“Lilliana?” Dick said into his communicator.
“What’s up?”
“I’m in your bolt-hole,” he said.
“You… you know about that?” Lilliana asked.
“The command deck is my station,” he said. “It’s my home. Of course I know about it.”
“Oh.”
“What I really need to know is our status,” Dick said.
“We’re fucked, but we could be fuckeder,” Lilliana said. “Why?”
“I’m looking at a bunch of power conduits and information cables,” Dick said. “Would I be correct in guessing you had all this routed here at the same time you put the hiding space in?”
“Yes,” Lilliana said. “I’ve always meant to tie them into a mini-console so I could override the systems, but…”
“It was hard to have work done without my knowledge,” Dick said. “Never mind that. I don’t like our guests having full access but I don’t want to put us in a tighter spot than we’re already in.”
“Do you actually think that’s possible?” Lilliana asked. When Dick didn’t bother to reply, she said, “See if you can cut everything but helm control… the big one in the center. They can’t do anything with that while the engine’s powered down, and there’s an outside chance we’ll need it.”
“Oh?”
“Regan’s playing a long shot,” Lilliana said.
“Isn’t she always?”
“This one hinges on whether or not she’s telling the truth about an impossible bar of gold,” Lilliana said. “She’s come through for us before.”
“On a few memorable occasions, yes,” Dick said. He tugged on a bundle of wires until it came loose. “This would be easier with some tools.”
“Sorry,” Lilliana said. “I set it up so helm control would be easiest to disable, because I assumed in most circumstances that would be the most important thing to take out.”
“That’s really the sort of thing your helmsman should know about,” Dick said, working on the next bundle. There was a sound of pounding and clanging on the metal above his head. “Do me a favor?”
“What?”
“See if you can’t kill gravity for this section.”
“Will do,” Lilliana said.
“Leo?” Lilliana’s voice signaled in the catman’s ear. He was nestled in a crevice in the stacks again, with his back braced against a large and heavy container.
“Little busy,” he subvocalized in response. “Trying not to get noticed by ghouls.”
“I’m playing with the gravistat,” she said. “Would it help you if I killed gravity to your section?”
“Maybe in a bit,” he replied. “But for the moment, that would pretty much cancel out the awesome stupidity of what I’m about to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Cutting off the enemy’s reinforcements,” he said. “Stay on the line and wait for my cue. I’m going to have to run in a moment, if I survive this.”
“What?”
He broke his cover with an involuntary grunt as he gave a tremendous effort and pushed against the container, sending it toppling over and causing the containers above to crash down. He darted and dodged out of the way of the avalanche, just narrowly avoiding being flattened.
Meanwhile, the falling containers had completely buried the alleyway where the necromancer’s gateway was located.
On the downside, every ghoul in the compartment was converging on his location.
Leo ran flat-out, zigging and zagging blindly, using his forelimbs as well as his legs. His ears were tracking the sounds of several slavering and howling ghouls zeroing in on him.
“Kill the gravity!” Leo yelled, ducking into another narrow crack and latching onto the crate with his claws. With gravity canceled, the massive—and massy—containers did not simply float randomly up off the decking. There were no forces acting upon them, and inertia held sway.
The hunting ghouls, caught mid-stride and not anticipating the sudden shift, were not so lucky. They would adapt. They had claws and were as capable of crawling and climbing as he was. But for the time being, they were off his tail.
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