Free Star Risk - 03 The Doublecross Program by Chris Bunch

three kilometers from the hulking battle cruiser Goodnight had picked for a target. He'd chosen it because it was positioned sloppily in the globe formation, and he hoped carelessness in one thing meant they'd be slack in other areas.
    Also because it was one of the few surplus Alliance ships he was sure he could find in Jane�s, which gave him a fairly good blueprint of what lay inside.
    Vian cycled atmosphere back into the patrol ship's tanks, killed the artificial gravity, and opened both locks.
    A bit of paper, forgotten on a bulkhead table, was whipped out into space with the last trace of air.
    Goodnight motioned, and Grok and his troops fed themselves out into space, immediately clipping on to one another as they exited.
    One soldier lagged behind.
    That figured, Goodnight thought. One of the two Khelat trainees with his team.
    He beckoned impatiently, and the soldier reluctantly clambered out of the lock, and, forgetting to clip on, started to float away.
    A soldier grabbed the man by his air cycler and clipped a lead on him. Fine, Goodnight thought. He can go into battle on a leash. We won't tell anyone afterward, unless he really screws up.
    The Shaoki battle cruiser, big, graceful, old-fashioned, almost two kilometers long, was close.
    Goodnight passed a line to the others, and they spread out.
    "Behind" him, other raiders were debouching from the other four ships.
    All mikes were open. Goodnight had given orders that no one was to break silence except to give an alarm.
    He said, unconsciously whispering, "After me."
    Steam boiled from low-power jets, and the ragged formation of roped men moved steadily toward the cruiser's stern.
    Goodnight killed what little speed he'd amassed, and the raiders mostly touched down silently near the stern of the huge ship.
    Goodnight had planned for that, figuring the drive area of the ship would be the noisiest and the least likely to be listening to odd clangs on the skin.
    He pointed to five of his men, who deployed just below the cruiser's top fins.
    In normal wartime, they would have found an entrance through a port or even through the drive, although that had always given Goodnight the kohlrobbies, figuring someone was about to light it off just when he was making his crawl. Although, if someone did, he certainly wouldn't know about it.
    Instead, since Goodnight had no interest in capturing the cruiser, shaped charges were positioned in a rectangle, tied together with det cord, and a line was led off a few dozen meters to a hellbox.
    The mercenary demo specialist bowed, handed the box to Goodnight.
    Chas took off the two safeties, touched the sensor.
    The results were more than satisfactory.
    The charges went off as planned, tearing a rectangle out of the double ship's skin and lifting it back like a sardine can's lid.
    Air roared out into space, and water crystals became ice and curled into nothing.
    Goodnight wondered how many men and women he'd just killed, but didn't have time for mawkishness.
    He leapt down, the cruiser's artificial gravity still working, into a large hydraulic control space.
    Goodnight beckoned his warriors inside. They poured down and spread out.
    Except for one man, who huddled back against a bulkhead. It was the same Khelat that'd hesitated on the patrol ship.
    Goodnight clicked on an exterior speaker.
    "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" he chanted, and the men ran toward two ports.
    Except for that Khelat.
    "Move out, troop!" he shouted.
    The man whimpered, made no move.
    "The hell with you," Goodnight shouted, never that calm in the best of times, let alone in an assault. "Damned coward!"
    He made for the port, letting his blast rifle down into firing position, but something made him turn.
    The Khelat was moving, pointing his own rifle at Goodnight.
    Goodnight didn't bother talking, but blew a fist-sized hole in the man's suit and chest.
    Then he went out, after his men.
    The cruiser's automatic damage-control doors hadn't worked, or weren't turned