The Serrano Connection (51 page)

"HOLD them—"

"We're TRYING—NO! They got Pete!"

"—More gas masks! They're using more . . ."

It would have been fun to watch, like being behind the scenes when an adventure cube was being taped, except that more than half the sites needed someone live, on the scene, to produce a realistic effect. The enemy didn't know which targets were live, but Esmay did. She had argued at first for a less risky approach—dousing the intruders with that adhesive, if nothing else—but the capture of an enemy warship would be easier if it thought it was coming into a ship controlled by its own people.

Ideally, they'd get to the base of the repair bay just as the ship came out of FTL flight. They'd find the lockers of EVA suits; they'd open the repair bay—it was all set up for automatic use, with new—and newly aged and scuffed—control panels and instructional labels.

Esmay switched to the secure link to the bridge: they had opened a T-3 access hatch and fed an optical link through it. She knew the captain was alive, but in critical condition, now in a regen tank in Medical, which had been purged of the sleepygas. The casualty count was rising, as search teams found more and more bodies . . . most were bodies, but a few had been wounded. Barin hadn't been found yet.

A jolt like stepping off a ledge in the dark bumped her spine on the chair. She glanced at the clock. An hour early?

"Jump point exit," said someone unnecessarily. Moments later: "Caskadian System, low-vee exit."

So they were where they'd expected to be, and in one piece. A low-vee exit meant scan would clear soon, and they'd know how much trouble they were in. Esmay wondered what jump exit would have looked like from outside and shuddered. They could not have survived the whole trip outside, she was sure.

"Prelim scan: six, repeat six Bloodhorde ships. Weapons analysis follows . . ."

Now where were the Bloodhorde intruders? She looked back at the vidscan . . . at Deck 10. Too far up; she wanted them able to contact their own ships, and for that they had to be at Deck 4.

"Release, release!" she said. The communications tech nodded, and switched to the final segment: anguish, terror, harsh breathing . . . resistance melting away in panic. Predictably, the Bloodhorde team followed, and although they came out into the repair bay control compartment with some remnant caution, they didn't hesitate long.

They had made good use of their data wands . . . one pair went straight to the control centers, and the others to the EVA lockers. The communications tech put on the post-battle tape—if they kept listening, they'd hear individuals trying to find each other, trying to decide what to do, where to take the wounded.

The two who could speak—or at least understand—the Bloodhorde dialect tuned in the output of the communications desk in the repair bay. What would they say to their ships?

The Bloodhorde ship looked nothing like the sleek blackovoids of the Fleet.

"Damn converted tramp hauler," someone muttered through the comlink. Esmay wished they'd shut up, but she agreed. Slightly larger than a Fleet escort, and perhaps a third shorter than a patrol craft, its hull had a more angular outline suggesting its origin as a civilian freight carrier.

"Part of that's bare metal," someone else said. Esmay spotted the oblong patch, glinting dully in the repair bay's spotlights. The rest was probably the same organoceramic material that most ships used, its scarred uneven coloring suggesting patches of different ages and origins. Along the flank, bright-painted symbols that must mean something to the Bloodhorde. Near the nose, rows of stylized eyes and jagged teeth. She shivered.

The ship edged in, still untethered but now in easy reach of the grapples. Someone nudged her; she followed the gesture to see tiny figures in EVA gear moving on the plates of Deck One. That would be the Bloodhorde intruders, come out to welcome their friends and let them aboard. One of them moved to the control board for the grapples on her side; another stood at the controls for the other set of grapples.

She could not see their hands on the controls, but she could see the result, the shift of the grapple heads as they moved into position, and the sharp pings in her helmet as the grapples released from the heads and then impacted the ship. The sling buffer at the inboard end of the repair bay deployed, as if released by the grapples . . . they hoped the Bloodhorde would think that. She watched the intruder at the grapple controls spin around, and imagined his surprise. But nothing more happened. He made some hand signal to another of his team, out of her sight, then turned back to the controls.

The Bloodhorde ship barely moved, drawn by the retracting grapples. Esmay boosted the magnification on her helmet scan, and watched as the intruder pushed the grapple controls to maximum. She grinned through her tension. She'd thought they would do that . . . the plan would work anyway, but this was a bonus.

The ship moved faster, as all the grapples exerted full power. They must think the sling buffer would halt it if it moved too fast . . . and it would . . . after jolting the passengers a bit.

She watched in fascination as the ship moved slowly, inexorably, past the marked safety point . . . stretching out the grapples again, swinging like a ball on an elastic line. As if in automatic response, another buffer sling deployed—and another. The enemy ship rammed into them, nose first, stretching the first to its limit—one . . . two . . . bands ruptured and flung back across the bay with an indescribable noise. The impact shook the entire bay.
Now
 . . . would they notice anything? The second held, and the third, barely deformed. The enemy ship shuddered, held by the buffer slings' adhesive coating and the taut grapples behind.

"We did it," she said aloud. "We got ourselves a warship!"

"And two problems," said the woman on scan in the bridge. "Take a look—"

The second and third Bloodhorde ships kept coming, now obviously aiming for the drives test cradles.

They should have thought of that. They'd assumed the Bloodhorde would be cautious, would test with one ship until they were sure it was safe. Not their style . . . of course they'd get in close with as many as possible, and with those small ships it was not hard to maneuver in close.

"Now what, genius?" murmured Major Pitak. Esmay stared, her mind watching possibilities that flickered past more rapidly than the turning dials of a biabek game.

"We won't be able to get
Wraith
out now," someone else said. "We should have done that first—"

Wraith
, trapped in the repair bay, immobile, capable of blowing itself, but probably not the rest . . . unless its self-immolation ignited the others' weaponry. Would it? Was that good enough, the best she could hope for?

No. She wasn't playing for any outcome but victory. Her terms.

"We take them both," she said. "The ones on the test cradles. Then we get
Wraith
out . . . and the other Bloodhorde ship, if we can. It's actually better—evens the odds—"

"But we don't have crews for that many—and they're not even our ships."

After the first panic had come a surge of exhilaration; she felt as if her mind was working at double speed. "Oh, yes, we do. We have thousands of the top experts on every ship system right here—right now."

"Who?"

Esmay waved her hand, indicating both wings. "Think about it. D'you really think our people can't figure out the controls on Bloodhorde ships? They're simple. D'you think our people can't offer effective resistance to Bloodhorde troops, if we turn them loose? I think they CAN. I think they WILL."

They had to. And it was better. Even if they just got two, the odds were almost even . . .

Bowry had seen it too. "We'll have to scramble, though, to get two—no, three—crews ready to board. They'll be down in less than an hour." He grinned at her. "Well, Lieutenant, I think I'll have to find another exec—you're going to have to take one of those ships yourself."

"Me?" But of course, her mind insisted. Who else? The most terrifying thing about it was that she didn't feel as scared as she should be. "Right," she said, before he could say anything else. "Which one?"

"The T-3 cradle—because I've already got a crew assembled here. Maybe Captain Seska can free some of his crew for you."

"Yes, sir." She was already thinking who she wanted.

"Whoever gets control of a ship first takes group command," Bowry went on. Esmay hadn't thought of that, but they would need to coordinate. "My advice, if you're first, is to get that thing off the cradle—don't wait for me—and fire on the first ship you can locate."

Vokrais was furious. After all they had accomplished, that pighead of a ship pack commander was going to let two more shiploads board. He knew what that would mean—they'd be claiming credit for kills he and his men had made; they'd be marking loot.

"There is no need," Vokrais said. "We have this ship at our mercy. Only the troops aboard
Deathblade
are needed. What if the Familias ships are following? If you take two more ships out of formation, how will you beat them off?"

"You assured me they could not follow, having no idea where you are." The ship pack commander sounded entirely too complacent. When Vokrais had started this mission, the ship pack command had been promised to his own warclan. Now it had gone to the Antberd Comity, on whose graves he would spit if he got the chance. Ambitious, rich with loot they never bled for, he didn't know why the Overband let them get away with it. And here was another one, not even an Antberd, but a hireling . . . he had met Cajor Bjerling at the arena once, and hadn't liked him then.

He wanted to slug someone, and unfortunately they'd dumped the Serrano cub for safekeeping before they came to T-4.

"I claim this ship," he said. He wouldn't get it, but at least the claim would be registered. "I claim the blood shed, and the riches won, the deaths and the treasures, for the men who won them."

"It's big enough to share the glory," Bjerling said. "And soon enough to divide the loot when the deed is done."

"The deed is done," Vokrais argued.

"You need not fear my justice," Bjerling said. "Unless you want to challenge my honor."

Of course. In the middle of the operation he was supposed to challenge the commander? Even if he won, the Overband would not be pleased with him.

"I do not challenge your honor," he said. "Only remember who opened this ship like an oyster."

"You are not likely to let me forget," Bjerling said. "The troops in
Deathblade
will await the arrival of those from
Antberd's Axe
and
Antberd's Helm
before they maneuver."

In other words, Vokrais thought sourly, he would have no chance to show the
Deathblade
troops, whose commander he knew well, how he had conquered. The others would overwhelm everything.

"May his wife grow spines in her fur," said Hoch quietly.

"If only it were possible," Vokrais said, enjoying the idea.

"So we have to wait around for them all to land—assuming those incompetents can actually land on the test cradles—and get inside? Just stand here like targets?"

"He would not be ill-pleased if any of these people did kill us—greedy swine. We shall be extremely careful, packsecond. There is no reason, with so many eager to find loot, for us to take risks."

Hoch chuckled. "Perhaps we might even disappear?"

"Not that, I think. After all, our people are in charge on the bridge. Perhaps we should go back and be sure they know who's being so helpful." Assassination on a mission was unusual, but not unheard of, and Vokrais felt in the mood to kill someone. "Let these people find their own way in; it will be good practice for them. Not all boardings are unopposed."

Esmay had just made it back to T-3 when she was called to one of the communications nodes.

"I hear we're about to be trapped in here," Seska said, sounding angry.

"Not for long," Esmay said. "We're going to take the ship behind you, and the one coming in to the T-4 test cradle. As soon as we're clear, they'll warp
Wraith
out."

"Better odds," Seska said, sounding slightly less angry. "Save me one, why don't you? I presume you'll be taking one of them yourself?"

"Yes—the one behind you; Commander Bowry's already got his crew over in T-4."

"Who's going to take the one that's docked? Or were you going to leave that one where it is?"

"Leave it—we don't have the crew."

"And I presume you have a plan to get to the test cradle and board? What if they dump their troops and take off again?"

"In that case, you're not blocked, and Bowry can take the ship of theirs that's in T-4. But what we hear through their transmissions is that they're planning to stay awhile—it's made the commando leader mad—he thinks they're stealing his glory."