The Rise of Earth (3 page)

“
Lampos
, we are not receiving your code,” Yana said. “Retransmit immediately.”

“We
are
transmittin'. P'raps yer sensor mast is faulty, missy.”

“Call me missy one more time and I'll turn your ship into a debris field,” Yana said, then shut off her microphone. “Vesuvia, diagnostics on all sensor masts.”

“I already checked,” Tycho said. “Our gear is functioning normally.”

“Ten thousand kilometers,” Vesuvia said.

Yana reactivated her microphone. “
Lampos
, we claim your vessel under the articles of war governing interplanetary commerce. Heave to and prepare for boarding. Vesuvia?
Now
you can beat to quarters.”

A
few years earlier, Yana would have been nervous. But experience had made every operation aboard the
Shadow Comet
routine and comforting—even the preparations for battle. First came the squeal of the bosun's pipes from belowdecks, ordering the crewers to lash up and stow their hammocks. Then sensor light after sensor light turned green, indicating the crews were at their assigned guns and ready to fire. Even the complaints of the
Lampos
's captain as the caravel shut
down her engines were familiar.

And in the middle of the tumult, four bells rang out—a
clang-clang
, followed by another
clang-clang
. It was 0600.

Yana descended the ladderwell from the brightly lit quarterdeck into a maze of girders, the only illumination the dim red light of battle stations. She smelled fuel and cheroot smoke. All was quiet—the crews were at their guns, while shot boys waited for the order to fetch new munitions from the ship's magazine, sealed off by thick fearnought doors. Through the gloom Yana could see the bright lights of the wardroom, its mess table turned into an operating theater for Mr. Leffingwell, the
Comet
's surgeon. He and his loblolly boys were busy setting out surgical instruments that they hoped not to use.

The boarding party awaited Yana at the port airlock, led by Grigsby, the
Comet
's warrant officer and the belowdecks boss. He was tying his white dreadlocks behind his head, brilliantly lit tattoos oscillating up and down his dark-brown arms.

“Mistress Hashoone on deck,” Grigsby barked, and the dozen crewers saluted.

Yana nodded at them as Grigsby handed her two chrome musketoons. The weapons' weight felt reassuring. They'd been in her family for generations, used by the ranking officer in countless boarding actions.

“We're boarding a caravel,” Yana told the crewers as they checked their own carbines. “She was flying a Jovian flag but never transmitted the recognition code—tried to
say our sensor mast wasn't receiving.”

“Heard that tale before, Mistress Yana,” muttered Higgs.

“Silence there,” Grigsby growled, his mouthful of chrome teeth gleaming.

“Their heading was Saturn,” Yana said.

The tough, scarred men and women surrounding her went quiet. Most were veterans of the defeat at Saturn. They'd seen their fellow crewers die during the
Comet
's desperate flight through the planet's rings, pursued by Thoadbone Mox and his fellow Ice Wolves. And they'd wanted revenge ever since.

“We're playing this by the book, though,” Yana said. “I'm not dying because some accountant panics at his ship being boarded. We all want payback, but today that means taking a Saturnian cargo and ship and turning them into livres to spend in Port Town. You hear me?”

“Three cheers for Mistress Yana!” yelled Dobbs, the
Comet
's pale master-at-arms, his ever-present cheroot dangling from his lips. The other crewers took up the cheer as Yana checked the power levels on her musketoons.

“We're ready, Captain,” Yana said into her headset.

“So are we,” Diocletia replied. “You are green for boarding.”

Yana nodded at Grigsby, who stepped forward with Dobbs and a crewer named Cartier, weapons raised. Klaxons wailed as the
Comet
's inner airlock door opened. Through a window in the outer door Yana could see the
Lampos
's own outer door was shut. A docking ring of tough but flexible rubber connected the two ships, sealing them against the vacuum of space.

Carbine raised, Grigsby thumbed the control that opened the
Comet
's outer hatch. The temperature plummeted and gooseflesh rose on Yana's forearms. The moisture in the docking ring froze into crazy zigzags of rime on the surface of the
Lampos
's hatch.

“Open her up, Mr. Grigsby,” Yana said, thumbing her musketoons' safeties off.

The
Lampos
's outer hatch screeched open, revealing the inner airlock door still shut. The Comets muttered angrily.

“This here captain's a right hard horse,” Grigsby said.

“Tycho, patch me through to the caravel,” Yana said, shivering in the chilly lock while her brother opened the communications channel. “Captain? Are you going to open the starboard airlock, or are we going to burn through it?”

The inner hatch grumbled upward, wind rippling the clothes of the Comets as the air in the two ships mingled. No one was waiting on the other side of the lock—ahead of them, a passageway led deeper into the caravel.

They were halfway down the passageway when the first Lamposes appeared. They were big men in dark-blue coveralls, their belts crowded with tools. The Comets met them at the caravel's belowdecks junction, where a ladderwell led upward. Yana peered down each passageway, then up the ladderwell. It should lead to the bridge, she
thought, trying to remember the ship's schematic. She wished she'd taken more time to study it.

“Hands up, you lot,” Grigsby growled at the caravel's crewers, waving his carbine emphatically.

The freighter's crewers obeyed—slowly, smiling in an effort to be reassuring. Yana looked around, wondering why she felt nervous.

It felt like there were too many Lamposes all of a sudden. Where had they all come from?

It's an early-morning intercept
and
a green freighter crew, that's all. Still, you'd think they'd have enough sense to hold still and keep their hands up.

There were Lamposes behind them now too, Yana realized. She felt a trickle of sweat run down between her shoulder blades.

“Take me to the captain,” she said to the crewer who looked least confused. “Right now.”

“He's on his way down, miss,” the man said, the accent Saturnian. He smiled broadly. There was something strange about his face. The cheeks and forehead were tan, but the upper lip, jaw, and chin were pale.

Yana shot him.

Then she fired at the man behind him as the two ships' crewers came together, cursing and screaming. The boom of the guns was startlingly loud in the narrow passageway.

“Back to the
Comet
!” Yana yelled, squeezing off another barrage of shots. Grigsby kicked free of a
Lampos
crewer's arms, his carbines roaring. The air was thick
with smoke, pierced with deadly lines of laser fire.

“There's another ship coming in!” Tycho said in her earpiece. “Looks like a cruiser at intercept speed. But what's that noise?”

Yana didn't reply. Cartier stumbled and then was propelled backward, knocking her onto her behind as a laser blast zipped through the space where her head had been a split second before. The crewer behind her screeched in agony. Yana scrambled free of Cartier and grabbed his arm, dragging him backward. He felt strangely light.

“Leave him!” Grigsby barked. “He's gone!”

Yana looked down at Cartier and winced. She let go of the dead man's arm and stumbled backward as Dobbs and Grigsby filled the corridor with blaster fire. She tripped over a fallen Lampos, dropping one of her musketoons, and had to crawl over a gasping spacer to retrieve it.

They were still ten meters from the
Comet
's airlock.

“Yana, what's happening?” Tycho demanded.

“Ambush!” Yana yelled, scrambling to her feet again. “They're Ice Wolves! We're almost back to the lock—get ready to cast off!”

She felt the impact before she saw the laser beam—it spun her halfway around and knocked her down again, the brilliance of the light leaving gray spots in her vision. She picked up the musketoon, annoyed that she kept dropping it. Closing her fingers around the gun sent pain shooting through her shoulder. Then Grigsby had grabbed a fistful of her jumpsuit and was propelling her
down the passageway toward the
Comet
.

“Let go,” she protested, but Grigsby kept hauling her along. She stumbled over the uneven decking in the docking ring, then cried out in pain as Grigsby grabbed her injured shoulder. Dobbs was kneeling in the
Comet
's outer lock, firing past them. His cheroot glowed red in his teeth. There were Lampos bodies on the deck around him.

“That's everybody,” Grigsby said, ducking as a beam of light zipped past them, deeper into the dim red confines of the
Comet
. Yana saw a bright white spark in the gloom
and realized it was her grandfather's artificial eye. Huff was stomping toward the airlock, the flesh-and-blood half of his face dark with rage.

The
Comet
shuddered, and a deep groan echoed through the ship. Yana tried to shove a body over the threshold of the inner lock so it could close. She could barely move her arm.

“Yana?” Tycho asked. “We're taking fire from that cruiser. She's flying Saturnian colors.”

“We're back in the lock!” Yana yelled. “Disengage, Tyke! Do it now!”

Klaxons blared inside the airlock.

“Get out of the way!” Grigsby yelled at Dobbs, bending to yank at the legs of a dead Lampos lying in the path of the
Comet
's inner hatch. The frigate shook again under the impact of cannon fire.

Huff reached for Yana, but she waved him away, pushing the body blocking the outer hatch, then had to
duck as a laser blast from inside the
Lampos
struck near her head.

Then the
Comet
disengaged from the Saturnian ship.

Both airlock doors descended instantly but caught on the bodies of the Lampos crewers. Motors groaned and a hurricane of air roared out through the gaps, whisking a pair of dropped carbines into the void. The suction slammed Yana against the outer door face-first and pinned her there.

“Airlock malfunction,” Vesuvia warned.

“Tyke!” Yana screamed, spitting out blood as she struggled to reach one of the handholds used during extravehicular maneuvers. “Manual override! Open the inner hatch!”

Grigsby was trying to brace himself against the wind as he pulled on the legs of the body blocking the inner hatch. Through the outer hatch Yana could see the hull of the
Lampos
, perhaps twenty meters away. Several of the caravel's crewers were floating in space outside the airlock, kicking feebly.

“The inner door!” she yelled, praying that Tycho could hear her. If he opened the outer door by mistake, she and Grigsby would die.

The inner door rose and the tide of escaping air yanked the dead crewer free of its path and slammed Grigsby against the outer hatch next to Yana. She tried to tell Tycho that the lock was clear, but her brother must have been watching on the security camera, because the inner door immediately slammed shut.

The remaining air in the lock vanished into space and the suction disappeared. A puff of breath froze onto Yana's nose and mouth and her eyes stung as their moisture boiled into vapor.

Grigsby grabbed her by her upper arm, near where the blaster bolt had struck. She yelled but it made no sound. The belowdecks boss pulled her body against his, his other hand closing around one of the handholds. Then he nodded up at the camera.

The outer hatch rose, leaving Yana staring over Grigsby's shoulder into space. Beyond the
Lampos
she could see a bright dot moving against the darkness of the void. It flashed—once, twice, three times. It was the cruiser, she realized—and it was firing at them.

Grigsby was kicking at something, chrome teeth bared in a grimace. She dragged her eyes away from the cruiser and saw the body blocking the outer door's path. It was almost impossible to concentrate—her chest felt like it was trying to cave in on itself, and her vision was going gray.

She forced herself to move slowly and ignore the agony in her shoulder. She got her foot under the dead crewer's side and pushed. The crewer's heavy body moved a bit. Then the
Comet
rolled to port and the body slipped out into space.

The outer hatch slammed shut. Grigsby let go of the handhold, and he and Yana slumped to the deck inside the airless lock. Yana's eyes turned to the inner hatch.
Her vision was hazy and the door seemed kilometers away.

It opened. Yana gasped, drawing in greedy lungfuls of air, then began to cough. She fumbled with her headset as Huff rushed to her side.

“I'm fine, Grandfather,” she managed. “Trap—it was a trap! All port guns fire on the caravel!”

“Belay that,” her mother said calmly. “Carlo, take evasive action. Mr. Grigsby, if you can hear me, please get my daughter to the surgeon.”

Yana hissed in pain as she climbed slowly up the ladderwell from belowdecks. She found Huff in his usual spot by the ladderwell, his magnetic feet locked to the deck between her station and Tycho's. Her twin brother's eyes jumped to the thick bandage on her shoulder.

“You all right?”

Yana nodded, picking irritably at the crust of dried blood ringing her nostrils. Diocletia turned in the captain's chair.

“What did Mr. Leffingwell say?”