The cold didn’t touch him anymore as he lifted the Steyr. He focused on the telescopic sights, finding the first of his targets. His finger caressed the trigger, blowing the Russian’s head apart.
J.B. HESITATED only a second when the blasterfire erupted before twisting the handle on the door to the electronics room. The Armorer knew Jak and Ryan were going to be hard up against it, but none of them had a chance if the circuit boards weren’t repaired.
He went through the door with the Uzi held at waist level.
A question erupted in Russian from one of the two men standing beside a metal lathe. The room was filled with the sound of grinding. Harlan had stated that the solar-powered batteries that powered much of the frigate remained intact, and that most of the electronics and propulsion systems were also intact.
J.B. had pretty much figured that after seeing the remains of the makeshift airwag back where Ryan and Jak had hooked up with the Inuit. The airway had been cobbled together from motors on different pieces of the frigate’s equipment, and shaped in a machinist’s shop.
He brought up the Uzi and loosed a snarling burst that caught both Russians as they went for their blasters. The room was lit by electric lights, though there were only about one-third the normal number. J.B. figured they were trying to conserve on the number of bulbs they had.
Unfortunately the bullets also ripped into a control panel, starting an electrical fire.
Spotting the red fire extinguisher on the wall, J.B. crossed the room and grabbed it. He pulled the pin and shook it up, then squeezed the trigger. Instead of a blast of chem-suppressor hosing the fire, a little fart of powder jumped at the fire. It did nothing to slow the blaze down. Smoke pooled against the top of the room.
J.B. tossed aside the fire extinguisher and scanned the room, listening to the crash of blasterfire outside the door pick up the pace. He moved at a jog, going deeper into the room.
The comp-assisted solder system was next to a diagnostics tester.
The Armorer switched on the machine. While he waited for the soldering points to warm to the prescribed temperature, he took the mat-trans circuit boards from inside his shirt where he had kept them over his heart. He had figured that his heart would be the last place he would get hit by a bullet and live to regret losing the circuit boards.
He placed the circuit boards on the soldering surface, locking them down with wing nuts specially designed to hold delicate electronics. The soldering iron already glowed red, and wisps of smoke eddied up from the tip as impurities burned off.
The smoke it made, though, was nothing like the smoke coming from the fire starting to ravage the electronics workshop.
Resolutely J.B. leaned in over the comp and used the joystick to start laying in the lines of solder to repair the circuit boards. The comp setup and program were similar to ones he had worked with when the Trader had needed serious work done on communications or munitions systems.
He watched the thin beads of silver solder fit neatly into place.
Then a quiver shook the ship, even stronger than the one that had hit it before. Instinctively he lifted the soldering point from the circuit board’s surface to wait until the quiver was over.
But it lasted longer than the previous one.
And this time J.B. felt himself go weightless for a moment as the frigate slipped in the embrace of the iceberg. Ice crushed against the walls outside, and the skidding sounds let him know they were rising.
The Armorer looked through one of the windows near the workstation, not surprised at all to see the broken edge of the ice that had been chopped away from the ship suddenly rise three feet above the railing.
Whatever ice remained below the ship, it was no longer strong enough to support the frigate’s weight.
The ship was sinking.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“The ship’s going down!”
Krysty watched as Harlan’s shout became a reality. The Russian frigate wallowed like a dying animal in the ice trough. Even from a distance, she could hear the splintering of ice around the vessel. “Gaia, protect Ryan,” she prayed quietly.