Earthblood (20 page)

"We tried to attack a Niss warship! It hit us before we even got close, smashed our screens, burned out our circuitry; we're a hulk, on fire. We're abandoning ship!"

"You want Iron Robert go free out of cell? Don't need key, Roan. Easy . . ." The giant stood, brought his massive arms forward, and snapped the chains as easily as loops of wet paper. He stooped, tore the ankle chains from the wall, then peeled the massive welded collars from his ankles.

"Stand back, Roan . . ." He stepped to the grating, gripped the wrist-thick bars, ripped them aside with a screech of metal, forced his nine-foot bulk through the opening like a man brushing aside a beaded hanging, and stood in the corridor, looking down at Roan.

"You could have broken them—any time," Roan stuttered. "You stayed there—in chains—for five years—on my account . . ."

"Good place as any to sit, think. Now fire grow hot; time to go, Roan." Roan whirled, led the way along the smoke-fogged corridor, up the companionway, along to the boat deck. Half the crew had entered the lifeboats now. Two dead men lay on the deck, blasted at short range by Henry Dread's guns. The grizzled Terran caught sight of Roan.

"You're taking number two boat! Where in the Nine Hells have you been—" Iron Robert lumbered from the smoke behind Roan.

"So! I should have figured!" The gun swiveled to cover the giant. "Get aboard, Roan! We're running out of time!"

"I'll load when my crew's loaded." Roan walked past Henry, ignoring the gun, to the gangway where burly humanoids pushed, crowded through the port.

"I said get aboard!" Henry bellowed.

There were half a dozen more crewmen. They pushed, shouting; answering shouts came from inside the sixty-foot boat, cradled in its massive davits in the echoing, smoke-filled hold. A broad-faced Minid thrust his head from the lock of number one boat.

"We got a full load!" he roared. "You load any more in here, they'll be standin' on each others' shoulders!"

Henry's gun swung. "I don't care if you have to stack 'em like cordwood! Get

'em in, Askor!" He spun back to face Roan. "What the hell are you waiting for, boy? Get aboard that boat—now! Can't you feel that heat? This tub will blow any second—"

"Iron Robert," Roan called past him. "Go aboard—"

"There's no room for that hulk!" Henry shouted. "That was an order, Mister!" Three frantic crewmen struggled at the port of number two boat.

"No more room!" a hoarse voice bellowed from inside the lock. A broad foot swung out, kicked at one of the men. He fell from the gangway, and the two behind leaped forward. A fight developed in the lock. Henry Dread took a step, aimed, fired once, twice, a third time. Two dead crewmen fell, rolled off onto the hot deck plates. A third was lifted, tossed from inside.

"Fight your way in there, Roan," Henry yelled. "Shoot as many as you have to!"

"Iron Robert—"

"I said he's not going aboard!"

Roan and Henry Dread faced each other, ten feet apart across the blood-spattered deck. The pirate captain's gun was aimed unwaveringly at Roan's chest.

"He goes or I stay," Roan yelled above the clamor.

"For the last time—follow your orders!" Henry bellowed.

"Iron Robert, go aboard—" Roan started.

"Roan—" Iron Robert took a step, and Henry Dread wheeled, and blue fire lanced, splashed harmlessly from Iron Robert's chest.

"You board boat, like Henry Dread say, Roan," the giant rumbled. Henry took a step backward, his gun covering Roan again.

"Listen to Iron Man," Henry grated. "He's telling you—"

"Let him board, Henry!" Roan said.

"Over my dead body," Henry grated. "Not even you can—"

"Roan, no—!" Iron Robert cried—

In a motion too quick to follow, Roan's hand had flashed to his gun, brought it up, fired, and the pirate leader was staggering back, his knees folding, the gun dropping from his hand. He seemed to fall slowly, like an ancient tree, and he struck, rolled over, lay on his back with his eyes and mouth open, smoke rising from a charred wound centered on his chest.

"Roan! You big fool! No room on boat for Iron Robert! Now you kill Henry Dread, true Man who love you like son!"

Roan tossed the gun aside, went to the fallen pirate, knelt beside him.

"Henry . . ." His voice caught in his throat. "I thought—"

"You wrong, Roan," Iron Robert's voice rumbled. "Henry Dread not shoot you in a million years. Try save your life, foolish Roan. You go now, quick, before ship explode—"

Henry Dread's open eyes flickered. They moved to Roan's face.

"You . . . in command . . . now," he gasped. "Maybe. . . right . . . Iron Man .

. . OK. . . ." He drew a ragged breath and coughed, tried to speak, coughed again. "Roan," he managed. "Terra . . ." The light died from his eyes like a mirror steaming over.

"Henry!" Roan shouted. Two mighty hands clamped on his arms, lifted him, thrust him toward the port.

"You go now, Roan, live long life, do, see many things. Think sometime of Iron Robert, and not be sad, be happy, remember many good times together—"

"No, Iron Robert! You're coming—"

"No room; Iron Robert too big, not squeeze through port." Roan felt himself propelled through the narrow opening into the noise and animal stink of the crowded lifeboat. He fought to regain his feet, turned to see the wide figure of Iron Robert silhouetted against the blazing corridor. He lunged for the port, and a dozen pairs of horny hands caught at him, held him as he kicked and fought.

"You got to navigate this tub, Terry," someone yelled.

"Dog down that port," another shouted. Roan had a last glimpse of Iron Robert as hands hauled him back. The heavy port swung shut. Then he was thrust forward, passed from one to another, and then he was stumbling into the command compartment. Rough hands shoved him into the navigator's chair. The cold muzzle of a gun rammed against his cheek.

"Blast us out of here, fast," a heavy voice growled. Roan shook himself, forced his eyes to focus on the panel. As in a dream, his hands went out, threw levers, punched keys. The screens glowed into life. Against the black of space, the long shape of the immense Niss war vessel glowed no more than a thousand miles distant, its unlighted bulk blotting out the stars. Roan gathered himself, sat upright. His teeth were set in a grim caricature of a smile. He twirled dials, centered the image in the screen, read numerals from an instrument, punched a code into the master navigator panel, then with a decisive gesture thrust home the main drive control.

Roan slumped in the padded seat, let his hands fall from the controls.

"We're clear," he said dully. "I don't think the other boat got away. I don't see it on our screens—"

A clay-faced creature with the overlong arms and the tufted bristles of a Zorgian pushed through the crew packed like salted fish in the bare, functional shell of the lifeboat.

"Listen to me, you muckworms," he hooted in the queer, resonant voice that rose from his barrel chest. "If we wanta make planetfall, we got to organize this scow—"

"Who asked you?" a gap-toothed, olive-skinned crewman demanded. "I been thinking, and—"

"I'm senior Gook here," a bald, wrinkled Minid barked. "Now we're clear, we got to find the nearest world—"

Other voices cut him off. There were the sounds of blows, curses. Scuffling started, was choked off by the sheer cramping of the confining space.

"I don't, we don't wanta all die," a hoarse voice yelled. "We got to pick a new cap'n!"

"I won't have no lousy Minid telling me—"

"Button yer gill slits, you throwback to a mudfish—" Roan stood, turned on the men. "All right," he roared—an astonishing shout that cut through the hubbub like a whiplash through cotton cloth.

"You can belay all this gab about who's in charge! I am! If you boneheads can stop squabbling long enough to let a few facts into your skulls, you'll realize we're in trouble—bad trouble! There are forty of us, crowded into a boat designed for an emergency cargo of thirty! We've got enough food for a few months, maybe, but our air and water recyclers are going to be overloaded; that means tight rationing. And you can forget about the nearest planet; it's nine months away at fleet-cruise acceleration—and we've got less than ten per cent of that capacity—"

The Zorgian bellied up to Roan. "Listen, you Terry milksop—" Roan hit the humanoid with a gut punch, straightened him out with an upward slam of a hard fist, pushed him back among the crewmen.

"We've got no discharge lock," he grated, "so if anybody gets himself killed, the rest of us will have to live with the remains; think that over before you start any trouble." Roan planted his fists on his hips. He was as tall as the tallest of the cutthroat crew, a head taller than the average. His black-red hair was vivid in the harsh light of the glare strip that lit the crowded compartment. Coarse faces, slack with fright, stared at him.

"How many of you have guns?" he demanded. There was muttering and shuffling. Roan counted hands.

"Sixteen. How many knives?" There was another show of hands, gripping blades that ranged from a broad, edge-nicked machete to a cruel, razor-edged hook less than six inches long.

"Where are we going?" someone called.

"We'll die aboard this can," a shrill cry came.

"We can't make planetfall." Roan's voice blanketed the others. "We're a long way from home, without fuel reserves or supplies . . ." The crew were silent now, waiting. "But we've got our firepower intact. There are two thousand-megaton torps slung below decks and we mount a ten mm infinite repeater forward. And there's food, water, fuel, and air just a few miles away . . ." He stepped aside, pointed to the forward screen, where the Niss ship swelled now to giant size.

"We're inside her defenses now," he said. "They won't be expecting any visitors in a hundred ton dinghy—"

"What do you mean?" a one-eyed crewman growled. "You're asking—"

"I'm asking nothing," Roan said harshly. "I'm telling you we're going in to attack the Niss ship."

At five miles, the Niss dreadnought filled the screens like a dark moon.

"They don't know we're here," Roan said. "Their screens aren't designed to notice anything this small. We'll close with her, locate an entry lock, and burn our way in. With luck, we'll be in control of the COC before they know they've been boarded."

"And what if we don't have luck?"

"Then we won't be any worse off than we would be eating each other and dying of foul air aboard this tub."

"Four miles, rate of closure twenty meters per second," called a crewman assigned to the navigation panel.

"Slack her off there," Roan ordered. "I want you to touch down on her as soft and easy as if you were lifting a purse back on Croanie." The crewman showed a quick, nervous smile. "Sure. I don't want to wake nobody up."

"What's these Niss like, Terry—"

Roan turned and slashed his forearm across the mouth of the speaker.

"That's 'Captain' to you, sailor! I don't know what the Niss are like, and I don't give a damn. They've got what we need and we're taking it."

"The size of that scow—there must be a million of 'em aboard . . ."

"Don't worry—just kill them one at a time."

They watched the screens in silence.

"Two miles," the navigator hissed. "No alarm yet . . ." The lifeboat drifted closer to the swelling curve of the miles-long warship. The scrawl of great alien characters was blazoned across the dull black of the hull. Complex housings set at random caught the faint glint of starlight. Roan selected a small disk scribed on the metal plain below.

"Match us up to that, Noag," he ordered. "The rest of you suit up." He hauled a stiff vacuum suit from the wall locker, settled the helmet in place, flipped switches. Stale air wafted across his face from the suit blower.

The lifeboat's engines nudged her, positioning the lock directly over the hatch of the Niss ship. Roan stood by, watching the maneuvering on a small repeater screen.

"Quiet now, all of you," he said. "Any noise we make will be transmitted through the hull."

The two vessels touched with a barely perceptible rasp of metal on metal.

"Nice work, Noag. You're learning," Roan said. "Hold her right there and magnetic-lock." He listened. Through his deck boots he could feel the vibration of the engine; nothing more.

"Cycle her open," he ordered.

"Hey, what kinda air these Niss use?" someone called. "My tanks are low."

"What's the matter, you gonna stay here if it ain't to your liking?" another came back.

Air hissed as the lock cycled. Roan's suit plucked at him as the pressure dropped. Through the opening the iodine-black curve of the alien hull blocked their way.

"Cut into her, Askor," Roan commanded. The crewman pushed into the opening, set a blaster on narrow beam, pressed the firing stud. The dark metal reddened, turned a glaring white, went bluish, then puddled, blowing away, driven by the pressure of released gasses. The soft spot bulged, blew out under the pressure of the Niss ship's internal atmosphere. Askor worked on, widened the opening, cut out a ragged hole a foot in diameter.

"Shut down." Roan stepped past him, reached through, found a release, tripped it. The Niss lock rotated up and away, exposing the lightless interior of the empty ship; icy air gusted into the lifeboat, bringing a faint, foul taint. Frost formed on the metal where it touched.

"Let's go." Blaster in hand, Roan stepped through the opening; the beam of his hand light lanced ahead, picked out curving walls, complex shapes fitted to what should be the floor. Festoons of odd-sized tubing looped across the room. There was a scattering of heavy dust over everything. Silently, the boarders followed through the broached hull, gathered in a huddle around Roan. Their breath made frosty puffs before their faces.

"Where do we go from here?" Noag muttered.

Roan threw his light on a narrow vertical slit in the wall. "That might be a door," he said. "We'll try it."

The corridors of the Niss ship were high, narrow, lit by dim strips that had glowed to reluctant life in the minutes after the invaders had boarded. The walls seemed to press in on Roan. It was hard to breathe, and there was sweat on his forehead, in spite of the chill that cut at his exposed hands and face like skinning knifes.