The Eternity War: Pariah

by Jamie Sawyer

  “Scared yet?” I asked. “You should be…”

  For all his bravado, whoever the fuck Cooper actually was—whoever he had been—he was scared now. His bodyguards were about as tetchy as it got.

  “Our mission is greater than you could ever imagine,” Cooper said. “This is destiny. Whatever happens to me, and whatever happens here, you should know that there are a hundred more like me: that whatever you do, you cannot stop what we’ve set in motion.”

  “Right…” I whispered. “Then this won’t matter one bit.”

  I still couldn’t get a good shot, not without exposing my position to every Black Spiral in the chamber. So instead I slid a grenade from my harness. High explosive. Grenade damage projections and the likely blast-zone scrolled across my HUD. All good.

  I tossed the grenade underarm.

  “Goodbye, Cooper.”

  It hit home. The structure collapsed in near slow motion, an explosion coursing through the chamber. The platform on which Cooper and his men had been standing broke apart. Bodies were thrown against the wall, limbs sagging and useless. Some suits breached. One tango survived for long enough to return fire, but the rounds bounced off my null-shield.

  I activated my EVAMP. Bouncing between platforms, I filled the chamber with grenades. Nothing, and nobody, was getting out of here alive.

  Cooper’s exo-suit was a custom job, of that I was sure. He sailed past me, reacting faster than an unaugmented man really should be able to. We almost passed in mid-air, and he blasted the surrounding area with weapons fire.

  I gave chase. The Spiral ship was settling on a platform above us now, and I knew exactly what Cooper was doing.

  “Don’t run,” I said. “It’ll only hurt more.”

  “I’m gone,” he said.

  “Damn straight you are.”

  I ran along the coralline structure, gaining speed with each footfall. Felt it shifting beneath me, collapsing. I fired my EVAMP just as it gave way: perfect timing to launch myself to the next structure.

  Cooper sailed ahead. He jinked left, right—through another looping bone construction. Smaller than me, as before his greatest advantage was speed. The survival suit’s thruster pack fired brightly as he jumped among the dying Krell structures.

  Tracking targets on my HUD, I fired my rifle again and again. Plasma bolts clipped possible landing sites, sending a rain of glowing coral shrapnel across Cooper’s path. He dodged that. Rolled across an open platform: slammed a powered fist into the skull of a dying Krell primary. He came to a stop atop one of the largest coral structures. Fittingly, surrounded by dead and dying xenos, the latter still clawing for him as though they stood a chance of stopping him.

  I followed, landing hard with my weapon trained on him.

  “It’s over,” I said. “I don’t know what’s happening out here, but I’m shutting you down.”

  “And how exactly are you going to do that, Lieutenant?”

  “You’ve no right to use my rank,” I said. “You lost that when you turned on the Alliance.”

  “You think that by killing me you’ll get a damned medal? That they’ll take you back and give you a parade?” Cooper laughed, eyes towards the ship. That was the only part of his face that I could see; the rest was wrapped in filthy rags, inside his helmet.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said.

  Cooper froze. “I really did think that you might see things differently.” He sighed, shook his head: helmet bobbing. His entire suit was smoke-stained, covered in Krell blood. “Then I’ve no other option.”

  “You’ve no options at all,” I said, advancing on him.

  A clean shot at this range would be utterly fatal. I raised my rifle.

  “This is all for the Spiral,” Cooper said.

  He dropped a small silver canister from his belt: the item clink-clinking as it hit the hard coral deck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE BIG JUMP

  And then I was back in the tank.

  The simulator canopy cracked open, spilling amniotic, and I stirred inside.

  “Get her out!” I heard Riggs yelling, over and over.

  “What the fuck, Riggs?” I shouted back. “I had him! I had Cooper!”

  The Santa Fe’s SOC rumbled around me, and I recognised the pull of gravity as the inertial damper activated. We were moving under thrust, and fast.

  Riggs hauled me from the tank, my weakened body slipping in his arms. Zero was there too, and the consoles around us squawked with Navy jargon.

  “They’re blowing the ark-ship, Jenkins,” he said. “We can’t stay here any longer.”

  The Santa Fe’s frame screamed.

  “That hull patch is holding,” the console said. I assumed that was from the remains of the bridge crew, directing our escape. “Thrust control initiated…”

  “Keep it up,” I heard Carmine’s voice.

  “I had him!” I said again, unable to let it go.

  The Santa Fe’s PA chimed. “Are we buckled for evac? Because ready or not, we’re leaving.”

  Zero picked her way through the mess that the SOC had become. “We’re ready, Captain. Everyone is aboard.”

  “You could’ve left me down there!” I insisted. “I would’ve bugged out when the neural-link broke.”

  But even so, I collapsed into Riggs’ arms.

  The Santa Fe pulled away from the dying ark-ship, moving at the greatest velocity her spaceframe could withstand. The energy field protecting the ark-ship’s hangar had failed, and it was exposed to vacuum. That made evac that little bit easier. The ship accelerated faster and faster as it escaped what was left of the ark’s artificial gravity well.

  Still aching from the last transition, still rankled by Riggs’ unnecessary extraction, I watched the process from the bridge. The view-ports were wide open, and what detail I couldn’t make out with the naked eye was filled in by the tac-display.

  “The inertial damper is stable, ma’am,” Yukio said. “We’re approaching the likely blast threshold.”

  “Good, good,” Carmine said. She was, as of now, the mistress of shit: a ship that was virtually flying on spit and duct-tape, and a crew that numbered—including her—four.

  “Blast threshold?” Lopez asked.

  “I’m reasonably sure the ark-ship is about to go down,” Carmine said, with a wave at the holo. “Those Spiral bastards did a proper job on it. See for yourself.”

  The Krell ark-ship had been torn apart. Huge gouges, marking the detonation of warheads and enemy starships, had been scored into its hull. Great chunks had been ripped from the ark’s profile, sufficient to change its shape.

  “They were determined,” Novak said. His face was a complete mess: one eye bandaged, his chest taped up with medi-packs. “Sometimes is all it takes.”

  “You okay, Novak?” I asked him. “You look like shit.”

  He grunted.

  “You take some getting used to,” I said, “but I think I’m almost there.”

  “And being cut up is pretty much your regular state,” Lopez said, with a grin. She punched the big guy in the arm, and he grunted again.

  “Why were the Spiral out here, Keira?” Carmine said, still staring at the imagery on the tac-display. “What was their objective?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure what they wanted, but I know what they were doing. Cooper used a canister of something, just before Riggs pulled me out.”

  “A canister?” Lopez asked. “Like, of what?”

  “I think that they are responsible for spreading this … this virus, or whatever it is.”

  “You know that how, exactly?” Carmine said with a raised eyebrow. “Lot of conjecture going on there, girl.”

  “So what do we do?” Lopez asked.

  She sighed, and I was struck again by how different she looked. Her pistol was holstered on her thigh, her face still dirty from the evac. She was Sim Ops, through and through.

  “We run back to Alliance space, and we tell someone�
��anyone—what’s happened out here.”

  Carmine smiled, but it wasn’t a happy expression. “And what has happened? We were sent out here to investigate a missing starship, and all we’ve come away with is a black box. What exactly did my crew die for?”

  “Sergkov tried to tell me something before he died,” I said. Remembering both the flight across the Santa Fe, and then the seconds before the navigator’s attack. “He said that the Hannover had a mission, but that it wasn’t what he told us.”

  “I know that we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” Carmine said, “but why am I not surprised by that?”

  Explosions rippled along the ark-ship’s flanks. Everyone fell silent and a sombre mood descended over the bridge. It felt wrong to be joking when so many lives were being lost, even if the casualties were Krell. I kept it to myself, but I sensed a sympathetic ache as each biological component exploded inside the Krell vessel.

  “The Spiral have suffered their own losses from this battle,” Carmine said. “I counted maybe ten ships lost during that exchange. They flew eight into the damned ark.”

  “Perhaps it will slow the Spiral down,” Lopez suggested.

  Feng crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes boring into the tac display. “We still don’t know what the Spiral is really capable of,” he muttered. “They’re an unknown quantity.”

  “I think that they have a plan,” I said, remembering Cooper’s last words aboard the ark-ship. “And, of course, Cooper is still out there.”

  Numerous Black Spiral ships had docked with the ark, only to pull out shortly after I’d extracted. There seemed no tactical explanation for that. Tiny streaks of light—rats leaving a sinking ship—were confirmed to be escaping Black Spiral vessels. At least three had left in the last few seconds; and although I couldn’t be certain, I was pretty sure that one of those ships had departed from the coordinates of my last extraction. That could only be Cooper’s escape ship.

  I glared sideways at Riggs. “I could’ve taken Cooper.”

  “Bitter much?” Feng asked.

  “I’m sorry, Keira,” Riggs said, quietly. “I thought that it was best to extract you. I—I panicked.” He exhaled slowly. “It was a rash decision, but we were evacuating.”

  “You’ve still got a lot to learn about Sim Ops. You should’ve just left me there. My real body was aboard the Santa Fe.”

  But I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to stay angry with Riggs. He had done what he thought was best, even if it was a bad call. I’d made enough of those in my career.

  “Then what’s the plan to get us out of here, Carmine?” I asked.

  The captain stirred in her throne. Her mechanical leg hadn’t stopped twitching since I’d come back aboard the Santa Fe, and she still clutched her carbine across her lap, a protective ward against the chaos around us.

  “We run as dark as we can, which won’t be hard given that only a tenth of our shipboard systems are currently functional,” she said, rubbing her chin, “and once we’re a safe distance from the Gyre, we activate the quantum-drive.”

  “And if those infected Krell come after us?” Lopez enquired.

  “I think you already know the answer to that,” Feng said, with a plaintive grimace.

  “Then we die,” Carmine said, bluntly. “Simple as that. Our weapons systems are non-functional. Our null-shield is running at twenty per cent efficiency. We have no communication array, and don’t even think about going aft of Module A-3…”

  “So no hot showers, I guess?” Lopez said. “Which is a shame, because Novak needs one.”

  The Russian made a noise that could’ve been a laugh, but it was hard to tell.

  I stood from my console, ricked my neck. Looked out into space, at the whirling miasma of the Gyre, and the incandescent wreck of the ark-ship.

  “Anything you need done for launch prep,” I said, to Carmine, “let the Jackals help.”

  Carmine nodded. “We’ve no navigator. We lost Lieutenant Robinson.” She paused. “And so many others.”

  “Riggs, you up to programming a Q-jump?” I asked. “You can make up for pulling me out too early.”

  Riggs smiled. “I can try.”

  “It won’t be an easy job,” Carmine said. “We’ll likely need to loop around the Drift, and in our condition we can’t afford to risk using a Shard Gate. A dozen quantum-jumps, at least, before we’re on the home stretch.”

  “See what you can do,” I said.

  I made off towards the hatch. Novak followed me out of the bridge, wincing just a little as he walked.

  “I think that you’ve earned some downtime, Big Man,” I said to him.

  Novak’s face remained settled. “No need. Would rather work.”

  I shrugged. “Your call. But listen, when we get back I’ll be sure to put in a good word with Command. That sentence: it might not look so long after this.”

  “Will not change anything,” he said. But there was no bluster in his words, and his shoulders sagged.

  “I remember well enough what you told me when we were on the ark. And you’re okay, Novak. You’re okay.”

  For a fleeting moment, Novak’s eyes misted. Perhaps, just perhaps, he wasn’t the monster that they thought he was.

  “Thank you,” he said, haltingly.

  Hours after the flight from the ark-ship, the mood aboard the Santa Fe had settled into cautious optimism. Everyone was too busy covering essential maintenance duties, repairing the ship, taking watch, to dwell on our prospects of survival. I spent the time on the bridge.

  “It won’t save us, you know,” Carmine said.

  I sipped at my third cup of coffee. It had already grown cold.

  “What won’t?”

  “Staring at the tactical display. It won’t save us, if they come after us. The Krell or the Spiral or whoever else is out here. You should get some rest.”

  “I’m good,” I said. “Honestly. I’m good. I’ll take watch if you like.”

  Carmine started to protest, then sighed, and finally gave in. “All right. It has been a while since I’ve had any beauty-sleep.”

  I smiled. “Go take forty winks.”

  “You have the con, Keira.”

  Carmine stood on shaky legs, clutching her cane to steady herself. I went to help, but she waved me off. Hobbled from her command station, her cane tapping away as she went.

  “I didn’t think that you’d want to be left alone with me,” Riggs said, from across the bridge. His head was buried in the navigation console, data-cables running to his ports.

  “Maybe that’s why I sent Carmine away,” I said.

  Riggs gave one of his boyish smiles in my direction, the hint of encouragement enough to brighten his mood. He’d been working on programming the Q-drive for the last two hours, and I hadn’t heard so much as a word out of him.

  “Really?” he said.

  This is an unnecessary complication, Keira. Stop leading him on.

  I sighed. “Let’s worry about that later.”

  “Carmine was wrong you know,” Riggs said, nodding at the tac-display. “About the ark-ship. Whatever the Black Spiral were doing, they weren’t trying to destroy it. Not directly, at least.”

  “I’d noticed,” I said. “They didn’t blow it up, in other words.”

  There had been no tell-tale Q-or other subspace disturbance, no mass energy discharge. The Santa Fe’s scanner-suite was pretty trashed, but if the ark had blown, we’d have seen it.

  “That’s what I was watching for,” I said, resting my elbows on the edge of the tac-display. Space was still, quiet. “But you were wrong too, I think.”

  Riggs looked over at me, with that blank expression that was both cute and infuriating. He looked almost as tired as Carmine: battered and bruised, his face still encrusted with dirt and blood from the ark-ship exfiltration.

  “How so?” he asked.

  “When you said that there was a traitor on this ship,” I said. “You were wrong about that.”

>   Riggs shrugged noncommittally. “I was just worried, is all. Better to raise it than let it stew, right?”

  “Of course. But I’d know if any of the Jackals was a traitor.” I met his eyes, let a smile creep across my lips. “We’ve died together, Riggs. All of us. There’s a bond there.”

  Riggs slowly nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” I said. “I’m your commanding officer, kemo sabe. Cooper was tracking Sergkov. That’s why he was on North Star. I’m not sure how he managed it, but I know my squad, and after what we’ve just been through, I know that I can rely on you all.”

  There was a swell of pride in Riggs’ chest. “Thanks. That means a lot to me.”

  “And hey, if you get those Q-jumps programmed, maybe we can take another look at the Warhawk sometime,” I said, despite myself.

  “I’d like that, ma’am.”

  The words just tumbled out of my mouth before I’d had a chance to think. “Call me Keira,” I said.

  I went down to Medical. Took the ladder shaft between decks—because the elevators were still down—and had to take a detour to avoid the depressurised modules.

  “You need anything in here?” I asked, hand on hip, as I stood at the hatch and surveyed the damage.

  Zero was the only human occupant of the room. She sat in front of a bank of terminals, a mash-up of equipment that looked to have been seized from elsewhere aboard the ship and put to new use. When I entered, she jumped awake.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” she said. She looked patently exhausted; it wasn’t just the black rings under her eyes, but also the coffee cups that lined her terminal. “You startled me there.”

  “You’ve done a good job of tidying the place up.”

  “Liar,” she said, with a tired grin.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Well, I’ve done what I can. The tanks are working.”

  The simulator-tanks had been powered down for now, their canopies closed, but they were ready for operation should they be required.