Ship's Boy (8 page)

Then Sergeant Wells spoke up. “I’ll be right there with you, David. Just as close by you as I can stand to be.”

I shook my head, confused. “But why, sir?”

The sergeant’s face grew hard. “Because, son, it won’t take very damned long at all for the Imperials to realize that they can’t maneuver so long as they’re grappled. Which in turns means that unhooking the superconductor is going to be their prime objective.” He leaned over and laid his hand atop my helmet. “So… I bet you don’t know how to use a hand blaster, do you?”

I shook my head, still a bit confused. “No, sir.”

“No worries,” he reassured me. “It’s not that hard.” Then he turned to the captain. “Permission to leave the bridge, sir? For both of us? We’ve got a lot to do.”

17

Sergeant Wells was right—using a hand-blaster
was
easy. Or at least it was easy when you equipped it with a triple-magazine and set it to “full-power, wide-dispersion”. “This configuration is bulky as all hell,” the head marine explained as he handed me the kludged-together result. “And much too heavy for most purposes, as well. But since you won’t be boarding with the rest, you’ll be fine. It’s just the thing for fighting in null-gee.” He smiled and showed me how the trigger and safety worked. “Normally we spend a week training a recruit on one of these things, and even then he’s only authorized to use low power. But in the end it’s all about common sense, see? Don’t point the weapon at anything you don’t mean to kill, ever. If you can manage to keep that straight in your mind, well… The rest will come naturally.”

The grapple itself didn’t require much explanation, either. It was simply a long, braided carbon-fiber rope with a superconducting core. As soon as we went EVA the sergeant would clip one end to
Hummingbird
’s hull; then he and I would leap together across space to connect the other end to the enemy cruiser. Then, it’d be our job to
keep
it connected for as long as was necessary. The sergeant half-filled each of our EVA pouches with spare rope-clips, just in case.

Then, it was time to go. There was quite a line at the main airlock when Sergeant Wells and I arrived there—everyone on the ship who both possessed a working suit and was able to wear it had been told off for the boarding party. Not a single able-bodied soul was being left behind save for James and Pedro, neither of whom had proper gear. “Oh, my heavens!” Pedro gushed when he saw me all gussied up and ready for vacuum. “Ship’s boys aren’t supposed to even
touch
the suits, Daniel! Put that back where it belongs, right
now
! Or else you’re going to get into
terrible
trouble!” 

Fortunately James was standing right there. “This is special,” he explained, reaching around the lapine and offering a reassuring squeeze. “And David is a very special Rabbit.”

“I don’t know…” Pedro complained, shaking his head dubiously. I couldn’t help but smile—he hadn’t even recognized the bulked-up blaster among all my other gear. Which was just as well; if he had, the poor old bun might’ve had a heart attack and died on the spot.

Then James was looking at me. “I wish I could come help,” he said.

“I know, sir,” I replied, looking down at my feet. “If there was any possible way, I’m certain you would.”

“I’ll take good care of Pedro,” he promised. “My family developed slavebunnies, you know. Long, long ago. So nowadays we consider you all to be our special responsibility. Every last one of you.”

My head tilted to one side, despite myself.  “Really?”

He nodded. “Really. And it’s a responsibility that we take quite seriously, I assure you. So we have another special connection, besides just being best friends.” Then he smiled. “I know better than to tell you to be careful, David. So..." He shrugged, clearly at a loss for words. “Good luck.”

Then out of nowhere Captain Blaine appeared, wearing a gleaming gold-ornamented suit. “My lord!” he complained. “You belong down in the hold, where it’s safe!”

James smiled, and for an instant I felt as if I could read his mind.
Nowhere’s truly safe
, he wanted to reply. But perhaps for the first time on the whole voyage, James bowed to the baronet with genuine respect. “Of course, sir,” he replied. “I just wanted to wish David here the best of luck. And you as well, of course. You’re both being very brave, and I’m sure my father would be proud of you. I only wish I had a suit so I could go with you.”

The captain’s eyes glittered in steely pride as he returned the bow, adding a graceful flourish. “Someday I’m certain that milord will make an excellent officer,” he replied. “You’ll command thousands if not millions, and if your bloodline runs true you’ll lead them well indeed.” He smiled and placed his gauntleted hand atop James’s head. “But for now, you’re much too young for combat. The heart may be willing, but the flesh has yet to grow strong.”

Once again I could see that James wanted to say something, most likely regarding the fact that he was a bit older than I was. But again he was able to see that it wasn’t the correct time or place, so he just bowed again, smiled at me, and left to go hide with Pedro.

“Bye!” the Rabbit cried out to me as James gently led him away. “I hope you don’t get into too much trouble for wearing the suit!”

The captain snorted at this, then looked down at me. His face was once more distant and cold. Then, self-consciously, he squatted down so that we were eye to eye. “Do you understand what you’re to do?” he asked eventually.

“Grapple the enemy cruiser, sir,” I replied. “As soon as Sergeant Wells gives the signal. Then
keep
us grappled.”

He nodded, scowling faintly. “I wish… I mean, this should be…” Then his scowl intensified and he stood up again. “It isn’t going to be easy for any of us,” he explained at last. “I mean… The odds are against us going in—no one’s ever pulled off a successful opposed boarding against a naval vessel, you see. Just merchies and pirates, and not very damned often even against them.”

I nodded, even though I didn’t really understand what he was getting at.

“Your job, well… It’s the riskiest of all. In some ways, the position of honor. And…” He shook his head again.

I looked away and shrugged. “Don’t worry, sir. I know full well who and what I am. And what I’ll always be, even if I survive.”

Sir Leslie blinked, then looked down and for the first time seemed to actually see
me
, instead of just another slave-bunny. “Many a long-time veteran, given the job I’ve assigned you, would be quivering in terror,” he observed. “Perhaps you deserve better than what life’s handed you. Though you’ve done amazingly well for yourself already, by Rabbit standards. I mean, you’re free! And unless I miss my guess, the House of Marcus will always see that you’re well cared for.”

I looked away—Sergeant Wells was approaching after briefing his marines one last time. “All I ever wanted was to be a ship’s engineer, sir,” I said softly. “Nothing else matters.”

The captain’s eyebrows rose. “
You?
A ship’s engineer?” Sir Leslie sighed and shook his head. “Help me take that ship, and I’ll do everything I can for you. I mean every bit of that—I’ll pull strings to get you into overseer school, or databunny training, or any other appropriate field you might choose. My word of honor on it! But…” He shook his head again as he began walking away. “A Rabbit as a ship’s engineer? David, you simply
must
be reasonable about certain things!”  

18

Sergeant Wells and I were among the first through the airlock, since we had special equipment to set up. There were any number of eye-hooks on
Hummingbird
’s outer hull to anchor our grapple to, and one was pretty much as good as another since the line wasn’t expected to come under much in the way of physical stress. The marine seemed surprised, however, when I snaked the line to three more anchor points and added connectors at each one. Yes, one single connection would indeed be enough to do the trick, most likely. But if all went well both the cable and the anchors were soon going to be carrying most of the power output of a medium-sized warship’s engineering plant, and more drain-points the better.

From then on our job mostly consisted of waiting, though our crewmates had plenty to do.
Hummingbird
’s lights went out sector by sector as the engineers shut down even emergency lighting, while the space-adept marines helped their less-nimble crewmates locate odd niches here and there to conceal themselves in. One place they
didn’t
hide, however, was inside the airlocks—open airlocks on a warship were an official signal of surrender, which was the last thing on Captain Blaine’s mind. Finally, as crippled and busted up as they were, the ship’s mechanical staff improvised a big, showy electrical arc not far from where the enemy’s last, most critical hit had penetrated our hull. They even set up a slow air leak to make it visible in the vacuum—it was a work of art, really. It must’ve made tons of radio noise on virtually any frequency one might name, while at the same time generating enough heat to mask the presence of functional life-support in those few areas of
Hummingbird
we’d left habitable. The thing was a masterpiece, in short, and I had to admire the skill and tenacity of the men who’d pulled it off despite having sustained so much damage to their own persons. Even if I still didn’t like them very much. Sergeant Wells punched my shoulder in glee at the sight, and I thumped him back twice by way of reply. Then something ripped through our souls as the enemy cruiser popped through into normal space, and there wasn’t any more time for casual jibber-jabber.

I’d spent hours studying our antagonist through the ship’s computer, just as every other man aboard probably had. She was a
Revolucion
-class vessel, equipped with a battery of eight medium-powered naval blasters mounted in twin turrets and crewed by perhaps two hundred men. Fifty years ago the
Revolucion
s, as befitted their class-name, had been truly revolutionary vessels. They’d introduced a new, previously top-secret control-rod configuration, and in their day had been the fastest things in deep space. They were still damnably quick by any measure, but otherwise their time was long past. Their blasters took too long to recharge, their Fields were finicky and established themselves slowly, and worst of all there were incurable developmental bugs in the control-rod geometry. While practically every high-performance ship in the sky today used an improved version of the new setup, including both
Broad Arrow
and
Hummingbird
, the
Revolucion
s remained prone to sudden, massive engineering-plant failures—indeed, three of the class had vanished without a trace during translation. Most likely this particular example of the type had suffered a similar breakdown.

Certainly her translation was a miserable and poorly-synched one. She popped through a good fifty miles away from where
Hummingbird
lay seemingly inert in space, which was about as sloppy as the physics of the situation allowed. Space absolutely screamed at the insult; for a moment my vision blurred and twisted demons seemed to march against the stars. Then it was over, and my heart began to thump-thump-thump in excitement. Would the cruiser come and investigate? Would she take the bait? I snugged myself even closer to
Hummingbird’
s hull and waited as the enemy vessel zoomed along, seemingly ignoring us. Then, just when the vessel was about to fade from sight entirely…

…she came about to check us out!

Thump-thump!
Sergeant’s Wells’s fist went on my shoulder, almost hard enough to hurt through the thick fabric. He’d been terribly disappointed to learn that my suit’s communications gear wasn’t compatible with RN stuff,  but so far I thought we’d gotten by plenty well. I thumped him back, then watched as my fellow crewmen, some of whom hadn’t been able to find hideouts as good as ours, slithered through the shadows to take up positions out of line of sight.

Then, almost before I knew it, the cruiser formed up with
Hummingbird
and gave us a good, long looking-over. Her Field remained up and strong for what felt like forever; so long that I got a little fidgety and Sergeant Wells thumped me for my trouble. Then she closed in further, further, further, into easy spacer’s jump range…

…and finally let down her Field so that she could send over a salvage party to search for secret papers and the like.

19

Sword of the People
, I was able to read emblazoned on the cruiser’s flank in proud, blue letters. Up until then none of us had known her name—the Field had rendered our antagonist anonymous. In nothing flat all four twin turrets were slewed around facing us and their boarding party was gathering on their outer hull. I gulped as the lock cycled again and again and again, until a good twenty men were standing on
Sword’
s
hull awaiting orders. Most of them were wearing specialized combat suits, which rather frightened me at first. Then I thought things through. This was the group we’d ambush first and hardest—the more marines there were among them, the better.

The battle was still being planned when Sergeant Wells and I had exited
Hummingbird
; while he was still in touch with the captain via secure micropip link I had no way of knowing what was to happen next. So I looked up into his faceplate and shrugged my shoulders. He replied by shaking his head and pressing me down harder against the hull. I scowled and nodded back—the message was clear enough. We were to wait.

And wait, and wait, and wait it seemed, though my heart was still trying to beat its way out of my chest. It was
hard
to just float in place while my target loomed so close it took up half the sky! But I had an excellent view as one of the Imperials, some sort of officer judging by the gold-painted symbols on his suit, suddenly saw something he didn’t like and kicked himself around to use his jetpack. The instant he did…