by M. R. Forbes
The intelligence had to know the wand was the reason none of them were hallucinating. Its head tilted slightly, suggesting it was trying to make logical sense of why Caleb would even begin to offer it.
“Attack,” Caleb said calmly into the comm, pressing down on the device.
The Guardians pulled their plasma rifles from their backs in unison, while Caleb ducked down to scoop the energy unit into his artificial hand.
A harsh buzz filled Caleb’s ears, so loud it almost stopped his forward momentum. His mouth opened in a silent scream at the sudden pain, and he whipped his head back toward David, his most immediate thought that they had been set up.
But David had bowed his head in pain, using his free hand to clutch at one of his ears. The Guardians were faring better, in pain but focused, the P-50s coming up facing the Cerebus armor.
All of that happened within the first two seconds. By the third, Caleb had his hand on the energy unit and his eyes back on the intelligence. It wasn’t moving, locked in place by the sneak attack, trying to reorder its systems to recover from the assault.
Caleb rolled himself to the side, clearing the line of fire for the Guardians. Plasma began to pour from their rifles, a heavy wave of superheated gas washing over the Cerebus armor, causing it to vanish beneath the red, orange, and blue flames.
A tone sounded in Caleb’s helmet, and then a red mark appeared on the HUD, which was blaring out in warning. Caleb reacted out of instinct, placing the energy unit on the floor and instead of coming out of the roll, letting himself fall onto his back. The move left him facing the hole in the top of the hangar, which the Reaper had already leaped from.
He opened fire, a dozen poorly-aimed rounds zipping past the creature as it fell, escaping Caleb’s attack and coming down directly on Washington. The impact drove the big Marine to the ground and distracted Sho and Flores. They broke off the attack, instinct driving them to protect their teammate.
“Stay on it,” Caleb barked, hopping back to a knee and pivoting toward the Reaper. The monster raised its claws, dropping them toward Washington’s face. Washington managed to grab the arm and soften the blow, the claws raking across the faceplate but not getting through. Caleb fired, sending a burst of rounds into the creature’s side. It looked at him and screamed, leaping from Washington toward him.
Sho and Flores spun back toward the intelligence, triggering their rifles and restarting their attack. Caleb noticed Flores stop shooting again an instant later, dropping her P-50 to the floor as though it were on fire.
He didn’t have any more time to think about it. The Reaper reached him, and he raised the rifle across his body to catch its teeth, using its momentum to lift it up and over him. He spun back, throwing the creature away. It landed on its back, sliding on the metal floor and turning over to catch itself with clawed feet.
Caleb brought his rifle up toward the demon and started shooting. Rounds tore into the creature, a dozen holes sprouting from it within a second. It hissed and screamed, leaping toward him a second time.
He held the rifle in his right hand, reaching out with his left. He ducked and grabbed the Reaper by the throat, using the strength of the artificial limb to drive it into the floor. A wet crack followed, and for a moment the creature was motionless.
Caleb stood up, glancing back at the rest of the fight just in time to see the intelligence bolt forward from its static position, charging toward Sho to throw a hand into her chest. She had no time to move and it caught her square, the force lifting her and throwing her backward. She hit the ground and slid to a stop, her armor cracked from the blow.
Too little, too late. The AI was active again. Worse, its wave generation was active again. The wand was dead and useless, all of its power dedicated to the ten seconds of time during which the Guardians were supposed to win the day.
They hadn’t, and now Caleb wasn’t sure they could even win the next minute.
Chapter 38
Caleb heard the movement of the Reaper behind him. He spun around again, just in time to see the demon leap at him a third time, leading with its claws. He backpedaled two steps, firing a burst of rounds into the creature’s face, the bullets ripping through its skull. He sidestepped as it landed on the ground beside him, momentarily dead for the third time.
He knew it wouldn’t stay that way. Not unless they burned it to ash.
“Flores, what’s your position?” he said through the comm, spinning back toward the Cerebus. He froze when he saw his father standing there.
“Mom, is that you?” Flores said. “Oh, mom. I’m in trouble. I need help.”
“Cal,” Caleb’s father said. “What’s going on, son?”
“What do you mean?” Caleb replied, slowly lowering his rifle to his side. This couldn’t be his father. He knew it wasn’t. But it had to be. Didn’t it? He looked so real.
“Look at you,” his father said. “You look like hell.”
“It’s been a long day. An alien is trying to take over my ship. It’s going to get the colonists killed.”
His father walked toward him, a comforting smile on his face. “Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad. Why don’t you grab your baseball? We’ll have a catch.”
“Mom, are you there?” Flores said into the comm, her voice distant in Caleb’s mind, as though he were overhearing the words of a side conversation. “I know I’m only fifteen. Mom, don’t cry. I love him. What? No. I won’t. Mom. You aren’t listening. Listen to me.”
“Where’s your ball, Cal?” his father said.
Caleb looked down. He was holding a baseball bat in his hand. He turned it over, confused. There was a small bag attached to the bat. He unzipped it, finding three baseballs inside. He took out the autographed one and closed the bag again.
“There you are,” his dad said.
Caleb held up the ball. “I don’t have a glove.”
“I can’t handle this,” Flores said, her voice upset. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to deal with this.”
“Do you remember the inscription?” his father asked. “Do you remember what it says?”
Caleb turned the ball over in his hand. The autograph was worn and smudged on the surface.
“It’s hard to read it.”
“Take off your glasses.”
Caleb hadn’t realized he was wearing glasses. He removed them from his face, the autograph becoming clearer. He still couldn’t quite make it out. “What does it say?”
“It’s the landing code,” his father replied.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Caleb knew none of it was real. But in the front of his mind, it was as his own face. The man in front of him was his father, making a simple, logical request.
“The landing code?” Caleb said.
“Yes. What does it say?”
Caleb’s attention shifted when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. A large man was about to tackle his father. Was he going to rob him? “Dad, look out!” Caleb cried.
His father turned. Too late. The man hit him with enough force to lift him from the ground and drive him down and back. Then the man had a knife in his hand, and he stabbed his father in the face.
“Noo…!” Caleb started to scream, the sound trailing off as reality came back into focus. Washington was on top of the Cerebus; his knife buried deep through the helmet’s open visor into the alien’s face. It had interrupted the AI’s attack, but it wouldn’t last.
Caleb looked down. His helmet was on the floor beside him, and he was holding one of the MK-12’s explosive rounds, his finger pressed down on the arming ring. His heart skipped, realizing he had been two seconds away from blowing himself up. Once the AI had realized he didn’t know the code after all, it would have been all over.
His head whipped to the side. Where the hell had Riley gone? He didn’t see her anywhere.
He turned his attention back to the AI as it grabbed Washington by the throat, lifting and throwing him off. Then it shoved itself back to its
feet before grabbing the knife and pulling it from its face. Caleb could see the gel beneath the visor close over itself, healing almost instantly. His hope failed him.
There was no way they could beat this thing.
Something hit him from behind, throwing him forward onto his stomach. He nearly let go of the explosive, clutching it tighter as he hit the ground, the weight of the Reaper pressing down on top of him. The Cerebus was coming toward him.
Plasma bolts flashed across the hangar, hitting the side of the AI’s armor. It turned its head to where Flores was shooting, sending round after round into the Cerebus without causing much harm.
Caleb struggled beneath the Reaper, trying to dislodge it. He felt the claws scraping furrows through his armor. He felt where it had already succeeded, hot and wet and burning way too close to his spine. He had to get the demon off before it killed him.
He pushed again, trying to get enough leverage to put his replacement arm under him. If he could get some purchase, he could use its strength to throw the demon off his back. He grunted and shoved, doing his best to overcome the creature’s weight.
The floor began to vibrate against his cheek, softly at first, but intensifying quickly. The Cerebus paused its approach, turning its head toward something. A bright flash of red nearly blinded Caleb a moment later, the first of a series of plasma bolts hitting the Reaper from Washington’s position.
The distraction was exactly what he needed. It caused the Reaper to rear up and shift its weight until Caleb found he could move. He rolled over, facing up and watching the bolts smash into the Reaper’s flesh, opening holes across its body. It screamed when it saw he had moved, and its head, teeth snapping, darted down toward his face.
Caleb let go of the explosive, shoving it into the demon’s mouth. He used his artificial hand to grab its jaw and pull it closed to keep the small silver ball in the demon’s mouth. Claws raked across his shoulder, one of them piercing the bodysuit and drawing blood. Caleb held on tight, counting the seconds. He lifted his arm over his face, covering it with the armor and holding the Reaper up and away, as far as he could reach.
The round detonated, the blast turning the Reaper’s head and upper body into mush, bits of flesh, bone, muscle, and blood exploding all over and around Caleb as the heat of the device washed over him. It licked at his head and around his armor to singe his bald scalp. The alien alloy took the brunt of the blow without damage, leaving him clutching only air.
Caleb was motionless for a moment before he rolled over again and pushed himself up, looking for the AI. He found it a moment later, locked against a Strongman exosuit, trying to break through the machine’s outer metal shell to reach the Marine inside.
Sho had gotten into one of the powered suits and rushed into the fight, somehow managing to catch the AI in her grasp. Had it underestimated the Strongman? Or had she outmaneuvered it? Either way, Caleb could barely believe she had managed to get a handle on it. A thick robotic arm was wrapped around its back, pressing the Cerebus into the suit.
But now what?
Her eyes shifted to look at him. Then she looked away, to her left.
To the outer blast door.
She started walking toward it, holding the Cerebus fast against the exosuit. The AI wasn’t static. Its free hand pressed through the protective barrier of the suit, desperately trying to punch through Sho’s helmet to her face. It would make it sooner or later.
Caleb’s eyes drifted to the manual control for the blast door, and then back to Sho. He knew what she wanted him to do.
He didn’t want to do it.
She continued moving toward the blast doors, one step at a time.
Caleb found his helmet nearby. He scooped it up and dropped it over his head.
“Sho, you can’t do this,” he said through the comm.
“I’m doing it, Sarge. There’s no other way. You need to open the doors.”
“I can’t let you sacrifice yourself for me.”
She surprised him by laughing. “For you, Sarge? I love you. I have for a long time, but this isn’t for you. We have a duty, remember? Forty-thousand souls. This is for them. Open the damn door.”
Caleb clenched his jaw and sprinted for the manual release. He wanted to keep arguing, but what was there to say? “Wash, Flores, the loaders and movers are locked down, get to one of them and strap yourselves in.”
“Alpha,” Flores said, ready to argue.
“Sho’s right, damn it,” he replied. “This is the way it has to be. Wash, grab the energy unit on your way. We can’t afford to have it sucked out into space.”
He could see the Guardians moving on his HUD’s tactical grid. Flores was running for the closest loader. Washington was headed for the energy unit. He closed on the door release as Sho neared the blast door.
Where the hell were Riley and David? There was no sign of them anywhere.
“Cal.” His father’s voice entered through the comm. “Help me, Cal.”
Caleb looked back to the Strongman. Only it wasn’t Sho and the Cerebus anymore. It was a Reaper holding his father.
“It’s taking me from you,” his father said. “Help me.”
Caleb slowed his approach. The other Guardians came to a stop, turning to respond to whatever it was they were seeing.
“Cal, help!”
Caleb took a step toward the exosuit and away from the manual controls.
An ear-splitting scream sounded through his comm, the pitch hurting his ears. The Reaper and his father faded, replaced with Sho and the Cerebus. The scream ended, and he felt a sudden, growing pressure against his brain.
Sho screamed into the comm again, helping to keep Caleb’s head clear. He raced the rest of the way to the controls, grabbing the lever. He would have to time it perfectly or the entire ship would lose all its air.
The AI was becoming more desperate. It started pounding at the Strongman’s shell, throwing punch after punch into the side, the force of the blows creating deep dents in the metal that had to be pressing hard into Sho’s body.
She stayed the course, carrying the armor to the edge of the blast doors.
“Sarge, do it,” she said.
Caleb didn’t hesitate. He pulled the release.
The doors made a thunking clang as they unsealed. Immediately, the air began to be sucked out of the ship as they started to open.
Caleb felt the pull instantly. He grabbed the edge of the panel with his artificial hand, holding fast as more and more air started being sucked from the ship. Some of the drones and smaller vehicles began sliding across the floor, and he looked back to see Sho right at the edge, the Strongman wedged against the two doors.
“Sarge,” Sho said.
“What is it Yen?” he replied.
“I lied.”
“What do you mean?”
“I did this for you. Take care of yourself.”
The doors opened far enough to let the exosuit out. It vanished through the opening, cast out into space, taking Sho and the alien AI with it.
Chapter 39
Caleb’s heart pounded, his eyes burning as they teared over. He wanted to scream and chase her out into the black and drag her back inside. He knew it was impossible. She was gone. She had sacrificed herself to save him, her unspoken love greater than he ever imagined. He would grieve, but not now. Just because the intelligence was gone, that didn’t make them safe.
He pulled himself forward with his replacement arm, using the leverage to start pushing the manual control the other way. All kinds of equipment and debris were being pulled out of the open blast doors, including the remaining lower half of the Reaper he had killed and the rifle he had dropped. His face wrinkled as he shoved against the lever, returning it to the closed position.
The doors made an awful grinding noise, and for a moment he was terrified they would break down for a second time, jammed in the open position. Then they started to reverse course, edging their way back toward one another to seal the two-meter gap.
A loud clang sounded against the doors. The noise caused Caleb to look back to where the ADC had slammed into the too-narrow hole, getting stuck against the moving doors. He also saw something else sliding toward the gap beside it.
A body. It was only there for a moment before it too was pulled out into the black, getting stuck against the left door just long enough for Caleb to identify it.
David.
His emotions shifted in an instant, from sadness at the loss of Sho to anger at what he was certain Doctor Valentine had done. He didn’t know where Riley was, but she couldn’t hide forever.
The vacuum eased and then faded as the doors finally came back together. Caleb stood ahead of the manual controls, his replacement hand still gripping the panel so tightly he had warped the metal. He continued staring at the resealed blast doors. His breathing was labored and shallow. He felt lightheaded. Had they lost too much air?
He let go of the panel and started across the hangar toward the loaders. His body was shaking with a rage of emotions.
“Flores, Washington, do you copy?” he asked.
“Roger, Alpha,” Flores said, her voice unsteady. “Yen…” She trailed off.
“I know. Have you seen Doctor Valentine?”
“Negative. I haven’t seen David either. I don’t know what happened to them.”
“I saw David,” Caleb said. “Or rather, I saw his corpse. It was sucked out into space.”
“What?”
“She killed him, damn it. She murdered him.”
“Who? Doctor Valentine?” Flores said. Caleb looked up as she and Washington emerged from the cab of one of the loaders. Washington had the energy unit under his arm. “We have to find her. Where could she possibly go?”
“It depends on whether or not she plans to try to run,” Caleb said. “She has the landing codes. She can –”
“Sergeant Card, it’s Riley Valentine. Are you there?” Her voice boomed across the hangar, spewing out from the ship’s emergency PA system.