Battleship Furiosa (27 page)

"This pla
ce has seen better days," said Ensign Fletcher with a
groan.

Cassandra looked at him and helped him
move to a step to sit down. His bruised and aching body still
seemed to be causing him pain, and she worried he might be
suffering form internal injuries, or at the very least broken or
fractured ribs. Nate moved over to his other side and bent down. He
looked carefully at the thin pilot's face.

"You're getting pale. How are you
feeling?"

He coughed once and
turned to Nate.

"I'm okay, just feeling a bit
sick. The impact knocked the air out of me. I thought I was
dying."

Cassandra gave Nate an odd
look. His brow tightened as he tried to
understand what she was trying to say. Fletcher tapped his chest
with his left arm.

"My ribs are fine. It
knocked the wind out of me, and I can still feel
it. Just give me a few more minutes."

Valdis heard this and walked directly
up to him.

"No. No wait. W
e move, or we die."

Nate opened his mouth to speak,
but to his surprise the Byotai pilot lifted her hand to her mouth
and turned around. She lifted her pistol and checked the settings
before whispering, "I can hear something. Stay quiet and keep
moving."

There was a single door leading
to the left, and
to the right the
staircase continued up into the guts of the ship. The door was half
open, and a trail marked Byotai boots on the ground. A long broken
computer display covered the left wall, and fingers had dragged
lines along the dust. Nate moved closer to inspect it and
immediately bumped into an impatient Billy.

"This is taking
forever,
" complained Billy, "How long
till we reach the right deck?"

Nate looked to his friend and helped
him climb over three broken steps that were now little more than
rubble.

"I know. You can hear the fight
out there, though. Do you want to get stuck in the middle of
it?"

He looked back to point below
them and immediately spotted movement at the door. He clicked with
his mouth and then shifted to the side of the step.

"Somebody is coming."

Valdis was already waiting, and of them
all was the first to point her weapon in the direction of the
sound. Even so, Nate was sure the young pilot looked nervous. Her
hand shook a fraction, so she moved another hand to join it. The
doorway flickered yellow, and then a shape appeared.

"There!"
Matilda whispered.

She pointed her carbine to the
doorway, and Nate stepped back, lifting his own weapon just as a
figure rushed inside. Nate was halfway to pulling the trigger
before he realised it was a wounded Byotai crewman. Dogg caught him
and held him upright, just as another five ran in behind him. They
scattered onto the stairs, each panting with exhaustion. The last
to enter ducked to the side of the door and lifted his Seax pistol.
He wore the uniform of an officer and looked familiar. Unlike the
others, he had no problem in facing off against his attackers and
pointed his pistol with an unshaken hand into the
distance.

Who is that?
Nate thought.

The officer spoke quickly, much too
quickly for his voice to be understood by the translators carried
by Nate and his friends. Valdis placed a hand on Nate's shoulder
and explained.

"They are coming.
B
e ready."

The sound of shouting and heavy
footsteps filled the distant passageway. Nate felt his chest
heaving, and he looked back at his friends. Cassandra looked
terrified, yet her carbine was raised and her face as determined as
it ever had been.

Get a grip, Nate.

He double-c
hecked the safety on his weapon and then waited. The noise
increased, and the light shifted as shapes blinked the lamps. Two
guns fired, and chips ripped up from the nearby steps. Matilda
stepped to the side to avoid the shots, and then they were inside.
A pair of soldiers ran in shouting. These ones wore prison guard
uniforms and carried thermal shotguns. Without hesitating, the
first fired, striking the already wounded Byotai that Dogg had been
helping. The second lifted his weapon just as Cassandra charged at
him, and then yet more came in. Some had guns, but many more
carried metal bars, rods, and anything that might cause
harm.

"Get down!"
Nate shouted.

Cassandra crashed so hard against
the enemy soldier that the two of them slammed into the nearby
wall. He snarled and threw her aside, like a child discarding a
toy. Now that Cassandra was clear, there was a clear line of sight
to the two of them, and the Byotai officer opened fire with his
pistol. The marksmanship stunned Nate as he fired two shots at a
time with pinpoint accuracy. He then looked back and barked an
order in clear English.

"Fire!"

Captain Sobiex! Of
course it is
.

In that one instant,
Na
te knew exactly who he was looking at.
It was the deck officer that they had met only recently. The pale
skinned officer spared no more time talking to them and continued
to fire, while slowly stepping back.

"You heard him, fire!" said Matilda, in
her usual clam voice.

All of them opened up with their
weapons. Nate closed his eyes as the carbine fired at close range.
He knew what it would do to his enemy this close, and though he had
no choice, his instinct was to avoid looking. When he finally
opened his eyes, three more enemy combatants were down. The rest
had scattered and were now firing in a sporadic
gunfight.

"Stay down!"
Matilda ordered.

Nate stepped back to the side of
the steps. The others moved to the sides of the hall using any
cover they could find. Shots flashed back and forth, and each lit
the space with white and yellow light. A militiaman rushed to the
middle and was cut down in a second. Another joined him and managed
to hit a Byotai crewman before himself being hit. The fight was a
confused mess of shouting, terror, and gunshots. When it finally
stopped, there were nine bodies on the ground, three of which were
loyalist crewmen. Nate checked for wounded but found just one of
the enemy on his back and spitting blood. He moved closer, but Dogg
reached him first and pointed her gun at the wounded Byotai's
chest.

"No!"

Dogg ignored him
and fired twice before lifting her eyes to
his.

"A traitor's death."

Nate gulped, horrified at what
he'd seen. A sound of somebody groaning brought him back to
reality, and he moved from the bodies to the staircase. There he
found Valdis cradling the fallen crewman. He coughed once more, and
then he was dead. It was an odd moment, but with all the shouting
and screaming, it had turned deathly quiet, with nothing but the
bodies and the smell of burning weapons to remind them of what
happened; that and the panting from all of them.

"We were too
late,
" muttered Valdis.

The crewman wore his
N
aval uniform, and it was now stained
with blood from the double gunshot wound. Valdis lowered him to the
ground and turned her attention to Nate.

"We have to hurry. They are getting
close to the General."

Captain Sobiex lifted a thermal
shotgun from the ground and stepped into the middle of the group.
His uniform was dirty with dust and blood, but he appeared unhurt
for the recent gun battle. Without even looking at the weapon, he
released the ammunition feed and slipped in a new clip. At the same
time, Valdis double-checked her portable computer unit.

"What's happening out there?"
a
sked the Captain.

Valdis brought up a three-dimensional
schematic on the unit. It showed the lost areas of the ship as red,
and compartments currently contested in flashing red. Even Nate was
surprised to see the amount of red had reduced in the lower parts
of the ship.

"Their strength is dwindling, so they
are throwing all they have to cut off the head before our crew and
warriors can mobilise."

She pointed to the lower decks that
appeared to be fully in the hands of the Byotai loyalists. Nate
touched the unit at that point, and it made a buzzing sound. He
pulled back his finger as though he'd been told off.

"Time is on our side, so they must be
regrouping to head for this area. Look at their movement."

It was obvious to even the least
intelligent person that the enemy were not trying to secure the
entire ship. Instead, they'd taken the hangar and fighter deck, and
were still embroiled in battle between the infantry and medical
decks. Flashing red zones appeared all around the command
deck.

"They have to be stopped with
overwhelming force," said Captain Sobiex, "I will rally our troops
to this point for a counterattack."

He pointed to the left of the
command deck and directly above their current position.

"T
here
we can hit their positions from behind and protect the
General."

Valdis nodded in agreement.

"Very well, Captain. We will follow
your lead."

He looked to the steps and pointed.

"We must hurry.
F
ollow me. Hurry!"

They left
the scene of the small battle, and even as they reached the
next level, they could hear the sound of those far below. Valdis
stepped back and looked over the edge of the staircase. She could
see right down to the lower sections of the shaft.

"They are six levels below us. Keep
moving!"

Nate felt weak
and impotent as they kept climbing. His gut told him they
should stay here, defend part of the ship, and help in the battle.
But his mind told him something else. Valdis was correct, and
defending this section would change little.

Valdis is right. We need concentration
of force, and the place for that is the crew and command deck.
We'll rally everyone we have there for the final battle.

Nate might hate sneaking
abo
ut inside the ship, but his friends
were not soldiers. They knew their worth in a major firefight, and
this was reality, not a videogame. Failure meant death, and on
Furiosa there were no respawns. Only together could they have a
chance in this battle. The Sergeant had already secured the medical
deck. With luck, they could do their part elsewhere. Billy paused
to catch his breath and immediately caught the eye of Captain
Sobiex.

"No stop. Keep moving!"

Billy shrugged, and they
continued on upwards. The fire shaft conjured up the idea of yet
more narrow tubes with ladders. The reality was completely
different. Though clearly disused, the steps were very wide, and at
some point in the past had been covered in a soft material, perhaps
even carpeted. Complex tube lights hung down from golden brackets
and bathed the steps in a warm glow. The walls may have been well
adorned in the past, but they were now stripped of all value. In
their place were thick cabling and pipes, presumably there to shift
energy throughout the massive vessel.

It took almost fifteen minutes
for the nine of them plus their new friends to climb their way up
the shaft. As they neared the top, they could feel their legs
weakening. They'd passed by multiple decks, but the faded markings
showed they were still too far below their destination. That hadn't
stopped them checking each one for signs of friends or enemies.
Unlike the Alliance ships, the Byotai battleship was actually very
well equipped with secondary access points and walkways. Nate had
assumed this was part of the actual design, but Valdis had
explained that with the great age of the ship, it had been refitted
and modified a hundred times. Every time work was done, another
access point or passageway was created, or more often than not,
rediscovered. A low boom sent a gentle shudder through the
steps.

"The fight isn't over
yet,
" said Cassandra.

They
heard the crackle of gunfire far in the distance, but with
each corner they traversed, they seemed to come no closer to the
source. At more than a dozen points, Nate would have liked to stop
to examine the architecture and design. It was an incredible
vessel, and even these emergency shafts were full of gilded edging
and paintwork to rival the best human palaces of old. Nate caught
up with Valdis, walking alongside the Captain.

"Valdis, is this definitely going to
get us there? It seems to be taking forever."

The Byotai pilot hissed but
refused to stop walking forward as she answered his incessant
questioning. She moved quickly, and Nate struggled to maintain her
pace.

"We need to avoid the main through
routes, and this means taking the fire shafts."

She
lifted her hand and showed him her portable computer panel.
Each time he saw it, he was reminded how archaic the thing looked.
It was like a scaled down version of the venerable Secpad, rather
than the new wearable tech worn by Alliance operatives.

"According to the public cortex, the
intruders have taken four more decks in the last ten minutes. There
must be at least eighty of them left, maybe more, and they are not
afraid to die."