Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [57]
He jerked his head toward the captain's prep room adjacent to the bridge. "If we go in there, we could barricade the door."
"It won't last long, sir."
"Doesn't need to! Remember the emergency ladder?" It had seemed an odd protective measure when the Mantas were designed, an escape hatch in case the commanding officer needed to slip away from the bridge. On the other hand, he'd sat on enough EDF committees to know that planning sessions often mutated in strange directions.
Ramirez's face remained grim. "That'll take us down a deck. Then what?"
"One step at a time, Commander." First, he wanted to get away from here. He would worry about the next stage later.
"Good idea, sir. Go!"
As the Soldier compies battered aside the last-ditch barricades and surged onto the bridge, Stromo bolted toward the small private chamber. At one time, using the military robots had seemed the perfect solution to make up for the shortfall of recruits and the loss of so many fighters in the hydrogue war. Now there was so much fresh blood on the deck that he could barely run without slipping.
Before following him into the dubious bolt-hole, Ramirez paused at the command station and fiddled with the systems. Stromo skidded to a stop at the prep room. "Come on, Ramirez! I can't hold this open forever."
"Just a minute, sir." She worked furiously, sweat dripping from her brow, paying no attention to the oncoming compies. "Another second . . . one second."
Stromo swallowed hard. Even once sealed, this door wouldn't hold long. What was she doing? Well, he could no longer be responsible if Ramirez insisted on staying at her station. That was her choice. He had to make a command decision. He turned to the door controls.
She finally finished her routine and hit the activate button. As she sprinted toward him, sparks flew from all the bridge stations like a chain of firecrackers. Ramirez was actually grinning as she burst into the prep room with him. Stromo slid the door shut, sealing it. "What the hell was all that? You've cost us time!"
"Disabled the primary systems, sir. Now those compies won't have access to my ship, no matter what happens." He should have thought of that himself. It was clear the compies wanted this Manta for something.
Only seconds after the door sealed, compies began to pound on the barricade; dents formed in the metal. This wasn't an armored chamber. The door was little more than a privacy screen for the ship's commander to have strategy discussions with his underlings or perhaps deliver a stern lecture to a recalcitrant crewmember.
"Quick!" Stromo gestured toward a tiny closet with an access hatch in the floor. "Go first." He didn't know what might be down there.
Ramirez lifted the hatch to expose the ladder and in a smooth movement slung her feet through the hole. Stromo scrambled down more awkwardly. "There's a cargo lift down at the end of this main corridor," he said, breathing heavily as he lowered himself rung after rung. "Maybe we can make it to the hangar deck. Grab a Remora or a personnel transport." His feet dropped to the floor with a thud, and he nearly lost his balance. "Then we'll fly out of here."
"Are you sure there's no one else left alive aboard, Admiral?"
"Even if they are, we can't save them. Come on, hurry up."
He sprinted down the corridor, and Ramirez easily paced him. She made no comment, but she was smart enough to know their chances. Everyone had to be responsible for his or her own welfare.
"Watch out, sir!" Two Soldier compies lunged out of a side corridor. Ramirez fired a long blast with her twitcher and knocked them aside.
Ahead, the corridor seemed to go on forever, with any number of chambers and branching hallways where compies might be lurking. He hesitated, his face red, his heart pounding, but he knew they had to keep moving.
When more compies emerged, Stromo blasted repeatedly with his twitcher, but the military