The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 78 —

Haget was in a mood where he thought everything he said was funny. Everyone else thought he was being nasty. Jo was tired of making allowances.

They had visited the first two stations. They had come up with zeroes. All right. So it was not going to be a stroll. They had known that. Why get irritable and sarcastic?

The Traveler was coming up on the third station now. Everyone, including Seeker, had a job. This was no time for emotional distractions.

Jo and her squad were convinced. This was the jackpot. They were ready.

Breakaway. Haget went to the bridge to oversee communications with the station. AnyKaat offered Jo a compassionate glance.

"Kark! Look at that thing!" Degas said. "Straight out of the Stone Age." He and Vadja were in charge of plundering station data.

AnyKaat said, "I make it three ships docked. One Hauler and two Travelers."

"Curious." Jo looked over her shoulder. The schematic had Travelers docked side by side around the wheel from the Hauler. "Suggestive?"

"Maybe. But an old station might have a wobble it damps with its porting arrangements."

Jo looked around. Too early to have gotten anything else.

Haget stepped in. "They aren't pleased to see us. You'd think a tramp station would be eager to suck anybody in."

"Wouldn't you?"

"Watch them, Jo."

What did he think she was doing? "Yes, sir. Have they assigned us a berth?"

"Eight. Beside a Hauler."

"Why am I not surprised?"

AnyKaat said, "Lieutenant, I'm starting to get heat readings from both Travelers."

Jo looked. She was only a touch more familiar with the equipment than AnyKaat. "Colonel, can you look at this?" He had been a WatchMaster.

"They're warming up to pull out," he said. "We've made somebody nervous. Yell if they undock." He returned to the bridge.

They would have seen nothing had they been a normal Traveler. Civilians did not need gear that could see such things.

The Probe team began to get results. "Lieutenant, there's a lot of running around going on."

Why? Guilty consciences? Making with coverups they did not feel were needed for a Hauler?

There was a ping. Degas said, "Jackpot."

They had penetrated the station's system, starting with the obvious, records of arrivals and departures. The entry following the departure of the suspect Horigawa Hauler was: dpt sveldrov trav gregor forgotten.

The Traveler that had behaved so oddly at M. Shrilica. Interesting.

"That Hauler is Horigawa," Haget tossed in the hatchway.

Jo felt a touch, found Seeker beside her. There are some of Them there. Mind picture of a Messenger thing. Three. Possibly four. They may sense my presence.

"Would that explain the activity?"

Perhaps.

"Activate the weapons systems. Warm screen generators."

"All right!"

"Hoke!"

"Yes, ma'am," sheepishly. Hoke was on a CT cannon he wanted to try.

"Probe. Do we have anything nonhuman?"

"Three possibles, Lieutenant. Not enough resolution to confirm yet."

Good enough. She went to the bridge hatchway. "Colonel, we have at least three Messenger types on station. One or more in the hub and two headed for the Travelers."

Haget smiled. "That's interesting. We can take off the mask, Smokey."

Jo returned to her post. Degas and Vadja had pinned the identities of both docked Travelers as false. "What do they have for defenses on that dump?"

"Nothing. Not even shield generators."

"Then all they can do is run."

AnyKaat interjected, "Those Travelers are heating up fast."

Probe said, "The alien in the hub is headed for the Travelers, Lieutenant. It's a big one."

Haget stuck his head in. "What're they doing?"

"The Travelers are getting ready to run."

"Shoot their asses off so they can't do anything if they undock. Then suit a team to go take control."

He was having fun now.

So were all the Weapons team. She gave the signal. Twenty-five seconds passed. Time. Twin-fire lilies blossomed. "Hey! All right!"

"Get those targets assessed, Hoke. See if you need to pop them again. The rest of you get suited. Full armor and weapons." The squad hurried out, leaving their stations live. AnyKaat, Degas, Vadja, Haget, and Seeker some, could cover the critical functions.

"Got them both, Lieutenant," Hoke said, rising. "Those suckers want to go anywhere they'll have to put out oars and row."

"Stay. The Colonel may need a trained hand on weapons. Colonel Vadja, it's all yours."

Jo ran to the after-refrigerated hold, which they had converted into an armory. The squad was climbing into their suits. She stripped. "Let's be careful. We don't know what we'll run into. Those Outsiders are fucking crazy."

They got suited, through the activation checklists, armed, and forward in plenty of time. Jo checked her command channels. AnyKaat told her one of the Travelers was adrift. Degas, covering Probe, said station personnel had stopped running around. She had them send schematics.

Haget told her, "We'll offload you and back away. That loose Traveler has a couple popguns. Don't want it butt-shooting us."

"I understand."

"Jo... Do you have to go yourself?"

"I am a Soldier, Colonel. It's my command." Her tone was cool, but she was pleased.

"Of course. What support do you need?"

She put the schematics up on her faceplate. "Tell that Hauler to get its people aboard and button up."

"Already done."

"Good. We'll move out against the spin, pushing them ahead of us. Once we clear the section, knock a hole in it and let the air out so they can't sneak up behind us. We'll breach the radials as we go."

"Right. Don't take chances, Jo."

Chunk! Clack-clack-click-clack. The Traveler was in, held by drive. Some station genius had secured the docking mechanisms. A demo charge opened the station side lock. Jo checked the schematic. Probe saw nothing that looked like resistance. But there were people out there, apparently carrying on with business. "Go!"

The first two out covered the rest. They drew no fire. When Jo hit the dock she saw a lot of nothing. In the distance several civilians ran like hell up the curve. "Let's move."

Four soldiers went left, to seal the accesses from the next section. Two went to breach the radial to the hub. There would be few EVA suits on station, none designed for combat.

She assigned two soldiers to seal the lock behind them. She did not want the section decompressing before they left it.

Station shivered as charges holed the radial. Jo started up the curve. Her people spread out. Those with assignments would catch up. She came even with the Hauler. It was closed up tight.

So quiet.

She did not have outside sound. She switched on and got all she could handle: breach alarms, riot alarms, computer voices repeating calm warnings.

She found a dozen frightened civilians caught at the section boundary, unable to pass the decompression doors. She checked them over while she waited for the welders.

Degas came on. "Looks like an ambush shaping up ahead of you, Jo."

"I see it. Colonel Vadja. Can you get into the station system deep enough to override the commands to this decompression door?"

"Can do, Lieutenant."

"Open on my mark, then."

She moved the civilians out of the line of fire, disposed her troops, relayed her schematics on squad tac, assigned someone to each of ten targets.

The ambush had been laid in the expectation she would use demos to come through one of the personnel hatches.

"Now, Colonel."

The big door shot up.

The shooting started.

The shooting stopped.

Five ambushers were dead. Three were wounded. Two were in flight.

Another fusilade.

Nine dead now. One escaped. For the moment.

"Move those civilians over here. Colonel, shut the door after we're through. Hoke, blow that section as soon as he does."

Degas came on. "Jo, you've got them all stirred up around the other side. The big alien is headed back for the hub."

"Feed that to Fire Control. Hoke, when that thing gets halfway along the radial put one right through it."

"I can't hit the spoke from here, Sarge."

"Then move the damned ship. You're Weapons." She grinned at her faceplate. Hell. She was WarAvocat here. Even Haget had to take her orders as long as the team was engaged.

The station staggered as Hoke put two CTs into the section just cleared.

The alarms went berserk.

"Let's move up."

Station shivered again as Hoke took out the Outsider.

They received sporadic rifle fire, mostly inaccurate. None was effective. The other side had no weapons capable of dealing with Guardship soldiers in full combat armor.

There was a brisk, one-sided fight at the next sector boundary. They took several prisoners.

Hoke came on net. "Lieutenant, you want that section breached after you're out?"

"No. Let's not do any damage that isn't tactically necessary. We got to leave something for the honest folks. Degas. That next section shaping up as hairy as it looks to me?"

"Yes."

"How many of those people you figure for civilians?"

"No telling."

"I'm not getting my ass shot off for their sake. Colonel Vadja. This time open all the accesses so they don't know where we're coming from. Shut them as soon as we're through. Hoke. When the doors close behind us put a round through the section. They can't fight if they can't breathe."

"I might hit you...."

"Put it through the far end." She disposed her troops, sent the civilians and prisoners back up the curve so they would not be hit. "Open up, Colonel."

The doors opened. Massed small-arms fire poured through. It died as gunners realized they had no targets. She let them sweat for six minutes before she ordered, "Go!"

They flung through behind grenades, got down, got behind things. The doors slammed shut. Seconds later the far end of the section flared with the blinding light of matter annihilation.

Jo waited till the pressure had fallen below a level that would sustain life. "Let's see what we've got."

"What we got is a lot of dead people," somebody said.

She let it slide. He was not a false prophet.

She was surprised there were so many. And few were civilians because they were all armed.

"Sarge!"

One of the methane breathers, inside some kind of pressurized, motorized tank, was headed toward her. She shifted to microwave output and gave it a whole charge pack in one blast. Its tank exploded.

"I think it wanted to talk, Lieutenant."

"Tough shit."

That was the last shot fired on station.

The picking through the ruins began.