by L S Roebuck
“Holy smokes,” Snyder yelled. Smith let out a brief scream of shock as she saw a splattering of blood on the other side of the plexiglass door. Johnson himself efficiently put several rounds into Franco, Ioder and Johnson’s former lover, Kim. They collapsed.
Within seconds, all five of the civilian police officers were lying on the floor, bleeding out with multiple bullet wounds, likely all dead.
“No! No!” North shouted.
“What is going on?” Thor’s excited voice came over the radio.
“That traitor Johnson just killed all your officers on the ground here,” North yelled, barely able to contain his raw rage.
North stood up, discharged his rifle, and sent a string of bullets shooting at Johnson, but they did not penetrate the bullet-proof plexiglass doors. It did, however get Johnson’s attention.
North made eye contact with Johnson. North saw a gleam that looked like a mixture of evil and madness. North knew one of them would not survive this.
“I’m going get you, you son-of-a-bitch,” North shouted. Though Johnson could not hear him, he guessed at what his hotheaded colleague was saying. He smiled coolly.
Johnson barked some orders at one of his men who North saw was that suck-up Dallas, an explosives engineer, who moved up to the bomb-like device on the other side of the plexiglass.
“They are going to blow the door!” North shouted into his infopad, and then to his Marines, “Everyone duck!” The Marines dropped almost instantaneously behind the desk.
The explosion ripped open the plexiglass door.
The sharp knock at the door startled Amberly, who was deep in thought. She had changed into an emerald green jumpsuit, both practical and comfortable for space travel, and was using the mirror over the sink to straighten her hair. Seeing her mom again reminded her how much she had her mother’s face, round with a button nose, slightly oversized eyes and a perfectly proportioned forehead.
But as she tied up her naturally red hair into an out-of-the-way bun, she couldn’t help but think about her dad. His face was more angular and tall, and his dark eyes were piercing. However, the mop on his head and his well-trimmed beard were the same color as Amberly’s hair. She missed riding around on his back as a young girl, the way he would throw her up in the air and catch her, the tickle fights and falling asleep on his shoulder while they watched old Earth movies like Casablanca.
The knock came again, along with a voice.
“Amberly, may I come in?” Dek was here, and Amberly was ready to start driving her wedge. Showtime, Amberly thought. She briefly wished she had Kora’s confidence with the opposite sex. Still, she knew that Dek was attracted to her, and she would use that to help save her friends now.
She briefly did some ethical gymnastics in her head, trying to justify that it was okay to use Dek’s male weaknesses against him. She did in fact like him, and she did in fact long to know him more. In another time and another place …
“Amberly? I’m coming in,” Dek said, now more as a statement than a query.
The door slid open, and Dek filled its frame. He seemed taller than normal in this sleeping room with lower than normal ceilings. His dark khaki slacks were pressed, and he had put on a brown faux-leather jacket. The bright light flooding in from the corridor made him appear as a silhouette from where Amberly sat on her bed in the dark room.
“Dek,” Amberly smiled. “I’m glad it’s you.”
“Kimberly… er… your mother wanted me to come and check on you,” Dek said, stepping all the way into the sleeping quarters. The door slid closed, and now Amberly could more clearly see the features of Dek’s face — his messy brown bangs, curling over his deep blue-grey eyes.
“Do you really think, Dek,” Amberly said gently, taking his hands firmly in hers as she stood up to face him, “that Chasm is the right thing? Do you really think we can make a perfect world?”
“Am I sure of our success? No,” Dek said. “Still, we have to try.”
“But so many people have tried to create a utopian order. So many faiths, so many governments. They have all failed. What if people are, deep down, essentially, bad?”
“I can’t believe that,” Dek said. “Societies are bad. Ideologies are evil. People, if we are trained properly, with enough time and education, can be good. People are merely the product of the environment they live in. If we create the perfect environment, we create perfect people.”
Amberly reached one hand up and touched Dek’s face. “You, you are good, Dek. I can feel it. But other people, can they be good? I don’t know. Are we really smart enough to build that perfect world?”
“I’m not. And you, well the jury’s out. But people like your mom, like the Chairman — you have no idea how brilliant they are. They are the brightest lights in the darkest voids of space. If we uplift them, Amberly, they will show us the way.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Dek Tigona,” Amberly said, as she leaned into Dek. Dek was only a few inches taller than Amberly, so their foreheads gently touched as she tipped her head toward him. She closed her eyes. Dek spoke softly, yet with passion.
“You have to see that the only way we can build a world where everyone is equal — and we have eternal peace and order — is by leaving all the past behind. By leaving Earth behind. Too much history. We must let go of all that is holding us back. We can’t be afraid to say goodbye.”
Amberly opened her eyes, pulled her head back a few centimeters, and her green eyes gazed intently into Dek’s clear eyes. “Yes, I see.”
Time to put the plan in action, Amberly thought.
She gave Dek the best “I want you” eyes she could muster. He responded, leaning in to kiss her, but Amberly played the full tease, stepped away, smiling and tracing a finger across his face.
She turned her back to him, looked down to the ground, and spoke.
“Oh, Dek, we shouldn’t. We can’t. What would my mother think?”
She turned around with a sudden spring in her step, face beaming and took Dek’s hand. “I have an idea. Let’s go see mom.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Leo’s hands were covered with blood as he attempted to stop Snyder from bleeding out. A plexiglass fragment had lodged into Snyder’s neck, shrapnel from the bombed door. Snyder’s jugular had been severed, and no amount of pressure applied by Leo could stop the inevitable.
North wanted to help Leo, but he assumed that Johnson and his traitorous Chasm-loyal Marines would be taking advantage of the chaos caused by the bomb to finish them off, and North was not about to give up yet. Smoke filled the air, and emergency alarms were blaring.
North, Leo and Snyder were all still hiding behind a reception desk. North strained to hear above the sirens for footfalls and he was rewarded with the unmistakable sound of boots crunching debris — Johnson’s men were advancing, cautiously, to ascertain if North and his men had survived the blast.
Five to five, even odds, North quickly processed Well, five to four, because Snyder wasn’t going to be able to fight. In his left peripheral vision, he saw Leo trying to make a makeshift bandage from a sleeve he tore from Snyder’s shirt. The forth Marine who was holding the line in the hangar was Romero Topez. North glanced to his right, and saw Topez lying in an unnatural position, clearly snapped to death, likely caught in the force of the blast. Smith was crouched next to Topez’s body, and appeared to be in shock, trembling. Five to three. The odds were looking worse.
North decided to chance surprising his enemy. He popped up from behind the counter, simultaneously pulling the trigger on his assault rifle, releasing a spray of bullets.
In the second he was up, North saw at least a dozen in the enemy ranks. The Chasm operatives were massing now. His bullets caught one Chasm trooper in the shoulder, but otherwise found no targets. Johnson's troops hit the deck and scattered for cover.
“There!” shouted Johnson, and indicated with a finger the area where North had left cover.
Bullets and stun rays flew in Nort
h’s direction, but he had already dropped out of sight. North knew it was only a matter of time before they just tried shooting up the whole counter to get whoever was still alive behind the massive metal reception desk.
North caught Leo’s eyes and indicated Snyder with a flick of his head. Leo shook his head slowly. A few bullets sprayed overhead and North hugged the floor tightly. He shimmied a half-meter to where he could see Snyder.
“Leo, it’s so cold,” Snyder said. Leo leaned over the prone Snyder, one hand uselessly covering Snyder’s wound. Snyder’s eyes wondered over to North. “Don’t lie to me, Commander. I’m not going to make it, am I?”
North shook his head.
Snyder slightly trembled, tears running down the side of his face, mixing with his blood. A Chasm troop shot a warning volley over the desk causing North to jolt involuntarily — North knew they were closing in now. “Looks like none of us are going to make it, Snyder.”
“It’s okay, Commander,” Snyder said. “We’re going to a better place. I’m ready.”
“I’ll see you on the other side, buddy,” North said, tearing up.
“Just make sure Leo survives,” Snyder whispered, his eyes rolling back into his head. “He has several of my paintings. He’s going to be rich.”
Snyder went limp.
“If we survive, I am going to put a bullet right between Johnson’s eyes,” Leo said, wiping tears from his eyes.
North cursed. Anderson, Jindal, Snyder and Topez, all good men, now gone. North looked over to an overturned processing table a few meters away from where Jana was hiding, clutching her stun gun. She made eye contact with him, and North put a finger over his mouth, indicating silence. He didn’t want Johnson’s men to realize she had retreated to that tactically superior position.
If he could coax Johnson’s men closer to his position, she might be able to flank them and stun the lot of them, or at least get them caught in cross fire.
An alarm sounded that North recognized as the waypoint-wide emergency alert system. The governor’s voice was heard speaking. Surprised, Johnson’s men appeared to stop their advance.
“This is governor Rillio speaking. This is not a test. This is a real emergency. We are all in grave danger. A terrorist group of radicals known as Chasm is attempting to take over Magellan, with the goal of destroying our home. They have sleeper agents on Magellan and on the American Spirit. They have already killed senior Marine officers Anderson and Jindal. Please return to your quarters immediately, lock yourselves in, and await further instructions from Marine XO Rita Moreno. Under the authority of Waypoint Charter regulation article four, section five, I am declaring martial law and placing XO Moreno in charge of this waypoint until the situation is managed and Moreno and I agree to return the station to civilian control.”
Chasm was now revealed to all. Johnson was clearly not pleased that Chasm had lost the element of surprise. Still, if they could get to the armory on the American Spirit, they could muster an armed fighting force of as many as 500, which he imagined would be more than enough to subdue a hostile populace of nearly 10,000 — and the population would be hostile now that Thor announced Chasm intentions. Only North and few Marines stood between him and control of the armory. He already had nearly 30 trained fighters who had assembled at the hangar door.
Not all of them were armed, however. Johnson knew he could use unarmed men as cannon fodder, but in order to save as many of his Chasm comrades as possible from the coming annihilation, he would have to access the armory on the American Spirit, and then successfully distribute those arms. Raven One was about ready to initiate Scorched Earth, and Johnson felt, as one of the Chasm triumvirate on Magellan, he was honor-bound as a leader to save as many of his Chasm loyalists as possible.
Kimberly would most certainly burn Magellan, of that Johnson had no doubt. Johnson knew her loyalty to the Chairman was absolute. Macready would airlock her own children to please the Chairman, so she certainly wouldn’t have second thoughts about destroying Magellan while he was still ashore.
I am not like that, Johnson attempted to reassure himself. I would only abandon our comrades if absolutely necessary. What good is building a utopia if those who sacrificed the most aren’t around to enjoy it?
Johnson knew that to flush out North and the Marines who remained alive, he would have to risk some of his pawns. He signaled with a series of hand motions to two Chasm operatives, Dallas and Amir, who had come to Magellan on the American Spirit, to walk around either side of the table. Both looked tense, and Amir glared at Johnson as if he was crazy. The pair was unarmed, though Dallas carried an explosive ordinance.
Johnson nodded toward his assault rifle and lifted the scope to his eye level in a gesture meant to show Dallas and Amir that he would be ready to shoot anything that popped up. Johnson didn’t know what kind of training the troops on the American Spirit had received under the tutelage of Sparks on their three-year voyage from Arara, but he hoped Amir understood to walk slowly around the counter that hid the Magellan Marines, making no sudden moves. Johnson and another in his Marine unit, Kyung-ah, had their guns at the ready, eye at the scope and finger on the trigger, waiting to peg North or one of his Marines the minute they left cover.
Dallas had his hands up in a mock surrender, knowing the Magellan Marines would be less likely to shoot an obviously unarmed man. Amir, just about to round the corner in sight of anyone behind the desk, was sweating.
“Steady,” Johnson whispered to Kyung-ah.
North could see the shadow of Amir, and from his crawl position, his assault rifle was aimed right at where he thought Amir’s head would first come into view.
“Don’t come any closer,” North warned. In response, some shots rang out from one of Johnson’s troop’s rifles sailing in the direction of North’s voice, but they passed harmlessly overhead.
“Give up, North,” Johnson called out.
“I’ll never surrender to you, crazy murderer,” North shouted back. He didn’t have an angle on Amir, but let a few bullets loose in his general direction. Amir shrieked, covered his head and dropped to the floor.
“There is no way you survive this, North!” Johnson yelled. “Magellan’s service is coming to a quick end. It’s for the greater good. The only question is, how many people will go with this station into oblivion, and how many will get safely off.”
“The greater good can go to hell, Johnson,” North shouted back, clutching his rifle. He had been ignoring the pain from his wound. He wanted to lie down, to rest for a few minutes so he could clear his head and relax his torn muscle. Instead, he was forced to crouch behind the makeshift cover, and the pain flared like a flame with a fresh supply of oxygen.
“You know, North, there is no way to stop the inevitable,” Johnson said. “As for me and my comrades, we are prepared to die for this great moment in the history of humanity. You keeping us from that ship will not stop Raven One from destroying Magellan. We’ll all go to oblivion together.”
“I don’t believe you all have a death wish,” North shouted back. To North’s left, Leo saw Dallas trying to sneak by the side of the desk with an explosive of some type. Leo made some hand signals to make sure North was aware Johnson’s forces were going to try to blow them up with some low-grade explosives.
North whispered to Leo, “Make the shot if you have it.”
Leo had never shot anyone before. He’d killed tens of thousands of virtual people in the video game-style simulator where all Marines trained, but now he was having doubts he could pull the trigger and take another man’s life. This was real now and he was awash in emotion, still in semi-shock over his friend Snyder bleeding out.
Leo thought about the landscape of the hangar reception area, and knew Dallas would cross his line of fire briefly while positioning to toss an explosive. Dallas would try to move behind a cabinet to Leo’s left.
I can’t do it, Leo thought. I can’t take the life of another man. But Leo knew if Dallas did get behind that ca
binet, he’d be able to launch an explosive assault, and they’d be forced to retreat into the open and then be mowed down by Johnson and his men.
“It doesn’t matter if we have a death wish or not,” Johnson explained, shouting to the surviving Marines. “As I said, there is nothing we can do now that will stop Raven One. If we do not get off, we will die. North, I don't believe you are so selfish as to stop my comrades from getting off Magellan before it’s too late, condemning them to death, just to prove you are right about something irrelevant.”
Johnson then changed his tone and addressed North’s troops. “Listen to me, fellow Marines,” he said. “I do want to live. And you have a chance to survive too. Join us and come with us to Arara. Help our collective build a new world, a perfect world. You don’t need to die today. Just come out of cover slowly with your hands up.”
North looked quickly at Leo, and smiled cynically because they both knew Johnson was full of excrement. He would put a bullet through them the minute they showed themselves.
North turned to Smith and saw a hopeless look in her eyes.
“Smith! No!” he shouted.
But North was too late. She desperately wanted to live and believed Johnson’s lie.
She set her stun gun down, put her hands up, and stood slowly.
North could see her from his position, but couldn’t see Johnson or his men.
Shots rang out, as a scattering of bullets from multiple rifles held by Johnson’s unseen men filled the air where Smith stood. Her eyes opened wide in shock, and Smith fell hard to the floor.
North took advantage of Johnson’s attention on Smith and popped out of cover long enough to let loose a volley from his own rifle. This time, his discharge was more effective, as three of Johnson’s troops took critical hits and went down. Kyung-ah was the only one who had kept a calm demeanor during North’s brief offensive, and took aim at North’s head. North was harmlessly grazed by Kyung-ah’s bullet as he dove back behind cover.