Explorer

If Gin was out there, he had no idea where; but if she’d gotten there, trying to take the power out—she was still at risk from anything wired in, independent of station power, and they couldn’t communicate with her.

“We don’t know where Gin is,” Bren said, muffled in the mask. “Hang on, hang on before we start pushing any buttons.” He had his own communications, in the pocket com, in the handheld, and took it out uncertainly.

“That won’t reach the ship,” Barnhart said.

“Lights. Gin’d see that. Can we get an on-off? Let her know we’re here.”

Barnhart moved his hand over one board, looking for a switch in the haze, then reached across the board and flipped one. Camera view dimmed. Brightened. The spotlight on that port went off. On. Off. On.

That had to tell Gin she had help inside. That risking her neck had suddenly gone to a lesser priority, and she had time.

And they, meanwhile, were faced with an array of buttons none of which was going to be labeled blow the damn fuel .

“I don’t think we should touch it, yet,” he said to Barnhart, extending a cautionary hand. “Just guard it and get some of the ship perso

Shots rang out from the left hand of the door. That intersecting T-corridor—he could see it in his mind. Ilisidi’s men. They weren’t safe here. They were far separated from safe territory.

Shots became a volley. A firefight. And Banichi vanished from the doorway, headed leftward, leaving Jago alone to hold the door. As fire broke out from the other direction. Jago pasted a shot in that direction, and crouched down, delving into Banichi’s black bag.

Bren left the consoles to Barnhart and joined Jago, hand on the gun in his pocket. “I can lock these consoles down, Jago-ji,” he said. “We can make a run for it. Can we tell Banichi that?”

A sudden fire was going at either side, and there wasn’t a safe place for anyone in the corridor, where they’d dumped the hapless ops center technicians. Banichi and Ilisidi’s men stood their ground at the corner; while fire down the corridor was coming from midway and far down, and the technicians, crawling, attempted to go in that direction.

Jago was assembling another of Cajeiri’s little cars with tape and a black box, and with a fast wrap of tape, she set it loose, steered it left, down the corridor toward Banichi’s position and right around the corner.

“Twenty farther!” Banichi yelled out, and fired around the corner. “Farther, farther. Right turn—now?”

Boom!

Banichi and Ilisidi’s men dived around the corner, not a second’s hesitation, one covering their rear in the T, a thunder of booted feet on the deck and a second explosion. Jago squatted, assembling bits again, this one a knob on a stick.

“I think I know the right switch,” Barnhart reported from behind them.

“Not yet!” Bren said. His full attention was for the way he could watch, while Jago was on one knee, delving into the black bag while snatching looks down the corridor the way they’d come. The technicians they’d evicted had made it halfway to the lift, crawling the distance, coughing and half-blind. Beyond the lift, where the third of Ilisidi’s men maintained position with, presumably, Jenrette, and a handful of stationers, Sabin was still down there under cover—about, he thought, at the next T-intersection. Whoever was firing up the hall was farther off than that, bad for aim, but not comfortable for them getting back to the lift.

Jago made a ripping move, stepped full into the corridor and made a throw with all the considerable strength of her arm. She ducked back as fire came at her, as the grenade hit the decking and exploded in a cascade of ceiling and wall panels.

A section door went shut down there, likely automatic at the explosion, possibly sealing off someone’s retreat.

“It’s sealed that direction,” he said; and about that time another door opened and fire came out toward them. “Damn!”

Jago was on the pocket com, advising Banichi: the things operated independently on short range and searched for signal. “The section sealed in our direction, but we have another site two doors off the lift, nadi, do you hear?”

“One hears,” Banichi seemed to say, difficult to understand.

“We have cleared this corridor. It would be wise to close our section door.”

That took a key.

“I’m coming,” Bren said, springing up. “Tell him I’m coming.”

“Nadi!” Jago protested; but he wasn’t the shot she was, and she protected the fuel supply. Momentarily expendable, he ran, hung a tight right at the intersection, almost into one of Ilisidi’s men, and down the hall where Banichi waited.

Banichi hadn’t wanted him , he was sure of that as he shoved his key into section control and got the control panel open. “One is long out of practice, nadi, with the gun.” Section door close was a two-fingered operation, and he did it, fast. That door cut off anyone coming from that direction. “Better Jago holds that door.” Another breath. He had a stitch in his side from the sprint he’d done. “One or more enemies with a pellet rifle at the end of the corridor; Jago has thrown a grenade down there. Jenrette should be in the lift and I think Sabin is somewhere between us and our enemies. We have tried to signal Gin-aiji. Everyone is here.”

“For the fuel,” Banichi said, sensibly, and pushed him along, back down the corridor toward the intersection. “For control of that commodity. Which we desperately need. All sides will come here. But one takes it there is fuel to defend.” They reached the corner, where Ilisidi’s two men stood on opposite arms of the T. “So we have it, and we shall hold it.”

“Sabin’s got ship’s security with her.” Out of breath, thoughts jarred loose in his brain. “Jenrette knew Sabin-aiji would come here. She never went to Central.”

“She ca

“We made a great deal of noise upstairs. There may have been a standoff, if only in the last hour. But that Jenrette is here, too—one ca

Banichi took out his pocket com. “Kasari-ji, disarm the ship-human immediately.”

Banichi had the com close to his ear. Bren strained to hear, glad there was a reply—not glad that a frown touched Banichi’s face.

“Jenrette never went to the lift,” Banichi reported, and said, via com: “If he arrives, disarm him.”

“He must have moved toward Sabin’s position,” Bren said. “Jase has ba

“This relies on human thinking,” Banichi said to him, “which is notoriously convolute.”

“Simple, in this case, nadi-ji. His man’chi may lie with Braddock. Kill Sabin, kill all the ship’s senior security, and board with Braddock, trying to take equal power with Jase-aiji during negotiations with the alien ship. Or ally with her, and Braddock. Get aboard. And strike at Jase and the dowager by treachery in the homeward voyage—perhaps taking possession of Tabini’s heir, to strike at Shejidan. This thing might have either of two paths, but one destination.”

One might expect Banichi to be appalled: but Banichi, reloading his gun, shrugged. “Greatly discounting Cenedi.”

“I would never discount Cenedi.”

“Nor would I.” Banichi employed his pocket com a second time. “Nadiin-ji, Bren marks Jenrette as dangerous.”

It was a death sentence. I would never, he wanted to say. Civilized Mospheirans had process of law, of courts, of appeals and debates.

In the aiji’s court—there was Banichi’s Guild. And here was no place to file Intent. Only to move on targets until there was leisure for consideration.

Click. Banichi reloaded his second gun.

“Go to Jago,” Banichi said. “ We will find Jenrette.”