Something loud happened on the other end of the terminal, and a second later, a bone-deep ringing shuddered through the corridor. Garret swore under his breath.

“The first torpedo has made impact, sir,” Drummer said.

“The ring?”

“No, sir. The drive cone. The torpedo targeting the ring hit a few minutes ago, but failed to detonate.”

“Small favors,” Fred said. “Do we know the armament of the insurgents?”

“Small automatic weapons. Some grenades.”

“Can you shut down their air?”

“There’s a manual cutoff, but I haven’t had the spare manpower yet.”

“I’ve got an electrician first class with me,” Fred said. “Tell me where to take him.”

“Understood. We’re looking at an access on service deck four. Environment controls Delta-Foxtrot-Whiskey-slash-six-one-four-eight.”

“They had vacuum suits,” Holden said. “The ones in your office. They had emergency suits. Turning off the air may not matter.”

Drummer answered from Fred’s hand terminal. “We’ll keep them in place until their bottles run out if that’s what we need to do.”

“Good,” Fred said. “We’re on our way.”

“Don’t stop for beer, sir,” Drummer said, and the background hiss of the connection dropped. Fred made a small, satisfied grunt and pushed himself farther down the hall.

“It’s not going to work,” Holden said. “They’ll figure out what we’re doing and cut through a bulkhead or something.”

“You know the difference between a code and a cipher, Holden?”

“What?”

“A code and a cipher. Cipher, you encrypt text so that no one can tell what the words in the message are. A code, you say the words right out in the open, but you change what they mean. Anyone with a smart computer and a lot of time can break a cipher. No one can break a code.”

Holden launched himself across a wide intersection where three passageways came together. For a moment, the station extended around him on all three axes. Fred and Garret floated close behind him but pushed off faster, so that they reached the far side before him. Fred turned to his left and gestured for them to follow.

“Service deck four’s the other way, sir,” Garret said.

“But the four people on the ambush team are this way,” Fred replied. His words were getting slushy. “Level six, section fourteen, berth eight. Once we’re in position, I’ll try to pull the bad guys out, and we’ll take them in the flank.”

Holden thought for a moment. “You had a whole system set up in case this happened. But what if Drummer had been one of them?”

“I had other systems set up with Oliver, Chu, and Stavros,” Fred said. “Secure, open communications with whoever I had left.”

“Tricky,” Holden said.

“I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a while.”