The Icarus Void

by CK Burch

  Collins: ″Mac, listen to me: I'm not going to let Straub ruin this for us. We have a way off the ship. Captain Udeh and Sergeant Laguardia are almost here. Straub is the one who's lost it, not you. Just keep going.″

  Mac took the utilitool and put it against the coil relays, lining them up one by one.

  Straub: ″Mac, what did you set the radiation scrubbers in the cargo bay to?″

  Mac chuckled. ″They were all set at field-stream and I left 'em there, Doctor. Any other questions?″

  Straub: ″Really, Chief? Because according to your maintenance log, you switched them to wide-burst.″

  Mac frowned. That wasn't right. ″That's not right. I didn't change anything. I checked on them, they were secure and at good angles. I was trying to do your fucking team a favor, Doctor.″

  Straub: ″Mac, doesn't your login happen automatically? It registers changes that you make and logs them into the system without you having to do so, right?″

  Collins: ″Chief, don't listen to him.″

  ″Yes,″ Mac said. He kept closing relays, switching power flow so that the coil would be able to come online and activate. He was almost done. ″It logs automatically. That doesn't mean – ″

  Straub: ″Chief, what would happen to the communication systems if you directed the comm signals in opposing vectors?″

  ″They would operate normally, but they would – ″ He froze; the utilitool hovered over the second to last relay, but he didn't touch it. He was thinking about the comms. About what would happen if they were moving in opposite vectors. ″They would functionally send their signals in looping frequency, transmitting but not broadcasting.″ And they would appear to be functioning normally. He thought about the last time he'd checked on the comms before the dive. He couldn't remember; they'd been working correctly, hadn't they? He hadn't made any changes. Right?

  Straub: ″Chief, according to your log you set both the internal and external comms to opposing vectors. You turned off the comm systems. There was no interference from the radiation on the comms.″

  ″No.″ He refused to believe it. That wasn't right, he'd worked on fixing them. But there'd been nothing to fix. They'd been working – no. They'd been working fine. He hadn't –

  Collins: ″Mac, take it easy. He's trying to work your mind – ″

  Straub: ″External sensors, tesseract drive, heatshield strength. Chief, you've been breaking the ship down for hours now – ″

  No.

  Straub: ″ – and if you keep working on the engine coil there you're not going to fix anything, you're going to break our chances of getting out of here. You need to – ″

  No.

  Collins: ″Mac, he's lying! He'll say anything to make you crazy like he is! Don't – ″

  No.

  Straub: ″Chief, please. I don't want to die, I don't want any of us to die, you just need to take a step back from – ″

  ″No!″ Mac shouted. ″You're lying! I remember it! I remember working on patching comms, bulkheads, the whole nine yards! You're lying to me, Straub!″ He placed the utilitool on the relays and closed them both, finishing his patch and activated the router. Electromagnetic power flushed through the coil and it came online, humming and alive with energy. Mac smiled; it was a dirty patch, a rough one, but it was fixed. He'd fixed it. He could fix anything on this ship. ″Engine coil is patched and relaying energy. I'm going to bring it online.″

  Collins: ″Great job, Mac! I've got Straub here in my sights. We'll bring him with us still and let the courts deal with him.″

  Straub: ″Mac, please. Listen to me. Do I sound like I'm crazy?″

  ″I'll give you this Straub: you sound perfectly right in the head. But I've known a lot of crazy people who sounded like there was nothing wrong with them.″ Mac stood and walked over to the front section of the shuttle. He sat down in the pilot seat and began engine startup procedure. ″Collins, I'm starting up the primary sequencers. Thirty seconds away from fully functional engine thrust.″ The countdown on the console in front of him came to life, ticking away seconds on the holographic projection: 27, 26, 25...

  Straub: ″Mac, please. Shut it down! Where's the harm in shutting it down? We can take the Captain's Boat and we'll still be okay!″

  Mac chuckled. Straub was trying hard. But he wasn't going to listen. He'd fixed the engine coil. Relays were good, heat temp was nominal, power core stabilized. Five-by-fucking-five. Not a worry in sight.

  18, 17, 16...

  ″I'm sorry, Doctor,″ Mac said. ″I hate to tell you this, but you're fucking delusional, like Commander Collins said. It's been nice knowing you. But you're in for the crazy house after this.″

  Straub: ″Mac! Shut it down! There's still time!″

  Collins: ″Shut up! Shut the fuck up, Straub! We're getting out of here, and we're not listening to your crazy talk any longer!″

  Mac smiled. ″She's right, Doc. And you know what? I never really liked you.″

  10, 9, 8...

  Straub: ″Mac, goddammit – ″

  Mac switched off Straub's channel and watched the console as it displayed the power relays holding steady and channeling power to the coil's central drive. The coil itself was now fueling the engines, which were coming online quick and hot, and in a moment the whole shuttle would have fully operational engines, set to standby mode, and the power –

  The power.

  The power was overloading the engines. They were taking too much energy, and the burst was causing them to ignite too hot.

  What the hell?

  3, 2, 1...

  He turned and looked back at the engine coil compartment as it flared white and the interior of the shuttle was engulfed in a blue explosion of electromagnetic energy.

  Mac only had time enough to blink.

  ***

  Straub stood up at the last second, tried screaming at Mac, and Collins rushed towards him but stopped as the Icarus-2 exploded in blue-white energy, engulfing the Icarus-1 on the platform next to it. The shockwave blast cascaded over the entire shuttle bay. The windows on the control room burst inward and shrapnel assaulted Straub's suit. If his feet hadn't been locked down he would have tumbled backward with the force of it, and as it was he had to take a few steps backwards to keep from leaning too far back. When he regained his balance, he looked out the broken paneling at the burning remains of the two shuttles. Icarus-2 was completely gone: the remnants of it had burst outward, littering the bay with a field of caroming debris, and Icarus-1 was damaged beyond any cosmetic repair. A piece of the Icarus-2 had punctured the hull and was jutting out of it like a javelin. It had happened so fast.

  ″Fuck,″ Straub whispered. He punched the console in front of him. ″Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck!″

  Collins was staring out at the bay as well, her mouth open in shock and fear. ″No. No, that was our way out. That – ″ She started to cry. ″Oh my god, that was our way out. We can't get out! We can't get out! We're fucking stuck here! We're going to die here!″

  ″No,″ Straub said. He had to keep it together. Had to stay focused, stay sharp. He looked down at the console and begin tapping the holo controls. The system did a quick scan on the Captain's Boat, and he let out a sharp breath once it showed no damage had been done to it. ″No, there's still the Captain's Boat. It didn't take any damage from the blast! We can take – ″ He turned just in time to see Collins raising the pulse rifle in his direction and he ducked as she pulled the trigger. Slugs laced the wall behind him and ripped it open. That could have been him. ″Commander! I'm on your side! We can still get out of here!″

  The firing stopped for a moment. Straub heard her eject the empty clip, and heard the sounds of her putting in a new one. Fuck this. He wasn't going to stick around for Collins to ventilate him. He got up and deactivated his boots, flying out of the control room and into the bay as another volley of pulse slugs pelted the console he'd just been hiding behind. Collins was screaming with rage and agony, incomprehensible words about le
aving, escaping, shit like that but Straub wasn't paying attention. Collins was gone. She'd snapped with the explosion of the shuttle and was gone and that meant nothing but trouble for Straub if he didn't keep moving. Kerrick, Mac, Collins. God, he was next, wasn't he? If he didn't keep himself focused it would be him next. Although the chances of survival at this point seemed –

  The wall beside him lit up with pulse fire.

  Stay focused.

  He kicked away from the wall towards the opposite end of the shuttle bay, where the corridor to cargo was. If he could get to the cargo bay somehow, then double back, he might be able to outrun Collins and get the Captain's Boat up and running. That was their only chance.

  Straub pulled up Udeh's comm. No signal. What the fuck? He tried Laguardia's. ″Sergeant! Can you hear me? Sergeant!″ He reached the wall above the corridor entrance. Straub locked his boots and ran down towards the door. Collins was coming out of the control room, running down the platform towards him.

  ″Laguardia here. I thought I heard an explosion. What the fuck is going on?″

  Straub reached the door and kept going, entering the corridor running along the ceiling. It was disorienting, but there was no time to right himself. ″Collins has lost it!″ he shouted. ″Mac blew up in the shuttlecraft and Collins lost it! She's chasing me!″ He rounded the corner and bullets perforated the ceiling behind him. Too fucking close. Too fucking close. ″I'm heading to cargo! I'm going to try and lose her!″

  ″Stay alive,″ Laguardia said. Then her comm cut out. What the hell? Come on, he needed better assurance than that –

  He looked behind him and saw Collins, upside-down from his vantage, at the other end of the corridor in a firing position. Fuck, he thought, and he deactivated his boots and kicked off towards the floor at an angle. Collins's fire laced the ceiling and followed him on his flight path, but he landed hands-first on the floor and pushed off again towards the wall to his right, reactivating his boots and running along the wall. He turned the next corner and kept running that way.

  Stephen. I'm almost there. I'm close to you.

  Oh god no, please not now. Not now. He had to focus. He had to keep running –

  Stephen.

  Running. That was it. He'd been running this entire time. Running away from his feelings, his hurt, his mind. That was what Mac had done. Collins was doing the same thing. Ignoring it, running away from it. Shit, he didn't know what to do anymore. There was no right way or wrong way, just running away and towards danger. Fuck. Fuck!

  He looked back. Collins was rounding the corner behind him, and the cargo bay was off to his right. The lift was just up the corridor. If he could get there he could go to Sarah, confront her, be done with her. He was inches away from cover, he just didn't know what to do...

  The lift doors opened. They caught his attention.

  A wild spray of gunfire hit the wall next to him and he jumped away from it, just barely, slamming into the wall beside him. This was it. He had no alignment, he couldn't do anything other than float here. Collins had him in her sights. I'm sorry Sarah, he thought.

  Another burst of gunfire caught his attention, this time from the lift. He looked up and saw Laguardia kneeling in a firing position at the open doors, firing past him down the hallway, and he turned with the direction of the gunfire and saw Collins's HES rip open and her blood painted the wall behind her. Collins did a ragdoll dance, her boots still locked onto the floor, and then her upper body went limp. With the boots locked down, her feet kept her upright but her vital signs no longer registered on Straub's screen. She was dead.

  Straub lowered himself to the floor and locked down. Laguardia came up next to him, limping badly. ″Thanks,″ he said, and he put his arm around her waist, under her arms. ″Jesus, are you wounded?″

  ″Just an old one,″ she said. She put her arm around Straub's neck. ″Thanks. I don't think I can walk on my own anymore.″

  ″Where's Captain Udeh?″

  Laguardia's face was serious. ″He didn't make it.″

  Straub stopped. ″Shit. It's just us.″

  She shook her head. ″No. Captain Markov.″

  ″He's off doing god-knows-what. He could be anywhere.″

  Laguardia nodded in the direction of the shuttle bay. ″We get whatever it is that we're flying out of here on ready and we call him. We find out where he is. If he's not close enough, we pull out. If he is, we wait. Agreed?″ She looked up at him and the intensity there was enough for him to agree by nodding. It couldn't hurt them. They'd have to prep the Captain's Boat for launch regardless of if they were waiting or not.

  There was a noise coming from the lift doors behind them. Straub turned and saw crawlers – ten, twenty, holy fuck – pouring out of the lift shaft. It looked like everything left on the ship, crawlers and drivers alike running down the corridor in their direction, swarming without hesitance.

  ″Jesus Christ!″ he yelled.

  ″Go! Do it!″ Laguardia shrugged him off. ″I'll be right behind you!″

  Laguardia turned off her boots as he turned to run down the corridor towards Collins's dead body. He was running fast, as fast as the goddamn suit would allow him to go, and he heard gunfire behind him. She was firing on full auto, spraying it all over the pack swarming towards them, using the rifle's kick to push her backwards down the hall. Straub turned forward again and pushed hard. Collins's rifle was hanging in midair, waiting for him to get at it and take a turn at the crawlers. Come on, Steve, he thought. He got to Collins and had a thought. He touched her minipad and deactivated the magboots, then took her rifle.

  ″Laguardia! Go loose!″ he shouted. Laguardia flew into his open arms and she stopped firing. He quickly shoved her around the corner and towards the cargo bay, then grabbed Collins's body and shoved her into the path of the crawlers and ran for it. He didn't bother to look back; if they wanted a body they'd take it. Hopefully it would slow them down, even for a few seconds. He turned off his boots and used the rifle's kick for thrust, firing at the pack behind him. Fuck, they were still coming. The whole corridor was black from how many there were, even the drivers bouncing from wall to wall like sick acrobats. He flew backwards and away from the stampede until the rifle clicked empty and Laguardia caught him by the back of his suit. She pulled him into the cargo bay and swung him out towards the Captain's Boat on the other side. He floated past the still-burning remains of the Icarus-2; he felt it through his suit. Must be fucking hotter than hell, he thought, then realized that was what the crawlers were after – they wanted the heat.

  Straub reactivated his boots at the Captain's Boat and waited for Laguardia's jump to bring her into his reach. Once she was caught, he guided her down the side of the Boat to the landing platform, and they opened the doors and stepped inside. He looked back: the crawlers had entered the bay and were collecting over the wreckage, turning white with the heat. They were absorbing it. Storing it? He wasn't sure. Even the drivers were over the blue-white flames, the human shells not faring as well as the creatures that were covering them. Straub tried not to think about how that would smell.

  They closed the door behind them and Straub lowered Laguardia onto one of the seats. Then he walked over to the pilot's chair and activated the flight controls. Should be easy enough to startup preflight. If he could hack a fucking code black report schedule, he could startup preflight on the Boat. He found the systems he wanted and the engines hummed to life. The Boat's core activated and the lights came on, illuminating the ship. At first he couldn't figure out why it felt so fucking bright to him, then he realized that he'd been in pitch black for hours now.

  ″Here,″ Laguardia said. She tapped her minipad and Straub received the navigation data. Then he punched it into the Boat's control systems. Jesus, they had course, jump time, flight control; everything was ready. Comms were still down, but now that Straub knew what was wrong with it, he could get in there and probably get it back up and running. He thought of Mac. What a fucking waste. He should
have done more, tried harder. Mac shouldn't have had to die like that.

  ″Okay,″ he said. "We need to call the captain. Get him on the horn – ″

  ″Wait,″ Laguardia said. ″The docking clamps. We have to release the docking clamps first. The captain will still be able to get onboard once we do, but I'd like to make as few trips out there as possible. You follow me?″

  He thought of the swarm outside. ″Right. I can patch the bay doors remotely through my minipad. One less trip, right?″

  Laguardia chuckled. ″You can do that?″

  ″College was kinda boring. I'll tell you about it some time.″ He pat Laguardia on the shoulder and smiled. ″You call the captain while I head out there and release the clamps. I'll be back in a minute.″

  He opened up the Boat door and froze.

  Sarah was standing there in the control room.

  Staring at him.

  Jesus Christ.

  ″Straub?″ Laguardia. ″You okay?″

  ″You see that?″ He pointed to the control room.

  She leaned over and said, ″See what?″

  Sarah smiled. Her lips moved, but her voice sounded like she was right next to him.

  Hello Stephen.

  ″Nothing. Never mind. I'll be right back.″ Straub took a deep breath and thought about praying again, then stepped out of the Boat onto the landing platform and closed the door behind him.

  Sarah smiled wider. She looked happy.

  ***

  CHAPTER XVII.

  Markov reached his destination at last.

  He opened up the vent into the cargo bay and climbed outward. Everything was as he'd last seen it: the artifact still stood in the middle of the room, mocking him, and the rest of the bay was clean. Empty. Except for the body of Rene Fleur, hovering upside down near the artifact. Her suit wasn't reading any signals. Ah, god. He'd been afraid of this. He leapt down to the floor and locked himself into place next to her. For a moment he was confused, then he realized that her suit was off. He couldn't read any signals because there weren't any biosigns being broadcast. If she was alive, he wouldn't be able to tell. Why was the suit off?