Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [74]
Miles paused to glance over to Elena's readouts. A corridor was flowing past at high speed on the visual. It spun wildly as she used her suit's jets to brake. The artificial gravity was evidently now shut down in the docking station. An automatic air seal had clanged shut, blocking the corridor. She stopped her spin, aimed, and blasted a hole in it with her plasma arc. She flung herself through it as, at the same moment, an enemy soldier on the other side did likewise. They met in a confused scrambling grapple, servos screaming at the overload demands.
Miles searched frantically for the enemy among the ten readouts, but he was a Pelian. Miles had no access to his suit. His heart pounded in his ears. There was another view of the fight between Elena and the Pelian on the screens; Miles had a dizzy sense of being in two places at once, as if his atman had left his body, then realized he was looking at them through another Oseran's suit. The Oseran was raising his weapon to fire—he couldn't miss—
Miles called up the man's medkit and fired every drug in it into the man's veins at once. The audio transmitted a shuddering gasp; the heartbeat readout jumped crazily and then registered fibrillation. Another figure—Baz?—in the Ariel's armor rolled through the gash in the air seal, firing as he flew. The plasma washed over the Oseran, interrupting transmission.
"Son-of-a-bitch!" Auson screamed suddenly at Miles's elbow. "Whereinhell did he come from?"
Miles thought at first he was referring to the armored soldier, then followed the direction of Auson's gaze to another screen, showing space opposite the docking station.
Looming up behind them was a large Oseran warship.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Miles swore in frustration. Of course! Oseran full-feedback space armor logically implied an Oseran monitor nearby. He should have realized it instantly. Fool he was, to have simply assumed the enemy was being directed from inside the docking station. He ground his teeth in chagrin. He had totally forgotten, in the overwhelming excitement of the attack, in his particular terror for Elena, the first principle of larger commands: don't get balled up in the little details. It was no consolation that Auson appeared to have forgotten it too.
The communications officer hastily abandoned the game of suit sabotage and returned to his proper post. "They're calling for surrender, sir," he reported.
Miles licked dry lips, and cleared his throat. "Ah—suggestions, Trainee Auson?"
Auson gave him a dirty look. "It's that snob Tung. He's from Earth, and never lets you forget it. He has four times our shielding and firepower, three times our acceleration, three times our crew, and thirty years experience. I don't suppose you'd care to consider surrender?"
"You're right," Miles said after a moment. "I don't care for it."
The assault on the docking station was nearly over. Thorne and company were already moving into adjoining structures for the mopping-up. Victory swallowed so swiftly by defeat? Unbearable. Miles groped vainly in the pit of his inspiration for a better idea.
"It's not very elegant," he said at last, "but we're at such incredibly short range, it's at least possible—we could try to ram them."
Auson mouthed the words: my ship . . . He found his voice. "My ship! The finest technology Illyrica will sell, and you want to use it for a frigging medieval battering ram? Shall we boil some oil and fling it at 'em, while we're at it? Throw a few rocks?" His voice went up an octave, and cracked.
"I bet they wouldn't expect it," offered Miles, a little quelled.
"I'll strangle you with my bare hands—" Auson, trying to raise them, rediscovered the limits of his motion.
"Uh, Sergeant," Miles called, retreating before the rapidly breathing mercenary captain.
Bothari uncoiled from his chair. His narrow eyes mapped Auson coldly, like a coroner planning his first cut.
"It's got to be at least tried," Miles reasoned.
"Not with my ship you don't, you little—" Auson's language sputtered into body language. His balance shifted to free one