a shield generator to overload. That created a momentary hole in the space station’s defenses, which one of the Ramanthian fi?ghters managed to exploit by fi?ring a torpedo through it. The entire habitat shuddered as the missile penetrated the hull and killed people. Within seconds the surrounding airtight compartments sealed themselves off and prevented what could have been an even larger catastrophe as the C&C computer delivered the latest piece of bad news. “The battle station’s primary weapon system is off-line,” the computer intoned emotionlessly. “Secondary and tertiary weapons have been delegated to local control. All damage-control parties will report to . . .”
Lieutenant JG Leo Foley didn’t care where the damagecontrol parties were going to report. All he wanted to do was to escape the battle station’s brig, round up some sort of transportation, and get the hell off the platform before the bugs began to board it. Because there wasn’t a man or woman in the navy who hadn’t heard about the slaughter that took place aboard the Gladiator once the crew put down their arms and surrendered. Some of the POWs had been taken off the battlewagon to serve as slave labor, but many had been murdered, or left to die when the ship blew. And, assuming the stories were true, the chits were especially hard on offi?cers. Which Foley still was, for the moment at least. Foley’s thoughts were interrupted as a hatch opened and a fi?rst-class petty offi?cer appeared. His arms were full of printouts, and it looked as though the rating had been ordered to feed the pile of documents into a shredder bolted to the opposite bulkhead. All things considered, that was not a good sign. “Jonesy!” Foley said imploringly. “You’ve got to let me out of here! You know what the bugs will do if they board. Give me a fi?ghting chance!”
“Yeah!” a neighboring prisoner agreed loudly. “You heard the loot—give us a fi?ghting chance!”
The shredder made a grinding noise as the jailer fed sheaves of paper into it. “How stupid do you think I am?”
Jones inquired rhetorically. “Rather than fi?ght, you eight balls would run for the nearest escape pod!”
Foley had something more comfortable than an escape pod in mind, but knew better than to say so, and continued to plead his case. “No way, Jonesy. . . . Let us out of here, give us weapons, and we’ll make the bugs pay!”
There was a chorus of agreement from the other holding cells as the petty offi?cer fed the last sheets of paper into the shredder. The battle station shuddered as something blew, and the deck started to tilt as 12 percent of the habitat’s steering jets went off-line. Perhaps it was that, as much as anything else, that caused the noncom to pause and reconsider. Foley was a thief by all accounts, although the charges against the offi?cer had yet to be proven, which meant he was theoretically innocent. The rest of the prisoners were enlisted personnel who had been charged with offenses ranging from sleeping on duty to running a distillery down in the battle station’s engineering spaces. All of which were serious offenses, but they didn’t justify the death penalty. And none of them deserved to be killed like rats in a trap. Because, based on what Jonesy had heard, Foley was right. The Ramanthians were merciless. “I’ll probably regret this,” the PO said, as he rounded the duty desk. “But what the hell? I never expected to make chief anyway.”
A meaty fi?nger stabbed at the touch-sensitive screen, six indicator lights went from red to green, and there was a metallic clang as all the doors slid open. The prisoners were free!
Or so it seemed. But moments after rushing out of their cells, and milling around inside the detention facility, a new announcement came over the PA system. And, rather than the well-modulated tones typical of the C&C computer, this voice was human. Thereby raising the possibility that the Command & Control computer was belly-up, too. “This is Lieutenant Commander Nidifer,” the female voice said. “All hands will stand by to repel boarders. I repeat, all hands will stand by to repel boarders.”
Foley swore. It didn’t take a fl?eet admiral to fi?gure out that if the main battery was off-line, and most of the secondary armament was down, then the bugs were going to come aboard and clean house. And, worse yet from his perspective, the fi?ve pounds of stardust that he’d been willing to sacrifi?ce his navy career to steal was locked up where he couldn’t get at it!
But there wasn’t anything Foley could do about it, so the larcenous offi?cer made his way out into the main passageway. It was a madhouse. Horns, Klaxons, and smoke detectors continued to honk, bleat, and buzz. The sick bay was full, and had been for some time, which explained why a long line of wounded sailors and marines lay on stretchers next to the outboard bulkhead. Medics were trying to help them, but there weren’t enough hospital corpsmen to go around, so it was already too late for some of the patients. Most of the people who were jogging, limping, or being carried past Foley were dressed in pressure suits, a reminder that, because Foley didn’t have one, and wasn’t likely to get his hands on one, he could wind up sucking vacuum. Especially if the chits blew a really big hole in the hull. Foley felt someone touch his arm and turned to fi?nd that a dozen brig rats were standing behind him. A second-class petty offi?cer stepped forward. The name on his jumper was Tappas. He was thirty or so, had boyish features, and intelligent eyes.
“Okay, sir,” Tappas said calmly. “What do we do now?”
Foley’s plans, such as they were, didn’t include anyone other than himself. But the sailors looked so forlorn that he couldn’t bring himself to refuse them. “It sounds like the chits are about to board,” Foley said. “So we’re going to need some weapons.”
Tappas nodded. “Yes, sir. Then what?”
Foley, who had been planning to steal a six-person lifeboat, was forced to change his thinking. “Once we have the weapons we’ll make a run for the fl?ight deck, grab a shuttle, and head dirtside for some well deserved R&R.”
It was exactly the kind of plan that Tappas and the rest of the brig rats wanted to hear. So they were quick to follow as Foley led them up corridor toward access way P-8. The corridor would carry the group in toward the lift tubes that were clustered around the battle station’s hollow core, a twelvedeck-tall structure that was home to the habitat’s fusion reactor, the power accumulators that fed the main battery, and the argrav generators.
Thanks to the confusion, no one thought to ask Foley where he was going. With an offi?cer in the lead, the brig rats looked like a work detail as they jogged single fi?le along the main corridor, accumulating weapons along the way. Which wasn’t all that hard to do given that the wall-mounted arms lockers were open and rows of neatly racked weapons were there for the taking. Energy rifl?es for the most part, since they were less likely to punch a hole in the battle station’s hull, and let the habitat’s atmosphere out. But, having made good progress for a while, Foley and his men ran into a roadblock as they approached Lock 8. There was a fl?ash of light as an energy grenade went off, followed by a concussive bang, and the staccato whine of energy weapons as blue energy bolts stuttered back and forth. “It’s the bugs!” a wild-eyed marine captain announced, as he lurched out of the drifting smoke. Foley saw the bandage that had been tied around the other offi?cer’s head was red with blood, and one of his arms hung uselessly by his side. “Come on!” the leatherneck urged. “Follow me!”
So Foley followed, knowing that if he and his men were going to reach their objective, they would have to pass the lock. And, having very little choice, Tappas and the rest of the brig rats followed. Bodies lay in heaps where an earlier attempt to board the battle station had been repulsed. But just barely, as was obvious from the fact that most of the casualties were human, and only a handful of marines remained to defend the lock as another assault
