"Bulls.h.i.t. I'm next in line, Harris. Admiral Brocius gave me this command."

That was how we left it. Warshaw running the fleet, me commanding the Marines, and Franks pa.s.sed out in his seat.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.

Technically, I should have brought Hollingsworth on this mission, but I'd already sent him to run Fort Sebastian instead. I should have left Thomer as a liaison with fleet operations, but I thought some action would do him good. I needed to know if I could count on him in battle, and this seemed like a safe testing ground. All we had to do was explore a derelict ship, locate and capture any survivors who wanted rescue, and offer a fatal helping hand to any survivors who wanted to go down with their ship.

I sat in the c.o.c.kpit with the pilot as he flew my team out. It was the same clone pilot I had hijacked the last time I came out to the Mogat home world. Back then he was a sailor. Now he'd put in a transfer to become a Marine-as my staff pilot no less. Apparently we'd bonded while dodging U.A. battleships in our unarmed transport.

The newly destroyed U.A. battleships did not resemble the wrecks around them. It wasn't just the difference in their shape and color. The Mogat ships were not just sunk, they were annihilated. Some had imploded hulls. Several decks had been entirely sheared away from one Mogat destroyer. The U.A. ships had gone dark, but they looked like they could be repaired.

"I like the look of this ship a lot better now that it's dead," the pilot said as we approached one of the wrecks. He and I had played a serious game of tag with this ship not all that long ago.

"Let's just hope it stays dead," I said.

Light still shone through cracks in the battleship's hull. The batteries backing their emergency lighting might hold out for months. Flames, fed by oxygen leaking out of improperly sealed cabins, flickered deep in the recesses of the ships. Their unsteady glow reminded me of candles.

"I feel like I'm sneaking up on a sleeping bear," the pilot joked.

"A dead bear," I said. I hoped it was dead.

"You better hope it's dead, sir," the pilot said. He acted like we were old friends. I didn't mind. More than anything else, I felt embarra.s.sed for what I had done to the guy. I had done what I felt I had to do, but I still felt bad about pistol-whipping him.

Without its shields, the battleship had the same beige and gray colors as the ships in the Scutum-Crux Fleet. Its skin had laser burns and trenches along its outer hull, the scars of war. The white glare of sparks flashed in some of the crevices. Most of the ship was dark. The sparks and flames added up to little more than a scattering of bright scales.

We moved in slowly, our runner lights blazing on the hull. Toward the bow of the ship, about a hundred yards back, we found the hatch to the docking bay and sent a team of technicians armed with laser torches.

The process went slowly. The pilot opened the kettle doors. A couple of minutes later five techs drifted into view. They spent fifteen minutes evaluating the situation, then finally got to work. The laser-resistant outer wall of the ship cut slowly, but it did cut.

"Do we have our shields up?" I asked the pilot.

"Do we need them up?"

"Luck specks the unprepared," I said.

Outside, our techs stripped away the outer skin of the hatch, revealing a panel filled with rods and hydraulics. Once the shield covering was gone, the work went quickly. A few more cuts, and the outer hatch fell away from the ship.

"Looks like we're in, sir."

The techs went ahead of us to clear the atmospheric locks. A few minutes later, we entered the runway at a crawl. Our runner lights revealed the signs of battle. The deck was cracked. Sixty feet ahead of us, the doors of the next lock hung askew. Beyond the broken hatch, a lightning-colored bouquet flashed over the top of a shorted-out electrical panel.

"Looks like you're on your own from here, sir," the pilot said.

"Looks that way," I agreed.

"Okay, Thomer, lead them out," I said over the interLink.

"Everybody out. Hit the deck and fall in!" Thomer yelled. The men obeyed. As I left the c.o.c.kpit, I saw the last of the men floating down the ramp. Off-loading and forming ranks took longer in zero gravity.

Not showing any traces of Fallzoud confusion, Thomer took charge. He sounded more like a sergeant than a general. That was good. In my experience, generals did not bring much to the battlefield.

I looked over the ranks. The hundred armor-wearing Marines were a sight for sore eyes. They did not wear jetpacks. Unlike the motivators used by Navy techs, our jetpacks gave off flames. In the wrong environment, those flames could trigger an explosion.

"Listen up," I said. "The fleet sent us here to look for survivors. It's probably a waste of time, but that is why we are here. Search each deck for heat signatures. If you find something, report back before going in to investigate. I repeat, if you find somebody with a pulse and a face, call for backup."

I should have given them a more detailed briefing, but I did not think it would be necessary. Instead, I said my short piece and let Thomer divide up the company. He sent them out in fire teams, four-man units that made a lot more sense in other situations. Fire teams were supposed to include a rifleman, an automatic rifleman, a grenadier, and a team leader. In this situation, everyone carried a particle-beam pistol.

This particular ship was the second of the U.A. battleships to stumble into Warshaw's shooting gallery. It had taken the least damage. With the third battleship fighting its way out of our trap, Warshaw's techs had shifted their fire over to that ship the moment this one went dark. What had looked like a quiet death from the outside, however, didn't seem so gentle now that I had entered the ship.

We threaded through the broken, second lock and found the third lock fully open. By the time we reached that final lock, we were walking along the deck. I had already noticed this when Thomer hailed me to say, "General, the gravity generator is still online."

Wondering what other equipment might still be up and running, I answered, "Tell your men to stay alert." If the gravity generator had survived the fight, the environmental systems might have also survived; and if there was heat and air, there might well be survivors.

Listening in on the commandLink, I heard one Marine say, "We had a battle simulation just like this back at the orphanage."

"d.a.m.n, I remember that sim," a second man said. "That's the one where you have to defend the ship or blow the sucker up."

"Keep it quiet," Thomer ordered.

I knew that simulation as well. The holographic simulation took place on a disabled freighter. One team played as sailors and the other as pirates. The pirates were the aggressors, sent to capture the ship; and they had every possible advantage. They had better guns. They did not have to worry about laws or regulations. They even had more men on their team. The simulation was set up so that they outnumbered the sailors three to one.

But the sailors always won.

Since blowing up the freighter kept it out of enemy hands, all the sailors had to do was set the reactor to overload. It wasn't fair, but it was realistic. I thought this and realized that from the U.A. point of view, this operation had the same zero-sum solution. If the U.A. Navy found itself unable to salvage this ship, they would demolish it before allowing us to capture it.

"Thomer, tell the men to look for anything that looks like it could explode."

"Like on the Corvair?" Thomer asked.

Corvair? I thought. The name sounded so d.a.m.n familiar. It only took a moment for me to place it. Corvair was the name of the ship in the simulation. "That is precisely what I am talking about."

Thomer issued the order, then spoke to me again. "I hated that simulation. I always ended up a pirate. We never won."

Because of the darkness, our combat visors defaulted to night-for-day lenses, but we would also need to use heat vision in order to search for survivors. It would not be hard to locate heat on this busted scow, the ambient temperature had dropped to absolute zero.

I switched to heat vision and saw that the men in front of me radiated red with an orange halo against the cobalt world around them. Normally men in combat armor did not give off a heat signature. They did in s.p.a.ce.

The fire teams spread out quickly. Eight teams headed toward the lower decks, where we would have found Engineering and the Marines on other ships. Who knew what they would find with this new design.

I commandeered a team, telling them to follow me as I headed toward the bow of the ship. I entered a hall and quickly located a stairwell that would take us to any deck. The stairs were wide enough for five men to climb abreast.

Two flights up, I paused to check the lay of the land, switching to heat vision as I looked down a hallway lined with sealed hatches. Four of the hatches showed dark orange. There was heat behind those doors. A fifth hatch had not been sealed. Blades of yellow and red danced outside that doorway. I switched to my tactical lens and watched the flames. Whether it was oxygen or some other gas, something leaking from that room was fueling the fire.

I marked the rooms with a virtual beacon, which I sent to Thomer. "I have some interesting prospects up here," I said.

"I'll send a team by," Thomer said.

The correct response would have been, "I'll send a team by, sir," but I overlooked it. Worrying about being addressed as "sir" may sound petty, but it isn't. The Marine Corps was built on discipline. Without that discipline, we were just another gang of soldiers.

I wished there was some surefire way to dry Thomer out without killing him.

I led my fire team up two more flights and surveyed the next deck. It looked exactly like the same scene one deck down, sans the flames. Almost all of the doors radiated heat, but the hall itself was as cold as s.p.a.ce.

A man had died in this hall. He lay on the floor. Seen through night-for-day lenses, the dead sailor's hands were the color of snow. Coin-sized speckles of blood had formed on the ground around his head. Frozen blood showed in the gash along the back of his head. If I'd stomped a boot down hard enough on the man, he would have shattered like a porcelain figurine. His bones were the least rigid part of his body, now that the veins and capillaries had frozen solid.

None of the hatches on the sixth deck radiated heat, and we found no bodies. What we did locate was the wound that had killed the ship-where the first lasers. .h.i.t once the shields had given way. I remembered seeing a narrow beam hit the ship on the bow, just below the bridge. Once the lasers pierced the hull, the cabin pressure must have flushed all of the bodies into s.p.a.ce.

The seventh deck looked like a battlefield. We pa.s.sed the frozen bodies of dozens of dead sailors right off the stairwell. I had to kick one out of the way just to enter the hall. The man must have fallen to his knees as he died-at least his body had frozen in that position. The palm of his hand had frozen to the floor. It snapped off just above the wrist when I kicked his body out of the way.

I listened in on my fire team.

Man, this place is a specking morgue.

I hate specking s.p.a.ce battles.

At least these guys died fast. I saw a guy take five days to die after he got hit in the gut.

I knew a guy that got burned. The poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d hung on for six months.

The way to the bridge was an obstacle course, and we found at least a hundred frozen dead in the various stations around the bridge. Fifteen crewmen lay in a huddle around the weapons section. I found the captain of the ship sprawled out on the floor near the front of the bridge. His skin was a glacier blue, and his eyes were open and frozen.

"Did you see that, sir?" my fire team leader asked me.

I had. It was just a fleeting glimpse, but I had seen a man in soft-sh.e.l.l armor slip through a doorway.

"Thomer, I've got a contact. Seventh deck, just off the bridge, I repeat, we have a live one!" I switched to an open frequency. "There's been a change of plans, boys. There is life aboard this ship, and that means there may be traps. I want everyone to stay where you are until you receive further instructions. Do not engage. I will personally snap every finger off the first sorry speck who fires his gun on this ship."

I had not gotten a good look at the man. He had flittered across the hall outside the bridge. With my peripheral vision hampered by my helmet, I might not have seen him at all, had he not stumbled over a frozen body and flailed before ducking out of sight.

"What did you see?" Thomer asked on a direct frequency.

"One contact," I said. "He's dressed in soft-sh.e.l.l." All of my men were dressed in combat armor.

In the simulation, the defending team only needed one member to prevent the pirates from capturing the Corvair. If the ship was rigged, it would not matter if the Unified Authority had one man on this ship or a million, we would not be able to take it.

"I hope this isn't like the specking Corvair," I told Thomer.

"It isn't," he said. "You don't really die when you pull the pin in a simulation. If they pull the pin on us, they die, too."

I thought about that. Thomer had a point. Any survivors on this ship were as likely to be engineers from the dry docks as sailors. They might not be willing to go down with their ship.

Looking around the deck, I noted that the bridge looked like something from a nightmare. The computers, the chairs, the stations, all remained in perfect order except for the dead men surrounding them. Death had come in a frozen flash to this part of the ship.

"Have your men reached the Marine compound?" I asked Thomer.

"It's empty."

"How empty?" I asked, wanting to make sure we were dealing with a sailor or an engineer, and not a Marine.

"No beds, no racks, no equipment."

"No Marines," I said in a hollow voice, a reaction meant more for my ears than Thomer's. "Got anybody down in Engineering?"

"A couple of teams," Thomer said.

"Good. Tell them to shut down anything that looks like it still works. Don't smash things, just break them a little."

"The gravity generator?" Thomer asked.

"Gravity generators, life-support systems . . . I don't want power going to any systems."

"You said he was wearing armor," Thomer said.

"I think so."

"So he's got heat, light, and air," Thomer pointed out.

"That's not going to save him next time he needs to take a dump," I said. "He'll freeze his a.s.s off." I thought of a disturbing image-the remains of an engineer who froze to death during the act of defecating.

There might only have been one survivor left on this ship, or there might have been hundreds. It didn't matter. Confronted with a shoot-out, they would be more likely to pull the proverbial pin than they would be if left alone and facing a slow death in s.p.a.ce. People do heroic things in the face of fire; but when the end comes gradually and their bodies betray them and their only enemy is their own natural needs, heroism gives way to the instinct for survival.

When we returned twenty-four hours later, boarding the derelict battleships was no longer a Marine operation. All we needed were some engineers and a chaplain.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR.

"Harris, you son of a b.i.t.c.h, I demand you return my ships," the captain said. Natural-borns had become as interchangeable in my mind as clones. It didn't matter whether it was Admiral Brocius or General Smith or Captain Pershing, or this guy, Rear Admiral Lower-Half Hugo George, the man from whom I had commandeered our self-broadcasting fleet, they all sang the same angry song.

"Sure, Admiral, I'll just give you back your three battleships, and we'll call it even," I said.

That set him off. "You specking p.i.s.sant clone!" George, a young admiral at forty-five, rose to his feet. Fire showed in his eyes, which were the exact same mud brown as mine. A vein ran down the center of his forehead. As he shouted, the muscles along the sides of his neck flexed.

Just the two of us sat in the little interrogation room. I did not need guards though I had a couple waiting outside. On his feet and snarling, George stood an inch taller than me, but years in a command chair had left him softened. He had a gut, not a big one, but a gut, nonetheless.

Before coming to the Outer Bliss penal colony, I'd looked up George's record. He'd distinguished himself as a ship's captain fighting Mogats. His battleship destroyed more de fenseless Mogat battleships than any other ship in the fleet, once we disabled their shields. Apparently, he knew when to attack and when to wait.

"Sit down, Admiral, you're embarra.s.sing yourself," I said. I leaned my chair against the wall behind me, bracing my knees against the table, which was bolted to the floor. To get to me, the admiral would either need to jump over the table or run around it. Considering his size and conditioning, I ruled the element of surprise out of the equation.