Of course, the fact he was an idiot wouldn't be very much comfort to those of us who aren't in battle armor. I'm sure Mann would see to it whoever it was came down with a serious case of dead, of course… not that that would be all that much comfort either, now I think about it.
Lieutenant Hearns had downloaded an inboard schematic of the standard Dromedary design to her memo board, and she consulted it as the point Marines led the way from the machine shop/equipment bay. Gutierrez loomed at her right shoulder, carrying a flechette gun to supplement his usual sidearm, and Mann followed at her left, where he could see the memo pad display. They turned to starboard-up-ship-and Lance Corporal McCollom detailed two Marines to bring up the rear and watch their backs. Aikawa thought that was an excellent idea.
They'd traveled about fifty meters and passed through one open set of blast doors when they found the first bodies.
"What do you think, Lieutenant?"
Aikawa was struck by how calm Lieutenant Hearns sounded as she stood looking down at the mangled bodies in the enormous puddle of congealing blood. He was glad he had his helmet on, and he tried to not even imagine the stink of blood and ruptured internal organs which must fill the passageway.
"More than one weapon, Ma'am." The Marine went down on one armored knee, his tone almost clinical, and examined one of the bodies closely while McCollum's squad spread out, pulse rifles and tribarrels ready. "What do you think, Sarge? Flechette guns from up-passage?"
"From the spray patterns, I'd say so, yeah, Skipper," Sergeant Crites replied. He turned, looking down a side passage to the right. "Somebody with a pulse rifle down that way, looks like."
"And it wasn't all one-sided, either," Mann said.
"No, Sir. Whoever had the flechettes took out these two," Crites indicated the two worst mangled bodies, wearing what looked like standard coveralls, although it was hard to be certain after the knife-edged flechettes finished. "Looks like they'd probably just come out of the side passage when they got hit. But the boy with the pulse rifle was behind them, and he's the one who got this fellow."
The sergeant prodded the third body with a toe. It wore a gray uniform blouse and black trousers, and Aikawa frowned. There was something about…
"State Security." Mann made the two words sound like an obscenity.
"Are you sure?" Lieutenant Hearns asked. "I don't think I've ever seen a picture of an SS officer without a tunic."
"I'm sure," Mann said. "I recognize the collar insignia. And the belt buckle." He straightened. "I'd hoped we were at least through with these motherless bastards. Pardon, Ma'am."
"Don't worry about it," the Lieutenant said dryly. "I've been out of the nest for a while now, Lieutenant. And the terminology's certainly appropriate in this instance." Then she sighed. "This doesn't look good."
"No, it doesn't," Mann agreed.
Gutierrez looked as if he wanted to say something a bit stronger than that, but he kept his mouth shut. No doubt his armsman's responsibility to keep the Lieutenant out of harm's way was clashing with his recognition that running risks was part of a naval officer's job description. His own Marine background probably helped him keep it in perspective. Well, that and the fact that he knew the Lieutenant would rip his head off if he tried to stop her.
"Kinda have to wonder whether these two," Sergeant Crites indicated the coveralled bodies, "were from the original crew, or if there was a falling out amongst the prize crew the Peeps put aboard?"
"I don't know," Lieutenant Hearns said grimly. "But I suppose there's only one way to find out."
It took the better part of three more hours to sweep the ship. Even then, they'd actually examined only a tiny portion of the freighter's interior. A battalion of Marines could have been hidden in the enormous cargo holds, but it became steadily more apparent as they went along that there couldn't be very many-if any-live enemies left aboard. At least one of the freighter's cargo shuttles was missing, and it was possible the survivors of the on-board massacre had escaped in it while the pinnaces were too far away to see them. They could have gotten away with that if they'd launched on thrusters rather than bring up their wedge, and even at a low initial acceleration, they could be anywhere in an enormous volume of space by now. But if any survivors had bailed out that way, there couldn't have been many of them.
The bodies were scattered about, some singly, some-like the first ones they'd discovered-in small clumps and groups. Most of the dead had been killed with flechette guns, but about a quarter had been killed by the higher-powered darts of military-grade pulse rifles. At least one appeared to have been strangled to death, and three had either been stabbed or had their throats cut, and Abigail Hearns found it difficult to imagine what it must have been like. What had possessed these people? What sort of insanity had led them to spend the last two hours of their lives hunting one another down and killing each other? Her orders from Captain Terekhov had prohibited her from identifying herself to them, at least until Bogey One and Bogey Two had been dealt with, as part of the effort to prevent them from warning their armed consorts there was a Manticoran warship in the system. But they had to have had enough sensor capability to realize what had happened and that the pinnaces and LACs which had inflicted the damage would be back to take them into custody. So why hadn't they simply waited?
The answer was waiting when they finally got to the ship's engineering spaces.
"Hold it up, Sir," Coporal McCollom said. "Alverson's outside the power room, and he says the hatch is locked. From the inside, it looks like, but he hasn't tried to force it yet."
"Everybody, hold where you are," Mann ordered. Then he looked at Abigail. "How do you want to handle this, Lieutenant?"
"Well," Abigail said, her thoughts racing ahead of the words, "if whoever is inside was inclined to suicide, she's already had plenty of time to blow herself up. Unless, of course," she smiled without humor, "whoever it is is deliberately waiting until she's positive at least some of our people are on board."
"Sounds unlikely," Mann said. "On the other hand, people do unlikely things. And anyone far enough gone to still be wearing a StateSec uniform's probably a little less stable than most to begin with."
"'Less stable.'" Abigail surprised herself with a harsh chuckle. "Lieutenant, anybody that far gone is so far around the bend she can't even see it in her rear view mirror!"
"We Marines are just naturally gifted with a talent for concise summations," Mann said modestly. "Besides, I've been taking law school courses by e-mail. Still, I'd say it's more likely whoever locked himself inside was trying to keep someone else from blowing the ship."
Abigail nodded and glanced at the two midshipmen standing beside her and trying to look as if they weren't eavesdropping. Not that there was any reason they shouldn't be. They were both doing their best to look calm, and they were doing a pretty fair job, actually. Aside from a certain tightness in Ragnhild's shoulders and the fact that the fingers of Aikawa's right hand were drumming lightly on his holstered pulser, there was very little to give away their tension. She supposed she could have left both of them aboard the pinnaces; it wasn't exactly as if she'd had a pressing need for junior officers. But leaving future officers wrapped up in tissue paper didn't do anyone any favors.