Ragamuffin (40 page)

“They just want to help us out of the goodness of their hearts?” Pepper asked with a grin.

“They want the
Gulong
,” Nashara said. “They’ll join the fray if we still have the
Gulong
.”

“Well, then we better hold it until they get here,” Pepper said.

J
ohn strapped himself into the room and scrubbed his face clean with a wet-cloth, ready to collapse and sleep, but knowing he couldn’t afford to. Thirty hours to go. The Hongguo had remained quiet, a tense détente, presumably listening on a few radio channels. Their ships clustered around the
Gulong
near the upstream wormhole. A few Raga ships had tried attacks, breaching the security cloud to get to the
Gulong
, and paid in hull damage and lives for the attempt.

“They’re moving.” Nashara appeared by his side. John jumped and shoved his hand through her, hitting the bulkhead and splitting his knuckles.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to take the time to walk my body down there.”

“Who’s moving?” John rubbed his knuckles over the wetcloth, leaving a streak of blood.

“Five Hongguo ships are trying for the downstream wormhole, three of them stopped by flack and mines; the other two are being chased. They’re headed for New Anegada, John.”

A smart move. Take something they valued and they were going to do the same. Two spaceships could do a lot of damage with missiles and nukes to Nanagada.

“We got to help them.” John spun around and grabbed the door. “How fast can we get the ship ready?”

“We can’t run that Hongguo gauntlet, John. You know that, you’re a pilot.”

“We have to do something. They’re going to hammer the planet,” John replied, but with less authority.

“They can only do so much damage, just two ships.”

“Damnit, these aren’t odds, these are people down there!”

“John, there’s nothing, I mean nothing, for them that you or I can do. The best thing is to hold the
Gulong
.”

John pushed his head against the mirror. “Thirty hours.”

“Thirty hours,” Nashara said. “It’ll take the Hongguo ten to fifteen to reach New Anegada at their speeds. The Ragamuffin ships there might be able to get to them. They won’t have much time above the planet. They’re using this to force us to talk.”

“I know,” John said. “I know.”

It didn’t make it easier, imagining Hongguo ships appearing far over Nanagada.

Thirty hours.

K
ara sat in front of the three medical pods, watching the men inside lie asleep. The readouts all glowed green, and when she queried them, although she didn’t understand the medical terms quickly enough, they reassured her that all was well.

So many others had died. She was almost getting used to it, as if it were part of life to see tortured bodies, from Agathonosis to this ship. A long trail of bodies.

Outside, however, someone was punching the wall and shouting in anger. She kicked out and found John, their newest passenger, huddled up against a wall.

“Are you okay?” She put a hand on his shoulder and he flinched.

“Been better.” He smiled at her. “A lot of people are going to die down on New Anegada.”

“A lot of people have died already,” Kara said. “I don’t think it’s going to stop anytime soon.”

He cocked his head and looked at her. “That’s truly dark.”

“It’s what I’ve seen.”

“I’m sorry. No child should see death and war.” He cleared his throat.

“These people, they only have one machine like this, right?” Kara asked.

“Yes.”

“So they’re trying to trade with you. This machine for your planet.”

“I know.” John sighed. “But that doesn’t make it any easier, because they’re going to do something to show they’re serious.”

“We must hope it is a small demonstration,” Kara said.

“Yes, but we must also prepare for the worst.”

“Why is that?”

“Because, we aren’t dealing with humans,” John said. “This thing, the Satrap, commands the Hongguo moving to Nanagada.”

Kara nodded. “You’re right. The Satrap doesn’t think like you or me, it’s something else. And destroying a planet might be something it thinks would cow us. Or maybe divide our forces.”

John jerked back and stared at her. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve faced them before,” Kara said. “It’s pretty hopeless, but I’ve made it
this far and I don’t want to give up just yet.” Jared was safe out there, being looked at.

“People live under these things, out there now?”

“Our histories say they used to only live among the Gahe and Nesaru,” Kara said. “And I think now that they came out among the forty-eight worlds and built habitats for themselves and some humans to live in so they could study us. Study how to control or destroy us.”

John shook his head. “I’m getting tired of aliens pushing us around.”

“Well, we’re pushing back. That’s hard work.”

And the man suddenly laughed. “Yes, it is. Thank you.”

Kara watched him coast his way down the corridor.

P
epper almost shot Metztli as the Teotl burst through one of the broken bulkheads, tentacles akimbo as it flew through the air. Pepper reholstered his gun.

Two mongoose-men floated near the sealant goop around the breach in the
Gulong
’s hull, trying to see if they needed to add more to stop air loss.

“The chamber is under attack,” Metztli said.

“More Hongguo?” Pepper asked. “Nashara, I don’t like surprises, can you see anything?”

“They found a damn blind spot, I’m moving drones to look. Hold on.” There was an annoyed sigh.

“The Hongguo landed a ship on the hull, they cut their way through. My warriors are holding them,” Metztli said. “I don’t know how long they can last.”

“The Hongguo in the first third of the ship are moving again as well,” Nashara reported. “They’re fighting their way toward us.”

Damnit. Nineteen hours to go. Pepper moved toward the
Toucan Too
. “Come on, kid,” he yelled at Kara, who’d been out of the ship, inspecting the tip for any damage and patching it.

She started fingertipping her way up the hull toward the air lock.

Three suited bodies, Hongguo feng, burst through the sealant. They fired. The two mongoose-men taken by surprise died. Their guns spun off, clanking down the
Toucan Too
’s hull.

Pepper bounced into the air lock, pulling his guns free and leaping back out.

Metztli flew past him and struck the nearest feng, ripping an arm free with a tentacle. Pepper shot the other point-blank, but not before getting hit in the shoulder and thigh.

He swore several times.

The third feng flew down along the hull toward Kara before either Metztli or Pepper had time to hit him.

She’d sprung free of the hull, grabbing one of the Raga machine guns, just as the feng smacked into her and swung around, trying to use her body as a shield, or her as a hostage.

The girl jammed the point of the gun under her armpit and pulled the trigger with her thumb.

She kept firing long after the feng died, leaving a long stream of blood as he flew on and hit the deck, bounced, and spun away.

Nashara’s voice bellowed out from the ship, “There are more of them coming up the hull towards us, they’re using nonreflective cool suits, hard to spot.”

Pepper looked at the girl. Her hands were shaking. He coasted out and grabbed her.

“You’re hurt,” she said, looking at his shoulder.

“I know. You?”

“I think I’m okay.” Her voice wavered.

Pepper pulled her with him into the lock. Nashara appeared and looked over Kara. “The chamber is close to being overrun. I’m losing repeaters all throughout the
Gulong
. If we stay much longer, we’ll be overrun too.”

“And you don’t know how to control the
Gulong
?” Pepper asked.

“Not yet,” Nashara snapped. “It isn’t happening.”

“Then we hang on as long as we can. We have no other choice.” Pepper leaned back in. “Someone get this girl a gun.”

John flew in with a machine gun in hand. “Let’s get Kara into a room,” he said. “She does not need to be out there.”

“We need every hand,” Pepper said. “Every. Hand. We have nineteen hours left.”

“We’re not making nineteen hours,” John said.

“Speak for yourself,” Pepper spat, and kicked off down the corridor looking for more weapons. He’d give the Hongguo nineteen hours. It would be nineteen hours they’d never forget.

C
ayenne appeared in Nashara’s vision. “I see a lot of movement around the
Gulong
, what’s going on?” The feed hissed and sputtered, pushing through Hongguo jamming and hopping several drones to reach her.

“We’re not going to make it down here,” Nashara said.

“That bad?”

“That bad.” The moment of silence stretched, neither sure what to say.

Then Nashara shook her head. “She lied.”

“What?”

Nashara showed Cayenne the cloud of flack approaching the
Gulong
that Cayenne couldn’t see from her side of the wormhole. “The League has arrived. Danielle was giving herself a margin.”

The first wave of drone nukes shot through, hitting the Hongguo ships and splitting them apart. Then the smart chaff, thousands of cylinders flung through to burst out and confuse the scene.

Nashara smiled as Danielle hailed her. “You lied,” Nashara said.

“We lost lives getting here this quick,” Danielle said. She looked grim, serious. “For the cause.”

The five League ships used their nuclear drones to quick effect, using surprise to roll over the Hongguo at first.

“We can escort you to safety,” Danielle said. “You’re going to have start moving.”

Nashara shook her head. “We’re dead in the water. We can’t move.”

Danielle swore. Nashara watched as the seven remaining Hongguo ships reformed into a starlike pattern.

Cayenne appeared. “Is that a pattern?”

The starlike group of ships swirled out and fired a concentrated burst of missiles at the League ships. Danielle scattered, focused on dodging them, and the Hongguo had the offensive.

Nashara was already on it, burrowing the space around the
Gulong
for transmissions coordinating the Hongguo attack. “Got it.”

Danielle appeared, grunting against the massive acceleration. “Where are your other ships? Five against seven isn’t going to be pretty.”

Raw lamina yielded to Nashara. She shivered and split, three times, and
then she was in three of the ships. The star pattern fell apart. Three new copies of herself appeared with three smiles. “Keep going,” they said.

And Nashara laughed as she followed the source back toward the
Datang Hao
, where the Satrap was risking high-bandwidth communications to control the Hongguo ships.

A window in the lamina appeared before a great wall of defenses, and Cayenne saw her enemy for the first time. A balding, saturnine woman; a heavy child; a dour-faced man. “Who are you?” they asked, all their mouths moving in unison.

Behnd the trio a tank of pink liquid stirred. The dark shadow in it, that was the actual Satrap. That would be the creature Nashara and her sisters would dump into the vacuum and watch boil its insides out.

“I’m Nashara.”

“I’m Cayenne.”

And then they both shattered the window and began to rip into the wall of defenses the Satrap had. Firewalls, yes, but it had opened them up to control its small fleet. It would die for the mistake.

The three ships she’d taken turned on the other four. There was no time for names, just fast destruction. And the League ships unloaded more nuclear drones into the ball of fighting.

Nashara winced as two of the ships hosting copies of her mind split open and died, and then the third hailed Nashara.

“Call me Ada,” she said quickly. “Get Danielle off my ass, and then we need to help Cayenne get the Satrap.”

“Fellow freedom seekers,” Danielle’s broadcast rippled out from the
Daystar
, “who are rising up against our vicious alien masters, news of your valiant struggle has spread throughout all human communities thanks to our newly launched communications network. You have friends, true human friends. We believe in your cause, and we are here to help.”

“Don’t pay attention to the propoganda, let’s move,” Nashara said. She followed Ada across a string of buoys, and then Cayenne stopped them.

“I got it,” Cayenne shouted, and showed them a representation of a giant wall with a tunnel bored through it. Nashara could see on her navigation windows that the
Datang Hao
had changed course and now wobbled toward the wormhole’s edges. “I got in and boosted it, locked the controls.”

The Satrap’s trio appeared, mouths in perfect sync for the Satrap. “You are not so different from me.”

“You are nothing more than a parasite,” Nashara said.

Danielle continued, “The League of Human Affairs lends our hands to yours. Our warships stand ready. Human destiny is at hand. We can lift off the chains of our oppressors and strike them down and take our rightful place among the stars. Even now we are rising up against Satraps on worlds all throughout the Satrapy.”

The
Datang Hao
struck the wormhole at an angle, breaking itself open against the incredible tidal stresses. One-half continued past the wormhole leaking debris. The other half transited, appearing within sight of the
Toucan Too
.

“We are proud,” Danielle said, “that you have chosen to rise with us.”

Ada looked over at Danielle’s obviously prerecorded message. “They’re going to take the
Gulong
from us, aren’t they?”

“Yes. But I imagine,” Nashara said, “that Pepper, John, and the Ragamuffins won’t hand over New Anegada.”

P
epper sat in the chamber with Raga mongoose-men and a handful of Azteca with the large crate that had once housed the nuke in front of him.