by L S Roebuck
Boro spoke, “Don’t do it, Mooney. He deserves better. Let’s get out of here before we run into someone from North’s unit.”
Mooney just laughed. “North has always been a self-righteous traditional prick. It’s going to be great to bury him in the past he loves so much.”
Boro grabbed Mooney’s arm, pointing the gun away from North.
“What the hell, Boro?”
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Boro said. “We can liberate ourselves from Earth without violence. It isn’t right.”
Mooney jerked the gun out of Boro’s grasp. “You see, Boro, you never really were one of us, were you? There is no right and wrong. There is just might. The mighty will define morality, not some misguided sense of tradition, based on some magical dead god.”
Boro started to talk, “I’m not saying that—”
“Just shut up,” Mooney fumed, condescension dripping in saliva droplets from the corner of his mouth. “You have so much to learn, moron. Raven One will teach you.”
Mooney turned and looked at North. Madness sparkled in Mooney’s glassy green eyes. He slammed the butt of the rifle into North’s face, making a loud cracking sound that triggered a reflexive smirk on Mooney’s face. “I’d say ‘See you in hell’ but there is no hell, North. There is only oblivion. You are over.” Mooney was glib, almost intoxicated at the thought of wielding the ultimate irreversible power over someone else. He was taking his time, enjoying the sick rush of depriving someone of life – a tactical mistake.
Mooney’s index finer caressed the gun’s trigger, and his eyes were fixed on North. “Who is going to stop me?”
North closed his eyes in a wincing manner.
“Wha…” Mooney started to utter, when his torso caught the full force of strong-armed shove. Boro’s powerful two-armed underhanded swing lifted Mooney off the ground and tossed him over the administrator’s desk into a corner. Mooney clutched at the gun, but lost his grip. The heavy gun skidded to a rest near the dead bodies of Jindal and Anderson.
“No!” Boro shouted. “You will not kill today.”
North noticed he was reflexively clenching his hand into a tight fist, and then he realized the effects of the stun blast were starting to wear off. With great concentration, he lifted his left hand to his chin, and rubbed it. He felt hot blood, his own, oozing from a gash on the left side of his face. The movement came with intense pain, and North almost passed out. Focus on what’s important, North thought. He thought about having drinks with his friends, Skip, Lydia and Kora, at Rick’s. He started to force himself to stand, only to have screaming pain explode through his whole body. Focus on what you love.
And he thought about Amberly – her beautiful form, her round face, her intense green eyes, each curl of her radiant red hair, each freckle on her nose. He thought about how he would never understand the complexity of her thoughts and feelings, how he could never match the power of her brilliant spirit, and how he would never be good enough for her.
And then he though about Dek, and how he tricked Amberly or kidnapped her or was taking advantage of her somehow, and his feelings of love turned to anger, then rage. The pain meant nothing to him now — North would find Amberly, save her if he could, and Dek, the pretender, would pay dearly for his transgressions.
North stood fully erect now, large and imposing, like a wounded animal, ready to strike for the kill.
Boro turned from a shell-shocked Mooney, who was painfully moaning in the corner, and saw the rising North, anger burning bright in his bloodied face. In a flash of self-defense, Boro grabbed the rifle and pointed it at North’s heaving chest.
When he saw that North was not going to pounce, Boro slowly pointed the rifle down and then at himself as he offered the weapon, butt end, to North.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Boro said, as North took the weapon. Boro clasped his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers, and kneeling on the ground, in an obvious position of surrender.
“No, you fool! Why didn’t you kill him?” Mooney had come around, and in a quick motion had drawn his stun pistol and taken cover behind the desk. Mooney took aim at North.
Exposed and with no real place for cover in the relatively tight quarters, North had no choice. If he hesitated, Mooney would stun him, and this time Mooney would not delay in recovering the gun and putting some hot lead in North’s skull.
North did not hesitate.
He let loose a spray of bullets that tore up the commander’s desk. He unloaded the clip and the gun fell silent. Mooney’s stun gun fell from his loosened grip and toppled to an exposed patch of floor. Mooney’s body followed, with a half dozen holes oozing life, as the man slumped to the floor. North dropped the automatic rifle, and kneeled at Mooney’s side. Boro did the same, propping up Mooney’s head.
Mooney weakly coughed up some blood.
“I hope … I’m right…,” he gasped at the two men huddling over him, “… that there … is … no … he… he… hell.” His body grew limp, but his eyes were wild and afraid. “Hope ... I’m… right.” His eyes grew distant. Mooney was gone.
North closed his eyes, and mouthed what looked like a silent prayer. He stood again, looked at Boro, and then collapsed from the pain and blood loss.
“Boro…” North said, “If you could get me to the briefing room, that would be good.”
Boro was a strong man, but North was a big man. Boro gently leaned his shoulder into North’s abdomen and then with a heave and a grunt tossed him over his shoulder and carried him out into the hall and down toward the briefing room.
As they were walking out, Tricia Moreville, a short woman of medium build with nearly white hair, came running up. Moreville was on Anderson’s executive staff.
She gasped loudly when she saw the bloody North hoisted over Boro’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“You better call the XO and get her down her,” Boro said. “Anderson is dead. Jindal is dead. Johnson did it, and he got away.”
“Did I hear North right? Did he just say Commander Anderson is dead?” Skip said, putting his hand on his chest in a vain attempt to slow his rapidly increased breathing. He tapped his comm unit, but the connection to North had been cut.
Lydia was shocked. Murder was rare on a waypoint, and for someone who represented the safety and security of the Magellan to be murdered in his own stronghold was particularly jarring.
The cool head of the trio was Kora, who quickly closed all the doors to the mission prep room. She turned to Skip. “Is there anyway to lock these down?” she asked, indicated the sliding doors.
“Why would you want to lock them down?” Skip asked.
“Because whoever killed Anderson may want to kill us too,” Kora said.
“I’ll try,” Skip said and pulled out his infopad and tried to interface with the doors’ locking mechanisms. “I don’t think I can do it.”
“Keep trying. Lydia, call the police and tell them what is going on.”
Lydia clutched Kora’s arm. “Is North dead? Is this all about that message? Do you think they killed Amberly?”
Kora pushed away those thoughts. “On second thought,” she said, looking at the tall and gracefully formidable Lydia, “I’ll send the message to security. You see if you can find something heavy to swing in case we have to fight.”
“Hey, I actually got the locking mechanisms on,” Skip said with some surprise in his voice. “But anyone with an access card will be able to unlock it.”
Lydia looked around the room. There was nothing in the room but the table and chairs. The table had a built in magnetic resonance display and, Lydia noted, was bolted to the ground. The chairs, on the other hand, were not bolted to the ground. She lifted one up — it was made of lightweight aluminum, but she imagined she could do some damage on someone if she flung it.
Kora noticed Lydia considering the chair’s heft. “That’s my girl,” Kora said, then she used her info pad to start a voice chat on the emergency channel. “Huh? It i
s giving me this weird error message.” She handed her infopad to Skip.
“Yeah, someone locked down communications in the Marine base as some sort of security precaution,” Skip said as his fingers fluttered over the info pad’s flatscreen. “Yep, see here. Lt. Johnson ordered the lockdown, and we’ll have to get his permission to bypass this. We really ought to try to find out what happened to North.”
Lydia wasn’t so sure. “Maybe he’s okay. Maybe he’ll call back.”
Just then, the door unlocked. Someone had used a code to open Skip’s door hack. Lydia picked up a chair. Skip crouched behind the table on the opposite side of the room’s door. Kora spun around a chair, sat down facing the door, and crossed her legs and reclined as much as the chair would allow.
The door flew open, and standing in the door was a bloody Lt. Johnson with an unfamiliar Marine.
Skip looked visibly relieved to see a Marine officer instead of the rogue attacker who had apparently killed Anderson and Jindal. “Thank goodness it’s you,” he sighed.
“Are you okay?” Kora said, looking at the blood soaked Johnson. “What happened?”
“I can’t talk about it now,” Johnson said. “I need to go get some help. This is private Phan. He’ll make sure you are all safe. Please stay in this room with him until help arrives.” Johnson turned back toward the door, and moved in double-time.
“Wait!” Skip called out. “Can you unlock the communications block so we can call for help?”
“Sorry,” Johnson called back as the door slid closed, “Security protocol.”
Johnson was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Phan nervously smiled at Skip, Lydia and Kora. “Why doesn’t everyone take a seat? I’d like to ask you some questions to see if we can figure out what is going on here.”
Phan indicated the chairs that faced the door, and the trio sat down as instructed, Skip between the two women.
Phan paced behind the three of them. Skip craned his neck to keep eye contact, clearly uncomfortable with Phan’s pacing out of his sight. Kora was a little unnerved by Phan slipping behind her and her seated companions. Lydia, on the other hand, sat straight up and looked ahead, not seeming to be bothered at all.
“So I need to know what you know about … Chasm,” Phan said, with an edge of menace hanging in his voice. “And who you’ve told.”
“I don’t like your tone, Private,” Kora said, standing up. “What happened to North? Do you know? Did you see him?”
“Are you with North? Did you know he killed Commander Anderson and Wing Commander Jindal?” Phan lied.
“Bull,” Kora said. “North would never …”
“I saw it with my own eyes,” Phan said, and drew his stun gun and aimed it at Kora. “Now sit down before I am forced to use this.”
Phan waved the gun at the chair.
“Are you kidding me?” Skip said. “I want to see my legal counselor. You can’t keep us here at gunpoint.”
Phan just grunted. “Sit down,” he threatened. Kora complied.
“We don’t know anything about Chasm. Is that what you want to hear?” Kora said. “Do you know if that is what Dek Tigona is involved in? He kidnapped my sister.”
“I believe you don't know anything about Chasm,” Phan said. “But Dek didn’t kidnap your sister. She went of her own accord.”
“What?” Kora stood up again. “How do you know that?”
“Because Dek is Chasm. And so am I,” Phan said, pointing his gun again directly at Kora. “And now, I am sorry to say I am going to have to kill you. It’s for the greater good.”
At this, Skip stood up, and Phan waved the stun gun in Skip’s direction.
“Don’t make this harder then it is. Accept your fate. I am not an evil murderer,” Phan said, almost as if he was trying to convince himself of something that he didn’t really believe. “Please, I will stun you first, so you will be unconscious, so your death will be painless. If you are one of those crazy religious people, you have about 30 seconds to pray to your god.”
Skip was defiant. He stood and pointed a finger at Phan’s chest. “You better hope someone gets North before he gets you. He will rearrange your anatomy before he airlocks you into oblivion. North will —”
Skip was interrupted by a bolt of energy from the stun gun. He cried out from the burning sensation coursing through his nervous system, then his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell awkwardly to the floor, convulsing.
Lydia was still sitting straight up in her chair, with her back to Phan. She was like a mannequin, fixed and unmoving and saying nothing. Kora was kneeling next to the table now, taking Phan up on his offer. Her head was bowed and her hands were folded. She was praying softly, but not inaudibly. “Dear Father in heaven, I pray for my dear sister Amberly. I pray that she would come to believe in you. May your angels protect her.”
Although he was an atheist, Phan wasn’t anti-religious like many of the Chasm operatives were. In the old regime, he always had advocated a live-and-let-live compromise position between people of “faith” and people like him. That compromise position had ended a bloody civil war hundreds of years ago on Earth, and the sacred and the secular were both given space under the then newly formed North American alliance. But Phan firmly believed that there was a better way, and that a pure world, one without religion which Chasm was building on Arara, would be a better world — a much better world.
Phan didn’t have many religious friends, so hearing a prayer was a novelty to him, and he decided to wait for Kora to finish before stunning her next.
“Lord, please forgive this man. His eyes are closed, and he doesn’t know what he does. Give me courage now. Amen.”
Phan was genuinely surprised to see Kora pray specifically for him, even as she faced death.
Lydia slowly slipped off her chair, as if to join Kora in prayer, but instead of falling on her knees, she simply squatted and clutched the chair back. Phan admired Lydia’s body, tall and muscular, and for a brief moment entertained a hint of a romantic fantasy in his mind.
In that moment, Lydia took her chance.
The blonde flung the chair right at Phan’s head. He threw his arms up, and the chair smashed into his forearm, causing a brief sharp pain and knocking him back a meter. Much to Lydia’s dismay, he held the gun tight.
Lydia jumped at Phan as he was trying to regain his footing, but she was too far away to catch him before he could aim and fire his stun gun, and in less than a second Lydia was convulsing on the floor next to Skip.
Phan wasn’t going to take any more chances. He pointed the gun at Kora and pulled the trigger. Kora shrieked in pain, and then collapsed with her companions. The three were incapacitated on the floor, and Phan felt a sense of urgency. He had toyed around with them too much, and he had forgotten that Scorched Earth protocol was in place. He would have to move quickly or he was in danger of joining these three in their impending deaths.
Phan had a sheathed four-inch knife attached to his belt, and knelt next to Skip’s head. He exposed the knife’s shiny, serrated blade and moved to pull it across Skip’s neck.
He heard the meeting room door slide open and a voice boom behind him.
“Don’t do it Phan,” said the voice, which Phan immediately recognized as fellow Marine and North suck-up Eli Wong. Phan decided to try to surprise Wong by quickly spinning around and throwing the knife at Wong’s head. Phan thought he could take out or at least distract Wong enough to give himself the time he needed to draw his stun gun. Quickly triangulating Wong’s location, based on his voice and knowing that Wong was likely standing in the door, Phan put his plan in action.
He whirled around in a blur and his arm was in motion when he suddenly felt one of his knees give out. The knife, misdirected as Phan lost the ability to remain erect, careened harmlessly off the wall and came to a rest near Wong’s feet.
As Phan went down, he realized his mistake. Wong was not alone. Executive Officer Rita Moreno, chief of ba
se operations, stood next to Wong holding a bullet-based assault rifle trained on Phan. She fired it again, this time the bullet capped Phan’s other knee. Phan screamed in pain as he lay on the floor, clutching his left leg. That bullet ripped clear through his thigh, the entry and exit point bleeding. His right knee took the second bullet, and now all that was left was a sausage factory of sinew and cartilage and ligaments.
Moreno was a sharp-featured olive-skinned woman in her late-30s. She had not had time to don her military uniform when Anderson’s assistant, Tricia, had burst into her quarters on the far side of the base. Instead, Moreno wore a jade green kimono robe that seemed out of place with the all-purpose work boots she slipped on after recovering her assault rifle. She had ordered Tricia to gather the remaining Marines in North’s strike team and then go report to North.
Moreno ran into Wong on the way to Commander Anderson’s office, and as they passed near the briefing room, they heard the chair Lydia had flung hit the interior wall, and went to investigate.
Moreno flipped the safety on her gun.
“Secure Phan,” she ordered Wong. “Get him stable. I want to interrogate him. Now.” Wong nodded at Moreno and proceeded to handcuff Phan, and then tend to his wound using a first aid kit attached to the bottom of the conference table.
“Wong, I need you to get a medic here on the double,” Moreno said. “We need to lock this base down. Now get going Marine.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Wong replied and immediately exited.
Moreno checked the pulse of Lydia, Kora and Skip, relieved to find them all alive and as well as could be expected for three people who had taken a stun bolt at point blank range.
Moreno accessed the emergency control through the magnetic screen on the conference table and offered a palm to be scanned and then keyed in a password. A menu came up offering several options, and she noticed briefly that the communication security lock had been engaged. She pressed the “BASE GENERAL QUARTERS” and immediately a klaxon sounded, followed by a recorded voice announcing, “General Quarters, this is not a drill. Please report to your stations immediately.”