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The light-pen in MacKenzie's hand shattered. Fragments of
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casing raked his wrist and drew blood while the expended pellet screamed past
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his groin and imbedded in the stuffing of the adjacent crew chair.
Mac James moved, but this time Jensen was ready. Before the captain reached
cover behind the bridge cowling, the Fleet officer had him cornered. Breathing
hard, and sweating beneath his Freer robes, he trained his weapon squarely on
the skip-runner's heart. 'Roll over. Cross your wrists behind your back.
One wrong move, and you're dead.'
MacKenzie James grunted, eased his weight off his right forearm, and carefully
extended it behind his waist. 'You're Marksman Elite?'
'Unfortunately for you,' said Jensen, concentrating more on the left hand of
his captive than acknowledging the accolade he had striven for, and won with
such pride at an exceptionally early age.
Gun at the ready, the young officer loosened his robe and retrieved a pair of
loop nooses, the thin, cutting type Fleet marines used to restrain everything
from murderers to brawlers. He hooked the first over James's upraised wrists
and jerked tight.
'Now raise your ankles, Captain.' James did so, and the second noose shortly
trussed his legs.
Smiling raggedly from triumph and excitement, Jensen locked the ends and began
to search the captain's person. The man was tautly muscled, which was unusual
enough to inspire caution. Most skip-runners were slender to the point of
fragility, the result of long hours lurking in null gravity, their ship's
systems shut down to a whisper to avoid notice. MacKenzie James also carried
no side arms, only a small knife in a sheath sewn into his boot. Jensen
confiscated this, then shoved his prisoner awkwardly onto his back.
MacKenzie returned a cool, appraising stare that, even behind a pellet gun,
Jensen found disturbing.
'You will tell me where Evans is piloting, clearly and quickly.'
The captive smiled with brazen effrontery. 'By now I expect what remains of my
mate is being bundled up in a body bag.'
'Back at Station?' Jensen resisted an urge to step close; even bound, the
captain was bulky enough to roll and knock him down. q'm not a fool, James. If
Evans died on Station with the rest of the dock personnel, who guides this
ship?'
MacKenzie's grin turned thoughtful. 'Well now, I could say with
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reasonable certainty that Marity flies on a hardwired connection between her
accelerator banks and her coil regulator. Assuming I don't lie, any fool knows
she'll blow when the condensers overheat.'
Jensen considered this, unpleasantly confronted by the mulish courage that had
confounded so many officers of the law before him. The captain might be lying;
but his reputation said otherwise, which placed Jensen squarely on the prongs
of dilemma.
MacKenzie James stopped smiling. 'Don't think too long, boy. Since you so
proudly blasted my laser-
pen, I'll have to rummage around for my cutter tool to break the bridged
circuit.'
'Shut up.' Jensen needed a second to clear his mind. Somewhere on Marity would
be a kill switch to cut the drives in the event of emergency; the other
fail-safes and override systems would be nonexistent, for skip-runner captains
as a rule pushed their machinery over margin. The complication that this ship
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held to no specs, that she was a jumble of ingenuity and modifications hung
together by the cleverest criminal in the Alliance meant Jensen was in too
deep. If MacKenzie James were freed to right his bit of sabotage, chances were
he would create additional havoc in the wiring, perhaps even contrive to
regain advantage.
'I'll take my chances,' Jensen decided. But his confidence was forced. If
Evans had made it on board, he was now in serious trouble.
With the nooses secured without slack to a deck fitting, MacKenzie James could
not roll onto his stomach. Nothing important lay within range of his feet.
Certain as he could be that his captive was secure, Jensen sealed the bridge
behind him and descended into Marity's service level. Away from Point
Station's fields, the descent shaft had no gravity. Already the chill of
deepspace seemed to have penetrated its shadowy depths. Jensen drifted in a
faint fog of condensation left by his breath, the ladder rungs icy beneath his
sweating hands. His feet tingled with the knowledge that at any second a
plasma weapon might sear upward and fry him like a fly on a web. The Freer
robe swirled and caught at his ankles and knees. Jensen longed to shed the
fabric, but dared not. Sewn into the sash was the transmitter that enabled
Ensign Shields to track him, and Marity, through the deeps of space.
Jensen reached the base of the shaft without incident. Gun at the ready, he
barely waited for his soles to grab on the decking
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before he started forward. His danger now redoubled, for the access corridor
extended in both directions;
MacKenzie's mate might easily slip into the bridge behind him and set his
captain free. The fact that the mate had no key to release the nooses, and
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