by Alex Kings
“Minor problem,” said Eloise, taking down a lone guard who had just stepped into view.
“Can it wait?” said Rurthk. He could still hear Sukone behind them.
“I don't think so. Say we reach the shuttle and escape. What happens then? Sukone will be looking for us. If we try to leave, Sukone will shoot us down. If the Outsider comes to us, same problem.”
They stepped into another corridor to find more Glaber guards, and jumped back.
“Mero,” said Rurthk.
“One left, Cap,” said Mero, throwing a grenade down the corridor.
“We could dive deep and go around the planet.” Eloise paused as the grenade exploded and she leaned out to shoot the remaining guards. “We might get out that way. But Sukone will know what to look for. He could find us and follow us.”
The real Sukone in the here-and-now was following them, and not far behind. Rurthk led them at a run down the corridor.
A rocket exploded behind them, followed by a wave of flames.
“Let's worry about that when we're in the shuttle,” said Rurthk.
They turned and ran up a ramp. A rocket exploded at the base as they reached the top. “Persistent bastard,” growled Rurthk. “Why can't we lose him?”
They were nearly at the left rocket maintenance corridor. Rurthk looked up at the cameras in the ceiling; they still had smart matter covers obscuring them. There was no way Sukone could be tracking them that way.
“Did he leave a bug on us?” he suggested out loud.
“I don't see anything, but I wouldn't be surprised.”
Sukone's roaring voice came between booms and snarling flames: “Run! Yes, little rats. Run!”
“No,” said Olivia after a moment. “He's keeping up with us because he knows where we're going.”
“The shuttle,” said Rurthk.
“It's been compromised,” said Eloise.
Olivia nodded.
They reached the last intersection, where Zino had let them past. One way led to the shuttle, the other way led back into the base. Rurthk stopped for a moment and grimaced.
If Olivia was wrong, he was turning down a chance at escape. If she wasn't …
Sukone's pounding footsteps came closer.
“This way!” shouted Rurthk, leading them deeper into the base.
Chapter 80: Explosions
They traversed corridors, turned corners, ran down slopes, travelling at random for some time before Rurthk finally slowed.
He listened intently, then held up a hand to tell his crew to stop. Sukone was no longer behind them. Mero had taken to obscuring the cameras with smart matter to hide their escape route.
He turned to Eloise. “What was that you said about not being able to get away in the shuttle?”
Eloise leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, and brushed her curls out of her eyes. “If we do get out,” she said, “Sukone will find us and shoot us down. I think it's time we go all in,” she said. “Destroy the base.”
Mero laughed. “Now that, I can get behind!”
“I'm assuming this isn't a suicide run?” said Rurthk.
“Oh, well, actually,” said Eloise, “I just thought to hell with it, let's do something noble and sacrifice our lives for a mob boss like Albert Wells.” She gave Rurthk an innocent smile.
Rurthk took the point. “Okay, okay. So we need to find some way to destroy the base that gives us enough time to get to call in the backup and escape. Any suggestions?”
“Reactor overload?” suggested Mero.
“I … wouldn't know how to do that without blowing us all up instantly,” said Olivia. “Would you?”
Mero's ears fell flat against his head. “Have to get Kaivon to show me how to do that when all this is over,” he muttered to himself.
“Reactor's out, then” said Rurthk. “Anything else?”
They looked at each other.
“It's possible we could interfere with the weapons,” said Eloise. “Then we wouldn't have to destroy the ship. But …”
Mero's ears perked up and swivelled down the corridor. “I think I hear our host,” he said.
Rurthk nodded. “This way,” he said quietly, taking them at a slow walk down the corridor.
“I have it!” Olivia said as they turned another corner, her voice soft but full of excitement.
“What?” said Rurthk.
“The rockets. Near the back of the rocket, superheated plasma is contained by magnetic barriers.”
“How do you know that?” said Rurthk.
“I picked it up from the maintenance hatches we passed.”
Rurthk glanced at her, before guided them down another ramp.
“Okay,” said Eloise. “Magnetic walls and plasma. What then?”
“If we interfere with one of the coils it will introduce a chaotic instability. It'll grow until it destroys the rocket.”
“And then the whole base goes down,” said Rurthk. “How long do we have?”
Olivia took out her tablet and gestured at it a few times, making calculations. “It's a very rough estimate … but if we tune it right, the instability should blow up in somewhere between … four to thirty minutes.”
“That's a pretty big window of error,” Rurthk said.
“It's chaotic dynamics,” said Olivia.
“Point taken.” Rurthk turned to Mero. “Can you still hear Sukone?”
Mero's ears radared about. “I think we've lost him.”
“Good,” said Rurthk. He turned to take them towards the right rocket.
*
Zino stepped over bodies into Sukone's throne room and gave an impressed whistle. Almost everything was destroyed, shattered or burnt. Most of the stone cladding had come off the carbide bulkheads and lay in pieces in the floor. Patches of fire still burnt. A couple of undamaged mosaics stood isolated among the damage.
Zino's suit was more dark than white now, stained with soot and ash and blood. He strode over to Sukone's shattered bench, and kicked around lumps of stone near the remains of the table until he found it.
Sukone's tablet. Left here, forgotten by the Varanid. Zino pocketed it and, whistling, stepped over the bodies again on his way out.
*
The maintenance corridor for the right rocket was a mirror image of the left. Olivia followed the counterparts of the maintenance hatches she'd seen on her way into the base.
“Here,” she said.
The computer terminal beside it wouldn't be enough. Rurthk helped her prise the hatch off the wall. Inside, complex machinery stared back out at her. She could make out the broad arc of a coil, buried under tangles of wires and dials. A little deeper in, a secondary hatch was painted in banded yellow and covered with signs like WARNING: SUPERHEATED PLASMA. DO NOT OPEN WHILE IN OPERATION.
“Can you manage it?” said Rurthk.
“I think so,” said Olivia. “I might need Mero for the delicate bits.”
Mero laughed. “Yeah, that's what I'm good for. The delicate bits.”
Olivia gestured at an interior console to pull up the geometry of the coil. After studying it for a few moments, she reached past the mass of wire to touch the casing of the coil itself. Her finger searched fruitlessly for a seam.
“Mero?” she said.
Within a moment, Mero had studied the geometry and found the seam. He pulled the casing back to reveal bundles of superconductors and their support mechanisms.
Then his ears turned backwards. “I hear Sukone,” he said.
“How far?” asked Rurthk.
“Quite far, but he's coming closer.”
“Then get on with it,” said Rurthk. He took his assault rifle and started looking around for cover. Eloise joined him.
Olivia turned her attention back to Mero and the coils. “We need to make the current in this coil oscillate,” she said.
“And how to we do that?”
“See the coolant pipes? There should be a tap shaped like a wedge. To get to it, you need to remove a few
pieces of equipment. Start with that big C-shaped bit of ceramic.”
Mero worked quickly. Faster than Olivia could have done herself – almost as fast as it took to give him instructions.
“He's coming closer,” growled Mero. His tail started to flick back and forth with agitation.
“We're nearly done,” said Olivia.
Behind them, Rurthk and Eloise dumped a bundle of access hatches on the ground. Behind them were a few storage containers – polymer boxes a metre or so across. These would have to suffice as cover if they needed it.
“Twist the switch halfway. Is it loose? Good. That's all we need,” said Olivia.
“Do I need to put all this crap back?” said Mero.
“They're needed for long-term functionality,” said Olivia.
“No, then,” said Mero. He threw the bits of ceramic and polymer into the cavity behind the hatch.
“When does it start to work?” Rurthk asked.
“It's already started,” said Olivia. “We should feel the effects any moment.”
“Then let's get out of here,” said Rurthk. He stood, then froze.
Olivia could feel it too now, the soft thump-thump of a Varanid trying to walk quietly.
“Aha! There you are.” said Sukone, appearing at the end of the corridor.
Chapter 81: Kill Us All
Rurthk levelled his rifle and dropped behind cover of a container. He had no illusions about the effectiveness of this strategy. It might give an extra ten seconds at best. But he had no intention of going down without a fight.
“You are so often one step ahead,” said Sukone. “I have no doubt you have another means of escape. But your luck had finally run out, Captain Rurthk. This corridor is a dead end.”
Rurthk tried to centre his aim on Sukone's eye.
“Nothing to say?” said Sukone. “Too bad –”
“You fire and I'll kill us all!” shouted Olivia.
Sukone cocked his head. “Hm? A small human is threatening me with death? Well, this is a new experience.”
Rurthk glanced behind him. Olivia had her hand on a yellow-striped hatch near the rocket coils.
“If I open this,” she told him, “This entire corridor will fill with hydrogen plasma at, what, six thousand degrees or so? We're all cooked instantly. Even Varanid skin won't help you against those temperatures.”
Sukone smiled. “It certainly won't. But tell me, girl, you've come this far to save your own life. Can you really end it of your own volition, without hesitation?”
“I've got nothing to lose,” Olivia said.
“You may believe that consciously. But the self-preservation instinct is strong. I'm sorry to say you do not look like someone with conviction.” Sukone hefted the flamethrower. “You need only hesitate for a moment, and you will burn alone.”
While this debate was going on, Rurthk was analysing the situation. His first thought was that Sukone was stalling – if he believed Olivia really would hesitate, he'd shoot immediately. But he wasn't sure, so he was trying to figure out how certain she was.
The second thing Rurthk realised was that the corridor was too narrow for Sukone. It was built for the staff, not for Sukone himself. The Varanid nearly filled its length. He would struggle to turn around – and there was no way he could turn either of his weapons around in this space. They were just too long.
The third thing Rurthk realised was very simple: Sukone was occupied with Olivia.
“Mero,” Rurthk said, sending a subvocal message over the comms. “Can you get past him?”
“Couldn't say,” said Mero. “Maybe.”
“I'll take that as a yes. And then, use the last one.”
Mero took a deep breath. “Sure thing, Cap.”
“Get ready to run,” Rurthk told Eloise.
“I have heard a thousand attempts at bravado from doomed people,” Sukone told Olivia. “Believe me when I say yours does not impress. I believe –”
Mero leapt towards him and bounded down the corridor. Sukone's eyes widened. By the time he could react, Mero was almost on top of him.
As Sukone reached out to grab him, Mero jumped, gliding over Sukone. He kicked off the wall to change directions and avoid another attempt to grab him. And then, maybe a second and half after he'd started moving, he was behind Sukone.
“Move,” Rurthk told Olivia, who was as surprised as Sukone.
He grabbed a hatch and, holding it in front of him like a shield, ran down the corridor towards Sukone. Eloise did the same, with Olivia in tow.
“Stop!” roared Sukone, his philosophic composure cracking. He tried to swing his rocket launcher around. It clanged against the walls of the corridor and broke under the force of his grip.
Mero threw a grenade. A second later, it exploded just behind Sukone's tail, scouring off what was left of his armour.
Sukone roared in pain and primal anger, caught between trying to back up and turn around.
Rurthk, Eloise and Mero reached Sukone as he noticed them. “You!” he roared.
“Us,” Rurthk agreed. He threw the hatch at Sukone's face and followed it with a burst of assault rifle fire.
Eloise and Olivia ran past Sukone, evading his limbs as he flailed about, trying ineffectually to grab them.
Rurthk followed. He ducked under a hand that could crush the life out of him, leapt over another limb.
And then he was free. He'd made it past Sukone.
Something thumped into him from the side. It came with such force that it picked Rurthk and slammed him against the corridor wall. Rurthk heard his ribs crack. Pain washed through him like a burst from Sukone's flamethrower. He fell to the floor and collapsed.
It was Sukone's tail. It came in for another strike.
At the last moment, Eloise and Olivia grabbed his arms and pulled him forwards out range.
“You haven't escaped!” roared Sukone. “I will kill you! I will crush you, burn you, tear you apart!” He was backing up rapidly.
With Eloise's help, Rurthk managed to get to his feet. His side felt like it was on fire. Definitely some internal bleeding, the dispassionate side of his mind noted. But he was up and walking.
They half-ran, half stumbled down the corridor and away from Sukone.
Chapter 82: Innocents
Trying to move at any decent speed was agony, but Rurthk forced himself through it. After a few turns, moving past ruined corridors and the dead bodies of various guards.
A tremolo whine sounded through the bulkheads, growing slowly in intensity.
The corridor seemed to tilt for a moment.
Mero looked around, ears against his head. “That's it, isn't it?”
To the experienced, a tilting sensation like that was a sign the base had just lurched heavily to the side. The artificial gravity generators had counteracted most of the change, but a small amount got through.
“That's it,” said Olivia.
“Then let's call the backup and get the hell out of here,” said Mero.
“No,” said Eloise.
“Whaddya mean no?” growled Mero.
“We need to tell the survivors to get off the base before we go.”
“Are you serious?” said Mero “This whole place is about to crash, we've got a mad Varanid with a rocket launcher chasing us, and Rurthk can barely walk!”
“We just have to go to the operations room,” said Eloise.
“Why? Do you think the people on board this thing are innocent? They work for Sukone!” said Mero. “Surely even by your standards they fall under the category of 'people who are okay to kill'!”
“Nobody in the galaxy is innocent,” Eloise said. “But that doesn't mean they deserve to be left to die. And I'm not going to have that on my conscience. Not when I have a choice.”
Mero turned to Rurthk. “We're going to go down any minute!”
Leaning against the wall, Rurthk looked at both of them for a moment. Then he sighed. “Mero, the quicker we do this the quicker we can get out of
here.”
Mero snarled a chain of Albascene curses under his breath. “Fine,” he spat. “Let's go.”
Eloise and Mero helped him along. After a while they reached the operations room. It was empty. Where the staff had gone, whether they were dead or not, was impossible to know.
Olivia ran to one of the terminals and called up the base's internal comms system. She wasted no time: “Attention all hands. This craft will be destroyed within ten minutes. Evacuate immediately!”
Rurthk nodded at her. “Well done. Now let's go before Sukone comes to find us.”
Mero's ears fell flat against his head. “Too late,” he said.
As he finished the sentence, Rurthk could hear pounding steps against the flagstones outside. A moment later Sukone appeared at the door, his face a mask of blood.
“What do you say, girl?” he snarled at Olivia. “Shall we all burn together?”
Chapter 83: All Of You
“Get behind the terminals,” Rurthk said.
Or, at least, that's what he tried to say. Halfway through the sentence, he doubled up with pain and began coughing. Blood ran out his mouth.
Sukone levelled his rocket launcher at them.
Then he stopped and looked to his side down the corridor. “Zino! Where have you been? These wretches have been wreaking havoc across my base.”
“What happened to a necessary challenge?” asked Eloise.
Sukone snarled at her.
Zino came into view. His suit was more black and red than white. He moved past Sukone into the control room, slouching with his hands in his jacket pockets. “Oh, you know, getting stuff done,” he said.
“Kill them!” ordered Sukone. “This is your final chance to redeem yourself.”
“My final chance? “ said Zino, straightening up. “Well, I'd better take this seriously, then.” He took a long, thin knife out of his pocket and threw it at the rocket launcher.
The knife embedded itself in the rocket launcher, which gave a sudden electrical crack and went dead.