King's Test (7 page)

"The brig!'
Dion jerked his arm away from the man's grasp. "Did Lord Sagan
order—"

"Sorry,"
the officer said, casting a sidelong glance at the young man, "but
that's all the space we have available." He laid firm claim to
Dion's arm. "First I'm to escort you to the— Now what the
devil's the matter?"

"I feel , .
. faint. . . ."

Dion's eyes
rolled back in his head; his knees buckled. Tall and muscular, the
seventeen-year-old was bigger than the officer, whose own knees began
to give beneath the young man's weight. The officer hung on grimly,
propping Dion up, shouting for help. Two marines came to his
assistance. Between them, they dragged the stumbling young man out of
the crowded passageway into what appeared to be a large storage
closet and deposited him on a pile of rags. Dion closed his eyes,
leaned his head against a mop.

"Medic!"
The officer was shouting into his commlink.

"You won't
get one, sir," said one of the marines. "They're all at the
fighting. "

"I don't
need a doctor," Dion managed to gasp. "I . . . get these
spells sometimes. I need rest, that's all.'

The officer
regarded him dubiously. "Can you walk?"

"No. It
wouldn't be good for me. I'm . . . I'm afraid I’d . . , pass
out." Dion's head lolled back against the mop handle. "Just
let me lie here a moment."

"Look, you
need us, sir?" The marine appeared edgy. "Our unit's been
ordered to D deck."

The officer
scowled, tugged at a scraggly mustache. "No, go on," he
said finally, with ill grace.

The marines
left, boots pounding on the deck, their equipment rattling.

"I've got
my own duties to attend to." The officer glared at Dion
accusingly. "I can't stay here and baby-sit you."

"There's no
need. sir. I'll be all right. I need rest . . . if I could just rest
..."

The officer
examined the young man. Dion didn't have to put on much of an act. He
didn't feel that good and he knew he must look terrible. The
Corasians' torture, the shock of discovering Sagan had betrayed his
friends, of discovering Sagan had betrayed him—all must have
left marks on his face. They had on his soul.

"I'll send
someone to fetch you," the officer said in a somewhat gentler
tone, turning on his heel. "Stay right here.

Don't go
anywhere. There's fighting on this ship. You don't want to blunder
into it.'

"No, sir.
Thank you, sir. "

The officer
disappeared. Dion jumped to his feet, cat-padding to the door of the
closet, looked out. He waited until he saw the man vanish down a
corridor, then headed in the opposite direction. Rounding a corner,
he caught sight of the two marines who'd helped him. He plunged into
the crowd, and followed them.

Defiant
was in a state of chaos. Evac ships, arriving from the crippled
Phoenix
, disgorged loads of men.
Phoenix's
marines were
sent immediately to reinforce the embattled troops fighting the
mercenaries, but the warship's pilots, clerks, cooks, and everyone
else were left stranded, not knowing what to do or where to go.
Officers roamed about trying to find someone who knew something about
anything. In the confusion, no one gave Dion a second glance.

The young man
let the crowd carry him along. He lost sight of the first two
marines, but others were heading in the same general direction and he
figured he was going the right way. Eventually he found a landmark—a
mess hall—and placed it on the mental blueprint
of Defiant
he was carrying in his head. Yes, he was close . . . very close.

The crowd came
to a sudden halt, everyone bunching up together, peering over each
other's heads, yelling and shouting, demanding to know what was going
on. Those standing near Dion began to look at him oddly, and he
realized that he was a fish out of water—a pilot in the midst
of marines.

"There's
real fighting going on up ahead, fly-boy," said one. "You
better spread your wings and flap out of here. "

Others joined
in, giving him additional advice on what he could do and where he
could do it. A sergeant's head was swiveling his direction.

"Isn't
th-this the way to the ready room?" Dion stammered, backing up,
bumping into men who shoved him good-naturedly and gave him advice on
where to find the ready room—none of the locations suggested
likely to be on this plane of existence. Dion extricated himself from
the mass and tumbled down a corridor that merged with the one in
which he'd been standing. This passage was empty, probably because it
led nowhere directly. An elevator stood at the end.

Dion headed for
that, not knowing what else to do, his cheeks and ears burning from
the various comments, shouted after him. It took forever for the
elevator to arrive. When it did, he ducked into it hurriedly and let
the doors shut on him, sighing in relief. Here, at least, it was
quiet. He could think.

"What
level?" the elevator inquired.

Dion ignored it,
tried to think what to do now. After all, he hadn't really expected
to just walk into a raging fight. He might have known, if he'd
thought about it, that the battle zone would be cordoned off.

The elevator
adopted a more insistent tone.

"What
level?"

Dion called up
the blueprint in his mind. Yes, that was a possibility. "One,'
he answered, and the elevator descended with a speed that left his
stomach up on fourteen.

Arriving at the
bottom, in the very bowels of the ship, Dion emerged from the
elevator into an uncomfortably warm, steamy atmosphere, and was
startled to realize he had landed in the laundry.

The pungent
smell of chemical solvents made his nose twitch: he sneezed
violently. Men bustled about their business—washing, drying,
folding, pressing. It wasn't as trivial an operation as it looked to
a shocked Dion. Clean, sterile sheets were needed for sick bay; the
doctors and male nurses needed clean surgical gowns.

All Dion could
think was that on the decks above, men saw their own life's blood
soak their clothes.

"And will
the wine stain come out of the captain's dress shirt?" he
muttered to himself.

He glanced
around, getting his bearings. He'd mistaken the corridor he'd been
in, had taken the wrong elevator. Making the necessary corrections,
he continued on his way, ignoring the looks of blank astonishment
that met him. Apparently, the godlike pilots of the Galactic
Democratic Republic Space Corps never descended into the laundry. No
one spoke to him or detained him, however. These men had their own
problems, their own responsibilities. An obviously lost, possibly
deranged cadet wasn't one of them.

Dion found
himself in a tangle of corridors—narrow, cramped, dark, and
foul-smelling. Innumerable pipes wheezed and rattled; coils of
electrical wiring dropped down from the overhead like snakes. He kept
going, following the plan in his mind, and came eventually to his
destination—a freight elevator.

His one fear:
that the elevator'd been shut down in the emergency. His one hope:
that in the confusion no one would have remembered it. Other freight
elevators would be in use, hauling up heavy equipment used in the
fighting. But not this one. Not one that led directly to Delta deck,
not unless the mercenaries themselves decided to put it into
operation.

He hit the
elevator control, saw it light, and heard, with relief, a jolt and
the hiss of hydraulics. The heavy-duty lift moved slowly,
ponderously. Dion glanced up and down the corridor, fearful of being
discovered. He hit the control again, knowing that it wouldn't hurry
the elevator and that hitting it would do nothing but relieve his own
frustrations. But if it didn't get here soon, if he thought too much
about what he was doing, he might just turn and walk away. Finally
the elevator hit bottom, doors opening with a screech Dion was
certain Captain Williams must have heard on the bridge.

He jumped
inside. "Delta deck, level one . . . no, two. Level two,"
he corrected.

Nothing
happened.

"Delta
deck, level two!' Dion repeated loudly.

The elevator
remained unmoving. The boy swore, thinking it had malfunctioned,
until he saw the control box near the double doors. It operated
manually. Surging forward, he jammed his hand on the button, nearly
lost his footing as the elevator lurched upward. Centimeter by
centimeter it crept. Dion's heartbeat increased proportionate to the
levels they passed. He had only the vaguest idea of what he would
face when it stopped and the doors opened, and he realized then,
rather late, that his only weapon was the bloodsword. Not a very
effective weapon in a firefight, even if he had been properly trained
in its use.

The elevator
began to slow, not anywhere near the correct level. Dion panicked.

"They'll
find me and this time I won't be able to fake a fit. That officer
must have discovered my absence by now. The entire ship will be on
alert, looking for me!" The young man pressed back against the
wall, hidden in the shadows, the bloodsword in his hand. But the
elevator continued moving. When it did come to a stop, the digital
numbers read d.2. Dion sighed in relief.

The doors slid
open. He remained where he was, flat against the wall, watching,
waiting. He knew from the blueprint where he should be, knew what he
should see before him—he should be directly above Delta deck. A
maze of platforms, connecting catwalks, winches, and hoists, this
area was used by maintenance personnel and engineers. Dion considered
it unlikely that anyone on either side would think of posting a guard
at the entrance to a freight elevator, but he waited warily to make
sure.

He couldn't see
anyone, but that wasn't saying much. He couldn't see anything very
well. Smoke, rising from the deck below, burned his eyes, making them
water. The noise level was appalling—explosions, rocket bursts,
screams. . . .

Dion darted out
of the elevator, heard the doors grind shut behind him. He was
standing on a platform made of solid steel that extended out several
meters in front of him, ending in a railing. A crisscrossing network
of catwalks branched out from the platform, hurtling into a
smoke-filled darkness lit by occasional flaring bursts. He could
barely see the hulking shapes of the gigantic machinery used to raise
and lower the spaceplanes into position.

Back on
Phoenix,
Dion
had watched the service crews walk the narrow catwalks, and
marveled at their agility, envied their jaunty confidence as they
performed feats of acrobatic skill thirty meters or more above his
head. Just looking at them gave him a sinking feeling in the pit of
his stomach. He never imagined he'd be joining them.

The young man
removed the bloodsword from his hand, winced slightly as the needles
pulled out of his flesh, leaving spots of blood behind. He wiped his
palm on his flight suit and edged his way forward, peering hesitantly
over the railing. He needn't have worried about the drop making him
giddy or someone down below spotting him. He couldn't see a thing
except smoke and flame.

Pain shot up his
arm. Dion looked at his hand, saw it clenched around the metal
railing, the fingers white with the strain. He wondered if he was
going to have to pry himself loose. He thought of Tusk, somewhere
down there.

"Anything's
better than being stuck up here alone!' Dion told himself. He
released his hold on the railing and crept onto the catwalk, crawling
forward on his hands and knees.

He'd been
pounding himself on the back over his ingenuity in finding this means
of sneaking into the battle zone. But now. with smoke choking him,
groping blindly along a catwalk that was maybe a meter wide, with
nothing beneath him but a long fall to an extremely hard deck, he
wondered if he'd been so smart. His eyes were streaming, the smoke
burned his lungs.

He coughed,
blinked back tears, and almost fell from his perch. This wasn't
working.

"Before
long, I'm going to get too light-headed to continue. I have to get
off of here. "

Unable to see
where he was going, he bumped headlong into a support beam and
clutched at it thankfully. His hands closed over what felt like
ladder rungs, leading up and down. He swung himself down. His feet
came into fumbling contact with the ladder, and he began his slow
descent.

Halfway there,
it occurred to him that he was an ideal target. All it would take was
one marine to look in his direction—

"No,"
he said suddenly, glancing at his outfit. "One of the
mercenaries. Fuck it! I'm dressed in a goddam regulation Space Corps
flight suit, complete with insignia. Chances are I'm going to be shot
by my own friends! I could take it off," he added with a surge
of hope that immediately died. He was wearing regulation body armor
underneath.

Cursing himself
for not having thought of this sooner, Dion slipped, lost his
footing, and slid the rest of the way down the ladder. He landed
heavily on the deck below.

Jolted by his
fall, he huddled near the protective beam, peered through the
smoke-filled shadows, and tried to figure out where he was and in
what direction to move. No direction appeared particularly pleasant
or healthful. The zip/flash of lasguns sizzled past, crisscrossing
all around him. He couldn't tell who was firing at whom.

"lt’d
be just great if I went through all this and ended up walking right
smack into Sagan's forces!"

But if he stayed
here much longer, he'd put down roots. A dark, hulking shape loomed
near him. Leaving the safety of the beam, Dion dove for it,
recognizing it at the last moment as a fighter plane. A beam rifle
opened fire. Sparks showered down around him, ricocheting off the
wings. He slid beneath the plane's belly, lay flat on his own. He
recognized the plane—it belonged to one of the mercenaries, an
old rejuvenated RV. He recalled Williams's report.
The mercenaries
have barricaded themselves with their spaceplanes . . .