by Rod Walker
Corbin looked at Arthur, who nodded, fished his laptop out of the bag, and started pulling up a map of the ship. All our personal devices had been disabled when Williams had locked the computer, so we couldn’t just check with them.
“He’s right,” said Arthur.
“Of course I’m right,” I said. “I had to memorize the ship’s schematic for one of my certification tests.”
“Good,” said Corbin. “We’ll do it there.”
“And if we run into more of Ducarti’s men?” said Murdock.
“We might not,” said Corbin. “That troop carrier could only hold thirty or forty, which means he’s lost anywhere from twenty-five to forty percent of his men by now, especially after that last fight. That’s not a lot of men to hold a ship this size, especially since he’ll need to focus on the bridge and the engineering sections.”
“He probably sent some men to the engineering room,” said Nelson, “after you taunted him over the radio like that.”
“That,” I said, “and he needs the CPU for the hypermatter regulator before the ship blows up.”
“Exactly,” said Corbin. “The Rusalka’s a big ship, and he won’t have enough men to crawl over every inch looking for us. Especially if any other of the crew put up a fight. He’ll probably be on the bridge to keep an eye on Williams and to oversee his men. If we strike hard and fast, we might be able to overwhelm his men and seize control of the bridge.”
We stood in silence for a moment.
“Well,” said Murdock finally. “It’s not as if I have a better idea.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Corbin.
“We’re all in single file here, and those K7s are powerfu. One good burst would kill us all. We ought to send someone ahead to scout around the corners, make sure we don’t walk into an ambush.”
“Excellent suggestion, Rovio” said Corbin. “Lead on.”
Right then and there I learned a universal truth—if you point out a problem, you’re the one who gets to fix it. So I sighed, slipped off the safety on my machine pistol, and took the lead.
“Nelson, go with him,” said Corbin. “Back him up.”
“All right,” agreed Nelson. At Arthur’s suggestion, we took a moment to remove the radio modules from our helmets and clip them to our ears. Since the ship’s computer was still locked, our phones wouldn’t work, but the helmet’s radio modules would let us stay in touch when we split up.
We made our way through the narrow walkways. Nelson and I took the lead, proceeding forward to every junction, and summoning the others once the way was clear. We made good time, and began climbing up the ladders between decks, ascending to the dorsal level. As we passed the crew deck, I saw many familiar equipment nodes. Most of the life support machinery occupied the crew deck, and so I had spent a lot of time down here, fixing the endless things that could go wrong with carbon scrubbers and air filters and the waste recyclers.
So I was very familiar with the equipment in this area of the ship. That saved my life.
I peered around the corner, keeping my head low. Nelson said that most people didn’t bother to look down, and rarely looked at things below their eye level. I didn’t know if that was true or not, but it made sense. The maintenance walkway around the corner looked little different than the others. Bundles of cables hung in racks along the walls, and beneath the metallic grillwork of the floor ran a dozen thick metal pipes, each of them marked with dire warnings. A dozen more pipes followed the ceiling, each of them labeled with the same warnings. I had once spent several days checking pipe integrity, because if coolant got into the air circulators, it would kill a lot of people, so I knew this particular length of walkway pretty well.
However, I did not remember a lump of black metal clinging to the ceiling about twenty yards down the corridor. It looked kind of like a big metal spider, but with a number of lumps upon its back. In fact, one of those lumps suddenly began rotating around rather quickly.
“Anything?” said Nelson, impatient. “What is–”
“Back!” I shouted, shoving him. Nelson barked a curse, and a dozen shouted questions came from the others.
Right about then, the thing clinging to the ceiling pipes opened fire.
I was already moving, which was the only reason I didn’t get cut in half. I glimpsed the stuttering muzzle flash from the black spider-thing, and I heard the loud clang as bullets struck the wall and bounced off, accompanied by the flash of sparks as one of the shots chewed into a wiring box. Something hot and painful ripped along my left temple, pain shooting down my neck, and I fell backwards with a grunt as dizziness washed through me. I heard Corbin shouting orders, and then someone grabbed my arms and dragged me backwards. I blinked and looked up as Arthur and Nelson pulled me back.
“Man down!” barked Nelson.
“Wait,” I said. “I’m all right!” I sat up, and another wave of dizziness went through me, but it passed. I felt something wet on my left temple and realized that I was bleeding. I lifted a hand to my temple and felt blood there, along with a nasty gash. Just one of the bullets had barely grazed me, and it felt as if I had been hit in the head with a thrown baseball.
If that bullet had hit my forehead, it would have exploded my head like a melon in vaccuum.
“Take cover!” said Nelson, and we scrambled, pressing ourselves against the walls. It was an exercise in futility. Even with the wiring racks and pipes lining the walls, we were at least three-quarters exposed. Any competent marksman could kill half of us with as many shots. Or finish us all of with a single fragmentation grenade.
Yet strangely, no additional shots were fired.
“How many were there?” said Corbin, holding his K7.
I shook my head, which hurt. “No men. Some sort of robot or drone thing.”
Nelson’s grimace tightened. “I didn’t get a good look at it.”
“It was like a big metal spider,” I said. “Hanging from the ceiling. It had some sort of turret on its back, and it spun around to point at us.”
Corbin and Nelson looked at each other.
“Security drone,” they said in unison.
“Socials must have brought some aboard when they took the ship,” said Nelson.
“Makes sense,” said Corbin. “Ducarti must have deployed them once he realized he was losing men.”
“Should we be moving?” I asked my uncle. “If that thing comes around the corner, it could gun us all down without much trouble.”
Corbin shook his head. “A security drone like that has very limited AI. It will sit there and defend its perimeter until Ducarti recalls it.” He frowned at me. “You’re bleeding. There should be a medical kit in that equipment locker, so get yourself cleaned up.”
I nodded, slipped past the others, and opened up the equipment locker. It held the usual collection of emergency gear and tools in a maintenance walkway—a small medical kit, tools for dealing with hull breaches, pressure masks, a fire extinguisher, and so forth. There was a little plastic mirror in the door, and I flinched a little when I saw my reflection. The near-miss from the bullet had left a lot more blood that I expected. No wonder my head hurt so much. Between that and the stun grenade earlier… how long ago had that been? An hour and a half, maybe? It felt like months.
Anyway, given all the abuse my head had taken today, it was a miracle I was still conscious. If that security drone had slightly better aim, I would be dead, so I suppose it could have been worse. I rummaged through the medical kit, found a bottle of painkillers, and swallowed three tablets. There were also several self-sealing bandages, equipped with disinfectant, and I slapped one of them over the cut on my temple. That hurt, a lot, but I supposed that was better than dying of an infection in a week or so.
Though at the moment, living long enough to die of an infection would be a triumph of sorts.
I turned back as Nelson, Murdock, and Corbin argued about what to do.
“Maybe we can work up some kind of shield, shoot at the dron
e from behind it,” said Murdock.
“I doubt that,” said Nelson. He scooped up one of the deformed bullets from the deck. “These are high enough caliber that they’ll rip through anything we can improvise into armor. We’re lucky it didn’t punch through the wall to reach the cargo bays, else we’d be in vacuum by now.”
“So the stupid thing will just sit there and shoot anyone who comes at it?” said Murdock.
“Until it runs out of bullets,” said Corbin. “Or grenades. Or power in its laser capacitators. Security drones sometimes have multiple armaments.” He looked at Nelson. “Think we can take it out?”
“Probably not,” said Nelson. “I don’t think it was a large drone. Nikolai, you had a better look. How large was it?”
I frowned, wincing a little at the pain it sent through my head. A pity the medical kit didn’t have anything stronger. “The size of a cat, maybe?”
“Half-inch of armor, at least,” said Nelson. “We could take it down, but it will kill quite a few of us.”
Corbin shook his head. “Not an option. We need everyone who can carry a gun when it comes time to storm the bridge.”
“There are other ways to the bridge,” said Arthur. “We could all circle back to the dorsal corridor and attack the blast doors.”
“We have to hit the bridge in two directions at once,” said Corbin. “Else we will be overwhelmed easily. All the commandos have K7s and armor.”
“What about EVA?” said Nelson. “We have the suits. We could cross the hull and come in through one of the upper airlocks.”
Corbin shook his head. “These suits are designed for the cargo bay, not for EVA along the hull. It would keep the radiation at bay for a few hours but one slip and you’ll be gone. Maybe as a last resort.”
That and the other ships would likely pick up movement outside the hull. They’d be looking for it.
“Well, we’re wasting time,” said Murdock. “That drone might have alerted Ducarti, and if he’s got any men to spare they’ll be on their way. We’ve got to make a decision now.”
“Very well,” said Corbin reluctantly.
“Wait!” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”
I popped the little plastic mirror out of the door and grabbed a big wrench from the tool kit, the kind designed for securing airlock mounting bolts. I took a tube of breach foam, sprayed some on the end of the wrench, and slapped the mirror against it.
“What in space are you doing?” said Murdock.
“I think that drone was hanging from something useful,” I said. “I need another look at it without getting my head shot off.” I stopped before the corner, dropped down the floor, and pressed myself flat.
Then, inch by inch, I stuck the wrench and the mirror out around the corner.
Any moment I expected the wrench to get shot out of my hand, but the trick worked. Evidently the drone’s sensors couldn’t lock onto something so small, or maybe the thing just wasn’t looking down. I angled the wrench back and forth, trying to spot the drone, and at last I saw it hanging from the ceiling conduits, looking like a big black spider bristling with antennae.
And a double-barreled automatic gun.
Nelson grunted as he squatted next to me, peering into the mirror. “Nasty thing. Mark VII perimeter defense drone.”
“But we’re in luck,” said Corbin. “The Mark VII drones are autonomous, not networked. It will sit here until Ducarti specifically recalls it.”
“Which means it hasn’t phoned home,” I said.
“Nope,” said Nelson.
“Still don’t know how we’re going to get around the thing,” said Murdock. “Got any ideas about that?”
“Actually,” I said, tilting the mirror a little more. “I might. Look at where the drone is hanging.”
“A bunch of pipes?” said Murdock. “So what?”
“Not any pipes. Hot water pipes for the heating and cooling system. That goes to one of the pumps… ah, pump 47B, if I remember correctly.”
“He’s right,” said Corbin.
“If we shut the pump’s valves and run the motor at maximum,” I said, “the pump will rupture. In a big way. That would throw the drone off and we could disable it if we move fast.”
“And how are we going to do that?” said Murdock. “We’d need computer access to the pump.”
“We do,” I said, retracting my improvised mirror. Then I jerked my thumb at Arthur. “Fortunately, he thought to bring a computer along.” I got up, found a junction box in the bundles of wires along the wall, and pried it open. Inside waited an array of ports for local computer access. “We can plug in here.”
Murdock frowned. “But if Rodriguez connects to the network, the central system will enforce the lockout.”
“Not if he only talks to the pump,” I said.
Corbin nodded. “Those ports are local access only. We can talk to the pump, and maybe a few other devices nearby.”
Murdock gave him a sour look, but gestured at the junction box. Arthur handed me a data cable, and I connected it to the back of the laptop and plugged it into the appropriate port. The laptop’s screen flashed, and white text started to scroll across the black screen.
“Right,” said Corbin. “Rodriguez, hold that open for me. Nelson, Murdock. Get ready to jump around the corner and take that thing out.” Nelson snapped a command to the other techs. “Wait until I give the word, but the right time will probably be obvious. Remember, you’ll only have a few seconds before the drone rights itself, so don’t dawdle.”
The screen flashed again, and the text-based interface for pump 47B appeared on the display. “Well, Nikolai, what do you think?”
“Maximum water pressure, maximum water temperature, and zero outflow?” I said, recalling the list of things the manual had said to never, ever do with a water pump.
“That should do it,” said Corbin, entering a string of commands into the laptop. “Nelson, Murdock. After I enter the command, we should have about… let me see.”
I did some math in my head. “Nineteen seconds.”
“Nineteen seconds before the pump explodes,” Corbin confirmed, as he turned off the last safety and entering the administrative override mode. “Be ready. I’m entering the command… now.”
He hit the enter key.
Nothing happened at first. About five seconds later I heard a faint humming sound from around the corner. The status messages scrolling on the laptop screen went from yellow, to orange, and then to red, and then to red in all capital letters. The humming noise grew louder and became a loud screeching sound.
That was followed by a watery explosion, shockingly loud in the confined space, followed by the gush of liquid and the hiss of steam.
“Now!” shouted Corbin, but Murdock and Nelson and two of the techs were already moving. They swung around the corner, leveled their weapons, and opened fire in a volley of bullets and laser bursts. I watched them with my heart pounding, half-expecting to see a burst of fire cut them down, but then Nelson stopped shooting, and the others followed suit.
“Drone down,” announced the chief with satisfaction.
“Good,” said Corbin, closing the laptop and handing it back to Arthur, who secured it in his case. “Let’s move out. Watch your footing. It’ll be slippery.”
We went around the corner. The grillwork on the deck was gleaming with water from the ruptured pump, steam rising from the pipes, and I felt the wet, hot air like a slap in the face. The security drone lay on its back below the damaged pump, smoke rising from the craters blasted into its side. I looked at the pump and winced, imagining how much work it would take to pull it out of the ceiling, repair the damaged housing, remount the stripped pump engine, and then reinstall the entire thing. It was exactly the kind of tedious job Corbin would farm out to an apprentice.
I laughed at myself. If we lived through this mess, I would happily remount every single pump on the ship.
Murdock and I took point again, and we checked every corner and bli
nd spot, watching for more security drones. We found two more clinging to the walls and ceilings, guns ready for any trespassers, but since we were ready for them we did not blunder into the trap. We took out one by blowing another pump, and Corbin destroyed the second with a well-placed grenade that knocked off the wall and permitted Nelson to put five rounds through its innards.
At last we reached the ship’s top deck, and came to junction 17, not far from where Murdock and I had killed that first Social Party commando.
“All right,” said Corbin. “This is how we’ll play it. Nelson, go with Rodriguez to the main blast doors, and take two of the techs. Nikolai, Murdock, and the other techs will accompany me on the maintenance walkways to the bridge. Use the computer to open the bridge blast doors. When you do, signal us.” He tapped the radio module clipped to his ear. “We’ll come in through the access panel and attack at the same time. Between our two groups, we’ll hopefully catch the Social Party commandos in a crossfire, and we can free Hawkins and take control of the ship.”
“And the captain?” said Murdock.
“Take him alive if possible,” said Corbin. “Hawkins can unlock the primary systems, but we’ll need Williams to unlock the weapons. If you encounter Ducarti, kill him on sight. The man is too dangerous to leave alive.”
Ever since the explosion on New Chicago, I had fantasized about taking vengeance upon Alesander Ducarti. I had also known it would never happen. The Thousand Worlds were a big place, and I probably would never see Ducarti again.
Now I might have the chance to kill him myself.
I didn’t know how to feel about that. I did know that I wouldn’t hesitate in the slightest to shoot him. I could sort out how I felt about it later.
“Radio check,” said Corbin. We took a moment to make sure our radio modules were synchronized and functioning properly. “Good hunting, everyone. Stay calm and keep your heads down.”
“You, too,” said Nelson, checking something on his K7. “All right. Rodriguez, you two, come with me” Nelson head down the maintenance walkway, followed by Arthur and two of the techs, all holding their weapons ready.
“Follow me,” said Corbin. We went in the other direction, came to an access ladder, and climbed it to the next deck. We found ourselves in the maintenance walkway running next to the dorsal corridor and the rooms on the top level of the ship—the bridge, the observation lounge, the computer room, the communications room, and the other control areas. I half-expected to find another set of security drones waiting for us, but the walkway was empty. I realized that Ducarti had thought to trap us in the cargo bays, and had arranged his drones accordingly. That meant there was likely an ambush of his men awaiting us in the main corridors outside of the cargo bays.
