The Aftermath

“Please open it. I’ll board your vessel through it.”

“Very well. Please hurry.”

“I will.” He scanned the control board, saw that the nav and propulsion programs were set to match the velocity vectors of the other ships. Then he got up from the command chair and headed for the equipment bay where tools were stored. I’m going to need some kind of a weapon, he told himself. Something to make the fight more even.

* * *

As they walked along the slightly sloping passageway that ran along Hunter’s inner rim, Valker kept his pistol in his right hand, although he allowed his arm to relax naturally by his side. The kid and the two women were a few steps ahead of them, trudging reluctantly, grudgingly toward the ship’s bridge; the cyborg paced along beside him, matching him stride for stride.

“What’s it like,” Valker asked, “being half machine?”

Dorn’s half-metal face turned slowly toward him. “What’s it like, being entirely animal?”

Valker laughed. “I mean, does your machine half feel pain? Is it stronger than normal human flesh?”

“Lifting his prosthetic arm slightly, Dorn said, “This hand could crush that pistol you’re carrying.”

Instinctively, Valker twitched the gun away from the cyborg.

“Not to worry,” said Dorn, quite solemnly, “I’m a priest, not a warrior.”

“You’re not a fighter, then?”

“Not normally.” Dorn raised his left arm higher, then let it fall to his side. “Besides, this arm is prone to a mechanical version of arthritis, now and then.”

Valker asked, “You’ve always been a priest?”

“No, not always. Once I was a soldier. A mercenary. I’ve seen battle. I’ve… killed people.”

“But not anymore.”

“Not unless I’m provoked,” said Dorn, with a slight nod to the two women and the young man walking ahead of them.

* * *

SMELTER SHIP HUNTER: BRIDGE

Her fingers moving swiftly on the electronic keyboard, Elverda opened the emergency airlock next to the bridge as she watched in the main screen the lone figure of a man jetting across the gap between Pleiades and Hunter. Glancing at the control board’s telltale lights, she saw that he entered the airlock and cycled it.

Through the open hatch of the bridge she heard voices approaching; Dorn’s deep, slow tones and the lighter, faster patter of another man: Valker. As she got up from the command chair two women stepped through the hatch, followed by the same young man Dorn had brought aboard earlier, then Dorn himself and the tall, broad- shouldered, smiling Valker, who was still chattering blithely away. And holding a pistol in his right hand.

He had to duck slightly to get through the hatch. Then his eye caught Elverda’s and he beamed a bright smile at her.

“Hello again, Ms. Apacheta,” he said.

Elverda smiled back tentatively.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said, putting more wattage into the smile.

Drawing herself up to her full height, Elverda said, “We meet under unusual circumstances, Captain Valker.”

Valker raised the pistol and glanced at it as if he hadn’t realized it had been in his hand. “This? Well, this is business, dear lady. I’m afraid we’re going to have to take your ship, and the one that’s just made rendezvous with us.”

“Like hell you will!”

A scruffy, stubby, dark-bearded man in a rumpled short-sleeved tunic and shorts stepped through the hatch, a laser spot welder in one hand. His bare arms and legs were knotted with muscle, his onyx eyes blazed fury.

Valker whirled around at the sound of his voice, leveling the pistol in his hand. Dorn wrapped both his arms around Valker’s body, and young Theo punched the scavenger solidly in the jaw. Valker’s legs buckled, his head lolled back on his shoulders.

“Victor!” The older woman rushed into the arms of the fiercely bearded man. The younger followed her by a half-step. They both broke into sobs.

Dorn let Valker’s unconscious body slip to the deck. Theo bent down and took the pistol from his hand. Dorn slipped the belt of minigrenades off his shoulder, stared at them for a long wordless moment, then with a growl flung them across the bridge.

It took a few minutes, but Elverda got it sorted out despite the blubbering. Even young Theo Zacharias—who turned out to be the bearded man’s son—had tears in his eyes.

“This is a helluva family reunion,” said Victor Zacharias, his arms around his wife and daughter, a happy grin on his face.

Dorn brought them all back to reality. “There are nine other scavengers: six aboard this vessel and three on Syracuse.”

“Hunting for Mom and Angie,” Theo said grimly.

Victor’s dark eyes flashed. “They didn’t—”

“Angie’s fine,” Pauline said immediately. “They didn’t touch her.”

Elverda stared at the woman, then turned to the main screen, above the control panel, and pointed. “Look. Four men are crossing over to your ship, Pleiades.”

“It’ll take them a little while to realize I’m not aboard her,” said Victor.

“Then what?” Theo asked.

“How many are still on this ship?” Victor asked.

Elverda worked the electronic keyboard. The main screen broke into a dozen smaller views, each showing a section of Hunter’s interior. Only two scavengers were visible, both by the main airlock.

“We’ve got to get them before the others come back,” Theo said.

Victor stepped closer to the multi-eyed screen. “They’re both armed.”

Valker groaned and pushed himself up to a sitting position. He looked up at Theo, rubbing his jaw. “Nice punch, kid. Try it again sometime when my arms are free.”

Theo started toward him, but Dorn blocked him with his prosthetic arm. “Perhaps we won’t have to fight the others.” Pointing to Valker, “We have a hostage here.”

Valker laughed bitterly. “Some hostage. You think those cockroaches would give up taking two whole ships, just for me?”

“We’d better get those two before the others come back,” Victor said.

“Defeat them in detail,” Dorn muttered.

Victor looked at him. “You talk like a soldier.”

“I was a soldier, once.”

Hefting the pistol he’d taken from Valker, Theo said to his father, “Let’s go for them, then.”

Victor looked into his son’s eyes, then nodded. Turning to Dorn, “Can you lock him up someplace?”

“One of the storage bays,” Dorn replied. “It’s on the way to the main airlock.”

“All right,” Victor said. “Pauline, you and Angie stay here on the bridge with Ms. Apacheta. Keep all the airlock hatches sealed.”

“We can’t close the main airlock’s outer hatch,” Elverda said.