Guardian of Night (40 page)

The sceeve regained its composure faster than he did.

Hand around Coalbridge’s throat.

No fingers, just those crushing gills. Tight grip of a thousand overlapping membranes. Gurgling of gills.

His trachea was collapsing. The truncheon was still in his hand, though, and he brought it up against the side of the sceeve’s head as hard as he could. The sceeve emitted a horrible smell—bad milk and ammonia?—then fell to the side, holding its head.

That should’ve been a killshot,
Coalbridge thought. He glanced at the truncheon. Somehow, it had gotten turned off in the melee. Coalbridge rose to his knees, crawled over to the creature, and sat on its back. No time to reengage the setting. Instead, he put the truncheon around the other’s neck and pulled back. Farther back.

Choking gasps from the sceeve’s massive muzzle. Yet the sceeve continued to struggle.

This is taking too long,
Coalbridge thought. From somewhere far away, the echo of rending, popping metal. He glanced up at the view screen. Christ, the
Powers
was separating from the
Guardian,
and the docking collar was being torn loose from the
Guardian.
The two vessels were coming unglued!

He yanked harder on the sceeve’s neck, which was a mistake. For the sceeve bent backward with his jerking motion and rolled over with him. He ended up sprawled on his back with the sceeve on top of him.

With a twisting motion—this thing seemed to be the sceeve version of a martial-arts expert—the attacker had the truncheon out of Coalbridge’s hand. It slowly raised it up. The shaft, similar in appearance to a cop’s nightstick, was glowing with a hot pink electric fire.

The kill setting had been reactivated.

The sceeve got two hands on the truncheon, prepared to bring it down against Coalbridge’s skull. He tried to twist out of the way, but the weight of the sceeve held him in place. One arm was pinned beneath the sceeve’s knee. The other couldn’t reach high enough, couldn’t reach. These fuckers were so goddamn tall!

The sceeve’s muzzle flared wide.

It’s smiling,
Coalbridge thought.
It realizes it’s got me exactly where it wants me.

And then the truncheon came down.

Coalbridge waited until the last millisecond, turned his head.

The shaft smacked into the deck beside Coalbridge. Sparks flew up. The tingle of electricity, but no killing shock.

Not this time.

But he would not be so lucky with the next.

*
 
*
 
*

Leher, stunned, rose.

Postcard? Pen?

Nothing. He had nothing.

Had nothing to send.

Nobody to send it to.

Neddie was gone.

His boy.

His one and only boy.

Leher hadn’t been there, but he could picture the moment, hear it, taste it, feel it. He and Neddie had been like shadows. They’d even called each other that.

Big Shadow.

Little Shadow.

And then the moment, and with it the guilt and anguish that burned, always burned, in the back of Leher’s mind, surfaced, erupted into imagined reality.

Daddy’s going to be here soon. He said he would come. It’s been two more sleeps, like he said. Daddy’s going to be here. I know it.

Sirens outside. Is there a fire? That would be cool to watch.

Wish Daddy were here.

Wish Daddy—

The guilt.

The anguish.

“LTC Leher!” It was LOVE.

What? What do you want?
He thought the words. He may have spoken them.

“LTC Leher, he was killed instantly. You would have been killed if you’d been there.”

Doesn’t matter.

“LTC Leher, Neddie needs his daddy.”

No. Neddie is dead. My son—

“LTC Leher, do it for Neddie. Strike!”

The anguish.

The anger.

“For Neddie, LTC Leher.”

The reason to kill them. Kill the sceeve. Kill them all.

Leher looked around. Searched for something . . . anything . . .
 

*
 
*
 
*

“Neddie!”

Thunk.

Coalbridge looked back up. Three metal triangles extended from the sceeve’s chest, exactly where the
gid
was located. Exactly in the correct place to murder a sceeve. Clear sceeve interior fluid seeped from the sliced skin surrounding the metal.

Too bad for you that sceeve uniforms aren’t smart fabric.

The blood had the sickening odor of coconut, like some nasty perfumed suntan lotion.

So damn thin. Not more than six inches and the blades went all the way through its body. Sceeve are thin as wafers.

The thought made Coalbridge smile.

Tough fuckers, though. And
dense
.

The sceeve collapsed on top of him. It was all he could do to hold the sceeve’s body up and keep the metal triangles from sinking themselves into his own flesh as well. He wriggled and kicked himself out from under the flopping lifeless body of the sceeve, rose to his knees to find—

A stunned Leher. He was staring down at the dead sceeve.

“Political officer,” Leher murmured. “Doubled silver belt. Officer on two tracks.”

Leher’s knees buckled for a moment, but he managed to pull himself upright. He stood, swaying.

“Griff!” Coalbridge shouted. “You okay? Griff!”

Then Leher shook his head as if to clear it. His gaze unclouded and he looked down at Coalbridge. Coalbridge gathered up his truncheon, turned it off, then pulled himself to his feet—and caught Leher as he was about to fall. He held Leher up and turned to look at the dead sceeve.

The mace-like weapon it had wielded was now stuck into its back, crossways. Leher had used the weapon like a baseball bat.

“You killed the hell out of that thing,” Coalbridge said.

“Punishment tool. Not meant to be an offensive weapon. Sceeve canons fixed against self-slaughter.” Leher chuckled. “Whips and scorns of outrageous fortune not a problem, however, within DDCM training protocols.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Couldn’t think straight,” Leher mumbled. “LOVE said Neddie needed me.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Doesn’t matter. She knew what to say to get me moving.”

“Smart gal.”

“Yeah,” Leher replied. “She’s got
me
down.”

“Gentlemen,” said LOVE, “we have fifty-seven seconds until we’re out of range of the artifact. Furthermore, the sceeve armada will be on top of us in under ten minutes. Maybe we should postpone the debriefing and bonding session for now?”

Coalbridge nodded, got a better grip on Leher. “I’ve got to go drive.”

Leher blinked. “Okay.” He looked down at his shoulder. “Oh, Christ. I think it’s broken.”

“Doubt it, the way you swung that thing. We’ll fix you up when we get out of here. You’re going to be all right,” Coalbridge said. “Sit down.” He lowered Leher to the deck. “I’m letting go now.”

Leher took a deep breath, held himself up with his uninjured arm, nodded that he was okay.

Coalbridge bounded over to the captain’s atrium and grabbed the control stick. A glance at the view screen told him he was at least a kilometer away from the
Guardian of Night.
He curled his outward trajectory into a tight curve and began to turn back.

“What’s the status of the docking collar, LOVE?” he asked.

LOVE’s flickering geist appeared nearby. “Severely damaged on the anterior end when we came loose. Interior crawl will not have sufficient time to mend.”

“But it’s okay on this end?”

“Yes. The collar remains securely fastened to the
Powers of Heaven
, but we are, unfortunately, detached from the
Guardian of Night.
”

“Explosive bolts in place?”

“Yes, Captain, they are,” LOVE said. “What are you thinking, if I may ask?”

“You may,” Coalbridge said with a smile. “I’m thinking of sealing myself and Griff in there and bailing on this brig as soon as we’ve got you in position.”

“Lamella informs me that there’s no guarantee that the atmosphere will remain sealed within the enclosure. Not to mention that the temperature is near zero K outside this vessel. You could die instantly, or die slowly.”

“I’m aware of all that,” Coalbridge said. “But if they don’t see us and pick us up, none of it will matter. We’ll be taken out in the blast.”

“We see your point,” LOVE said. “In which case, you’d better hurry. We’re approaching optimal range from the
Guardian of Night
.”

Coalbridge nodded, pulled back on the throttle, trimmed his craft, and brought it to a standstill in relation to the
Guardian
.

“Single-burst beta communication to Captain Ricimer,” he told LOVE. “Put everything you want to say in that one ping.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Coalbridge locked the piloting stick back into its stowed position in the atrium, had a last look around.

Flashing wall indicators. Alien curvature. It all shouted “sceeve.” But she’d been his for a time.

“Come on, Griff, let’s get the hell out of here.” He helped Leher to his feet once again.

Something suddenly occurred to Leher. He looked around wildly. “LOVE?” he said. “LOVE?”

“Yes, LTC Leher. I am here.”

“You’re okay?”

“I am as ready as I can be, considering this is entirely an experimental procedure.”

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Leher replied. “You know that, right?”

“Of course you will,” she said. “Now please get out of here, sir. I have work to do.”

“All right.”

Coalbridge put Leher’s hand over his shoulder and the two headed for the docking collar. It was affixed nearby, not far down the bridge-access corridor. The collar was, in fact, attached to what had been the exterior-observation platform on the
Powers.
Every sceeve craft had such a platform—another vestige of conservative Sporata vessel design.

Coalbridge located the portal and put a hand to its surface. He’d been coded into the vessel as captain, and the door opened at his touch.

Still mine,
he thought.

He and Leher stumbled onto the platform. The docking collar formed a slinky-like enclosure above and around them. It was maybe twenty feet in diameter and colored a dull white that faded into obscurity not far from where they stood. There was simply no illumination other than the vessel here in deep space. The only light, in fact, was a sparkling gilt phosphorescence emanating from within the observation platform brightwork.

The door closed behind them.

“You must launch yourself into the collar so that the collar algorithm can effect separation,” LOVE announced. Her voice was crackling, static-filled. The little Palace must be eating up batteries. “I will deactivate pseudogravity at this time. Are you ready, gentlemen?”

“Almost,” Coalbridge said.

“Space between vessels,” Leher mumbled. “Biggest crack there is. Space. Cold.” Leher managed a smile, but his gaze was still upward and outward, into the emptiness of the docking collar. “Neddie fell down a crack,” he said. “I wasn’t there.”

“I’m sorry,” Coalbridge said. “Come on.”

“No letting go,” Leher said. “But have to stay alive.”

Coalbridge knelt down, taking Leher with him. He bunched his legs under him, readying for a spring.

“Turn it off, LOVE,” he said.

They didn’t float up. The effect was more like being suddenly suspended in water. Coalbridge tightened his grip on Leher. “Here we go, Griff.”

Coalbridge jumped.

The
Guardian of Night

A
momentia
. Two at most and he’d be done for. His vessel was getting her exterior bottle armor blasted. Every gun in the armada would soon be focused on her. Ricimer could see the vessel’s curved wall tremble as the churn-based gyroscopes that permeated her hull struggled to compensate for the buffeting. And his armor was, in turn, protecting the
Joshua Humphreys
, which the
Guardian of Night
was towing behind herself. That and the
Powers of Heaven
flying along beside, nearly touching him, hull to hull. Three vessels, tethered together by a single idea. A shot in the dark that might work.

And might be their only chance.

What was taking them so long?

Ricimer could only imagine there had been problems in the computer setup. It had seemed a desperate ploy, but the human female had appeared so confident in her idea, so certain.

Perhaps she’d been wrong.

And then the
Powers
had begun moving away. The docking collar ripped off.

He prepared to fire upon her then and there. But with no signal, what would he accomplish by such an action? He could wipe her from the face of existence, but then what?

After long and anxious
momentias
, she had turned back, resumed her place in formation with the
Guardian
. Of course, the docking collar was shot. The odds of survival for Coalbridge and his man didn’t seem very favorable. Mere
vitias,
seconds, remained for them to transfer.

Then they’d received the short beta burst informing him that the human-Lamella programming aboard the
Powers
was fully integrated.

Perhaps Lamella, unbound by Guardian computational architecture, has found her vaunted consciousness at last,
Ricimer thought. For one version of Lamella, that time would be very short.

Better to be free for a
tagato
than to spend an unthinking, unknowing, dumb eternity calculating your way through the endless permutations of necessity.

But now Coalbridge and Leher were attempting to evacuate, and his attention turned to rescue.

Commander Talid turned away from her sensory readout and spoke to him in the atrium.

“Captain, we have an unknown inbound object.”

“Is it them?”

“Checking.” She turned back to her status indicator, checked it, turned to him.

“No beta signature, but radar signature is consistent with the docking collar.”

“Are they alive?”

“No information, sir.”