“You got it, boss,” one of them said. The other gave me a salute and it made me smile. An accountant being saluted in a metal cube in space was quite the sight. “What about that one? Isn’t she with them? Should we… dispose of her?” He said it with a twitch of his eye, like he was trying to act the role but was terrified if I’d say yes.
“She’s with us. Caught on the wrong side of the battle.” They visibly relaxed and moved on.
Alley addressed the people and was giving directions. They all eagerly listened, ready to help, with hope on their side now. People could do miraculous things with just a little hope. Mae came over carrying some food and water and tossed them in a bag, slinging it over her shoulder. She also had an EVA suit over her other shoulder; her gun still hung there too. “I’m coming with you. I’ve changed the thrusters on this thing to slow it and to make a wide turn, sending it back toward Earth. We’ll have plenty of time to get to the sun, do the same for the others, and get back to this one, at the slow speed it’s heading.”
I smiled at Alley and the group of survivors. That’s what they were now, survivors. We had no time, and I knew Mary and Natalia would be worried about us.
“Come on, let’s go,” I said. We ran through the halls, making our way back to the floor we’d arrived on. People milled around the halls now, word of help passing through the container. We urged them to help where they could and that directions were coming. We made out way to the room we’d started in. Half the people were gone from it now, the other half dead or too weak to move. I had a new resolve to help the rest of the containers. The image we’d seen on the Kraski mother ship looked like there were about thirty of these containers out there.
We zipped our suits up, put on the masks, and clipped ourselves back on to the tethers. Hopefully, Mary was still there.
“Mae, we’re heading to a Kraski ship here. Do you have a pin?”
She looked confused until she appeared to realize I meant the button on our suits. She nodded, and we all pressed them. Glowing green, we pulled ourselves up and briefly into space as we passed through the walls and into the ship where Mary was.
She was in the cargo bay waiting for us. Relief crossed her face when I looked up at her, but it quickly turned to aggression when she saw Mae with us.
“It’s okay, Mary. She’s with us now,” I said.
She came to me as I took off my helmet. Unexpectedly, she grabbed my head in her hands and leaned her forehead against mine. While our few kisses had been wonderful, this was more intimate and special. We shared this moment with two others standing a couple feet away from us. She pulled back and I stood there breathless for a moment.
She gave me a light kiss before letting go and grinned when she looked over at Magnus and Mae. “I was so worried about you. What happened down there?”
We moved to the front of the ship so Natalia could hear it too. We told them our story, and about Mae being a Kraski-human hybrid. Mary had met Janine, so I knew she was aware this woman was a spitting image of my wife, but she didn’t say a word about it. We ate a little dehydrated something from Mae’s bag and drank water. Our aching bellies needed the sustenance, and I knew it would give us enough energy to get the job done.
“I think we should get going, da?” Natalia asked from the smaller ship, through the speaker.
Magnus shifted from side to side and shrugged at me as if he’d decided something. “Nat. Bring your ship over here. I’ll do the same tether business and make my way into your ship. I think you could use the company, and if I’m being honest, I miss you. I’ll bring some food and water for you.”
She agreed, and I helped Magnus get hooked up in the cargo room. In a matter of minutes, Magnus was across and with Nat on the other ship. I was on the bridge with Mary and a clone of my dead wife, and we were accelerating for the sun. We devised a plan on the way. I sure hoped it would work.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The sun was blazing at us from the viewscreen from quite some distance. We were moving at full speed; stars in the distance didn’t quite streak as move slowly along our view. We were close to where the ships would be, according to Mae’s last intel. The last leg of the trip was upon us, and all I could do was hope that we weren’t too late. Would our plan work? It seemed the only logical move, and we’d find out very soon.
“Are you sure this ship is linked in to their communication systems?” Mary asked Mae, her eyes narrowing slightly as she assessed the other woman.
“Yes, the Kraski ships are all linked to the transport vessels. We’ll be there in moments.” Mae stepped toward the screen and pointed when multiple lights blinked up onto it.
The stars slowed in the viewscreen and I was surprised that we could go from super-fast to a stop and not feel the inertia at all inside. These guys had some serious engineering capabilities. All the science fiction I’d read or seen on TV had engines that required massive power sources and crash couches for the bone-breaking sudden lurches of space travel. This was nothing like that, and I was glad for it.
“Mae, we’re trusting you here,” I said as I put a firm hand on her shoulder. My voice wavered slightly when I spoke, and I felt bad for not trusting her all the way. I wasn’t sure I would ever trust anyone fully after Janine.
“I know what you’re thinking, but you don’t have to worry about me. I want to save your people and live among them, free, instead of a slave to the Kraski.” She sat down and keyed in something to the control panel.
I tried to count the containers I saw out there and figured there were around ninety. To think there were more than seventy million people on each of those cubes was mindboggling. We figured the huge cubes were about seventy rooms wide and tall. I wondered how many of the people were still living on these things. Even if this worked, I knew the Earth would never be the same; its population would be sorely depleted.
Natalia and Magnus pulled up beside us, their smaller ship a blue blip on our screen.
“Attention, all loyal to the Kraski. The war is over and we have been ordered to return the humans to their planet. An agreement has been made for their lives. I say this with the orders from the Supreme Legislation’s full authority. Feed the oxygen back through the rooms, turn the thrusters on, and work your ways back to Earth. K53251 over.”
We waited for someone to reply, and I had to tell my brain to keep me breathing. My heart was pounding in my chest.
“Roger that, K53251. We are turning around now. N32154 over,” a voice called over the speaker.
“Roger that, K53251. We are also turning.”
Mae turned it to mute, and we all applauded loudly. Magnus was cheering and I could hear Natalia laughing. We watched as dozens of the cubes started heading toward us slowly.
“This might actually work!” Mary said excitedly.
About ten minutes later, most of the containers had changed direction, and we were ready to get help to our people. I noticed there were a few units hanging back, and at this point, they were extremely close to the sun.
“What do you think they’re waiting for?” As soon as I asked, one of them sped up and headed directly to the sun. It happened so fast that we didn’t have time to react. Just like that, a whole cube of our people snuffed up in a flare of hot orange light, hardly visible since we were so close.
A new voice cut over the comm-system. “Do not listen to these traitors. There is no way the Kraski would renege on this. This is what they lived for; Earth was their last hope. We were created to serve them, and this is our ultimate sacrifice. Let us do what we were made for, and end this!” The voice was full of venom, and Mae visibly paled.
“I know that one. He was always a bully but was more than happy to lead this endeavor.”
“What do we do now? Do they have any weapons?” Mary asked.
As if her words were a curse, a green blip appeared on our screen and headed quickly toward us.
“Yes, he had a Kraski ship, like this one. For emergencies. I think this constitutes an emerg
ency to him,” Mae said.
Thoughts raced through my head, and I tried to make some sense out of what we were seeing here. A couple of the containers had turned around, presumably persuaded by the newcomer’s words.
“I have an idea. Natalia, you know where the guns are on that thing, right?” I asked.
“Da. Teelon showed me. I think in case the Kraski figured it out and we needed to shoot our way out of there.”
“Good. Can you lead this guy away, keep him on his toes? We need a few minutes.”
Without saying anything, Natalia’s ship raced in front of us, firing at the incoming vessel. She veered off and he followed, firing on her. I silently hoped she could evade him long enough for us to succeed.
Two other containers started their thrusters to full speed and were crashing into the sun’s deadly heat. They too faded in massive flares as we sped toward the rest of them. Millions of lives snuffed out like nothing. I had to push the pain down for the time being. I would have time for mourning later, after we saved the rest.
“Mary, you get in close. Mae, where are all the thrusters?” She hesitated, unsure of what I was asking. Another cube was veering into the sun. The ships were insulated, but beads of sweat fell down my face as we were so close to the massive burning ball of gas. Any closer, and its gravitational pull was going to drag us down. “Dammit, Mae! Where are the thrusters?”
We gained on the cube closest to us, and she directed Mary to each of the glowing thrusters. Mae took it upon herself to fire away at them, blowing them up with precision. We followed suit on the rest of the cubes nearby.
While she was firing, she called out on the open line to all of her hybrid people. “The Kraski are all dead. We are now free to do as we will. I’ve met some humans and they are more than willing to let us live side-by-side among them. Stop what you’re doing, and we can have lives for ourselves!” she called, her passion obvious to anyone listening.
The last few containers still nearing the sun stopped and turned around. I wiped my forehead and kissed the top of Mary’s head.
Our ship shook, and Carey began barking loudly as we were tossed around. Apparently, we could still get shaken up in this thing. The other Kraski ship flew by us, lasers blasting, Natalia close behind him. There wasn’t much more frightening than a gun-wielding man with nothing to lose. This was one of those things that was. Sensing his new focus, I realized what he was going to do. The beams cut into one of the nearby containers and ripped the sides to shreds. We were close enough to see people floating away by the hundreds.
Mary was already heading after him, Mae firing their weapons, hitting his shields a few times before he veered off. But his work was done, and we saw small explosions starting throughout his target.
“Mary, get the hell away from that thing!” I yelled, and as we flew the opposite direction from it, the whole thing exploded violently. The concussion shook our ship, but we were otherwise okay. Another chunk of human lives gone. The weight of all the lives lost was pushing me down, and I felt like gravity had doubled. I thought about Ray, and Janine… the Kraski we’d destroyed – a whole race of beings. I thought about the hundreds of dead people Magnus and I had walked over to get to the center of the container we found Mae in, before we proceeded to kill her companions.
So much death. I slid to the ground and looked at my hands. The hands of an accountant. A man who liked to have a cold one with his buddies, and watch the Yankees play for the pennant. I almost expected them to be covered in blood as I peered at them, my vision narrowing as my pulse raced. I could hear voices, but I didn’t know what they were saying. I looked up to see Janine staring at me. I’d missed her so much, but that felt like a dream; a time so long ago, so full of lies, that it was never truly my life. Then I thought of Mary, so strong-willed and real.
Something wet licked my face. Carey, the ever-loyal dog I’d hardly known until a week ago, was stepping on my lap and licking me. I snapped out of it. I realized that it wasn’t Janine with me there, it was Mae.
“Nat, I’m going to arc under him and pop up hard in front. You cut down and we’ll have him between us. We both fire, neither of us can miss. Got it?” Mary’s voice called out.
I was still on the floor and stayed there, trying not to pass out. The panic attack had subsided, but I was still lightheaded. Not quite the hero of the books I’d read, either.
“Now!” Mary called, and Mae let out a whoop. I pulled myself up to catch the tail end of their battle, the Kraski ship exploding into a million pieces.
Everything went quiet for a moment. I looked to the computer and saw the cube dots all moving away from the sun. The ones we’d fired on, taking out the thrusters, were still sitting back, slowly and surely heading into their imminent demise.
“We have to do something about those guys,” I said quietly, suddenly ashamed of my fall from grace a few minutes ago. They didn’t seem to notice or care a whole lot, not that I blamed them, since they’d had their hands quite full at the time.
I pulled my suit on and locked in my helmet again. “Mae, you’re with me. I have an idea.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The tethers we wore were made of some linked material that seemed to be indestructible. I knew there were more of them in the cargo bay, and I took all of them that I could. We clamped the longest ones we could find on our suits, and I took a deep breath as I thought about what we were about to do: float into the great abyss that was space, a couple miles from the sun. Mae assured me that these suits could handle the temperature and heavy radiation, but only for a few minutes. We had to do this fast.
The container farthest away was still moving; its two thrusters were on the same side, so it was slowly trying to spin around. Mae had called over to the ship and learned that three of her people were tied up and gagged. The rest were happy to cooperate and make it out of there alive. They rotated the thrusters and had placed themselves away from the sun, with the other two cubes between them and the sun.
It was show time.
“Mary, are we close enough?” I called to the front of the ship. She didn’t answer, but in moments, she was running into the room.
“Just be safe. I want you to come back to me in one piece.” She stared into my eyes. “Mae, take care of him out there, would you? He’s somewhat important to me.”
“Somewhat?” I asked with a nervous laugh. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” I petted Carey on the head; the dog was looking at me like I was a stranger in a space suit. I was looking forward to getting him home safely.
I squeezed Mary’s hands and let go, pressing the pin on my suit. I glowed bright green and pushed myself through the bottom of the ship, and into the great, blazing hot expanse.
We emerged outside of the ship, the red-hot sun threatening to devour me the instant I was out. It was massive this close, and even though the suit was designed for huge heat blasts, I was instantly sweating. We didn’t have much time.
My helmet screen had darkened, the lens polarizing from the light. I still had to squint as I looked at Mae, who was calling to me from the comm-link we shared in the suits.
“Dean, follow my lead. Squeeze your fingers together on your left hand like I showed you.” She started flying away toward the big, black cube, her tether waving behind her.
Pinching my forefinger to my thumb, I felt the suit’s mini-thruster activate, and I jetted off after her. It took a bit of moving my hand up and down to level off, but once I got the hang of it, it was almost fun. If only I wasn’t burning up in an alien space suit, trying to stop millions of people from dying in a fiery crash, if they weren’t already melted from the heat.
We neared the cube, and I was amazed at the sheer size of the thing. I had no object I could really compare it to, but it looked like a city on its side. The metal walls were black and matte-finished. Mini-cubes covered the whole thing. From afar it looked smooth, but up close it was extremely textured. They weren’t aerodynamic, but I guess that didn’t matter for what
they were built for. I had to figure they were really transport vessels for people and perhaps livestock, almost as if the Kraski had planned to relocate their entire population here but something had happened.
I shook the thought from my head as Mae waved me over. We were near the center of the cube, and I unraveled two tethers from around my arm and latched them to a metal eye hook that presented itself by a thruster opening. We mounted four of them in total and quickly made our way over to the next cube in line, securing the four tethers to it. There was a little bit of give, and we could only hope that they would hold up to the immense weight. I had no real idea of the physics of it, but we didn’t have much time to figure out other options.
We raced around the massive middle container and repeated the process, adding the full weight of a third cube. When we were done, I could hardly see, and I felt like I was melting. I looked to my suit and was sure it was melting.
Mary had been following along, making sure our tethers had enough slack, and we now reeled ourselves in fast.
We approached the ship, and I was about to green myself through the cargo door when Mae stopped. She unhooked her tether and smiled at me.
“Dean, I have to go activate one of the thrusters on the left side of that first cube. There’s no other way. The damage looked minimal, just some debris blocking it, I think.”
I didn’t know what to say. Janine’s duplicate watched me with wide eyes, and I reached up to her face. My glove sat on her face-mask for a moment. “Godspeed,” I said, and she floated out after the first cube. My suit was about to expire, and I pushed my pin. Green light enveloped me and I pulled my rope, emerging into the cargo bay.
The Survivors Box Set Page 20