“It’s not thick enough,” Daivid said. “It’s going to pop in a moment. We need something to bulk it up. Is there anything? Firefighting foam?”
“Not thick enough,” Borden said, doing a rapid mental calculation.
“We’ve got plenty of material,” Jones began in a speculative voice.
Daivid followed the direction the Cymraeg’s mask was pointing. Toward the sump room. “Oh, no, Jones, not that again.”
“We’ve got lots of it, sir, and it’s thick. I had my hands in it enough the other night to testify to that. It’ll freeze in place, and keep the survival tent from bursting. We can’t go out in search of anything else, sir. The hatches are sealed.”
Daivid groaned, but he had to bow to the inevitable. “All right!” he said. “Hurry up. Get … some. Move it!”
Chuckling evilly to themselves, a handful of the Cockroaches stalked out of the main pump room. In short order they returned pulling a hover-cart laden with sloshing canisters.
“Just heave it up there,” Jones advised. “It’ll stick.”
The largest troopers, Ewanowski, Okumede, and Boland, grabbed a canister apiece and walked up the wall, pouring out the thick sludge along the gap. The heavy brown muck started to flow, then halted in place. Daivid didn’t realize he was holding his breath until the creeping edges of the survival shelter slowed, then lay flat. It worked! The little corlist scuttled forward, grasping the loose edges of the tent in his many hands to fold over the heavy sludge. It adhered, then froze in place.
“Make cleanup more easy,” he chittered. The others leaped to help him, turning their improvised patch into a neat package.
“Very tidy,” Jones opined. “You’d hardly guess what was in it.”
“Excuse me,” Lin retorted, “but the color does show through.”
“You know what they say,” Mose pointed out. “When life hands you slag, make a slag sandwich.”
“With ice on the side,” Streb added.
“Is that in your limerick?” Lin asked.
“And have someone say my poems are full of slag? Not a chance.”
Daivid had to snicker as he keyed his communications channel open to Iry. “All under control, commander.”
A siren sounded the All Clear. “Stand down,” a female voice ordered. “All hands, stand down from battle stations.”
“Thank God for that,” Iry’s voice came through with relief. “Any casualties?”
“None, ma’am.”
“You’re sure?”
Daivid glanced at his platoon, doing a quick headcount. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Let me in there,” Iry ordered. “I want to see for myself.”
O O O
“Retreat!” Itterim Captain Maren ordered her cruiser, the Tchtchtch. “All fighters on board!” Her green clawed feet clung to the deck as she stared in dismay at the navigation screen. Where had that monster of a ship come from? How had they not known it was coming?
She wished to pursue the merchants—the Insurgency was counting upon their cargo—but she could see no way to maneuver past the gigantic ship, which had appeared out of nowhere like a huge gray ghost. Small craft had swarmed out of its bowels like the hatching of a gigantic litter, and engaged all of their fighters, sometimes two, or three to a ship. Though the Insurgency ships outnumbered their original prey, they were vastly outgunned by the new and unexpected opponent.
One by one, the trade ships had escaped from the battle, diving into the nearest entrance to nonspace. To follow was impossible. If they did, the TWC dreadnought could notify the Space Service to have a full-scale navy meet them at the other end of the string.
Once the last merchant had disappeared, the gigantic ship began to attack in earnest, now that no vulnerable civilians could be hurt. One after another the Insurgency ships were blown into ragged shards. Maren made the decision to flee to save the lives of the other rebels.
The giant ship chased them as far as the entry point of another string. Once the scanty remains of her fighters were on board she let the singularity take the Tchtchtch. She could only hope that the TWC ship would not send messages ahead of them now, but it was a faint hope. They wished to destroy the rebellion, and all who fought the good fight against the oppressors.
“What was that?” Ziil howled over the ship-to-ship video channel, heedless of whether the signal was being scrambled or not. His forelimbs rasped against one another in extreme agitation.
“A full-scale TWC dreadnought,” replied Roest, safely aboard the destroyer Chittatin. “We were duped. The ships were not unprotected, as we had been assured. Prepare for their weapons only, the report said. It was a lie!”
“But it was my own hatching brother who sent the report,” Ziil said.
“Then he was corrupted,” Roest said, flatly, “and should be eaten. Has he a mate?”
“You’re a fine one to talk about eating,” Maren hissed. “I have heard your crew agitating for your giblets. Do you feel so safe accusing Ziil’s hatching brother?”
“He must have been lied to,” Ziil insisted.
“Did he not threaten adequately?” Roest countered. “Did he not offer sufficient bribes for accurate information?”
“I am sure that he did,” Ziil replied sulkily. “It must be that his sources did not have accurate information for sale.”
“Colonel Ayala will need to be notified of that,” Maren stated.
“He will need to be notified of our failure as soon as we emerge,” Roest said, with sudden misgivings. “We may all need to be wary of who is looking hungry around us.”
“Three ships,” Ziil wailed. “We only have three ships left!”
O O O
The Cockroaches stood at attention in the captain’s day room. Daivid angled his chin to loosen the formal collar around his neck. His troopers were arrayed in new dress whites, wrenched out of Supply’s clutches for the occasion by special order of Commander Iry. The troopers didn’t clean up half badly, he mused, surveying them with pride. He wondered why they had been summoned. It was probably so the Captain could chew them out personally for messing up the pumping station again. Once the repair bots had sealed the hull from the outside, the chamber had heated up again, and the water had sloshed everywhere, shorting out components and running under the floor plates. And the improvised patch itself had started to warm up and soften enough to slide down the wall. Aaooorru’s attempt to package up the slag only worked to a point. It had been a stinking disaster to dispose of.
The captain peered at them down his aristocratic nose as he paced up and back.
“I don’t usually single out units after a battle,” he said. “I expect every crew member to do the job without expectation of special thanks. That’s why you join the Space Service, to give your all in defense of the Confederation.”
So, why bring us in? Daivid thought. He glanced curiously at the captain, who caught him looking. He snapped his eyes back to straight ahead.
“Once in a while, however, a unique situation comes along that requires recognition. Your unit handled not one, but two hull breaches while the ship was under attack. You did it speedily and well, with no loss of life. You saved a vital section of the Eastwood. But I am told that there was only one repair kit in the department accessible to you, and that you had to improvise with what you had at hand: a survival shelter and … material present in the department.” Harawe’s eyes were a mixture of amusement and outrage. “I will not have an official report filed that my ship was saved by a load of dung! Over my dead and desiccated remains will a reference to such a substance be used. There will be no dung in my records. Therefore the report will be amended.”
“Er, you can say we made use of ‘alternate materials,’ sir,” Borden suggested.
“So noted,” Harawe snapped, approvingly. “Good choice. Coffey! Take that down.”
“Aye, sir,” the young ensign said, recording the change in her infopad.
“And you, troopers of X-Ray,” Harawe said,
turning to Daivid’s platoon, “should also make use of the term when referring to the incident.”
“You can count on us, sir!” Daivid said heartily. “Alternative materials it is. Right, X-Ray?”
“Aye, aye, sir!” the Cockroaches chimed in.
Harawe nodded sharply. “Then get out of here. Good job. Dismiss!”
O O O
Ayala was as upset as Maren had predicted. When they finally shot out of the nonspace string, they waited for the next window to make contact. The three remaining fleet captains were dreading it. He trusted them, and they had failed.
“I shall kill Veendam with my own hands,” Ayala growled, miming the strangling of the unhappy itterim spy. “How dare he send me false information. He lied to my face!”
“I am sure he was lied to,” Ziil insisted. “He would never conceal the information if he knew the traders had requested Space Service protection.”
“I am cutting off his payments,” Ayala said. “And you may warn him he has two days before I send an anonymous message that he is a mole.”
“Colonel!” Ziil protested. “That will condemn him to death!”
“We lost twelve ships!” the colonel shouted. “Damn you! I need allies who can forward our cause, not set it back five paces for every step forward.”
“Yes, colonel,” the itterim captains chorused obediently.
Ayala turned to stare directly into the screen, as if he could see the eyes of each of the captains watching him. “We will rendezvous at our final destination. I expect your full support.”
“But, sir,” Maren began, “we have had to travel three days in the wrong direction. It will take us time to find strings to carry us back towards you.”
“Be on time or don’t come back,” Ayala said, snapping a hand toward his communications officer to close the link. He paced back and forth on the juddering bridge. “You would think I could attract more quality people to our cause! I’ll do it myself, if I have to.”
***
Chapter 10
“Hey, Dai,” Carmen called, at the beginning of second shift, “are you heading for the wardroom? The rest of us are going to the crystal amphitheater showing of Peristalsis III: The Devouring.”
Daivid didn’t halt in his businesslike trot down the corridor, but he turned and jogged backwards. “No, I’ve got to take care of something. Tell me about it later.”
“Will do!”
Daivid hummed to himself as he went. A little praise went a long way. During his stop in to visit the platoon on duty in the pumping station that day, they all seemed to be in good spirits. Success, however unconventionally achieved, was a great morale booster. He figured now was the best time to pry open a few of the troopers’ shells and find out what they were really like underneath.
“Permission to enter?” he asked, at the door of the day room.
Lin glanced over. The platoon was still settling in. Vacarole was scrolling impatiently through the snack menu of the food dispenser set in the wall. Boland was pouring purple-red bug juice from a pitcher half-and-half with the clear liquid Daivid recognized as the Cockroaches’ proprietary white lightning.
“Come on in, sir. Want a drink?”
Daivid sidled in casually, knowing they were all looking at him. “I thought I’d spend the evening with you, if you didn’t mind. I’ve got a proposition for you.”
Lin’s left eyebrow rose high on her forehead. The others looked as curious, and as wary.
“We thought this’d come sooner or later,” Boland said. “Aren’t you happy with the way we’ve been working? We’re heroes! The whole ship knows about it. Even the captain likes us today.”
“It’s not that,” Daivid said, settling down in a chair and tilting it backward until his shoulders touched the wall. “It’s what happened after the poetry slam. And back on Treadmill. There are a dozen other land mines that I am tired of stumbling over. I keep pissing all of you off over things I don’t know existed or ever happened, and I’m sick of it. Break out some of the white lightning. I want to hear your stories.”
Somulska crossed her arms. “I don’t think I want to talk about mine.”
“Or mine,” Software chimed in.
“Then I’ll play you for them,” Wolfe said, the gold glint in his eyes. He picked the deck of cards off the big table and shuffled it from one hand to the other like an accordion. “Any game you want. If you can beat me, you can take my money….”
“Or we can hear your story,” Mose said. “There’s no good reason for you to be here, either, or so you say. Give us a chance to find out.”
“All right,” Wolfe said slowly, calculating. “For that all of you have to beat me once. You’re entitled to one question per winning hand. I will consider it a debt of honor, and if you know about my family that means more to me than life itself. I swear by anything I hold dear that I will tell you the truth, however painful it is. Is that worth it to you?”
“Fair enough,” agreed Boland.
“But if you throw in your marker and I take it, you owe me the truth. The whole story. How about it?”
“Our whole lives against one question to him? That doesn’t sound like an even exchange,” Ewanowski rumbled.
“It’s a game,” Mose said, flippantly. “He can’t possibly beat us all.”
“I dunno,” Streb ruminated. “Anyone who marches in and makes a claim like that is either stupid or really clever.”
Vacarole’s eyes twinkled. “Like a fox.”
“Like a Wolfe,” Daivid corrected him. “Is it a deal?”
“Okay, why not?” Gire said. “It’s not like we have anything to do. This adds some spice to the nightly game. It sounds like fun. What’ll we use for markers?”
“Plastic’ll have to be good enough tonight,” Jones said. “I’ll whip something together in the machine shop tomorrow.”
“Do you need mine?” Lin asked. “I already told you about me.”
“Just to be fair,” Wolfe said. “Maybe I can think of something really nosy to ask you. And if you’re really uneasy about letting me hear what you’ve got to say, you can redeem your marker, cash only. But then don’t jump me if I step over invisible lines.”
“How much should the buy-back be?” Aaooorru asked.
“A hundred?” Injaru asked.
“Too cheap,” Wolfe dismissed the suggestion. “I’ve seen pots bigger than that on a single-card hand in our own barracks. I know you’ve been shafting the local talent out of that much.”
“Five hundred?” Nuu Myi asked.
“Too much!” Boland growled. “When was the last time you saw five hundred credits?”
“Three hundred,” Lin suggested.
“Okay, Top,” Gire agreed. “Three hundred, sir?”
“Yeah, that sounds fair,” said Meyers. “It’s a couple of high stakes hands’ worth at the worst.”
“You’ll enjoy the challenge,” Wolfe said, looking at each of them in turn. “This is for your benefit as much as mine.”
D-45 snorted. “I’ve heard that before, mostly from people who were about to beat the crap out of me.”
“I am,” Wolfe said pleasantly. Now was the time to show off the lessons that Randy had beaten into him from the age of eight. Fingers, don’t fail me now! He riffled the cards, built a neat little castle in the air, and tucked all the cards into a tidy block again. Jaws all around the room dropped.
Boland whistled admiringly. “We’ve been had. He’s a sharper. We should have known.”
Wolfe smiled ferally. “What’ll it be? Seven card draw? Five card stud? Bridge? Crazy eights? War?”
“How do we know you won’t cheat?”
Wolfe raised an eyebrow. “You don’t. How do I know you won’t cheat? You’re the ones with the reputation.”
“Yeah, but you’re the one with the family background,” Okumede said.
Wolfe waved the deck enticingly. “Come and find out. Try and find out.”
“I’m in,” Lin said at
once.
“Me, too,” said D-45. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
Wolfe took the deck, divided it into two parts, divided those into two parts, then shuffled the pairs separately with one hand each.
“He is,” Ambering groaned.
O O O
There wasn’t room at the table for all the people clamoring to take their first shot against Daivid and his personal markers. They finally drew cards for six seats, and the rest agreed to take turns on successive evenings. Jones elected to sit out. The burly armorer took a seat with a good view of the proceedings, cutting a sheet of discarded viewscreen into strips.
He dumped the first half dozen on the table. “I’ve cut your names into them so there’s no mistake,” he said.
“Thanks,” Mose said, shuffling his chip to the bottom of his stake. “My underwear goes into the pot before this does.”
“Not the leather thong,” Streb teased him, seated behind the taciturn petty officer’s shoulder. “Anything but that.”
“No, that I keep,” Mose said with a dry twinkle. “The melody may be ended, but the thong will linger on.”
“What?” Daivid asked, thoroughly bewildered.
“Ancient literary allusion,” Mose said. “I don’t expect anyone to recognize it. Deal, big cheese.” He tapped the table.
Daivid stopped the card pyrotechnics, let Haalten on his right cut the deck, then shot cards around the table clockwise. Aaooorru, Ewanowski, Mose, Lin, Meyers, and the itterim had all won places. They picked up their cards and arranged them, shoving their ante into the kitty.
The corlist put his hand face down on the table and shoved a credit chit forward with a delicate claw. “Fifty.”
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