The Voyage of the Star Wolf (35 page)

Korie raised an eyebrow at Brik and allowed a cynical grin to spread across his face. “Without a fight? Are you sure you're really a Morthan?”

“Understand something, Mr. Korie,” Brik said coldly. “Morthans consider fighting only one step above dishonor. The real victory is outwitting your opponent without having to bloody your sword. Only the stupid and clumsy carry battle scars. The skill is in victory without battle.”

“But you're advising retreat.”

“Humans call it a
strategic withdrawal
,” Brik said. “It is not dishonorable to conserve your energies for situations where you have a better chance of winning.”

“Frankly,” said Korie, ruefully, “I'd much prefer rearranging the situation to our advantage.”

“That sounds like a Morthan talking. Are you sure you're really human?”

“I have the battle scars to prove it,” Korie said. He looked up at Brik. He looked up
and up
at Brik. Their eyes linked—and for a moment, Korie felt an eerie surge of emotion.
Partnership with a Morthan
? And then the moment flickered away.
God really is a practical joker
! Korie looked back into his coffee and said, “The thing that
really
annoys me about this whole situation is being played for a fool. I stepped right into it. I know it. He knows it. He knows I know it. I can't get it out of my head. The timing of the attack, everything—it wasn't random. He did it to delay us, to prevent us from removing the fluctuators from the
Burke
—to prevent us from escaping before the arrival of the
Dragon Lord
.” Abruptly, he handed Brik his coffee cup. “Hold this.”

Brik took it and stepped back as Korie suddenly screamed as loudly as he could—“
I HATE THE
DRAGON LORD!”—and whirled, curling his fist, swinging his whole arm around and punching it hard into the foamboard wall with a sound like a bowling ball hitting a slab of beef. The wall
crunched
. His fist sank wrist-deep into it.

Then, very calmly, Jonathan Thomas Korie pulled his fist out of the wall, turned back to Brik and retrieved his cup of coffee.

“I like these walls,” he said. “There's something
satisfying
about punching them.”

“It's the nice way they crunch,” agreed Brik. “Feel better?”

Korie wiggled his hand in an “iffy” gesture. “It was nice to know what
I was doing for a change. It was nice to have a focus.” Abruptly, something crystallized for him. “Y'know what it is, Brik? I want revenge. What I really want, more than anything else in the galaxy is just one real chance to get even with that ship and the bastards who scourged Shaleen.” And then he sighed and said, “I know, it's impossible. But I can dream, can't I?”

Brik didn't say anything.

Korie continued. “Actually, right now, I'd be satisfied if I could just take one good bite out of Esker Cinnabar. If I could just get one jump ahead of him instead of the other way around. Tell me there's a way.”

“Only if you can learn to think like a Morthan.” Brik's tone was cool. There was enough skepticism in the naked words. He continued, “Assume that they've gamed it out and always know what your next move is. Then you extrapolate their next move from that and allow for it. And the next three moves after that too. Then you go back to the beginning and try to figure out what you can do that they won't expect—and assume that they'll have figured that out too. And so on. That's what he's doing right now. What can you do that he can't know?”

“You're assuming he's alive,” said Korie.

“Not only alive—but very possibly somewhere aboard this vessel,” said Brik.

That thought stopped Korie cold. It was like an ice pick in his heart. He looked up at Brik, searching the other's face for some sign that he might have been joking. He wasn't.

“You think he could do it?”

“I can think of seven ways to get from the
Burke
into the
LS-1187
without HARLIE knowing. Cinnabar can probably think of seven more.”

Korie sighed. “This is crazy. It's like some mad game—it's like playing chess with a dragon, isn't it?”

“An apt enough analogy,” Brik agreed.

“All right. Let me walk this through from the beginning. Everything he did—letting us capture him, escaping, all the killing—he did all that on purpose. Why? Obviously, to delay us, to keep us from completing our task of stripping the fluctuators. But now that he's done it, he's played his trump card—or has he? Is there something else?”

Brik shook his head. He waited politely while Korie continued to think aloud.

“See, here's the thing. Now that we know what kind of a danger he is, we know that we have no choice but to scuttle the
Burke
. So what he did was force our hand. We couldn't possibly be stupid enough to keep trying to save the
Burke
while he's still alive. Suppose we did respond fast
enough. Suppose we really did kill him—then he's failed. Or has he? At most, he's only cost us two or three hours. Maybe that was his purpose? Would a Morthan willingly sacrifice himself as part of a larger plan?”

Brik glanced down at Korie. His look said it all.

With a cold flash of fear, Korie realized the implication immediately. “Oh, shit. That means that the
Dragon Lord
has to be a lot closer than we thought. Close enough that the delay is crucial.” Korie considered the possibility for a moment, then looked up to Brik's taciturn expression. There was only one possible conclusion. “You're right. We have to scuttle the
Burke
now. It's our best option, isn't it?”

Brik shook his head. “It is the best option not because it is a good one, but because it is the
least
bad one.”

“Excuse me?”

“Keep thinking. You haven't seen the whole problem yet.”

Korie frowned.
What am I missing
? He stopped himself abruptly, a new expression spreading across his face. “Wait a minute. You said he knows what we're thinking. Then he knows we're having this conversation too. Scuttling the
Burke
won't work either. He won't let us, will he?”

“He knows what our choices are, yes,” Brik agreed. “The charges we placed on the
Burke
probably still show green on the Bridge monitors, but I doubt very much that they will respond to a detonation command. That's why I suggested a torpedo. If he's still alive, that will be his next immediate goal—to disable our torpedoes. In fact, he could be doing it right now.” Brik added, “You might have had a chance if you had torpedoed the
Burke
immediately instead of evacuating her, but—” The Morthan shrugged. “—That would have meant sacrificing eighteen crewmembers. Humans do not do that sort of thing.”

“No. Humans don't. You think that's a weakness, don't you?”

“I think it is a human thing. It is definitely
not
a Morthan thing.”

“All right, all right. Drop it. Let's game out some alternatives. Let's leap ahead to the end. What's it going to look like when they win? They'll be in control of the
Burke
—and very likely, this ship too. And we'll be dead or prisoners or—”

“Lunch. We'll be lunch,” corrected Brik.

“Okay, but before that. How will he take over this ship?”

“How did he take over the
Burke
?”

Korie shrugged. “He killed everybody.”

“Then that will be what he does here—unless there is a compelling reason not to.”

“I wish we could plant a few traps of our own.”

“Can you think of a trap that a Morthan can't?”

“Can you?” grinned Korie.

Brik gave him a look.

“Sorry,” said Korie. “I couldn't resist. What about nested traps? Decoys? Would that work?”

“Maybe. If they were clever enough.”

“Okay. Help me here. If you were a Morthan—
and you are
—and you were planning to take over this vessel, how would you do it?”

“I'd kill everybody who wasn't essential to the running of the ship. I'd start with you. If I was in a bad mood, I'd torture you and make your death last a long time.”

“Why would you let the others live?”

“I'm not stupid. I might have to bring this ship home. I couldn't do it alone.”

“You mean, maybe the
Dragon Lord
isn't coming . . .?”

“There is that possibility too. You are not the only one who thinks in terms of nested traps and decoys.”

“So—” said Korie. “If I was thinking like a Morthan now—I should be planning both a defense against the
Dragon Lord
that might not really be coming, and a trap for a Morthan who might be already dead.” Korie glanced at his wristband. “And I have less than twenty minutes to figure it out. Right?”

Brik nodded. “That is correct.”

Korie considered the size of the problem. “Okay,” he deadpanned. “What'll we do with the time left over?”

“You could pray,” said Brik. He wasn't joking.

Korie scowled upward. “Sorry. I don't do that anymore. The price is too high.”

“All right, HARLIE—” Korie gave the order.

The hatches of the
Burke
slid easily shut and air began hissing back into her from her huge regeneration units.

Sound came back to her corridors first. Some of the debris began to flutter. On her Bridge, the consoles lit up again, flashing from red to yellow to green as the atmospheric pressure rose, and as the mix of gases slid toward normal.

In the forward access of the
LS-1187
, Korie and Brik and a heavily armored security team were waiting impatiently. They all wore helmets, cameras, security vests, and armor. Bach and Armstrong were carrying stun-grenades and rapid-fire launchers. Nakahari was carrying a case of equipment modules to install on the
Burke
.

Quilla Theta was double-checking Armstrong's security gear and the weapons pack on his back. “Be careful, Brian—please?” she asked.

“Uh—” Armstrong turned to look at her. “Theta, yes. I'll be careful. Count on it.”

“Yes, please. We would like more ‘wow.' All of us.”

“I promise—I'll give it my personal attention. To each and every one of you.” Armstrong looked past the Quilla to see Bach looking at him, eyebrow raised. “Well,” he shrugged. “A man's gotta please his public, doesn't he?”

The Quilla thumped Brian on the back twice—her “all's-well” signal. Armstrong turned and gave a thumbs-up to Korie.

“Okay,” said Korie. “Let's go.”

The airlock door slid open—

The team stepped through cautiously. Armstrong and Bach led the way, followed by Korie and Brik. The shuttle bay looked dry and brittle. The blood on the floor had turned to powder. Some of it had blown away. Some of it hung in the air, giving the chamber a dusty red quality and a vague, unsettling, salty odor.

Brik and Bach went through the starboard corridor toward the engine room and the Bridge. Korie and Armstrong took the aft side. Nakahari followed at a cautious distance.

The
Burke
's engine room was no longer an abattoir. Now it was a
chamber of horrors. The bodies hanging on the singularity framework had been mummified from their exposure to vacuum. Their tongues were swollen and black, protruding from their mouths like some kind of creatures trying to escape. The eyes of the crewmembers had burst. Their blood had boiled out their ears and their noses and spurted across themselves and the deck in front of them. Their organs had pushed out through their wounds—and then everything had hardened and shriveled in the merciless vacuum.

There was no mercy here.

After death,
desecration
.

Korie wanted to weep. It wasn't fair.

Instead, he bit his lip and pushed forward. He'd do his crying later. That was the way things always worked. He went down the ladder and into the forward keel toward the Bridge. Brik followed him grimly. Nakahari looked around, shuddered once, and went to the engine room's main console. He plugged in a portable terminal and began bringing the system back to life.