In Enemy Hands

"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 Honors 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 tu

"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 ru

"All right, then," McKeon said, and pulled out a hand com. Half an hour ago, it had belonged to Citizen Sergeant I

"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 ru

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.

"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 ru

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 boards 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 mans 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."