by CK Burch
Udeh reached out behind him again for the rail, for some kind of support, but he was still just out of reach. If Kerrick dove at him at least she'd be away from Laguardia, maybe they would even tumble into the side of the shaft and he'd have more leverage, but like this he was a sitting duck.
Kerrick snarled again and used Laguardia’s body to kick off of. Then Kerrick collided with Udeh, wrapping her legs around his torso as they spun backwards end over end. There was no up or down, just the world spinning endlessly as Kerrick reached up for his face and tried to claw at him. He managed to grab her wrist but the spinning made it tough to stay focused. The whole world was moving too fast, closing in, moving, spinning, contracting. He couldn't breathe. Kerrick leaned forward and tried to take a bite out of his cheek but he managed to hold her at bay; he heard the clack of her teeth snapping shut as she missed. Fuck this, he thought, and hocked a mean loogie and spat it right in her eye. It blinded her enough for him to free his hand and punch her in the face. Kerrick's nose broke with a loud, satisfying snap but the blood sprayed into Udeh's eyes and blinded him right back. He tried wiping it out of his eyes but the glove was too damn large. It was like using a football as a cloth.
Kerrick's teeth were at his throat. He tried punching at her midsection, maybe get her to loosen up, but her clamp was like a vise and kept tightening; he felt the skin puncture under her canines, felt the warmth of the blood spread over and down his neck, felt the greater heat of the wound Kerrick was opening in his flesh, pulling and tearing and growling. He swung his fist again at her side but it was weak, useless. He felt his strength flowing out of his neck and into Kerrick's mouth. She's going to kill me, he thought. The world around him swam and contracted and he heard the labored breathing of the dragon, deep and resonant. All the heat of the dragon's breath around him filled his body with terrifying humidity.
Kerrick released her clamp as Laguardia brought the butt of her rifle down on Kerrick's back. Udeh turned and saw his own blood spraying into zero g, hovering and coalescing like weird pop art. This isn't how I'm supposed to die. Somewhere through the blur of his vision he saw Kerrick and Laguardia struggle, and then Kerrick flew away, downward, the predator finished for now. Udeh wasn't really of a mind to care about her. Or about anything right now. All he could see was blood, so much of it, all of it his own, spinning and sticking and sliding over the surfaces of the bulkhead across the width of the shaft. It had flown out all that way. So much so far so –
Laguardia was shaking him. Saying something, he couldn't understand it. He couldn't focus his vision. Damn. So this was it, was it? He wanted to smile but there was no muscle in his face.
″Data,″ he said. He thought he’d said it out loud. He tried again to be sure: ″Data.″
What? He saw Laguardia's mouth move, but couldn't hear her.
″Nav data.″ He held up his minipad. He tried to reach over to the touchscreen but couldn't move his left arm for some reason. God damn it. He was dying and he was going out like a first-year cadet. No. He swung his left arm over with everything he could muster and touched the screen, activated the data and sent it to Laguardia. She looked down, touched her screen, looked surprised. She'd gotten it. Thank god. At least he'd done something right.
There was new pain in his neck: she was trying to cover up the hole Kerrick had bitten out, but it was too late for him. He shook his head, weakly shoved her hand aside, tried to smile but couldn't. ″Send data,″ he said. ″Straub. Send data. Be safe.″ Everything in the background was closing in. The walls were pulling towards him, a compactor prepared to squeeze the remaining life out of his body. He'd always wondered if death would be a claustrophobic event.
Laguardia looked up, and she readied her rifle. Udeh followed her gaze and saw a number of crawlers coming down the shaft, a couple of humans controlled by them too. Fuck. They were going to be here in seconds. Laguardia was grabbing at his shoulder, refusing to leave, and she was going to get herself killed with him.
He looked left, right, finally caught the gleam of his pulse rifle just below them, hovering near the walls. Must've floated away when Kerrick attacked. He pointed at it. ″Take mine,″ he said, and he reached for Laguardia's rifle. Hers had the grenade launcher. He had an idea. One last stand before the end.
She looked over at the rifle hovering nearby, turned back, said something, but he couldn't read her lips. It didn't matter anyway. All that mattered was that she got out with the others. ″Go,″ he said, pulling on her rifle. He took it out of her grasp. ″Go. That's order.″
Laguardia stared at him for a moment, and for a moment he thought she was stay with him regardless. Instead, Sergeant Laguardia saluted, and then turned and kicked off the wall towards the rifle and further down below towards the cargo bay and escape.
Udeh turned back to the coming swarm: Christ, they were real close. Closer than he thought he had time for. He brought the rifle around and fought with the trigger, couldn't get his finger to wrap around it properly. Come on, he thought. Come on! He slid his finger in and pulled. The kickback nearly flew the weapon out of his hands and he missed his target entirely. They were still coming, maybe ten yards away now, and Udeh fired again, the kick sending him backwards down the shaft. Had to be careful; he didn't want to get too far away from the wall. Come on, you bastards. Come to me.
He reached out, found the wall, pulled himself closer to it. Waited there. Seconds passed and finally they came, swirling about like sea creatures, floating to him. Only a few of them were grabbing on to his body; the rest were continuing downward.
Without waiting, Captain Okwudili Udeh turned the rifle directly towards the wall, smiled, and thought of how he'd always wanted to be on the Icarus when he died. Then he fired the grenade launcher and let go.
***
Collins felt the tremble run throughout the framework of the ship. Christ. An explosion. That was all they needed now, an explosion. Blow up the whole fucking ship. God, after all the fucking time they'd put into putting it all back together. That was all they fucking needed.
She looked over at Straub, who was busy working with the console. For a brief moment she wondered what he was doing, then ignored him. Who fucking cares? The idiot was the one responsible for creating the paranoia on the ship, not the artifact, not the radiation, just Straub. It made more sense the more she thought about it. People had a powerful way of imposing their thoughts on to other people. You know, politicians and preachers and predators. Psychology wasn't her thing, but it seemed like Straub was good at that shit, and she was flat fucking tired of it. Oh, Gaines lost his mind because of the radiation, oh, so did Kerrick, oh no Mac is losing it too! Christ. Like a broken fucking record. She would have left him behind on the star if she'd known that he was going to be such a nuisance. Right now what mattered was Laguardia and Udeh showing up and then Captain Markov. Once everyone was here, it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. If the captain didn't show, then fuck him. He made his choice to go after people who didn't matter. Once they were taken, they were taken. Collins hated being so cold, but that was the truth of it: fuck no man left behind, it was every man and woman for themselves.
She looked over at Straub again. He'd been real quiet the last few minutes. Quieter than he'd been the entire time he'd been on the ship. Fucking brat scientist. He'd probably been fucking Kerrick just as a sportfuck. The bastard wasn't feeling guilty at all for his ex's death, he was just a player using a woman's feelings as his excuse. Collins had seen plenty of men like that, had fought plenty of men like him to get to the rank she held now. She'd had to turn down a lot of sexual advances which resulted in promotions being held back inexplicably. But she'd made it. And Straub, that fucker, he was over there playing with the console like a kid with holoblocks. What was he doing?
Mac's voice came on over the comm. ″How are we looking on time?″
She checked her chronometer. ″Another six minutes, Chief. How are you looking?″
″I'm looking like I don't have t
he proper tools, but this should work just fine. It's slowing me down some, but I can work with it. Straub fix your comm?″
What? Oh. ″Uh, yeah, yeah he fixed it. You just keep working, Chief. We're not out of the woods yet.″ She clicked off the channel and turned to Straub. She had to know what he was doing. ″What are you fucking around with over there?″
He didn't answer.
Collins frowned. She didn't like that.
Then Straub sat back, his face full of surprise. ″I did it, holy shit,″ he said. Then he leaned forward again and started playing with the damn thing some more.
″What? Did what? Straub, what the fuck are you doing?″ She walked over and made to grab his shoulder but looked over it instead and saw that he was going through Mac's maintenance logins. ″Did you hack that? You sonuvabitch! That's a high offense! Fuck, I don't need to come up with anything to leave you here, that's prime reason enough to – ″ She looked at his face. He wasn't paying attention. He was staring at the screen, horrified. ″What?″
″Oh my god,″ he whispered.
″What?″ she asked again.
″This whole time. Oh my god.″
″What this whole fucking time?″ She moved him aside and looked down at all the logins. She frowned, and blinked made sure she was seeing what she was seeing. Because this couldn't be right. This couldn't be right at all. Straub had gone back to before the communications blackout, gone through the chief engineer's login and maintenance reports, which were registered automatically and secured under high-clearance only. Straub had done some serious hacking to get to these, but Collins wasn't worried about that right now. What worried her were the logins that showed that Chief Engineer Lawrence MacConnel had reversed external and internal communications so that they directed their comm signals in opposing vectors, rendering them useless while still within functional parameters. The logins showed that Mac had done the same to the comm system on the Captain's Boat from the Prometheus; had switched the operational status of the radiation scrubbers in the cargo bay from field stream to wide-burst; had reduced polarity on the outer hull to make it more malleable; had narrowed the long-range sensors into a five hundred meter limitation; reset the engine tesseract so that it spun slightly angular than standard alignment...the list went on and on. All of Mac's logins under maintenance and fieldwork showed that he had rendered every system he'd touched effectively useless while still maintaining functionality. But the power core wouldn't let him in and had activated extra security precautions because he hadn't used his codes. Every single fix Mac had made had only served to damage the ship's functionality further.
Collins was speechless.
Straub leaned forward. ″He doesn't know,″ he said. ″He doesn't know, that's the only explanation. He thinks he's been really fixing the ship since we entered the radiation field. He's hallucinating, Commander. He has no idea that this is going on.″
Collins shook her head. Couldn't be. Could it? Had Straub been right the whole time? She remembered being with Captain Udeh in sciences, looking at the schematic of the radiation pulses and the systems they were affecting. It had never been the radiation affecting the ship. It had been the affect of the radiation on Mac.
No. No, no, no. Because if something was wrong with Mac, something was wrong with her, too. And there was nothing wrong with her.
It was Straub.
Sonuvabitch was orchestrating all of this. He was making it happen. He'd made all of this happen. He'd been sitting here long enough to forge those login reports. If he'd been able to hack it, he could change them, too.
″You're lying,″ she said.
″I'm not.″ Straub pointed at the console. ″It's right there. The radiation never affected any of the ship's systems, just us. Mac has been taken the ship apart piece by piece without knowing it. Commander, he's in there right now trying to fix the shuttlecraft. I don't think it's actually broken. I think he sees it that way, and he's – ″
″Shut up.″
″ – trying to fix it because of the radiation affecting his – ″
″I said shut up!″ She went for her rifle but Straub was faster; he reached forward and knocked it from her reach. It flipped across the control station and bounced off the wall. Straub went for it but she grabbed him and they grappled together, struggling while locked in place.
″Commander!″ Straub shouted. ″Please! We have to stop him!″
″That's our ticket home!″ she shouted back. She released one of his hands and punched his helmet.
Straub leaned backward, dazed, but as he stumbled back a step he reached for his minipad. ″Mac! Mac! It's Straub! Come in!″
Collins touched her own pad and opened a comm. ″Mac! It's Collins! Answer me goddammit!″ She turned for the rifle and grabbed it. ″Don't listen to Straub!″
She turned back; Straub had ducked behind one of the consoles near the door. She kept her rifle trained on that corner of the room. If he popped out she wouldn't miss. ″Mac,″ she said again. ″Come in.″
″Chief, please,″ Straub said.
Collins kept her aim where Straub was. If he convinced Mac to stop working, she was going to shoot. This time it was going to be without warning. That fucker had done enough damage already.
***
Icarus-2's exposed engine coil was in front of him, warm, but not active, not quite yet. There was substantial electromagnetic damage to the primary drive flow, and if he didn't redirect it properly the whole damn thing would blow up. And wouldn't that be just what they needed? Another fucking explosion. Except this one would consume them all onboard the shuttle. What a lovely thought.
Mac wanted to take off his helmet and wipe his brow but there was no time for that, especially with the hoodoo chasing them. Aliens, possessed crewmates, some big fucking beast on the other side of the looking glass. What a weird nightmare. He'd had some whoppers in his time, but this was the worst. He kept telling himself it was a nightmare, just a dream, and that made it easier to keep going and working on their escape. There were things he saw when he closed his eyes: the bodies of his team, Clarke, Jessups, Hartman, either bloodied or controlled by the fucking octopus horrors that were crawling throughout the ship. He hated that they were all like that now, away from his help, that there was nothing he could do. All he could do now was keep working, get off the ship. He waved his utilitool over the drive coil again, scanning, patching. Christ, he hoped this worked. What he really needed was –
″Mac! Mac! It's Straub! Come in!″
Jesus! God damn it, didn't they realize he was working with delicate machinery? He reached for his pad when a second comm signal came in. ″Mac! It's Collins! Answer me goddammit! Don't listen to Straub!″
What the hell? This was a new wrinkle. Had something happened to Straub? Fuck, he hadn't cracked up, had he? Or was it Collins that was crazed? No, no, he couldn't think that way. Had to assume that no one was crazy. Must be a mishap.
Collins: ″Mac, come in.″
Straub: ″Chief, please.″
Mac stopped his work, and patched a relay so that both comm signals were coming and going at the same time. ″I can hear and speak to both of you,″ he said. ″You wanna tell me what the fuck is going on?″
They both began speaking at once.
Straub: ″Chief, listen to me – ″
Collins: ″Mac, he's trying to set you up – ″
Straub: ″ – you have to stop working on – ″
Collins: ″ – you can't listen to him, he's seeing what he wants to see – ″
Straub: ″ – the engine coil. You have to stop – ″
Collins: ″ – and he's trying to bring us down – ″
Straub: ″ – working on the coil. It's important – ″
Collins: ″ – with him, just like Kerrick, just like – ″
″Shut up!″ Mac shouted. ″Shut the fuck up, both of you! One at a fucking time! What the fuck is this? I'm almost fucking done with this, we can get out of here soon, we can ju
st leave in a few more fucking minutes!″ He'd had enough of this crazy bullshit, especially now when they were so close to leaving. All he had to do was patch a few relays and that was it, the engine coil would be up and running. Just a few fucking relays, and now this shit?
Straub: ″Chief, listen to me. I know you think you're fixing the engine coil, but you're not. You're hallucinating. You're not fixing it, you're breaking it down. The radiation is affecting your mind.″
″What?″ That was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. ″Straub, are you serious? I'm looking at the relays right now, I've got them all lined up and we're two minutes from being able to get the fuck off of this ship. Everything looks kosher. You're delusional.″
Collins: ″Chief, that's it, you just keep working, don't listen to him. He's inducing paranoia in us all. We have to keep working together to get – ″
Straub: ″Mac, why did the core lock you out of security?″
Mac started to answer, but couldn't. He had no idea why security had locked him out. He'd put in his codes properly, twice over even, but then it had dropped the goddamn countermeasures on him. Fucking hacker bullshit. ″It was the EMP,″ he said. ″The EMP damaged the security systems. Must have reset everything.″
Straub: ″And your comm? What about that?″
″The EMP – ″ But then Mac wondered. Would the EMP have actually done that? No, it wouldn't have. So what had happened there? That's right, it hadn't booted correctly. ″It didn't boot right. When my suit restarted. I couldn't – ″ Couldn't fix it, he started to say, then stopped himself. That wasn't right. Because he could fix anything on this goddamn ship. This was his ship, his baby, his home. He could fix anything on it. So why couldn't he fix a goddamn comm system on a fucking HES? Stress. ″I was stressed, Straub. I've been stressed for a little while now. Can you forgive a man for that? Considering the fucking circumstances? Look, I'm almost done – ″