by Jason LaPier
She looked down the hall to see Moses doing the same. She hadn’t seen it happen, but the dark purple-red marks on the man’s neck told the story.
“Come on,” Dava said tightly after watching Moses stuff the guard into the lock-room’s hatchway to prevent it from closing. “The dock is close.”
They traveled in silence back the way she had come. Past the silent guardhouse. Past the passage the two unfortunate guards had come through. On to the corridor that led to the dock.
They moved quickly and quietly. Into the last lock-room. When the door spiraled open, they almost blasted Jerrard to dust. Likewise, Jerrard, naked but for a massive pulse rifle, twitched and gasped.
“Shit,” he said, then lowered his gun with a laughing sigh. “I am so glad it’s you guys.”
“I’m glad it’s us too,” Moses said. “How many are we?”
Jerrard shrugged. “A lot. Everyone’s been grouping up and heading to whatever dock they can get to. We got a pilot with us. Plus eight more Wasters.”
“Good,” Dava said. “It’s hot back there. We need to take off. Is the ship prepped?”
“Aye, Capo. Most everyone is loaded in.”
She nodded and looked over at Moses. “Ready to go home?”
He grinned at her, and it filled her with warmth. She felt a peace, a completeness that she hadn’t felt in a long time. It slammed into the vision of Thompson, torn-open and leaking guts in a trail. She turned away from him and blinked away the stinging feeling. She pulled on a handhold, launching herself in the direction of a transport ship whose entrance was decorated with a pair of naked Wasters.
She sailed through space, the side hatch of the transport growing slowly larger. She felt Moses and Jerrard behind her. Sailing for freedom.
When the alarm came, she was still in space. Halfway to the ship. The piercing electric scream of sentry-bots locking onto a target rattled through her guts.
“HOSTILES IDENTIFIED. SURRENDER WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY.”
She turned in space, drawing her laser pistol. She had no clear shot, with the long dark bodies of Moses and Jerrard between her and the bots. They both raised their guns, Moses with his liberated blaster and Jerrard with a pulse rifle. A swarm of the spider-like bots spilling through the hatch. One in the middle with four larger limbs instead of eight thin ones. A massive sphere that barely fit through the three-meter diameter door. In the center was a circle of barrels. Around that, the surface of the sphere read ANTI-PERSONNEL UNIT: STAND CLEAR OF PROJECTILE WEAPON.
The air erupted. A mess of sound rushed around her from all sides. The spark of Moses’s pistol. The high-pitched report of Jerrard’s pulse rifle. The clatter of the smaller bots as they advanced along the walls.
All of it drowning in the crushing waves of the spinning autocannon in the center of the big bot. The pistol trembled in her hands and a cold helplessness pumped from her heart and through her body. When her brain started to work a full three seconds after the shooting began, it demanded to know why she was still alive.
Instinct tugged at her attention. The smaller bots were flanking them. She took aim to her left, frying one that got close enough. Then two more. There were too many, and she was only covering one side. She hazarded a glance back to the right side. The bots there were tacking along, then twitching and bouncing away, one by one. Her ears picked out the coinciding pop. She wasted another second craning her head back to see Half-Shot braced in the open hatchway of the transport.
As she turned back to pick off more bots rising along the right side of the wall, she caught the movement of the big one. It occurred to her that it was missing on purpose; not missing them, but missing the expensive ModPol asset: the transport ship. And now its large tentacle-legs were clanging along the wall above them, slowly pulling it into an inevitable angle. When it achieved enough clearance, when it reached the point where the ship would no longer be in the shot behind them, they would be shredded.
She looked at the ship. Another thirty seconds was all they needed. She turned back to continue firing at the faster spider-bots to keep them from flanking. Jerrard’s gun was drilling rounds into the front of the big bot, but the shots were either not penetrating, or penetrating but not hitting anything vital. The surface was dimpled and scorched, but the damned thing kept moving, kept firing in those heartbeat-pulse spins of its autocannon.
And then she heard Half-Shot yelling. She turned and he grabbed her, pulling her into the hatch. She looked back. Jerrard and Moses right behind her. And then both of them dancing with spasms.
Jerrard’s leg bloomed red and he spiraled at a shallow angle toward the floor. He had enough of his senses to catch himself and fling himself back toward the ship. But Moses was hit in several places, ricocheting hard against the floor and bouncing up to the ceiling, a vortex of gore twisting through the space behind him.
Dava wanted to scream out in fear and anger, but her body had beat her voice to the reaction. She sprang from the hatchway and grabbed Moses’s flailing body around the waist. Her momentum carried them to the wall, where she twisted and kicked off. Noises whipped around her, stinging her ears and her skin. The vertigo of being slapped around in null gravity finally began to catch up to her, clouding the edges of her vision with static. Then the stinging was replaced by pressure and the clouding vision was replaced by darkness. The rattling wave of the autocannon was replaced by the sound of cranking doors and buzzing engines. Weightlessness was replaced by the pull of acceleration.
A distant flash of sharp fire. Like a strike against another part of a shard of her existence, severed and estranged. Then another and another. All of her limbs throbbed with punching pain that crept toward her center, up her back and into her head until there was so much that there was nothing.
*
Runstom’s map was an absolute necessity. The Space Waste attackers had managed to badly damage several sections of the prison. In addition, the facility had shifted several times. It was something it did periodically, on a schedule that seemed random to the inmates, but was known to the staff. It had gone off schedule. Runstom wasn’t sure if it was trying to adapt to the spreading damage or trying to quell the activities of the enemy with confusion. He guessed it had been designed with riot control in mind.
In any case, it meant he needed to check the map and adjust his route periodically as corridors spun imperceptibly on their invisible axes. Not that he could find his way through the maze-like structure if it was fixed. Every time they passed through the automatic hatches, his numbed right foot throbbed anxiously.
Jenna Zarconi stuck close to him silently. She had adapted to the lack of gravity during her stay and moved gracefully. He could feel her peer over his shoulder whenever he checked his map, but she offered no commentary. This was less a matter of trusting him, he realized, and more a matter of showing submission. Considering the source, it was a little forced. How long the feigned obedience would last once they made it out of the facility, he was most uncertain.
They passed into another long, bending corridor and froze at the clattering sound of a pack of securibots. They were maybe half the size of a person, a round center, flailing limbs. A dozen of them. They approached and Runstom could see brown-red stains on some of the claw-like tips of their appendages.
“PLEASE PAUSE FOR IDENTIFICATION.” The voice didn’t come from one of them, but all of them in unison. Runstom felt the hairs on his skin raise up at the sound.
He and Zarconi held position, each holding a separate handhold on the corridor’s wall. The bots crowded around them. Singular mechanical eyes twitched, the lenses dilating like pupils.
“STANFORD RUNSTOM, TEMPORARY GUARD DUTY ASSIGNMENT. THANK YOU, STANFORD. HAVE A GREAT DAY.”
He frowned at their clumsy niceties. Some misguided attempt to make crawling death machines appear friendly. Or some programmer with a sense of humor.
Zarconi was surrounded, and he realized it was taking longer than expected. She hovered there in the suit of a
much taller person, folded at the wrists and ankles. Her face was bunched up, eyes and mouth closed tight. The identification process was either retinal scan, voiceprint, or fingerprint. He wondered if they would force her to open her eyes or speak, or take her gloves off.
“KAL PORTMANSON IDENTIFIED BY SUIT. UNABLE TO CONFIRM IDENTIFICATION. CONTACTING COMMAND.”
“Shit,” Runstom said. “Um, the place is falling apart. Can we just continue on our way? We just need to—”
“WARNING. HOSTILES.”
At that, he felt his heart drop into his stomach, which was a weird thing to feel without gravity. The securibots spun into action and he braced himself for the inevitable suppression, whatever form it would take. And then they were gone.
“Um, they left,” he said after a few seconds of listening to the metallic tacking disappearing into the distance.
She opened one eye and looked around. “Where’d they go?” she whispered.
“Higher priority orders,” he guessed out loud. With the bots out of sight, he checked the charge on his pistol for the umpteenth time. It had dropped to ninety percent. Ten percent loss and he hadn’t fired a shot.
Both eyes opened and she peered down the hall. “Thank goodness for greater evils.”
Runstom wasn’t exactly sure whether Zarconi or Space Waste was the lesser of evils when it came down to it. But he decided not to press the question. “We’re almost to the docks. Let’s move.”
Less than a minute later, they faced the source of the stains on the claws of the securibots. It was a Waster, that much was clear from her outfit, which was mostly leather and bore patches in the image of the outfit’s twisting-arrowed logo. Not much else was recognizable. The corpse, surrounded by pockets of blood and gore with nowhere to drain, still held a weapon. It was rifle-sized, with a large, round magazine. Despite their outdatedness, the Wasters often favored projectile weapons. He considered taking it, given that he was only armed with a leaky stunner/blaster combo rifle. It only took a moment of imagining what it would be like to fire it to realize how uncontrollable it would be in zero-G.
“Take it,” Zarconi said. He shot her a look, unnerved by her intrusion on his thoughts. “Unless you want to regret it later.”
“It’s useless in zero-G.”
She looked down the corridor, and he followed her gaze. “Not entirely.”
There was a tangle of non-functional securibots bumping lightly against the wall several dozen meters away. Pockmarks dotted their surfaces, and at least one had smoke trailing from the front where the eye once was.
He looked at Zarconi and then the submachinegun. Sensed that she was really telling him if he didn’t take it, she would. And he didn’t trust her to that extent: that was a fact they both agreed on.
He gingerly reached for the strap that looped around the corpse. Found the release. Pried the lukewarm fingers away from the grips. Pulled the gun loose. Yanked out the drum, confirmed that it was empty. Grabbed a spare from the belt. Slapped it into place. Re-attached the strap and swung the gun over his head.
Then he looked at Zarconi. The bots had been confused because the suit said one thing, and they couldn’t verify with their usual means. But while the bots relied on data in the form of retinal scans and fingerprints, any living person would recognize her instantly. First, there was the green skin. There weren’t very many people in existence that had it; Runstom and Zarconi shared that mark of their births. And then there was the fact that she was the famous murderer of thirty-two people on Barnard-4.
The chances that they might run into human staff would increase the closer they got to the docks. He should have realized that. He cursed himself for not thinking his plan through.
“We should cover your face,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed at him, then her mouth squinched on one side. “I suppose you’re right. If we run into any of my fans, we won’t have time for me to stop and sign autographs.”
He frowned at her inappropriate humor. Looked around helplessly, wishing they had a helmet. Then he looked at the corpse again. “Maybe we can use some strips of cloth. Make like you’ve been badly injured.”
“Wrap my head in bloody leather. Sadly, that’s less suspicious than my green skin.” She pointed. “There’s a knife in that pocket.”
Again she was passing an opportunity to arm herself. He almost wished she would just take the blade. Was thankful that she didn’t. Was not thankful that he had to take it and cut strips from the clothes of a corpse.
After a few minutes, he had her face sufficiently wrapped. It would have been much harder before they’d buzzed her hair off. Her skin still showed around her eyes and mouth, but the wet gore decorating the leather was distracting enough.
“If we run into any people, don’t blink,” he said. “Your eyelids will give you away.”
“Right,” she said quietly. “And if we run into any more bots, close them tight, or my retinas will give me away. Let’s hope we don’t run into both at the same time.”
He sighed, the risks stacking up like unseen weight. They needed to move fast before he changed his mind and left her there. He returned the knife to its original owner. Motioned silently that it was time to move on.
At the next junction, he checked his map again once inside the lock. They were very close to Dock D.
“It may be hot,” Zarconi said.
“The dock?”
She nodded. “By the reaction of the local security forces, I’d guess the whole place is in chaos. Which means lots of bad guys on the loose. Which means, bad guys wanting to get out. Not to mention trigger-happy good guys with bad aim.”
Which meant everyone had the same idea: get to the closest dock and secure a ship. Runstom fiddled with his comm. “Uh, this is Enforcement Officer Runstom, contacting Dock Delta. Anyone there?”
The reply was quick and shaky. “Enforcement Officer Runstom? I don’t have a record of that name. Can you spell it?”
He scowled at his armband, knowing they could see by his transmission signature who it was. Maybe they were testing to see whether he’d been compromised. “R, U, N, S, T, O, M,” he said slowly. They were probably verifying by voiceprint. A thought occurred to him. “That’s Temporary Enforcement Officer Runstom.”
“Ooh, Temporary.” There was a pause, then the young male voice continued. “Okay, Runstom. What’s up? We kind of have our hands full here.”
“Have you seen any action at your dock?”
“No hostiles, if that’s what you mean. But we’re prepping ships for evac just in case there’s a need.”
Runstom nodded, feeling a small amount of relief. “I’m headed to you, along with another officer.” He looked at the name badge on the oversized uniform Zarconi was wearing. “With Officer Lancer.”
There was a pause, then, “Request denied. All non-critical staff should report to the nearest guardhouse. If there is an evac, we’ll let you know.”
“Dammit,” Runstom muttered to himself. “I can help,” he said into the comm. “I’m a certified pilot. Class C.”
Another pause, as though some off-line discussion was taking place. “Okay, Temporary Enforcement Officer Runstom. Come on in, you can help with the prep.”
When they passed through the hatch and into the dock’s control room, Runstom expected them to give him more trouble. But they just waved him on by, directing him to the door at the other end that lead to the dock itself. Gave him the number of a patroller he could check on. They didn’t say anything about his companion. Only glanced at her bloody, wrapped head and then looked away. Their pale faces unable to get much paler.
In the dock, he pulled himself along the handholds. The designated patroller was at the other end. A standard ModPol ship. Small, but capable of carrying about eight if the passengers didn’t mind close quarters. Fast. It would suit him just fine. He glanced back. Zarconi was not slowed by the headwrap.
“Lancer!”
They looked to their right. A lanky B-fourean
was attending to something on the side of another ship, a boxy prisoner transport vessel. Runstom turned away and kept moving, hoping Zarconi would take the hint and follow suit.
“Hey!” Runstom looked again. The B-fourean wasn’t a guard, but some kind of technician. He repositioned himself, grabbing a handhold and pulling just a little closer. Still several meters away. “Lancer, I heard you were coming. You still owe me twenty-five from the other night. Don’t think that you’re getting out of it just because of a riot.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Runstom said. “Get back to work.”
“Get back to—” he started. Then he cocked his head. “Lancer, what the fuck happened to you? Your head?”
Runstom looked toward their destination. The small patroller was still several dozen meters away. He turned back to the tech. “He’s hurt. He can’t talk. Just get back to work, dammit.”
But he persisted, grabbing a handhold and drifting closer. “Hey.” He grabbed another hold and stopped his progress, his eyes widening. “You’re not Lancer.”
“Come on,” Runstom said to Zarconi. Turned away from the tech and kept moving.
“Where’d you get that gun? That’s not regulation.” The tech tried to be firm, but Runstom could hear his voice cracking. “Oh shit. It’s … it’s a coilgun. What the fuck!”
“Relax,” Runstom shot back. “I took it from a Waster. I’m an Enforcement Officer. Okay? Enforcement Officer Runstom. I’ve got orders to prep the patroller down—”
He stopped as his brain finally caught up and registered the word coilgun. He didn’t know what that meant exactly, but it wasn’t a reference to the submachinegun on his back. The tech flinched, his hands going up, his eyes on Zarconi. Her hands rose, a thin, pipelike device between them.
“Jenna, no!” Runstom said. “We’re almost out, you don’t need to—”
He was interrupted by a blast at the other end of the dock. They all looked back toward the control room. Black smoke billowed in concentric circles where the door should have been. Shouts, of command, of anger, of fear. From out of the black cloud, a figure tumbled, end over end. Wearing a guard uniform. It flew off to one side and slammed into the nose of a large patrol ship, bending with an audible crack that raised the hairs on Runstom’s skin.