Draibo turned off into Fire Control Two, his station. He was supposed to stay there for ten minutes or until he heard firing. If he didn't hear any firing, he was to come over to Computer One and start a brawl with Wishun. From there on things would develop rapidly, and they all hoped successfully.
Computer One reminded Blade somewhat of the main computer room in the Project's underground complex. Even the finish on the computer consoles was gray and faintly crackled. Nothing was really missing except the sullen gray rock of the walls and Lord Leighton bustling about in his filthy old laboratory coat.
There was nothing to do for an engineer's aide when the ship was at Battle Stations except run errands, and there were no errands to run. Blade pulled a folding seat out of the wall and sat down, trying to look both military and inconspicuous at the same time. He didn't need to try very hard. Everyone in the room was too busy to pay any attention to him.
They were all hunched over their consoles, sweaty faces turned to the rainbow displays of lights, hands dancing over knobs, switches, and keyboards. A screen over one console showed a pit of black space with a distant powdering of stars and a few larger specks darting and wheeling. Twice explosions flared among the specks, but Blade couldn't tell if anyone was getting hit. Dark Warrior's own lasers and missiles didn't seem to be in action yet. The loudspeakers were pouring out a continuous stream of announcements about enemy ships being engaged and vengeance for the dead of Station Four. There would be vengeance before long, but not for any of Loyun Chard's men.
Blade flexed his shoulders to loosen cramped muscles and felt the reassuring weight of the weapons concealed inside his jacket. He unzipped the jacket' a few more inches so he could reach inside for a quick draw with the hurd-ray.
Faint and far off, something went whummmp. Blade heard it through the air, felt the vibration through the deck, and stiffened. Several men raised their heads from consoles to look around uncertainly. Another fainter whummmp came. Blade's eyes met Wishun's. He forced himself to keep his hands resting in his lap.
Blade's watch showed nine minutes since he'd sat down. In another minute Draibo should appear and-
The loudspeaker gave off a high-pitched whistle. Everyone in the room stiffened along with Blade and the Security guards reached for their pistols. «Attention, attention, all hands!» came the urgent voice. «Emergency! Armed agents of the traitors are aboard. Stand by your posts, do your duty, and defend our Leader with your lives!»
Then the door to the corridor opened and Draibo strode through, mouth open, eyes wide and staring at Wishun, hands dangling at his side but twisted into claws. Blade rose, a guard turned toward the young engineer, and then the door to the Battle Command Center slid open and Loyun Chard stepped through.
There was a solid mass of black uniforms behind the leader but only two Security men beside him. Blade knew he'd never have a better chance. With one hand he drew the hurd-ray and with the other plucked out a grenade. One of the men flanking Chard saw Blade move but did the wrong thing in response. Instead of drawing and firing, he gallantly threw himself in front of his leader, opening his mouth to shout a warning. He died with his mouth open as Blade's hurd-ray tore the whole upper part of his body into smoking pieces.
The remains of the body thudded to the deck, giving Blade a clear shot at Loyun Chard. The leader was reeling backward, face blackened, eyes shut, uniform smouldering, charred lips peeled back from his teeth. His three hundred pounds crashed into the guards behind him. Some of them went down, others were blocked by their leader's massive body, the rest were too stunned to react. Blade aimed at Chard's head and fired again. The head vanished in a cloud of smoke. Guards behind the toppling Chard screamed as Blade kept the trigger pressed down and the hurd-ray pouring into their ranks. Suddenly the doorway to the Battle Command Center was clear. Blade shifted his aim to the second of Chard's flanking guards, burning through the man's chest. With the other hand he hurled the grenade through the doorway.
It went off with a resounding metallic crash and the concussion made Blade's ears ring. In the confined space of the Battle Command Center he suspected the one grenade would be enough to flatten everybody. He threw a second, just to make sure everyone there would be not only down but out. Then he signaled to Wishun and Draibo. They'd drawn their own hurd-rays and were covering their fellow engineers and technicians. None of them looked ready to join in the fight and most of them looked as if they'd much rather be several light-years away.
Wishun fired a blast into the smoke-fogged door of the Battle Command Center, then turned to the men at the consoles. «Good luck at coming through this day. Targa will need your services even though Chard's gone. You may have a chance to redeem yourself for serving him.» He looked at Chard's headless corpse as if he'd like to spit on it, then turned away to follow Blade out into the corridor.
A wild burst of firing greeted them as they reached the guard post. The guards were gone but Blade saw a cluster of Security men on the far side of the room, near the elevator doors. They seemed to be firing wildly at anything that moved. Blade and the engineers went to cover behind the guard post's console and opened fire. Thirty seconds' work with the hurd-rays turned the Security men into a heap of corpses. Blade led the others toward the elevator. He hoped it was still working. They had to get far from the Command Deck as soon as possible.
A laser beam went pfffht. Wishun staggered, clawing at his chest. Then he fired at the wounded Security man until the laser pistol and the arm holding it were both ashes.
Blade gripped Wishun by one arm and pulled him toward the elevator.
«No,» the engineer gasped. «It's through the lung. I'm not going to make it out of here. Give me a grenade so I can do a little more damage. Then run!»
«Wishun-«began Draibo, but the older man shook off Blade's grip with desperate strength.
«No, damn you!» he snarled, then coughed. When he'd finished coughing there was blood on his lips and trickling down his chin. Silently Blade gave him the grenade. Then he and Draibo scrambled into the nearest elevator car and punched for the farthest level they could find on the control panel.
The car was four levels down when they heard the grenade explode. They looked at each other but there was nothing to be said. Wishun was gone to join his wife and the rest of Chard's victims, knowing that he'd helped defeat their murderer. If a man had to die violently at all, there were many worse ways to go.
The elevator took Blade and Draibo all the way down to the end of its shaft. It let them out in a low, dimly-lit, and completely deserted corridor. From beyond an armored door across the corridor came the sound of machinery. The color coding on the door showed that it led to an ammunition handling room. While Draibo watched the corridor, Blade punched the control button for the door. As it whined open, he tossed a grenade through the gap, then jumped aside.
The grenade must have connected with something else explosive, because the blast nearly blew the door out of its frame. Ignoring the new ringing in his ears, Blade stepped inside and played the hurd-ray over every visible piece of machinery and human body. By the time he'd finished, the room was a stinking shambles that would never handle ammunition again. Coughing fiercely, he backed out into the corridor again and gathered up Draibo.
How long he and the engineer roamed through the corridors of Dark Warrior, Blade never knew. They lost all sense of time and sometimes nearly all sense of direction. Without Dark Warrior's immense size, the boarding party could never have hidden themselves aboard her or launched their attack. That same size also made getting places a slow process and getting completely lost a fairly easy one. At times all Blade and Draibo could do was keep moving and keep shooting, hoping they'd come out somewhere. In the meantime, they'd stay alive and do as much damage as they could.