She stepped back outinto the main trunk, her body jerking into a crouch as theengineering petty officer snarled in triumph.
“I knew it!” hecrowed. “I thought I smelled one of your kind down here! When Ipresent our lord with your head… Hurkhg!”
His mouth sagged open,leaving his threat unfinished. His hands came up to grasp the shaftof her spear as if he might try to pull it out of his chest.
Gabriella stoodthere, exultant in her victory buthorrified at her reaction at the same time. She was smiling, sheknew, but she also felt like sobbing.
Her victim sank to hisknees, looking up at her pleadingly as his hands fell away from theweapon.
Dammit! sheraged, tugging at the shaft, and flinching from his moans.How do I… She ordered thenecessary update and her spear rearranged itself into a knife,flowing out of her victim’s chest in the process.
His suit locked him inplace, the CPU compartment over his sternum sparking from the damageGabriella’s thrust had done.
Idiot, shereproached herself. You could have used his suit.
That was the finalstraw. Her adrenaline was running higher than at any other point inher life. She’d just fatally wounded this person and her disgust atthis self-absorbed, coldly rational critique of her own actionsbrought the contents of her stomach boiling up her throat.
“Oh, Gods!” shemanaged to blurt before throwing up in the astonished face of herdying enemy.
He couldn’t even move out of the way with his suit dead.
“I’m so sorry,”she said, reaching out to brush some of it from his eye sockets butthe attempt brought on a fresh wave of nausea and she loosed anothervolley of sour mash down the neck of his suit.
“I swear that wasn’ton purpose!” she told him. “Look, I’ll just…” She reachedout to put a comforting hand on his shoulder but recoiled from thesticky armored surface.
“OK, yeah. I’m justgonna...”
She edged past him inthe narrow tunnel and headed forward, shuddering with disgust. Shestopped after less than ten meters.
She clenched her hands,eyes shut tight. If I’m going to do what needs to be done, thebest time was before that guy noticed my emotions.
She opened her eyes andturned around. The second best time is right now, before theynotice he’s missing.
The feedback linkages are inside the pitchdrive casings, she thought,recalling the information as she walked back toward Engineering.The drives were recessed into the main decking so the non-arborealQuailu crew could reach the top interface without having to climb.
I should be able to get inside frombeneath the main deck. Shedidn’t need to change all of the linkages. The system used only oneat a time, otherwisea calibration issue couldmake the engines tear the ship in two.
Allshe had to do wasre-route one of them.Shecould remotely switch the system over tothat linkage at the rightmoment and the attack shouldbe thrown into chaos.
She reached thejunction where the training chair sat. The hatch above it was stillopen and someone was calling down to the dead crewman.
She edged around theouter walls of the junction, keeping her emotions in check, pushingthe fear to the back of her mind. A code snippet opened a hole on thefar side of the junction and she slipped through.
The crawl to thecentral engine was short and dusty. There was no access hatch downhere, so she had to create one through the verycareful application of coding. Sheset down her weapon and opened a new window.
A large section of theprotective sphere dissolved out of her way, bathing her face inpulsing light. Gabriella eased her way inside, being careful to keepnear the outer shell so the orbiting rings of magnetic semi-fluiddidn’t collide with her.
She could see thejunction she needed, attached to the inner surface of the shell andjust above deck level. She stretched her right arm up to grab thequick-release couple and pressed in on the safety ring.
It was a bit sticky anddidn’t release on the first try, which probably saved her life. Herbody tried to bend back at the waist when she felt the front of hershorts pulled forward with sudden force.
If the couple inher hand had been released, she would have reflexively thrust her armand head into the path of one of the orbiting rings. Whatthe hells? shewondered in a brief flare of panic but she crushed it immediately.
Nobody could havebeen in here with her, pulling at her shorts. She looked down at thetendril of thread where her button had been. Metal button,she chided herself.
It had beenpulled off by the magnetic array in the engine. What othersafety protocols am I ignoring? sheasked, more as a rhetorical exercise than as an actual search forknowledge. The resulting flood of procedural data was more alarmingthan it was helpful so she simply gave the retaining ring anotherpush, released the couple and inserted it into the bypass valve.
Good thing I don’t have any fillings,she thought. It’s a good thing mom was always such astickler at bedtime…
That was the wrongthing to think, here in the middle of enemy territory. Caught offguard by her train of thought, Gabriella closed her eyes and took aseries of deep breaths.
She sidled out of theengine and closed up the sphere. She picked up her weapon and startedcrawling back to the tunnel.
It was a little harderwith the button missing. It had only been decorative but it stillkept the top two inches of a fake fly closed. Now her shorts wereriding uncomfortably low on her hips.
She opened a hole backinto the junction and cursed the gods, whoever the hells they mighthappen to be. Her knife extended into a spear and she thrust it intothe neck of the crewman standing next to the training chair.
She should haveexpected someone to climb down when her first victim hadfailed to check in. At least there was just this one new threat todeal with.
The engineer had beendrawing breath to say something, probably along the lines of ‘Hey,there’s a wild Human loose down here!’ so she’d actedautomatically.
He’d beensilenced but anothercrewmate,looking down through the hatch, managed to get the gist of what hadstartled his stricken comrade. “Gods!” hescreamed, leaping
