by Jake Elwood
Light flashed in the corner of his eye, and he flinched away, then glanced over his shoulder. A couple of spacers were leaning around the corners of the T-intersection behind him, blasting away at the deck plates near his feet. His radio crackled, and a man said, “Creeper grenades.”
Oh, hell. The little walking grenades wouldn't have far to go to get past the stamper and ruin his day pretty thoroughly.
O'Doul dropped to one knee, leaned over, and fired several shots under the stamper. A grenade exploded under the machine, and she swore, dropping her pistol. A chunk was gone from the muzzle, and blood dripped from her knuckles where shrapnel had torn her glove. A scratch marred the faceplate of her helmet as well.
The stamper emitted a low mechanical groan, almost human-sounding. Then the repulsor on the left-hand side gave out, and that side of the machine settled to the floor.
“Here,” said a man's voice over the suit radio. “They want to play with grenades? Give them some of these.”
Tom turned, and one of the spacers behind him sent four golf-ball-sized objects bouncing down the corridor toward him. He had a moment of panic as he realized they were grenades. They weren't live, though, and Tom and O'Doul dropped to their knees, scrabbling to collect the little bombs.
One grenade bounced under the stamper on the side that was still elevated. Tom and O'Doul managed to snag the other three. Tom kept one in his left hand as he and O'Doul stood, each with a grenade in their right hand.
“Ready?” she said.
“Ready,” he confirmed. They activated the grenades together, then stood up straight and threw.
The stamper had almost reached the emergency doors before it stopped. The doors were barely three meters away, not an easy target exactly, but not an impossible one. O'Doul's grenade flew true, sailing in a lazy arc and passing perfectly through the middle of the gap at head-height.
Tom's throw was a bit off. His grenade hit the edge of one door, bounced sideways, hit the edge of the opposite door, and then fell from sight.
They both ducked. O'Doul said, “Did yours go in?”
“I don't-”
Twin explosions drowned him out, two blasts so close together they blended into a continuous roar. Tom used his free hand to draw his pistol and looked at O'Doul.
“What do you think?” she said.
Gunfire erupted on the other side of the emergency doors, and Tom flinched. None of it was coming through the gap, though. He said, “Sounds like the incursion teams are out of the tunnels.”
They went around opposite sides of the stamper, and more spacers came down the corridor from the T-intersection behind them. Tom and O'Doul pressed their backs against the emergency doors, the gap between them. Tom began to turn so he could peek inside.
An explosion boomed, deeper than the blast of the grenades, and he jerked his head back. Thick smoke erupted through the gap, making his eyes water. The smoke reeked of burning plastic, and he doubled over, coughing. He fumbled at the smart panel on his sleeve, turning off his suit radio so his cough wouldn’t broadcast.
“Do we open the doors and go in?” It was a man's voice, which meant the other spacers had caught up. Tom blinked furiously until he was able to open both eyes. There was definitely something wrong with his left eye, but that was a problem for later.
He straightened up. “We'll wait a moment,” he said. “Thick smoke and unfamiliar surroundings are the stuff that friendly fire incidents are made of.”
Something thumped against the emergency doors. Half a dozen guns swung to cover the gap. A hand appeared, enclosed in a thick glove, the fingers gripping the edge of the opening. O'Doul brought her pistol up, lining up on the knuckles.
“Wait,” Tom said, then had to wait for another fit of coughing. At length he managed to wheeze a single word. “Green.”
Green, the unofficial color of the Free Planets and by extension the colonial forces, was also the color of the paint that decorated the glove in front of them in a pattern of delicate swirls.
Tom's helmet radio crackled, and a woman's voice said, “This is Goldberg. We’re at the barricade on Deck Five. Does anyone on Deck Five copy?”
Tom said, “Is that you in the smoke?” He remembered he’d turned off his helmet mic, turned it back on, and repeated the question. Then he coughed.
“That's us,” Goldberg replied. “The laundry bay is ours. Now help me get these doors open so we can clear out the smoke.”
Chapter 3
“I see you finally got away from babysitting duty.”
Alice looked up from a diagnostic tablet. “Hey, Raleigh. Yeah, they found a gymnasium with only two doors, and they blocked one door shut. The prisoners are all in there.”
“And now you have to do real work.” Raleigh grinned to show he was kidding. He was a nice kid, almost ridiculously good-looking, with dark hair that made a cowlick over his right eye. Like her he'd finally removed his vac suit and helmet. There was still some chance an undiscovered pocket of resistance would crop up and either take a shot at them or open an airlock and dump out all the atmosphere in this section of the ship. She figured the risk was small, especially when balanced against the fact that she was thoroughly sick of the constricting suit and the clumsy gloves.
“The ship’s a bit of a mess,” she told him. “Could be a lot worse, though. They never got around to serious sabotage.”
The tablet in her hands beeped, and she looked down. “Okay, we've got the air system mostly restored.” She tapped at the tablet. “There's one air pump still not working, though.” She glanced around the secondary engineering bay, orienting herself. “There,” she said. “See that orange hatch? Grab a tool belt and head in there. Keep going until you hit a great big air pump.”
“Sure,” said Raleigh. “Then what do I do?”
“Figure out what's wrong with it and fix it, of course.”
He chuckled. “That's what I like. Nice specific instructions with lots of detail.”
He spent a couple of minutes rummaging for tools, then crossed to the orange hatch. “Hey, Alice, can you hear me?”
His voice was a low murmur, and it emerged from a Dawn Alliance toolbox on the table beside her. She leaned over the toolbox. “Say again.”
“This is Radio Free Neorome, broadcasting from the depths of-”
“Found it,” she said, pulling out an earbud and cheek microphone. She pushed the bud into her ear and stuck the microphone onto her cheek. “Do you copy this?”
“Clean and green,” Raleigh said, and clambered through the open hatchway. “Hey, it's not too bad in here. I can almost stand up straight.”
She turned back to her tablet, wondering if the air circulation might actually be better with the fans shut off. The airflow machinery was designed as a complete system, and if one piece in the middle stopped-
A blast rifle fired behind her, three quick shots like distant thunderclaps. She dropped into a squat, letting go of the tablet and scrabbling for her rifle. It was nowhere in sight. What the hell did I do with it? I leaned it against the wall when I came in here. Stupid, stupid.
She craned her neck, trying to look in every direction at once. Where did the shots come from?
Raleigh screamed, and Alice’s guts twisted. Two more shots sounded, and the screaming stopped.
The silence was much worse.
Alice sprang up, ran to the door, and grabbed her rifle. With shaking hands she pointed it at the hatch where Raleigh had disappeared.
Nothing moved in the dark passageway beyond.
“Raleigh?” She wanted to shout the word, but her voice came out as a whisper. Her subconscious had figured out a couple of things her conscious mind was only just realizing.
Raleigh wasn't going to answer. Raleigh was dead.
And Alice really didn't want his killers to know she was there.
She knelt behind a workbench and took careful aim at the open hatch. She thought back to the first moments after the boy had disappeared. He'd made quite a racket. It was a
narrow passage with a floor that squeaked with every step.
She strained her ears and heard only silence.
I almost wish they would come after me. I want a shot at those murdering bastards.
Well, there is a war on, and we boarded their ship.
She shoved the voice of reason aside, laid her rifle along the top of the bench, and activated her smart glove. “This is Alice Rose in Secondary Maintenance. I found some enemy combatants. They’re armed. I'm going to need some help.”
It took thirty endless minutes for squads from three different armed freighters to put together a plan. They pored over deck maps and technical drawings until they had a pretty good idea where the holdouts were hiding. “Secondary Maintenance,” Duncan McDougall said, tapping a wall display. “That's the only name it seems to have. There's three ways in, not counting Raleigh's route.”
According to their readouts, the passageway where Raleigh had died actually ran along the ceiling of Secondary Maintenance. It would look like an exposed ceiling duct to the holdouts. They would have heard the boy's footsteps, seen the duct tremble as he walked along. He must have made a beautiful target.
“We'll leave someone here, just in case.” McDougall gestured at the open hatch. “I don't think they'll be coming out here, though.” He pointed at the deck plan. “This entrance here goes into a narrow corridor with a couple of bends. We'll start there. We won't take fire from more than one person at a time. We'll take a peek into the room and see what's what.”
“I want to lead the incursion,” Alice said. When McDougall's eyebrows drew together she said, “I know this part of the ship. I was working right here when Raleigh got shot, after all.”
“Fine,” said McDougall. “Don't get yourself killed.”
He had no particular authority to give or deny permission, but this wasn't the United Worlds Navy. Colonists didn't rely on rules and procedures. He held the rank of Captain, same as her. Whoever had the most relevant experience naturally took charge, and everyone else went along because they weren't damned fools.
Four of McDougall's shipmates went with her to the hatch that gave access to Secondary Maintenance. All of them were men, which Alice found vaguely annoying. Some men thought a man should be in charge in a combat situation. She hoped they wouldn't give her any trouble.
No one tried to push in front of her, though, when the hatch slid open. Alice was back in her vac suit by now, and she closed her faceplate before taking a quick peek around the corner. When no one shot at her she took another, longer look.
The corridor before her was narrow, barely wide enough for her shoulders. It extended no more than four or five paces before turning sharply to the right. The walls and ceiling were a jumble of pipes and conduits and bundles of wire.
It meant there were thousands of places you could hide a sophisticated booby-trap. These were probably regular crew, though. Not commandos or Special Forces. If there wasn't something obvious, like a tripwire, she figured she was probably safe.
One way to find out.
“Everyone copy?”
A chorus of replies came from her four-man squad.
“Don't crowd me,” she said. “But don't dawdle either.” Then she took a deep breath and stepped into the corridor.
She advanced one careful step at a time, leaning first one way and then another to avoid brushing a pipe and making a sound. With her helmet on and visor closed it was impossible to tell if she was making any noise. She cringed as she thought of how the floor had squeaked under Raleigh’s boots in the access tunnel. The floor here felt sturdy, and she assumed it was silent. Still, she had to fight the urge to curl her index finger around the trigger of her blast rifle.
When she reached the corner she drew the rifle close to her body, muzzle pointed at the ceiling so it wouldn't show around the corner. This is a terrible weapon for close-range work. I should have traded with someone for a pistol.
Slowly, cautiously, she stuck her head around the corner.
Ahead of her was another stretch of corridor just as narrow as the one she stood in. After three or four paces, though, the corridor opened into a cluttered room. She couldn't see the side walls. Well, technically she couldn't see the opposite wall either. It was completely hidden by cabinets, pipes, fixtures, terminals, screens, and racks of tools. Much of the floor space in between was buried in machines and consoles and miscellaneous technical junk.
She could see two people, a man and a woman, both in burgundy Dawn Alliance uniforms. Neither was looking straight at her. The man held a blast rifle, and she scowled, wondering if he was the one who had shot Raleigh. He leaned against a workbench, with the mix of wire-tight tension and utter boredom that you only saw in combat situations.
The woman had her back to Alice. Hands shoved in her pockets, head hanging, she looked miserable and defeated.
Alice thought back to the deck plans she had examined with McDougall. Secondary Maintenance could have held thirty people, if they stood practically shoulder to shoulder. Judging by the clutter of equipment in the room, fifteen was a more realistic maximum. But the room wasn't crowded. She could only see that one slice from the middle, but unless there were soldiers folded together like socks just out of sight to the left and right, the room likely didn't hold more than six or eight.
I can only see two people. The woman has her back to me. I'm in the man's peripheral vision, but if he glances away, I wonder if I could get any closer. She looked down, planning where to put her feet.
And a shadow moved on the deck plates at the end of the corridor. Alice froze, not even breathing. She spent a moment analysing patterns of light and shadow in the room, trying to figure out where the lights were. By the look of it, there was a ceiling light just past the doorway on the right.
And there, on the deck plates in front of her, was the shadow of a soldier standing right beside the doorway.
Well, it makes sense. They must be watching every entrance. I'm glad I didn't decide to sneak any closer.
She returned her gaze to the man with the blast rifle. She waited so long that one of the men in her squad said, “Alice? Are you all right?”
She ignored him.
Finally, after a small eternity, the man with the blast rifle turned his head. He seemed to look directly at her, but there was no alarm, no recognition on his face.
His head turned farther. He glanced in the opposite direction, and in that instant she drew her head back.
“Well? What did you see?”
It took her a moment to realize the voice belonged to McDougall. She peered down the narrow corridor behind her, past the four members of her squad to where McDougall stood, hands on his hips. Quickly she described what she'd seen.
“We'll get you a couple of grenades,” McDougall said. “This will be over in a hurry.”
“No!” The word was out of Alice's mouth before she knew why she was objecting. “We can't just kill them.”
“Of course we can,” McDougall snapped. “It's what they did to Raleigh. He was a good kid. I hired him myself.”
Alice winced. Raleigh and McDougall had been shipmates. That meant close bonds. And when you had someone young and inexperienced on your crew, you tended to look out for them. To get invested in the idea of keeping them safe.
“They're not all combatants,” she said. “That woman I saw. She's unarmed. She would surrender in a heartbeat if she had the chance.”
“She's Dawn Alliance,” McDougall said. “She's the enemy. That's all I need to know.”
Alice shook her head. This wasn't the time or place for a discussion of ethics, and McDougall clearly wasn't going to budge. She turned away, wondering if she could simply refuse to throw a grenade. McDougall would just send one of the others to do it, though, or throw the grenade himself.
She retracted her faceplate, turned, and stepped around the corner. She held the blast rifle in her hands, but when the man sitting on the workbench spotted her, she pointed the rifle carefully at the ai
r above his head. “You're completely surrounded,” she said. “We have all the exits covered. You’re outnumbered, and we have grenades. You need to surrender.”
McDougall swore over the suit radio. Alice ignored him, all her attention focused on the maintenance room. The woman had spun around. She was older than Alice had imagined, well into her forties. She reminds me of Mom. The woman stood frozen, her hands still in her pockets, her mouth open and her eyes wide.
The man still sat on the bench. He clutched his rifle, the barrel pointed at the ceiling. He looked like he was trying to find the courage to try something.
“Shooting me won't help,” she told him. “There's dozens of us.” She jerked her head, indicating the squad behind her. “Most of them don't really want to negotiate. They want to chuck a couple of grenades in here and be done with it. But they've agreed to let me try diplomacy.”
McDougall snorted in her ear. She ignored him.
The man glanced to the side, then flinched. Alice jerked back as a woman stepped into view with a blast pistol in her hand. Half a dozen shots slammed into the pipes at the bend in the corridor, and a spray of sparks burst from a ruptured cable.
“That's it,” said McDougall. “You had your chance. Now we blow them up.”
Something in his voice, though, told Alice his heart wasn't in it. She’d spoiled his vengeful mindset by taking the high road.
Alice poked her head around the corner, worried that the prisoners might be rushing the corridor. She found herself looking almost down the barrel of a blast rifle held by a thick-shouldered man at the end of the corridor. He fired, missing her by a rather small margin, and she pulled her head back.
“Bloody hell. If you're not careful you're going to set off the FSS.”
She didn't know who had spoken, but whoever it was, she wanted to give him a kiss. “That's a good idea.” She edged down the corridor, away from the corner and toward McDougall. The closest man backed away to give her room. She said, “Cheng, right?” He was a pilot and technician on the Solstice.
He nodded.
“Let me get by.” He pressed his back against the wall, and she squeezed past him. “Watch the corner. Shoot anyone you see.”