The Ancillary (Tales of a Dying Star Book 2) Page 3

His thoughts were clearer without the voice in his ear. The Carrion's defensive turrets. They wouldn't do much to a true fleet, but they would send the small Needle ships running. He needed to get to the cockpit and activate them. He wondered if the men outside had the tools to break in.

  The Carrion shuddered behind him as if in response.

  It wasn't a large explosion; it was smaller, more targeted. They were trying to gain entry. He was sure of it then: they wanted to capture the Carrion and the solar panels it held, while causing as little damage as possible. Then they would kill him.

  He ran down the corridor, feeling more fear than knee pain. Once the turrets were activated he would need to alert the Ancillary. It was out of range, but the other dismantling teams were closer, and should be able to relay a message along the ring until one could reach the Ancillary. Beyond that, he should send out general distress signals. There might be a peacekeeper patrol nearby, if he was lucky.

  A second explosion knocked the ship, then a third. These came from either side of the ship, not at the maintenance airlock. Were the two ships shooting at him after all? And where was the third?

  He entered the cockpit.

  Filling the cockpit window was a Melisao frigate, larger than Javin's own Carrion. It was long and slender, beautiful in its unnecessarily aerodynamics. It was close enough that he could make out details, windows and auxiliary pipes snaking along the outer hull. And unlike most Melisao ships, whose hulls were uniformly grey and polished, this frigate was painted with intricate designs in red and silver. It was covered in markings, gaudy with paint. It seemed familiar to Javin, but he couldn't figure out why.

  The line of squat, thick cannons facing the cockpit caught his attention.

  One of the cannons flared. A green beam streaked past the cockpit window, shaking the Carrion under his feet. Maybe they didn't want the ship intact after all.

  Javin crawled into the chair and looked across the computer screens. The life support was fine. Same for the artificial gravity and power core. Storage bay, engines, cockpit: all functional. The maintenance airlock also showed no problems; it wasn't breached yet.

  He turned to the screen showing the Carrion's defenses. He sighed, understanding.

  Seven of the twelve turrets were functional and ready to be activated, but the other five displayed red, their data blank. Not even a warning or alert--just no data.

  Another blur of green streaked from the frigate. The ship shook from the blow, and a sixth turret turned red. Its data disappeared.

  They were destroying the Carrion's defenses, picking them off one-by-one.

  Javin hurried to bring the remaining turrets to life. There was no way to activate them all at once; the turrets consumed significant energy, and the ship's power core would falter at having so much drawn at once. From the screen he touched the first turret, and then selected a green symbol. He entered an access code, then spoke a confirmation: "Javin, Engineer, Custodian rank." The lights on the ship flickered as the turret drew power. But before it could do anything the frigate fired again. It too turned red on the screen.

  Javin repeated the process on the remaining turrets, one after the other, cursing as more were destroyed. It was futile but he had to try.

  One turret survived long enough to shoot at the Needles, but did little damage. Two more returned fire on the Melisao frigate, and even destroyed one of its canons in a burst of blinding yellow, but they too were eventually silenced.

  Soon none were left, and there was quiet once again. Smoke billowed from two places on the side of the frigate, finally ceasing as the air in those compartments was exhausted.

  "You disappoint me, Javin," came the voice through the cockpit computer. "We offered you peace. We still offer you peace. Let my men board and this will end."

  The voice was conversational, almost polite. That scared Javin more than the fact that they were trying to kill him.

  Emergency broadcasts were automatically transmitted when the turrets began firing, but he manually recorded another. "This is Custodian Javin in the third solar ring quadrant. I am under attack from three unknown craft and need immediate assistance." He sent it out on all channels, configuring it to repeat every sixty seconds.

  A laugh echoed in the cockpit. "A lot of effort for nothing, Javin," the voice said. "We are blocking all outgoing transmissions, of course."

  Javin's heart sank.

  He looked around the cockpit, considering his options. He could turn the engines on, but they needed hours before the ship could move. The Carrion was a salvage craft; there were no personal weapons onboard. Some of the maintenance tools might suffice, but wouldn't do much against men with real guns. One computer screen showed the Ancillary's orbit: it was still seven days away. A lifetime away.

  "You must know that your options are limited. Surrender and we will treat you honorably. You have my assurance."

  Javin pressed a button on a computer. "Your assurance? You're pirates! Your assurance means nothing."

  "Ahh, he finally speaks," the pirate said. "I believe I understand the root of your fear: I have not yet introduced myself. My name is Soren."

  There was a pause, as if he expected Javin to respond.

  "Javin, we are going to drill into your ship now, at the maintenance airlock. I tell you this because I do not want anything to happen to my men. Do you understand?"

  Another pause.

  "I will take your silence for acquiescence. My men--"

  Javin touched the computer screen, cutting off the voice.

  Helplessly, he stared out the window at the frigate. The image of the frigate stared back at him, taunting him with its presence. He couldn't just sit there. He crawled out of the chair and exited into the hall.

  Outside the cockpit a ladder was built into the wall, leading up to an emergency airlock. But it exited out in front of the frigate, so there was no point in getting his suit and trying to escape that way. And even if he did, where would he go?

  Javin walked down the hallway, curving around the semicircle of the ship. The prep room was in the same disarray as before, with his suit and spare parts scattered across the floor. The silence was deafening.

  He looked at the wall of tools with new eyes. Bolt removers were useless. Same for most of the welding and fusing tools. There was a rivet gun that could blast a rivet through two thick plates of metal, but it was short, and he would need to get very close to use it. The laser glaive, used to cut through metal, would work better.

  The idea of resisting was abstract before, but now that he imagined a rivet shooting through flesh it was more real. Bile crept up in his throat. He was an engineer, not a soldier. These tools were made to fix things. He hadn't thought twice about it back in the cockpit, but now that he was confronted with the reality he was beginning to doubt himself.

  There was a banging behind him, against the hull. They were beginning to break into the maintenance airlock. It wouldn't be long now.

  He pulled the laser glaive from the wall and returned to the hallway.

  The tool required significant energy; it had a portable battery, but wouldn't last very long unless it was connected to a power port. There weren't any ports in the hallway. He felt foolish for grabbing a weapon he could barely use. He could replace it with the rivet gun, but the banging outside was steady, and he didn't want to go near it.

  He'd been out here working on the solar ring for weeks by himself, but now he suddenly felt very alone.

  The power core room had ports, so he went there. The clear cylinder that housed the core threw a blue glow across the room. It stood twenty feet tall, and nearly as wide. The core's pulsing hum was a welcome relief to the pirates' banging. He found an energy cable from one of the supply closets and plugged it into a port near the floor, connecting the other end to his laser glaive.

  The door to the hallway was only a few feet away. The pirates would have to walk right past him to get to the cockpit, and he could ambush them as they came. He might even kill on
e or two, if he was lucky.

  He took a deep breath, and looked at the weapon in his hands. He still didn't know if he could do it.

  The speakers in the ceiling crackled to life. "Hello again, Javin," came Soren's cheerful voice.

  That's impossible, Javin thought. He'd turned the communications off.

  "My men are concerned," Soren said. "We have access to your ship's computer now, and you have a MRK-401 laser glaive connected in the power core."

  No. No, no, no.

  The door to the hallway was already closed, but made a soft sound. The reinforced locks engaged.

  "We're going to keep you right there, where you can't cause any harm. This will be over shortly, Javin. I was telling the truth: we still have no intention of hurting you."

  He dropped the laser glaive and slumped to the floor. Distantly he felt a vibration: the maintenance airlock opening.

  The core continued to pulse within its massive cylinder. Javin stared at it, watching the blue tendrils dance and swirl. It was beautiful, if you ignored its fatal power. It was a million degrees inside, with only a thin layer of composite material to protect him.

  The core. The core was dangerous.

  He jumped to his feet and ran to the wall opposite the core, where the coolant stacks were. "Soren! Can you hear me?"

  "Yes, Javin."

  "The temperature in the power core is kept constant by five coolant stacks. If I disable them the core will overheat and explode. The entire ship will be destroyed, along with anything within a thousand feet in any direction."

  For a long moment Soren did not respond. Finally, his voice: "My engineer tells me there are safety systems in place that would keep you from doing that."

  Javin forced himself to laugh. "Your engineer is wrong. Tell him to recheck the ship's model: this is a Mark-One Carrion, with an older core. I can disconnect the coolant stacks manually."

  More silence. He wondered what they were discussing. When Soren's voice returned it was diffident. "Go ahead. It will take at least twenty minutes for the core to overheat. We will be on board by then."

  Javin had hoped he wouldn't know that. He looked around, desperate. There wasn't anything he could do. The core's pulsing mocked him.

  He ran to the laser glaive, carrying it back to the core. "Soren! Listen to me. I can cut into the cylinder itself. The explosion wouldn't be as big, but the energy release would still destroy most of the ship. It would be useless to you then."

  He could hear other voices over the speaker, muffled and distant. It sounded like they were arguing, until they turned off the communications entirely. Javin didn't know if they would believe him.

  He activated the glaive. A thick laser arced between its two prongs, crackling like crumpled paper. The menacing red of the laser contrasted against the blue of the core. They couldn't see him, but he wondered if they could see the power usage of the tool through the computer. He turned a dial to increase the power, brightening its glow.

  "Javin, you wouldn't do that. You would be killed instantly."

  "I'm going to die anyway. At least this would be quick, and take some of you with me." He hoped he sounded confident.

  There were more sounds deeper in the ship; the maintenance airlock pressurizing. Soon gravity would be restored inside, and the pirates would be in the hall.

  "Leave the ship, or I destroy the core right now! Do you want your men to die, Soren?"

  "Javin," Soren's voice echoed in the power room, "don't do anything extreme."

  "Then tell your men to leave," he said. "Now."

  He waited. The moment seemed to last forever. Javin's heart pounded like a crazed animal's.

  Finally there was a sound inside the ship. The maintenance airlock was depressurizing. He listened: the airlock door opened. A few moments later it closed.

  "They're gone," Soren said. "You can still surrender. We do not want to kill you, Javin."

  Javin stood there, straining his ears. He still didn't trust Soren, and wasn't sure his men had left the ship. They could still be in the airlock for all he knew. It didn't matter, though. He slumped against the core cylinder and slid to the ground. He held the glaive across his chest, careful of its deadly arc.

  The Ancillary would return in seven days, but he would never survive that long. The laser glaive was made to cut metal; it would do nothing to the clear composite material that encased the plasma. Soren might believe him now, but sooner or later they would figure it out. And then they would storm the Carrion and kill him.

  Chapter 4

  He was nodding off to sleep with the laser glaive across his lap when the temperature regulators clicked off.

  It was hardly noticeable above the pulsing of the core, but Javin knew the ship like a lover, and recognized every sound. A soft bang in the ceiling by the door, a slight pressure difference in his ears. Yes, the temperature was already changing. And that meant they probably turned off the oxygen too.

  He was aware of his attire then; he still had on the thin, white underclothes worn underneath his space suit. Their purpose was to protect him from uncomfortable suit chafing; they provided no insulation.

  His back protested as he stood. He must have hit the wall in the maintenance airlock harder than he thought, though the adrenaline of the moment had carried him for a while. Now he was so stiff he could barely move. Beth would have laughed at him: falling asleep while under attack from pirates and still complaining about his back.

  He let the glaive clatter to the floor as he took hold of the situation. The door to the hallway didn't open when he approached, and the manual latch wouldn't engage when he pulled. The computer screen on the wall still showed data about the ship: it had only been an hour since the pirates arrived. The temperature in the room was indeed dropping, one degree every few seconds. He could feel the air from the vent above him. Not only was the heat deactivated, but cold air was pumping into the room. So he would freeze long before he asphyxiated.

  Javin tried using the computer's functions, but the system was locked except to display the data. They didn't just want him to freeze--they wanted him to know it, too.

  It would be nice to have a window, he decided. The core was at the center of the semicircular ship, with no view of the outside. He wondered what the pirates were doing. After so much negotiating their silence was cold, definitive. The decision was made. Javin wouldn't be a problem much longer.

  Abruptly, the computer screen changed. It was a picture now, and Javin recognized the hull of his ship. It was one of the external cameras, mounted at one end of the Carrion, showing a wide view of the storage bay's door and the space around it. There was no movement, but he could tell it was a live feed.

  Something floated into view, large and rectangular. One of the solar panels. And there, behind it: an electroid, gently pushing it along as if everything were normal. It was storing the solar panel in the storage bay, just as it was programmed to do.

  A green streak blurred across the screen. There was a small, silent explosion. Pieces of grey and blue floated and spun in all directions like smoke. A huge piece of the panel still spun in place, intact, but the electroid was destroyed.

  Cruel bastards, Javin thought. Freezing the old man wasn't enough; they had to destroy his electroids and make him watch. It was amusing, in an absurd sort of way: not even inner-system pirates wanted to steal the shoddy Praetari robots.

  The metal used in the solar panels was precious, and a handful of panels was more valuable than Javin's entire ship. Though it may be fun sport, destroying the panels along with the electroids was sloppy. It shouldn't surprise him the pirates were that careless, he supposed.

  He didn't have to watch, but there wasn't much else to do. His eyes stayed glued to the computer screen, waiting for what he knew would happen next.

  After a few minutes another electroid floated into view, the propulsion jets on its back puffing silently. With one arm it grabbed the intact panel piece, and began collecting smaller pieces of blue w
ith the other. Until there was another flash of green and it too disintegrated.

  The swarm could not execute the panel dismantling function if they lost too many workers, but securing or salvaging the panels and their precious blue metal was a priority, regardless of how many electroids remained. And so it continued like that, one electroid after the other appearing and attempting to recover whatever bits of panel remained, before being destroyed by the precise green lasers.

  He considered calling out to Soren, cursing him, but he knew that was what the pirate wanted. Instead he returned to the core's swirling cylinder. He could see the puff of his breath, now. He folded his arms and leaned against the core, imagining he could feel the warmth inside.

  The core's coolant stacks could be unlatched, as he'd previously threatened. Soren was right that it would take at least twenty minutes for the core to overheat, but at least then they'd be forced to swarm the room. The pirates that scavenged in the inner system were brutal. Would Javin be tortured, stretching out his suffering?

  Was freezing much better?

  Javin eyed the laser glaive. It would cut through his neck easily. That would be the quickest way to go. He wondered if he had the nerve to do it. It seemed a better option than fighting Soren's men.

  It was as if the thought summoned his voice. "How are you feeling, Javin?" Soren asked. Polite, bored, as if discussing the weather on Melis.

  When there was no answer he continued, "It is unfortunate you chose that room, Javin. We can shut off the heat anywhere in the ship, but the power core is the only place we can actively pump cold air. It will not be long now, I fear.

  "But there is still another way. If you surrender peacefully no harm will come to you. We only wish to have a... discussion." He chose the word carefully. "Indeed, you will find our ship very warm. You need only surrender, without creating any problematic explosions."

  They were playing with him now. Toying with him. They didn't just want to capture and torture him; they wanted to hear him beg. I would rather cut my own neck, he decided. He clenched his jaw. He felt so certain, so determined in that moment, that he wished he could cut into the core with the laser glaive. To go out with a bang.