The Russian nodded, scowled, and put his finger to his lips. Following him, they went through the swinging doors at the back of the room, through the dark kitchen and up the narrow service stairs at the rear. The bartender unlocked the door and helped them force it open against the pressure of the packed bodies inside.
The long room was heavy with the odors of sweat, tobacco smoke and stale air. Faces shone greasily under the glare of the ceiling lights. The only clear space was the table-top against the wall to Cudyk's right, where Rack stood.
Cudyk could see him clearly over the heads of those in front of him. He stood with legs planted firmly, hands at his sides. As always, the leather jacket was draped over his shoulders like a cloak.
He was alone. Spider was not there, nor Monk, nor Tom De Grasse.
Rack was talking in a low, clear voice. Cudyk listened to the end of a sentence which conveyed nothing to him, and then heard: "After that, we got it. They gave it to us." Rack's hands clenched once, and then opened again.
"They intercepted us three minutes after we came out of overdrive in the orbit of New Earth. Twelve fighting ships, the whole fleet. We were in a line, just closing in after we broke C on the way down—the Thermopolae, the Tours, the Waterloo, the Chateau Thierry, the Dunkirk, the Leningrad, the Acre, the Valley Forge, the Hiroshima, the San Francisco, the Seoul, and the flagship last, the Armageddon.
"We didn't know they were there—they were out of our detector range. They had us like sitting ducks. The first thing we knew about it was when a teletype report from the leading ship, the Thermopolae, broke off in the middle of a word. Five seconds later the same thing happened to a report coming in from the next ship. Three seconds more, and the Waterloo was gone.
"I gave the order to reverse acceleration and scatter. But the field—whatever it was—came after us. It would have taken us at least two minutes to build up the overdrive potential again, and we all knew we wouldn't make it. They were getting us one ship every six or eight seconds.
"The men were looking to me for orders. I didn't have any to give them. Suddenly De Grasse turned around and looked at Monk and Spider, and they all nodded. They jumped me. I don't know what happened. I struck my head against the deck when I went down, or one of them hit me with a gun-butt."
His fists clenched and opened once more. "When I came to, I was strapped into a one-man lifeboat, on overdrive, doing ten C's. They must have emptied the ship's accumulators into that lifeboat, charged it up to C potential and got me off just before the field hit them.