Dubious Heroes: a novel Page 36

  “Damn”, I said. “She’s right. It’s a cluster fuck waiting to happen.”

  “Let’s go zero gee, then”, Kyra said. “Have Winifred kill her drives, and we’ll latch on and do the same.”

  “Another problem”, Angie said.

  “What now?” Kyra said. She was beginning to sound annoyed. I needed to introduce her to some bad guys. Soon.

  “If Winifred kills her drives, the Montreal, which is matching her deceleration, will pull away, stressing the grapplers and Princess. They have to kill their engines at the same time.”

  “Oh yeah”, I said. “Let’s ask them to kill their drives, so we can safely board them and take over their ship.”

  “No need to say anything to the Montreal“, Kyra said. “They already know they’re in a fight. All Winifred needs to do is tell them she’s killing her engines, and give them a five second countdown. Their AI will have to follow suit and kill theirs, or things will get ugly, fast.”

  “They won’t have any choice”, Cisco said, in case I didn’t understand plain English. I wondered at what point people would stop feeling the need to explain every little thing to me.

  “I’ve relayed the instructions to Winifred”, Angie said. “I’ll have us in position to grapple in three minutes.”

  “So much for surprise”, I said. “I hope like hell they don’t bail and head back to their ship.”

  My comm unit beeped, and I switched channels. It was Mike.

  “Go ahead”, I said.

  “I don’t know what you guys are doing”, he said, “But you’d better get on with it. We’re already pulling back to the upper deck.”

  “You both okay?”

  “We’re fine”, he said. “They tried to gas us a few minutes ago, but we put on our masks. I think I winged the bastard who threw the grenade. Accidentally, of course.”

  “Of course”, I said. “I just need you to hang in there maybe five or ten more minutes. We’ve run into a snag out here, but we’re working on it. By the way, we’ll be in zero gee, shortly.”

  “Gotcha”, he said. “We’ll do our best. Not like we’ve got anyplace else to go. Out.”

  “Doon out”, I said, then switched back to the merc channel. “Angie.”

  “Here”, she said. I knew she’d be monitoring.

  “Patch me to Winifred, secure channel.”

  “Done”, she said. “Go ahead for Winifred.”

  “What’s the situation there?” I asked.

  “The intruders have taken three casualties so far, but nothing serious, since all of them are still here, and advancing slowly. They’ve tried to outflank Mike and Lola twice by cutting through side corridors, but I stopped them.”

  “How?” I asked. “I’d think they’d just blow the doors.”

  “I depressurized the corridors they were using”, she said.

  “Shit”, Kyra said, shaking her head. “The idiots aren’t wearing suits.”

  “Probably didn’t think they’d need em”, I said. “They just walked over on their bridge.”

  “If they kill Mike and Lola, what’s to stop Winifred from blowing all her hatches and taking them all out at once?” Kyra said. “Hell, she doesn’t need the air.”

  “Damn”, I said. “Now you’ve got me wishing we’d put our guys in suits, too.”

  “Yeah, but we kind of expected the UP troopers to be smarter than this.”

  “Sir”, Donner said.

  “Yes?”

  “Why don’t we just evac Mike and Lola to the Bridge, seal it, and have the AI blow the hatches, anyway? That’d take all of them out at once.”

  Kyra looked at me, but didn’t say anything. I knew she’d had the same idea. The difference was, she already knew I wouldn’t go for it.

  “I’d rather not do that”, I said, “Except as a last resort. That kind of thing could come back to bite us in the ass later, when we have to deal with the guys still on the Montreal.”

  No one responded to that, so we all stood around looking at the walls, waiting for Angie to tell us what was going on. It reminded me of standing with a group of people on an elevator, back on Luna. We all swayed, as the drives were cut, and we were in zero gee.

  I knew none of the others were keen on leaving the UP troopers alive, but I couldn’t justify killing them all outright, just because we could. Call it naiveté, or whatever, but I didn’t see them as monsters. Officious thugs, maybe, but that was no reason to kill them. Wound them, maybe, but kill them, no. Their captain had been polite, and so far, businesslike. It seemed to me as though he was just a professional, following orders and trying to do his job. We still had to see how he’d react when his ship was boarded, though.

  “Firing grapplers one and two”, Angie said. We waited for a moment. “Okay, they’re on. I’m reeling us in.”

  “Get us as close as you can”, Kyra said. “We’re not going aboard the Princess, anyway. At least, not inside her.”

  A sudden shock staggered us. Klaxons began blaring all over the ship.

  “Sorry”, Angie said, silencing the alarms. “With the three of us in such close proximity, we’re bouncing around some. We only grazed the Princess. I’ve backed us off, just to be safe.”

  Kyra slapped the big Open button on the wall, and the outer hatch irised open. We could see the hull of the Princess, still thirty feet away.

  It was then that it hit me.

  We were really doing this.

  Chapter 26

  The Princess was there in front of us, a scant thirty feet away.

  “We should probably run the walkway out”, I said. I didn’t care to repeat my experience of jumping over to the Cooper.

  “Fuck that”, Cisco said. “No offense, Captain, but just jump, It’s not like you can miss a target that big.”

  He stepped up to the edge of the airlock, and dove toward the freighter. Two seconds later, he was standing on the hull of the Princess.

  “You’re up”, Kyra said, motioning to me. I tried to think of a reason not to that wouldn’t make me look like a chickenshit, but couldn’t, so I said fuck it and jumped on over. I landed on my stomach, and thought I was going to bounce off, but I stuck, thanks to a few conveniently located patches of sticky stuff, which I hadn’t even realized were on the suit.

  I got my feet under me, and looked around in time to see the others land, scattered around the hull. We all walked over to where Kyra stood.

  “Okay, let’s split up”, she said. “We’ll meet at the Montreal’s walkway. Cisco and Donner, you’re with Doon. You guys go that way-” she pointed one direction-“and we’ll go the other.”

  I hoped the plan was to use the space walkway, or at least the exterior of the tube, to reach the Montreal. At least, that’s what I’d be doing. If they wanted to jump, then they could jump.

  We walked around the outside of the Crew Module, moving quickly but surely, thanks to the sticky soles of our boots. The huge silver bulk of the frigate loomed above us, several times larger than the Princess’s Crew Module. The Montreal was at least a third larger than the Enigma, which left me wondering what they were using all that space in the frigate for. Once we were in, I intended to look around and find out.

  We rounded the curve of the module, and I could see where the walkway linked with the Princess. The Montreal hung above us with an oppressive presence, even though logically, I knew there was no up or down in zero gee. The reptilian part of my brain insisted that it was above us, and so it was.

  “Incoming fire”, Kyra said. “This just got kinetic… take cover and stay sharp, people.”

  I looked around for something to hide behind, but there was nothing but flat hull plating around us. We could see Kyra and the other two mercs on the opposite side of the space walkway, maybe a hundred feet from us. They were trying to hide amid a cluster of sensors and antenna dishes.

  “Fire is coming from that open airlock above you and twenty feet aft”, Cisco said. “Can’t see who’s in there, but I don’t think t
hey can see us, either.”

  “Take care of it”, Kyra said. “We’re sitting ducks down here.”

  “Hard copy on that”, Cisco said.

  As I watched, the two mercs with Kyra popped up, fired a few shots toward the Montreal, then dropped back down again. Several contrails traced down from the airlock toward their position. The UP guys were using self-propelled bullets, each one like a tiny rocket.

  “Do it”, Cisco said.

  Next to me, Donner dropped to one knee, and aimed her weapon toward the open airlock. A moment later, a thick white contrail raced upward toward the Montreal, and the airlock erupted in a ball of fire, the entire event transpiring in eerie silence. Three spacesuited figures were blown from the airlock, presumably by the blast. I saw another figure, this one in nothing more than UP coveralls, drift out into space.

  “I think you blew the interior airlock hatch, too”, I said.

  “Shit happens”, Cisco said.

  “Okay”, Kyra said. “There’s no more fire coming from the airlock.”

  “That’s because there’s no more people in the airlock”, I said. “What the hell did she fire?”

  “RPG”, Cisco said. “Rocket Propelled Grenade.”

  “Guided?” I asked.

  “Yeah”, he said. “By Donner. RPG’s are dumb as rocks, and have to be aimed. But because there’s hardly any electronics, you can’t fuck them up.”

  “Guys”, Kyra said. “Chat later. We’ve got an open door up there, and I’ll like to use it. Move.”

  “You heard the lady”, Cisco said. “Let’s move.”

  The three of us jogged over to the walkway, the across it to the Montreal. We kept an eye on the open airlock, but nothing else came out of it. I could still see two of the suited figures drifting nearby. They weren’t moving, so I figured they were dead.

  When we reached the Montreal, we could see that it was just as shiny up close, as it was from a distance, the finish almost mirrored. I hopped off the bridge, and onto the ship, and had a momentary panic attack at the thought that my sticky shoes might not stick to the shiny stuff, either. A second later I landed, and stuck, answering my own question.

  Cisco and Donner landed just behind me. Kyra and her mercs were still crossing the walkway, when we began advancing on the open airlock. Thirty seconds later, and we’d reached it. I was about to peer over the edge, when Cisco grabbed my shoulder, and pulled me back.

  “Don’t do that”, he said. Slowly, he extended the butt of his weapon over the edge. Three little bullet contrails zipped by. He jerked his weapon back, and fished something out of the gear bag attached to his belt. I looked at it as he held it in his hand. It was smooth, rounded, and about the size of his fist.

  “Grenade?” I asked.

  “Yup”, he said.

  “It is lethal?”

  “I sure as hell hope so”, he said.

  “That makes two of us”, I said.

  I watched as he pushed a stud on the surface of the grenade, and tossed it into the airlock.

  “Don’t look”, he said, about a half second too late. A brilliant flash lit the opening, and I could feel the rumble of the concussion in my boots.

  “Jeez”, I said, trying to blink away the blue spots from my vision. The suit visor had automatically darkened, but the explosion had been pretty damn bright.

  “You alright?” Cisco asked.

  “Yeah”, I said. “Note to self; don’t watch grenade blasts.”

  I could see him grinning, as Kyra and the other two mercs walked up.

  “I thought we weren’t going to blow the place up”, Kyra said.

  “We only blew up a bit of it”, Donner said, shrugging in her suit. “So far.”

  “That’s comforting”, Kyra said. “Alright, play time is over. Do your thing.”

  The soldiers spaced themselves around the hatch. One swung over the edge, while the other three looked in, weapons ready. A few seconds later, and they were all inside, leaving Kyra and I standing alone on the hull. My suit comm link beeped again, and I activated the channel. It was Mike.

  “Go ahead”, I said.

  “We were taking some pretty heavy fire, and they’d just tried to gas us again, when they all just left. Lola thinks it’s a trick, but I think they’re gone. If I’m right, you’re gonna be getting some more company, soon.”

  “Yeah, we’re boarding the Montreal, and they were probably called back”, I said. “We’ll deal with it. Thanks. Doon out.”

  I clicked back to the merc channel.

  “Kyra”, I said. “Mike just called. I think the boarding party is headed back. We need to keep them on the Princess.”

  “You guys heard that”, Kyra said. “I need someone out here with an RPG now.”

  “Roger”, someone said. I switched my comm link again.

  “Winifred.”

  “Here”, she said.

  “See if you can blow their walkway connection”, I said.

  “Negative”, she said. “Nothing is happening.”

  “Can you at least slow them down a little?”

  “I’ve disabled the airlock controls”, she said. “They’ll have to do a manual patch to get it open. That should take them a few minutes.”

  “Thanks”, I said. “Doon out.”

  I switched back to our combat channel, just as Donner crawled back up onto the hull of the ship.

  “Take out that bridge”, Kyra said. “Try not to damage the Princess, but do what you have to do.”

  “I’m on it”, Donner said, kneeling on the hull. Seconds later, the little rocket slammed into the walkway, near midpoint. I expected it to blow the tubular bridge completely apart, but apparently, it was sturdier than it looked.

  “I think that holed it”, Kyra said, as the explosion detritus cleared. “Hit it again, same spot, just to be sure.”

  Another RPG streaked from Donner’s weapon, to impact at the same location as the first. Once the explosion cleared, the damage was evident; a hole big enough to climb into, if you wanted.

  “Anything else you need blown up, while I’m here?” Donner asked. Apparently, this was her idea of fun.

  “Not at the moment”, Kyra said. “Cisco, you secured?”

  “Position secured”, he said. “Come on in.”

  “On our way”, Kyra said.

  I keyed Mike on my comm unit again.

  “Yes?”

  “Those guys aren’t going anywhere, so you’re about to have company again. Pull back slowly to the Bridge, as we’d planned. You guys okay?”

  “We’re good”, Mike said. “Gotta go. Here they come again. Out.”

  “Out”, I said.

  Kyra and Donner had vanished into the airlock, so I followed them in. I sorely wanted to have a weapon in hand, but as long as I was in a suit, I’d be just a spectator.

  The interior of the airlock looked like a bomb had gone off in it, which was appropriate, considering that a couple of them had done just that. Debris floated about in the zero gee, while another spacesuited trooper hung lifelessly against one of the airlock bulkheads, tied to the handrail via a tether. The suit was pretty well shredded, and one leg was missing from the knee down. I looked around, but didn’t see it. Crystallized powder lay strewn around the body; frozen blood.

  “I wonder how many are left?” I asked.

  “Well, there are eight troopers trapped over on the Princess, and at least three of those are wounded”, Kyra said. “We blew four of them out of the airlock, and this one makes five. Shouldn’t be more than five or six left aboard, if our intel was good, and most of those will be crew, not troopers.”

  “Something tells me this isn’t going to be easy”, I said. “Look at all the trouble Mike and Lola are giving those guys over on the freighter.”

  “Slightly different situation here”, Kyra said, as we left the airlock. It looked like the inner airlock hatch had taken the brunt of the force from the first RPG. Most of was simply gone, and what was left was twiste
d and mangled.

  “Different, how?” I asked.

  “First, we’re in suits, over here”, she said. “A little vacuum isn’t going to slow us down. Second, they’re under orders not to destroy the Princess, or at least we’re assuming that’s the case. We’re under no such compunction. As far as I’m concerned, if these guys don’t surrender, I’m going to start tearing this place apart, corridor by corridor, if we have to.”

  “And you brought the right people to do it”, Cisco said, walking up to join us. He held a gadget in his hand. It looked a lot like a Pod, but was a little larger, and looked armored, as well.

  “Anyone around?” Kyra asked.

  “Not within a hundred feet”, Cisco said, looking at the device. “We could have brought a drone.”

  “Don’t like drones”, Kyra said. “Just gives them a heads up that someone’s coming.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, looking at the gadget Cisco was holding.

  “Biological Sensing and Locating Unit”, he said. “It’s a People Scanner.”

  I bent over to look at the display screen; six white blips showed up on it.

  “Those are us”, I said, proving once again that I wasn’t as dumb as I looked.

  “Bingo”, Cisco said. “Anyone else on this level who’s unidentified will show up as a red blip. Unknowns above us show up as yellow, and anyone below will show up as blue.”

  “What’s the range on it?” I asked.

  “About a hundred feet, give or take”, he said.

  “Can they jam it?”

  “I don’t think so”, he said. “Never heard of one being jammed, anyway.”

  “Cool”, I said. “Very cool, even. How’s it work?”

  “Beats the shit outta me”, he said, shrugging inside his spacesuit. “I just use it.”

  “Can this possibly wait until some other time?” Kyra asked. “We do have a ship to capture. Cisco, you figure out where we are yet?”

  “Engineering module”, he said.

  “You sure?” she asked, looking around. I was wondering about that, too. It did look like just about every other passageway I’d ever been in.