The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [47]
Then the junction came into sight and his heart sank – there was no one to be seen. Gasping, arms aching, he struggled with the admiral’s weight and as he drew nearer he could see a dark form lying motionless off to the side.
‘Is the sergeant there, lad?’ said the admiral. ‘She should be helping you – Sergeant!’
As he pulled the admiral into the spherical junction, Kao Chih saw that it was indeed the sergeant lying dead on the floor. Of Marko there seemed to be no sign.
‘The sergeant had to die, of course,’ said the voice of the Clarified, suddenly. ‘She was actually quite competent and thus presented a genuine threat.’
Kao Chih noticed the charred, twisted wreckage of a few drones as he went to check the sergeant’s body. Her face protector was missing and there was a small black cauterised hole in her forehead. Squatting there, he rocked back on his heels, rubbed his face and tried to find a calm path between fear and anger. There didn’t seem to be one.
‘Admiral,’ he said. ‘The sergeant’s dead.’
‘Murdered,’ the older man muttered. ‘By a coward who hides himself.’
‘I’ll have to get you back to the Viteazul,’ Kao Chih said, moving over to lift the admiral under the arms.
‘No, I’m not important,’ Zhylinsky said. ‘Leave me here – go and place those charges – damn you, that’s an order!’
‘With respect, sir,’ Kao Chih said. ‘I am not under your—’
There was a flash and the crack of an energy bolt striking the curved wall. Kao Chih ducked and glanced down the boarding tube to see Marko clutching his beam pistol, eyes wide with fear as he floated in the zero-gee.
‘Please, Marko,’ he said carefully. ‘Will you help me with the admiral? – he’s hurt … ’
Trembling with anxiety, Marko swallowed and put away the weapon. ‘There was firing … and she was dead … I didn’t hit anything … ’
Kao Chih got the admiral into the boarding tube, not responding to the older man’s pleas. When Marko joined them, Kao Chih reached for the admiral’s bandolier of charges, unclipped it and tugged it out from under his chest armour.
‘Good man,’ the admiral whispered.
Outside the weightless opaque tube, the mysterious attack craft danced and darted past, exchanging volleys of bright spikes with pursuing flocks of silver drones. And it occurred to Kao Chih that if the unknown attackers had wanted to they could have destroyed both ships by now.
Together the two men guided the wounded admiral up the connecting tube. Halfway, Kao Chih paused and pulled one of the shaped charges from the belt, showing it to Marko.
‘I’m going back to finish this job,’ he said, fingering the charge timer. ‘I’ve set this for seven minutes – as soon as I’m out of sight, stick this on the tube wall and arm it with this button. Got it?’
‘But is seven minutes long enough?’
‘I sincerely hope that it will be more than enough. I’m looking forward to retelling this story under the influence of strong alcohol.’
He slung the bandolier across shoulder and chest and pushed away on a return glide to the Suneye vessel. Re-entering the spherical junction, he became heavy again, and the voice spoke.
‘Back so soon, Human? Apparently my punishment examples were not sufficiently persuasive.’
Having noted the position of the sergeant’s body and the similarity of her wounds to those suffered by the admiral, Kao Chih was ready. When an overhead section slid open and the antipersonnel turret popped out he was already moving and firing. His first shot burned a glowing gouge across curved panels. The second struck a spray of sparks from the turret mounting, the third hit home and it burst apart in a flash of wrecked components. Another turret opened up from just inside a passage leading forward, forcing Kao Chih to back away behind the boarding tube’s oval hatch. His hand found the sergeant’s dropped beam pistol and with twice the firepower he was able to quickly neutralise the turret.
There was an abrupt silence, no measured voice offering sarcastic commentary. Perhaps their host was otherwise occupied, he thought.
The curved deck lurched violently underfoot