Dragon Pearl(23)
I narrowed down the problem to one regulator that had been damaged by the mercs’ fire. The details were a little murky, but the more I tinkered with the regulator, the more I realized the basics weren’t so different from those of the ecofilter system we used in our dome back on Jinju. Given how often it had broken down, I’d had a lot of experience with it. Maybe I wasn’t a qualified technician, but I knew a few tricks.
I wondered if we’d ever escape the mercenaries. My work settled into a nerve-racking routine. Every time something broke, I’d follow the computer’s instructions, tunneling down through menus, rerouting damaged functions to backups, and so on, all the while hanging on so I wouldn’t get smashed when the ship jerked. My fingers ached. Still, I couldn’t afford to relax.
The comm system crackled to life. “Good work,” Byung-Ho said over the speaker.
I appreciated the compliment, but I wasn’t under any illusions that I’d fixed everything wrong with the Red Azalea. I’d just bought us a little more time. Whether it would be enough for help to reach us was another question.
“What would have happened if I hadn’t?” I asked Byung-Ho.
He didn’t answer, and I gulped. Had something gone wrong in the cockpit? Were we now drifting aimlessly, easy pickings for the mercs?
It didn’t take me long to make my way back to the front of the ship now that I’d gotten used to moving around in flickering gravity.
Byung-Ho waved a hand when he heard my approach and sat up straighter. He kept his attention fixed on the screens. I retook the copilot’s seat.
“I managed to turn on the shields again after they glitched,” Byung-Ho said. “That’ll keep the mercs at bay for a while.” He turned to look at me. “Seriously, good job back there. You sure you’ve never been on a ship before?”
I glowed at his praise, but we didn’t have time for chitchat. With my fox’s nose I couldn’t escape the rank stench of his nervous sweat. He was trying to mask his fear—for my sake.
“Has anyone responded to our call for help?” I asked. Communications frequencies were much slower than travel via Gate and only reliable for reaching people in the immediate vicinity, which was why long-distance messages were conveyed by courier. The local space station should have heard us and relayed the distress signal, but it was an open question as to whether anyone in a position to help had detected it.
“No luck yet,” Byung-Ho said.
That “no luck” sealed our fate.
Another blast took the Red Azalea from behind, according to the displays. The shield strength indicators flickered red, then plummeted almost all the way down to zero. Through the viewport I glimpsed sparks flowering out ahead of us. If our situation hadn’t been so desperate, it would have looked beautiful.
The attack itself had made no noise, but then we heard a bang from the engine room. My stomach dropped when the musical thrumming of the engines sputtered, then stopped. “What was that?” I whispered.
Byung-Ho blanched. He didn’t hide the truth from me, which I appreciated. “Maneuver drive’s down. We’re just drifting now, thanks to inertia. They’ve herded us away from the Gate, and they’ll be boarding us next.” He triggered a command, and the hatch to the ship’s midsection slid closed. It would give us a little time. “Quick—do you know how to use a blaster?”
I hesitated at the thought of killing. On the other hand, I didn’t want to die.
“Point and shoot—that’s all there is to it,” Byung-Ho said. “With our luck, they’ll have personal shields, too. But I refuse to roll over for them.”
He unholstered a blaster from his belt and handed it to me. “That toggle is the safety. Point it away from me when you flick it off—yes, like that. I keep it fully charged, but in a firefight you may run out of juice.”
“What about you?” I demanded. After all, he’d just given me his gun.
“Don’t worry about me,” Byung-Ho said. “I’ll use the plasma rifle. It’s temperamental. A beginner’s better off with a simple blaster.”
He retrieved the rifle from a compartment behind the pilot’s seat. It looked so large and bulky that I doubted I could have wielded it well, temperamental or not. I was strong for my usual size, thanks to all the menial labor I did, but I wasn’t going to win any wrestling matches. I had good reflexes, though. Maybe that would help.
While we waited for the intruders to arrive, I glanced out the viewport, suddenly resenting the distant stars and the colorful smudges of nebulae. We continued to float along peacefully. The mercs, knowing we couldn’t escape, had stopped firing. Byung-Ho had guessed right—they’d get more valuable scrap out of the Red Azalea if they didn’t shoot it up too much.
Then the ship shuddered, as though something had bumped into us at low speed.
“That’ll be the boarding party,” Byung-Ho said. “Crouch behind the seat and get ready to fire if you see anything.”
My sharp ears picked up the sounds of the mercs aligning one of their ships with ours and forcing the hatch open, then the whine of the airlock cycling. I tensed up. How many of them would come for us?
“Stay steady,” Byung-Ho said. “All that matters now is taking them out and hoping that friends arrive soon.”
He didn’t have to tell me that the situation looked dire. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to let my quest end here, not if I could help it. My palms started to sweat, and I shifted my grip on the blaster.