On Basilisk Station

MacBride's own feet scrabbled against the deck as she leaned back against the drag wire, hauling the nose around by pure, brute force while Horace Harkness threw himself against it from the other side, and the long, lethal shape began to pivot toward her.

Another savage concussion shook the ship, smashing the boat bay to wreckage, and the missile twisted like a malevolent beast. It broke away from its handlers, swinging like a huge, enraged tusk, and MacBride hurled herself desperately to one side.

She almost got clear. Almost. Seventy tons of mass slammed into her, crushing her right thigh and pelvis against the bulkhead like a sledgehammer on an anvil, and she shrieked her agony into her com as the missile rolled and ground against her.

Then Harkness was there. He stood on the missile, shoulders braced against the bulkhead, heels jammed hard into a recessed service panel, and his explosive grunt of strain could be heard even through MacBride's screams. Veins stood out like cables on his temples as his back straightened with a lunging, convulsive snap, forcing the floating missile off her, and the bosun fell to the deck in a broken, moaning heap.

Her work party rushed forward, bending over her, and Harkness punched and slapped them away.

'Get back on those frigging drag lines!' the petty officer snarled. 'We need this bird moved!'

The ratings staggered back, clutched numbly at wires, and heaved, and Harkness himself crouched over the bosun. Her face was white, her cheekbones standing out like knobs of ivory, but her eyes were open and her teeth were locked in a rictus of agony against her screams. He pressed her med panel, flooding her system with painkillers, and she shuddered in relief while blood ran down her chin where her teeth had bitten through her lip. He patted her shoulder awkwardly.

'Corpsman to Missile Two!' he grated, and blinked away furious tears even as he hurled himself back into the battle with the missile.

Dominica Santos skidded to a halt just inside the forward reactor compartment, and her eyes widened. The damage that had cut Damage Central's links to Fusion One was appallingly evident. A jagged, meter-wide rent had been slashed through the primary control systems from a hit on the far side of the hull, ripping the compartment's inboard bulkhead like a saw-toothed knife. Only one of her power gang was still alive, and she was trapped. The woman's hands thrust weakly at the buckled frame member pinning her to the deck, and her helmeted head rolled towards Santos.

'How bad are you hurt, Earnhardt?' Santos was already reaching for the backup computers as she spoke.

'I'm not hurt at all, damn it!' Earnhardt snapped. She sounded far more angry than afraid. 'I just can't get out from under this thing!'

'Well, sit tight, and I'll do what I can in a minute,' Santos said absently, her gloved fingers already feeding commands into the computers. 'I've got other things on my mind right now.'

'Fucking A,' Earnhardt agreed hoarsely, and Santos managed a strained grin.

It vanished an instant later as scarlet damage codes flashed before her. Her face tightened. Whatever had ripped through the primary systems must have sent a power surge through the backups. Half her command files were scrambled or completely wiped.

Someone stepped up beside her, and she turned her head. It was Manning. Her assistant stared at her display and pursed his lips in silent dismay.

'Jesus, Commander! What do we do now?'

Santos grunted a smothered curse and slapped another switch. Nothing happened, and she darted a frightened glance at the reactor itself. She knew it had to be her imagination, but she almost believed she could feel the containment field pulsing.

'We've lost most of the bottle software—I don't know how it's holding together now,' she said rapidly, already ripping off access panels. 'And we've lost all the hydrogen feed files. The bastard's running away on us.'

Manning nodded silently, jerking off other panels at her side.

'If the plasma hits overload levels with an unstable bottle—' Santos broke off and flung herself on her belly, peering into the guts of the console, and grunted.

'We've got maybe five minutes before this thing blows, and I don't dare screw around with the mag governors.'

'Cut the feed?' Manning said tautly.

'All we can do, but I'm going to have to cross-wire the damned thing by hand. I lost my cutter when we took this hit. Get me another, and hunt up four—no, five—alpha-seven jump harnesses. Fast!'

'Yes, Ma'am.' Manning leapt away, and Santos turned her head without rising. Her eyes rested for just a moment on a big, red switch on the bulkhead beside her, and then she jerked them away.

'Bridge, Missile Two.' The voice on the intercom was harsh with exhaustion. 'We've got two laser heads shifted. They're numbers five and six on your feed queue. I'm working on shifting number three now.'

'Missile Two, this is the Captain. Where's the bosun?' Honor asked quickly.

'On her way to sickbay, Skipper. This is Harkness. I guess I'm in charge now.'

'Understood. Get that third missile shifted as quickly as possible, PO.'

'We're on it, Ma'am.'

Even as Honor spoke, Cardones's hands flashed across his console, reprioritizing his loading schedule. Fifteen seconds later, a fresh laser warhead went scorching out of his single remaining tube.

Sirius's bridge was a tiny pocket of hell. Smoke billowed, circuit boards popped and sizzled and spat actinic fury, and Johan Coglin retched as the smoke from burning insulation filled his lungs. He heard Jamal's agonized, hacking coughs as he fought to retain tactical control, and someone was screaming in pain.

'We've lost—lost—' Jamal broke off in another tortured spasm of coughing, then slammed his helmet. Coglin followed his example, rasping for breath as his suit scrubbers attacked the sinus-tearing smoke, and Jamal's voice came over his com.

'We've lost another beta node, Sir. And—' Coglin peered through the smoke, watching the tactical officer work on his console. Then Jamal cursed. 'Point defense is hurt bad, Captain. I've lost four laser clusters and half my phased radar array.'

Coglin swore viciously. With two beta nodes gone, his maximum acceleration was going to be reduced by over nine percent—he'd be lucky to pull three hundred and eighty gees. He still had his alpha nodes, which meant he still had Warshawski capability, but how long was that going to last? Especially with half his last-ditch laser clusters gone?

'Missile fire control?' he demanded harshly.

'Still functional. And my ECM suite's still up—for what it's worth,' Jamal added bitterly.

'Range?'

'Coming up on one-point-five million kilometers, Sir.'

Coglin nodded to himself, his eyes bitter. With the open front of Fearless's wedge toward him and no sidewalls to interdict, effective laser range was right on a million kilometers, but he'd lost one of his own spinal lasers, and the back of his wedge was as open as the front of the cruiser's. If Fearless got into energy range... .

Energy range, hell! His point defense was down to less than half efficiency! If Harrington realized it, turned and hit him with a multiple-missile salvo—

He bit off another curse. This couldn't be happening to him! It wasn't possible for a single, over-aged, under-sized light cruiser to do this to him!

'I think he's in trouble, Guns,' Honor said, staring at the readouts from her ECM suite's passive sensors. 'I think you just took out most of his missile tracking capability.'

'I hope so, Skipper,' Cardones said hoarsely, 'because I'm down to just three more birds, and—'