"Don't be a fool," hissed Kray. "Do you remember how many eggs we moved over to the Acheron? And you saw what it did to those men when the bugs were hunting? We won't have the element of surprise forever. What happens when we don't see them? You saw what happened to Marine Team 1. Some of our best men. Slaughtered. They had no chance. We need to do the one smart thing here. Jettison the Acheron from convoy and when it is clear, destroy it with extreme prejudice. We can't risk the alien infection spreading to the convoy. Do you know how many people would die?"
Kronos stared at the static filled screen. Toy was cycling through feeds trying to reset it from the Poros and pick up something from the Acheron. Kronos watched the feeds coming from the Poros. Troops in the mess hall bent over rations, hungrily scooping food into their mouths. Engineers sitting idly on a cooling pipe near in the engine room, in their orange coveralls, laughing at a story one of them was telling. This was his ship. The men and women he needed to protect.
"Leave no one behind," said Sanchez. "Our code of honor. Beyond everything else. Without honor to guide us, what are we but killers."
Kray sneered and rolled his eyes. "Honor's got nothing to do with this."
"Do it," whispered Kronos. His captains paused in their arguing and leaned in close to hear him. The static from the video feed had ground louder and he was not sure that they could hear him above the white noise. He raised his voice. "Do it. Do it! Seal the doors. Blast the tubes. And then jettison the Acheron."
Sanchez shook her head and let her head collapse into her hands.
He slammed his fist on the table in front of her. "And you, prepare the missiles. You press the button that sends the Acheron to fiery hell."
She shook her head. "You're a bastard."
He did not break his gaze from hers. "Sometimes we leave our brothers and sisters behind. Sometimes we do." His voice broke. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands.
"The screen!" Toy once again pointed to the video feed.
He had found a camera focusing on an air vent. An insect had squeezed inside and was crawling through quickly.
"Can we get an audio line through to them?" asked Kronos. "Can we warn them that the bug are in the air vents? We can at least give them that."
"They'll be dead soon enough," muttered Sanchez. "What difference does it make?"
Kronos stood, steadying his hands on the table in front of him. He needed to show courage and leadership. "If I give them a moment more, if I let them believe that they are going to go out fighting, that they have lived a life worth living, then it makes all the difference in the world."
He cringed as he returned his gaze to the video feed. He fought a chill racing up his spine. The horror of having those things crawling through the heart of the Acheron. He needed to warn them. He owed Engstrom that much. Let the woman die fighting. Let her go out an honorable warrior. "Toy, where's that camera feeding from? Where in the Acheron is that monstrosity? How close is it to Engstrom? Toy? Captain? Answer me."
Toy stared at his tablet, jaw hanging open, one finger trembling as if he feared to touch the screen before him.
"Toy!"
Toy touched the display and text ran along the bottom of the video feed. LEVEL THREE, QUADRANT NW, STARSHIP POROS, FEDERATION FLEET.
Kronos's knees gave out and he fell to the floor. He pressed his forehead against the cold plasteen surface. The ground shook with the pounding of the feet of his captains. Their screams were lost to the sudden glaring of a klaxon.
Even though his heart felt as if it were about to burst out of his chest, Kronos looked up at the screen. The words burned into his head STARSHIP POROS.
The bugs had crossed the threshold. They were in the Poros. It was too late. The bugs were coming.
Chapter Twenty-Five
ENGSTROM SWALLOWED HARD and stared into the darkness ahead. Despite the gloom, she clearly saw the ladder stretching upwards and the corpses of her men littering the floor. Even from this distance, she caught a whiff of the coppery tang of blood. She wiped her sweaty palms on her thighs again.
She did not want to be here. She did not want to return to the site where her men had been slaughtered. A choking sob caught in her throat. Her men. She should have better protected them.
"We should go now," whispered Snake. He stood at her shoulder and looked across the distance at the ladder.
Engstrom frowned at the salvage pirate. He presented a problem for her.
On the one hand, she did not trust him fully. She knew his kind. They only cared about two things: money in their pocket and their own hides. Engstrom did not like having to rely on a man like this. Not for a job like this. Not when a mistake or a sudden betrayal meant a single irreversible price. Not when the lives of her remaining men were at risk.
On the other hand, she felt Snake had something nobler hidden beneath the outside surface that he showed the world. She had seen the look in his eye, the softness, the caring. A gentler man lived beneath the eye patch and the scruffy beard and the flippant comments. A man who would fight for his own.
It annoyed Engstrom that she softened a bit around him.
Still she did not fully trust him.
But Engstrom did not have much of a choice. If she was going to hunt down these monsters that had slaughtered more than half her team and clear a line to the exit of the prison blocks, she was going to need help, and right now that help was coming in the form of salvage pirates and prisoners who had been sentenced to death.
She stared at the distance to the ladder. As close as it was, it still seemed far. And the exit door, even further.
She needed all the help she could get to survive.
She would take their help now. But when this job was over, she would bring back some order to this situation. The prisoners would be returned to a lock down situation. She would report back to Admiral Kronos and explain the decision that she made. When she stood in front of the admiral and explained things as they were unfolding the old man would understand her, clap her heartily on the shoulders, and tell her that if he had been in the same situation that he would have done the exact same thing. Engstrom would be brought back into the fold. She would live up to her family name. She would make the Space Marines proud.
Order would return to her world,
But first revenge. A price in blood, or whatever foul ichor the monsters had inside them, would be taken.
Revenge.
For her men.
For the prisoners.
"We can't keep waiting," said Snake. He bit his lower lip. "The damned thing will scent us down." He looked just as nervous as Engstrom and kept glancing to the left and the right, the gun clutched in his hands.
"When this is over, you'll return the guns to me," said Engstrom.
"First things first, we gotta get to the end game. Then, yeah, guns back to you. I see you don't really trust me after all, do you?"
Engstrom was not sure that she trusted the words coming out of the salvage pirate's mouth. In fact, she knew she did not.
But then she stared at the ladder leading up into the darkness, the ladder leading to the first level and their way out of this dungeon. She had bigger problems to deal with right now.
She signaled to the others, those grouped behind her, and those along the opposite wall. She could barely see them in the gloom, but she imagined that if the bugs were hidden somewhere in the shadows that they saw her clearly.
She inhaled deeply several times and crept forward.
Engstrom caught herself looping in her thoughts.
She kept thinking about the bugs waiting for her to take one more step forward, that they were lying in wait for that moment when she was close enough and far from the others that she would be an easy target for them. Another morsel snatched.
She needed to focus on the task at hand. One mistake and it would all be over.
She glanced over her shoulder. Snake shadowed her. He would not abandon her.
She was the first to reach the
bodies. Anders, or the half of him that remained, lay where the beast had tossed him down the ladder. The lower half of his body had been ripped off. But he still wore his ammo packs and at least the top half of his armor and his helmet.
Snake signaled to Crunch who slipped forward and began to pull the gear off the corpse, big hands fumbling with straps and zippers, his face sneering and turned from the gore and blood. Not an enviable task.
Engstrom slinked closer to the ladder, sweeping the light on the end of her rifle in a slow and wide arc. So much blood and gore. Body parts. Her men. She swallowed hard. She concentrated on calming her breath. She glanced upwards to the ceiling, at the hole where the ladder disappeared. They would need to deal with that soon. But weapons first.
Engstrom came to Hafa next. Gutted but whole. She gritted her teeth. She reached down and ran her fingers over his face to close his eyes. Snake squeezed in front of Engstrom and stripped off the blood-soaked armor and hoisted the rifle in his arms. He tossed his gun to Crunch and the man laughed like a fiend, his voice echoing against the distant hissing steam and the steady drop of water from burst pipes.
Crunch sighted the rifle into the distance and checked the mechanism. One more body found and this time the rifle went to Fifi. Thor stood there empty-handed but for a length of metal pipe.
Snake winked at Engstrom and spoke in a low voice. "You didn't think I was going to let one of those criminals get hold of a gun, did you? Now, let's stop messing around and get out of here."
Chapter Twenty-Six
SNAKE HUNG BACK in the shadows with the others, watching as Engstrom slowly crossed the distance to the foot of the ladder. Corpses, blood, and stasis fluid all littered the floor. Snake glanced up. He could see nothing beyond where the ladder stretched into darkness and vanished into the hole above.
Anything could be waiting for them on the other side. It could be a single bug ready to seize whoever popped out of the hole. It could be a whole nest of them who as soon as they felt the vibrations of the soldier climbing up would swarm down. They could also reach the top and find the upper level abandoned.
It could be anything.
"Keep your weapons ready," Snake said. He felt uncomfortable letting Engstrom approach the ladder by herself. "Fifi, you be ready to light the place on fire."
"Engstrom's right. We can't leave anyone behind. You know that, don't you?" Fifi said. Her face was nearly lost in the shadows, but he could make out the glistening in her eyes. She was not the type to get all emotional. That's part of the reason he liked to have her along. Common sense ruled her actions.
"You proposing we go back and look for the religious lunatic? Don't leave crazy Hatt behind?"
"No, I mean, it's a way to live."
"Then join the damned Space Marines again. That's their slogan. Leave no fool behind. No matter the cost. No matter that in the end they'll chew you up and toss you out. But me, been there, done that, and I'm not going back. I don't live by slogans."
By this time, Engstrom had reached the bottom of the ladder. She stopped. She pointed her gun up into the darkness. She waited. Snake listened for some sign of movement above. He too kept his gun trained on the hole above but he heard nothing. He saw nothing.
Fifi jostled along closer beside him so that she could speak more quietly. "It's not what I mean. We are drifting, Snake. We have no purpose."
"We've got plenty of purpose. Find ships. Sell them. Make money. It's really quite simple and if we stick to that basic premise, we do okay. It's the getting caught, escaping prison, and fighting through an army of aliens where things start getting complicated."
"And how long are we going to do this, Snake? How long are we going to burn our way through the stars as criminals? Living on the edge without true direction?"
Engstrom waited a moment longer and then had looped her rifle across her back. She drew her knife and clamped her teeth over it. Then with a glance back to her waiting fellows, she placed one hand on the rungs, and then the other, and slowly began her ascent, pausing again the first time she put a foot on the ladder.
Snake turned to Fifi. "You want to go to one of those colony planets and claim a patch of dirt to farm vegetable stock for the rest of the galaxy, you go right ahead. That's not the life for me."
Fifi backed away from him, even further into the shadows. "Your bribes won't always work. We won't be lucky enough to escape prison all the time. How many more times before we run out of choices? At some point, Snake, you need to make a choice about how you really want to live your life. Because at some point there is no turning back and what you do is who you are. No second chances flying through these stars. We don't get a do over."
"Being a space pirate suits me just fine, Fi. If I'm not free, I'm a slave."
"Sometimes it's about more than just yourself."
Snake scoffed. He did not want to talk to her any more. Why was she pressing him like this? The life they had was fine. They had credits squirreled away. In a few years, at the pace they were going, they would be able to retire at one of the floating cities just outside the territory of the federation, not under its thumb, and they could live a life in luxury, without a worry.
What did she really want? His face was turning red, a slow heat rising. He turned back to her to ask her why she was busting his chops when Engstrom yelped and fell off the ladder, her knife flying out of her mouth and clattering loudly on the floor of the prison cell.
"Damn!" Crunch lifted his axe and stepped back. Fifi's light flooded the opening above. Snake tensed behind his gun, waiting, ready for the swarm of alien bugs. But nothing came out.
"Kill that light," ordered Snake.
Engstrom had climbed only halfway up before she fell. She must have slipped. Clumsy fool.
Snake ran in a crouch to the foot of the ladder. Engstrom had cut open a gash on her head and had shattered half of her face shield. She cradled one arm. "My hand."
Her wrist was swollen and her pinky bent at an odd direction at the second joint.
Fifi came in beside them. She glanced upwards.
"Looks clear still," said Snake.
Fifi took Engstrom's hand in hers, stroking it gently before suddenly wrenching the pinky back into place. Engstrom almost screamed but she choked back the sound. Her jaw suddenly quivered but then she clenched his teeth, bringing herself back under control. "Thank you," she said through gritted teeth. "But next time tell me you're going to do that before you do."
Fifi dug out a roll of black tape from her kit and began tearing strips off it. "But that would take away all the fun if you knew what was coming next."
"You're a tough one, lass. You ever think of giving up the life of the salvage pirate, I am sure I could convince the admiral to bring aboard one more soldier."
"Don't think so." Fifi quickly bound her pinky to her ring finger. Then she bent Engstrom's wrist in her hands.
She winced. "Not good."
She tore more tape, and used it to immobilize her hand.
"Might as well be wearing an oven mitt," she said.
"Whatever does the trick."
With her good hand, she removed her helmet and wiped at the blood from the cut on her forehead. Then she waited as Fifi pressed a stop bleed patch onto the wound. She knocked out the shattered glass from her helmet, then she slipped the helmet back on.
"Round two," she said staring up the ladder.
"You can't go up there," said Fifi. "You just fell."
"A lot of fluid on those rungs – blood, pod fluid, and that bug juice. I'll be more careful next time."
"I'll go," said Fifi. "You wouldn't be able to clear the next level by yourself. If there's anything up there, you'd just end up getting yourself killed."
"Not letting you go up there. You're the smallest one of us. You'd do no better."
Snake spat on the ground between the two of them. "Enough of this lover's quarrel. Neither of you are going. I'm going."
"You? Why?" asked Fifi. "What's the sudden chan
ge of heart?"
"I'm the captain of the Phaethon. I'm still nominally in charge of something I suppose. I'm at least your commander so I figure I'm supposed to look out for you."
"Oh, isn't that nice, but I don't think so."
"Then I order you. You stay here. Blast a hole into anything that gets by me or bites off my head."
Fifi lowered her voice. "Why this? Why all of a sudden this? You'd be risking your own neck up there and there's no pile of credits waiting for you there."
Snake looped his rifle over his back and spit into the palms of his hands before rubbing them together. "Maybe I've been thinking about what you said. Maybe I have been looking out for me as long as I can remember. Maybe it's time to do something different."
"So just like that you're going to change who you are?"
He laughed as he grabbed the first rung of the ladder. "Who said anything like that? Changing who I am. I figure I'll try this selfless me on for a little while. Take it for a test ride. See if I like it. I can always switch back later if it spells nothing but trouble. But right now I'm going to climb that ladder. I'm going to clear the next level. I'm going to get the rest of you miserable fools out of the frying pan and into the fire because I can pretty much guarantee you that despite what your girlfriend here has to say that old Admiral Kronos is not going to be welcoming a handful of convicted, or in my case, railroaded, criminals onto the Poros. More likely he'll be greeting us with handcuffs and cattle prods. That's what happened before. I don't see it happening any differently."
"I've got your back, boss," she said.
He grabbed the next rung and began to climb. "I'm less worried about what's coming at me from behind, and more worried about what's waiting for me on the other side of the hole. Wish me luck, boys and girls."
Snake regretted his decision to climb the ladder even before he was more than a few feet off the ground. What was he thinking?
He wanted to reverse his course, lower his feet, and descend back to the safety of the floor with the others. Who knows how many of the bugs were waiting for him?
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