"Enemy approaching! Recommend…" I crawled forward. My faceplate was blistered—I was almost blind. Darkness, ahead—shelter, escape. I scrambled forward, sliding down a slight incline in the dark. A ceiling of black cenite pressed down on my A-suit. My helmet scraped against it. I was wedged between two great slabs of metal. I crawled, my armor screeching its objections. I rolled another psybloc grenade ahead of me. It exploded, crackling phospho hot, lighting it all up: the cenite ceiling, burnt black, mils from my armor.
"Hydraulics weakening! Total hydraulics failure expected soon!"
"Then we do it manually, Sweety!" I had tried it once, in training. It was damned near impossible, even when nobody was trying to kill you.
"Tacnet failing!"
"Give me some good news, Sweety!"
"Negative, Thinker. Except for the Ship."
"What about the Ship?"
"We have reached the Ship, Three. You are under the Ship."
The Ship! I reached up one armored hand and touched the gritty, blackened surface—the Ship! That's what it was! I had crawled under the Ship! Deadman save us!
"Tara, Thirteen, One, Three! I'm at the Ship! Tara, get on that elevator, it leads to the Ship, acknowledge!"
"Enemy presence! I'm releasing deceptors!" Sweety informed me. They cracked all around me, flashing, blinding me momentarily. My faceplate was scarred and blistered—the polarization and darksight were both gone. Sweety had zeroed the O. I crawled away from it frantically. Even using all my strength, I could barely move the arms of my A-suit .
The world exploded in flame all around me, starmass running over my armor hissing and spitting, the kiss of death. I crawled blindly, terrified.
"Armor is fusing, Three!" Canister fire, auto x, crashing in my ears. And suddenly Gildron roared and Tara was shrieking commands. The fire flickered and died. I collapsed in a glowing A-suit, black smoke swirling all around me.
"Enemy presence! I detect…"
"Tara! Gildron!" I shouted. "Get under the Ship! Crawl to me! Do it!" I was under an access hatch. The smoke had swirled away just for an instant and there it was, right above me, surely placed by the Gods. A great rectangular cenite hatch, firmly closed. But there was a little panel with a recessed slot. I could barely make it out. I pawed at it with my smoking cenite fingers without result.
"Get this open, Sweety!"
"We're coming, Thinker!" Tara exclaimed. "There's another O out there!" A wild burst of canister x, the flashes lighting up the underside of the ship. We had only instants to live.
"Laser the lock, Thinker!" Sweety urged me. "No time for techprobe!" I dragged my E up toward the lock jerkily, the arms of my A-suit almost beyond my control. I slammed the barrel into the slot, snapped the controls to laser, and fired. The hatch snapped open, leaving a gaping hole.
"Wester!" Tara crawled toward me like an armored lizard. Gildron was behind her, firing his E again, auto x. I didn't want to know what happened to Twister. I looked up—the doorway was open! And the Ship was above. I forced myself to my knees, my head in the opening.
It was dark up there—I could see the gleam of oiled cenite. I clutched my E and set it to canister x. There were little recesses set in the cenite—handholds, footholds, a stairway to the stars for unwelcome guests. I reached out a hand and grasped the first hold. My chron read 0915 local, exact.
"One, Three," I reported. "Cinta, Gildron, Three are entering the Ship. Repeat, we're entering the Ship! Goodbye and God protect you!" And as I clambered up into the Ship, my blood was ice cold in my veins and I swore to Deadman that we would take the Ship for the Legion, or die.
###
"It's an airlock—and this door is not going to open until the other one closes!" We were facing a tall, firmly-closed cenite door, and Tara was stating the obvious. She sounded nervous, with good reason. The O's were still probing under the Ship with their starmass, and flames were spitting up from the open hatch on the floor. Gildron roared, wild with rage.
"Techprobe, Thinker!" I was hauling it out of the toolpak even as Sweety spoke. If we couldn't get this door open, we were cooked. Literally. I snapped the probe onto what looked like a locking mechanism and waited for it to do its thing.
"We killed one O," Tara said, "but there was at least one other O out there."
"We're in the Ship!" I exclaimed. "How can we stop it? We'll have to wreck the controls or the drive!"
"We'd be better off outside," Tara said grimly.
"Take the probe," I said. "I can't control my suit any more. Gildron, get me out of this A-suit."
"No, Wester!" Tara warned. "You can't survive without the suit!" She was holding the techprobe against the lock.
"I can't survive in it—I can't move!" Gildron wrenched off my helmet and it dropped to the floor. The chestplate went next. My life expectancy was dropping fast.
"Success!" Sweety reported. The floor hatch banged shut abruptly, and the inner airlock door snapped open. Tara gasped, dropping the techprobe and snatching at her E. Gildron raised his E to his shoulder, covering us. I was on the deck, squirming out of my A-suit.
A pale light glowed in the doorway. Gildron stepped out cautiously, a gigantic figure in a black A-suit, wielding his E like an axe. I got up from the floor and picked up my E. I snapped the tacmod out of the A-suit helmet and ripped the u-belt loose with the toolpak, the ratpak, the ampak and the medpak attached. I draped the u-belt around my neck and pulled out a psybloc grenade. I was wearing only the litesuit. It would give me a little protection, but not much. I followed Tara out the door.
Soft silvery light, from above. A perfectly circular corridor with strange black fixtures lining the walls. A shiny, mirrored ceiling. A padded, pale white walkway under our feet. Deserted except for us. But the psybloc units were still flashing atop Tara and Gildron's helmets.
"There's something wrong," Tara said.
"Of course there is!" I snapped. "There's something wrong with the Ship, the Mound, the O's—the whole installation. There's only a few O's here, and the Ship doesn't work! Otherwise they'd be gone!" I was almost crying in frustration. It was clear to me by now that we were facing only a small number of O's, and that the O's must be struggling with one big problem—a non-functional starship. It was surely taking all their attention, for they didn't even have time to fight off all the humans that were swarming over their Mound. But I also knew that, for me, it probably didn't even matter. I was out of my armor, helpless and hopeless, and my skin was crawling. One little touch of starmass and I'd vaporize into gas. It was highly unlikely that I was going to live to see if we secured the Ship or not.
That's when the psybloc units went off. But they didn't snap off naturally—they burst, spraying us with shrapnel. I took some of Tara's unit in one cheek, my hand coming away bloody.
"That's it—all we need!" I said. We were trapped like rats.
"Canister, Gildron," Tara ordered. "Let's go—we have to find the bridge."
"Psybloc grenades," I suggested, raising one.
"Negative, Wester. We're running low—I'll give the word when they probe."
"I'll be ready!" I had one twitching finger in the ring of a grenade as we set off down the hall. My blood was ice and my heart was thumping. I could taste my death like acid, right on my tongue.