«Hit it.»
Her lips curled slightly in a Valkyrie’s smile. She tapped out commands on her console and then leaned on the final button hard enough to lift her boots off the Velcro.
«Got him!» Stromsen exulted. «That’s one laser that won’t bother us again.»
Yang and Feeney were grinning. Hazard asked the communications officer, «Let me hear what the Graham has been saying.»
It was Buckbee’s voice on the tape. «Hazard, you are not to attempt to change your orbital altitude. If you don’t return to your original altitude immediately, we will fire on you.»
«Well, they know by now that we’re not paying attention to them,» Hazard said to his three young officers. «If I know them, they’re going to take a few minutes to think things over, especially now that we’ve shown them we’re ready to hit back. Stromsen, get into your suit. Feeney, you’re next, then Yang. Move!»
It took fifteen minutes before the three of them were back in the CIC inside the bulky space suits, flexing gloved fingers, glancing about from inside the helmets. They all kept their visors up, and Hazard said nothing about it. Difficult enough to work inside the damned suits, he thought. They can snap the visors down fast enough if it comes to that.
The compact CIC became even more crowded. Despite decades of research and development, the space suits still bulked nearly twice as large as an unsuited person.
Suddenly Hazard felt an overpowering urge to get away from the CIC, away from the tension he saw in their young faces, away from the sweaty odor of fear, away from the responsibility for their lives.
«I’m going for my suit,» he said, «and then a fast inspection tour of the station. Think you three can handle things on your own for a few minutes?»
Three heads bobbed inside their helmets. Three voices chorused, «Yes, sir.»
«Fire on any satellite that fires at us,» he commanded. «Tape all incoming messages. If there’s any change in their tune, call me on the intercom.»
«Yes, sir.»
«Feeney, how long until we reach our final altitude?»
«More than an hour, sir.»
«No way to move her faster?»
«I could get outside and push, I suppose.»
Hazard grinned at him. «That won’t be necessary, Mr. Feeney.» Not yet, he added silently.
Pushing through the hatch into the passageway, Hazard saw that there was one pressure suit hanging on its rack in the locker just outside the CIC hatch. He passed it and went to his personal locker and his own suit. It’s good to leave them on their own for a while, he told himself. Build up their confidence. But he knew that he had to get away from them, even if only for a few minutes.
His personal space suit smelled of untainted plastic and fresh rubber, like a new car. As Hazard squirmed into it, its joints felt stiff—or maybe it’s me, he thought. The helmet slipped from his gloved hands and went spinning away from him, floating off like a severed head. Hazard retrieved it and pulled it on. Like the youngsters, he kept the visor open.
His first stop was the bridge. Varshni was hovering in the companionway just outside the airtight hatch that sealed off the devastated area. Two other space-suited men were zippering an unrecognizably mangled body into a long black-plastic bag. Three other bags floated alongside them, already filled and sealed.
Even inside a pressure suit, the Indian seemed small, frail, like a skinny child. He was huddled next to the body bags, bent over almost into a fetal position. There were tears in his eyes. «These are all we could find. The two others must have been blown out of the station completely.»
Hazard put a gloved hand on the shoulder of his suit.
«They were my friends,» Varshni said.
«It must have been painless,» Hazard heard himself say. It sounded stupid.
«I wish I could believe that.»
«There’s more damage to inspect, over by the power generator area. Is your team nearly finished here?»
«Another few minutes, I think. We must make certain that all the wiring and air lines have been properly sealed off.»
«They can handle that themselves. Come on, you and I will check it out together.»
«Yes, sir.» Varshni spoke into his helmet microphone briefly, then straightened up and tried to smile. «I am ready, sir.»
The two men glided up a passageway that led to the outermost level of the station, Hazard wondering what would happen if a laser attack hit the area while they were in it. Takes a second or two to slice the hull open, he thought. Enough time to flip your visor down and grab on to something before the air blowout sucks you out of the station. Still, he slid his visor down and ordered Varshni to do the same. He was only mildly surprised when the Indian replied that he already had.
Wish the station were shielded. Wish they had designed it to withstand attack. Then he grumbled inwardly, Wishes are for losers; winners use what they have. But the thought nagged at him. What genius put the power generator next to the unarmored hull? Damned politicians wouldn’t allow shielding; they wanted the stations to be vulnerable. A sign of goodwill, as far as they’re concerned. They thought nobody would attack an unshielded station because the attacker’s station is also unshielded. We’re all in this together, try to hurt me and I’ll hurt you. A hangover from the old mutual-destruction kind of dogma. Absolute bullshit.
There ought to be some way to protect ourselves from lasers. They shouldn’t put people up here like sacrificial lambs.
Hazard glanced at Varshni, whose face was hidden behind his helmet visor. He thought of his son. Sheila had ten years to poison his mind against me. Ten years. He wanted to hate her for that, but he found that he could not. He had been a poor husband and a worse father. Jon Jr. had every right to loathe his father. But dammit, this is more important than family arguments! Why can’t the boy see what’s at stake here? Just because he’s sore at his father doesn’t mean he has to take total leave of his senses.
They approached a hatch where the red warning light was blinking balefully. They checked the hatch behind them, made certain it was airtight, then used the wall-mounted keyboard to start the pumps that would evacuate that section of the passageway, turning it into an elongated air lock.
Finally they could open the farther hatch and glide into the wrecked storage magazine.
Hazard grabbed a handhold. «Better use tethers here,» he said.
Varshni had already unwound the tether from his waist and clipped it to a hold.
It was a small magazine, little more than a closet. In the light from their helmet lamps, they saw cartons of pharmaceuticals securely anchored to the shelves with toothed plastic straps. A gash had been torn in the hull, and through it Hazard could see the darkness of space. The laser beam had penetrated into the cartons and shelving, slicing a neat burned-edge slash through everything it touched.
Varshni floated upward toward the rent. It was as smooth as a surgeon’s incision, and curled back slightly where the air pressure had pushed the thin metal outward in its rush to escape to vacuum.
«No wiring here,» Varshni’s voice said in Hazard’s helmet earphones. «No plumbing either. We were fortunate.»
«They were aiming for the power generator.»
The Indian pushed himself back down toward Hazard. His face was hidden behind the visor. «Ah, yes, that is an important target. We were very fortunate that they missed.»
«They’ll try again,» Hazard said.
«Yes, of course.»
«Commander Hazard!» Yang’s voice sounded urgent. «I think you should hear the latest message from Graham, sir.»
Nodding unconsciously inside his helmet, Hazard said, «Patch it through.»
He heard a click, then Buckbee’s voice. «Hazard, we’ve been very patient with you. We’re finished playing games. You bring the Hunter back to its normal altitude and surrender the station to us or we’ll slice you to pieces. You’ve got five minutes to answer.»