"Just lasers," Warshaw said. He sounded distracted, as if he was holding a conversation with someone else at the same time that he answered my questions. He had the commandLink, he could do that . . . the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

"No torpedoes. What if you can't get through their shields?" I asked.

In the sixty years since the construction of the ships in this derelict fleet, the Unified Authority had stopped building lasers into battleships and switched to a more effective particle-beam technology; but even particle beams did not cause the trauma of a torpedo.

"Then we're dead," Warshaw answered in a voice that sounded like a verbal shrug of the shoulders. "We're as good as dead if we don't find a way to get rid of those ships before Franks comes back."

He had a point.

I never claimed to understand the naval approach to combat. For some reason that defied all logic, Warshaw insisted on pulling the trigger from the bridge. On a working ship with operational systems, that would have made sense. On this derelict, he sat in a pitch-black chamber filled with lifeless computers, broken systems, and an audience of stiffs.

I remained on the off-bridge observation deck, watching the battlefield through the viewport. In the distance, I caught brief glimpses of light, nothing more than a streak here and there. Perhaps we had hidden too well the first time the battleships patrolled our little corner at the edge of the graveyard.

Fighting this battle no more aggressively than a spider tending a web, we could not hit those U.A. battleships until they entered our trap. Franks would return in another thirty-two minutes. We either had to clear the enemy ships out of the area or they would catch our self-broadcasting fleet off guard. Time was running out.

Staring out the viewport and seeing nothing but darkness, I gave up on the Warshaw Plan. We were in a life-and-death battle, and he wanted to fight it like a specking engineer-relying on antiquated weapons and enemies blundering into his trap. Granted, booting up the weapons systems on a bunch of derelict ships was a brilliant piece of sp.e.c.k.e.ry; he had ginned up a fighting chance in a lost situation. But we would not win unless we took the reins.

Five minutes ticked by before any of the battleships appeared again. I waited alone in that blasted conference room, in the stark gloom. The light of one battleship appeared in the extreme corner of the viewport. The big ship was so far away that its light might have been the signature of a firefly.

What were they doing out there? If they had the ability to track us this far, they should have known that Franks had taken our self-broadcasters back to Terraneau. They had to know.

The spark of light that looked no bigger than a firefly cut a twisted path in the distance. No longer swimming in straight strokes, the battleship conducted a more methodical search, dodging this way and that as it came closer. It circled completely around one wreck.

A second battleship appeared, loosely shadowing the first. The third one would have to be nearby, guarding their flank. Another eight minutes pa.s.sed as the battleships slowly meandered into range.

"What if only two of them come in range, are you going to take the shot?" I asked Warshaw.

"Take the shot? Is that Marine lingo?" he asked.

Engage, shoot the sp.e.c.k.e.r, give them a laser enema, a dozen responses ran through my mind, some positive, some not. I said nothing.

"There are three U.A. ships out there. We won't accomplish our objective by only sinking two of them," Warshaw said.

"Franks is going to broadcast into the area in less than thirty minutes. This may be the last time any of those ships stumbles into your shooting gallery," I said.

"Stay out of this, Harris," Warshaw repeated. "This is not a friendly game of bullets and grenades. Battlefield tactics don't work here."

"Taking out one of those birds may just even the odds for Franks," I said.

"Bulls.h.i.t, Harris. If Franks comes in unprepared, they'll use him for target practice." Warshaw signed off as one of the U.A. ships swished past my viewport. I checked the time-21:49, just eleven minutes and Franks would fly in to rendezvous.

Warshaw had driven one point home above all else, that we were as good as dead unless we destroyed all three enemy ships. Without announcing my intentions, I slipped out of the observation area and headed back to the docking bay.

I dropped down two decks, skirted a badly damaged corridor along the outer edge of the ship, and found an inner corridor leading toward the rear of the ship. Lights flickered inside one of the hatches as I pa.s.sed. I peered in and saw some of Warshaw's men removing a panel from a wall. They ran cables from a jeep-sized crate into the circuits they had uncovered.

I did not have time to worry about weapons systems, though I would die in the next few minutes if Warshaw's men could not get the weapons systems working.

My plan hinged on my finding a pilot for the transport. I entered the docking bay, not sure whether the man piloting our transport had remained in his bird. Someone had pivoted the transport around so that its nose pointed out toward s.p.a.ce. The rear doors sat wide open, revealing an empty kettle, the gravity off. I launched myself up the ramp, paused just long enough to seal the rear hatch, then kicked off the floor to the c.o.c.kpit, not bothering with the ladder.

For one cold moment, I thought that the c.o.c.kpit was empty, but then a man in pilot gear hovered over to meet me.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Staring into the pilot's face, I switched on the edge lighting around my visor, hoping to blind him. Then, bracing my knee under a bolted-down chair so that I had some purchase, I grabbed the man and slung him across the c.o.c.kpit. He landed in his pilot's chair and said, "Hey!"

"Hey"? I thought. What an a.s.shole.

I whipped out my particle-beam pistol, a tiny, unimpressive-looking weapon with a great capacity for doing damage, and I tapped it against the pilot's visor. "I want to go for a ride," I said. When he did not respond right away, I added, "Call for help, and I'll fry you on the spot."

I was already too late.

"Harris, what are you doing?" It was Warshaw.

The a.s.shole must have started calling for help while I was slinging him into his chair. "You miserable little p.r.i.c.k," I said to the pilot, tapping my pistol against his visor as I spoke each word.

"Please, just . . ."

"Harris, get your a.s.s up here." Warshaw barked the command at me as if he were speaking to a buck private.

"Do you want to die now, or take your chances?" I asked the pilot.

"Harris, I said get up here. Now!"

The pilot must have thought my question was rhetorical. He did not answer.

I needed to keep the guy scared. No matter what else happened, I needed him so scared of me that he did not consider consequences. Still leveraging myself with my legs, I leaned forward and slammed my fist into his gut.

If he'd been dressed in stiff combat armor, I would have broken my fingers and wrist long before he felt a thing, but he felt this blow. The poor son of a b.i.t.c.h doubled over right there in his seat, burying his visor in his knees. His soft-sh.e.l.led armor might not have offered him much protection, but it let him double over better than combat armor would have.

Judging by the way Warshaw shouted, "Harris, what the speck do you think you are doing?" I decided the pilot must have been pleading for help when I hit him.

"This is a Marine operation, Admiral," I said. Then I turned my attention to the pilot. "Next time I use this, a.s.shole," I said, pressing my pistol to his visor once more. "Now, get us out of here."

"We'll settle up, Harris. When this is over, you and I are going to settle up," Warshaw yelled. He might have said more, but he had more important things on his mind than my mutiny.

Warshaw's hands were tied. His engineers had opened the locks but never brought them online. He could not shut the doors on me, and I was the only man on the ship with a gun. He had no way to stop the transport from leaving, and the terrified pilot was not going to put up a fight.

"Where are we going?" the pilot asked. He sounded as if he was still fighting for breath.

I cuffed the man across the side of his head with my pistol. I did not enjoy terrorizing the boy, but I needed him scared and obedient. "Just take us out, fast."

"There are battleships out there!"

"I know, I saw them," I said.

"They're going to see us," the pilot said. "They'll shoot us down."

"If they want us, they're going to have to come and get us," I said, trying to remember the layout of Warshaw's map. I tapped my pistol on the pilot's visor, and he lifted us off the deck and started down the runway. Our transport lumbered through the tunnel at such a slow rate that I might have been able to outrun it on foot.

21:53:36.

At 2200, Franks would arrive. That gave us six minutes until he broadcast with his shields down and his guns asleep. I pistol-whipped the pilot, and growled, "Faster, a.s.shole."

The pilot did not say anything, but the transport picked up speed.

21:54:00.

We slipped through the locks, one after another. As we broke into open s.p.a.ce, the pilot flipped a switch to shut off the runner lights.

"Leave 'em on," I said.

"Are you out of your . . ."

I swatted his soft-sh.e.l.l helmet with my pistol again. I did not hit him hard, nothing that would give him a concussion; but I certainly hit him with enough force to make a lasting impression.

Looking out into s.p.a.ce, I tried to figure out our position in relationship to Warshaw's map. "Does this bird have any more lights?"

"No, sir," the pilot said. He sounded suitably scared.

I could see the shapes of the wrecks against the stars, but they meant nothing to me. With no other choice, I called Warshaw over the interLink, not entirely sure he would read me now that I had left the ship.

After seconds of silence, he answered. "Harris. What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" he asked, his voice filled with curiosity and disdain. He did not like me, but he did not think I was running away. "If you give away our position, I will . . ."

"I'm not giving away your position, dips.h.i.t, I am giving away my position," I said.

"You won't be able to outrun those ships if they spot you," Warshaw said.

"I don't want to outrun them.

"Harris, you don't have any guns."

"But you do," I said.

"I did not authorize . . ."

"Yeah, can we discuss that later?" I asked.

21:54:51.

"Where do you want the d.a.m.n ships?" Franks was going to return in another five minutes and nine seconds, and Warshaw wanted to talk about who did or did not authorize my flight. What an a.s.s.

"You're thirty-five miles out of position," Warshaw said. Things went quiet. At first I thought he had abandoned me, then I realized he was explaining the lay of the land to my pilot.

As I waited for him to come back, the glowing figure of a battleship came around a hull and filled our windshield. Suddenly, I felt like a very small fish in a very large pond.

"s.h.i.t," my pilot said.

I started to tell him to get us out of there, but he figured it out on his own. He swung the transport into a forty-five-degree rotation that pointed us toward a narrow pa.s.sage between two wrecks and hit the boosters. Had I been floating beside the copilot's seat, I would have been thrown back against the rear of the c.o.c.kpit. I grabbed the seat in time to save myself.

"You probably should strap in, sir," the pilot said. I heard something unexpected in his voice: concern. As I struggled to pull myself into the chair, the pilot did me another kindness-he switched on the gravity generator. That shifted the center of gravity from the rear of the ship to the bottom. Gs still pulled at my back, but I was able to sit down and buckle myself in.

For a moment, the only thing I could see through the windshield was the hulls of destroyed ships, but then a trace of golden glow appeared along the top edge of the windshield.

"Watch out," I said, pointing toward the ship.

"There's another one behind us," the pilot said.

The beam of a searchlight rolled along the alley ahead of us, questing to touch us, lighting the dark hulls of the ships wrecked long ago. Fortunately for us, radar would do no good in this floating junkyard. They would need to spot us to shoot us.

"Hold on, sir."

The nose of the transport dropped, and the entire ship seemed to somersault over itself. Suddenly, we were rocketing in a completely new direction. Had I been standing, I would have been slammed into the windshield, then rolled around the cabin.

For a moment I saw nothing but stars, but then a glowing hull slid into view. The pilot cut a sharp right and took us behind another wreck.

Not realizing anyone was listening in, I said, "What I'd give for a torpedo."

"You wouldn't want to do that, sir. Some of these wrecks are unstable," the pilot answered.

"How unstable?"

"That's why they haven't fired at us yet, they don't want to trigger a chain reaction."

Fuel, uranium reactors, oxygen, unexploded torpedoes . . . all of a sudden, I realized my own naivete. I had boarded these death traps with the nonchalance of a Marine in a china shop.

"Warshaw?" I called, and got no answer. Specking great. I was out here in an unarmed transport with three uber-ships hunting me down, and I lost contact with Warshaw.

"Warshaw, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, where are you?"

There was no answer.

"Where do we go, sir?" the pilot asked.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Warshaw set up a trap, but I have no idea where it is."

The pilot did not answer me. Maybe he had given up, too. Seconds ticked by. Then, with an abrupt change of direction, we headed into a narrow gap between two ships. The pilot must have reached somebody.

"Are we headed toward the trap?" I asked.

"It's the other way, but we don't have any choice. They cut us off."

21:55:28.

If Franks came back in on time, he would arrive in less than five minutes. He might be late, that would be a reprieve. He could also arrive early, while we were still playing cat and mouse with the battleships. Maybe he would save us, or maybe he would die trying, and I would spend the rest of my life trapped in a floating graveyard orbiting the planet on which so many Marines had died.

"You better get us there quick," I said.

"They've got us hemmed in on every side, sir," the pilot said. Then, with desperation in his voice, he added, "Don't hit me with that gun. For G.o.d's sake, please don't hit me again!"