"Sam doesn't think so. Might raise the temperature a little, but judging from the schematics they should be fine. I'm sending Sam, Grant and Mead up to do it."

"What about Boone's team?"

"My team's a little occupied, Jules," Boone replied over the net. "Your uncle Earl neglected to mention that we have at least two more of the bloodsuckers pinned down by the shafts. One of them is the son of a whore that bit Roberts."

"Roger that." She released her mike. "Wait for the cookout."

"I could place some claymores down the hall. Give them a surprise when they come running out," Lee offered helpfully. Just like a former demo guy, always looking to blow something up.

"No, we're too enclosed."

She was probably right. But judging by the number of projectiles these things could soak up, I sure was not looking forward to five of them heading our way at the same time. There had been an FN MAG machine gun brought on board from the Brilliant Mistake. I had left it behind since it was so long and unwieldy inside the tight confines of the ship. However, 200 rounds of belt-fed.308 full auto firepower would have been great right about then.

"I've got some smaller stuff. It should do the trick with minimal damage to us, but it'll turn anything that comes through that door into hamburger." For emphasis, Lee patted a pouch that was clipped to his webbing. "I'm hurting pretty bad, so I don't think I could throw it far enough, but one of you guys could probably land it right outside that hatch. It's radio detonated."

Julie thought about it for a moment and then nodded at Trip. Lee unclipped the pouch, opened it, made a few adjustments, zipped it back up and handed it over. Trip gently bounced it in his hands a few times to test the weight, then he underhanded it with perfect accuracy, landing it on our side, just in front of the targeted hatch.

"Good throw," Holly said.

"I helped coach the girl's softball team too. Slow pitch." All of us gave him funny looks. "It was a small school," he added defensively.

Time passed. Harbinger informed us that the captive French were sending more messages. The vampires were slowly battering their way in looking for fresh blood. Sam checked in to tell us that the three of them were almost in position. Boone's team was down to four, and two of them were injured, and they had problems of their own. Harbinger and Milo were in position, but since there were only two of them they were in for trouble if all of the vampires headed their way. We were spread awfully thin. It was going to be tight.

"This is Sam. We're in place. Main cargo bay appears empty. But there's a mess of Conex containers up here, it's hard to tell. We're gonna pop the hatch. You should know if this works. Over."