CHAPTER THIRTY

Cramming them in had been even harder than Yu had expected. Every spare compartment was packed to the deckhead with Masadan soldiers and their personal weapons. A man couldn't turn around without stepping on one of them, and Yu would be vastly relieved when he off-loaded the first consignment.

Their numbers put a strain on Thunder's environmental plant, as well, which was what had prompted the current meeting. Yu, Commander Valentine, and Lieutenant Commander DeGeorge, Thunder's purser, sat in the captain's day cabin, going over the figures, and DeGeorge was an unhappy man.

"The worst thing, Skipper, is that most of them don't even have vac suits. If we suffer an enviro failure, it's going to be ugly. Very ugly."

"Stupid bastards," Valentine grunted. Yu gave him a reproving glance, but he couldn't get much voltage into it, and the engineer shrugged. "All they had to do was put them into vac suits for the trip, Skipper. Their equipment sucks, and the poor pricks would've been miserable, but at least they'd have it with them!" He scowled. "And another thing. We're taking all these ground pukes out to their asteroid bases, right?" Yu nodded, and Valentine shrugged again. "Well, don't tell me they've got this many spare suits in stores out there!"

Yu frowned at that, for the engineer was right. They were hauling all these men out to hostile environment bases, and there wasn't a single vac suit among them. That was unusually stupid even for Masadans, and he wondered why that fact hadn't occurred to him sooner.

"Well, anyway," DeGeorge said, "I'm keeping a close eye on the enviro monitors, and we're okay so far. I just hope we stay there!"

George Manning sat at the center of the bridge and concentrated on duplicating the confidence the Captain projected. Not that he felt particularly confident, but he'd had plenty of time to adjust to his own inner sense of doom, and it wasn't as if he had a lot of options.

He checked the time. They were running over a half-hour behind schedule for their first delivery, and he turned his head.

"Com, contact Base Three and update our ETA."

"Aye, Sir," Lieutenant Hart, his Masadan com officer replied, and something about the man's response nudged at Manning. There was an odd note in his voice, one that went deeper than the background anxiety all of them were feeling, and the exec gave him a sharper glance.

Hart seemed unaware of his scrutiny. He leaned to his left to bring up his com laser software, and Manning's eyes suddenly went very still. There was an angular shape under the Masadan's tunic, and there shouldn't have been—especially not one the shape of an automatic pistol.

The exec made himself look away. He might be wrong about what that shape was, but he didn't think so. Of course, even if he wasn't, there could be another explanation for its presence. Hart might be overcompensating for his own anxieties, or it might be a simple case of aberration, a single man about to snap under the strain. That would have been terrifying enough in the close confines of the bridge, but Manning would have infinitely preferred it to what he knew had to be the truth.

He pressed a stud on his intercom panel.

"Captain speaking," a voice said, and Manning made himself sound very, very natural.

"Commander Manning, Sir. I just thought you'd like to know I'm having Base Three updated on the arrival of their bounty of troops."

Alfredo Yu's face froze at the word "bounty." His eyes snapped up to his companions' faces, and he saw exactly the same shock looking back at him. He couldn't think for a moment, only feel the pit of his stomach falling away into infinite distance, but then his brain began to work again.

"Understood, Mr. Manning. Commander Valentine and I have just been discussing the environmental requirements. Do you think you could drop by my cabin to go over them with us?"

"I'm afraid I can't get away just now, Sir." Manning's voice was steady, and Yu's jaw clenched in pain.

"Very well, George," he said. "Thank you for informing me."

"You're welcome, Sir," Manning said quietly, and the circuit clicked.

"Jesus, Skipper!" Valentine began in an urgent voice, "we can't leave George up there by him-"

"Shut up, Jim." The very lack of emotion in Yu's voice only made it more terrible, and Valentine closed his mouth with a click. The captain shut his eyes in thought, and his subordinates sat in tight-faced silence.

Yu felt their fear and cursed his own complacency. He'd been so damned pleased when all Simonds wanted to do was reinforce his asteroid garrisons! Why in hell hadn't he thought about what putting that many more armed Masadans aboard Thunder could mean?!

Panic threatened, but he fought it back. At least George had been more alert than he had, yet his contingency plans had never contemplated having this many armed hostiles aboard. Barely a third of Thunder's regular crew were still Havenite; with all the Masadan soldiers packed aboard, they were outnumbered by over five-to-one.

He stood and crossed quickly to the hatch, opened it, and drew a deep breath of relief as he saw the Marine sentry in the corridor. The corporal looked up as the hatch slid open, then stiffened as Yu beckoned to him. He stepped closer, and the captain pitched his voice very low.

"Get to Major Bryan, Marlin. Tell him it's Condition Bounty."

Yu hated to send the corporal in person, but he had no choice. He'd managed to hang onto his original Marine officers and most of his noncoms, and every one of them had been briefed on Bounty, but almost half Thunder's enlisted Marines were Masadans, and they had the same personal com units as Yu's loyalists. If they were in on this (and they had to be) and one of them heard Marlin passing coded messages . . .

Corporal Marlin's face went white, but then he nodded, braced to attention, and marched briskly down the passage. Yu watched him go, hoping they had enough time for him to reach Bryan, and then withdrew into his cabin.

He thumbed a wall locker security plate, and the door swung open as the scanner recognized his print. The racked sidearms were in police-style shoulder holsters, not standard military ones, and he tossed one of them to each of his officers, then unsealed his tunic. He jerked on the shoulder rig and looked at Valentine as the engineer shrugged out of his own tunic.

"We're in deep shit here, Jim. I don't see any way we can hold the ship after I let the fuckers fill us right up." The engineer's nod was jerky but not panicked, and Yu went on grimly. "That means we have to cripple her."

"Aye, Sir." Valentine slid his tunic back on over his own shoulder harness and started shoveling magazines into his pockets.

"Who's got the Engineering watch?"

"Workman," Valentine replied in disgust, and Yu's face tightened.

"All right. You're going to have to get in there somehow and throw the fusion plants into emergency shutdown. Can you do it?"

"I can try, Sir. Most of his watch is Masadan, but Joe Mount shares it to keep them from fucking up."

"I hate to ask it of you, Jim-" Yu began, but Valentine cut him off.

"You don't have a lot of choice, Skipper. I'll give it my best shot."

"Thank you." Yu looked into his eyes for a moment, then turned to DeGeorge.

"Sam, you and I will try for the bridge. Major Bryan will know what to do when Marlin gets to him, and-

The cabin hatch opened behind him, and Yu froze for an instant, then turned his head sharply. A Masadan colonel stood in the opening, four armed men behind him, and his hand held a drawn autopistol.

"Don't you bother to knock on a superior officer's door, Colonel?" Yu snapped over his shoulder, sliding his own hand into his still open tunic.

"Captain Yu," the colonel said as if he hadn't spoken, "it is my duty to inform you that this ship is now und-"

Yu turned, and his pulser whined. Its darts were non-explosive, but it was also set on full auto, and the colonel's back erupted in a hideous crimson spray. He went down without even a scream, and the same hurricane of destruction swept through his troops. The bulkhead opposite the hatch vanished under a glistening coat of blood, someone in the passage shouted in horror, and Yu charged for the hatch.

Six Masadans stood in the passage, gaping at the carnage. Five of them grabbed frantically at their rifle slings as the captain appeared before them, pulser in hand; the sixth thought more quickly. He turned and ran even as Yu squeezed the trigger again, and his quickness saved his life. His companions soaked up Yu's fire just long enough for him to make it around a bend in the passage, and the captain swore savagely.

He jerked back into the cabin, lunging for the com panel beside his desk terminal, and slammed his thumb down on the all-hands button.

"Bounty Four-One!" his voice blared from every speaker in the ship. "I say again, Bounty Four-One!"

Major Joseph Bryan drew his sidearm, turned, and opened fire without a word. The eight Masadan soldiers in the armory with him were still staring at the intercom in puzzlement when they died, and only then did Bryan allow himself to curse. He'd wondered why the Masadan lieutenant had wanted to tour the armory; now he knew, but thirty years of professional soldiering as one of the People's Republic's conquistadors made him double-check. He bent over the Lieutenant's pulser-mangled body and ripped the blood-soaked tunic open, and his face hardened with bleak satisfaction as he found the pistol inside it.

The armory hatch slid open, and he whirled in a half-crouch, but it was Corporal Marlin.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" Bryan snarled. "You're supposed to be watching the Captain's back!"

"He sent me to find you before he came up over the intercom, Sir." Marlin looked down at the bodies and blood, and his eyes were bitter. "I guess he had less time than he thought he did."

Bryan only grunted. He was already yanking unpowered body armor over his uniform, and the corporal shook himself and followed his example. Both of them would vastly have preferred powered armor, or at least combat skin suits, but there was no time.

The major sealed his clamshell breast-and-back plate and snatched a short, heavy-barreled flechette gun from one of the racks. He'd just slapped in a magazine when he heard the ear-splitting crack of a Masadan firearm. He whirled towards the hatch once more, then lowered his muzzle as pulsers whined in reply and Captain Young appeared in the opening.

"I've got nine men, Sir," the captain said without preamble.

"Good." Bryan's mind raced as he slid ammo bandoleers over his shoulders. Bounty Four-One meant Captain Yu didn't believe his people could hold the ship, and given the numbers of Masadan grunts on board, Bryan had no choice but to agree. His own mission under Four-One was clear and simple, but he'd expected to have more men available before he set off to accomplish it.

He latched the bandoleers and grunted approval as Young beckoned five men inside and all six of them began armoring up. The captain's other four men crouched outside the hatch, armed now with the flechette guns Marlin had tossed them, covering their companions while they grabbed their gear, and Bryan reached his decision.

"I'm taking Marlin and four of your people, Captain. Hang on here for thirty minutes or until I tell you different, but don't ride it down in flames. If you're forced out, inform me before you leave—and make damned sure nothing falls into Masadan hands."

"Yes, Sir." Young said. "Hadley, Marks, Banner, Jancowitz—you're with the Major." The detailed men nodded, not even slowing as they continued to festoon themselves with weapons. Bryan waited until they'd loaded themselves liberally with ammunition, then waved them out.

" . . . again, Bounty Four-One!"

Lieutenant Mount jerked in shock as the words crackled from the speaker. For just one moment, he stared at it in disbelief, feeling the confusion of the Masadans about him, then reached for his control panel.

Lieutenant Commander Workman had never heard of "Bounty Four-One," but he knew what Sword Simonds intended to happen, and the sudden, apparently meaningless message could mean only one thing. His pistol bullet shattered the lieutenant's head before Mount reached the emergency shutdown switch.

Commander Manning didn't even twitch as Captain Yu's voice rolled from the com. He'd known it was coming, and he'd already accepted that he was trapped on the bridge. As soon as the Captain confirmed a Four-One condition, his right hand touched the underside of the command chair's arm rest. A small panel that didn't show on any engineering schematic slid open, and his index finger hooked up inside it even as Lieutenant Hart produced his pistol.

"Get out of the command chair, Commander Manning!" the Masadan snapped. "And keep your hands where I can see them!"

The Havenite helmsman lunged for the com officer's gun, but a pistol cracked twice somewhere behind Manning, and the petty officer slammed to the deck. His Masadan assistant stepped across his dying contortions to take over the controls, and Manning's face tightened in hatred. He snarled at Hart, but the com officer only jerked his gun hand.

"Out of the chair now!" he barked, and Manning shoved himself up with a contemptuous glare. The hidden panel slid shut once more as he stood, and the Masadan met his glare with a sneer of his own. "That's better, and now-"

"Lieutenant Hart!" It was the Masadan who'd taken over Maneuvering. "She won't answer the helm, Sir!"

Hart turned towards him, and Manning tensed to spring. But then he made himself relax, for there was at least one other armed man behind him.

The com officer leaned over the helmsman's shoulder and punched controls. Nothing happened, and he straightened to snarl at Manning.

"What did you do?" he demanded.

"Me? Nothing at all. Maybe PO Sherman did something before you murdered him," Manning grated.

"Don't lie to me, you fucking heretic!" Hart hissed. "I don't-"

An alarm shrilled, then another, and another, and his head twisted around in disbelief as Tactical, Astrogation, and Communications all went down at once. Warning lights and crimson malfunction codes glared on every panel, and Manning smiled thinly.

"You seem to have a problem, Lieutenant," he said. "Maybe you peo-"

He never heard the crack of Hart's pistol.

Captain Yu took a chance on the lift. He didn't have time to play safe, and Valentine and DeGeorge covered the passageway with drawn pulsers while he fed in his personal ID override and punched their destination.

"In!" he barked, but someone shouted even as they obeyed, and bullets spanged off the closing lift door.

"Shit!"

Valentine spun away from the door, clutching his left thigh, and Yu swore as he saw the wet, red stain. DeGeorge shoved the engineer down and ripped his trouser leg wide, and Valentine groaned through clenched teeth as he probed the wound with rough haste.

"I think it missed the major arteries, Captain," he reported quickly, then looked down at Valentine. "It's going to hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, Jim, but you'll be okay if we can get you out of here alive."

"Thanks for the qualifier," Valentine gasped. DeGeorge laughed—a hard, sharp sound—and more cloth ripped as he fashioned a crude bandage.

Yu listened with only half his attention, for his eyes were locked on the lift position display. It blinked and changed steadily, and he started to feel a bit of hope, then punched the wall as the display suddenly froze and the lift stopped moving. DeGeorge looked up at the sound of his blow and raised an eyebrow even as he knotted Valentine's bandage.

"Bastards cut the power," Yu snapped.

"Just to the lifts, though." Valentine's voice was hoarse, but he raised a bloody hand to point at the status panel. The red light which should have indicated emergency power was dark, and his face twisted with more than pain. "Reactors're still up," he panted. "Means Joe didn't make shutdown."

"I know." Yu hoped Mount was still alive, but he had time to spare the lieutenant only a single, fleeting thought. He was already wrenching up the decksole to get at the emergency hatch.

Major Bryan paused just inside the closed service crawlway hatch to catch his breath and wished fervently that he had some way to see through it. But he didn't. He and his men just had to go in blind and hope, and that wasn't the way Bryan had survived to become a major.

"All right," he said quietly. "I'll go right. Marlin, you go left. Hadley and Marks are with me; Banner and Jancowitz are on Marlin. Understood?"

A soft chorus of grunts answered him, and he gripped his flechette gun and rammed his shoulder into the release lever.

The hatch slammed open, and Bryan went through it in a dive. He hit on his belly, brain already noting people and positions, and fired his first shot even before he stopped sliding.

His weapon burped, and its bundle of flechettes screamed down the boat bay gallery. A Masadan officer exploded across the armorplast bulkhead in blood and scraps of tissue, and his three rifle-armed men whirled towards the Major in terrified surprise.

The flechette gun burped again, and again, so quickly only one of the Masadans even had time to scream before the razor-edged disks ripped him apart, and the Havenite personnel they'd been holding at gunpoint hurled themselves to the deck. Another flechette gun coughed to Bryan's left, this time on full auto, and Masadan firearms crackled in reply. He heard the wailing keen of ricocheting bullets, but he was already walking his own fire into the Masadan reinforcements trying to force their way through the boat bay hatch.

His flechettes chewed them into screaming, writhing hamburger, and then Hadley tossed a boarding grenade from behind him. The fragmentation weapon went off like the hammer of God in the confines of the passage beyond, and suddenly no one else was trying to come through the hatch.

Bryan climbed to his feet. Marlin was down, bleeding heavily where a rifle slug had shattered his left arm, but it could have been far worse. He counted at least eighteen dead Masadans, and the bastards had found time to herd over twenty Havenites into the boat bay for safe keeping.

"You men find yourselves weapons," the Major snapped, gesturing at the blood- and tissue-daubed Masadan rifles and pistols cluttering the deck. Shaken personnel scrambled up to obey him, and he punched his com. "Young, Bryan. We're on our position. What's your status?"

"I've got thirty-two men, including Lieutenant Warden, Major." The cough of flechette guns and rattle of rifles came over the link with Young's voice. "We're taking heavy fire from One-Fifteen and One-Seventeen, and they've cut One-Sixteen at the lift, but I blew the Morgue before they got in."

Bryan's mouth tightened. The armory was cut off from the rest of the ship. That meant no more of his men were going to be able to join Young there, and the fact that Young had been forced to destroy "the Morgue," the powered armor storage and maintenance area off Passage One-One-Five, meant the people he did have were going to have to fight in their own skins.

"Load up with all the ammo and weapons you can carry, then pull out," he said harshly. "Meet us here—and don't forget your going away present."

"Yes, Sir. I'll remember."

Alfredo Yu glided headfirst down the inspection ladder, grasping an occasional rung to pull himself along while the counter-grav collar hooked to his belt supported him. DeGeorge's people had cached a dozen collars under each lift at Yu's orders before Thunder ever arrived in Endicott, and the captain blessed his foresight even as he cursed himself for letting Simonds sucker him this way.

He glanced back up the lift shaft. DeGeorge had rearguard, with Valentine sandwiched between them. The engineer was still game, but his white face was sweat-streaked and his trouser leg was dark burgundy, and he needed both hands to cling to the ladder.

Yu reached a cross-shaft and checked the markings, then pulled himself into it. The shafts were only dimly lit, and his eyes ached from staring into the gloom, but the last thing he needed was a hand lamp to give himself away if any of the-

Something rattled ahead of him. His hand flew up, stopping the others, and he swam silently forward, left hand poised to snatch a handhold while he cradled his pulser in his right. Something moved in the dimness, and his free hand locked on a rung to anchor him against the recoil as he raised his pulser. His finger squeezed—then relaxed as he realized the three men in front of him were unarmed.

He swam slowly closer, and one of them saw him and gasped a strangled warning. Heads snapped up, faces turned, and then he saw them twitch in relief.

"Captain! Are we glad to see you, Sir!" a petty officer called, and his low-pitched voice warned Yu to keep his own voice down as he swam right up to them.

"We were headed for the boat bay, Sir," the noncom continued, "when we almost ran right into an ambush. They've got the lift doors open at Three-Niner-One."

"Have they, now?" Yu murmured. DeGeorge arrived behind him, towing Valentine. "Any idea how many men they've got with them, Evans?"

"Maybe half a dozen, Sir, but they were all armed, and none of us-" The petty officer gestured to his two companions, and Yu nodded. "Jim, give Evans your pulser and collar." The wounded engineer handed his gun to the petty officer, then started digging magazines out of his pockets while Evans unbuckled his grav collar. Yu looked at DeGeorge.

"We're going to have to clear the bastards out of the way, Sam, and not just for us." DeGeorge nodded, and Yu thumped the bulkhead that formed the rear wall of the shaft. "You come up this bulkhead. I'll take the overhead, and Evans will be opposite me." He looked up to be sure the petty officer was listening as well, and Evans nodded.

"This has to be fast. Keep your eyes on me. When I nod, go like hell. With a little luck, we'll be into the opening before they know it. Got it?"

"Yes, Sir," Evans said softly, and DeGeorge nodded.

"Okay, let's do it," Yu said grimly.

* * *

Major Bryan looked around the boat bay as Young climbed out of the service passage. He was the last of the party from the armory, but another fifteen men had arrived via other unlikely avenues of approach. Most had been unarmed, though a few had turned up carrying weapons Masadan soldiers no longer required, but Young and his men had brought enough flechette guns for everyone. In fact, Bryan still had a small reserve of them heaped on the deck, and the demolition charge Young had left in the armory meant the Masadans wouldn't get their hands on matching weapons.

Unfortunately, that only gave him about seventy men. He was confident he could hold the bay—for now, at least—but his options were limited, and none of the naval officers had gotten through to him.

"Breathers distributed, Sir," Sergeant Towers reported, and Bryan grunted. One thing about the boat bay—its emergency and service lockers held an enormous number of breath masks. Their distribution meant the Masadans couldn't use the ventilators to asphyxiate or gas his men, and two engineering petty officers had disabled the emergency hatches, so they couldn't depressurize the gallery on them, either. The major had men holding the access corridor all the way to the blast doors, which gave him control of the lift shaft, but with power to the lifts cut, that was a limited advantage.

"Orders, Sir?" Young asked quietly, and Bryan scowled. What he wanted to do was launch a counterattack, but he wouldn't get far with seventy men.

"For right now, we hold in position," he replied in a soft voice, "but have the pinnaces pre-flighted."

Pinnaces were faster than most small craft, and they were armed, though none of them carried external ordnance at the moment. But they were far slower than Thunder of God, their internal weapons were too light to significantly damage a warship like Thunder, and her weapons could swat them like flies. Young knew that as well as Bryan did, but he only nodded.

"Yes, Sir," he said.

The ladder rung felt slick under Yu's sweaty hand, and his pulse raced. This wasn't his kind of a fight, but it was the fight he had, and he looked back to check on DeGeorge and Evans. Both of them were in position, watching him tensely, and he drew a deep breath—then nodded.

The three of them hurled themselves forward, and Yu rolled on his side in midair, holding his pulser in a two-handed grip as he flashed across the open lift doors. A Masadan soldier saw him and opened his mouth to shout a warning, but the captain squeezed his trigger, and two other pulsers whined as the three of them sent a tornado of darts down the passage.

There was no time to pick targets, but those darts were no less deadly for being unaimed. They clawed down the Masadans who'd lurked in ambush, and Yu stuck out a foot. His toes hooked under one of the ladder rungs before the recoil of his pulser could push him away from it, and his leg muscles dragged him in close against the wall. He got an elbow through the opening, holding himself motionless, and his pulser whined again as someone tried to come around a bend in the passage. A shrill scream told him he'd scored, and he held his position, breathing hard, as Evans and DeGeorge crawled up beside him.

"See if you can get their weapons, Evans. Commander DeGeorge and I will cover you."

"Aye, Sir."

The petty officer looked both ways along the cross corridor, then eased himself over the lip of the opening and started dragging Masadan autorifles towards him. The rest of their small party came panting up to take the rifles as he passed them down, and DeGeorge sent a stream of darts up the passage as another Masadan tried to interfere.

One of the bodies had a grenade pouch, and Evans smiled wickedly as he sent a grenade bouncing around the bend. Screams and shouts announced its arrival, and then a thunderous explosion wiped them away.

"Good man!" Yu said, and Evans grinned at him as he slid back into the shaft with his pouch.

"Two more of our people just turned up, Sir," someone said, and Yu nodded. Aside from the service passages from Marine Country, this was the only way into the boat bay; any of his people from up-ship who managed to elude capture were going to have to get past this opening.

"Sam, you and Evans pick three more men and hold this position," he said. "I've got to get on to the boat bay and see what our situation there is."

"Yes, Sir," DeGeorge said.

"Who's got a com?" Two of the men in the shaft waved their arms. "You, Granger, give yours to the Purser." The rating handed it over, and DeGeorge strapped it onto his left wrist.

"We're not going to retake her unless Bryan's managed to get more men into the boat bay than I think he has, Sam. If I can, I'll send some Marines back to help out. If I can't, hold on here until I call you forward, then come ahead as fast as you can. Clear?"

"Clear, Sir."

"Good." Yu squeezed the purser's shoulder, then launched himself on down the shaft.

"Sir! Major Bryan! The Captain's here!"

Bryan looked up in profound relief as Captain Yu crawled out of the lift doors. The Captain loped down the hall, followed by a small group of navy types, two of whom carried a half-conscious Commander Valentine.

Bryan snapped to attention and started to report, but Yu's raised hand stopped him. The Captain's dark eyes flitted over the assembled men, and his mouth tightened.

"This is it?" he asked in a low voice, and Bryan nodded. Yu looked as if he wanted to spit, but then he straightened and crossed to a control panel. He punched a security code into it and grunted in satisfaction.

Bryan followed him across and looked over his shoulder. The data on the small screen meant nothing to him, and he wouldn't have known how to access it, anyway, but it seemed to please the Captain.

"Well, that's one thing that worked," he muttered.

"Sir?" Bryan asked, and Yu gave him a grim smile.

"Commander Manning took out their bridge computers. Until they figure out how, they can't maneuver—and the entire tactical system is locked."

Bryan's eyes glowed, and Yu nodded.

"Have you pre-flighted the pinnaces?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good." Yu chewed his lower lip for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped. "Good," he repeated more softly, "but I'm afraid we're going to have to leave an awful lot of people behind, Major."

"Yes, Sir," Bryan said grimly, then cleared his throat. "Sir, what do you think these bastards figure they can do with her?"

"I'm afraid to guess, Major," Yu sighed. "Whatever it is, we can't stop them. All we can do at this point is try to get our people out of it."

"What do you mean, you can't get into the boat bay?!" Sword Simonds shouted, and the army brigadier just stopped himself from licking his lips.

"We've tried, Sir, but they got too many men in there—Colonel Nesbit estimates at least three or four hundred."

"Bullshit! That's bullshit! There aren't six hundred of them aboard, and we've accounted for almost two thirds of them! You tell Nesbit to get his ass in there! That idiot Hart blew Manning away, and if Yu gets away from me, too-"

The sword's sentence faded off ominously, and the brigadier swallowed.

"How many?" Yu asked.

"I make it a hundred sixty, Sir," Bryan said heavily. Yu's face was stone, but his eyes showed his pain. That was less than twenty-seven percent of his Havenite crew, but there'd been no new arrivals in almost fifteen minutes, and the Masadans were bringing up flamethrowers as well as grenades and rifles. He raised his wrist com to his mouth.

"Sam?"

"Yes, Sir?"

"Get your ass in here. It's time to go."

"They've what?!"

"They've launched pinnaces, Sir," the hapless officer repeated. "And . . . and there was an explosion in the boat bay right after they did," he added.

Sword Simonds swore savagely and restrained himself—somehow—from physically attacking the man, then wheeled on Lieutenant Hart.

"What's the status of the computers?"

"W-we're still trying to figure out what's wrong, Sir." Hart met the sword's eyes fearfully. "It looks like some sort of security lock-out, and-"

"Of course it is!" Simonds snarled.

"We can get around it eventually," the white-faced Hart promised. "It's only a matter of working through the command trees, unless . . ."

"Unless what?" Simonds demanded as the Lieutenant paused.

"Unless it's a hard-wired lock, Sir," Hart said in a tiny voice. "In that case, we'll have to trace the master circuits till we find it, and without Commander Valentine-"

"Don't make excuses!" Simonds screamed. "If you hadn't been so fast to shoot Manning down, we could have made him tell us what he did!"

"But, Sir, we don't know it was him! I mean-"

"Idiot!" The sword backhanded the lieutenant viciously, then whirled to the brigadier. "Put this man under arrest for treason against the Faith!"

* * *

Captain Yu sat in the copilot's flight couch, watching his beautiful ship fall away astern, and the bitter silence from the pinnace's passenger bay mirrored his own. Like him, the men back there felt enormous relief at their own survival, but it was tempered by shame. They'd left too many of their own behind, and knowing they'd had no choice made them feel no better at all.

A part of Alfredo Yu wished he hadn't made it out, for his shame cut far deeper than theirs. That was his ship back there, and the men aboard it were his men, and he'd failed them. He'd failed his government, too, but the People's Republic wasn't the sort of government that engendered personal loyalty, and not even the knowledge that the Navy would take vengeance upon him for his failure mattered beside his abandonment of his men. Yet he'd had no choice but to save as many as he could, and he knew it.

He sighed and punched up a chart of the system. Somewhere out there was a hiding place where he and his men could conceal themselves until the battle squadrons Ambassador Lacy had summoned arrived. All he had to do was find it.