Pinnaces were faster than most small craft, and they were armed, though none of them carried external ordnance at the moment. But they were far slower than Thunder of God, their internal weapons were too light to significantly damage a warship like Thunder, and her weapons could swat them like flies. Young knew that as well as Bryan did, but he only nodded.
"Yes, Sir," he said.
The ladder rung felt slick under Yu's sweaty hand, and his pulse raced. This wasn't his kind of a fight, but it was the fight he had, and he looked back to check on DeGeorge and Evans. Both of them were in position, watching him tensely, and he drew a deep breaththen nodded.
The three of them hurled themselves forward, and Yu rolled on his side in midair, holding his pulser in a two-handed grip as he flashed across the open lift doors. A Masadan soldier saw him and opened his mouth to shout a warning, but the captain squeezed his trigger, and two other pulsers whined as the three of them sent a tornado of darts down the passage.
There was no time to pick targets, but those darts were no less deadly for being unaimed. They clawed down the Masadans who'd lurked in ambush, and Yu stuck out a foot. His toes hooked under one of the ladder rungs before the recoil of his pulser could push him away from it, and his leg muscles dragged him in close against the wall. He got an elbow through the opening, holding himself motionless, and his pulser whined again as someone tried to come around a bend in the passage. A shrill scream told him he'd scored, and he held his position, breathing hard, as Evans and DeGeorge crawled up beside him.
"See if you can get their weapons, Evans. Commander DeGeorge and I will cover you."
"Aye, Sir."
The petty officer looked both ways along the cross corridor, then eased himself over the lip of the opening and started dragging Masadan autorifles towards him. The rest of their small party came panting up to take the rifles as he passed them down, and DeGeorge sent a stream of darts up the passage as another Masadan tried to interfere.
One of the bodies had a grenade pouch, and Evans smiled wickedly as he sent a grenade bouncing around the bend. Screams and shouts announced its arrival, and then a thunderous explosion wiped them away.
"Good man!" Yu said, and Evans grinned at him as he slid back into the shaft with his pouch.
"Two more of our people just turned up, Sir," someone said, and Yu nodded. Aside from the service passages from Marine Country, this was the only way into the boat bay; any of his people from up-ship who managed to elude capture were going to have to get past this opening.
"Sam, you and Evans pick three more men and hold this position," he said. "I've got to get on to the boat bay and see what our situation there is."
"Yes, Sir," DeGeorge said.
"Who's got a com?" Two of the men in the shaft waved their arms. "You, Granger, give yours to the Purser." The rating handed it over, and DeGeorge strapped it onto his left wrist.
"We're not going to retake her unless Bryan's managed to get more men into the boat bay than I think he has, Sam. If I can, I'll send some Marines back to help out. If I can't, hold on here until I call you forward, then come ahead as fast as you can. Clear?"
"Clear, Sir."
"Good." Yu squeezed the purser's shoulder, then launched himself on down the shaft.
"Sir! Major Bryan! The Captain's here!"
Bryan looked up in profound relief as Captain Yu crawled out of the lift doors. The Captain loped down the hall, followed by a small group of navy types, two of whom carried a half-conscious Commander Valentine.
Bryan snapped to attention and started to report, but Yu's raised hand stopped him. The Captain's dark eyes flitted over the assembled men, and his mouth tightened.
"This is it?" he asked in a low voice, and Bryan nodded. Yu looked as if he wanted to spit, but then he straightened and crossed to a control panel. He punched a security code into it and grunted in satisfaction.
Bryan followed him across and looked over his shoulder. The data on the small screen meant nothing to him, and he wouldn't have known how to access it, anyway, but it seemed to please the Captain.
"Well, that's one thing that worked," he muttered.
"Sir?" Bryan asked, and Yu gave him a grim smile.
"Commander Manning took out their bridge computers. Until they figure out how, they can't maneuverand the entire tactical system is locked."
Bryan's eyes glowed, and Yu nodded.
"Have you pre-flighted the pinnaces?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Good." Yu chewed his lower lip for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped. "Good," he repeated more softly, "but I'm afraid we're going to have to leave an awful lot of people behind, Major."
"Yes, Sir," Bryan said grimly, then cleared his throat. "Sir, what do you think these bastards figure they can do with her?"
"I'm afraid to guess, Major," Yu sighed. "Whatever it is, we can't stop them. All we can do at this point is try to get our people out of it."
"What do you mean, you can't get into the boat bay?!" Sword Simonds shouted, and the army brigadier just stopped himself from licking his lips.
"We've tried, Sir, but they got too many men in thereColonel Nesbit estimates at least three or four hundred."
"Bullshit! That's bullshit! There aren't six hundred of them aboard, and we've accounted for almost two thirds of them! You tell Nesbit to get his ass in there! That idiot Hart blew Manning away, and if Yu gets away from me, too"
The Sword's sentence faded off ominously, and the brigadier swallowed.
"How many?" Yu asked.
"I make it a hundred sixty, Sir," Bryan said heavily. Yu's face was stone, but his eyes showed his pain. That was less than twenty-seven percent of his Havenite crew, but there'd been no new arrivals in almost fifteen minutes, and the Masadans were bringing up flamethrowers as well as grenades and rifles. He raised his wrist com to his mouth.
"Sam?"
"Yes, Sir?"
"Get your ass in here. It's time to go."
"They've what?!"
"They've launched pinnaces, Sir," the hapless officer repeated. "And ... and there was an explosion in the boat bay right after they did," he added.
Sword Simonds swore savagely and restrained himselfsomehowfrom physically attacking the man, then wheeled on Lieutenant Hart.
"What's the status of the computers?"
"W-we're still trying to figure out what's wrong, Sir." Hart met the Sword's eyes fearfully. "It looks like some sort of security lock-out, and"
"Of course it is!" Simonds snarled.
"We can get around it eventually," the white-faced Hart promised. "It's only a matter of working through the command trees, unless ..."
"Unless what?" Simonds demanded as the Lieutenant paused.
"Unless it's a hard-wired lock, Sir," Hart said in a tiny voice. "In that case, we'll have to trace the master circuits till we find it, and without Commander Valentine"
"Don't make excuses!" Simonds screamed. "If you hadn't been so fast to shoot Manning down, we could have made him tell us what he did!"
"But, Sir, we don't know it was him! I mean"
"Idiot!" The Sword backhanded the lieutenant viciously, then whirled to the brigadier. "Put this man under arrest for treason against the Faith!"