faced look of blank despair.
Merral sat down, suddenly feeling very nervous. He slid his hand to the holstered pistol in a practice move and realized that his hands were sticky with sweat. He wiped them on the seat and gazed beyond the women to where the heavy fabric sheets closed off the compartment. He felt deeply troubled and questions edged into his mind. Are we being reckless? Have I overlooked something? Will we need to fire?
Five minutes later, there was an almost imperceptible jolt and immediately afterward a sense of the ferry craft being slightly rotated. After a minute or so of gentle motion, Merral heard a soft thud and a gentle clang as something clamped over the hatch.
Merral stood up, slid his hand to the pistol butt one more time, then strode to the hatch. There he peered through the porthole. Beyond, he saw that a short passageway was attached and at its far end was another door.
A green status light came on.
Merral adjusted his cap. The realization came to him that there comes a point when you go beyond fear—you just go and do the job. He rehearsed what he had to do one more time. My task is simple: greet, invite, and above all, play my part. I am Lezaroth—superior, cold, but now compromised.
He pressed the hatch button and, with an almost inaudible hum, the door slid open. As he took a step down the passageway, he saw the far door open and two men enter. The first was a large figure, heavily built to the point of fatness, whom he recognized as Haqzintal. The second, walking two paces behind him, was a much smaller man with a thin frame and an awkward gait. His aide.
When they were around five paces away, both men saluted, Haqzintal in a rather sloppy manner, his subordinate with an almost panicky rapidity.
Merral stopped and returned the salute. “Captain Haqzintal, thank you for helping me . . . with my problem. Follow me.”
The captain opened his big, soft hands in a gesture of generosity and gave a barely concealed smirk. But as Merral turned to walk back, he glimpsed the expression on the white face of the aide. It was an unmistakable, almost defiant look of nervous disbelief. He knows it’s a trap!
Trying to avoid panic, Merral walked back inside the ferry craft. He stood close to Lloyd at the very front of the compartment. As the two men entered, Lloyd snapped to attention and gave them a terse salute. Haqzintal just grunted.
The captain and his aide stopped just inside the hatch.
Not far enough in! Merral saw in dismay that the pale-faced aide was so close to the door as to be almost sheltered by its frame. He’s ready to make a run for it. That must not happen.
Merral gestured to the women with what he hoped was scorn.
“Captain Haqzintal, these are the women. Yours is on the back row.” He felt he sounded hesitant.
Haqzintal stared at them but did not move. Instead, he glanced around as if looking for something. He seems edgy. Has he caught the nervousness of his silent aide?
“Do you wish to take a look?” Merral asked, willing the man to step farther in.
Haq hesitated, seemed to consider something, and made as if to step forward. Without warning, a noise came from beyond the fabric at the back of the compartment—the unmistakable sound of something heavy and metallic hitting the floor.
Haqzintal looked up, alarm dawning on his face. “That! What was that?”
“Now!” Merral yelled. He snatched at his pistol, got his finger inside the trigger guard, and swung the gun up to cover the aide. “Hands up! Both of you!” he shouted in Saratan.
Haqzintal gasped and the aide raised his hands above his head with a gratifying speed.
Merral gestured with the gun barrel for the man to move away from the door and get closer to the captain. He heard the sound of the fabric being pulled away and people tumbling out. He tried to fight back the dismaying sense that things were going out of control.
Not daring to take his eyes away from the aide—now sidling with unsteady legs farther into the compartment—Merral spoke again, struggling to remember the right words. “Keep your hands up and step back. We d
on’t want . . .” He fumbled for the Saratan expression. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
The aide had moved over so far now that Merral dared throw a glance at the captain. Haqzintal’s round face was flushed red. Behind him, Merral saw a number of gun barrels pointing down the compartment from the emerging soldiers.
If there’s shooting here, then a lot of us could get hurt.
Then he glimpsed Anya picking up a weapon from the floor and had a sudden presentiment of another problem that was going to need dealing with.
Haqzintal turned to him. “Who in the name of the powers are you?” he snapped.
“I am Commander Merral D’Avanos of the Assembly of Worlds. You are both under arrest.”
He saw that the captain’s hands were wide rather than high.
“Hands up. Higher. And step back!” Merral shouted. “Don’t attempt to . . . communicate.”
Merral saw the captain was at least two paces away from the point at which he would certainly be unable to contact the ship. He may still be able to communicate. And supposing he does call for help? What do I do?
On the edge of his field of view, Merral could see that the three women of the bait team were freeing their hands and reaching under seats for weapons.
Haqzintal took a step back. “What do you want? Money? Information? A deal?” he asked.
“We want this ship.”
The captain arched the back of the left hand and flexed his fingers like a pianist. He’s trying to communicate. But an instant later a look of frustration crossed the man’s face. “Blocked. Of course!”
Haqzintal turned to his aide. “Slabbo, go for help. Now!”
The smaller man hesitated, and his fearful black eyes looked at Merral’s face and slid down to the gun. He didn’t move.
“Lloyd,” Merral said out of the corner of his mouth, “if either of them tries to get out, shoot.” Did I really say that? Did I really mean that?
“Yes, sir.”
The captain began waving his fist at his aide and shouting in fast, curse-filled Saratan. “Slabbo, they are bluffing. They are soft, weak Assembly cowards. They don’t kill people. Go! That’s an order.”
The man called Slabbo just shook his head.
Merral spoke. “Captain, we do not wish to hurt you. We just want this ship to rescue our friends. You can help us. But if you try to leave this room my—” Merral could not remember the word for aide—“this man here will shoot you.”
Haqzintal gave Merral a ferocious glare. “Captain, let me speak slowly so you fully understand. You want my ship? Then I will not help you. You say you would not hurt me. I believe you.” He shook his head and Merral saw he was sweating. “But how do you think the lord-emperor would treat a captain who lost a warship without a fight? What fate would you expect?”
Merral realized that he had never expected this reaction. But Haqzintal was continuing. “Commander Whoever-you-are, listen. In a second, I am going to walk out that door and call my men. You may do as you wish. As for my liegeman—my assistant—he is what we call life-bonded to me. If I die, he will die shortly afterward.”
He turned to his aide. “Remember, Slabbo, if they do shoot me, you follow me to the gray lands.” Then he turned to Merral. “I’m going for help.”
The captain shook himself, adjusted his jacket, brushed something off a lapel with a fat hand, stood erect, and began walking to the door with a measured pace. He raised his left hand and began to flex his fingers.
A double flash of light erupted and two loud, heavy spitting sounds rang out.
The captain jerked, toppled over, and crashed to the ground. His large form lay facedown, bright red blood gushing onto the floor from his head. He twitched once and then lay still.
We’ve killed him!
Merral heard low gasps from the rear of the compartment. Slabbo was staring wide-eyed at the body.
Now what do we do? We were going to use the captain to force a surrender. I need to act, or we face disaster.
“Lloyd . . . thanks,” Merral said, feeling an enormous gulf between the flat gratitude of his words and the seething dismay he felt. I gave the order. I thought Haqzintal would pay attention. But he didn’t, and he is now dead.
He kept the pistol trained on the aide and was relieved to see that the barrel didn’t waver.
Is this how war works? That we pretend to be aggressive and brutal and then all of sudden we find our words have birthed dreadful deeds? Then recognizing the introspection that Luke had warned him about, Merral pushed the thought away. I must lead!
Merral glanced quickly down to the far end of the compartment and saw twenty wide-eyed faces. “Abilana, Ilyas, up here!” he yelled and turned to look at the aide. “What’s your name? Slabbo?”
“Slabodal. I am Haq’s adjutant. I was . . .” He gazed at the body and Merral saw an aghast wonderment in his expression. “Do you know that was the only brave thing I ever saw him do? In twenty years.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”
Abilana was running forward with her medical bag, and Ilyas was behind her.
“Ilyas, check this man for weapons,” Merral ordered, pointing at Slabodal. Abilana needed no instruction and squatted down next to the body. She put out a gloved hand to the head. Merral looked away.
“Well, let me see,” he heard the doctor say a moment later, her voice dry and emotionless. The pretense of routine. “Two bullets to the head. Has to be brain death, ’cause there’s a lot of brain missing.” She gave a cluck of distaste. “No. You really don’t want to see those exit wounds. Not at all. No pulse, of course.” She paused. “All in all, a bad and terminal case of sudden death.”
She had said irony is her defense mechanism. Merral swallowed. “Thanks, Abilana. Now, Slabodal, we don’t want to hurt you, but we will if we have to. Will you cooperate?”
“Yes. I have no wish to join the captain.”
As Ilyas ran his hands over the man, Merral saw that Betafor had come forward.
“Do you wish me to translate, Commander?”
“Yes. It will be quicker, and we don’t have much time. It’s important that everyone hears.”
Ilyas gestured that Slabodal was clean of weapons and stood back. Merral saw the rest of the soldiers were gathering around in a semicircle. He saw that Lloyd’s face was pale and glum, and as he watched he saw the blue eyes flick almost guiltily to the corpse. Luke had come alongside Lloyd and was whispering in his ear. Merral lip-read the words It had to be done. Lloyd nodded in assent and the glumness seemed to slip away.
Merral turned to the Allenix unit. “Betafor, ask him this: if he is life-bonded to the captain, isn’t he going to die?”
She translated and Merral was more or less able to follow the question.
“No,” Slabodal replied and Betafor translated. “I paid for my life-bonding to be surgically neutralized last year. A secret operation; it cost a lot, but I think it was a good investment. I had a suspicion the captain would die.” Slabodal turned to stare at the corpse. “But not quite like that. Not with bravery.”
Then he looked at Merral with a hard face, and his words were simple enough that Merral understood them even before Betafor had translated them. “For twenty years, he abused me in every way. I’m very glad he is dead. I hated him.”
Somehow Merral’s gaze fell on the body on the floor and the appalling pool of crimson, and he looked away. “Slabodal, we have some urgent questions and we need answers. Honest ones.”
“Will you spare me?”
“Yes.”
“Promise on oath! To the powers!”
“We take no oaths and none to the powers. You must trust my word.”
Slabodal looked at the corpse again. “Very well. You have the guns. I will give them honest answers.”
Vero clumsily unrolled a long schematic diagram of the interior of the Sacrifice.
“Now, Slabodal,” Merral asked, gesturing at the sheet. “Where is the rest of the crew?”
&nb
sp; “In Compartment 1-14.” Slabodal pointed to a space on the lower forward part of the diagram. “All of them. Haq—the captain—arranged a killer-dog death match for them.”
“A what?” Is there a mistranslation here?
There was a sarcastic smirk. “Commander, what part of the phrase ‘killer-dog death match’ do you not understand?”
“All of it.”
“Gene-engineered dogs kill each other.”
Merral shook his head and saw disgust on the faces of his friends. “They are watching that now? For how much longer?”
“Quite a bit. We’ve got a priest—Hewnface, one of the fleshcutters—who is speaking first. He won’t finish for at least another five minutes. Likes his books. Then there is the fight. That could last for ten, twenty, or even thirty minutes. Depends on how quickly one of the dogs dies.”
“How many men are there?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“How many will have weapons?”
“Just two. Munt, a big bald guy; he will be in the ring dealing with the dogs. And Klime, the master-at-arms—a little man with—a single spike of black hair and a scar on his face. He will be armed too.”
Just two? Merral felt a surge of hope returning. Maybe God has not deserted us!
“And are there any Krallen?”
Slabodal responded with something that Merral felt meant “There are no Krallen activated on this ship; they are not a hazard for you.” He was slightly surprised therefore when Betafor gave the translation as “There are no Krallen present on this ship; they are not a hazard for you.” Merral decided that there must be an ambiguity in Saratan that he had missed.
He moved on with a question about whether a steersman or slitherwings were on board and was gratified to get the answer that there were neither.
Merral looked around. There was no time for debate. The captain’s death—he tried again not to look at the body—had been unfortunate, but if Slabodal was being honest, they had a remarkable opportunity to seize the ship.
Merral beckoned for his armor. “I’ll lead the way through the lower corridor; I want total silence. Guns at the ready in case it’s a trap. No use of comms. At the ladder here—” he pointed at Vero’s plan of the ship—“we split into two teams. Ilyas, take one of your men and climb up to the bridge. If, as we are told, there is no one there except the Allenix, enter and secure the bridge. Betafor, the sarudar, and Vero will follow immediately behind you. The ship’s communications must be locked down; we can’t afford to have any messages sent out. The moment that is secure, give me a brief okay on the suit headset.”