Battle Cruiser (36 page)

-51-

“Zye?” I called, feeling sweat trickle down over my face.

The inside of my helmet was steamy. I was breathing too hard. My air conditioner couldn’t keep up.

“Zye?” I repeated.

“What is it, Captain?”

“What if I set off a warhead inside this ship?” I asked. “Will the interior bulkheads withstand the blast?”

“What’s the yield?”

“No more than five kilotons.”

She made a grunting sound. “No,” she said. “Every surface in
Defiant
is fullerene-laced, but the outer hull is denser and much thicker. The interior walls can’t withstand that kind of force. We’ll lose approximately…twenty percent of the pressurized zones of the ship. The explosion might also rupture critical ships components, such as—”

“All right,” I said, still sweating. The tickle of it was enough to drive a man mad when trapped inside a helmet. “Forget it. We’ll have to fight them with hand weapons.”

Zye fell quiet for a second. “Sir, are you aware these enemy Stroj are based on Beta biotic matter?”

“Yes, I figured that out.”

“I would suggest, then, that you come up with another plan. Human troops would have to outnumber them by four to one, by my estimates, to defeat them.”

I cleared my throat. I didn’t argue. She was probably right. Hell, my spacers had dropped their guns when faced by a single invader.

Star Guard personnel didn’t join the service to participate in gun-battles. For most spacers this was a job, more than anything else. We’d grown soft over the years, forgetting our original purpose.

“Do you have another plan, Zye?” I asked.

“Yes. It’s a modified version of your plan.”

“Explain—quickly.”

While we’d been talking, the bulkhead behind me had begun to glow. The sealed hatch between the compartment I was in and the missile launching bays was being cut open from the other side.

“I’ll take a warhead out onto the hull’s surface,” said Zye. “I’ll use one of the external hatches. When I’m in the midst of the enemy, I’ll detonate it.”

I had to smile. The plan was so straightforward, so audacious, it might work.

“How will you get back inside?”

“I’m not sure. But I’ll try.”

“Why you? Why not send me or Durris?”

“Several reasons come to mind. But the most compelling is that I look exactly like the enemy. I’m therefore more likely to infiltrate their ranks.”

I had to admit, she had me there.

“All right,” I said. “Do it—but make sure you get your ass back into the ship before you set off that bomb.”

“I will do my best.”

She broke the connection, and I immediately regretted approving her action. It was insane—but then, we were getting desperate. The bulkhead in front of us was already smoking. Molten metal dripped onto the deck. I could hear the whistling sound of escaping gases, traveling from our pressurized compartment into the missile bay.

“Lieutenant Morris,” I said. “Withdraw your men. We won’t make our stand here. Pull back, keep battening down every hatch. We’ll delay them as long as we can.”

“I thought I was in charge,” he said.

I looked at him. “You want to stand your ground here? Without cover?”

“The best time to repel an enemy is when they first breach your perimeter. If we let them get deep into the guts of the ship, we’ll have a harder fight on our hands.”

“Zye has a plan. She’s hitting them in the flank.”

“Outside? On the ship’s hull?”

“Yes.”

He whistled. “Wow. She’s got big ones. Okay, we’ll pull back to the next hatch.”

The marines withdrew into the next compartment, but they left the hatch ajar. They set up an ambush, with their guns aimed at the far door, waiting for the enemy to burn through.

I watched them, letting Morris run the show his way. I found it difficult to do.

When the door to the missile launch bay clanged down the Stroj surged forward. All the marines fired at once. They’d been waiting for this very moment.

The eager invaders were bunched up, and they didn’t have a clear target. Morris and his men had the drop on them. Three invaders went down before they could take cover. Morris withdrew quickly and slammed the hatch shut.

He grinned at me. “Thanks for letting me do it my way, sir.”

“Well played. Keep slowing them down. Make them pay for every step, but don’t commit to making a stand unless you have to. I’ll be on the bridge.”

I walked away feeling better about my marines. They knew what they were doing. With any luck, we wouldn’t need Zye’s crazy plan to win this fight.

Telling myself that and believing it were two different things, unfortunately. And by the time I got to the bridge, Zye had already left.

We’d placed the warheads in two locations aboard the ship. She went to the aft section and took what she needed. Then she used an emergency exit to leave the ship.

The vid stream of her progress came up on my screen, as we were able to access her body cams. All of us watched tensely as Zye approached a group of Beta troops. Correction, I thought to myself, those were
Stroj
troops.

They looked and acted very much like Zye. The same bulk. The same pace of motion and deliberate demeanor.

As she got close to them, she did not wave. She did nothing to greet them. They approached and spread out, and I felt certain Zye was going to die before my eyes.

“They’ve spotted her,” Rumbold said. “Brave, foolish girl. She’s going to have to set off her bomb in a suicide move.”

“Maybe that was her plan all along,” Yamada said. “I’ve noticed she’s not always truthful concerning her intentions.”

I looked from one to the other of them, then back to the screen. I shared their concerns. I didn’t see how she was going to get out of this one.

“Where is the warhead?” I asked. “I don’t see it.”

The others shook their heads. She’d put it down, somewhere.

“What’s she doing now?” Rumbold demanded. “Slapping at her helmet?”

“Oh, she can’t be serious,” Yamada said. “She’s trying to tell them her transmitter isn’t working?”

I couldn’t help but smile. There was Zye, using another of her childish “tricks” on the Stroj. She was proud of things any eight year-old on Earth would roll their eyes at.

To my surprise, the Stroj seemed to buy it. They gestured for her to join their group. We watched as she followed from the rear of a group of six. They led her to a wound in the ship’s hull.

The hole in
Defiant’s
armor was sparking and blistering with plasma. A laser drill had been rigged up on an anchored tripod, pointing down into the stew of burning metal.

“They’re burning their way in somewhere,” I said, sitting upright. “Where is that? Locate it, Yamada.”

“Just over the engine room. They’re trying to drill their way into our propulsion systems.”

“Damn. These Stroj never quit.”

We continued to watch the vid stream from Zye’s perspective. She was looking this way and that as Stroj moved away from her.

“She’s going to do something,” Yamada said.

I frowned. I had the same impression.

Suddenly, Zye moved with purpose. We watched as she grabbed hold of the laser drill and shot the nearest invader in the back. The Stroj’s suit burned open, and the escaping gas caused the trooper to go into a spin, lifting it off the surface of the hull. The creature struggled long after a human would have been dead, but it was unable to fight back.

Zye jumped down into the molten pit of metal, which had already cooled to slag in the freezing absolute zero of open, shaded vacuum.

We felt the blast then throughout the ship. Zye had set off her warhead somewhere on the hull.

The rumbling sound of an impact on the ship’s armor was familiar to me now, but it still set my teeth on edge.

“Damage report!” I ordered.

Yamada read her sensory data carefully. She was in charge of the internal and external readings analysis.

“No breaches. She put that warhead on top of something strong. We’ve lost her vid streaming, however. She might be gone—or she might not.”

“That crater was a pretty thin hiding place,” Durris said. “I wouldn’t want to be facing thousands of rads huddling in a two-meter hole.”

“She might still make it,” Yamada said. “In space, the radiation will burst, not spread. They’ll be no shockwave, either. It will only kill whatever is directly in its path without cover—Rumbold is still alive, by the way, sir.”

“That’s excellent news,” I said.

“I think Zye might be alive, too,” she said hopefully. “If the warhead went off just thirty meters away, the hull curvature alone might be enough to block the released energy.”

“Yes,” Durris said. “She might have made it. The scheme wouldn’t work that way on an Earth ship with a normal titanium hull, but this ship is built from tougher stuff. The hull is dense enough to stop radiation like lead shielding.”

Figuring we’d have to wait and see, I contacted my marines.

“Morris?” I asked. “How’s it going down there?”

“We’ve got them retreating, sir,” he said.

I could hear the sounds of battle around him, muffled through his helmet microphone.

“Explain,” I ordered.

“They were coming on hard, but then they pulled back after that blast on the roof. I think they lost their reinforcements. We’ve killed eight ourselves. How many can there be?”

“Keep pushing,” I ordered. “I want those damn things kicked off my ship.”

“Will do.”

I turned my chair to face Durris. “What about the main Stroj fleet? How long until we reach extreme range against them?”

“The main Stroj fleet will be in range within the hour, sir,” he said. “The trouble is the assault troops on the outer hull have knocked out two of our primary cannons.”

I gritted my teeth. “When did that happen?”

“Just now, in the last few minutes.”

“Those cannons are on the port side, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“I can see what they’re doing,” I said, staring at a diagram of
Defiant’s
external armament. “At first, they thought they had enough troops to capture the ship cleanly. Now we’ve hurt the boarding party enough that they’ve decided to disarm us and use their primary fleet of small ships to batter us into submission.”

Yamada and Durris gave me worried looks. Neither offered an idea as to how to get out of the situation.

“The port side…” I said, heading toward Zye’s station. I sat in the overly large chair and addressed her boards. I broadcast to Zye, or I attempted to.

“Zye,” I said, “if you can hear me, take hold of something—anything—and don’t let go.”

I set off the crash-klaxons to warn the crew, then I put my hands on the tactical battle controls. All around me, my bridge personnel were buckling in. I let smart-straps grip me as well.

My first action was to kill the auto-stabilizers and put the ship under fully manual control. Seeing this, Yamada doubled up on her smart-straps and closed her eyes.

Next, I killed our main engines. Flexing my fingers once and squinching up my eyes, I tapped, causing the steering jets to fire. A hard burst of thrust began on
Defiant’s
port side. The ship slewed to starboard, and we went into a spin. It felt almost as if we’d been struck by another hammering warhead.

Outside the ship, I could only imagine the scene. The enemy was out there, maneuvering, trying to destroy our guns while crawling over the hull like ants.

But now the ship was bucking under them, throwing them off into space.

Hanging on with my hands shaped like claws, I fought not to black out or vomit. The ship spun and spun. After perhaps twenty revolutions, I double-tapped the auto-stabilizers, turning them back on.

The ship shook and underwent a half-dozen course corrections. It straightened itself out and resumed its trajectory.

“What the hell was that?” Durris demanded.

I looked at him with seasick eyes. “Hopefully, they were caught off guard. Without pitons sunk into the hull, they should have hurled off into space.”

“Maybe,” he said, shaking his head.

Morris checked in a moment later.

“Captain? Thanks for the ride.”

“You’re welcome. Get out onto the hull and mop up. I’ll keep from spinning the ship around until you report back to me.”

After that, we waited for about ten minutes. Finally, Morris contacted me again.

“Sir, we’ve got some trouble out here. One of the invaders made it into an aft airlock. The weird thing is it seems to be unarmed. We can’t get to it, because it jammed the hatch.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you sure that’s a Stroj?”

“Pretty sure. It looks like they all do. Female, as big as an outhouse and twice as mean.”