The Crucible of Empire (33 page)

Tully looked at the two human crewmen who had been working at the hatch earlier. They had ceased that work some time back, and had spent the time since doing something incomprehensible.

One of the two crewmen nodded at him. "It's ready, sir."

Tully hammered on the metal hatch with his fist. "Caitlin!" he cried. "Get away from the hatch! You and everybody else out there! Do you hear me?"

Mallu heard the Caitlin female's muffled voice responding with what he took for an affirmative. Puzzled, he wondered what Tully was planning.

Tully stepped back and motioned at Mallu to do the same. "Stand back!"

Still confused, Mallu did as instructed. A moment later, at a gesture from Tully, there was the sharp cracking sound of a contained explosion.

The hatch sagged open along the side where the hinges had been. Mallu could see now that the two crewmen had placed explosives charges of some kind.

The whole thing was obvious, in retrospect. Mallu hadn't realized what they were doing earlier because . . .

It was so monstrous. Inconceivable, until he saw it done. They might have condemned the entire ship! With the hatch unable to be closed again, there would be no easy way to seal off the wound caused by the spine's jettisoning.

At first, he was too enraged to speak coherently. Then he began shouting at Tully.

But Tully shouted back, and after a moment, the meaning of his words penetrated.

"—stupid Jao bastards, you're worse than idiot kamikaze! Thankfully, this ship was designed by humans. You think we're dumb enough to build a ship designed to break apart in a crisis—and not make provisions for the safety of the crew?"

He went back to utterances in which the words "Jao" and "stupid" and "bastards" intermingled freely. But did so while spending most of his time and energy waving crewmen forward to escape through the now-open hatch.

"—get those people out of the turrets, Lieutenant Miller! Kaln, you murderous maniac, quit firing! We've got to get them out of there!"

Mallu could see Kaln in the distance, obviously hesitating and reluctant to obey the order.

One of the two crewmen who'd done the work at the hatch—what humans called a "sergeant," if Mallu was reading their equivalent of rank stripes properly—leaned over and spoke softly.

"The ship is designed to seal itself off from a jettisoned spine with a lot worse damage than a blown entry hatch, sir. This won't make any difference at all to the integrity of the
Lexington.
All it does—maybe—is let us survive."

And that too was obvious, now that Mallu thought about it. Humans were simply not Jao, no matter how bravely they might conduct themselves. They would take the time and spend the effort to establish safety provisions that Jao would ignore.

The first crewmen began emerging from the gun turrets. Most of the other crewmen in the spine were already lined up and beginning to pass through the hatch. The sergeant—his name was Andrew Allport, Mallu remembered—was now helping one of the more badly hurt of the crewmen through the hatch. The door was still not fully open, so passage through it was a bit difficult for someone impaired by wounds.

One by one, they squeezed through the blasted door, the Jao having a harder time because of the breadth of their shoulders. Mallu hoisted Jalta to his feet and pushed him through just behind Kaln, who was aiding, not one, but two humans who had suffered broken limbs. Tully was hanging back, evidently intending to be last. He even had a brief argument with the small female officer concerning the matter. Apparently, she'd planned herself to be the last one out of the spine.

Very brief. For all his fondness for mocking Jao habits, Tully had something of those Jao attitudes himself. As he passed through the hatch, Mallu could hear Tully behind him.

"—on your feet or on your ass, Miller. That's your only choice, and either way you're going through that hatch first. Now why don't you do something useful instead of wasting my time and yours?"

Now out of the spine, Mallu turned and peered back through the hatch door. The red-furred lieutenant's face seemed even paler than usual. Her jaws set, she nodded abruptly, and went through the hatch. Mallu helped her through. Tully followed closely behind.

A new alarm sounded, pitched excruciatingly high. Only the dead could have ignored it.

All up and down the deck, explosive bolts blew between the inner wall and the outer ship. Mallu recognized that sound. The long narrow weapons spine lurched as its supports were severed one by one.

"Let's get out of here before we get caught by the shield plates," Tully half-shouted. Looking, Mallu saw that some sort of protective plates were emerging from slots he'd never noticed and were closing rapidly across the hatch in the narrow space that separated the entrance to the spine from the main hull. From what he could see, such plates would cover the entire base of the spine. No wonder Tully hadn't been worried that destroying the hatch would compromise the integrity of the hull. For all the speed with which they were closing, the shield plates were massive, much thicker than the hatch had been.

Mallu followed Tully through the rapidly dwindling space. Behind them, the shields locked into place with a metallic clang. Then there was a rasp and the last of the connecting bolts were severed. The alarm's tone rose, even more strident. Mallu batted at his tortured ears.

"Gabe, are you all right?" A human female with yellow head fur—"hair," the humans called it—was kneeling beside the major, peering at his head wound.

He answered in Terran, then the female looked at Mallu, her curves and angles gone to a splendid rendition of
profound-gratitude
. "You have accomplished much good work here today, Krant-Captain."

How could a human move so elegantly? Mallu stared. Her posture was perfect, effortlessly double. He felt like an uneducated clod.

Medicians were evaluating injuries and taking the wounded away for treatment. A Jao medician stopped to check Mallu, but he waved him on. His ribs ached, nothing more, as far as he could tell, beyond a scrape he'd somehow picked up on his left leg. There were many who needed immediate attention far more than he did.

The ship shook as though they had taken a hit. He lurched to his feet and bent over Tully as a medician dabbed the cut on the Terran's forehead with antiseptic. "I am going up to the command deck," he said.

"Not without me!" Tully struggled to his feet, then swayed. Mallu caught his arm and then together they wove toward the nearest lift.

Tully took the lift back up to the bridge, bracing himself against the wall as the deck indicator flashed, watching Mallu on the other side of the cab. The Krant-captain was in obvious pain, standing bent over to ease his ribs. One of the legs of his maroon trousers was torn, the skin beneath abraded and seeping that odd orange shade of Jao blood. Tully wondered how the Jao had acquired the injury. In all likelihood, though, Mallu wouldn't know himself. Things had been pretty chaotic and confused in the spine for a while.

Tully's own head throbbed where it had collided with the bulkhead, but he was almighty grateful not to be left behind in the weapons spine as the jettisoned section drifted toward immolation in the blazing white-hot heart of that star.

The lift stopped abruptly. The door opened and they ventured into controlled chaos, Tully taking the lead out of respect. The scattered viewscreens displayed only a blaze of filtered light. Tully craned his head. The ship must still be enveloped with plasma. Was Dannet's crafty plan working?

There was some sort of stink in the air. Subtle, but still noticeable. Overheated wiring, maybe. Low voices were arguing at the far end. Then heads turned as he and Mallu stepped onto the bridge. Terra-Captain Dannet looked up from a display she was examining. Her body posture was not one Tully was familiar with. Or didn't think he was, anyway. It wasn't always easy to tell, because the different great kochans all had their own variations on Jao body language. Like so many dialects, as it were.

"Major Tully and Krant-Captain Mallu," she said, stating the obvious as Jao never did.

Tully waited, but the captain could seem to think of nothing else to say.

"My crew are being looked after," he said, assuming a Yaut-like posture.
Readiness-to-serve
, he hoped, or perhaps
respectful-attention
. He never could get those two straight. "I thought I would report in person. We come to make ourselves of use."

"The command deck is already fully staffed," Dannet said, turning back to the display. Her ears twitched and came together. "But you may remain and observe, if you wish."

Was that just a hint of
approval
in the line of her spine? Tully, not for the first time, wished he were more fluent in bodyspeak.

Lexington
reeled suddenly like a boxer who had taken a punch. Tully almost fell into the lap of a startled Jao female, catching himself at the last second against the nearest console. Mallu did better, riding out the pitching motion, having apparently developed better "space legs" through long practice.

The ship took another hit, though not as massive. "All three enemy combatant ships firing," a human woman said, eyes trained upon her display. "Minimal damage on our end. The plasma diffuses their lasers."

If the damage was minimal, what had caused those tremendous jolts? And now that Tully thought about it, lasers weren't really impact weapons to begin with. The answer came on the heels of the question. Dannet had ordered evasive action.

Tully winced, when he considered just how extreme that "evasive action" had to have been, to move an object as massive as the
Lexington
so quickly that even the internal gravity controls were overloaded. Dannet's pilot was handling the huge craft as if it were some kind of old-style human fighter plane in a dogfight! That was Charles Duquette, who didn't even have the excuse of being a Jao.

The bridge stilled but for the ever-present beeps and clicks as the instruments cycled. A Jao was calling out distances in hundreds of
azets
, a Jao standard of measurement. They were all waiting for . . . something. Tully wasn't sure what.

"Desired proximity achieved," the Jao officer finally said. Tully thought he recognized Sten krinnu ava Terra, the ship's navigator. "All three enemy vessels are now inside our plasma sheath."

Dannet took her own command seat, Tully and Mallu seemingly forgotten. "All kinetic weapons decks, maximum fire when you have a target!"

Tully edged behind a support pillar so that he wouldn't be in anyone's way. He also wanted to stay out of Dannet's sight, as much as possible. Even though she'd given them permission to stay on the command deck, Tully had no desire to trigger a change of mind on her part. He and the rest of his company had nearly given their lives in this battle. He'd damn well earned the right to be here. So had Mallu.

Visual input had been pretty much useless as long as the Ekhat remained outside the plasma ball, but now that
Lexington
had closed with them, Tully could just make out dark, oddly articulated outlines in the swirling inferno, as well as the ruby blaze of their lasers, still targeting them.

Kinetic rounds were making Swiss cheese out of the nearest vessel, while the answering Ekhat lasers were severely degraded by the plasma.
Lexington
maneuvered to give the surviving kinetic weapons decks a better angle, and then Tully detected several small explosions at the base of the nearest tetrahedron. The strobe of their lasers faded and the ungainly vessel drifted away.

Was it dead? Tully looked around at the deck. Everyone was focused upon his or her task. Several stations were unoccupied, though. He turned and motioned to Mallu, gesturing that the Krant-captain should take the nearest one.

Mallu flicked an ear, then slid into the indicated chair, pulling on headgear as though he belonged there. Tully hunkered beside him, using the Jao's bulk to keep himself out of Dannet's sight.

"What is happening?" he asked Mallu in a low voice.

The Jao listened. "The closest Ekhat is drifting back into the photosphere," he said. "If their shields hold, and we survive the battle with the remaining two, we will have to go in after them."

"Great," Tully muttered. He dabbed at his aching head with the back of one hand and then stared at the sticky blood. Whoever thought up all this insane sailing around inside suns ought to be shot. Oh, wait, he told himself, that had been the Ekhat. No wonder. They were bat-crazy to begin with.

All the same, he had a new respect for the Jao, stiff-necked imperialists that they were, for fighting the good fight all these years against the Ekhat's murderous insanity. They looked positively like good old homeboys in comparison.

"The Ekhat are still battling the intruder," Jihan said, hunched over her instruments.

"But it is so outnumbered!" Hadata leaned over Jihan's shoulder. Lliant got to his feet and joined them.

Like the Lleix, Jihan thought. The universe seemed to produce more Ekhat than any other species. "Two of the Ekhat ships followed it into the sun, but did not return. They have either fled the system or been destroyed. Now the newcomer has resurfaced from the sun's photosphere, sheathed in plasma, and closed with the remaining three Ekhat ships so that they are all inside the plasma ball."