Authors: Brett James
He
had hoped to resupply at the armory, but that was behind him in the
center of the crater. Once again the Riel had known exactly what to
target. It seemed certain they would’ve also destroyed the
remaining commandships, but he had to keep looking. He needed a way
off the base.
He
continued up the hall and found a general infantry rifle on the
floor. The battery had a full charge, and he had two spares on his
belt. It wasn’t much, but he was happy to have it.
The
artificial gravity dropped for a moment but kicked back on. The
entire base drummed as everything inside it floated, then dropped.
The gravity fluctuated steadily, jerking Peter’s guts and making
it difficult to walk. He tried to time his steps, to lock his boots
to the floor when the gravity dropped, but he had mixed success,
like dancing to a tune he didn’t know.
The
gravity stabilized again a few minutes later, just as Peter reached
a door at the end of the hall. It was glass, but to his radar it was
as opaque as any wall. He ran through his passive sensors,
registering nothing. He touched his helmet to the door and listened.
Silence.
He
wedged his fingers into the doorjamb and pried it open, the dead
motor inside whining in protest. When the door was about a foot
open, someone jumped out and tackled him.
— — —
Peter
swung the butt of his rifle. It connected with a dull thud and his
attacker fell away, landing on the floor. Peter raised the gun like
a bat, retreating a step and waiting.
His
radar pinged; a small man lay facedown on the floor. Peter waited
several more pings, but the man didn’t move. He flipped him over
with his foot. The man’s chest was hollowed out. Peter recoiled,
startled.
His
radar pinged and he looked to the open doorway. The room was filled
to chest level. His radar pinged and he saw an arm sticking out from
the pile. Then a foot. This was the central hub. Twenty minutes ago
the room had been full of screaming people. Now it was dead calm.
— — —
Peter
steeled himself and stepped to the doorway. A long second passed
before his radar pinged. The room was a slaughterhouse, heaped with
mangled corpses. Most were decapitated.
He
looked up at the opening in the ceiling. There was no sign of the
Typhons. His instinct told him to wait, but he knew that was more
fear than strategy. The death in the room unnerved him, but he had
to keep moving.
He
forced the door and bodies spilled around his legs. He stepped onto
them, balancing on the wobbling flesh, and started into the room.
Now
that he knew what to look for, the thirteenth section was obvious: a
longer section of wall between two doorways. He crept around the
room, holding the wall for balance. He kept his eyes up, not to
watch for Riel but to avoid what was underfoot.
Halfway
around the room, he heard a muffled cry.
— — —
He
froze. The sound was gone, but he was sure he had heard it. He
worked backward, probing the corpses with his foot. The noise came
again. Peter felt a chill of recognition. He dug through the bodies,
tossing them aside. She was at the bottom.
The
radar painted Linda’s face in green and black, her movements
separated into one-second intervals. She looked in his direction—at
the noise of something that she couldn’t see—terrified. Then she
was trying to pull free of the corpses, to escape. A crescent-shaped
wound spanned her chest, the shape of a Typhon’s fingernail. Peter
slipped his helmet off and whispered, “It’s okay.”
“Peter?”
Linda asked the dark, hope leaking into her voice. “Is that you?”
“It’s
me,” he said, forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t. He pointed
his helmet at the floor and turned on the spot, creating a puddle of
light. He slipped his glove off and stroked the familiar cheek. Her
skin was cold. His fingers left long dents, like she was made of
wax.
“Oh,
Peter,” she said. “It was awful. Just awful…”
“Shhhh,”
he said. “It’s over now. You’re safe.” He looked down, but
her badge was smeared with blood.
Does it matter?
he
wondered.
“Hold
me,” Linda said. Peter pulled her to him, gently pressing her body
to his stiff suit. She rested her head on his bare neck, her breath
rasping in his ear. Peter knew she was in pain, knew there was no
way to save her. He laid the rifle softly on the floor and slid his
hand down to his boot, drawing a long knife.
“It’s
okay, Linda,” Peter whispered, running his fingers through her
hair while his gloved hand raised the knife to the back of her neck,
where the spinal cord meets the brain.
A clean cut and she’ll
never feel it,
he assured himself.
The nerves will be severed
instantly.
His heart pounded, the knife trembled.
Peter
pulled Linda to him, kissing her, losing himself. She responded,
weak but sincere.
He
wanted to lift her up, to take her with him, but she wasn’t the
one. All the Lindas might look the same, but they weren’t.
He
pulled away and smiled warmly at the Linda in his arms. Then he
gripped her head and drove the knife in. The blade sliced through
her neck, its point clinking against his collar.
Linda
threw her head back and gasped. She tried to speak, but her larynx
was severed. Then the shock passed and she was calm. She looked into
Peter’s eyes, nodded, and laid her head back on his neck. Her
breath slowly tapered off.
— — —
Once
he was sure Linda was dead, he lowered her gently to the floor and
stood up. He put on his helmet and glove, leaving the knife. He
stumbled through the room, shoving bodies out of his way as he
walked to the long section of wall. He couldn’t see a door, but he
knew where it was. He kicked the wall repeatedly, angry, mindless of
the noise. The door’s outline appeared as it bent inward. He
kicked until it collapsed. The hallway on the other side was small;
he had to duck to fit.
The
first hall ended at another, with curving glass walls that glowed a
dim orange. He cupped his hands and looked out, expecting to see the
Drift, but it was something else.
The
hallway spiraled upward like a giant spring. In the center was a
power core, a massive, pill-shaped object suspended in space by
thick wires. It was the same power core as on any ship, but a
thousand times bigger. Its shell was cracked, the tail of a missile
sticking out of the billowing fire.
He
didn’t know whether the core would explode, but he didn’t want
to be around if it did. He sprinted past a large sign, not catching
a word of it, and the hall straightened out.
A
portable terminal lay on the floor, discarded. He picked it up and
scrolled through; it was unintelligible. A deep rumble shook the
floor. Peter dropped the terminal and continued.
The
hallway grew dimmer and a low mist covered the floor, swirling
around his feet. He slowed his pace, feeling with each step, but the
back of his neck itched. He looked back, searching the dark fog, but
saw nothing. He turned and ran.
He
moved faster than his radar could see, chased by the echoes of his
own footsteps. He rounded a corner and saw a blue light. He dropped
to a crouch and raised the rifle. Nothing moved. He killed the
radar, allowed his eyes to adjust, and saw the frosted window in a
door.
Peter
knew he should keep moving, but something was working on this
otherwise dead base. He had to find out what.
Peter
was so conditioned to automatic doors that it took him a moment to
realize this one had a handle. He shifted the rifle to one hand,
stretching his fingers around the stock to the trigger, then eased
the handle down and pressed his shoulder to the door. It sprung open
and he leaped inside.
Eyes
glared at Peter from his left and right, high and low. Tall racks
covered both walls, their shelves lined with disembodied heads. A
thousand steel needles perforated each head, leaving only the face
exposed, and each needle was wired to a flat metal box at the base
of their necks. Peter waved the gun around, but they didn’t
flinch. They were all dead, their faces bloodless, frozen in some
final moment of horror.
The
only movement was on the far side of the room, where bubbles
trickled up the edges of a glowing blue tank. Another head floated
inside the tank, eyes closed, gently bobbing in the water. The
needles stopped halfway across the skull, as if unfinished.
Peter
crept forward, his gun pointed at the tank but his eyes shifting to
each face he passed. Some of them were familiar.
Three
feet from the tank, the head opened its eyes and began to scream.
Peter
jumped back and leveled the rifle. The noise grew more frantic—not
screams, but some coarse, unintelligible language. And the sound
wasn’t actually coming from the head—its face was frozen, its
mouth gaping lifelessly—but from a speaker at the base of the
tank.
“Hold
it there, marine,” the tank ordered, suddenly intelligible.
“Secure that weapon.”
Peter
lowered the gun to his waist, keeping his aim.
It
was an older man’s head, with thin, white hair and a meticulously
cropped beard. Its skin was pale and smooth, like plastic. Only the
eyes moved, following the gun’s barrel.
“My
apologies,” the tank continued. “I expected you to speak
Sakazuarian.” The eyes squinted at Peter. “Is that you, General
Garvey?”
“Yes,”
Peter said, but then corrected himself. “No, Sergeant Garvey.”
“Oh,”
the tank said with sudden disdain. “The other Garvey.”
“Yes.”
“Yes,
sir
,” the tank said. “I’m Captain Nicholai Andić. Now
stand down.”
“Yes,
sir,” Peter said, letting the rifle droop.
“You’ve
never seen a navy man in the flesh before, have you?”
“You’re…?”
“The
navy, yes. What’s left of it,” Andić glanced at the inanimate
heads. “Now give me a status report, sergeant.”
“Sir?”
“What
is happening out there? With the battle?”
The
question was absurd. “There is no battle, sir,” Peter said
finally. “It’s over.”
“Ah,”
the captain replied. He was still for a moment. “And the
technicians?”
“Dead.”
“No,”
Andić said. “That’s not possible.”
“I
saw them myself. Back in the hub.”
“Not
them,” the tank said, relieved. “Those are
your
technicians.
Mine are human—Originals, as you call them.”
“Originals?
Out here?” Peter asked. It seemed incredible, but so did
everything about this room.
“They’ve
probably left by now.”
“They
have ships?”
“Genius,”
the captain muttered, then fell motionless.
Peter
waited for any sign of life. “Hello?” he said, tapping the tank.
The
head glared at Peter’s hand. “I’m not a fish, sergeant,” he
barked.
“Sorry,
sir.” Peter had meant tapping the tank, but the captain took it
the wrong way.
“Sorry?”
the tank boomed. “At least I know what I am.”
“Sir?”
Peter asked, wondering why he was still talking to this thing, much
less kowtowing to it.
“Forget
it. What’s your interest in ships?” the captain asked.
“I
just—” Peter started.
“Don’t
lie.”
“We
have to get out of here.”
“By
which, you’re not including me.”
“No,
sir,” Peter said. “Linda.”
“Ah,”
Andić said. “Of course.”
“It’s
not like—”
“I’m
not jealous,” the captain said. “These wires are far more
complex than that interface port on your neck. I’ve got complete
sensory input, you know. And full access to the libraries. Any
memory I want. Any.”
Enough
,
Peter thought, starting to the door.
“Where
would you go, anyway?” Andić called after him.
Peter
kept walking.
“Because
there is a ship…”
Peter
stopped, turned. Andić’s blank face seemed to smile.
“Maybe
we can come to an arrangement,” he said.
“You
want to come,” Peter said.
“No.
That would be impossible. Besides, you don’t need me. Human ships
are designed to be piloted by humans.”
“Then
what?”
“The
batteries on this tank are fully charged. They’ll last a week,
maybe longer.” The captain’s eyes dropped to a red switch at the
base of the tank.
“Oh,”
Peter said.
“Please,”
Andić said. “You’ll only be expediting the inevitable.”
“And
you’ll tell me where to find the ship?”
“To
find it, and how to fly it. This section has its own docks, for
humans only.”
Peter
nodded, walking back to the tank.
— — —
Peter
jogged along the low-ceilinged hall, keeping his head down and his
legs bent. He took the third hallway on his left, then the next one
on his right. He chanted Captain Andić’s directions under his
breath so he wouldn’t forget.
“There
will be an autopilot,” the captain had said. “But it will be in
Sakazuarian.” He taught Peter the symbols for the Livable
Territories, verbally guiding Peter’s finger as he drew them out
in the air. Peter wasn’t sure he got the symbols right and quickly
forgot most of them anyway, but Andić’s final advice stuck in his
mind—that if he did find Linda, he should just shoot her, then
turn the gun on himself.
“It’s
not worth the struggle,” he said. “Just sleep it out like the
rest of us.”
Peter
rounded a corner and saw a single dock jutting out into space. It
was the same octagonal glass hallway that the marines used, but
smaller and with only one walkway. Portals lined either side to
couple with ships, but as far as Peter could see, there were none.
He
pried the doors open and stepped inside.
— — —