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“WHICH WAY?” PLAT ASKED.
Tyce took lead even though that put Sergeant Plat at his back. The spiral staircase behind the “holding cell” was the fastest route to the lower decks, and as a bonus, the stairs were too narrow for the Imshee. Tyce led the way, trusting his new instincts to warn him if the Imshee were around a corner. The stairs went on forever, but as before, Tyce spotted the slight slit that would allow him to get out a few levels above Dragon territory. The surveillance room should be one level up.
Tyce took off in the right general direction.
“Slow down. You’ll run right into that monster,” Plat warned.
“Would you care?”
“Considering you’re the one who knows how to find the surveillance room, yes.” He pointed his gun down an empty corridor. At least he was being honest.
Tyce respected that; however, he didn’t slow down. Given that the Rownt were afraid of these Imshee, speed and unpredictability were likely humans’ largest assets. The curving hallways made the ship feel claustrophobic. even if it was twenty times the size of Earth’s largest carrier, so Tyce had never felt comfortable on the ship. But now a vague sense of confusion and alertness soaked into his bones as they approached the surveillance room.
“Problem?” Plat asked.
“Heard something,” Tyce whispered back since he wanted to avoid any discussion of sentient ships and brain probes.
Plat moved into the alcove formed by a door and went to one knee. The feelings flowing through Tyce didn’t match the Imshee, but there were far too many factions wandering the ship for him to trust ship-sense. Maybe Acosta’s group had found the room. He eased forward, weapon up. He caught a shadow or ripple on the floor before a long-barreled weapon appeared. He gave a sharp, trilling whistle. The shadow froze and a man softly spoke his name.
“It’s Joahan.”
“Garuda,” Tyce answered, confirming that he had accepted leadership back from Ama. Joahan came forward, still moving cautiously. Tyce abandoned his cover to meet his shipmate.
“You have used all your lives for this incarnation. Please stop getting in trouble,” Joahan said as he clasped Tyce by the arm.
“Speak for yourself. I’ve seen the crazy shit you’ve pulled.”
“Trying to follow you,” Joahan said. He froze, his gaze focused over Tyce’s shoulder.
This was where possible trouble started. Joahan had no reason to love Command. Earth had confiscated his family’s ship and left them destitute and trapped on Landing right before the worst of the war exploded around them. If not for Ama’s habit of picking up strays, he probably would have died there. When his two sisters had moved on, working their way back to their homes and families, Joahan had stayed.
“Joahan, this is Sergeant Plat. We’re working together because an alien species called the Imshee has decided that they don’t like us.”
“Joahan,” Plat said with a polite nod. “We’re headed to a surveillance room. If you want to keep moving up, watch your back. These Imshee are the size of a horse and they carry weapons in the hands that come off the belly. If the front claws look empty, don’t assume that means the monster is unarmed.”
“Monster?” Joahan radiated displeasure at the word.
“If you saw them, you’d get it,” Tyce said. “A single Imshee killed several of John’s people.”
Joahan lifted an eyebrow; clearly he was unconcerned about Command’s problems.
“And the Command crew split,” Tyce added. “Apparently, some of them hate rebels more than they like common sense, so they’ve revolted. Personally, I hope the Imshee have killed them, but I don’t think our luck is that good. Just... don’t assume any human you meet is an ally.”
Now Joahan frowned. “The vaunted, disciplined crew turned against their own? Seriously?”
“Seriously.” Tyce was a little less than impressed himself. He wondered if other countries had broken away from the war effort, leaving the Greater American States to shoulder the majority of the war effort . That would explain why incompetent crew remained on duty.
“Most of us are out here because we were told to arrest a fugitive Command officer. We would rather go home,” Plat said. “Those idiots who took off have convinced themselves they’re heroes to your villains.”
Joahan didn’t respond to the sergeant, but he did look a fraction less homicidal. He shoulder-bumped Tyce. “You are a magnet for nuclear levels of trouble. I should lock you in a fucking shuttle and post the entire Bravo crew outside to guard it. Tell me you have more back up for this field trip.”
“We were going for a fast in-and-out trip,” Tyce said.
Plat spoke up. “And we don’t have enough people to guard the control room and the wounded, so they couldn’t spare more than the two of us.”
“Then you should have stayed with the main group,” Joahan said fiercely. “If you need someone to reach this surveillance room, tell me where it is, and I’ll get there.”
Considering that Tyce was relying on information from the alien probes in his brain, that was a tricky situation to explain in front of a Command soldier. “This is the general direction, and I hope I recognize the right spot when I see it, but I can’t give you directions.” That sounded weak, even to Tyce.
“Maybe you should—”
Tyce cut him off . “We need to figure out where the breach was and whether the ship is in danger of catastrophic failure. We also need to identify Imshee positions and their ship location. I’m guessing they used the hole Command blasted in the side of the ship to board.”
“Then it’ll be two levels above the command room,” Plat said. “But it’s a long walk because it’s near the opposite end of the ship. That could be an advantage.”
Joahan grimaced. “I’m afraid I might know where the breach was. Wirki warned us over the radio that something big was headed our way. He said he would cut it off.”
When grief twisted Joahan’s features, Tyce’s stomach dropped. Wirki and his brother were co-leaders of Foxtrot unit, and they handled heavy fighting. They were the first ones to advance during open combat, and if other teams got in trouble, they would tear through heaven or hell to save shipmates. It hadn’t been more than six or seven months earlier that a member of Foxtrot had set off a bomb in the corridor of a supply ship they had been raiding to stop the assault unit waiting to ambush the boarding team.
“What do you mean by ‘cut it off’?” Plat asked.
Joahan grimaced and his gaze darted away before he answered. “Wirki planned to use the spiral staircase to get between this new enemy and the shuttle level. If it was hostile, he was going to try to stop it before it reached our level.”
“How the hell can you tell whether an alien is hostile without getting yourself killed?” Plat laughed nervously.
Tyce silently prayed for Wirki’s soul and his corporeal body. “The crew does have a bad habit of letting someone else take the first shot,” Tyce finally said. Of course, Tyce was only alive because of that tendency. So it was more than a little ironic that it frustrated him so badly now. “What do we know?”
“When Wirki called in again, he was in the middle of a firefight. He told everyone to clear the decks, that whatever the thing was, weapons fire wasn't slowing it down. He said he hoped to stop it before it could get to the lower levels.” Joahan’s face was an impassive mask, but his voice broke, and he took a shuddering breath.
Christ. Tyce closed his eyes and struggled with the overwhelming weight of guilt. Wirki must have used his explosives. It was the only thing that made sense with a hull breach. “Does his brother know?” Tyce asked softly.
Joahan didn’t answer immediately. He took another deep breath. “Kiwir was listening at the time.”
Tyce ran a hand over his face. “Christ.”
“I'm fairly sure Christ had nothing to do with what happened. But you know Wirki would have done anything to protect the shuttles. I tried to get back down to him.” Joahan cleared his throat. “The levels right above our shuttles... the doors won’t open.”
“Are you saying your guy was carrying enough heavy ordnance or heavy explosives to blast a hole in the side of the ship?” Plat sounded confused. No doubt he associated explosives with highly trained tech teams who came in with expensive robotic equipment to transport and maintain the ordnance. If someone had to stay behind to set off a charge, it would’ve been the robot, not the tech. Tyce wished he lived in a reality where that was true. Then Wirki would be back at the ship complaining about the paperwork he had to fill out when he blew up an expensive piece of equipment. But that was a fantasy. There hadn’t been any robot.
“It makes sense that he tried to disable or kill the Imshee, and he accidentally tore a hole in the side of the ship.”
“Or he blew a hole in the ship to isolate the lower levels, to expose the corridor to vacuum and kill the enemy,” Joahan said.
“The shuttles. Are they...?” Tyce was too afraid to ask.
“They’ve all reported. I think we’ve decided to ignore the scatter order. Sorry.” He shrugged and tried to smile, but the expression twisted, and he ended up blinking hard and fast.
“What the hell?” Plat blurted. “How much explosives do you carry?”
Tyce had a moment where he felt caught between two worlds. He was a Ribelian who believed a soldier should carry whatever he might need. If supplies were dangerous or corrosive or poisonous, that was the chance a soldier took. But he was also an Earther, used to jobs being separated, delineated. A soldier wouldn’t stand too close to ordnance because it was dangerous. Both points of view were so logical and so mutually incompatible that he lost himself in a tangle of emotions. It took him a second to sort them out well enough to answer. “He wouldn't have been carrying enough to breach the hull of an earth vessel, but this is an organic ship.”
“When we were trying to tear a hole in the side of the ship, it took every bit of firepower we had in our attack ships,” Plat said. A ripple of pain travelled down Tyce’s shoulder so strongly that he grabbed it, certain he’d been shot. He hadn’t. Plat had his back turned, so he kept talking. “This hull is damn tough. Tougher than anything Earth puts together. The weapons we threw at it would have torn through an Earth ship, so it’ll take a lot to breach.”
Tyce ignored the concerned look Joahan was giving him. “But the ship is organic. It's designed to shield from outside forces. Everything inside is soft, vulnerable.”
“Not great ship design,” Joahan said.
Plat glanced over his shoulder. “We agree on that.”
Tyce pushed his emotions aside and focused on the tactical situation. Nothing Joahan had said changed their need for information. “We’re supposed to be moving fast, so let’s get to the surveillance room and find these assholes.”
“Shaabaas,” Joahan said, his enthusiasm present if a little brittle and fake.
“What?” Plat asked.
“Hoo rah,” Tyce translated. He headed down the corridor, passing Plat as he headed, hopefully, toward their goal.