Without warning, the knee failed and I went down hard, as the tendon in the joint had been fried. Rolling as I hit the ground was second nature; I came up firing and managed to take the head off another rocketeer who sought to put me down for good. I could feel the nanites frantically knitting the knee back together as I gathered myself on my good leg and attempted to hop down the ramp, firing wildly over my shoulder. More particle beam fire struck my back and sides, but there was no help for it; I would just have to trust in the quality of my suit.
A savage slice of red-hot pain burned across my back, and even inside my sealed combat suit, I smelled the cooked flesh. But I had reached my goal. I slapped my hand across the biometric reader and the door began to open slowly. At the same time, the MURGs fired a frantic last volley of three rockets; the first hit the back of my legs, the second one hit my lower back. The subsequent explosions slammed me forward hard and I slid face first down the front of the heavy door as it opened. The third rocket, a little later than the others, would have caught me in the back as well, but it arrived as I was already sliding to horizontal. Once again, the reactive armor bent outward to ward off the blow and the missile skipped randomly away through the doorway as I collapsed onto the decking. Muddled as my thoughts were, I could still hear the heavily armored pursuit thunder down the ramp. Scooting forward, I dragged my useless legs across the threshold and rolled over onto my back. Bringing my rifle up with my still-functioning right hand, I pulled the trigger.
The discharge hit the door control and shattered the entire panel which exploded and kaleidoscoped into flame. “Well, what do you know,” I hissed. “Maybe Max was on to something after all.” The door slid violently closed and locked with a loud click.
Exhausted, I let my head sag back down to the floor and rested for a few moments. Keenly aware of the small electrical shorts fouling circuitry deep within my armor, I triggered the command to open the suit so I wouldn’t be trapped and suffocated. It had barely opened when the last of the servos gave up and stalled with a groan. The suit was finished!
Crawling painfully out of the carcass, I instinctively knew that even my nanites were nearly overwhelmed by the damage I had sustained. I wasn’t bleeding, I really couldn’t anymore, but ligaments were shattered in my legs, and rib plates buckled all across my burned back. And the nerve damage was very real as I couldn’t feel my legs. A muffled booming sound alerted me to the fact that my opponents hadn’t given up and were pounding mercilessly on the door. Judging by the amount of time it took them to cut through the outer airlock, I estimated I had fifteen minutes or less.
The nanites did their job and I was back on my feet in five, hobbled but moving. Confident I had the time I needed to get the job done, I turned toward the bank of control stations and drew up short.
“By the stars!” I gasped in abject horror. The stray rocket that had bounced off my armor and through the doorway had done some damage…a lot of damage. “Kalaya is never going to forgive me for this.”
Chapter 26
Laree
Out of breath, we arrived in the auxiliary control center; well, I was out of breath anyway, even with the super catsuit. We’d had a wolf escort for the rest of the trip and encountered no more marines, at least, no more intact marines.
Kalaya triggered the door to open and we stepped inside; immediately the door closed behind us with a vacuum-like push of air. As control centers in the Aurora go, this one was kind of a disappointment. It wasn’t large or fancy, but it did look very lived in. If I had to guess, I would have said this was where the construction engineers took breaks and did paperwork before the Aurora left for her interrupted voyage. There were a number of consoles with lights and switches and important-looking levers and such.
I looked over at Kalaya with a grin. “I’m glad I have you here; I wouldn’t have a clue what to do.” That was when I noticed Kalaya looked visibly upset. “Is something wrong?”
“I didn’t want to worry you, but I lost contact with Kodo’s implants twenty minutes ago. Not just his implants; none of my points in Engineering are responding, I can’t see or hear what’s going on in there. That shouldn’t be possible!”
Abruptly, one of the long-unused screens on the wall sprang to life. The picture was a little fuzzy at first but cleared up quickly. It showed a large room with a lot of large, impressive-looking machinery in the background. In the foreground, there was some type of control station or, at least, there had been. Tendrils of smoke still curled up out of the shattered electronics; burn marks and streaks of cordite flared out from what must have been the point of explosion.
A hand moved into view at the outer edge of the scene and turned the small camera around to show a familiar face.
“Hey, Kodo, we made it; looks like you did, too!” I gushed happily but then noticed the tear stains on his face and the haunted expression in his eyes. “Are you ok?”
“We don’t have much time, Laree,” he said hoarsely. “The MURGs are using some form of jamming signal that covers all of Engineering. Fortunately, these old control panels are hardwired and well-shielded. I’m sending the instructions in print to the station where you’re sitting. Go ahead and complete the list except for the last item.”
The list was very concise and easy to follow. I finished in less than a minute and turned to see Kalaya with her fingers touching the screen.
“Kodo, what’s wrong, my love? I can’t feel your implants; I can’t touch you,” she whispered. I watched as tears ran down his cheeks. It looked like he was trying to speak but just couldn’t vocalize the words. Finally, he just shook his head and wiped his face.
“I’ve finished up to the last instruction, Kodo,” I reported, alarmed at the interplay between them. “I’m ready…”
“I doubt that,” he whispered. He lowered his head for a moment, then looked back up at us with fresh tears in his eyes. “I am so sorry, Kalaya; I have failed you.”
His words shocked me. How could he ever fail her? He was her rock, her strength; there was nothing in the world she wouldn’t forgive him for.
“Kodo, talk to me,” she whimpered. ‘I can’t come to you.”
“It’s probably best; I wouldn’t have the strength if I had to look into your eyes. Kalaya, make me a promise, will you?”
“Anything,” she stammered. “But…”
“Promise me that no matter what happens, you will see that the kids get home safe.”
“Of course, Kodo; we already talked about this!”
“No, we never envisioned this,” he said gently, pointing at the ruined equipment. “This master control switch was my reason for coming here. It controls the power system required to route energy directly into One Main’s primary chamber. Without it, I can’t start the engine as we planned.”
A loud crack sounded through the chamber, and Kodo paused to glance over at his shoulder calmly. Shakily rising to his feet, he walked stiffly over to a two-meter tall cabinet directly behind the ruined console. Raising his rifle, he fired four quick blasts, then gave the metal cover a shove with his foot. The sheet metal peeled off and fell away, revealing an enormous set of paddle contacts. The cables running to each were several feet in diameter and terminated on them. I’d never seen a cable that thick, so the amount of power designed to run through them must be staggering.
Kodo tossed his rifle aside with obvious distaste and turned back to face our camera. “The controls are gone, even manual is no longer an option. Our only viable option is to cause a short in the system and fire it that way.”
A short, huh? Ok, I know what a short is and can follow that. This hardly seems to be a conversation to demand this much dread from my friends, however. After all, Kodo is an engineer; he can fix anything, right? Kalaya looked stricken and barely able to process what he was saying, as tears started to run down her flawless face.
“Ok, what do you need, Kodo? A chunk of beam or something to toss between them?” I asked.
He shook his head patient
ly, his eyes never leaving Kalaya’s face. “Laree, I need a superconductor strong enough that it won’t instantly vaporize with this much current. The biggest beam on this ship wouldn’t do the job. No matter what I use, it will undoubtedly be destroyed in the process, but it’s the only hope for getting this bird in the air and the rest of you out of danger.”
The “rest of you” part screamed in my brain, and I suddenly realized what my friend intended to do. Kalaya was sobbing uncontrollably by this point. She leaned heavily on the console where I was sitting for support, no longer trying to hide from the reality that faced him.
“You don’t have to do this, Kodo!” she screamed raggedly. “We can find another way! Please, Kodo! You promised me you would stay with me forever!”
“I know, but there is no other way. My life has been messed up from the moment of conception and I’ve done horrible things; perhaps it’s time to pay for my sins. Kalaya, you are the best thing ever to happen to me, and I can never repay that. You deserve so much more in life than I…” Breaking away sadly, he turned to look directly into my eyes. “Laree, I need you to be strong for me, can you do that?” I nodded numbly. “There are a dozen MURGs on the other side of the door, and they are starting to cut through. I have only a couple minutes before they breach it, five at most.”
“But you’ve fought more than that before, can’t you escape out the back or something?”
He reached up and panned the manual camera down across his body. All he was wearing was the lightweight undersuit with all the connection ports that I had seen earlier. I gasped at the number of holes, tears, and burns that were evident. “The suit is done for, and I’m wounded to the point where even my nanites are starting to run behind in fixing everything. Guess I should have eaten those food bar wrappers like Kalaya advised after all.” For the first time, I saw a semblance of his old crooked grin, but it faded quickly.
“Listen, Laree, I can’t fight them in this condition, nor can I allow myself to be captured as that would doom all of you, and I could never forgive myself that. For you two to live, the engines must fire, and you need to get away from this place. I also need you to be there for Kalaya; she’ll need you to be her anchor.”
My mind reeled as I tried to take in what he was saying.
“Please, no, Kodo,” Kalaya begged. “Please don’t do this to me!”
“I’m sorry.” Then to my dismay, he turned and stepped into the narrow space between the two massive paddles.
“Kodo, what the hell are you doing?” I stared in horror.
“There is only one superconductor available in time, and that is me. The nanites in my body are just dense enough to handle the split second necessary for ignition. Key in the last sequence, Laree…do it now!”
But…if he’s standing there…then that means…my eyes shot open wide. “You’re asking me to kill you!”
My friend nodded calmly. “Like it or not, you’re a warrior now, Laree. Sometimes a painful decision needs to be made for the survival of others. We find ourselves at one of those crossroads. If you care for me at all, I am begging you to save the two people I love most in life.”
A strange form of understanding blossomed in my brain. It was crazy and I would never recover from this, but at the same time, I felt a duty, an imperative…
“Hurry, Laree,” Kodo urged.
Kalaya pried her eyes off him and looked into mine. “Don’t listen to him, Laree; please, I’m begging you!”
“Kalaya, she needs to do this, and I need it to happen, you know this,” he gritted, as louder noises and shouting was starting to filter across the audio feed. We could see strange flickering lights dance across the ceiling behind him.
“That doesn’t make it right!” she screamed. Her voice dropped to a stricken hush, “That doesn’t make it right.”
“I know, trust me, I know. My only regret is that I never got to actually hold you in my arms and look down at your beautiful smiling face.”
My friend wiped her tears away as best she could, putting on a brave paper smile for him. “I’m smiling, Kodo. Don’t you ever forget my smile.”
I wasn’t even sure he could see us, but he seemed to brighten and his face lit up with a smile of his own. “I couldn’t ever forget. Even saying I love you isn’t half of what I feel.”
“I will love you always, Kodo. To the end of time!”
The sounds turned into the screeching of metal, and Kodo looked directly at the camera as if to shore up my tenuous resolve. “Now, Laree; I am ready.”
My hand hovered over the final sequence of numbers. “Goodbye, Kodo, you’ve taught me so much; I will never forget you.”
“Nor I you.”
I pressed the final entry button and the room filled with light.
Chapter 27
My friend Kodo was gone. Other than a slim bridge of blackened material still connecting the paddles, nothing that remained was recognizable to remind us of his quiet ways, his wit and humor, or the physique I so admired.
My legs gave out and I folded to the floor; the realization of what I had just done finally sinking in. Loss, regret, and pity for those of us who remained washed over me like a riptide. For a few moments, I couldn’t conceive of ever being able to process this pain and move forward. Then his last words, asking me to be there for the one he ultimately loved so much, prodded my mind.
Grasping the edge of the console, I pulled myself back to my feet. Kalaya was still standing there as if fixed in granite. I expected to find the crushed shell of my former friend drowning in sorrow. However, the tears were gone, and a being of all-consuming rage had taken her place. Her deep blue eyes were frosty, glinting, and deathly cold. They had all the warmth of fresh snow reflecting off a glacier. Her hands were fisted tightly at her sides, the muscles throbbing with the pressure.
A motorized curtain that covered the left wall sprang into action, opening to reveal a large glass window. Walking over to it, I could see the booth we were standing in held a partial view of all of Engineering several floors below. The MURGs below wandered around, poking under desks and opening closets, looking for Kodo no doubt. Suddenly a holographic display appeared on our wall, showing a close up of the main body of MURGs. Looking out the window, I could see that every shielded display panel in Engineering, and all the ones I could see outside the area, had suddenly come to life with the same soundless feed.
As a single body, the MURG soldiers reacted and dropped their weapons. They began frantically ripping off their helmets and armor. In the next thirty seconds, the few who managed to get their heads free seemed to be writhing in unimaginable pain as they flailed around and attempted to cover their ears. Blood began to flow copiously from their ears and eyes. Almost immediately, the first few dropped to their knees and then slid sideways twitching on the decking like marionettes with their strings cut.
In wonder, I absently placed my hand on the window. As I did, a sharp pain blasted through my head. Fortunately, I instinctively pulled back and felt the nanites in my suit make some rapid adjustments to protect me. I took a few seconds to recover from the surprise and make an educated guess about what was happening down there.
Whatever she was doing caused a massive amount of minute vibrations, probably ultrasonic. That would explain the poor bastards’ predicaments down there. We have a few scientific processes on the Geoffrey Laird that used ultrasonics; some of them could cleave stone. Even relatively minor exposure could cause hearing damage, nerve damage, or even death. As if to punctuate my thoughts, the last MURG collapsed and his lifeblood trickled out and formed a macabre puddle. Kalaya kept up the pressure until the decking ran with crimson rivulets and not a body stirred.
The screens shifted views to the outside of the ship where several squads of marines were still attempting to disable the cannons. At a thought from Kalaya, all four huge war machines lowered their barrels and slowly began to trundle away from the Aurora to a preset position.
So engrossed in watching what was
happening through the window and on the screens, the initial vibrations that ran through the floor and across my feet went unnoticed. However, when a large, neon green indicator lit up on the ceiling, I caught on quickly.
“One Main operational and spinning up, sequence initiated for Two Main ignition,” Kalaya whispered tonelessly. Then her voice hardened as she triggered an announcement for the entire ship. “To any remaining hostile forces still alive on board the Aurora, this ship, my home. You have exactly fifteen minutes to abandon anything you might have picked up and leave. You have seen how your MURG contingent has paid the price.” She had broadcast their execution throughout the ship! “You will meet the same fate, I assure you. This includes the prisoners held on the production floor who are being released as I speak. I recommend once outside, you put as much distance between yourselves and my ship as possible or you won’t enjoy the experience. QCS Aurora out!”
Additional rumblings in the decking testified to even more of the massive ship’s lift capacity coming to life. I imagined smaller tubes routing thrust to the underside of the ship and beginning the arduous task of raising her out of her thousand-year tomb.
“Kalaya, I…” I began lamely as if there was anything constructive I could have said at the moment. My friend barely glanced at me as she shook her head dismissively. I shut up and went back to watching the various screens she continued to toss up on the walls of the booth. I didn’t have sound, but it appeared that the human military was leaving the ship in good order. Of course, when you have angry security drones with flamethrowers booting you out the airlocks, it probably adds a lot to the motivation level. Unfortunately, those leaving ran into the contingent of marines who had been trying to disable the cannons, now half a mile away or more. A squabble ensued, as it appeared that those outside were attempting to reform and mount yet another assault on the Aurora instead of fleeing the area. The fools! I knew Kalaya would not give them one second beyond the fifteen-minute mark to be well away.
Errant Contact Page 36