Pirates of the Thunder Read Online Free

of the carrier in the suit radio. The lights blinked, then went off, leaving the passengers for a moment in darkness and then in an eerie semilight as their helmet and small body locator lights came on.
    “Is the ship dead?” Cloud Dancer asked, awed by the idea. “Has Star Eagle now soared to the otherworld?”
    “I—I don’t know,” Hawks responded. “The body of the ship is dead, that’s for sure, but those computers have their own power supplies and sources of energy. It’s possible he’s still alive and we can rescue him. I hope so.”
    There was a sudden and unexpected jarring and the whole ship shuddered, then seemed to roll over slightly on its side, as the big ship’s tractor mechanism pulled them in, controlled by the automatic maintenance and defense systems.
    “We’re in!” Raven called. “Damn it, we’re inside the thing!”
    Hawks was suddenly galvanized into action. “Warlock, go forward and see to China and Reba Koll and bring them back here.”
    “No need” came Koll’s sharp, raspy voice over the radio. “We’re all right and coming back now.”
    “The command module,” China said in her own soft, high voice. “Have you seen to it?”
    “Huh?” Hawks frowned. “Where is it?”
    “Aft, in the first cargo hold. There’s a big round plate in the floor secured by nine recessed bolts and an electronic combination. You throw two long switches to reveal the lock.”
    Hawks looked around. “Okay, Chow sisters. That sounds like it’s in your department.”
    “No need,” China told him. “I know the combination and it can be set and timed to blow the bolts. I come as quick as I can. Someone get a measuring tool and meet us there.”
    “Do we have to do it now?” Warlock asked irritably. “It’s a damned machine. It’ll wait.”
    “It is one with us,” Cloud Dancer responded in a bitter, almost menacing tone. “It comes with us.”
    China was there now, being led by Reba Koll. Hawks shrugged as he was handed an electronic measure from Sabatini’s kit and went back with them. “Nobody leaves yet,” he cautioned. “You don’t want to go into that kind of place without backup.”
    “How long’s the air last in these things?” Raven muttered.
    “Better than sixty hours,” Koll told him. “There’s time.”
    “Yeah.” The Crow security man sighed. “There’s time, but is there air out there?”
    Hawks wasn’t quite sure what China had in mind, but he was willing to go along with her. She was a strange sort, but she knew these machines like nobody else did, and in a real sense the whole group was dependent on the blind girl.
    The plate was not easy to find in the dark; even under normal conditions they might have missed it. Recessed into the deck were two long mechanical rods that took some effort just to get lifted up a bit; they were almost as difficult to raise the rest of the way, eventually requiring the combined weight of Hawks and Raven. Finally, though, both rods were pulled up and then pushed over as far as they could go, and a center plate popped out revealing a dirt-caked touchpad. When they’d cleaned it off as best they could, China gave them the combination that she had learned from Star Eagle.
    Hawks nervously keyed it in, then they all stepped back, well away of the plate, and waited. There was no sound in the airless ship, but a sudden series of flashes burst around the plate and the bolts all seemed to leap out of their sockets. Moving quickly now, they pried the plate up and put it out of the way, revealing a cavity perhaps half a meter deep in which sat three small rectangular objects.
    “Pull up the center one carefully—very carefully,” China instructed. “Then measure its dimensions and tell me of its connectors.”
    Doing so carefully was a chore; magnetism or some other force kept the device seated well, and breaking that grip was tough. Finally, though, they got it up, measured it, and checked it over. The connectors, smoothly