Emon’s head and shoulders were covered with blood, his own and his crewmates’. One of the men sprawled dead on the deck, the other clutched a shredded arm with one hand.
“I’m okay,” Emon said. “I can still shoot.” But when he tried to stand he staggered into my arms.
I pulled him away from the ladderway and into the comparative safety of a compartment hatch. Then I went back and got the other wounded man. I saw laser beams zipping past the open ladder hatch, up above.
Sitting the wounded man against the bulkhead of the compartment, I told Emon, “The Skorpis will be pouring down that ladderway in a few moments.”
“I’ll hold ’em off,” he said, hefting his rifle in bloodied hands.
“Do the best you can,” I said. I left him there and sprinted down the passageway toward Frede and the rest of our crew.
“They blew the other hatches,” I told her.
“I heard it.”
“Get those people down here.” I pointed to the crew who were still firing from the top of the ladder. “We’ll make our stand in the cargo bay.”
“Right.”
They must know that we’re carrying Anya in this ship. For some reason they want her alive. They don’t want her to surrender to the Commonwealth, but they’d rather take her back to Hegemony territory, if they can.
I ran past the dead and smoking bridge, ducked down the ladderway to the lower deck and raced for the cargo hold where Anya’s cryosleep capsule lay. Her sarcophagus, I thought.
Four Skorpis warriors were already prying the cargo bay hatch open when I hit the lower deck. They were in space suits and did not hear me running up the passageway toward them. I gave them no chance. I fired my rifle from the hip as I ran toward them. The oxygen tanks on their life-support systems exploded, blowing them to sticky shreds.
Twelve more space-suited warriors came pounding up the passageway from the other end, where the air-lock hatch was. Too many for me to handle by myself, especially when they were firing laser rifles at me. I backpedaled, then turned and ran into the nearest protective hatch. I found myself in the transceiver station, a flat open bay with a small console standing to one side.
Using the passageway hatch to shelter me, I fired at the Skorpis who stood near the cargo bay hatch. I saw one sag and slide down the bulkhead, his helmet smoking where my rifle beam had caught him. The others turned toward me, in dreamlike slow motion, raising their rifles toward me. I fired twice, shattering a helmet visor and burning a hole through the arm of another Skorpis. They backed away, firing. I ducked back inside the transceiver bay hatch.
A standoff. They could not get into the cargo bay; neither could I.
I wondered if the ship was still hurtling toward Loris, and if the planet’s defensive systems would blast the Skorpis battle cruiser and us with it. Or had the cruiser’s captain maneuvered us away from our collision course with the planet?
Footsteps running up the passageway. I glanced out and saw Frede leading the rest of the crew. I counted only thirty.
“Look out!” I yelled. “They’re at the other end of the passageway, by the cargo bay hatch.”
Frede and her people flattened out against the bulkheads, firing and being fired upon as they, one by one, ducked into the transceiver bay with me.
“We caught the other boarding party coming through the after hatch,” she said. “Took some casualties.”
“So I see.” None of them were unwounded. Frede’s face was smeared with blood and sweat.
But she grinned. “We wiped them out. Killed every last one of those damned cats.”
That leaves only a couple of hundred, I thought. It was obvious that the Skorpis battle cruiser had attached itself to our air lock. We were not dealing with a shuttle load of warriors, not the way they were pouring reinforcements into our ship.
“They’re regrouping down the passageway,” I said. “Probably getting reinforcements before they charge us.”
“The first landing party, up by the main air lock—”
“They’ll be coming down here the same way you came. We’ll have our hands full.”