by Mike Freeman
He stared at her as he slowly shook his head. His heart was ice in the void.
Her lip trembled. Tears beaded in her eyes and then broke, rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes scanned left and right, searching for a way out.
“Please, John, this isn't fair.”
198.
The laser of the EOS Brilliance overwhelmed the Intrepid's phase array and mission killed it. Rather than waiting to burn through the forward shielding, the Brilliance's laser simply swept along the length of the vessel. The Intrepid presented an entire exposed flank and the Brilliance exploited it.
The Brilliance's laser swept across discs two and three. The fierce energy burned through the thin skin of the unshielded hull in a flash. Valves blew out as the central tanks were superheated. The walls of the habitation modules dissolved away and the air inside escaped, burning explosively as hundred of millions of watts of energy was imparted instantly. The material touched simply vaporized, ceasing to exist. Pressure surges caused overload, valve failure and blow out in sequence along the spindle. Key valves in the cooling systems on the spindle overloaded and exploded. Fuel tanks on secondary drives blew up, streaming fuel into space.
The containment systems were overwhelmed under the power of the Brilliance’s attack. High pressure pipes failed and exploded along their lengths. The bridge instruments recorded critical pressure levels rising geometrically. Valves closed to try and prevent the spread but the systems couldn't dump enough in time. High pressure gas burst out of surge valves, shooting from vents across the vessel. The Intrepid's structure vibrated, rattled and shook as alarms screamed. The oxygen tanks at the center of disc three exploded. The ship broke in two, snapping between the targeted discs. Fire raged violently across the ship.
Water streamed into space. The superheated vapor cooled and distilled into millions of floating ice crystals. The Brilliance's laser swept over some of them, superheating them instantly and causing them to explode yet again.
Yamamoto watched the pressure triple and triple again in the systems leading to the bridge; orders of magnitude over design thresholds. She felt a twinge of loss as she saw disc two disappear on the instrumentation. Brennen gone. Leveque gone. Power died on the bridge. It went completely dark for a second. She was rocked by a huge explosion some distance away.
Emergency lighting came back on. The Brilliance continued its unrelenting sweep across the Intrepid. The cooling system at the heart of Intrepid's bow boiled and burst. Yamamoto saw the readings surge one by one. Her beautiful ship was going down. It was over.
The holograms of the three startled idiots opposite her shimmered and blinked out.
She touched the console and said goodbye. She felt increasing vibration and then, from nothing, the air around her exploded into flame.
199.
Havoc glanced down.
The ONC was formed into a shaped charge on the floor. It probably wouldn't kill Stephanie. In retrospect he might have set it differently.
The detonation shock wave cut through the cabin floor and blew out the ice underneath. An incendiary charge on a nearby shelf caught in the explosion and ignited.
He dropped through the jagged hole in the ice and fell toward the sludge two hundred meters below. He saw the flames roll up one side of Stephanie’s body. Her hair caught fire as she tried to turn her face away. Incendiary melt clung to the left side of her suit and face, burning into her. A pack of needle kinetics blew off a shelf, deflecting off her suit but penetrating her face and neck. He dropped further away. He could only see her head now, screaming and burning as she turned to escape the cabin.
He watched the United Systems through the ice. They were observing the cabin. Stephanie burst out of the lock and ran toward them. One of the United Systems commandos grabbed her arm and dragged her away. Havoc was still falling as a United Systems platform flew over the cabin.
The timed charge in the cabinet exploded as he hit the surface of the thick sludge, destroying the cabin and taking out the United Systems platform.
He sank under, and was gone.
200.
Weaver looked up at Tyburn, feeling bitter.
“So what do you need me for?”
“We trade you to the ORC.”
“What was Havoc doing with my father?”
Tyburn appraised her.
“He abducted him.”
“I don't believe you.”
Tyburn shrugged. Ekker spoke from the cockpit.
“We have the Gathering moving down to the depression near the equatorial vortex.”
Fear gripped Weaver.
“The beam control.”
Tyburn turned to her.
“The what?”
“The beam control. The device that controls the gravatic beam.”
“Could they use it on us?”
She laughed. Tyburn had no idea.
Tyburn frowned at her uncharacteristic response.
She snarled at him.
“That gravitational anomaly contains a weapon that could destroy humanity. I'm not exaggerating. You idiots fight like ants while the Talmas is already looking for another way to destroy us all. Not that you care.”
Tyburn looked at her calmly, meeting her glare.
“Tell me.”
201.
Stephanie stood well back from the broken remains of the cabin. The United Systems platform hovered over it, scanning for Havoc. She hoped it murdered the bastard.
Her face was destroyed down its left hand side. Her skin hung off, shredded and melted. Her hair was burned away. At least she had her helmet on now. Rage surged through her veins. Her beautiful face. Her beautiful hair. The bastard had attacked her. It was outrageous, beyond words.
There was a huge explosion. She instinctively threw up a hand and ducked as the cabin erupted and the platform blew to pieces.
Havoc had anticipated an aerial platform moving in and placed a secondary charge. The wreckage of the second cabin tipped precariously over the edge of a big hole in the ice.
She didn't care. Her face was agony. She screamed at the wreckage.
“I want him dead. Dead!”
The United Systems lieutenant turned to her.
“What you want doesn't matter.”
She stabbed her finger at the crater.
“I want––”
“Shut up. Did you get any useful intel?”
She smarted at this stupid man telling her what to do.
“No.”
The lieutenant shook his head.
“So he played you?”
Her lip trembled. He was humiliating her. It was disgraceful. She wouldn’t stand for it. She filled her lungs to respond.
The United Systems lieutenant walked away, twirling his hand in the atmo.
They were moving out.
202.
Havoc sunk into the sludge.
He allowed himself to sink in case the United Systems followed up with a missile. He was certain he’d be hard to spot in the viscous tar. After five meters of descending slowly there was a thunk. He’d hit bottom. There was a smooth surface underneath him.
He rolled onto his front. He tried to get a feed from his gauntlet but the flare star had burned it out. His jigsaw puzzle suit was hopeless. His visor bumped against the smooth surface. He illuminated his helmet.
He cried out in fear and switched the light out.
Ok, he was imagining things. He braced himself, breathing deeply and trying to slow down his heart. So he'd got a fright. He knew what was below him now. He would look again but this time without panicking.
He switched the light back on. Below him, floating in some kind of tank and seen in streaks through the sludge he kept wiping away, was a head. A gargantuan head, similar to the one he'd seen on the pyramid guardians though with one key difference – this one looked like a real creature, even if it didn't appear conscious. The dragon's head bumped against the clear barrier while its prodigious body stretched into the darkness below. On th
e limits of his vision, Havoc could detect other dragons floating in the bizarre underworld.
Havoc flinched instinctively. Repeatedly firing from the dragon's face toward him, impacting the barrier but making no progress, were the pulsing tendrils of a Talmas – the same thing he'd seen on Jafari's feed launching out of Abbott’s face.
Havoc scanned across the tank. Hundreds of the dragons hung suspended in the void.
A tomb of the living dead. The dead living.
He had to get out of here.
He pushed away and kicked for the surface.
203.
Weaver spread her hands.
“That's it. If the Diss is targeted on humanity we're done for. Here you go, some images of systems visited by the Diss for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy. You'll have nothing left to rule Tyburn. All that striving for power for nothing.”
Tyburn sat back, thinking. After a minute, he turned to her.
“We have to stop it.”
She looked at him suspiciously.
Tyburn shook his head impatiently.
“I'm not a fucking lunatic Weaver. I have an agenda. It's different to yours. The end of humanity isn't on it.”
She stared at him, not believing a word.
“I'm serious, Weaver. We need to stop this. We need to stop Abbott disabling this beam and prevent him getting hold of this targeting system, this Scepter, right?”
She looked skeptical.
He waited.
She nodded.
“Right. We may not have long.”
Ekker sounded uncertain.
“The United Systems...”
Tyburn looked up, concerned.
“They're following us?”
“No. Activity on the surface. An explosion. Their shuttle has lifted off. Their aerial platform is gone.”
Tyburn grinned.
“Havoc's alive.”
Weaver felt astonished.
“Alive?”
Tyburn shook his head.
“That's my boy. How the hell does he do that?”
“Havoc's alive?” Weaver repeated.
“We'll need a team. Do the ORC still have that commando squad on the surface, Ekker?”
“Checking now. Yes they do.”
Tyburn nodded.
Weaver narrowed her eyes at Tyburn.
“Are you really Forge?”
“No, I never was.”
She frowned at the cryptic answer.
“Er, there are a fucking truckload of God squadders down there, Sir. I mean a shit tonne,” Ekker said.
“Thank you for that assessment, Ekker.”
“So what do we do?” Weaver said.
Tyburn looked at her.
“What I do, I do for humanity. I hope your negotiation skills are up to par. You've convinced me. You just have to convince one more.”
She looked quizzically at Tyburn.
Tyburn turned to Ekker.
“Take us back to the Colosseum.”
204.
Havoc sank continuously into the sludge. He paddled hard with his arms and legs. If he relented, even for a second, he sank. His non-functioning jetpack was a lump of extra mass without utility. The flare star had blown out the jets on his legs, hips and shoulders. The sludge was acidic and it was attacking his suit sealant. He felt like a hamster on a wheel. If he died here it would be ironic. He checked his power. The suit estimated it could sustain this motion for another nine thousand years. Joy.
He looked across the hideous muck he was struggling in. The viscous tar licked at him, covering his body and sucking him in. It wanted him.
He couldn't launch any wires up to surface, and even if he could, he doubted the ice would take the load on a narrow point. He thought about ditching the suit – he might stay on the surface better. His skin had resisted extreme temperature already, well beyond his expectations. He knew some organic polymers could withstand ultrahigh temperatures, though they weren’t as resilient as suit armor. But used as skin? He dismissed the thought. His suit had born the brunt and the fragments had fallen away.
He became aware that he could rebreathe almost indefinitely from his oxygen reservoir. It didn’t matter. Ditching his suit was an absolute last resort. If he ditched it and he couldn't get up to the ice before sunrise, well that was an even worse position to be in. He’d be naked in a furnace.
He continued his mechanical dredging, paddling like a dog in a tar pit as he considered his non-existent options.
Back and forth, back and forth.
Shlurp, suck; shlurp, suck.
205.
Weaver leaned forward in her seat. Tyburn watched her intently. She steeled herself for the inevitable stream of invective.
“Havoc, are you there?”
He sounded incredulous.
“Weaver?”
“Havoc, are you ok?”
“Fine, thanks for asking.”
She flinched a little.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Accidents happen.”
“Look, Havoc, I need to ask you something. I know you'll be angry. It's the hardest thing I've ever asked anyone to do. It's Abbott. He's been infected or infested, somehow, by the alien. He's leading the Gathering toward the station that controls the gravatic beam. And we absolutely have got to stop him. Inside the gravitational anomaly is a weapon that could destroy our whole species. I'm sending you some footage now, ok?”
“Fine.”
“We need a team to stop it, Havoc. There isn't an easy way to say this. I've got to ask you to work with Tyburn to help us to stop Abbott. And please let me finish, Havoc. The man that you think is Claudius Forge is willing to help. He has some ORC commandos who can help too. There are a lot of Gathering soldiers, Havoc, a lot. There is so much at stake, please, I know you'll do the right thing, please say yes.”
“Sure, fine.”
“Because Havoc, this isn't just about you, it's about–– Did you say yes?”
“Yeah, no problem, let's do it.”
Tyburn nodded, looking surprised. Amazed, even.
Weaver felt an upwelling of hope and optimism. If a man like John Havoc could set aside his differences for the common good, surely humanity had a chance.
“Thank you, Havoc.”
Tyburn entered the conversation.
“I have your word, Son?”
“Yes, until we stop Abbott. We can set some conditions. You have my word.”
“Good enough for me. And I give you my word.”
Havoc sounded deadpan.
“Great. Only Weaver while I prep. We can meet at a forward base. Send me a location.”
Tyburn considered.
“Alright, Weaver can drop us at the ORC camp and take the shuttle back to you.”
Weaver brightened, feeling more optimistic.
“Shall I come and pick you up?”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
206.
Weaver hovered the shuttle over the giant hole in the ice, looking down on the superhero that Tyburn insisted was essential to stopping Abbott and the Gathering.
Havoc seemed to be doing some kind of doggy paddle that was barely keeping him afloat. She lowered a cable and he grabbed it. She felt a sense of trepidation as she began to hoist him up.
“You're not angry with me are you?”
“I'm surprised and upset.”
“Are you mad?”
“No, I'm just surprised.”
“Shocked and confused?”
“Well yes, shocked and confused.”
“But not mad?”
“What the gun didn't kill me so the inane questions will?”
“I'm glad you're alive, I just didn't expect... this.”
“Yeah well, I didn't expect you to shoot me.”
“It was self defense.”
“Did sleeping beauty shoot the Prince?”
She smiled.
“So I'm a beautiful Princess?”
“You have
your moments. Lifting me out of this swamp is one of them.”
“It looks frightening down there.”
“You have no idea.”
She watched him lift clear of the ice. His slime covered patchwork suit came into view. She looked at it with bemusement.
“Did you build that suit yourself?”
“Yeah, I did actually.”
“I saw you as more of a snappy dresser.”
“Yeah, well, I'm about to change.”
“What happened to the cabins?”
He pointed at the two cabins on the opposite side of the Colosseum entrance.
“Those two are fine.”
“But you haven't been in those.”
“I've been busy.”
“Does everywhere you visit get blown up?”
He looked thoughtful.
“I don't know. I haven't been everywhere yet.”
207.
Weaver flew the shuttle another two kilometers to where Havoc's drop pod lay adjacent to the Colosseum. Havoc explained Stephanie’s double cross as he dragged out four aerial platforms and spun them up.
“So that’s it. Steph was a United Systems agent the whole time I knew her.”
Weaver shook her head.
“I never liked your ex.”
Havoc carried a new suit out of the pod.
“Yeah well you're a better judge of character than I am.”
“She was too cold.”
“Not the last time I saw her.”
Weaver nodded, trying to be positive.
“Oh well, that’s good, I suppose.”
Havoc grunted his assent as he opened his patchwork suit and stepped out it, naked in the freezing cold.
Weaver felt a bit startled.
“Gosh.”
Havoc looked down, inspecting his arms and upper chest.
“My friends at the Morvent Academy gave me a little more than I asked for.”