Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

agonized silent scream from her, she threw the locker in the direction of the hull breach, which sucked it into place, neatly covering the gap in the hull. The cabin air pressure quickly reestablished itself, and Random fought his way out of his crash webbing and rushed over to hold the locker in place. Ruby was quickly at his side, blood dripping from her nose, with a hand welder she’d found in a tool box. It took only a few moments to seal the locker securely in place, and then they both collapsed onto the floor, their backs propped against the bulkhead. They were both breathing hard, but from effort now rather than asphixiation.
    “Nice throw,” Random said finally.
    “Thanks,” said Ruby. “Nice catch.”
    “You stay put and take it easy for a moment. I’ll go have a word with the pilot.”
    Ruby nodded wearily, and gingerly massaged her aching shoulder as Random forced himself to his feet and stumbled down the aisle to the front of the pinnace. Neither the pilot nor the Sergeant looked around as Random joined them. “That had to be a disrupter cannon,” said Random, with a hand on the back of each of their chairs to steady himself. “Is there somebody up here with us?” “I don’t think so,”
    said the Sergeant. “Sensors would have detected another ship, even in all this crap. Must be landbased.”
    “Then Shub must have supplied it,” said Random. “There was nothing in the files to indicate the human traitors had access to that kind of weaponry.” “Well, they do now,” said the pilot. “And we’re a sitting duck up here. It’s only the weather and the turbulence that’s keeping them from locking on for another shot.”
    “Do we have any energy shields?” said Random, leaning over the Sergeant’s shoulder to try to make
    sense of the control panels. There seemed to be a hell of a lot of warning lights flashing.
    “No. Engines need all their power to fight the storms. And our armor was never intended to cope with energy weapons. Pilot, can you get us down any faster?” The pilot opened his mouth to say something cutting, and then the window before him exploded into shrapnel as the pinnace took another direct hit. A hundred steelglass shards slammed into and through the pilot in a second, killing him instantly. Air rushed out through the window break. Random, having learned, pulled the nearest steel locker off the wall and plugged up the gap fairly neatly, and the air pressure stabilized again.
    The engines whined as the pinnace dropped like a stone. Random hauled the dead pilot out of his seat, fastened himself in the command chair and studied the controls. They were a lot nearer the surface than he’d thought, but it was still a hell of a long way down. With no hand at the helm, sky and cloud and snatches of surface swept back and forth before the unblocked steelglass window. Random cleaned the controls of blood as best he could, being very careful not to activate anything till he was sure what it did.
    He looked across at the Sergeant in the copilot’s seat, but even as he started to ask for help, he realized Miller was slumped forward, unmoving. Random reached out and pulled the Sargeant back in his chair.
    Miller’s head rolled back, and he stared sightlessly up at the cabin ceiling, a large steelglass fragment protruding from one bloody eyesocket.
    “Dead as a doornail,” said Ruby, moving into view beside Random. “Our luck is running true to form.”
    “Haul his ass out of that chair and take his place,” said Random. “I’m going to need your help to land this thing.”
    Ruby pulled Miller’s body out of the chair and dumped it on the deck. She took over the copilot’s seat and then looked over at Random. “You have flown one of these things before, haven’t you, Jack?”
    “Do you want the bad news or the really bad news?”
    “Oh, shit.”
    “That just about sums it up. Those two disrupter hits did a lot of damage to the steering. And if I’m interpreting these controls correctly, we have associational damage too. Engine power is dropping, one of the main air tanks is ruptured, and the landing computers are shot to shit. Apart from that, putting this unfamiliar craft down in unknown territory in a never ending storm should be a piece of cake. Any questions?”
    “Just one. Where did the Sergeant say those parachutes were?” “Forget it. There’s enough lightning out there to turn you into a cinder before you could even pull the