“Could be. Remember how I told you the ship had lost weight? And that I didn’t know what that meant?” He spread his hands, encompassing the mess all around him. “Now I do. There’s still about fifty kilos of hybrid on the Apollo.”
Chapter Seventeen
Open Season
There was a sound on the bridge of the Apollo that Ellis had never heard before. It was a thin, high rushing, a continuous crackle that, although it wasn’t loud, seemed to pervade the entire space. In itself, the sound wasn’t unduly disturbing. But Ellis knew what it was, and he didn’t like it at all.
The sound was that of millions of ammonia crystals hitting Apollo at high speed. Sharpe had taken the battlecruiser high, as high as she dared, a long parabolic arc that took it almost entirely out of the water layer and into the frozen skies above.
It wasn’t a course that could be maintained for long. The friction of the ammonia crystals would slow Apollo even more than the water layer had — the ship was a creature of pure vacuum, built for the airless reaches between worlds. It was too big to be comfortable in an atmosphere; too blunt, too heavy. In the spaces between power drains Sharpe had poured as much energy into the drives as she dared, sending the ship up into what might be its last climb.
When Apollo reached the highest part of the arc, began to slide back down the other side and deeper into the water layer, there was a very good chance that the power drains would be too severe to allow the engines to restart. If that was the case, Apollo would begin one last maneuver: an unstoppable dive into the heat and gravity and crushing pressure of the jovian’s heart.
For the moment, though, the ship rose. Ellis hoped it would give him enough time.
“Meyers,” he said. “Give me a countdown. Twenty minutes mark.”
“Mark,” she acknowledged, setting the clock running on her PDA. “Do you want me to count you down at all?”
“Best not. I might need to sneak around.” He got up, walked between the two consoles and right up to the viewport. He could see almost nothing; Apollo was on the dark side of the jovian, so even this high there was no filtering sunlight. All he could see was powdery crystals washing against the viewport in random waves, a supercooled blizzard hammering at his ship. Robbing him of speed, of altitude. The planet wanted Apollo, wanted to drag the vessel down into its terrible interior.
Ellis allowed himself a grim smile. The planet wasn’t the only thing that wanted to eat his ship at the moment. But with luck and a following wind, he would deny both the jovian and the awful thing shrieking and squirming in corridor nine.
“Not today, you sons of bitches,” he muttered under his breath. “Not today.”
There were marines on guard near the corridor, around the corner and out of sight of the creature. They hugged P90s to their chests like totems, although the weapons had proved to be largely ineffective. After the initial encounter with the creature there had been an abortive attack on it, after which Ellis had basically banned anyone from trying to shoot the thing. Missed shots and ricochets were not something he wanted to happen inside a spaceship — even if there was little chance of a shot puncturing the armored hull, there were just too many vital systems around to risk another firefight. Besides, the shots that did hit the creature had little effect on it.
It was also quite capable of defending itself. Its tentacles could lash out several meters, faster than a man could move, and with brutal, impaling force. And if it took a dislike to anything further away, it had weapons taken from the two marines it had killed. Somehow, those guns had become part of the creature, partially absorbed into it in much the same way as it had infiltrated the ship. Whatever it was, wherever it came from, it seemed to have an instinctive affinity for machinery.
In addition to the two marines killed in the first attack, there was another in the ship’s sickbay with serious gunshot wounds. Ellis wasn’t about to risk anyone else if he could help it.
As he greeted the marines on guard he heard footfalls coming up behind him, and turned to see Major Spencer and Copper, the bridge tech. He waved them down, and then tentatively peeked around the corner.
The creature was still there, filling the space, as raw and unearthly as he remembered. The skeletal likeness of Deacon still jerked and shuddered at its heart, as if driven by poorly-maintained engines. Ellis wondered if there was anything left of his helmsman in the creature at all, or if his shape was just some vestige, an unthinking, unfeeling image of the man.
Ellis guessed he’d probably never know, but he hoped it was the latter.
The Deacon-face turned towards him, glittering and ravaged, and its jaw unhinged to vent a whistling scream. Ellis ducked back, hearing a shot and a whine of ricochet as he did so. Had he remained still, the creature would have put a hole though his forehead.
Its aim was remarkable. Luckily, though, its reflexes were not much better than human.
“Any change?” Copper asked him. Ellis shook his head.
“Just as ugly and pissed-off as before. What have you got for me?”
“Managed to print these off in forty-second chunks,” Spencer said, producing several battered-looking sheets of paper. “Schematics of this area, the bomb bay and the bridge sections above.”
He spread them out on the deck. Ellis leaned close, studying the various levels of systemry the plans displayed. Dozens of trajectories and reflection angles had been drawn onto the paper, along with copious notes in Copper’s neat handwriting. “This looks thorough.”
“I’d have preferred another few run-throughs,” said Copper, “but there really isn’t time. I guess we’re out of options.”
“Pretty much. What about McKay’s sensors?”
The tech nodded. “They’ll be up to the job. I’ve been double-checking the specs, and my team’s almost got them wired up. We’re ready to go.”
“That’s good to hear. I’d hate to have to come up with a backup plan this late in the day.”
Spencer frowned. “There was a back-up plan.”
“What was it?”
“C-4. Wouldn’t have been pretty.”
“Something tells me this one’s not going to be a bundle of laughs.” Ellis checked his watch. A hair less than fourteen minutes. “Right, let’s get down there. Getting the timing right on this one is going to be a bitch, and we’re not going to get any second chances.”
The lack of power meant that Copper hadn’t been able to reliably lower the launch racks. The team he had assembled were clambering around near the roof of the bomb bay, several meters up and lit only by flashlights and portable spot lamps. Ellis gazed up at them, wondering how long it would take them to get down again. He couldn’t afford to have anyone still in the bomb bay when he put the plan into operation.
Copper looked worried. “Sir, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to get them all wired in time.”
“Then just make sure we’ve got enough. How’s the circuitry going to hold up?”
“In this heat?” The bomb bay was actually cold, almost uncomfortably so, but compared to the deep space it was an oven. “I wouldn’t trust it to last more than an hour.”
“Lucky for us we’ve only got a few more minutes, then,” said Spencer. Copper ran a hand nervously back through his hair.
“Yeah. Lucky us.”
“Copper, I don’t think there’s much more you can do here. Get back up to the reactor — if this works, I’ll need you on the restart.”
The tech nodded, took one more long look at the spiderweb of cable tangled above his head, and then went for the hatch.
Ellis had to admit, the job being done on the stealth sensors was one of the most haphazard-looking kludges he had ever had the displeasure to witness. McKay, had he been around, would have thrown a royal fit, there could be no doubt of that.