Third watch should have found the bridge nearly deserted, but when the lift doors rotated away, every duty station was staffed and there were four or five extra bodies present, holding up the walls and checking console diagnostics that had been checked only the day before. Oc Chac nodded as she approached.
“Show me.” Kosho nodded to Llang, who slipped into a seat at the comm and sensor station. The Thai-i ’s stylus skittered across the control surfaces with admirable speed. Immediately a series of navigation diagrams appeared and a holo rotated into view, showing the science platform, the debris clouds in the immediate vicinity and then-three sharp taps zoomed the focus far, far down, showing an indistinct smear a goodly distance from the Can, deep into the area marked off by the Mirror as out-of-bounds.
“ Kyo, it’s really hard to see-the remains of the ships are just more radioactive junk in with all of this other radioactive junk, but we believe that this-”
Llang tapped once more, and a camera overlay sprang up, showing a sort of empty wedge in the cloud.
“That this was the Kiev after she lost reactor containment. The scout must have been traveling within gun range of the Korkunov -that’s this other gap off her starboard. When they blew, the force of the explosion actually cleared an area in the nebular cloud. The densities of material around the edges of each of these gaps sort of approximate the mass of the ships themselves. At least we think that’s right. And look at this-the Calexico has been cut clean in half!” Llang looked up, her face filled with mingled horror and awe. “Have you ever seen anything like that before, Chu-sa?”
Susan stared at the enhanced, high-contrast image and marveled at the clean edge of the ship’s wound. “How far away is this?”
“Three light-minutes beyond the Can, kyo, just at the edge of sensor range in the cloud.” The Thai-i grimaced. “Too much grit to see if there’s anything else out beyond them…”
Susan compared the plots and the information from the morning’s briefing. Her frown deepened.
“There’s an opening,” she said, clenching her hands, which had suddenly gone cold. “Survey and the Mirror advance elements have been here at least a week-they’ll have seen what we see, guessed what we guess. Their danger zone is well on this side of all three of those ships. The Kiev must have blundered into a failed component of the weapon’s array, leaving just the tiniest gap… but not big enough to avoid destruction when they stepped out-of-bounds.”
Sho-sa Chac considered the plot, eyes fixed on the Mirror research ships now snugged up against the station. “They’ll be going in, Chu-sa , and someone will have to play watchdog… pray to the Lady of Tepeyac we avoid such a fate!”
For her part, Kosho felt claustrophobic. The emptiness around her ship seemed suddenly confined, filled with invisible walls. “Keep the coordinates of this… barrier… in the threatwell at all times,” she decided, caution pricked by the object lesson of the three wrecked survey ships. “If we need to maneuver at speed, we don’t want to interpenetrate by accident.”
“ Hai, Chu-sa! ” Llang was very quick to agree. The others nodded vigorously.
“What else?” Kosho felt the tactical problem beginning to turn over in her mind, options shifting in and out of consideration, alternatives discarded as quickly as they suggested themselves.
Llang tapped through a series of detailed views of the area around the Mirror station itself. “ Kyo, the only other thing we’ve found is this… probably a good third of the Calexico is the core of the Can itself. Looks like they dragged half of the scout back out of the danger zone and cut away the damaged sections. The other two ships lost containment on their reactors, but by some miracle the Calexico ’s power plant survived.”
“Frugal.” Kosho clicked her teeth together. “Someone must have survived the attack or they’d never have found this opening… not without losing another dozen ships blundering around in the dark. Ask around, Sho-sa Oc. See if you can get names.”
“ Hai, kyo! ” The Mayan nodded, his face impassive. But as he strode away, Susan caught a fragment of a prayer, muttered under the man’s breath: “Hear us, O Xbalanque. Lend us your clever mind and subtle hand. Guide us in this foul Darkness which over you has no power.”
Now, she thought, feeling the bone-deep ache of being up too long and running on too many cups of tea. That makes me feel so much better. May it settle his mind, for it does nothing for mine.
His image of a whirlwind of knives barring the dark road to Xibalba remained with her.
Inside the Khaid ship, Hadeishi and the other prisoners were hurried out of the main airlock-a fresh squad of Khaiden marines was crowding into the space, preparing to board the Wilful -and immediately down a side passage. As soon as the hatchway groaned shut behind them-Mitsuharu’s ear caught the distinctive sound of a pump working overtime to compensate for a fouled hydraulic line-he lifted his head in the dim, fetid darkness and glanced around.
The last time he’d been aboard a Khaiden raider his Fleet sensibilities had been affronted by how poorly maintained the alien ships were. And his reaction had been mild compared to the outrage shown by the Engineering team he’d put aboard… that captured heavy cruiser couldn’t have been salvaged without a complete interior rebuild. Much of this, he believed, sprang from the paucity of resources afflicting the ill-defined and disorganized Khaid polity. Fleet intelligence bulletins indicated the hostile power was more a fragile alliance of feuding clans and stations than a real nation. In particular, they lacked a unified industrial base-most of their ships were captured, or stolen-and repair facilities were few and far between.
In the same situation, Mitsuharu believed he’d have taken pains to keep his ship-or ships, if he were some lucky Khaiden warlord-in the best possible condition. But then, he suspected the Khaid might do just that, for ships they had built themselves. But for a stolen ship? Some alien vessel jury-rigged to allow Khaiden operation? There was no reason to spend more than the most minimal resources on a captive vessel; particularly when it would likely be destroyed in the next raid.
Now, seeing the interior of the Qalak, he guessed they were being herded down to a holding facility-and from the look of the piping overhead, and the steadily growing heat, it would be close on to a thermocouple station. Then the guard behind Hadeishi interrupted his train of thought with a hard jab to the shoulder with a zmetgun.
Hadeishi fell clumsily, knocking into the sailor in front of him. The man turned, snarling. Mitsuharu took the opportunity to lose his footing and fall down. The guard kicked him, catching Hadeishi on the thigh, and then turned to warn off the sailor.
Curled up on the decking, Mitsuharu pulled his cuffed wrists under both tucked-in legs and-once his hands were in front of him-jimmied the bolt-cutters from his tool belt. Groaning with effort, he managed to twist the steel chain into the cutting blade. Seconds later, a heavy gloved hand seized his shoulder and dragged him up.
“Suk korek!” A throaty alien voice snarled in his earbug. At such short range, the conductive comm system in his suit was picking up the ’cast from the Khaid’s radio. Hadeishi turned, keeping his head down, and gritted his teeth. The cheap steel in the cuffs was resisting the cutters, and the tight pressure on his wrists was sending sharp, bright pains up his arms. “Napiyorzun?”
That’s done it, Mitsuharu gasped. A sharp ping! echoed in his helmet and his hands were free.