The Voyage of the Star Wolf (32 page)

“Not
probably
,” said Brik. “There is no room for chance in a Morthan scenario.” He looked to Korie. “The fact that an Alliance ship might make contact with the
Burke
before the
Dragon Lord
has been allowed for. Therefore, there are parts of the trap that are aimed at us.”

“Right,” said Williger. “That's my question. If the
Burke
couldn't hold that monster, can we?”

“We have to,” remarked Hardesty. “I don't like the alternative.”

Korie was playing with an idea. He steepled his fingers in front of himself and said softly, “Y'know, we could—this is just an idea—strip those fluctuators off the
Burke
in . . . oh, less than eighteen hours. I can run one crew, Chief Leen can run the other. Hodel and Jonesy can handle
the third.” He looked around the table, meeting their eyes. They looked interested. “Look, if the
Dragon Lord
shows up, we'll have at least two or three minutes warning. That's enough time to blow the
Burke
and scramble, and we haven't lost anything; but otherwise—well, we still scuttle her, but this way we get to keep the high-cycles.”

“I like it,” said Tor. “Especially the part about keeping the super-stardrive.”

“If I were the assassin,” said Brik, “that's the
first
thing I'd booby-trap . . .”

“Obviously,” said Korie. “So we break 'em down and run a full suite of integrity checks before we put 'em online, but at least we can pull the units out of their housings and transfer them.”

Hardesty cleared his throat. They all fell silent. “Mr. Korie, there is an inaccurate assumption in your analysis. I'm not giving up the
Burke
.” He added sharply, “And you shouldn't either.
You want a ship
. Let's bring this one home.”

“Her integrity's been breached,” said Korie. “We don't have the resources to decontaminate her.”

Hardesty's expression was immobile. “Do you know how much a liberty ship costs the Alliance?”

“Is that the deciding factor? The cost? What's at stake here is more than one ship—”

“But if you could save that ship, would you?”

“It's not that simple, sir. It's a question of what's possible under the circumstances. Trying to save her is the third best option. The risk—”

Hardesty's tone was suddenly icy. “You're arguing for your limits, Mr. Korie. I thought we broke you of that bad habit.”

Korie shut up. When the captain used that tone, the argument was already lost. He sighed. “Yes, sir. You're right. I would like to save that ship—if we could. That I have expressed my doubts is part of my responsibility as your exec to advise you to the best of my ability.”

“Your advice has been noted,” said the captain. “Now, let's go to work.” He looked around the table at his officers. “We are going to save the
Burke
. It is important for this ship and this crew to come home with a victory. Saving the
Burke
will be a good start.

“Chief, build us a brain. It doesn't have to be brilliant. Mr. Brik, you look for booby-traps. Detox this vessel.” To Tor and Hodel, he said, “We'll stay at Condition Red. Run a twelve-hour clock. Hold at ninety seconds from stardrive injection. We sight anything coming at us in hyperspace, we scramble—and the
Burke
self-destructs. That means
nobody gets lazy. If the alarm sounds, you'll have thirty seconds to get off the
Burke
. Beyond that, you're a footnote in the log.” He turned to Korie. “Pick a crew of twelve. You'll bring the
Burke
home. First thing, though, you'll strip the fluctuators off—no matter what else,
I want them
. All right,” he concluded, “That's it. Any questions?”

There were none.

“Good. Thank you. Go to work.” Hardesty pushed his chair back from the table, rose crisply, and exited from the Bridge of the
Burke
.

Hodel groaned first. “Oh god—why do we always get the hard ones? We
are
jinxed.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Whatever it was, Ghu—I'm sorry!”

Tor ignored the performance. She was already speaking to her headset. “HARLIE, we'll need critical path schedules—”

HARLIE was way ahead of her. He was always ahead of everybody. “I'm posting them now.”

Korie looked up to Brik, but the Morthan was emotionless. He swiveled around and stared at the Bridge where the assassin had first been found.

Is it possible that Hardesty has made a very bad decision? Or is there something that I'm still missing
?

The two starships floated like lovers, linked together in the brittle paradigm of their rendezvous. They drifted in dreamtime, alone against the deep abyss of distance.

Inside the
Burke
, high within her engine room, Korie and Haddad sweated over the difficult job of prying loose the fluctuator casing. They stood on the catwalk, working on the highest of the
Burke
's three units. It was a large torpedo-shaped structure, braced and reinforced within a shining tubular frame. Below them, other crewmembers worked just as determinedly to remove the other two units without damaging them.

Haddad levered himself up inside the flanged part of the cylinder while Korie waited impatiently. After a moment, the sound of muffled cursing came ricocheting out of the cylinder. “—Fang-dang, filthy, pork-eating, cretin-loving, drunken, godforsaken, vermin-ridden, water-wasting, scrofulous, yellow-dog, leprous, swine-hearted infidel—”

“Easy, Haddad,” said Korie. “You don't have to insult it. Those things are sensitive instruments.”

Silence. And then, in a different, more professional tone, “Got it.” Haddad pried himself out of the cylinder. “Sorry for the cursing, sir.”

“No problem. It was very educational.”

Haddad grinned and wiped his forehead with a cloth. “It's out of the circuit now. The bypass is showing green. We can pull it.”

They began to unclamp the fluctuator from its housing. Using a block and tackle, they lowered it gently to the catwalk, where Armstrong was waiting to secure it to a cart.

“Easy.”

“I got it.”

Korie waited until he was sure the unit was safe on the cart, then he turned to Haddad. “You go down and help them with the bypass on number two, Ayoub. Armstrong can help me with this.”

“Right.”

Korie took the rear of the cart, Armstrong positioned himself at the front, and they began to move the heavy unit slowly along the catwalk toward the aft corridor. “The port one, I think,” said Korie.

Armstrong glanced behind himself and nodded.

As they entered the corridor, Jonesy came barreling past them at a run, carrying computer components. He almost collided with Armstrong, but at the last moment turned himself sideways, raised his gear over their heads, bent with the shape of the wall, and darted easily past them.

“Easy, Jonesy. We don't have time for accidents.”

“No, sir. I mean, yes sir. No time to stop. Excuse me, sir.” He hurried on, leaving Korie and Armstrong grinning in his wake.

To get to the rear access, they had to pass through the shuttle bay. Esker Cinnabar glowered at them from his cage. His lips were curled back in a perpetual sneer, exposing fangs as long as Korie's wrist.

Armstrong shuddered. “Are we feeding him enough?”

“I hope so,” Korie said. “But it's the between-meal snacking we have to worry about.” Armstrong looked stricken. Korie waved a hand in front of his face to attract his attention. “Hey—Armstrong! Don't let him get to you. It's all psychological warfare.”

“I know, but—” Armstrong lowered his voice. “I see all those energy screens and beamers and robot sentries, I see the guards around him and it still doesn't reassure me. You saw what he did to the
Burke
.”

Korie nodded. “I saw.”

Hardesty was at the airlock console. He looked up approvingly as they approached. “Oh, Korie. Have you picked out a crew yet?”

“Almost, sir. I'll have the list for you in an hour. I'm trying to keep your needs in mind as well as mine.”

“Good. Bring the
Burke
home safely and maybe you'll get to keep her.”

“I thought the admiral didn't like me.”

Hardesty shook his head. “That hardly matters. There's a shortage of trained captains, good or otherwise.”

Korie waited until he was out of Hardesty's hearing to voice the thought that had come to him. “That explains a lot.”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Nothing.” He glanced back over his shoulder—and saw that Cinnabar, the Morthan assassin, was staring across the bay directly at him. And grinning. Korie looked away, disturbed. He pushed the thought out of his mind. It was psychological warfare. Cinnabar was trying to unnerve him—and succeeding.

They had to wait for a moment at the airlock door while Nakahari and Quilla Upsilon maneuvered a long unwieldy pipe through the access. The Quilla noticed Brian Armstrong waiting at the door and smiled meaningfully at him.

“Uh—hi,” he said.

“This one is Upsilon,” the Quilla identified herself. She was taller than the others. “And this one enjoyed it very much too.”

“Oops . . . illon. Right.” Armstrong flushed. He noticed that Korie was looking at him and was further discomfited.

Korie just smiled knowingly and shook his head, as if at some private joke. “They really caught you on that one. Don't worry about it. After a few years, hardly anyone will care. Push.” He pointed toward the access.

“A few years?” Armstrong's eyes widened. “Really?” They maneuvered the cart through the door.

“It'll seem like it. Some of the kidding around here can be a little rough.”

“How long does it usually go on, sir—?”

They had to lift the cart over the joint in the passage floor. Korie said, “It depends on how
good
you were. Quillas like to talk about their good times. The better you wer . . . well, you know.” Korie grinned across at Armstrong.

They had to lift the cart's wheels across two more joints, and then they were in the forward access of the
LS-1187
.

“—at least that's what I've heard,” Korie concluded.

“Really?”

“If you don't believe me, ask one of
them
.”

“Wow . . .” Armstrong's grin widened.

“Eh, you want to help me get this to the engine room first?”

“Oh, right. Sorry, sir.”

“It's all right. I understand the distraction. But don't forget why we're here.”

Hodel came hurrying up the corridor with a clipboard. “Oh, Mr. Korie—I'm glad I caught you. I need a G-2 authorization.” He handed Korie the clipboard. Korie studied its screen in annoyance.

“You know,” said Hodel, “we are not going to make it. This ship has an industrial-strength curse. The bad luck fairy doesn't like us.”

Korie thumbprinted his authorization. He handed the clipboard back. “If that's true, Hodel, then why are we still alive?”

“Because, I think the universe is saving us for something
really
awful.” Abruptly, he remembered something else. “Oh—one other thing. Um . . . I'd appreciate it if you'd consider me for your flight crew. For the
Burke
.”

Korie raised his eyebrow. “But the
Burke
's luck is even worse than ours.”

“Uh-uh.” Hodel spoke with certainty. “They only got eaten.
We've
got the
Dragon Lord
after us.” He pushed past them and headed forward.

Korie looked back to Armstrong. “Come on, let's get this thing to the engine room.”

They seized the cart with the fluctuator on it again and rolled it down the keel, pushing and pulling it past the sick bay, past the forward access to the Ops deck, past the aft access to the Ops deck, through the operations bay, past the vertical access to HARLIE, and finally to the machine shop below the engine room. Here, the keel widened into a low-ceilinged chamber. This was the starship's machine shop. The floor of the engine room above was removable to allow easy access between the drive units and the tools needed for heavy-duty maintenance work. Here, Chief Leen would break down the high-cycle fluctuators and run his security tests on them.