Authors: Matt Roberts
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Tucker persisted. “All he wants to remove is the corrupt core of ISO starting with you and ending with Lieutenant Ambrose. We’re going to take you in and you’re going to lead us to him.”
“Ambrose misled all of us but taking him out isn’t the solution to the problem. As long as ISO exists it’s a threat. All we do by leading them to him is get ourselves killed faster.” Owyn had to hurry this up. He was running out of time.
O’Brien had a stun grenade in hand and looked to Owyn for approval. She could incapacitate the four of them with one blast, but it would have to be perfect; any slight error and they’d move in for the kill. Owyn couldn’t allow it. He shook his head and O’Brien acknowledged his order, returning the grenade to her belt.
“Can’t trust what you say, Carter. I’d love to believe we’re on the same side, but I can only ignore so much of your suspicious behaviour.” Tucker was afraid. It was obvious. Any chance he was offered to save himself he was going to take. His mind wasn’t going to be changed. “You’ve got five seconds to come out or we’re coming in there to force you out. If we have to kill you ourselves so be it.”
“Don’t do this, Tuck,” Owyn said in desperation. He didn’t know if he could take losing anyone else, even while Tucker was holding him and his team at gunpoint. “Let us go and we’ll talk. We can sort this out.”
“No can do. Two seconds.”
“For fuck’s sake, Tuck!” Owyn screamed. It was no use. He wasn’t going to get through to him, but he had to do something. He couldn’t let four Operatives die like this. He patched his comms through to Anderson. “Only Tucker. Leave the others,” he ordered. Every word was painful to say, but it was the right call.
Anderson received the command. He instructed his team to stand down and took the shot himself. The crack was hardly audible, but it was deafening to Owyn. As Tucker fell lifelessly to the floor the other members of Charlie Squad spun around, frantically attempting to trace the source of the shot.
Knowing that their attention was away from the cruiser Owyn and O’Brien rushed out behind them. “Weapons down!” Owyn cried.
Without hesitation the three rifles dropped to the hangar floor. Delta Squad still had their targets lined up and they knew it. They weren’t going to risk more bloodshed.
“Get them inside and watch them,” Owyn told O’Brien. She rounded up the unarmed Operatives and escorted them into the rear compartment of the cruiser.
Owyn kneeled down next to Tucker’s motionless body. “Now we’re shooting each other in the back,” he muttered under his breath. He looked up at the hanger ceiling, high above his head. “Is this what you wanted?” he asked, then reached down and closed Tucker’s eyes to hide his stunned stare. “Dammit, Tuck.”
With the situation now under control Anderson led his team over to join Owyn. “You were right,” he snarled, though his frustrations weren’t so directly aimed at Owyn this time. “We’re already turning on ourselves and the real carnage hasn’t even begun.”
Owyn picked himself up. “Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t think I did this for you. I did this because I know you’re the only hope we’ve got, however much I hate to admit it, so I hope my faith isn’t misplaced. Though I figure if it is the blood won’t be on my hands for long – it’ll be on yours.”
Owyn brushed aside his remarks and diverted his attention to the matter at hand. “Any idea how Bauer contacted them? Tucker claimed he was ordered to bring us in.”
“Apparently he’s taken over the whole damn station. I’ll have Vahrez fill you in.” He called the Corporal over.
With rushed, anxious strides she made her way over. She looked petrified. Her skin was pale; her whole body stiff as a plank. “Yes sir,” she stuttered.
“Tell him everything you told me,” Anderson pushed her.
With her discomfort so blatant to see Owyn ordered him away. “Set the rest of your team at the entrances to this deck. We don’t want anyone else coming here hoping to be a hero. I’ll talk to Vahrez.”
“You better have a plan cooking in that big ol’ brain of yours. We don’t exactly have time on our side.” He called the rest of his squad over and headed out.
“You alright, Corporal?” Owyn asked, seemingly more concerned by Vahrez’ state than her squad leader.
As expected she was a little more willing to speak without Anderson bearing down on her. “I don’t know.” She gulped. “Colonel Bauer said a lot about your squad and Lieutenant Ambrose… And now we’re shooting our own people.” She glanced nervously down at Tucker’s body. “It’s a lot to take in, sir.”
“Did you believe him? Bauer? Did you believe what he said about us?”
She looked down at the ground as she shuffled her feet. “I did, sir. That could have been me if not for Sergeant Anderson.”
“You can’t have been persuaded that easily. Do you really think we’re working for Ambrose; that we’ve been following his orders this whole time?”
“I wouldn’t, but pretty much everything you do is classified. The rest of us know so little about you that we don’t know anything different than what we’re told.”
Owyn nodded solemnly. “If I’m honest, Corporal, I don’t know much more than you. From my first day at ISO I worked with Ambrose and I never questioned him. He dictated everything I knew and everything I did; that’s the life of an ISO Operative. We have so little contact with the outside world that all we can do is trust what we’re told is true. After today I’m not sure much of it was. Ambrose could have planned it from the start – I don’t know. He could have been leading us astray since before we arrived here and we’d never have known.”
“For what it’s worth, sir, I trust you. I think the rest of the squad do too. Sergeant Anderson might not act like he does, but he vouched for you over Bauer. That’s good enough for me, even if he’s too stubborn to accept that you’re in charge. Whatever Bauer said about you he isn’t one of us. You are. If Tucker had taken time to think he would have realised that too instead of trying to save his own skin. If not for you he’d have taken three other Operatives with him.”
Owyn smiled faintly. He couldn’t muster much joy after all that had happened but Vahrez had managed to restore a sliver of his optimism. “Thank you, Corporal. It’s nice to know someone’s on our side.” She smiled back. “Now what else was it Anderson wanted you to tell me?”
She nodded, her confidence now largely restored. “As well as broadcasting a message to the crew Bauer locked down Operations. We wanted to contact you and the Sergeant when we got back to the station but we couldn’t get in to access long range comms.”
Right on cue Sully emerged from the cruiser carrying his holographic pad and with a bag of equipment slung over his shoulder. “You hear that, Sully?” Owyn asked. “Is that possible?”
He’d heard it alright, and already Owyn could see his eyes brighten and the cogs start turning. If there was anything that could cheer Sully up, it was a problem. He had a plan. “He can’t have accessed the internal system –
that
isn’t possible – but my guess is he’s used the station’s main systems to override it and seal the locks. He can’t affect any of the systems inside but he can prevent us from using them. That stops us from using long range comms, radar, weapons, cameras, security, everything.”
Rather than invite Sully to launch into a rant of technical babble Owyn cut right to the chase. “Can you get us in?”
“I designed those systems so I damn well hope I can. I just need to access the door manually.”
“Copy that.” Owyn activated his comms. “Anderson. I’m headed your way with Sully. Get us an elevator to Operations.” He then turned to Corporal Vahrez. “Fancy coming along?”
“It’d be a pleasure, sir.”
“Alright. Let’s move. Sully?”
“One step ahead of you.” He tapped through a few more menus and then took a deep, expectant breath. “Control of the station’s speaker systems is mine.”
He brought his finger down on the play button and in rolled the sound of drums that had been absent for so long, blasting louder than ever throughout the entirety of HQ. As the bass entered with such power that it shook the floor beneath their feet Owyn felt a hint of optimism creeping into his mind. Maybe, just maybe, they weren’t quite dead yet.
Owyn, Sully and Vahrez arrived at Operations to find the doors sealed tight. There was no access panel – the door was only designed to be closed from inside during a complete lockdown in order to protect the contents of the IC. The whole room, including the door, along with the Commanding Officer’s quarters was also designed to be able to withstand an explosion which could destroy the entirety of the rest of the station, so there was no chance of breaking it open. Sully had his work cut out.
Owyn’s first priority was to ensure they were guarded. “Vahrez. Cover the hall. We don’t need any surprises.” She nodded dutifully and took her position. Sully set his equipment down and grabbed his laser cutter. “What are you planning?” Owyn enquired.
“I’ve got two choices. I can either kick the DPD out of the station’s main systems or I can trigger the failsafe in this door. Hacking into the systems could take days so I’m guessing you’d prefer the latter.”
“Won’t we need to hack the main systems anyway?”
“Not if we can get inside first. I can use the IC to override them and shut those pricks out for good. Only downside is this door will never close again.” Sully activated the cutter and started carving out a section of the wall beside the door.
“What exactly
is
the failsafe?” Owyn asked curiously.
“I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise now would I?” He soon finished cutting out a small section of relatively thin metal plating from the outer surface of the wall and was ready to open her up. As he did so he revealed a huge, bulky cable made up of hundreds of spindly silver wires. “1576 individual wires,” he pointed out. “All identical apart from one. Cut any other than that one and this door stays shut for good.”
“Why the seventy-six?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Sully answered ambiguously, not willing to divulge any further information. He opened a program on his pad and started to type out a long and complex passage of code from memory. Owyn stood back and watched patiently, wary of breaking his concentration and knocking the cogs and gears in his brain out of line.
One he was done typing he connected the device up to one of the wires in the cable and hit enter. After cycling through thousands after thousands of values it arrived at the number 712. Sully responded by typing in 864 and it began cycling once again. Finally it came to a stop at the number seven. Sully counted seven across from the connected wire and cut. A few anxious seconds later – anxious for Owyn at least, Sully seemed calm enough – the magnetic locks released and the door opened.
Owyn patted his partner on the shoulder. “Nice work. Vahrez,” he called. “With me.”
Corporal Vahrez hurried back to join them before the two Operatives moved inside and swept through both Operations and the Commanding Officer’s quarters above. It was unlikely to be a necessary precaution but Owyn wasn’t taking any chances. However, as expected, everything was normal. They were in the clear. Owyn signalled for Sully to come inside and he headed straight for the IC.
After a few minutes of frantic typing Sully stepped away from the console. “It’s done,” he declared.
Owyn finally holstered his gun and sighed. The station was theirs.
THE LOST AND BROKEN
Owyn sat at the top of the steps from Operations with the door to the Commanding Officer’s quarters closed behind him. He sat leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together as if in prayer, his head bowed.
Below him, gathered around the IC was every remaining member of ISO left at HQ. Bravo Squad hadn’t returned; they were more likely to stay away now the DPD were hunting them – if they weren’t already dead – so this was it.
Next to the IC sat Sully, slumped in his chair. Beside him were the four Operative of Delta Squad along with the five members of the engineering department and the two heads of intelligence, one serving Sully’s role in each of the other two squads. Behind them were the six extra pilots – enough to have two squads out on mission simultaneously – along with two cooks, two cleaners, four medical personnel and the station’s three maintenance staff. Finally, in the back corner of the room were the three remaining Operatives of Charlie Squad, closely watched by O’Brien.
Including Owyn, that made a grand total of thirty four crew members, of which only nine were combat trained. That was his army. Looking down on them just brought into perspective how small and insignificant they were compared to what they were up against. It also brought into light just how barebones ISO was as an organisation. Something had changed since their inception. Nobody builds the largest, most advanced space station in human history for it to be manned by a crew of thirty, presenting them with a wealth of technology and resources just for them to do what was, in essence, dirty work.
Whatever it was that changed they’d been kept in the dark, just as with everything else, and now they were finally feeling the consequences.
“Two of our Operative lost their lives in Kyvos today,” Owyn began. He spoke with a sombre tone, wanting to inspire empathy in place of the tense, fearful atmosphere that filled the room. “They didn’t die at the hand of an enemy; they were killed by soldiers under the command of Colonel Rolann Bauer of the Department of Planetary Defence. You all know that, of course, but you don’t know why – not really. Well, the difference between those two deaths was that Lieutenant Miller died willingly. He led us to abduct and interrogate Javier Rodriguez – a DPD researcher – in order to obtain intelligence which, in truth, didn’t exist. Both he and Lieutenant Ambrose lied to and deceived us, eventually leading to Colonel Bauer being forced to issue a terminate order for the entirety of ISO. Miller betrayed every person in this room and set us up for execution.”
A murmur spread through the group momentarily. Owyn paused, waiting for it to subside before he continued.
“As a result the DPD will do anything they can to kill every last one of us, whatever means necessary.” He took a breath. This was the tricky part. “Every one of you has a choice. You can either choose to believe what Bauer told you and turn me and what’s left of my team in to the DPD, or you can believe what I’m telling you and we can fight. As the highest ranking Operative and only officer left at HQ, I’m offering to take charge of ISO and do everything I can to make sure this isn’t the end of us. There’s no guarantee I’ll succeed – in fact there’s very little chance I will – but there’s a chance. It’s your choice whether or not you take it.”
Silence. No one moved or made a sound. There were no objections and no agreements until finally Corporal Vahrez spoke up. “We’re with you, Carter,” she assured. Eventually everyone else started to nod in agreement.
Owyn nodded back, smiling faintly. “Unlike Miller, Specialist Kendrick Shaw chose to fight. He gave his life so that I, Sully, O’Brien and Anderson could make it back here alive. If he hadn’t then there wouldn’t have been any warning. Bauer would have slaughtered you all without you ever knowing why.
Just remember this: we’re all soldiers now, even those of you who don’t fight on the field. Soldiers die – there’s no escaping that – but we’re also survivors. I don’t know what any of you went through to get here but I know it wasn’t easy. Every last one of you made it through hell to get this far so don’t lie down now, no matter how desperate our situation seems. Make sure that if you die, you die for
something
, whatever you choose that to be. Just make sure you don’t die because you didn’t have the guts to fight. Make sure Kendrick Shaw didn’t die for nothing.”
“Any word on Bravo Squad?” Owyn asked.
Operations was now back to being as busy as always with just Owyn and Sully remaining. Owyn was still sat at the top of the steps looking down on Sully, who had been busily at work on the IC ever since everyone else had departed.
Naturally, he’d already done his research. “They’ve gone dark,” he answered, continuing to type with his eyes fixed on the screen while he spoke. “Looks like they cut communications when Bauer took control of the station, suggesting they’ve at least got an idea of what’s going on.”
“Wouldn’t the DPD already know where they were stationed? Isn’t it just as likely Bauer got to them before he took HQ?”
“Possibly, but can we be sure they were on a DPD assignment?”
Somehow the thought hadn’t even crossed Owyn’s mind that, while so separated from the rest of ISO, Bravo Squad could have been under Ambrose’ direct control the whole time. He dropped his head into his hands. “Dammit,” he cursed.
“Everything about them is so well covered up I’ve got nothing to go off. They could have been taken out months ago for all I know and I can’t find any evidence that Miller even made contact with them while he was here. Even that doesn’t give us much; the data may just have been wiped to stop anyone tracking them. All we can do is assume they’re gone until they contact us.”
Owyn’s list of allies wasn’t growing any longer, that was for sure. It wasn’t like he expected a saviour to appear out of the blue and drag them from the jaws of death, but he needed something – something to inspire him.
He sighed, still drawing a blank. “Get some rest, Sully. We’ll be able to think more clearly in the morning.”
Sully carried on working, not appearing to take any notice.
“Sully,” Owyn repeated a little more loudly.
After one more brief moment of defiance his hands slowly crept away from the console then he climbed to his feet and plodded his way to the door.
“We’ll make it through this.” Owyn tried to offer some words of encouragement, but Sully was smart enough to see that he didn’t really believe them himself. He paused momentarily in the doorway, looked back towards Owyn, then walked out.
Once Sully’s footsteps had faded away into the distance Owyn found himself alone in Operations, accompanied only by the muted humming of all the screens and other electronics surrounding him. He descended from his perch and approached the IC. As the holographic image of Altaris rotated above it he gazed over the simulation of the Tajari desert.
It was a blank slate; completely and utterly empty. There was no sign of the facility he had destroyed or anything else like it. It just begged the question: what else was the DPD hiding? More than that, what else had he been missing, trapped up here allowed only snapshots of what the planet had to offer? What else was down there on the surface, beyond the confines of the cities? A clean planet was something neither he nor any of these people had ever seen before joining ISO. Where Owyn had lived had been one of the least damaged places on Earth but all he ever saw was the forest. He’d never seen mountains, snow or even the sea. Altaris had all of those things yet he’d never been allowed to see them. Most of what he saw were dark city streets and rooftops with only rare glimpses of sunlight, though still confined to strictly urban settings.
Altaris was filled with sights and experiences so different to Earth, yet Owyn barely lived any differently than if he’d stayed with XION. He, like everyone else here, had known exactly what they were getting into – he didn’t exactly come for the promise of a new world – but it was hard not to wonder what it would be like to live down there on the surface.
With laboured strides he climbed the stairs to the Commanding Officer’s quarters. He hadn’t any real intention of taking up residence, but he had a newfound longing to get another good look at the view of Altaris in case this was his last chance. Besides, it wasn’t as though he was going to be able to sleep, so he’d rather spend the night gazing out of the window than staring at the back of his eyelids.
The door slid closed behind him and he approached the window overlooking the planet. He slid down to the floor, clasped his arms around his knees and let his head rest against the ice cold glass. Kyvos was just about to disappear over the horizon, while morning was just breaking over the snow draped mountains surrounding the city of Tahgos in the north. Part of the Tajari desert was in view, looking just as barren as its holographic replica. The surrounding seas, sparkling with Novus’ light, reflected a rich, pure blue, so unlike the murky grey waters Owyn had looked back on as the ship departed Earth at the start of his three year journey through space.
A gentle knock at the door disrupted the silence. Owyn stayed exactly where he was, reluctant to admit his presence, but a moment later the door opened anyway. O’Brien came quietly over to join him and kneeled down at the other end of the window. She stayed silent, drinking in her first experience of the view. Owyn didn’t do anything to acknowledge her arrival, just continued gazing aimlessly out into the vacuum.
“Nice speech,” she said. “They believed every word you said. They trust you, even after everything.”
Owyn took a few seconds before responding. “Do you?”
“Of course I do.”
Owyn finally turned his eyes away from the window to face her. “You really think I can dig us out of this mess?”
“No. There’s no way out of this; both of us know that. That’s not what I meant. I know you’ll fight for us, however much you doubt yourself. You
are
different than the rest of us. All most of us have ever known is being beaten into the ground over and over. Altaris was supposed to be a way out of that cycle but it’s ended up the same; that’s enough for a lot of us to want to give up. It might not feel like it right now, but you still have hope – hope that this won’t end the way it should. That’s why they’re prepared to follow you.”
“I thought you didn’t trust the man in charge,” Owyn joked.
O’Brien smiled. “You don’t have to carry this whole ship by yourself, you know. We’re family; we’ve got each other’s backs.”
Owyn raised an eyebrow. “Us; family? Really?”
“Well who else do we have? You, me, Shaw, Sully. We might not have the same blood, but we’ve had each other’s backs and trusted each other with our lives since the day we got here. I’d say that makes us family.”
Owyn’s head dropped at the mention of Shaw’s name. He rubbed his eyes and turned back to the window. “I didn’t have Shaw’s back today,” he said. “If not for you I’d have been happy to leave him there to die without even trying.”
“There wasn’t any way you could have saved him, not this time. You knew the chances of all of us being captured or killed were greater than the chances of anyone making it out of that tower alive yet you still jumped out of a moving aircraft to try. That’s the hope I’m talking about.”
“You jumped first,” he reminded her.
“I just needed to give you a little push.”
“
A little push
? Is that what that was?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” she shrugged.
Owyn sighed. “Honestly I’m just as lost as the rest of you. I’m not sure I’ve even got a clue what I’m supposed to do.”
“You’ll work it out. You always have before now,” O’Brien assured, not seeming to be deterred by any of his self-doubt.
“What about you? Did you think about giving up?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“So you’re resigned to the fact we’re all going to die but you still didn’t even think about giving up? How?”
“You’ve wondered about my past, haven’t you? Where I came from, how I got here? You haven’t asked but you’re obviously curious.”
Owyn nodded tentatively.
“When I was a kid I lived with my parents out in a small community near Austin, Texas,” O’Brien began. “The whole state had gone to shit but we had it fairly easy for a while. Even before I was born – years before the war started – rebel militias had ‘liberated’ most of the state. They were too busy constantly fending off the military to be bothered by a few pacifist villagers so we lived peacefully. The problems only started when the war did. Now that insurgents were all over the country the army was spread thin. They couldn’t afford to fight the kind of force that was in Texas so they wrote it off as a lost cause.
I was 9 when they sent men from the city after us. They called us traitors for refusing to fight, burned down as many buildings as they could and killed everyone they could find. My parents hid me under the floorboards and made me promise not to move or make a sound, whatever happened, so I lay there in silence through the whole thing. They broke into our house, gunned down my Dad then took turns raping and torturing my Mom. I don’t know how long it lasted but it felt like hours. I heard every scream as her blood dripped through the cracks in the floor onto my face. Then, once they’d finished, they slit her throat, soaked them both in gasoline and set their bodies alight.”