As they moved along the axial corridor, Prime had taken over the surrounding sections one by one, venting the atmosphere out into space, and he hoped, forcing the crew to abandon ship. Sensors had shown eight lifeboats being launched from around the cargo section so far. Internal cameras had pinpointed seven crewmen remaining: three were waiting in a lifeboat, two were inside refuge chambers, while another two had put on spacesuits and were trying to get back into the axial corridor.
"How are you doing?" Lawrence asked the dragon.
"Admirably, thank you. I have established full access and authority to the Koribu's cargo and fusion drive sections. Prime is now installed in all its management electronics. I would have preferred a much larger bandwidth than the spaceplane umbilical provides. This starship does have a remarkable number of components. I cannot operate all of them simultaneously."
"What about our weapons?"
"Yes. I am in charge of several missile launchers, lasers and electron beam cannon. Sensor coverage is not yet complete. The majority are positioned around the forward sections. Targeting information is incomplete at this time."
"But if you see something coming, you'll be able to take a shot at it?"
"I will."
"Okay. You should have access to the forward sections soon."
Denise loaded Prime into a node. "We've got control of this section."
Lawrence studied the schematic that Prime was providing. For the first time, the Koribu's AS hadn't cut the main power grid around them. It was supplying the life support wheels.
The secondary pressure doors at the top of each wheel had been shut. Prime's control of systems extended only down to the giant magnetic bearings that were wrapped around the central stress structure. Data access to the wheels themselves had been firewalled.
"You keep going," Lawrence told Denise. "Establish a datalink to the compression drive. I'll deal with the crew."
He ordered Prime to halt the rotation of the life support wheels. The axial corridor began to creak loudly as the bearings changed their magnetic fields to act as a brake on the momentum of the tremendous wheels. The wall juddered and vibrated as the stress structure tried to absorb the extraordinary torque forces leaking through the bearings. In theory, the life support wheels counterbalanced each other. It was fine when they were running smoothly, but there was enough inertia wound up in each one to wrench the starship apart if the forces weren't perfectly matched. Now the stress structure was taking the full brunt of minute errors in the braking procedure.
Prime opened the pressure door on one of the radial corridors, and Lawrence dropped through into the rotating transfer toroid. He placed an energy focus ribbon on the top of the next pressure door and burned through into the life support wheel.
Captain Marquis Krojen instinctively grabbed at his console as a shudder ran through the bridge. The invaders must be braking the life support wheels. He didn't want to think what that would be doing to the central stress structure.
"Can we use our reserve power to maintain the bearings?" he asked the AS.
"No, sir."
Every question, every countermove he came up with received that same bland answer.
"They're in wheel one," Colin Jeffries reported. "We just lost contact."
Captain Marquis Krojen clenched his teeth to stop himself swearing. The bridge crew had been using secondary transmitters to provide communications between the wheels and the spaceplanes outside. Now the schematic showed wheel one as a black outline.
Another shudder rocked the bridge. This time it was accompanied by a metallic creaking sound. He couldn't wait any longer. "Okay, get our squad up into the axial corridor."
"Aye, sir," Colin Jeffries acknowledged grimly. He issued the order.
The squad consisted of bridge officers who'd drawn the carbines and found themselves a few laser welding tools. According to the AS, none of them stood a chance of damaging a Skin. The idea was to use the firefight to lure the Skin into a hub compartment that they'd wired into the reserve power supply. The voltage they could push through him might be sufficient to disable the Skin suit, or possibly even kill the man inside.
If the Skin chased them.
If they didn't all get killed in the first few seconds.
"Wheel one is venting," Colin Jeffries called. "That software has blown the escape hatches and used the fire dump nozzles."
A pane showed Marquis Krojen the life support wheel with precious air gushing out of its rim to spew across the stars.
"Spacesuits, everybody," the captain ordered bitterly. "You have my authority to abandon ship if your life support wheel loses pressure." He began to pull his own suit on, a task made difficult by the falling gravity. Optronic membranes showed him the squad opening a pressure door up into the rotating transfer toroid.
"Moving through," the lieutenant commanding the squad reported. "Nothing in the transfer toroid. Opening radial corridor pressure door."
Gravity on the bridge had almost vanished. At least that meant the shaking had stopped. Marquis Krojen used a Velcro patch to secure his helmet on the console next to him, keeping it within reach. "Isn't it locked?"
"No, sir. Going through. A lot of smoke in here. Can't see much."
"Pull back," Marquis said. "He knows you're there, his software will be tracking you."
"I can see someone." The muffled sound of carbine fire came out of the speaker.
"Pull back."
"Yes, sir." The telemetry display from the squad began to waver. "Suit... can't... Malfunction."
"They're firing!" another squad member cried. "Down."
"Back!"
"There!"
"Shot. Shot me. Oh fuck, I'm hit."
The lieutenant screamed.
"Can't breathe."
All the squad telemetry vanished. "Subversion alert," the AS said.
"In here?" Marquis asked hurriedly.
"An attempt was made through the communications link," the AS said. "I have disengaged the life support wheel's internal nodes from the network."
"So we've lost contact with the squad?"
"Yes, sir."
"How many casualties?"
"I am uncertain. Their spacesuit electronics were being subverted. Telemetry after they entered the transfer toroid is unreliable."
Marquis was looking at the camera image showing him the open pressure door. Black smoke was oozing through it, hazing the compartment. He could see the fire alarm strobes flashing brightly. "Have any of them made it back into the wheel?"
"No, sir."
"Communication with wheel two lost," Colin reported.
"Turn off your spacesuit communications," Marquis ordered. "Don't let it get inside." He glanced at the camera pictures. Vigorous geysers of atmosphere were spraying out of wheel two. It was like watching a friend bleed to death.
Weary sadness replaced the anger that had carried him this far.
"Abandon ship."
"Sir?" Colin Jeffries said.
The remaining bridge crew were staring at him.
"There's nothing else we can do. And I'm not leaving any of my people hostage to these bastards. Use the lifeboats, get clear. The spaceplanes will pick you up."
"What about you?"
"The captain stays with his ship. You know that!"
"Then I'm staying as well."
"Colin, please—" Pane displays began to fracture into random chunks of color, then went dead. The steady background whine of the environmental fans faded away. All the lights went off. Marquis snatched up the helmet and jammed it down on his collar. Shaking fingers engaged the seal. He gripped the arms on his chair just as the air turned into a howling hurricane. Paper, plastic cups, food trays, electronics, foaming water and even clothing streamed past him, caught in stop-motion flight by the blazing scarlet strobe light that was intent on warning the bridge of a decompression. A T-shirt wrapped itself around his helmet, flapping furiously. He didn't dare let go of the chair to push it off. The wild torrent
would have carried him with it. He tried rocking from side to side, and eventually the fabric slipped away.
Air was pouring through an open hatchway. He could actually see moisture vapor scoring thin contrails, marking out the flow. Any unsecured item had been sucked through. When he pictured the wheel's layout he remembered there was an escape hatch three compartments along. The subversion software must have fired the explosive bolts.
It took several minutes for all the atmosphere to clear. When the gusts and roaring had shrunk away, the red decompression strobe was still flashing. It had been joined by green strobes that had come on around the lifeboat hatch that had opened in the floor. With his communication circuit off, Marquis could hear nothing. He switched on his spacesuit helmet light, then pushed out of his chair. Colin and the other crew were doing the same. He beckoned Colin over, and they touched helmets.
"Take the lifeboat," Marquis shouted. "Get these people out."
"You must come with us." Colin's voice was like a muffled buzzing.
"No. I ordered the squad to intercept that Skin. I'm going to find out what happened to them. They're my responsibility."
"Good luck, sir."
The first of the bridge crew glided into the lifeboat. Marquis Krojen left the bridge. Normally the life support wheel seemed cramped and confined; in freefall it was a lot larger. Red, amber and green strobes flashed around him as he slid through the empty, airless corridors. He passed three lifeboat hatches that were shut. Blue indicator lights showed that the little craft had ejected safely.
It killed him to see his magnificent starship in this state. Environmental ducts had ruptured during the decompression, shattering dozens of plastic panels. Thick blue-green coolant fluid dribbled out of torn tubes, creating small constellations of globules that fizzed energetically as they evaporated in the vacuum. Loose debris that hadn't been sucked out formed its own baleful nebula in each compartment and cabin. It was mainly composed of clothes and crumpled food trays, though there were also cushions, fragments of plastic paneling, chairs, mashed-up pot plants, even a pedal frame from one of the gyms. Now that the air had gone it floated idly, drifting out of open hatchways to clutter the corridor. He glided around the obstacles or flicked them aside. Water was boiling furiously out of a split pipe, filling a long section of the corridor with thick white mist.
Even if they did recover the ship, he knew Z-B would never spend the money it would require for a complete refit. His Koribu was doomed, one way or another.
The spoke lift shaft that led up to the wheel's hub was almost clear, allowing him to move a lot faster. When he reached the first hub compartment the pressure door hinged shut behind him. The strobes went off, and the normal lighting returned. Several of the panels flickered, betraying just how much damage had been wrought by the decompression; internal systems were designed to operate in a vacuum. Refusing to be intimidated by the subversion software's activity, he moved into the hub's annular corridor and continued toward the transfer toroid.
The pressure door was closed. He pushed against it, knowing how futile that gesture was. Dense white gas suddenly burst out of an environment duct grille with a silent rush.
"Jesus," he muttered inside the helmet. The software must be preparing the wheel for the invaders. He flipped around quickly and kicked off. There was one hub compartment that was safer for him than the others. He zipped back along the annular corridor. Every grille was blowing out a column of air. The booby-trapped compartment was directly ahead. Pressure was already back up to half a standard atmosphere.
"Careful. It could be dangerous in there."
Marquis gripped the hatch rim to halt his flight and slowly looked round. The Skin was floating lazily along the annular corridor behind him.
"Somebody wired up the whole place to the backup power supply," the Skin said; his voice was tinny in the thin air.
Marquis turned his communication circuit back on. "It was wired up on my orders."
"A reasonable idea for a noncombatant."
"What do you want?"
"What I have, Captain: your starship."
"Why? At least tell me that."
"We're taking it on a trip."
"I doubt it. You've succeeded in virtually wrecking it."
"This is just superficial damage to the life support sections. The drives are intact. That's all we need."
"Where are you going?"
"To the alien's home star. You're welcome to come with us if you like. You've spent your life in space. I suspect you haven't entirely lost your fascination with the unknown, even if it's been diverted by Zantiu-Braun."
The offer did cause Marquis Krojen to hesitate, but duty was a lot stronger than old dreams. "My only concern right now is for the safety of my crew. Did you kill the squad I sent up here?"
"A blunt question, Captain. But, no, they're not dead, although a couple of them are injured. We subverted their spacesuits and turned off the air. They had to take their helmets off. I darted them."
"I see."
"Well, there's gratitude. Ah. Here we go."
The lights dimmed again. Marquis realized something was diverting power from the tokamaks. "The compression drive," he said in surprise.
"I did say it was intact. We'll be using it as soon as the alien can raise the tokamaks up to full power and bring the energy inverter online. In the meantime, I want you to help me shove the remaining crewmen into lifeboats. If we don't, then they'll be coming with us, and this ship is not going to come back."
* * *
Simon had blacked out when the scramjet came on. Acceleration had heightened the pain to an unbelievable agony before his body's beleaguered natural defenses snatched him away. When he recovered he was in freefall, with the intensive-care equipment emitting urgent bleeping sounds. Indigo symbols and script slowly crept into focus. There was no data available from the Koribu. He told his AS to give him the orbital tactical plots, and the sensor readings from the star-ships and satellites. "Good God." It was every bit as bad as he expected.
"Please, don't try to move," the doctor said quickly. "You're all right."
"I'd better be," Simon snapped at him. The crisp circles of the tactical plot showed him forty-eight lifeboats were slowly receding from the Koribu. The Xiantis had rendezvoused with a few, but they didn't have the cabin space to accommodate all the crewmen sheltering inside. Two of the spaceplanes had simply loaded the lifeboats into their cargo bays and de-orbited, carrying them down to Durrell. The remainder of the lifeboats were waiting for instructions: should they remain in orbit for rendezvous and rescue, or should they fire their retro rockets and land on the planet—if so, at what location? Simon couldn't care less. He reduced the tactical display back into the main display grid and expanded the Koribu's sensor scans. Vast and powerful magnetic flux lines were expanding out from the compression drive section as the tokamaks powered up. The starship was preparing to go FTL.
He told his AS to establish a link to Sebastian Manet, the Norvelle's captain.
"Can you disable the Koribu?" Simon asked. According to his tactical plot, the starships were only eight thousand kilometers apart.
"We should be able to saturate its defenses between the six of us," Sebastian Manet said. "I would like to wait until it's farther away from the lifeboats and spaceplanes. They could be damaged by the defense missiles, or the Koribu's detonation."
"I don't want it detonated. I want it disabled."
"We don't have that kind of capability."
"Why can't you use the kinetic weapons? Target the compression drive section."
"The Koribu will simply use its nukes against them: nothing can get through that kind of defensive bombardment."
"We must have more kinetic missiles than they have nuclear explosives."
"We do. But Captain Krojen was in the last lifeboat to escape. He's confirmed the goal of the hijackers. They're about five minutes away from going FTL. We'd need to fire at least eighteen salvos to soak up their defens
ive capability and be certain of achieving a hit; that would take forty-five minutes to an hour. We won't even be able to get the first salvo to them in time."
"Use the gamma soak on them."
"That projector takes about fifteen minutes to deploy."
Simon let out an infuriated grunt.
"Please," the doctor implored. "You must remain calm. I'll have to sedate you otherwise."
"You even come close to me again and I'll have you thrown out of the airlock," Simon told him. "Track it," he ordered Sebastian Manet. "I want to know where they're going. And begin the power-up sequence for Norvelle's compression drive."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes. I'll dock with you in another seventeen minutes. As soon as I'm on board, we're following them."
* * *
Simon had gone to sit in the helicopter's cabin to receive the rush of data that his personal AS had profiled for him. Information on the Koribu hijack attempt was sparse, but sensor data from the starship showed him the intruders progressing down the axial corridor, loading Prime as they went. Atmosphere began venting from the cargo section. Lifeboats ejected.
And there was nothing he could do about it His only option was to order one of the other starships to open fire with nuclear weapons. Not only would that wipe out the entire crew and obliterate a multitrillion-dollar starship along with the nearby spaceplanes, it would also kill the alien. Nothing would be gained, and everything would be lost. Besides, he wasn't entirely sure the other captains would obey such an order.
A change-of-status icon blinked up within the DNI's display grid. His personal AS always kept him updated on security matters concerning his clone siblings no matter what crisis he was dealing with. He expanded the icon and read the script that came scrolling out with a growing sense of dismay.
"What do you think you're doing?' he asked the SK2.