The Lost Command (Lost Starship Series Book 2) (32 page)

The old man rushed for the outer hatch.

“You’re the ace,” Maddox told Keith. “Use your best judgment to do the most damage you can. I want you back in the starship afterward.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Keith said, as he stared out of the viewing port. He looked determined.

Maddox would have liked to say more, but he didn’t have time. In truth, all the atmosphere must have already blown out of the open hangar bay door. It was possible Valerie realized what he planned and had ordered Galyan to pump more air in as the big hangar door closed. If it was a vacuum outside, each of them had five to ten seconds to make it into a pressurized area. That’s how long a person could act in a vacuum without any gear. They could only survive a longer exposure, if someone else dragged them to safety. This was likely the biggest risk of all. The captain doubted whether everyone could rush through the hatch into the living quarters in time.

“Right,” the captain whispered. “Do it.”

Ludendorff lifted the bar and hurled open the hatch. He jumped down.

Maddox picked up the doctor and leaped down after Ludendorff, landing hard on the hangar bay floor. Everyone wore their frost masks and goggles. Fortunately, they had gravity thanks to the dampeners. This would probably be impossible to do in time with zero G.

Maddox began to run. He had twenty meters to go. The shuttle was impossibly close to the needed hatch. Would Galyan have already overridden the emergency locking procedure to the entrance? With a vacuum in the hangar bay, that type of door wasn’t supposed to open. He should have told the AI all that, but he hadn’t thought of everything in time.

As Maddox ran, moisture formed on his tongue. His body had already begun to act negatively to the vacuum bringing on decompression. An increasingly wet tongue was one of the first symptoms. Soon, he would go blind, too.

The captain sprinted ahead of the others. Dana clung to him. Would the hatch be locked?
Why didn’t I tell Galyan? I can’t believe I forgot something so critical
.

-32-

Maddox decided to drop Dana in order to free both hands to force open the hatch. Before he could release her, the bar turned, and the entrance began to swing open. Escaping atmosphere flung the hatch all the way. The heavy metal missed clipping the captain by the barest centimeter. One of Galyan’s robots blocked the entrance. Obviously, the tentacle-armed automaton must have opened the hatch.

As Maddox’s vision began to blur—decompression caused moisture to form on all his soft tissues—the treads churned. The stainless steel, cylindrical robot trundled out of the way into the hangar bay. In an exquisite display of bodily control, Maddox twisted as the metal monstrosity allowed him to pass. Even so, the captain brushed against the robot. It was like slamming against a massive football lineman.

Dana screamed. She must have kicked the thing with her broken ankle.

Instinctively, even as he stumbled, Maddox kept on his feet. He was like a cat in that regard. The captain kept on moving, aiming into hard wind resistance. He charged into the ship’s living quarters, into a large corridor. Air whistled out of the hatch into the hangar bay. The passing atmosphere allowed Maddox to breathe. Although he didn’t know it, the captain had moved from the shuttle to the hatch in seven seconds.

With Dana clutched against his chest, Maddox charged deeper into the corridor where there was a thicker atmosphere. Going back into the hangar bay for any of the others would have been a foolish gesture of heroics. The robot would have to drag the unconscious into the corridor. Without an atmospheric suit, none of them would last more than ten seconds, and that wouldn’t be enough time to get the job done.

“Set me down,” Dana said.

Maddox silently agreed that he’d charged far enough into the corridor. He deposited the doctor onto the deck plates, removed his goggles and wiped his eyes.

His vision was only slightly blurry, but it unnerved him.

Others stumbled through the hatch. They must have realized like him they needed to get in deeper, because every one of them kept moving down the corridor.

The seconds passed. Meta staggered through the hatch. Maddox breathed more easily.

Finally, the robot reappeared, dragging people by their feet. It brought in five, zoomed back into the hangar bay and brought in three more. Afterward, the robot shut the hatch, sealing off the vacuum. The shriek of wind stopped immediately.

Eight of us are down
, Maddox realized. Eight lay on the floor unconscious. Seven were on their feet in various phases of well-being. Make that six were on their feet. The last was Doctor Dana Rich who massaged her leg just above the broken ankle.

As his vision improved, Maddox marched to the hatch, slapping on the screen showing the hangar bay on the other side of the bulkhead. Here was the question now. What was Keith doing against the New Men? Could the ace take out any more of the supermen before they exited their jumpfighters?

***

A few minutes earlier, Keith pressed a control, closing the shuttle’s outer hatches. He sat in the pilot chair. Through the viewing port, which was ten meters off the hangar bay’s deck, he saw Captain Maddox sprint for an interior starship entrance.

Leave it to the captain to race with Doctor Rich through a vacuum. Who else would have tried that? Not too many people. Keith noticed the others racing after the cheetah-fast Maddox. Then, the ace didn’t have any more time to worry about them.

The captain gave me a job to do
.

Second Lieutenant Maker no longer looked anxious. Normal living was difficult. Trying to keep off the bottle took hard-to-find self-control. Piloting anything in any situation—the worse the better—made life fun.

Keith began to whistle an old tune Highlanders had used ages ago when fighting English invaders. His nimble fingers played over the controls. This was a tub of a shuttle. It was nothing like the jumpfighter or the even more beautiful strikefighter he’d used against the Wallace Corporation.

He couldn’t help that, now could he? A man used what he had and made it count. Keith laughed, because it was up to him to even the odds for human survival. If that wasn’t a game worth playing, then nothing was.

The shuttle lifted off the deck. He goosed a thruster, shoving the hauler a little forward. Then the first single-ship zoomed through the hangar bay opening.

“Lovely little needles, aren’t you?” Keith said. “You’re pretty. There’s no denying that. But you’re facing me in my backyard, don’t you know.”

Keith’s eyes tightened. He leaned forward, and he gave the shuttle more power. The hauler built up velocity. Another of the needle-ships came through.

“No more of that,” Keith said.

He didn’t want to let Captain Maddox down. The man had told Keith to do whatever needed doing however he thought best. That was the best kind of commander to have.

“This is how we did it in Tau Ceti, me lovelies.”

Keith aimed for the hangar bay opening as another needle craft entered. With a flick of his fingers, the young ace adjusted. The blocky shuttle moved sideways just enough and at the right moment. It grazed the single-ship, acting like a cue ball, sending the needle-craft against a bulkhead. The tiny vessel smashed, the top half crumpling and hopefully killing the golden-skinned bastard inside.

Then, the shuttle zoomed past the closing hangar bay entrance. Keith’s killer instincts kicked into high gear. Leaning even farther forward with his fingers tapping controls, he rammed a needle-ship, smashing it out of his way. Swaying to the side, bringing his hauler sharply left, the ace crashed against another slender, smaller vessel. Pieces of metal shredded away from it. The enemy craft spun hard in an out-of-control fashion, heading for
Victory’s
hull. Whooping a war-cry, Keith made the shuttle dance for him. It spun in a tight, controlled manner. The thrusters burned in a delicate and exact sequence. Then, the shuttle used its belly, swatting another needle-ship as if it were a fly.

The entire hauler shook, equipment rattling in the control cabin. A blizzard of emergency lights appeared on Keith’s board. Air shrieked and a klaxon blared. A quick glance at the sensor screen showed him the last enemy craft tumbling away from the starship and back toward the deflector shield.

Then, the cabin’s lights flashed and quit altogether. Red emergency lights bathed the control chamber in an eerie radiance.

Keith didn’t appear worried. His eyes glowed with delight at his accomplishments.

“Four of you buggers,” he said. “That ain’t bad when you figure I’m just a callow youth against the masters of the universe.”

He exulted in his victories, certain that Captain Maddox would have been proud of him.

Then, the ace smelled electrical smoke. That brought him back to reality. The shuttle had taken heavy damage. It wasn’t going to last a whole lot longer. Did he want to die out here, or maybe get his butt into gear and return to his friends?

“They may need my help,” Keith told himself. There were still New Men left, as he had only taken out four out of eight.

He worked fast, turning the stricken shuttle, following the starship away from Wolf Prime. He had to stay away from the nearing deflector shield.

Clearly, he couldn’t return to the hangar bay. The big doors had closed. Besides, he didn’t want to go that way just now, not with New Men in there.

The air was getting bad in the cabin. It was time to don a spacesuit. Maybe he could take a spacewalk. First, he’d have to talk to Valerie and ask her for an access hatch.

Keith worked to save his life, grinning maniacally. Four New Men were dead thanks to the ace from Glasgow. Now all he had to do was find a place to land outside
Victory
. Compared to what he’d done so far, that should be a piece of cake.

***

“Roger that,” Lieutenant Noonan told Keith from her comm station on the starship’s bridge.

Galyan stood behind her, appearing worried.

Valerie turned around. “He’s going to land on
Victory
and spacewalk to an access hatch.”

“I heard the conversation,” Galyan said.

“Okay,” Valerie said, turning back and tapping her board, bringing the interior hangar bay video feed into focus. The outer bay doors had closed. The four surviving needle-shaped “jumpfighters” landed on the deck.

Before each enemy craft stopped moving, bubble canopies blew open. Valerie zeroed in on one. A silver-suited New Man emerged. She assumed he must be one. The being was tall and lean and wore a fishbowl helmet. She couldn’t see his head, because the interior helmet was tinted. The man leaped from his “jumpfighter,” landing in a crouch on the deck. She couldn’t see any weaponry other than a holstered blaster. He did wear a pack on his back.

The New Man looked around. He raised his left hand and opened it, peering at the inner flattened palm.

Valerie tapped her panel, zooming for a closer scan. The New Man’s suited hand showed a tiny screen. On the screen was a schematic, flipping to floor plan after floor plan. Could the blueprint be of
Victory
? How would the New Man have one? Could the enemy’s secret service have wormed the knowledge from Star Watch? If so, how could the spy have brought that knowledge all the way out to Wolf Prime?

“Captain,” Valerie told Maddox. “It looks as if the New Men have a layout of the starship.”

“You’re sure of that?” Maddox asked over the comm.

“I’m looking at the schematic he’s studying. I don’t know what else it could be but a diagram of
Victory’s
decks.”

“Good work, Lieutenant,” Maddox said.

Valerie smiled. The captain didn’t give compliments easily. When he did, they were well deserved.

“What are they doing?” Galyan asked her.

Four New Men in their silver suits and tinted bubble helmets sprinted through the hangar bay. They did not run toward the same hatch the captain and his people had used.

“Sir,” Valerie told Maddox. “It looks as if they know where the engine rooms are. They’re heading for hatches that will take them that way.”

“Are there any more enemy soldiers?” Maddox said. “I just see four.”

“That’s all I see too,” Valerie said. “Keith smashed four needle-ships.”

“The man deserves a Platinum Nebula.” It was the highest medal for courage that Star Watch could give.

“The New Men are forcing a hatch,” Valerie said.

“How are they doing it?” Maddox asked.

The lead New Man simply waved his hand before the entrance and it opened. What did he carry in his glove to do that? Whatever it was must have shorted Galyan’s lock.

After a quick explanation, Valerie said, “Captain, the New Men are in the starship, and they’re running fast.”

“Send the space marines and robots to the engine rooms,” Maddox said. “I’ll be there as quick as I can. Tell Kharkov to bring extra weapons for us.”

“You’d better hurry, sir. Those New Men are moving faster than I think even you can run.”

Maddox was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Galyan is going to have to run some interference for us. We’ll need time.”

“I can do that,” Galyan said. “Vacuum in chambers, shutting off selected gravity dampeners and sealing hatches.”

“Excellent,” Maddox said. “We’re on our way to the engine rooms.”

***

Ten minutes later, a winded Maddox accepted a military-grade laser carbine from Major Kharkov. It meant the captain had to shoulder a generating pack.

Kharkov’s faceplate was open. His eyes burned with determination. Behind him were his four men, their faceplates sealed tight and Gauss rifles gripped in their gauntlets.

The space marines loomed huge in their battle gear. They wore the latest exo-skeleton-powered armor, the motors purring. This was their specialty. They had linked sets in their helmets, sensor gear and tough body armor. The Gauss rifles fired 3mm electromagnetically accelerated explosive rounds. They didn’t have to hit to kill like a kinetic slug, although a round could do that. A “bullet” exploded like a proximity grenade. They were devastating against unarmored infantry. If the New Men’s silver suits acted like body armor, the space marines could switch to armor-piercing saboted ammunition.

“We’ll take care of them,” Kharkov assured the captain.

“You have seen the video from Odin, right?” Maddox asked.

“That’s why we have explosive ammo,” Kharkov said.

Maddox and Kharkov had communicated as the captain ran for the engine rooms. They’d agreed the best spot to take on the enemy would be in the annex chamber, a large open area just before reaching the antimatter cylinders.

Valerie gave them a minute-by-minute report on the New Men’s advance. It would appear the golden-skinned soldiers didn’t have a perfect schematic of the starship, but it was close enough. The enemy had taken a few unneeded detours. The small misdirection had done more to slow them down than anything Galyan had thrown at them. Kane must have brought the stolen schematic with him from Earth.

“Galyan suggests he shut down the corridor lights in front of them,” Valerie said over the comm.