by James Palmer
“That’s him,” said Hamilton. “But how do we grab him?”
“I can rig up a magnetic tether,” Cade offered, rising from his seat.
Hamilton nodded. “Do it. And I want a full complement of Marines standing by when we open that thing up. Oh, and don’t worry about being gentle with it.”
Hamilton watched as the Wanderer ships crowded into a loose formation and moved single file toward the system’s Q-gate.
Leda moved to stand beside him. “Lang will be pissed we didn’t exterminate them,” she said.
Hamilton shrugged. “He wanted us to stop the uprising, which we did. The results are the same. Besides, I’ve grown weary of killing our own. No sense doing the Ix’s dirty work. Now let’s go check on our new guest.”
They exited the command deck and headed for the shuttle bay, where Gunner Cade had just informed them that he had successfully reeled in their prize.
As requested, five big Marines, four men and one woman, crowded around the container, flechette rifles trained on the object.
“Let’s get it open,” said Hamilton.
“Just have to degauss the lock,” said Cade, holding a black-handled object over the container’s seam. There was a crack and hiss as the container popped open.
Inside they found a cramped, rumpled, uncomfortable-looking former Colonel who immediately raised his hands when he saw all the weapons trained on him. “Is this any way to treat a guest?”
“Hamilton scowled. “Get him out of there.”
The female Marine, Sergeant Ellison, reached in with her left hand. Straker grabbed it, and she hauled him up and out of the container with a grunt.
“Thank you, Marine,” said Straker, brushing himself off and smoothing his gray jumpsuit, which was rumpled beneath the black nanocarbon exoskeleton he wore. He looked around slowly at each of them appraisingly.
“Well, aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”
Without a word, Leda stepped up to him, punching him hard and fast across the mouth. He spun halfway around before toppling to the deck. Two of the Marines laughed. Hamilton stepped between Leda and Straker. “That’s enough, Commander. Now help him up.”
Leda did so, yanking him to his feet with great force.
Hamilton heard the whir of tiny servos in Straker’s exoskeleton. Straker followed his gaze toward the contrivance around his arms and legs.
“To help me move around,” he explained. “I’ve been in zero gee for months now. In normal gravity I’m as weak as a kitten. So I’d appreciate it if no one else sucker punches me.” He spat blood onto the deck and glanced sharply at the Marines, as if goading them into a fight. They kept their cool, Ellison leveling her rifle at Straker’s chin and giving him a devil-may-care smile.
“Well,” said the former Colonel. “Now that the unpleasantness is out of the way, how about some synth brandy and a pseudo cigar?”
“You know you can’t smoke aboard a ship,” said Hamilton. “Besides, you’re a prisoner, a war criminal. You’re going to the brig. Ellison, manacle this pile of meat, then search him.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, slinging her rifle over one shoulder and removing a set of magnetic manacles from her belt while one of the other Marines searched him roughly. Ellison moved in behind Straker and fettered him.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” said Straker to Hamilton.
Hamilton ignored him. “Escort this man to a cell. I want him under constant guard.”
Hamilton turned to leave the shuttle bay, then stopped, turned. “Oh, and if he talks too much, you can shut him up any way you see fit.”
Straker glared angrily at Hamilton, but he didn’t say another word as he was escorted from the shuttle bay.
“Feel better?” asked Hamilton when they were alone, the Marines having moved past them with Straker and out toward the brig.
“A little,” Leda admitted. “You owe him a punch in the mouth too, more than anyone.”
“He’ll get his,” said Hamilton. “I’m more worried about what he’s up to.”
“Up to?”
“Yeah. Didn’t that seem a little too easy to you? Our show of force may have made the Wanderers give him up, but don’t you think he would have put up more of a fight? Maybe even committed suicide before being handed over as a war criminal?”
“You think he wants to be here,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. Straker is always two steps ahead, the smartest guy in the room, playing all the angles. What I can’t figure out is what he wants in this instance.”
“We may have to wait for him to make the next move,” said Leda.
Hamilton nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of. By then it may be too late.”
Leda frowned in thought. “The Marines searched him thoroughly. Nothing on him but a small sidearm.”
“No communication devices,” Hamilton mused aloud.
“Who would he call?”
Hamilton considered this for a long moment, then his face turned ashen. “The Ix!”
“What? How?”
Hamilton said, “They searched him all right, but they didn’t remove his exoskeleton.
Leda stared, considering the implications. It could mean nothing, but with Straker anything was possible.
Hamilton broke into a run, heading back the way they had come, Leda right on his heels.
They reached the brig to find it empty, and the door to Straker’s cell ripped off its hinges. Two Marines lay on either side of the portal, unconscious.
Hamilton went to the cell door control console and slapped a panic button. A warning klaxon began blaring in the distance. “All hands, intruder alert,” he said, his voice echoing down the corridor and all over the ship.
“You armed?” he asked Leda.
“Always,” she said, removing her needle pistol from its holster and showing it to him.
“Good.”
“With his exoskeleton,” said Leda, “he’ll be more than a match for anyone aboard this ship. Except…”
“Now hold on a minute,” said Hamilton. “Let’s not go off half-cocked.”
Leda grinned. “You know? I’ve never exactly understood that phrase.”
“It’s from the days of flintlock and caplock firearms, when—”
Leda rushed him then and grabbed both sides of his face, pulling him down into a kiss. She held him for a few seconds, then let go.
“My statement was somewhat rhetorical,” she said.
Hamilton considered his second in command for along moment. “Or, we can just rush in with guns blazing. That’s served us well so far. Sound general quarters. I want our Marines to sweep every deck from stem to stern.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” said Leda, giving him a quick salute before exiting the brig and disappearing up the main corridor.
Hamilton called for a medical team for the two downed Marines, then he raised his own weapon before exiting the brig. He was on his way in the opposite direction from Leda when his cochlear implant chimed. “Captain,” said Lt. Brackett. “It’s the Ix. They’re in-system and closing on our position.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine:
Sabotage
Hamilton was panting when he returned to the command deck, which was once again a chaos of warning klaxons, flashing sigils and running crewmen as they dealt with multiple threats. He thought of Captain Kuttner, who used to stand in the middle of the deck calmly sipping coffee analogue while the crew panicked their way through hull breach drills and last minute inspections, and he wished he had the old man’s cool head now. A war criminal and fugitive was running loose on his ship, his second officer—the woman he loved—was likely heading straight toward him, and a thus far undefeated alien armada was fast approaching their position. Cool, calm and collected Hamilton wasn’t, but he had to get a handle on the situation fast before things got any worse.
“Leda,” he mumbled. His implant chimed.
“Here,” she said, panting. The ship’s alert klaxon e
choed in his head. “I’ve got a couple of Marines with me. We’re sweeping back to the shuttle bay. Maybe he stole a ship and bugged out.”
From her voice Hamilton could tell she doubted her own theory. He did too. “He’s still aboard somewhere,” he said. “We’ve got something he wants, something the Wanderers couldn’t give him.”
“The Ix,” she said. “He needs to see his divine retribution up close.”
“Exactly,” said Hamilton. “And we’ve got first row seats for the apocalypse.”
“You think he contacted them somehow?”
“It’s a good possibility.”
“We’ll keep looking. An old guy in an exoskeleton won’t be hard to spot.”
“Be careful. You know how dangerous he is, especially in that powered rig.”
“Copy. Niles, out.”
Hamilton turned his attentions to the main threat, the Ix. “How long until engagement?”
“At their current speed, thirty minutes,” said Hudson.
Hamilton nodded. “All right, Drizda, Draconi Grand Leaders, listen up. This is what we’re gonna do.”
***
He could be anywhere, Leda knew, even hiding in a maintenance hatch somewhere. “He’s probably chewing through the wiring like a rat,” she muttered. This got a snicker from Lt. Drake, whom Sergeant Ellison silenced with an icy glare. “We’ll find him, Commander,” she said. “Don’t you worry.”
Leda nodded. She liked Ellison. She had already proved herself during the Swarm probe incident, and was Hamilton’s first pick to head up the Zelazny’s Marines.
Ellison jutted a fist in the air as they reached a T-junction in the corridor, stopping them. She scanned both directions, the augs embedded in the side of her shaved head flashing. “We sounded general quarters,” she whispered. Anyone found out in a hallway has something to lose. Do you get me?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” said Drake and a tall, stout blond named Rogers.
Leda stepped out to the right of the junction, leading with her firearm. “This way.”
“How do you know, Commander?” asked Ellison.
Leda slowly shook her head. “I don’t know. I just do.”
“Down that way are the rail gun magnets and the engine core,” said Rogers. “If he wants to do some damage…”
Ellison nodded. “That would be the place to do it. Copy.”
“Let’s check out the rail gun first,” said Leda. “If we sets up an EMP using the electromagnets he could cripple the entire ship.”
“Does he know how to do that, sir?” asked Ellison.
“Don’t underestimate him,” said Leda. “He’s very intelligent, and once upon a time he was one of the Solar Navy’s brightest engineers.”
They stepped cautiously into the corridor, Rogers and Drake covering their rear as they moved forward. “Here’s the railgun control room,” said Leda.
“Rogers,” said Ellison, “check it out.”
Rogers stepped up, pressing his thumb to the plate beside the door. It cycled open and he stepped inside, sweeping the area with his rifle. After a minute he said, “Clear” and stepped back into the corridor.
“Nobody home,” Ellison said to Leda. “Next stop?”
“The engine core,” said Leda. “There are people down there. He could have hostages.”
“I’ll get some more Marines down here,” said Ellison, subvocalizing into her cochlear implant.
There was a shuddering concussion then that sent them to their knees. A section of the ceiling sheered away, coming down and slamming into Ellison, flinging her into Drake and Rogers. Leda lay as flat as she could against the deck until the chunk of swinging debris was detached and moving away from her. When she raised herself up, the three Marines were lying in an unconscious heap. She went to them, her ears ringing, and checked their vitals. “I need a med team in corridor X,” she said, and her cochlear implant twittered, sending the message.
She turned as a dark shape dislodged itself from the ceiling, dropping down to stand a few feet away from her.
“Hello, Leda,” said Straker, striding forth in his exoskeleton.
“What did you do?” she said.
“Just a small shaped charge in the access tunnel above this corridor. I’ve been familiarizing myself with them for the past thirty minutes. Impressive ship, the Zelazny.”
“What do you want?”
“To make a sacrifice of you to the Ix. It will be glorious.”
“You’re even more insane than when last we met.”
Straker stared at her evenly. “They said my parents were crazy. But now look, the Ix wave is upon us. Divine retribution is at hand.”
Leda raised her flechette pistol at Straker’s chest. “Surrender and come with me, and I promise you won’t be harmed.”
He laughed at that, then he leaped forward, the augmented exoskeleton carrying him across the short space in an eye blink. He chopped the pistol out of her hand, sending it skittering along the corridor.
“Marvelous invention, this exoskeleton,” he said as he punched Leda in the stomach, sending her sprawling backward. She tripped over Drake’s prone form, barely regaining her footing.
“I had the Wanderers make it just for me. In zero gee it affords one full movement, but in full grav it augments one’s regular abilities to an amazing degree.”
“Well, isn’t that a coincidence,” said Leda with a grin. “I’ve been augmented too.” She peeled back her right sleeve to show the tracery of silver metal glittering just beneath the surface of her skin.
“What?” said Straker, taken aback. “The Swarm probe?”
“Yes.”
Straker nodded, considering the implications. “Marvelous. Let’s see what your modifications can do.”
Straker came at her once more, but this time she was ready for him. He took another swing at her, which she dodged easily, raising her right arm to catch his left as he brought it down toward her in a crushing arc. He struck with enough force to bend a titanium strut, but Leda barely felt the blow, and was amazed to see the nanocarbon bracing around his arm bent slightly.
She flung his arm away, then gripped the gripped the armature around it with her fingers, surprised to find her entire arm coated in silvery metal that shimmered and danced as it solidified. Her fingertips dug into the metal of Straker’s exoskeleton like it was made of aluminum sheeting.
Instead of pulling back, Straker pressed the attack, pushing her back toward the corridor’s bulkhead wall. There was a whir of servos as Leda pushed against him, until they could both smell the tang of burning metal coming from his exoskeleton.
Straker attacked with renewed vigor, swinging his right arm down, but finding Leda able to sidestep it as well. Her whole body accelerated, becoming a blur as she spun into a roundhouse kick that struck him squarely in the chest and sent him flying backward more than six feet to crash in a tangled heap of arms, legs and nanocarbon struts against the rear bulkhead.
Leda slowed down, her world coming into sharp relief. It felt good to let loose on Straker without worrying about the consequences.
He sat up with a groan, spitting blood. “Impressive. Your merging with the probe was even more transcendent than I thought it would be.” With considerable effort he climbed to his feet. “But I have learned some things too.”
“Like what?” said Leda, moving slowly toward him.
“The Ix are here,” he said with a crooked smile. “And I have disabled your engines just enough to strand you here.”
“You have a death wish,” said Leda.
“Quite the contrary. You see, I know why there have been no bodies recovered from worlds lost to the Ix, other than in the initial attacks. I know why there has never been any fossilized remains of the Progenitors discovered, why they all appear to just have up and vanished. I know humanity’s ultimate fate, its ultimate destiny.”
“What the hell are you ranting about this time?” Leda asked.
Straker sneered at her and wiped
blood from his mouth. He had to disengage from his ruined exoskeleton to do it. “They have been calling to me across the stars. Just like my parents said they would. They want me, need me, to lead them.”
“You’re so full of yourself,” said Leda. “What makes you so special?”
“They want warriors, but also leaders,” said Straker. “I bring value to the table. I am anointed.”
“More of your religious nonsense,” Leda said with a sneer. “Ego masquerading as humility.”
Straker coughed, spitting up more blood. Leda had probably broken a rib or two. “You are the ones filled with ego. You think your dominance is earned. The Ix will teach you humility. You will become one with them.”
“You’re sick,” said Leda, stepping closer. “You want to destroy everything we’ve accomplished, everything we’ve become. You’re insane.”
“Prophets are always considered insane in their own time,” said Straker with a bloody grin. “You’re insane if you think you can stop this. Man’s dominance in this quadrant is finished.”
With considerable effort he rose to his feet, the gears in his exoskeleton complaining, the right arm of it hanging limply. “They’re here, you know. Right now. Out there. For me.”
Leda’s eyes grew wide. “You’ve been communicating with them, haven’t you, you bastard. All this time?”
Straker shrugged and coughed. “Well, ever since we discovered that damaged Swarm probe. We’ve been sending signals out into the aether for centuries. The Ix were bound to pick them up sooner or later, and coming running. I simply gave them a specific destination.”
“You’re a monster. You’ve killed us all.”
“We deserve it!”
Straker took another swing at her, which she blocked. Her now metallic fingers dug deeply into Straker’s arm, drawing blood and wrenching his arm back until she heard bone breaking.
“You bitch!” he snarled in pain.
“That’s Commander Bitch to you,” said Leda.
She was about the finish him, but there was a muffled concussion as the ship rocked suddenly, knocking her to the deck. The lights in the corridor dimmed, and red emergency lights flicked on at intervals. Warning klaxons went off in the distance. When she regained her footing, Straker was gone.