by David Ryker
Ulysses snorted. “I’m a convicted felon, man, I cain’t buy weapons. And there ain’t no Saints here in San Fran, my sort or otherwise.”
“Maybe Frank King,” Chelsea offered.
“Politicians are politicians.”
“We’ll see when we get back,” said Ben. “He said he was going to record the feed I send back from Oberon and use it to show the public that you folks are heroes, not villains.”
“Us folks,” said Quinn. He frowned. “Or is it we folks? Whatever, you’re one of us now, Ben.”
“I don’t even know what I’m doing here!” he blurted, and for the first time, Quinn saw fear in the man’s eyes. “At least Gloom has some skills to offer. I don’t know how to fly a spaceship! Hell, I’ve never even been to orbit!”
Chelsea put a hand on his. “I can’t fly a ship either. But we’re going, because we’re part of the team.”
“Besides,” said Schuster, “the Rafts are designed to practically fly themselves. We just need to get to Oberon One and get the infiltration team in place. They’ll set the charges, we’ll blow the station and get the hell out of there.”
“Easy peasy, lemon squeezy,” said Maggott.
“Your arrival changes things,” Quinn said to Ulysses. “Initially one of us was going to fly solo. Now we all double up: Dev is with Gloom, Bishop with Ben, Chelsea with Maggott. Ulysses, you’re with me.”
“I’m guessin’ that means the two of us is the infiltration team.”
“Originally it was just me,” said Quinn. “But I figured you’d want to get in on it. Or was I wrong?”
Ulysses grinned. “What do you think, son?”
The rocky outcropping of Toomey’s lair grew larger in the distance as they approached. They would have to climb to the level area that housed the entrance to the hangar, but it wasn’t particularly steep or jagged, so he wasn’t worried.
Once they got inside, of course, all bets were off.
28
The sun on the horizon was almost even with the floor of the hangar as Arthur Lakshmi stepped out of the corridor and onto the tarmac. He was followed closely by his companions: Jackson, Goodman and Ladouceur, all of whom wore the same slightly nauseated expression he was sure was on his own face.
“It’s early for you to be up, Doctors,” said the guard at the door, a young woman whose name Lakshmi couldn’t remember. He’d only met her twice before now, since she was always on the night shift.
“Just some last-minute tests,” said Lakshmi, hoping his grin looked sincere. He and his colleagues had developed a nodding relationship with the people who had been guarding them during their work with Dev Schuster. He was the only one who ever left the base, and only because he had a son and grandchildren in San Francisco. The rest had no ties to the city and had opted to simply spend all their time working.
“Go ahead,” said the guard. “Have a nice morning.”
“You too.”
They walked toward the Rafts that sat on launching rails facing the hangar door. They were the team’s crowning achievements, utilizing technology on principles that the four engineers would spend the rest of their careers studying and writing about. Only Dev Schuster had seemed capable of understanding it all, and he didn’t write anything down. After walking into the situation, each thinking they were going to lead the team, the White Coats, as Schuster had called them, had ended up following the lead of a slumdog from the streets of Mumbai.
Lakshmi caught sight of Jackson, who looked like he was about to throw up, and leaned toward him.
“For God’s sake, man, get a grip,” he said quietly.
“I don’t know how to do anything physical!” Jackson blurted.
“Shut your mouth,” Ladouceur hissed. “We are committed to doing this.”
“I don’t know why,” Goodman snipped. “What do we owe him, anyway?”
The other three—even Jackson—gave her an incredulous look. She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“All right, fine. Let’s just do this.”
Lakshmi scanned the area as they continued walking. As always, there was the guard who had greeted them at the door to the main facility, plus another stationed at the door that led in from the stairs carved from the rock that led down to the boat launch, and one at each end of the hangar’s thirty-meter-wide door. He hoped their new arrivals knew what they were doing: the last thing he wanted was for any of them to be harmed, least of all himself.
He hit the exterior controls for the Raft nearest them and the side hatch opened. Lakshmi checked his wrist: 0558 hours.
“Two minutes,” he whispered.
“Good,” said Jackson. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this thing from showing under my coat.”
“We all have the same challenge,” said Ladouceur. “The difference is the rest of us don’t feel the need to point it out.”
“How will we know when they’re here?” asked Goodman.
Before he could answer, Lakshmi heard a metallic thumping sound coming from the door that led to the external stairs.
“Be ready,” he warned.
The guard at the door looked confused. There was no need to knock; anyone who needed to enter would be on an electronic list that included when they arrived and when they left. He walked to the door and waved at the control to open it, his right hand gripping his weapon.
The door slid open to reveal a young woman with short hair, carrying a small box about the size of a clutch purse and sporting a wide grin.
“Trick or treat!”
Lakshmi saw the other guards leaving their posts and heading for the door, obviously sensing something was out of the ordinary. He looked to his companions, who nodded back to him nervously.
“Who are you?” the guard at the door demanded. “What are you doing here?”
The girl cocked her hip and sighed. “I don’t remember ‘ask questions’ being one of your options,” she said. “So I guess it has to be trick.”
The box in her hands suddenly flashed red, and Lakshmi marveled as a flat, omnidirectional wave of red light spread soundlessly through the hangar. The guard closest to the girl raised his shock rifle and pointed it in her direction.
“You need to come with me,” he said.
“Can I bring my friends?”
She stepped inside the doorway for the first time, and a gang of people rushed in after her, including Dev Schuster and the two men who had saved them from the security droids. There was also another woman, and three more men, one of whom was easily close to seven feet tall.
The guards all dropped into their attack formation and raised their shock rifles.
“Stay where you are!” the door guard barked. “Schuster has authorization to be here, but the rest of you don’t. I have to call this in.”
“Call this in,” the big one said. He lifted a huge foot and drove it into the midsection of the closest guard, driving him back a good five meters.
The others tried firing their rifles, but the weapons had other ideas. Schuster had told Lakshmi that they would be able to scramble the computers that controlled the rifles, leaving them essentially useless.
The other three guards instantly retreated into the hangar, just as a voice came blaring over someone’s wrist unit.
“This is Drake!” it said. “Alert! Quinn and his people may be headed to the facility! Take all precautions!”
“They’re here!” the guard hollered into his wrist. “We are engaging!”
All three conscious guards reached a small cabinet near the door that led inside the building. A second later, they each produced a machine pistol, turning it on their opponents, who all stopped in their tracks and raised their hands.
“Would it do any good to say we have to take these ships?” asked Quinn.
“Shut up!” yelled the lead guard, levelling his pistol in Quinn’s direction. “I don’t know what kind of stunt you people are trying to pull this time, but I do know that Schuster is the only one with clearance he
re. Anyone but him makes a move, we shoot.”
Lakshmi glanced one last time at his companions, who nodded. He took a deep breath and stepped away from the Raft and began walking toward the center of the hangar. The others followed until they were walking four abreast, and each reached behind them into their flowing white coat.
“What about us?” asked Lakshmi. “Are we allowed to move?”
The guard from the door turned to see the four of them all carrying vicious-looking snub-nosed rifles, about a meter in length and half again in depth, with pistol grips and heavy-duty stocks on the ends of the thick barrels. To Lakshmi, it was the most vicious-looking weapon he’d ever seen.
“Doctor, what are you—”
“Hey!” Lakshmi yelled, raising the weapon menacingly. “Do you really want to be on the receiving end of these?”
“How did you get that in here without setting off the metal detectors?” said one of the guards from the hangar door, obviously suspicious.
“I didn’t bring them in,” said Lakshmi. “They were already here, I just found them.”
The guards exchanged an uncertain glance.
“You remember what happened to your two colleagues the day we accidentally discovered Dr. Toomey’s security drones?” asked Lakshmi. “Well, these weapons are from the same stockpile. I wouldn’t test them, if I were you.”
The guards turned back to Quinn, their guns lowered.
“He makes a good point,” he said with a shrug. “We just want to take these Rafts for a joyride before the mission crew gets here tomorrow. Is it really worth risking your life to stop us?”
“He’s full of shit!” the female guard yelled. “I say we shoot!”
“You won’t like what will happen if you do,” Ladouceur growled, raising her own weapon. Lakshmi glanced at her, wide-eyed. She might have been the oldest of the bunch, but she was also the scariest.
“I got an idea,” said the man called Ulysses. “How ‘bout you think about our track record in situations like this so far? Six of us broke outta space prison an’ made it back to Earth. Two of us beat a pair o’ armored security drones unarmed. You really wanna roll against us?”
Lakshmi motioned for the White Coats to move forward, and they advanced on the guards. The one on the floor was just beginning to regain consciousness, in time to see the other three drop their weapons on the floor and raise their hands.
“Whaas goin on?” he slurred.
“Shut up,” the female guard snapped. “We’re going to let these people take the Rafts.”
Quinn and the others jogged toward the launch pads of the four ships, two to each. Quinn and Ulysses stopped next to the White Coats on the way to theirs, and Quinn dropped a hand on Lakshmi’s shoulder.
“I appreciate this, Doctor.”
“Don’t mention it.” He lowered his voice. “I feel like I owe you for what the two of you had to endure for us. I just hope they don’t recognize these guns as plastic props from my grandson’s cortical reality game instead of deadly weapons built by Prometheus.”
Quinn grinned. “I hope you don’t get in too much trouble after we’re gone.”
“Godspeed, Mr. Quinn. Mr. Schuster didn’t tell us much, but he said it was imperative that you people were the ones to be on this mission, and I believe him. Go do whatever it is you people have to do.”
Quinn nodded and trotted toward the Raft, Ulysses close behind. The White Coats kept their weapons trained on the guards as the ships’ engines fired and they blasted their way out of the hangar and into the brilliant sunrise outside the door.
The White Coats stood there awkwardly. “What are we supposed to do now?” asked Jackson.
“You can lower your pretend guns,” the door guard said absently. He and the other three guards headed back to the cabinet to drop off their machine pistols, heedless of the fake weapons pointed at them, while the White Coats stared at each other in confusion.
“What the hell just happened?” asked Lakshmi.
They reached the blackness of space in minutes, each of the four ships carrying a team of two.
“Wow, Dev, you weren’t kidding,” said Bishop through the radio of the ship he shared with Ben. “Flying this is as easy as playing a CR game. Much more fun than autopilot, too.”
“You take the lead, Dev,” said Quinn. “We’ll follow.”
Schuster felt a twinge of pride at knowing they were deferring to him, at least for this part of the mission. And part of him felt oddly at home behind the controls again, almost as if it was where he belonged, more so than on Earth.
The stars await, Sloane said in his head. The vastness of the universe is yours to explore.
Sure, said Schuster. But first things first, all right?
“Whoa.” Gloom’s voice had a tone he’d never heard in it before: was it wonder?
“First time in space?” he asked.
“Yeah. This zero-G thing is cooool.”
Quinn’s voice came over the radio again. “You told Drake fifteen days to Oberon. What’s the real time?”
“We can push it to eleven,” he said. “Sorry, that’s the best I can do.”
“Hey, it’s better than the three weeks it took to get back last time,” said Chelsea.
“An’ the two months it took gettin’ there in the first place,” said Ulysses.
Schuster’s heart skipped a beat as Morley Drake’s bellowing voice cut in on the radio.
“QUINN, YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
“I’m sorry,” Quinn replied politely. “But I’m going to have to ask you to use your inside voice.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You agreed to stay home and let my men handle this!”
“Call it buyer’s remorse, Mr. Tribune. Or maybe I just don’t trust you. Either way, since we’re already out of Earth orbit, and you don’t have any ships that can catch us, why not just kick up your heels with Alpha and his men and enjoy a mimosa or two?”
“I could still shoot you out of the sky with missiles from the orbital platforms, you know!”
Schuster took that as his cue to hit the control for all the ships’ cloaks, and instantly they disappeared from all means of detection.
“Where exactly are you going to shoot, sir?” asked Quinn.
The radio was silent for almost thirty seconds, except for the odd snicker coming from the ships. Schuster himself had a hard time not laughing. Finally, the tribune let out a long, harsh sigh.
“I suppose this is my fault for not locking you Section Eights in a cell,” he said.
“That hasn’t done much good up to this point, sir,” said Quinn.
Schuster couldn’t stop himself from snorting a laugh at that one. When Drake came back on the line, his voice was measured, as if he didn’t trust himself not to fly off the handle.
“All right,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do about this now. But I want you to remember two things: first, you’ve thrown a wrench into the plan to throw Kergan off with your arrest. We’ll have to make do without you here.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” said Quinn. “What’s the second thing?”
“You better not fuck this up,” Drake said gravely. “You took on all the responsibility for the outcome of this mission the second you stole those ships.”
“Believe me, Drake, nobody knows that better than we do, and nobody is better suited for this mission than us. As for official sanction, we have Frank King’s blessing, and that’s good enough for me.”
“Screw politics,” said Drake. “You yourself have said the future of the human race hinges on this mission. If you screw this up, history won’t even remember it, because there won’t be a history anymore.”
That was enough to kill any humor for Schuster. The ships were already approaching the moon, and once they were past that, they would be out of range of anything the Earth could still throw at them.
“Keep the home fires burning, General,” said Quinn. “We’ll be back, and we can
fight then. Jarheads out.”
They flew in silence for a long time. Finally, Gloom hit the control to cut their microphone from the joint channel that the ships shared.
“Do you believe that?” she asked. “About us coming back?”
“I have to,” he said. “If anyone knows about coming back from impossible circumstances, it’s us.”
Drake killed the commlink channel and sat back in his chair. He’d done his part; all that was left to do was wait to see how it turned out.
He called up the text function on his personal non-government wrist unit and hit the control to encrypt it. The message was simple: Everything is going according to plan.
Two minutes later came the reply: Next phase is already underway.
29
TWO DAYS LATER
Gloom’s eyes glowed with their own inner light as her lips approached his. Her bare skin was so warm against his, smooth like silk. Every breath she took was like music to him, every beat of her heart keeping time with his own as they came together in ecstasy, floating without any bonds of gravity. Nothing between them, no shackles, just unity of their bodies and souls.
If there was a heaven, he believed this must be it.
“Dev,” she whispered in his ear.
“Dev.” This time in his mind, and it wasn’t Gloom. It was Sloane.
Suddenly reality dissolved away around him like sugar in hot tea, leaving him floating in the void that he recognized as the astral plane where he communicated with the passenger in his mind.
“I don’t understand,” he said, bewildered. “I was with Gloom and—”
“I know what you were doing,” said Sloane. “But this is important.”
Schuster still didn’t understand. “It was real. As real as anything I’ve ever experienced.”
“It was the influence of the God Element.”
As soon as he said it, an image of the element they had encountered on Oberon, the one that made all of the Gestalt’s most powerful technology possible. But unlike its image in the physical universe, it wasn’t just a white lump that glowed like a lamp. It had a form, unlike anything Dev had ever perceived, and its light pulsed, as if it had its own heartbeat.