by Jamie Sawyer
I waited until P was out of earshot, which was purely cosmetic, given our mental connection, then turned to Dr Saito.
“Keep an eye on my squad-mate, please,” I said. “I’m worried about it.”
“Of course,” he said. “That’s what I’m here to do. Do you have any specific concerns?”
“I’m not happy about those injuries,” I said. “They don’t look right. Every time P has been wounded, it’s healed fast—very fast.”
“It probably just needs more time,” Dr Saito protested. “We removed spines almost as long as my hand from the alien’s carapace. That it survived the attack at all…”
“I know what a tough son of a bitch it is,” I said, “but I’ve seen it hurt before, and this is different.”
Dr Saito nodded. “I’ll keep it under observation.”
Doubt teased at the edge of my conscience. “Have you run a viral-scan on P’s blood?” I asked.
“We did that back on Sanctuary. Pariah’s blood sample was clean of Harbinger, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
That was exactly what I was concerned about. Dr Saito’s answer should’ve given me some assurance, but it didn’t. I couldn’t shake the idea that there was something wrong with P.
“Maybe you should do it again,” I suggested. I felt awful for just saying the words, for even considering that it might be possible. “Just in case.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
LONG WALK, SHORT PIER
Over the next few days, we Q-jumped.
And Q-jumped.
And Q-jumped.
Dozens of short, sharp jolts ran through the deck. Every time, no matter what I was doing, my heart skipped a beat. So much could go wrong, and we wouldn’t even know about it until it was too late. After all these years in space, I should’ve got used to the sensation, but I still found it nerve-wracking. It had got a whole lot worse since Riggs’ betrayal. After the mission into the Gyre, he had jumped our ship into Asiatic Directorate space and left us stranded. I wasn’t going to forget that any time soon, and although rationally—logically—I knew that this was a very different situation, it was still hard to break the association.
I tried my best to stay out of Heinrich and Ving’s paths, which was easier than it sounded. Ving and Phoenix Squad mainly occupied the gym—impressing each other with weight-lifting prowess, in and out of sims—and Heinrich was obsessed with micro-managing every aspect of the flight-path. Meanwhile, the Jackals did their thing, taking inventory of the supplies, checking the simulants, running tests on the combat-suits.
There was a communications-blister on the underside of the Valkyrie, and Zero claimed the space as her own. If I couldn’t find her in the Simulant Operations Centre, I knew that she would be in the comms-blister. It was quiet, and there was a kind of serenity to watching space drift past the open ports between Q-jumps. I understood why she liked it.
“Have you found anything interesting today?” I asked.
Zero brushed her ginger hair from her face, and pulled it back in a ponytail. “As a matter of fact, I have, ma’am.”
“Give me a sitrep.”
“We are currently six days into the mission timeline,” she grandly announced. “And exactly three months and two days have passed in real-time. All being well, the rest of the Alliance fleet will reach the mustering point about now. From there, they will begin the journey to the Reef Stars, and to Ithaca.”
Every jump we made separated us from the rest of the Alliance fleet. That distance was physical, but also temporal, as time-dilation created a chasm between the Valkyrie and the universe’s objective continuity.
I sighed. “So we’re on the clock.”
“When are we not?” Zero suggested. “We’re also past the point of safe transmission. We’ve lost contact with Alliance Traffic Control.”
That was expected: running this close to enemy territory, our comms mast was dampened, and to be used only in the case of extreme emergency. Standard operating procedure it might be, but that didn’t mean I liked it. Running in the dark like this meant that we didn’t know what was happening out there. Harbinger was everywhere, spreading like rot on a cadaver, and the Spiral were watching, waiting, planning.
“I’m still getting a lot of backwash from the war,” Zero said, scrolling through transmissions. She’d captured several local comms. Some were audio only, whereas others were vid-feeds. “Mostly it’s military traffic, but there’s a lot of civilian stuff too. There are at least two refugee fleets out here, according to the last brief from Traffic Control.”
We watched and listened to some of the messages. Every transmission told its own story. Colonists escaping from their homes. Military vessels that had become separated from their battlegroup. Prospectors, fleeing the Black Spiral’s advance. The apparent loneliness of the void was a deception. Even out here, this far from the Alliance border, space was never quiet.
“These transmissions could be years old,” I said. “You’re listening to the past, Zero.”
“I know.”
“It’s a bit morbid. The ships that made these transmissions are gone. The crew and passengers are already dead.”
Zero didn’t answer, but continued scrolling through the data. There were clips of parents pleading for the rescue of their children. Some offered money, others equipment. We’d seen fleets like this in the Mu-98 system, during the closing days of the Harbinger incursion and the loss of Kronstadt. This, however, was much worse. Every faction of the Alliance was represented in those vid-feeds.
As I watched them, I realised why Zero was doing this. A dozen worlds like Zero’s, reduced to dust. Cities, colonies, planets. All gone. These people were kindred spirits to Zero.
“This probably isn’t healthy,” I said.
“You know what’s worse?” Zero asked.
“Tell me.”
“I want to hate the fishes. I want to hate the Krell, I really do.”
“But?”
She sighed, and it was a fraught expression. “I know it’s not their fault. This—the chaos, the death—they didn’t mean it. Not, not like—when—”
“When they destroyed Mau Tanis?”
Zero looked at me. She didn’t appear distressed, only tired. Tired of this shit, of the war, of what it stood for. I didn’t blame her for feeling that way.
“Exactly,” she said. “But all this? It’s the Spiral that are driving it. It’s the Spiral that are directing it. The fishes—the Krell—are just weapons, pieces on the game board.”
“That’s very big of you, Zero.”
“How so?”
“To take the high ground like that. The Red Fin Collective took everything from you.”
“Hey, I didn’t say I forgave them. Only that they’re not responsible for this war.”
“I get you.”
She balled her hands into fists. The skin of her knuckles was chipped, broken. Not the hands of a REMF, that was for sure. That wasn’t Zero any more.
“The Spiral will pay for this,” Zero said. “I’m going to make them.”
“Get in line, Z,” I said. “You can have a spot right after me. I have my own agenda.”
“You mean Riggs, right?”
“Yeah, Riggs.”
Mention of his name stirred the embers of hate in me. The list of reasons why he had to die seemed to be growing by the day. He had betrayed the Alliance, and his own squad. He’d had a hand in the deaths of both Captain Carmine and Conrad Harris. He’d wormed his way into my life, become closer to me than he had any right to be. But there had been a time when Riggs had actually meant something to me. The sense of self-loathing that memory caused made me even angrier.
Zero watched me with a peculiar expression on her face. Her eyes flitted to the hatch, making sure that it was still shut.
“I knew.”
“Knew what?” I said, trying to play dumb.
“That you and Riggs were, well, you know,” she said. “Into each other.”
&n
bsp; “I was never ‘into’ Riggs, Zero.”
“You know what I mean.”
I thought about continuing the lie, but didn’t have the strength to keep it up. “Yeah. We were closer than friends, if that’s what you’re getting at. How long have you known?”
“Since Daktar.”
“And the others? They know too, I take it.”
“We do talk, you know.” Zero turned back to her monitor. “Enough about Riggs. I wanted to show you this. You asked me to look into that canister you found on Vektah Minor.”
“I remember.”
“Well, I’ve found something interesting.”
I frowned as Zero worked, pulling up files on the holo, accessing an encrypted portion of the ship’s mainframe. The grainy image I’d broadcast just before our extraction from Vektah appeared on the tri-D.
“The canister is Science Division issue,” Zero said. She pointed out a bar code and serial ID tag. The canister’s solid metal construction appeared to be machined with military precision. “It was manufactured on Delta Primus, sixteen years ago.”
“Sixteen years ago?”
Zero nodded. “Before the Harbinger outbreak.”
“What’s Delta Primus?”
“It’s a proper black op. There are protocols in place to stop general Army from nosing around those files, but…” Zero patted the console, with affection. “Well, I have my methods.”
“Methods which I hope can’t be traced back to you.”
“Of course not. I downloaded a sub-portion of the projects database before we left Sanctuary, and I’ve been running it behind a firewall on a virtual drive. The local mainframe doesn’t even have a security register, and I’m using less than one per cent of the overall operating system, so it shouldn’t—”
“All right, all right, I get the picture. Tell me about this facility.”
Zero nodded, calling up some scant historical notes on the station. “Delta Primus was a Science Division facility specialising in bio-engineering, as part of a wider weapons programme.”
“Sim Ops?”
“No. The general remit seems to have been contagious diseases.”
“Oh shit.”
“The outpost also housed a veteran’s reclamation facility. Certain personnel were shipped there after recovery on Fortuna, for onward processing.”
Fortuna was a name familiar to me. It was an Army holding; a paradise planet reserved for the rehabilitation of veteran troopers, and if that didn’t work, then their retirement. Clade Cooper had been sent to Fortuna, after his recovery from Barain-11.
“This is big, Zero. Very big. If the canister came from Delta Primus before Harbinger was discovered by the Alliance…”
Ice slithered down my spine. For a brief second, I wished that I hadn’t ordered Zero to go poking around in the mainframe. There were clearly some things that grunts like us weren’t meant to know.
“I could probably—” Zero started.
Her words were swallowed by the sound of an explosion. Immense, forceful and close enough that the entire comms-blister shuddered.
“What the hell was that? Was it inside or out?”
Zero was already working, her fingers dancing across the terminal access.
“Detonation.” She turned to me, grimaced. “Engineering. Inside the ship.”
A siren wailed in the distance. The ship’s bulkheads vibrated with the deployment of blast hatches, a precaution against atmosphere loss.
“This is an emergency,” the ship’s AI declared. “Fire on Deck C. All crew take immediate safety precautions. This is not a drill.”
We’re past the point of safe transmission, I screamed at myself. There wouldn’t be any help for us out here.
“Where are the Jackals?” I asked.
It took Zero only a glance at her console to read their positions. “Lopez and Feng are in Medical. Novak is in the cargo hold. P is in the lab.”
“Tell everyone to meet in the SOC.”
“Already done,” Zero said, rising from her chair.
“We’re out of here,” I ordered, moving off towards the hatch.
“What’ve we got?” Feng asked, as he and Lopez bundled into the Simulant Operations Centre.
They had reacted with speed, and arrived in the SOC at the same time as Zero and me. The route to the SOC was clear.
“Explosion,” I said, talking fast. “Origin unknown.”
Zero had already powered up the main console, and was working even before she slid into her post. Dr Saito and P had been only a couple of compartments from the SOC, and they rushed in too.
“It could be an electrical fault,” Zero said. “Maybe that secondary power relay Commander Dieter mentioned.”
Although that fitted the facts fine, no one bought the explanation. Lopez was the first to voice what we were all really concerned about.
“Is it another ship?” she asked. She left unsaid, is it the Spiral?
“I hope not,” was all Zero could offer.
Novak was last into the chamber, and his fatigues were stained dark with soot. He nodded at the rest of the squad.
“Starship alert,” he said. “Something bad happen.”
“That’s kind of stating the obvious,” Lopez said.
“Engineering bay has been hit,” he said, almost breathless. He’d raced to the SOC, but it wasn’t just that: he had been closer to the explosion than any of us. “I saw damage. Whole sector is gone. Is fire down there. Everyone is running away.”
The ship’s AI intervened, continuing its bad news mantra: “Fire controls offline on Decks C and D. Compartment D-15 is experiencing a high-temperature event.”
Dr Saito’s face dropped. “Compartment D-15 is mission-vital.”
“Why?” Lopez asked.
Zero flipped through screens on her console. “Because it’s right next to the munitions store. The Valkyrie’s warheads are in the primary weapons bay. If those go up, we’ll be history…”
“Get me a connection to the bridge.”
“Affirmative.”
The holo hazed with static, and Commander Dieter’s image appeared on the console. She wasted no time with protocol, military or otherwise.
“Lieutenant? Are your people still alive down there?”
“The Jackals are in the SOC, Commander. What’s happening?”
“We’ve suffered significant damage to compartment C-13,” Dieter said. “An explosion occurred in Engineering, and that has caused a fire. The automated fire suppressant system is offline, and we don’t know why.”
“Can you open the compartment to vacuum, flush the fire?”
“If only it were that easy,” Dieter said, rolling her head. Her face settled into a stony expression. “We do that, and warhead storage will be purged as well. I can’t risk damage to the munitions, but we can’t leave that sector burning, either. Our life support could be compromised.”
“What can we do, Commander?”
“Someone needs to get down there and put that fire out manually. Captain Heinrich and Phoenix Squad are with me in the CIC.” Across the SOC, Phoenix Squad’s simulator-tanks sat empty and useless, without operators. “You’re on your own down there, Lieutenant.”
“I read you. We’re on it.”
“You’ll need to manually activate the fire suppressant system. I will send you the electronic key.”
“Real old school, huh?” I queried.
Commander Dieter’s disembodied head nodded. “It’s the only way. I would send one of the maintenance drones, but they aren’t responding to my commands.”
Zero looked up. “Another glitch?”
“Maybe,” Commander Dieter said, although her expression suggested it could be more than that. “Boots on the deck is the only option at this time.”
“Solid copy,” I said.
“Report once you’ve executed those orders. CIC out.”
The connection terminated.
“I think she will know if we fail…” Novak
said, with a broad grin across his tattoo-covered face.
“Let’s do this while we still can,” I said. “Lopez, Feng: power up the simulator-tanks. Zero, get the sims prepped.”
“Already done, ma’am,” she said.
“Armoured too?” Lopez asked.
“Do you have to ask?” Zero replied.
“Ready for transition, people.”
The simulator-tanks sat ready. Zero had already initiated the start-up protocol. My data-ports were almost on fire, hungering for the connection, and when the simulator’s canopy hummed open, the scent of the fresh conducting fluid was sweet as liquor. I snapped the respirator over my lower face, and—naked now—clambered into my tank. The earbead in my ear synched to the rest of the squad.
“We will assist,” P said, its voice-box linking to the comms-channel.
“The temperature levels down there are incredible,” Zero said, with genuine concern in her voice. “Will you be safe?”
“We are not troubled by exposure to high temperature,” P said.
I couldn’t help noticing that the wounds across its torso were still puckered, weeping thin, pus-like fluid. P repositioned itself, a limb folded against its body, in what could’ve been an effort to hide the worst injury.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, P,” I said.
Dr Saito shook his head. “You won’t be safe, Pariah.”
“Stay here,” I ordered. “You can provide assistance without going into the damaged sector.”
P exuded a psychic wave of dissatisfaction, directed at me, but didn’t argue. There was no time to discuss the situation any further.
“Zero, where are the simulants located?”
“In cryo-storage,” she said. “You can make direct transition to those bodies. I’ll plot you a course to the location of the fire.”
Across the chamber, each of the Jackals was in position now. Our canopies whined shut, sealing us inside the tanks.
“The Jackals are prepped and ready for transition,” said Zero. “All bio-readings are stable. On your order, ma’am.”