His own last battle had also begun.
ANGUS
The part he didn’t give a shit about was easy. Save the Governing fucking Council for Earth and Space. What fun. Several different jamming fields cloaked him until he reached the super-light proton cannon. And hull-sealant hardened almost instantly. A database told him more than he wanted to know about it. In 1.7 seconds it stiffened enough to stand against decompression: in 4.2 it became so hard that it could face limited amounts of impact fire and matter cannon as if it were steel. Proton fire would tear it apart, of course—but he only needed five seconds to fill the emitter with so much sealant that the gun would probably shatter itself at the same time.
Call it twelve seconds altogether, and the Amnion lost most of their hostages. The fucking Members were safe.
The rest of what he had to do would be a hell of a lot harder.
If he had any sense—if he were still the man he remembered being—he would head back to Trumpet; take his ship away from Mikka. When the fighting started, he could protect himself with the gap scout’s dispersion field until he got a chance to burn for open space and the gap.
But he didn’t do that. He hardly considered it. Instead he launched himself with all his reinforced strength toward the docking port where Punisher’s command module rested against Calm Horizons’ side.
He’d become someone he didn’t know at all.
He’d offered to sabotage the proton cannon in order to placate Morn; so that she would agree to the rest of his scheme. But his promise to her wasn’t the only reason he’d actually done it. He needed the diversion. His plans to rescue Dios, Davies, and Vector—and to destroy Calm Horizons—were desperately precarious. Any one of a thousand things could go wrong. So he was forced to hope that Vestabule would realize he’d been betrayed and try to destroy Suka Bator. When the proton cannon shattered, it might do enough damage to distract the Amnion.
As he sailed toward the docking port, he blocked his terror of EVA and his fear of death by correlating databases on matter cannon, EVA suits, and his own welding. He remembered vividly the terrible blast of pain which had nearly finished him back in Deaner Beckmann’s asteroid swarm, when the quantum discontinuities of Trumpet’s battle with Soar—And the effects of Trumpet’s dispersion field—had hit his EM prosthesis like a sledgehammer. Now everything depended on the enhanced vision Lebwohl’s medtechs had given him. If any of these damn ships or stations opened fire for any reason, or if Calm Horizons tried to use her proton cannon unexpectedly, he might find his head burned open by distortion on bandwidths hot enough to slag the neurons of his brain. Killed by his own augmentation—
He absolutely could not afford to be blinded. Not now: not while he was still so far from the docking port, and Davies and Vector were fighting for their lives, and Ciro wasn’t even close to being in position. If he reached the port without the full, effective use of his prosthesis, he might as well unseal his helmet and let the cold dark have him. Everything would be lost.
So he followed trails of numbers across the gathered knowledge Dios had made available to him; adjusted the polarization of his faceplate to compensate. Then he checked the numbers again. Through his datalink he did what he could to ready his zone implants for a catastrophe.
As he’d feared, there was no setting which might ward off the EM side effects of a super-light proton explosion.
God, this fucking warship was big! He’d crossed less than half the distance, and he was already close to contact with the hull, drawn off his trajectory by Calm Horizons’ mass. In another few seconds he would be forced to touch down so that he could kick himself into flight again. Or else he would have to activate the magnetism of his boots and try running.
Either way, he would lose time.
He looked up at Trumpet through a smear of sweat; cursed viciously when he saw that Ciro hadn’t moved. The damn lunatic lay where Angus had left him, even though he should have been halfway to his position by now. If he didn’t carry out his part of the plan on schedule, Trumpet and the command module were almost certainly doomed, along with everyone aboard—Mikka and the fat man, not to mention Angus himself, Davies and Vector, Warden Dios.
Angus understood that Ciro had no intention of surviving. But he’d believed, trusted, that the demented kid didn’t want to waste his own death.
He keyed his helmet pickup; filled his lungs to howl at Mikka’s paralyzed brother.
Before he could start, distant space erupted with fire.
Wrenching himself around, he turned in time to see lasers and matter cannon strike out from a station orbiting beyond UMCPHQ. In the first instant of the attack, he didn’t know which astonished him more: the assault itself, defying Min Donner’s explicit orders; or the target of the barrage.
For some insane reason, the station used lasers to punch a hole through Earth’s atmosphere so its matter cannon could pound a target on the surface.
It made no sense. Someone on that station had gone stark staring spaceshit crazy.
Nevertheless it was a gift. By God, it was a damn blessing. He could see that because his faceplate protected him.
And it got better a few seconds later, when every ship in Donner’s cordon—and UMCPHQ as well—opened on that station. Without transition the black void came to life in hot streaks of matter cannon fire punctuated by the broad, blurred-edge roar of impact guns, the coherent ruin of lasers. Torpedoes followed, freighted with slower death. Destructive fury concentrated on the station from several directions at once. Suddenly the whole platform took incandescence as its shields and sinks shrieked at the force of the bombardment.
Donner must have been ready for this; must have seen it coming—
Angus didn’t stop to wonder how.
He wanted a diversion? Shit, he got one. The Amnion weren’t likely to spot him—or Ciro—while they had a fire-show like that to worry about.
He was distracted himself. Abruptly he plowed into the hull, slammed along it with the full force of his inertia. For an instant he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think: his brain went blind in terror while he waited for the swift, excruciated death of decompression. But his suit didn’t rupture: his thin EVA skin held against the impact.
Machine logic came to his rescue immediately. In a rush of emission his zone implants quelled his panic. He bounded up from the hull as fast as he’d hit.
The distant station had begun to throb and flare with coruscation like a sun about to go nova.
Trusting Dormer’s diversion, Angus sent power to his jets, cocked his hips, and dove into flight toward the docking port.
To his relief, he saw Ciro move at last. Like him, the boy used his suit jets. Ciro hadn’t been paralyzed: he must have been waiting for something like this to cover him. More quickly than Angus would have thought possible, he lifted off Trumpet with a singularity grenade tethered to his belt; hauled its uncompromising mass toward Calm Horizons.
Now! Angus yelled at Dolph. Do it now! But he silenced his pickup first. Dolph Ubikwe didn’t need any urging to carry out his assignment. Mikka might lose control of herself when she thought about her brother; but the man who’d lost command of his ship to Morn wouldn’t fail.
Dolph waited until Ciro was clear. Then the module aimed a kick of thrust at Calm Horizons’ side. Not enough to send the module and Trumpet wheeling away, out of reach: just enough to break the grip of the defensive’s docking seals. Followed by a small gust of escaped air, the module drifted slowly off the port guides—ten meters, fifteen, twenty. There a gentle braking nudge stopped the vessel’s movement; held it stationary in relation to the port.
The module and Trumpet still clung to each other, attached hatchair-to-airlock and gripped by magnetic clamps.
Dolph had opened the way for Angus.
Past the module Angus caught a glimpse of Ciro, arcing along the warship’s flank with his fatal burden in tow.
Be careful, he warned Ciro mutely. That damn thing weighed more than five hundred kg.
Now that he had it moving, it wouldn’t stop just because he told it to.
But he’d already said that to Ciro; more than once. He had to trust that the boy would do his part; keep his promise.
Angus also had promises to keep. Adjusting his hips to steer his jets, he flew into the gap between the module and Calm Horizons, and plunged like a projectile down the guides toward the sealed outer iris of the defensive’s airlock.
At the last moment he flipped to reverse his head and feet; used his jets for braking. His boots struck the iris with stinging force, but his reinforced joints absorbed the impact. His momentum threatened to rebound him toward the module: with a slew of his hip, he redirected himself sideward. Before reflected inertia could drag him away, he grabbed a zero-g grip beside the airlock’s exterior control panel.
Alerts flashed at him inside his helmet: he was breathing too hard; sweating too much; dehydrating—He steadied himself with a flick of his zone implants. An Amnioni could open the airlock from here, but the keys and codes were incomprehensible to him. He was prepared for that, however. With one hand he reset the polarization of his faceplate for maximum clarity; switched off all his suit lights and indicators so that they wouldn’t hamper his EM vision. Then he unclipped one of his cutting lasers from his belt and raised it in front of the control panel.
He couldn’t work the keys; but if he cut exactly the right circuits in exactly the right order, the iris would open for him—and he would still be able to close it from the inside.
If he didn’t succeed—if he got inside and failed to shut the door again—he might very well die in the explosive decompression when he unsealed the inner iris. Dios would certainly be killed. Davies and Vector might not survive.
He couldn’t have done it without his zone implants: he was too scared to concentrate. This was going to take too long, he didn’t have time for it. But emissions directed by his computer imposed calm on the troubled centers of his brain. His vision slowly shrank as other kinds of input ceased to affect his optic nerves. By degrees he began to discern a faint EM tracery, echoing the circuits behind the panel.
They were as legible as words—a language which his computer, his databases, and a lifetime of desperate experience knew how to interpret. The delicate lines of electronic command, ineffable as the links between synapses, ran there. If they were disrupted here, shunted that Way, they would follow those microscopic pathways.
His cutter had already been set so fine that its red beam was scarcely visible: it should have been impossible to control. But his attention was cybernetically fixed to the EM field of the panel. His muscles moved by machine increments: his computer and his zone implants held him firm. A minute line of ruby burned into the surface; burned into the circuits.
The next moment the iris slid wide, releasing one swift expulsion of air into the embattled dark.
At once Angus pushed off from his handgrip; swung into the airlock.
The lock was thick with EM fields, scanning against dangerous intrusions. His equipment jammed them all: he could almost see the sensors’ bandwidths lose coherence; break up in confusion. Nevertheless the Amnion might guess that he was here—that some kind of treachery was at work. Their instruments would tell them the outer iris had been opened. Circuit diagnostics would report damage.
There was nothing he could do about that. Now only speed would save him.
But he didn’t know how to reseal the airlock. Simply pounding on the control panel might not work. Cutting the circuits again would take time.
Tentatively he touched one key; another; several in combination. Nothing.
He had no way of knowing whether Davies and Vector were still alive. They’d already been in there too long; anything could have happened. If he was right—if Dios had been injected with a mutagen like the one which had ruled Sorus Chatelaine, made Ciro crazy—the UMCP director may have helped Vestabule capture or kill Angus’ bait.
Grimly Angus tapped the keys of his suit’s receiver; tuned his radio to the same frequency Davies and Vector used.
At once he heard gasping, strain; violent exertion.
Shit! He was too late. The fight had already started.
He snatched up his cutter, pushed his face close to the internal control panel, begged his zone implants for help—
“Angus, God damn you!” Davies’ shout slammed through his helmet like a blow from a mine-hammer. “Get in here!”
I’m working on it! Angus retorted in mute savagery. Give me a fucking minute!
Contract his vision; narrow his eyes against distraction; focus on the impalpable electron filigree of the circuits.
Do it.
Before he could get started, a concussion like the punch of a cannon crashed through the ship. Calm Horizons lurched with impact as if she’d been rammed by a battlewagon. The bulkhead holding the control panel jerked at him; struck him hard in the center of his faceplate.
Instantly his faceplate starred into a fretwork of cracks, delicate and fatal; but he didn’t see it happen. He was blinded by a scream of randomized proton fire which wailed past the rim of the iris into his prosthesis. His EM sight shrieked on every wavelength it could perceive. Howling white pain ripped along his nerves, tore open his brain, shredded his mind—
For an aeon which his computer measured in picoseconds, Angus Thermopyle ceased to exist.
Then his zone implants threw up a wall against the pain, shut down tortured synapses all across his cortex; and he seemed to fall back into his body. Sweating like a pig, shaking feverishly, retching in agony, he became conscious of his EVA suit again; felt echoes of anguish crawl along his skin; saw alerts winking fear at him from his helmet readouts.
For a heartbeat or two, he stared at the web of cracks in his faceplate without understanding what it was.
Or why he wasn’t dead.
Well, why wasn’t he dead? Why hadn’t his faceplate failed in the vacuum of the open airlock?
And what had happened to the boson fury of the proton cannon’s self-destruction? The EM storm of a detonation like that should have lasted longer than this.
Residual pain left him stupid. Two or three more seconds passed before he noticed that the outer iris had sealed itself. The explosion must have triggered automatic damage-control responses all around the ship; overridden the airlock circuits.
The door had closed out the storm.
But he should have died anyway. The lock still held vacuum, not air.
Somehow his faceplate had retained a degree of integrity.
How much integrity, he didn’t know. He only knew that the plexulose hadn’t finished shattering itself, blown outward by the pressure inside his suit.
A distant roar reached him: the scorching blaze of matter cannon, transmitted through the hull until the whole ship seemed to sizzle. The bulkheads shuddered with strain as Calm Horizons’ thrust came to life in a tremendous howl of power.
He couldn’t think. There must have been something he was supposed to do, something important—something besides fight against puking. If he let himself vomit now his own spew would smother him in minutes. But he had no idea what was expected of him. His programming seemed to have fallen into stasis, burned to quiescence by the effects of the proton blast.
His stunned confusion lasted until he heard Davies howl, “Come and get me, you bastards!”
Abruptly he forgot his need to vomit. His zone implants force-fed desperation into his veins; fired his heart with enough adrenaline to boil blood. Shit, Davies! Vector and Warden Dios. Mikka and the fat man.
And a crack-starred faceplate.
Shitshitshit.
He gave up on being careful.
With both his cutters in his hands, he set them to full power; gave them the force of laser pistols. First he raked a pair of red beams through the panel of the inner iris, reduced the command wiring to slag. Then he burned a short-circuit into the leads of the door servo.
Autonomically responsive, the servo swept the iris ope
n.
With a sound like a blow, unequalized air pressure slapped into the lock; caught him hard enough to fling him against the outer seal. But he ignored the impact, the pain; the danger to his suit. Gathering his strength, he recoiled headlong toward the opening ahead of him.
His jets carried him across a cargo hold awash with bitter light, empty of shadows. Gantries stood at various angles, extending their limbs like crusted skeletons with the ruined sinews of cables draped over them. Plumes and splashes of thick Amnion blood decorated the air, drifting lost in zero g. Two alien corpses hung nearby, one nearly beheaded, the other with a plastic spike in one of its eyes.
At the edges of his vision, his prosthesis registered the EM crackle of impact guns. Wheeling his hips in the suit’s waldo harness, he spun to scan the hold.
Cracks distorted the view through his faceplate. Inside his helmet, alerts signaled frantically for his attention. With an effort of will and zone implants, he focused past the obstacles to locate Davies and Vector.
At a swift glance, he counted ten figures scattered around the high space, seven of them Amnion. Three of the ten struggled together in a knot a few meters from one of the bulkheads. The others whipsawed back and forth past each other among the arms and trunks of the gantries, dodging blows and impact fire.
The three were Vestabule, Dios, and—apparently—Vector. Neither Vector nor Dios could match Vestabule’s Amnion strength. But Dios had caught Vestabule in a headlock, his powerful arms straining against the back of Vestabule’s neck. And Vector held on to Dios, using his suit jets to control both men; keep Vestabule between Dios and the Amnion with guns. Because they were all weightless and floating, Vestabule didn’t have the leverage to break Dios’ grip.
The remaining six Amnion flung themselves around the gantries in a grim, concerted attempt to trap or kill Davies.
Only four of them held guns; but that should have been more than enough. Davies’ jets were all that kept him alive. He could move faster than any of his opponents; change direction in midair; flash between enemies so that they couldn’t risk shooting at him.