model of their exit point and the surrounding area.
“-find us a place to lie up while all immediate repairs are completed. We’ve moved into a peculiar area of space-one without charts, and which may obey different physical laws than we’re used to-so I don’t want to rush about until we’ve laid down a tight nav plot. But here”-Kosho indicated a convoluted set of folds in the nearest dust clouds-“is a region free of the Barrier threads, and excited and dense enough we may be masked from passive sensors if someone comes along, banging on the temple-wall with a stick. Drop a remote to watch the Pinhole for us, and then move the Naniwa in there and go to zero-v. The engines need maintenance as well-we’ve taken enough dings, dents, and outright punctures to warrant a thorough inspection.”
“ Hai, kyo.” Goro covered a yawn with her salute and settled herself gingerly in the command chair.
Susan looked around the bridge one last time, saw that Anderssen had already been taken away, nodded to herself, and strode off to find her own cabin.
A monofilament saw shrieked, cutting away at the airlock on a badly battered evac capsule. Two burly engineers, their combat armor awash in a flood of sparks, were sawing away the last of the hinges holding the hatch closed. The portal itself was badly scarred and had been slightly twisted in the framing socket by some massive impact. The evac capsule had fared no better-carbon-scoring had turned nearly the entire surface black and the view ports were milky with tiny fissures. Another crew of engineers were dragging away a couple hundred meters of high-v cargo netting-the net Thai-i Holloway had arranged to snatch up the capsule at speed, while the Naniwa barreled past in the Pinhole-though its landing in boat-bay one had been… rougher… than the navigator intended.
“Clear!” barked the Joto-Heiso bossing the team of engineers. He stepped back, swinging the saw up onto his shoulder. Hot hexacarbon fragments littered the deck, filling the air of the cargo bay with thick spirals of smoke. “Get ’er open.”
The hatch squealed as pry bars dug in around the periphery, then popped free with a ting! Four of the Joto- hei on hand seized hold with magnetic grapples and wrestled the enormously heavy block of battle-steel, hexacarbon, and glassite onto a waiting grav-sled. As soon as the portal was removed, there was movement inside the capsule and two battered-looking Jaguar Knights emerged, shipguns at the ready. The Joto-Heiso stood his ground, unsuccessfully hiding a sneer behind a thick walruslike mustache. “Muddies,” he muttered under his breath to the engineers standing behind him.
“Xochitl- tecuhtzintli, welcome.” Heisocho Von Bayern was waiting for the next man to emerge. Prince Xochitl stamped out, his armor streaked with vomit and stippled with fresh dents. The Mexica lord’s face-his helmet was now canted back-was glacial with fury, his dark eyes flashing dangerously. One of his high, chiseled cheekbones had acquired a dark, purpling bruise. The Diplomatic Service warrant officer bowed appropriately, and then saluted sharply. “ Gensui on deck,” he barked.
A dozen meters back, Socho Juarez and the full remaining complement of marines aboard the battle-cruiser stamped their right feet in unison, presented arms-they’d scrambled to unpack their Macana assault rifles-and then held rigid while the cruiser’s piper wailed through the Imperial March.
Xochitl stared at the welcoming committee, his expression congealing into something very much like icy mud. Nothing about the reception was in the least irregular, though rousting out a piper for the March was generally falling from fashion. Von Bayern offered the Prince a gracious smile, hands clasped behind his back, until the drone of the bagpipes had ceased.
“My lord, I hope you will accept our apologies for detaining you and your crew within your evac capsule during transit. Your physical safety is of tremendous concern to Chu-sa Kosho. And… here are the medics.”
A pair of corpsmen had arrived with orderlies and stretchers. They immediately climbed in through the mangled airlock to help out the men still inside the capsule. The first to emerge was the hulking, seven-foot-high shape of the alien, in its unfamiliar armor. The marines and engineers stiffened, hands going to personal weapons. The creature looked around; head tilted back a little, and then saw the Prince. Xochitl looked back to the warrant officer.
“Take me to the Chu-sa immediately. Quarters for my men can wait. I will not. This one”-he pointed to Sahane-“send to whatever cabin is reserved for me. I will take something else, anything else.”
Von Bayern nodded amiably, apparently unaffected by the fury radiating from the Prince like a furnace draft. “Of course, my lord Prince, our transport is standing by.” He gestured to a nearby grav-sled-a regular cargo carrier which had a pair of bench-seats bolted on and draped with fabric in colors approximating the Imperial eagle crest. Xochitl shook his head, now beyond words, and climbed aboard.
As the grav-sled whined away, one of the corpsmen helped Helsdon out of the capsule, supporting his shoulder. The engineer looked ghastly, but was able to keep his head up as they loaded him onto a stretcher. The Joto-Heiso from the work crew was waiting with a flask, along with Juarez and four of the marines.
“Welcome aboard, kyo. The Chu-sa says you’re straight to a spare cabin and twenty, thirty hours of sleep.” The engineer flashed a broken-toothed smile behind his white mustache, pressing the flask into Malcolm’s hands. “Here, this’ll set you right. She sent it down. A twenty-year malt uisge-beatha -like velvet!”
Helsdon laid his head back on a pillow, puzzlement pushing aside his exhaustion for a moment. “Who-who sent this?”
“ Chu-sa Susan Kosho, Engineer.” Juarez patted him gently on the shoulder, and then motioned for the marines to escort him away. “Welcome aboard the Naniwa. The captain apologizes for keeping you in the can so long, but there wasn’t time to peel you out properly until now.”
All Gretchen could see was corridor roof, gleaming with overheads, and occasionally the superstructure of a hatchway as the grav-stretcher zipped along. A corpsman was jogging along beside her, though she could hear his voice only intermittently. Her left arm was throbbing with tremendous pain hidden behind a wall of meds, and now the rest of her had seemingly converted into an enormous ache. At least the bees are gone, she thought blearily. Her skin had settled down, which was a mercy. Whatever had happened when her hands had been on the corroded bronze block seemed to have faded, leaving only a faint golden tinge at the edges of her vision.
The stretcher whisked through a double-wide hatchway, and she was suddenly enveloped by the smell of antiseptics, blood, and urine. A face appeared above her-a junior medical officer, his lean visage spotted with crimson, his eyes hollow with sixteen hours on watch. Despite his appearance, however, he flashed a cheerful smile and palpated her arm. His touch made everything whirl around her like a sudden tchindi and someone, somewhere, groaned aloud in terrible pain.
“This temporary block is shot,” a voice said. “Load her up and knock her out. Back to room eight for her, with the old-”
There wasn’t even a needle-prick, just sudden sleepiness and then… nothing at all.
The orderly guided the stretcher into the second base station in the assigned room, confirmed the med- interlocks were set and showing green on their little status panel, then covered Anderssen with a blanket and adjusted the pillow under her head. Given the possibility that the g-decking might fail if combat resumed, he strapped her down and lowered a protective glassite shroud from the ceiling. Then, given he was in the room, the medic raised a similar covering over the old Nahuatl man in the next bed and tested his retinal responsiveness with a hand-light.
“Nothing,” muttered the orderly, shaking his head in dismay. “Facial pallor, weak and thready breath, heart arrhythmia… grandfather is in poor condition.” He charted the necessary notes with his stylus, then turned out the lights and closed the door behind him.
Once the room was dark and empty, however, Green Hummingbird let out a long, slow breath, and then wiggled his fingers and toes. After a moment to let his body stabilize, the old man turned his head sideways, looking at Gretchen’s supine form in the next bed. His forehead creased with worry, wrinkles drawing up at the
