Haledor crawled along the side, looking for a way to take him down. He saw a knife spinning razor-edged circles in the air.
I don’t know if I’m religious, he thought, but if there was ever a sign from God to man, that is fucking IT.
He made his next move without a second thought. Or even a first.
He snatched it the knife, put it between his teeth, put his feet the backrest of a chair bolted to the floor, and kicked off, hurtling towards the shooting man.
The guy was still blazing away, screaming with a mouth so wide that all of his teeth and gums were visible. He was sending his fire in a straight lane down the center of the room, picking off the defenseless Defiant, and he didn’t see Haledor arrowing towards him from the side wall.
Then the rangy Defiant collided into him.
“You need some iron in your diet,” Haledor said, ripping the Meshuggahtech from his grasping hands.
Then he buried the knife to the hilt in the guy’s eye-socket.
As the scream died away, the surviving Defiant had a bare moment of peace and silence inside the gravity-less fuselage.
They’d paid with heavy losses. Twenty or thirty of them were dead, more were seriously wounded, and the Dravidian was still not theirs.
Zelity snapped into action. He sprung forward, and his boots thudded into the door to the cabin. “We need to get this thing open. Can someone find a finger I can use?”
“On it,” Haledor said.
Jagomir groaned in pain. “We’ve got injured here. Where did they put the polyfleshing device?”
“It’d still be in storage.”
“Then someone look for it. And all the best to you, with crates flying all around the place. But people are going to bleed out if we don’t find it, present company included! Alright, alright, I’ve got you.”
Zelity went back to the computer console, intending to reactivate the habitat wheel so that they could stand again.
“Damn it,” Haledor said, “this door isn’t responding.”
“It’s rejecting the finger scan?”
“No, it’s just doing nothing at all. It’s like the power’s been switched off, or something.”
Zelity groaned. “Great. That’s all we need.”
He looked at the computer, and saw that it was just a blank screen.
Haledor tried to peer through the translucent bullet-proof glass leading to the flight cabin. “There must be some master computer in their that controls the tech in the storage sector and the main bridge. They’ve powered us down, and powered us out. So what do we do now?”
“Can we shoot through the glass?”
“That’s three-oh grade nanobot assembled glass. Costs ten thousand ducats per square meter. I hope your face is bulletproof, because the shots will just ricochet straight back at it.”
He slammed a fist against the door to the cabin, but it was unyielding.
“It’s not a question of what we do now,” Haledor said. “It’s a question of what’s done to us. We’re a passive in this now. There’s no way through into the cabin. We just have to wait until they either land in Valashabad, or crash into the ground because they can’t handle having fucked up like this.”
“Found the polyflesher!” a voice shouted from steerage.
A triangular device was soon whizzing through the air. Jagomir snatched it with a hand twisted into a claw by pain. He immediately started using it on his body.
“It’s not healing we really need, but destruction,” Zelity said, looking at the empty gun in his hand.
He turned and was about to swim away through the air when his lips abruptly touched those a dead man.
The slain soldier had been suspended like a bunraku doll in the air, twisting and turning, and his puckered ghost-white mouth had drifted close to Zelity’s side.
Zelity screamed, and recoiled.
“And for fuck’s sake, somebody get these dead bodies strapped down!”
Mars was coming up fast. Calixtus prayed he would survive to see their landing.
Everything was automated. The fuel mixes were calculated, the angle of descent was planned out, and as soon as the air was dense enough to support airbreaking, the front-mouted azipods would fire, slowing them from Mach 20 to a controlled descent.
They would land in Valashabad, Mars’ capital city. Ostensibly, just a Dravidian returning from a patrol with a few prisoners.
Then someone would open the doors, and a river of blood would flow out.
He groaned in pain, feeling each contraction contort his body like a river of agony around the steel invader in his guts.
Can’t believe I had misgivings about killing these guys.
He still couldn’t understand where and how it had all gone so badly wrong. Had someone not been secured correctly? Had one of the crew tipped off the prisoners about their fate?
“Get on sat-comms,” he said to the remaining two guards that had survived the attack. “Tell Valashabad what happened. Tell them to have a lot of security around the space port. Better yet, just shoot this big dumb bird out of the sky. We’ve been hijacked, and when this ship lands, it will be full of nothing but bad guys. Make sure they’re ready.”
“Why don’t we kill them by depressurizing the craft?” The pilot said.
“Pardon?”
“You know. The emergency air vents on the side.”
“God damn, I forgot about that,” Calixtus said. “Remind me to thank you, if I survive long enough.”
A voice spoke through sat-comms.
“This is Renoy Zar, clearance commissioner of Valashabad Spaceport. Please authenticate yourself.”
“Gunnery Sargeant Yaga Calixtus,” he said. “Commanding the SOL-944. We are debarking from a recon mission, and there is a situation.”
“Go.”
“We have about thirty or so armed hostiles on board the ship, isolated in the rear two quarters. The situation is under control, and we anticipate they will all be neutralized by the time we touch the tarmac. All the same, please put Valashabad security on notice. Wouldn’t mind a bit of military support on the ground.”
“Roger that. Welcome back Calixtus. Off the record, you owe me drinks on our next furlough.”
Calixtus shut off the signal, and gritting his teeth, started activating controls.
Dravidians were wired up to handle exactly this contingency – a partial takeover of the spacecraft, with a few survivors holed up in the front cockpit.
There were ports in the fuselage that could be opened, provided the craft was cruising below a certain speed.
Outside, there was nothing but empty space and a million billion miles of it.
“Have fun suffocating,” he said, pressing the button.
The floating Defiant were feeling the faint pull of gravity more and more. They were approaching Mars. A descent that they’d probably never rise again from.
“What the fuck is this?” Jagomir said as he heard a screech of portholes opening.
Then, the craft was full of flying debris.
Depressurization.
They had enough manpower that this sort of emergency was actually somewhat manageable.
The holes in the side of the craft were swiftly located, and packed full of all manner of things. Cotton. Boxes. Dead bodies.
Air was leaving the craft in a trickle, but it was now extremely hard to breathe. The atmosphere doled out oxygen in a trickle rather than a river now, and Zelity started to feel the onset of hypoxia in his brain.
Someone had burst through the restraint room, and was dragging Vilanthus out. The man would be unconscious for many hours yet.
What fun he’s missing.
Haledor struck a big find in the storage room. A satchel full of fragmentation charges, and military flares.
Everyone was panting, struggling to get enough oxygen to breathe, when Zelity had an idea.
“What’s in those flares?”
“Probably thermite. Probably some other things.”
Zelity eyed the thick door. “We need to get into there. This is a spacecraft – it’s a solid barrier, but it can’t be that solid. A nice hot flame would probably cut a hole right though it.”
“Am I missing something here?” Haledor said. “We don’t need to cut a hole. We need the door to open.”
“One step at a time,” Zelity said. “Is there some epoxy in here? Some sort of heatproof glue?”
There was a scramble through the gravityless tube. Men searched through boxes, looking for anything that could weld a flare to a surface and hold it stationary.
In the end, a portable arc-welder was found. And the flare had a metallic surface.
Sparks flew as Jagomir welded a stack of military grade-flares to the floor. He had two men hold his legs, to stop himself from drifting away.
Inexorably, ineluctably, the gravity was getting stronger. Not against the sides of the habitat wheel, but towards the back of the craft. The one facing the planet.
They were getting very close now to landing.
Within a few seconds, the puddle of melted slag had cooled enough to be stable.
With a final arc of white-hot fire, Jagomir ignited the thermite fuses.
The fuses burned slowly, and with a dull amber glow. Zelity felt concern constrict his throat. Would the limited oxygen in the environment be enough for the flares to burn hot enough?
If it doesn’t, I think we’re all finished.
Then there was a woosh, and a solid spear of flame nearly a foot across sprayed right into the door!
They cheered, their faces illuminated by the burning flares. Soon they were coughing from smoke and fumes, and a few pointlessly pulled themselves to the ground, instinctively hoping to avoid asphyxiation at ground level even though the rules of gravity no longer applied.
The fuses rapidly melted a hole right through the doorway. The metal bubbled away, melting like ice in a thaw, and it revealed a tiny gap into the cockpit beyond.
The fire burned brighter and hotter as it made contact with the oxygen-rich air on the other side.
“Sorry, boys,” Zelity said, setting the timer on a frag grenade.
They only had a moment in which to act. Then whoever was up in front would block off the hole, and they’d all suffocate in a haze of smog.
He threw the grenade into the slag-rimmed hole.
And grabbed a handful of clothing, and shoved it over the hole.
The nanomesh fibres instantly caught fire, and Zelity burned his hands. But then the grenade discharged with a meaty thump, that vibrated through the hull of the descending craft, and they could vaguely hear emergency sirens from the cockpit.
He jammed a knife blade into the crack of the door, and gently prised it open an inch.
As he’d hoped, the power was off.
Ten or so men soon at the door hauled wide open, leaving the cockpit exposed.
The three men had been totally ripped apart.
The frag charges had unleashed thousands of tiny metal fragments. At long range, they caused wounds. At close range, they caused you to cease to exist.
Blood covered nearly every single square centimeter of the cockpit. It was all over the controls, all over the floor. The surfaces were dotted with countless barbed metal shards. Put a hand on the wall and you’d get cut.
There were three nearly stripped away skeletons, in varying states of dismemberment. They’d all died instantly, perhaps without even seeing the grenade.
“Damn it,” Zelity tried to backpedal pointlessly in the air, as he drifted forward into that maze of blood and razor edges. “All the controls are gone. It must have cut the circuitry to shit.”
Then an incoming sat-comm link crackled to life.
“Hello? Calixtus? This is Zar. I heard an explosion, and then I lost a bunch of your signals. Everything going okay up there?”
Jagomir spoke up. “Uh, Calixtus has had to step out for a moment. I’m manning the cockpit in his absence. There is no cause for alarm, and we will still be debarking as planned.”
“Wait a second,” the voice was skeptical. “He’s not allowed to leave. Not until the craft has landed. Not regulation. Who are you?”
“One of his commanding officers.”
“Identify yourself,” Zar barked from the ground. “Name and rank. Now.”
Zelity, Haledor, and Jagomir glanced at each other helplessly.
What are we supposed to say?
No doubt this Calixtus had warned the control officers on the ground of the ship’s hijacking.
“Listen,” Jagomir said, trying to sound stern and important. “I don’t have time to play games with you, or fetch Calixtus to answer your questions. Just have a landing pad on Valashabad clear for us, okay?”
“I have just been advised that hostile forces are trying to take over the ship,” Zar said. “Bring Calixtus to the microphone and have him explain what’s going on. If not, I will assume the ship has been captured, and authorize a railgun to shoot you down as you descend. This will happen in five minutes. Those are your only two options.”
“Fuck,” Zelity said, muting the intercom. “There’s no way out at all.”
“There is,” Haledor said, holding up the final polyfleshing device.
His face was ashen.
Arrakhia Mountain Hospital – June 8, 2143, 1600 hours
Later that day, there was a new admission to the hospital.
They weren't told his name. They weren't told anything, except that Vadim Gokla had processed his papers, and admitted him via the same train that had taken Kazmer, Ubra, Yalin, and Yatz. His background was extremely improbable.
He was the son of a noble. A childhood friend of Sarkoth Amnon. He'd sustained a puncture wound in his abdomen, and apparently needed specialised care.
Ubra knew something was up. Yatz had gotten simply because he'd been on the same train as Wake. Otherwise, they'd have sent him to a normal civilian hospital. So why was this person coming all the way from Selene just for basic medical care?
But she wasn't ready for the gut-punch of seeing him for the first time.
A reedy, cadaverous build. A slightly overlarge head, shaved skull gleaming, on a crooked neck.
She'd seen him before, with tears running down his face, on the surface of Caitanya-9.
It was Mykor. The leader of the Defiant.
She was full of questions, bursting with them, but she had to swallow them down until he'd been admitted, and they were alone for the first time.
“I know you,” she told him.
“Do you?”
“Your name is Kymmure Mykor.”
“What's your point?”
She tried to conceal her excitement. “I was on the planet, too. Remember the man you put on the station, Nyphur? Remember how when you needed help, he recruited me? Remember how...”
He cut off her impassioned speech with a raised hand. “Listen. I don't know who you are. Very likely you are telling the truth. But it does not help to speak frankly like this, and might hurt.”
“I don' t understand.”
“Then let me help you understand,” he said. “The reason we are valuable is that we have knowledge these people want. Once the knowledge leaves our mouths, our value drops exponentially. And if we confess to crimes or betrayal, then it drops still further. So why don't you keep things close to your chest?”
She looked away. “I've told them everything.”
He scowled at her. “Everything about what?”
“Caitanya-9.”
“So, in other words, these people know that I was part of a group of rebels, fighting the Solar Arm. And that you were helping me.”
She nodded, feeling for the first time the weight of that mistake.
“Fantastic.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice. “Fan-fucking-tastic. Do you realise that we're not dealing with matters of state security, we’re dealing with existential threats to the human race? Your life means nothing against this, and neither does mine. Zip. Jack shit. A bi
g fat goose egg. All that matters is the knowledge, and by letting your lips flap around and now you've imperiled us both.”
“Sorry.”
“I was one of the Sons of the Vanitar,” he said, showing her an indentation in the base of his skull. “Never one of the high-ranking ones, and I never committed a crime. My support for them was solely philosophical. But now that they know that, they'll have ample evidence for a state execution. Or even worse, what if whoever runs the show down here will decide I'm a valuable hostage to the Sane, and they'll trade me to them in exchange for some hostage they've taken? Once I'm back in the hands of the group I've betrayed, my life will be unpleasant and brief.”
Yalin was in a sling across Ubra's back, and she started to bawl. Mykor noticed the baby for a first time. “Oh, great. Isn't that wonderful? They've got an infant down here. God help us. God help us all.”
He shook his head. “I'm sorry. I just hate how everything's gone. I thought I was doing my part, and for a while I thought I'd succeeded...but now I'm not sure. The planet's gone. Where? Is it destroyed? Is Andrei Kazmer still alive? And if so, where's his whereabouts?”
He's in this building, she almost said, and caught herself.
If she had to hold on to a secret, then let that be it.
“What's your name?” he asked her.
“Ubra Zolot.”
He nodded, slowly at first, and then faster as remembrance quickened inside his head. “Yeah, yeah. I sort of remember you. The first thing we had Nyphur do when you guys landed was send headshots, and you were one of them. Holy shit, I hate having to think back to that planet. I had a kid once, too. A beautiful baby girl. But the planet took her away.”
His voice cracked in the middle of the maudlin memories. He shook his head, clearly trying to dispel the tears.
“No, I have to stop thinking that. It wasn't the planet. The planet isn't conscious at all, it's nothing more than a tool for the one who controls it. It was a human who murdered my daughter, who took her from me. A human called Andrei Kazmer.”
He sat down, and started snap-dealing himself cards. The first of what would no doubt be many, many games of solitaire.
Skyline Severant (The Consilience War Book 3) Page 13