"Nope. But Boone lost a man. Roberts got swarmed in the ambush. We have some others wounded, but nothing critical. It was bad. There had to be at least twenty vamps. And they rigged the lights to blow when they attacked." His voice sounded tired and ragged.

"That doesn't sound right. Undead don't coordinate," she said.

"These do. It was planned. We killed most of them, and the rest are holed up in that engine compartment. There are at least five."

"Fire?" Julie asked, sounding hopeful.

"Negative. Fuel storage is through there. Same with explosives. We set anything off in that room and we're swimming home. Plus the room that Darné and his men are locked in is on the other side of where the vamps are."

"Plan?" she asked.

"I haven't figured that out yet. We can go in shooting. But if we do we might hit a steam line and cook us all, or we might hit the boiler and blow a hole in the bottom of the ship. Either way we're running out of time. We got another coded message from the French Hunters. The vamps are trying to break into their compartment-wait a second."

I did not turn to look. I kept my muzzle on the door. We had a great position. Both groups of Hunters could fire with impunity into the doorway, and the angles were such that the chances of ricocheting a shot into the other team were virtually nil. Trip and Holly both squeezed around me so that they would have a shot as well. The injured Lee watched our backs and Julie stayed on the radio. The walls and floor vibrated slightly from the powerful engine nearby. The air smelled of diesel and rubber and rust and the faint copper smell of blood.

While we waited for Harbinger to get back to us, I could not help but ask, "Did any of you guys know Roberts?"

"He was the tall, skinny, blond guy on the boat," Trip said. "Seemed like a good guy."

"He was a great guy. Brave. A little crazy, but he was a dang good Hunter," Julie told us. "Roberts has been with us since we restarted. First batch of Newbies we had. He'll be missed. I think he had an ex-wife and some kids in St. Louis."

Harbinger's voice crackled in my ear piece. "Sam says that he found something on the schematics. We're directly under the main cargo bay. There's an escape hatch there that leads into that engine compartment. Sam says that we can put somebody through it, and they can pierce a steam pipe in the vamp's room, and then close the hatch before they get cooked. The steam will fry the undead, or at least flush them into the corridor where we can blast them."

"Won't that kill the Frenchmen also?" Julie asked.