by Nick Webb
But there was no time to mourn those lost under her command. Two more. No, three—she’d almost forgotten Doc Patel. Mourn later, Shelby. Mourn later. She got back on her feet and sized Liu up.
“Once an IDF covert agent, always an IDF covert agent,” Liu said with a dark grin. She was bleeding from her nose where the marine must have caught her with an elbow, but she sniffed it away. “Come on. There’s probably a lot more of them. We’re exposed here in the hallway.”
“The ship has twenty-eight other marines, I believe,” said Zivic.
Liu shook her head. “These weren’t marines. I recognize them from my intel days. They’re IDF Intel. Or former intel, at least.”
“Then how come they didn’t recognize you?” said Proctor.
Liu scowled, and indicated her ruined face and hairless scalp.
Zivic shrugged. “They probably would have handcuffed you had they known who you were.” He turned to Proctor, thumbing at Liu. “Wait, who is this again?”
As if in answer, a barrage of gunfire erupted down the hall. Liu slammed against Proctor, pushing them both into the wall. She dragged her, still pressed against the wall, down the hallway and around the last corner before the hall that led to the shuttle bay. Zivic brought up the rear, shouldering one of the dead marines’ assault rifles.
“They’re coming from engineering,” said Liu, between a few rounds she squeezed off around the corner.
“How many?”
“No idea. But they’ve got us hemmed in between them and the shuttle bay, where there’s likely more of them.”
Another volley of rounds shredded the wall panel nearby, and Proctor hoped it wasn’t a wall covering the exterior hull. She’d always advocated for limiting live ammunition aboard IDF cruisers as a precautionary measure against something accidentally going off and puncturing the hull from the inside out. But, given that IDF was a war fleet, and war fleets called for marines and big guns, her generals always outvoted her. Sensibly, she admitted, but still the thought of assault rifles onboard space ships in the middle of the deadly vacuum never sat well with her.
Liu pointed at the bay doors at the end of the hallway. “Shuttle bay,” she shouted over the gunfire.
“That’s where they wanted to take us!”
“Exactly. Now it’s the last place they expect us to go!” And without waiting for an answer Liu was pushing her down the hallway again, and before she knew it Proctor was facing the door controls. They were locked, but not secured like all the other doors they’d passed. Except … something was odd about the control panel.
It was configured … oddly. In addition to the door status and the keypad where she could enter the usual unlock code, there was an additional readout. Pressure and oxygen levels in the shuttle bay. Those shouldn’t be there.
More gunfire erupted down the hallway. Zivic crouched behind the corner and answered them with fire of his own. “It’s now or never, Admiral!” shouted Liu in her ear.
She was about to enter the door unlock code, but couldn’t take her eyes off the environmental readouts on the door panel. Environmental readout … and controls. Holy shit, Rayna, you’re a godsend.
With a few quick taps and a confirmation command code, she vented the shuttle bay.
“What are you doing?” shouted Liu again.
“Hold them off for about thirty seconds,” said Proctor. She watched the clock readout on the panel. Ten seconds at vacuum. How long before the average person passed out from exposure to vacuum? She couldn’t remember. Best to be on the safe side. Forty-five seconds, tops.
The seconds ticked away, almost in response to the regular stutter of assault rifle fire coming from down the hallway. Liu had crouched down behind a door frame opposite Zivic and was returning fire with the fallen marine’s weapon she’d grabbed.
Twenty seconds. Twenty-one. Twenty-two.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat. One round struck the wall just inches from her head. These guys were shooting to kill at this point.
Twenty-six. Twenty-seven.
She crouched down on the other side of the hallway, partially behind the frame of another door. It wasn’t much cover, but better than nothing.
Even though she couldn’t see the clock anymore, the countdown continued in her head unabated. Thirty. Thirty-one.
A round caught her in the arm, knocking her backward. She looked down at it. Red bloomed across her sleeve, mixing with the blood from the dead marine. Damn. That really should hurt a lot more than it does.
She was in shock. She recognized the symptoms, almost from a cold, clinical, distant viewpoint, like she was floating above her body. But the sensation of another round whizzing past her ear brought her back to the present.
Liu was shouting something at her, but she couldn’t hear. Proctor leapt back across the hallway to the door controls. Forty-six seconds. That should do. With a few taps she sealed the shuttle bay and released the atmospheric valves. The pressure rose quickly. When it was nearly normal she unlocked the doors. They groaned open, and she nearly collapsed through them.
Someone was dragging her. Zivic? Liu? Distantly, she heard the doors close again. Out of the corner of her eye she saw two prone marines nearby, passed out, or dead—their faces were nearly blue and traces of blood tinged their noses and eyes from the decompression. Her handiwork, she supposed. So Rayna’s little ploy had worked.
Distantly, she could hear more shooting. Liu must have managed to close the doors, but from the sounds of it, they needed Rayna to come through with another ploy.
No time. Unconsciousness was calling her. And even as she tried to blink herself awake, she started dreaming.
Chapter Thirty
“Will she be ok, dad?”
Her father was a horrible actor, and she knew what it meant when he tried—and failed—to put on a brave face. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. Doc Higgins is the best.”
His act didn’t convince her. “But, I learned in school that cancer was a thing of the past. People used to die of cancer. Used to. Not anymore, not in the goddamn twenty-seventh century!”
Her father rubbed her shoulders reassuringly. A pair of nurses walked past them in the hallway, pausing their conversation as they looked at Shelby, pity in their eyes. “Watch your language,” he said, and then sighed. “Shell, people still get cancer. And we treat it, and usually cure it. But we can’t cure everything. Bodies are varied, complex things. They’re almost like chaotic systems—change one little thing over here, and bam, over there you get catastrophe a few years later….”
Her father the scientist had reverted to his science-speak. Which meant he was trying to cope, which meant the news was bad. “They can operate, right? Just cut it out and kill the cells that get left behind?”
He nodded reassuringly. “That’s the plan. Doc Higgins is confident. But, like he said, this tumor was a one in a million shot. It’s … just right in the wrong place, with the wrong type of cells, and at the wrong time—her last routine checkup didn’t pick this up, and it should have, so it’s had a year to grow unchecked. It’s just, everything bad happening all at the same time. One in a million.”
The door to Carla’s room opened and her mother came out. As she shut the door, Shelby caught a glimpse of her sister in the hospital bed, her head back on the pillows, her face pale, her eyes closed.
“She’s calm now. And resting,” her mom said.
“Good. She’ll need her energy for post-surgery recovery. Doc says the next few weeks are critical.”
Her mother turned to Shelby and gathered her up in her arms. “My big girl. This must be so scary for you.”
Shelby said nothing, but allowed herself to be smothered with love. She was too angry for tears. Angry at the universe, angry at God for letting this happen. Why Carla? She was just a kid—twelve was still a kid, right? Her mother picked up on the feelings welling up inside her. “Shelby, we need to be strong. For Carla.” She glanced down at Shelby’s neck, where her rosary would normally be, if it we
ren’t in her pocket. “Are you saying your prayers?”
“Yes,” she mumbled.
“Good. With the Lord’s help, I know Carla will be just fine. His grace can cover all, my sweet girl. Just put your trust in him.”
Ugh. She was preaching again.
But at this point, God was all she had. With a one-in-a-million tumor, the only answer was the one-in-a-million chance that God actually existed and could wave his magic cross-shaped wand and heal Car.
“I do, momma. I’ll just … pray more. I’ll pray like my life depended on it.”
Because it did. If she lost Car, if she lost her best friend, she didn’t know how she’d go on.
Chapter Thirty-One
Orbit over Mao Prime
ISS Independence
Deck 11, Hallway A
Colonel Cooper peered around the corner, pointed two fingers towards Volz and then towards the hallway beyond, which Volz interpreted to mean that the path was clear and he should advance.
They were nearly to the locked-off section of the ship, and Volz was still wondering what he was going to do to get through when his handset started vibrating in his pocket. Still advancing down the hallway, he fished it out, glancing down at the screen once he’d found cover behind a door frame.
It was Rayna, in engineering. “I hope you have good news,” he said after tapping the comm line open.
“Only the best for you, dearie. Listen. I’m opening the section ahead of you back up, but only from hallway C leading to the shuttle bay. The last two boys with boom sticks are holed up there. Seems Shelby has locked them out of the shuttle bay, but they’re trying to punch through.”
Volz nodded, and waved Cooper toward the door ahead. Just one more hallway and they’d be in the thick of the action. He heard the pounding of gunfire ahead. “Ok, we’ll advance and take them out.”
“Wait a sec, dearie.” He heard her mutter something under her breath he couldn’t quite make out.
They’d advanced to the final door between them and the rogue marines, and Cooper was giving him some hand signals he wasn’t quite familiar with. “Rayna, it’s now or never. What’s up?”
“Just a little something to help you boys out. Hold on….”
The gunfire from beyond the door made Volz’s chest pound with every shot. And he knew that with every shot, they were one dice-roll closer to losing Proctor. “NOW, RAYNA!”
He felt the deck shake—or rather, he felt himself waver on his feet. “What the hell…?”
“There. Have fun, boys. Just don’t go too far into the hallway or you’ll float away.”
The gravity deck plates. That would explain why he’d wavered for a moment, almost losing his balance. There was no gravity on the other side of that door. He glanced at Cooper, who was steadying himself and looking down towards the deck plates—he seemed to understand what Rayna had done. Their eyes met, and they nodded. Cooper fingered the door control to open.
They leaned back behind the doors sleeves and peered into the hallway beyond. The gunfire had stopped. Two marines were floating, flailing, through the air. One bounced off the wall, struggling to grasp at any protrusion he could find, and failing, he sailed off, drifting towards the ceiling.
“Release your weapons and push them towards us, or you’re dead. NOW!” Cooper shouted through the doorway.
One of the marines twisted around, assault rifle still in hands. Once he caught glimpse of Volz and Cooper, feet planted firmly on the floor and safely sheltered behind the door sleeves, his eyes widened: he knew his situation was hopeless. He pushed the rifle away, and it sailed towards the door. As it approached the threshold it began slowly falling, until it clattered to the floor just shy of Cooper’s boots.
“You too, Private,” shouted the Colonel.
The soldier, clinging precariously to a lighting panel on the ceiling, reluctantly flung his rifle towards them.
“Sidearms too,” said Cooper. They both reached slowly into their vests and pulled their handguns out, which soon joined the rifles beyond the threshold.
Before Volz or Cooper could order him otherwise, one of the soldiers tapped his headset. “Abort. I repeat, abort.”
“Another word and you’re both dead! Send the headsets over,” shouted Cooper, training his rifle on the two floating marines.
They looked at each other, and reluctantly, removed the headsets and flung them towards the door, where they clattered to the floor once they hit gravity.
Volz tapped his handset. “Grannie Rayna, all secure here. Go ahead and turn the gravity back on.”
The shuttle bay doors opened. Before the soldiers fell, and before Volz or Cooper could say anything, a figure on the other end of the hallway unloaded her sidearm into the two floating marines with a steady pulse of rounds.
“No! Stand down! Ceasefire!” shouted Volz. But by the time he’d managed to get the words out, it was clear the two marines were dead, as they spun around in the air, blood trailing out of their bodies and splashing out on the walls, floor, and ceiling like a gruesome red pinwheel.
Gravity returned, with further gruesome effect, as the bodies collapsed onto the floor and the floating blood splattered down.
“What the hell are you doing?” roared Volz, his sidearm trained on the woman. He saw Proctor sitting upright on the floor behind her, holding a bloody arm, his son Ethan kneeling next to her with a blood-soaked cloth.
“Those are not marines, Captain Volz,” she said.
Cooper spat. “Bullshit. Those were good men you just killed. They had already surrendered and stood down.”
She lowered her weapon, set it deliberately on the floor, slowly, but then started walking towards the two dead men. “Wrong. They’re IDF Intel, posing as marines. I recognized that one,” she said, pointing to the nearest dead man. “And IDF Intel officers never surrender. We were actually all about to die.” She reached down and pulled something from the inside the dead marine’s vest. She tapped a few buttons, then tossed it over to Cooper, who caught it one-handed.
He examined it, wide-eyed, and showed it to Volz. “Antipersonnel explosive. She stopped the timer.” He pointed down at the other soldier. “He have one too?”
She rummaged through his pockets, and pulled out another explosive. A few quick taps deactivated it. “Things were about to get fairly kinetic around here in twenty seconds.” She tossed the explosive over to Volz, who looked down at the timer, which was stopped at nineteen.
“What the hell is going on around here?” Volz yelled, advancing on the woman they’d picked up from the cargo freighter. “Who are you? I want some answers!”
She nodded. “You’ll get some. But first, you need to move the ship. Now.”
The hairs on his neck tingled—that feeling he always got in his fighter when he knew another bogey was targeting him. “Why?”
“These guys aren’t lone wolves. They were going to take the admiral off the Independence in a shuttle.”
Volz waved out towards the exterior hull in the shuttle bay. “There’re no ships out there. We’re at high alert and sensor sweeps are constantly tracking everything around us. Besides the Chinese fleet still patrolling Mao Prime’s atmosphere, there isn’t a ship around for lightyears. Just where do you think they were going to take her?”
She eyed him, questioningly, but it looked like she already knew the answer. “Move the ship. Mullins is out there.”
“How? I’m telling you there’s no other ship out there.”
“There is. Move the ship.” Her eyes were cold, her voice insistent. He didn’t believe her, but … he couldn’t afford the cost if he was wrong. He looked to Proctor for guidance, but her eyes were glazed over in a daze—she’d probably lost too much blood and was in shock.
Volz grit his teeth, but tapped his handset. “Ensign Riisa, initiate the t-jump to the coordinates we discussed. Immediately.”
The momentary pulse washed over him, and he knew they’d made the jump.
“How fa
r did we go?” the woman asked.
Volz stepped towards her. “You’re not the one asking questions around here—”
“Ballsy, just tell her,” Proctor ordered weakly from the floor. “And then get me to sickbay.”
“A few light-seconds. Close enough to still see what’s going on at Mao Prime.”
The woman shook her head. “No. Farther. If we can see Mao Prime then he can still see us.”
“They were going to take her to Mao Prime?” said Volz.
“Doubtful. No idea what Mullins was planning. But we need to be farther away.”
“How do you know Mullins is on Mao Prime?”
“I don’t.”
Volz was about to lose it. “Then what the hell are we running from?”
“Because Mullins is here, somewhere, and we can’t see him. And yet somehow he managed to get a signal to these Intel assets to execute the big op. Didn’t you just detect a tightly-focused meta-space transmission before this all went down? Have you figured out where it came from yet? I doubt it.”
He had no response to that, and so Volz grabbed Zivic and helped Proctor to her feet and started walking her back towards the bloody hallway. She leaned heavily on their arms—sickbay seemed so far away. “San Martin,” said Proctor. “Admiral Tigre. Miguel. I can trust him.”
Volz considered, then nodded. “Ensign Riisa,” he said.
“Yes, Captain?” came her voice through his handset.
“Get us to San Martin.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Freighter Angry Betty
Keen woke up with a start. He’d expected to nap for several hours, if not the entire day. To his surprise, the nav computer had sounded the alarm indicating they’d arrived at their final destination.