by Jake Bible
“Then how do we get to it?” Linklater said. “I’ve tried to get just a hint, but even my officer’s backdoor keys don’t work.”
“Yeah, we need the real key,” Wendt said. “We need something that will set the data free.”
“You mean an actual physical key?” Linklater said.
“Yeah,” Wendt replied. “I’m pretty sure there is a physical interface here where a key will fit.” He pointed to a spot on the console. “Small, round, metal. About the size of a…”
“Medal,” Linklater said. “Shit. That medal North had?”
“Yeah,” Wendt frowned.
“Double shit,” Linklater sighed. “We had it in our hands.”
The two men looked at the hatch.
“We have to go back out there, don’t we?” Wendt said.
“One of us does,” Linklater replied.
“Flip a coin?” Wendt asked.
“I’ll go,” Linklater said.
“You will?” Wendt exclaimed excitedly then calmed down. “I mean, uh, you will?”
“I’m an officer,” Linklater said. “I’ll have better access to the station. Plus, North trusts me. If that medal he has is the key then it makes sense if I ask him for it.”
They both just stared at the hatch and the dangers on the other side.
“So…you going?” Wendt asked.
“Yep,” Linklater said.
Neither of them moved.
“Soon?” Wendt asked. “We don’t have much time.”
“I know,” Linklater snapped. “I’m going, I’m going.”
Linklater walked towards the hatch then stopped and turned around.
“I’m going to die out there,” he said. “A plan may be a good idea.”
“Don’t have time for a plan,” Wendt said.
“I open this hatch and all that smoke gets in here then you die too,” Linklater said.
Wendt opened his mouth then closed it. He opened it again and again closed it. Then he nodded up and down.
“Yeah, we need a plan,” he said.
Forty-One
The Perpetuity’s corridors were chaos.
North ducked into a supply room, barely getting the hatch closed before a group of security guards pounded by, their scorchers up and ready. They were shouting orders back and forth as if each of them were in charge. It made no difference what they shouted, though, since all they did was keep running down the corridor, their sights set on some unknown goal.
North waited a full minute then cracked the hatch and stepped back into the corridor with a pistol drawn. He kept the scorchers cinched tight to his back, securing them for later use, knowing he needed speed and maneuverability at that moment, not fire power. He looked right then left, right into the fist of a frothing cadet. North stumbled back, but stayed on his feet. He lifted the pistol up, but it was knocked aside by a roundhouse kick that was obviously meant for his head, not his hand.
“Play to your strengths, cadet,” North said as he raised his hands, palms out. “That is the first lesson of combat.”
“My strength is I’m young,” the cadet laughed, dancing around on his toes like a prize fighter. “You’re just some old man that needs to be taken down so the new guys, the fresh faces can move up in the ranks.”
North frowned and raised an eyebrow. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
He could tell by the size of the kid’s pupils that the cadet was not fucking kidding him.
“Stand down and go sleep it off, cadet,” North ordered. “You’ll thank me in the morning.”
“You’ll thank me when you’re dead!” the cadet shouted then lunged.
North dodged out of the way, throwing an elbow into the back of the cadet’s neck as the young man rushed past. The cadet cried out, but didn’t go down. He swung wildly as he twisted back towards North.
“Fucking DG!” the cadet yelled, “Fucking DG scum!”
“Seriously?” North asked as he ducked his head to the side then boxed the kid’s ears.
The cadet stumbled back, shaking his head again and again, then roared and started to come at North.
“I don’t have time for this,” North said as he pulled his second pistol and put a round in the cadet’s thigh. “I told you to go sleep it off. You didn’t listen.”
“You traitor!” the cadet yelled. “You’ll hang for this!”
“I doubt it,” North said as he bent over and retrieved the pistol the cadet had knocked out of his hand. He holstered it and gave a nod to the kid. “You’re on some bad shit, kid. You’ll be glad I didn’t kill you for this.”
North saw a group of cadets come around the corner of the corridor. Their eyes were just as wild as the cadet in front of him. North took a couple steps back then turned and started to jog in the opposite direction.
“Get that fuck!” the wounded cadet yelled. “He’s a doubleganger! I saw it! I saw it!”
The group of cadets shouted something, but North couldn’t tell if it was for him or the wounded cadet. They kept shouting until North reached the end of the corridor and started to turn the corner. Then the screams started up and as much as North didn’t want to look, he hesitated and glanced back down the corridor.
The group of cadets had descended on the wounded cadet like rabid dogs. They pummeled and kicked him, ripping at his uniform, tearing it, and his body, to shreds. North stood frozen, the horror of the sight preventing him from moving any further.
“What the fuck?” he whispered.
As soon as the words left his mouth, all eyes from the murderous group turned to him. Even being several meters away, North could see that those eyes were nothing but black saucers floating in faces of rage. The cadets could have had blue eyes, green eyes, gold, hazel, brown, violet, it did not matter; all that could be seen were the completely dilated pupils.
North had a brief thought that with pupils that dilated, the cadets should have been blinded by the corridor’s lighting, yet they didn’t seem to even be slightly affected by it. It was a brief thought because a scream from around the corridor drew his attention instead.
“There!” a security guard yelled, his scorcher up. “It’s him!”
“Fuck,” North swore as he watched half a dozen guards sprinting towards him, the tips of their scorchers glowing red, telling him he had half a second before they discharged.
With no time to think, North went on instinct and chose the lesser of the dangers, even though it was far from ideal. Just as the guards began to fire, North turned and ran back towards the rabid cadets, a pistol in each hand. He fired into the group and dropped three of the cadets before they were on him.
North tucked and rolled, letting two cadets fly right over him as they went in for the attack. He kept rolling then came up into a crouch and fired at the cadets in front of him before pivoting and firing into the cadets that he’d avoided. The screams of the young filled North’s ears, but he shut them out, knowing it was either them or him.
Jumping back up to his feet, North holstered a pistol and grabbed a still standing cadet around the neck. He swung the young woman around, so that he and she faced the end of the corridor and the security guards that had just reached it and were sprinting towards him.
Without regard for the cadets that North hadn’t taken out, the security guards opened fire, their scorchers ripping through the chests and fresh faces of the young men and women. North stumbled back as a plasma bolt hit the woman he held square in the chest, but her body took all the damage, as he had expected it would, and he was left unharmed.
He opened fire on the security guards, his pistol sending round after round down the corridor. Three of the guards fell, holes appearing in their foreheads and between their eyes where flesh had been just seconds before. The rest of the guards dove to the ground, but they didn’t stop firing. Plasma bolts impacted North’s human shield, making him stumble back, messing with his aim so his next shots went wild.
North kept stumbling back then tossed the corpse h
e held aside and sprinted towards the other end of the corridor. It wasn’t the direction he wanted to go, but his options had become seriously limited. He knew he could double back and get to the server tower another way.
A plasma bolt clipped his shoulder, but mainly singed his uniform, leaving only a superficial burn. But the impact threw him off and he stumbled just as he reached the corner, falling to his knees. The stumble saved his life as a mass of plasma bolts came at him from the corridor to his left.
North flattened himself on the ground and yanked one of his scorchers free. He opened fire on the new group of security guards, taking them all out below the knees. Shins and feet exploded in a mass of bone and flesh. The guards screamed and fell to the ground, their heads suddenly right in North’s aim. He kept his finger pressed to the trigger until none of the guards moved, their heads nothing but smoking skulls and empty craters.
Scrambling to his feet, North made it around the corner just as the first group of guards got to their feet and gave chase. He could hear them yelling at him, ordering him to stop, calling him every vile name a traitor could be called. Even without seeing their eyes, North could hear that their voices were thick with the effects of pharma.
As he ran to the end of his corridor then took another corner, he knew his days of riding the pharma high were over. There was no way he could trust any injector to go into his arm. He didn’t know what was wrong, how the station ended up so whacked out, but he did know that the new crates of pharma that the CSC sent had to be the reason. It was the why that he needed to figure out.
But first thing was first, he had to get to the server tower and Linklater.
Forty-Two
The fighter skiffs punched into orbit around Mars, their presence instantly detected. Valencio was not surprised when her comm exploded in her ear.
“Unidentified squadron!” a voice yelled. “You are not authorized to be in Mars orbit! Provide proper clearance or prepare to be fired upon!”
“Hold up!” Valencio yelled. “This is Captain Deena Valencio, Fighter Skiff Training Officer of the Training Station Perpetuity! Do not fire! I repeat, do not fire! I have a squadron of cadet pilots with me! Our skiffs are not armed!”
There was silence on the comm. Valencio angled her skiff so she could see the nearest orbiting platform, only a few kilometers away. Calling it a platform was a bit of a misnomer since it was actually a series of rotating discs stacked together on a single column. There was something about the platform that bothered Valencio, but she didn’t have a chance to think it through too long before her comm squelched and a new voice came on.
“This is Colonel Hueng,” a voice snapped. “I’m commanding officer of Mars Platform Eight. Please state your business, Captain Valencio. Your appearance was not expected and highly out of the ordinary, so your explanation had better be good.”
“It is, sir,” Valencio replied. “I have reason to believe that the Perpetuity may have been compromised.”
“I have no indication of that,” Hueng responded. “We are attempting to contact them right now, so know that if that is your excuse for punching a bunch of fighter skiffs into my vacuum space, the truth will be revealed shortly.”
“Understood, sir,” Valencio said. “I am sure your interaction with Perpetuity will back up my claim. You may not get any answers, but I am more than confident that enough questions will be raised for you to believe me.”
“Why are you here, Captain?” Hueng asked. “Why not hold your position around Perpetuity and contact the CSC directly?”
“Our comm capabilities are limited, sir,” Valencio said. “All direct communications with CSC would have had to be routed through the Perpetuity. These are training skiffs, and not combat ready vehicles.”
“Is that so?” Hueng asked. “So your squadron is not armed?”
“Well, yes, sir,” Valencio said. “I’d already stated that.”
The thing about the platform still nagged at Valencio. Something was seriously off.
“Hey, boss?” London called out. “I think we should go.”
“Hold tight, London,” Valencio said. “Let me handle this.”
“He’s right, Captain,” Zenobia chimed in. “I’m picking up power readings from the platform’s weapons systems.”
“Of course you are,” Valencio said. “They already told us they would fire if we did not state our business. We expected this.”
“That’s not it, boss,” London said. “I’ve been monitoring their comm. They haven’t tried to reach the Perpetuity. Or if they have, it’s on a sub-signal I can’t lock onto. Both are reasons to get my asshole tingling.”
“Too much information, London,” Richtoff said. “Just tell us what you think.”
“Boss, I think they are going to fire no matter what,” London said. “This stinks like a trap.”
“A trap? This is a CSC platform,” Valencio said. “These are our allies.”
“Not if they’ve been compromised like the Perpetuity,” London said. “How’d the Estelians get past Pluto? Get past Neptune? What happened to Titan Base? How are they punching from place to place in this solar system without the locks stopping them, sir?”
“I don’t know,” Valencio said.
“You do,” London said. “Those places were compromised too. Follow the line, Captain. Pluto all the way through the system. The Perpetuity was the last stop on the crazy train.”
Valencio was about to respond when the nagging feeling solidified into a deadly revelation. Half the discs on the platform were dark. They should have been fully lit, the portholes and viewing windows leaking light from inside the platform, telling everyone around that it was full of busy personnel. But that wasn’t the case. The discs were dark.
And dark in the vacuum usually meant dead.
“Fall back,” Valencio said. “Get the skiffs out of firing range!”
But it was too late. Plasma cannons began to fire from the platform, sending bolts of death towards the fighter skiffs. And the rookie cadet pilots inside.
“Get back! Now!” Valencio roared as she banked her skiff to avoid three bolts that came at her. “Full reverse! Get your asses out of here!”
“Where to, Captain?” London yelled. “We have to refuel and get these cadets some firepower!”
Eight skiffs exploded then disintegrated before Valencio’s eyes. She banked hard and hit her thrusters to push her skiff past the cloud of debris that was headed her way.
“Phobos,” Valencio said. “We rendezvous at Phobos!”
“What? That useless rock?” Richtoff said. “There’s nothing there, Captain!”
“Yeah, there is!” Valencio responded, ducking and dodging the barrage of plasma bolts flying at the training squadron. Three more skiffs were obliterated and Valencio pulled up hard, just clearing the wreckage. “But I don’t have time to explain! Get as many of the cadet pilots as possible to follow you! Split up and head around the planet to Phobos!”
“I’ll give you guys cover!” London shouted. “So move!”
Plasma bolts came flying from the cargo skiff as London activated the meager weapons system. Valencio watched as the bulky vehicle rushed forward, laying down enough fire to let a couple sixteens get away.
“That means you, Captain!” London yelled. “I’m not sticking around here all fucking day! Get to the moon and pull out whatever rabbit you have hiding up your sleeve!”
Valencio dove hard and fast, just barely avoiding a barrage of plasma bolts, she kept diving then pulled up and angled towards three sixteens of cadets that were just sitting there.
“The second we’re clear, London!” Valencio shouted. “The very second we are clear, you are to get your ass to Phobos! I can’t do what I need to do without you!”
“I’m touched, boss,” London laughed. “I always thought I bugged the shit out of you.”
“I need your cargo skiff, moron,” Valencio said. “So try not to get it blown up!”
“Oh, well, that m
akes more sense,” London said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right behind you.”
“You fucking better be,” Valencio said and then she was gone with the traumatized sixteens following right behind her.
Forty-Three
Thirteen cadets. Raw recruits having just completed their first training simulation. They came rolling out of the simulation bay, covered in blood and guts, their weapons long since discarded, their hands and teeth all they needed to murder each other.
That was what faced North as he came around the corner and skidded to a stop, barely believing the sight before him. Men and women pummeled each other, their fists flying wildly, not caring where they hit as long as it did enough damage to maim, kill, destroy. Thumbs went for eyes, hands ripped off ears, feet caved in skulls. It was a bloody nightmare.
Then one stopped fighting, his head raised and twitching. Soon the others followed as if they could sense a new, fresh target in their midst. All heads turned towards North.
“A traitor,” one of them mumbled through broken teeth and shredded lips. “You can smell it on him.”
“You can see it in his eyes,” another growled, a woman with half the skin on her face hanging down in flaps. “Liar’s eyes.”
“We hate liars,” a third said. This one lifted his right arm to point at North, but instead of an accusatory finger, he pointed a bloody stump where his hand should have been.
“We hate traitors,” a fourth snarled, tossing a severed hand aside.
“We kill liars,” a fifth said. She was tall and muscular, her torso bare except for a combat harness. She looked unharmed and more like the one that had done the harming. She slowly pulled a knife from her combat harness and let the blade glint in the corridor light. “We kill traitors.”
“I’m not fucking around, people,” North said, aiming a scorcher at the group that was slowly walking towards him. “Come on. Be smart. Just back away and no one has to… Ah, fuck it.”