Hero! by Dave Duncan Read Free Book Online Page B

now he would feel the controls go limp as command was taken away from him.
    With his right hand, he slid the handgun from its holster beside his seat, and leaned over to press his left thumb on the Eject .
    “ Refused ,” screamed the speaker, drowning out even the siren. Every light flashed, including Suicide !
    “Go ahead then, you bastards,” Vaun muttered. He pointed his gun at the control board, and waited.
    And waited…
     
    W AITING? WAITING IS slow death and worse than death. Waiting is more exquisite torture than any horror in the blood-soaked history of religion or the annals of the Race Wars.
    The cabin is midnight dark, full of mysterious, bulky shapes. Here and there a faint rainbow glow of instruments plays on an ear, a forehead, or a moving hand. Within this crypt, in a huddled circle of hunched ghouls, the crew attend their boards—two girls and four boys all as intent as musicians performing ancient masterpieces. Voices murmur, human and mechanical, small sounds overlain on a deeper hum. Vids flicker.
    Ultian Command’s shuttle Liberty , presently in high orbit…
    Vaun is tormented by overload: crisp-new uniform rustling with every move and pinching his crotch, awesome omens of rank glittering on his shoulders, the smell of metal and recycled air, the vertiginous false gravity, and especially the view he has called up in his tank, a billion stars coruscating in glory.
    This is not a Doggoth simulator. This is real . He rode this bottle through the Hiport launcher, out into the universe.
    Maeve didn’t say good-bye. Wasn’t there to say good-bye. When the rest of the crew were kissing their lovers, he was alone. He’d been told she’d left Hiport. Better not to think about it.
    Somewhere out there is a Q ship—name unknown, crew unknown, inbound from Avalon. The Brotherhood, maybe. He can’t see it, but the vids tell him he should be able to. The boat’s electrocrystalline mind makes no allowance for its commander being a rank beginner.
    He could switch to infrared, of course. Q ships are hot, and he’d pick it up on long-infrared. Somehow that feels like cheating…He continues his search on visual.
    Strangest of all and worst torment of all is the alien sense of authority. He is in charge. Excitement is a throb of pain in his temples, acid coursing his veins, but it is also ice in his gut. Five of those six spacers are genuine. They have spacefarers’ blazes on their lapels and must know ten times as much about all this as he does. They all left Doggoth at least five years ago, before his time, and Ultian Command is large enough that a brand new ensign can posture as a commodore and get away with it as long as he isn’t actually recognized.
    They look to him for orders. They have no inkling that this seemingly routine mission threatens death for all of them, like a wisp of approaching storm cloud bringing winter. They must wonder why an exalted commodore has been assigned command of a lowly pilot boat, and why he is in such a fearsome, bat-fired hurry to make contact, but not one of them has shown any hint of further suspicion. Apparently he is still concealing his ignorance and inexperience, and that is all that is needed. The five trust their lives to his fake insignia; they will obey him without question.
    He mutters a word to his board, demanding more magnification, and is absurdly worried that one of the spacers will hear him. They are all occupied with their own duties and wouldn’t put any significance on the commodore wanting more magnification anyway. They don’t know he can’t find a Q ship in a view tank.
    Still can’t!
    Vaun glances around the darkness and the hints of faces. At the far side of the circle, brightness of two eyes…Yather is watching him. Every pilot boat carries a political officer, of course, but not likely one hailing from the same branch as this one, and normally PolOff has no duties to perform until contact. This poloff is working already. Yather’s job