Spindown

by Andy Crawford

  In a rage as he charged aft toward the control room, he realized after several moments that he should have stopped and looted the ammunition from the three dead men. Too fucking late now—

  He was moving so fast that, at a junction in the passageway, he inadvertently body checked a crewman into the angled bulkhead corner, and before he could chide himself for another stupid move, he was fighting for his life. The crewman, clutching Konami’s gun-hand, kicked off the bulkhead, sending them both hurtling into the center of the passage. The crewmen yelled, and Konami knew he’d have to end this quickly — others would be on their way. He delivered two hard left hooks to the crewman’s gut — forcing a grunt, but the crewman hung onto Konami’s right arm.

  A glance to the side revealed another crewman approaching quickly. As he clawed at the crewman’s waist he brushed over the handle of a gun, and pulled the trigger without thinking. With a cry of pain, his assailant let go. Konami swung his gun hand to his left just as the approaching crewman emerged through the smoke, and fired wildly. Without even seeing if his shots connected, he turned back and shot the first crewman, balled up in pain, through the head.

  And it was over — Konami quickly maneuvered to a parallel passageway, hiding briefly, and letting four crewmen pass him while he reloaded and collected and calmed himself. Shit shit shit shit shit... He had been so stupid, relying on nothing but his rage. In the last five minutes he had killed five people — did they really need to die?

  Nearby voices shook him out of his self-reflection, and he instinctively readied his slugthrower.

  Yes, he decided. Ngayabo and Papka were taking over the ship. They had already killed — murdered — his crewmates. Yes, they needed to die, and so did Papka.

  He couldn’t stop himself from giving a whooping yell as he charged toward the voices, guns blazing.

  CHAPTER 66

  “What about our children?” asked a fidgeting Aotean. “Are we really going to risk their lives?”

  The loyal Aoteans in the Fortress had broken up into groups, with no single space large enough for all, after Ngayabo’s broadcast. The captain and mayor had instructed the department heads and other senior officers present on the ‘party line’ she wanted presented to everyone junior. After the captain gave a short reassurance simulcast to each space in the Fortress, Mattoso was answering questions from over a hundred frightened Aoteans in one of the smaller Deep Machinery spaces.

  “We have no reason to trust the conspirators,” answered Mattoso. “We haven’t even verified their ability—”

  “They have ships — we saw it. Why would they have ships if they wanted to kill us all?”

  She gritted her teeth. “Maybe they have ships. Or maybe they weren’t real. None of us have seen these ships, much less analyzed them onboard.”

  “So what are we going to do? Just hide down here until we get to Samwise?”

  “Operations have already begun to regain control of the ship. We—”

  “But Ngayabo said that they stopped them in Engineering.”

  “She’s said a lot of things.” Mattoso tried to calm her frustration. “It will take more than one operation. Most of all, it will take courage and teamwork. We outnumber them, maybe ten to one.” She doubted it was this high if they only counted adults. “We know the ship just as well as they do. With time, we’ll capture the traitors and regain control of the ship.”

  Her wearable buzzed urgently. Goddamnit! She looked down — it was Loesser.

  Cy’s the last one still Aft. He said to give him thirty minutes — it’s been twenty. Getting ready to go back in to get him, with the handful of healthy I have left; wounded are getting pulled back to the Fortress with the MedTechs.

  Mattoso cut off the next questioner. “I’m sorry, I have something urgent to take care of. If you have more questions, crowd in the spaces next door and ask one of the other department heads.”

  She was texting as she made her way to the passage that ran alongside the Deep Machinery Spaces.

  Dr, Cy might need help. Might be wounded. Heading aft.

  The reply was almost immediate. On my way.

  Four had departed the Fortress, relying on Madani’s seniority to talk their way past the guards. In the rush Mattoso picked up Operations Chief Azbek, almost bumping into him on her way out, and Madani met her at the aft Fortress hatch with another medical officer, Valdez.

  Everything outside the fortress was eerily silent. The noise they made as they traversed the passageways aft had Mattoso terrified they would attract attention.

  Her wearable vibrated silently. Poor visibility, encountering resistance, still searching for Cy.

  On our way w/ doctors, she replied.

  The lights flickered and then dimmed.

  Valdez said she heard a noise down a side passage.

  Azbek suggested that the flickering lights could be a good sign, perhaps that engineering had been retaken. And then something exploded. A gunshot, realized Mattoso, yelling at the others to take cover, and pulling the weakly struggling Azbek with her down a side passage. She stopped and turned back when she realized he wasn’t moving.

  Madani cursed aloud. Mattoso turned and saw why — it was a dead end, aside from a pair of small hatches.

  She gently pushed the chief toward the doctors, drew her slugthrower, and stood near the junction, cautiously peering both ways. Where the hell did that shot come from? It was a long, gently curving passage, and she couldn’t see anything past the curves in either direction.

  The two doctors were cutting Chief Azbek out of the top of his coverall.

  “Alive,” said Dr. Valdez, as Madani worked frantically. “Gut shot.”

  Oh shit… sorry, Chief. “Valdez, check the hatches for a way out.”

  “But Ilsa needs—”

  “Do it, Rana,” ordered Madani without looking up. “If they find us, we’re all dead.”

  Mattoso kept her eyes darting both ways down the passages.

  The first was just storage. There was a pause and shuffling sounds of movement. “Second is — oh shit!” Metallic banging noises, and Mattoso turned back — a Bot arm was sticking out of the hatch that Valdez was trying to shut.

  She risked stepping away from her sentry duty to help Valdez — bracing against a mechanical outcrop, she kicked at the Bot arm while the doctor shut the hatch.

  A noise from the passage drew her back to the junction — just as she stuck her head out, a party of four unfamiliar crewmen appeared around the bend. She pulled back abruptly as they motioned to draw weapons.

  Oh goddamnit. Of all the bad timing...

  “We’re about to have company,” she said quietly.

  Yells from the corridor confirmed this. “Listen,” said a female voice. “We’re not going to hurt you. You heard what Professor Ngayabo said — it’s going to happen no matter what. If you want to save your life, just come out with your hands visible.”

  Damn it. She had an idea, but needed more time. She looked nervously at the confused doctor — Madani was still busy seeing to Azbek — and raised her voice, announcing that they’d open fire if they came any closer.

  She didn’t have time to explain her plan. Mattoso motioned for Valdez to join her at the junction, and explained that she needed a delay. She hoped she was right about the Bots, remnants that must have missed the surge patrols. It had been weeks since she had had to deal with any compromised Bots.

  A gunshot turned her momentarily — Valdez had fired a warning shot, and was yelling down the passage.

  Swallowing her fears, she reached out for the hatch.

  CHAPTER 67

  Papka was terrified, hunched over, clutching his weapon. Konami could see it in his eyes, even through the goggles, and even through the hazy duraglass window in the control room door. And there was no indication Papka could see him through the remaining smoke.

  From the view across the passageway and through the window, the conspirator was alone. Konami assumed in the pandemonium that t
he treacherous engineer had continued to send out reinforcements in a panic, and for once he was glad for the lack of tactical or military experience among the Aoteans.

  Duraglass was thick, but it was designed to be airtight for steam or gas leak casualties, not to stop bullets. But it would slow them down and change their trajectory. He tried to sight down the barrel, but Papka kept moving in and out of the window frame. And he was too far to be sure of the aim.

  Damn. Konami hadn’t cleared the nest of passages around the control room yet. Reviewing the layout from memory, that could take another fifteen minutes or more. No, the time was now, to press whatever surprise advantage he had.

  He kicked against the bulkhead, and just as he crossed the passageway, three shots rang out, and Konami spun wildly, pushing off to regain his cover.

  And he screamed in pain through the breather at the excruciating pain in his hip, and line of fire on his neck. It didn’t dawn on him for several seconds that he’d been shot, and dazed, he pulled himself into an alcove across from the control room.

  Feeling his neck, it was just a graze – still bleeding, but no arteries. But when Konami looked down, he almost groaned in despair – his right hip was pumping blood, pooling into a growing fist-sized zero-g blob. From somewhere nearby he found a rag, and clenching his teeth, wadded it up and stuffed it as deep into the wound as he could.

  There was a voice, just barely audible. Someone talking into a wearable. Papka. Or his minion. He heard the word “…alive…” and that was it.

  Fuck.They’d be coming for him, and they’d find him. He squeezed his eyes shut. It was time to do the unthinkable.

  He couldn’t help but cough when the breather came off. And he couldn’t help cough again when he spoke, shouting “I surrender!” as loudly as his tired lungs would allow.

  CHAPTER 68

  Bikram restrained Elcot — the other two, more experienced and disciplined — stayed back.

  “Goddamnit, Second —that is, Aspirer,” she started. She still wasn’t accustomed to using the Striver ranks in the open, and the slip up needled her. “Wait for my orders.”

  Bikram was a full coordinator, inducted cycles before Aotea was fully constructed. She had to expect that Aspirers like Elcot, one of the only inductees from Earth, would not be nearly as disciplined as those who had been learning from the Socializers all their lives.

  She peeked around the bend once again — there was no sign of either of the women they had seen before. The coordinator debated whether she should call out another negotiation, but decided to take the opportunity to advance, and motioned her team forward, weapons drawn.

  There was no one at the junction, and when she turned down the side passage, there was nothing but a dead end and two hatches. One was open.

  She and her team advanced slowly, weapons held at the ready.

  “Please, we’ve got a wounded man here.”

  The voice came from inside the open hatch.

  “I promise,” responded Bikram. “We won’t hurt anyone. Just put your weapons —”

  “Slowly. Slowly!”

  She still couldn’t see inside the space behind the hatch — it was too dark.

  “We’re coming—”

  “Slowly. Slowly!” the voice repeated.

  She spread her hands, keeping her weapon concealed behind the open hatch. “It’s okay, I promise—”

  Something sharp-edged bowled into her, sending her tumbling to the other bulkhead. Her gun fired wildly. It was a Bot, limbs whirling, and there were others behind it. She felt a sickening pain in her guts and looked down to see a metal appendage stuck deep in her belly. As her vision went black, Bikram barely noticed the second hatch open.

  CHAPTER 69

  A cluster of shots rang out, and Papka could wait no longer. Thumbing a call, he didn’t wait for acknowledgement. “Did you get him?”

  He started to panic as there was no response. “Aspirer, respond!”

  By Paola… he was coming for him. The Earther Konami, bred by violence, a great bear in the mist of the peaceful sheep of the rest of them. And his protectors were gone.

  A raspy voice on his wearable: “Got him. The Earther is dead.”

  Papka’s eyes darted to the window, but it was still hazy with smoke. “Aspirer, repeat!” Was that the same voice? Was it just the smoke?

  “Konami’s dead. He surrendered, and we didn’t give him a chance to change his mind.”

  He couldn’t help but be suspicious. The voice sounded different.

  “Take a look for yourself, Chief. Body’s right outside your window.”

  Despite his suspicion he couldn’t help but push off the other bulkhead and take a look. And the last thing he ever saw was the barrel of a gun on the other side of the glass.

  CHAPTER 70

  It was a bloody scene, only exacerbated by the freefall. Mattoso suppressed her shock as she surveyed the mayhem that had come in the space of moments while they hid in the other storage space, and raised her hand to send tranq darts into each of the four bodies whether they were still struggling with the Bots or not. Weeks ago, she realized, such a scene would have made her near catatonic. Now she could swallow her disgust, but part of her knew that was even worse. For a killer, killing gets easier…

  “What the hell happened?” gaped Valdez, rushing toward the prone bodies after emerging behind her. Mattoso hadn’t had time to fully explain. While Valdez was guarding the junction, Mattoso had opened the hatch a crack but kicked away to the other bulkhead, and from a distance had been able to order the Bots back into the recesses of the storage space behind the hatch. Once they were docile from distance, Mattoso recorded a brief snatch of dialogue on her wearable, sending it drifting into the Bots while instructing them how to execute her plan. The obedience of the Bots at a distance was still a ludicrous contrast to their extreme danger up close.

  Now that the four traitors were dead or unconscious, the Bots, out of reach, could be safely ordered back into the storage space. Mattoso shut the hatch after the Bots dutifully climbed inside.

  “But how did you get them to attack?” asked the younger doctor as she checked the four drifting bodies.

  “I told the Bots the newcomers’ wearables were malfunctioning and dangerous and needed to be removed immediately.” Fortuitously, there were five full size Bots, as well as a handful of DustBots — more than enough to distract their assailants. More than just a distraction… “All I needed to do was get them in reach, and then the virus thing takes over and makes them crazy.”

  Valdez pursed her lips at one of the bodies, and they went over them. Two were dead, one was tranq’d with superficial injuries, and the last one, the only woman, was dying with a gut wound.

  Shit. Mattoso had to repress the thought that it would be much easier if they were all dead. Thankfully, Azbek was stable. But with two live ones, they needed a decision quickly.

  Mattoso realized that even Madani, a department head, was looking to her to take the lead. “Very well. Valdez, you’ll stay. We’ll tie up the other one tight — and you’ll have your dart gun, in case he wakes up. Just keep her alive, and keep working on Azbek. We’ll stuff everyone else into a space further down the main passageway.” She was pleased to see them nodding and getting to work without further prompting.

  Two thirds of the way from the hatch to Engineering, Mattoso’s wearable buzzed.

  Have Cy; wounded and unconscious. Reactor shut down.

  Mattoso repeated the message to Madani, and the doctor accelerated to a freefall sprint, flying headlong arm-over-arm with abandon, and she was breathing heavily after just a few minutes of following the long-limbed chief medical officer. They could have cut the time by going up to the surface, but she didn’t feel comfortable at all with the idea of being in the open, and luckily the Doctor didn’t ask.

  Three junctions later, they were almost shot. A pair of soot-covered, red-sashed constables, as surprised to see them as they were, escorted them back to a much s
lower procession of a few healthy deputies, including Loesser, along with a handful of wounded dragged along behind.

  While Madani took charge of the wounded from a weary MedTech, Mattoso got Constable Loesser’s attention. “Engineering?”

  “We cleared it.”

  “You cleared it? I thought it was a trap.”

  “Can’t explain it.” The constable had that dead-eyed look of someone who was so tired they no longer even felt like sleeping. “Took a small team in after Cy said to withdraw. Filled with smoke. Almost thirty conspirators, and he’d killed all but seven, now dead or darted. Don’t know how. We did the shut down and left behind a weld team, on their way now — no one’s getting into Engineering without a full day’s cut. Heavy-duty weld shut. No time, so leaving the bodies inside.”

  Mattoso felt a burst of pleasure at the talk of dead conspirators, and tamped down on the shame that followed. Do killers feel shame? She didn’t know. She squeezed Loesser’s shoulder and moved onto the wounded, going down the line, each one gently pulled behind a healthy deputy, until she found Konami.

  Contrary to Loesser’s text, his eyes were open, though he looked terrible. He had wounds and burns bandaged from his neck down to his hips, but when he saw her, he grinned. “Got that son of a bitch…” he whispered.

  She grinned back. “Which one?”

  “Papka. Put two slugs in his forehead.”

  She had a sudden flash to the writings of one of the founders of the Society for a New Humanity. Violence begets violence, and even otherwise decent and reasonable people can revel in the carnage… She grinned again anyway.

  He motioned her close. “A traitor — in the Fortress. Someone knew.” His voice was barely audible.

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know.” He coughed and Mattoso called for the MedTech.

  Another traitor. How? Everyone inside Fortress Deep had been blood tested, multiple times and with multiple witnesses, for the telltale drug.