Free Ship's Boy by Phil Geusz

Pieter smiled at me. “Do you know anything about superconductors and Field dynamics?” he asked.
    I shrugged. “Any two objects connected by a superconductor effectively become one, so far as a Field is concerned.” I wrinkled my brows, and suddenly a light dawned. “You want me to hook a superconducting cable to the cruiser, then?”
    Pieter’s smile widened. “That’ll anchor us together, sure as can be. Plus, the resulting Field geometry will be so unfavorable that their coils will be useless. So they won’t have any shield effect, either.”
    I blinked. “But, if they try to energize anyway…”
    Chief Engineer Leeds smiled up from his chair, his blue eyes like ice. “Then the connections’ll arc like Satan’s own fireworks display. Which will kill anything within ten or twenty yards, unless it’s wearing a Field suit. And even then, the splash effects won’t do them any bloody good.”
    Then Sergeant Wells spoke up. “I’ll be right there with you, David. Just as close by you as I can stand to be.”
    I shook my head, confused. “But why, sir?”
    The sergeant’s face grew hard. “Because, son, it won’t take very damned long at all for the Imperials to realize that they can’t maneuver so long as they’re grappled. Which in turns means that unhooking the superconductor is going to be their prime objective.” He leaned over and laid his hand atop my helmet. “So… I bet you don’t know how to use a hand blaster, do you?”
    I shook my head, still a bit confused. “No, sir.”
    “No worries,” he reassured me. “It’s not that hard.” Then he turned to the captain. “Permission to leave the bridge, sir? For both of us? We’ve got a lot to do.”
     
     

17
    Sergeant Wells was right—using a hand-blaster was easy. Or at least it was easy when you equipped it with a triple-magazine and set it to “full-power, wide-dispersion”. “This configuration is bulky as all hell,” the head marine explained as he handed me the kludged-together result. “And much too heavy for most purposes, as well. But since you won’t be boarding with the rest, you’ll be fine. It’s just the thing for fighting in null-gee.” He smiled and showed me how the trigger and safety worked. “Normally we spend a week training a recruit on one of these things, and even then he’s only authorized to use low power. But in the end it’s all about common sense, see? Don’t point the weapon at anything you don’t mean to kill, ever. If you can manage to keep that straight in your mind, well… The rest will come naturally.”
    The grapple itself didn’t require much explanation, either. It was simply a long, braided carbon-fiber rope with a superconducting core. As soon as we went EVA the sergeant would clip one end to Hummingbird ’s hull; then he and I would leap together across space to connect the other end to the enemy cruiser. Then, it’d be our job to keep it connected for as long as was necessary. The sergeant half-filled each of our EVA pouches with spare rope-clips, just in case.
    Then, it was time to go. There was quite a line at the main airlock when Sergeant Wells and I arrived there—everyone on the ship who both possessed a working suit and was able to wear it had been told off for the boarding party. Not a single able-bodied soul was being left behind save for James and Pedro, neither of whom had proper gear. “Oh, my heavens!” Pedro gushed when he saw me all gussied up and ready for vacuum. “Ship’s boys aren’t supposed to even touch the suits, Daniel! Put that back where it belongs, right now ! Or else you’re going to get into terrible trouble!” 
    Fortunately James was standing right there. “This is special,” he explained, reaching around the lapine and offering a reassuring squeeze. “And David is a very special Rabbit.”
    “I don’t know…” Pedro complained, shaking his head dubiously. I couldn’t help but smile—he hadn’t even recognized the bulked-up