Star Wars: Death Troopers (звездные войны)

by Джо Шрайбер

  Kale sprang out after him. He flung out one arm as far as it would go and grabbed Trig's pant leg, hooking his fingers around the cuff. He felt a low, dull thud as Trig fell to the floor, then got his other hand up around Trig's waist and began dragging him back into the docking shaft.

  Then he looked up.

  And saw his father.

  * * *

  Von Longo was staggering toward them in a shambling half run like something that been wrenched three different ways at once- wrenched and broken at the hips and shoulders. He was surrounded by a group of prisoners and guards.

  Except, Kale saw with dawning horror, they weren't prisoners and guards anymore, not exactly, and neither was the old man. His dead yellow skin was mottled with two weeks' morgue rot, his skull grotesquely swollen and partially collapsed on one side so that Kale could see, very clearly, the grinning hinge of the old man's jaw clicking in its socket.

  Kale couldn't move. For what felt like an eternity he watched his father stagger-swaying toward him with that horrible, clutching gait, his face lit up with a kind of drooling familiar eagerness.

  At last Kale broke out of his paralysis and screamed. Scrambling to his feet, propelling himself back in the direction of the shaft, he saw Solo and the Wookiee pulling Trig inside, but they were looking over and beyond him, into the corridor from which the noise was coming. As if in a dream he saw that Dr. Cody's face had gone completely white with fright. Kale saw the doctor reach up and cover Trig's eyes with her hands.

  Then he felt something grab his leg.

  He didn't even hear himself scream.

  Chapter 27.

  Say It Three Times

  When Kale came to, he was sprawled on his back, Dr. Cody kneeling beside him. There seemed to be a great deal going on around him that he couldn't see. Zahara's hands moved with easy efficiency, wrapping a blood-soaked strip of fabric around his lower leg, once, twice, pulling it snug, tying it off. Kale hissed through his teeth, cold strange air that tasted like iron shavings, and felt his guts recoiling.

  Where are we?

  "It's all right," her voice was saying from across a great distance. "We made it. We're up inside the Destroyer's landing bay."

  Kale rolled over and tried to look around. The pain in his calf was incendiary, intense enough that for a moment he didn't trust himself to speak. He sipped in a shallow, tentative breath and held it until he thought he probably wasn't going to be sick, then glanced up at Dr. Cody again, the scope of his vision broadening a little. Behind her, Han and Chewie stood outside the sealed docking hatchway.

  "Where's my brother?" Kale asked hoarsely.

  "He's right over there," Dr. Cody said, "he's fine. Just try not to move."

  Kale craned his neck and saw Trig sitting on the floor against the docking shaft's outer wall, curled up with his chin resting on his knees, rocking back and forth, staring at nothing. He didn't look fine. Kale thought of Trig's stunned voice saying: Dad's out there, seeing the eager thing that had come after him, and wondered if his little brother would ever be fine again.

  Say it, he told himself, and thought back to an old superstition he'd heard as a very young child. Say it three times and make it real.

  "It bit me," Kale said, "didn't it?"

  She tightened the makeshift dressing. "Is that too tight? I have to stop the bleeding."

  "It bit me."

  "They're crawling up the shaft," Han Solo muttered, taking an uneasy step back, and glanced back at Dr. Cody and Kale. "How soon can we get going?"

  Kale could hear it-the scraping. It was coming from inside the docking tower. Hands pounded and scratched on the other side of the shaft. Gnawing sounds. Those things down in the barge had climbed right up after them, he realized, up the tower. Right now they were breaking their brittle fingernails and teeth inside that metal tube, trying to get out. He thought about what he'd seen when he'd looked back into the barge's pilot station. It wasn't possible but it was true. The sound of their hunger and anger, along with the stinging pain in his leg, made the memory real.

  The corpses of the prison barge had come back to life and his father was among them.

  His father had bitten him.

  Kale felt his mouth flood with coppery spit and leaned forward, opening his lips to vomit, but nothing came out. His stomach wouldn't quit trying, though, wouldn't say die, as his dear old dad might have said. Dead old dad, his brain blathered, and his diaphragm kept jerking and heaving spasmodically with the awful insistence of an involuntary muscle twitch.

  "Look, kid," he heard Solo's voice saying, its impatience penetrating the thick cloud of horror that had accumulated around his thoughts. "We gotta go."

  "Which way do you suggest?" Dr. Cody asked.

  "If we can find our way back to the Destroyer's command bridge, maybe we can actually get this big beast moving."

  Chewie gave a dubious growl.

  "It's a ship, isn't it?" Han said. "You've flown one, you've flown 'em all. We just gotta get past. " He gestured vaguely."… all this."

  Kale wiped his eyes and took his first real look around at where Han was indicating. The main landing bay and hangar that surrounded them was an endless durasteel desert whose perimeters stretched out so far that they seemed to elude the eye. Even now, the notion of crossing it was more than he could fathom. And yet.

  "Help me up," he said.

  Dr. Cody reached down. He took her hands and lifted himself, straightening his back as she guided him. At first he thought it was going to work-he actually might be able to put weight on the other leg as well.

  "Take it easy," she said. "We don't have to rush."

  The pain hit hard, and Kale fell back to the floor with a silent cry that came out as little more than a groan. He looked down. Blood was spurting recklessly from the wound in his leg, soaking the tourniquet and turning it dark red. He saw Trig staring at him but didn't know if his brother was worried about him, or about what he'd seen down below. Did it matter? It was all one thing now, their situation spelled out around them in spilled blood.

  "You can't travel like that," Dr. Cody said.

  "Just give me a second."

  "You'll bleed out before we make it across the landing bay."

  "I'll be fine."

  She stared at him, then leaned down, close enough to whisper. "Listen to me. I want you to understand this. If we try to move you now, you're going to die." Without moving her head, she indicated Trig, hunched over. "And he'll have to watch that happen. Is that what you want?"

  Kale shook his head.

  "I'll stay here with you," she said, loud enough for the others to hear. "Han, you and Chewie can take Trig and head for the command bridge."

  At the mention of his name, the younger boy jerked as if shocked and sat up straight, shaking his head. "No." He stared at his brother. "I want to stay with Kale."

  "Come here," Kale said.

  The younger boy stood up and walked over.

  "I told you I wouldn't let anything happen to you," Kale said, "and I won't. But to keep that promise I need you to go with the others, right now."

  Trig shook his head again, violently, tears filling his eyes. He spoke in a fierce whisper. "I'm scared," he said. "Dad's face…"

  "Listen to me," Kale said. "That wasn't Dad."

  Trig stared at him.

  "That was something else. We know what Dad was like. We remember him from before, and that wasn't him." He waited. "Right?"

  "But.»

  "Was it?"

  Trig shook his head.

  "You have to go. I'll catch up later."

  "What's going to happen to you?" Trig asked.

  "Dr. Cody and I will catch up to you guys as soon as we can."

  "You promise?"

  "I promise," Kale said, and was glad when Dr. Cody put her hands on Trig's shoulders to turn him toward Solo and the Wookiee. Looking at his brother's heartbroken, terrified expression was becoming close to unbearable now, but Kale made himself do it for one more s
econd. "Trig?"

  The boy's eyes shone on him.

  "I love you," Kale said.

  "Then don't make me go."

  "Doc, you want the blaster?" Solo asked.

  Zahara looked up at him, surprised. "You'd really give me your last blaster?"

  "Well," Han said, looking away, "you know, if those things start coming through the shaft…"

  "That's all right."

  "You sure?"

  She nodded. "We won't be here that long." Glancing at Trig: "We'll see you soon, okay?"

  Kale watched his brother's expression, but Trig didn't say anything, didn't even nod, as Han Solo and Chewbacca led him away.

  Chapter 28.

  Things You Don't Forget

  They started across the hangar without talking.

  Han went first, carrying their sole blaster at his side. He and Chewbacca seemed to know where they were headed, and Trig followed a dragging, somnolent half step behind. Every so often the Wookiee tossed his head, gave a snort or a grunt like he was sampling the air and didn't like the way it smelled, and Han would say, "Yeah, I know," but they just kept moving forward.

  The silence was a black cloud that hung over them. The only noise was the tapping, echoing sound of their shoes against the vast steel floor, and outside, the creaking of the Star Destroyer in the black vacuum of space. Otherwise, there was no sound at all. It only accentuated the size of the ship and the limitlessness of the surrounding void.

  Trig hated it.

  In such silence his mind wandered-except wandered was far too tame a word. His mind ran wild, capered shrieking up and down his skull like some lunatic who'd murdered his entire family, jerking to a halt here or there to ruminate upon some grisly trophy or another.

  Why am I thinking like this?

  But he knew exactly why.

  He thought back to the thing that had lunged out of the escape pod at him, the thing he hadn't gotten a chance to tell anyone about, even his brother. The pod-thing had once been an inmate, a human- it had worn an inmate's uniform-but circumstances had turned it into something else entirely. Its puffy dead face and caved-in black eyes had been still vaguely human, but it had jumped out of the pod with a snarl dial was decidedly not human. It had gone for his throat, and Trig's reflexes were the only reason it hadn't succeeded.

  Spinning around, he had gone blundering down the corridor and plunged through the maintenance shaft, clinging to the inner wall while the thing went plummeting down past him with a frantic yodelling scream. And then, holding on inside the shaft, his fingers slowly going numb, Trig had listened to it hit the bottom of the shaft with a crunch, its shallow breathing broken, still hungry, still trying to drag itself back up to get him.

  He thought about that inmate, as horrible as it was, over and over, and told himself it was better than thinking about the other thing.

  The thing weaving its way across the pilot station toward the docking shaft.

  The thing with his father's face.

  That face, also bloated and sagging, had hung off the thing's skull like a poorly fitted mask, stretching at the eyes. Trig's mind refused to leave it alone. He kept thinking about the way it had grinned at him, as if it recognized him. And all the rest of them, the guards and prisoners.

  Not Dad, he told himself. Kale said it wasn't and you could see it, too. Dad's dead, you said good-bye to him, whatever that thing up there was, it wasn't Dad.

  And he could almost believe it.

  Almost.

  Except around the eyes.

  His father's eyes had always been his strongest feature, those faded blue irises streaked with flecks of gold, the dark inquisitive pupils, their quickness and clarity, how they sought you out, making you feel like you were the only person in the room. Trig had always liked talking to his father, and his dad could always make him laugh just by looking at him.

  The thing upstairs had had his father's eyes.

  Behind him now, Trig thought he heard something scuffling across the Destroyer's main hangar and jerked around fast to look back. He could feel the blood tingling in his fingertips. There was nothing there, nothing but the long flat durasteel floor they'd been walking across, and far away, on the other side, almost out of sight, the tiny huddled shapes of his brother and Dr. Cody.

  I'm going crazy, he thought, and the idea brought no sense of dread-in fact, it was almost a relief. He'd been losing his grip on things over the last several days, and what he'd just seen only solidified it. Crazy, of course, and why not? What else were you supposed to do when the dead came back to life and tried to rip out the soft part of your neck?

  And if the dead man was your father?

  But Kale said -

  "Kale's wrong," he muttered, "he's just wrong" and he nodded along with his own words because being crazy meant you could tell the truth. You didn't have to pretend it was okay anymore, and that was good.

  He heard that furtive scuttling noise behind him again and spun back around, but there was still nothing there. He couldn't even see his brother and Dr. Cody across the hangar, their outlines absorbed by distance and the lack of light. Or maybe the thing that was following them had already eaten them, and they were dead, too, which meant Trig would be seeing them again soon, wouldn't he?

  n the end, the sickness would bring them back. In the end maybe the sickness brought everyone back.

  Trig began to feel as if he were sinking into a warm deep bath. His hearing was becoming muffled, his vision softening around the edges, blurring into deeper shadows across the bay. No wonder the Empire had abandoned this Star Destroyer out here in some remote corner of the galaxy-the sickness here was worse than anything he'd ever heard of; it made Darth Vader and his endless armies seem almost innocent by comparison. Thinking about it now made him want to puke and laugh at the same time because that was what you did, that was just what crazy people did, when their fathers came back from the dead and tried to attack them.

  Kid?

  Hey kid, are.,?

  He realized he'd stopped walking. Han Solo was standing in front of him, staring at him through what felt like a thick and motionless cushion of air. Trig could see his mouth moving, saw him frowning, asking a question-

  . you gonna.

  But for the life of him he couldn't figure out what Han was saying. It was like he was speaking a different language. Now the man was shaking him by the shoulders, and the soft wax that had plugged Trig's ears was starting to melt away, opening up his hearing.

  "… all right?" Han asked.

  At the sound of his voice, Trig felt the still air around him stirring, become less stifling, as if he'd just snapped out of some invisible chrysalis and drawn his first clean breath. It stung his nose and made his throat ache like he'd tried to swallow too big of a bite of something, and he realized he was going to cry again. Even if he didn't have any more tears.

  Han stood there looking at him awkwardly.

  "My dad. " Trig managed, and that was all.

  Han opened his mouth to say something but didn't. To his left, Chewbacca leaned forward and put his arms around Trig. It was like being wrapped up in a warm, slightly musty-smelling blanket. Trig could feel the Wookiee's heartbeat, and a soft, comforting growl from deep inside that cavernous chest. Slowly he made himself release and draw away.

  "Okay," Han said, and cleared his throat. "You all right?"

  Trig nodded. It was a lie, he wasn't all right, not at all, but he was better-a little.

  He looked around and saw that they were standing among several smaller ships, the ones he'd first seen from the other side of the bay, old rusted vessels, jettisoned escape pods, captured Rebel ships and shuttles, a small Corellian freighter. They lay in piles around them, a modest assortment of ruined aeronautics.

  The Wookiee barked out a question.

  "Nah," Han said, "I seriously doubt it." He pointed. "We can get up to the main concourse, follow it up."

  "Yeah," Trig said, because he knew some kind of answer was e
xpected of him.

  "It's going to take us a while to get to the command bridge. These things are a kilometer long. But if it's got an engine, we can fly it."

  Trig nodded. They kept walking.

  Behind him, far off in the distance he heard a new sound.

  Screaming.

  Chapter 29.

  Sine

  Zahara jerked sideways and stared back at the docking shaft. The screaming coming from inside of the shaft was inhuman. It was shrill and sharp and hateful, comprising maybe hundreds of voices pitched up together-EEEEEEEEEE. It oscillated in a waveform that the mathematical part of her mind insisted on graphing, rising up to squeeze her eardrums, sloping toward silence, then coming up again to the same frequency of precision dynamics.

  Kale groaned. He was muttering something. She leaned down to listen.

  ". ut it off.»

  She looked at him, startled by what she understood him to be saying. And in case she didn't understand, he was fully awake now, staring at her, pointing at his bandaged leg.

  "Doc, please. You have to."

  Another scream Dopplered by, eeeEEEEeeee, and she waited until it ended.

  "What?"

  eeeEEEEeee -

  "Cut it off."

  eeeEEEEeee -

  "That's not necessary," she said. "Not right now."

  eeeEEEEeee -

  "I can feel it coming up through me. You have to." His eyes were bright and scared and absolutely lucid. "Please, I don't care how much it hurts, just do it, cut it off."

  eeeEEEEeee -

  "I can't do that."

  "Then kill me."

  The screaming spiraled up again, louder than before, surging up and edging off in that same pattern. It continued throughout their conversation, and Zahara started shouting so she could be heard over it.

  "Your brother went with Han and Chewbacca, they're on the way now to find communications and medical supplies. You're going to get through this, trust me. How bad is your pain?"

  "There is no pain."

  "What?"