Eric Aichele yawned expansively. He hadn't meant for it to expand quite so much. Just a little yawn to make Sullivan and Giannini believe him when he said he was going straight to bed. The first rule of misleading others is not to oversell. Stick to subtle clues rather than grand expressions. The problem was that he really was as tired as he could remember being since boot camp, and once he started his little fake yawn, it grew on its own, increasing in size and volume as it went.

"Pardon me, ladies. It's not the company, I assure you," he excused himself with a grin.

"Didn't think it for a min--," Crystal Giannini almost managed to finish before Aichele's contagious yawn claimed her. Amber Sullivan said nothing, but offered a hesitant smile to acknowledge the apology.

When her jaw muscles were once again her own to command, Giannini said, "Well, I think that should do it for today. There's not enough left of this watch to start somewhere else. Why don't you two turn in a little early, and I'll go report to Commander Leung."

"Thank you, ma'am, I will do just that. I'm getting too old for these double shifts," he said.

"You're not old, Gunny," she disagreed.

"Wrong on both counts."

"Huh?" Sullivan asked. It was the first word she'd uttered in hours, if it even qualified as a word.

"I mean, yes, I am old, and no, I am not 'Gunny' anymore. Crewman Third Class Aichele, at your service," he finished with a smiling half-bow.

"Oh," Amber said. That would definitely qualify as a word, even if the other didn't.

"Sorry, I hadn't thought about you losing your rank, Gu--, uh, Crewman," Giannini finished lamely.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, call me Eric, even if I am old enough to be your grandfather."

"Fine. I'll call you Eric if you'll stop exaggerating. You can't be more than, what, fifty, maybe fifty-two."

Aichele laughed. It wasn't a chuckle, but a full-throated belly laugh. Crystal and Amber got puzzled looks on their faces and when Eric saw them, it set him off again. When his laughter subsided, he finally said, "Bless you, child. That was quite a compliment. I haven't seen my fifties for a long time now. I turned eighty-two four months ago."

"Nuh-uh," Amber disbelieved.

"Marine's honor," Eric said, placing his hand over his heart, then letting it drop to his side. "I guess I am going to have to find a new phrase. But it really is true. Eight more years and I would have retired, anyway. With a lot less money, of course."

"But you don't look that old!" Crystal said.

"I grew up on Fairfield, so I had access to the latest antiagathics as soon as they came out. Plus my family has a history of long life. My great-granddad always tells me so, anyway."

Crystal looked dubious. "Now you're pulling my leg."

"Nope. I went to his 160th birthday party the day before I shipped out to Pathfinder." His right hand rose for an instant, but then returned to his side. "Honest," he concluded instead.

"Anyway, we've gabbed away the last of second watch. Why don't you two turn in so I can report back and do the same," she directed.

"Yes, ma'am," Eric agreed, and headed off. Amber left without a word, in a different direction, apparently headed for the mess rather than her bunk.

When Aichele arrived at his quarters, he moved about the room as if he were preparing to turn in, while surreptitiously checking for any electronic signals that didn't belong. Finding none, he changed quickly into his Marine class C uniform, and snapped open the quick release tabs on the ventilation cover that he had rigged the day before. He stepped onto his bunk and used the extra elevation to help launch his body up and into the ductwork that ran between main deck and upper.

He didn't have to worry about the duct being strong enough to support his weight. Warships, as Pathfinder began her life to be, are built to take a lot of punishment, built with the expectation that they would take damage. That is why each compartment of the ship was built to be airtight when sealed off, and designed to automatically seal if the air pressure should drop suddenly. That meant that the air circulation system also needed to be able to seal itself, to keep the ship from losing air if it became punctured due to battle damage. So the materials from which it was constructed had to be able to hold in at least one atmosphere of pressure. And strong enough for 100 kiloPascals was more than enough to support his weight.

So that wasn't an issue. The problem was that he didn't fit, or at least not very well. Aichele was built like a prototypical wrestler, broad at the shoulders and narrow at the hips, even before the Marines had added 15 or 20 kilos of muscle. In order to get his shoulders in, he had to keep them diagonal to the cross-section. It's going to be a long trip, he thought, inching his way forward.

A jolt of claustrophobia hit him, and he wriggled backward a half meter before he could stop himself. He closed his eyes and shook for nearly a minute before he had himself under control once again. His mental equilibrium reestablished, he caterpillared ahead, wondering what kind of crazy world it was that had him owing Tommy Knives for preparing him for this day.

At the corner of his room, the shaft branched to the right and left. Negotiating the turn was difficult and time-consuming, but eventually he took the right turning and headed aft. It was marginally less constrictive here. He could lie flat now, and use his elbows for support and locomotion. Dust covered everything about him, and he was going to have to be careful to see that he cleaned his clothes and himself before anyone was in a position to notice how dirty he had become.

Tommy Knives was a name he hadn't thought of for years. Long enough, in fact, that Aichele could no longer remember his last name. Regioni, maybe? It started with an R…

No matter. Knives was the name he had earned, and that was the only name the rest of the company had used after the first three weeks of boot camp. Back in those days, the Corps had still accepted "coerced" volunteers; those who were given a choice between military service and prison time. That policy had changed back in the forties, while Aichele had been a drill instructor, and that had been good for both the Corps and Aichele personally.

He moved himself absolutely silently past a vent that led into someone else's quarters. Sullivan's, he deduced, though it was unoccupied. She must not be back from her dinner yet. There were still two more vents ahead before the next turn, so he maintained his stealthy crawl.

Anyway, Knives thought he was pretty hot stuff when he hit dirt at Camp Hogan. Rumor had it that he had run a street gang in one of the Warner enclaves, and he was used to people jumping when he said, "Frog." Aichele had discounted that notion almost immediately. It takes brains to run an organization of any size or description, and Knives was as dumb as a sack full of hammers.

Eric came to a tee, but instead of a left-right option, this offered only up and down. The vertical shaft was quite a bit wider, which in this case made things more difficult. There were no handholds or deep seams to aid in climbing, either up or down. He eased out beyond the edge, holding himself in place by pushing against the opposite wall so that his hands and shoulders were pressed tightly to each side. There wasn't enough room to pull his knees up to his chest, so there was no convenient way to use his legs to help support his weight.

He felt the unaccustomed strain on his arms and, looking above him, judged how difficult it would be to climb up and over the boat bay area. Really hard, he decided, but he knew he could do it. His shoulders would likely ache for a week, though. There was no help for it; he couldn't stand by and do nothing.

That was how he clashed with Knives, as well.

When Knives was packed off to the none-too-tender mercies of the Corps, part of his gang came with him. With muscle to back him up, he figured to be running the place within a month. Clearly he was not the brightest bulb in the pack.

Aichele had not been aware of any of that when he first met Knives; that had come later. His first meeting with Knives was while the whole company was out on maneuvers. Aichele came upon him threatening Jepsen. He didn't know what it was all about, since he hadn't actually heard what was said, but something was clearly not right. As now, he couldn't stand by and do nothing.

As Eric had approached, Tommy had backed away, looking all around to see who was near. There was no one else in the area, meaning no witnesses to corroborate anything Jepsen might say.

"Everything all right here, Jepsen?" Aichele had asked.

"This don't concern you, Boy Scout. Why don't you just move on?" Knives had menaced.

"That right, Jepsen?" Jepsen didn't make a sound, but the panic and fear in his eyes was answer enough. "Well, you and I have to be on the other side of that ridge in fifteen. I think you and Ricaterra will have to finish your business later. Come on." Ricaterra, that was his name. Tommy Ricaterra.

"I don't think so, Boy Scout. Jepsen and I got an arrangement to settle before he goes anywhere. You know what's good for you, you'll make yourself scarce," Tommy said with a leering grin.

"Look, buddy, I don't know what area you were assigned, and I don't much care. But if Jepsen and I aren't where we belong in time to support the rest of the team, we're going to catch extra duty. I don't see that your business or you are worth that certainty, so back off and get to your own position."

"And I'm telling you," there was no trace of a smile now, "you don't stick your nose someplace else, I'll reach down your throat and pull your lungs out for you."

Aichele didn't threaten easily; never had. Bullies had always seemed the lowest sort of life to him, and he wasn't about to back down to this one. "Don't let anything but fear and inability stand in your way."

Tommy was livid then, as Eric had intended. A pair of knives suddenly appeared in Tommy's hands and he took up a street fighter's stance. "Gonna cut you some, Boy Scout!"

"Try it if you want to. Just remember that self defense make this justifiable homicide," Eric had said with a taunting grin, assuming the ready position he'd been practicing in hand-to-hand combat training for the last few weeks. "And I have a witness, right, Jepsen?" Jepsen made no answer from behind Aichele, but he didn't dare look back to see what the other man was doing. Perhaps he had no witness after all.

"Ain't you gonna pull your stick?" Tommy used one of his own to gesture at the combat knife still in Eric's belt. The street tough had lost some the sneering arrogance he had shown earlier. Eric was not following the normal script bullies depended on; he was neither afraid nor indifferent. Tommy was less sure how to handle the rapidly escalated situation, and he was not very good at disguising that fact.

"No. I don't need a weapon to squash a little bug like you," Eric said. "But hurry up and make your move, if you're going to. I still have work to do today."

Perhaps Eric had not given him enough credit for his intelligence. There was a long pause with each recruit eying the other. Finally, Knives arrived at a logical conclusion and opted to retreat in the face of a superior force. "Ah, you ain't worth the effort, Boy Scout. Just stay outta my way, or else."

Once Eric was sure the other was truly gone, he turned to gather up Jepsen and get moving to their assigned stations. Jepsen was nowhere to be seen, but there were muffled sounds coming from the brush. Eric headed off, and thought nothing more of the incident at the time.

Eric had made it to the top of the shaft while reminiscing and had begun crawling down the relatively roomy conduit above the boat bay's enormous expanse. The vents in this stretch were no longer in the sides of the ducting as they had been before. Here the openings were on the bottom, and Aichele had occasional views of the floor twelve meters straight down with only a thin sheet of metal to support him. Fortunately, heights had never been a particular worry of his. And his trauma-induced claustrophobia he had learned to control.

When he had crossed that space, he had the option of stretching across the opening to another horizontal shaft to move into the engineering section's upper deck or else heading down to the main or lower decks. His arms could manage another descent, but he chose the straight path anyway. He had planned this excursion in advance, of course, and he had three potential targets in mind. The question was whether or not he would be able to find access to any of them from the air ductwork.

The conduit had squeezed down another couple of sizes again, and he fought to keep a chokehold on his fears. He tried taking a deep breath, but found that led to a constricted feeling that was counterproductive.

Unbidden, his mind slipped back to basic training once again. To Aichele, his run-in with Knives had not seemed to be an event of any great importance. Aichele knew what Tommy was, and Tommy knew that Eric was not going to be bullied. Once that was firmly established, he had believed the issue was resolved. Had the matter remained simply between the two of them, that might have been true.

Unfortunately, Knives had been a little too good at intimidating others. Jepsen was well and truly scared by the thug when Aichele had intervened. When the two potential combatants had focused all their attention on each other, he had run for help, fearful that Aichele had bitten off more than he could chew.

The delay that Knives had instigated meant that the rest of the squad, for whom Jepsen and Aichele had been acting as scouts, had all caught up already, and within a minute the cavalry had arrived, though unobserved by the two opponents. Marshall, the squad leader, had made a different assessment of the probable outcome and, instead of stepping in, had waved his men into concealment.

So, rather than the forgotten incident that Eric had believed it to be, it soon became known to everyone in the whole camp what had happened. "Knives" was his only appellation from then on, and his ability to intimidate evaporated into thin air. No one would take him seriously after that, even the three young men from his own gang.

Humiliated beyond enduring, he plotted his revenge on his tormentor. Had he not made two critical mistakes, it might have meant Aichele's doom.

Knives had seen his opportunity three weeks after the initial incident, when the training exercises had added powered armor to the weapons list. Using his familiarity with breaking and entering, Tommy managed to get his hands on a drill instructor's control wand, which allowed them to remotely control a recruit's armor to simulate damage during a mock battle.

That day's orders had the company working in the mountains that Camp Hogan was famous for, practicing power-assisted jumps. Of necessity, the recruits were spread out as much as possible. Each leap covered a good deal of terrain, and you didn't want to slam into your neighbor unexpectedly, armor or no armor.

Knives had to have been watching Aichele all morning in order to get himself into a position to strike at just the right moment. That opportunity came while Eric was traversing a deep fissure in the rocky ground. Without warning, the boot jets shut off and the suit became completely immobile. The horrible sensation of falling was made all the worse by not being able to move.

Aichele had slammed into the rocks of the near side, bouncing and continuing to fall. Finally he came to rest at an awkward angle, on his back. He landed with his head much lower than his feet. The armor had fulfilled its primary function; Aichele wasn't dead, but he was bruised and broken enough that he almost wished he were. His head was the only part of his body that he could really move, though his temples throbbed when he did so. The movement at least confirmed to him that he hadn't broken his neck.

As Eric was assessing the damage to himself, he saw the black and red form of a practice suit peering over the edge 120 meters above. The sense of relief that he had been spotted and help was on the way turned to an icy lump in the pit of his stomach as he heard in the radio earpiece that was miraculously still working, "So long, Boy Scout. See you in hell."

That had been his first mistake, though neither was aware of it at the time. For Aichele, it was the start of a long day of suffering, both physical and mental. His injuries were agonizing, but he could do nothing to alleviate the pain. His radio transmitter appeared to be functioning, but the signal was unable to pierce the solid rock and his repeated cries for help went unanswered.

After ten or fifteen minutes of futility he gave up and spent his time panicking. It wasn't a planned transition, of course, but the conflict between the need to stay alive and the inability to do anything to ensure that result has often led to panic in even the best trained men.

Twenty minutes of staring at the brownish gray rock with a stripe of light blue sky in the middle began to disorient him. All the blood rushing to his head certainly hadn't helped matters. He thought that he could see the walls drawing closer together, seeking to crush him and grind him into nonexistence. He began yelling, screaming, crying into his radio again, though not nearly so coherently as before.

Closing his eyes did not help at all. Once the image of constricting stone was in his mind it seemed nothing he could do would remove it. It took more than an hour before he was even thinking straight enough to try.

The human body has its limits, and there is only so long that a person can scream before all physical and emotional energy is depleted. Once Aichele's body had reached that point, his mind was again able to begin asserting control. He began by simply concentrating on his breathing and eventually he was able to slow his heart rate and calm himself down. The logical portion of his brain tried hard to convince the rest of the body that since the walls hadn't already squashed him, odds were that would continue to be the case.

The suit's heads up display had died along with all of the control functions, so he had no way of marking time. It seemed that he was in that pit for an eternity, but five hours was the actual span. By the time Marshall and Li spotted him, he was having a hard time staying conscious, and didn't recognize the radio transmissions for what they were. A few more minutes, half an hour at most, and Eric would have passed out, likely never to awaken. He slipped in and out anyway while they were getting him out of the fissure, and he wasn't really aware of things until he woke up in a hospital bed two days later.

The first mistake that Knives had made was in not knowing everything about the tools he had. Plugging the command wand into his suit had indeed given him the ability to shut down Eric's suit. It had also given him much broader communication ability, which he hadn't known about. When he thought he had been speaking suit to suit with the line of sight components, he had actually been broadcasting to everyone in the company. The fact that all were aware of the event and began the search for Aichele at once was a saving one.

The second error was Tommy's belief that he knew his way around the legal system, and a slap on the wrist was all he should have expected. Unfortunately, the leniency of the civil courts that had punished him by giving him a job with the Marines bore only a passing similarity with a WSMC court martial. That mistake had proven fatal for Knives, though it was likely he would have been hung even if he hadn't tried to play legal games at his trial.

Still, because of Knives, Aichele was now aware of his fear of confinement, and also knew that his will was strong enough to do what needed doing regardless of how it made him feel inside.

Aichele folded himself around a corner at the rear of the engineering section and struggled both to move forward and to remain silent. He could hear the voices of at least two people working in that area, though the hum of machinery and power made their words indistinct.

He had already checked the first two items on his list, and discarded them as impossible. Both were on the engineering section's upper deck, where the air vents were all near the ceiling, away from the equipment resting on the floor. Target number three was on main deck, and the duct openings were all at the base of the walls there.

As he pulled himself into position, he found a home run rather than the strike three he had feared. The vent grate was exactly facing the rear access panel of the main field generator's housing. There was space between the wall and the massive machine, but he could still reach everything without even exiting the ductwork.

Reaching into his sleeve pocket he pulled out his field multitool and began removing the screws from the cover plate, which was a slow and awkward endeavor while reaching fingers through the narrow slits. It took more than half an hour to remove the grate, and Eric began to be nervous about being able to get back to his bunk before his next shift started. It was almost certain at this point that he was not going to have any spare time to actually sleep today, but being late for duty, with the questions that would raise, would be stressful at best and potentially lethal.

The rear cover of the generator housing came free much more quickly and easily, now that he literally had some elbow room. Once clear, he examined the interior briefly, looking for the more sensitive components within easy reach. He found what he was looking for almost at once. There were several control circuits not far from a main power coupling. It was not inconceivable that a power surge might damage or destroy those delicate data pathways. If he could make it look like a random occurrence rather than sabotage, no one would come looking for a saboteur, which would suit one Eric Aichele just fine.

Gently, he extracted his prepared package from a thigh pocket. He had yet to liberate any actual explosives from the guarded security section, but there were other tools in other locations on the ship that didn't have anyone watching them. His package was one such, and while it wouldn't go boom, it was still amazing what kind of damage a self-destroying fuse timer and primacord would do to delicate multistate electronics.

A quick check of his chrono told him he had only two and a half hours left before he was due to report to his work party. He set the timer for five, and resealed the back of the generator. Closing up the duct grating was again a laborious chore, and Eric was sweating by the time it was completed.

He pulled himself forward then, intending to loop back around to the main shaft that would lift him over the boat bay again. There was not enough room to turn around and backtrack, and he would prefer to see where he was going, so forward it was. The tight fit of the duct made corners especially difficult to negotiate, and each one slowed his progress. He checked his chrono again nervously as he approached the last turn before the vertical passage. Only an hour and a half. Time to get your tail in gear, Marine, he thought.

When it came time to climb back up, he wasn't as sure about his ability to do it as he had been, but he wasn't going to waste time debating.

He made it. His shoulders burned and his arms shook from the immense effort. He didn't have the energy to go on, but he also didn't have the time to rest. Lessons from Camp Hogan came back to him, and he thought of a way to do both at once.

Rolling onto his back, he could use his legs to slide himself along while his arms could rest. He needed to be on duty in twenty-two minutes when he reached the downshaft. Did he have time to make it? Should he crawl out here and trust to luck to make it back without being spotted? No, he decided. Late for his shift was less dangerous than being spotted where he didn't belong in a dirty uniform he was no longer allowed to wear.

He tried to use his legs a little in his descent, but it was problematic. He really couldn't support his weight with them, but he did manage to use them to slow his rate of descent. He had to slide down quickly, both because he was out of time and because his arms wouldn't take a slow and gentle pace.

He dropped below the opening and then had to climb back up in order to be facing forward. The ducting in this section was too small to allow him to lie on his back the way he had while crossing the boat bay, but he still tried using his legs as much as he could.

Finally, dropping into his quarters, he wished he could drop straight into his bunk. He'd been up and working for a full twenty-four hours, and he still had sixteen to go before he could rest.

He had to get cleaned up to remove all the dust and grime he had collected first. The Marine uniform couldn't go in the laundry or it wouldn't come back, so it went in the shower with him. In four minutes he had himself cleaned and dressed, his quarters ship shape, and all evidence of his activities of the past eight hours removed.

It was more time than he had available to use, though. He was two minutes late reporting in to the chief engineer. He didn't think she even noticed, since he was far from the last one to report for duty. Most had clearly foregone a shower this morning in exchange for a few extra minutes of sleep. Danis looked like he had slept in his work uniform.

It was twenty-five minutes past watch change when assignments were handed out and Aichele headed forward with Goodwin and Chandler. With a minimum of conversation, they began laying replacement communication and data lines in the conduit beds just under the decking. They started at the junction box which butted up against the bridge bulkhead and were working their way aft, testing the connections at each successive junction.

Eric only checked his watch a few times that morning, but he was aware of when his timer went off. His mental countdown told him that the moment had arrived and there was…nothing.

No alarms, no shouts, no anything. Perhaps he was simply too far from the right area to have noticed anything. Even though it was certainly better for him that no one had noticed, it was incongruously disappointing not to have to pretend he didn't know anything about what was going on when he was questioned. Especially after all the mental preparation he had put into being ready for that potential threat.

It wasn't until almost three hours later that it occurred to him that the field generators had not been activated since the takeover had happened. There had been no way to control the engines with the destruction of the control lines. The local control lines in engineering had been replaced, but there was no point in driving the engines when you couldn't see where you were going to begin with.

His carefully laid alibi was useless. It might be weeks before anyone noticed that Pathfinder was again lame.