Steel Walls and Dirt Drops (33 page)

Lamont eased passed the two. He patted Ottiamig on the shoulder. "Come on,
pup. Let's get our grunt brains back on the job at hand and leave the heavy thinking to the lady with the triangles."

Raza and Kelly signaled all clear at the next interception.

Misha pointed at the team of Na'aranna and her attendant rookie Bear Cutler. She pointed her hand at Raza and gestured to the left. She clenched her fist in a downward motion. Misha wasn't worried as much about voices here in the office section as she had been in officer country, but she knew from experience when she got excited her voice had a tendency to get louder and louder. She knew it was best for her to use hand signals.

She turned and waved to get
DeLaPax's attention. She pointed at where Kelly still stood watching the right hand corridor. Misha pointed at her own eyes, at DeLaPax's eyes and back to Kelly. She then clenched her fist and held it down. She had signaled for DeLaPax to relieve Kelly of watching the right corridor.

Without waiting for
DeLaPax's response Misha jogged silently to the end of the corridor to stand near Kelly. She looked back as the rest of her team worked their way down the corridor. At each hatchway, a team of two would quietly test them. They passed it by if it was locked. If the hatch was unlocked, a tense moment would pass as the duo slid the hatch open, toggled the lights on and scanned the interior.

Only twice had they encountered spacers in unlocked rooms. Once
they found a knot of very scared spacers praying around some kind of altar Misha hadn't recognized. They had quietly closed the hatch and left the group alone. The second time they discovered those two spacers who had generously, but without any graciousness whatsoever, given up their needlers.

Misha didn't want to take the time to check each
hatch, but she knew it must be done. These corridors were too tight for a fight without leaving a force behind her. Besides, finding the two extra needlers made the whole effort worthwhile. She would be happy if they could secure a few more serious weapons.

Able
Squad slid along the corridor. She surprised herself thinking of this team as Able Squad. Only seven of the fifteen-member team were from Able. That was less than half. Still, they seemed to be integrating well. She placed them in two-person teams, trying to match veteran with rookie. But, she hadn't split up Everridge and Lamsa as her intelligence and communications team, and she had tasked them with keeping track of Forrester. She had two teams comprised of rookies only. Even though they seemed to be working well, she planned to keep a weathered eye out for them.

Everridge and Lamsa were exempt from checking
hatchways as they took every opportunity to huddle together. Lamsa would jabber away quietly while Everridge would input notes furiously into his glass-pack. They often stopped to check hatch numbers or double check a room against the data on Everridge's glass-pack.

Misha
was surprised that Everridge had a complete schematic of the spacecraft downloaded into his data sets. It was strictly classified material. That is, classified by the AMSF, but not by the APES, so she wasn't worried about any breach of security. She was just surprised he had it. She hadn’t been able to find such a thing until he downloaded his map into her glass-pack. As they had done every so often, the duo approached her. Everridge pulled her glass-pack out of her pocket without asking and quickly tapped it against his own glass-pack, activating a link. The information download completed faster than the sound of the connection could reach her ears. Everridge handed her glass-pack back.

Misha tapped it quickly to review the download. She pointed the edge of the
glass-pack at a clear bulkhead and squeezed two points together. The glass-pack broadcast the picture on the bulkhead in vivid color. She asked, "Tree?" and pointed to a few red spots on the craft's schematic overlay.

Ev
erridge shrugged. "Sorry, Third, there is not enough data to go on. The Greek is doing miracles to pull this much raw comms off the air. This information is about as much guess as it is real intelligence."

Everridge had been using red to mark possible position
s of hostile APES, yellow to mark hostile spacers, green to mark friendly spacers and blue to mark positions of loyal APES. He said, "Something is going on over in the flight squadron’s enlisted quarters. The Greek caught some conversation about APES being there, but not enough for me to make more than a guess."

Misha said, "Enough of a guess that you marked it in red."

"Yes, sir, I thought at first it was someone Moraft sent to work on the crew to get things back to operational status, but it may be somebody else."

"
It may be somebody else? Come on, Tree. You can do better than that."

"Yes
, sir, it could be Singletary. I don't know what he is up to, but chances are it won't interfere with our operations. It will most likely have something to do with his finding a way to get off this spacecraft. That is, get off with his stash of cash, his contraband and his ass all intact."

"Good
work, you two. Stay on this." Misha hesitated. "What else have you got?"

"We
’ve got a report from Beaudry and Kelly back in the training bay. Everything is clear, cold and quiet."

Misha frowned. "How could they sen
d a situation report without opening comms?"

"The Greek locked down all the outbound he could, but there is no way to lock everything out. Besides, the message came by way of Aarvan Kelly to his cousin Ethica. He piggybacked it on a
low frequency that is normally for data transmissions only. They apparently used some kind of family code. The Greek and I both heard the transmission, but it was nonsense to us. I doubt if we could ever decode it, because there isn’t enough to go on, and it used metaphors only family would understand."

"All right
, see what you can pick up on this area." She pointed to an area of the map where Aardmricksdottir should be located.

Lamsa said, "Don't worry too much about
Deuce Vark, Third. Tree and I have been with her for as long as she has been with the APES. She is one hot troop," Lamsa stopped and blushed.

Everridge said in mock horror, "Greek, I think that is the
most sexist thing I have ever heard you say."

"Wait a minute
," Lamsa stuttered. "I didn't mean she was hot that way. I mean, she is hot that way, you know, but that is not what I meant. I meant that she had good moves…" Lamsa squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his mouth closed.

Misha looked at Everridge.

He looked back and said, "You know what he means, Third. He just gets a little tongue-tied around pretty women."

Misha smiled. "I image Deuce Vark brings the worst out in him. Maybe we should put him in another squad?"

Both men looked at her in shock. Lamsa tried to speak but only a grunt came out.

Everridge said, "Hell no! I mean, excuse me
, Third, but the Greek looks at Vark like she is his baby sister. She isn't his problem." Lamsa punched Everridge in the arm. But, before Everridge could continue Steinman trotted up.

"Sorry to interrupt, Third
," Steinman said, "but we got a couple of unlocked hatches up here that you need to check out."

"Okay, Israel
," Misha said to Steinman and clicked off the glass-pack’s view. "Did you find weapons or people?"

The man beamed at her use of his first name. "
We sort of found both, sir."

"
Are the people hostile or friendly?"

"More neutral, I think
," Steinman said. "They are more than willing to give up their weapons, but not to join us. Lamont and Ottiamig sort of helped them to give up their weapons, if you know what I mean?"

"I think I understand."

"Has anyone tried that hatch?" She asked pointing to a big solid looking hatch.

"Yes,
sir. Oberman and Ramirez from Dawg tried it, but they said it is locked tight from the inside. I don't know what they would lock up that tight, but it must be important. We don't have anything with us to break through that hatch, do we?"

"Nope
," Misha said. "But, I may know a way in, anyway. Israel, you take whomever you need to help you with what you found. Confiscate all weapons. Search them all. Right now, I don't trust anyone but our own people. Put all the spacers in one room until I get there. Tree, you and Greek have Na'aranna check all the weapons and distribute them. Have her reinforce both ends of this corridor. I want a free space in through here."

Misha spared one quick look at the point and the rear guards
, both teams looked ready and rock hard. She turned and walked up to the vault hatch. Tapping the hatch comm, she announced herself and waited. Silently, the vault hatch handle cycled. While she waited, Misha glanced behind her. Steinman was staring at her with a questioning look.

He pointed at the
hatch and asked, "How?"

Misha smiled. "Open
sesame. No, it's not magic, Israel. Sometimes you just have to ask."

Misha turned back to the open
hatch and stood face to face with Chief Master Sergeant Elizabeth Brown, more accurately, eyeball to muzzle with Chief Brown's .45 caliber pistol. She held her hands wide to show she was unarmed. Chief Brown stuck her head out the hatch, looking both ways, she turned back to Misha.

The Chief nodded. "
It is a damn fine thing, you showing up here unannounced and all. You should'a called, at least give me time to put the coffee on and straighten up the place, I got a million and a half piles of crap scattered all over right now." She looked around Misha's broad shoulders and shouted. "Hey! You grunts be real gentle with my people, you hear? Or, I'll rip you a new one, got me?" She looked back at Misha. "Well, you just going to stand here or are you coming in? You're letting all the flies out."

Misha waved hello to Major Krandiewsky. Two other AMSF intelligence crew
men glanced at her, but both quickly returned to focusing on their displays.

Brown saw her glance at the men and said, "We are doing both inside and outside scans. Buzz
has got Cuffs running copy on all internal comms he can find. I got Jimmy listening for any signals outside. We haven't heard anything of our Binder friends."

Misha looked at the two and said, "Might not have been Binder."

Krandiewsky said, "Excuse me? I thought that was what all the fuss was about earlier? You're telling me that we didn't intercept a Binder signal?"

"No
," Misha said. "It was a Binder signal. Identify: Friend or Foe. IFF. I am positive of it. But, it might not have been a Binder spacecraft." Misha took a few minutes to explain that she had been with Britaine in the CNC when they jumped into the firestorm at Gagarin. She described watching the display views as human vessels began attacking other humans and broadcasting Binder coded signals.

"Damn
," Misha heard from Jimmy behind her. "Then I've been workin' the wrong outside freqs. Hey, Chief. Better call Clancy in here to help me crank this P.O.S. to read for magnetic radiation signatures. If we got human bogies out there, they are dog silent. Maybe we can pick up on engine leakage."

Brown looked at Misha. "Well?"

Misha wrinkled her brow. "Well what?"

The older woman pointed around Misha to the corridor.
“Most of those are my people you've taken prisoner. Can I have some of them back?"

Misha nodded, "I'll trade you. You can have your people if I
can keep some of their weapons. I plan to take back engineering for Britaine and get this hunk of junk moving again. We are going to need all the firepower we can get."

Major Krandiewsky nodded and said, "Deal. Done and done."

Brown spun her pistol and offered it to Misha butt first. "You take care of my baby. I want her back when you're done. And I want her back cleaned. Don't worry about punching holes in the Kiirkegaard’s hull. I got this puppy loaded with glass shot. It will knock a Bermuda Buffalo on its butt, but it shatters on a hard surface. And take these three extra clips. That should give you plenty of knockdown power. Watch out for the red tipped ammo. It is a special hydrate load: explodes four inches after contact. Plus, are these all right, Buzz?" At the Major’s nod Chief Brown handed Misha two small grenades. "These are old-style thermite magnesium burners. We have them in case we get overrun and have to melt down the intel office. These things will slag this office to melted butter, but it won't react on the hull plating. It gets hot and messy really fast, so watch yourself."

Brown bellowed in a command voice. "All right
, you cretins. Get your buns in here. We got a shit-pot full of things to do, and you’re wasting my time."

Misha said
as she gave back the handgun. "I don't want to leave you unprotected here. You had really better keep this popgun. I've never shot one of these before and I might do more damage than good. And as you might need to melt down this place anyway; I shouldn't take all of your goodies."

Brown
did not smile, "Nor are you, child. I'll take my hand-warmer back. I miss her already, but the grenades come a dime a dozen, you keep them, but I suggest you don’t use them if you don’t have to; they are not very discriminate about what they burn. We still got a whole six-pack to toss around in here, if the time comes to that."