by Tom Kratman
Jamal’s crew, camped on the reactor deck, fought them off with a chainsaw. An hour later, I went to the bridge to catch some kip.
Within an hour, I was woken by a siren howling. So I roll out my blanket and look around the bridge. We’re still in orbit around Terra Nova. When I get up, Aarav comes onto the bridge with me, and yells, “It’s a gas alarm. There’s a gas leak somewhere! The sensors are picking it up.”
Anyway, we check over the sensors, and it looks like D Deck/the reactor deck. Call Jamal, who’s down there, but I can’t raise him on comms. Typical, thinks I, that we get a gas leak in engineering at the eleventh hour.
Hopefully, someone’s fixing it, but Aarav and I decide to go down to D Deck, with gas masks and knives, just in case. We check the corridor near the lifts, looks okay, so we go down there, doors open, looks clear . . .
We get out, and suddenly we’ve got ten European guys hurtling towards us, armed with metal spikes, knives, the works . . . Aarav is hammering on the lift controls, I’m in a floating crouch with the knife, defending the doorway.
The lift doors start closing, two guys try barging into the lift with me. They’re both early thirties, both got razor blades. Aarav pushes one of them into the closing door, getting a bloody wrist for his trouble. The door starts opening again. I start fighting with the other one, getting razor cuts all over my arms, trying to twist his arms around his back to subdue him.
After about ten seconds or so, I get him to drop the razor, and—as he’s thrashing around—the lift jerks upwards and clouts his head on the handrail. Then I hear a piercing scream, and I realize the other guy is trapped in the lift door. He’s half-in, half-out the lift, the lift is going up, and his torso is trapped in the metal doors. He’s screaming and screaming—the noise is like nothing I’ve heard. I look around, and see Aarav has opened the cover to the manual override.
The shit I was fighting hunches over, vomiting on the lift floor. I cuff his hands and turn him around. He’s got a bandana across his face with a green tree symbol drawn onto it with felt-tip pen.
“Where’s the gas leak?” I shout at him. “Where’s the gas leak? Where’s Jamal?” He’s looking past me, at his mate trapped in the lift doors. I can’t see him, but I assume he’s dead—he’s not screaming anymore, and it’s not a pretty sight. I wrestle off the bandana—I’m getting this cold sick feeling that it’s a makeshift gas mask.
“Do you know anything about the gas leak?” I shout.
He looks straight into my eyes and starts laughing. “We’re gassing the rats,” he hisses, coughing. “They’re all traitors—we’re gassing the rats.”
His eyes are bloodshot . . . he’s completely doolally. He’s totally lost it—either before he got into the lift, or after seeing his mate cut in half. I’m not doing much better. Every time I’ve woken up, the last fortnight, I’ve felt this creeping sense of dread. It reminds me of when my daughter died, and I’d wake up every morning thinking what am I missing?
I’m not certain I’m going to get off the ship alive.
I grab him by the collar. “Let me get this straight, you and your mates have caused a gas leak?”
“No,” he said, staring into my eyes. “We’ve taken the labs. We’re going to get off this ship. We’re the chosen ones. We’re going to survive.”
I remember feeling this red rage overtake me, thinking this psycho was laughing about killing Jamal . . . people I’d served with for three years. I wanted to run the knife right through him, but I just couldn’t in the end. Stabbing a guy in cold blood, just pushing the knife into him as he stood there, didn’t sit right with me.
I’ve never been to a war zone. I’m just a cop.
Anyway, back on the bridge, I leave him tied up and gagged in a kit locker. I still have a vision we’ll regain law and order, once the colonists are down on Terra Nova, and the colony councils will decide what to do with him, but if he gets left aboard in the chaos, no skin off my nose.
His mate had made a right mess of the lift. So we take the body up to MedLab, and leave it in the mortuary to stop it stinking the bridge up. The saddest bit about that trip is, opening the mortuary drawers, I realize Besma and Hans were never dealt with. They’re still there, on ice, waiting for a proper burial.
In the absence of sleep, I spent the rest of the morning trying to raise Jamal on comms. I knew he was probably on D Deck. I knew there was a fight going on down there. I knew the Phalange were trying to gas him.
To be honest, I just wanted to know he wasn’t dead.
About 13:00hrs, he finally calls me. “Tony,” he starts off, in a resigned voice. “I am calling you to say goodbye to you, and to tell you to get off the ship.”
My mouth goes dry. I realize Jamal’s dying, or he thinks he’s going to die, and this is the end.
“What’s going on?” I ask, calmly, trying to not to let it show. “Tony, please make sure that my family hear my goodbye tape. Tell my family that I sacrificed my life to save us here on Terra Nova,” he says.
“Okay. What’s going on?”
“We are all trapped on the reactor deck, Tony. We cannot get out. The storage area has been filled with gas; we have lost twenty defending it.”
My heart pounds in my ears. I barely hear what he says next.
“We think we have minutes before the gas enters the reactor deck. We have no gas masks or space suits. The ventilation is not working. We think the colonists hope to get a shuttle to Terra Nova. It is not my decision, but the maintenance crew have decided to irradiate the reactor deck. I have called you to warn you to get off the ship in case this does not work.”
My palms are sweating. “How long do I have?”
A second siren began to howl around the deck, and the lights went dark bloody red. “Engine unstable. Engine unstable.”
He was silent for a moment. “Tell my family that I loved them.”
“Okay,” I say, and then I realize Aarav and the captain are on the bridge looking at me, and Lizzie and Hope are coming out onto the bridge, with a couple of other women behind them. I look at the little girl, and I realize this is like the Titanic.
Pregnant women and children first.
“They’re going to nuke the reactor deck,” I shout to Aarav and the captain. I’m drenched in freezing sweat, cold shivers passing down my spine. I jerk my head to Lizzie and Hope. “We need to get the women and kids onto the shuttles.”
Lizzie is crying, big sobs that shake her body. I remember then; after our little girl was killed, my wife couldn’t cry. She just held it all in, cold and distant, until she exploded.
I sweep up Hope, put her into a fireman’s lift, start chivvying women and babies down towards the secure lift. In my mind’s eye, I’m plotting a route to the shuttle bay, to the aft of the ship. I wasn’t thinking about dying right then, I was just thinking about getting out, getting the women and kids out.
And that’s how I ended up taking the lift down to E Deck, with Aarav and me leading thirty women, babies and injured civvies kicking and floating down the hundred meters or so of maintenance tunnels running down to the shuttle bay.
The main thing that struck me, crawling along, was much how the old boat looked like the closing scenes in a horror movie. The emergency lighting drenched everything in a blood-red gloom and the sirens howled constantly. The air stank of damp and rotten meat, and the walls of the tunnels were covered in mold—I guessed the Phalange or Rashid’s lot had wrecked the hydroponics bay. At an intersection with the main corridor, I saw two crumpled shapes—dead bodies, by the smell of them.
We didn’t go fast, with multiple pregnant ladies and babies, and I kept having this fear that we’d be irradiated before we got there. As we floated along, the gravity got lower and lower, and I started hearing yells and shouts over the sirens.
When we get to the docking port, I could hear yelling and screaming, so I stick my head out of the maintenance tunnel, and see fifty people scrapping in the tunnel to my right, and the hatch
door onto the shuttle bay off to my left. No one looks to have got onto a shuttle, but there are pasta shells and spaghetti floating around, so I’m guessing the fight is over supplies. They must have heard the sirens and the shrill robot voice repeating, “Engine unstable. Engine unstable.” So I don’t know why they haven’t got onto the shuttles. Twats.
I duck back into the maintenance tunnel, and tell the people behind me we’re going to have to make a break for it.
“We’re going to die. We’re going to die,” someone whimpers behind me.
I’m breathing heavily. I’m not certain I’m going to make it myself. I pull myself out the tunnel, and just float around, waiting for the women to kick past me. They’ve got babies strapped to their chests, one pregnant lady is bobbing uncontrollably between floor and ceiling.
There’s limited heating in this part of the ship, but I’m sweating cobs under my padded sweatshirt—I can feel it trickling down my back. I’ve got my hand on my knife and I keep looking at the fight. It’s a surreal scene—fifty blokes, mostly youths, grappling with each other, droplets of blood floating around them.
After three or four minutes, we’ve got twenty-five people out of the tunnel. “Cycle the hatch doorway,” Aarav yells. “We’ll cover you.”
As the doors start opening, we start floating backwards towards the shuttle bay, and I start believing we’re going to make it. I’ve only been there a couple of times—on the pre-mission tour and on the job—but I know it’s basically a long corridor sticking out the back of the ship with airlocks at regular intervals. If we can get into there, and lock the hatch behind us, we’re basically safe from the colonists.
Suddenly, I realize there are three guys in the shuttle bay already—Dennis and two guys in Phalange bandanas. They’re clinging to the guide rail beside the nearest airlock and, as we arrive, they start yelling. “Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off and die.” Five seconds later, they’re kicking towards me, weapons outstretched, trying to stick me with them.
I grab the first guy around the neck, pull him towards me, trying to twist the weapon out his hands. I can hear one of them yelling, “I kill you. I kill you properly,” and realize it’s them or me—there’s no good way out of this one. I thrust the knife into his stomach, and he flails away screaming, droplets of blood bubbling into the air.
The other guy pauses, taken aback, and I slash at his shoulder with the knife. My adrenaline is thumping. Something hits me on the shoulder and I twist around to see the second guy spinning off towards the hatch door. He yells, suddenly, and I realize Aarav is slamming his body into the airlock.
Then, I don’t have time to take breath, because I’m in a knife fight to the death with Dennis. He stabs me in the shoulder, forearm, and slashes me across the jaw. Then he stabs at my chest, but luckily I’m wearing a padded jacket. I finally get my arm around his neck, choking him out, wrestling the knife off him. I relax my arm, and he drifts away, unconscious, the knife clattering against the walls of the shuttle bay.
A blizzard of blood droplets is drifting off my face and arms, towards the ceiling of the shuttle bay, and I start worrying I’m bleeding to death. Below me, I can hear shouts and yelling, and I notice that about fifteen women with babies are clinging to the guard rails around the airlock. Marjorie Billings-Rajamana is messing with the controls. Her bodysuit is torn and she has a huge open cut across her forehead. No idea where she came from; some of the colonists must have been making for the shuttles.
Two of the women start gesturing at me. As I float down to them, one yells, “Lizzie’s still out there.” The hatch doors are still open, so I kick my way out there. One of the heavily pregnant ladies is vomiting, next to the guard rails near the maintenance tunnel. Lizzie and another lady are trying to hold onto her . . . and Hope.
“Get into the shuttle bay,” I yell, and take hold of the woman’s arm. She’s gasping and moaning.
Suddenly, the whole ship shudders and the sirens rise to a screech. There’s a small explosion somewhere.
“Get into the shuttle bay,” I yell, leading the woman by the arm.
Then I hear someone yell, “Kill them,” and realize that the Phalange and Rashid’s crew have finally spotted us. A second later, there’s a ragged cheer over the sirens. Billings-Rajamana has finally got the airlock open and the first group of women are filing onto the shuttle.
I push the vomiting woman forward and two people grab her hands. A few seconds later, she’s been pushed towards the airlock.
“Ach, Tony, come on,” yells Lizzie.
Hope is crying, her face screwed up, tears pouring from her mother’s big, dark eyes. I glance out of the shuttle bay, towards the yelling colonists who are hurtling towards her. I realize there is no time to cycle the airlock shut and launch the shuttle before they reach them.
In my mind’s eye, I see my daughter running down the corridor, a fireball rushing behind her. She’s holding Hope’s hand.
“Lizzie, get Hope onto the shuttle,” I shout.
“But . . . but . . . ”
“They’ve seen us. I’ll hold them off.”
Lizzie heads for the airlock.
The ship shudders again. I turn back around, facing the colonists who are heading towards me.
Tears brim in my eyes.
I’ve heard about officers dying in the line of duty. But it’s not something I ever thought I’d see.
I tighten my grip on my knife, set my ear-mounted comms device to record.
“This is Tony Martin, Security Officer and European Liaison aboard the UNCS Cheng Ho,” I say. “Whoever finds this, give my love to the ex-wife—I’ll always love you. I’ll see you, in Heaven, with my daughter one day.”
“Now I’m finishing my report here and switching off my personal record.”
“Thank you. And good night.”
INTERLUDE:
From Jimenez’s History of the Wars of Liberation
Of course, the result of the Cheng Ho Incident was that the ethnically and nationally mixed colonization program was dead literally on arrival. Instead of continuing that approach, Old Earth parceled our world up amongst most of its own nations.
There were a number of interesting effects of this. One was that almost all the nations of Old Earth were recreated here, complete with their old animosities. Another was that, with widely scattered planetary authority, some under their own government, some under the old United Nations, a great deal more creative accounting was possible than might have been under a single colonial office.
Very quickly, in other words, Terra Nova became a highly desirable posting for bureaucrats, nominal peacekeepers, corrupt do-gooders, venal executives, aspirant royalty, and the like, because whatever could be found and sequestered could be kept.
A great deal in the way of illegal drugs, slave-extracted gemstones, and presumptively magic animal parts made their way off planet and back to Old Earth in the holds of the various ships that came and went, supplying, reinforcing, or replacing the Earth’s orbiting fleet. It is said, too, that a certain number of slaves, generally female or, if male, very young indeed, were carted from Terra Nova back to Earth where there was no record of them to incite inquisitive police or journalists.
Gold was a big draw. Gemstones were too valuable for simple everyday trading for the necessities and luxuries of life. Slaves were too noisy and obvious, as a general rule. Drugs had an important place in Earth’s back market, but also some risks, as did the trade in rare animal parts. But gold? Gold could be coined, measured out by weight as dust, carried without inciting comment. Gold was very nearly the ideal reward for a UN flunky eager to pad his or her nest. And so gold . . .
2.
The Raiders
Mike Massa3
Champlain shuffled into the debriefing room at the Neuf Quebecois forward operating base.
Stripped of visible weapons, he still carried the battlefield stink of cordite, aviation fuel exhaust and sweat. Blood, dried to a dark brown, stained his neck and the
collar of his combat blouse.
His remaining equipment clanked as he sank into the straight-backed chair.
Across the square table he could make out the gray uniform of his interviewer. Although the carefully placed light prevented him from making out the man’s features, Champlain easily read the four gold stripes and blue collar facings of a major of dragoons.
What a dragoon was doing in the Security Police, or SecPol, wasn’t as clear.
“Lieutenant, ah, Champlain,” the major began, consulting a file that lay open before him. “My name is DeGrasse. You will pardon my insistence that we meet without affording you a moment to rest.”
“Get on with it Major!” a second officer entered the puddle of urine-colored light cast by the locally manufactured incandescent bulb. “We don’t have time for your gentle niceties.”
The newcomer wore a spotless khaki uniform. He remained standing so that, like the major, his face remained shadowed. He continued to speak.
“‘Acting Lieutenant’ Champlain has managed to be one of the few survivors of a critical mission,” he spat. “Again. The last time you ran, Champlain, you were awarded a suspended death sentence. If I can prove your cowardice a second time . . .”
“Thank you Colonel Bin Ra’ad,” DeGrasse interrupted. “If you would be so kind, allow me to get the lieutenant started.”
He turned his eyes to Champlain.
“Simply commence at the beginning of the mission, Champlain,” he asked, not unkindly.
Champlain looked down at the table. The fatigue poisons of combat ran thick in his blood. He roused himself and sat a little straighter.
The job wasn’t over.
“Sir, the insert started out routine,” he began, his words ringing loudly in the small room. “Or as routine as they ever do . . .”