Event Horizon (Hellgate) (4 page)

A pause, and he was back, angry, surly. “We’re tracking a bunch of sizzling Hellgate meteors, four headed this way. So what? The AI already ramped up the Arago screening, it’s not an issue, Jazinsky.”

“You think? Get your people in their hardsuits,” Jazinsky said tartly, “or tell them to drop what they’re doing and head back to the
Tycho
.”

As Ramesh began to argue, Travers stopped listening. In the service trench under hatch 68 was an assortment of tools – not weapons, as such, but industrial tools became terrible weapons with a shift of intent.

He moved back to let Marin see the resources they commanded, and deferred to Dendra Shemiji experience in the selection of them. An hour a day, often more, he was still studying the resources Mark Sherratt had made available, and his grasp of Resalq triple-think was deepening rapidly. Half an hour every day, he and Curtis were in the gym, and the time was gone when Marin could bounce him off the mats with impunity, with the fluid, economical moves of the Aramshem, one of the most ancient Resalq martial arts. Travers was catching up fast, and as Marin chose the tools which would become weapons, Neil saw the affirmation of his own judgment. He had chosen the identical selection. For himself, a plasma torch with a five liter tank of nentane gas – it would cut or weld, on command. For Marin, a bolt gun with the fat cylinder of a ten-round magazine, which would double as a fearsome projectile weapon.

Over the comm Vidal’s voice was even with a surreal calm. “They’re close enough for me to get reliable target acquisition. Neil, Curtis, watch yourselves. Railguns are primed. Richard?”

“Take your shot,” Vaurien invited. “Etienne, switch gun control to the main navigation tank. Let’s see this.”

First the helmet armorglass darkened to midnight black, then the whisker-thin Zunshulite visor dropped down, completely screening the faceplate. A faintly distorted vid image replaced the live-eye view of the
Wastrel
’s hull, and Travers held his breath, waiting for it.

The railguns opened up in dazzling nine round bursts. Every third round was tracer, the first two armor-piercing and Demolex-7, but at 30 rounds per second the muzzles of the cannons mounted right above the holds seemed to pour streamers of pure, blue-white light. Vidal had a delicate touch on the triggers, locked onto two targets and releasing discrete bursts, a third, a fourth, before he paused to look at the data.

“Targets still inbound,” Etienne reported.

“And I’m reading powerful energy signatures off them,” Jazinsky added, “enough like our own Arago fields for me to recognize halfway similar tech. We’re not going to knock them down, Richard. They’re way too well screened.”

“
Merde
,” Vaurien said softly. “Save your ordnance, Michael. We’re not going to take them that way.”

“Railguns on standby.” Vidal hesitated, then, “Forty seconds, Neil … they’re coming into range of your suit sensors. You ought to be seeing them very soon. Get out of there.”

“We have to lure them – bring them to us,” Marin corrected. “Let them get inside the ship, and it’s odds-on we’ll wind up as wreckage. We’re going to vector them to us, Mick.”

Vaurien’s voice murmured into Travers’s ear. “You’re the specialist. What do you want to do?”

“Power down all the locks except Hangar 4 – Bravo’s on launch procedures,” Marin said levelly. “Make a big, bright display of chain guns coming online in Hangar 4, and then run everything dark except lock 9, which is us. Open up 9.”

Even Richard Vaurien skipped a beat. “Are you sure? You want to open a door and invite in a squad of Zunshu automata?”

A fist seemed to clench around Travers’s throat as Marin said, “I’m sure. Standby to seal 9, as soon as the automata commit to our position, and then … good hunting.”

His gauntlet closed on the forearm of Travers’s armor, and Travers followed his lead, into the scant cover of the drive motors beneath the last of the parabolic dishes. They hunkered down there, armed, concealed, and Travers turned his attention to his suit’s sensors. They were at maximum, configured to search for objects in the three meter range, and like Marin he was already keenly aware of the inadequacy of suit sensors.

Over the highband comm, Danny Ramesh was screaming. “Vaurien! Vaurien! What the hell are you firing at?” His voice was sharp with anxiety now, much of the righteous anger pared away by shock.

It was Jazinsky who responded, sounding distracted as she jockeyed data. “Did you herd your people back to the
Tycho
?”

“No, I – I bloody didn’t,” Ramesh protested.

“Well, too late now,” she said cynically. “Get them together, and if you’ve got the hardsuits, get into them. You have a Marines unit coming to join you – power up lock 3, repeat lock 3. It’s the closest to us. I don’t suppose any of you are actually armed?”

“Armed?” Ramesh’s voice was shrill with an unhealthy mix of dread and confusion. “Of course we’re not armed – we’re just a civilian science mission.”

She took a deep breath that carried over the comm. “Then, you get behind the Marines unit, and you do as they tell you, understand?” He was still talking, demanding, but she ignored him now. “Lieutenant Fargo? Talk to me, Judith.”

“Launching in five,” Fargo called into the chaos of the loop.

“Tully?” Jazinsky was almost as surreally calm as the AI.

“Holding at Weimann ignition minus three,” Ingersol responded from the engine deck.

“On my word,” Vaurien told him. “Neil?”

The helmet displays had registered the incoming marks seconds before. Airlock 9 gaped open behind them while the Capricorn burst out of Hangar 4, ahead and below them, in a lightstorm of engine flares. It was gone in an instant, like a single tendril of fork lightning, headed for Oberon. In its wake, four chain guns set in the hangar mouth set up a staccato pattern. They were small, designed to impede a forced docking by ships like Sergei van Donne’s
Mako
or the Capricorn itself, but the incoming Zunshu were unaware of their limitations.

Again Travers held his breath as he and Marin watched the tracking marks, and a moment later Curtis whispered, “Yes! They took the bait, Richard. They’re coming to us. Standby to seal 9.”

“Seal 9, and we lock you out,” Vidal said sharply.

“We know.” Travers licked lips that were suddenly dry as paper. “Call it another test of the Zunshulite armor. You wanted data, Barb? Looks like you’re going to get it.”

“You maniacs watch your bloody asses,” she said in a tone that cut like a razor. “The Capricorn is docking.
Judith
!”

“We can see them,” Fargo assured her, “four bogeys headed this way, thirty seconds from locking on – and they’re going to have to cut their way in. Buys us some time, Barb. Get the civvies moving, send ’em anywhere, so long as it’s away from the Zunshu lock-on point.”

“Doctor Ramesh, are you monitoring our comm?” Vaurien asked over the increasing clutter of the loop. “You have very limited time. Advise your people make their way to the
Tycho
, and commence preflight procedures. Do it now, while you have the chance.”

And then Travers stopped listening. In the helmet display he had visually picked out the identical, eggshell-smooth shapes of two aeroshells, no more than five hundred meters off the starboard side of the
Wastrel
. They were slower now, shedding speed so fast, a human pilot would have been knocked insensible. The two shells were butting their way through the tug’s dense, overlapped and interleaved Arago fields, and turning slightly to close on lock 9.

“Mick, they’re getting right through the Aragos,” Travers warned loudly. “Can you squeeze any more out of them?”

“A few percent,” Vidal mused, “but what’s the point? Repel them here, and they’ll target some other area, maybe a thousand meters away. You and Curtis want to go hunting?”

“No,” Marin whispered. “Let them through, Mick. Don’t make it too easy – don’t give a machine mind anything to suspect. For once, they’re right where we want them.”

The datastream from Etienne told him when Vidal shut back a fraction of the power to the Aragos and the field weakened a few percent. It looked as if the generators were overstressing, and if Travers had not heard the exchange between Curtis and Vidal, he would have assumed nothing more. The Zunshu would buy it.

Marin’s voice was a bare murmur, oddly intimate over the comm. “Same as last time, Neil. You know how this works.”

Academically, Travers knew how it worked, but on the big moon of Ulrand, and way back on Kjorin, Bravo Company had been behind him, and the weapons in his hands were state of the art. He looked down at the plasma torch he cradled against his chest, and then up again, at the bolt gun Marin had lifted out of the glorified tool chest.

“It’s not too late to cut and run,” he suggested half mockingly.

“Nowhere to run to, is there?” Marin shifted position and pulled the bolt gun into his shoulder as if it were an assault rifle. He had no efficient way of sighting or marking his target, and Travers knew what he was about to say. “They’ll have to be damned close for this to work.”

The Zunshu machines would be focused on lock 9, and given the weird topography of the
Wastrel
’s hull, the route to the open lock was narrow and tight. Travers watched Marin prime the bolt gun, and deliberately tuned the plasma torch to a fine, super-hot jet.

The loop was a mess of callsigns and invective, but he heard Fargo’s voice, and both Kravitz and Inosanto, chorusing the same information: they were docked, they had blown the Capricorn down to partial pressure and bypassed the normal airlock cycling, to save time. A gale was rushing through the nearer parts of Oberon, but it would soon be spent. Much more significant was Danny Ramesh’s wailing voice.

“Something’s locked onto us,” he howled.

“We see it,” Vaurien said coolly. “It’s on your back, near the machine shops. You’re dead lucky, Ramesh. Oberon has better armour than a super-carrier, because Hellgate’s always likely to throw super-hot debris at it. You weren’t fired upon, and these intruders have nothing that’ll mesh with your docking rings. They’ll have to cut their way in, which buys you a little time. Are your people back on the
Tycho
?”

“They’re shutting everything down and grabbing their equipment,” Ramesh began.

“Ditch it – ditch everything,” Jazinsky said loudly. “Danny, will you just do as you’re told for once in bloody stupid life? You’ve got about one minute. Tell your people to run!”

Marin made a sound that might have been cynical humor. “They’re not going to make it.”

“Not unless Bravo buys them another chance,” Travers agreed. “And speaking of sitting targets – Mick, can you get a shot at any of the pods that just locked onto Oberon?”

“One of ’em,” Vidal mused. “It’s worth a try. Hold on.”

Again, the liquid streams of pure light lanced out of the starboard railguns, but as the blaze of sensor noise settled Jazinsky only swore bitterly. “Waste of time and ammunition.”

“Worth a try, like the man said.” Travers licked his lips and shifted his grip on the plasma torch. “Curtis …”

“Oh, yeah. Here we go. Forget Oberon now – let Bravo take it, we have enough to do.”

They were watching the aeroshells buck through the last Arago field and come slithering around, lined up on lock 9. With perfect efficiency both shells settled solidly onto the hull and hatches opened in the long sides.

“Touchdown,” Travers said quietly. “Standby to seal 9 … wait … wait …
do it
!” He had delayed long enough to see the six automata step out of the shells, and in moments they were out on the hull, separated from their pod-like craft.

“Lock 9 is sealed,” Vidal informed him. “I’ve got visual on you, but you’re out of the firing arcs of any weapon we have. You’re on your own, kids.”

“Not
quite
.” Travers checked the charge on the plasma torch. “Deploy the drones from 24 through 29.”