The kid beside me opened his eyes, and they widened. “Wow.”
I flicked my eyes to the lights above the inner bay doors, as they cycled red, over and over. Only when the outer sensors detected atmospheric pressure outside would Mean Green’s inner and outer doors snap open.
I cut myself back into Jeeb’s talk loop. “Munchkin, we’re in. Doors open in—”
“Jason, it just got hot out there.”
On the wall screen, I saw the flash of Mag rifles, as Slug warriors around the edges of the centerline tunnel opened up on Emerald River’s bow. Mean Green’s forward turrets returned fire. Streams of red tracer poured out, marking the path of forty-five hundred rounds per minute of explosive cannþ€bowon shells, each bigger than a middle finger and less friendly. The turrets also lobbed flares into the tunnel, at lower rates of fire, that burst and made the drifting gunsmoke glow red.
The kid next to me stood goggle-eyed. “I thought they weren’t so hard to kill, sir.”
Slug body armor makes a warrior look like a shiny black, man-sized cobra, with a single pseudopod poking out, wrapped around a Mag-rail rifle. An individual warrior looks scary, but even a pistol round cuts that armor like cheese.
Mean Green’s turret guns were designed to shoot down incoming missiles, not splatter Slugs like green tomatoes. I said to him, “The flares and the rounds are mostly to raise the temperature out there.” According to the Spooks, the closer to human body temperature the air around us got, the more us humans looked as invisible as shadows to the Slugs. Outnumbered by hundreds to one, we needed all the help we could get.
Despite Mean Green’s suppressive fire, Slug rounds rattled off her hull like raindrops. She could take rifle fire all day without damage, but if the Slugs were able to bring up Heavys and shell Emerald River, we could be stuck in here with four hundred thousand angry maggots, and no ride home.
The faster we got out of this ship and into Mousetrap’s passages, the faster we could shut down the Slugs. I glanced again at the flashing red lights above the bay doors, and hissed between clenched teeth. “Come on! Come on!”
The Pathfinders pressed forward, rifles held across their bodies at port arms.
In my ear, Munchkin said, “Jason, we’ve got a problem here.”
Above the bay doors, the lights turned solid green.
The inner doors hissed back, then the outer doors, with a pop as the slight remaining pressure differential between the interior of Mousetrap and the interior of Emerald River equalized.
SIXTY-SIX
ZEEE. ZEEE. ZEEE.
Mag rifle rounds whizzed into the bay through the open outer doors, clanged off the deckplates and bulkheads, and ricocheted off equipment and armor. A round thunked my left thigh, hard enough that I slipped to one knee, but didn’t penetrate.
The Pathfinders had fanned out across Level Twenty’s dock platform, which was one hundred yards long and fifty yards deep. The collision with Emerald River’s hull had wrinkled the platform’s thick steel like a tablecloth, and the Pathfinders dropped behind the folds and set a semicircular perimeter.
Behind me, Emerald River’s hull rose and curved away, as big and white as a convex hydroelectric dam. In a row above our open bay doors, I could see the black openings of a half dozen more doors, with troops rappelling down toward us.
I ran, crouched, to the Pathfinder captain, and pointed toward an open overhead loading door beyond which a passage led up and away from the centerline tunnel. He had his own map on his visor display, but I had been here befo†€…re. “That’s the way to the Button. Move your people out!”
“Yes, sir.”
Something had caused me to lose radio contact with Munchkin, but it wasn’t Slug jamming, because close range intercom here inside Mousetrap was working fine.
I switched back to my link via Jeeb to Munchkin. “Munchkin? Do you copy?”
Nothing. I swore, tried again, as I fell in behind the Pathfinders. Fifty feet beyond the loading door, we came upon our first survivors. The two of them hobbled toward us. One held a pistol in one hand, while his other hand held the wrist of his buddy, whose arm draped around his shoulder. The buddy’s left leg was splinted, so he hopped on the right one, only. Torn, greasy uniform shards dangled from arms and legs that were as thin as wire. The one with the pistol smiled. “Good to see you!”
The Pathfinder captain stared at me through his visor, as he whispered on command net. “Sir, if they’re all in as tough shape as these two—” Which they were, or else hundreds of them would have greeted us at the loading platform, like they were supposed to. “—It’s gonna take us a lot longer to load ’em.”
Worse, they were all clogging the passages we were advancing through. We would have to pick our way like we were clearing a hostage site, or we’d risk shooting the very people we were here to save.
I tried Munchkin again. Nothing.
I switched my visor display to monitor Jeeb. It was possible he was shut down but Munchkin was fine. I swore. All Jeeb’s indicators were in the green. Was Munchkin down? Did the Button still exist?
We had made a hundred yards toward the access control room, and had three hundred to go. Behind us, other troops filtered forward, picking up survivors too weak to walk, pointing the healthy ones back toward the ship.
The Command Net light flashed yellow on my display, and I keyed up Mimi.
“Jason? What’s going on?”
“These people are almost too weak to walk out, Mimi. Can you buy us time?”
“I think so. The turret gunners are having a turkey shoot, so I don’t think the ship’s in danger yet.”
The smoke and thunder that had begun from the forward turrets had now spread to the midships and aft turrets, too.
The maggots were coming out of the walls and floors and ceilings all around us. One of the maggots’ favorite tricks was to strip their armor, then attack. Like octopi, they could squeeze their boneless bodies through inch wide cracks. They oozed through the nooks and crannies without armor or weapons, but, by the tens or hundreds, they could take down a careless GI, plug off his armor vents and sensors with their slimy little bodies, and eventually strangle, fry, or freeze him.
According to the Spooks, Slugs had no more sense of self than a fingernail clipping had, so the tactic wasn’t some noble kamikaze sacrifice. If the Slugs had enough warriors in any battle, they tried it. If they were still trying crap like the squeeze and wheeze, they felt like the ba‹€€…ttle remained winnable, so they probably weren’t going to blow Mousetrap up.
An unarmored Slug dropped from the ceiling, and smothered my faceplate in translucent green. I tore it off, flung it to the deck, and jumped on it with both feet. The warrior popped like a green grape as big as a sleeping bag, I slipped in the goo, and landed on my butt.
Couldn’t I ever just command a battle like a real general? Just stand on a hill with binoculars, ordering my staff to order battalions to maneuver this way and that, while my pennant flapped in the breeze? Why did I always end up ass deep in slimy green maggots, who never followed the script?
Ten minutes later, the Pathfinder column halted, took knees, and covered down. I squeezed around the troops, panting into their intercom mikes, until I reached their captain. The passage opened out into a dim, high- ceilinged, wide chamber. So far as I recalled, Level Twenty had no high ceilings. The captain stood in front of a rough iron mass that ran from the passage’s floor to ceiling and from wall to wall.
He spread his arms at the mass in front of him. “Sir, we got a bad map or we’re lost. This isn’t the access control room.”
Worse, maybe it was the control room, all that was left of it.
I played my light on the ceiling, then back on the mass that blocked us, and grunted. “Roof caved in.” Theoretically, the vibration of the firefights and the impact of Emerald River scraping against Mousetrap shouldn’t have triggered a cave-in. Theoretically, bumblebees didn’t fly.
In a space between fallen, ang
ular iron boulders, movement flickered. A soldier yelled, “Maggot up!” He fired, and sparks flashed as rounds ricocheted off iron block.
I raised my hand. “Hold fire!”
An antenna like a thin, black worm poked around the boulder, then the rest of Jeeb’s head followed it.
I ran to Jeeb, peered behind him, and shone my light into the space from which he had crawled. It necked down to a jagged tube in the rocks no wider than a man’s leg.
A thin, dirty face appeared at the tube’s end. “Anybody out there?” Munchkin called.
SIXTY-SEVEN
I LEANED FURTHER in to the crevasse, and popped my helmet visor. “Munchkin? It’s Jason. What’s going on?”
She shouted to me, and it was a weak shout, “A half dozen of us were buttoned up here, in the access control room. We started taking fire from Slugs. They got impatient, and knocked the roof down with a heavy. I’m all that’s left.”
My relief that our action hadn’t brought the roof down on her was short lived. “Are you okay? Does the Button still work?”
She coughed. “The Button worked fine to get you inside. I think it’s still fine. I’m nicked.”
“How nicked?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere.”
“We’ll dig you out.”
“You won’t.”
“I got you out of the last rockfall. I’ll get you out of this one.”
“I mean don’t even think about trying. If you move this rubble, and a rockfall damages the Button, it’s all over.”
“There may be a space big enough—”
“Jason, the reason I can’t talk to you through Jeeb anymore is because, when the roof fell, Jeeb wound up out there, and I’m stuck in here. Jeeb’s been hunting a way back in here for ten minutes. If there’s not room for a TOT, there’s not room for a person.”
This time the command circuit in my helmet didn’t flash. Mimi just broke in. Her voice echoed loud enough that Munchkin could hear through my open visor. “Jason, we’re gonna have all the survivors boarded in six minutes. Are your people gonna be able to blow the doors?”
“No. Yeah. I need more time.”
“I already bought as much time as I could. What the hell’s going on?”
I told her.
I rubbed my forehead through my open visor.
Munchkin said, “Jason, it’s simple. You leave. I blow the doors. We win.”
I couldn’t even say, “And you die!”
Mimi said, “Twelve minutes. Not one second more.”
“Look, Mimi. You could just pull the ship out of here like you came in. We just won’t decompress the whole—”
Munchkin said, “Give the Slugs a chance to blow Mousetrap to bits? And Mimi’s ship and crew with it? And if they don’t blow Mousetrap up, you have to fight your way back in? I’m one casualty. That’s thousands.”
Mimi said, “Jason, she’s right. Given time, we could bring in engineers and move that blockage. Given time, we could dig the Slugs out of their holes without decompressing everything. But I can’t trade my ship, and the future of the human race, to buy time. Not for anybody.”
I shook my head. This wasn’t Ganymede. We were stronger now. We were smarter. I was stronger and smarter. I had beaten the Slugs in space, I had beaten the Slugs on Bren. This time, when I had dug Munchkin out, I had beaten death itself. I would do it again, somehow.
The Pathfinders’ captain tapped my shoulder. “Sir, we have recall from Emerald River.”
I waved him away.
Mimi whispered, “Jason, there’s no other way. Eleven minutes!”
Jeeb squatted in the rubble, beside me. His optics stared up at me, round and unquestioning. He might not know why, but he knew he would never leave me.
I turned to the Pathfinder captain. “Get your people b“€€…ack aboard.”
I heard a tiny exhalation of relief hiss through his microphone. He saluted, started to turn toward the ship. Then he turned back. “Sir? What about you?”
“I’m staying.”
SIXTY-EIGHT
NINE MINUTES REMAINED before Mimi would radio in that it was time for Munchkin to open every hatch in Mousetrap. Then Emerald River would escape with six thousand saved souls. Every Slug in Mousetrap would die, and it would again be ours, intact. And Munchkin would die.
The whole rock was silent, as though even the maggots were resigned to the end.
Mimi whispered in my earpiece, “Why the hell are you staying, Jason?”
“Somebody has to relay your cues to Munchkin.”
“She doesn’t need any cues, and you know it. She knows we’ll be buttoned up in nine minutes, then she pushes the Button.”
“I’m wearing Eternads. I’ll be fine.” I could have said that the decompression would mean for Munchkin at least a quick end. I could have said a lot of things. But the truth was that my remaining here was irresponsible. I was in command of a hundred thousand troops. There was no rational basis for me to remain with Munchkin. I couldn’t save her, and I was delaying the moment when I had to explain my failure to myself.
Across the stillness, Munchkin whispered to me, “How is he, Jason?”
I swallowed back sobs, until I could speak. “He’s great. He looks more like his father every day. Flies like an angel. He smiles a lot, now—”
“But . . . is he one of them?”
I paused. Jude might not be. Planck was a hard man, but could I say he was a Nazi? Wasn’t Jude more of her than he could ever be of them?
She said, “Jason!”
“No. Never. He—”
Bang.
SIXTY-NINE
I LEAPT FORWARD so far that my helmet wedged into the crevasse. “Munchkin!”
Her face was no longer there. She had shot herself. My hesitation had caused it. If I had answered sooner . . .
The Button was inaccessible, now. Emerald River was trapped in here now, surrounded by four hundred thousand Slugs.
Bang.
“Jason! They’re oozing through the cracks!”
The openings into the access control room were too small for me, too small even for Jeeb, but plenty big enough for a Slug warrior to squeeze through.
“How many?”
“Lots. Jason, I’m out of ammunition.”
I screamed to Mimi, “Munchkin’s got Slugs! We gotta blow the doors now!”
“We’ve got six bays open, with a thousand people in ’em. Find me two minutes, Jason!”
I tugged out my pistol, gripped it in my fist, then thrust my arm into the crevasse. “Munchkin! Here!”
“Farther! I can’t reach!”
I stretched my arm until the socket screamed, then stretched some more.
“Jason, you’re a foot away.” She grunted, and I heard a sound like shoe leather kicking maggot.
My trench knife? Too short.
Throw the pistol? The tube was too narrow, too rough.
I looked around the passage. There was electrical conduit running across the ceiling, which I could use as a push pole, but by the time I ripped it loose . . .
I pulled my arm out of the crevasse, snatched out my trench knife, and pried my armored sleeve loose at the shoulder joint. I could stuff my bare arm deeper into the crevasse than my fat, armored arm.
“Munchkin! Here!” I grasped my pistol in my bare hand, then plunged my arm back into the pit.
I heard her grunt and struggle.
Then I felt fingertips against mine, and the pistol was gone.
I counted eight shots, from the other side. The full clip, then there was silence.
Mimi said in my ear, “We’re sealed. Push the Button!”
My armor’s arm lay ten feet away, the shoulder seal torn beyond repair. Theoretically, the metal bands at the major joints of Eternad armor would constrict if the suit sensed decompression, like automatic watertight doors in a submarine. Even to the point of amputation. Nobody had ever tried it. At least, nobody who had lived to brag about it. I was
out of options.
“Munchkin?”
“Yeah. I’m clear of maggots for about another thirty seconds, in here.”
I clenched my teeth. “Do it!”
In the distance, machinery squeaked and rumbled.
She whispered, “It was nice to feel your touch over here, Jason. Take care of my baby. Take care of you.”
The hatch at the side of the passageway hissed, then it inched open.
The iron below me trembled, then the distant hiss became a roar.
Orphan's Alliance Page 22
