Crown of the Serpent

by Allen Wold

  But apparently he was persuasive. "They will help us," he told Rikard. "They have no choice, defend against the Tschagan or die here."

  It took a little further persuading on Rikard's part to get LeClarke to go along with the idea, but at last she gave in and, with four other heavy goons, accompanied Grayshard and the three Vaashka warriors as the rest of the group moved around them to the rear. When the first of the enemy bullets came through open or blasted irises, the four Vaashka, Grayshard and the three prisoners, projected their strongest attack. The gunfire stopped immediately, but the pirates nearby, without armor, also succumbed, and fell. None of the Srenim seemed affected.

  Nelross and Falyn were present and knew what had hap­pened. On their command unaffected pirates from farther back came forward to pick up their fallen fellows and carry them away. Grayshard held off until the first of these had managed to escape, but then had to project again when the Tschagan rallied. Rikard, LeClarke, and the heavy goons opened fire at the same time, and then retreated along with the others. Some of the pirates, nearly comatose from the two Vaashka assaults, had to be left behind.

  The next Tschagan attack was longer in coming. When Grayshard and the Vaashka warriors projected, all Tschagan within range slowed drastically, and Rikard and the half-squad of heavy goons exacted a terrible toll. The Tschagan wore no armor at all, and even near misses burned them or, if hitting a wall or piece of "furniture," exploded with sufficient force that the side-flash and flying fragments also did considerable dam­age.

  They fell back across a corridor and through two more rooms, where Sukiro, Iturba, and Denny were doing their best to regroup. This was complicated by a number of the pirates who, fearing the Tschagan more than arrest, were begging for their weapons back so that they could help defend.

  "I think we've got to let them do it," Rikard said.

  "I agree," Sukiro said, "but only the light weapons."

  "Not the Srenim," Djentsin told her. Sukiro had been keeping him close to hand. "You can't trust them, not with anything."

  "The Vaashka don't have any effect on them;" Rikard pointed out. "And they've been listening to our conversation too much."

  "All right then," Sukiro said. She gave an order that all Srenim were to be double-bound and taken directly to the rear, while the noncoms passed captured weapons around to those pirates who seemed to them to be most trustworthy.

  This task was not yet finished when all the irises on the side toward the pirate base began snapping, and a fusillade of bullets poured into the group. The defenders simply laid down a cover fire, blasting out walls and doors, firing through every opening. The air filled with smoke as electrical equipment caught fire, and several of the soft Tschagan artifacts burst into greasy flames. Sukiro directed them to keep up the fire until every wall surrounding the rooms in which they stood had been breached at least once, and blaster shots had gone into rooms beyond.

  Then she called a cease fire. The area around them was ruined. Tschagan body parts lay everywhere, and thirty-four more pirates had fallen. There was less damage on the side away from the base, and here all the unarmed pirates, the Vaashka administrators, and the Srenim were gathered. The remaining troops, pirate and police, formed a protective arch between them and the direction of the Tschagan assault.

  "Time for drastic measures," Sukiro said. She cleared an area in the middle room, then blasted a hole through the floor. The. decking was half a meter thick, and it took a second shot to make a hole big enough for a goon in armor to pass through. Sukiro stepped into the hole, firing between her feet at the floor in the room below as he fell in the low gravity, and a second time even before she hit. Three heavy goons followed immediately, then the unarmed prisoners were herded through into the chamber below.

  As the rest of the group waited their turns, irises several rooms away began snapping as the Tschagan at last launched another attack. Grayshard and his Vaashka warriors projected, the police and armed pirates fired through every opening, and the attack stopped. The rest of the group descended.

  They dropped, one at a time, down one level, then another. Rikard, Droagn, and Grayshard with the goons carrying the three Vaashka warriors were the last to go. At the third descent they met Jasime and Raebuck, who were directing people to­ward a down-ramp. The others were far ahead. At the bottom of the ramp they passed through several rooms. In each of them, the comcons were glowing.

  "I'll bet they're recording everything," Jasime said.

  "Not very good propaganda," Rikard said, "they're losing far more than we are."

  "They'll just edit the damn tapes," Raebuck said as they at last rejoined the rest of the group, who had paused in a large and otherwise empty room.

  There were far fewer of the pirates now, and Lakey, Valencis, and Woadham, with their damaged armor, had fallen. "The best thing we can do is run," Sukiro said.

  "How far?" Iturba asked.

  "Until we find a way out. We've got to get word to the rest of the Federation. If we don't, and the Tschagan bring this station up to full function, who knows what kind of threat they'll pose, especially if they take us by surprise. That's got to be our high­est priority, regardless of cost."

  "We won't get out by going deeper," Denny said.

  ~It is still the best way,~ Droagn countered, ~though it's not the shortest. I can take us to my ship, I think.~

  "How can you do that?" Falyn asked.

  Droagn tapped the crown that he still wore on his head, now half-concealed by Grayshard's tendrils. ~One of the side benefits,~ he said. The heavy goons didn't understand this, but Falyn was satisfied.

  "Can your ship hold all of us?" Sukiro asked Droagn.

  ~No, only three or four, but there should be other ships in the same place.~

  "Are you in contact with your ship now?"

  ~Not contact, but I can 'feel' where it is.~

  "Then let's get moving," Rikard said.

  But Endark Droagn was not as confident of his way as he was pretending to be. He hesitated at irises, and changed direction frequently. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Rikard asked him quietly.

  ~I'm looking for the path of least resistance~ Droagn said. ~There are Tschagan not that far away.~

  "Are we being pursued?" Grayshard asked.

  ~Not at the moment.~

  They passed through strange territory, huge chambers where elevated walkways led between sunken offices, with no other partition or ceiling support. Some of these 'offices' were only half a meter or so below the level of the walkways, others were as much as three meters lower, and had side ramps leading down to them. Each had a black-topped pedestal table, but no other 'furniture.'

  After ten or twelve of these huge chambers the nature of the architecture changed. The rooms were now not so large and were all on one level, but there were only open arches connecting them, no irises. There was plenty of furniture here, and those which could blink, or hum, or move, or change shape, all did so.

  This eventually gave way to rooms of a more moderate size, but here each room was bisected or quadrisected by sunken walkways. Each room was half a meter or a meter lower than the last, and the walkways sloped down as they passed through.

  They left this area at last to enter a short, broad corridor, with no other doors except a large iris at the far end, fifty meters away. Here Droagn stopped.

  ~We've got to go this way,~ he said, ~but there are Tschagan beyond that iris.~

  "Then let's do it right," Sukiro said. She brought the goons who were carrying the Vaashka warriors up to the portal, but to the side so they would be out of the direct line of fire. Droagn and Grayshard took up a position with them. Then she orga­nized a triple rank of heavy goons, right in front of the iris. The rest of the company she kept back. Then, taking the greatest risk herself, she reached out with a prybar and touched the latch-plate in the middle of the iris. As she did so, the Vaashka projected as strongly as they could, and the ranked heavy goons opened fire. Several of the shots hi
t the edge of the iris, fusing it open.

  When they went through they saw one or two blurs departing through irises on the sides. The far wall was half blown away. The floor of the room was covered with the charred residue of a number of Tschagan. There were no weapons.

  "Through here," Droagn said as he came in, and led them to one side, where he opened a service panel in the wall between two irises. Beyond it was a long, yellow corridor with what looked like a gray conveyor belt set into the blue gray floor. It wasn't moving, but as soon as Droagn slithered onto it, he started sliding away at great speed.

  As quickly as they could the others followed. It was a con­veyor running along the hall, an archaic form of molecular belt. It did not itself move, but anything or anyone on it did. Rikard wondered how one could come back the other way.

  The company was spread out as they whisked along. They passed several nodes, places where the corridor widened and one could step off the belt if one wanted to. Once they came to a place where the corridor and its belt split in two, in gradually increasing arcs to right and left. Droagn led them to the left. As Rikard passed the fork, he wondered how it was that none of them had gone the other way by mistake.

  They went on for a long way, Rikard could not guess how many kilometers. He wondered just what kind of range Droagn's Prime had, that he could "feel" his ship so far away. They took another fork, to the right this time, and later passed one angling backward. It seemed to Rikard that they were de­scending as they went along.

  Then Droagn slithered off the belt at a node, and as he did so the goons and pirates closest behind him slowed. Those in the rear kept up their full pace until it seemed they would crash into the ones ahead, but the belt was "intelligent" and didn't let that happen.

  The service hatch at the back of the node led them into a three-level arcade. As the first of them entered they saw the blurs of Tschagan, all of whom quickly left.

  "They know where we are now," Sukiro said, then to Droagn, "Were you aware of them?"

  There were few,~ the Ahmear answered, ~and felt like those we destroyed before, mere technicians. Blaster-fire would have brought the attention of others. But we must hurry now.~

  He crossed the arcade to the far side where a spiral ramp, one of two in that wall, led upward. On the third level balcony he turned right and out a broad open arch into a long corridor.

  They raced along until they came to a mid-corridor ramp leading down, and went down again, even as swarms of Tscha-gan came at them from behind. These were armed, and in the narrow confines of the corridor, their fire was devastating. One of the Vaashka warriors and two of the administrators were torn apart by bullets, many of the remaining pirates were killed, and even two of the heavy goon reinforcements were wounded and had to be helped along by their fellows. It was small comfort that the goons' return fire was equally as devastating, that by the time the last of them had gotten to the ramp, none of the Tschagan soldiers were left.

  The ramp led them down through another parallel corridor, then farther into a transverse corridor where Droagn led them to the left.

  "Where are we?" Rikard asked.

  ~I have no idea, only that my ship is ahead. At least there don't seem to be many Tschagan here.~

  The corridor was not very long, and they had to pass through a succession of rooms. Each of these held one, two, or three devices of the types they had seen before, but unlike the area they had just left, all of them seemed to be still shut down. After a while, even the ceiling lights were off, and they had to turn them on as they passed through.

  "Even granting," Rikard said to Sukiro, "that most of the Tschagan could still be in stasis, it seems that this place is awfully understaffed."

  "What I'm wondering," Sukiro said, "is where they've been sleeping all this time. We haven't seen anything like a dormitory."

  At last Droagn stopped. ~The ship dock is above us,~ he said. ~We've got to go up now, find a ramp.~

  They checked out every iris and, one room over, Yansen found what they were looking for. They ascended quickly, but the ramp went up only one level.

  ~Here,~ Droagn said, pointing at a blank wall. But it was not truly blank, there was a service hatch, and beyond it was a gravity shaft. Droagn, carrying Grayshard, and six heavy goons went first, then the others followed, ten at a time, all the way to the top, where it ended in a kind of vestibule.

  As the last of the police reached the vestibule Droagn suddenly shouted, "Tschagan!"

  ~They're coming from all sides.~

  The police barely had time to face the walls before the irises, two on each side, opened with a crushing hail of bullets. The goons' return fire was instantaneous, smashing walls and irises, blasting Tschagan bodies to vapor and slime. Nearly half the remaining pirates, including all but two of the Srenim, were killed, as were two of the Vaashka warriors and all but one of the administrators. Droagn and Grayshard escaped injury, but Sukiro was hit. Petorska and Charney were killed, and three of the heavy goon reinforcements were wounded. Grayshard and the surviving Vaashka belatedly projected, and the attack turned. Goon blaster-fire tore away more of the walls of the vestibule and of the rooms surrounding.

  "We will not survive," Grayshard said when the firing stopped. "There are too many of them."

  "But they're not very creative," Rikard said. "There's a definite pattern to the way they've been attacking us. We can counter that pattern, and—"

  But before he could finish a burst of gunfire came from a snapping iris several rooms away, rooms the walls of which had been blown away, leaving a clear shot between Rikard and the iris. Though Rikard wore no armor his leathers and meshmail served the same purpose, and should have been proof against the small caliber weapons the Tschagan were using. Would have been, perhaps, if he hadn't taken a full burst in the chest.

  For an instant it was as if his weapon-induced time dilation had come on of its own accord. The world around him seemed to stop. He felt no pain, just a tremendous force pushing him backward. He was half surprised to see his feet flying up in front of him. He was going to fall. He tried desperately to get his hands behind him, but they seemed to be waving around in the air at his sides.

  And then he hit the deck, sitting, and time returned to nor­mal. His chest felt like he had swallowed something huge and it had gotten stuck halfway down. He saw, without caring too much about it, that the iris from which the shots had come had been blown away by blaster-fire. He felt very much like lying down, so he did.

  He felt Droagn's voice in his mind, though the Ahmear's words were not directed at him. ~Here!~ Droagn said. His face came into Rikard's view as he bent over him. Sukiro was yelling something about getting out of there—just when they'd gotten it all opened up. It was hard to focus on Droagn's eyes, there were no pupils. He felt somebody take his arms on either side, it was Raebuck and Sukiro. They helped him to his feet. He tried his best to run along between them, but his legs weren't working properly.

  They went through an iris into a room, the details of which escaped Rikard completely. He was just beginning to figure out that he'd been shot, and was wounded, probably badly. His chest no longer felt huge, but did begin to hurt. That frightened him, he wasn't used to pain. He was able to get his legs to work a little better as they went through the room and into another. The shock of being shot was beginning to wear off, but now he felt weak and uncoordinated. He wasn't sure, but he thought there was no fighting going on at the moment.

  He didn't try to keep track of the people around him. It took all his attention just to hold on to consciousness. They went through this room and into a large space that, for the moment, completely eluded his comprehension. Then even as the pain in his chest became sharper, and he began to be aware of his legs actually working, if clumsily, the scale of the place became clear. They were in a starship hangar, a place that could never have been built on a planet, only on the largest of space stations. Standing on their ends, supported by gravity fields, were dozen of starships of all si
zes and shapes.

  The iris by which they had entered the ship museum was large, broader than high, but there were no other irises within sight along the long wall. When everybody was inside, two goons fused the iris shut, to slow down the Tschagan at least a little bit.

  Endark Droagn rose as high as he could on his coils and looked around. ~I can't see it,~ he said, ~but it's here, over that way.~

  Now that they were not running Rikard was able to carry some of his weight. He felt something dripping down from his chest to his. belt and seeping through into his pants. But the pain in his chest got no stronger, and though he felt weak, his thoughts were clearing.

  Each ship, most of them variations on the familiar Federal spindle shape, stood on end, the tip of its flicker spike floating a meter or so above a circular platform as big around as the wid­est part of the ship above and a meter or so above the general level of the deck. Only about half the platforms were occupied, and there was enough room between them to see far into the distance. The ceiling of the whole hangar was lit, but not brightly, and Rikard could not see the far walls.

  Droagn led them between the ships for perhaps a kilometer, and then stopped. ~There it is,~ he said, and pointed at a strange craft a few hundred meters farther on.

  There were what looked like three habitation disks, stacked on top of each other, with only the smallest of domes atop that, and below them a long spindle that tapered smoothly from half the diameter of the lowest disk to one quarter that, where there were three more smaller disks of different sizes. Rikard could see nothing that looked like a power sphere, or a fuel sphere, and in place of the telescoping cylinders of an inertial drive there was a dodecahedral shape, and instead of a flicker spike there was a long rod ending in a small ball no more than three meters in diameter.

  But portions of its hull had been removed. In one place a mass of wiring hung from a gaping hole. ~I guess I have to go with you after all,~ Droagn said.

  "I've never seen anything like it," Sukiro said, staring at Droagn's ship in utter fascination. It was not that big, but larger than a typical Federation scout.