The Knights of the Black Earth (46 page)

“All right, all
right.” Xris knew where that conversation could lead and he didn’t have time.
Resignedly, he took off his weapons hand, replaced it with his tool hand. “Someone
find a cutting torch.”

The plasma cutting
torch melted through the metal efficiently, but far too slowly—at least as far
as Xris was concerned. He’d counted on swooping in, grabbing the drop ship,
blasting out before anyone quite caught on to what was happening. But it took
half an hour to cut through the hull plating supports, time enough for NOROF to
call in a fleet of Naval battleships.

He swore softly
and fretted, until he remembered Operation Macbeth. NOROF couldn’t even call
home to Mother, let alone squawk for help. Still, a Naval facility was more
than likely to be able to take care of itself in an emergency.

“What do you
suppose they’re doing in there?” Xris had to yell over the hissing of the
torch. He gestured in the direction of the main NOROF building.

“Handing out the
guns,” Jamil answered grimly.

Xris grunted,
returned to work.

The last support
melted away, the hull plate fell, hit the deck below with an ear-shattering
clang. Xris peered inside, could see nothing. The interior of the command
module was in semidarkness, lit only by various red, blue, and green instrument
lights and the faint glow of computer screens.

“That should be
the bridge,” said Jamil, squatting down for a look.

They kept their
voices low, although after the racket the hull plate had made, whispering
seemed a bit ludicrous.

“You couldn’t
prove it by me,” Xris muttered, replacing his tool hand with his weapons hand. “Jamil,
you know your way around— you go first. Set weapons on stun. We’re trying to
save lives, not end them.”

“That include ours?”
Jamil grumbled.

Carrying his beam
rifle, he jumped through the hole. Xris heard a clatter and a soft curse.

“You okay?” he
asked softly.

“Landed on top of
a goddamn chair.” Jamil groaned. “Banged hell out of my knee. I—”

A bright flash of
light ended the conversation. Jamil hit the deck. The shot hit the chair.

“Marines,” Jamil
reported, reverting to his comm. “The door leading from our position on the
drop ship’s bridge to the facility’s airlock is standing wide open. The Marines
must be in the airlock itself. They have a clear shot at us through the door.
Their weapons are
not
set on stun!”

The chair’s
upholstery was starting to smolder.

“Can you reach the
controls to shut the door?” Xris asked.

“I can try.” Jamil
rose to a crouch, using the chair for cover. He made a tentative move.

A laser blast
nearly took off his head.

He flattened back
down. “They’ve got scopes, infrared.”

“Damn!” Xris sat
back on his heels, tried to think. “Tycho, get down there. See what you can do.”

Tycho dropped
lightly through the hole, carrying his favored sniper rifle. He was nothing but
a blur in the shadowy darkness, yet laser fire zipped and crackled all around
him. He dropped on all fours, crouched like a spider, and skittered for cover
behind a navigator’s platform.

“They’ve got them
pinned down,” Xris reported for the benefit of the rest of the team. “Probably
jammed the door open. I’m going to have to try to shut it manually, using the
emergency override. Doc, we’ll need some of those sleep-gas grenades—”

He was interrupted
by sounds of a scuffle from down below. More laser blasts.

“Hold your fire!”
Jamil shouted to the Marines, using Standard Military. “We’ve got a hostage!
Talk to ‘em, kid.”

Xris heard a
whimper.

“I said talk to ‘em!”

“Don’t .. . don’t
shoot!” came a frightened croak.

Xris jumped into
the hole. He remembered about the chair at the last moment, clumsily attempted
to swing wide, and missed, but just barely. He ended up slamming his good elbow
into the chair’s back.

“Doc, watch out
for that damn chair when you come down. Tycho, turn on some light. They might
as well get a good look at us. Who’ve we got?”

Jamil, on his
hands and knees, had something by the throat up against a bulkhead. Tycho
crouched back to back with Jamil, rifle raised, alert and watchful. Quong
dropped onto the deck, flourished the sleep-gas grenades, and ducked behind the
chair. At Xris’s command, Tycho scuttled sideways over to the console, found
the switch, activated the lights.

The door was wide
open. Beyond—the narrow tunnel of the airlock. At the opposite end, Xris
counted five Marine sharpshooters. Anyone going anywhere near that door would
be toast.

Keeping well
clear, Xris edged his way around the bulkheads to look at their captive.

“Don’t ... don’t
shoot me, mister!”

It was a kid,
maybe eighteen, dressed in coveralls and carrying a torque wrench in his
shaking hand. He was wretched and scared to the point of passing out.

“Artificer’s mate,
third class,” Jamil said, indicating the rank on the uniform. “Mechanic. I
found him hiding underneath the navigator’s platform.”

The kid’s eyes
rolled in his head. “Don’t shoot me!” The torque wrench slid from nerveless
fingers, fell on the deck.

“He was probably
working in here, panicked when he heard our ship land, and froze.”

“I don’t care if
the angels dropped him down from heaven,” Xris said. “It’s about time something
went right for a change. Come here, kid. We’re going to take a walk. If
everyone keeps calm”—Xris raised his voice for the benefit of the Marines—”no
one’ll get hurt!”

Jamil shoved the
unresisting boy at Xris, who caught hold of the kid by the arm.

Weapon hand
raised, his other hand—his good hand—dragging the kid along, Xris edged toward
the open door. He walked into the sights of the Marines, could almost see them
scowl in disappointment and frustration when the interior lights reflected off
Xris’s metal body parts.

“Yeah,” said Xris
loudly, walking as he talked, keeping the hostage near him, “you sharpshooters
might hit me and miss the kid, but what good will that do you? Very few parts
of me bleed. And with your first shot, either I take out the kid here or one of
my team shoots him.

“Believe it or not”—Xris
was coming closer and closer to the door controls—”we’re on the same side.
There’s been a little misunderstanding, that’s all. If you can get hold of the
Lord Admiral, tell Dixter that Major Mohini’s no traitor. Neither are we.”

The Marines were
watching every move. The barrels of their beam rifles followed Xris as he went.
At his side, plastered against him, the hostage was sweating and gulping, but
at least he hadn’t fainted.

“You’re doing
good, kid,” Xris said to the boy, to keep him going. If the kid went limp on
him, it’d all be over. “You won’t get any medals for this, but with luck you’ll
live to tell your grandkids about it.”

The controls were
a lunge away. Xris braced himself for the jump. Out of the corner of his eye,
he saw Jamil, Tycho, and Quong prepared to lay down covering fire.

“One last thing,
kid,” Xris said quietly, “tell the Lord Admiral that the king’s life is in
danger. Twenty-four hours from now. On Ceres. You got that?”

The kid stared at
him, baffled, befuddled by fear. Xris doubted if what he’d said had made it
through to the terror-crazed youngster. Not that it much mattered. NOROF wouldn’t
be able to contact Dixter even if they wanted to. Still, it was worth a try.

“When I shove, you
hit the deck. Keep your head down,” Xris advised, and, with all his strength,
he heaved the boy through the door. In the same motion, the cyborg made the
lunge for the door controls.

Either the boy
took Xris’s advice or he had sense enough to know what was going to happen. He
dove for the deck, hugged metal. Laser fire burned through the air above him.

Xris’s good hand
yanked the emergency lever on the airlock, pulled it down. Screeching and
grinding, the door began to swing shut. Xris had a final glimpse of the Marines
attempting to rush it.

Quong tossed two
sleep-gas grenades out the rapidly closing gap. An invention of Raoul’s, the
grenades looked like the real thing, but instead of exploding, they emitted a
gas that would send every oxygen-breathing person on a quick trip straight to
the arms of Morpheus.

The last Xris saw,
the kid, still lying on the deck, was valiandy attempting to kick one of the
grenades back toward Xris.

Kid’s braver than
he thinks. He might get a medal after all, Xris said to himself.

The door was only
half a centimeter from closing. Groping for the controls to seal the door shut,
Xris heard a hissing sound. He smelled a not unpleasant odor, was suddenly
fuzzy and lightheaded. Everything on the other side of the door had gone very
quiet.

The door shut,
sealed. Xris locked it, then sagged onto the deck. Quong and the others hurried
to him, their faces worried, anxious. He waved them off.

“I’m all right.
Just caught a whiff of Raoul’s slumbertime concoction.” Xris coughed, shook his
head, fighting an overwhelming desire to take a nap. “Jamil, you and Tycho see
if there are any more nasty surprises hiding inside the landing module. Doc,
get everyone else down here and then replace that hull plate.”

“I doubt if there’s
anyone in here,” Jamil said.

Limping on his
injured knee, he headed for the airlock that led from the command module to the
launch module below. “This is the only access.”

He hauled the
airlock open. He and Tycho disappeared below.

Quong touched his
comm, but at that moment Rowan appeared, swinging herself from the hole,
jumping lightly to the deck below.

“Toss my equipment
down,” she ordered someone—probably Raoul—above.

A duffel descended
with a thump, followed by Raoul.

“I’ve lost an
earring,” he announced plaintively. “I don’t suppose anyone’s seen it?”

Xris struggled to
get back on his feet, touched the comm.

“Harry, you
finished up there?”

“The Schiavona’s
programming is complete. She’ll fly back to Olefsky—”

“With
my
earring!” Raoul mourned. He stood beneath the hole, waiting to assist the
Little One. “What good is one earring? I’m lopsided—”

“Start handing
down the gear,” Xris commanded.

“Right.” Harry
signed off.

Rowan was at the
command module computer. Quong was searching the bridge for tools. Xris walked
over to the airlock that led down into the landing module.

“Any problems?” he
called.

“Nope. Looking
good,” Jamil reported. “It hasn’t been unloaded yet. We’ve got one armored
vehicle. Under wraps—”

“Computer reports
indicate that it’s in good working order,” Rowan said, bringing up the files. “It’s
a PVC-48 Devastator, if that means anything to you. It doesn’t to me.”

Jamil grunted. “Yeah.
Well, it could or it couldn’t. I don’t suppose I have time—”

Xris shook his
head.

“All right. Later.
We have supplies and rations for a ten-day mission. Weapons, gas masks. Makes
me feel nostalgic.” Jamil looked up through the airlock, grinned. “Like you
said, about time something went right.”

“Don’t break out
the champagne. We’re not out of this yet,” Xris advised. He was wondering why
the Marines weren’t continuing their attempt to retake the drop ship. It wasn’t
like them to give up. “Make sure everything’s secure down there.”

Straightening, he
saw the Little One—arms outspread, legs dangling—being lowered through the
hole.

“You got him?”
Harry called from above.

“I’m not tall
enough!” Raoul returned. He glanced around. “Xris, could you—”

The cyborg clumped
over, reached up. Harry let go and the Little One fell into Xris’s arms. He
stood the empath on his feet. Raoul straightened the Little One’s hat, which
had been knocked askew on landing.

“I’ve lost my
earring,” Raoul told his friend.

The Little One
shook his head.

Xris, shaking
his
head, caught and stowed the rest of the gear. He had just finished when
he heard Rowan give a low whistle. In the old days, Xris had come to hate that
sound.

“Trouble,” said
Rowan.

Xris hurried over.
“What? The Marines trying to blast open the door?”

“Huh?” Rowan
stared at him. “Oh, that. No.” She waved her hand airily. “I managed to break
into their computer, shut the door that leads to the airlock. Then I changed
the codes. And because of the new safety standards that were instituted after
the disaster two years ago on board
Valiant,
they’ll have to—”

“Then what’s the
trouble?” Xris broke in impatiently.

Rowan turned to
face him. “We have no fuel. In other words, we’re out of gas.”

Take calculated
risks. That is quite different from being rash.

General George Smith Patton, Letter to Cadet George S.
Patton, June 6, 1944

“No fuel pod?
Standard operating procedure,” said Harry. He as red in the face and puffing,
having unloaded all the gear, weapons, flight suits and helmets, the medical
supplies, and what was left of the food.

“Safety measure,”
added Rowan. “It’s the first thing they do when a ship goes into dry dock.
According to the manual, all fuel pods are to be—”

“Fuck the manual!”
Xris swore in bitter anger. “You mean to tell me we took over this bloody ship
and now we can’t go anywhere in it? And you two
knew
about this?”

“Not exactly,”
Harry said, shamefaced. “I mean, I did, but I didn’t, if you know what I mean.”

“In all the
excitement, it never occurred to me,” Rowan admitted, her cheeks burning. “Sorry,
Xris. I should have thought ahead—”

“Don’t think, damn
it! Do something!” Xris was shouting. He knew he was shouting, knew he was
losing it, but he couldn’t help himself.