The Prison in Antares (8 page)

Five minutes later they came to the Antarean ship, and Pretorius contacted Pandora.

“They still there?” he asked.

“Two Antareans and a
something
,” she confirmed.

“Okay. Talk to you in a few minutes.” He turned to Ortega. “No change. Go in first and—”

“Kill them,” said Ortega.

“No sense taking chances,” agreed Pretorius. “And if they ever catch us, they won't hang us any higher for killing seven than killing five.”

Ortega climbed the stairs to the hatch and entered the ship. Within twenty seconds he called back that both Antareans were dead.

“Okay,” said Pretorius. He turned to Circe, Proto, and Irish. “Follow me, and remember, there's still something alive in there. A pet, an alien of a different race,
some
thing.”

The four of them entered the ship, which was minimally more spacious than their own vessel, and began looking around the bridge.

“Can you sense where the other one is?” Pretorius asked Circe.

She shook her head. “Not yet, Nathan.”

“Not much weaponry,” noted Pretorius. “I wonder if the computer is worth a damn?”

“Beats me,” said Ortega.

Circe frowned and leaned against a bulkhead.

“Are you all right?” asked Irish.

“Just a little dizzy spell, I think,” she replied.

“You want to sit down?” asked Pretorius.

“No,” said Circe, still frowning. “Maybe a drink of water.” Then: “The Antareans
do
drink water, don't they?”

“Yeah, they do.”

“Then one of these cabins much have at least a sink,” she said, reaching for a door handle. “I'll just get a sip and I'll be just—”

As Circe opened the door there was a hideous growl and something dark and scaly hurled itself at her, jaws spread apart, needle-sharp teeth closing on her throat, ripping through the flesh. She screamed and fell backward, blood spurting straight up, as the creature raked her shoulders and torso with razor-sharp claws. She uttered one more gurgling scream and shuddered convulsively, as Ortega pulled the creature from her and pulverized it with a single blow atop its head.

Pretorius and Irish knelt down next to Circe, looking for some sign of life. Finally Irish shook her head.

“She's gone,” she said.

“Damn, that was fast!” muttered Ortega.

Pretorius kept searching for a heartbeat, but couldn't find one.

Finally he looked up at Ortega.

“I'm not going to bury her on an alien planet,” he said. “Find something to wrap her in. We'll jettison her into space after we're out of this system and before we enter Coalition territory.”

Ortega nodded his head, and Pretorius contacted Pandora to tell her what had transpired.

“So much for never losing a team member,” remarked Snake in the background.

11

“What the hell happened?” asked Pandora as Pretorius and his party returned to the ship.

“Watchdog, watchcat, watch-
something
,” muttered Ortega.

“She was uneasy, but she couldn't spot it,” added Pretorius.

“But if she was an empath, surely she could sense that something wanted to kill her,” persisted Pandora.

“I don't know,” said Pretorius. “Maybe it was so alien she couldn't read it. Maybe it felt eager or happy to attack someone.” He shrugged. “These things happen.”

“You don't sound all that upset by it,” said Snake.

“Of course I'm upset,” replied Pretorius. “We
needed
her. You know that from the Michkag operation. It's not as if human empaths grow on trees.”

“You're upset that we no longer have an empath,” persisted Snake, “not that a friend has died.”

“Shut up!”
snapped Pretorius. “Of course she was a friend. This is war, goddammit, and people take risks in war, and sometimes those risks don't work out.”

Nobody spoke for a long moment. Finally Pandora spoke up.

“What now?” she asked.

“Now we find a meeting place in space, well beyond this solar system, and I go back to the Antarean ship.”

“Can you work the controls?”

He merely stared at her.

“All right,” she said uncomfortably. “Sorry I asked.”

“I'm going over there now,” he announced. “Once I'm at the controls I'll establish radio contact with you, we'll hit upon a meeting place, and we'll get the hell off this dirtball.” He looked around the deck, then pointed to Irish. “You'll come with me.”

“Right now?” she asked.

“Right now. We'll transfer your gear when we transfer everything else.”

Pretorius stood by the hatch, waited for her to climb down to the surface, then followed her.

“I don't know anything about flying a ship as big as our own, let alone one with alien controls,” said Irish as they walked to the Antarean ship.

“I know.”

“Then why—?”

“You don't want to be there when they talk mutiny,” said Pretorius.

Her eyes widened.
“Mutiny?”

“Nothing will come of it,” he said. “Snake's the loudest of them, but they probably all have to vent, and it's better that they do it in private.”

“I don't understand,” she said.

“My reputation—I didn't ask for it, and I never believed in it—is that I never lose anyone on one of these missions. It's bullshit, of course. I've lost my share of subordinates. But they seem to have convinced themselves that if we could all live through the Michkag caper nothing could kill any of us, and now they're coming face-to-face with the fact that we're not immortal and we're preparing to pull off a jailbreak in an alien military prison.”

“I see,” she said softly.

He sighed. “I know: You can't have considered that you might die on this mission either. Well, if we're smart enough and careful enough, you'll live to tell about it.” Suddenly he smiled. “Except that it'll almost certainly be classified, and they'll lock you away for a long time if you
do
tell about it.”

They arrived at the Antarean ship, boarded it, and Pretorius seated himself at the control panel.

“I've seen worse,” he said, quickly figuring out how to power up the ship and open radio contact with Pandora.

“Everything working?” she asked, her holograph appearing right in front of him.

“No problem,” he said. “Pick a spot, maybe two light-years out, and feed the coordinates to this ship. Then wait for me to take off—I assume the ship's in working order and that I won't have any trouble, but if I'm wrong I don't want you millions of miles ahead of me—so once this vessel's away, give us five minutes and then follow us.”

“Right,” she said. “Give me just half a minute here.” She looked down at her computer, which was not part of the holo image. “Okay,” she said a few seconds later. “Your ship knows where it's going now. Take off whenever you want.”

“Now's as good a time as any,” he replied. “Over and out.”

He uttered some orders to the ship, cursed when he realized it didn't respond to Terran, entered his destination on the alien control panel, and then felt the surge as the ship took off.

“You doing okay?” he asked Irish.

“Yes,” she said. “They wouldn't really mutiny, would they?”

“No, of course not,” he said. “They just want to bitch and grieve, and since I'm the object of one and the cause of the other, it's best to give them a little time to get it out of their systems. We've got to be a well-coordinated unit when we finally go into action.”

She smiled ruefully. “It feels like we've already been in action.”

He returned her smile. “Spoken like someone who's spent her professional life in a lab.”

“Which I have. Well, a lab and a hospital.”

“I just hope you have to prove how good you are,” said Pretorius.

She frowned. “You do?”

He nodded. “It'll mean he's still alive, and hasn't overtly joined the enemy.”

“I must seem terribly green to you,” said Irish.

“We'll put some other color on you before we're done,” he replied.

In a few minutes they had reached their rendezvous point, and in another three hours they had transferred their computers and the bulk of their weaponry to the Antarean ship.

“I hope it'll all work,” said Pandora when they were done.

“It's already working,” replied Pretorius.

“Different power sources. I just hope it doesn't damage the computer.”

“Or the guns,” added Snake.

“Well, we'll find out,” said Pretorius.

“You don't seem very worried,” noted Ortega.

“Would worrying help?” asked Pretorius.

“Probably not, but I do it all the time anyway.”

“So we're all here and all tied in to the power,” said Pandora. “What do we do now?”

“The first thing we need is a map of the subway, or whatever we're calling it,” replied Pretorius. “It's a big planet. We can't just hope he shows up on our instruments.”

“There must be dozens of maps on Three,” said Pandora. “Maybe I can find a way to tie into one.”

“There's also thousands of defense weapons on Three,” said Pretorius. “I know we're in an Antarean ship, but that doesn't mean we can't be scanned and boarded, especially if we can't show that we're there for a purpose.”

“So we go to Six?” said Pandora.

“We go to Six,” he confirmed.

“And then what?”

“That depends on what we find there,” answered Pretorius. “We need to locate, not a subway station, at least not one that's just for boarding and exiting the vehicles, but something that controls them—controls their power, their routes, their destinations, whatever.”

“How do we do that?” asked Ortega. “I mean, for all we know, there's no public transportation at all. The whole system might be military.”

“If it is, that will be to our advantage,” said Irish, and all heads turned to her.

“Would you care to explain?” said Pandora.

“If it's public transport, the system will go anywhere that the inhabitants live,” she said. “But if it's entirely military, it will have far fewer routes and destinations. More dangerous, to be sure, but fewer.”

“Makes sense,” admitted Ortega.

“Yes, it does,” agreed Pretorius. “But it's totally hypothetical. We have to learn what the hell this system does, who and what it transports and to where.”

“So we still need a map,” said Snake.

He nodded his head. “We still need a map.”

“So where do we get one?”

“We head to the Antares system, hope nobody challenges what is obviously a ship that's at least of Antarean origin if not ownership, and when we can determine where the hell a map might be, either Pandora finds a way to transfer a copy to our ship's computer, or we send our best thief in after it.”

“Thanks a heap,” said Snake grimly.

“It'll be on a computer,” said Pandora. “Sooner or later everything is, and sooner or later every computer's security can be breached.”

“That's fine in theory,” said Pretorius. “But all we've got is sooner, not later. Every day we don't locate and grab Nmumba is another day they have to break him.”

“We won't know until we find the right computer,” said Pandora.

“
If
we can find it,” he corrected her.

They reached the Antares system two days later—and they found the right computer an hour after that.

12

“Got it!” announced Pandora.

“Good!” said Pretorius. “Where is he?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I've got the map, Nate. The tunnels, as it were. Now I have to find out where all the vehicles are, and finally which one is holding Nmumba.”

“And then get him out,” added Proto.

“Oh, I think we ought to let Nate do
something
or he'll feel useless,” said Snake, and none of them could tell if that was her idea of humor or if she was still bitter over the loss of Circe.

“Well, start with the basics,” said Pretorius. “Fueling stations. Any entrances and exits on the surface. If these things traverse the whole planet—yeah, I know, we don't know the directions or durations of their routes—but
if
they do, they're going to have to stop for more than fuel. Food, for instance. Maybe even for air.” He sighed deeply. “Find out what you can—and while you're at it, see where the biggest military base is, on or beneath the surface.”

“Just the biggest?” asked Pandora. “They may have a dozen or more.”

“Just the biggest. Nmumba could make the difference between either side winning or losing this damned war. They're not going to give him to the second string.” He paused, frowning. “But they may try to disguise that. Once you find the base, see what other bases they're in contact with, and which vehicles as well.”

“I'll do my best,” replied Pandora. “But this could take more time than you think, or than we have.”

“If you can think of a shortcut, or can find something Irish or Snake can do on one of the other computer terminals, be my guest,” said Pretorius. “You can't use Felix. He could think he was tapping in a code or an order and break the machine with those metal muscles of his.”

“What about Proto?”

Pretorius smiled and shook his head. “What you see isn't what you get.” He nodded to the alien, who immediately stopped projecting the image of a middle-aged man and became the very real cushion-like being that he was.

“Sorry,” said Pandora. “I'm so used to seeing him . . .”

“I know. We all forget.” He stood up and walked over to the galley. “Okay, do what you can. In the meantime I'm going to see if I can convince this alien kitchen to make some coffee or the equivalent.”