The 13: Mission's End Book One

by M. M. Perry

  “Almost there,” Book said, looking up as well.

  They hit the ground faster than Book normally would have liked. Naomi stumbled as she ran to the panel outside the shaft. She tapped furiously. The door above closed tight.

  “What happened? Where’s the part?” Mike asked, his face a mixture of anger and relief.

  “They smashed everything, boss. The whole thing was a trap. Military all over outside the door up there. I don’t think they even considered the shaft, but they were all over the hallway. Shoot on sight orders.”

  “So we got nothing?”

  “We got nothing.”

  Mike slammed his fist into the wall. He turned and stood nose to nose with Book.

  “I gave an order, soldier.”

  Book remained quiet. Naomi wished she could help him, but she knew if she interfered it would only make things worse.

  “The only thing we got keeping us together is the chain of command. If that’s broken…”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  “When we get back, there will be some very real repercussions,” Mike said.

  “Understood, sir.”

  Mike turned to Naomi. She half-expected him to yell at her as well, but he turned away without a word and walked off several paces to think.

  “All this, and nothing to show for it,” Henry grunted.

  Naomi looked around. Trigger was scowling at her. Casings looked as if he planned to eat her alive. Kitch was quietly watching the hallway. Chef was staring at Mike’s back, as if she could somehow discern what he was thinking by looking at him hard enough. Book remained at attention, but his eyes met hers and he gave her an apologetic look. Naomi felt awful. They had all undertaken a great deal of risk to get this far.

  She knew it wasn’t entirely safe to walk away from the group, but she had to talk to Alphea. It was possible there was another way. She casually took a few steps toward the intersection, then a few more until she was far enough away she felt she had some privacy. She could still see Chef and Book, so she felt safe enough. She faced away from them and switched her radio to Alphea’s channel.

  “Alphea?”

  “Yes, I’m here. What is it?”

  “The power regulator for the jets. It was smashed. I couldn’t even recover the pieces. We had to leave too fast. I don’t know what to do, but we can’t come back with nothing, not after all this,” she whispered desperately.

  Alphea was quiet.

  “Alphea?”

  “Yes. It isn’t the end. Do you think you can get to the core?”

  “The core?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alphea, there are still people on this ship,” Naomi said, thinking she knew what Alphea was getting at.

  “I know. Don’t worry. Do you think you can make it there without attracting the attention of the military? Have you been seen yet?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Get to the core. Don’t worry, you’ll know what to do when you get there. I have to go.”

  “Alphea?”

  Naomi got no response.

  “Shouldn’t wander off like that,” a voice said behind her.

  Naomi turned slowly, unable to breathe. Casings was there. She could no longer see Book and Chef over his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, I was just scared,” Naomi said, trying to distract Casings.

  “You were talking to someone,” Casings said, his eyes gleaming in the dim light.

  Naomi kept quiet. She knew lying to him wouldn’t help her at this point. He was of a mindset to hurt her no matter what she said. Knowing it was coming, she tried to mentally prepare herself. She counted the names of the dead in her head, hoping the counting that helped mute her feelings on the Magellan would help her focus here. If Mike or Chef hadn’t come to stop him already, something must have happened while she was distracted. They’d been separated. She knew Casings had something to do with it.

  She didn’t look past Casings to confirm it. Instead she imagined the hallways surrounding her. She knew them well from walking them so often on her own ship. She’d have to leave her pack. She backed into the wall behind her, feigning fear. For once, he didn’t scare her. She knew what she had to do. As Casings closed in on her, she lowered her shoulders and felt the straps on her pack fall into her hands. She pinned the pack to the wall with her back, sliding away from Casings to get it where she wanted it.

  “Please,” she said.

  Casings didn’t reply. He loomed ever closer to her. Naomi looked over his shoulder with a smile of relief. Casings turned and at that moment, Naomi swung her pack with all her might into his head. Power cells gave the pack heft and Casings stumbled backward. By the time he regained his footing, Naomi was no longer in the hallway.

  Ten

  Naomi ran down hallways, zig-zagging left and right. She didn’t want to take a direct path, knowing her only hope was to lose Casings. If he spotted her at the end of a long hallway, it was over. She had no illusions she could outrun anyone trained in the military. She headed toward the fitness unit Carrie had mentioned so many times. It was close to the stairwell which led to the ambush point, so dangerous, but also the last place Casings would expect her to run, she hoped.

  Alone, she didn’t look like someone from military. She knew that could work to her advantage if she bumped into anyone from the Tereshkova. She might even be able to talk her way into the safety of the insurgent group, as Alphea had suggested.

  When she got to the fitness unit, she entered cautiously. Treadmills and weights lined the room in neat rows. All the equipment would break up the clean lines of the typically sparse rooms on the ship. She’d be hard to spot and hopefully overlooked by anyone moving quickly down hallways searching for her. She thought about contacting Mike on the radio, but she couldn’t tell Mike where she was without alerting Casings.

  As if on cue, Mike’s voice came over her earpiece.

  “Naomi? Naomi can you hear me? So help me, Casings, if you’ve done anything…”

  “The little bird has flown. Too bad she had to be so brave. I’ll find her though. Should’ve been paying more attention, Eagle Eye.”

  Casings said Mike’s call sign with such contempt Naomi could feel it in her gut.

  “Casings! What in the hell happened to you? We came up together!”

  “You’re a sanctimonious shit, you know that, brother? Always dragging me into your squad like you were doing me, the washed-out scrub, a fucking favor. I never needed you. You needed me. You stole my spot as squad commander. Rolled my successes up with yours, making it look like you were twice the soldier you were. Someone finally paid attention to me. Finally saw my potential.”

  “You think Marcus sees you at all? Or has the power to make you?”

  A dark chuckle came over the radio.

  “Marcus? That paper-pusher’s a moron. Next time I see you, you’ll be tied to the post, getting the lashes you deserve. Set you straight, you’ll see. Trigger, baby, you know what to do.”

  The radio went dead. Naomi sucked in her breath. She changed her frequency and whispered into it.

  “Alphea. Alphea!”

  Naomi stayed very still. She knew she couldn’t stay there forever. Casings was military. He’d know how to hunt her down. She carefully skirted the wall, watching out the windows and doors of the fitness unit for any movement. When she found the right segment of wall she pressed it and a drawer slid out. Naomi pulled the jumpsuit inside out of the drawer. She slipped out of her orange-piped jumpsuit and put on the one from the drawer. She hid her old jumpsuit she’d taken off inside the drawer and closed it. The jumpsuit was loose until the air around her skin swirled as it shrank into place. Naomi looked at the suit’s blue piping. It was a generic suit, much like the ones the gennies wore, but with an area to display her expertise. She looked at the wrist, watching as the suit booted up.

  She was only mildly shocked to see it recognized her, just like the workstations had before. Though, she noticed, just like
the workstations it got her position incorrect. The pigment in the arms of her jumpsuit arranged itself into the blue bands of a third engineer. Naomi disregarded the mistake as an unimportant detail. Naomi couldn’t explain why the Tereshkova knew who she was. She wondered if was Alphea’s doing.

  She stepped out of her hiding place and sidled into the hallway. As much as she wanted to regroup with Mike, to tell him she was okay, she knew Casings was between them. She also suspected he’d expect her to try to get back to Mike. Casings didn’t know she might have other places to turn for help on the Tereshkova. She’d hoped that’s what Alphea meant when she told her to find the core - that help would be there.

  As she turned the corner, she had an idea. She raised her wrist and tapped a message into the panel there. She sent it off, hoping any of the recipients might still be alive, and hoping they might be on her side, then moved toward the stern of the Tereshkova. She’d have to head back down a few decks. She thought furiously about how she might help Mike and the others find their way to her safely. Just before she descended to the next deck, she tapped on her radio.

  “Mike, I hope you’re okay. My situation is catastrophic. There’s only one place I can go now. Try not to worry too much. I think I can make it. Maybe I’ll see you there. Be safe.”

  She waited, but got no response. She counted the names to overcome the grief she felt for getting her friends into trouble. She should never have left their side. It was the only command Mike had given her, and she’d broken it. She waited a few more minutes for a response. When none came, she climbed down the stairs to the lower decks.

  Mike pressed a handful of gauze against the wound in Book’s stomach. Book was bleeding profusely.

  “I need that damn glue now, or he’s gonna bleed out,” Mike hissed at Chef.

  She’d been watching down the hallway, gun in hand, ready to fire. She stashed it and searched around in her pack, finally pulling out a small plastic gun. She handed it to Mike then went back to monitoring the hallway.

  “Okay Gerry, here we go.”

  Book moaned as Mike applied the skin glue, sealing up the knife wound.

  “What did she mean?” Book asked, gasping for air. “Her situation is catastrophic?”

  “I don’t know right now. I can’t ask her. I don’t want her on the radio. Anything could give away her position. Casings may be rotten to the core but he is an excellent tracker. She got away from him for now, there’s hope in that. Good, the bleeding’s stopped.”

  “There’ll be sepsis though, if she got the gut.”

  “Here, morphine,” Mike said as he stabbed Book in the arm.

  Book immediately threw up all over the floor.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Not you. I’ve never taken to morphine well,” Book said. “It’s good though. I don’t want to be like those guys who get a taste and never stop. I puke myself silly. Not very appealing. Makes it hard to impress the ladies.”

  Chef moved back to them.

  “Getting stabbed, for the record, also not particularly impressive, Gerald,” she said, looking him over.

  “The scar will be though. War stories. Gets ‘em every time.”

  “I don’t think we have to worry about them coming back. I don’t know where Kitch went though,” Chef said, helping Book up.

  Book coughed a spray of pink spittle onto Chef’s fatigues.

  “I don’t even know why he went,” Book said wiping his mouth. “While you guys were off in medical, he and Casings were butting heads. Casings didn’t like the way Kitch was watching Henry. Henry kept trying to do something on one of the workstations.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. We’ve got to find Naomi before Casings or Trigger. It didn’t sound like Casings was ordering her to join him, but I can’t say for sure,” Mike said.

  “You should have let me open fire,” Chef said angrily.

  “You know anyone nearby would have heard that. Hell, anyone a deck in either direction would have heard it,” Mike replied.

  Book pushed off from Chef, wavering where he stood. She moved to support him again but he waved his hand.

  “If I can’t walk on my own, I need to hunker down somewhere. I’ll just slow you down.”

  Mike clenched his fists.

  “Let’s take him back to medical. Naomi left it running when we left. Maybe the machines can still patch him up.”

  They made their way back through the halls to the medical unit they’d holed up in earlier. As soon as they arrived, Book sat down heavily on an exam table. Mike looked over the workstation Naomi had been fiddling with earlier.

  “Do you know how any of this stuff works?” he asked Chef.

  She shook her head.

  Mike searched the buttons and pressed one that read “Patient Diagnostic.” A large machine in the center of the room lit up and spoke.

  “Please place patient inside scanner,” the voice boomed.

  “Is there no way to turn the volume down?” Chef hissed as she helped Book to the scanner.

  “I don’t see anything,” Mike said, looking over the screen.

  The scanner lit up as soon as Book lay in it. A beam of bright, white light moved up and down his body. Book squinted as the light hit his face until it winked off.

  “Laceration from proximal mid-abdomen to distal lower right abdomen. Abdominal muscle laceration. Internal injuries. Multiple organ damage. Blood loss substantial. Infection imminent. Recommend immediate repair. Please place patient in restoration unit.”

  “Just go, go,” Mike panicked as he looked for a way to turn off the voice. “Maybe it’ll shut up once he’s in there.”

  Chef and Book hobbled over to another machine that lit up when the scanner finished its analysis. Book climbed in and lay down on the flat surface.

  “Please remove clothing.”

  “Seriously?” Book said wincing as he sat back up.

  Mike and Chef helped him pull off his bloody fatigues. Chef stared at Book pointedly.

  “Even the skivvies?”

  “You wanna risk having it tell you to do that in its loud voice?” she asked him.

  Book pulled off his underpants, then lay back down in the machine. A clear dome slid over him, projecting his vitals on the glass.

  “What now…” Book’s eyes fluttered shut as he spoke.

  They weren’t sure if he’d passed out or if the machine had put him out.

  “Estimated time to full restoration, six hours.”

  “Six hours! We can’t wait here for six hours!” Mike exclaimed.

  “We don’t know where to go anyway,” Chef replied.

  Mike paced the room. He tried to parse what Naomi had been trying to tell him. Her situation was catastrophic. Had she talked about something catastrophic, he wondered? He stared at the workstation where she’d set up the display of the hallway. Her power cell was still plugged into the station. He reached out and touched it, his mind going back over their conversation.

  “I think she might be going to the core,” he said, pulling his hand back.

  “Where the militant civilians are holed up?” Chef asked incredulously.

  “Remember she said if there was a catastrophic power failure, you’d need to be in the core to control the ship’s power. I think she intends to seek safe harbor with the civilians.”

  Chef paced a circle as she thought out loud.

  “Could work for her. She knew people here. If Casings was between us and her, he’d assume she’d come back to us. He might not think right away that she’d try to go somewhere else.”

  “She wanted us to meet her there, that was clear,” Mike said.

  “If you’re right about it,” Chef replied, crossing her arms.

  “I’m pretty sure I am. But we can’t leave Book here alone. I don’t know what kind of shape he’ll be in when he gets up. Whenever I went to medical, I never woke up in one of those. The doctors must have moved me. Put me somewhere else. Hell, maybe that voice will come back on
and start shouting, ‘Please take patient to another bed, dumbass.’ If that happens, he’d be a sitting duck. Someone would find him,” he said.

  “You should go,” Chef said. “I’ll stay here. Kick this thing’s ass if it calls me names. You can update us over the radio.”

  Mike hesitated.

  “It’s a long way to the core. Casings, and maybe Trigger and Henry, who knows, maybe even Kitch - that’s a lot of people stacked against her one. I’ll take care of Gerry. Don’t worry. Go find Patches. Bring her back. Then let’s get the hell off this damned ship,” Chef said.

  Naomi weaved deftly in and out of hallways. She’d spotted Casings several times down a long hallway, lurking, looking for traces of her. She was getting close to the core, but she wasn’t sure she’d get there before Casings caught up to her. She ducked into a cafeteria. A bunch of tables were still raised. She crawled through them, trying to get deeper into the cluster, hoping Casings wouldn’t see her there. She found her spot just in time. Casings turned the corner and scanned the large cafeteria.

  Naomi had no clue how he was tracking her. The smooth flooring bore no trace of her footprints. She hadn’t powered anything on along the way. She hadn’t even moved anything, taking care to avoid the occasional body or strewn debris. She watched, her body shivering with fear, as Casings made his way toward the tables. She could swear it looked as if he was sniffing the air. It called to mind science videos from ancestral Earth where predatory spiders ran along the ground hunting their prey. She imagined being snatched up by Casings, his arms trapping her like a spider’s legs, his knife killing her.

  She quieted herself, again counting names. She didn’t want her quickened breath to alert him. She was perfectly still, acting every bit a piece of furniture. Casings came within feet of her, but was unable to make her out in the gloom of the emergency lighting. As he took another step forward, a sound echoed from down a hallway. Casings turned toward it. Naomi watched his rigid figure train all his senses on the source of the sound. She dared not move. She wanted him to investigate the noise and willed him onward. The agonizing time it took for him to move away from her seemed to draw out with each step. Her fear that he would change his mind, sense something new behind him, caused her to grip her knees to her chest so tightly she could barely breathe. Then he was out of sight, further down the hall, looking carefully to see what might have made the sound.