Chapter Thirty-Eight

Johansson

Arkov’s bullet wound is minor. The slug grazed his biceps. Thankfully, as it came from a low-velocity firearm, there wasn’t much danger of explosive decompression. That’s why they have these gas-powered guns. Body armour in space is pretty impractical, so the military thinking is that any combat would involve unarmoured opponents and that the integrity of a pressurised environment needs to be preserved. In a zero g atmosphere, there’s less degradation of velocity, so there needs to be less velocity to start with, provided there’s still enough to punch through flesh.

Pretty awful business when you think someone had to work all that out.

I seal the wound with a solvent strip. Battlefield injuries have been treated with a variation of this stuff since the 1970s. These days, the bonding agent is designed to degrade in a specified time, so in seventy-two hours, I’ll be checking Arkov’s injury again.

If we survive that long.

“You’ll do for now, Vasili. Take it steady and you’ll hardly feel it. I’ll come find you when the seal needs to be changed.”

“Thank you.”

Once he’s left, I open up the tactical and strategy information on my portable screen. The conversation with Captain Shann was frustrating. I put together the audio she asked for, but even if we herd the Gallowglass in, just as she wants, we’re still at a disadvantage.

We need something else.

I played chess as a child. I loved the board and all the game components, particularly the tall queen. When I was very young, I would make up stories about her as the real power in an imaginary kingdom, ruling alongside an ineffectual king. However, when I played, my tactical game would fall apart when there was a need to exchange and sacrifice my pieces for my opponents. I’d made up characters for the knights, the rooks, the bishops and the pawns. I didn’t want to lose any of them.

I really didn’t want to lose the queen.

Maybe there’s something of that in Captain Shann. After losing so many of the crew to a mutiny, betrayal and warfare, maybe she’s clutching hold of us too tight. Sometimes leaders have to order their soldiers to take risks, or follow an order that’ll probably get them killed.

I go through the data again, looking at the captain’s proposals. Our chances are better, but they’re still not good enough. Of all the ideas I’ve had, the propelled vehicle with someone going EVA still offers the best increase in our odds. That said, I was definitely wrong about sending a team. We can’t afford to lose more crew.

However, we could send one person.

Me.

I use the screen to locate and alert Sam Chase. He’s returned to the ship’s stores. I don’t try to message him, just send a request for him to meet me in medical.

He arrives a couple of minutes later, looking a little irritated at being summoned.

“Something you want?”

“You said you owed me a favour?”

“Yes, although I thought I’d paid it back by sorting the medical inventory.”

“Ah, okay then, I need a favour from you.”

“What do you want?”

I’m hesitating to make my request. Once I say what I want, I can’t take it back. This is a crazy idea, the kind of risk heroes and fools take. I’m neither.

“You remember you said we needed to throw out the rule book if we were going to survive?”

“Yeah, and you set me straight.” Sam gives me an inquiring look. “You want to open up that discussion again?”

“Not really.” I pull out my portable screen and hand it to him. “I need you to help me make these modifications, in less than an hour, without telling anyone.”

Sam stares at the screen. I know how much he’s read by the changing expression on his face. “You want to do… This is fucking nuts.”

“I’ve done the calculations. It’s the best chance we have to improve our odds against their ship. Can it be done?”

“What’s the chance you’ll survive?”

“Not…great.”

Sam glares at me. “Either way, I get court-martialed for letting you try and kill yourself.” He hands the screen back to me. “In answer to your question, yes it can be done. The oxygen tank and manoeuvering thrusters you want can be rigged up pretty quickly because we’ve already stripped out a couple of torpedoes. I doubt Duggins will notice one of them going missing.”

“You’ll help me then?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I glare at him. “I’m not doing this to die. I’ve done the math.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Sam sighs and rubs his face. “If we do pack you into an empty torpedo with an oxygen cylinder and a couple of thrusters, wired up to a portable screen, we make a very neat little manned carrier. If we weren’t going into combat, I’d consider doing this and adding some of our robotic tools from the drone garage to make a really awesome little repair and rescue vehicle. But there’s a big difference between doing this then and doing it now. What the fuck do you think you’re going to do out there?”

“Did you scroll down?” I ask.

Sam smiles. “No, I stopped when I realised you were trying to murder yourself.”

“If I can get close enough to the Gallowglass, I can make use of the information we have on their ship to interfere with the control system. We can win.”

“And if they notice you?”

“That’s the risk I have to take. Our chance of defeating the Gallowglass without taking a chance like this is next to zero.”

“Has it occurred to you that someone else might already have a shit crazy plan and that by going all lone gun, you’re getting in the way?”

“That’s a good point,” I say. It is a good point, a really good point. Maybe I am being arrogant, thinking Captain Shann or Engineer Duggins haven’t already come up with some special sauce to go on their strategy that they’re not telling us about. “I don’t want to get in the way, but if we don’t know what they’re doing…”

“My turn to remind you about the chain of command.”

“That’s fair.” I look at the screen again, trying to figure out what Shann or Duggins could be planning. I can’t see anything that would make a massive difference. “How about we put this together and make a go or no-go decision when we have a better idea of what’s happening?”

“So, we prepare our insubordination and choose whether to disobey orders if we don’t like what’s going on?”

“No one specifically told us we shouldn’t be doing this.”

Sam laughs. “That’s a game of words and you know it, Ensign. Captain Shann will see right through it.” His expression grows serious. “I’m not going to let you kill yourself, April.”

He’s looking at me. The appeal is honest and frank. He’s right; there’s no point in me taking a mad risk that’ll make no difference to whether we all live or die. But then, if we have to die out here, at least I can choose my ending.

And besides, I genuinely believe this will work.

“It’s a tough task. I’m under no illusions about it, but I’m not planning to die. If I was, I wouldn’t be asking you to help me.”

Sam scowls, but he’s nodding now. “All right, we put this together, but if there’s another way—”

“If it ups the odds, of course, we go for it.”

“Good.” Sam pulls out his own portable screen. “There’s a whole set of issues you haven’t thought about, though.”

“Like what?”

“Like how are you going to launch your little ship?”

I nod and smile. He’s partially right, but it costs me nothing to concede the point. “I’d thought we’d mix me up with the other torpedoes being launched as mines.”

“That would work, but unfortunately, Duggins has fixed the launcher, so the ignition velocity would likely tear your little ship apart. Even if it didn’t, you wouldn’t have enough thrust to maneuver toward the Gallowglass from an undirected position. No, you need a low-powered launch, aimed in the right direction.”

“Okay, can we do that?”

“Thankfully, yes, as I’m operating one of the launchers. Before that, the captain wants to jettison another load of debris, which I need to total up and sign off. That’ll give me some time to work on these changes.”

“Great.”

Sam gestures down the corridor. “In the meantime, Shann’s called some of the crew to the airlock. We should show our faces before we do this.”

“What does she want?”

“We should go and find out.”