Skerri advanced menacingly, swinging the wrench in a wide horizontal sweep as if it were a club or battleax. Lenna avoided it easily, but his tactic was simple; each swing drove her half a meter toward the wall at her back. After the second attempt she followed his swings with a quick rabbit punch to the jaw. Skerri endured three of these dizzying punches before changing his tactics, lifting his swing high enough to make her duck. While bent over, she delivered one more vicious punch to his stomach, ducked under his arm, and followed with a joint-snapping two-fisted thump in the middle of his back. The combination so thoroughly knocked the wind out of him that he nearly passed out and was forced to retreat.
Skerri returned to the battle with a little more respect for his opponent. He held the wrench in one hand, leaving him freer to hit and kick. That helped a bit; he did not score any hits on Lenna, but at least she was scoring fewer hits on him. But Skerri was clearly on the defensive, and Lenna knew that she only had to bide her time until Bill returned.
After a minute of this a sentry ambled into the chamber and paused just inside the door. Lenna glanced over her shoulder and realized that this was not Bill. There was no heavy rifle strapped over his left shoulder. While Bill had been checking the lift, the second sentry had heard the sounds of the fight and hurried to investigate. She was also trapped with Skerri in front and the hostile sentry behind. Then she realized that it was confused by the sight of two Union officers. Skerri was just as quick to recognize the problem.
“I am Lieutenant Captain Denas Skerri,” he stated authoritatively. “This is an imposter. Shoot to kill!”
The machine did not respond immediately; perhaps it was checking his visual identification against the file to confirm his claim. Lenna turned back to him and did her best to kick his balls off, then slipped behind him to put his bent form between herself and the sentry. Skerri recovered with surprising speed, turning to face her. Lenna drew back and launched herself at him, kicking with all her strength into the very center of his chest. Skerri was thrown backward, actually leaving the ground for most of his three-meter flight. He crashed back-first into the front of the sentry’s head, the pencil-thin barrels of its two smaller guns driving ten centimeters into his back. But he was dead already, his chest crushed by her kick.
Lenna had fallen sprawling to the ground, and she rolled to one side as bolts from the sentry’s larger cannons deflected off the floor where she had been. It shook its head violently to free itself of the burden of the body penned there. Lenna had hoped to slip around behind it, but now she was hopelessly trapped between the two launch tubes. The sentry tracked her darting movements with its head until it had her, and fired.
The protective flarings on both of the sentry’s forward guns were blocked with thick blood, and the bolts discharged within the focusing lenses before they could cut through those barriers, causing the head of the unfortunate machine to explode. However, as Velmeran had discovered a couple of years before, that was only a minor complication to the normal function of a sentry. The headless machine staggered blindly as it sought its prey by the infrared scanners on its chest.
Lenna dived over the top of the launch tube, using that for shelter as she searched for her gun. The sentry fired two short bursts over her head as it continued to seek her. Then Bill was there, ramming the stricken sentry from behind to knock it off balance before discharging a round of bolts into its vulnerable lower hull. Lenna waited for the shooting to stop before she peered cautiously over the top of the tube.
“Thank you, Bill. Nice work,” she said, climbing over the protective barrier. Then she saw the broken body of Lieutenant Skerri where it had been tossed aside. For a moment she allowed herself the privilege of turning pale, just as she had those times in the chilly streets of Kallenes. Half of it was from the sudden awareness that she had killed this man herself, half from the realization that it had nearly been herself. For a moment she wanted to sit down and cry, but this was hardly the time or place. You wanted to be a Starwolf, Miss Makayen, and so you are, she reminded herself. This is just the ugly part of the business.
“They are dead,” Bill said helpfully, no doubt meaning to be reassuring.
“Sure, and that’s what bothers me about it,” Lenna said. “I’d better seal this up to make sure that it works the way we want, then we’ll be on our way. Think you can get us back to the airlock where we first met?”
“Yes, that is a simple matter.”
“Don here,” Commander Trace responded, speaking into his com unit as he sat down wearily on the step. “Is that you, Kea?”
“Yes, Commander. Fifty minutes from your mark.”
Donalt Trace sighed and nodded in dismal agreement to no one in particular. “Wait five more minutes and order a general evacuation from the power core. Seal up the core completely, from one end of the ship to the other. We haven’t found the slightest hint of tampering, much less a bomb. No wonder he was so sure of himself.”
He paused a moment to watch the workers swarming over the surface of the power core, surrounding it in a ring that moved slowly forward. There were fifty live workers and twice as many automatons. In the last three-quarters of an hour they had removed nearly two thousand access panels.
“Go ahead and bypass the power core for the secondary power grid,” he continued. “That way we won’t be caught by surprise when the core blows. If I guess right, you’ll see the Methryn show her broken nose just about the time the thing goes. Draw her in as close as you can; this time we don’t want her getting away.”
“Right,” Maeken agreed. “By the way, that stunned sentry just attacked and destroyed another down in the lower decks. I would like to know how the Starwolf did that. Do you have the device?”
“Well, I…” Trace looked as stunned as the automaton in question.
“Surely you did search him for the device?” Maeken asked.
“I was too preoccupied with worrying about that damned bomb!”
“No wonder he was so sure that he could escape whenever he wants. No doubt he’s been waiting for the core to blow. I suggest…”
“On my way!” Trace assured her as he jumped from the steps and headed for the nearest lift, suddenly very afraid that the little Starwolf had escaped him again. He was actually startled to see Velmeran still seated impatiently on his stool, the alert sentries still standing guard. He stopped short, regarding the mildly surprised captive before arrogantly walking over to hold out an impatient hand.
“There is the matter of the little device that you use to stun my sentries,” he explained. “You should have used it when you had the chance.”
Velmeran’s first reaction was one of complete confusion, but that demand had been fairly self-explanatory and he needed only an instant to figure things out. After a brief hesitation he opened his chestplate and removed a small rectangular device, nine centimeters by five and just over two thick, with several clip-in leads in the back. It looked very impressive, smaller than Trace had anticipated. Unfortunately for him, it was only the emergency power unit for the suit.
“Does this have the same effect on the airlock controls?” Trace asked.
“It has the same effect on a number of electronic devices, including such things as lifts and navigational guidance systems,” Velmeran answered truthfully. Of course, it had no effect on anything as far as he knew.
“Clever little machine,” Trace commented as he tucked it into his pocket. “Are you in any pain?”
“A little discomfort,” Velmeran answered. “An unavoidable part of rapid regeneration. I have nothing to take for it.”
“Oh? What would you need?”
Velmeran thought for a moment. “You might ask Dr. Wriestler if he has any pyridoxine.”
“Right away,” Trace promised as he left on his errand.
Velmeran watched until the door closed behind him, then quickly focused his thoughts on a nearby portion of the ship. Sherry?
I am just finishing, she responded immediately. I will be ready as soon as you can get here. Then I am on my way.
At least Velmeran hoped so. He closed his eyes as he concentrated fully on directing his talents. Half a minute passed before anything began to happen. Suddenly he felt his way begin to open. The lights dimmed, and the sentries reeled momentarily under a loss of power. And Velmeran simply vanished.
Only a matter of seconds passed before Commander Trace returned. He was halfway across the room before he noticed that the five attentive sentries were guarding an empty stool. He nearly tripped in his astonishment. There was only one way in and out of the room, and he had not been out of sight of that door. The sentries continued to stare at the stool as if their prisoner was still seated there, and Trace, startled and confused half out of his wits, walked over to the stool to confirm that the Starwolf was indeed gone.
“How did he escape?” he demanded of the nearest sentry. “You were ordered to shoot to kill if he left the stool.”
“I am aware of my orders,” the sentry reported concisely. “The prisoner did not leave the stool.”
“Well, he sure didn’t take it with him! Where did he go?”
“He vanished.”
Trace blinked in bemusement before realization set in. Velmeran must have had another device, stunning the entire group. This vanishing act sounded too much like that ‘I did not see anyone’ business. He turned and stalked from the room, only to be intercepted at the door by the physician.
“Here you are!” Wriestler said, thrusting a small plastic bottle containing several pills under the Sector Commander’s nose. Trace took the bottle and stared at it.
“What the hell is this?” He demanded.
“What you asked for,” Wriestler explained triumphantly. “Pyridoxine. Vitamin B6.”
Rifle in hand, Baress advanced cautiously to the single door leading into the auxiliary bridge and peered out. Consherra, seated at the main computer console, frowned without looking up. Baress was as regular as clockwork; in the last fifty-five minutes he had checked that door exactly fifty-five times.
“Velmeran should be coming in a few minutes,” she remarked. Her four hands were moving over two separate keyboards with lightning speed. “I just told him that I am finishing this up.”
“Right on time,” Baress remarked, consulting the chronometer built into one of the sleeves of his suit. “I wonder what Velmeran has been up to. Whatever he did, every sentry in this end of the ship took off at a run a long time ago and they never came back. For that matter, I wonder where he is.”
“Right behind you.”
Baress was so startled that he spun around and fired two shots from the powerful rifle into the ceiling overheard, and even Consherra nearly fell out of her chair. Velmeran, looking very pale and worn, sat in the Captain’s seat, staring apprehensively at the smoking holes in the ceiling immediately over his head.