Pay Me, Bug!

Chapter 31

WHEREIN Our Hero, Upon Reaching an Impasse, Finds it Necessary to Assert His Authority

The Fool's Errand used a parallel-plate system to generate artificial gravity: beneath the flooring on each deck were gravity plates, and just beyond the ceiling were nullifier plates. This allowed each deck to have customized gravity settings, if necessary, and the nullifier plates ensured that the gravity well never extended beyond the deck itself, or outside the ship. Each plate was also independently customizable, so it was possible, for example, to set one plate at half a standard gravity and it's neighboring plate at two standard gravities, creating a startling and potentially dangerous gravity shelf where the two plates met up.

For the most part the granularity inherent in this technology remained unused; it was enough to turn off gravity while they were in tach, and turn it back on when they dropped back into normal space. However, when the ship was being boarded, the ability to wildly vary the gravity of each individual plate was extremely useful.

This was one of those times.

At the moment, all gravity in the ship was off. The auxiliary lights flickered on, off, on, off, as little-used circuits sluggishly came to life. In the strobe-light effect, Grif saw Carsons and Laris flailing, trying and failing to compensate for the lack of gravity.

Grif sailed past Laris, feet first, and snaked out an arm as he grabbed Laris' waist. The weight of the agent caused Grif's trajectory to change, pulling Laris along behind him. A quick twist and half-flip pushed Laris to the front, and Laris's face smashed against the bulkhead.

Grif let go, rolled up against the wall, and pushed off just as Carsons managed to steady himself, pull a weapon out from under his jacket, and fire at the spot where Grif had been moments before. But Grif was now on the other wall and pushed himself up to the ceiling, gaining momentum.

Carsons fired and missed a second time. This time, the shot unbalanced him, and he had to focus on keeping his balance. He tried to grab hold of a microgravity handle set into the wall to steady himself, but he drifted just out of reach, thrashing wildly instead.

Grif pushed off the ceiling, flipped in mid-air and kicked Carsons' face. He'd developed so much momentum that when his feet connected with Carsons' jaw he heard the jaw break. Carsons passed out immediately.

Grif flexed his legs, trying to dissipate as much momentum as he could against Carsons himself, and took the gauss pistol still clenched in Carsons' hand. Then he pushed away from Carsons in mid-air, causing the agent's unconscious form to crash against the bulkhead as he drifted in the other direction.

The lift opened, and two agents propelled themselves out of it. Grif fired. Gauss flechettes tore through an agent's arm, sending spherical drops of blood flying lazily through the air. The mild recoil from the pistol caused Grif to twist slightly in the other direction, but he managed to fire another shot, hitting the second agent in the chest.

The first agent released his weapon when his arm was wounded, but grabbed it with his other arm and fired, awkwardly. He missed.

Grif pushed himself out of the lift foyer and down the corridor.

"We have the bridge," Amys' voice said out of the intercom. "Intercom is linked directly here. No cross talk is permitted."

Grif turned and saw the agent push himself out of the lift and into the rec area.

"Amys, set the foyer on cargo deck to two gravities, now!"

Grif heard a grating sound as the grav plates underneath the foyer came to life. The agents yelped in surprise as they rammed into the floor at high speed. They did not move afterward. Carsons and Laris fell to the ground as well.