Gestapo Mars (22 page)

“Hey.”

She turned to face me, eyes wide, knowing she’d been caught.

“I… I’m just…”

“Terrified,” I said.

She hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

“Everything you said was right. Everything Sergeant Kolostomy said was right. But none of it means this is going to work. You’d be insane not to be scared.”

“I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or not,” she said.

“Then don’t feel better,” I told her. “Where’s it written you’re allowed to feel better?”

“Nowhere, I guess.”

“That’s right. It’s a shitty situation. If you didn’t feel like shit when faced with a shitty situation, then that just makes you a dumbass. Not brave.”

She swallowed hard, tried to smile, failed, then nodded.

“Now listen,” I said. “It’s just us talking now. I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, but you never said how we were going to get out once we’d completed the mission.”

She shook her head, looked confused. “What?”

“Once we’ve set the engines to detonate,” I said. “What’s the plan to get back to the shuttle and escape?”

She shook her head, still confused. “Plan? There’s no plan. We need to stay on board and make sure it blows at the exact moment. It’s a one-way trip. The admiral didn’t tell you?”

And then
I
felt like shit.

T
wo seconds after the zip ship had destroyed the communications buoy, we blew the topside maintenance hatch on the Coriandon freighter.

We dropped down into the ship’s main thruway and landed in fighting crouches, guns up and ready to kill anything that looked like a green blob. Sergeant Kolostomy took his troops and sprinted for the bridge. Poppins and I took the remaining three troopers with us and headed aft. We didn’t waste breath on
good lucks
or
goodbyes
. We all took Kolostomy’s advice to heart.

Keep moving.
Fast
.

A Coriandon stepped out of a side corridor and didn’t even have time to look surprised. One of the troopers next to me fired a burst of three, right into the globby bastard’s midsection. There was a fraction of a delay before the explosive tips detonated. Green goo splattered in every direction and covered the walls and ceiling of the corridor.

A hatch opened, and another alien emerged to see what all the racket was about. The other two troopers peppered him with gunfire, and he exploded all over us. I wiped green glop off my face and kept running.

Still no alarms. We’d caught them flat-footed.

Although they didn’t have feet.

Whatever.

We stormed the engine room. About ten of the aliens turned slowly to see what all the fuss was about. They blinked at us, still unaware their ship had been boarded, no idea who we could be or what we might be doing there, although in that split second when we all raised our weapons to fire, it may have occurred to them something had gone very, very wrong.

All five of us blazed away with our weapons, blobs screaming fear in their gurgle language and exploding, until finally there was nothing left but an ankle-deep layer of green slime. We moved in, weapons up in case one of them was hiding somewhere, all of us trying to keep our footing in the slippery goo.

“The engine controls are over here,” Poppins said. “Cover me while I orient myself.”

“Here’s how we’re going to do it,” I told the troopers. “I want one of you down behind this control console to watch the door straight on. One of you find cover left, the other cover right. Any of the snot wads coming through that door gets a nice three-way crossfire, right in the face.”

They saluted and took their positions.

I keyed the mic in my helmet.

“You there, Kolostomy?”

“We just secured the bridge,” the sergeant’s voice crackled in my ear.

“How fast can you get this ship in the air?” I asked.

“Fast.”

“Do it. We don’t want to give these jokers time to board any additional asset they might have hanging about.”

“Roger that.”

Two seconds later I felt a vibration through my boots. The ship shuddered, and we were away.

It had all been way too easy. Somewhere there was a gelatinous green sergeant cursing a blue streak at his green troops, and telling them how they were going to take their freighter back.

“How are we doing over there, Poppins?”

“Got it figured out,” she said. “I can overload the engines, no problem. It’s only the timing that’s tricky. We need to blow them right as we’re entering the wormhole.”

I moved to stand right next to her, pitched my voice low so the troopers couldn’t hear.

“So what about getting out of here, once you set the thing to blow.” I wasn’t going to die that easy.

Poppins shook her head. “It’s no good, Sloan. We’ve got to hold the engine room, or the Coriandon engineers will just come in and dial back the overload. Then the whole trip is for nothing, and we’re
all
screwed.”

“I’m not saying we do anything to endanger the mission,” I replied, “but there must be a point of no return.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The engines,” I said. “Can they get so hot that the Coriandons can’t back them down again?”

She thought about that for a second.

“Yeah…”

“Then there’s got to be some time between the point of no return, and the actual explosion, right? It’s a chance for us to get back to the shuttle.”

“There’s no way to accurately predict—”

“Fuck that,” I said. “Come on, Poppins. You know your stuff. This is your show. I’ll take your best guess any day of the week.”

“It could be anything,” she said. “Ninety seconds if we’re lucky, but maybe five seconds.”

“So let’s get lucky.”

She chewed her lip, thinking about it. She keyed her helmet mic.

“Sergeant Kolostomy?”

“Here, ma’am.”

“I’m amending the plan,” she said. “Listen up.”

* * *

I caught the trooper looking back at us. It was the kid Kolostomy had made do the pushups.

“Eyes front, trooper,” I said.

He snapped his head back around to watch the engine room doorway.

“Sorry, sir.”

I eased up next to him. “What’s your name?”

“Porkins, sir.”

Poor bastard.

“We’ve got things covered back here, Porkins,” I told him. “You just watch that door, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stay cool. Things are going our way.”

“Understood, sir.”

I went back to Poppins. She was nodding, finishing up a conversation with Ashcroft. “Yes, sir. I’ll let everyone know. Thank you, sir.”

She turned to me, her expression grave. “The fleet is moving into position. They’re going to drop out of translight as close to the wormhole as possible, and make a beeline for it. We form up behind them so we can go through last and blow the engines.”

“What about the Coriandon fleet?”

“They’re parked and waiting,” Poppins said. “Ashcroft thinks that by the time they can respond, he’ll already have his ships through the wormhole. Everything depends on speed and timing. I’ve already relayed the information to Kolostomy’s team on the bridge. They’re guiding us in. The only thing we need to worry about is timing the engine overload. We just need to sit tight until it’s time.”

That’s when Porkins’s head exploded.

My theory was that he’d taken his eyes off the door again. Otherwise he’d have seen them first, and could have started shooting. Not that it mattered now.

The other two troopers blazed away at the green mass coming through the door. Judging by the number of arms holding guns, there were at least three, maybe four melding together and all trying to ooze through the door at once. They fired pulse weapons into the room, hot orange blasts passing over our heads as we dove to the floor.

The exploding tips sent green goo splashing in every direction, squirting through the doorway like toothpaste, globs flying as the troopers fired on them. Part of the mass was growing arms and hands that grabbed the guns and fired into the room at us.

Fuck, that’s just not fair
, I thought.

I drew my pistol and fired along with the troopers, green gunk exploding and splattering over and over again. Suddenly the mass of green withdrew from the doorway like an emerald tide, washing back out to sea.

“They’re withdrawing,” I shouted. “Sound off. Who’s hurt?”

“I’m good,” Poppins said.

“Okay here.” It was the trooper who’d taken up position on the right. The final trooper rushed to Porkins’s side to check on him, but it was no good.

“Damn,” she said. “Just… damn. Sergeant Kolostomy is gonna be pissed.”

She looked young, freckled, like she might have been milking cows on the farm five minutes before they shoved her into a suit of battle armor.

“Hey, listen to me,” I said.

She looked at me, eyes afraid.

“This isn’t over,” I said. “Take his place. Watch the door.”

She hesitated, but only for a second. She swallowed hard, then nodded, and trained her pistol on the doorway and waited. She didn’t look away.

“I’ve got the fleet,” Poppins said suddenly. “They’re moving into the wormhole. I’m going to start overloading the engines now.” She pressed some buttons and moved a lever forward until the hum of the engine grew more high pitched.

“Kolostomy!” she shouted into her comm. “Report.”

“We’re in line for the wormhole,” he said. “ETA five minutes. We’ve got the Coriandon fleet on the scanner, but they haven’t responded yet. Looks like clear sailing.”

“Understood, Sergeant.” To me Poppins said, “The engine’s overloading now. If I’ve timed it right, we should hit the point of no return in four minutes.”

The four longest minutes of my life.

A red light blinked on the control console next to Poppins. An ear-splitting alarm accompanied the blinking light, indicating the impending engine overload.

“That’s the point of no return,” she said anxiously. “If we’re going, then now’s the time.”

I pointed to the trooper with the freckles.

“Check the hall. Now!”

She ran to the doorway, looked out, then back at me.

“Clear.”

“Back to the shuttle,” I shouted. “Run as fast as you can.”

We sprinted from the engine room, hitting the main corridor and running back like bats out of hell. No Coriandons anywhere in sight—which struck me as strange. I keyed my helmet mic.

“Listen up, Sergeant. We’ve rigged the engine blow. Get your people back to the shuttle…
now
.”

“It’s no good, Sloan.” The pop and rattle small-arms fire in the background almost drowned out Kolostomy’s voice. “They’re swarming us. Even if we could get past the sons of bitches, somebody’s got to stay at the tiller and keep us on course. You people go. We’ve got this.”

That explained the empty corridor. Most of them were assaulting the bridge. There was no time for plan B. No time for profound words.

“Good luck, Sergeant.”

Halfway back to the shuttle they came at us, filling the corridor, shoulder to gelatinous shoulder, blocking our way like a wall of jello.

“Don’t stop,” I yelled. “Keep running as you shoot!” Pistols bucked in our hands as we ran and fired. The exploding tips obliterated the first line of Coriandon. We fired and fired until our pistols clicked empty.

No time to reload.

“Laser cutlasses!” I shouted.

I unclipped the hilt from my utility belt and thumbed the ignition button. The cutlass’s red laser blade blazed to life and I waded into the line of green monsters, swinging with every ounce of strength I had. The glow blade made deep rents everywhere I slashed, the globby alien bodies slicing open like overripe fruit, and gunky alien guts spilling everywhere.

The others joined me on either side, Poppins on the right, the troopers on the left, swinging their own cutlasses, screaming battle rage, the rage of the desperate. I was covered in green slime, but I kept pushing forward, carving any alien that dared come within range.

“Cut a path!” I yelled.

We redoubled our efforts and the Coriandons fell back, high-pitched screams of panicked gurgle erupting with each thrust of my cutlass. Even with the urgency to escape driving me on, some part of me was just too curious. I switched my helmet to channel six for the universal translator.

“The blades of fire burn as do my Aunt Meelgra’s feet.”

“Oh, help us, mighty space turnip!”

Kolostomy had been right about the idioms.

“On me! Let’s move, people. We have to push through
now
!” I charged for the weakest part of the line. We slashed and bellowed rage. I heard Freckles scream, and she went down under a quivering green pile. Just as Poppins and I broke through the aliens, the last trooper went down.

The words
“Turn his human flesh into brown soup!”
crackled though the translator.

I didn’t want to know.

I shoved Poppins ahead of me.

“Go! Don’t look back!”

We were up through the hatch fast. I sealed it on our end.

“How much longer?”

“I don’t know.” Poppins’s voice was strained. “Any second.”

We rushed forward, and I took the pilot’s seat. Poppins strapped herself into the copilot’s seat. I didn’t think it possible for her to be any whiter, but she’d gone sickly pale. I guess I couldn’t blame her. She was waiting for an antimatter explosion to go off under our asses any second.

I hit the thrusters, and the shuttle slowly pulled away ahead of the freighter.

Come on, you hunk of shit. Faster… faster!

I ordered the computer to remove all safety buffers and redlined the engines. The wormhole loomed large in the forward view screen.

The shuttle’s engines roared and shuddered, the whole ship shaking. Warning lights flared bright across the control console.

“Bring up the rear view,” I told Poppins.

She tapped at her keyboard, and a picture-in-picture display sprang up in the corner of the forward view screen, showing us the Coriandon freighter growing smaller behind us.

“The Coriandon fleet is responding,” Poppins said, looking at the scanners.