“How many do you think we could take down before things evened out?”
“Should we be talking here about this?” Sandy looked about, a bit nervously.
“Safest place,” replied Crow. “They don’t have enough people to monitor in real time, especially in the Commons, with the mikes picking up overlapping conversations. They don’t all speak great English.” He shrugged. “There’s risk, but this whole business is well into risky territory. You think of a better place to talk, fine. You won’t.”
“If you say so. Okay, my best guess?” Sandy gave him the big goofy grin, just a couple of good ol’ boys bullshittin’ here, eating fake bacon and waffles. “If all your guys with guns could get out at the same time, and they probably could, if we worked it right… we could probably get eight of them before they could react. The problem is, they’ve got communications, and we don’t. They’ll know instantly that the shooting’s started, and they’ve got better weapons. After we took out eight of them, they’d start getting some of us… and there aren’t that many of us. And what do we do if they hole up and start taking hostages and killing them?”
Crow chuckled. “Want another cup of coffee?”
“Sure.”
Crow got two more, sat down again, scratched his neck, and said, “Then there’s the question of what happens if we’re about to win. Would Sun do something to blow the ship? She wouldn’t have to do much. A few shots into the cafeteria view window and the decompression would take out most of the crew… and kill her, of course, but maybe she’d do it.”
“There’s something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Sandy said. “Way back when, I asked you if I could be a major, and you said, ‘No, but you could be a captain.’ Did I ever get that promotion? I mean, really? On paper?”
“To tell you the truth, I forgot all about it,” Crow said.
“But when Becca was killed, and you had to tell the doc about my post-traumatic stress problem so he could rig the grief drugs… you called me ‘captain,’” Sandy said.
“Just giving you a little more status in the eyes of the crew, you know. Letting them know you weren’t just some jerk-off Hollywood videographer…. But if you’re really worried about it, I can talk to the guys on Earth and get the routine started.”
Sandy got his grin going again and slumped in his chair and said, “That’s not where I’m going, Crow. When we went over to the Celestial Odyssey, Sun referred to me as ‘Captain Darlington.’ Showing off, like she did with you.”
Crow rubbed a spot between his eyes and said, “Okay. I missed it, goddamnit. Where’d she get the ‘captain’?”
“Curious minds…”
Crow glanced around the cafeteria. A dozen people, eating and chatting, two sleepy-looking Chinese… with guns. “They’ve not only got a spy on board, he could talk to them. Maybe talk to them directly, ship to ship.”
“Yeah. So if you decide to cook up a little revolution… who do you trust?”
“Ah, Jesus.”
As it happened, trust wasn’t critical.
62.
No one was entirely sure what Lieutenant Albi Summerhill had in mind when he came on shift at the security station, midday on Sunday, April 29, 2068. He hadn’t discussed plans ahead of time with anyone, hadn’t even hinted at any. Maybe he hadn’t had one. Maybe he just thought he saw an opportunity and seized it.
Whatever his reason and forethought, or lack of it, shortly after one o’clock in the ship’s afternoon, when the Chinese soldier who was monitoring Summerhill’s activities was eating his lunch, Summerhill attempted to surreptitiously unlock all the American crew quarters from the security panel.
Lieutenant Lei was not as distracted as Summerhill had thought. He pushed toward the console, his sidearm drawn, and ordered the lieutenant to relock the doors. When Summerhill tried to stall him, Lei attempted to push past and take control of the security station himself. Summerhill grabbed him, they wrestled, and Lei’s firearm went off.
They recoiled from each other, the Chinese as startled as the American, the American bleeding from the back of the head and the neck. The blood dripped with surreal slowness as the American’s body toppled slowly toward the deck.
As Summerhill and Lei began struggling, Lieutenant Peng Cong launched himself at them from the opposite side of the deck, leaving Ferris Langers unsupervised at the ship’s safety and communication station. As Summerhill dropped toward the deck, Peng waved his pistol at Langers: “Call for help! Call for a medic,” he screeched.
Langers hit the open channel tab, his call went out ship-wide.
“Shots fired on the bridge. We have a man down. We need medical personnel here, immediately.”
Seconds later he got nearly simultaneous acknowledgments back from Doctors Manfred and Mo—“On my way,” “Coming.”
Peng swung himself back toward the bleeding American. Lei was attempting to staunch the flow of blood, but it was like trying to stop a river with his fingers. Summerhill began to shake uncontrollably.
Peng screamed at Langers, “Tell them to hurry, hurry, hurry… he is dying!”
Langers called again.
Too late.
Mo arrived first, Manfred a second later. Mo crouched next to Summerhill, his feet in the growing puddle of blood that seeped across the floor of the bridge. Mo touched Summerhill with an extension from his slate; Manfred crowded next to him, looking at the slate, then they looked at each other and simultaneously shook their heads. No heartbeat, no brain function.
Lei’s bullet had ripped through Summerhill’s carotid artery on its way into his head, through a piece of his brain, and out the far side of his skull.
Manfred stood up: “He’s gone,” he said.
Peng stood staring for a moment. Lei’s gun lay on the floor, in the blood puddle. Peng turned toward Langers and extended his own pistol, and Langers put out his hands to fend off the bullet. Peng said, “No, no… take it.”
He turned the gun in his hands and extended it to Langers butt-first.
Cui was in her quarters, Sun doing a check on her sentries when the call went out. “Shots fired on the bridge…” A moment later, “Dr. Manfred, hurry, hurry…” and in the background, the sound of heavily accented English, “Get back, get back…”
Sun bolted for the bridge, nearly ran into Cui running out of her cabin. “We’re done,” Cui said.
“We’re not done,” Sun snarled.
The bridge was locked: Sun called for Peng to open the door, but the door didn’t open. Peng didn’t answer.
“Something’s going on in there…. Maybe Peng was shot,” Sun said. She looked wildly around, then said, “The Commons.”
“What?”
“The Commons, the Commons, that’s where the most people will be.”
“What…”
But Sun was already running, shaking loose her handgun as she went. There were fourteen Americans in the Commons, including the kitchen crew. Sun skidded to a stop as she entered: the two Chinese guards had drawn their sidearms and were facing the Americans across a narrow open space. Sun shouted, “Americans. Sit down. Sit down behind the tables.”
“What are we doing?”
Sun commed Peng, then Lei, got no answer. She grabbed one of the Chinese guards and said, “Go to the bridge. Pound on the door. Tell them to hook me to Fang-Castro.”
Crow was in his quarters when the call from the bridge went out.
If someone had been shot…
The walls of his quarters were made of hardened foam. There was one spot, indistinguishable from the rest of the wall, near the head of his bed, where it was just a bit softer. He forced his fingers into it, pushed side to side, thrust his hand deeper, and grabbed the butt of his Colt. He pulled it out of the wall, turned it on, did a power check.