Command Decision (10 page)

From the bridge to the captain’s cabin, their way was clear. Ky led them into the secret compartment and along between bulkheads, aft and down, as her implant forwarded data from the surveillance equipment.

“Bad news from the others, Captain,” Hugh said in her skullphone. “Pettygrew says he’s making a fighting retreat, but he’s cut off from the bridge and from drives; apparently they’d gotten cargo hold codes for all the ships. Argelos still has control of drives, but not the bridge. They’ve taken casualties.”

“So have we,” Ky said, looking down at the latest, the number two engineer, sprawled in a pool of blood and splattered flesh. The intruders here were all dead, but she had been just that instant too late for Foxeham, who hadn’t stayed in the hidey-hole he’d been assigned. Neither had Seeley. Just as Hugh had predicted, some of the civs hadn’t followed orders. “One dead, one wounded.” Seeley would recover, but right now he was in shock, partly from a shattered leg and partly from seeing Foxeham die in front of him. “But the drives are secure now. We’ve made contact with the aft batteries; we’re about to squeeze the bastards between us.”

She left Twigg from Environmental with Seeley, with orders to stay put until someone came to help him get Seeley to sick bay. At least she had medical experts now; surely they had stayed where they were told. Now, with Lee at her shoulder, she moved back into the cover of Osman’s labyrinth. Just ahead, a cluster of intruders—the most heavily armed, since they had attacked the aft battery and armory—continued their attempt to break through the barricades her aft crew had thrown up. In addition to the chemical rounds for their light weapons, they had two cutters at work on the bulkhead aft of the battery hatch, trying to cut in behind the defenders.

“Jon Gannett reports the forward batteries clear, all intruders accounted for, forward of bulkhead sixteen, all decks,” Hugh said. “Do you want reinforcement?”

For a moment she weighed a faster mop-up here against the evident immediate peril to
Bassoon
and
Sharra’s Gift
. Her own ship’s safety had to come first. “Link me to Jon,” she said. “The faster we clear this ship, the faster we can help the others.”

As the Gannetts worked their way aft, they reported on two more intruders, detached individually, trying to break into the ship safe. These were now disposed of, and now Jon spoke in her skullphone.

“Captain, I have you in view. Permission to close up?”

“Come ahead,” Ky said softly. The intruders had shown no sign of having competent acoustic surveillance, but she wasn’t going to take chances. “The intruders are about two meters away, working on the aft port battery bulkhead. Our crew’s in position, ready to surprise them now you’re here. Starboard battery’s got about the same situation, but the enemy haven’t started digging into the bulkhead yet.”

This time Ky felt a wicked glee as she prepared to signal the attack through another one of Osman’s secret panels. She could almost admire him for the way he’d set up the ship. Here they were below the deck level; the panels lifted up. Osman had even installed ricochet baffles, not that those would help much with frangibles.

“On three,” she said, and flicked her fingers—one, two, three—and five deck hatches lifted. She had a perfect view of boots and lower legs as they all fired simultaneously; the low-power solid slugs had plenty of punch to knock the intruders off their legs. Their return fire was wild, unaimed; an instant later the aft battery hatch opened and her battery crew poured through to finish them off. Ky knew her shots had gone home, but it was over so fast she didn’t feel anything but mild satisfaction.

She and the others emerged, set a watch on the passage both ways, and then she and Martin inspected the intruders’ arms and equipment.

“I think they brought only the two drills,” Martin said. “That’s why the starboard squad is just waiting around…”

“They made a mess of that,” Ky said, pointing to the deep grooves in the bulkhead. “We’ll have to get one of the engineers to check it out, and repair it eventually. But for now—secure these drills, and let’s go clear the ship.”

The starboard squad of intruders were standing around “like idiots,” Martin reported, making loud threats to the battery crew, who made no answer. “Lousy communication among them—they should know their people are being massacred.”

“Complacent,” Ky said. “We’d better not be.” This time they attacked at deck level, using the cross-passage between the two batteries. Martin edged ahead, extending a spider probe on the deck itself, where it would be least visible. As Ky’s implant had indicated, the intruders looked careless and complacent, weapons held loosely, the men—they were all men—slouched against the bulkhead with their masks unhooked.

Ky signaled a change of ammunition, to chemical rounds, and checked the seal on her own mask as she slipped out her magazine and fitted another. No one said anything. She checked her implant readings again. Something not quite clear farther aft down that other passage…she called in data from the nearest of Osman’s fish-eyes, and there they were, a squad farther down the passage, just out of line of sight. Weapons ready, masks tight, half facing each way. So they did suspect something, but didn’t know which direction an attack would come from.

Fine. She was in the mood for more of a fight. She signaled again, this time the number and location. Jon Gannett shrugged, grinning behind his mask. She knew she was grinning, too. She took a breath and spun rapidly around the corner, raking the first group with chemstun rounds that shattered on the bulkhead. Two of the intruders fell at once; another tried to seal his mask and fell to Martin’s solid round. As the rear guard moved forward, rounds bouncing off the curve of the bulkhead, the battery hatch opened and the battery crew took them in the flank. Ky hit the deck as rounds richocheted around her. Something slammed into her shoulder; her back. The deck felt hot under her. She heard one of the battery crew swearing in his native language as he took a leg wound.

Then it was over, a firefight that had lasted scant seconds. Martin reached a hand down. “You all right, Captain?”

“Fine,” Ky said. “Thanks to that expensive stuff I bought on Lastway.” The deck was littered with intruders, most of them dead. “Hugh, what’s the overall?”

“Ship’s clear. All icons green. Still some chem residue, but I’ll put a work party on that right away. It’ll be safe to unmask in ten minutes.”

“That’s good.” Ky rubbed her shoulder, very glad of the custom armor. “Crew report?”

“Five casualties, three serious, in the ship crew. One in the fighting crew—no, wait, there’s that leg in the battery.”

“Attached to a name,” Ky said.

A brief pause. Then, “Sorry, Captain. Jedrah Puran. No one else has more than minor injuries. What’s the enviro reading at your end?”

“We need cleanup—a lot of chemical residue, both ours and theirs, back here, but everything else looks good. There’s some structural damage to a bulkhead, but they didn’t get through to the circuitry.”

“What do you want done with the prisoners?”

“We only need one,” Ky said. Then she shook her head; they might come in useful. “Secure them all.”

“Good-oh,” Hugh said. “And Pettygrew? Sounds like he might lose his ship.”

Ky turned to Jon Gannett. “We need a boarding party, EVA-qualified, but we also need the forward batteries here operable. Who can you spare?”

“Number two’s capable of operating both, Captain, in a pinch. All us Gannetts are EVA-qualified and experienced.”

“And me,” Stewart Cavanaugh, from aft portside, spoke up. “I can take three of my people who are good EVA and shipside.”

“Excellent,” Ky said. “Jon, you’re senior. Take whatever you think you need; on your way out, let me know how much damage they did to the hull when they breached the aft air lock. You may need to go on to
Sharra’s Gift
after
Bassoon;
keep that in mind.” He had already flicked hand signals to his own family, who were moving fast; Cavanaugh waited with his crew. “I’m going to the bridge now; I’ll let Pettygrew know you’re coming, and relay his communications channel to you.”

“Thanks, Captain,” Jon Gannett said. With a brisk salute to her, he waved Cavanaugh into motion.

“You’re not going, are you?” Hugh said in her ear.

“No—I’ve learned my lesson,” Ky said. Martin, at her side, let out a long sigh. She shook her head at him.

“Thanks be,” Hugh said.

Ky ignored that. “Hugh, split the crew of number two forward battery, and get both manned. I’ll be on the bridge as fast as I can; we’re going to close with the other two ships. And power up the beam.”

“Yes, Captain. What about the aft batteries?”

“Standby only for now. My concern is to keep the station from using anything they have.”

“They don’t have much,” Hugh said. “I broke their code ten minutes ago, and they have only one half-power tractor and one LOS. We can pin them—”

“We’re going to demonstrate that.” Ky strode forward, Martin just behind her. Even though both her implant and Hugh reported the ship clear of intruders, Ky did not let her guard down as she jogged back upship. Martin stayed with her, going ahead at the cross-passages and checking out the lift before she got into it. By the time she reached the bridge, her away party was exiting the ship.

“They made a mess around the air lock,” Jon reported. “Idiots figured they’d bring it in for repair, I guess. It won’t be hard to do a rough patch, but we’ll have to keep the next two compartments at vacuum until we do.” He forwarded a visual.

“Did they get the hatch-opening software?”

“Oh, yes. Hardware, software panel, everything.” Ky wanted to smack someone. It was criminal, stupid, to damage a ship’s air lock. Although she’d accidentally destroyed the forward lock herself, when Osman was attacking
Gary Tobai,
this was different. She moved abruptly, trying to settle the sudden anger, and winced.

“You were hit,” Hugh said, eyes widening as he pointed to her suit. “How bad is it? Why didn’t you say—”

“It’s nothing,” Ky said, ignoring the stiffness as she shrugged. “Good armor. I’ll probably have some fine bruises tomorrow, though.”

“How many rounds did you take?”

Ky tried to remember. “Three, I think. But I took out more than that.” She grinned at him.

His look was hard to read. “You’ve done close-in killing before.”

“Yes,” Ky said.

“So…no more shakes,” he said.

“Maybe later. Not now. There’s work to do.” She settled into her seat; her back twinged again. Yes, she was going to feel it later. “What’s the status on our wounded?”

“Teams are working on them,” Hugh said. “I hope the stuff we bought is what it’s supposed to be; I don’t trust this place.”

“They expected to get it all back,” Ky said. “Sell it to the next ship they were going to rob. It’s a neat scam, when you think about it. They don’t even need factories: all they need is the initial inventory, since they’ll get it back plus the money paid, the ship itself, and the crew for slave labor downplanet.”

“Or to sell to slavers,” Hugh said. “What you’ve told me about Osman, sounds like he could have been in that trade.”

“If it was bad, Osman was in it,” Ky said. On scan, her team was nearly to
Bassoon.
“Have you got Pettygrew on the horn?”

“Channel Two,” Hugh said.

Ky flipped over to 2. “Vatta here,” she said. “My team’s almost at your hull. What’s the signal?”

“Fairway,” Pettygrew said. He sounded steady again, if tense. “We just can’t hold them—they’re up to the forward batteries. It’s the smoke they’re using; we can’t see.”

“My team has IR and other modes,” Ky said. “Full space armor. Jon Gannett’s in charge. I’ll give him the signal; here’s his code for you—” She sent it over.

“You’re not coming yourself?” he asked.

“I’m about to give the station what-for,” Ky said. “Don’t be surprised at anything.” On her other channel, she gave Gannett the password; he acknowledged. Then, to Pettygrew again: “You have an open channel here. If you need to tell me anything, don’t hesitate. I’ll also have someone monitoring my team. Otherwise, I’ll be keeping the station busy so they don’t interfere. They expected to have control before we’d moved out to a safe range: they’re about to find out how wrong they were.”

“Right, Captain Vatta.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gannett said. “We’re about to go in the same hole the rats used.”

The tricky thing was figuring out the best angle of attack, given the limited traverse. Her forward beam had only a twenty-seven-degree cone; the forward missile batteries could not track that far forward. Given the station’s size, she could hit the disk on one end with the beam, and the disk on the other with a single battery, but that left the middle, where most of the population—and the missiles—were. Which would be scarier to them, a beam or a missile? The beam…and it could take out their one weak LOS weapon. They knew how many missiles she’d bought, and what guidance systems, but not the power of her beam.

“Bring the beam up,” she told Dannon.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. As the beam’s tracker came online, Ky hailed the station.