Starship Alexander (7 page)

There was silence in the shuttle. Kasim hadn't repressurized the interior. He wanted everyone suited up in case of an attack and a hull breach. They had the suit radios turned off, though, for fear of attracting attention. The shuttle was powered down, just another chunk of debris giving off very little in the way of light or heat.

Without instruments there was no way to tell how the battle was progressing. The
Alexander
was a tiny point of light, stripped of detail. Kasim couldn't see the enemy ship at all.

The lack of communications was a mercy. Without radios or air the technicians couldn't ask him what he was going to do. The truth was, Kasim had no idea. He was terrified to do anything. Even powering up the shuttle might bring alien craft swooping in. But they sat where the Gate had been, an obvious spot to search for any pesky stray humans.
We should move
, Kasim thought.
We should run. We should hide.

But where will we go?

His eyes strayed to the sparkling band of the Milky Way splashed across the void to his right. Gate Eleven lay in that direction. It was the one way he could flee the system. The shuttle would pop out in Aries.

Aries, which had gone silent several days ago. Aries, where the aliens came from.

Aries, where enemy reinforcements would come from if the
Alexander
managed to hold its own.

For a long time he sat there, staring through the cockpit window, grappling with the treacherous thought that was growing in the back of his mind. He told himself that it would be safer. He would creep away from the remains of Gate Six. He would take the shuttle thousands of kilometers to a place no alien would expect.

To the only thing he could hide behind.

To Gate Eleven.

"It doesn't mean I have to do something stupid," he whispered. "I'll just fly over there. I don't have to do anything at all." After all, disabling Gates wasn't his responsibility. Maybe all the aliens were already here. Maybe it would be best to do nothing at all.

"Oh, hell," he muttered, and turned on the shuttle's main power. "You wanted to be a real pilot, didn't you? You never wanted to be a glorified bus driver."

A hand closed on his shoulder and shook him. He didn't bother looking back to see who it was. He just turned on his suit radio and said, "We're going for a little ride. You might as well strap in. You never know when things might get rough."

When he reached the missile bay, Hammett found a young lieutenant named Yoon on one knee beside the door, her arm buried up to the shoulder in the bulkhead. A cadet stood beside her holding a wall panel that trailed several wires. Yoon gave Hammett a distracted look and said, "I'll have the hatch open in a jiffy, Sir."

"Sure, Lieutenant. Just tell me if I can help."

The hatch gave a loud click and slid open a couple of centimeters. Yoon said, "You can grab the edge of that hatch and pull like hell."

Hammett did as she said, bracing his feet against the deck plates and heaving until the tendons in his wrists creaked. Yoon worked her arm free and took the panel from the cadet. The cadet tucked trailing wires into the bulkhead, and Yoon fit the panel back into place. A moment later they both joined Hammett, heaving on the hatch.

The hatch retracted, one grudging centimeter at a time. When it was more than half open Yoon said, "That should do it, unless you need to take missiles out into the corridor."

"Nope." Hammett let go of the hatch and straightened up, opening and closing his fingers.

"That shouldn't have worked," Yoon said. "I'm going to send a memo to Spacecom. It's a potential security issue."

Hammett didn't comment, just gestured for her to precede him into the missile bay. He followed, and the cadet brought up the rear. Yoon looked around, squinting in the low emergency lighting, and said, "Now that we're here, what are we doing, Sir?"

"We're going to tinker with a nuke," Hammett said. "I need it to explode on impact, with no electronics."

She stared at him, silent, and her eyes went out of focus. Hammett, recognizing the look of an engineer lost in thought, gestured to the cadet. The two of them opened a cabinet and pulled out the long shallow drawer inside. Naturally the pneumatic system wasn't working. He and the cadet had to brace a foot against the cabinet and heave with both hands to get the drawer open.

The missile gleamed softly in the dim light. Designed to be used in vacuum, there was nothing aerodynamic about the missile's design. It was built like an antique refrigerator, squat and bulky, flat on the sides and both ends. A single thruster nozzle projected from the bottom. Aside from that, it was essentially a featureless box.

Yoon pushed her way between Hammett and the cadet. "I'm going to need my tools." She rummaged in her pockets, produced a driver, and handed it to the cadet. "Here. Start taking off the top panel." She scanned the cabinets, tapped the front of a drawer, and said, "Captain. Do you mind opening this one? Have the cadet take off the nose assembly when he finishes with the nuke." Hammett nodded and she hurried out.

He got the drawer open with some difficulty, then helped the cadet lift a panel from the side of the nuke and set it on the deck. The cadet was just starting on the nose assembly of a conventional missile when Yoon returned with a bulky toolbox in each hand.

Hammett left them to it and set off down the corridor at a jog. He found three cadets wearing vac suits, helmets clipped to their belts, clustered at the intersection of two corridors. They had firefighting equipment stacked around them. He stopped. "What are you three doing?"

"We didn't know what else to do," said a dark-skinned girl. "We thought we'd find a central spot and watch for damage. We've got fire equipment and hull patches and medical kits." She gestured up and down the four corridors around them. "We can see and hear for a long way."

"That's good thinking," Hammett said. "However, I need you for something else. I need to launch a missile, and I'll have to do it by dead reckoning. That means I need spotters, and someone to run messages." He looked around, making sure of his bearings. "There's an observation lounge that way," he said, pointing starboard. "There's another one to port, but we're going to fire a missile from a starboard tube, so that's the way we'll have to look. The missile tube is on this deck and slightly aft. I'll need you to get a message to the missile bay as quickly as possible when we have a decent target."

The three cadets looked at one another, then at him.

"The missile can't turn," he said. "It will fly straight. The target will have to be pretty much dead ahead, or we'll miss."

The three cadets nodded as one and headed down the corridor. The girl said, "I'll spot. You run. In fact, go to the missile bay now and make sure you know the route."

A blond-haired boy nodded and ran aft.

Hammett followed the other two into the lounge. The long room was deserted, tables and chairs making an obstacle course in the deep shadows. Windows ran from floor to ceiling, and he walked up to the steelglass surface with a cadet on either side.

For a moment he saw nothing but stars. Then, far aft, he saw a flicker of movement. A ship was retreating from the
Alexander
. It had a strange – alien – design, and nothing near it to give it scale. It was maddeningly difficult to tell the size and range.

Then lines of crimson fire lanced out from two different laser batteries. The angle of the shots gave Hammett an instant sense of perspective. He was looking at a craft no more than a couple of hundred meters from the hull, a ship at most of the size of a one-man fighter. It was strangely built, with lumps jutting out in four directions.

As he watched, laser fire touched the alien hull. There was a burst of white vapour, and then a spray of some dark fluid. The little ship tumbled, then raced away into the dark.

"Good," Hammett said. "We're giving them a fight." He looked at the girl on his left. "We won't waste a missile on a dinky ship like that. We'd never hit it, anyway. Sometimes they clump together and form a larger ship. That's the target we want. Something big." He considered. "Anything big enough and close enough that you're pretty sure we can hit it."

The cadet nodded, and Hammett hurried out. He met the blond boy in the corridor. The kid had a fire extinguisher in one hand. He nodded to the captain without stopping.

Hammett was a couple of steps from the missile bay when three metallic clangs echoed through the corridor. He felt his stomach tighten, and he hurried through the half-open hatch.

Yoon looked up from a half-assembled missile. "What the hell was that, Sir?"

"I don't know."

He turned at the sound of running feet in the corridor. The blond boy stuck his head in and panted, "Did you hear three clangs?"

"Yes."

The boy beamed. "Great! Five in a row means open fire." He vanished from the hatchway, then reappeared a moment later, looking flustered. "Sir." He gave a hasty salute. "I forgot, Sir."

Hammett said, "You can waste your time with that foolishness when the battle is over. Now get moving."

The cadet flashed him a grin and disappeared again.

Yoon said, "Was I ever that young?"

"What have you got, Lieutenant?"

She raked fingers through her hair, leaving a shine of grease. "I need ten more minutes. Well, maybe five more after that to get the missile in the tube." She rubbed her chin, thinking, and left another smear of grease beneath her lower lip. "Actually, Sir, I could use three or four more cadets to move this bird." She reached over and tapped the casing of the nuke.

"I'll see what I can do," Hammett said, and squeezed his way out through the hatch.

Janice Ling stood in an alcove in a corridor, her back pressed against a snarl of pipes and conduits, trying to stay out of the way. From time to time a cadet would gallop past, and sometimes a crewman or officer. None of them paid the slightest attention to her.

She'd been in the engine room, listening to a lecture from Lieutenant Rani, when all hell had broken loose. She had quickly realized she was in the way. Now she stood in a corridor, wondering what was happening, wondering what she should do.

Another cadet rushed past, then paused and backtracked. It was a girl, twenty at the oldest, with brown skin and straight dark hair. She looked the way Janice felt, as if she was barely holding panic at bay. "Do you know where the laser batteries are?"

Janice thought about it. "I'm pretty sure I do. Follow me." She felt a huge sense of relief at having something to do. She headed down the corridor at a trot, then climbed a ladder to the next deck. "They gave me a tour yesterday," she said. "If I remember correctly …" She moved down another corridor, then stopped at a bright red line on the deck plates, marked "Authorized Personnel Only".

On the other side of the line a small hatch opened like the mouth of a tunnel. Above the hatch was stenciled "Battery Five". The cadet leaned over and stuck her head and shoulders through the hatch.

A man's voice said, "Hey, Lanny."

"Is there a battery that isn't manned yet?"

"I don't think so," the man said. "They want someone on the maneuvering thrusters, though."

"Where's that?" said Lanny.

"No idea."

Lanny straightened up and turned to Janice. "I don't suppose you know where …"

"I think so," Janice said. "Come with me."

They returned to the ladder, descended three decks, and took a lateral corridor, heading for the port-side hull. A harried-looking lieutenant came around a corner in front of them and stopped short. "Cadet. I need you on the controls for Thruster Four. Figure out the manual controls, and then wait. The thruster is that way." He pointed, and she hurried away.

The lieutenant looked at Janice. "Come with me." He hurried down the corridor, and she followed.

"Where are we going?"

"Thruster Five."

She trotted along in silence for several more steps. Finally she said, "Why?"

"Same as Lanny," he said. "I need you to man the controls."

"What?" She stopped. He didn't, so she ran to catch up. "But I'm not trained!"

He glanced back over his shoulder, giving her a wry grin. "Lady, there isn't one person on this entire ship who's been trained in manual thruster control. It isn't something we do. We have computers for that sort of thing, after all. You know just as much about it as I do."

She wanted to protest, but it was clear the lieutenant wouldn't listen. And besides, did she really want to return to her alcove in the corridor?

"Here you are," said the lieutenant. "Good luck." He stepped through a hatch and vanished.

"Wait!"

It was too late. He was gone.

Janice sighed and turned in a slow circle. She was close to the starboard hull. Two corridors stretched away, one leading to port, one leading aft. The forward bulkhead was a mix of unadorned aluminum and plastic pipes. The starboard bulkhead, though, held a number of gauges, several dials, and a large handle marked "Do Not Touch". Janice stared at it for a long moment, then sighed. "I suppose I better pull on that and see what it does."