Galaxia

by Kevin McLaughlin

  Laura clambered slowly her feet. Her tailbone still smarted badly and while she didn’t think it was broken, it would be difficult to walk for at least a few more minutes, maybe even an hour. Her shoulder was bleeding again under the bandages, but she ignored it and dusted herself off.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and realized in her gut how truly she meant that. “I really am very, very sorry. I never meant for Jan to come in after me and now, I want to help him before it’s too late. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him. He’s already saved me several times and he’s really a gentleman now that I’ve gotten to know him better. He’s still alive. I was…I was going to try to take one of these vehicles into the Zoo so I could get him out quickly. I suppose I don’t know exactly how to operate them, but—”

  She shrugged. Now that she’d come out and stated her plan, it sounded rather stupid. But at least Ferris had stopped attacking her. And she was reasonably sure she had conveyed her sincerity on the subject of Jan—there was no deception whatsoever about that. She didn’t want him to die.

  Slowly, The Bull’s face returned to a calm, albeit grim and determined look, and she grimaced while she pursed her lips. She placed her fists on her hips.

  “Very well, I believe you,” she said, and Laura breathed a small sigh of relief. “But,” Ferris went on, “that plan is stupid.”

  At least they were both in agreement on something.

  “You may not understand why Jan has so many rules,” the woman continued, “but the reason is that they work. He has tested them all against experience many times. His very first rule is to take the right people with you. If you go in all alone, there is a greater possibility that you will fail to save him and also get yourself killed. That is two people dead instead of one—or better yet, none.”

  Laura sighed. “Yes, I’ve heard all this bef—”

  “You need a full team to succeed in a rescue mission like this,” the woman said firmly. “At least a squad. Someone to drive, a few men to shoot and fight, and one or two people to save the hauptmann and treat any injuries he might have.”

  “Well, then,” she replied, “can you get us a team? If so, let’s definitely do so. I’m sure Jan is still alive, but I doubt he has much time left.”

  The leutnant frowned again but this time, it was different—a softer, more human frown. It revealed how sad the woman actually was, and between this and her almost homicidal anger mere moments before, Laura realized how correct her intuition that Agatha Ferris cared about Jan Shalwar as though he were a member of her family actually was.

  “I have already tried,” Ferris began in a lower tone, “to mount a rescue mission into the Zoo. The idiot Director, Roden, will never agree to it. He thinks Jan has made his decision and now must suffer the consequences because saving him would be too expensive.” She gritted her teeth visibly. “Losing him would cost this base much more.”

  “Yes, I agree with that,” she remarked. “And…thank you for having already tried to rescue us.”

  The woman grunted, gave a curt nod, and seemed to wait for her to say more.

  She needed to pause and think for the moment before she spoke again. “Well, we must do something. And…”

  An idea had begun to form and with it, a choice. Her companion watched her with a mixture of skepticism and hesitant sympathy. She made her decision that she would do whatever it took. Inarguably, she was already in trouble so might as well, therefore, bend a couple more rules for the sake of doing what was right.

  “I have an idea,” she said.

  The Bull spread her hands. “Yes?”

  She nodded. “I know how to convince Roden to help us. Come with me.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  The horrifying spectacle they had so recently witnessed helped Jan to make his mind up. He would not give in, not yet. Even though, if all hope were lost, he would probably be better off killing himself. That way, he would spare himself the awful fate of the man who’d been eaten alive by the newly hatched primaraptors. And if he was particularly lucky, his body might putrefy beyond their ability to safely eat it before more of them could hatch and reach him.

  He frowned and shook his head slowly from side to side. “Nein,” he said in a barely audible voice and pushed the morbid thoughts from his mind. There had to still be a way to survive and prevail.

  He would need Klaus’s help, though, and his fellow hauptmann did not seem to be in much condition to be helpful.

  “Klaus,” he whispered and kicked the man’s foot again. Then, in a sharper tone, he snapped, “Hauptmann.”

  “Uhhh…” Klaus moaned and roused from the mostly unconscious state of delirium he’d languished in. It was a real point of concern that he might not even be able to stand or fight, given how badly he had been ravaged by thirst and exposure.

  “We must speak again,” he whispered. “Can you hear me? Can you talk?”

  “Yes,” the weak voice responded as Klaus stirred. “Although there is not much to talk about, is there?”

  “There is,” he retorted. “My left hand is free. It is possible for me to cut myself loose and then for us to escape. I know it sounds very unlikely, but it can be done. I will need you to help me.”

  “What,” his comrade asked with a faint, gasping laugh, “would you need me for?”

  Something clicked into place in his mind then—the reason why Klaus was so despondent was not only due to his wretched physical state. Nor was it only due to their dire situation and the fact that they would probably die soon.

  Klaus Grossman was a proud, competitive man. That had always been obvious, really. He did not hate Jan Shalwar, but in his opinion, the two of them were rivals and always had been, ever since they’d first arrived at Fort Archway and assumed their positions at the right and left hands of Major Reisenegger. And their positions under Director Roden, obviously, but he didn’t really count.

  Whenever Klaus encountered a difficulty or a setback, his ego was wounded and demanded retribution. This meant that he tended to act with ill-planned haste. In his mind, it seemed, quickly and forcefully tackling the problem, even if one did not have the proper preparation, was better than waiting and doing nothing at all. Taking action was how he kept his mind healthy.

  Now, he could do nothing. He was helpless. The mission he had undertaken to rescue the Americans had failed, some of his men had been killed, and he now lay with his hands bound, barely able to even move or speak after the ordeal he’d been through. This was utterly humiliating for him.

  Jan took a deep breath. In order to get the man to help him, then, he needed to get his mental state up to par.

  “After I am loose, I will free you next,” he said. “Even if they attack us, I will cut your hands from there before I try to run. I swear it, Klaus. And even though you have seen better days, right now, with you helping me, our chances will be twice—even three times—better. I cannot do it without you. You are the man to go to for help when there’s a daring action that needs to be taken.”

  His comrade again responded with his weak, gasping chuckle, but it seemed that his eyes did brighten a little. In some small way, he seemed to have perked up, straightened, and taken notice of what was happening again.

  Both men froze at a sudden commotion from outside. Jan’s gaze darted toward the source of the disturbance and he noticed that the somewhat rejuvenated Klaus seemed to look that way as well.

  A large, sleek four-legged silhouette appeared beyond the dome. A snakecat, he realized. The beasts were arguably the most fearsome predators the Zoo had produced until the introduction of the primaraptors. The creature could dislocate its limbs and even displace internal organs in order to maneuver. It was believed to have mutated from the catshark and still resembled a cat with a feline face but no fur and had the same intelligent, sinister eyes of its predecessor. It was known to slither up trees like a snake, hence the name.

  The predator must have leapt down from somewhere nearby and made a rapid approach
to the dome.

  Now, it contorted its body to flatten itself and slip through a gap at the bottom and under the crude structure. Its feline head with its evil, intelligent eyes appeared near the ground, and its powerful front claws came up beside its face. Most likely, its purpose was to break in and rob the dome of its food supplies—whether immobilized humans or unhatched eggs.

  The sentries had not been caught unawares, however. Two primaraptor silhouettes from farther along the dome’s base in either direction moved toward the intruder at speed while they hissed and shrieked with rage to sound the alarm.

  The snakecat suddenly withdrew its head and forepaws. It knew it had been discovered and that it would never be able to squeeze through the narrow gap in time. With a hissing sound of its own combined with something between the yowl of a stray housecat and the roar of a tiger, it fled rather than fight two or more of the guardians at once.

  While the two closest sentries were distracted, Jan stretched his left hand toward a sharp fragment of rock he’d seen. It was out of easy reach and he had to strain, grunting as he did so, and was glad the snakecat’s attempted burglary had provided a distraction from the noise he made.

  The two primaraptors turned once they’d driven off the other monster. They would be back at their posts in seconds and might hear him. He took a deep breath and lunged toward the stone fragment in a fast yet smooth motion, kept his body limber, and extended his left arm as far as he could.

  His fingers brushed the edge. They hooked around it enough to pull it a few centimeters toward him, then slipped. He ground his teeth in frustration but tried again. This time, he was able to make no sound. The fragment was finally close enough to grasp without extra effort. He pulled and rolled it over dirt and mud and soon, it was in his hold and hidden beneath his left hand.

  As soon as he could, he would use it to cut his right hand free and then the rest of him.

  “I remember, Klaus, that time we were both out here and six of those snakecats attacked us,” he said. “You grabbed a railgun and drove off two of them on your own. Everyone else handled the other four. That is why I need you more than anyone else to help me.”

  “Ha.” The man exhaled. “You have finally admitted it, then.” He turned his head to look at him. “We still will need to have words, though, about this matter of the Death League rankings. I ought to be guaranteed top position after this.”

  “Somehow I knew,” he replied, “that even now, you would not be able to shut up about that.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Ernest Roden had pulled a few minor strings and acquired a very nice full-length mirror for his personal quarters at Fort Archway. He already had one at home in Finchley, of course. But he liked the thought of having a second mirror—a professional one—purchased and transported specifically as one of the few perks of being director of this awful, ridiculous place.

  “Ohhh, that is impressive, isn’t it?” he said in a low, breathy voice as he curled first his left arm, then his right, and flexed the small but slightly-growing biceps while he admired them in the polished glass surface. “Yes, Lord Ernest, you’ve grown so strong, haven’t you? This dangerous mission into the desert has made you into a hard man and won’t the ladies at home be interested to hear all about that?”

  It was true too. He had worked out and he often wondered how long it would be before people began to notice and comment on swelling, hardening ripples of his body. He had brought a four-kilogram dumbbell and was now able to do twenty curls with it per arm. This was, in fact, a new record.

  He saw it as fittingly symbolic of the heavy burden of leadership he had to carry in administering this stupid fort. When he’d been tapped for the position of director, his superiors had tried to pass it off as some kind of promotion—a great honor to serve His Majesty’s Government in such an exalted capacity. And technically, it did represent the largest amount of authority—and responsibility—he’d ever been given.

  Most of his adult life had been spent doing low-to-middling-level managerial work for the British Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as MI6. This had sounded quite exciting when he’d first been offered a career there and mentioning that he worked for such a notorious organization had impressed no small number of people over the years, but it was mostly boring office bureaucracy, paper-pushing, paper-shuffling, and measuring red tape out and cutting it.

  Roden had longed to advance his career to the point where he was finally in charge of something. He’d made his supervisors aware of this fact—in the appropriately polite and indirect fashion—and finally, they’d approached him with an advancement opportunity. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been one of the several he had hoped for.

  “You’ll go on a great adventure, Roden,” his boss had told him, sent him the information files, and pushed a large pile of forms toward him. “In a lovely exotic locale, where we have great need of competent, budget-conscious administrators with extensive experience in such things.”

  But he knew the truth. No one—at least, no one intelligent or important—wanted to deal with the Zoo. No sane person wanted to go all the way to the middle of the North African hell-waste and sit on a military base, vast distances from any kind of civilized amenity, where the risk of being suddenly killed by alien bugs was so great. Not to mention having to deal with all the bloody Germans.

  “Oh, but you tower above them all, Lord Ernest,” he went on to his appreciative reflection. He had stripped down to nothing save a bright blue Speedo, which he’d also had shipped in at considerable expense and in discreet packaging. “You are the boss, the chief, and the king. The director. Everyone looks up to you and admires you and your strength.”

  He twisted to the side, raised both arms, and straightened his shoulders as he strutted before the shining glass like an old-time American beach muscleman preening in front of a group of sunbathing, bikini-clad coeds.

  Behind him and off to the right, he heard what sounded like a very soft squeak, but he ignored it. These were his personal quarters and everyone on the base knew they were out of bounds.

  “Oh, please, Lord Ernest,” he said in a high-pitched voice as he pumped his fists against each other in front of him, “have mercy on me. Don’t send me back to England like I deserve for having lied to you. I’ll do anything. I’ll even be your slave. If only you…”

  He trailed off as he realized the room was somewhat drafty. Another small sound—this one very much like a quiet footfall—could not be ignored.

  A little disconcerted, he looked over his shoulder.

  The director screamed, stumbled back, and tripped over his bed to land in a sprawled pile of limbs beside his large, expensive mirror. He sputtered half-formed fragments of obscene words between vague squawking noises.

  “Ja, now that is impressive,” said The Bull, who stood with her hands on her hips in the open doorway. She glanced at someone behind her. “I was right about him forgetting to lock his door half of the time. You were right about…the rest, Doctor.”

  “Ha! I knew it,” said another voice, softer and British-accented. “I knew he’d be doing something ridiculous in here. And now, I have it all on camera.”

  “Camera?” Ernest sputtered, suddenly almost overwhelmed with horror at the implications of this one word. He untangled himself from the floor and put a hand on the corner of his bed to help him to rise slowly to his feet. “And what in God’s name are you doing here, to begin with? Is that Dr. Curie? I’ll have you know—”

  “Yes, on camera.” Laura cut him off. “We caught most of that fine performance you gave there and truly look forward to showing it to the men on this base. I’m sure they’ll greatly enjoy it.”

  She looked rather pleased with herself. Leutnant Ferris, on the other hand, merely stood in silence with a vague look of distaste on her face.

  “No.” He gasped and tried but mostly failed to keep the shudder out of his voice. “You can’t. How could you even consider doing such a thing?” He glance
d around the room and noted with dismay that his clothes were on the other side of the bed. If he had to face an awful situation like this, he might at least have been wearing a tie.

  “Oh? And why mustn’t we?” the researcher asked. She looked at her phone and plinked away at something—Ernest prayed to whatever deity might hear that she was not already sending the video to someone. “How would we benefit by not showing it to all the numerous interested parties?” She looked at him and raised her eyebrows as she waited for his response.

  He stared at her and stammered a few fragments of words around a slight mist of spittle before he was able to respond properly. “You would benefit by preserving the men’s trust in my leadership,” he said. Contrary to his intention, it emerged as something of a whine.

  “They look up to me, don’t you see?” he went on. “We all know how much everyone at this base respects me. And we know that troops need strong, decisive leadership, both to hold them together and inspire them. I have done everything within my power to achieve both those aims.” He reached a hand out in a grasping gesture as he spoke, imploring her to understand. She only stared at him, so he continued.

  “Sometimes, I think the whole base’s future dangles by a thread and that I am the only thing holding it together.” He shook his head from side to side, his lips puckered and eyes half-closed—although he couldn’t quite manage to produce a single tear that might run dramatically down his cheek.

  “If you were to show that video to the men, they might…think less of me. They would be left with no one to look up to in this awful place. We must not allow their belief in the respectability of their superiors to decay. We must have proper leadership.”

  Surely these women could understand. He felt confident, somehow, that he’d gotten through to them when they both nodded.

  “Ja, I can agree with that,” Ferris responded in a flat, dour tone. “But I had someone different in mind. And we need to rescue him.”