In Enemy Hands

"So they've got complete control of whatever’s left?" McKeon asked.

"Just about, Sir. I don't think they can break my lock on that lift..." he pointed to the intact lift doors through which no attack had yet come "...and there's no software left down here in the bay itself. But give 'em another forty, fifty minutes, and they're go

He broke off with a shrug, and McKeon nodded grimly.

"Now remember, Ma'am," Venizelos said, his voice low and urgent as they crouched just inside a ventilation grate, "if Harkness pulled it off, that lift'll be waiting when we get there."

Honor nodded. Their journey through the bowels of the ship had been too rushed for Venizelos to give her many details on Harkness' achievements, but he'd managed to hit the high points, and she was astounded by how thoroughly the senior chief had worked this all out. The fact that StateSec had seen fit to maintain outdated files where the brig area was concerned had thrown a monkey wrench into a part of his plans, but that was hardly his fault. And if the rest of them hadn't been working, so far, at least, the Peeps would already have reasserted control of their computers... in which case it would all be over by now.

But if it wasn't going to be over, anyway, they had to get to the boat bay, quickly. Andy and Marcia were right about that, and she leaned back against the wall of the duct, panting for breath and hoping none of the others realized how exhausted she was. The weight and muscle tone she'd lost during her confinement dragged at her like an anchor, and she forced her eyes open and gave her people, her friends, one of her half-smiles.

"At least I shouldn't have any trouble remembering the code," she said, and Venizelos surprised her with a genuine chuckle, for Harkness had used her birthday. She had no idea how he'd happened to remember it, but the senior chief was turning out to be full of surprises.

"All right," Venizelos said, and looked at LaFollet. "Andrew?"

"We go down the passage in single file," the armsman said. "I take point, then Lady Harrington, Commander McGinley, and you. Here, My Lady." He handed the memo board to Honor to take his flechette gun in a two-handed grip.

"You're sure of the route?" she asked.

"Positive." LaFollet took one hand from the gun long enough to tap his temple. "And I want you to have the map if something..."

He shrugged, and she nodded, heart aching for the risks these people, and Jamie Candless and Bob Whitman, had taken for her. She wanted to say something, to thank them, but there was no time and she didn't have the words, anyway. And so she only smiled at her armsman and put an arm around each of her staff officers, hugging them briefly.

"All right," she said then, gathering her own weapon back up. "Let's be about it."

"Warden Tresca thanks you for your warning, Citizen Admiral," Harrison Fraiser reported. "However, he thinks you may be overly alarmed, and he's confident Tepes' crew will soon regain control of their vessel. In the meantime, he's ready to deal with any small craft which may attempt to launch."

"Oh, that's just wonderful!" This time the mutter came from Sha

"How so, Sha

"Well, I was just thinking, Sir," the ops officer replied. "He says he can deal with any small craft that try to launch, right?" The People's commissioner nodded, and Foraker shrugged. "I'd be more reassured by that if they didn't already have at least one small craft, and an armed one, at that, in space." Honeker quirked an eyebrow, and Foraker sighed. "Sir," she said gently, "where else could the missiles that killed Charon's shuttle flight have come from?"

"Go!"

LaFollet kicked the grate loose and charged out after it, and his flechette gun coughed twice before Honor was out on his heels. Only one of his victims had the chance to scream, and then the armsman was ru

It was hard for her to keep up with him, despite her longer legs. Her heart pounded and her working eye blurred with strain as she fought to match his pace, but it took everything she had, and she cursed her long imprisonment and poor diet. She heard McGinley on her heels, and Venizelos after her, and then her blood ran cold as someone shouted behind all of them. Pulsers whined and flechette guns coughed, and despite herself, she turned her head to see Venizelos peel off as he rounded a bend. Her feet tried to stop, fighting to go back to him, but McGinley charged into her from behind.

"Go!" the ops officer screamed, and Honor knew she was right, and her legs obeyed her staffer, but oh how her mind cried out against it, and then Venizelos was down on one knee, and the last thing she ever saw of him he was firing steadily, calmly, like a man picking off targets in a gallery, covering her retreat while she ran and left him to die.

More fire echoed, from ahead this time, and she half-stumbled over a body. For a terrifying instant she thought it was LaFollet, but then she saw the StateSec uniform and knew her armsman had killed whoever it was on the run. As he was killing more people.

LaFollet had saved her life once before, from assassins, he and Jamie Candless and Eddy Howard, but Honor had been too stu

He ran quickly, smoothly, head turning in metronome arcs to sweep the passage ahead of him. He carried the heavy flechette gun at his hip, the sling over his shoulder to steady it, and his finger stroked the trigger in elegant, precise bursts as astonished Peeps popped up before him, attracted by the clangor of battle exploding in their very midst. He was a wizard of death, dispatching his sorcery in the lethal patterns of his flechettes, for he was fighting for his Steadholder’s life and anyone who crossed his path was doomed.

And then he rounded the last bend and shouted in triumph as he reached the lift doors at last.

He spun back the way he'd come, waving Honor past him to enter the command code, and he and Marcia McGinley crouched on either side of the passage down which they'd come, pouring fire back up it. Heavier weapons were snarling back, now, and as Honor hammered the lift button, she heard the distinctive, ear-splitting devastation of a tribarrel slicing bulkheads like a bandsaw.

The doors opened and she leapt through them, stabbing at the panel. Lights flickered on the display, then burned steadily, confirming that Harkness' control of the lift still held, and she turned back towards her friends. "Come on!" she shouted. "Come on!" McGinley heard her and wheeled, teeth bared in a huge smile of triumph as she ran for the lift... and then she seemed to trip in midair, and her torso exploded as the tribarrel sawed through the bulkhead, and Honor screamed in useless denial.

"Go, My Lady!" LaFollet shouted, slamming his final magazine into the flechette gun. "Go now!"

He went down on one knee, firing desperately, firing like Jamie had, like Robert and Venizelos and Marcia, and Honor couldn't leave him. She couldn't!