by Amy Spahn
“Yes, sir,” said the wheezy one. “Sorry.”
Satisfied, the third Haxozin began to leave, as evidenced by his retreating footsteps. “Back to the shuttle!”
The other two Haxozin followed him, but just before they passed out of translation range, the deep-voiced one mimicked their superior in a whiny tone. “I am the third in command!”
The wheezy one snickered. “Yes, out of what, twenty-five?”
The two laughed. After that, the talky box no longer provided translation.
Areva realized she was sandwiched between the two scientists, and she immediately felt claustrophobic. She broke away and crossed to the other side of the cell. “Do you know what this means?”
“Yeah, we’re going to be brutally interrogated and then decapitated and our mangled corpses mailed to our allies,” said Chris. “Best day ever.”
While that carried frightening implications, Areva focused on something she deemed more important. “No, the part about their numbers. They said there are only a handful of them on this huge ship. All this time we’ve thought they have an army, but it sounds like there are only a few of their species running the entire empire. That’s why nobody was there to see us brought aboard.”
“Well, that’s great,” said Joyce, “but it only means we don’t have to worry about a land invasion. They still have the technology to cause serious damage, even with only a handful of people operating it.”
“Like destroying Tokyo,” said Chris.
“Or Median. Or New York. Or an entire lunar dome. There’s no reason it would be Tokyo.”
Areva continued trying to look on the bright side. “At least it doesn’t seem like attacking Earth is a priority for them right now.”
“That doesn’t help us be, you know, not decapitated,” said Chris.
“Would you stop worrying about imminent death?” asked Joyce. “We’ve got Areva with us. I’m sure she’ll think of a way to escape before then.” She looked at Areva. “Right?”
“Um …”
“Oh God, she doesn’t have a plan,” said Chris. “We have the ship’s chief of security here, and she doesn’t have a way for us to survive. We’re doomed.”
“Look,” said Areva, “we have to survive in order to let the rest of the crew know what we’ve learned. I’ll think of something. I’ve been in worse situations.”
Both scientists looked at her with utter disbelief.
She spread her hands. “All right, maybe not. But close.”
“What, before you were transferred?” said Chris as his eyebrows rose to impressive heights. “What the hell department were you in that put you in situations close to being sentenced to death by aliens?”
Oh dear. She’d accidentally brought them back to this conversation. She fumbled for words for a minute. “Um … you know.” Her voice dropped to almost inaudible. “Special operations.”
“Spec ops? You were in the department’s freaking undercover team? With your problems?”
“Chris, be nice,” said Joyce. “Call them ‘issues,’ not ‘problems.’”
“I don’t have issues or problems,” protested Areva.
“You stay out of sight all the time, and you refuse to shoot anyone who’s looking at you,” said Chris. “I’d call those issues.”
“They’re not issues! They’re choices.”
“Didn’t those choices almost get Lieutenant Ivanokoff killed a few weeks ago?”
Areva drew in a short breath. “Don’t bring that up.”
“Why? It’s the truth.”
She dropped her gaze to the ground. “He survived.”
“Only because you got a second chance to shoot the guy. The story’s all over the ship. Everybody knows it, even if Ivanokoff won’t come right out and say it. If you won’t shoot the enemy, how are we supposed to get out of this alive, huh? My aim sucks, and Joyce’s isn’t much better.”
Joyce sniffed. “I managed a headshot the last time we were at the range.”
“On my target, sweetie.”
Areva felt so low that she hoped they started an argument with each other and forgot about the current topic of discussion. She wasn’t so lucky. They both returned to staring at her, waiting for some sort of explanation that would make everything okay.
She didn’t have one. “I’m sorry. I don’t have an answer. Maybe we can overpower them when they come to get us out of the cell. Maybe we’ll find another opportunity that shows up. We’ll have to take things as they come.” She looked up. “But I promise that I’ll do everything I can to keep you both alive.”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “Even shoot at the Haxozin?”
That was an interesting question, wasn’t it? She’d failed twice before to shoot at enemies who posed a threat to her crewmates, and things had turned out all right. But here, now, in the center of an enemy stronghold, that same choice posed a strong likelihood of getting all of them killed.
No one should see death coming. Areva had come to believe that as firmly as she believed anything.
Could she violate that belief now, if it meant saving her team?
She didn’t know the answer. She doubted she would know until she had to make the choice. “I’ll try.”
Chris inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I guess we have to take what we can get.”
* * *
Captain Withers took a deep breath and tried not to look out the bridge’s viewports, which currently showed nothing but blackness. They were moving too fast to see the passing stars. It didn’t make him sick the way the twisting, swirling maelstrom view did when they were in D Drive, but somehow this empty nothingness felt almost worse. “What’s our position?” he asked the bridge at large.
“We’re still anchored to the bottom of the Star Ship,” said Matthias. “The seal between our hull and theirs is holding strong.”
“No, not our literal position. I mean, where are we in space?”
“That is a literal position,” said Ivanokoff from his position at the defensives station.
Thomas rolled his eyes up. Sometimes it took so much effort to get a simple question answered. “Is there any way to tell where the Haxozin ship is taking us?”
Matthias shook his head. “Nope. Not until we get there.”
Thomas stood up to pace around the row of consoles at the front of the bridge. “I want that EMP to fire the second we return to normal space.”
“Yes, sir,” said Ivanokoff. “As I said, I am always ready to shoot.”
Thomas ignored him. “That should buy us at least fifteen minutes before they restart their ship’s systems. That’s how long we have to get in, get our people, and get out. Does everyone remember their part of the plan?” Heads nodded. “Good. Hopefully it won’t be much longer.”
* * *
It took another few hours before Areva felt the motion of the ship change. “I think we’re slowing down,” she said. “We must be here.”
“Oh good,” said Chris. “Time for torture.”
As if on cue, military footsteps echoed outside of the cell. “Here they come,” Areva whispered. “Be ready.”
Metal clanged on metal as the Haxozin unlocked the cell hatch and pulled the door open. Areva had poised herself on one side of the door to strike them by surprise, but instead of stepping inside, the Haxozin stayed outside the cell and ordered, “All of you, out.”
Chris met Areva’s eyes and jerked his head toward the door. Go attack him, was the silent message.
She felt her heart flutter. She had no idea what waited outside the room, what sort of weapons the Haxozin carried, and whether or not they’d be staring at her when she emerged. If she jumped out and broke one of the soldiers’ necks, he’d probably have a firsthand view of his own death. Alternatively, the assault would fail miserably, and she’d get herself killed.
Likelihood of failure. It was a solid reason not to attack.
She shook her head at Chris and stepped out of the cell, right into the mouth of a bazooka rifle po
inted at her chest. Good thing that she didn’t strike blindly. Chris huffed and followed her, and then came Joyce.
There were only two Haxozin soldiers, though their head and body armor made it impossible to tell if they were the same two as before. One of them picked up the pile of confiscated equipment, which had apparently been left on a table outside the cell the whole time, and headed back down the hall. The other brandished his weapon and pointed after him. “Follow.”
Areva was closest to the lead Haxozin, so she obeyed. Chris and Joyce trailed behind her, and the armed Haxozin soldier brought up the rear. Areva knew he had his weapon pointed at them to keep them in line.
She thought quickly. Chris and Joyce were relying on her, and she felt like she had to do something to try to save all of their lives. She didn’t know where the Haxozin were taking them, but it couldn’t be safe.
The Haxozin ahead of her faced forward, away from her. She could jump on him and incapacitate him before he had any idea what had happened. Of course, that might result in the soldier behind them opening fire, so she’d need to get Chris and Joyce out of the line of fire before doing that.
And of course, the soldier behind them would see her.
Areva’s thoughts wandered back to that moment, that sentence that made her rethink everything: Nobody should see death coming. Before that, she had done her job without thinking too hard about the consequences of her actions. About what each mission meant for the people who didn’t survive it. Yes, most of them were scumbags and probably would have been killed by somebody within a year, but it wasn’t just somebody who shot them. It was Areva. She was the last thing they saw before they died. She didn’t like being the final vision seen by so many ghosts.
She’d killed since making that choice so long ago, more than most officers killed in their entire careers. But at least those people hadn’t known they were about to die. They hadn’t had a chance to experience the fear, the dreadful anticipation, and they hadn’t stared into Areva’s eyes as she gunned them down. She could live with that.
She didn’t know if she could live with herself if she went back to the way it was before.
The Haxozin in front posed no problem—she could take him by surprise. But the one behind would see her attack coming, no matter how she played it. Either she retrieved her gun from the first soldier and shot the second one in his face … or he’d have free reign to eliminate all three of his human captives.
She didn’t know if she could pull the trigger.
She wouldn’t know until she got there.
She did know that she had to try. At this point she had no other choice.
She waited until the lead Haxozin rounded a corner. She followed him and turned her head just enough so that she could see when Chris and Joyce came around. She waited for the split second when the corner stood between them and the soldier behind them.
Joyce rounded the corner.
Chris rounded the corner.
“Drop!” Areva shouted. She lunged forward and wrapped her arm around the lead Haxozin’s neck. She didn’t see if Chris and Joyce obeyed her, but she heard two thuds and assumed they hit the deck.
The Haxozin dropped everything in his hands and reached back to pull Areva’s arm off his throat, but he was too late. She tightened her grip and yanked the soldier around so that he faced the corner, serving as a living shield. In a few seconds, he’d pass out, alive, but out of the way, and then she’d have to deal with his comrade.
The other soldier appeared around the corner with his weapon ready. He’d heard the skirmish. He barely glanced at the situation before he raised the rifle and fired an energy blast toward Areva.
Straight through his ally’s head.
The soldier went limp in Areva’s arms as he died, and she jerked away from his body by instinct. She stared down at the corpse and only barely remembered to dive into a forward roll to evade the Haxozin’s second shot.
She grabbed her gun from the pile of fallen equipment as she came out of the roll, and she aimed it at the enemy.
Time seemed to slow down as they stared at each other.
Her finger tightened on the trigger.
You have to fire, she told herself. You have to save Chris and Joyce. A darker part that she’d thought she’d suppressed added, It’s only one more.
Her hands trembled, and she saw the Haxozin adjust his aim to shoot again and kill her. It was now or never.
Her fingers felt clammy on the gun.
The Haxozin began to fire.
Areva closed her eyes.
Time returned to its normal pace as the crack of the Haxozin’s bazooka rifle filled the corridor. Areva expected to feel searing pain as the blast tore into her chest, but to her shock, nothing happened.
She opened her eyes to see a smoking hole in the wall to her left. In front of her, the Haxozin soldier crashed to the floor, with Chris Fish’s arms wrapped around his knees in a sloppy tackle.
The soldier struggled to bring his weapon around to aim at Chris, but the scientist managed to get his hands around the barrel of the rifle and began wrestling for control of it. The soldier had him hopelessly outmatched, but before Chris could lose his grip, Joyce jumped into the fray and tried to yank the Haxozin’s hands away from the weapon.
Between the two of them, they wrested it away from him and stood back up. Chris pointed the rifle down at the enemy, his face pale, and fired without really aiming.
He was close enough that it didn’t matter. The shot hit the Haxozin’s faceplate, and he slumped back, dead.
They all stood there in frozen silence for several seconds.
Then Joyce squealed, sprang over at Chris, and wrapped him in a hug. “That was hot, husband!”
Chris dropped the bazooka rifle, his eyes the size of saucers. “T-thanks.” He swallowed audibly. “That was s-stupid. W-what if it was rigged to backfire on me?”
Areva finally realized the danger had ended. She lowered her gun. Her hands shook as she bent to pick up her holster from the fallen pile of gear. She forced her breathing to return to a normal rate. “Thanks,” she said quietly.
Chris swallowed and nodded. “Uh-huh. Thanks for getting the other guy.”
“Oh. Sure.” Areva looked down at the soldier she’d strangled.
“S-sorry for tackling this one before you could shoot. I just … I just reacted. It all happened too fast.”
Areva placed her gun back in its holster and reattached the rig to her hip. “Yeah. It was too fast.” She could make herself believe that explanation, at least for now. Once they returned to the ship safely, though, she knew she’d need to think more about what she’d done—or more accurately, failed to do. “Come on, get your stuff, and bring the Haxozin rifle, too. We need to get out of here.”
* * *
They ran back toward the hangar bay, keeping toward one wall of the long hallway for cover. “If they have any kind of surveillance, they know we’re escaping,” said Chris, his voice and paranoia now returned to normal.
“Hopefully there are too few of them to do anything about it,” said Areva.
No sooner had she spoken than she heard voices up ahead. She swore and veered off down one of the side corridors. “This way.”
The other two followed. “Do you know where we’re going?” asked Joyce.
“No, but we have to get out of sight.” Areva didn’t know if she could handle another firefight. She led them into another branch of the hallway network, and then through an open hatch into a room filled with a few stacks of boxes and an empty conference table. She put her back against the wall near the door and listened to see if they were being followed. Chris crouched on the other side of the door and peered anxiously out. Joyce headed further into the room.
The Haxozin voices came closer, and Areva’s breath quickened. She tightened her grip on the gun. If they approached, she had to shoot. She had to. And yet she didn’t know if she could.
The voices passed the cross-corridor, but instea
d of turning toward the room, they continued to fade into the distance. Apparently they hadn’t noticed the escape.
Areva breathed a sigh of relief and looked over at Chris to give him a reassuring nod.
Behind her, she heard Joyce whistle and breathe, “Oh, shit.”
Chris closed his eyes. “Let me guess. There’s a whole bunch of Haxozin waiting for us right here.”
“No,” said Joyce. She cleared her throat, but apparently couldn’t resist correcting him. “And how would they know we’d hide in here, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” said Chris. He stood and turned to continue the argument. “But what if …” His voice trailed off. “Oh, shit.”
Now deeply worried about what had silenced them both, Areva turned around. She didn’t know what to expect, but she thought it would involve enemy soldiers, or weapons, or maybe a bomb with a timer counting down. Something out of an action movie.
Instead she faced a window.
Outside the window, she had a clear view of a big, brown planet. With no lights on the surface, it didn’t seem inhabited, but in orbit around the planet she could see dozens and dozens of floating metal structures. They were too far away to make out the details, but they were all roughly star shaped.
One of them moved away from the planet. It picked up speed until it seemed to stretch into an elongated plane, and then it simply vanished from sight.
Areva’s eyes widened. “It’s a ship.”
They watched in silence as another of the star-shaped objects jumped into faster-than-light travel. “It’s not just a ship,” said Chris. “It’s an armada.”
Joyce voiced what they were all thinking. “If they have a fleet this size, and they’re still too busy to spend much time with us … how big is their territory?”
A third ship took off to some unknown destination
“Big,” said Chris. “Really, really big.”
Areva finished the implication. “Too big for us to fight. We have to get out of here, now.”