The 13: Mission's End Book One

by M. M. Perry

  Mike glared at Bullseye wondering when he’d crept back up on them and how much he’d overheard. As Bullseye took point, the rest of the team fell in behind him.

  Naomi had only ever seen the bridge once, when the captain summoned Naomi for her promotion in reward for her quick work patching the Magellan. The Tereshkova’s bridge wasn’t much different from the Magellan’s. It was darker, because of the emergency lighting, but otherwise it was the same large, open space, packed from front to back with workstations. The main screen up front usually displayed the listing of the most urgently needed ship repairs and maintenance.

  Naomi wandered the bridge while Bullseye worked with Kitch on the communications power unit. Naomi looked from the dead stations to the lights. Something was very wrong.

  “Now, we’ll just dismantle this, take out the power core, and be on our way,” Bullseye said as he tore cells out of the communications power unit, tossing them on the ground.

  “This seems too easy,” Chef said. “No one’s here. That Yvette should be here. Why leave the safety of the bridge? She’s a gennie, not a soldier.”

  “I agree with Chef,” Mike added. “I don’t see any signs of recent activity. They left a while ago. Maybe hours.”

  Naomi hurried to one of the stations and touched it. It didn’t respond.

  “The bridge isn’t even powered up,” she said.

  Mike walked over to where Bullseye was tossing power cells and grabbed one. He lobbed it to Naomi.

  “See if you can find anything,” he said.

  “I’ll help,” Book added, rushing over to Naomi.

  “You’re being paranoid,” Bullseye said. “Who cares where they are? They can’t radio in without this. The mission’s done. We’re heading back to the shuttle bay. Come on.”

  “Wait,” Naomi said.

  The workstation was flickering back to life. She scanned the most recent entries.

  “I’m not waiting, civilian. You’re coming with me. Now! We’re leaving,” Bullseye said, approaching her.

  Both Chef and Mike moved to intercept him. Naomi looked up, her eyes clear.

  “I said. Wait.”

  Bullseye stopped in his tracks. He stared at her, his mouth opening to say something.

  “Look,” Book cut him off.

  He pointed to an entry on the screen. Naomi nodded when she saw what he was indicating.

  “They aren’t going to be using communications from the bridge.”

  “Of course not. We just toasted it,” Bullseye said, crossing his arms.

  “You don’t understand. They don’t need to. They have a shuttle,” Book said.

  “Not possible,” said Bullseye. “We’ve got the bay. There’s no other place you could launch a shuttle from. No place big enough with external access.”

  “There’s one place,” Naomi said. “The Communications Module Bay, now that it’s empty. And the release gate. It’s big enough for a shuttle.”

  “Why would there be,” Bullseye began, but his voice trailed off. “Dammit,” he muttered under his breath. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”

  “What?” Mike asked.

  “So stupid. A year ago, after our final communication module drop, Command said they wanted to use the space in the communications module bay. Repurpose it. I remember them asking military if we had any ideas. A lot of thoughts were tossed around. One was a secondary launch bay, in case of emergency. I didn’t think anything came of it. We’ve been so busy repairing the portside fire damage. Dammit! We’ve been guarding the shuttle bay this whole time to keep them on this ship.”

  “Then we’re screwed already,” Chef said. “They can send a message out from a shuttle anytime. They probably have already.”

  “No,” Naomi said, “not from the module bay. The array there causes too much interference. Even ship-wide devices have trouble working in there. We have until they launch. But once they’re outside the bay, yes, we are very much screwed.”

  “How long do you think we have?” Mike asked.

  “Not long enough to get down there,” Naomi said. “But I can lock down the module bay door from here and trigger a twenty-four-hour cascading reboot. They’ll be able to log in when it’s done though, and we’ll be back at square one.”

  “Do it,” Bullseye said.

  Naomi input a few commands. The emergency lights flickered before returning to a steady, dim glow.

  “Yes, ma’am?” Bullseye asked, speaking into his radio.

  He stared at Naomi.

  “We had to initiate a cascading reboot, ma’am. I hope that won’t stall you down there… No, ma’am. It was the only way to stop communications from reaching the Magellan…Yes, ma’am, we’re returning now.”

  He turned to Mike.

  “We’re to head back.”

  “But they’ll just reboot and get the message out anyway,” Mike said. “We can’t just leave.”

  “What do you suggest we do?”

  “I could blow the whole bridge. Would that stop them?” Chef asked.

  Naomi shook her head.

  “After the re-boot, Command can use any station on the ship to access the central computer. They don’t even have to come up here. They just have to wait.”

  “What about blowing the module bay? Do we have time for that?” Chef suggested.

  “No. Not easily. It’s a bottleneck down there, and they’ll have it guarded. We risk losing men we’ll need on the Magellan,” Bullseye answered. “There’s no point hanging around. Let’s go.”

  “We can’t just head back to the Magellan. In twenty-four hours, your captain will call my captain, and all of this,” Mike gestured around the ship, “an entire population murdered, will happen over there.”

  “This,” Bullseye said angrily, “happened because the civilians revolted. They gave the captain no choice. Now I don’t agree with how the captain handled it. She made the bad decisions. She listened to Trophy. None of this would have happened had the civilians sat tight for two more years. They couldn’t wait just two more years.”

  Mike took a step back from Bullseye.

  “Do you even know what Command was doing?”

  “They were keeping everyone safe. They were keeping them from fighting, from hurting each other. It takes a firm hand.”

  “No!” Mike shouted. “That’s what they told us when they spaced four children. It takes a firm hand, they said. Without a firm hand, anarchy reigns. That sound like the speech you got?”

  Mike got right up in Bullseye’s face.

  “Did you get it as a twelve-year-old girl who just wanted to be a botanist was banging her fists bloody on the air lock door? Because the people who came up with that speech, the people who shouted it over the screams of those children as they blew them into space, they gave it to our people. And despite everything they’ve said, despite all the times they told me it was necessary! It was needed to keep the people in line! I still can’t find a reason that girl wanting to be a botanist spirals out of control into the death of almost two thousand people. No, that kind of anarchy only comes from a firm hand.”

  Bullseye had no answer. Mike stepped away from him and leaned against a workstation, gripping the sides of it until his fingers were white. Anger welled within him, threatening to spill out. Naomi laid a cool hand on his cheek.

  “Mike,” she said. “There is a way. If you help me, there’s a way to fix it.”

  They sprinted past the shaft leading up to Port Engineering. Mike had radioed for updates before they left the bridge. The shuttles would be ready to leave in less than an hour. The other soldiers under Bullseye’s command had encountered very little resistance around the bridge. They assumed the bulk of the enemy force had gone to the Communications Module Bay. That was too close to the shuttle bay, and they all knew it. Trophy could launch an attack at any time, if they decided not to wait out the twenty-four hours. Bullseye had gone back with everyone from the Tereshkova to defend the Shuttle bay. Chef, Kitch, Book and Mike were helpi
ng Naomi complete her plan. Naomi motioned to Kitch as she approached a door.

  “You’ll have to pry it open. Until the twenty-four hours is up, cells won’t work. Everything’s locked out,” Naomi said.

  “This door doesn’t have one of those manual openers?” Chef asked, scanning the side of the door.

  “Not this one. It’s a blast door. When it closes, it’s meant to stay closed,” Naomi said.

  Kitch pulled a heavy-duty crowbar from his pack.

  “This might do it,” he said, wedging it in the seam of the door.

  “Shit, Kitch,” Book said, “that thing must weigh ten pounds!”

  “Fourteen,” he said as he grunted.

  He leaned into the bar, pushing with all his weight, sweat bursting from his pores. The door inched open. It took a few minutes for Kitch to widen the gap enough for everyone but him to squeeze through.

  “I’ll just hold down the hallway,” he wheezed.

  Naomi entered the steamy room, trailed by the rest. She spied what she was looking for, then went back to the door.

  “Can I borrow that crowbar, Kitch?”

  “Sure thing. Bring it back in one piece.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Naomi hefted the crowbar and headed to a wall of heavily shielded circuitry. A soft, blue glow was being emitted at one end of the long room. The light was coming from a large, metal sphere, emitted from a small window on the front.

  “Can’t we just destroy that?” Book asked, pointing to the sphere, then wiping at the sweat dripping down his face.

  “Not unless you want to blow up the whole ship. That’s an energy core. An artificial micro dwarf. But don’t worry. You couldn’t break that thing if you tried. It’s going to be floating around out here long after we all die, that’s for sure. What we need to do is smash is one of these,” Naomi said, pointing to sturdy metal squares along the side.

  “Seems kinda wrong, you know,” Chef said, looking at them. “We came all this way to fix one of these, only to come over here and smash one of theirs.”

  “Yeah,” Naomi said.

  Without waiting for further comment Naomi started beating on one of them. The crowbar was unwieldy. After five swings, Mike took it from her and began to swing it. Each whack of the bar filled the room with a dull metallic clang.

  “Why do you suppose they kept the clone thing from us,” Chef asked as she watched Mike pound away at the power regulator housing.

  “The art of warfare,” Book said, taking the crowbar from an exhausted Mike.

  “Dehumanize the enemy,” he said in between swings, then paused. “Makes it easier to kill them. If we knew the people over here were just like us, and I mean, exactly like us, that makes it really hard to hurt them. Might’ve been worried we’d try to contact them. Who doesn’t want to meet their long-lost twin?”

  Mike wiped sweat from his brow as he panted.

  “They had to know we’d meet them,” he said.

  Chef took the crowbar from Book who was having trouble raising it after the tenth swing. Book slumped against the wall as she started bashing.

  “I imagine,” Book said, breathing heavily, “they thought we wouldn’t. We were supposed to avoid engagement. If the Terries hadn’t smashed up the part we needed, we’d have been in and out of here without ever meeting anyone. Or, hell, better yet, they might have even told Henry and Casings. Anyone who they could count on for absolute obedience. I’m beginning to get the feeling none of us, aside from Casings and Henry, were meant to come back with that part.”

  Mike snorted in disbelief. He was willing to believe Command would mislead him. But to order him killed? That was too much, even for Command.

  “Diego was pointing a gun at your head, boss,” Kitch said from the hallway. “I don’t know the man well, but I know he’s a soldier, like me. I don’t reckon he’d kill one of his own without explicit orders to do so.”

  Mike’s eyes fell on Naomi. She shared an understanding look with him. It was only hours ago that she learned Command was willing to lobotomize civilians to retain absolute control over them. He turned away from her and grabbed the crowbar from Chef with a grunt, denying himself the chance to think about it any longer.

  He was on his third swing when Naomi put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Shh.”

  She listened very carefully to the low hum of the jet that was on the other side of the hull plating. She heard the jet catch, then cycle down to a lower setting.

  “That’s it,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  “That’s it?” asked Book, “Sure we shouldn’t smash a few more?”

  “No,” Naomi said. “We don’t want the Tereshkova to veer too fast. We just cut the power to port propulsion twenty percent by taking out this regulator. In about six hours it’ll be too late. Badb will have them. Nothing short of a super nova could escape Badb once she gets hold of it.”

  “Alright, let’s get to those shuttles. Hopefully they kept waiting for us,” Mike said, leading the way through the doors.

  They found the shuttle bay dark when they entered, the emergency lights too high above to light up the room properly. All they could hear as they quietly approached was the sound of the shuttles running.

  “Halt,” someone said from behind them.

  They turned around to see Bullseye and several other soldiers, weapons drawn. Bullseye lowered his.

  “Everything work?”

  Naomi nodded.

  “Good. We haven’t heard a peep from the enemy. We rigged the outer shuttle bay door with explosives to pop it off when we’re ready. You’ll want to be in your shuttle before that happens.”

  The group climbed into the Maggie 1 while Mike ushered them on board. Once everyone was in, he turned back to Bullseye.

  “Thanks for waiting,” he said.

  Bullseye shrugged.

  “Your pilots refused to leave without the lady. Said they were specifically told they couldn’t dock without her. So, you were safe.”

  “Thanks all the same,” Mike said as he got into the shuttle.

  “Eagle Eye,” Bullseye called after him.

  Mike stuck his head back out of the hatch.

  “I hope I can make it right. On your ship. I hope this time, we get it right.”

  “Me too,” Mike said.

  “Oh,” Bullseye said as he started to walk away, “my name? Objectively better.”

  Mike closed the hatch behind him, shaking his head. He went to buckle Naomi in only to see she’d already done it herself.

  “You’re learning,” he said grinning.

  “It’s a seatbelt, Mike,” she said, grinning back at him, “I’m about to build a power regulator for a jet propulsion system designed for a seven-hundred-year flight out of spare parts. I think I can handle a seat belt.”

  Mike laughed with the rest of his squad.

  “You know,” Book said, “I’m kind of sad we didn’t get to have a showdown with Trophy, or whatever they call him.”

  “I’m alright with that,” Mike said, leaning back into his seat as the shuttle lifted off.

  Trophy sat glaring at the exit from the Communications Module Bay. Yvette brushed her snow-white hair behind her ear as she stared around the empty bay. A reverberation shuddered through the hull.

  “They’ve blown the bay doors,” Trophy said, frustrated. “I hope you’re right about this power thing.”

  “All they’ve done is bought themselves a little time,” Yvette said. “The last time we communicated with the Magellan, they made it clear they wouldn’t be harboring any of our people. They were quite hostile. I had to promise them we’d bring the part they needed to even get them to agree to let our small party over. They’ll shoot them the second they disembark.”

  “We haven’t had a chance to warn them, though,” Henry said nervously. “They think we’ve still got everything under control. They think we’ve taken care of the insurgence here. That we’ve snuffed it out. They’re expecting us,
not a boarding party. If those people are hostile, they could do a lot of damage!”

  “It doesn’t matter. Those people won’t be able to do anything. They clearly aren’t capable of taking over a ship. They lost this one. They’ll fail over there as well. We just need to sit tight for twenty-four hours. Maybe the Magellan will have taken care of everything by then. We’ll let them know we’re coming over with the part,” Yvette said calmly.

  Trophy scowled as he surveyed the smattering of soldiers he had left and the few civilians who were with them. His eyes lingered on the soldier Henry had come with - Trigger if he remembered correctly. She reminded him of one of the older soldiers on the Tereshkova, Carmen. He wasn’t sure if it was her clone or not, since Carmen had been burned badly during the fires that ravaged the port-side, but he thought it might be. Trigger had been giving him suggestive looks all night. Trophy smirked, wondering if the dead man he’d seen in the cafeteria had been sleeping with her.

  He paced, angry at having to wait so long. He didn’t like how poorly everything had gone so far. He couldn’t wait to take over the military on the Magellan. He didn’t think it would be that hard to stir them up, just like he had his own soldiers.

  He knew it was better this way. The civilians wouldn’t last two weeks on a new planet. If they were left to their own devices, they’d get too soft. They needed a firm hand to prepare them for how harsh life would be once they arrived. He’d seen the intel about life aboard some of the other ships. The ruthlessness of the Ericson made it clear to Trophy that if they were to compete with the other ships for the supplies aboard the fourteenth, they’d have to learn to be pitiless.

  He was tired of pacing, waiting and thinking. He decided to sit against the wall and take a nap.

  Trophy woke to violent shaking.

  “Get up!” Yvette was screaming.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  The floor felt funny. Things looked off-kilter.

  Trophy stood up and followed panicked sounds out of the communications bay. Yvette was running ahead of him down a passageway. She turned toward a hall that ran down the port side of the deck. Trophy sighed, wondering what emergency he’d have to solve this time as he followed her. When he caught up, he found Yvette and several others looking out one of the long narrow windows in the wall.