by Easton Royce
They could only count the distance as the missiles drew closer.
"Twenty-one hundred clicks..." said Nathan, "...eighteen hundred... sixteen..."
McQueen gripped the bulkhead, bracing himself for impact—although holding on wouldn't really matter if they were hit.
"Sir!"
McQueen turned. Nathan had gotten up from his radar screen.
"The cargo haulers," Nathan said urgently. "Launch the empty cargo haulers. The missiles will go for them instead of us!"
McQueen looked at Llewellyn. "Do it!"
Llewellyn nodded. "Eject starboard Sections nine and ten," he ordered. Navigator Harkin punched in the numbers on the cargo console and disengaged.
Blasting free from the side of the ship, the two huge containers tumbled end over end into space.
"Cargo haulers launched," Harkin announced.
Maybe West's idea would work. Maybe not.
"Prepare ship for impact," McQueen said.
Wang and Shane desperately continued to fire on the missiles, but they couldn't catch the fast-moving Chig weapons.
"Eight seconds..." Nathan counted grimly. "...seven... six... five... four..."
"Hard left," McQueen ordered.
"Hard left," Harkin echoed.
The ship turned left so quickly that not even the ship's gravity buffers could keep everyone's feet planted firmly on the ground.
BOOM! An explosion rocked through the ship. Everyone on the bridge was thrown to the floor. Pipes burst, computer consoles blew. This was it. This was the end. They waited for the air to be sucked out of their lungs—drained by the vacuum of space.
But they continued to breathe. Shouting voices and sparking instruments now filled the bridge. They were all still alive.
Nathan West crawled back to the radar screen. It was still there—still working. And the blips were gone. So were the cargo haulers.
"It worked, Colonel!" Nathan said. "But the Chigs always come looking to confirm the kill."
"That's right," McQueen agreed. They weren't out of danger—yet.
Llewellyn tried to check for damage around the ship. The only answers came from Marines: Damphousse in the engine room, and Wang and Shane in the gun turret.
"Where's my crew?" shouted a furious Llewellyn.
McQueen left the bridge and headed aft in search of an answer.
You don't dream in cryo-sleep. You don't dream in suspended animation.
You don't think. You don't feel. You don't hear.
And so, in cryo-sleep, the humans, who had volunteered to be frozen, and the In-Vitros, in their suspended states, were very much the same. And their lives depended on the actions of the nineteen living, breathing souls on board. Amidst the frozen masses of humans and In-Vitros, two of those souls were about to collide.
Cooper Hawkes was heading toward the bridge to find out what had happened. McQueen was heading aft, to shut off Section 46 himself. It wasn't until they came face-to-face in the corridor that they knew they had really been looking for each other.
"How could you let him kill In-Vitros?" Cooper demanded. His voice echoed sharply in the wide corridor of the cargo hold. It didn't sound like the voice of a lieutenant addressing his superior officer. For this moment, rank had no meaning.
"All our operating systems are down, Hawkes," said McQueen angrily. "The captain has no choice."
Cooper stared him straight in the eyes. "You can stop him."
"We're on board his ship. The captain's word is law."
Cooper tried to keep his temper to a low boil. "When someone decides to kill In-Vitros, it's not my law. And it shouldn't be yours."
For McQueen, Cooper's words were like a slap in the face. McQueen knew he should have felt indignant—furious, in fact, at Hawkes's insubordination. But sometimes truth outranks everything else. Suddenly McQueen didn't feel like a Marine colonel. He felt like a Tank, in a situation far larger than himself.
"Keats gave you the manifest?" he asked.
Cooper nodded.
"What did you find?"
"A sister."
The news reeled through McQueen's brain. It was every Tank's dream to find a relation—to know, in a world of prejudice and cruelty, there was someone to connect with. Someone to make him feel more human.
Shutting off Section 46 would kill that connection for Cooper—now and forever. McQueen tried to imagine how he might feel if it was his own sister they had found.
"How can you kill your own people?" Cooper demanded. "How can you?"
McQueen tried to speak, but he felt weak and tongue-tied in the face of Cooper's righteous rage.
"Answer me!" Cooper screamed.
But there was no answer he could give.
Chapter 12
Vansen and Wang were still in the gun turret when Ashby surprised them. He brandished an old laser rifle that seemed more likely to blow up in his hands than shoot a single good round.
Ashby nervously pushed his glasses further up his face. "I don't want to kill you," he told the two Marines, "but I will if I have to."
"What's going on?" Wang asked.
"A change in command," Ashby answered. "You two stand down."
Shane was unimpressed. "We don't take orders from you."
Ashby cocked the weapon and trained it on them. "You do now," he said seriously.
Shane and Wang exchanged a glance. Ashby meant business.
"Stand down," Ashby said again.
They stepped away from their seats and put their hands in the air.
***
Keats and his band of In-Vitro pirates stormed the bridge. They caught the entire crew by surprise, but Llewellyn was the most surprised of all. As angry as he knew Keats was, he hadn't believed that Keats would go this far.
Keats aimed his handgun directly at Llewellyn. "I'm taking the helm, Captain."
To his credit, Llewellyn remained cool. "Are you adding mutiny to your resume, Mr. Keats?"
The other In-Vitros pushed Potter, hands still tied behind his back, into the room.
Potter could understand a mutiny. There were times he'd wanted to mutiny against the captain himself. But to be tied up and shoved around by In-Vitros—that he couldn't stand.
"He's not just adding mutiny to his resume, Captain," Potter sneered. "He's adding murder. He's insane—he'll kill us all."
Keats's focus remained on the captain, but he answered Potter. "Whatever it takes, to make sure In-Vitros don't die."
Potter continued to sneer but kept his mouth shut.
"Sit him down," Keats ordered.
Keats's men threw Potter into a chair. Without his arms free to catch himself, he stumbled, hitting the chair hard.
"Shoulda taped up his mouth," said one of the In-Vitros.
Nathan West leaped to his feet. Sorrell spun his weapon at him, ready and willing to blow Nathan away.
The captain intervened. "Sit back down, son. I need you alive."
Reluctantly, Nathan returned to the radar console.
Potter sat and watched, his rage growing. Desperately he tried to wrench his hands free from the tape on his wrists. Tanks holding weapons against humans. The sight fueled Potter's hatred. He cursed the day the first In-Vitro was made and silently wished for a day when they were wiped from the galaxy.
"You're making a mistake, Keats," the captain warned.
"It won't be the first, sir," was Keats's answer.
Potter tugged on his bonds one more time. His hands were free! He didn't stop to think about what he was going to do. He rushed forward toward Keats, ready to kill him and every other In-Vitro in the room.
The bridge erupted in gunfire.
Down in the cargo hold, McQueen pulled out a stopwatch.
"I'll give Damphousse five minutes to get the reactor back on-line. If she can't, then I have to pull the plug."
Cooper nodded. McQueen was not a man of compromise. But he was a man of integrity. Cooper was glad to see that integrity could win out over orders—when it
really mattered.
McQueen turned to head back toward the bridge, but Cooper stopped him.
"If you have to cut power to a section," he pleaded, "make it a human section."
"I can't do that."
"Why not? What did they ever do for you?"
"It's not a matter of prejudice," McQueen explained. "It simply takes more energy to keep In-Vitros alive. It's not just the thermo-computers that need to be on-line, but the gestation tanks, too." McQueen motioned at the many doors around them. "We'd be killing twice as many humans as In-Vitros if we went your way."
Cooper grit his teeth. "Casualties of war."
McQueen didn't answer. He left Cooper alone to wrestle with his thoughts.
Twice as many humans... Cooper shook his head.
Nothing changed the fact that Cooper had a sister. A sister. A few days before, it would have been unimaginable, something he wouldn't dare to dream about. But she was real. She was here. And he didn't know how he could survive her loss.
How could he care so much about someone he never met, someone he never even knew existed?
Chapter 13
There was no doubt that Chief Engineer Sorrell was an imposing man. Already intimidating, Sorrell was even more intimidating with a rifle in his hands. But he was trained as an engineer—not a soldier.
When Potter leaped out of his seat, Sorrell swung the rifle around. Before he knew what was happening he was squeezing the trigger of his automatic weapon. A spray of bullets flew wild as the rifle bucked and kicked out of control. When Sorrell finally stopped firing, Potter wasn't the only one dead.
Captain Llewellyn also lay sprawled out across the navigational console. His eyes were open but unseeing. His uniform, once spotlessly white, was now blotchy with dark red stains.
No one spoke.
Keats realized he was still holding his own weapon, aimed at the spot where the captain had stood before he was gunned down. Keats brought the gun down to his side, trying to force his hand to stop shaking. He took a deep breath, and then another. Keats wanted it all to turn into a bad dream that he could wake up from. Because in spite of what everyone said, Tanks did dream. They had nightmares, too.
But there was no escaping this nightmare.
Sorrell's eyes were filled with horror. He'd never hurt anyone in his life. Now he was an assassin. He went over to Potter and put a hand on his chest, trying to feel a heartbeat. He looked at the captain but didn't dare touch his body. At last he turned to Keats, as if Keats could do anything about it.
In the stillness, they could all hear the sound of pounding feet racing toward them. The door slammed back and McQueen burst onto the bridge.
It only took a moment for McQueen to size up the situation. He moved toward Keats, but Sorrell turned his weapon on McQueen.
"Don't even think about it!" Sorrell shouted. Sweat poured down his face. His hand was shaking, rattling the rifle he held.
McQueen knew enough to keep his distance—for now.
Keats lowered his head in grief. "This isn't what I wanted," he said softly.
"That's not good enough," McQueen said coldly. "Get your men back to their stations. I'm taking the bridge."
Suddenly the fight came back into Keats. He raised his handgun, aiming it right at McQueen.
"I can't allow that," Keats said. He was too deep into this to stop now. The mutiny had to run its course. Keats cocked the trigger. He was ready and willing to fire if McQueen made a single move toward him.
The harsh odor of spent ammunition filled the air as Cooper Hawkes made his way toward the bridge. Instinctively, he knew there was death up ahead.
The first thing he saw as he came around the bulkhead was Keats's gun aimed at McQueen's face. The two men stood there in a standoff. Cooper knew that neither one was going to give in. Not as long as there was still a breath of air in their bodies.
"You're not going to shoot him," Cooper said to Keats. He tried hard to make the desperation in his voice sound like calm control. He strode forward carefully. Cooper was no diplomat. But without some brilliant diplomacy right about now, he knew that some of them—maybe all of them—would end up dead.
Then he saw Potter and Llewellyn. He couldn't help but wonder if there were other bodies, too—behind the consoles or in places he couldn't see.
Cooper looked Keats in the eye and said again, "You're not going to shoot." Then he turned to McQueen. "And you're not going to shut down Section 46."
"You can't have it both ways, Hawkes," McQueen said quietly.
Cooper shook his head. "There are options. We could bring the In-Vitros out of their suspended state. We could let them be born now."
McQueen snorted. "Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to thermalize a single In-Vitro? We don't even have enough power to keep the emergency lights stable."
Keats didn't buy Cooper's plan either. He kept his gun trained on McQueen.
A sudden sound emanated from the radar screen. It was a high-pitched warning siren.
Nathan gave them the news they'd been dreading. "I'm picking up an active gamma pulse," he said. "The enemy's doing a 'Yankee Search.'"
McQueen kept his eyes locked on Keats. "Yankee Search is an old naval term. The Alien ship hunting us thinks we're a pile of space garbage. He's just coming in to confirm the kill. And with no power there's nothing we can do."
The pulse on the radar screen lit their faces a cold, pale blue. On the screen, the Alien ship picked up speed—moving closer and closer to the MacArthur.
Chapter 14
The crippled Mac Arthur slowly tumbled between the coronas of the twin stars Adhara and Aludra. Down in the engine room, Damphousse sweated alone over the reactor. Core temperature remained at a critical level—it could melt down at any moment. Damphousse had no idea why the engine room crew had suddenly disappeared, but there was no way she could get this reactor working again on her own.
While Damphousse waged her standoff against the dying reactor, down in the gun turret Ashby still held his rifle steady on Vansen and Wang. At this range, he could kill them both instantly with a single spray from the automatic weapon.
The ship's weapons systems flashed from green to red: they were off-line. The laser-pulse cannons were useless now. There would be no defense possible against the Alien ship.
Shane glared at Ashby. Being trapped in the useless gun turret only made her feel more powerless.
"What do they want us to do now? Throw rocks?"
Ashby didn't say a thing. The blinking red emergency light reflected off his glasses, hiding the expression in his eyes. It could have been fear in those eyes. It could have been resolve. There was no way of telling whether he would actually have the nerve to pull the trigger.
At this point Shane Vansen didn't care. She put down her hands, which Ashby had insisted they raise like old-fashioned hold-up victims. Then she went over and sat back down in her gun chair.
Ashby held his weapon tighter, keeping it aimed right at her head. But he didn't fire. Wang sat down in his seat, too.
"Eventually," said Shane, "you're going to have to decide whether or not to kill us."
Ashby remained silent. Obviously, it wasn't a decision he was making right now.
On the bridge, the stalemate between McQueen and Keats continued. Nathan watched the radar screen as the Alien ship closed in on their position, its Yankee Search narrowing.
"Pulse intervals decreasing," he announced as the beeping from the radar grew more intense.
Keats showed no response, his gun still trained on McQueen. McQueen also stood his ground, trying to stare Keats down. Cooper knew what he had to do. He was the only one Keats would listen to. He was the only thing standing between them and certain death at the hands of the Chigs.
The lights dimmed to a faint glow as the secondary generator began to fail again—maybe for the last time. McQueen turned his eyes to Cooper.
"Time's run out, Hawkes. You have to decide whose side you're on."
Cooper wanted to scream in frustration and fury. Instead he took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was a Marine. He forced his voice to come out calm and cool.
"There are no sides, Colonel," he said. "Just right and wrong." He turned to Keats, holding out his hand. "Give me the gun, Keats."
Keats's eyes darted back and forth between Cooper and McQueen. But he didn't hand over his weapon.
"The colonel will do the right thing," Cooper insisted. "You have to trust him."
Keats began to waver. "Do you, Cooper? Do you trust him?"
It was a question Cooper had to consider.
"Yes," said Cooper. Trust was something new to him. In his six years of life, he had come to believe that there was no such thing. But his time with the 58th proved him wrong. Trust could exist, but it wasn't easily found. It was something earned, and McQueen had earned it.
His resolve came through in his voice and finally convinced Keats, too. He put the safety on his weapon and handed it to Cooper.
Instantly, Nathan moved to disarm Sorrell. Sorrell didn't resist. The other In-Vitros put down their weapons as well.
Cooper handed Keats's pistol to McQueen. "Sir, the bridge is yours."
McQueen went straight to the business of saving their lives. He grabbed the intercom.
"Engine room, this is the bridge," he said. "We have incoming! Get me back on-line!"
"No can do," came Damphousse's panicked response. "The primary coolant loop is sheared—those pressure shocks hit the primary system hard. I'm afraid this whole thing's gonna melt down if I don't get some help here."
Over the intercom, everyone on the bridge could hear the many alarms blaring. No matter how much time Damphousse had clocked at San Onofre, she couldn't handle this situation alone.
McQueen turned to Keats. "We work together, or we all die," he said matter-of-factly. "It's as simple as that. I'm going to need your help, Mr. Keats. Be good enough to get your men back to the engine room."
Keats slowly nodded and took the intercom from McQueen.