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She fell silent for a moment, brooding down at the table once more, then shook herself.
"The point is, these aren't rational people. They don't even live in the same galaxy as the rest of us. I can't build a nice, neat enemy intentions analysis, but from what we've seen of them so far, I think—no, I know —they won't change now."
"Not even if the Peeps pull Thunder of God out on them?"
"Now that," Honor admitted, "is the one thing that might stop them. But the question is whether or not the PRH can pull her out, and after what happened at Blackbird, I'm not too optimistic on that point." She shook her head again. "No, I think she's coming. And if she is, we should be seeing her soon. Very soon."
CHAPTER THIRTY
Cramming them in had been even harder than Yu had expected. Every spare compartment was packed to the deckhead with Masadan soldiers and their personal weapons. A man couldn't turn around without stepping on one of them, and Yu would be vastly relieved when he off-loaded the first consignment.
Their numbers put a strain on Thunder's environmental plant, as well, which was what had prompted the current meeting. Yu, Commander Valentine, and Lieutenant Commander DeGeorge, Thunder's purser, sat in the captain's day cabin, going over the figures, and DeGeorge was an unhappy man.
"The worst thing, Skipper, is that most of them don't even have vac suits. If we suffer an enviro failure, it's going to be ugly. Very ugly."
"Stupid bastards," Valentine grunted. Yu gave him a reproving glance, but he couldn't get much voltage into it, and the engineer shrugged. "All they had to do was put them into vac suits for the trip, Skipper. Their equipment sucks, and the poor pricks would've been miserable, but at least they'd have it with them!" He scowled. "And another thing. We're taking all these ground pukes out to their asteroid bases, right?" Yu nodded, and Valentine shrugged again. "Well, don't tell me they've got this many spare suits in stores out there!"
Yu frowned at that, for the engineer was right. They were hauling all these men out to hostile environment bases, and there wasn't a single vac suit among them. That was unusually stupid even for Masadans, and he wondered why that fact hadn't occurred to him sooner.
"Well, anyway," DeGeorge said, "I'm keeping a close eye on the enviro monitors, and we're okay so far. I just hope we stay there!"
George Ma
He checked the time. They were ru
"Com, contact Base Three and update our ETA."
"Aye, Sir," Lieutenant Hart, his Masadan com officer replied, and something about the man's response nudged at Ma
Hart seemed unaware of his scrutiny. He leaned to his left to bring up his com laser software, and Ma
The exec made himself look away. He might be wrong about what that shape was, but he didn't think so. Of course, even if he wasn't, there could be another explanation for its presence. Hart might be overcompensating for his own anxieties, or it might be a simple case of aberration, a single man about to snap under the strain. That would have been terrifying enough in the close confines of the bridge, but Ma
He pressed a stud on his intercom panel.
"Captain speaking," a voice said, and Ma
"Commander Ma
Alfredo Yu's face froze at the word "bounty." His eyes snapped up to his companions' faces, and he saw exactly the same shock looking back at him. He couldn't think for a moment, only feel the pit of his stomach falling away into infinite distance, but then his brain began to work again.
"Understood, Mr. Ma
"I'm afraid I can't get away just now, Sir." Ma
"Very well, George," he said. "Thank you for informing me."
"You're welcome, Sir," Ma
"Jesus, Skipper!" Valentine began in an urgent voice, "we can't leave George up there by him—"
"Shut up, Jim." The very lack of emotion in Yu's voice only made it more terrible, and Valentine closed his mouth with a click. The captain shut his eyes in thought, and his subordinates sat in tight-faced silence.
Yu felt their fear and cursed his own complacency. He'd been so damned pleased when all Simonds wanted to do was reinforce his asteroid garrisons! Why in hell hadn't he thought about what putting that many more armed Masadans aboard Thunder could mean?!
Panic threatened, but he fought it back. At least George had been more alert than he had, yet his contingency plans had never contemplated having this many armed hostiles aboard. Barely a third of Thunder's regular crew were still Havenite; with all the Masadan soldiers packed aboard, they were outnumbered by over five-to-one.
He stood and crossed quickly to the hatch, opened it, and drew a deep breath of relief as he saw the Marine sentry in the corridor. The corporal looked up as the hatch slid open, then stiffened as Yu beckoned to him. He stepped closer, and the captain pitched his voice very low.
"Get to Major Bryan, Marlin. Tell him it's Condition Bounty."
Yu hated to send the corporal in person, but he had no choice. He'd managed to hang onto his original Marine officers and most of his noncoms, and every one of them had been briefed on Bounty, but almost half Thunder's enlisted Marines were Masadans, and they had the same personal com units as Yu's loyalists. If they were in on this (and they had to be) and one of them heard Marlin passing coded messages ...
Corporal Marlin's face went white, but then he nodded, braced to attention, and marched briskly down the passage. Yu watched him go, hoping they had enough time for him to reach Bryan, and then withdrew into his cabin.
He thumbed a wall locker security plate, and the door swung open as the sca
"We're in deep shit here, Jim. I don't see any way we can hold the ship after I let the fuckers fill us right up." The engineer's nod was jerky but not panicked, and Yu went on grimly. "That means we have to cripple her."
"Aye, Sir." Valentine slid his tunic back on over his own shoulder harness and started shoveling magazines into his pockets.
"Who's got the Engineering watch?"
"Workman," Valentine replied in disgust, and Yu's face tightened.
"All right. You're going to have to get in there somehow and throw the fusion plants into emergency shutdown. Can you do it?"