"Keep us informed," Esmay said. She had Meharry and five others with her as she tried to follow Brun's scan signal through the maze of passages.

"Lieutenant!" That was the backdoor scan again. "I've got transmissions in Fleet code from the station itself-identifies itself as the station expert system."

"What's it want?"

"Says two employees told it to contact us and gave it the codes. Says it's trying to protect them, and can we prove we're friendly?"

"The only person here who might know any Fleet access codes was Brun-but she was supposedly unable to talk."

"But it can't contact this individual now-says a communications device failed."

Great. "Can it direct us to her?"

"It says yes, but it won't until we can prove that we have a legal right to be here, and that she knows us."

Worse and worse. Expert systems had a reputation for rigid interpretation of rules.

"Tell it to confirm to her that we respond to Fleet codes, and ask her to sign a yes or no acceptance of our ID."

"Yes, sir." A pause followed, then, "It's trying, sir." After another pause, "It says she wants to know who it is. A name."

Esmay thought a moment. According to her father, Esmay was the last person Brun would want to see, or should see. But that was a name she'd know.

"She knows us, Lieutenant," Meharry said. "Methlin and Oblo-she'll recognize that."

"Go ahead," Esmay said. "Tell it that."

Another brief pause, and then, "It's agreed. It's going to mark the way, and tell Sera Meager someone's coming."

"Tell it to give her a description of our suits, so she'll know us from the others," Esmay said.

Now her helmet display lit with the icons of the intruders: twenty red dots displayed on a graphic of the station wing. Esmay followed the expert system's directions with her team; the others moved down the main corridor to intercept those landing.

Here in the secondary corridor, occasional turqoise p-suits lay like dead bodies. Every one gave Esmay a chill, but the expert urged them on, via the relay through the scan tech. At last, a compartment door slid open ahead of them. Cautiously, Esmay edged forward . . . and there they were. Brun, recognizable through the facemask of the p-suit, and a scared-looking young girl.

Meharry moved past Esmay and cleared her helmet faceshield so Brun could see her. Brun staggered forward, moving as if she had serious damage, and fell into Meharry's grip.

"Medical team," Esmay said. They came at the double, and unfolded the vacuum gurneys that allowed life-support access to a p-suited patient outside pressure. Only then did she think of asking scan for the frequency that the expert and Brun's suit must be using. She glanced around the compartment, to see an obvious gap where bulkhead sections had warped apart. Was that from the recent impact of the Militia shuttle, or old damage? She couldn't tell; it didn't matter.

Brun struggled to free herself from Meharry's grip, and gestured at the girl. The medics unfolded another of the gurneys, and unzipped it. They rolled each woman into her own, then zipped and sealed, and popped the tanks. The transparent tents inflated, leaving sleeved access ports for treatment.

The girl started talking right away. "Please-she can't talk-she needs a way to communicate-"

"Sure, hon . . . what's your name, now?"

"Hazel-Hazel Takeris. And she's Brun-she was using a compad with voice output, but the plug broke."

Esmay found the compad, and slid it into the transfer portal of Brun's gurney. She could see Brun cycle it through, then hold it without using it. Plug broken? It must mean that she had needed to plug it into her p-suit. Brun made the universal sign for Air up? and Esmay responded. Brun popped an arm seal on her suit, just as their safety instructor had taught them: never trust anyone's word on air pressure. Then she peeled back one glove, and tapped one of the compad's keys.

"All correct," announced the audio pickup from inside the gurney.

"Sera Meager?"

"All correct."

"Can you describe your current status?"

"No." That, as Esmay could see, was another button. The thing must have had preprogrammed messages. What was the keyboard for, then?

"Can you type complete answers?"

"No."

Esmay turned away to consider their overall position. The Militia that had crunched into this wing were about halfway to their part of the wing, though coming down the main corridor.

"Trouble . . ." scan said. "Big trouble."

"Bad guys on the other end are carrying explosives. Can't see if the ones on this end are, but they could be."

The mobile units available to the expert system were secondary models which had survived the initial vandalization by looking like simple boxes. It had taken longer than the expert expected to recharge one of them, get its tracks moving, and send it off to Laboratory 1-21 to look for voice synthesizers. But now it was on its way. The expert kept an area of higher artificial gravity moving along with it, to keep its tracks in firm contact with the deck plating. The expert prided itself on carrying out all orders, no matter how complex, simultaneously. It dispatched another, and then another, in case the first should be disabled somehow. Clearly it was important to get a communications device to the taller human.

The first unit reached the lab, and extended a pincer-arm to pick up one of the synthesizers, just as an impact rocked the station. The unit flipped off the deck, and out of the area of higher gravity; it flew across the lab, into the corridor, and impacted the opposite bulkhead just behind the group of neuro-enhanced marines that had stalked past. The rear marine slagged it before it had time to fall to the floor, yelling "Hostile!"

"What is it?" Kim Arek asked. She was surprised and delighted to find that her voice didn't crack.

"This thing just flew out the hatch at me-"

"Something bounced loose by the hit?"

"Looked like one of those robot bomb-crawlers, what I saw of it."

"Well . . . keep an eye out for others."

Pete Robertson, Ranger Travis and Captain of Rangers, had plenty of time to think on the way up from the surface. It was all Mitch's fault, and God's judgement on Mitch's hasty ways and unhealthy attachment to outlander technology was about to land on all of them. He made up his mind, and called the others-they would make sure no one used that heathen station for anything ever again, and that Mitch paid the price for his unbelief.

He had no real hope that they'd get out of this in good shape-not with the appearance of enemy ships in the system-but at least they'd take care of their own dirty laundry first. And Mitch would never be Ranger Captain: he would see to that himself.

The two enemy shuttles that had docked to the derelict would present no problem if they simply blew the derelict up-and he'd toyed with the idea of having Yellow Rose and Heart of Texas do that before they went out to fight the invaders, but he'd rather do it himself. It felt right.

So, huffing a little in his hardened p-suit, he shuffled carefully off the shuttle with the rest of the Travis crew, and led the way down the corridor that lay open before him. Sam Dubois, Ranger Austin, had landed at the far end of the long structure-both groups would set explosive charges as they converged on the enemy, and then retreat-and blow the station. The odd thing was, his personnel scanners detected only a small cluster of life forms way up ahead, in the central core, and two off to the right somewhere. Hadn't Mitch caught the women yet? He smiled to himself, forgetting for the moment the missing enemy from the shuttles.

When the little tracked crawler trundled out of a side corridor, he spun and with practiced ease drew and fired. Bullets ricocheted off the thing's hard shell and holed the bulkhead in a scattered pattern. The machine came on, a jointed arm holding some device . . . behind it was another one, just coming into view around a corner.

"Git those!" he said, and drew again. Behind him, the Travis crew clumped up, and someone's shot shattered the device the thing was holding. But the crawlers came on, more slowly. "They can't catch us," he said. "Come on-" and turned back to move on the way they'd been going.

Which was now blocked by huge figures in black armor, holding weapons he'd never seen.