to remedy, if you would only give it a little push.”
With a sound of frustration, she released her harness straps and twisted the proper hatch release a half- turn. Then she stopped. She looked at Steinbach through slitted eyes. She noted the way that his hands were fluttering over the tool he had been using.
“You seem to be sweating more profusely than before, General.”
A smile flickered over Steinbach’s face. He tried to look unconcerned. “You’re scrutiny is quite imposing, Empress.”
She gave a growl of distrust. Her hand slipped away from the hatch release. “What did you do? Slip a bomb in there?”
Steinbach looked offended. “Of course not, Empress. Check your diagnostics. Any dangerous weaponry would trip a dozen alarms, I’m sure.”
Still distrustful, she did as he suggested. The diagnostics only found some kind of obstruction. No explosive devices were detected.
“So why don’t you want to do it?”
“Empress, I am no technician. A man could lose a finger in there, with all that moving machinery. It would be so easy for you to reach the obstruction.”
“You really are a coward,” she said, snorting. Not liking him too close, in case something did go wrong, she marched the suit out into an open area of the bridge, between the line of dead aliens and the corpse strewn operator area.
She loosened her straps again and took a firm hold of the hatch release. With her other hand, she grabbed the ejection lever. She experienced only a moment of indecision. She chided herself for exhibiting cowardice akin to Steinbach himself. Had she not just bested an army of savage aliens? What could be wrong? The whole thing was ridiculous. Steinbach was a whimpering cretin.
She twisted the hatch release another half-turn and it popped open. Coiled up inside was the skinny, half- starved shrade that had hidden there since it had taken refuge in the suit while it was under maintenance beneath the castle.
Mai Lee’s eyes bulged. She attempted to close the hatch again. It was a testimony to the weak state of the shrade that it was even a contest. Only the berserk fear of death gave her a chance. But slowly, relentlessly, the hatch was forced open.
She remembered the ejection lever too late, the shrade already had a loop of flesh around her calf and was winding its way up her body quickly. She pulled the lever anyway and the head of the battlesuit popped off, landing on the deck of the bridge with a loud clang. She struggled to get out of the suit, got her head and shoulders into open air, then halted and began a pitiful wailing.
The dark, snake-like shape of muscle enveloped her. The ghastly sounds of feeding began.
“The door goes on three,” said Jarmo. He counted off. On three, he depressed the firing stud on his plasma cannon. It took several seconds, but the blast doors finally burnt away. Jumping through the orange glowing ring of metal, a dozen militiamen entered the bridge.
Jarmo and the mech Lieutenant stood marveling at the mounds of dead when the Governor, Sarah and Jun followed them inside. Sarah clapped her hands over Bili’s eyes, telling him to wait in the hall.
“It’s too late, Mom. I’ve seen it,” he said in a dead voice.
Droad watched them, frowning. Sarah looked as if she might cry. And well she might, he felt like crying himself. The carnage was awful. Tangled bodies lay strewn everywhere.
In the center of it all was Mai Lee, dead eyes staring forth from the top of her gore-encrusted battlesuit. The shrade that enveloped her was dead as well. The group naturally gravitated toward her.
“This must have been a fantastic battle,” said Droad. “But who won?”
“I’d say that we did,” said Sarah. She pointed to the blood trail of claw prints that traced the battlesuit’s progress to its final resting point in the middle of the chamber. “It looks like she was on her way to walk out, when she opened the suit to maybe get a breath and that shrade got her. She wouldn’t have done that if we hadn’t won the battle.”
“We, huh?”
Sarah frowned. “When it comes to these aliens, I would even claim kinship to this witch.”
Droad nodded. Despite himself, he was impressed by the dead old woman. “She was the most vicious and cunning human we had to pit against the aliens. Even though she embodied the worst of our tendencies, I have to admit that she did a good job on them.”
A few moments later, Jarmo walked up to make his report upon examining the room. “The good news is that the radiation was never released. It appears that the aliens attacked before they could manage it. The bad news is that there are still hordes of aliens on this ship according to the computers. And, well, look at this, sir,” said Jarmo, holding up a leather bag of some kind.
Droad examined it. “Isn’t that Steinbach’s satchel?” he said after a moment.
Jarmo nodded his head. His jaw was tight, his face grim.
“Any sign of Steinbach among the dead? Or of the codekeys?”
This time Jarmo shook his head.
Droad looked him in the eye. “I’d like to give you your second chance at Steinbach, Jarmo. But the Mech is better for solo duty. Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Rem-9 reported instantly for duty.
“Go retrieve the General, please.”
Moving with sudden, unnatural speed, the mech raised his plasma cannon and vanished through the cooling ring of melted metal that had been the blast doors. Droad looked after him, wondering if he had done the right thing. He trusted Jarmo’s judgment more, but without Jarmo at his side, things wouldn’t have felt right.
Twenty-Two
Rem-9 moved swiftly through a hatch, down a long ladder of steel tubing and through a low-ceilinged chamber into a service elevator. The elevator hummed vaguely while he descended. He knocked out the overhead lighting with his plasma cannon. Standing tensely in the dark, he held his plasma rifle ready, muzzle directed at the elevator doors.
There were three possible destinations for Steinbach. He would definitely move to a spot where he could use his codekeys in private. Somewhere that would afford him a considerable amount of power. That meant either the laser turret, the engineering deck or the redundant bridge. The redundant bridge was a less elegant, smaller and more functional version of the bridge, located in the center of the ship. In case of a ship board disaster, navigational control could be diverted to that location. The mech headed for the redundant bridge first.
The elevator halted and the doors slid open. A long corridor stretched seemingly into infinity ahead, going right to the center of the ship and the redundant bridge. The corridor was choked with bodies, mostly of unarmed crewmen. Clearly, the aliens had slaughtered them. Rem-9 wondered if any of the crew or passengers aboard were still alive. He doubted it.
As he stepped out, he felt a deep, throaty rumble from somewhere inside the ship. If he had been able to smile, he would have. The primary engines were being stoked. He had guessed correctly. Someone was working the controls in the redundant bridge.
The slideway was not functioning. Nimbly vaulting the bodies, he raced up the corridor. Reaching an intersection, he slowed and caught a fluttering movement out of the corner of his eye. The culus was too close for his plasma cannon, so he smoothly grabbed it and destroyed it with his clicking, partially-metallic hands. He threw the destroyed alien over his shoulder, where it smashed into the bulkhead behind him. It slid to the floor and began to quiver and bulge. The shrade inside burst out of its guts, hissing and spraying vicious liquids about the corridor. The mech had his plasma cannon targeted and turned the shrade into molten, bubbling flesh. Satisfied both aliens were no longer a threat, Rem-9 set off down the corridor again at a dead run.
It wouldn’t be long now before more aliens were on him, the sentinel had had long enough to communicate
