Days of Burning, Days of Wrath

by Tom Kratman

  On the bridge, Esmeralda and her pistol were in effective command. Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to unseat Richard’s corpse. Instead she kept her spot, by the hatchway, where she could keep the bridge crew covered. Nothing but microgravity held her in place.

  A new alarm sounded, as a computer voice began to complain, “Hull integrity compromised vicinity deck uniform, section sixty-four. Repeat, hull integrity compromised vicinity deck uniform, section sixty-four. Air completely lost from one compartment . . .”

  Every set of eyes turned to look at, first, Esma, then her pistol, then her again.

  “We need to dispatch a damage control team, Ensign Miranda,” said the chief of engineering. He eyed the pistol warily, before continuing, “There’s no telling what other damage has been done.”

  “Do it,” she ordered, in her best imitation of the high admiral.

  The chief turned around instantly and began giving orders.

  ***

  It took time, amidst a riot amounting to a mutiny, for a damage control party to be assembled. In one case, a chief had to drag two combatants apart physically and slap some sense into them to get them to understand, “You fucking morons; there’s nothing worth fighting about if the ship loses its air!”

  In the event, a twelve-man team was assembled with a mix of vacuum welding equipment, temporary patches, both metallic and magnetic, as well as fiber based, some lumber, and in vacuum suits.

  These waddled, as quickly as they could, to the spine, then pulled themselves to section sixty-four. There was confusion at the exit as too many men and women tried to push through the relatively narrow opening, while avoiding being chopped by the asynchronous exit.

  Finally, the chief got them assembled in the passageway, then ordered, “Follow me,” leading off at as brisk a trot as the low gravity on this deck allowed. As they moved, the damage control team made sure to dog shut every hatch behind them. They arrived at the location of the breach, therefore, and were surprised to find that the gauge on the friendly side showed no loss of pressure. The chief picked up a phone from a compartment on the bulkhead and said, “Bridge? Yeah, there’s nothing wrong here . . . no, I can see it on the gauge . . . yeah, yeah . . . sure . . . of course we’ll look . . . oh,shit!”

  At that moment, the hatch to the supposedly breached compartment flew open.

  “Go! Go! Go!” shouted Aguilar, as soon at the hatch was opened. Nobody went anywhere, even so, since the passageway on the other side of the hatch was full of enemy personnel. Instead of moving, the lead two men started blasting with their shotguns, sending clouds of flechettes to tear through uniforms, skin, and vital organs.

  The sound and blast would have been dangerous in such cramped quarters but for the insulation of the helmets and suits.

  Seen but unheard, the UEPF crewmen and -women went down with shrieks and cries that were hardly human. Only when their bodies, dead or dying, had carpeted the deck of the passageway did anybody move.

  There were three survivors among the damage control party, one fleeing sternward and two towards the bow. More clouds of flechettes sailed down the almost straight and flat passageway, catching the refugees before they had crossed even half the distance needed to get to cover. It took many more shots to bring them down than one might have expected. They went down in a slower motion than the gravity would have suggested, landing somewhere to the right of where one would have expected them to have landed.

  “Remember the Coriolis force,” Aguilar cautioned.

  As the force piled out, about a third of them fired a shot downward into the damage control party, making sure. Those flechettes passed through, hit the deck, usually broke, and then bounced back up, tearing still more flesh and spilling still more blood.

  Quickly scanning the prone and helpless bodies, Aguilar asked himself, If any live, are they going to be a danger to us or our mission? He shook his head, taking in the pool of spreading blood and thinking, Not a chance.

  As they took off, in a column of twos, Centurion Martin looked at the seal they put over the hole they’d blown, and then dogged the hatch behind them. Because me, I don’t trust the promises of chemists and engineers.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without

  provocation.

  For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.

  —Marcus Tullius Cicero

  The fair Ophelia!—Nymph, in thy orisons

  Be all my sins remembered.

  —Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

  Bridge, UEPF Spirit of Peace

  “Stop!” Esmeralda ordered. “Stop the cameras . . . no . . . go back . . . back . . . there.”

  Where the internal security cameras had been flashing from one scene of mayhem to another, now the view screen showed just one image, that of fifteen or sixteen—it was hard to be sure—armed, armored, suited men, with huge, spherical helmets, storming up one of the full-gravity corridors, leaving a trail of broken, ruined bodies in their wake.

  The attackers began to disappear from the screen until one of the bridge crew shifted to a different camera.

  If they’re interested in prisoners it’s tolerably hard to see exactly how, thought Esma. What to do? If they come onto the bridge they’re going to kill everybody. And I know some of those bodies were women; so they won’t stop just because I have tits. I need time to talk to them.

  But how do I get their attention? How do I get them to slow down long enough to talk?

  Damn, I am an idiot. “Put me on the PA set.”

  “What the fuck was that?” asked Aguilar, his audio pickup being temporarily overloaded by massed twenty-gauge fire. “Cease fire! Cease—”

  The sound came from everywhere, a female voice, decidedly so, and a most pleasant one. Moreover, the accent spoke strongly of home. “. . . alda Miranda, from TransIsthmia, on Old Earth. Please stop killing the crew. They have no means to resist you, to speak of, and you are going to need them later on. I repeat, please stop killing the crew. They can’t hurt you and you will need them.

  “I am going to order them to assemble on the hangar deck, right after I finish talking to you and . . .”

  “Shut the hangar deck doors,” Esmeralda ordered, pointing her pistol at the bridge crewwoman responsible. “And then pressurize.”

  Esmeralda continued in English, the language of the Peace Fleet and the common tongue of the educated, upper classes on Old Earth. “Crew of the Spirit of Peace, our ship has been taken by forces from down below. We cannot resist. Stay away from Corridor G-27 and move to the hangar deck, if other than medical personnel or wounded. Medical personnel and wounded go to sick bay. I cannot emphasize this enough, stay the hell away from Corridor G-27. These are apparently very dangerous people who have boarded us; stay away from them.

  “We can all come through this alive but we have to remain calm, surrender in absolute good faith, and—once again—stay away from the boarders.”

  Marguerite Wallenstein alternated between fury at Esmeralda surrendering her flagship, pride that she had done so decisively, and sheer terror for the future. Her terror redoubled when she remembered that Xingzhen, the love of her life, was still forward and not that far from where the boarders were.

  She said over her shoulder, “Wait here, Khan and Khan; I’m going for the empress.”

  “Aye,” answered Khan, husband. “We’ll keep tight. I’ll commence a remote start-up prep on your barge.”

  She stopped and turned. “What point?”

  “That was Robinson’s voice we heard earlier. Never mind why and how he’s alive when he was supposed to be dead. You’re dead if he catches you. Your only chance is to get off here, get to one of the colony ships, and run for Earth. The wife and I”—they exchanged glances and nodded at each other—“have worked for both him and you. We’d rather work for you.

  “For that matter, your barge could make the trip on its own if there are only the three of us.”
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  Marguerite herself could only nod, before running off to the central spine. Her progress was delayed by a veritable sea of refugee crewmen and -women, heading to the stern per Esmeralda’s orders.

  Aguilar looked at the corridor marking and made a decision. “Centurion Martin?”

  “Sir?”

  “Can you find the high admiral’s quarters from here?”

  “After all that VR? All those rehearsals?” Martin snorted. “In my sleep.”

  “Well . . . do be awake for this. I’ll continue on to the bridge with everyone but second squad. Take it and try to grab the high admiral. Kill or capture; but I’d prefer capture.”

  “Wilco, sir; second squad, on me.”

  The six men of second squad immediately trotted after Martin as he went forward a few paces, then cut to antispinward, or port, or left, cultural frame of reference depending, and jogged toward the high admiral’s suite. On the way, dozens, scores of crew ran away or hid themselves as they passed. Martin took a look around and saw that, indeed, they all headed sternward as soon as the squad had passed.

  The corridor was entirely on the exterior of the spinning starship, so gravity remained normal. Walking while taking account of the Coriolis force, however, remained a little awkward, with the steps, when moving in this direction, seeming to be just that little bit more ground-covering than they should have been.

  When they reached the high admiral’s suite, the door opened automatically and instantly.

  A design feature, wondered the centurion, or our little girl on the bridge overriding local controls? No matter because  .  .  .

  Xingzhen, tiny and perfectly beautiful, whatever her age, stood next to the bed and waited, with Marguerite’s own pistol clutched tightly in small, delicate, and elegant hands. Her heart raced as her temples throbbed; for perhaps the first time in her life, the empress was terrified.

  What do I do? Where is my lover? Will she come for me? Should I try to go to her? What if  .  .  .  oh, Gods, does she know how much I love her?

  Suddenly, the hatch flew open as a monster entered; such an apparition could not be a man! Xingzhen pointed and fired four times. One of those—she didn’t know which—staggered the monster, knocking it back. She sensed the hit had been effective, drawing blood and doing damage. Yet there was another behind the first and . . .

  Centurion Martin saw that the first man to enter went down, a bullet hole in his chest. The second one instinctively blasted in the direction from which the shot had come, then fired again and yet again, the under-charged shells of the heavy shotgun keeping on target as he pulled the trigger.

  Xingzhen saw the flash of the muzzle. It was less intense than she might have expected, had she been thinking about such things. She didn’t see that first cluster of flechettes coming toward her. Still, she certainly felt them as they made at least a dozen and a half red-leaking pinholes in her torso and upper legs, tumbling and slicing through her organs before making just as many, and larger, on the way out. The pain was bad enough that she lost control, flopping back against the bulkhead. Two more shots came, loud and terribly final. Those two held her there, as if pinned. After that, though she wasn’t aware of it, two more men likewise fired a single round each. After that, the target was so obviously dead that it would have been an embarrassment to have shot again. The woman slid down to the deck, leaving a bright red splotch on the wall behind her.

  The net result, in any case, had been to turn what had been an absolutely stunning beauty into an obscenity of a shredded corpse. Martin thought that, of the one hundred and ninety flechettes that had been fired at her, at least a half and maybe as many as two-thirds had struck home.

  Her face, though  .  .  .  her face is still very beautiful, even in death. What a waste.

  “Tribune, Martin here. We took the high admiral’s suite. She was a no-show. Lost one man”—Martin shot an inquisitive look at the legionary tending the downed man, who mouthed, Need a medic, pronto—“Estavez, who may make it if we can get him to the medico.

  “Oh, and it seems we killed the Zhong empress.”

  Aguilar answered, “Roger. Damn. I have no idea what the fallout of that will be. Carrera could have traded her for so much. Oh, well; bring the wounded man to the bridge.”

  Martin considered taking the gun but, Fuck it, I don’t need a souvenir and wouldn’t know how to use it anyway.

  Marguerite ducked back into a side exit when she saw the first of the men in their outlandish space suits enter the spine. Though she thought one of them glanced sternward, they paid her no attention. She also saw two of them helping—carrying, really—a third who leaked crimson that floated in the microgravity of the spine.

  They went to my quarters. If they captured her, Robinson can have me; I will never leave her. But  .  .  .  She deliberately forced that thought down. There could be no “but.”

  Marguerite let a few seconds pass, then risked sticking her head out for another quick glance forward. Nobody. Bet they realized that, unless you’re used to it, moving in zero gravity is harder than it looks.

  Deciding to take the risk, she hooked an ankle around a ladder, her hand into the same, and swung herself out. Then, grabbing the ladder with both hands, bending her knees, and resting her feet on a rung, she kicked and pulled herself off, shooting forward rapidly until she had almost reached the level of her own quarters.

  Normally, she enjoyed this passage and the speed. This time she was simply desperate to get to Xingzhen. Gentle fingers and toes dumped her forward momentum until she found herself at the proper asynchronous exit. She would normally have dived through. This time she stopped herself and looked forward for any sign of the borders. No, they probably went outward again for more gravity.

  She maneuvered herself down to the low-gravity deck, and outward under increasingly greater gravity. At the final exterior passageway, she bolted for her own suite before drawing herself up short.

  She saw blood on the deck, which set her heart to racing and gave her an ill feeling in her stomach. Still, since she hadn’t seen any sign of the boarders having taken her, assumed it was one of their own.

  They wouldn’t just leave her behind, though, would they? She had my pistol; she had to have used it and if she used it  .  .  .

  Marguerite forced herself to walk through the, in fact, automatic door.

  She stopped. She looked. She drew in a breath and then expelled it in a single cry of utter despair and psychic agony. Another breath followed, to be followed by another heart-torn shriek.

  “Oh, no . . . elder gods, oh, no, please no.”

  She ran, heedless of the blood spread across the deck. Falling to her knees in the crimson pool, she reached out to the cooling corpse. A gentle hand brushed away a lock of hair, before moving to behind the dead woman’s neck. Another, scorning the red flowing down all sides, grasped Xingzhen from the back.

  Half pulling the corpse to herself and half bending inward, Wallenstein alternately crooned and begged, while rocking the empress’s corpse, “Please, oh, please, don’t be dead. You cannot be dead, baobei. You cannot be. Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me . . .   please . . .”

  Khan, the wife, found her like that; the high admiral, or perhaps effectively ex − high admiral, cradling the bloody corpse of the Zhong empress, alternately moaning, sobbing, and keening, her knees wetted in the broad pool of blood spilled from the tiny and now pale frame of Xingzhen.

  Khan made a small fist and, for a moment, just stood there, biting down on it. You poor thing, she thought, she was all you ever really loved, wasn’t she? Or almost all. Poor thing.

  Finally, unable to deal with even one more heartrending shriek, Khan paddled forward and knelt down to Marguerite’s left side, putting her right arm out and around her to draw the high admiral in. The pale-skinned corpse of Xingzhen came with her.

  “High Admiral? High Admiral! MARGUERITE!”

  The last attempt to capture her atten
tion worked. “You have to come with me,” Khan said. “My husband has your barge prepared. You cannot stay here. You will be killed if you do, crucified most likely.”

  “I . . . I don’t want . . . to . . . live,” the high admiral sobbed.

  “Yes, I understand that,” Khan agreed. “But—trust me on this—you don’t want to be nailed to a cross, either. And Carrera, if he has the first glimmering that you had anything to do with the loss of his first family, will nail you to that cross.”

  “I did, you know,” Wallenstein said, beginning to recapture some small measure of self-control. “I was in it up to my eyebrows. It was just an order . . . a problem . . . a way to get myself ahead. I never thought . . . I never imagined . . . and now . . .” Again, she broke down in deep sobbing, pulling away from Khan and resting her shaking face in the bloody crook of Xingzhen’s neck and shoulder.

  “Then, yes,” Khan continued, loudly enough to get through to her. “He’s going to avenge himself on you if he gets hold of you. And if he does that, then who will avenge your love?”

  That got a response. Releasing her death grip on the corpse, Marguerite rocked back until her back was straight. “Yes . . . yes, I must avenge her. I must make him suffer as I will be suffering. He found another family. I never will; I never could. We’ll go . . .” She stood and began to try to pick up Xingzhen’s tiny body.

  “We can’t take her with us,” Khan said. “The barge can make food, but it cannot refrigerate. Do you want to watch her beauty corrupted? To smell her stinking as she rots and melts away? For eighteen months? Better to keep your memories intact.”