“Get back here,” Herzer said, nodding in thought. “We need to get concentrated; New Destiny is going to get tired of us screwing with them soon and react. I’d like to have all my fighters in one place when that happens. You’re going to have to EVA to get in. We’ll leave a light on.”
“I’m on my way,” Megan said. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” Herzer replied, opening his eyes. “Just hurry.”
“Herzer.”
“Go, Nicole,” Herzer said, calmly. It was like trying to juggle in free-fall keeping up with everything that was going on, but indicating there was stress would be a bad thing.
“Herzer,” Nicole said, removing the last latch and pulling out the control panel. The runs were fiber optic and the light flooded the space as she pulled the panel down and to the side.
“Go, Nicole,” the mission commander replied, calmly.
“Got all the doors closed,” Nicole said, trying to sound just as calm. Of course Herzer was calm, he was in pressure, sitting in Maintenance, not dangling in microgravity in the middle of the damned ship. “You realize we won’t be able to open them ourselves once I pull this thing?”
“Yeah,” Herzer said. “Pull it anyway.”
“Gotcha,” Nicole replied. She planted both feet, got a good hold with her left hand and yanked down on the panel, tearing it away in a shower of fiber optic cable. She leaned over slowly in the microgravity and spun it out of the compartment into the vast open area in the middle of the support ring. Even if the orcs found it, hooking it back up would be well-nigh impossible; most of the fiber optic links had been shattered when she ripped it out. And the only spare was in Maintenance. “Door controls are now D-E-D dead. Every blast door in the ship is closed.”
“Okay,” Herzer replied. “Van Krief’s team is crossing on the bottom to shut down the portside ships. Make your way to them and link up. If you don’t make rendezvous, just work your way back to Maintenance on the surface. Try to go on the bottom; I think the orcs are less likely to use that.”
“Will do,” Nicole said. “Josten?”
“I’m on it,” the pilot replied.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As Tragack tossed the head of the kobold engineer across the room, Reyes lifted his second to last kobold off the deck and stared in his beady black eyes.
“Where is this door control thing?” he asked, tightly.
“By the crew compartments, Great One,” the kobold, Tom, replied, nervously. “But they are dead. The system is broken. I’d have to go repair it.”
“Sharkack,” Reyes said, looking at one of his Durgar leaders. “Take this worthless piece of Changed garbage to wherever this control is. Get it fixed.”
“Yes, Master,” the Durgar said.
“Take… four Durgar with you,” Reyes noted, considering his rapidly dwindling force. But all he really needed to secure the control room was Tragack. “And the last two scorpions.”
“Yes, Master,” the Durgar replied, pointing to four of the Changed and waving to the scorps.
Reyes hunted around until he found Tur-uck’s frequency.
“Tur-uck,” he said. “You’re going to have to go out on the ship to get to Engineering. Get the engines restarted. Hurry, we haven’t much time.”
“The stars really are spectacular out here,” Courtney said lightly. “I think I do better if I concentrate on them, don’t you?”
“No,” Megan replied, nervously.
“Are you okay?” Courtney asked.
“Not really,” Megan admitted. She was carefully watching each of her boots as they clamped on. “I’m okay if I don’t look around.”
“We’re nearly to the airlock, mistress,” Captain Van Buskirk replied. “It’s about ten steps more…”
“Orcs,” Triari Sergeant Doclu said, suddenly. “Our seven o’clock.” He’d been doing an occasional three-sixty turn looking for problems just like the one that had popped up.
Van Buskirk turned and looked towards where a group of five orcs had just exited one of the airlocks. They didn’t seem to have noticed the humans despite being less than seventy meters away on the gently curving hull.
“Mistress Travante, Comp Tech Boehlke, if you’ll just continue to the airlock, we’ll manage this,” the captain said calmly.
“We should—” Courtney said.
“Just keep walking,” Megan replied, cutting her off. “Just head for the airlock, Courtney. Herzer…”
“Go, Megan,” Herzer replied.
“There are orcs coming out of one of the airlocks on the main starboard passage,” Megan noted. “They’re between us and Cruz’s team.”
“Captain Van Buskirk, ensure the security of the councilwoman,” Herzer said, calmly.
“We’re screening her exit, sir,” Bus replied. “She’s right by the Maintenance lock, now. As soon as she’s got the lock open, I’ll send the councilwoman, Courtney and half my team through. Then the rest of the team will follow.”
“Do their intentions appear hostile?”
The orcs had finally noticed them but they were still hanging by the hatch. Bus wasn’t sure of the answer.
“Not so far,” he admitted. “We’re holding our position, they’re holding theirs.”
“I’d like to know where they are headed,” Herzer admitted.
“From the looks of things,” Bus said as another group of orcs, and four scorpions, emerged on the hull and the whole group headed down the midline towards the aft of the ship, “Engineering.”
“And that’s a wrap,” Linda said, closing the security cage. They’d pulled all the bars without the alarm ever going off.
“What do we do with them?” Layne asked.
“Well, we don’t want to destroy them,” Linda said, frowning. “I think we should try to hide ’em.”
“Layne.”
“Go, sir,” the Blood Lord sergeant replied.
“Orcs headed your way on the surface. Get the hell out of Engineering.”
“We’ve pulled the main busses,” Linda said. “But if we just leave them here, they’re going to just reinstall ’em.”
There was a brief pause while Layne and Linda looked at each other and shrugged.
“The orcs just emerged from airlock twenty-six,” Herzer replied after a moment. “You’ve got about ten minutes, maximum, to do something with them, get suited and get out. Get cracking.”
“Lieutenant Cruz, I presume,” Nicole said, waving at the figure that was emerging from the airlock.
“Jesus, Nickie,” Cruz replied, waving back slowly. “You scared the crap out of me.”
Nicole and Josten were standing on the “bottom” of the ship. Of course, in microgravity, up and down didn’t have much meaning and down looked pretty much like up had.
“Where’s Van Krief?” Josten asked.
“Already headed back on the port side, lower,” Cruz replied as the rest of his team slowly climbed out of the hatch. “We got all the shuttles but number one. That was so close to punching, I skipped it. But it was headed for Alabad, anyway.”
“I guess we’ll be seeing Team Graff in about twenty hours,” Nicole said.
“If we last that long,” Cruz replied.
“Cruz, Van Krief.”
“Go, Herzer,” Cruz said.
“Orcs are on the upper, rear, starboard quadrant headed for Engineering. Get back here as fast as you can. Right now, the only security in the area is me and Bus’s team.”
“Moving,” Cruz replied. “But we’ve got one long damned spacewalk back.”
“Just put one foot in front of the other,” Herzer said. “Out.”
“They went right by us,” Captain Van Buskirk said, taking off his helmet. “I left Mota on the surface to watch them.”