Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [196]
Fitzpatrick leaned closer, pretending to help as soon as he saw one of the Roamers watching them. He whispered, “What do you mean?”
“Then we’ll have an army of a hundred or so Soldier compies—if we’re willing to trigger the core programming.”
Bill Stanna arrived carrying a bulky box. The burly soldier had been given duties as a loader, carrying equipment and supplies. Stanna had basic training, knew how to run weaponry and fly standard ships, but he was a traditional heavily muscled grunt, never meant to be a brilliant tactician.
“I wish I could pull an assignment to help analyze that hydrogue derelict they found in the rings,” Fitzpatrick muttered. “Can you imagine how much General Lanyan would love to get his hands on that?”
“Unless that crazy Roacher scientist ruins all the decent evidence first. It just burns me—” Shelia said, bending to help Stanna lift a component.
Sighing, the big soldier straightened and stared out the narrow windows of their work asteroid, past the fuzzy limb of the gas giant to the open stars beyond. “If only we could get out there, I could take a Roacher ship and just fly away.”
Fitzpatrick shook his head. “You’d never make it, Bill. You heard Kellum. None of these ships is qualified for interstellar flight. They’re all in-system transports.”
“Doesn’t mean I couldn’t try.”
Shelia nudged him with her elbow. “It would take you a thousand years to get anywhere, Bill.”
“Who says? What if I just took a ship and…and flew up to the comet cloud? The Roachers have ekti-processing facilities up there, so they must have interstellar ships. Otherwise, how would they transport their stardrive fuel?”
Yamane chuckled. “That’s a good point.”
“So, once I got up there, I could make a new plan, steal one of their fast cargo haulers. That’s all it would take.”
“Quite a few uncertainties there,” Fitzpatrick said, not sure Stanna had thought everything through. “I wouldn’t advise it—”
“Why not try, if I get the chance?” the big soldier insisted.
Shelia scowled at Fitzpatrick. “You prefer staying here, Fitz? Rather settle down with a nice Roamer wife and form a clan of your own? I’m starting to wonder about you.”
Stung, Fitzpatrick turned away, ashamed that an image of Zhett had immediately come to mind when Shelia had spoken. “That’s not it at all. I want to escape as much as you do, but we shouldn’t try anything foolish. It would be suicide. We have to wait until the time is right.” He turned back to help Yamane work on the Soldier compy, slamming the robot’s access port closed.
Stanna said, “You think too much, Fitz.”
The opportunity arose unexpectedly five days later.
Inside a dense cluster of shipyard facilities, the grav-tether broke on a tug hauling an incoming rock to the smelters. The drifting slab of debris smashed into the side of the automated ore processor, causing damage as it careened off into an admin dome. The outer rock shielding protected most of the people inside the offices, but emergency systems activated. Access hatches crashed down or jammed into place. A handful of people, including Zhett Kellum, were trapped inside.
Alarms went off throughout the shipyards, summoning rescue workers to the damage site. By long habit from living on the edge, the Roamers kept detailed and well-practiced emergency plans, and they all responded whenever they were needed. Ships flew in; engineers dropped their normal duties. Grappler pods and other craft converged at the site of the accident. For a short while, everything was in chaos.
Bill Stanna, working beside Fitzpatrick, looked up suddenly. “This is our chance. I’m not going to waste it.” He grabbed the other man’s sleeve. “Cover me, Fitz. I’ve already picked out my ship.”
Docked to their working asteroid