Chaos Quarter

by Welch, David

  Jake’s head swirled around, fixing on him.

  “If we reduce non-essential functions, it is theoretically possible. There is a 47 percent chance it will burn out the reactor,” the computer replied.

  “Good old Dariel over-engineering,” Rex spoke.

  “Huh?” Jake asked.

  “Tech talk,” he said with a dismissive wave, turning to face the crew. “Chaki, take Lucius and Quintus to the medical bay. Jake, take this asshole’s corpse down there too. I’m restricting life support to that room.”

  “I can—” Lucius began.

  “You can’t even stand!” Rex barked and then softened. “And we couldn’t put up a fight even if we tried. Spend what time you have left with your son and Chakrika.”

  Lucius looked ready to argue, but shut his mouth when Chakrika pulled on his forearm. He let her lead him down the hall.

  Rex turned to Jake.

  “I know you never asked for any of this…” Rex started.

  “Knew what was coming when I asked for the ride,” Jake replied.

  “I need you to go into the cargo bay; it’s breached so it's all vacuum now. Get two suits, one for me, one for Second,” Rex asked. “Then download the ship’s computer into yourself…uh, again.”

  Jake cocked his head, the motion familiar yet odd as the heavy metal oval shifted.

  “All of it?”

  “Yes,” Rex replied. “You can survive indefinitely in a vacuum?”

  “So long as my power cells hold up. A few weeks or so,” he spoke.

  “Then once we jump, get off this ship,” Rex spoke.

  “Whoa! I’m not gonna leave you guys—”

  “You have to!” Rex asserted. “You have to tell them everything that has happened if we don’t survive! Get off the ship, send out a signal, and get yourself rescued.”

  Jake crossed his metal arms, electroactive polymer fibers bulging against the alloy skin. They squeaked as they slid against each other.

  “This isn’t right,” he grumbled.

  “It’s necessary,” Rex replied.

  The cyborg looked ready to argue and then stopped. He sighed, nodded his head, and stomped out of the bridge.

  “We are still being hailed,” the computer announced.

  “Open the channel,” Rex replied.

  Static crackled again. The voices of whoever, or whatever, was aboard the bioship filled the air. They tried to contact Flynn, over and over. Rex did not reply, taking advantage of the precious seconds his enemies took to think about why a channel had been opened, but no response came.

  Jake returned with two suits and dropped them at the bridge. Before leaving he paused and stared at Second. She had retreated back to her spot on the wall, though she was no longer in the fetal position.

  “Why not send her to the medical bay?” Jake asked.

  “Second will not be recaptured by those scum,” Rex replied. “I will not allow it.”

  Recognition of what this meant filled Jake’s eyes. The cyborg shook his head, resigned.

  “Good luck, Rex,” he spoke, then left the room.

  “…Cody, please respond, why have you changed direction? If you do not respond…”

  Rex ignored his enemy. He walked over to Second, extending his hand. She grabbed it instinctively, letting herself be pulled to her feet. He stared into her eyes for a long moment, fighting the urge to hug her and apologize profusely for failing.

  “Put on the suit,” he finally choked out. “I’ll be back.”

  She nodded. Rex left the bridge, heading for his room. He went to his closet, retrieving two assault rifles. He paused for a moment, reflecting on the futility of what he was planning, and returned to the bridge.

  Second had everything but the helmet on. Rex put the guns down and pulled his own suit on. He picked up Second’s helmet, sliding it onto the suit. It clicked on with a hiss. She picked up his helmet, ready to mimic the action. Rex motioned her to wait.

  “Computer, as soon as my helmet is on, shut down life support to every room but the med-bay. I want power for all non-essential systems diverted to the jump drive.”

  “Understood.”

  “After we jump into Alshain, begin transmitting distress signals and the contents of your data-core to Troezen and the nearest Commonwealth military installation. If the reactor survives this, I want a course for Troezen plotted and all turrets on autofire. Keep firing until we run out of ammo.”

  “Understood.”

  Second snapped his helmet into place. The ship went dark as the lights went off, their energy diverted to the jump drive. Small running lights lined the consoles and stairs, allowing Rex to reach the pilot’s station. He motioned Second to the gunner's seat.

  Rex spun a small dial on the forearm console of his suit and jacked it into his console. Second watched, then imitated the motion after Rex waved her on.

  “Can you hear me, Second?” he asked.

  “I can,” she replied.

  “Good. Computer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Connect the bioship’s hails to my suit.”

  Static crackled, followed by the effeminate voice of his enemy.

  “…Cody, I repeat, please make—”

  Rex’s mouth opened to speak and then closed. He was tempted to tell his pursuers where they could shove it. The perfect string of obscenities floated through his head, but he ignored it. Every second they hesitated, wondering if their “man” was alive, would be another he’d have to be rescued. Pushing aside the dramatic tell-off, he moved his fingers and slammed down on the red panel.

  * * *

  The ship vanished from sight, mere hundreds of miles away. Blair pulled the tendrils from his eyes and stormed from his command pod. Flynn followed moments later.

  “Did you see the amount of space distorted by that jump?” Blair asked.

  “Yes,” Flynn replied meekly.

  “Can we match it in our damaged state?” Blair spoke.

  “It is possible,” Flynn confirmed.

  Blair took two deep breaths, beating down the anger inside. Moments ago they’d been set to save Cody’s life and return to the Hegemony with his kidnappers. A lesson would have been taught that all in the Quarter would heed. Anonymity would have been retained.

  Gone.

  “Follow their jump!” he shouted. The War-beast heard and began powering its jump drive.

  “We are close to the Commonwealth,”Flynn spoke. “A jump that distorts that much space could put them within Commonwealth space.”

  “I know,”Blair spoke.

  “The Commonwealth is said to have more powerful ships than even the Europeans,”spoke Flynn. The fear in his voice was subtle, but there. “In our weakened state—”

  “I know! But we have failed so far, and if we do not stop them now, they will reach safety,”said Blair. “So we follow that jump.”

  “As you wish,”Flynn acquiesced, still sounding unconvinced. Blair wished he could say that he had full confidence in the order, but could not. What choice did he have though? Their quarry could not be allowed to reveal what they knew. They could not be allowed to show Cody’s body to the universe, to confirm what so many primitives whispered about behind closed doors. Too much was at stake. If the anonymity of the Hegemony was to be maintained much would have to be risked.

  Even death, he though. He found it a bit ironic, given that they had started this mission hoping to prevent permanent death in Cody. But he was getting ahead of himself. Odds were that wherever their prey jumped to, even if in Commonwealth space, they would be unable to get help before the War-beast overtook them. Then he just had to keep away from the local primitives long enough for his jump drive to recharge. If the Commonwealth were to glimpse his ship in their space it would be bad, but manageable. Space was full of rumors of the Hegemony, and he had no doubt any fleeting visual glimpse would become just another rumor. But if they actually got their hands of Cody, on undeniable tangible proof...then the rumors wouldn’t be
rumors anymore.

  “Jump drive is charged and ready,”spoke Flynn. Blair nodded at the words, then sighed and spoke to the War-beast.

  “Jump.”

  Do not stop or compromise; fight and fight until they die.

  -Official ‘Unofficial’ motto of the Commonwealth Marine Corps

  Alshain System, Alshain Prefect, Free Terran Commonwealth

  Standard Date 1/4/2507

  Alarm klaxons blared as Long Haul reentered normal space. Screens blinked and flashed, a burst of power suddenly surging through the machines. They went black, flickered a bit, and died.

  Quiet seconds passed by, the sound of Second’s panicked breathing over the open band the only sound. Lights flickered back on, dimmer than usual. Half of the computers remained off.

  Forty-seven percent just became one hundred, Rex fumed to himself.

  “How bad is it?” Rex said in his suit, knowing the answer before the words left his mouth.

  “The main reactor is non-functional. Engines are off-line,” the answer came.

  “Are you transmitting?” Rex asked.

  “Yes. Current power usage will exhaust the emergency cells in sixty-two hours,” the computer informed him.

  He doubted they’d make it more than two. It had always been a long-shot. If the fastest ship-class in the Commonwealth fleet happened to be within one hundred million or so miles of Long Haul, then it would take just under two hours for them to reach him at high speed. Troezen, the nearest planet according to his computer’s records on its orbital path, was two hundred million miles away. No other worlds, even dead worlds or asteroids, were any closer. They were scattered across the system, mostly on its opposite side.

  By now the system’s surveillance drones would have detected him and would be sending messages to any nearby installation. Somebody would receive word that he had entered the system before the bioship blasted them to hell, but wouldn’t have nearly enough time to send a rescue.

  Rex wasn’t particularly religious, but felt a strange urge to find Lucius’s bible and get his God on the line.

  “This is…Commonwealth?” Second asked, her voice clear over the suit-radio.

  Rex nodded and remembered he was in a suit.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “It looks the same,” Second said innocently.

  “It certainly does…” Rex muttered, staring at the blackness.

  “I do not want to vomit,” Second spoke.

  He tried to cock his head and give her an odd look, but the suit got in the way.

  “OK…that’s good,” he assured her.

  “Earlier, when the ambassador had taken control of the ship, my stomach felt rock hard. Like it was sinking and I wanted to vomit.”

  “That was fear again,” he explained.

  “I do not feel it now. I should, right? Soon the War-beast will be in range…yet all I feel is…uh…”

  “Describe it Second,” Rex spoke.

  “Unbalanced? How can I be unbalanced when I’m sitting?”

  Rex laughed to himself, saying, “Don’t worry, Second, I feel ‘unbalanced’ too.”

  They sat silently for a minute.

  “Is my name Second?”

  “Have anything better in mind?”

  “I…I don’t know…”

  “Then I guess your name is Second,” Rex spoke. “Until you find something better.”

  They went back to silence. Faced with what seemed an inevitable death, his mind did what anybody’s would. It began asking “big questions” that could never really be answered.

  What all of this meant topped the bunch. He’d picked up strays across the Chaos Quarter, crossed hundreds of light-years, fought off a horde of enemies, only to fail on his own doorstep. Fail. The word ran through his mind, again and again.

  He’d rescued Lucius and his child, giving the Europan a chance to spend a few precious months with his son. He’d gotten Chakrika away from selling her body, albeit against her will. She and Lucius had been given the chance to fall for each other, even form a rag-tag family.

  For a few months at least. He wondered if it mattered. Was Lucius better off dying here than he would have been dying months ago on Igbo? Would Chakrika have been better off living out her days as a glorified whore? Had he given them both a taste of something better—only to yank it away from them?

  That thought turned his mind to Second. He’d given her a taste of freedom. She hadn’t even had time to make heads or tails of what it meant to have a will of her own. Now she’d either be blown to bits, or even worse, recaptured and returned to what she had been.

  A slave.

  Worse than a slave. Slaves at least knew they were being oppressed. Slaves could dream of freedom. Slaves could escape. She’d been incapable of any of that.

  Resolve flushed through him. He didn’t regret setting her free, even if only for a short while. Had he done nothing, she never would have existed at all. Not really. He couldn’t let her return to that. Even if her physical mind survived and was transferred into another body, it would be a murder. The minute they reattached her to some tumor-like-control-cortex-thing, the soul beside him would cease to exist.

  “Second,” he spoke, “If they board us, they will bring you back.”

  He couldn’t see her stiffen in her suit, but could imagine she felt like vomiting again. The thought of it made bile rise in his throat.

  “I-I…no!” she managed.

  He could imagine how it would happen. Once again, it was all basic military tactics. If an enemy blew out their atmosphere to prevent boarding, you latched onto the ship and pumped atmosphere in. A ship the size of that War-beast could fill Long Haul with oxygen, or any other gas they could produce, in a matter of minutes. Or they could just suit up whatever genetic freaks they used for soldiers and send them over to fight in vacuo, if they even needed suits.

  “No,” Rex finally agreed. “They won’t get your mind again, or mine. Computer?”

  “Yes,” came the reply.

  “Put me through to the medical bay.”

  The line crackled for a second, then cleared.

  “Lucius? Chaki?”

  “Yes,” Chaki replied.

  “Second and I are stepping out for a walk,” he spoke, “You guys armed?”

  “Yes,” Lucius replied. “I have my assault rifle, and I requisitioned several of your pistols for Chakrika.”

  “Good. If they board, fight as long as you can, but don’t let yourselves be taken alive,” Rex spoke.

  There was a long silence, with whispers going between Lucius and Chakrika, too low for Rex to hear.

  “Understood,” Lucius spoke.

  “Chaki, you still there?” Rex asked.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “I should never have hired you for sex,” Rex admitted. “But I’m still glad you’re on my ship.”

  He cut the line as she started to respond. He motioned Second to get up.

  “Computer, turn off gravity to every chamber but the medical bay.”

  He really felt the bile rise in his throat as the gravity cut out. He began to float. Trained in zero-G during basic, he grasped the doorjamb and pulled himself into the corridor. Second, completely unprepared, flailed helplessly. Rex grabbed her arm, gently pulling her through. He motioned her to wait and disappeared into his room. He reemerged with an armload of rifle magazines. He split them up, stuffing four each into the outer pockets of their suits. Once done they moved to the observation blister.

  Rex went first, following the rungs up the cylindrical space. He popped the hatch open and pulled himself up onto the dorsal hull, what would’ve been the “top” of the hull to anybody inside. Outside he carefully positioned his feet on the metal surface and tapped a panel on the wrist console. Electromagnets under his feet came to life, anchoring him to Long Haul.

  Second followed, slowly. Once her torso emerged from the hatch, Rex grabbed her suit, slowly maneuvering her mass to a standing position. He ta
pped the panel on her suit. The magnets in her suit came to life, securing her against the ship.

  Second whispered in awe as she took in the black vastness around her. Rex, being much more jaded, merely stared toward the distant sun. It was small, maybe a quarter the size it should be. It hung in the blackness: distant, yellow, and cold. Bright spots glittered around it. He wondered which were distant stars and which were the planets they’d come so close to reaching.

  He turned away, shifting his gun in his hands. Looking away from the sun, into the glittering void, he lowered the gun again. They still had hours before something materialized out of the emptiness, hours to stand and mull the inevitable.

  Hours, he groused to himself; hurry up and wait.

  He laughed bitterly to himself.

  * * *

  Blair did not like fear. It ate at his thoughts, making him question every decision. His emotions screamed at him to run, to turn, and to get the hell out of here.

  His mind walled them off, disgraced at the weakness. He was a Master, the closest thing to human perfection this galaxy had. The Commonwealth may have been more powerful than most primitives, but they were still primitives. Their minds were small and slow, their bodies frail, and their machines inferior abominations! They barely lived eighty years, whereas he had been alive for nearly two hundred.

  And yet, in all his years, he couldn’t recall this much fear ever having come over him. Were he a primitive, his emotions would have consumed him, reducing him to a panicky mess. The thought revolted him.

  He focused on the memory of Flynn touching him, moving inside him. A relaxing warmth ran through him as his endorphins mimicked the experience, at much reduced intensity. The man may not have been a great warrior, but he was a dutiful subordinate and a gifted lover. Blair wondered if He had chosen Flynn for this mission because he detected compatibility between them and sought to strengthen it with an adventure. The Perfect Mind was known for achieving multiple goals at once. If this was the case, Blair did not fault Him for it.

  “Blair, the Seers have detected mechanical devices,” Flynn spoke.

  “Ships?” Blair demanded.