The Voyage of the Star Wolf (30 page)

“Acknowledged, Mr. Korie.”

“Bridge?”

“The mission is yours now,” came Hardesty's soft reply.

“All right, I think we're good. We're not going to need the docking tube. Let's close it up.” Korie touched a control on the panel.

Outside, the docking harness began to retract slowly, pulling the two ships closer and closer together—until their airlock hatches connected inside the accordion envelope of the docking tube and became one functional unit.

Korie hit the control panel and ordered up another series of safety checks.

“Bridge? What do you read?”

“Same thing you do. The
Burke
's running on standby. No internal monitoring available. No network running. No log access. But she's holding air and temperature, her fans appear to be running. We're not reading any life signs, but the environment is viable. It's a shirt-sleeve day in there.”

“Did you send a query? Did you get an ID signal?”

“Yes and no,” said Hodel.

“Damn,” said Korie. He glanced back at Brik, but resisted the temptation to say what he was thinking. “All right,” he sighed. “Blow the door.” He took a step back, then another—

The lock doors popped open with a
whoosh
of air that nearly knocked Korie back into the man behind him. It was Armstrong, who caught him easily under the arms and pushed him back up onto his feet. “Not quite as perfect a match as we thought—” said Korie and threw himself forward.

The mission team poured through the airlock and into the
Burke
like a squad of combat-ready marines. They moved quickly through the other starship's darkened shuttle bay, leapfrogging forward with weapons ready. The
Burke
's cargo dock and loading bays were almost identical to those of the
LS-1187
, except that the
Burke
was strung with thicker cables and ducting. Korie wondered if that had something to do with the high-cycle fluctuators.

“We're in—” said Korie. “She's empty. No signs of battle. No other damage. We're moving forward.” He pointed to Armstrong and Nakahari, directed them toward a console. “Cover that.” Several of the other mission team members were already moving out across the floor, checking all the entrances to the bay. Two of them eased down the ladder to the
Burke
's keel.

Nakahari slipped into the chair before the console; it was dead, but he was prepared for that. He plugged his portable terminal into the monitor socket and it lit up immediately. Armstrong took up a position close by, covering Nakahari's back.

“All systems green,” the crewman reported. “HARLIE?”

“Downloading now,” HARLIE confirmed.

“You two stay here,” Korie said to them. “Guard the access. Blow it if you have to. Nothing goes back. Not yet.”

Armstrong nodded. “Yes, sir.” Behind Korie's back, he and Nakahari exchanged nervous glances.

There were two passages forward from the shuttle bay, one port, one starboard.

Korie motioned Brik and Bach toward the starboard corridor. He and Quilla Zeta moved toward the port passage.

The corridor was dark and empty. Only scattered work lights glowed dully. Korie activated the targeting scanner in his rifle and glanced quickly at the readouts. Nothing out of the ordinary. He pushed forward. Quilla Zeta followed quietly.

They entered the upper deck of the engine room only a few steps behind Brik and Bach. Korie glanced across at them. Brik glowered back, shaking his head. Nothing on the starboard side either.

The
Burke
's engine room felt eerily familiar. They could have been aboard their own ship—except for the three oversized fluctuator housings that projected out of the singularity cage. Korie eyed them enviously. He circled around the deck until he came to a ladder.

Brik and Bach had echoed his movements on the opposite side. Now Korie gestured, pointing downward toward the floor of the great dark chamber. Bach and Quilla Zeta waited while Korie and Brik descended. They covered the two men warily. Then they followed while Korie and Brik covered their descents.

“Brik, you come with me.” To the two women, Korie said, “Count ten, then follow behind us at a distance.” Korie tapped his headset. “Bridge?”

“Tracking is good. Confidence is ninety-nine. Everybody's clear. No problems. Go ahead.”

The central keel was dark. Even the work lights were out here. The only illumination came from their helmet beams, fingers of light probing the gloom.

“If you want to have a bad feeling about this,” Korie suggested to Brik, “now's the time.”

“Morthans don't get bad feelings,” rumbled Brik.
“We give them.”

“Uh, right—”

Korie pushed forward, silently reminding himself,
Never again. Don't tell jokes to a Morthan.

They were only a few steps away from the operations bay when his radio beeped. HARLIE spoke softly into his ear. “Mr. Korie. The
Burke
's log is blank.”

“What? Say again?” Korie put a hand on the ladder next to him. It led up into the ship's computer bay.

“There's nothing to download.
It's been wiped
.”

“That doesn't make sense, HARLIE. What about the ship's brain?”

HARLIE's words sounded almost
uncertain
—or maybe that was only Korie's imagination. “It's . . . not in the circuit.”

Korie realized he was staring at Brik's face. He broke away suddenly and peered up the ladder. From here, he couldn't see anything but the dark ceiling of the bay.

“Stand by, HARLIE. We'll check it.”

Korie nodded to Brik. Brik took a sour step back to cover Korie's quick ascent.

The computer bay was dark and it took a moment for Korie to realize what he was seeing. He swept his beam back and forth, around and across the tiny cabin. A cold chill crept up his spine and shuddered out through his limbs.

Something horrible had happened here—

Everywhere, the destruction was absolute. The
Burke
's computer hadn't been simply dismantled—it had been ripped apart. There were great gaping holes in the walls. Wiring conduits hung limply. There were fractured modules, broken nodes, cracked boards, and shattered panels all over the floor. Korie's boots crunched across shards and splinters of glass and plastic and metal. The room was ankle-deep in techno-garbage.

It was the first
death
they had discovered aboard the
Burke
.

Korie didn't know what to say.

It was one thing to disconnect a brain. It was another matter entirely to dismantle one. The
Burke
's brain wasn't just down. It was dead.

He wondered how HARLIE would take the news. Probably not well. Ships' brains considered themselves a tribe—or even a
family
.

Finally, he said, “The brain has been . . . taken apart. It doesn't look repairable. Sorry, HARLIE.”

HARLIE did not respond. There really wasn't anything he could say anyway. Korie imagined that HARLIE was feeding his emotions—
did he
really have emotions
?—into some other outlet, some file somewhere, perhaps, to be played back and dealt with later, probably only in the company of another brain.

Grimly, Korie climbed back down to the keel where Brik still waited for him. Korie shook his head grimly and nodded forward, toward the Bridge. Brik followed him silently. Bach and Quilla Zeta followed at a distance.

Korie stepped through the narrow operations bay—its consoles were all dark—and up onto the Ops deck of the
Burke
. It was as desolate and empty as the rest of the ship. Two of the stations were alive, but inactive. Brik stepped up onto the deck behind Korie.

There was a sound from the Bridge above them and they both turned at the same time, their weapons ready—

It
was sitting in the captain's chair.

It was grinning and picking its teeth. Korie couldn't think of it as a
him
. Not yet.

It was bigger than Brik, and darker-colored. It sprawled insolently in the captain's seat, glowing with a luminous feral quality. Its expression was the insolent sneer of amused superiority.

It was wearing armor and war-paint and enough jewelry and braid and ornamentation to make a Vegan gambler weep with envy.

It grinned and picked its teeth. It looked like a three-meter-tall psychotic Cheshire cat.

And it looked
happy
to see them.

Bach and Quilla Zeta stepped up onto the deck, turned and caught sight of what had stopped Korie and Brik so abruptly. They froze too, their weapons pointing.

The Morthan looked at them, its gaze sliding from one to the other, taking in their stances and their ready weaponry.

“Mr. Korie?” Hodel's voice. “Are you all right? Please confirm.”

“Uh—we're fine. We've just caught the cat who ate the Canary Islands. That's all.”

“Say again, please?”

“A member of the Morthan Diplomatic Corps,” said Brik. “The single most elite class of killers in the Solidarity.”

“You're trying to tell us this is bad news, aren't you?” said Bach.

“Oh, Mama—” said Zeta. “We really stepped into it this time.”

“Belay that!” Korie looked up at the Morthan. “Who are you? And where's the crew of this vessel?”

The Morthan widened its feral grin. It parted its lips slightly—and
belched
. Loudly and deliberately.

Korie was appalled. Bach flinched. The Quilla narrowed her eyes. Only Brik understood. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

Without taking his eyes off his enemy, Brik said to Korie, “Morthan ambassadors are the most sophisticated assassins in the Solidarity. Many of them have specialized implants and augments to increase their physical and mental capabilities.”

The Morthan looked down at the humans with disgust, but he focused
his special contempt on Brik. It spoke then, a hissing stream of invective that sounded like a cat fight in a bottle.
“Didn't your fathers ever tell you not to play with your food?”

Brik smiled right back.
“At least I know who my fathers were.”

“I will pick my teeth with the bones of your friends. You will howl alone on the bloody sand.”

“What's he saying?” Korie asked.

“He's delighted to see us,” Brik answered.

Korie gave Brik an incredulous look.
Was that a joke? From Brik
? Then he made a decision. “Secure it in the
Burke
's brig.” He turned away, forced himself to look around the rest of the Operations deck, as if to demonstrate that he wasn't mesmerized by the monster's presence. “Captain Hardesty?”

On the Bridge of the
LS-1187
, Captain Hardesty and the others were watching the reflected view of the mission team's helmet cameras. The large forward viewer showed the scene on the Bridge of the
Burke
.

“I'm on my way,” Hardesty said.

“Recommend against that, sir,” came back Korie's reply. “We're still locking down over here.”

“Mr. Korie. I'll pretend I didn't hear that.”

On the Bridge of the
Burke
, Korie showed Brik a sour expression.

Brik said nothing.