Quite Possibly Heroes (Freeman Universe Book 3), page 27
54
He landed on the back of the exo, nearly dropping the hammer as he looped an arm around its neck, fumbled for the power switch one-handed, and felt the hammer burst to life. He thumbed the stroke and impact to full, brought the business end onto the exo’s helmet, and it pounded a dozen strokes—ten, twelve, maybe twenty standard gravities at the far end of the isolation handle that damped the vibration—but didn’t stop it, and the big man-machine shrugged its shoulders. Seamus dropped the hammer, which kept on hammering, and gripped the exo around the neck, feeling for a catch for the helmet, there had to be one, they put the helmets on and took them off, but it wasn’t where it would be for a hardsuit, and it wasn’t anywhere obvious he could feel, and then the exo yanked a leg free from the fast patch.
The plasma rifle roared, gouging a furrow in the deck, and a fiery-eyed woman skidded out of the way at the last instant, scooped something up, and tossed it, hard and underhand, not to Seamus, but to a crazy-haired man who caught it one-handed, and rocketed it on, directly at Seamus’s face.
Seamus snatched it an instant before it could break his nose, pulled it far enough away from his eyeballs that he could see it, and felt the grin spread across his face as he thumbed the monomolecular drill alive. He had no idea what size hole it was set for, but it didn’t matter. The device twirled a monomolecular whip in an oscillating and rotating fashion, drilling through whatever was in front of it up to and including hull plate. The thing was made for hogging out pinholes until they were large enough to weld. When he pressed it to the helmet, it made a satisfying whine, which meant he could spit his rebreather out, there was atmosphere. He bore down on the drill with both hands and all his might—they were practically indestructible—and then the whine changed, dust puffed from around the hole, and he was through, now what, as an armored fist engulfed his forearm, snapped it, and flung him off the exo’s back. He was arcing through the air in front of it, and it was bringing its plasma rifle to bear, and he was looking down the muzzle, and he slammed into the deck and didn’t bounce. Plasma fire seared overhead, the roasting smell flooding his nostrils, the scream of superheated atmosphere being torn apart, the wave of blistering heat centimeters from his flesh.
It felt like a longboat had landed on his back. His nose was broken and blood spreading in a pool over the deck, and he wanted to lift his face out of the gore but settled for rolling over on his cheek so he could look at something besides the deck plates.
They were all down, the woman, the man, Macer. Even the exo was on its knees and trying to stand. He couldn’t see the distant crowd but could hear them, shouting, weeping, cursing.
A massive hullwalker blocked his view as a big man dropped to his knees beside Seamus. He looked like a convict, shaved headed, and Seamus chuckled; I feel like a convict, one who’d been cut from the gallows with a single breath left in him, and now the ship itself trying to crush the last bit of life out of him.
The big convict-man palmed a can of pinhole seal. “You see that little tube that goes with this anywhere?”
Seamus managed to move a finger. He pointed. It was a rubbish design, the tubes were constantly getting separated and lost, even though they were bright red and longer than an outstretched hand from wrist to fingertip.
“Thanks.”
And then the man was on his feet in what had to be four gravities, maybe more, and he lumbered toward the exo as it tried to bring its weapon to bear, and he climbed on the fast patch behind it, gripping its neck in one massive hand, jamming the pinhole-seal tube in the hole Seamus had drilled in the exo helmet with the other, then he held the trigger down and didn’t stop holding it until the can pumped propellant through the nozzle, and the exo stopped rattling and twitching, trapped halfway in and out of a frozen sea of fast patch.
The man crashed to the deck beside Macer, reached for Macer’s handheld, and dialed the gravity back to something merely unbearable.
They were all up, towering over Seamus, and the fiery-eyed woman stared down at him and said, “Nice catch.” She held out her hand, and he took it an instant before he remembered he had a broken arm.
“Nice war cry,” the crazy-haired man said. “A little piercing and late in the action, but decently loud.”
Someone cried out in pain in the distance, and a young boy shouted “Yi-sheng”—medic—and then a chorus of cries in Huangxu and the lash of a Freeman merchant’s tongue overriding the shouts. It sounded like he was on the spindle, but it felt like he was on the ring, the crush of gravity pinning him to the deckplates. He might be able to stand. He just wasn’t sure if the effort was worth it.
“Get him into an autodoc.” The big man kicked Macer. “You too.”
Seamus tried to stand. “My friends—”
“I won’t eat them until you’re there to watch.”
55
Seamus stood. His arm had begun to ache in earnest. He glanced at Macer. What skin he could see on his friend looked red and swollen. In an hour or less it would start to blister. Anyone who’d had fast patch on their bare skin wouldn’t want it on them twice.
A Huangxu boy shouted for a medic again. Seamus started walking toward the noise, and the remnant of the crowd at the far end of the compartment. There were people up and moving and a fair number of them down. The open space of the liberty boat bay hadn’t provided much cover other than the bolted-in five-seaters that were standard issue in League public areas, the sort of low-backed benches that offered a little cover for a little while, but only then if they were situated perpendicular to the line of fire, and these weren’t. There wasn’t as much blood as after knife fight or a shootout with slug-throwers, but there was more carnage and that roasted-meat odor that some people couldn’t stomach. Maybe if he hadn’t been raised on tubed paste and juice bulbs he’d find it disturbing as well.
There were a bunch of League kids in identical shipboard utilities, and they were shouting at one another in Huangxu, not spindle-pidgin, but Hundred Planets dialect, all shouted with the sort of precise diction that wouldn’t seem out of place in the Celestial Palace.
“Who is in charge?” Seamus couldn’t tell by looking at them. All seemed chaos, a half dozen of them dead or dying, nearly every one of them wounded. He estimated there was a score of them, or slightly more.
“Little Brother,” one of them said, and pointed to one of the wounded that looked like they might live.
“I’m in charge now,” Seamus said. “Who here can run?”
“I can,” one said.
“And who knows where the infirmary is?”
“We all do.”
“Then find two more who can run and race each other to the infirmary. If there is a fast-pallet, load it with all the large emergency med packs you can find in five minutes of looking. If there remains room on the fast-pallet, fill it with the medium med packs and return here. If there is no fast-pallet, don’t waste time looking. Fill your arms with as many large med packs as you can safely carry and run back here. You must be swift. You must be sure. You must go now. Do you understand?”
“We do, Merchant Lord.”
“I’m no merchant, and I’m no lord. Now go, and outrace the light.”
He dropped to his knees beside the one called Little Brother. He looked sixteen years old, standard, no older. There was a wicked plasma burn across his chest, the sort of glancing blow that meant it had barely missed, else he’d be roasted in half and nothing to be done about it. He winced and muttered beneath his breath. Seamus grabbed the boy’s wrist and checked his pulse. It was strong but elevated. “You’ll live.”
He stood and worked his way to the next, and didn’t need to kneel or check the boy’s pulse. “You won’t,” he muttered, and continued along the line. What happened downrange of a League exo looked a lot like the aftermath of gunplay on the spindle, the sort of territorial or honor fights that occurred between rival familial units. There were usually casualties, and often multiples, but nothing approaching one hundred percent wounded or killed. He glanced toward the airlock and the League exo mired in fast patch in front of it. There’d been a straight shot but enough cover that more of them should have been able to avoid fire. They were small and nimble. And whoever was in the exo hadn’t been aiming. They’d been spraying and praying.
And looking for something. Or someone.
One of the kids groaned. Seamus checked him out. “Med packs are coming.”
“Good. The merchant lord requires more.”
“I’m not a merchant. And I’m not a lord.”
“One can see this.” The boy rolled onto his side, spit blood, and peered toward the rear bulkhead. “But she is.”
He glanced into the distance, where Aoife nic Cartaí sat between a pair of plasma-scarred rows of five-seaters, propped up against the compartment bulkhead and staring into the distance.
“You’re her bodyguards.” That explained the high casualty rate.
“The Invincible Spear Bearers of Imperial Wrath,” the boy said.
“You don’t look so invincible.”
“Compared to our foes we do.”
“You aren’t children.”
“Who can afford to be?” He coughed. “The pilot. She needs a medic.”
“Where is she?”
The boy pointed. “Beyond those seats.”
He found her where she’d fallen. Both her legs had been sheared off below the knee, and someone had slapped med packs on her to keep her from bleeding out, but from the looks of her they’d been too late. Seamus dropped to his knees beside her and ran his fingers through her hair.
Oh, Janie Byrne, what have I done to you?
He took her hand in his.
He glanced at the deckhead, slid his fingers to her wrist, and felt for her pulse.
No joy.
Someone shouted. “Seamus!”
Someone shouted again.
Not someone. Macer Gant.
“Over here!”
“Oh,” Macer said, when he saw Janie.
“She’s gone.”
“How do you know that?”
“No pulse.”
“How do you know that?”
“I felt for it.”
“That’s a fine metal hand, Seamus. But are you sure it’s up to the task?”
He glanced at his fingers, and her wrist. “I—”
“Move off, and let me check.”
Macer elbowed him aside, and pressed his ear to her lips. “She’s not done yet.” He scooped Janie up in his arms. “Get her legs.”
“I can get one. My arm’s broken.”
“Pile one on top of her, then, and carry the other.”
“I don’t think an autodoc can fix that.”
“It’ll keep her alive.”
“But she’s a pilot.” She won’t want to live.
“She’s meat, if we don’t hurry up. We don’t have a doctor to fix her. Now get a move on.”
“There’s a doctor on Springbok.”
“The League gunship that sent this murderer over?”
“The courier vessel.”
“Well, let’s get her in an autodoc. We can call your courier doctor once Janie’s stable.”
“Is there a portable autodoc? One we could move onto the assault shuttle?”
“There isn’t. Now let’s go.”
The boys were back with a fast-pallet full of med packs and were distributing them efficiently.
“You know if you turned the gravity down, it would help people heal,” Seamus said.
“It is turned down to just under a standard gravity.”
“Oh. That’s fine then. What’s all that rubbish slathered on you?” Every visible bit of skin on Macer Gant seemed coated in viscous, shiny phlegm.
“Burn ointment. It’s supposed to be good for three hours.”
“Then what?”
“Then it’s no good anymore.”
“Got it.”
“I’d forgotten how fast and agile you were in null gee.” Macer climbed the ladder to the deck above.
“I like it light. That’s why I spent so much time on the spindle.”
“You spent so much time on the spindle because you identify with the underdog. And because you like a fight. Two hatches up, the infirmary.”
The autodocs were all occupied.
Macer rested Janie on an examination table. “Are they all set to stabilize and eject?”
Seamus checked. “All of them.”
“Who are we ejecting?”
“Macer—”
“You know we’re going to. It’s just a matter of deciding.”
“Then you do it.”
“Which is closest to done?”
“How can you tell?”
“There’s a timer.”
“I don’t see a timer.”
“Oh.” Macer picked Janie up. “I just thought of something. Follow me.”
“There’s a fast-pallet.”
“Like I’m pushing Janie around like cargo. If she dies, she dies in a man’s arms. Now get her legs and come on.”
56
Seamus jammed his broken arm into the hardsuit’s gauntlet. He gazed across the big tug’s boat bay where a gleaming longboat crouched beside the shuttered force window. There was an autodoc on board, a nice one, according to Macer, and he seemed well satisfied after he’d settled every part of Janie Byrne inside and set it to maximum heal, or whatever the top setting was called. Seamus’s experience with autodocs was entirely of the end-user variety. And while he’d logged more hours than most inside one, he’d looked at the control panels exactly twice in his life, and both of those times today. Knowing how to set one up was a job for a professional, and once inside the user had no control over the device in any case. If you didn’t trust your autodoc operator, there was no point in getting inside one.
Hardsuits were different. There the only person you needed to trust was yourself.
Macer peeled out of his utilities. “I never set a broken arm before. I thought it would be harder than that.”
“You pulled on my arm until I blacked out.”
“And a fair bit longer. But it’s straightforward. You can feel the bone move back into alignment.”
Seamus slid the other gauntlet on and latched it. “I’m glad only one of us could.”
“Can you move your fingers?”
He could. Painfully, but they worked. And the hardsuit helped. “Can you move your arse?”
“Some of us can’t just jump into one of these things. We have to ease into it.”
“You’re greased up enough for the job.”
“I am, and if this takes more than three hours? You can pry me out, and spritz me with more burn ointment until the screaming stops.”
Seamus yanked a helmet from the flight-crew ready rack. He examined it. “This is almost clean.”
“Thank you.” Macer squeezed his legs into the hardsuit. “I try.”
“Try faster.”
“Funny. Do you think this doctor will really help us?”
“I know she will. All we need do is get Janie to her while she’s still breathing.” Macer grabbed a helmet off the rack. “Let’s go.”
“Aren’t you going to inspect that?”
“I did when I racked it this morning.” He looked it over while they waited for the ready-room airlock to cycle.
“You racked that helmet and forgot about an entire longboat with an autodoc on board.”
“It’s been a stressful day. And I’m not used to the idea of having one.”
“The longboat.”
“I only stole it a little while ago.”
“But you checked the autodoc out.”
“Did I ever.” Macer touched the hatch control. “Less talking. More flying.”
Seamus slid into the pilot’s seat. “It’s a good thing it’s my contract-holding arm that’s broken, and not the yoke grabbing one.”
Macer dropped into the first officer’s seat. “I’m not reading you.”
“Lorelei told me that’s how us long-haul pilots roll. A contract in one hand and the yoke in the other.”
“How are you supposed to do that without spilling your drink?”
“The lass perched on your lap holds the beverage. Did you learn nothing in the Academy?”
“I learned that on the long-hauls lass and sister are considered synonyms.”
“That’s not even close to true.”
“Not if there’s a goat on board, you mean.”
“Go preflight the hull.”
“Like I’m leaving you alone inside here to jet. And if I found a problem and it looked likely to kill us would it stop you?”
“I’d jet anyway.”
“While I was outside, staring up at the hull. So fire it up and let’s roll. Pretend we’re a team.”
Seamus ran the thrusters through the preflight tests. He glanced at his friend, who’d left the cockpit door open so he could keep an eye on the autodoc telltales. “What did you do to the first officer’s controls?”
“Turned them into a brake pedal.”
“Well, don’t touch them, then.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“You make any other modifications?”
“Not me. But the mac Kennas put in a few.”
“Such as?”
“There’s a ‘fly straight’ control.”
Seamus chuckled. “On a Freeman longboat? I didn’t know we were allowed to do that.”
“I laughed too. But I think it’s there so the pilot can come back into the cabin and muck up the passengers.”
“That would be a surprise to the passengers.”
“I imagine that’s the idea.”
“What else?”
“I’m not sure what all else. Other than the plasma cannon.”
“A wee plasma cannon, of course. For a wee warship.”
“You’d think that, except you’d be wrong. There’s a button.”
“I see it.”
“Don’t push it.”
“Open the blast shutters and the force window and maybe I won’t.”
“I’m working on it.”
Seamus glanced into the passenger cabin. The autodoc telltales were burning green. “What’s in the backpack?” Macer had belted the bulky object in on the portside crash couch.
