Chapter Thirteen

"we're dead," moaned Gowan Liottey. "We're all dead!" The emergency lights flickered and came on, giving everyone on the bridge a jaun-diced appearance.

"No," said Miza, kneeling beside Pavel Pensky. "Only one of us." She pressed her fingers into the genhanced officer's throat and shook her head. "He's dead, and I don't know why. There's not a scratch on him that I can see."

"What difference does it make?" asked Liottey. "He's the lucky one. He's already dead. We'll fol-low in seconds. I know it. We're in the middle of the entire Death Fleet!" The words galvanized Norlin. He had simply stood and stared at the fallen captain. He ad-justed the command visor and walked around the control room, checking each display against his heads-up summary display. The important readouts matched. He took a deep breath and resumed his postion in the command chair.

"Ships everywhere," Miza reported.

"Weapons systems down. The radiation can-non took everything out. I'm going to backup on the missile launchers." Sarov worked with a desperation Norlin had never seen before.

"Don't bother with that. There's not much chance we'd get to launch missiles powerful enough to do any damage. The ships around us are heavy." He marveled at their sheer mass. They were the planet-beamers, heavily armored and protected to withstand ground-based weap-onry. For him to believe they had a chance of doing more than scratching a hull with their missiles required fantasy beyond his wildest imagining.

"They think we're dead. They're sending a scout ship to board," reported Miza.

"Can you intercept their communication?"

"No, Captain. Can't find anything anywhere,

though they are too well coordinated not to be in constant contact."

"Telepathic. That's the only explanation," whined Liottey. "They can speak mind-to-mind. How can we defeat an enemy that knows what we're thinking?"

Norlin turned and glared at the XO. "Gowan," he said softly. "Give me a full report on all life-support systems. Do a complete sweep of every command circuit. Let me know how to best use the RRU."

"The RRU, yes, we need to repair quickly. Yes, aye, Captain. Right away." Liottey left to go to his post on the secondary bridge, muttering to himself.

"You handled him well," complimented Barse. "Now do some fancy work and tell me how to handle the engines. We're power-drained, and it's beyond me how to get this bucket of bolts running again."

"You'll find a way," he said reassuringly. "You're the best engineer in the Empire Ser-vice."

"That works with Liottey," she said. "Not me. But don't stop. I like hearing compliments."

"Especially when they'll be the last thing she'll hear," cut in Miza. "The enemy ship is closing. What do we do?"

Norlin leaned back, his eyes on Pensky's corpse. His mind raced. "What else can we do? Prepare for boarding. We'll have to greet our guests."

"We're not equipped for it, Captain. All we have are a couple laserifles and pistols." Norlin shrugged it off. They had some weapons. "We'll have to make do, won't we?" Norlin tried to formulate a plan he knew would work. His mind refused to come up with anything brilliant.

"Tracking the ship," came Sarov's anxious voice. "Should I take it out?"

"No. Let the fleet go past." He hated the idea of letting the Death Fleet go unimpeded toward Sutton II, but there was only so much a single cruiser—and one damaged beyond simple re-pair—could do. His duty lay in keeping alive.

"They're putting out grapples," reported Miza. "There are robotic crews on their hull. They're sending over ERUs to examine the ship."

"Barse, Liottey, take laserifles to the airlock and blast them—after they're inside."

"Captain, they're going to drill through the hull. They don't care if they spill our air."

"Why should they care?" he wondered aloud. "They think we're dead. They certainly aren't interested in taking prisoners."

"Why enter at all?"

"The radiation cannon up front. They want it back—or they might think we've developed one on our own. No planet has used it against them. Why should an insignificant ship in the middle of the Sutton II system pop up with it?"

"We took out five of their heavy craft," re-ported Sarov.

"Energy levels are coming back," said Barse. "We need a more efficient generating system to supply that cannon."

"Let's see if we can't get it off that ship." Norlin had high hopes of luring the alien scout ship close enough to board and engage the mysteri-ous crew in personal combat. Norlin's curiosity about them soared—hope died when he saw how cautious they were.

The scout hung back a few klicks, and the robot salvage crew landed on the Preceptor hull. They began drilling their way in just aft of the crudely mounted radiation cannon.

"We don't need this. Sarov, what chance do we have of getting the scout with one shot?"

"Not good. They might be in touch with their other ships."

"Miza?"

"Can't say, Captain. I'm not receiving any crosstalk from their fleet. It's as if the ships are programmed and following expert-systems rou-tines."

Norlin considered this. The Death Fleet might be totally automated. They might face only robots. He shook off the notion. It didn't seem likely that a computer intelligence directed the fleet. Why strip the planets as they did? Robots didn't need such a wide spectrum of products— and he had seen foodstuffs being loaded into one automated looting factory.

"Can we get them off our hull?" He checked his display and saw that the strain from the boring equipment had mounted to the point of breaching the hull. The laser drills would pene-trate the Preceptor's tough composite skin in sec-onds.

"Captain, we can blow the section," suggested Liottey. "There's nothing there but storage."

"Do it," he said, coming to a quick decision. "Blow the damned robots back toward the scout." The Preceptor shuddered as Liottey jettisoned the entire storage module. The cruiser was no longer battleworthy, but then it hadn't been be-fore getting rid of the invading robotic snoops.

"There are no other major warships within easy range, Captain," reported Miza.

"Engineer? What speed can we make at cur-rent power levels?"

"Quarter," came Barse's immediate reply.

"Tactical Officer, open fire on the scout. Hit it with everything." Norlin watched as Sarov ex-pertly launched the proper mix of missiles. Ten fired, three struck. The resulting explosion far outstripped the killing power of the missiles.

"They self-destructed. Suicide circuit," said Sarov.

Norlin slumped. He had hoped for a chance to study the alien power plant. How did they re-charge their radiation cannon so quickly? Or did they? Did they rely on sheer numbers rather than superior technology? To fight them suc-cessfully, he needed to know everything.

"Analyze debris," he ordered. He didn't care who obeyed the command. His own attention focused on a minimum energy, maximum speed orbit back to Sutton II.

The engines fired for several minutes. Norlin shut them down when he saw the power levels dropping abruptly.

"Thanks, Cap'n," said Barse. "I don't want to go dry."

"This is for the best," he said. "We must look as if we're drifting out of control and dead in space." He checked Miza's display and saw that the Death Fleet had gone on, ignoring them. The planetary defenses would give them a true chal-lenge. A single cruiser, crippled and tumbling through space, would be ignored.

He hoped they thought that way. If they didn't, he and everyone on the Preceptor was doomed. Job done for the moment, Norlin climbed down from the command chair and went to Pensky's side. The genhanced officer's eyes had fogged over with death. He didn't appear any different from any other dead man. Death lev-eled all ability—and insanity.

"We can feed him into the ignition chamber," suggested Miza. "He'd finally be good for some-thing that way."

Norlin decided against it. "I want him stored in a vacuum coffin. Captain Droon might want to ship the body back to Earth, since he was the emperor's cousin."

"Emperor Arian has thousands of cousins— all from a test tube." Norlin shrugged off Miza's cynicism. He had to attempt to return the body to Pensky's kin. They should know how he died. The Empire Service had centuries of tradition, but few were stronger than seeing to those who had died in battle.

Norlin grunted as he heaved the dead weight across his shoulders and lifted. Liottey came onto the bridge and hurriedly backed away.

"Get a coffin ready," he ordered his executive officer.

"Sorry. They were in the section we jetti-soned."

Norlin cursed. "Empty a food storage locker, then. I don't want him rotting and smelling up the ship. It'll be days before we can get back to Sutton II."

He dropped Pensky onto a table in the galley and went below to check Barse's progress. Nor-lin could have made the inspection with a single glance at his command visor displays but felt he needed more personal contact with the woman. She was the only one on the Preceptor he felt any affinity with. Chikako Miza's bitterness some-times overwhelmed him. Mitri Sarov was too aloof and intent on his job. And Gowan Liottey shared so little in common that Norlin often wondered if the XO wasn't more alien than those in the Death Fleet.

He entered the engineering section and was greeted by the ship's cat. The black cat rubbed his head against Norlin's leg and peered up at him accusingly, as if every problem aboard the Preceptor was his personal fault.

"He hasn't been fed today and you looked like an easy touch," said Barse.

"I am. Feed him. That's an order."

"Wouldn't you rather I get the engines back into condition?" Barse lounged against a pile of parts that had been stripped from a converter unit.

"Both. One won't take long."

"Yeah," she said, making a wry face. "Keeping

the cat fed is a full-time job. About the engines, I've got an idea. I plugged into Chikako's board and took a gander at our vector and location."

"And?"

"Give me a few days and complete use of the robot repair units and I can get the ship back into fighting trim."

"How? We're not going to be able to dry dock when we get back. Not with the Death Fleet working on Sutton n."

"Let sector base take care of itself," she said. "Chikako located the ship Pensky killed. We're in good position to salvage what we need from it."

"I thought it was completely destroyed."

"Usable parts, Cap'n," Barse said enticingly. "I can use them—the ship can use them. They're going to waste out there." She sobered and said, "We can also recover bodies and return them with Pensky." Norlin considered their predicament. The Pre-ceptor lacked enough firepower to aid in the sec-tor base's defense. If anything, they would be in the way. The Death Fleet would have the planet ringed by now and be working on destroying all life.

If the Preceptor functioned at full capacity, as Barse promised, they could serve the purpose intended by the Empire Service. A warship waged war—and they knew the enemy.

"Two days?" he asked.

"Make it five. What's the hurry? And another three to refit and get powered up to max."

"We can use the time," he decided. "Get Miza

on the 'link and tell her to lock on to the dead ship."

Barse smiled from ear to ear. "I already did. I knew you were smarter than Pensky, Cap'n." She slapped him on the back and turned back to her work.

Norlin propped against the converter unit, shaking his head. He had much to learn about command.