Starplex

The five dolphin-piloted ships began swooping wildly, their weapons firing at' random. The holographic display was crisscrossed with animated laser beams, red for the Commonwealth forces, blue for the attackers.

Suddenly Gawst's vessel began revolving around its bow-stern axis, spinning like a corkscrew. "What the hell's he doing?" asked Keith.

It became apparent as PHANTOM drew in the two beams from Gawst's twin laser canons. With the ship rotating, the beams were forming a cylinder of coherent light — turning twin pinpoint weapons into effectively a wide-beam device.

Gawst was aiming up, toward the underside of Starplex's central disk, beneath one of the ship's four main generators.

"If he does it right," said Thor, impressed despite himself, "he'll be able to carve out the number-two generator, like a geologist taking a core sample."

"Move the ship!" snapped Keith.

The starfield wheeled. "Doing so — but he's got a tractor beam locked on us. We-"

The ship rocked again, and a new alarm started wailing.

Lianne swung around to face Keith. ""There's an internal hull breach on deck forty, where the bottom of the ocean deck joins the central shaft.

Water is pouring down the shaft into the lower decks."

"Christ!" said Keith. "Did the Ibs screw up when they installed the replacement lower habitats?"

Rhombus's web turned yellow with rage again, and the dots on it flared brightly. "Excuse me?" he said sharply.

Keith raised his hands. "It's just that-"

"The work was done perfectly," said Rhombus, "but this ship's designers never thought we would be in a battle."

"Sorry," said Keith. "Lianne, what's the procedure in a situation like this?"

"There is no procedure," said Lianne. "The ocean deck was considered unbreachable."

"Can the water be contained with force fields?" asked Keith.

"Not for long," said Lianne. "The force fields we use in the docking bays have enough strength to hold air at normal pressure against vacuum.

But each cubic meter of water masses a full ton; nothing short of the ship's external forcefield emitters could hold back that much pressure, and even if Gawst hadn't overloaded those, there's no way to aim them inside the ship." "If you turn off the artificial gravity in the central disk and on all decks below it, at least the water won't flow down," said Thor.

"Good idea," said Keith. "Lianne, do that."

"Security override," said PHANTOM's voice. "Command disallowed."

Keith shot a look at the PHANTOM camera pair on his console. "What the — ?"

"It's because of the Ibs," said Rhombus. "Our circulatory system is based on a gravity feed; we'll die if you turn off the gravity."

"Damn! Lianne, how long to move all Ibs from decks forty-one through seventy to the upper decks?" ' "Thirty-four minutes."

"Begin doing that. And get all dolphins out of the ocean deck — but tell them to stand by with breathing apparatus, in case we have to send them below into the flooded areas."

"If you evacuate starting from deck seventy," said Thor, "you can turn off the gravity there first, and work your way "That won't make any difference," said Lianne. "By the time the water has fallen that far, it'll have enough momentum to continue on downward even if gravity is no longer pulling

"What about electrical shorting?" asked Keith.

"I've already shut off the electrical systems in flooded areas," said Lianne.

"If the ocean deck were to drain completely, how much of the lower decks would it fill?" asked Thor.

"One hundred percent," said Lianne.

"Really?" said Keith. "Christ."

"The ocean deck contains six hundred and eighty-six thousand cubic meters of water," said Lianne, consulting a monitor screen. "Even including all sealed interdeck areas, the entire enclosed volume of the ship below the central disk is only five hundred and sixty-seven thousand cubic meters."

"Excuse me, but I think the PDQ is in trouble," said Rhombus, gesturing with one of his ropes toward part of the holographic bubble. Two Waldahud ships were converging on the Starplex probeship, lasers crisscrossing.

Keith's eyes darted between the holo display and the monitor on his console showing the progress of the flooding.

"Wait," said Rhombus, "the Dakterth is coming up on the stern of the two ships attacking the PDQ. It should be able to draw their fire."

"How are the evacuations coming?" asked Keith.

"On schedule," said Lianne. "Are we leaking any water into space?"

"No; it's just an internal breach."

"How watertight are our interior doors?"

"Well," said Lianne, "the sliding doors between rooms seal when closed, but they aren't strong. After all, the door panels are designed so that anyone can kick them free of their rails for emergency escape in case of fire. The weight of the water will burst them open."

"What genius thought of that?" asked Thor.

"I think he helped design the Titanic," muttered Keith.

The ship rocked again, heaving back and forth. In the holo display, a cylinder carved out of Starplex's central disk, ten decks thick, was tumbling against the night.