Event Horizon (Hellgate) (30 page)

“Fought by us?” Caddy snorted. “I don’t think so, Lex. I’m looking at a lot of scared faces. This is not a crew that’ll do a one-eighty and go up against the
London
or the
Avenger
for you. Not after what happened to the
Shanghai,
the
Chicago,
the
Intrepid
– trust me, I’m a doctor.”

“You’re feeling a little insecure?” Rusch paused to take a coffee from one of her officers. “And no, Deborah, throwing the
Arke
in against a Fleet battle group was never part of any deal. The question is, will you,
can
you, trust me?”

Caddy did not answer for several moments. “You just disabled the whole goddamn’ battle group. If we don’t trust you, what’s the alternative?”

“We’ll disable you too, and hold your crew in custody till you see the reality of the Nine Worlds Commonwealth and decide where you want to stand,” Rusch said with bald honesty. “But the
Arke
is still mobile, viable, and you could be useful. You can assist the
Circe
and several others. Let’s get this mess cleared up, then we’ll negotiate terms … surrender, defection, affiliation, repatriation.”

“We could do that. Hold on.” Caddy paused again and the open comm carried a murmur of many voices, too far from the audio pickup to be distinct. She was back only a moment later. “Seems we’re in business, Colonel.”

“Very good.” Rusch looked up at Hubler. “Release tractors.”

His hand hovered over the control surface. “You sure? Be sure.”

“I’m quite certain.” She gave him a gesture to proceed. “You’re free to maneuver,
Arke
. You have a civilian salvage tug working the region, coordinate with Captain Richard Vaurien. He’s wrangling the clean up, and I’m about to launch our gunships to assist.”

“Copy that, and thank you,
Kiev
,” Caddy said crisply.

“
Sark
,” Rusch corrected.

“What, now?” Caddy stopped, just short of breaking comm.

“This ship,” Rusch told her with obvious satisfaction, “is the
Sark
.”

“Well, now.” Caddy actually chuckled. “I suppose that means we’ll get to rename this bucket of bolts too.
Arke
. Now, there’s a dumb name. What in the world is
Arke
supposed to mean anyway?”

It was Mick Vidal who said tiredly, “In Greek mythology,
Arke
was the winged goddess who betrayed the Olympians and became the messenger for the Titans.”

“True?” Caddy was surprised.

“True,” Vidal assured her. “You have a lot to do, Major.” The CMO had signed off when he looked over at Travers and added, “I just didn’t tell her how after the Olympians won that particular war, they sent
Arke
to hell with the rest of the Titans, with her wings cut off.”

“Keep that part to yourself,” Shapiro said aridly. “Not that we’ll be losing this war.”

The comm was a blizzard of callsigns now, and Marin had stopped trying to follow any of them. Crews and individual units from the blockade ships were defecting
en masse
, with reports of Confederate loyalists being arrested, unless they fought. Some were foolish enough to draw weapons; most of those were injured and a few were killed. Even the dockyard was on the air with a garbled story about shooting in the maintenance bays, a minor depressurization, two officers duct-taped to the furniture.

The action was over but the talking would go on for days. Marin was happy to take the combug out of his ear. When Travers steered Vidal to the shadowed corner of the Ops room with the autochef and several vacant seats, he retired with them.

The energy that had propelled Vidal through the engagement was spent now. He sank into a chair and his eyes closed. His face was colorless save for his lips and eyelids, which were an unhealthy shade close to mauve. Marin laid a hand on his forehead and found him cold, waxen. “He needs a medic, Neil,” he whispered.

“He needs a double tequila, coffee, a blanket, and sleep,” Vidal argued, though his eyes remained closed. “I’ll settle for the coffee.”

“Infirmary,” Travers argued.

“Sod that.” But Vidal’s voice was almost soundless with exhaustion and he did not have the strength to fend Travers off.

“Neil, tell Shapiro we’re out of here.” Marin slid the combug back into his ear. “
Wastrel
Ops.
Wastrel
Ops, do you read?” Only Etienne answered, testimony to the work the tug was doing. “Etienne, get me Bill Grant,” Marin said shortly, and waited for the AI to comply as Travers spoke briefly with Shapiro. Returning from the tank, he fetched a mug from the ’chef and deliberately searched for Vidal’s radial pulse.

“Infirmary,” Grant said tersely. “Jesus bloody Christ, I’ve been afraid of this – it’s Mick, isn’t it? It has to be. The freakin’ maniac’s knocked himself flat on his ass, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Travers said softly, “I think he has. He doesn’t look good, Bill. Weak, pale, blue about the lips, pulse is faint, rapid, irregular, and I don’t like his breathing.”

“Shit,” Grant swore passionately. “Get him back here, Neil,
asap
.”

“Will do.” Travers straightened. “Perlman, you there?”

The pilot responded at once, as Marin had expected. “I heard everything. We’re on ignition procedures, Neil.”

“
Wastrel
Ops is expecting you,” Grant added. “Bring him straight to the Infirmary, Neil – I’ll send a couple of meddrones to the Trofeo hangar, and I’m setting up to receive you.”

“Thanks. On our way.” Travers was frowning into Vidal’s face. “Mick? Mick, can you walk as far as the hangar? Mick!”

But Marin had already seen the truth. Vidal was unconscious.

Chapter Six

Salvage tug Wastrel,

Omaru system

He was lily pale and not a muscle twitched as Grant fed him through a full-body scanner. Travers and Marin stood back to watch, and when Ernst Rabelais appeared, looking for news, Travers could only shrug. “I told him,” Rabelais muttered. “I
told
him. Design the whole thing in simulation, I said, and then let some other silly bugger go out and do it.”

“You knew he’d never go for that.” Travers was watching the steady flow of data to one of Grant’s monitors, but it was so much gibberish.

“I … knew he’d never go for it,” Rabelais sighed. “I watched the whole show. Neat and tidy. They’re talking about maybe twenty, thirty wounded and seven or eight dead. Which is as close to bloodless as any coup’s likely to get.”

And all the fatalities barring one were Terran Confederacy people down to their bone marrow. An engine tech had been killed in a fireball when gas ignited on the
Horme
, but Travers was fatalistic about it. Soldiers had always believed that when a trooper’s number was called, one’s life was forfeit – and not one moment before. The Daku in Vidal would see it the same way.

The scanner chugged into silence and Grant grumbled over the display. Travers thrust both hands into his pockets and shared a glance with Marin, but Grant took his time with the analysis. At last he turned back from the machine, and his face was not so bleak as it had been.

“Stress hormones are in orbit. His adrenal glands are like lace curtains and the nano holding his kidneys together failed, about four hours ahead of the routine maintenance shots. He’s toxic, and he’s exhausted.”

“But he’ll mend,” Marin said quietly.

“No thanks to him!” But Grant was already heading for the lab, where he kept a steady resupply of Vidal’s medical nano, custom designed for him and ‘cooked’ by the batch. He grumbled as he prepared the shot; he grumbled again as he fired it into the thin pad of flesh on Vidal’s shoulder. “I’ll keep him here overnight. Again. Damnit, you’d think he was trying to put himself in a hole in the ground!”

“Trying to do his job,” Travers protested.

“His job? He ought to be invalided right out of the service!” Grant tossed the hypogun onto a tray with a clatter. “Lights – dim.” Obediently, the Infirmary plunged into semi-dimness, and Grant drew a blanket over Vidal’s still form. “Well, he’ll sleep now. When he wakes I’ll get some food into him, and we’ll start
again
.”

He was angry. Perhaps in an attempt to mollify, Travers said, “He did very good work. There’s a lot of conscripts right across the blockade who’ll live to see tomorrow because he and Hubler and Rodman were so fast, so accurate.”

“And I suppose nobody else could have done the job?” Grant demanded brashly.

“They could.” Vidal’s voice was a mere croak. “But it was
my
job, Bill.” He was awake by a slender thread, one eye open a crack, dark with dilation as he watched Grant lean over him.

“And you were going to do this job, supposing it killed you.” The Australian accent was thick as Grant’s temper peaked.

“But it didn’t.” Vidal’s eyes cracked open. “Coffee.”

“No.” Grant was adamant. “No stimulants. Not for two or three days at least. You thirsty? I’ll get you some water. Just water, till the nano in your kidneys get their act into gear.”

The chrono over the door showed 19:45 as he went to fetch a glass from the ’chef, and Travers found himself somewhere between tired and wired. His body was fatigued by stress while his mind was racing. Grant held the glass to Vidal’s parched lips, and Mick drank a little.

“Get out of here, the lot of you,” Bill said curtly. “He needs to sleep, let the fresh nano repair some of this damage, and he won’t sleep with the three of you standing around like a bunch of expectant fathers!”

“We’re gone,” Travers swore. “Hey, Mick.” Vidal made some semi-lucid sound. “We’ll stop by later,” Travers told him.

The blue eyes opened to slits. “I’m not going to die, Neil.”

“Despite his best bloody efforts!” Grant was still furious. “What am I, a fucking magician?” Then he relented and held up both hands as if Travers and Marin had levelled a gun on him. “All right, I know, he did good, it was his job, he’s the best, and this was
history
. Understood. Now, clear off and let me do my own job, all right?”

“You see what I’ve got to put up with?” Vidal’s eyes were closed again. “Later, okay?”

They were outside a moment later, and while Marin and Rabelais shared trivia about the transfer of power on the blockade, Travers listened to the loop. Perlman and Fargo had taken the Trofeo right back to the
Kiev
– to the
Sark
, he reminded himself for the tenth time – as soon as the drones had offloaded Vidal. Twenty minutes later they were leaving the carrier yet again, and Fargo’s call to
Wastrel
Ops reported Hubler and Rodman aboard.

“All over, barring the shouting,” Marin observed.

“Leave it to Rusch and Shapiro.” Travers was unconcerned. “I asked him yesterday who’ll command the
Sark
after Rusch officially signs out. It might have been Mick, if he’d been up to it, and if he hadn’t been aboard the Lai’a expedition.”

“But since he’s with us,” Marin mused, “they could promote Pat Haugen. She’s been holding it together since Alexis came to Alshie’nya.”

“Classified, isn’t it?” Rabelais made a face. “All this cloak and dagger crap makes my teeth ache.” He stirred, rubbing his palms together with a shrewd look. “You want to take a look?”

“A look?” Travers echoed. “Your project?”

“Hangar 5.” Rabelais was heading for the nearest service lift. “Lex worked the kinks out of it – she’s got the smarts to put numbers to stuff Jo and me just do by the seat of the pants.”

Travers lifted a brow at Marin, and Curtis shrugged. “Why not? The ship’s way too busy for dinner to be formal tonight, and even if it was, I’ve got no appetite. It’ll be at least another hour before the
Wastrel
’s done pushing wreckage around and sending escape pods to the
Sark
.”