Mutiny in Space (12 page)

“If we go to the ventral corridor,” said Murdock, “they’ll have men down there securing the sensor arrays and the weapons grid.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Corbin, “but I doubt they’ll have many men in the cargo bays themselves.”

“Ducarti said they had a problem in bay five,” I said.

“That’s the port side of the ship,” said Murdock. “We had better take the starboard side.”

“Or,” said Corbin, “we take the port bays and catch Ducarti’s men from behind while they’re distracted. Some of the damage control team was down in bay five when Williams locked us out of the computer. If they’re holding up Ducarti’s men, we have a chance to hit them from behind.”

“Aren’t the bays in vacuum?” I said.

“They are,” said Corbin.

“Wonderful,” said Murdock, looking more sour than usual.

“The equipment lockers have suits,” said Corbin, “and the locks aren’t computer-controlled. We’ll cut across bay seven and see what’s happening in bay five. Nelson, Murdock. Barricade the doors, and then we’ll take the maintenance walkways to the port-side cargo bays. Nikolai, give them a hand getting the doors closed.”

Nelson handed me something, and I realized that it was a folded gun belt, with a holster for my stolen machine pistol. I made sure that the safety was on—if I shot myself in the leg with that thing, the bullet would shatter my femur and turn my leg to hamburger. On the plus side, I would bleed to death pretty quickly, but then, it was too soon to give up hope. We still had more than six hours before the ship vaporized, after all.

I donned the belt, holstered the gun, and helped Nelson and Murdock pull the door to the dorsal corridor closed, and then heaped equipment cases in front of it. When Ducarti and his men came to kill us, it would take them at least a few minutes to get through the door. Given the large quantities of flammable and toxic materials flowing through coolant pipes and conduits in the floor and ceiling, I doubted he would dare to use explosives to blow the door open.

Once the door was blocked, we headed single-file into the maintenance walkways. Corbin took the front, and I took the back, not that it would have done me any good. The rounds from those Tanith-Mordecai K7s were designed for use in ships and would fragment upon hitting metal, but would punch through all seven off us without much difficulty. Fortunately, we did not encounter any commandos in the walkways, and after descending three levels, we reached the access airlock to the port side cargo bays.

“Only four of us are going to fit in that airlock at a time,” said Murdock.

I opened the equipment locker and started passing out the pressure suits. They weren’t that heavy, thanks to their handy carbon-weave material, and would fit over our clothes. Boots and gauntlets had pressure seals, as did the helmet with its clear visor. A heavy pack held the supply of air and the life support equipment. Unfortunately, the suits were bright orange. That helped rescuers find injured crewers in an emergency, but it would also make us easy targets for Ducarti’s men.

“I’ll go first,” said Nelson. “You, you, and you with me.” He pointed at the three techs. “We’ll make sure the airlock is secure and then bring the others.”

We suited up and took a moment to synchronize the suits’ radios. Fortunately, each suit had its own on-board computer, disconnected from the main system, so they could still communicate with each other. I pulled on my own suit, following the directions I had memorized in various technical manuals. The gauntlets and the boots locked to the cuffs, producing an airtight seal, and slung my gun belt around my waist, the fake black leather stark against the orange material of the suits. Once I was done, I locked the helmet in place, and the suit booted up. Low-resolution letters and numbers appeared on the suit’s cheap HUD, and after a moment, all systems flashed green.

“Ready?” crackled Corbin’s voice in my ears.

“Aye aye!” We acknowledged him, and Nelson and the three techs went through the airlock first. Nelson signaled all clear on the other side, so I followed Corbin and Murdock into the airlock. The door closed with a thump, and I felt the humming vibration as the pumps sucked all the air out of the little chamber. A light flashed red on the control panel, and Corbin hit a button.

The door slid open in silence, thanks to the new vacuum, and we stepped into cargo bay seven.

It was huge. Like I’ve said, the
Rusalka
could carry half a million tons of cargo, and all that cargo had to go somewhere. I’ve seen pictures of cathedrals upon other worlds, and cargo bay seven looked like a massive cathedral of dull steel, the ceiling far overhead, the walls lined with metal racks. Hundreds of shipping containers filled most of the space, stacked in orderly rows, each one stamped with the official seal of New Sibersk. There was enough grain to feed tens thousands of people for months stacked all around me, and as I looked at it, I felt a flicker of admiration for the exiles on New Sibersk. They had taken their list of Social Party sympathizers and hidden it inside
quadrillions
of kernels of grain upon the ship.

It was a brilliant idea, but it was a pity they hadn’t thought to split up the shipment between multiple ships.

“This way,” said Corbin. We started down the central aisle, the stacks of shipping containers rising overuse like cubical metal hills. Bright arc lights had been mounted on the ceilings and the walls, but the bay was so vast that the lights only made the place seemed gloomy, as shadows struck curious poses everywhere.

Overhead, bolted to the distant ceiling, hung a variety of tracks and tubes. A massive cargo handling drone hung from the tracks, looking like a giant wasp of black metal. A dozen arms and manipulators of various sizes hung from the underside of the drone, and banks of sensors mounted its sides. When Arthur had them programmed properly, they could zip back and forth from the cargo shuttles to the bay proper, stacking the cargo containers as quickly as I had built towers out of toy bricks when I had been a kid.

Except each bay was supposed to have two cargo drones. One was missing.

I looked down, and saw a flash of light from the other end of the bay.

“Hold,” said Corbin.

“That was a muzzle flash,” said Nelson.

Three more flashes came in rapid succession.

“And that was three more,” I said.

“Nikolai, come with me,” said Corbin. “We’ll have a look, see if they’re friend or foe. The rest of you, wait here until I call.”

I nodded, realized that was a waste of effort, and said “Roger” instead. I walked forward to join Corbin. He had his K7 at the ready, so I drew the machine pistol and keyed the safety off. It was clumsy in the suit, but the gauntlets were close-fitting enough that I could get my finger inside the trigger guard, and that was the important part.

We moved forward as quietly as we could. Well, not quietly, since we were in a vacuum. But gently. Air or not, the vibrations of our footsteps would carry through the deck plates. Those commandos had all kinds of sensors in their helmets, so they would probably see us coming no matter what we did.

Based on the flashes we’d seen, I had the impression that something else held the entirety of their attention at the moment, though.

We reached the archway that led from cargo bay seven to cargo bay five. It was huge, large enough for two of the cargo drones to fly through simultaneously while carrying a full-sized shipping container. Corbin crouched at the starboard edge of the arch, and I ducked next to him, peering into the bay.

There I saw the signs of a battle. Several stacks of containers had been knocked into disorderly heaps, and one of them had split open, spilling grain everywhere. About a dozen yards away lay one of the Social Party commandos, sprawled in an untidy heap… and it looked as if the top half of his helmet and most of his head was missing. The contents of his head were leaking into a puddle around the shattered helmet.

I was suddenly glad I couldn’t smell anything but recycled air.

Something huge darted overhead, and I looked up to see the missing cargo drone flying past. The antigrav units on its underside were sputtering, and bullet holes riddled its entire structure. The thing had taken what looked like dozens of rounds of high-caliber bullets, but it was still flying, albeit with an alarming wobble. As I watched, the drone banked left, releasing a large cargo crate of equipment.

It crashed to the deck and shattered in silence, though the impact made my bones vibrate within my suit. As the crate shattered, I saw a half-dozen commandos take cover, ducking behind one of the overturned shipping containers. It looked as if they had been trying to fight their way to the starboard side of the bay, to the access airlocks to the ship proper.

I blinked, astonished, as I realized where they were heading. To the control office for the cargo bay itself. Someone was there and they were using the massive drone as a weapon!

Every cargo bay had its own control office, where a tech monitored the operation of the drones and the other cargo handling systems. In theory, everything was controlled automatically from the bridge. In practice, when moving tens of thousands of tons of cargo, something always went wrong, so it was a good idea to have a living man down in the cargo office, keeping an eye on the machinery. It was cheaper to pay someone to do it than to lose ten thousand tons of cargo because two of the drones decided to fly into each other. The office itself was a small room with a window overlooking the bay, about halfway up the wall, a set of metal stairs climbing to it. Hundreds of bullet holes marked the wall and slashed the transparent metal of the window.

In the window I saw Arthur Rodriguez hunched over a console, wearing an orange pressure suit. He looked back and forth between the console and the damaged window, typing furiously. As far as I could tell, he was unhurt, although to judge from the amount of damage to the office airlock and window, he wasn’t going to stay that way for long.

“Clever kid,” said Corbin. “He weaponized the cargo drones. He’s been keeping the commandos tied up down here all by himself! Nelson! Murdock! Bring up the rest of the men, fast and quiet. There are six commandos down here, and six more dead ones. That’s at least a quarter of Ducarti’s entire force, and if we move fast we have a chance to take them all out now.”

Nelson and Murdock acknowledged, and I watched as the commandos sent another volley of fire at the office. The cargo drone swept before the wall, soaking up some of the fire, and released a crate of loading equipment from one of its claws. The crate struck the deck and bounced, again forcing the commandos to scatter and take cover.

“Right,” I said. “How are we going to take them out?”

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” said Corbin. “See if you can raise Rodriguez.”

“Roger that,” I said. Corbin started giving orders over the suits’ radio channel. I switched channels. “Arthur?” I got nothing but static. I tried to remember the channel for the cargo bays, failed, and started cycling. “Arthur? Arthur? This is Nikolai Rovio. Arthur, talk to me. Arthur?”

“Wait!” Arthur’s voice hissed over the helmet speakers. “Wait! This is Rodriguez. Is someone there?” I heard a metallic thumping over the speakers, and realized it was the sound of bullets slamming into the wall of the cargo office.

“It’s Nikolai,” I said, watching Arthur peer out of the office window. “We’re here to get you out. No! Don’t look! The commandos don’t know we’re here yet.” I glanced over my shoulder and saw Murdock and Nelson and the others come up, weapons ready. The cargo drone swept in front of the office again, and the commandos ducked for cover, though this time Arthur didn’t drop anything on them. I recognized one of his favorite tactics from
Gunno-Tatakai
—keep the enemy guessing by being unpredictable.

So games had real practical applications! I suddenly felt my entire childhood had been justified.

“How are you still alive?” said Arthur. “I thought they had taken over the whole ship.”

“They have,” I said. “Well, sort of.”

“Nikolai!” said Corbin, overriding my suit’s radio settings. “Can you raise him or not?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I got him. We were just talking. Hang on.” I fumbled back to Arthur’s channel. “Arthur! Switch to channel four. My uncle’s got an idea.”

Static crackled inside my helmet, and then Arthur’s voice came on. “This is Rodriguez.”

“Rodriguez!” said Corbin. “Good to see that you’re still alive. Nice work with the drones.”

“Hey Rovio,” said Arthur. “I’m keeping them off me for now. Do you know what is going on and who is trying to kill us?”

“The captain turned out to be a secret Social and he surrendered the ship to some Social Party raiders,” said Corbin. “So we’re going to take it back from them. How are you controlling that cargo drone, anyway? The captain locked us out of the ship’s systems.”

The drone swept before the office once more, soaking up another volley of gunfire. “My damage control assignment was in here. I figured that while I was waiting, I could do some tests. That idiot Murdock said my code was unoptimized–”

“Still alive here,” said Murdock. “Good to see you too, Rodriguez.”

“Oh. Hey. Likewise,” said Arthur. “Anyway, I came down here to recompile and run some test routines while I was waiting for any sign we were taking damage. I saw the central systems were locking up, and I was worried that blockade runner was hacking us. So I cut off the cargo office’s computer from the rest of the network. Then those pirates showed up and demanded I surrender. I figured that was a bad idea.”

“So you started dropping crates on them,” said Corbin. “You got six. Well done.”

“I may have broken a few safety protocols and procedures,” said Arthur.

“All of them,” confirmed Nelson, with approval in his voice.

“We need to get you out of there,” said Corbin, “and we might need that computer. Here’s what we’re going to do. Murdock, Nelson. Get the others deployed in the archway. Nikolai, stay where you are. Make sure you have clear lines of sight, and choose your targets. I want at least one gun on every commando.”

“Got it,” said Nelson, and he began barking instructions over the channel.