by T. F. Grant
Everything drifted in Hollow Space.
***
Vekan walked along the corridor, with Brec by her side. He had raced back from the attack on the bridge to tell her of a way to the bridge that had not been protected. A way that the vuls could use to overcome the holders of the area.
“We can take the whole ship, Vekan. Imagine. It would be ours and ours alone. The gold we could claim. We could rise to rule a pack of our own. We would be vulta, leaders of the vul.”
She doubted that, but his enthusiasm was infectious. Only four or five holding the bridge? They had decent weapons, and the vul had already lost three younglings to their accurate fire. Losses that should be accounted for. The debt of life taken from the skins of the enemy.
Another youngling stalked ahead of Brec and Vekan. He moved quickly, checking every doorway.
Brec touched helmets. “There are many corridors ahead. I will help to scout the right way.”
“Go, my love,” Vekan said, using the words she felt, words that she rarely used. “Go and find us a way to take this ship.”
A tangle of corridors, stairways and drop-shafts lay ahead. Too many for the people of the bridge to guard effectively. She would send the youngling back to bring up the rest of the pack. They would creep up through these pathways to the bridge, and then they would take this ship.
***
“Close up your helmets,” Tai ordered.
Kina gave him the all ready over the intercom.
Tai latched down his helmet. He reached across to start the air pumps going, because Kina was with Hela, Lofreal and Scaroze next to the open hatch. They held onto a wire strung by the kronacs. The newcomers floated behind, hanging onto another wire. Only Bookworm looked remotely ready for what was about to happen. His shotgun was slung barrel-down so he could swing it into action in a single movement.
Tai had seen him cock it once to put a shell in the chamber and then slide another shell into the magazine. That man was going to do just fine on Haven.
So long as he survived the next few minutes.
The sound of the air pumps attenuated. Tai kept his eye on the pressure gauge. When the ship was air-free, he turned back, checked his aim, and said, “Firing in… one… two… three,” and snapped back the trigger for rocket one.
A moment later the Mary-May shuddered as the rocket lit up in its tube. The roar traveled up through the hull, into the decking under their feet, and into their ears.
Game time.
ELEVEN
Vekan was still ten meters behind her comrades when the explosion struck. The Venture jerked sideways under the impact. With her quick reflexes, Vekan threw herself into a small side corridor. With no air to carry the shock wave, she did not feel the explosion as such, but the shrapnel and expanding gas of the explosion carried more energy without air to push through.
The shreds of metal peppered the walls of the corridor, and Vekan dropped to the deck as the ball of flame expanded over her. She ducked her head down, tucked her arms under her body, and hoped that her armor would absorb the worst of it.
It did… just.
She crawled forward, back into the corridor. There was Brec, alive and moving.
Cannon fire smashed into the hull breach. Brec’s body jerked away as the heavy shells ripped into him. Brec’s body hit the deck hard. He wasn’t moving. Brec wasn’t moving!
She dashed across to him and checked his vitals. No! Brec was dead. She keened. Her love was dead! Gold fever turned to bloodrage in that instant.
She would bring up the pack and kill, rend, rip, and destroy those who had taken her love, her mate, from her. With a yowling scream echoing inside her helmet, that no one else could hear, she raced back along the corridor, sprinting around the curve, toward the fifteen vul Younglings still alive on the ship.
***
Tooize stopped firing, whistling the all clear.
Tai swung the Mary-May around fast. He knew without looking that Hela was leaping across the gap even before the ship touched the hull of the Venture’s hulk. Kina was not far behind her, and the two kronacs waited only long enough to sling the grappling hooks into the twisted struts of the Venture’s hull before following.
***
Linus felt the explosion through the balls of his feet. Nearly time to go, but oh, the AI was so worth the time and effort. He continued working on taking the AI’s crystal core out of its socket, admiring its iridescent blue hue.
Just one more weld to snap, and then he would be gone.
He had to be careful with it. They were hard to sell, but worth a lot if he could find the right buyer. Very few AI cores remained intact after a suicide jump into Hollow Space.
Had to be careful getting out of here too—take the long route, keep the burns down, slide away under the jets and wait until he was behind the bulk of the Venture, then use a ballistic burn to get him around and back to Haven. Let Tai deal with the vul. Now that’d be a fun fight to watch, he thought, but sadly no time.
Linus smiled and kept working on the housing of the AI core.
***
Sara sucked in a deep breath of air, filling her lungs. Her hands hooked into the line, and her feet tensed against the deck. She tucked and rolled. Her guts twisted as she watched the wires from the grappling hooks tighten, mating the Mary-May to the Venture like lovers.
With their suits on and not enough intercom line to go round, at least for her and the rest of the newcomers—Margo and Murlowe would be fine, though—Sara tried to remember all the hand signals Tai and Kina had taught them before they headed out.
She knew the one Tai flashed as he floated up to the hatch, two fingers pointing forward: grab your weapons and follow me.
She turned her head to face the rest of the Venture crew. Bookworm nodded to her, his face grim, still faraway. She hoped he’d eventually come back to the real world when the shit hit the fan. DeLaney looked as scared as ever, but at least he’d learned to hold the shotgun. The twins were calm, focused, and the two other kids who’d barely spoken since the whole adventure started were sweating like a Markesian on an ice-moon prison.
Sara gave them a hand signal by making a circle with her thumb and forefinger. Ready? Everyone else bar Bookworm responded. She faced the hatch and watched as Tai and the others moved further into the ship.
Tooize strapped himself into a bucket seat behind a turreted machine gun set up on the breach, ready to mow anyone down who dared to board the Mary-May. She hoped he wouldn’t get trigger-happy and mistake one of the crew.
She gritted her teeth and boarded her ship. One way or another, she’d help take it back. This was their ship, their home, the only thing they had left.
***
Tai took up position at the edge of the corridor among the splattered remains of two vul. He could no longer see the hatch of the Mary-May. The corridors in this hulk twisted and turned in strange ways. Sara had said an AI architect designed them for maximum efficiency.
The damn thing could have been designed with proper lines of bloody sight. He couldn’t see more than thirty meters in any direction, and even then the corridors kinked and created dead ground. Spaces where an enemy could lie in wait.
As always happened in Hollow Space, the grav-plates on the deck had set in a single orientation relative to the planet. It would take a lot of skill to reorientate them once they were lifted from the decks, but the price they fetched was worth it. For now, though, they just made the hulk a place of difficult surfaces and crazy angles.
Not a place for a vul hunt.
And Tooize was unsighted. He could not hold their rear against any sudden attack. All the kronac could do was defend the hatch of the Mary-May.
Tai held the shotgun ready, pointing down the corridor, and arranged the newcomers with emphatic gestures. Placing them in dead areas in the corridor, behind solid cover, while he checked forward, making sure nobody hid close by ready to launch a surprise attack.
Too many damn corridors for his sma
ll force. This was the dangerous bit. They had to take the bridge. Hold it. Set up arcs of fire for the newcomers, bring the Mary-May up to the hatch, set up the machine gun, and then he and his crew—plus Hela, never forget Hela—could go on a vul hunt and drive those overcautious creatures from the hulk of the Venture.
But right now. His tactical senses screamed of danger.
Bookworm moved quickly, covering Tai’s open flank. Sara got to cover just where Tai pointed. The two weird-arse twins moved more slowly, but eventually were in safe locations, which left DeLaney and the two wide-eyed kids.
They stumbled around, trying to avoid kneeling in the bloody remains of what looked like two vul. The blood was already solidifying as the moisture sublimed into the vacuum. The newcomers were in spacesuits, for God’s sake. What did it matter if they knelt in the damn thing’s entrails? It wasn’t like they could freaking smell it.
Hela waited at the bottom of the drop-shaft, which Sara had indicated led straight to the bridge. Lofreal and Scaroze were already swarming up the shaft, carrying a coil of climbing line with them.
Kina jogged over to Tai, stopping to pick up the vul’s blade-guns on the way and stashing them away in her carry sack. Her pick, her spoils. Tai had been too busy arranging the newcomers to snag the guns for himself. He’d give her that one.
She touched helmets with him. “Hela’s going first up the line. The kronacs will stop just below the bridge. She wants to know if you want to follow her up. I’ll take care of the newcomers.”
Tai considered the request. Better him than Kina following Hela onto the bridge. “Okay. Bookworm is good. Sara will do. The twins are slow but do what they’re told. The other three… Well, they’ll be good for drawing fire.”
“Got it.” Kina flicked a glance at Sara, breaking the contact between her and Tai’s helmets.
He leaned forward and touched helmets again. “Keep your panties dry until we have fumigated this frecking ship of vuls. You hear me, Ki? If it comes down to you or her, then it better be her I find face up on the deck, bubbling air and blood.”
“I hear you.”
“If you are attacked, fall back toward the Mary-May. Tooize can cover you from there.”
“But what about you?”
“I don’t have a bunch of stumbling newbs with me. I have Hela. I’ll be fine. But you fall back, right smart, Ki. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
Tai stood, waved DeLaney and his pair of useless lapdogs back into cover, and jogged over to Hela.
They touched helmets.
“I go first,” Hela said. “You cover. Got it?”
“To the lady goes the glory,” Tai replied.
The kronacs dropped the climbing line back down the shaft. Tai bowed dramatically to Hela. She began to climb.
***
Linus took one last look around the bridge, the AI core under his arm, and then stepped into the Spacewolf. Nice bit of work that. He closed up the hatch, and Jones nudged them away from the Venture as Whiack started up the air pumps.
“Have fun, Tai, those are youngling vul. They might just decide to attack your scrawny arse.”
He laughed and unlatched his helmet, breathing in the freshly scrubbed ship’s air. “Great job, Jonesy, great job. Dinner’s on me tonight.”
***
Tai climbed up the rope behind Hela. Sweat dripped within the suit. With all his gear, he was probably carrying three-quarters of his own body weight in guns, armor, and spacesuit. And the gravity of the hulk was still on and twisted, which made things even more difficult.
Pretty penny to be made off of that.
Hela rested above him. He looped the rope around his foot and rested too. Hard work, but worth the payoff.
As he hung on the rope, thirty meters below the bridge, he hoped that Kina was keeping her head below. This was no time for heroics.
***
Sara dashed through the corridor, followed by Bookworm and the others.
She seemed panicked. Her shotgun was cocked, waiting for a reload. Bookworm had a grim expression on his face as he loaded two more shells into his gun. Sara’s mouth was opening and closing rapidly; she’d forgot they couldn’t hear her in a vacuum.
Kina touched helmets with her. “What did you see?”
“I’m not sure. It all happened so fast. Something low to the ground, quick, it slid into one of the side corridors.”
“Which side corridor? Where does it lead?”
“There.” Sara pointed. “It comes out there.”
Kina looked through the dark of the aperture. Should she fall back, as Tai had told her? She knew his advice came from both experience and his loyalty to her, but also a disregard for these poor newbie bastards. Kina had seen enough of Sara to know she’d be a useful ally once fully integrated into Haven.
Besides, with the vul crawling around the place like vermin, she had to be sure of what Sara had seen. With any luck, they could get a drop on the filthy bastards.
***
Vekan and her vul crawled forward, their bellies touching the decks, their taloned gloves over their hands. Bloodrage gleamed in their eyes. Their tactics were simple: get close enough, get into as many different locations as possible, and then leap forward into the attack, and overwhelm the enemies in a boiling mass of fire and blood. Vekan did not have to tell her vul what to do. This was hunting, and they all knew their place in the hunt.
***
Tai and Hela hung just below the top of the drop-shaft, in the strong arms of two kronac. Lofreal had Hela’s booted feet in two of her strong hands, and Scaroze held Tai the same way.
Hela checked her shotgun, balancing easily above the long drop. She looked at Tai. Tai looked back. She grinned a magnificently nasty grin behind her faceplate and nodded to the kronacs.
Tai took a deep breath.
The kronacs bounced them, once, twice, on the third they heaved upward with all their might.
Tai and Hela flew up and out of the drop-shaft opening. Hela somersaulted through the vacuum, hitting the deck rolling. Tai landed on his feet, sweeping the bridge with his shotgun.
Hela checked the bridge, expertly and efficiently checking every possible hiding place. It was empty.
She looked disappointed.
***
Kina’s breath sounded harsh in her ears. Sweat trickled down her face, despite the headband that everybody wore. With no external sound, she relied on her sight from behind a faceplate prone to reflections and glare in the harsh, sharp-edged light, unsoftened by any kind of atmosphere.
The helmet blocked a large part of her peripheral vision, so she had to keep moving her aim, sweeping back and forth to compensate for it. The Venture’s corridors were snarly as a bag of string, too many frecking doors and weird angles. AIs and their ideas of logic were messed up. They were too clever for their own damned good.
Kina licked her lips. Check this side corridor; then that’s it. She would fall back to the Mary-May. Tai would be fine. Tai had Hela and two kronacs by his side.
But this… this freaking vul hunt she was engaged in right now—this was crazy without backup she could trust. Either way, it had to be done. She couldn’t afford to let the vul overwhelm them. They’d already lost the Fractal to them last week, losing out on a massive payday. Well, this was a chance of recouping some of that debt with their blood.
Just one more door to check.
She sidled forward and pushed it open with her foot. Her gun in front of her, she swept back and forth. Where the gun pointed, she looked, no glances away, no turning the head. The sights were an extension of her vision.
A flash came from the darkness. A vul aiming at her perhaps?
Kina fired two shots instinctively. She didn’t wait to see if they hit; she turned and ran. She had to get back to the newbs and get them out of here and fall back further into the Venture to avoid being trapped by more vul.
Too late: the newbs, led by Sara and Bookworm, had turned into the corridor, fa
cing Kina. Sara’s eyes grew wide as she lifted her gun.
***
Sara came through the door into what would have been the main mess hall, but now it looked like a charnel house. Blood smeared the wall and tables. The place crawled with shadows, but there, turning to face her, was Kina, and behind her…
A huge vul jumped over Kina’s head and reached out its taloned gloves toward Prescott standing next to Sara.
Sara fumbled her gun, trying to remember the firing procedure, but panicked and just raised the gun and pulled the trigger, closing her eyes with the shock of it. The recoil was way worse than she expected, even with the warning. She flew back, clattering into what she thought was DeLaney and the twins.
Bookworm, now in front of her, stepped elegantly to his left while raising the shotgun and fired two rounds. He’d reloaded before she’d managed to scramble to her feet.
When she righted herself, she saw the decapitated body of a wolflike creature. So this is what a vul looked like. It was way more dangerous-looking than was described in the Codex.
She shook with fear, adrenaline, and then grief. Prescott was dead, his spacesuit and chest ripped apart. The vul only managed a single attack, but it was enough. The poor kid died of asphyxia long before he had bled out, which was probably a blessing. She could see his internal organs through the rips in his flesh.
Bookworm fired two more rounds into the darkness while sliding behind an overturned table. Sara felt paralyzed; there’d be too many of them.
***
Kina skidded to her knees, rounds splattering the walls around her in eerie silence.
