Death Drop (54 page)

“Locked on, Admiral!” Booktu said. This was it, and Otto felt the strain on his mind and body begin to drain away. Talfus’ murderer would be brought to justice and the Dissension would continue to grow in strength through the Serum.
“Mission accomplished,”
he sighed inwardly. Just then, a monstrous shadow flashed by him and he knew he had spoken too soon.

“ROAAARRR!” Malo’s fearsome battle cry shook the bridge like cannon fire. His battle hammer sped through the air, swooping down on Rilek’s head with demonic wrath. The huge metal weight crushed everything in its path. The helm wheel and the myriad flashing buttons and blinking switches behind it crumpled in a shower of golden-white sparks. Rilek was no longer there.

“MALO, WHAT THE F” the sound of gunfire swallowed Otto’s protest as he frantically scurried out of his harness. The little voice in Otto’s head questioned the logic of unstrapping himself as the deck below his feet listed to port, but he stifled his overprotective conscience and dropped to the floor.

Ping! Paer! Poing!

Booktu’s bullets were bouncing off the Haleonex armor on Malo’s left arm as he turned, shielding his head and torso with speed and agility Otto never imagined possible. The Moxen’s hooves clapped across the deck as he cleared the deck in two strides and struck Booktu with his hammer. Luckily for Rilek’s gunner, this wasn’t his first scrape with a bigger, faster enemy. At the last moment, Booktu stepped into Malo’s swing, letting his upper arm take a blow from the hammer’s handle rather than the lethal head. Pain shot up his arm and his sight dimmed as he tumbled through the air and slammed into the back wall of the conning tower. Malo advanced on his helpless, unconscious body and raised his instrument for the final strike.

Ching! Chang! Kling!

Nori rushed from his charts with a rapier in both hands and slashed at every inch of exposed muscle on the Moxen’s legs. Malo, snorting wildly and frothing at the mouth, held his hammer beneath the head and at the end of the handle, twisting it to deflect the ensign’s repeated attacks. Nori’s body glowed and blurred. Suddenly he was two, and each personification was slashing and parrying with its rapier, hoping to pass Malo’s formidable defenses.

Schloop! Schloop! Click! Click!

The sound of metal rushing against cured hide, followed by the cocking of revolver hammers, brought a halt to the action. The Noris, panting heavily, stepped slowly backward to flank Booktu and stood, with rapiers at the ready, glaring at the Moxen. Nori had driven him beyond Booktu’s body, and Malo was now standing a few feet from the wheel-lock at the back of the room and facing toward the bow of the ship. He was breathing forcibly and swaying on hooves set wide apart beneath tensed leg muscles, ready to spring as he stared unseeing at the gun barrels trained on him by Otto, to his right, and Rilek directly in front of him.

“Malo!? I don’t understand!” Otto’s voice was filled with terror, anger, and the hurt only betrayal by family or dear friend can bring. “Lieutenant Schunkari?! ANSWER ME GODDAMMIT!” Otto’s hand trembled as he waited for an answer, but none came. The Moxen stood silent and menacing; staring through dead eyes. “Malo, if you don’t answer…I’m gonna have to…” Otto’s face was set in anguish as the barrel of his revolver snapped level and stopped shaking. “Malo?” Otto asked one last time and waited for a response; and this time, he got one. Malo roared murderously and charged Rilek. Moisture pooled on the lip of Otto’s lower eyelids as he swung his pistol to the right to account for the target’s movement. He blinked his eyes to clear his vision and as fresh tears drained away, he pulled back on his trigger.

BOOM! A streak of purple-white blurred across his vision as the hammer of his revolver pounded mercilessly down. The muzzle of his pistol flashed and kicked back in his hand, and the bullet stopped with a loud crack that Otto didn’t expect to hear.
“His skull must have been harder than you imagined,”
he thought morbidly as Malo fell to the ground and skidded to a halt at Rilek’s feet.

Otto stood behind the barrel of his smoking gun and looked on in disbelief at the toppled mountain of horns and muscle on the deck. It took him a second to understand what had happened, then he smiled. Much to his surprise, and relief, Malo didn’t have a hole in his head. The loud noise he heard after the report was his bullet hitting the shatterproof pane on the other side of the room. The door to the bridge was thrown wide, and the explanation for the Moxen’s abrupt collapse to the deck was hanging from his back and clutching a white syringe sticking out of his thick neck.

Dr. Mia Weiloonyu sprung to her feet and planted them awkwardly on the deck as it tilted, inch by inch, to port. She was disheveled, breathing savagely and looking up at Rilek with wild, unfamiliar eyes while trying to balance herself against the list.

“Mia?” Rilek said hesitantly. “Are you…all right?”

“Me? Me? Yes, I’m fine,” Mia said in a tone that sounded just as unsure as Rilek’s.

“Forgive me, but I’ve never seen you do anything like that before. I’m in your debt.” Rilek stooped his shoulders forward in a bowing gesture and looked at her with searching eyes as he rolled his head from side to side. “What did you do to him?”

“I injected him with painkiller,” she said, looking around the bridge. “Enough to kill every man in this room twice over, but given his size, he should be fine.”

“And how did you happen to be here with a syringe full of painkiller in time to save me?”

“After taking so much fire, I decided to come to the bridge and see if anyone needed medical attention,” Mia said flatly. “I tried to raise you, but the com was out—I was worried.”

“Where’s Artie?” Otto asked quickly before Rilek started in again.

“Oh, yes, Major, I’m sorry, but Doctor Blink was knocked off his feet during the fighting and hit his head. I’m afraid he has a rather serious concussion and will be unconscious for some time.

“Now, Admiral, can I help anyone else?”

Rilek straightened again, apparently satisfied with Mia’s answers. “I believe Mr. Booktu is in need of your healing prowess, Doctor.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral,” she said and she hurried back toward the door where Nori had managed to pull Booktu to a sitting position. He was scrunching his scarred face in pain and clutching his left arm but managed to give a weak smile as Mia knelt beside him.

Rilek looked forlornly at the remnants of the flight controls. The ship was pitching faster and faster with each passing second. Soon they would be completely on their side, which was worrisome, but more disheartening was their inability to defend themselves, not to mention the acceleration of the ship. They were being drawn to Clara 591 by gravity, and they wouldn’t survive if Rilek couldn’t control the entry. He had to talk to engineering. He reached for the com, and as his feathery fingers touched the holodex controls, he was thrown against the portside wall of the conning tower as shells exploded and rocked the
Lodestar
.

Rilek tried to push himself upright. He groaned with the enormous effort, his arms shaking, and then he collapsed. He felt the cold of the viewing pane seep into his cheek—it was cool and refreshing and he forgot himself under the intoxicating effects of a hard blow to the head and he smiled—and then his gold-ringed eyes slid closed.

Admiral Rilek was out cold, and his beloved ship was in its death throes, speeding into Clara 591’s atmosphere to be burned to a cinder upon entry or to disintegrate on impact with the planet’s surface.

Chapter 37: Flight of
The Firebug

T
he starboard flank of the
Triton
flashed over and over—a dozen sinister glowing eyes winking and then vanishing in puffs of ashen spent powder. Dezmara had seen what the strange ship could do with its guns when it destroyed the
Maelstrom
, and now it was firing a full broadside cannonade into her badly wounded ship. She waited for the emptiness to consume her, and an elusive thought, hiding somewhere her conscious had not been able to reach before, hiding with all the secrets of her past, crawled from its dark place and whispered lightly across her mind. The words steeled her and unsettled her at the same time.
“Don’t worry, you’ve been dead before.”

THWACK-CRUNCH! THWACK-CRUNCH! THWACK-CRUNCH!

“What the hell?!” Dezmara said as the strange sound repeated, growing slightly softer and hollower as it retreated away from the cockpit and down the side of the
Ghost
. She leaned over the control console in front of her for a closer look, then she backed away. The muscles in her jaw rippled and she clenched her hands. Rage streamed from her eyes like scalding rays from an angry sun as she shook her head from side to side. “They’re goddam pirates!”

She reached for the com, but before her outstretched finger could flip the switch, it chimed from the other end. “Snatchers, luv!” Simon yelled.

There was no mistaking the snatcher towing device used by most marauding ships. The top was conical and divided into equal sections by dark lines radiating downward from the tip. Once within range, and before impact, the shell would expand explosively, wrenching back to reveal several curved, barbed talon-like appendages that could cut through the outer hull of a ship and lock it in a death grip. The back of each snatcher was attached to a chain sheathed in a loose, crinkled material, and this tether spanned the distance between the two ships. Dezmara could feel the
Ghost
moving laterally as the
Triton
hauled her quarry closer for entry into Clara 591’s atmosphere.

Dezmara moved back to the viewing panes and surveyed the situation. She could see that the
Triton
had twelve snatchers connected to its hull—all of them streaming from a row of nautilus doors that divided the starboard side of the pirate vessel perfectly down its middle. The sheathed chains were taut and the ships were moving dangerously close to one another. If the captain of the
Triton
didn’t time it perfectly, they would smash into each other and both, more likely than not, would be badly damaged, possibly destroyed.

Dezmara’s heart pounded against her chest, and the audible thudding crept into her throat as they inched closer. “Oh, shit—we’re gonna crash!” she said, but before she could turn away from the window and strap herself into her captain’s chair, the two rows of nautilus doors flanking the tow chains swirled open. Dezmara froze. “Oh, shit!” Exhaust glowed from fairings protruding from each hole, and she tumbled backward with the acceleration, hitting the floor and yelping in pain from her ribs before struggling into her chair and clipping her harness into place. Dezmara’s vision blurred into streaks of gray metal and squiggles of blue and white light as the
Ghost
shook wildly on its tethered drop from the heavens. She clenched her eyes shut, gripped the rim of her chair, and strained to hear her own thoughts over the rumbling of the air molecules outside that swarmed and battered the hull like an invisible sea of enemies.

Dezmara was pretty sure they’d come out of the entry in one piece. The entire outside of the
Ghost
, as well as the exposed surfaces of the interior, was made of heat resistant materials. Of course, that didn’t mean a pilot could approach an atmosphere willy-nilly: something could always go wrong, and there were procedures to minimize the risk of reentry. She noticed the
Triton’s
shape—its sideways approach to the surface was done by design. The blunt flank of the vessel would push the air out in front of it, creating a space between the air molecules, now superheated by friction, and the surface of the ship. The pirate craft’s profile was big, thanks to the enormous domed shell above its gunwale, and the shockwave would be enough to taper around the much smaller
Ghost
trailing in its wake…she hoped.

Dezmara was worried about the breached hull. The temperature of the air streaming into the main deck would approach three thousand degrees, and any opening into the unprotected substructure would be like a fuse soaked in fuel waiting for the smallest touch of heat to transform the Zebulon into a speeding fireball. Her arm reached up from under her seat and she struggled to locate what she was looking for as the console in front of her quaked and jumped. Finally, her hands fumbled their way to the switch she wanted and clumsily knocked into it—along with several others—and the external controls in the main deck retracted into the walls and disappeared just in time, as the now barren, smooth panels in the passage way began to glow a fierce orange.

The ship continued to jerk and bounce as Dezmara reached up and synched the holodex with the altimeter. They were falling rapidly, and it didn’t take long for the soft voice of the
Ghost’s
communication system to tell Dezmara it was time to put her plan into motion.
“Ten thousand feet,”
the holodex announced.

“You’ll be safe in your harness, Doj!” Dezmara said as she grabbed the kranos and put it under her arm. She patted him on the head and staggered to the door, but Diodojo stopped her in her tracks with a hurt, protesting roar.

She spun around to find his stare even more unbearable than his howl, and Dezmara pulled her lips back toward her teeth and exhaled noisily through her nose. “Dammit, Doj…okay, okay! You can come, but you go straight to your place in the pipes once we get to engineering, got it?” Diodojo grumbled loudly from his throat, and his eyes softened and squinted half-closed a few times as Dezmara unbuckled him from his harness. As soon as he was free, Diodojo bounded around Dezmara and stood impatiently at the door. “All right, all right, I’m comin!” Dezmara said as she slid the kranos over her head and punched the controls for the portal.