David Weber - In Enemy Hands

The captain looked back out into the passage at the bloody footprints stretching from the console to within less than two meters of the compartment hatch. He stared at them for a moment, then drew a deep breath and returned his attention to Harkness.

"In that case, pass the combinations to Commander Venizelos and let him get them open while you tell me just what the hell it is we're doing, Senior Chief," he invited.

"—so that's about it," Harkness said, looking around at the men and women who'd been released from their prisons. Aside from five of the noncoms, he was junior to every one of them, but he had their undivided attention. Especially that of Scotty Tremaine, who couldn't seem to take his glowing eyes off him. "I've got the security alarms shut down throughout most of the ship, and I've got the route to the boat bay mapped, but I couldn't set timers on any of my surprises because I couldn't tell how long it'd take us to get ready. That means we'll have to send the activation code once we're in position, and that means someone's gonna have to get my 'puter here into an access slot at the right time. And I couldn't get into the systems that control the brig area, either. That's the highest security area of the ship, and their computers are stand-alones. There's no direct interface between there and the main system, and just getting there physically's going to be a bitch, Captain. We can do it, but if the brig detail gets time to hit an alarm button, it's gonna go off, 'cause I can't get to it to stop it."

"Understood." McKeon rubbed his chin, looking around at the twenty-six frightened, grimly determined faces clustered around him and Harkness. As a professional naval officer, he thought the senior chief's plan had to be the most insane thing he'd ever heard of, but the really crazy thing about it was that it might just work.

"All right, we're going to have to split up," he said after a moment. "Chief, give Commander Venizelos the memo board."

Harkness nodded and handed over the memo board he'd taken from the security console. He'd downloaded the plans of Tepes ' air ducts and service ways to it, and he tapped a recall key as Venizelos took it from him.

"We're right here, Sir," he said as the display flashed. "I've highlighted what looks like the best route to the brig, but I'm not sure how accurate the plans are. These fuckers are real paranoids, and I've hit a few places where I'm pretty sure they deliberately incorporated disinformation into their own computers. And even if this—" he twitched the board "—is all a hundred percent, you're gonna have to move fast to make it before the shit hits the fan."

"Understood, Senior Chief." Venizelos gazed down at the display for a minute, then looked back at McKeon. "Who else?" he asked simply.

"I'm going to need Scotty, Sarah, and Gerry in the boat bay," McKeon thought aloud. "And Carson, of course." Ensign Clinkscales blushed as all eyes turned to him. He felt conspicuous and odd in the StateSec uniform, but he was the only person for whom Johnson's clothing was anything like a proper fit, and that was going to be important in the boat bay. McKeon stood a moment, rubbing an eyebrow, then sighed.

"I'm coming at this the wrong way. There's no point sending anyone after the Commodore without a gun, and we don't have enough of them to go around, anyway." He thought a second longer, then nodded. "All right, Andy. You, LaFollet, Candless, Whitman—" Alistair McKeon knew better than to try excluding any of Honor's armsmen "—and McGinley. That's six. We'll give you three of the flechette guns and three pulsers. That'll leave one flechette and three pulsers for the break-in to the boat bay."

"Will that give you enough firepower?" Venizelos asked anxiously.

"We shouldn't need much for the actual break-in, Commander," Harkness reassured him. "And if we get in in the first place, we'll have plenty of guns to hold it."

"All right, then," McKeon said, with a sharp, decisive nod, and smiled grimly. "As Dame Honor would say, people, 'Let's be about it.' "

Thirty-one minutes later, McKeon and Harkness stood panting for breath in a lift shaft with Carson Clinkscales. Scotty Tremaine stood with them, the grim lines which had etched themselves into his face over the past month still evident but no longer harsh and old, and the rest of their party was spread down the shaft behind them in a long line, bodies pressed into the inspection tunnels that grooved its walls. At least a dozen lift cars had passed them during their cautious journey, but none of those cars' passengers had suspected what was moving along the shaft beyond the thin walls of their conveyances. Now McKeon rested a hand on the ensign's shoulder and looked him in the eye.

"Are you up for this, Carson?" he asked quietly, and Clinkscales nodded. It was a choppy, abrupt nod, but there was a strange maturity to it. Carson Clinkscales was still young, but only physically. The last month had burned the youthfulness out of him, and a corner of McKeon's brain wondered if it would ever return. He hoped so... but at the moment, what mattered was that the hard-eyed young man in front of him was no longer the awkward and uncertain kid he'd been aboard Jason Alvarez and Prince Adrian .

"Yes, Sir," the ensign replied, unaware of the thoughts running through his senior's mind.

"All right, then," McKeon said, and pulled out a hand com. Half an hour ago, it had belonged to Citizen Sergeant Innis, and using it constituted a risk, though not an enormous one. All personal communications aboard Tepes were recorded as yet one more of StateSec's precautionary measures, and it was remotely possible one of the recording techs would actually be listening in and overhear what McKeon was about to say. But that was a chance they had to take, and he punched in the combination of the com which had once belonged to Citizen Corporal Porter.

"Yes?" Andreas Venizelos answered almost instantly, and McKeon glanced at Harkness and Clinkscales.

"The present is here," he told Venizelos. "Is your part of the party ready?"

"We need another ten minutes," Venizelos replied, and McKeon frowned. It would be better to wait until the chief of staff's group was actually in position, but every passing minute added to the chance that McKeon's own group would be discovered... or that someone would discover one of the bodies Harkness had left in his wake. And even if he moved right this instant, it would probably take close to ten minutes to put his own part of the operation into action. The problem, of course, was that as soon as either group moved, the fact that escaped prisoners were running around the ship would become quickly evident to Tepes ' crew.

He thought for ten silent seconds, then sighed. There wasn't really much choice.

"We'll make delivery on schedule, then," he said.

"Understood," Venizelos responded, and McKeon killed the circuit and nodded to Harkness, who handed Clinkscales the minicomp. The senior chief hated the very thought of letting it out of his hands, but he had no choice. Even if every single member of their party had been armed, the odds against successfully storming a single boat bay, even with total surprise, would have been astronomical, and they needed control of all of Tepes ' bays for this to work. And, unfortunately, there was only one way to pull that off.

"Now look here, Mr. Clinkscales," he said in exactly the same calm voice he'd used to generations of junior officers. "All you've got to do is walk into the bay, slide the 'puter into the slot, and hit this function key here. That'll transmit Johnson's access code, log you onto the system, and then execute the programs, got it?"

"Got it, Senior Chief," Clinkscales replied, and Harkness blinked at the sober steadiness of the response. This kid sounded like he meant business , and that was good.