Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

Wolf, the commando leader hired by Ivan Kerikov, whose real name was Wolfgang Schmidt, stood behind her as she sat in the Master’s chair. The flap of his holster was undone and tucked back so that he could reach his automatic in just a fraction of a second. A helmsman held onto the dual controls of the ship’s wheel while a navigation officer stooped over the plotting table, trying hard to ignore the terrorists. George Patroni knelt into an open access panel under the bridge’s main console, his buttocks half exposed like a suburban plumber as he traced a wiring fault. The ship’s electrician was bent down next to him. Another of Wolf’s men watched them closely, his eyes squinting in the vermilion gloom of the vessel’s night lights. His Uzi dangled at his hip.

The Southern Cross’ throttle controls were still out. However, Patroni and his men had been able to jury-rig a tank monitoring system, scavenging components from equipment that Riggs had deemed unimportant. Their work had been nothing short of miraculous considering the time constraints put upon them and the constant threat of death if they failed. Getting the throttles back in order was their last task, and it was one that Patroni was going to take his time completing. With the help of the electrician, he’d already delayed the system’s restoration by several hours, intentionally shorting it out so that a wave of white smoke billowed from under the console. He’d warned a wary Riggs that it might not be repairable, so she was not too concerned by the delays.

Patroni was on the bridge for another, more important reason; to launch Captain Hauser’s lifeboat. But the indicator lights and alarms for the boats were on the other side of the bridge from where he worked. He could fake it for only so long before Riggs became suspicious. She knew just how long Patroni would need to either fix the throttles or determine that the system was a write-off.

“Well, Patroni?” she rasped around a cigarette between her pursed lips.

“I’m sorry, but it may be a total loss. The main power bus is shot to hell, voltmeter’s showing zip through the whole system. This isn’t like the tank control unit that I could patch together; the throttles require specific replacement parts we don’t have.” Patroni stood, massaging his back and resettling his heavy testicles under his overalls in a deliberate taunt to Riggs.

“You will fix it,” Wolf said from the back of the bridge, menace sharpening every word.

George Patroni was reaching his limit with Wolf and Riggs and the rest of the terrorists. “You want this thing fixed?”

As he spoke, Patroni moved along the main console, opening up the cabinet doors to reveal the tangled mass of electronics within. To anyone other than him and the electrician, the wires, circuit boards, and other equipment were just an impenetrable forest without any indication of their function. “Well, come on over here and give it a try yourself. Have at it, you son of a bitch. No? Don’t think you can? Then get off my fucking back.”

Wolf gave no reaction, but the other commando rushed forward, gouging Patroni’s ribs with the barrel of his machine pistol. He looked to be only an instant away from pulling the trigger and tearing Patroni in two.

“Nein!” Wolf shouted.

Patroni hadn’t moved, seemingly oblivious to the gun held against him, a lazy smile still on his face. He stood before the open access door of the launch detection board. His hand was inches from the breaker that fed power to the panel.

The guard pulled back, tucking his Uzi against his side, arcing the weapon to cover the other crewmen. His eyes didn’t rest on one spot for more than a moment before flicking on. Everything he saw was a potential target.

JoAnn Riggs exploded off her chair, rushing across the bridge in just three quick strides, her right hand raised to strike Patroni. Although she hadn’t known the Chief Engineer long, she knew that this outburst wasn’t consistent with his personality. There was something odd going on. Wolf stepped forward just as the black radio clipped to his waist crackled.

“I think I’ve found somebody,” said a disembodied voice.

The electrician was the first to move; he spun up from his position on the floor, a heavy torque wrench in his fist. He let the tool fly. The shining chrome flashed as it sailed across the space between him and the trigger-happy guard. Wolf yanked his pistol from its holster and fired even before he was sure of his aim, but the nine-millimeter slug caught the electrician under his right arm, tearing through the pad of muscle, puncturing both lungs, and tearing his wildly beating heart into shreds.

Patroni’s reaction had been a fraction of a second quicker.

Hauser’s own life meant nothing. It was forfeit the moment his ship was seized, and in his final seconds he realized that and accepted it. The flare burned brightly as it bored its way into the man’s chest, blistering and bubbling his flesh as it ate him.

He was sickened by the sight of the dying terrorist, and nothing could have prepared him for the man’s unholy scream. The gunman couldn’t clutch at the burning wound in his chest. Even in his agony, his nervous system knew enough to keep his hands away from such intense heat. The temperature in the lifeboat skyrocketed from thirty degrees to one hundred and twenty degrees in a just a few seconds, hissing smoke filling the enclosed space with a noxious combination of charcoaled flesh and burned phosphorus.

From outside, the craft looked like a Japanese lantern, its toughened support struts standing out starkly against the crimson fire burning within. Smoke coiled from it only to be swept away by the stiff breeze created by the tanker’s forward momentum.

The terrorist had dropped his Colt.45 when the flare had tunneled into his chest, but unbelievably he began reaching for the Uzi slung around his neck, the molded plastic grip of the Israeli weapon fitting neatly to his hand. Even as he burned, even as his life boiled away, he raised the machine pistol, leaning forward so he was half in and half out of the life raft. His last act on earth would be to send a fusillade into his killer. The Uzi’s stubby barrel came up, his finger squeezing slowly, ready to send Lyle Hauser to oblivion.

The torque wrench hit the guard in the throat and his gun dipped before he could pull the trigger. Bullets raked across the bridge, shattering glass, chewing through the control panel, and destroying more of the delicate electronics within. Four holes appeared in the electrician’s chest and his already lifeless body was launched through the bullet-weakened main windscreen.

George Patroni was already in motion, oblivious to the destruction around him. He barreled into JoAnn Riggs, shouldering her aside even as she swung at him. Her hand connected with the back of his head and would have stunned a normal man, but Patroni was a man possessed. Even as nine-millimeter rounds sprayed the bridge, Patroni was tearing at the guts below the launch detection panel, pulling at wires and circuit boards, overriding the manual system and launching all three boats simultaneously. Frigid air blasted into the bridge, whipping away the smell of the discharged shots. Patroni’s shoulder block had dropped Riggs to the deck in an untidy tangle, where she frantically clutched his legs.

Wolf’s H amp;K spat once, then again, the second round no more than an afterthought as Patroni pitched forward, arms outstretched as he fell against the helmsman’s station, ragged holes blooming on his drab overalls like summer flowers. The helmsman was already dead, a chunk of his skull having vanished during the first seconds of the melee.

Patroni had planned to launch Hauser without anyone noticing. He could have done it so surreptitiously that it would have gone undetected until the next day or possibly never at all. He’d discussed it with the electrician, convincing the frightened man that the risk was worth it. JoAnn Riggs and her followers, he’d said, would never have suspected anything.