FALLEN DRAGON (100 page)

"Break out the weapons," Marquis ordered. "I want our crewmen armed and authorized to shoot."

"We've got ten carbines and some dart pistols," Colin Jeffries said. "They'll just bounce off Skin."

"But maybe not the other one."

"I am detecting venting from the isolated cargo sections," the AS reported.

"Venting what?" an aghast Marquis asked. The panes shifted to views from external cameras. Huge plumes of glittering silver vapor were fountaining out of the starship's rear sections.

"Spectrographic analysis indicates it is our atmosphere," the AS said.

The doctor refused to cooperate at first. Simon didn't actually threaten him, but he came close before the man's more basic survival instinct cut in.

"I really don't recommend this," the doctor said. He was helping two orderlies push Simon's trolley and three cabinets of intensive-care support equipment through the spaceport terminal building. "You're not stable enough for something as traumatic as a spaceplane flight yet. Please reconsider."

"No," Simon grunted. He could hear his Skin escort shouting at people to get out of the way. Protests and hurried scraping sounds. Trivial background details he ignored.

An optronic membrane was covering his remaining eye, showing him camera images from the
Koribu
and the space-planes around it. Gas was still venting from the fat barrel of its cargo section. There must have been twenty of the plumes, emerging from hatches and valves distributed among the silos. His communication link to the starship buzzed with confused, shouted orders and queries. Crewmen were struggling into spacesuits, collecting weapons from the executive officer. As countermeasures went, it was truly pitiful.

The starship's AS was completely ineffectual against the alien's Prime program. If Newton and the other (presumably an enhanced villager) kept going along the axial corridor and physically loaded it into every section, they would soon have complete control. His personal AS now considered this was their most likely strategy. The most uncomplicated and efficient way of hijacking a starship, with a frighteningly high projected success level.

Simon saw a small silver sphere fly out from the cargo section.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Lifeboat," Marquis Krojen said. "There's very little air left back there. My crew is having to abandon the contaminated area."

Simon's trolley wheels bumped over a small ridge on the floor. He moaned at the sharp flare of pain that the jolt inflicted.

"Sorry," the doctor said. He didn't sound it "Can the engineering shuttles close down the venting?" Simon asked.

"Some of them, possibly. But there's not enough time."

Several of the plumes were shrinking, becoming less energetic.

The trolley was pushed into an elevator. Simon's magnetic sense showed him almost a dozen people clustered around him as the doors slid shut.

"Damn," Marquis Krojen exclaimed. "They just blew another pressure door. That puts them above the first life support wheel."

"Where are your people?" Simon demanded.

"I'm putting a squad together. We're not trained for this, not fighting a Skin."

"Learn fast." Simon saw another two lifeboats shoot away from the
Koribu's
cargo section.

"The subversion software's loading," Marquis Krojen said. "We're losing another section."

"Can they take over the life support wheel?"

"Not directly. The AS inside will firewall the wheel. But controlling the axial corridor gives them the power and environment feeds to the wheel."

The elevator halted and the doors opened. Simon's trolley was wheeled out into the fueling bay's operations center.

The SF9 opened a communication link. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked.

The orderlies started pushing Simon's trolley across the walkway to the waiting Xianti.

"I'm going up to the
Norvelle,"
Simon told his clone sibling. "I'll assume command of our response operation from there."

"Don't be ridiculous. You're in no condition to assume command of anything."

"I'm here, you're not. It would take you hours to get up into orbit. That could well be too late."

"We're already too late for you to achieve anything up there. It's all down to Captain Krojen now."

"Which makes it even more important that I reach orbit as soon as possible. The
Koribu
is a disaster area. The captain has all but lost his ship to the alien." He cried out again as the trolley was lifted through the airlock. "It cannot get away from us," he gasped. "I won't allow it. We must have that technology. If they go FTL, I'll follow. I will bring it back for us. The whole world will be elevated."

"It will not. Wait while I try to negotiate a deal with the villagers."

"I know very well what the villagers will do to us."

"That's not—"

Simon cut the link. For good measure he used his codes to authorize Memu Bay's immediate and total isolation from the datapool; then he shut down the satellite links as well. With luck, it should keep his clone sibling out of contact with Z-B for several hours.

Deprived of environmental systems, the axial corridor was thick with smoke, its amber warning strobes casting weird nimbi around the walls. Lawrence's Skin sensors could cut through most of the crud clotting the air. He was keeping alert for crewmen who might appear from radial corridors he thought were clear. So far they hadn't run into any physical opposition at all.

As they moved along the axial corridor, Prime had taken over the surrounding sections one by one, venting the atmosphere out into space, and he hoped, forcing the crew to abandon ship. Sensors had shown eight lifeboats being launched from around the cargo section so far. Internal cameras had pinpointed seven crewmen remaining: three were waiting in a lifeboat, two were inside refuge chambers, while another two had put on spacesuits and were trying to get back into the axial corridor.

"How are you doing?" Lawrence asked the dragon.

"Admirably, thank you. I have established full access and authority to the
Koribu's
cargo and fusion drive sections. Prime is now installed in all its management electronics. I would have preferred a much larger bandwidth than the spaceplane umbilical provides. This starship does have a remarkable number of components. I cannot operate all of them simultaneously."

"What about our weapons?"

"Yes. I am in charge of several missile launchers, lasers and electron beam cannon. Sensor coverage is not yet complete. The majority are positioned around the forward sections. Targeting information is incomplete at this time."

"But if you see something coming, you'll be able to take a shot at it?"

"I will."

"Okay. You should have access to the forward sections soon."

Denise loaded Prime into a node. "We've got control of this section."

Lawrence studied the schematic that Prime was providing. For the first time, the
Koribu's
AS hadn't cut the main power grid around them. It was supplying the life support wheels.

The secondary pressure doors at the top of each wheel had been shut. Prime's control of systems extended only down to the giant magnetic bearings that were wrapped around the central stress structure. Data access to the wheels themselves had been firewalled.

"You keep going," Lawrence told Denise. "Establish a datalink to the compression drive. I'll deal with the crew."

He ordered Prime to halt the rotation of the life support wheels. The axial corridor began to creak loudly as the bearings changed their magnetic fields to act as a brake on the momentum of the tremendous wheels. The wall juddered and vibrated as the stress structure tried to absorb the extraordinary torque forces leaking through the bearings. In theory, the life support wheels counterbalanced each other. It was fine when they were running smoothly, but there was enough inertia wound up in each one to wrench the starship apart if the forces weren't perfectly matched. Now the stress struc
t
ure was taking the full brunt of minute errors in the braking procedure.

Prime opened the pressure door on one of the radial corridors, and Lawrence dropped through into the rotating transfer toroid. He placed an energy focus ribbon on the top of the next pressure door and burned through into the life support wheel.

Captain Marquis Krojen instinctively grabbed at his console as a shudder ran through the bridge. The invaders must be braking the life support wheels. He didn't want to think what that would be doing to the central stress structure.

"Can we use our reserve power to maintain the bearings?" he asked the AS.

"No, sir."

Every question, every countermove he came up with received that same bland answer.

"They're in wheel one," Colin Jeffries reported. "We just lost contact."

Captain Marquis Krojen clenched his teeth to stop himself swearing. The bridge crew had been using secondary transmitters to provide communications between the wheels and the spaceplanes outside. Now the schematic showed wheel one as a black outline.

Another shudder rocked the bridge. This time it was accompanied by a metallic creaking sound. He couldn't wait any longer. "Okay, get our squad up into the axial corridor."

"Aye, sir," Colin Jeffries acknowledged grimly. He issued the order.

The squad consisted of bridge officers who'd drawn the carbines and found themselves a few laser welding tools. According to the AS, none of them stood a chance of damaging a Skin. The idea was to use the firefight to lure the Skin into a hub compartment that they'd wired into the reserve power supply. The voltage they could push through him might be sufficient to disable the Skin suit, or possibly even kill the man inside.

If the Skin chased them.

If they didn't all get killed in the first few seconds.

"Wheel one is venting," Colin Jeffries called. "That software has blown the escape hatches and used the fire dump nozzles."

A pane showed Marquis Krojen the life support wheel with precious air gushing out of its rim to spew across the stars.

"Spacesuits, everybody," the captain ordered bitterly. "You have my authority to abandon ship if your life support wheel loses pressure." He began to pull his own suit on, a task made difficult by the falling gravity. Optronic membranes showed him the squad opening a pressure door up into the rotating transfer toroid.

"Moving through," the lieutenant commanding the squad reported. "Nothing in the transfer toroid. Opening radial corridor pressure door."

Gravity on the bridge had almost vanished. At least that meant the shaking had stopped. Marquis Krojen used a Velcro patch to secure his helmet on the console next to him, keeping it within reach. "Isn't it locked?"

"No, sir. Going through. A lot of smoke in here. Can't see much."

"Pull back," Marquis said. "He knows you're there, his software will be tracking you."

"I can see someone." The muffled sound of carbine fire came out of the speaker.

"Pull back."

"Yes, sir." The telemetry display from the squad began to waver. "Suit... can't... Malfunction."

"They're firing!" another squad member cried. "Down."

"Back!"

"There!"

"Shot. Shot me. Oh fuck, I'm hit."

The lieutenant screamed.

"Can't breathe."

All the squad telemetry vanished. "Subversion alert," the AS said.

"In here?" Marquis asked hurriedly.

"An attempt was made through the communications link," the AS said. "I have disengaged the life support wheel's internal nodes from the network."

"So we've lost contact with the squad?"

"Yes, sir."

"How many casualties?"

"I am uncertain. Their spacesuit electronics were being subverted. Telemetry after they entered the transfer toroid is unreliable."

Marquis was looking at the camera image showing him the open pressure door. Black smoke was oozing through it, hazing the compartment. He could see the fire alarm strobes flashing brightly. "Have any of them made it back into the wheel?"

"No, sir."

"Communication with wheel two lost," Colin reported.

"Turn off your spacesuit communications," Marquis ordered. "Don't let it get inside." He glanced at the camera pictures. Vigorous geysers of atmosphere were spraying out of wheel two. It was like watching a friend bleed to death.

Weary sadness replaced the anger that had carried him this far.

"Abandon ship."

"Sir?" Colin Jeffries said.

The remaining bridge crew were staring at him.

"There's nothing else we can do. And I'm not leaving any of my people hostage to these bastards. Use the lifeboats, get clear. The spaceplanes will pick you up."

"What about you?"

"The captain stays with his ship. You know
that!"