“Honeydew melon, Green Turtle soup,” Ran said in a bored voice. “Roast gosling with aubergine in tomato.” He pointed as he went along. “And asparagus in Hollandaise sauce.”
Viewed dispassionately, it must have looked delicious. Ran couldn’t be dispassionate, because he was trying to imagine how he could handle the situation if two of the Grantholmers stayed that far away from him. He couldn’t. He’d have to go back and find somewhere a weapon that wasn’t only point-blank like the gas projectors—
The team leader turned and stared at his men. “One of you wise guys used the ship’s commo to order a meal, didn’t you?” he demanded.
“Not me!” Schmidt—Smitt, Shmidt, Smid, or whatever variation of “metalworker” this Grantholm soldier bore—insisted.
“I’d be in my rights to keep it all for myself,” the team leader said. “But I guess there’s enough for three.”
He looked appraisingly at the multi-course meal. “They don’t half do themself good, do they?”
Then he added harshly to Ran, “C’mon, you.” He jerked his thumb toward engineering control and his two subordinates. “Bring it over.”
The leader stayed behind Ran. The Grantholmer faced down the corridor, toward the shafts, as the Trident officer sauntered obediently forward.
Ran grounded the cart in front of the two soldiers. “Gentlemen . . .” he said as he whisked the lids off the first pair of dishes, then knelt to stow them on top of the cart’s repulsion tray.
“What’s that?” muttered Schmidt.
“Aubergine,” replied the team leader. “Whatever aubergine is when it’s at home.”
“And there ought to be extra flatware down—”Ran murmured. “Yes!”
He straightened with a napkin-wrapped tube in either hand. He smiled obsequiously and fired the gas projectors into the faces of the Grantholm soldiers.
Ran had been worried about getting the double, but the cones of droplets sprayed perfectly across the faces of the two subordinates. They lurched backward with blank expressions. Their eyeballs rolled upward so that only the whites showed.
The team leader caught the dose in the throat, which should have been fine. Either he was resistant to the tranquilizer or his reflexes operated at a more basic level than those of his crew. His finger clamped his submachine gun’s trigger and held it back as he toppled onto his face.
The stream of bullets shattered the cart, the dishes on it, and one of the Grantholm soldiers from waist to ankles. Blood and the pale gray stars of bullet cores splattered the bulkhead behind the pair of men.
Ran thought the other soldier, Schmidt, had escaped until he noticed an ooze of blood and brains spreading beneath the Grantholmer’s head. A ricochet had bounced through the back of his skull.
Echoing muzzle blasts and the whiz of ricocheting bullets went on for what seemed to be minutes.
Ran swore softly. He unfastened the sling of Schmidt’s weapon. With the submachine gun in his right hand, he grabbed the team leader by the collar with his left.
He dragged the staring-eyed man to the cargo bay directly across from engineering control. The practical way to deal with the fellow was to kill him, using a bullet or the fighting knife hanging from the Grantholmer’s harness.
Ran hoped he never returned to being that practical.
He used his ID chip to unlock the bay’s personnel access hatch. This bay was the garage, holding passengers’ private vehicles. There was no way to open it from within, so it would serve to hold the Grantholm soldier until this business was over. Ran’s next task was to find the Cold Crew and—
The hatch withdrew into its jamb. Swede lunged out with his hands open for a choke hold. The rest of the Cold Crew, all three watches, was behind him.
“Hold it,” the watch chief bellowed. “It’s Mr. Colville! What are you doing in that shit suit, sir?”
Cold Crewmen shoved out past Swede. As they did so, Ran noticed one of the engineering officers, Crosse, huddled well to the rear of the compartment. It can’t have been a lot of fun to find yourself locked up with angry Cold Crewmen.
“I’m pretending to be a steward to get the Empress away from these Grantholm hijackers,” Ran said. He spoke loudly to be heard over the scrape of boots. “It’s dangerous, and it’s likely to mean killing. Are you in?”