"They're back, aren't they?" she said, her voice hoarse from sleep.
Austin nodded. Moments later he and the two women were in the hallway making their way from cabin to cabin. Soon more than a dozen grumpy people were gathered in the narrow passage. They were dressed in a variety of nightwear or hastily pulled-on mismatches of clothing.
"No questions now," Austin said in a tone that showed he meant it.
He directed the sleepy-faced group down the stairs to the lowest deck level. Zavala was waiting for him with the others. Like cowpokes on a cattle drive, they herded the reluctant throng into the bow section forward of the crew quarters, where crew and scientists jostled for space with the bow thrusters that were used to stabilize the ship in heavy seas.
Austin wasted no time summing up the situation "I'm got to make this short and sweet. The ship's being boarded by armed attackers. Don't open this door unless you know it's Joe or me."
A researcher piped up: "What are you going to do?"
Damned scientific minds, Austin thought, always asking questions. This wasn't the time for his usual blunt honesty.
"Don't worry. Joe and I have a plan," he said with confidence. "We'll be back" He quickly stepped into the bunkroom and closed the door on the frightened faces.
"You sounded like the Terminator in there," said Zavala, who was right behind him. "It's good to hear we've got a plan. Hope you don't mind telling me what it is."
Austin damped a big hand on Zavala's shoulder. "Simple, Joe. You and I are going to kick these bastards off our ship."
"That's a plan?"
"Maybe you'd like to ask them politely to leave."
"Why do it the easy way? Okay, deal me in. Where do we start?"
"We get up to the bridge in a hurry. That's where our uninvited guests will go first. I hope they're not already there."
"How do you know they'll go for the bridge?"
"It's what I'll do. They can cut off communications and take control of the ship in one fell swoop." Austin hustled toward the nearest stairway. "Try to stay out of sight. If it's the same gang that wiped out the expedition, my popgun won't stand a chance against automatic weapons."
Using interior .stairways they went up the six decks to the bridge. They stopped at each level before proceeding to the next but saw no sign of the intruders. At the deck below the bridge they split up. Zavala went ahead to warn the watch. Austin woke the captain, who was asleep in his cabin under the wheelhouse, gave him a condensed account of the status quo, and suggested he take cover.
Captain Joe Phelan was a craggy-faced, tough-as-barnacles NUMA veteran in his fifties. He answered Austin's suggestion with a snarl.
"I was there when they laid the keel of the Nereus," he snapped, anger dancing in his hazel eyes. "I waited thirty years to take the helm of a vessel like this. Damned if I'm going to hide in a closet while these guys have the run of my ship."
Phelan could make the Nereus move with the agility of a ballet dancer, but Austin wasn't sure how he'd be at close combat, which was what things might come down to. On the other hand, it might be risky now for the captain to get down to the bow section. The boarders could be swarming all over the ship.
Phelan zipped up the front of a navy jumpsuit and lifted a pump-action shotgun off a wall rack.
"Only a .410," he apologized. "Never know when you're going to have to put down a mutiny" Noting Austin's quizzical frown, he chuckled. "Sometimes I shoot skeet off the deck."
"This time around the skeet will be shooting back," Austin said grimly
Phelan produced two boxes of shotgun shells and threw them into a canvas bag with the wooden case Austin had been carrying. Then they hurried up to the bridge.
Before they entered the wheelhouse, Austin called out in a low voice, "Joe,
it's us."
The warning was well advised because when they stepped through the door they were staring down the barrel of a flare gun.
Zavala lowered the gun. "Mike's sending off an SOS."
The young crewman Austin had coffee with earlier stepped into the wheelhouse from the radio room. "The signal is on automatic and will broadcast our positron until someone shuts it off."
Austin didn't have much hope of the cavalry galloping in for a rescue. The ship was many miles from civilization. .They would have to do what had to be done without outside help.