Hostile Takeover: A Space Opera Adventure (Luminous Void Book 3), page 37
Skyler considered making a run for it—always his favorite strategy—but judging by the creatures’ numerous legs and wings, he wouldn’t get very far. Dammit to all the hells, stabbing them with his stunknife was his only choice. He hoped he’d be able to find a tender spot within reach. He squared off with the one on the right while Thaddeus aimed his little gun at the one rushing them from the left and started firing needles at the onrushing brute. Those needles would knock out most full-grown intelligent species, but they probably wouldn’t affect this animal, even if they had been penetrating the thick hide.
Skyler raised his dagger and was just about to lunge toward his own target when Callum yelled, “Stop.”
Skyler ducked under one of the creature’s slashing forelegs. Stop? The creature loomed over Skyler. Its red prickly tongue wagged back and forth, spraying saliva. Skyler inhaled a fowl, fishy odor.
Callum stood over the sprawled Origineums. He pursed his lips and began to whistle, the sound reverberating off the high ceiling. The tune was far from melodic—like someone practicing scales but never quite hitting an actual note, going from a piercingly high register to very low bass over and over again.
On the first note, the tooth-champing stopped. Both creatures folded their wings and stood, blinking stupidly for a few seconds. Then they bent their twelve legs beneath them and slumped down onto their blubbery midsections, their eyelids drooping as the antenna over their eyes stood straight up.
Callum kept up the awful discord. Skyler glanced over at Thaddeus, who met his eyes and shrugged, looking back to the now-almost-sleeping creature in front of him. After a few seconds, Skyler heard faint snoring sounds coming from the beast.
Callum stopped whistling. “Ok, they should be good for a few minutes.”
James strolled over, his mouth, neck, and hands stained with blood. He had pulled his left ear around so that he could lick the scorched hole where the energy bolt had gone through it. “What in the nine hound-humping hells are those things?”
Callum put a finger to his lips. “Shhh… keep it down. We don’t want to wake them up. You’ve never seen an araneadog before?”
They all shook their heads.
“They can sniff out anything and see in the dark, so they used to be used in the mines. The corp doesn’t use them, but people still keep them as guards.”
“Not very good ones,” Skyler said, “If all you have to do is whistle a tune and they’re out like a light.”
“Well, that’s not exactly common knowledge, and you have to know what kind of tune to use. It can’t be anything harmonic. The more discordant the better.” Callum grabbed up his sword.
Skyler motioned to them both. “C’mon, let’s get a move on before they wake up or the rest of those loonies come back.” Skyler surveyed the room. It was just an open area with a few chairs and a table in one corner. “It doesn’t look like much, but I’m willing to bet those things,” he pointed toward the sleeping beasts, “are here for a reason.”
“Suwen and Alanzo must be here somewhere,” Callum said. Skyler could hear the hope in his voice. He really hoped for the kid’s sake they were somewhere around there.
“Yeah, the question is where?” Thaddeus kicked at one of the heavy support beams sprinkled around the room.
“Wait, I heard something.” James raised both ears straight up, swiveling them. “Over here.”
He strode toward the corner of the room where the araneadog had been lurking in the shadow. Thaddeus holstered his needle gun and pulled a little disc from one of his many pockets. He licked the back and stuck it to the center of his forehead. A tap with his finger activated a light.
Callum hurried after James. “Suwen? Alanzo? Can you hear me?”
“Down here,” a muffled voice called from below them.
“Ok, now that I heard,” Skyler said as he caught up to James and Callum.
“Me too,” Thaddeus said to Skyler’s shoulder.
Callum was on his knees, running his hands over the floor. “It’s them. It has to be. It’s coming from under here. “Don’t worry, we’re coming,” he yelled at the thick planks.
Skyler’s fingers found a crack that wasn’t visible in the dark. His finger scraped across something circular and cold that gave a little under his touch. He pushed on it and felt a click. A catch released, and a bronze half-ring sprang up—a handle. “Jackpot.”
James grabbed the handle and pulled, raising a trapdoor made of planks five centimeters thick. It rose on freshly oiled hinges, revealing a square opening. A moldy, sewer smell caused all three to gasp and cough.
“Ugh, it smells like shit down there.” James waved his hand in front of his nose.
“It’s probably an old composting pit,” Callum said, holding his nose.
Something scuffled in the depths. “Hello?” a male voice called from below. “Hello, who’s up there? Please help us.”
“It’s Alanzo,” Callum said. He knelt and squinted into the shaft. “Alanzo, don’t worry, we’re going to get you and Suwen out of there.”
“Who is that?” Alanzo said from below. “I know you, but….”
Thaddeus bent, aiming the beam of his headlamp into the pit.
Two white faces stared up, blinking and raising hands to block the light from their eyes.
James looked down into the opening. “Easier said than done. It’s at least eight meters deep. I could jump it, but I couldn’t get the kids back out.”
Thaddeus rolled his eyes. “How did you guys ever manage to get anything done without me?” he reached into the back of his belt and pulled out a short black bar of printed carbon. A couple of quick jerks extended it to half a meter. He did some complicated bending and pulling, and a second, shorter bar dropped to the floor trailing a length of thin cable.
CALLUM
While Skyler, James, and Thaddeus argued over how they were going to get Alanzo and Suwen out of the pit, Callum stretched on his belly and stuck his head over the void. “Are you both okay?”
“We’re okay,” said a girl’s voice. “Just please get us out.”
“Who are you?” Alanzo demanded again.
Callum hesitated for a second, looking up at Skyler, who rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. “Fine, hey, it’s not like we’re trying to keep a low profile or anything.”
Callum said into the pit, “It’s me... it’s…uh… Callum.”
Alanzo’s voice came back sharp with distrust. “That’s a lie.”
“Callum is dead,” Suwen said.
Callum said, “I assure you, I’m alive and well. I’ll explain everything, but right now we need to get you both out of there. We’re going to send down a cable. Let us know when you can see it.”
Callum retreated so James could get into position. James squatted at the edge of the trapdoor and dropped the end of the silvery cord with the small bar on the end into the dark.
“You see it?” Callum asked.
“No… nothing yet,” Alanzo answered, his voice echoing within the shaft.
“Oh, I think I see it,” Suwen said. “It’s that silver string up there with the stick on the end.”
“Okay, we got it,” Alanzo said as the cable went slack.
Thaddeus looked over the edge. “Stand on the bar and hang onto the line.”
“Okay, Suwen is coming first,” Alanzo said.
A moment later, Suwen said, “I’m ready.”
James rested the long bar across his knees and pressed the recall button on the stick, initiating a low-pitched zipping noise as the cord began to recoil, pulling Suwen up from the bottom of the hole.
“Are you okay, Su?” Callum asked.
She giggled. “This is fun.”
Callum rolled his eyes. “Just hang on tight.” It figured. Suwen was the only person he’d ever known who could think something like this was fun. Her long, matted, platinum blonde hair was now clearly visible in the beam from Thaddeus’s light. It contrasted strikingly with skin the same dark amber as Callum’s.
When she was within a meter of the top, James took hold of the bar across his knees, raised it to shoulder height, and stood up, his powerful hind legs taking the weight easily. Suwen almost seemed to bound to the lip of the trapdoor with a squeak of delight and a gurgle of laughter. She stared at James with her mouth open and eyes wide.
Callum grabbed her before she could tip over backward from surprise. She wore a bright-pink formal dress with tiny ruffles, though now it was ripped and muddied. When she could take her eyes off James and look at Callum, she leaped into his arms. Callum tried to suppress a grimace at the putrid smell oozing from her. She didn’t notice, staring up into his face. “It is you.” She whirled and bent over the trapdoor. “Alanzo it is him.” Callum snatched her back, afraid she was going to fall in all over again.
James was already in position back at the edge, lowering the cable.
“Alanzo’s a lot bigger than Suwen,” Callum said.
Sure enough, when the cable began to recoil, James teetered, and Skyler grabbed him by the back of the coat to balance him.
The little motor strained and whined more than it had with Suwen, and Callum looked at Thaddeus. “Is it going to be strong enough?”
“Sure.” Thaddeus didn’t look worried at all, but it wasn’t his cousin down there in that hole.
Alanzo’s unkempt dark-brown hair came into view.
James took hold of the bar again and stood up. This time it took more effort, and Skyler steadied him from behind while Callum grabbed his cousin’s arm. It would have been easier if he hadn’t had to hold Suwen off from trying to help. Alanzo wore dark-brown trousers, and what had been a white shirt was now stained with who-knew-what. He had an old yellow bruise fading on one side of his face.
He too stared at James with his mouth open, unable to look at anything else.
“Isn’t he pretty?” Suwen bounced on her toes and tried to stroke James’s white-furred hand.
Alanzo finally turned his attention to Callum. “Where did you come from? How did you get here? We all went to your funeral.”
“Does this really seem like the time?” Thaddeus asked.
The pounding at the front door had changed to crashing and splintering. Skyler waved them toward the door at the back of the house. “No time for a family reunion. Let’s get moving.”
Callum pushed Suwen and Alanzo ahead of him and out through the side door. Skyler took the lead, heading around the back of the house. Thaddeus followed Callum, and James took up the rear.
Callum felt like he was twenty kilos lighter. He had done what he came to Qwell for. He was free. He could go anywhere in the galaxy he wanted to go.
CHAPTER 30
SALOME
Two hours later, Salome was back on the bridge. She had checked to make sure O’Brien and Prucilla were settling in. Prucilla didn’t have much to settle. O’Brien’s taste in decorating matched her taste in clothes. She was strewing her cabin in draperies and ornaments and accessories and jamming her storage unit with garments.
Then Salome had inspected Squiggmund, who, thank goodness, didn’t seem to have grown since the last time she’d looked. Sweetums had recovered from his sulk enough to growl and swat his way through another flight sim. Tano had taken Demi’s place at the weapons station, and Ramadi had answered Salome’s raised eyebrow with a reluctant nod. The clones were apparently competent. Well, they’d come preprogrammed for hand weapons, so it couldn’t be too different.
The station had sent them six drones that were now clinging to the exterior cargo mounts. They were about 150 centimeters in diameter, and they each looked like it was built around a good-sized gun, but apart from that, they seemed to have been assembled according to the same machine logic that had designed the station. One was shaped like a sunburst. Another looked like a clump of variously sized cubes glued together at random. The third was a lumpy crescent with a gun at one end. The rest were irregular amoeba-shapes that reminded Salome of the feral mechanical she and Prucilla had encountered in the station core. Baku had given them names, which didn’t bode well to Salome’s way of thinking. Lords forbid they started thinking like Fran.
They had sent Fran out to do a quick inspection. All the drones had been thoroughly insulated with sprayseal to protect them from Squiggy radiation, and they hadn’t been carrying pinch beacons or pinch-communication equipment.
Lurayne sat at the helm. “Docking clamps away,” she said. “I’m going to give us a few meters free space.” The scene outside the forward viewport drifted as Lurayne fired the portside maneuvering drives. “Drives feel nice,” Lurayne said.
“Ready to take over, putty-tat?” Salome asked.
Sweetums, seated on the console between Lurayne and O’Brien, jerked his tail. He was still sulking about being left behind when she went to visit the AIs.
“Helm second,” Ramadi said, “status.”
Sweetums half-turned to look at him and perked his ears forward alertly. “I’m ready.”
Lenny was perched on Salome’s knee, his head up, bright, beady eyes fixed on the viewport and his crest of bright red feathers flared.
Salome stroked his back. “That’s right, you ridiculous animal, we’re going to go get Callum.”
Lenny chirped at the sound of Callum’s name. For all Salome knew, he might even understand what she had said. At least he had stopped playing dead.
“Engineering,” Ramadi said.
“Reactor stable,” Prucilla replied from the audvid. “Drives are optimal, capacitors fully charged.” Prucilla had downloaded programs for helm, engineering, and systems control. Ramadi had checked her out and declared her competent to man the helm. Then he and Salome had met one another’s eyes and Ramadi had said, “Engineering.” It wasn’t that they didn’t trust Prucilla, it was just that no one wanted to have to cope with her temperament on the bridge.
O’Brien occupied the communications console. Her towering poof of hair was as high as ever, but she’d removed the sparkler from the top. “The station has given us an updated course,” she said, then spoiled the cool and efficient effect by adding, “oh my goodness, this is so exciting.” When Sweetums took over the helm, Lurayne could transfer to Engineering, and she was the only member of the crew who actually seemed to like Prucilla.
“Weapons,” Ramadi said.
Demi sat at the weapons controls with Tano looking over his shoulder. They turned in unison and acknowledged him with identical nods.
“Remember,” Lurayne said, “we can get ten to twelve shots if we give the guns two minutes to cool between each one. The longer the cooling time, the more times we can fire before the guns melt down.”
The clones gave her their bloodthirsty grins.
O’Brien’s hair bobbed. “A squadron of station drones will rendezvous with us as we exit the station. They’ll close around us and match speed. Mwassaa will have to extend her pinch field to bring them with us.”
Mwassaa’s voice came from the audvid. “I’m extending my normal pinch radius by 100 meters.”
Ramadi looked over his shoulder. “Captain?”
“All right, let’s go.”
Lenny gave a warbling chirp and flung himself from Salome’s lap. Extending his wing sails, he swooped toward Ramadi and hit the XOs back with a thump. Ramadi didn’t even twitch as the reptile scrambled up his back and perched on his shoulder, his crest erect, his beady eyes fixed on the forward viewport.
The scene in front of them swerved, and Luminous Void glided out into the free space within the protective bubble of the interior shipyard. The Carnivalia displays were gone. Every visiting ship that could leave had pinched out. There was plenty of room for Luminous Void to pinch where they were, but Salome wanted to make sure the besiegers saw them leave and got a good look before they finally pinched out. That way, they’d have no more reason to bother the station and the residents could return to their interrupted Carnivalia.
They picked up speed, negotiating the combination maze and obstacle course that was the station. They were enclosed in a space thousands of meters across, surrounded on all sides by the station bulkheads and the peculiar lumps and excretions that sprouted without rhyme or reason. They passed under a spindly arch, then corkscrewed through a section of what seemed to be residence units sticking out from a wall of the station for no particular reason. Lurayne nudged them between two perpendicular walls that faced each other so close there must’ve been barely two meters between Luminous Void’s hull and the walls on either side of her.
“Is this actually the most direct route?” Salome asked, “or is the station playing a joke on us?”
“Oh, no, no.” O’Brien sounded shocked. “They would never do that. This is a very serious situation.”
They nosed out into another open space. Lurayne picked up speed and turned them toward a break in the wall that actually looked large enough to fly through for a change. “This is it,” Lurayne said. “We’ve got a straight shot of about three km. The watchers are positioned to cover the obvious exits, but the station is full of these tricky little openings, and they can’t watch everything.”
Ramadi moved from his position in front of Salome to the holotank behind her chair where he could watch the entire volume of space surrounding them.
“Are you ready to fly the ship, putty-tat?” Salome asked Sweetums.
The cat began to wiggle his hindquarters down over the edge of Lurayne’s console. He kicked the lever that swung his stirrups and harness out from their storage position. Lurayne guided his feet into the stirrups, then got up and jogged toward the exit. “I’ll be in Engineering.”
“Captain,” O’Brien said, “when we emerge, we’ll be within sight of three marauders.”
“Good,” Salome said with satisfaction. “How long until our escort joins us?”
“Seventeen seconds,” O’Brien replied. “That will give the marauders time to see us, but they’re not positioned to fire on us immediately. We should be quite all right.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Sweetums uncurled his long fingers and secured the clasp of his harness across his chest. He didn’t wait for confirmation, just slapped the acceleration control and yodeled with glee as Luminous Void leaped forward, diving toward the tunnel that waited to swallow them.
Skyler raised his dagger and was just about to lunge toward his own target when Callum yelled, “Stop.”
Skyler ducked under one of the creature’s slashing forelegs. Stop? The creature loomed over Skyler. Its red prickly tongue wagged back and forth, spraying saliva. Skyler inhaled a fowl, fishy odor.
Callum stood over the sprawled Origineums. He pursed his lips and began to whistle, the sound reverberating off the high ceiling. The tune was far from melodic—like someone practicing scales but never quite hitting an actual note, going from a piercingly high register to very low bass over and over again.
On the first note, the tooth-champing stopped. Both creatures folded their wings and stood, blinking stupidly for a few seconds. Then they bent their twelve legs beneath them and slumped down onto their blubbery midsections, their eyelids drooping as the antenna over their eyes stood straight up.
Callum kept up the awful discord. Skyler glanced over at Thaddeus, who met his eyes and shrugged, looking back to the now-almost-sleeping creature in front of him. After a few seconds, Skyler heard faint snoring sounds coming from the beast.
Callum stopped whistling. “Ok, they should be good for a few minutes.”
James strolled over, his mouth, neck, and hands stained with blood. He had pulled his left ear around so that he could lick the scorched hole where the energy bolt had gone through it. “What in the nine hound-humping hells are those things?”
Callum put a finger to his lips. “Shhh… keep it down. We don’t want to wake them up. You’ve never seen an araneadog before?”
They all shook their heads.
“They can sniff out anything and see in the dark, so they used to be used in the mines. The corp doesn’t use them, but people still keep them as guards.”
“Not very good ones,” Skyler said, “If all you have to do is whistle a tune and they’re out like a light.”
“Well, that’s not exactly common knowledge, and you have to know what kind of tune to use. It can’t be anything harmonic. The more discordant the better.” Callum grabbed up his sword.
Skyler motioned to them both. “C’mon, let’s get a move on before they wake up or the rest of those loonies come back.” Skyler surveyed the room. It was just an open area with a few chairs and a table in one corner. “It doesn’t look like much, but I’m willing to bet those things,” he pointed toward the sleeping beasts, “are here for a reason.”
“Suwen and Alanzo must be here somewhere,” Callum said. Skyler could hear the hope in his voice. He really hoped for the kid’s sake they were somewhere around there.
“Yeah, the question is where?” Thaddeus kicked at one of the heavy support beams sprinkled around the room.
“Wait, I heard something.” James raised both ears straight up, swiveling them. “Over here.”
He strode toward the corner of the room where the araneadog had been lurking in the shadow. Thaddeus holstered his needle gun and pulled a little disc from one of his many pockets. He licked the back and stuck it to the center of his forehead. A tap with his finger activated a light.
Callum hurried after James. “Suwen? Alanzo? Can you hear me?”
“Down here,” a muffled voice called from below them.
“Ok, now that I heard,” Skyler said as he caught up to James and Callum.
“Me too,” Thaddeus said to Skyler’s shoulder.
Callum was on his knees, running his hands over the floor. “It’s them. It has to be. It’s coming from under here. “Don’t worry, we’re coming,” he yelled at the thick planks.
Skyler’s fingers found a crack that wasn’t visible in the dark. His finger scraped across something circular and cold that gave a little under his touch. He pushed on it and felt a click. A catch released, and a bronze half-ring sprang up—a handle. “Jackpot.”
James grabbed the handle and pulled, raising a trapdoor made of planks five centimeters thick. It rose on freshly oiled hinges, revealing a square opening. A moldy, sewer smell caused all three to gasp and cough.
“Ugh, it smells like shit down there.” James waved his hand in front of his nose.
“It’s probably an old composting pit,” Callum said, holding his nose.
Something scuffled in the depths. “Hello?” a male voice called from below. “Hello, who’s up there? Please help us.”
“It’s Alanzo,” Callum said. He knelt and squinted into the shaft. “Alanzo, don’t worry, we’re going to get you and Suwen out of there.”
“Who is that?” Alanzo said from below. “I know you, but….”
Thaddeus bent, aiming the beam of his headlamp into the pit.
Two white faces stared up, blinking and raising hands to block the light from their eyes.
James looked down into the opening. “Easier said than done. It’s at least eight meters deep. I could jump it, but I couldn’t get the kids back out.”
Thaddeus rolled his eyes. “How did you guys ever manage to get anything done without me?” he reached into the back of his belt and pulled out a short black bar of printed carbon. A couple of quick jerks extended it to half a meter. He did some complicated bending and pulling, and a second, shorter bar dropped to the floor trailing a length of thin cable.
CALLUM
While Skyler, James, and Thaddeus argued over how they were going to get Alanzo and Suwen out of the pit, Callum stretched on his belly and stuck his head over the void. “Are you both okay?”
“We’re okay,” said a girl’s voice. “Just please get us out.”
“Who are you?” Alanzo demanded again.
Callum hesitated for a second, looking up at Skyler, who rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. “Fine, hey, it’s not like we’re trying to keep a low profile or anything.”
Callum said into the pit, “It’s me... it’s…uh… Callum.”
Alanzo’s voice came back sharp with distrust. “That’s a lie.”
“Callum is dead,” Suwen said.
Callum said, “I assure you, I’m alive and well. I’ll explain everything, but right now we need to get you both out of there. We’re going to send down a cable. Let us know when you can see it.”
Callum retreated so James could get into position. James squatted at the edge of the trapdoor and dropped the end of the silvery cord with the small bar on the end into the dark.
“You see it?” Callum asked.
“No… nothing yet,” Alanzo answered, his voice echoing within the shaft.
“Oh, I think I see it,” Suwen said. “It’s that silver string up there with the stick on the end.”
“Okay, we got it,” Alanzo said as the cable went slack.
Thaddeus looked over the edge. “Stand on the bar and hang onto the line.”
“Okay, Suwen is coming first,” Alanzo said.
A moment later, Suwen said, “I’m ready.”
James rested the long bar across his knees and pressed the recall button on the stick, initiating a low-pitched zipping noise as the cord began to recoil, pulling Suwen up from the bottom of the hole.
“Are you okay, Su?” Callum asked.
She giggled. “This is fun.”
Callum rolled his eyes. “Just hang on tight.” It figured. Suwen was the only person he’d ever known who could think something like this was fun. Her long, matted, platinum blonde hair was now clearly visible in the beam from Thaddeus’s light. It contrasted strikingly with skin the same dark amber as Callum’s.
When she was within a meter of the top, James took hold of the bar across his knees, raised it to shoulder height, and stood up, his powerful hind legs taking the weight easily. Suwen almost seemed to bound to the lip of the trapdoor with a squeak of delight and a gurgle of laughter. She stared at James with her mouth open and eyes wide.
Callum grabbed her before she could tip over backward from surprise. She wore a bright-pink formal dress with tiny ruffles, though now it was ripped and muddied. When she could take her eyes off James and look at Callum, she leaped into his arms. Callum tried to suppress a grimace at the putrid smell oozing from her. She didn’t notice, staring up into his face. “It is you.” She whirled and bent over the trapdoor. “Alanzo it is him.” Callum snatched her back, afraid she was going to fall in all over again.
James was already in position back at the edge, lowering the cable.
“Alanzo’s a lot bigger than Suwen,” Callum said.
Sure enough, when the cable began to recoil, James teetered, and Skyler grabbed him by the back of the coat to balance him.
The little motor strained and whined more than it had with Suwen, and Callum looked at Thaddeus. “Is it going to be strong enough?”
“Sure.” Thaddeus didn’t look worried at all, but it wasn’t his cousin down there in that hole.
Alanzo’s unkempt dark-brown hair came into view.
James took hold of the bar again and stood up. This time it took more effort, and Skyler steadied him from behind while Callum grabbed his cousin’s arm. It would have been easier if he hadn’t had to hold Suwen off from trying to help. Alanzo wore dark-brown trousers, and what had been a white shirt was now stained with who-knew-what. He had an old yellow bruise fading on one side of his face.
He too stared at James with his mouth open, unable to look at anything else.
“Isn’t he pretty?” Suwen bounced on her toes and tried to stroke James’s white-furred hand.
Alanzo finally turned his attention to Callum. “Where did you come from? How did you get here? We all went to your funeral.”
“Does this really seem like the time?” Thaddeus asked.
The pounding at the front door had changed to crashing and splintering. Skyler waved them toward the door at the back of the house. “No time for a family reunion. Let’s get moving.”
Callum pushed Suwen and Alanzo ahead of him and out through the side door. Skyler took the lead, heading around the back of the house. Thaddeus followed Callum, and James took up the rear.
Callum felt like he was twenty kilos lighter. He had done what he came to Qwell for. He was free. He could go anywhere in the galaxy he wanted to go.
CHAPTER 30
SALOME
Two hours later, Salome was back on the bridge. She had checked to make sure O’Brien and Prucilla were settling in. Prucilla didn’t have much to settle. O’Brien’s taste in decorating matched her taste in clothes. She was strewing her cabin in draperies and ornaments and accessories and jamming her storage unit with garments.
Then Salome had inspected Squiggmund, who, thank goodness, didn’t seem to have grown since the last time she’d looked. Sweetums had recovered from his sulk enough to growl and swat his way through another flight sim. Tano had taken Demi’s place at the weapons station, and Ramadi had answered Salome’s raised eyebrow with a reluctant nod. The clones were apparently competent. Well, they’d come preprogrammed for hand weapons, so it couldn’t be too different.
The station had sent them six drones that were now clinging to the exterior cargo mounts. They were about 150 centimeters in diameter, and they each looked like it was built around a good-sized gun, but apart from that, they seemed to have been assembled according to the same machine logic that had designed the station. One was shaped like a sunburst. Another looked like a clump of variously sized cubes glued together at random. The third was a lumpy crescent with a gun at one end. The rest were irregular amoeba-shapes that reminded Salome of the feral mechanical she and Prucilla had encountered in the station core. Baku had given them names, which didn’t bode well to Salome’s way of thinking. Lords forbid they started thinking like Fran.
They had sent Fran out to do a quick inspection. All the drones had been thoroughly insulated with sprayseal to protect them from Squiggy radiation, and they hadn’t been carrying pinch beacons or pinch-communication equipment.
Lurayne sat at the helm. “Docking clamps away,” she said. “I’m going to give us a few meters free space.” The scene outside the forward viewport drifted as Lurayne fired the portside maneuvering drives. “Drives feel nice,” Lurayne said.
“Ready to take over, putty-tat?” Salome asked.
Sweetums, seated on the console between Lurayne and O’Brien, jerked his tail. He was still sulking about being left behind when she went to visit the AIs.
“Helm second,” Ramadi said, “status.”
Sweetums half-turned to look at him and perked his ears forward alertly. “I’m ready.”
Lenny was perched on Salome’s knee, his head up, bright, beady eyes fixed on the viewport and his crest of bright red feathers flared.
Salome stroked his back. “That’s right, you ridiculous animal, we’re going to go get Callum.”
Lenny chirped at the sound of Callum’s name. For all Salome knew, he might even understand what she had said. At least he had stopped playing dead.
“Engineering,” Ramadi said.
“Reactor stable,” Prucilla replied from the audvid. “Drives are optimal, capacitors fully charged.” Prucilla had downloaded programs for helm, engineering, and systems control. Ramadi had checked her out and declared her competent to man the helm. Then he and Salome had met one another’s eyes and Ramadi had said, “Engineering.” It wasn’t that they didn’t trust Prucilla, it was just that no one wanted to have to cope with her temperament on the bridge.
O’Brien occupied the communications console. Her towering poof of hair was as high as ever, but she’d removed the sparkler from the top. “The station has given us an updated course,” she said, then spoiled the cool and efficient effect by adding, “oh my goodness, this is so exciting.” When Sweetums took over the helm, Lurayne could transfer to Engineering, and she was the only member of the crew who actually seemed to like Prucilla.
“Weapons,” Ramadi said.
Demi sat at the weapons controls with Tano looking over his shoulder. They turned in unison and acknowledged him with identical nods.
“Remember,” Lurayne said, “we can get ten to twelve shots if we give the guns two minutes to cool between each one. The longer the cooling time, the more times we can fire before the guns melt down.”
The clones gave her their bloodthirsty grins.
O’Brien’s hair bobbed. “A squadron of station drones will rendezvous with us as we exit the station. They’ll close around us and match speed. Mwassaa will have to extend her pinch field to bring them with us.”
Mwassaa’s voice came from the audvid. “I’m extending my normal pinch radius by 100 meters.”
Ramadi looked over his shoulder. “Captain?”
“All right, let’s go.”
Lenny gave a warbling chirp and flung himself from Salome’s lap. Extending his wing sails, he swooped toward Ramadi and hit the XOs back with a thump. Ramadi didn’t even twitch as the reptile scrambled up his back and perched on his shoulder, his crest erect, his beady eyes fixed on the forward viewport.
The scene in front of them swerved, and Luminous Void glided out into the free space within the protective bubble of the interior shipyard. The Carnivalia displays were gone. Every visiting ship that could leave had pinched out. There was plenty of room for Luminous Void to pinch where they were, but Salome wanted to make sure the besiegers saw them leave and got a good look before they finally pinched out. That way, they’d have no more reason to bother the station and the residents could return to their interrupted Carnivalia.
They picked up speed, negotiating the combination maze and obstacle course that was the station. They were enclosed in a space thousands of meters across, surrounded on all sides by the station bulkheads and the peculiar lumps and excretions that sprouted without rhyme or reason. They passed under a spindly arch, then corkscrewed through a section of what seemed to be residence units sticking out from a wall of the station for no particular reason. Lurayne nudged them between two perpendicular walls that faced each other so close there must’ve been barely two meters between Luminous Void’s hull and the walls on either side of her.
“Is this actually the most direct route?” Salome asked, “or is the station playing a joke on us?”
“Oh, no, no.” O’Brien sounded shocked. “They would never do that. This is a very serious situation.”
They nosed out into another open space. Lurayne picked up speed and turned them toward a break in the wall that actually looked large enough to fly through for a change. “This is it,” Lurayne said. “We’ve got a straight shot of about three km. The watchers are positioned to cover the obvious exits, but the station is full of these tricky little openings, and they can’t watch everything.”
Ramadi moved from his position in front of Salome to the holotank behind her chair where he could watch the entire volume of space surrounding them.
“Are you ready to fly the ship, putty-tat?” Salome asked Sweetums.
The cat began to wiggle his hindquarters down over the edge of Lurayne’s console. He kicked the lever that swung his stirrups and harness out from their storage position. Lurayne guided his feet into the stirrups, then got up and jogged toward the exit. “I’ll be in Engineering.”
“Captain,” O’Brien said, “when we emerge, we’ll be within sight of three marauders.”
“Good,” Salome said with satisfaction. “How long until our escort joins us?”
“Seventeen seconds,” O’Brien replied. “That will give the marauders time to see us, but they’re not positioned to fire on us immediately. We should be quite all right.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Sweetums uncurled his long fingers and secured the clasp of his harness across his chest. He didn’t wait for confirmation, just slapped the acceleration control and yodeled with glee as Luminous Void leaped forward, diving toward the tunnel that waited to swallow them.
