Harkness’ face worked even as the veins went from red to purplish, mottling his expression. “I could,” he said, finally, defeated by his inability to vent his anger adequately. “You damn son of a bitch.”
Jack ignored him. “Alij, I need you to set up coords for some alternate windows.”
Cat-quick, the navigator sat back down. Harkness spat and then said, “Belay that order.”
“Do it, Alij.”
The navigator looked from Jack’s quiet insistence to his pilot. He stopped, unsure of what to do next.
“I need those coords now.”
“No, goddammit! This is still my ship!”
“No,” Jack said. “Not now it isn’t. Now it is damn near the Thraks’ ship and the longer we argue, the closer we are.”
The pilot’s ham hands folded into fists. “I won’t let you do it!”
“Sir?” Alij looked from face to face.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Harkness threw at him. “He means to jettison the cold bay and let the Thraks scuttle after it.”
The two subordinate officers stopped in their movements and looked to Jack, shock livid on their faces.
Jack shook his head. “No,” he said. “I mean to set them free in subspace, before the Thraks know we’ve done it. It’s their only chance. We’ll still be the main target.” He waved a gauntlet about the cabin. “The main lifeboat gone, we’ll still have considerable left of this hulk. Most of it empty, isn’t it, Harkness?”
“You’re my only contract this run,” the pilot grumbled reluctantly. His mottling began to fade and his small eyes showed a flicker of interest instead of rage. “I still think you’re a son of a bitch, but I’m beginning to think you’re up to something.”
“Good,” Jack answered. “I am. Set the crew to readying the lifeboat for detachment. As soon as Alij has coords to show me, I’ll be picking out the release point.”
“Where do you want them to be?” Alij asked as he swung around in his chair and prepared to manipulate the computer.
“Away from us and the Thraks. Preferably behind them, if they’ll have the trajectory. Pilot, come with me.”
Harkness’ rage was gone now, replaced by wariness. “Why?”
“I need you to give some orders, and a tour.” Jack smiled, but it was not an altogether pleasant expression. “I want to see what’s left of this shell with the main lifeboat gone.”
Jack doubted if Harkness had ever heard of a Trojan Horse or would appreciate the strategy if told of it. The pilot gave orders to cast off the lifeboat without further question, but was uncharacteristically silent as he waddled along beside Jack’s armor. Most of the transport was dimly lit, if at all.
Jack paused a moment and waited for their footsteps to stop echoing inside a corridor.
He looked down at the pilot. “No wonder you’re a poor man, Harkness… all this space and only one contract for the run.”
The man flushed again, red bursting all the way into the wattle of his neckline. He spat to one side. “What do you want from me?”
“I want to know where you keep the contraband. The corridors and holds.” Jack rapped sharply on a metal plate. “Like behind here.”
With a noise that was more growl than hawk, Harkness reached for a bolt and twisted it. The panel slid open. Jack aimed the sensor-tripped lightbeam from his helmet into the area. It was empty. He looked at the pilot.
Harkness shrugged. “Figure it out,” he said. “I had to make the run empty this time. Pepys didn’t give me a chance to pick up any other cargo.”
Jack pursed his lips in thought a moment as he examined the interior of the hidden hold. He stopped his inspection long enough to reply, “And that just might save your life, Harkness. Now show me the rest of the tunnels.”
The pilot shook his head, not in denial but in puzzlement. He looked up at Jack, one eye narrowed as if trying to focus on him better. The pilot’s intense gaze swept across Jack’s face. “Where the hell does Pepys get his Knights from?”
Jack smiled tightly. “You’d be surprised, pilot. You’d be surprised.”
“I already am. Follow me,” Harkness returned and then continued waddling down the corridor. He did not seem to notice that his gripper boots made far more noise than those of Jack’s heavy armor. “It occurs to me that I might owe you an apology.”
“For thinking I’m afraid of Thraks? I have a healthy respect for them, and the damage they can do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t even consider casting the cryo bay off.”
“Then what do you have in mind?” Harkness stumbled to a halt, and his eyes narrowed. “You’re going to let them board us.”
“Yes.”
“And we’ll hide like smugglers.”
“No,” Jack corrected. “You’ll hide like smugglers. I’ll be hunting.”
“Jay-sus,” Harkness blurted. He rubbed his hand over his face.
“Now,” Jack finished. “Show me the whereabouts of the backup lifeboat.”
This request the pilot didn’t even try to figure out. He just turned and led Jack to it without another word.
Jack sat in the gym, the only place really large enough to accommodate him when he was equipped, and he studied the information Alij and Leoni had brought him. The copy lay across his lap. The shortness of time niggled at him when a buzz of static came across the intercom and Leoni intoned, “The cryo bay’s ready for cast off.”
Jack stood. The copy sloughed off his lap and drifted to the floor, but Jack did not pick it up. The information was branded in his mind and it was not likely that he could close his eyes for the next few weeks and not see it emblazoned across his vision. He traversed the corridors to the bridge where Harkness and the other two awaited him. They were standing double-watch, and the stress of the command showed in their bloodshot eyes as they watched him fill the doorway.
He told Alij which coords he wanted used, and the navigator repeated them to the computer.
Harkness had his head tilted, listening. “That doesn’t give us much time,” the pilot remarked.
“No. Nor them.” Jack cleared his throat. “Before it goes, I want you to tell the nursing staff to start waking the sleepers.”
“What? What in the hell are you thinking of? They’ve got four weeks’ supply with sleepers. Less than ten days awake, or maybe you didn’t hear Leoni earlier. And that’s just an estimate. If any of those Knights are as big as you are, the demand’s stronger.”
“I heard,” Jack said. He felt the pain etching itself into furrows across his forehead. “But I won’t condemn anyone to drift into death asleep.”
“If the Thraks take us,” Harkness persisted, “it’ll take two weeks to get Dominion needlers out here to pick them up. They can’t make it awake, you’ve got to leave them chilled down.”
“Then,” Jack said, “I’ll just have to make sure the Thraks don’t take us.” He turned and left the bridge, but he could feel the fear and hatred in their eyes washing after him.
Jack felt the lurch and plunge of the transport as the cryo bay left it. He moved to the portal screen and watched it drop away suddenly, its inertia carrying it on a different voyage from that of the mother ship as Harkness fired retros to change the course of the transport. He felt Amber’s and Colin’s nearness torn away from him as if, even in sleep, they had been close in their dreams and thoughts. Don’t let this be a mistake, he thought. Then he straightened. Ten days and counting. Amber had ten days of life left for him to defeat the Thraks and relocate the cryo bay.
As painful as it was, he did not stop watching the tracking blip until the screen lost it. Instead of ordering it to fine tune on the blip and follow it, Jack let it go.
He hooked up the suit in a way it hadn’t been since the Sand Wars. He paused as he reached the dead man circuit. That little device was to prevent the armor being taken from him by enemies on the battlefield. Remove a dead or wounded Knight from his armor without knowing how to disarm the circuit, and the suit self-destructed. He
would be facing the enemy now. He looped the circuit in. He was nine days and counting when the freighter erupted out of subspace and began braking for Malthen, and the Thrakian warship flared into being beside them, tractor beams on full, and the two ships shuddered as they made contact.
Then he smiled.
Chapter 4
Amber wore her thermal sheet about her like a cape. It kept her warm. Her clothes weren’t enough; cold sleep permeated the entire atmosphere of the bay, and her skin was peaked with goosebumps that refused to go away, even when Colin dropped his arm about her shoulders. His presence was enough to light a fire normally and she gratefully shrugged into the added heat although nothing would help the emptiness of waking up and finding Jack gone.
“Your hands are ice cold, child,” the older man scolded after reaching for and cupping one. “You came off dialysis too quickly!” His handsomeness had softened into aged good looks, but his square chin jutted in concern.
“No! No, it’s not that.” Amber cut him off from summoning the nurse. She darted out from under his embrace with a quickness born of the streets. Colin watched her impassively as, now facing him, she remembered their shared past together, how the two of them had met, and knew he also remembered. She had the grace to flush. She’d been stranded on a very wintery and inhospitable frontier post and she’d tried to roll the Walker prelate. His aide had caught her—her punishment had been that Colin took her in and helped her in her quest. That time, after basic survival, it had been to find Jack.
A cold tremor swept through her. Colin put his hand out to her again. “Come on,” he said. “You’ll feel better when we find Jack. We’ll both feel better.”
Amber shook her head even as they moved off together. “Jack’s not here,” she said.
“Nonsense. Maybe he’s not up yet, but we’ll find him.”
Amber stopped in her tracks, forcing Colin to a halt also. “Colin, Jack didn’t go into cold sleep. He’s not here.” She added softly, “I think we’re detached. That’s why the nursing staff isn’t letting us disperse to transport quarters. This bay and the three rooms—that’s all there is.”
“Detached? You mean we’re floating free?”
“I think so. Jack thought this whole bay looked like a lifeboat. Something’s gone wrong and they won’t tell us until everyone is awake.” Suddenly, the thermal sheeting had done its work. She felt warm, burning, and she let the sheet fall to the deck. The shame of being left behind by Jack flushed through her being. He didn’t trust her—how could he? Somehow he must have learned that her mission on Bythia had been to kill him. And although the snakeskin Hussiah had taught her well, had peeled away her subliminal training to kill, he had also brought her psychic assassination abilities to the surface. Her rescue by Jack had saved his life as well as her own. But… had he known? Did he doubt her still? She rubbed at her blue-dyed arms as if she could chafe away her past and her fears.
Before she could say more, a young man detached himself from the group forming at the interior bay doors and strode their way. He wore the rich dark blue uniform of a Dominion Knight. Its color set off the white-blondness of his looks, silken hair in a defiant brush, eyes that were blue without compromise of gray or green, fair skin that had acquired a sprinkling of freckles from exposure to the Bythian sun. He drew near them, a wrinkle across his young forehead from his earnest expression. A look passed between the Walker saint and this young soldier. He paused as if he’d intended to speak to Colin first, then turned and looked at her.
“Are you all right?”
Amber looked at him. She tried to quell her rapidly growing anger, but Rawlins evidently felt it. His blue eyes showed his pain. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Rawlins. Jack isn’t here.”
“I know that, ma’am. The commander told me he was staying awake.”
“He told you?” Amber thought he’d told no one but her.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s been anticipating action from the Thrakian League. I’d say from our present situation that we’ve been cut loose from transport and as we lose momentum, we’ll be coming out of sub-space shortly. I’d also say he’s had some of the trouble he’s been looking for.” Rawlins flushed across the cheekbones as though he’d relish sharing that trouble.
Colin frowned. His wrinkles, unlike Rawlins’, were permanent. “What’s our situation here?”
“Air and rations for about ten days. Maybe more if we stay relatively dormant. We’re on a kind of autopilot but without the navigational equipment we need to redirect our course.” Rawlins’ gaze flickered and he looked toward Amber. “I came by to ask if I can help. I’d like to… look out for you.”
Amber was hugging herself and staring off at a plated wall of the bay as though her gaze could burn a porthole through it. She brought herself back long enough to meet Rawlins’ gaze. “I’m all right.”
“Are you sure?” He bent quickly and picked up the thermal sheeting. “Cold sleep fever can be awfully hard on some people.”
“I don’t get it,” Amber said tightly, as though her throat had closed up.
Rawlins looked back to the older man. “St. Colin?”
“I’m fine, thank you, lieutenant.”
“I never had a chance to thank you, sir, but I’m told you saved my life.”
There was a strange faraway look on the older man’s face, but he gave only a short nod and said, “I was pleased to do it. You came to my aid in a difficult situation.”
“Yes, sir. I don’t remember much. I guess I just acted in a rush… but I’m glad I could be of help.” Rawlins straightened but stopped short of snapping off a salute. “I’ll be back if you need me.”
Colin waited until Rawlins was out of earshot, then chuckled. Amber broke away from her inner thoughts long enough to glare at the Walker saint. “What’s so funny?”
“Ah, my dear. It’s you. You’re breaking hearts again.”
“I am? Oh.” She stared off after Rawlins who’d disappeared into the ranks of now awakened Knights. She said nothing further, but folded herself up and sat down cross-legged on the cold floor. Jonathan detached himself from the medical quarters and, lumbering bearlike through the crowd, came in search of his minister. Colin sighed as he saw his bodyguard approach and looked down at her. “What are you going to do?”
“Meditate,” Amber said.
“That sounds like an excellent idea. I could do with a bit of prayer myself.” Unceremoniously, Colin joined her on the floor.
The old ship creaked and groaned as it was invaded. Jack leaned back inside his suit and listened through his mikes, picking up movement despite infamous Thrakian stealth. The short hairs along the back of his neck prickled. A rivulet of sweat started down his bare back between his shoulder blades, but the chamois that was Bogie’s regenerated life soaked it up greedily.
The waiting would be the hardest. He had no qualms about that. Killing them would be difficult, but waiting for them to penetrate the various traps and deceptions he’d planted throughout the ship’s hulk would be the hardest. That, and wondering if the Thraks would simply kill off Harkness and the crew once Jack’s work began.
It was the little glitch in Jack’s Trojan Horse plan which he’d forgotten to mention to the pilot. The Thraks might forget they were looking for Dominion Knights and simply take out their anger on the nearest human captives. Harkness and the crew would be easy for the Thraks to pick up, if they hadn’t already. In a ship riddled with hideyholes, Jack had left them no place to hide. Jack had had to categorize the ship’s crew as expendable. He’d had no choice. But that didn’t mean he liked having done it. He wanted surety he’d be able to retrieve the cryogenic bay and Amber safely.
A hair thin thread of noise reached him. Jack’s palms began to sweat. The gauntlets tingled at his wrists, indicating power up. He set his teeth.
He could hear them now. Their measured tread along the corridor flooring. The occasional metal clank as they probed the plates. Soon. Very soon now the two of them exp
loring this corridor would discover a hollowness where there should be none. They would, of course, investigate. Thraks might be alien, but they were not lacking in curiosity.
Metal and plastic sounded as the plating was drawn back. Jack braced himself as his target grids suddenly registered two blips. He was hidden. He wanted the Thraks within this hold before he killed them.
And he wanted to kill them as quietly as he could.
A blinding white beam Jack’s visor could not screen out quickly enough swept his face plate. Vision seared, Jack swore and fired automatically, trusting his targeting grid. With a high keen, two forms thumped to the decking. He could hear their muffled death throes.
Blinking until he could see through his watering eyes, Jack stumbled out of the back of the hold. Both Thraks lay still, their chest plates punctured by his glove lasers. Lucky shots.
No. Not lucky. Instinctual.
He stared down at their huge bodies. Not quite insects. Supple, within their own dark brown and sable body plates. In death, their face plates had gone slack, exposing leathery skin and gaping mandibles. He supposed that would count for an expression of surprise. He’d never seen a Thrakian face without its face plates carefully held in a masklike position. Each mask indicated an emotional nuance, very formalized in its positioning. Diplomatic Thraks were more theatrical than the warriors, but even warriors used their masks as if they were shields.
Jack kicked the forms aside and left the contraband hold, making his way to the next trap.
He encountered his next victim in the corridor. As the creature seemed to sense him and turned, Jack hit the power vault and kicked. His foot connected with a sickening crunch. The armored boot knocked its head bouncing down the dim aisleway where it rolled into a crevice. Jack caught up the spasming body and carried it with him to the next hold where he threw it as far as he could into an empty corner. Ichor splashed as he did. Jack stepped into a shadowed far corner.
They sent another trio after him six hours later.
Jack jerked awake from his doze as Bogie said, *They’re here, boss.*
Alien Salute Page 4
