Their boots rattled on a metal balcony that bordered the perimeter of the hollow. The rock ceiling arched into darkness above them. The ground level was lit by scattered flood lights. There were piles of rock strewn about, some still clouded with dust from a fresh fall which had taken out some of the lights, leaving great chunks of the space below in shadow. Between mined stacks of rock were the angular arms, lifters and belts of mining equipment. The heavy smells of iron and cold stone were thick in the air.
“There,” Kinjo shouted and pointed towards a large machine against the wall on the level below. “That's a new model, Captain.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive, Captain. Those drills aren't even licensed yet.”
“Go, then, go,” Hugo said, gesturing and they were both running towards the nearest ladder.
The warning lights flashing over the doors scattered the shadows around them as they clambered down the ladder. Their boots hit rock and then they were running towards the machine. Kinjo climbed up the side of it like a cat until she reached the control systems near the top of its arm and pulled out a multitool. Hugo kept his gun ready, scanning the quarry, but everything was eerily still.
“Got it,” Kinjo said, pulling out a circuit board from the machine and tucking it inside her vacuum suit.
“You sure, Midshipman?”
“Yes, Captain,” she said, starting to climb back down. “This will have all its electronic signatures. We'll be able to prove it's not been cleared for public use -”
“There they are!”
Hugo swore and fired at two men running from a door on the other side of the quarry. They fired back but then there was an ear-splitting crash and Hugo was flung off his feet. He shook his head, dazed, then felt his heart jump into his throat when the rock near his ear exploded with shots. He rolled away and threw himself behind the nearest rockfall. He came up to return fire when he froze at the sound of a high-pitched cry.
“Kinjo.”
“Don't even think it,” growled one of the men. He had an unkempt beard and a knife at Kinjo’s throat.
The other man, pale and with cruel eyes, stood with a gun pressed to her temple and a nasty smile on his face. “Come out, Zero scum. Now.”
“Captain?”
Hugo jumped as Bolt crawled up beside him, face pale, staring out over the top of the rocks. Hugo swallowed, panic fluttering. “Crewman, can you take them out?”
Bolt raised his weapon and aimed. “I don't know, Captain.”
“You're playing a dangerous game there,” the bearded man called, as Kinjo continued to struggle. “Come out now. We know he’s with you.”
“Who?” Hugo called, trying to keep his voice steady and his gun from shaking as he kept it aimed.
“Ezekiel Webb,” called the gun man. “Send him out.”
Hugo's breath tightened in his chest.
“Do it now,” the pale man continued, “and we'll let all the rest of you go. It's the best deal you're gonna see. Trust me.”
Bolt looked to Hugo, eyes wide. All Hugo could do was kneel there with his mouth open, desperate thoughts chasing themselves in circles around his head.
“You've got ten seconds, Captain Hugo,” the gun man called again, and Kinjo gave another choked cry as the knife wielder tightened his grip. “And I'm a fast counter. Ten... nine...”
There was another thunder of distant cannon fire and the floor shook and dust rained from the ceiling, but the man didn't pause in his counting, pressing the gun to Kinjo's temple even harder as he did.
“Bolt, take him out,” Hugo hissed. “My hands are shaking too much.”
“Even if I do, Captain, the guy with the knife will have her.”
“Six... five... you're killing her, Captain...”
“Stop,” came a shout from the shadows.
“Webb, no,” Hugo cried, scrambling to his feet as a gun skidded across the floor and Webb stepped into the light with his hands up. The gunman fired at Hugo and he threw himself back behind the rocks. “Webb you fucking idiot!” he shouted.
“Let her go,” Webb growled, face dark. Kinjo gave a strangled sob, trying to shake her head.
“That's him,” the knifeman mumbled.
“Alright, Webb,” the gunman said, beckoning with his pistol. “Come with us now, nice and quiet, like.”
“Let her go first,” he replied, still hanging back.
The ground shook again and all the floodlights went. The gravity pulsed off then on again then the lights returned and in the confusion the men pushed Kinjo towards Hugo. She stumbled to her knees then scrambled away just as Webb dove for his gun. But the knifeman was too quick and grabbed him by the vacuum suit. Hugo and Bolt ran out, guns aimed but he had Webb on his knees and a grip on his hair, knife at his throat.
The gunman was panting and aiming at the commander’s head. “Stay back.”
“Christ Almighty, Hugo,” Webb growled. “Fucking run already.”
Hugo just stood there, panting, gun levelled. Another crash and a groan heaved through the rock around them and more boulders crashed down, crushing machinery and another floodlight. Masses of dust swirled in the air and the gravity warped and shifted and they all slid to the side, scrambling to keep balance.
“Fuck this. We’re not going to get him away. Do it,” the gunman shouted. “Just do it.”
“No,” Hugo yelled, scrambling upright but the knifeman had already yanked Webb's head back. There was a confused moment when the ground shook and more rock fell but then Webb was falling forward and the knife man was stood there, clutching a handful of Webb's hair.
“What the fuck?” Webb growled, getting to his knees when the knifeman nodded to the other and ran. The gunman aimed and fired and Webb went down.
Kinjo screamed. Bolt yelled and ran after both the men, firing wildly. Hugo stood frozen. His chest was banded with hot metal and his gut was filling with ice. He swayed with the shifting gravity and shaking floor and it took him three blinks before he processed the sight of Kinjo knelt next to a sprawled Webb, blood on her hands and her body shaking with sobs.
He stumbled to the floor and pushed her away, turning Webb over. His eyes were open but his face was still. He looked odd, Hugo thought, with his hair cut ragged by the knife. Hugo’s heart thumped against his ribs and he leant in to listen for breath but there was none. There was warmth between his fingers where his fists clutched the bloody vacuum suit. For a moment nothing existed except blackness threatening to drown him.
“Captain.” Hugo felt Bolt's hand on his shoulder. The floor bucked and more rock fell as his awareness slammed back to reality. “We need to move. Now.”
“Go,” Hugo said, throat aching. “Move. Go.”
Bolt nodded and got Kinjo to her feet and they stumbled away. Hugo bent and got his arms under Webb and lumbered upright. The commander was lighter than Hugo expected but he was still panting and his shoulders were burning when he got to the door where Bolt was waiting.
“Sir,” Bolt said, face drawn. “Sir, it's against protocol. We need to move fast-”
“Move, Crewman,” Hugo snarled.
“Sir-”
“I said fucking move.”
Bolt looked from his face to Webb and he saw him swallow. The crewman holstered his gun and leant and took Webb’s body from him, hoisting him up like he were a doll. “Let's go, sir.”
Hugo felt his throat close up but he nodded, pulled out his gun and jogged ahead. Kinjo took up the rear, pulling her own gun but not looking like she would be able to use it.
The lights in the corridor were flickering and the air was full of smoke and rock dust. There was a shout once and someone turned the corner but careened across and down another corridor before they could fire a shot. There was heat and sweat and grit grinding between his teeth and the taste of iron heavy in his throat.
Bolt took Father and, somehow, though Hugo never quite remembered how, he and Kinjo found the flyer pool, hotwired one and zoomed out of the
satellite. Bolt must have signalled the Zero because the flyer's cockpit was washed white by the fireball of the imploding satellite. All he could hear though was Kinjo's thick breathing and his own pulse in his ears.
ɵ
“He gets nothing?” Hugo's hands hunted for something to throw. “He gave everything, everything to this ship. And now he's dead. And he gets nothing?”
Luscombe's face on the display was like granite. “Webb knew the risks, Hugo. This is unfortunate, but this is the game. And if you had followed orders, this wouldn't have happened.”
Hugo felt his fingers burn with the grip he had on the table. He still had the taste of smoke in his throat mingling with the burn of alcohol. Every breath that raked in and out was like fire.
“They knew we were coming,” he spat. “They were riddled with security. And our fighters are barely scratched. They were trying to bring us in alive.”
“This is all supposition, Hugo,” Luscombe said. “I don't know where the hell this idea came from but it's culminated in you risking your crew on a hunch. And look what happened.”
Hugo opened his mouth but none of the curses he could think of were foul enough.
“It's a bloody good thing you still destroyed the thing,” Luscombe continued, “or I'd be heaving your arrogant ass into the Command Centre brig to rot. You could have messed up the entire operation, Captain Hugo. Be glad we got out of it with as little losses as we did.”
Hugo's glass shattered against the wall display. The liquid trickled down and the screen flashed and warped but Luscombe was still there, face like thunder.
“Drift the body, Hugo” the colonel said, voice dangerously low. “And then take yourself off to some hole, a dark one, and stay there. I don't want to so much as hear the word Zero until I send for you.”
ɵ
“Rami, find us somewhere in North America, outside the fallout but away from any civilian habitation. I'll be damned before I see him drifted.”
Rami swallowed and looked at him. Her eyes were dry but her face was pale. It was a moment before she managed to speak. “Somewhere remote, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Somewhere near water, perhaps...”
Hugo swallowed, seeing something flash in her eyes then die. “Where can we find a priest?”
“A Nova Catholica priest, sir?” More asked. “We'll struggle on Earth. We'll have to stop by Lunar 1.”
“Set a course.”
“Sir,” More said, not looking up, already obeying. “I feel I should point out-”
“I don't give a shit. Lay in the course for Lunar 1. Rami?”
“Yes sir,” she replied, not looking up from her workstation as information and maps flickered across her screen. “I'll find somewhere suitable.”
Hugo nodded, though no one was looking at him. The bridge was still filled with the beeps and whirs of the computers and the clicking of Rami and More's fingers on the controls, but it all seemed fuzzy and far away, like all his senses had been wrapped in cotton.
He swallowed a foul taste in his mouth and returned to his cabin, shut off the lights and lay on his bunk glaring into the dark.
ɵ
Doll murmured everything in Latin, but Hugo didn't need to understand the words to know what she was saying. It was written on her face. Her skin was pale and there were dark circles under her eyes. She looked older. Immeasurably older. She sprinkled some soil onto the fresh patch of turned earth and Hugo thought she had started to cry but then he felt a wetness on his own face. The patter of rain on the leaves of the surrounding trees rose to a hiss as the rain got heavier, churning the surface of the lake into a pitted stretch of bubbles and ripples.
The earthy smell of wet soil rose from the ground and the chill felt good. He willed it to numb the burning under his skin. He turned his face up and blinked through the water, up to the steel-grey sky. A real sky. One that stretched to a horizon and was a muddled mass of clouds and rain and wild things and not made of metal. The rain stung his eyes but he didn't look away.
It was a moment before he realised Doll had finished. She was looking at him. He didn't say anything but just stood and blinked rain water from his eyelashes. She inclined her head, then wandered away towards the trees, an arm around Kinjo's shoulders. Sub held his pack over Bolt to try and shelter him as he used the lasertool to cut an E then a W and the year into the boulder they'd rolled down from the tree line to mark the grave.
When it was done the crewmen straightened, shook rain out of their eyes and both saluted. They then followed Doll and Kinjo back towards the Zero. More followed shortly after without a word or a look at Hugo, then it was just him and Rami. Spinn hadn't come down.
For once, the lieutenant’s face was open, a mask of pain, eyes haunted and angry, though even now it didn't look like she was crying. Part of Hugo felt he should leave her alone. There was more going on in her face than he could understand. She deserved to say her goodbyes in private. But he couldn't move.
He stared out at the rain-pocked lake, feeling fat drops trickle down inside his collar and his clothes cling to every inch of his skin. Eventually Rami left. He sat down in the mud beside the grave marker, letting the rain stream over him until night rolled in.
XV
“You're doing it again.”
Hugo blinked until the darkness faded to the edges of his awareness and he was back in the room with the orange stripes of street light across the ceiling and the smell of old sheets and damp skin.
“Here's a novel idea,” Harvey said raising herself up on her elbows to look down into his face. “Talk to me.”
Hugo looked at her, green eyes appearing black in the meagre light, then pulled her in for a kiss, only partially to change the subject.
“Fine,” she said, pulling away. “Have it your way. I gotta go. I’ve been away from Haven too long already.”
She clambered out of bed and padded around the grimy boarding room, picking up her clothes. Hugo watched her, trying to untangle what it was he was feeling. She stuffed the last of her possessions into a pack and slung it on her shoulders. She paused, sighed and sat on the bed, tilting his chin up so he looked right into her eyes.
“Just promise me you'll look after yourself, okay?”
He still couldn't make his voice work. She shook her head again, leant in for a last, lingering kiss, then she was gone. He lay and stared at the ceiling for a while, part of himself insisting yet again that he needed sleep. After half an hour, as usual, he gave up, dressed and went downstairs.
The barman nodded to him as he came in and poured him a blask without a word. Hugo nodded his thanks, keying his credit code into the panel in the bar, then shouldered in over his drink to prepare for another evening. The bar was virtually empty. That was why he came here. Not even the barman tried to converse with him. He swirled the black liquid in his glass, savouring the bite. It wasn't good, but it was cheap. It was everywhere in Sydney, good and bad. After his third mouthful he realised he'd left his wrist panel in his room again. He scowled into his drink. If Luscombe called, he could bloody well leave a message.
He didn't look up when a large man took a seat on the stool next to him, despite there being many empty ones. He ordered his drink and sat in silence for a moment. Hugo glared at his glass.
“Master Kaleb,” the large man said after taking a sip of his drink. Hugo finally looked up. The man’s hair and beard were a lot greyer than Hugo remembered. He looked tired too, but otherwise as stoic as ever. “I'm glad I found you.”
Hugo glared back at the bar. “Go away, Colwyn.”
“Your mother would very much like to see you.”
Hugo didn't move but he didn't leave, draining his drink instead. The man finished his own, unhurried, then laid a hand on Hugo's shoulder. The familiar weight of it made something shift inside him. Without even entirely registering what he was doing, brain murky and vision blurry, he got up and followed Colwyn out of the bar.
The flyer ride was silent,
for which Hugo was grateful. Colwyn took the main skyways right over the city. The lights from the harbour bridge swirled on the choppy waters of the bay and Memorial Music Hall towered up beside it, all lit up in blues and whites. There was a queue of expensive flyers for the top-level parking pool and as they passed by he saw elegant people with drinks and fine clothes on the balconies. He watched the hall fade away in the rear view mirror, unable to define what he was feeling.
His heart hammered more than it did before a mission as he stepped into the apartment. The wide hall was empty. The lounge area to his left with its sunken couches and shelves of books was dark.
“Special Commander and Major Hugo will see you in the den when you are ready, sir. There are supplies in the guest bathroom, should you wish to use them.” Colwyn inclined his head slightly, gave Hugo a meaningful up-and-down glance and left.
For a long moment Hugo just stood in the hall, breathing. The apartment still smelt of fresh linen, with the hint of lemon from the carpet cleaner his sister had always bought. It had once meant home. His boots sunk into the white carpet without a sound. For one horrific moment he was back in the corridors of Marlowe's complex. But he shook his head and the illusion was gone. These carpets were familiar and more trodden and the walls were blue, not white. There were digiprints and vases on the tables, shapes, colours and patterns he had known for years.
In the guest bathroom he ran the water so hot it steamed. Razor, soap, comb and toothbrush had all been laid out on the marble side. When he was done some of the fog in his brain had cleared and he looked more like the man he remembered last seeing in this mirror, though with the longer hair combed back and the growth of beard gone, the bleakness in his eyes and the narrow press of his mouth were more noticeable.
He paced through the halls towards the den, becoming more certain he'd made a mistake with every step he took. He didn't know if he wanted to tear the place apart or sink to the carpet and sob. When he reached the den, he paused to try and make out the muffled voices through the door, but they were talking too low. Biting the inside of his cheek, he pushed the door open and went in.
Zero Page 28