David Weber - In Enemy Hands

"Then go get 'em, Sir!" he said, and thumped the youngster on the shoulder.

Carson Clinkscales gathered himself and bent to step through the service hatch Senior Chief Harkness and Captain McKeon had opened for him. It was more of a fast, awkward crawl than a "step," really—something that had to be done quickly, lest someone happening along the passage see him and wonder what he thought he was doing—and he stumbled on the hatch coaming. He flung out an arm to catch his balance, half-hopping and half-falling across the narrow passage, and for one dreadful instant the memory of every awkward, humiliating disaster of his adolescence seemed like a garrote about his throat. In that instant, he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was going to screw this one up, as well, and when he did, all the people counting on him would die.

But then his outstretched hand smacked into the bulkhead opposite the service hatch and he caught himself. Panic hammered in the back of his brain, but there was no time for that, and he ground it under a ruthless mental boot heel. He couldn't do anything about the rapidity of his pulse, yet he straightened his spine and squared his shoulders as he pushed away from the bulkhead which had arrested his fall. He tugged at his tunic sleeves—Johnson's arms had been shorter than his—and looked casually in both directions, and his pulse slowed just a fraction as he realized there was no on in sight.

Well, there shouldn't be anyone down here, he told himself. This passage was normally used only to service the docking and umbilical arms of Boat Bay Four. If small craft operations had been underway, there would have been an excellent chance of running into someone, but there were no launch orders on the schedule Harkness had pulled out of the main computers. Even if there had been, they wouldn't have used Bay Four... unless Cordelia Ransom had decided for some reason that she had to make an all-up assault landing on StateSec's own prison planet.

Clinkscales actually felt himself grin at the thought, then drew a deep breath and moved off with a calm expression and a steady tread which he found distantly surprising... and which anyone else who had ever known him would have found amazing.

Andreas Venizelos looked at the bulkhead in front of him, then down at the memo board's display, and muttered a venomous curse. Andrew LaFollet's head snapped around at the sound, and the focused purpose in the armsman's gray eyes hit Venizelos like a fist. That purpose came dangerously close to desperation—if it stopped short of that at all—and Venizelos reached out to grip the other man's shoulder hard.

"We're doing the best we can, Andrew," he said quietly. "Don't you go taking any stupid chances on me. I need you, and so does Lady Harrington."

LaFollet nodded curtly, but his eyes held Venizelos', demanding an explanation for the commander's curse, and the Manticoran sighed.

"There's a discrepancy in the schematic," he explained. He took his left hand from LaFollet's shoulder to point at the alloy which turned the ventilation duct in which they stood into a "T" intersection. "According to the plans, that ought to be a four-way intersection, and the one in front of us ought to lead right to the brig. As it is—"

He shrugged, and LaFollet's grip tightened on his heavy flechette gun. "So which way do we go instead?" he asked harshly, and Venizelos pointed to the right.

"That way. But it looks like they did an even more thorough job of sealing the brig off from the rest of the hull than Harkness thought. This—" he nodded once more at the bulkhead that shouldn't be there "—must've been an add-on. I'm guessing that when they decided to hand Tepes over to StateSec, they decided to cut off all the cross connected ventilation shafts as an additional security measure. They could probably get away with that, because this section backs right up against one of their environmental plants. All they'd really need is supply and return ducting to that; anything on this side of the brig would be part of the distribution system for the rest of the ship. But if they were paranoid enough to seal ventilation ducts, you can bet they did the same with the service ways."

"Which means?" LaFollet demanded.

The armsman hated being dependent on someone else to plan his Steadholder's rescue, and it showed. But despite all the time he'd spent aboard starships with Lady Harrington, this wasn't his area of expertise. It was Andreas Venizelos', and Venizelos recognized fury born of devotion when he heard it. He kept his own voice calmer and more level than he'd really believed he could and squeezed LaFollet's shoulder again.

"Which means we're not going to be able to sneak in on them the way Harkness did on our guards," he said, and punched buttons on the memo board. The display shifted scale, losing detail but showing a much wider area, and he pointed into it. "We're going to have to cross this passage here to the lift, then take the shaft down a deck to the brig. If they're on their toes, they may have cameras in the shaft, in which case they'll be waiting for us. We know they've got cameras in the cars , but Harkness didn't turn up any sign that the shafts themselves are wired. If they aren't, we should still have the advantage of surprise, but we'll be going in blind whatever we do."

"Um." LaFollet grunted, chewing unhappily on the implications of a blind assault against an unknown number of enemies. Venizelos hadn't had to tell him the change in route was going to put them behind schedule, either. Using the lift shaft should help a little in that regard—it would certainly be faster than moving the same distance through these cramped tunnels—but he didn't like coming into the brig from the most predictable direction. The advantage of surprise should make up for a lot, assuming they actually had that advantage when the moment came, but it was still going to be iffy.

"All right, Commander," he said after a moment. "We'll do it that way, but give your flechette gun to Bob." Venizelos' eyebrows rose in question, and LaFollet bared his teeth in a grimace no one would ever mistake for a smile. "He'll trade you his pulser, but when we hit the brig, you and Commander McGinley will bring up the rear." Venizelos started to open his mouth, but LaFollet cut him off with a brusque gesture. "You and she are naval officers. You'll be more useful if it comes to picking alternate ways out of here than me, Jamie, or Bob, so if we have to lose someone—"

Venizelos didn't like it a bit, but LaFollet's logic was unanswerable. So instead of protesting, he slid the flechette gun's sling off his shoulder to hand it to Robert Whitman.

Carson Clinkscales walked briskly up the narrow passage, and the hatch at its end opened at his approach. He strode through it, trying to look completely at ease... and hoping no one would wonder what a ground force trooper had been doing wandering around down amid the controls for the docking arms.

There were twenty or thirty people in the bay gallery. It looked as if some of them were carrying out routine maintenance on the pinnace at the head of the bay, and two or three men in flight suits stood in idle conversation near the docking tube that led to one of the enormous armored assault shuttles which filled the rest of the bay. Clinkscales glanced around casually, trying to get his bearings quickly. Harkness had briefed him as well as he could, but actually picking up the access slot without ever having been here before was harder than he'd expected.

There it was! He turned a bit to his left and walked onward, reaching into his tunic for the minicomp which Harkness had turned into such a lethal weapon. He pulled it out with a calm he was far from feeling, and the display blinked as the coupling mated with the slot and the connection brought the minicomp on-line.