said. "You’ll need the visor for targeting."
" You better hope they don’t vent the bay," Parker said as she nodded to the missing glove and shredded forearm on the Chief’s suit where her skeletal arm and hand protruded. That suit couldn’t hold pressure.
" They won’t vent the atmo on us," she said. "It might give us away to the Squidies."
Through his visor, the surface of the hatch into the ordnance bay shined a rainbow of colors. "That's a newly melted and reformed surface," he said. "They fused that hatch completely."
Chief Horcheese was already unspooling something from her thigh pocket. It looked like licorice, and he knew what it must be even before he saw her apply it around the perimeter of the hatch and use it to draw the shape of a new door on the bulkhead.
" We should stand back," he said.
"We go in fast," the Chief said as she joined them around the corner. "Weapon enabled. Safety On." She held up her gloved hand and then made the shape of a gun with it. Tig and Parker made the same gestures. "Safety off." She slowly curled her index finger back as if resting it on a trigger. The word ' UNSAFE ' blinked in red letters across the top of his visor immediately after he mimicked the Chief's last gesture. "Gently squeeze the imaginary trigger to fire," she said. "And remember who we are. We’re redsuits; we get it done." Then, she detonated the breaching charge. While the shockwave that came up through the deck was still vibrating in his bones, Chief Horcheese rose and rounded the corner and charged, screaming, "Go! Go! Go!"
The Boomslang's crew had pulse lasers. He knew because of the way the smoke burned in long, perfectly straight, shafts as their beams pierced the cloud. All his naked eye could see was thick clouds of whitish smoke and the stabbing fire from Boomslang’s crew, but his helmet saw through the cloud in five different bands of the spectrum. It drew the two rows of bombs and the bulkheads and the consoles it saw in projected wireframe across his visor. It drew the Boomslang’s three remaining crew and their garish thermal signatures as they fired.
Beams vaporized the smoke particles above Tig and Parker’s heads as they dove behind the fire control consoles with the Chief. He peeked around the lip of it and saw the thermal ghosts of the three remaining crew fall back and take cover, disappearing behind the immense bombs and their thick hulls some 30 meters down towards the far end of the bay.
There was no easy way to do this, but then, as he felt his stomach flip and his organs ascend, he had to grin like it was his lucky day. "They killed the artificial gravity."
Parker grinned back at him as they all lifted a millimeter off the deck. " That was a bloody mistake," she said.
The Chief said, " It wasn’t."
" But nobody’s better in zero-gee than redsuits."
" The Boomslang’s crew are redsuits, too. They’re Harry Cozen’s personal reds...from his old ship, Arbitrage . Them killing the artificial gees wasn’t a mistake. It was a challenge."
"So what are we going to do?"
It only took a few seconds to get the three of them in position. If Harry Cozen’s reds wanted to play chicken, then the Chief wouldn’t disappoint them. She hovered low over the deck, in the shelter of a console, with her legs bent and the soles of her boots almost touching the forward bulkhead. She held Tig under one artificial arm and Parker under the other, the one without any skin.
The two cherries faced forward with both their arms extended. A pair of targeting reticules in the visor of his helmet moved with the guns built into the backs of his hands.
The Chief said, " You two, don’t worry about anything but shooting. I’ll handle the maneuvers and I won’t drop you, no matter what happens." The chief tightened her grip and he lost half his breath. The trick to doing this wouldn’t be holding on, it would be not crushing their ribs with all her strength. "Okay.
" You better hope they don’t vent the bay," Parker said as she nodded to the missing glove and shredded forearm on the Chief’s suit where her skeletal arm and hand protruded. That suit couldn’t hold pressure.
" They won’t vent the atmo on us," she said. "It might give us away to the Squidies."
Through his visor, the surface of the hatch into the ordnance bay shined a rainbow of colors. "That's a newly melted and reformed surface," he said. "They fused that hatch completely."
Chief Horcheese was already unspooling something from her thigh pocket. It looked like licorice, and he knew what it must be even before he saw her apply it around the perimeter of the hatch and use it to draw the shape of a new door on the bulkhead.
" We should stand back," he said.
"We go in fast," the Chief said as she joined them around the corner. "Weapon enabled. Safety On." She held up her gloved hand and then made the shape of a gun with it. Tig and Parker made the same gestures. "Safety off." She slowly curled her index finger back as if resting it on a trigger. The word ' UNSAFE ' blinked in red letters across the top of his visor immediately after he mimicked the Chief's last gesture. "Gently squeeze the imaginary trigger to fire," she said. "And remember who we are. We’re redsuits; we get it done." Then, she detonated the breaching charge. While the shockwave that came up through the deck was still vibrating in his bones, Chief Horcheese rose and rounded the corner and charged, screaming, "Go! Go! Go!"
The Boomslang's crew had pulse lasers. He knew because of the way the smoke burned in long, perfectly straight, shafts as their beams pierced the cloud. All his naked eye could see was thick clouds of whitish smoke and the stabbing fire from Boomslang’s crew, but his helmet saw through the cloud in five different bands of the spectrum. It drew the two rows of bombs and the bulkheads and the consoles it saw in projected wireframe across his visor. It drew the Boomslang’s three remaining crew and their garish thermal signatures as they fired.
Beams vaporized the smoke particles above Tig and Parker’s heads as they dove behind the fire control consoles with the Chief. He peeked around the lip of it and saw the thermal ghosts of the three remaining crew fall back and take cover, disappearing behind the immense bombs and their thick hulls some 30 meters down towards the far end of the bay.
There was no easy way to do this, but then, as he felt his stomach flip and his organs ascend, he had to grin like it was his lucky day. "They killed the artificial gravity."
Parker grinned back at him as they all lifted a millimeter off the deck. " That was a bloody mistake," she said.
The Chief said, " It wasn’t."
" But nobody’s better in zero-gee than redsuits."
" The Boomslang’s crew are redsuits, too. They’re Harry Cozen’s personal reds...from his old ship, Arbitrage . Them killing the artificial gees wasn’t a mistake. It was a challenge."
"So what are we going to do?"
It only took a few seconds to get the three of them in position. If Harry Cozen’s reds wanted to play chicken, then the Chief wouldn’t disappoint them. She hovered low over the deck, in the shelter of a console, with her legs bent and the soles of her boots almost touching the forward bulkhead. She held Tig under one artificial arm and Parker under the other, the one without any skin.
The two cherries faced forward with both their arms extended. A pair of targeting reticules in the visor of his helmet moved with the guns built into the backs of his hands.
The Chief said, " You two, don’t worry about anything but shooting. I’ll handle the maneuvers and I won’t drop you, no matter what happens." The chief tightened her grip and he lost half his breath. The trick to doing this wouldn’t be holding on, it would be not crushing their ribs with all her strength. "Okay.
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