The Voyage of the Star Wolf (18 page)

The crew sensed it immediately—and they distanced themselves accordingly. They bent their heads away from his and hurried quickly to their jobs. Something was
different
about Korie.

Gone was the easygoing manner, the quick wit and flashing smile. In its place, Korie had become a darker presence. His compassion had been burned out. In the gap left behind, there was only a smoldering undirected ruthlessness. No one wanted to be the first target of his rage, if and when it finally erupted.

The crew saw the madness in his eyes and shuddered.

The work lights on the hull of the
LS-1187
gave her a garish look. She glittered and blazed against the bottomless night. She was the brightest object in the Stardock.

It was deliberate.

If the Stardock were discovered and attacked, the first ship to be destroyed would be the
LS-1187
. She was bait—and everyone knew it.

But if the Stardock were discovered and attacked, the destruction would be total. Nothing would be left. So it was irrelevant that the
LS-1187
should be so brightly lit.

Except it was also a deliberate insult.

All four of the other ships in their work bays were dark. Work crews swarmed over them with portable lamps. The
LS-1187
was bright—but if any crews worked on her, they came from her own complement.

She was Jonah.

Every ship had a number. Those ships that had tasted blood also had names.

And those ships that had earned a reputation also had
unofficial
names.

The
LS-1187
was Jonah. The jinx.

That was what the crews of the other ships at Stardock called her. Judas had been considered. And for a while, it seemed as if Judas would be her nickname; but eventually the name was discarded because the
LS-1187
wasn't considered smart enough to be a Judas.

She had no captain. And the rumor was that she wasn't going to get a captain.

They couldn't decommission her. She was still classified as functional. But they couldn't send her out again either. No one wanted to sail on her. Her old crew—well, they would; they didn't have a lot of choice—but no one else would willingly accept a transfer to the Jonah ship.

So, she waited.

Her crew knew. They couldn't
not
know. And it had an effect on them. There was work that needed to be done, but it went untended. There was a hole in her hull, and HARLIE was still traumatic, and her disruptors were fused. Her Systems Analysis network was fragmented, and everything else was out of alignment. But the repair work progressed haphazardly,
without vision, without care. Chief Leen tried, but even he was shattered by the despair that pervaded Stardock.

The ship had come home, but she was still adrift. Korie was a dark shadow, and the crew distrusted him now. He hadn't been given the command he'd earned. That meant something, though nobody was quite sure what. There was speculation, but it was futile; everyone knew the real reason. It was the
LS-1187
. She was Jonah.

Her crew waited and hoped for someone to arrive and take command. And wondered what was going to happen next . . .

There were six of them, and they didn't know.

They were fresh out of training; they'd arrived on the latest transport. They were eager and fresh-faced and didn't know what they were walking into.

Their names were Bach, Stolchak, Jonesy, Armstrong, Haddad, and Nakahari.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Helen Bach, security officer, was the shortest of the group. She stood five foot nine in her combat gear. She had a smoldering expression that was its own warning sign. She was of African-Altairian descent and she was not to be treated casually. Rumor had it that she had broken the arm of her karate instructor during the third lesson.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Irma Stolchak, life-support technician, stood half a head taller. She was big-boned and friendly-looking, but there was a narrow cast to her eyes—as if she had been hurt once too often and had been left with a terrible suspicion about the rest of humanity.

Crewmember First Class Ayoub Haddad, quantum mechanic, was of pure Jordanian descent—although none of his ancestors had walked on the soil of Earth for nearly seven generations past. He wore a deceptively friendly expression. He was fascinated by machines, because machines always did exactly what they were supposed to do—even when they broke down.

Crewmember First Class Ori Nakahari, unassigned, was the youngest son of a wealthy Japanese-Martian family. He enlisted two days after the mauling at Marathon. His parents had angrily disowned him for giving political concerns a higher priority than family concerns. Ori had not wept.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Valentine Michael Jones, unassigned, was called “Jonesy” because everybody named Jones was called “Jonesy.” He was just a little too tall, a little too skinny, and more than a little goofy-looking.
The joke about Jonesy was that he was still a virgin—because he wasn't yet certain which sex he was opposite to.

Crewman First Class Brian Armstrong, unassigned, was a side of beef with a grin. He was a big, good-natured champion who looked more like a sexual athlete than a starman. He was quick-witted, good-looking, friendly, and popular, about as perfect a human specimen as could be found anywhere in the fleet. So why was he on the
LS-1187
? Because he'd boffed the wrong bimbo and the bimbo's father had been a vice-admiral. 'Nuff said about that.

They were new. They were eager and fresh-faced and they didn't know. They'd come directly from the transport dock and their first glimpse of the
LS-1187
was enough to tell them the worst.

They were on a catwalk overlooking the work bay and the starship gleamed beneath them. The six of them stopped to look at her. Jonesy put his hands against the slanting glass wall. He pressed his face close and his expression glowed. But he was the only one. The others were already realizing what ship this was. Their expressions were sinking fast.

“Come on, Jonesy.” Brian Armstrong poked him. “You've seen starships before.”

“Not this one. This one's
ours
.”

“Wake up and really look at her, Jonesy.”

“I don't care. She's still beautiful.” But he let himself be led along. The walkway extended the length of the ship, all the way to her stern airlock. The long walk gave them a chance to see every scorch and blister and battle scar on the starship's ceramic hull. This close, they could see how badly she was scored with blast marks and wavy rainbow discolorations—the visible aftermath of being brushed by the fringe of a marauder's hyperstate envelope.

Stolchak spoke her disappointment first. “Look at that. What a mess. We really did it this time.”

Armstrong stared out the glass. “I wonder if it's true that she's jinxed—”

Nakahari grinned at him. “Well, she scrambled her own captain. See there? Her port-side disruptors overloaded.” He shuddered grotesquely and laughed. “Now they say his ghost stalks the inner hull,
howling
for revenge!”

“Knock it off, you guys,” said Bach. “She's just another starship.”

“Uh-oh,” said Stolchak. “Look at that.” She pointed to the shadowed numbers on the starship's slender hull. “No name. You know what that means.”

“Yeah,” said Bach. “Anonymity.”

They reached the end of the walkway, turned left along a transverse walk, and found themselves at an access bay, where a docking tube led across to the ship's stern airlock.

There was no one on duty at the bosun's station to check them in. They exchanged curious glances, then one by one, each of the six slid his or her identity card into the reader and waited for it to beep green.

Inside the starship, it was worse. Wall panels hung open, their covers missing or broken. Gaping holes revealed torn wiring harnesses and broken structural members. There were empty places where system modules should have been installed, and internal sensory fixtures hung brokenly from their sockets. The light panels glowed unevenly; many of them had annoying cyclical quavers.

And there was graffiti on the walls. There were posters, and slogans. Raucous music was playing from a rattling speaker and a hyperkinetic voice was bantering: “Good morning, starshine! You're listening to Flamin' Damon and the Allied Star Force Distribution Network. Recorded
Live
and
Lively
! on YOUR homeworld in New America! Here's one of the classics—”

A cluster of sullen crewmen were lounging near the stern utility shaft. They were unshaven and wearing non-regulation gear. One was wearing a gaudy dashiki, another was wearing only a kilt.

The six new crewmembers ignored their sideways looks and headed forward through the aft keel. A blue-skinned woman passed them, heading sternward. She was eerily beautiful, tiny-boned and delicately featured. Her hairless skull was outlined with delicate feather-like scales, shading upward to become a purple and crimson mohawk of sensory quills.

Brian Armstrong stopped in his tracks and stared unashamedly. “Wow,” he said. “Quillas.”

The Quilla giggled and lowered her face to hide her smile, but almost immediately she peeked back up at Armstrong. Her eyes twinkled with promise. He flushed in response, but turned around in his tracks to watch her pass, even walking backward to keep her in sight as long as he could—he was awestruck by her presence—until he backed into a structural member, banging his head sharply. Bach and Nakahari both laughed.

Irma Stolchak was less sanguine. “Oh, great,” she said. “That's just what we need—a shared consciousness. Have you ever worked with a massmind? No? Well, I have. What one knows they all know. There are
no
secrets with a Quilla aboard.”

Nakahari poked Armstrong. “You'd better be careful. You know what they say about Quillas! You know, their—(ahem)—”

“Really—?” Armstrong was honestly interested.

“And that's it on the men here,” Stolchak was saying to Bach. “They're not even going to be
looking
at you and me.”

Bach shook her head, smiling quietly. “It's all right. I'm not sure I'd want to get involved with any man assigned to this ship.”

They reached the engine room then, a three-story chamber built around a large spherical framework: the singularity cage containing the pinpoint black hole that powered the starship and also served as focus for the hyperstate generators. Three huge cylinders pointed into the singularity cage, one from directly above and one coming up from each side, corresponding to the three projections on the ship's outer hull. There were catwalks and ladders all around the cylinders and the framework. Consoles were spotted everywhere, and there were massive banks of equipment dominating the bulkheads both forward and aft. Conduits and cooling tanks lined all the walls. This was the heart of the starship.

At the moment, however, the heart of the starship was having a serious cardiac arrest.

Oily black smoke was pouring out of one of the three great cylinders surrounding the singularity cage. Nobody else in the engine room was paying much attention, except for the two crewmembers frantically working on it. Haddad noticed though. Fluctuator sockets were his specialty. He stopped and stared, wanting to do something but not knowing if he should or not. He stepped forward uncertainly.

The other five continued forward, passing two beefy members of the Black Hole Gang, Reynolds and Cappy. Both were dressed casually, in shorts and T-shirts only. Cappy was the bigger of the two, Reynolds was the darker. They were heading aft, rolling an equipment cart before them.

“Uh-oh,” said Reynolds. “Fresh meat.” He grinned. “Who did you guys piss off?”

Armstrong was still looking back toward the engine room, not at where he was going. He banged into and tripped over the equipment cart and fell flat on his pride.

“Watch it—are you okay?” Cappy asked. He was a broad, stout man. He looked almost as wide as he was tall.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Armstrong said ruefully as he picked himself up. “Sorry.”

“You'd better see the doctor about that vision problem. Her name's Williger.”