The Free Citizen

by T. J. Sedgwick

  “Got it.”

  “On me…” he said quietly, easing the panel to the floor, handgun ready.

  He exploded out, rolling to a firing position on one knee beside the IFV. The nearest soldier turned too late as Rae planted a double-tap into his face. Diving forwards to go prone, he rolled onto his side and saw the other soldier respond, running. Rae shot him twice in the foot and leg, sending him sprawling as Sabine emerged from the hatch, and scrambled to the closing blast door. Rae finished off the far-side soldier and crawled to the dead guy nearby. The whir of the closing blast door was joined by the hum of the IFV’s swiveling machine gun seeking a target. He was too close for line of sight, but it wouldn’t be long before one of two things happened—either the IFV would move or one of the two crew would get out. He reached out and rolled the dead guy over onto his back then grabbed the two grenades from his webbing, pocketing them in his lab coat. The blast door was now just half a meter above the deck and closing. Then the IFV started moving. With the tunnel too narrow for a turn, it sped away in the direction of the T-junction in front of it. There it could turn around and once it returned it’d cut them to shreds. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted towards the gap before diving head-first and into a slide on the painted concrete, flattening his body, gliding under the meter-thick door. Friction killed his momentum, leaving his legs under the steel blade. Winded, his nerves pulsed, and he crawled fast, with arms-only as his legs brushed below the blast door under increasing pressure. He winched before snatching out his lagging foot just in time. The door continued into its recess in the floor, then ground to a halt.

  “You ok?” said Sabine as he got to his feet.

  “All good, but we’ve gotta move,” he said, breaking into a sprint, dashing up the dimly-lit rock tunnel, heading for the light of the silo complex.

  The tunnel floor felt icy hard on his bare feet. Echoes of Sabine’s footsteps behind were joined by the sound of the blast door re-opening. The IFV would be waiting behind it with line of sight down the tunnel. Halfway there, he passed the darkened branch tunnel on his left.

  “Straight on,” gasped Sabine from behind.

  The bright space ahead resolved into a glass-walled control room beyond an open lobby area containing a desk and a guard booth where it met the tunnel. That’s when he detected movement inside the darkened guard booth. Then the lobby lights went out.

  “Damn, they’ve spotted—”

  The chattering of automatic gun fire sent him to the ground, before he rolled to the tunnel side.

  Sabine went prone behind him.

  More gunfire sent rock fragments spraying, bullets ricocheting. Ten meters behind them was the branch tunnel. He twisted to see the blast door was half-open, then looked front—fifteen meters to the guard box.

  “Two minutes to launch,” said the PA system.

  Damn it! We’re like fish in a barrel.

  “Suppressing fire!” he called over incoming fire.

  Sabine opened up, full auto. Lead sparked off the armored booth, suppressing the shooter. Her rounds thumped into the ballistic glass of the control room door.

  His adrenaline surged as he sprung up, then sprinted, clasping a grenade and pulling the pin with his teeth. He released the grenade lever. The door to the control room opened. Two more bogies. Sabine raked the lobby with controlled bursts, hitting one, sending the other diving for cover. Rae neared the guard booth and rolled the grenade into it, weighting the throw as best he could. He dived to the floor. Milliseconds later, the frag grenade exploded. His ears rang. Smoke and dust obscured the lobby. Sabine ran fearlessly towards him and the guard-box as he jumped to his feet, handgun drawn. He saw Sabine’s muzzle flashes from inside the guard-box as she finished off the guard. Rae advanced, gun drawn. He caught movement to the left of the doors, behind the guard-box and rushed the bogie. Crack, crack. Double tap. Dead.

  Panicked voices came from inside the control room. The electric buzz of the armored vehicle approached from the tunnel behind. Ballistic glass would be a lace curtain to the IFV’s heavy rounds. No way would it fire with the smoke-obscured control room at risk though.

  “On me!” said Rae.

  Sabine took cover next to the jammed-open sliding door. Three rows of desks faced the huge multi-panel display wall opposite the entrance. A lone, uniformed airman sat at the front control desk, tapping at his personal touchscreen, frequently checking over his shoulder as others cowered under desks. Rae caught a momentary flash of platinum hair—middle desk on the right—General Hood’s aide.

  And where hides his aide, hides the general.

  He counted two other airmen, to the left.

  With hand signals, he told Sabine to take out the airmen—he would deal with Hood and his aide. She slotted in a fresh magazine and he gave the signal: Go, go, go!

  Rat-a-tat-tat from Sabine’s SMG, at the same time the crack-crack from his handgun, followed by the slump of Hood’s aide. The general sprung up, pistol in his robotic hand, face full of fury. Rae squeezed the trigger. Click. Nothing.

  Shit…

  The general’s bullets pounded like hammer blows, twisting his torso, first to one side then the next before one to the gut doubled him over.

  Where the hell are you, Sabine? he thought desperately, dropping to one knee.

  Sabine’s uncontrolled burst sent him diving to the deck. Then he heard a slump and looked over at Hood. The general’s lifeless eyes stared at him from a few meters away, under the control room desk. For a moment, Rae watched, dazed and in pain as the blood streamed from Hood’s mouth, pooling on the floor. Another tyrant slain. Plenty more would arise if they didn’t stop the launch.

  “I’m hit…” growled Sabine through gritted teeth. “My leg…”

  “One minute to launch,” said the PA system.

  After the latest impacts to his endo-armor he crawled to Sabine, dazed and hurting.

  “It’s ok, it’s ok,” he said, comforting her. “You did great—I owe you big time. Let me take a look at that leg…”

  Lower right leg wound. Bad—smashed shin bone, no arteries hit though.

  In seconds, he tore off a strip from her pant leg to fashion a dressing.

  “I’ll do it,” she said, gasping in pain. “You need to haul ass soldier.”

  He nodded and got to his feet.

  “Through that door. Quickly,” she said. “You need to stop the launch.”

  He dashed to the unmarked steel door and pulled the handle. Locked. No time to kick down the heavy-duty door.

  Then he saw the RFID reader beside the handle and fumbled for the chip he’d cut from Dudek’s hand. He pressed the RFID tag to the reader. A short pause, then a green light and the click of the lock. He flung open the door and sped along the short corridor through another door. On the other side was the concrete-walled annular space surrounding the silo. He ran onto the circular steel grating, which circumnavigated the concrete silo. Stairs led to several levels above and below—he was halfway up the fifty-meter-high silo. His body screamed pain; blood from his new wounds had soaked his once-white lab coat. Fighting the hurt, he sprinted to the stairs and dashed up three levels, his lungs and muscles burning.

  “T-minus thirty seconds and counting,” said the PA system.

  A whoosh of compressed air, then the electric hum of servos.

  “Silo doors retracted,” said the PA system.

  More clunking sounds of mechanical movement and electric whirring from inside the silo.

  He reached the top level and opened the door to the inner silo with the RFID. There in front of him was the payload faring at the top of the rocket. Inside would be ASTRA—the AI that could change the world and spark World War III. If it reached the SS Zenith, enemy scientists would get it working, and President White would launch his global war of extermination.

  A short pier of grating extended close to the payload fairing, but a second later, it began to retract.

  It’s now or ever… he thought, before
running to the end and launching himself into the air.

  He arced towards the nose cone, reaching for the tip, ignoring the drop below. The payload faring flexed as he slammed into it. He rebounded slightly and fought desperately to get a grip, finally wrapping his arms around the very tip of the rocket. The nose cone was sealed, the tough, lightweight material designed for aerodynamic forces and frictional heating. He shimmied to sit on top of the rocket, smearing its white faring with blood. He took out his handgun. Freezing mountain air spilled down from the dark night into the silo.

  “Twenty seconds to launch,” said the PA system.

  Gasses hissed from far below, where the main engine stirred. Sparks cascaded from beneath it, lighting up the sump.

  Distant small arms fired echoed up the silo stairwell.

  Sabine… Hang in there…

  He raised the handgun and brought the grip swooping down onto the composite nose cone. A small crack opened, but time was running out. Once the main engine fired, he’d be toast. Another whack and…

  “Damn it!”

  The handgun went tumbling down as he struggled to hang on with one hand. Ignoring his body’s protests, he bunched up his fist and pounded the depression created by the gun-grip. Again and again, increasingly rapid, punch after punch. Finally, the composite yielded, exposing the aluminum honeycomb. He kept on punching, his knuckles raw and bleeding, until a hole opened up. And there, inside, barely visible was the gray sphere of ASTRA.

  The rat-a-tat-tat of automatic gunfire in the background intensified.

  Hanging on single-handed, he grasped the grenade from his pocket, pulled the pin with his teeth and dropped the grenade into the punched hole.

  “Ten…”

  Only seconds left. He pulled himself up, squatting on the nose cone.

  “Nine…”

  Then he jumped. He sailed towards the narrow door ledge, landing and flattening himself against the door.

  “Eight…”

  The high-pitched whir of servos joined the hissing around the main engine far below. Next came the hum of a pump starting up somewhere inside the rocket.

  “Seven…”

  He worked feverishly, precariously, to get through the outwards-opening door, slipping in before he slammed and bolted it shut. There was no going back.

  “Six…”

  Then came the stifled boom of the grenade in the nose cone.

  Not enough to destroy ASTRA with that metal sphere around it. Damn it!

  “Five… and main engine ignition…”

  He got up and looked through the door’s view port. The whoosh of ignition was followed by a deep rumbling, the stirrings of an angry god making the world quake. Smoke and fiery light filled the silo, obscuring his view as he fought to see what damage the grenade had inflicted. Through the thickening smoke, he thought he saw a narrow seam running up the nose cone—fractionally wider at the top—but couldn’t be sure. A moment later, thick smoke stole his view. The launch seemed unhindered.

  “Four…”

  The rocket vibrated, the engine throttled up.

  “Three…”

  Faint but insistent in the cacophony, came automatic gunfire from below.

  Sabine. The Control Room.

  “Two…”

  Now urgently fighting its restraints, the rocket roared. Radiant heat overwhelmed the door’s thermal insulation forcing him to step back.

  “One… and lift-off…”

  The rocket rose past the viewport into the night. He’d failed to stop the launch and had no idea if the single grenade had damaged ASTRA beyond repair. The blast had been puny compared to the awesome power of the rocket and ASTRA’s metal containment sphere looked sturdy.

  “Damn it!” he shouted, then turned and bolted down the stairs.

  He had to get to Sabine, injured and outgunned. Then the gunfire from the Control Room ceased. Trapped and unarmed, he ignored the pain. He kept descending the staircase, dripping blood, waiting to face overwhelming force. It felt like he was descending into Hell.

  22

  Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

  Desmond Tutu

  H e continued bolting down the stairs in great pain. He checked that the wasp-drone was still there. His fingers felt the hard, metallic drone in the pocket.

  Are you there, Dr Muller? he mind-spoke.

  Silence.

  He arrived at the control room door, breathless, bloody and battered.

  Rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat.

  The renewed gunfire meant one thing: Sabine was still fighting.

  He crouched and threw open the door. Sabine lay prone, within arm’s reach. She fired a controlled burst under the desk. Return fire from multiple shooters converged on the wall, upper door and guard booth. The deep staccato of .50 cal fire raked the control room. Only the three rows of steel desks and the guard booth were saving Sabine. He saw two soldiers entering the far side of the control room.

  “They’re flanking us!” called Rae over the fire-fight, noticing the blood oozing from the makeshift bandage on her lower right leg.

  She looked around, teeth gritted, her face pained and colorless.

  “Get out of here!” she said. “I can’t run, but you can.”

  The firefight died. Next came the plink-plink-plink of a grenade landing somewhere nearby. Frantically, he sought it out.

  There!

  He found it beside Sabine, before scrambling and crawling towards the death-ball. Grabbing it within milliseconds, he tossed it at the flanking enemy. He rolled on top of Sabine to shield her as the grenade air-burst, spewing supersonic shrapnel. A sharp pain registered in his left arm and blood grew around the neat tear in the lab coat’s material.

  “We need to fall back!” he said into her ear.

  She nodded, and he rolled off her.

  He crawled back to the steel door, which had closed itself. The Infantry Fighting Vehicle focused its spotlight on the door, silhouetting the outline of more troops infiltrating the room. Reaching up with the RFID to unlock the door, he held it open with his legs while pulling Sabine across the floor and through the doorway. Fragments of debris peppered the air as the intensifying barrage of gunfire raked the control room before converging on the door. Rounds thumped into the steel door, a staccato of deadly drumbeats hunting their quarry. Aggressive shouts and boots on concrete came between burst of gunfire. He looked up and saw the RFID scanner had been pulverized. Another plink-plink, and he slammed the door shut. Boom. The steel door bulged, the shock wave from the grenade thumped his core. With ears ringing, he slipped the SMG from Sabine, slung it over his chest by its strap and picked her up. He carried her up flight after flight of steel stairs. As he cradled her in his arms, she looked faint, exhausted, but her resolute visage remained. In that moment, she reminded him of Cora and her gutsy determination in the fight for their lives against the Langostas during the insurgency. She was tough in the face of adversity, her survival instinct strong. It gave him heart that she would pull through whatever terrible situation she was now dealing with in Chicago. He felt his strength surge at the thought of Cora and began taking two stairs at a time. He would not rest until he held her again.

  The gunfire below had ceased. The silo was silent but for his heavy, sonorous footsteps. On reaching the top level, he placed Sabine gently on the grating and peered into the dimly-lit silo. The rocket had flown. The circle of night sky remained, but he didn’t know how much longer the launch doors would stay open. And now it was the only way out. Without escape, only death or the undead life of slavery awaited them. He opened the door, its handle still hot from the launch. A wave of hot air greeted him as he ducked his head into the silo and saw the pier of grating still retracted into the wall. He felt to the right of the doorway and found what he thought he’d noticed—one the recesses built into the concrete, each housing a metal rung. Above and below were more footholds or handholds. It wouldn’t be easy though. Their window of escape was c
losing rapidly. But it was a chance. Their only chance.

  He squatted and helped the now placid Sabine to her feet, leaning her against the wall for support.

  “Piggy-back,” he said, getting in front of her.

  “My leg…” she moaned quietly.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  He helped her mount his back, pushed open the door and reached for the foothold, grabbing onto a rung above his head.

  “Hold on tight—you mustn’t let go,” he said.

  She interlocked her fingers around his lower neck, and he began to haul their combined weight, climbing the rungs, his muscles screaming in protest. The closer they got to the surface, the cooler grew the air, the darker grew the star-filled mountain sky. At the top, the last wisps of exhaust gasses flowed from the silo’s rim, dispersing in the breeze.

  “Nearly there,” he said.

  “Ok,” she murmured.

  A final grunt of exertion and they emerged from the silo before he collapsed onto the powdery snow. Sabine lay on top of him, her breathing shallow, moaning softly. The narrow, steep valley surrounded the silo from all sides—the perfect location. He looked up at the starfield of the Milky Way. The glow of the rocket’s plume lit up the sky to the east, its orangey light scattering off its faint smoke trail. Its trajectory morphed almost imperceptibly with each passing second, becoming less vertical, more inclined in the early stages of its right-angle turn.

  From somewhere behind the nearest ridge, he heard the whine of an electric drive, distant calls carried on the cold night air. A fainter sound came from the opposite direction—different but familiar—deeper, more guttural, more like a whoosh.

  A boom echoed up the silo, then a crash and the unmistakable clatter of troops running up the silo’s metal stairwell.

  Rae got out from under Sabine, laying her gently on her back, and readied the SMG, covering the silo. He knew the soldiers had monoculars on their helmets. If he and Sabine ran now, they’d be lit up like a Christmas tree on infrared against the snow and cold.

  From far-off in the eastern sky sounded a deep boom, echoes sent bouncing, attenuating around the hard granite valley. He swung around to see multiple streaks of burning light high in the sky where the rocket had been. The largest flare continued on a similar but declining trajectory, while smaller burning fragments diverged like a firework, showering back to earth, air resistance and gravity, irresistible and relentless. The damaged nose cone had conspired with velocity to destabilize the rocket, destroying it. Surely destroying ASTRA.