THEIR MASTER

Men readied their weapons, fully expecting an enemy ground attack. When none came, there was a distinct feeling of unease. It wasn't like the Yal to pass up any opportunity.

"If they can nuke that base, they can nuke this one."

An e-vac came down with is retros screaming. It looked as if it, too, had taken a beating from the nuclear shock wave. As soon as its landing legs touched, Rance sprang to his feet.

"Everybody up! Let's go! We're getting on that crate, and nobody's going to stop us."

Fifteen

The Anah 5 felt as if it were being torn apart, and maybe the whole universe along with it. The shields had already failed on two of the ships in the cluster, and those two were being battered to pieces by the guns of the Yal. The coordination that made the cluster a single entity had been lost. They were now thirteen solitary ships fighting for their individual survival. The Yal battleships had arrived ahead of schedule and before the cluster could jump to safety. The Anah 12 was slowly and majestically being turned into a shapeless cloud of gas and debris by a chain reaction of explosions. The shocks were felt on all the other ships. It was unlikely that there were survivors of any kind, but even if a few unfortunates remained drifting in space, nothing could be done for them. The green clouds of Yal fire came on relentlessly, and only three of the cluster ships had sufficient power to fire back.

None of the surviving troopers had thought much about what would happen when they actually arrived back on board. As they'd stormed onto the e-vac, gu

The bombardment began while Rance's troopers were just emerging from the blue room decontamination process. The ship shuddered, and the floor tilted. A number of men fell on their faces. There were muffled explosions in another part of the ship. Farther down the corridor, a duct burst and superheated steam roared from the breach. This in turn caused a short in a power transfer, and a shower of blue sparks cascaded through the clouds of swirling vapor. The ship lurched again, and there were more explosions. Smoke billowed down the corridor. Fire alarms were ringing. Rance clung to a doorjamb and tried to organize the men under his command. Their equipment was still on the conveyer, coming out of decontamination. Without a helmet, it was hard to make himself heard.

"Everyone suit up!"

The ship now seemed to be tilting steeply toward the bow. Rance knew that this was probably a localized illusion. The floor grav control in this sector had probably been jarred off line, and no one had yet managed to reset it. The knowledge didn't make the experience any easier to stand.

Dyrkin crawled up the sloping floor, dragging himself with one hand. His suit and helmet were tucked under his other arm. "So what are we supposed to do?"

"Get into your suit. The ship's going to jump before too long, and we've got to get back to our coffins. If we don't, we're going to be pulp."

Most of the survivors were at the bottom of the angled corridor, piled against an emergency bulkhead that had closed immediately after the first series of shocks. They were grazed and bruised, and a couple had been scalded by the steam, but otherwise the men seemed to be more or less intact. Rance clawed his way to the conveyer offload. He grabbed the first suit to emerge, slapped it against his chest, and let it crawl over his body. He fitted his helmet and then started sliding the rest of the suits and helmets down to the men.

"Dyrkin, get up here and help me!"

The floor righted itself, but the lights went out. A half dozen helmet lights came on in the gloom.

"Get that bulkhead open."

"Controls don't respond. It must have shorted out." "Somebody rig a bypass."

Hark's voice came over the communicator. "I got it."

The bulkhead rolled back. There were still lights in the next section of corridor. A public address was trilling urgently in nohan. The ship slammed sideways as if it had received a blow from a giant hammer. The men were thrown up against the left-hand wall. Those who were still struggling into their suits were thrown down on the deck.

"That's got to be a direct hit."

"You wouldn't know about a direct hit."

"The screens got to be buckling, though."

Rance hurried them along. "We've got to get back to the coffins if we don't want to make the jump on bare floor."

The men reached the next safety bulkhead. "This one's fused, too." "Hark…" "I got it."

The bulkhead opened on a sheet of flame that billowed out at them. It engulfed the trooper next to Hark. His suit was only half on, and he staggered back screaming with his underclothes on fire. Benset grabbed him and rolled him on the deck. Rance was yelling.

"Back! Back!"

The fleeing troopers ran headlong into a nohan fire-fighting crew in red ceramic armor. They were whistling in what sounded like the alien equivalent of panic, but at least they were headed for the fire.

"This way!"

They ran in single file down a narrow companionway. All around them, sirens were blaring, signifying widespread damage. There was a confused babble in their helmets. They came up against a third closed safety bulkhead. This time, the manual bypass refused to work, and Hark and Renchett had to crawl into the mechanism before they could get it to open. The others waited tensely.

"We ain't going to make it."

"Come on, you guys!"

"Will you shut the hell up and let us work? We're troopers, not riggers," Renchett called back tensely.

The bulkhead creaked open. It led to a free-fall shaft.

"If I remember right, this is the emergency shaft to one of the dropcraft bays," Dyrkin said.

As he spoke, the sound of the alarms changed.

"That's five minutes to jump."

"What do we do?"

"Into the shaft," Rance ordered.

"That's not the way to the messdecks."

"Don't argue, I got an idea."

The men ran to the end of the companionway and jumped. Even in their armor, they floated lightly down to a kneebend landing on the dropcraft launch deck. There were only two ships in a bay designed for five, but they had been locked down in preparation for the emergency. Rance pointed to the nearest craft.

"Inside, as fast as you can!"

"We can't fly that thing!"

"We're not going to fly it. We going to rack ourselves in and hope we can survive the jump in there. At least we'll be strapped down."

The ship reeled as it was hit repeatedly. Plasma cascaded down the far side of the bay, burning through anything it touched. There were more internal explosions.

"Are we capable of a jump?"

"Everybody inside! Now! There's no way we can make the coffins."

Dyrkin fell into step beside Rance as they ran for the grounded ship. "Is this going to work?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Training took over, and the troopers went to their places as if they were going on a mission. The restraint cages were snapped into place, and then the men waited. Renchett tried to strike a positive note in the terrifying communicator silence inside the ship.

"This may be almost as good as a coffin. At least we can't thrash around, and the suits should help some.