Eric Flint - Threshold

Since he'd basically eliminated any possibility of a traitor on boardOdin, that left only one answer. A.J. Baker. Horst had spent more than enough time around Baker to know that in some ways he'd underestimated the sensor genius. Yes, A.J. was not quite his equal in the programming arena, especially the systems programming that Horst focused on, but he was as smart as his reputation made him out to be, and the Faerie Dust he had was beyond cutting edge and right on the bleeding edge of capability. Faerie Dust. Horst sat up as a possibility burst in on him. They had security procedures, of course, but with the capabilities of that Dust, Baker could have smuggled some on boardOdin by using the personnel as unwitting mules. You'd practically have to examine each person as they entered under a microscope to have a chance of detecting the stuff. Self-powered and self-mobile, the motes could hide and might well be able to spoof many forms of sensors if properly programmed-and there was no one in the solar system who knew more about programming such things than A.J.

Baker. But, again, that theory fell under the weight of his own argument, given to Fitzgerald months-no, well over a year ago. It would be totally out of character for Baker to do something like that.

After the fact of the attack, yes, he might be able-make that, hewould be able-to justify doing it as a wartime necessity, but not while everyone was cooperating. It would be a temptation, but one that Baker would resist. Yet it made so much sense otherwise. It was the ideal answer-if Horst could only figure out a way that the Faerie Dust could have made it all the way toOdin without anyone noticing. It was the exact phrasing of that thought-placing the Dust itself in the active role-that suddenly crystallized his thoughts into a clear and perfect vision of what had happened. He laughed aloud, both in relief that he understood and in the sheer devilish brilliance of the approach. At that moment, the speaker overhead suddenly spoke in the general's voice: "Attention all personnel. Attention all personnel." The words were filled with tension and anger. "TheOdin is currently under-" The silence that followed was objectively no different than the silence that preceded those cryptic lines, but it now seemed filled with menace. What was going on out there? Horst stood in the middle of the little room, tense and uneasy. Without warning, the door slid open, revealing Dominic Alescio, one of Fitzgerald's men, holding one of the specially-modified shotguns designed for shipboard use. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, adrenaline stretching every perception to breaking limits. That was the last horrid piece of the puzzle, and in that moment Horst Eberhart knew he was going to die, as Alescio, without so much as a change in expression, began to pull the trigger. Barreling in from the rear, a third figure plowed into Alescio. The gun went off, the explosion deafening in the confined space, and shot ricocheted and whined like a cloud of enraged bees throughout the room. One pellet grazed Horst's cheek, but his location in an adjoining but separate room had shielded him. From the cries of the other two, both combatants had gotten worse. Horst Eberhart charged from the tiny cell toward the others. With shock he recognized the bloodied form now underneath Alescio as Anthony LaPointe. Alescio, also bleeding but clearly in far better shape than the astronomer, rolled aside just before Eberhart reached him and came to his feet, trying to bring the gun to bear. But Horst was close, he was furious, and he was younger and faster. He was also very strong. Before the other man could pull the trigger or even get the shotgun decently lined up, Eberhart smashed the gun aside and slammed a full-strength right into Alescio's gut. The shock of impact screamed red agony through his fist-of course the guard was wearing armor. Still, the impact was enough to make Alescio grunt in pain and stagger backward, trying to get into a combat stance. Horst ripped the gun out of Alescio's hand and spun it around, pulling the trigger. Nothing happened. Nothing except that Alescio, bloodied and furious, started backing Horst up with a series of kicks and punches that the engineer could barely ward off even with the gun as a makeshift shield. Idiot! he snarled to himself. The guns were individualized, with a personal-characteristic lock; if the wrong person or persons were to get hold of the weapons, they were useless. As guns, anyway. Horst took a kick to his own gut which made him glad he hadn't eaten anything recently, but he'd known it was coming. In the moment of contact, he brought the gun barrel down. Alescio gave a high-pitched scream as the metal barrel shattered his kneecap. Horst jumped back and stared incredulously as the other man somehow tried to shrug off the pain and move in on him again. But the pain and injury to his knee-as well as other wounds from the earlier ricochets-slowed him by too much. This time the gun barrel cracked heavily against Alescio's temple. He went down like a dropped sack of potatoes and didn't move.

Horst paused a moment, breathing hard and letting some of the shaking die down. He was lucky this had happened in the habitat section ofOdin . Without gravity, he was pretty sure he'd have lost the fight. He thought he felt the deck quiver under his feet, but there was no way to be sure right now. He went over to LaPointe. "Anthony, are you crazy?" "So it is crazy to be rescuing your friends? Then, yes, I am completely mad." The English-French astronomer's left arm was bleeding profusely from multiple holes; clearly he'd taken the edge of the initial shot. There were several other small wounds, mostly on his scalp and face, that Horst presumed were the result of ricochets.

Fortunately, most of the energy had been lost by those projectiles before striking LaPointe. Only one of them was bleeding, and not badly. The other ricochet wounds were bruises. Horst bound the arm tightly, tying a tourniquet high up on the bicep. The bleeding appeared to stop. "Thank you, Anthony. I would have been dead." "That is exactly what I was afraid of once I saw Fitzgerald had taken off.

So I left the bridge and came here as fast as I could. It did not take a genius to know what he would want done to you." He grunted in pain as Horst pulled him upright, but he stood reasonably steadily. "So it's happening. I can't believe it." Horst peered out of the doors. No one in sight at the moment. "We've got to get to your cabin, then find out how we can help the general… unless he's working with Fitzgerald?" "No, not a chance. He was about to make a deal with theNebula Storm that would have saved the mission-but not, obviously, Fitzgerald's career. In fact, the bastard would probably have wound up serving a long prison sentence once we returned." Now, there was a pleasant surprise. Too bad he didn't have time for the story yet.

"Then let's see what we can do to make sure that happens. Can you keep up?" "I think I shall have to. Lead on." Gun still gripped in his hand, since it was the best club he had available, Horst Eberhart moved out into the corridors of the mutiny-wrackedOdin.

Chapter 36 "Either help me or get out of the way, Svendsen,"

Fitzgerald said. "Or I'll bloody well have you shot." The Norwegian engineer glared at him. "You can't afford to shoot me." Say whatever else you would about Svendsen, she was not cowardly-and there was enough truth in her statement that Richard wasn't about to kill her casually. He sighed as he continued to maneuver the heavy cylinders toward the loading area. If it had been in an area with acceleration, he'd have needed forklifts and assistants. As it was, he had to be careful not to end up crushed by them. "You're right. I can't quite be shooting you when I'll be needing the engineering talent to run this beast," he conceded. "But Ican have my boys work you over and lock you in a closet. Which I'll do if you don't either help or sit down and shut up, because I have to get this done fast." He had no doubt that Baker and the rest of the Ares crew were working hard to shut down the coilguns. Mia Svendsen glared again and looked like she was going to spit at him. Instead, she settled for something presumably insulting in Norwegian before strapping herself into one of the seats-away from any critical controls. He nodded at Johnson, currently the only other person present to keep Engineering secure. There were about a hundred people on boardOdin, and he had less than ten percent of them on his side. Admittedly, they had all the weapons and most of the combat training, but right now things were stretched really, really thin. He glanced at Mia again and shrugged. I could have used the help but I suppose it's just as well; she might have tried to bugger things up at just the wrong moment. And withthese loads for the coilguns, it would not be a good thing to have anyone screw up. The other concern was Eberhart. Poor Alescio was still out, so no one knew exactly what had happened. But it was clear that either he'd screwed up and somehow Eberhart had gotten the drop on him-unlikely, in Fitzgerald's opinion-or that someone else had arrived in time to turn a simple execution into a fight. Since no one had reported securing LaPointe, Fitzgerald was willing to bet that it was the astronomer who'd buggered up that little part of the plan. But the most critical thing was theNebula Storm. She had the data, and in a few hours she'd be transmitting it. The whole mission would then be over-unless she never transmitted. I'll bet you think you're nice and safe, thousands of kilometers away. Well, old Richard and his friends have a few more surprises for you. Weaponry had been one of his specialties from way back, in his days in the military. As soon as he recognized the limitations of the coilgun, he'd had people looking for ways to at least minimize those. And then he'd tailored the best ideas for application in the scenarios he thought might eventually emerge. It was nice when your careful planning paid off in the end.