by RJ Johnson
"Is that everyone?" Meade wondered.
"Check the monitors." Sinjakama ordered Emeline cycled through the available cameras. Deck after deck was filled with unmoving bodies, some of them smoking.
"I've taken care of step one." Sinjakama said. "Higgs field generator is next. Suresh," Suresh stood at attention. "You're with me." Suresh nodded and saluted. Meade rose to follow them out the door when Emeline clutched his arm.
"Jim," Emeline stood and held him tight against her body. "You come back. You hear me? You come back."
He hugged her tight and kissed her. "I'm not going anywhere Emeline. You can count on that. I'm just stepping out for a moment."
She looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears. "You'd better."
He could feel her eyelashes and their wetness brush against his cheek and for a moment, he considered against going. But he couldn't risk it. There were too many lives at stake. He swallowed, kissed her again and turned, his jacket whirling behind him. He had to come back. He wasn't going to give this up, not when he just found it.
Sinjakama and Suresh followed him out of the cockpit leaving Emeline and Amla who had clutched just as tightly to Suresh as Emeline had to him. They were both leaving behind something worth coming back for, and they both knew it. If that wasn't more powerful than a couple quintillion kilogram asteroid on a collision course with the Homeworld, Meade didn't know anything.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Meade ran down the hallway stepping over the unconscious bodies courtesy of the Tesla coils and Atel Sinjakama. The Garuda was approaching the Homeworld at an incredible velocity and by Emeline's reckoning, he had maybe 25 minutes to get back on board Rosetta, disable the Mass Driver and create a Higgs field disturbance large enough to move the massive asteroid out of its current trajectory. Piece of cake.
Or so he was telling himself.
Sinjakama rounded the corner and stopped at an alcove. He withdrew a screen and connected his ArmBar to it.
"I had them restock the life pods on board when we were on Rosetta. Figured we'd need them in case those wrench monkeys on Rosetta didn't know what they were doing."
"Smart." Meade commented and looked at the life pod worried. It was smaller than he thought it would be. He swallowed back the fear. It was no time to let his fear of confined spaces and the deadly vacuum of outer space worry him.
"These lifepods are equipped with maneuvering thrusters, but they aren't potent." Sinjakama warned. "We're moving at a pretty fast clip, so any wrong moves and you'll find yourself floating off into the great beyond without anyone there to catch you. You understand?"
Meade nodded and wondered again why he had volunteered for this assignment.
"Get inside and I'll launch you manually once I've gotten Ms. Hunan to maneuver the Garuda into position as near as we dare to the Mass driver's opening. As soon as you launch, make sure you keep a steady hand on the thrusters and make sure you use a light touch. We'll do what we can from here, but once you're released, you're on your own." Sinjakama helped Meade get into the life pod and strapped him in. Meade swallowed. "Got it?" Meade nodded.
Sinjakama began to close the life pod's hatch when Suresh stopped him. He handed Meade his father's ArmBar to him. "Since it is my fault Master Rincon took your newer ArmBar, I think it is only fair I return this one to you." Meade began to protest to which Suresh interrupted immediately. "You will need it far more than I my friend. I also brought you this." Suresh withdrew Meade's grandfather's FN Five-Seven handgun and handed it to him.
"I liberated it from the Garuda's armory before you returned. I had hoped to give it back to you sooner and under better circumstances, but this will have to do." Suresh said apologetically. "I regret that you will only have the clip that you had already installed, I was unable to locate any extra ammunition."
"Thanks Suresh. And in case, I don't make it back..." Meade hesitated. "I wanted to let you know I forgive you. And thanks for being my friend."
Suresh bowed low and turned beet red. "I am unworthy of your affections sir, but..." Suresh coughed, "I appreciate your friendship as well. It is only because of you that I have chosen the side of righteousness. I believe my mother and father would be proud of the man you have helped me become."
Meade nodded in acknowledgment and smiled at the young Indian boy. Sinjakama closed the life pod’s hatch and Meade's ears popped as the life pod pressurized. He watched Sinjakama raise his arm and presumably give orders to Emeline to let her know Meade was ready. Meade saluted Sinjakama one last time, and then, he felt himself drop as the life pod was ejected from the Garuda.
The acceleration was like nothing else he'd felt before. He strained to bring up the heads up display within the life pod’s cockpit and grabbed the joystick for the maneuvering thrusters. Through the tiny porthole, he spotted the Mass Driver's ejection port and watched as another twenty ton cargo container was ejected out of it, fired at a Consortium or Coalition ship. There would never be a better opportunity to get back inside Rosetta.
For a moment, Meade wondered what brand of crazy he was. He was headed for a tiny ejection port traveling at around 30,000 kilometers per second with thrusters made for basic docking maneuvers. He was going to need every bit of luck and skill he had to make this one in a million shot.
His hands were sweating as they grasped the joystick in front of him as he made tiny course corrections to aim the life pod into the ejection port of the massive Asteroid. All at once Meade over corrected and for a tiny moment feared he would end up a small red smear on the surface of Rosetta. Breathing deep and focusing, he got the life pod back on course and threaded the needle just in the nick of time.
Once inside the asteroid, Meade hit the retrorockets hoping to slow his decent so that he wouldn't slam into the inside of a cargo container the workers would be reloading into the chute. He slowed his velocity and found himself staring at the interior of the mass driver's payloader, a confused Lightbringer staring at the life pod that had suddenly invaded his weapon of mass destruction.
Meade popped open the hatch and took advantage of his surprise attack leaping from inside and out into the Pit. There were at most a dozen men in there all gaping at Meade's surprise entrance. Meade wasted no time. He pulled out his grandfather's handgun and shot the surprised Lightbringer twice in the chest and rolled underneath the massive machinery shooting and killing three other Lightbringers who were still reacting to Meade's sudden appearance.
That was all the advantage he got unfortunately, as energy bolts from the modified Rattlers began pinging and chewing up pieces of the ground in front of Meade's meager cover. Meade cursed and back away on his hands and knees hoping to get behind one of the massive tires.
Moving as quietly and as quickly as he dared, Meade removed himself from underneath the payloader and looked around the corner for the remaining Lightbringers. There were eight of them and one of him, and he still needed to get to the top of the Pit where he could jack into Rosetta's Higgs field generator. He needed to even the odds a little bit.
The world around him shuddered as it seemed the station was shaking itself apart. Meade barely hung on as the payloader bounced around as the earth moved. The engines had taken a toll on the structural integrity of the station. Now with the added gravity from the Homeworld, the stress was fracturing the station apart and if they didn't stop this thing soon, it would shake the asteroid apart.
Meade found himself thrown out into the open floor of the Pit. He recovered quickly raising his handgun to fire at two of the Lightbringers, but the floor moved once again under his feet and he only clipped one of them who went down in a cry of pain. Unfortunately, he also gave away his position to the remaining seven and they fired back at him. Meade dove behind a large chunk of ORI and considered his options.
The firing from the Lightbringers was steady. He didn't have time for this. Rosetta was going to crash into the Homeworld in less than twenty minutes. He breathed deep and got mad.
He got up fro
m behind the chunk of ORI ignoring the near miss of energy from one of the Lightbringer's Rattlers. He shot the man who missed him between the eyes. He fired twice more at two more men who popped up to take their shot. They were also too slow.
Meade picked up a fallen Lightbringer's Rattler and without missing a beat fired three more times watching three more of the fanatical followers of Lazarus Rincon fall to the ground. The last remaining Lightbringer watched the devastation wrought by Meade, stood with his hands raised, and let his Rattler clatter to the ground. Meade aimed his Rattler at him and considered killing him anyway.
"Go." Meade ordered through clenched teeth. He'd killed enough for today.
The Lightbringer nodded and ran for the nearest life pod, jumping in to eject out of Rosetta. Meade turned and looked up at the impossible height where he would have to scale to get himself up to the console to control the Higgs field generator. He checked his chronometer. Eighteen minutes remaining. He had to get the generator started in a lot less time than that in order to give it time to move the immense mass of the asteroid out of the way in time.
His ArmBar pinged and he opened. Emeline's worried face filled the screen, and for a moment she looked relieved.
"Jim, we've got a problem."
"Only one?"
"Rincon escaped." Emeline's tone was flat.
"What do you mean escaped?" Meade demanded. "Wasn't he incapacitated by the Tesla coils like everyone else on the ship?'
"Apparently not." She replied obviously furious. "Sinjakama says he was in one of the sections not covered by the Tesla coils and missed out on the fun. Jim, it's worse than that."
"Oh?"
"He made it to a life pod and ejected. I tracked it and it was heading towards Rosetta." She swallowed. "I'm fairly sure he made it."
"Great." Meade grumbled. "If I see him, I'll let you know."
"Jim, be careful." She warned. "Rincon's a man with nothing left to lose, I'm afraid he'll do anything to achieve his goal."
"Don't worry." Meade said determined. "I'm a bit determined myself."
He closed the ArmBar and made his way over to the elevator. He opened the cage and entered in the command to get him to the upper deck. The sound of protesting metal on metal and the screech of the engines told him all he needed to know. The elevator was out of commission. There had been simply too much damage to its tracks and motors.
"Goddammit!" He swore. He was gonna need a plan B.
He looked for anything that could help, but didn't see anything off hand. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and focused. There had to be something. When he opened his eyes, that's when he saw it.
The Higgs generator was connected to several hundred gravity well plates scattered throughout the Pit. The plates were just a conductive material intended to spread the effect of the gravity across a large and flat surface. But, the actual field itself was generated just like it was on the Garuda, from a central coil.
If he could disconnect the central coil and somehow aim the generator, towards the outside of the asteroid, it should do the trick. It wouldn't be as neat as it would using the GWPs, but it would work, but how was he supposed to move a three ton piece of equipment.
That's when he noticed the payloader. It was sitting askew with half of the driver's housing crushed by a large block of ORI.
Meade leaped over the ORI blocks that were scattered all over the Pit. Another earthquake ripped through the station and a large boulder fell from the top of the pit nearly hitting Meade who dove out of the way just in the nick of time. He stood, brushing himself off and tried to avoid thinking about how close he had just come to death.
"Let's not do that again shall we?" He said to the inky blackness above him.
He moved quickly towards the Payloader, shielding his face from falling bits of rock, most of which were tiny, some the size of his fist. He hopped into the cab, ducking to fit into it. He connected his ArmBar to the machine and prayed to a God he wasn't sure he believed in.
"Just give me this and I promise I'll think about breaking another rule." He swore to himself.
The payloader started up without any trouble and he allowed himself a small victory. He righted the payloader and moved it towards the Higgs generator. Lowering the metal bars, he slid them underneath prying the generator up from where it was bolted into the station's surface. Slowly, the generator lifted and the cables disconnected from the GWPs located underneath the thin topsoil of Rosetta. The payloader began to float slightly as the gravity turned off in the pit. He felt the payloader moving backward and he slapped himself in the head. The acceleration from the thrusters was acting on the payloader and would make it near impossible to maneuver the three ton machine properly unless he got some sort of traction.
He leaped out of the payloader and looked around urgently. He wished now for his new ArmBar that had the magnetic pulse option. His father's wasn't as fancy and was instead better suited for hacking and killing.
He noticed a pile of javelins and decided someone upstair was looking out for him. The javelins were used to fire large rods into the ORI rock to securely hang the buckets the miners would hang from while they were marking their ORI in the Pit. He wrapped a cable around his payloader and attached it to the javelin. He aimed it next to the Higgs generator and fired. The long steel bar fired out of the loader and attached itself firmly to the wall of the Pit. Meade repeated the process for the right side, and the top, and soon the payloader was attached firmly to the wall, floating three feet above the ground, but now able to adjust the orientation of the generator. He set the remaining javelins down on the roof and hopped back into the cab.
He opened his ArmBar and brought up the location of the Garuda. He turned the Higgs generator, aiming the top (the source of the Higgs field transmissions that were now flying out the top of the emitter randomly) towards the Garuda.
He pinged Emeline and she answered, her face worried. "You see Rincon?"
"Not yet." Meade answered. "I've got the Higgs generator in place. I aimed it towards the Garuda. Tell me you see the Higgs field signature changing for Rosetta." Meade hoped all this wasn't for naught. If it was, he was going to be pissed.
"I see it!" She shouted in victory. "Now all you need to do is pump up the juice and I think we might avoid this catastrophe... Meade look out!"
Meade instinctively ducked and just in the nick of time too. Rincon had appeared behind him with his knife swinging it down where his neck had been just moments before. Meade cursed and kicked at Rincon's hand, knocking the blade out of it. They floated on opposite sides of the Payloader's operator cage, each one sizing up the other.
"You never give up do you?" Meade challenged. "You might want to rethink your position."
"I have." Rincon replied, his voice oily and dangerous. "You haven't a chance of avoiding it. It is our destiny to die together on this rock. Isn't that something?"
"I have no plans to die today." Meade kicked himself off the payloader and sailed weightlessly up and over grabbing the top of the bar flipping himself up and over standing above Rincon. "You see, I've got a date, and I never miss those. Rule #7."
"Rules are meant to be broken." Rincon hissed and he effortlessly moved up and over the Payloader's cage sweeping at Meade's leg while he did so. Meade dodged him and found Rincon grabbing at his wrist. The sweep had been a feint, something that if he had kept up on his Zero-G training, he would've noticed. Rincon twisted Meade's wrist and used the momentum to slam Meade's body down into on top of the Payloader's cage. The air rushed out of Meade's lungs with a loud whoosh.
Rincon placed his boot over Meade's throat and Meade grabbed the man's ankle. Rincon kept the pressure consistent and ground his heel into his Adam's apple. Meade choked in pain and struggled to catch his breath.
Rincon leaned over, the foul rank of his breath close to Meade. "Pathetic. All this for the same result. You can't stop fate. At best, what have you accomplished? You've taken the Garuda back and freed your girlfriend.
Something I would have allowed anyway. You foolish nothing of a man. You can't stop the Lightbringers from purifying the Homeworld, no more than you can stop the sun from shining."
Rincon ground his heel into Meade's throat some more, obviously enjoying his moment. "The last thing I want you to hear is your girlfriend's screams as we plummet into the atmosphere. Think she'll answer if I call? Let's find out." Rincon reached down for Meade's ArmBar and that's when Meade noticed the third remaining javelin on the roof of the cab. He smiled.
Meade grabbed the javelin, aimed it for Rincon's chest and fired.
Rincon was thrown back violently traveling with the javelin's energy and his body was nailed to the wall of the asteroid. Meade sat up looking at the man who thought himself a God pinned to the rock wall opposite him staring at Meade in disbelief.