by Diane Carey
George joined Robert at Veronica Hall’s side. The captain was running his finger pointlessly along the medical cartridges that were trying so hard to keep the body inside alive. Other than her chest moving slightly up and down, there were no signs of life from Veronica now. She was pale and clearly on the edge.
“I was about to change the life-support cartridges,” he said, “then I realized . . . ”
“Just be glad she’s unconscious.” George gazed at the girl, let his eyes go out of focus, and thought about Jimmy, who’d been wide awake at the worst moment. His chest squeezed hard.
He felt Robert watching him. They both knew there was nothing more to be said.
They got up and started to walk together, but George paused, looking at Robert.
“Something’s wrong,” he grumbled.
Robert’s brows popped up. “Excuse me?”
“Here.” George reached over an open crate and retrieved the Bainin cardigan that was now dusty with insulation fuzz. “Put your sweater on.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Just looks right.”
“Oh . . . of course. Thank you, George.” The captain winced as George slipped the cardigan over the injured arm and up onto his shoulders.
“There,” George said. “That’s how I want to—” He made a feeble gesture, but stopped talking, not wanting to sound as if they’d have a chance to remember this. “It just . . . looks right.”
But Robert grinned that sentimental grin of his, and took the moment to appreciate that he meant so much to George. He patted George’s back as they walked together across the tipped deck.
Carlos Florida sat cross-legged before the open panel where double insulation had been cut away to expose the critical machinery to the engines’ reaction-control flow. Though he had his fingers on the mechanisms, he wasn’t doing much. Most of the work had already been done and was waiting for them to make that final decision.
He knew George and Robert were behind him, but didn’t look up at them.
“All set, Commander,” he said. “On your order . . . I’ll flush all our power trickles into the impulse system and overload it. They’re small engines and they’re pretty sick right now, but they’ve got enough juice to make a nice big boom. All we have to do is point at them and follow their own tractor emission right up to the source.” He shrugged, then sighed. “Wish it sounded a little fancier, but I guess . . . ready when you are.”
George nodded stiffly. “Thanks, Carlos.”
He and Robert retreated into a slow, solemn handshake that lasted a few seconds longer than either intended.
Soft brown thatch on one side, a whip of oxblood red on the other, one face made of pipe smoke and tweed, the other of hatchets and hammers, brown eyes, both, but not the same. They stood there, the extract of the Federation dream—different people, different goals, different ideas, different styles . . .
Diversity.
Still holding Robert’s hand, George put his other palm on Carlos’s shoulder.
Simply and firmly, he said, “Blow ’em.”
TWENTY-TWO
Raise hell. Rattle them at every turn. Make them mad. They couldn’t think if they were mad.
That was the theory, anyway.
Of course, Jimmy was mad and he was still thinking.
Sort of. In a panicky, press-lipped, nose-breathing sort of way.
He had to get as far from the trunk deck as he could without being found. That meant keeping low, ducking past open or broken door panels, not making noise any louder than the bangs and shouts of these sidewinders as they fought to keep their ship in one piece long enough to win.
The amount of damage over here was staggering. A few little Starfleet cowboy tricks, pulled off with rubber bands and fingernails, had knocked these people on their ears and bashed this ship into a knot of gasping sections. As Jimmy dodged and sneaked and ducked around, half the doors and sections he passed were bolted off and red-flagged for nonentry. Probably breached to open space, or contaminated.
Some of the smoke was rancid and chemical. Some of it was from simple burning. That meant two kinds of damage. If only he knew about chemicals . . . he’d heard engineers and mechanics talking about being able to smell what was wrong, but he’d always figured they were nuts.
He rounded a corner, filled up with conflicting thoughts, and tripped on something big and thick. Before he even realized what had happened, he was lying on his side on the deck, wincing and confused.
Turning over, he found himself staring into a pair of bugged eyes and a mouth open in shock.
Stunned, Jimmy jolted backward, away from the corpse. Human or humanoid—he couldn’t even tell. The body was too battered and too burned, stiff and pasty. In death it had released its bowels. He’d heard of that. The smell almost sent him retching.
He held his breath, stumbled to his feet, and ran.
How many were left? How many people were still alive on this ship for him to face? How many thieves were in the den?
Again he wished he had paid better attention at the important times in his life. How many people did a ship this size and type take to run?
“What difference does it make?” he sputtered as he skidded around a corner and paused, glancing back and forth along the groaning walls. “Ten or ten thousand. They’re just second-story burglars. Doesn’t take any brains.”
Even rough and grumbling, his own voice was an anchor line and he hung on to it in spite of the hurricane he’d steered into.
Again he ran through the twisting, smoky corridors, then slowed to a tiptoe stride when he thought he heard voices—too close. Imagination?
No—definitely voices.
And coming closer!
He ducked into a bulkhead crack under the strut that had fallen and cracked it.
Two aliens and two humans ran toward him, involved in their own argument, shouting at each other about repairs and calling each other names while they came closer and closer.
Panting, Jimmy flattened himself behind the shifted strut and tried to get control over his breathing. Didn’t want to be heard gulping for air, and wanted to be ready if he had to fight. Behind his strut, as his breathing fought him and his heart throttled against his ribs, Jimmy realized they couldn’t possibly miss him. They’d see him, and he’d be dead, just like that.
He balled his fists. Maybe he could just take one of them before—
“Hey!” a voice shot out of the creaking, moaning ship. “You savages, where do you think you’re going?”
As Jimmy peeked down the smoky corridor, the four men stopped running at a T-intersection with another corridor and looked down it. The voice was coming from there.
“Why do you care?” one of the men responded.
“I care. Why is none of your business.”
The voice materialized into a young man—very young in fact, fairly tall, with brown hair sloppily yanked back into a ponytail. A kid! Hardly much older than Jimmy. Maybe eighteen. Maybe a little more. A kid, barking at these pirates as though he thought they should be listening to him.
“Why won’t the tractor beam release?” he demanded of them.
“It’s locked on, that’s why,” one of the thieves said. “Locked on and jammed.”
A Tellarite poked a finger up at the kid and snarled, “What difference does it make? Where we go, they go!”
The kid wasn’t intimidated. “We’re going to come about and smash that ship up right here and now. It’s going to be a starboard turn, so get your flabby thighs moving and secure that tractor beam.”
One of the humans held out a hand and asked, “Why don’t we just turn around and smack ’em?”
The kid cocked a hip, annoyed. “Because our maneuvering thrusters are damaged. We’re going to have to push out and come around in a wide arc. Want me to draw a picture for you and your little buddies, McKelvie? I’m going back to the bridge, and you better be ready to recalibrate when I get there. Go on.”
Nobod
y moved. They didn’t seem to like taking orders from him.
The kid paused as they stared fiercely at him, then drew a harsh gust of breath and shrieked, “Go . . . on!”
Jimmy felt his skin contracting at the kid’s tone of voice and the undisguised insane flare in those eyes. The kid wanted to be listened to, was frustrated that the men might not listen, and there was a dangerous intensity about him.
Not in charge . . . but someone to watch.
The four criminals glanced at each other, then two of them about-faced and headed back the way they’d come; one of them went with the kid down the T-angle, and the Tellarite headed toward Jimmy.
A Tellarite. They’d fight at the untying of a present if it wasn’t untied their way. Jimmy would have his hands full if he didn’t get the jump.
So Jimmy ticked off the paces, then flew out of his hiding place and yanked the broken strut down on top of the stumpy alien. They both went down.
The Tellarite sucked a gasp, reared back, but too late. The strut hit him in his squared chest, and he was pushed down backward. His furry head hit the deck, and he was out before Jimmy could even get back on his feet.
Jimmy scampered to the alien, yanked the Tellarite’s braided belt from his thick waist, and wrapped it around the neck. Then he started to twist it, tighter and tighter.
And . . . gritted his teeth, then stopped.
Kill him, you idiot.
He tightened the belt again. The unconscious Tellarite started to gurgle through his porkish nose.
“Aw, dammit!” Jimmy thrust the ends of the belt down on the Tellarite’s masky face. “I’ve got no guts!”
Life-or-death situation or not, he pushed off the deck and stood staring down at the unconscious alien, not knowing whether to be proud or ashamed.
Should he waste precious moments tying the Tellarite up and hiding him, since he didn’t have the nerve to do what he knew he should? Confused, he grabbed the belt from around the Tellarite’s throat—then changed his mind again. There wasn’t time.
As soon as they could get this horse and buggy turned around, they were going to kill the Starfleet ship. He didn’t have a week to pick off these guys one at a time. He knew he couldn’t just run, hide, and run.
Stuffing the leather belt next to Veronica’s hand in his shoulder strap, he dashed down the corridor again, deliberately not going in the direction that kid had gone. That was the way to the bridge, and he didn’t want to get trapped up where the command center was.
He had to stay down here, in the core of the ship, and do something. Hurt these people.
Gas? Poison the air? Kill them all?
“Damn,” he snarled. “Why didn’t I keep my helmet—”
Starboard turn, starboard turn . . .
His cold hands and the shuddering in his thighs told him he wasn’t as ready to die as he thought when he touched the thruster controls in his tube. He’d accidentally lived, and now simple animal fear was ahold of him again when he thought about dying. Funny how nerve could come and go.
On the defensive—hiding—wouldn’t do him any good . . . he could stow away all year and it wouldn’t help his father and the others. He had to do something, anything, now, before these dirty dogs could act on their plan to slice up the cutter.
Anything. Anything to throw these quarreling animals off their track.
Something his father and Captain April would be able to see on the little screen. Something, something—some—
ENVIRONMENT MAINTENANCE CELL
Gas ’em . . . poison ’em . . . black ’em out somehow . . .
Maybe if he could get in there, an idea would surface that he could live through himself. He had to survive. There were people to talk to and a hand to return.
He scooted across to the environmental cell door. It swung on a full-length metallic hinge, or should have. Stuck, jammed, bent, jarred slightly open—he put his shoulder to it and summoned his strength. The door budged a couple of inches, hinge squawking like an alarm, but then Jimmy was plunging forward. He landed on his forearms and knees on top of the collapsed door inside the garbling, noisy roomful of struggling equipment.
Pain dazed him and he stayed down too long. The survival suit might be happy to keep him breathing out in the vacuum of space, but it sure didn’t do anything against bruises. Both elbows throbbed, both knees were jarred, and the outside edge of his hand was lacerated on the ripped hinge. Blood splattered when he shook his hand as though to push away the wound.
Trembling, he rose to his knees and looked. The side of his hand was gashed open the long way. A garnet flow ran down his arm. He was used to blood coming out of the corner of his mouth after a fistfight, or the side of his head after a scrape, or a kneecap after a fall, but not this.
Brash understanding struck him of how slow and gruesome a death could come his way here. He might not get that sudden heroic way out that people would want to write stories about or tell their children. He could die here in a way that nobody ever wanted to describe to a child. If he was having even the tiniest shred of fun or adventure underneath the danger, that shred dissolved now and suddenly.
His heart pounded fiercely. He could feel it in his head, neck, and chest. What looked like a lot of blood was dripping, smearing all over the floor. They’d find him if they saw. He was leaving traces of his presence, his whereabouts—
His heart throttled harder. Breath came in gusts. Do something, do something . . .
He shook his hand again. Blood splattered on the scuffed floor, and spotted the red base of a cylindrical mechanism and the black polymer legs that held the housing in place.
Saucer-shaped. Red. Black . . .
Pressing his cut hand against his thigh to slow the bleeding, Jimmy gathered his wits and crawled closer. Was this what he thought it was?
Looked the same . . . bigger, but in general the same. Even the same colors. Probably contracted by somebody in the Federation.
On the far side was the stenciled word SUPERSTATOR.
Stator, stator, super . . .
“Superconductor!” he blurted out. “Veronica!”
With his good hand he gripped the synthetic hand tucked in his shoulder strap and offered a victorious squeeze.
Smaller stencils said ELECTROPLASMA, CRYON GAS, something about dampers and conduits and wavelengths, and lots of hands-off warnings and maintenance directions.
Veronica’s voice tickled his mind—what gravity compensators were for . . . why they needed this during acceleration and deceleration or . . . a turn . . .
“I’m no environmental engineer,” he rasped. “Guess I might break something.”
All he had to do was hurt it.
Lips pressed flat, eyes kinked into knives, he looked around the small room as though suspicious of the walls themselves. He needed something that could hurt.
How long did he have before they turned off the tractor beam and started to turn? What was it Veronica had tried to explain to him about physics and gravity?
For the ship to accelerate or turn, this would have to be working. He had only minutes, or only moments.
As if to taunt and call him, the gravity compensator began to hum, then hum louder. Glaring at it, he gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes in bitter rage. The turn!
Staggering to his feet suddenly, Jimmy pushed off the floor, slipped on his own blood, but in seconds he had a wall-mounted hand-held emergency fire extinguisher in his grasp.
Simple, basic, easy. A heavy little canister that shot stuff out of it. Hadn’t changed in a couple of centuries. Science had come up with a dozen fancy chemical mixtures to put out more fire, faster, with more damage to the flame and less to the thing that was burning, but the stuff inside still had to come out of one end of a canister and come out fast. That meant pressure.
Pressure. Enough of it could keep delicate life-forms alive where they were never meant to live. Too much of it could melt steel into putty. It could save or destroy. Depending on how it was used.
And Jimmy Kirk had a handful of it.
With that and a hatchet, he could save the universe.
A tremor of anticipation almost knocked him off his feet as he stumbled over the collapsed door to the opposite side of the cell.
He needed a tool. Heavy, preferably with an edge.
The best he found was a set of antimagnetic screws. Not enough.
Slumping back against a heating system, Jimmy shuddered and closed his eyes as he dealt with the pain in his hand and both arms. Injuries he hadn’t felt happen were starting to surface. His body ached until he couldn’t tell the difference between what he was feeling and the constant throb and hum of struggling environmental systems that confused him and clouded his thoughts. Fatigue made him dizzy, demanded that he rest.
No time. He forced himself to his knees again and ignored the aches that twisted down into his calves. There was some way. He had to find it. Or make it.
All he had to do was cut the valve off the top, and he’d have a little rocket.
“Cut it off, or knock it off.” He chewed his lip as he fought to keep his head clear. “Where’s a rock when you need one?”
He looked around again, and reset his thinking. He wasn’t going to get the right tool. He’d have to settle for a wrong one. What he needed right now was a Frenchman with a portable guillotine in his pocket.
There had to be something in there that he could use. Sure couldn’t risk tiptoeing all over this ship, hoping to find—
A maintenance dumbwaiter!
With a door that slid upward. A heavy door.
Heavy enough?
Jimmy shot across the environment cell again, shoving piled parts aside to reach the wall and the dumbwaiter. It was mechanical, not meant to be hand-hoisted, and so the door was solid as a frontier iron stove.
“Perfect,” Jimmy gushed. Ignoring his injured hand, he forced the thick black door up a few inches, enough to cram the fire extinguisher under it and keep it open. The door squawked and moaned as though to complain that it hadn’t been used in years. A puff of dust came out and choked him.
He backed off and paused to gather the strength he would need, then used the time to overturn a little portable light stand and rip one of its three legs off.