Mathew West sat on his bunk with his guitar on his lap, listening to the fast, frightened thumping of his heart. He had no idea what all the banging and clanging outside meant. That had been bad enough, but then had come gunfire and screams. He felt as if he'd been transported back to the ballroom on Freedom, before he'd lost Jessica and almost his life. He wished Hornbeck and his stunner would show up to rescue him one more time.
The sound of a fist banging on a hatch made him jump. It wasn't even his hatch. By the sound of it, it was one room over. A muffled voice shouted, the tone angry, the words indistinguishable. Someone else yelped.
West tightened his grip on the guitar.
More banging, even louder. That last time must have been two rooms away, then. Now it was next door. He heard thumping from the next cabin. Then, inevitably, the hammering of something solid on the hatch in front of him.
He stood, and the hatch swung open.
Why didn't I lock it? But that would just have made them angry. Whoever they are. What's going on?
The man who leaned in looked wild-eyed and angry. He wasn't military, not with that flying hair and unkempt beard. He held a length of pipe in one fist, and he said, "Get out here. Now."
West, too terrified to ask what was happening, stooped through the hatch and stepped into the corridor. Frightened-looking people lined one wall, seven or eight men and women with the same cowed look he remembered from Freedom Station. The bearded man and two companions stomped back and forth, their victims cringing back as they passed. There was a man with no weapon but his fists, and a woman who held a pistol as if she thought it might bite her. West had the distinct impression that if anything startled her – even a loud noise from another deck – she was going to shut her eyes and just start shooting.
"All right, get moving," the bearded man said. When nobody moved his face turned red and he bellowed, "Now!"
West, with no idea where the man wanted him to go, took a couple of steps down the corridor. A thick arm barred his way. "What are you doing?" The man screamed the words, and flecks of spittle hit West's cheek and lips. "Go the other way!"
West pivoted and followed the miserable line of prisoners as they shuffled along. There was a cadet in front of him, a boy with a hanging head, a long red welt that matched the pipe decorating the side of his face. He was the only military prisoner. The rest were ordinary folks like West, probably survivors from Freedom Station, the same as him.
Did we get through that nightmare just to die here today? Killed by imbeciles who don't even know what they want?
A staircase appeared on the right, and the woman with the gun used her free hand to shove the first prisoner sideways. It was a thin teenage girl, and she stumbled, clutching the railing to keep from falling down the steps. The others took the hint and followed. West, still clutching his borrowed guitar to his chest, brought up the rear, the bearded man's hand between his shoulder blades.
There was more shouting when they reached the next landing. It seemed no one except Beardy actually knew where they were heading. The prisoners stood in a wretched knot while their tormenters screamed conflicting orders. West, terrified by their twisted faces, turned his head away.
He found himself staring through the railings into a shadowy space under the stairs. In that dark cave he saw another face staring back at him. It was a cadet, looking very young and frightened, holding himself motionless, gazing at West with wide, unblinking eyes. It took a moment for West to notice the others. There were at least three cadets under the steps, their dark uniforms blending into the shadows.
A hand closed on West's collar and yanked. "Get moving, you. I'll break your fucking skull."
He stumbled to the bottom of the steps, then followed the others down a short corridor and into the shuttle bay. More prisoners waited there, dozens of them, crowded together in one corner, pressed up against stacks of plastic boxes. Half a dozen men and women stalked back and forth in front of the prisoners, guns in hand.
West let them herd him toward the corner. His hands were sweaty on the guitar. The teenage girl was beside him, and she shied suddenly sideways, bumping into him. He let go of the guitar neck long enough to catch her shoulder and keep her from falling, then felt his fingers tighten as he saw what had startled her.
A corpse lay on the deck. It was a fat woman in her forties, and she lay on her back with three gaping holes in her chest and stomach. West could see raw flesh, but no sign of blood coming from the terrible wounds. She was dead.
"Ouch, you're hurting me. Ow!"
The girl twisted from his grip, rubbing her shoulder, and he muttered "Sorry" without taking his eyes from the dead woman.
Just beyond the corpse a sailor lay on his back in a pool of blood. West couldn’t see if it was a man or a woman. Three people knelt around the body, an older man in a medical officer's uniform and a pair of cadets. As West shuffled past, the officer looked up and said, "You have to let me take this woman to Medical!"
"Forget it," said the nearest gunman. His voice sounded high and frightened, and he levelled a pistol on the doctor, as if he thought the man would leap up and attack him. The doctor turned his attention back to the injured sailor and West joined the rest of the prisoners in the corner.
He sensed fright from everyone around him, but the mood of the crowd was changing. A woman was bleeding to death not more than six paces away, and West heard frustrated muttering, turning quickly to anger.
The bearded man with the pipe led his two followers back out to the corridor, leaving six guards alone with thirty or more surly, restless prisoners. The injured sailor moaned, and West felt the tension in the bay rise sharply. In a moment there was going to be violence. How many shots could six people get off before the mob overwhelmed them?
It didn't bear thinking about it.
His ankle bumped into one of Dulcie's plastic boxes, and he sat on it. The plastic sides groaned but held, and he told himself he would just sit there quietly and do nothing to draw attention to himself. From a sitting position it would be quicker to hit the deck when the shooting started. He could see people discreetly grabbing rail gun rounds, one in each hand. They made a nice solid handful. They would make excellent missiles. It was, after all, what they were made for. He imagined the guards going down under a hail of hand-thrown cylinders. Would it be enough?
Not likely. Some of these people were going to die.
His fingers slid along the neck of the guitar, seeking comfort in the familiar touch of smooth wood and taut strings. He didn't even realize he was playing until people near him turned to gape. He played a simple melody, a lullaby he'd learned more years ago than he cared to count. The notes, low and soothing, flowed out from the guitar and one prisoner after another turned to stare.
"What are you doing?" The speaker was a wild-eyed young man, advancing on West with his arm stretched out straight, the gun trained on West as if he thought the lullaby was an attack.
He's scared,
West realized.
He's much more frightened than I am, and I'm terrified. He's in over his head and he knows it. He just doesn't know what to do. The gun's all he has. Shooting someone is the only trick he knows.
He kept playing, not speaking, not making eye contact. He could see the gun in his peripheral vision, levelled at his head, then swinging left and right to cover the other prisoners. "Stay back! Don't move! Back up! Don’t move!"
Idiot. And some other idiot gave him a gun. God help us.
The kid didn't want to shoot anyone, though. He was just out of his mind with fear.
"I'm going to play a song," West said. He kept his voice soft and conversational. "It won't do any harm, and it'll help keep everyone calm." He strummed the guitar. "Is that all right?" More strumming. The kid didn't speak, just stared at him with the whites showing all around his irises. West said, "Well, shoot me if it bothers you," and started to play in earnest.
He couldn't have said what song he was going to pick, but his fingers knew what they were doing. It was a song he hadn't played since he was a teenager, and he heard himself bungling a few chords.
Well, I don't see any music critics in the room.
It was an old ballad, something from his parents' generation, the kind of sappy, sentimental thing he'd rebelled against when he decided to dedicate himself to smoky blues.
He sang, trying to keep his voice soft, but gaining power with every verse in spite of himself. He sang about kids going off to war, afraid to go, afraid to stay home, hoping desperately they were doing the right thing.
And when I cross that ocean wide, and I reach that distant shore,
And I walk those long green fields, and I hear the cannon roar,
With a musket in my hands, and my comrades by my side,
Will I do my duty then? Will I keep my honor bright?
Will I be brave? Will I do right? Will I keep my honour bright?
Will I be strong, through the long night? Will I keep my honour bright?
The song had struck the teenaged West as preachy nonsense, but it felt different in that feverish room under the barrels of guns. He squeezed his eyes shut and poured his heart into the song, and when the last note trailed away he looked up just in time to see the doctor vanishing through the main hatchway. The injured sailor lay on an improvised stretcher made from a bedsheet, with a prisoner at each corner. They followed the doctor into the corridor, and a woman with a gun brought up the rear.
Now there's only five guns in here. The odds just improved.
It was his first combat flight, and it was going to be his last.
Kasim flew through the void, his mouth as dry as moon dust, wishing desperately for a drink of water. He was going to die. It was an absolute certainty, and he was afraid.
It would be a good scrap, though. A handful of enemy ships against the bulky, lumbering
Falcon
. The ship was armed now, with a single laser on the top hull, pointing directly forward. The only way to aim it was to aim the entire ship.
Just above the laser, a crude-looking metal rack held one of the
Alexander's
nuclear missiles. He would be able to fire the missile with perfect precision. He would use the laser as a pointer. When he saw a red dot on the Gate, he would launch.
And then that handful of alien ships would come after him. He would fight as best he could, with the laser and with skill and raw talent. However, he knew perfectly well he would lose.
He would die beside the remains of Gate Eight.
"That's right, you bastards," he muttered. "It's me again. The guy who keeps blowing up your Gates." Brave words, but he could taste sour bile on the back of his tongue. Only a stubborn bravado kept him from moaning out loud with fear.
That, and the thought of Sally MacKinnon. Every time he thought of her, and he thought of her often, a fresh wave of grief and rage would crash over him. He wanted to avenge her. He wanted to strike a blow in her name, and if it killed him, well, that was all right with Kasim.
The worst part was that he had nothing to do, nothing to distract himself with. The
Falcon
was on a ballistic trajectory, hurtling through space at a fantastic velocity with the engines off. It was a long fall around the planet to the target, and nothing for him to do but fret.
The fingers of his right hand ached. He ignored the pain. He'd gotten good at ignoring it over the last two weeks. The burns were pretty bad. His hand was pink and delicate with brand-new skin, some of it deadened by nerve damage, some of it excruciatingly sensitive. When he wasn't dropping things or bumping things he was cringing back from the gentlest contact. And underlying all of it was a bone-deep ache that felt as if it would never go away.
Well, it won't be bothering you for much longer.
The stars were crisp and lovely all around him, and he decided he would spend his last hours taking in the view instead of imagining his own death. The glittering arm of the Milky Way shone to his left, and he traced that glorious river of stars with his eyes.
And blinked.
One of those sparkling points of light was moving. He wasn't quite alone after all.
Something else was orbiting the planet. Had the miners put a satellite up, or some kind of space station? Or was it aliens?
All the delicate scanners on the
Falcon
were long since fried. He stared through the cockpit window, then took out the telescope someone had left for him in the luggage net behind the seat. It had the look of something whipped up on that fabricating machine he'd seen in the shuttle bay. It was a tapered cylinder of dark plastic longer than his arm, and he had to unstrap himself from his seat to use it.
He removed his helmet, clipped it to the mount beside the pilot's seat, then let himself float at the back of the cockpit. With the gravity off the telescope was easy to line up. It hovered in place, and he nudged it into line, then peered through the eyepiece.
The ship leaped into view, hovering like a gray plum in the void. It was oval in shape, and not quite as bizarre as the alien craft he had seen. He wondered if it might be a Navy ship sent to investigate the spreading alien threat. He had a brief fantasy of reinforcements, his life spared as dozens of corvettes swarmed through to seize New Avalon.
They would have food. Actual foods that wasn't gruel.
A pattern of shadow caught his eye, and he squinted through the eyepiece. An indentation marred the hull of the other ship. It was triangular in shape, and the more he examined it, the sicker he felt. That indentation would perfectly match the hulls of the smallest alien craft. One of those little ships could dock perfectly with the big vessel.
That put things in perspective. He could estimate the size of the ship now. It would be fifty or sixty meters long, and half as wide. He was frighteningly close, well under fifty kilometers. What if it spotted him? What if it broke into a swarm of smaller ships and—
No. That smooth, seamless hull told him it would not break apart. This was not a collection of smaller ships, but one larger craft. Maybe a supply ship, a fuel tanker of some sort. Or a repair ship, or … It could be anything, he realized. Anything at all.
I could blow that thing up.
The thought was seductive. He could strike a meaningful blow against the enemy, then turn and retreat to the
Alexander
.
He could live.
He went as far as resting a hand on the engine ignition switch that jutted from the dash. Then he let go of the switch and leaned back.
Forget it, Kasim. You have to blow the Gate. Do it for everyone back home. Do it for Sally. You want to make the bastards suffer, and the Gate is the best way to do it.
The
Falcon
continued in its orbit, and Kasim returned to his morbid thoughts. He glanced back one last time before the ship vanished over the horizon.
You don't know how lucky you are. Killer Kasim spotted you, but he chooses to let you live.
The alien ship vanished behind the curve of the planet, and Kasim continued his lonely journey toward his destiny.