by C. Gockel
The red faded, and Noa stood, gasping for breath. Ghost looked up at her, wide-eyed. “Was that some sort of new weapon?”
“I hope the away team wasn't affected by it,” Monica said.
They didn't realize the rage had come from James. Noa ground her teeth, the last edge of the fury not completely gone. What kind of weapon was James? She snapped her hands behind her back, and set her feet apart in parade stance. He was the kind of weapon that found lost children.
James heard Noa shout over the channel, “Cut the ether, Ghost, cut the ether!”
But her words were distant, abstract. He was awash in fury, and it was exploding from himself into the ether. He raged at himself for coming to Oliver’s aide, at Wren and the tramp’s crew for putting him in this position to begin with, and at humans in general for being so illogical. The tramp’s crew could have approached the Ark, learned their true objectives, and zipped through the gate as soon as it opened, and left this backwards solar system behind.
At the controls of the ship, Chavez clutched her head and hissed, “I want to kill someone.”
James wanted a lot of people to die.
And then Noa’s light went out in his mind. James wavered on his feet and his vision went black. The heat beneath his skin was replaced by the dark cold sensation of failure.
Putting a hand to the wall for support, James watched from the tick as Briggs and Gunny used magnetized grappling hooks to latch onto Wren's tick. Gunny had a plan that would rival the best of Noa's for sheer audacity. His left hand trembled and his right formed a fist—he'd sent his emotions across the ether. He knew they could incapacitate Noa—he'd endangered this mission and he had to get a hold of himself. Outside he watched as Gunny and Briggs disappeared into Wren's tick.
James took a deep breath his body didn’t need. Chavez turned to him. “Well?” she snarled, and then her eyes got wide. “Oh … that was … what you’re doing is very brave … I didn’t mean …”
“I still feel so angry,” Ling said.
James looked at the door. He’d asked for this, and then Noa had ordered him. His hands lifted to undo the heavy wheel that unlocked the airlock. Almost against his volition, he twisted it, and then pressed the button to open the door. Without a word, he stepped out into the tiny space. The door whooshed shut behind him. He turned another wheel, and opened the outer door. Two men stood there in the tramp’s own airlock. One held Oliver. The other aimed a plasma rifle at James. James would relish a stun, but a phaser rifle would melt him … he knew it without knowing how.
James’s eyes slid to the boy. His shirt had been slashed open. On his chest was a small portable ether transponder. James stared at it and heard the soft thump of the boy’s heart.
The man ripped it off of Oliver’s chest and plugged it to his own temple. James blinked.
The man thrust Oliver into James's arms and screamed, “Set him down!”
The man who’d held Oliver reached across the tick’s ether. “Your cargo is in your airlock. Don’t move until your man is aboard our ship!”
Chavez said, “How will I—”
“We’ll tell you when you can shut your outer airlock door,” the man snarled across the channel. “Or I’ll blow your friend to Kingdom Come.” He said the last with the same Luddeccean inflection Noa had used.
“Set him down,” he said to James.
James set the unconscious Oliver in the tiny airlock, and reached out to the ether. The man shouted, “Step forward now! Hands where we can see them!”
James stepped into the tramp’s airlock. The door whooshed behind him.
The man who had held Oliver backed through the inner freighter's airlock door, and the phaser rifle wielder danced after him. The inner door whooshed closed.
“Go now!” one of the tramp’s crew members said over the ether.
“James?” Chavez.
The ether connection to the Ark still wasn’t back up. James stood with his hands still upraised in the tiny space. The tiny tick was his only connection—
His mind lit up with the Ark’s ether. He felt Noa in his mind. “James?” She let her emotions cross the space, and he could feel the empty place in her gut, and the lump in her throat.
A little light went off in his mind. They were pumping Amer-2032, a colorless, odorless gas that caused unconsciousness into the airlock. A bright light went off behind his eyes. His knees crashed beneath him, but before he hit the floor, he sent a bouncing bright ball of light to Noa.
His eyes closed, everything went dark, but he felt Noa reach to him one more time. “James …”
Chapter Ten
“James …” Noa said. But got no response. Swallowing her fear she said, “Chavez, do you have Oliver?”
Beside her, Manuel took a step forward, craning his neck up to the skylight, as though any second the tiny tick would appear between the planetoids. “What happened to his heartbeat?” Manuel said.
“We’ve got Oliver,” Chavez cried.
“How is he?” Manuel said.
Noa tried to keep herself from shattering. Don’t ask about the plan, don’t ask about the plan. She could feel James’s mind in hers, but he hadn’t said a word.
“Got a mask on him, Manuel,” said Ling. “He should be waking up any moment.”
“They’re readying their cannons! Taking evasive action,” Chavez said.
“Ghost!” Noa said.
“They must have taken the cannons off ether control!” her computer officer simpered.
“Get out of there, Chavez,” Noa said.
“Aye, Captain, but I’m firing my phaser cannon just the same.”
“They hit Gunny’s tick,” Ling cried over the ether.
“Gunny’s tick?” Dr. Monica asked.
Noa didn’t respond. Across the ether she whispered, “James, don’t hold back.”
James was holding back.
His subconscious—or the superconscious that was his connection with the gates—had determined it was best to “play possum.” He was saving his strength. The gas that the tramp’s team was pumping into airlock wasn’t hurting him; however, the cold in the chamber was going to be a problem if he had to wait too long. He had that dark fuzzy edge to his vision that he always got when he was hungry. At the moment it didn't matter. His eyes were closed. The airlock was nearly silent, but his senses were alive in the ship’s ether. The tramp’s crew were screaming in rage and disbelief. They'd tried to fire on Chavez—of course—but Chavez had taken evasive maneuvers and had managed not to be shot, blasting at the ship with all the tick’s admittedly limited capabilities at the same time. The tramp’s crew had laughed at the almost harmless incoming barrage, and had missed Gunny manning the tick Wren had stolen. At first …
Swearing, they’d fired on Gunny’s vessel, but it had been too late. Through a monitor in the tramp’s lower turret, James could see a hole clear through the rear of Gunny’s tick, but it was safely attached to the polyglass dome, effectively taking the gun offline.
James wondered if Gunny was still alive, or if the tiny vessel’s attachment to the tramp was just a subroutine the sergeant had managed to code before he’d died.
He wanted to reach out … and didn’t. Gunny wasn’t using his ether connection. If he responded to James’s call, he could put himself at risk. James wanted to laugh. As though commandeering an ancient tick and attaching it to a gun turret wasn’t risky enough. Gunny was an idiot.
James felt his skin heat with fury at the other man for being so illogically selfless.
A voice called over the ether. “The tick is cutting through the polyglass.”
“We’re going to have a vacuum breach in the turret.”
“They must be in suits …”
“Suit up! Get back in there and—”
The tramp’s captain cut the speaker off. “Get the prisoner. There are better ways to get them to stand down.”
“We need him alive!” Wren said.
“And you said he heale
d remarkably well!” the captain snapped.
“Don’t know that roughin’ him up will be effective with him unconscious …”
“He's faking unconsciousness!” Wren called into the ether.
“Pffft … enough of your stories, Wren,” someone scoffed.
“Wake him up, then,” the captain snapped. “Stim him if you have to.”
“Yes, sir!”
There was a whirring from the air vents, and a light in his mind told him that no more Amer-2032 was being pumped into the airlock. It didn’t get any warmer. He didn’t move, even when he heard the door open with a whoosh. In the tramp’s ether, he watched through a security camera as two men walked in.
And then, of its own accord, his left arm trembled.
“What?” cried one.
“Tremors … did he get stunned?” said the other. Putting a foot on James’s trembling arm, he prepared a syringe, kneeled down, rolled up James’s sleeve, and jabbed it into his arm. Pain shot from the spot, and around the area his tattoos blossomed. His arm still shook. James found his attention riveted to the stunners in the men’s belts. The thought of the power they'd give him made his mouth water. His lips were slightly parted, and he was afraid he might drool on the floor.
“Come on,” said the syringe man. “By the time we get ‘em to the turret deck, he’ll be awake.”
They tried to hoist him up, but then syringe man said, “Oy, he’s heavy. Let’s just drag him.”
They pulled him over the floor, and James let himself be hauled over the airlock door track, down a long hallway, and into the lift.
The whole ship was cold. James thought that if he opened his eyes, he might not actually be able to see. He didn’t move, unsure of when he should reveal he was still aware. They rolled him over and leaned him against the wall, his legs sprawled out in front of him like a doll.
His eyes were still closed, but through the ether he peered through a monitor and saw syringe man, standing over him, slipping a phase blade from his pocket.
A stunner would recharge James—a phase blade could melt just about anything. James felt static flare up his spine, temporarily chasing away the darkness at the edges of his consciousness.
“Yo,” said the man’s companion, fingers pausing at the lift controls. “I don’t think you should be doin’ that. You know the captain will be wantin’ that job.”
Light went off behind James’s eyes. He had to act. There was more light behind his eyes, and he knew what to do.
Moaning, James pulled his legs up. Keeping his eyes closed, and his head bowed, he pushed himself up the wall.
The men reacted instantly. The one without the blade took a shoulder with one hand, and with the other pressed a stunner to James’s side. The man with the blade stepped forward, blade still out. James felt its heat, and saw it as a bright light through the monitor’s eye next to his throat.
“Nuh … Nuh … please …” James said, pawing with his hands, as though he was weak and still blind. He was blind with his eyes, but not with his mind.
The man with the phase blade smiled sharply. James saw it through the monitor.
“Malik, Karl, where are you?” the captain’s voice said.
“Stop toying with him!” said the one with the stunner. “Activate the lift!”
The man with the phase blade dropped James’s arm, and went to the lift controls, dropping the plasma blade to his side. All of James's attention was on that knife. He barreled forward. The man spun, raising the blade, and James grabbed the wrist holding the knife.
It should have been easy to overpower the other man … but his left arm trembled violently, and he had to use two hands to keep the man from slashing his throat.
Malik laughed. “I got augmented strength, too.”
The man with the stunner screamed, “Stop it! Stop it now, Malik!”
Malik sneered, “I got this.”
James felt his skin start to heat from the blade—and where he felt the warmth, he felt strength ebbing into him—but it wasn’t enough. The heat was too focused; it wasn’t like the all-over caress of a sunbeam, or the heat in engineering.
“Captain wants him alive,” protested the man that must have been Karl.
James's hand shook, he smelled something reminiscent of burning plastic. He was burning … and he was plastic ...
The stunner went off, the force of it knocking James forward enough for the knife to graze his neck with a sizzling waft of smoke, and a searing bolt of pain that the delicious warmth and power of the electronic burst did not diminish.
He met Malik’s eyes. They were hazel, and very wide in surprise. “Shit!” he said, back against the buttons. Finding the strength to push the blade away, James head-butted him with enough force to leave him stunned. The knife fell from his hand, and James snatched it up from the floor as Malik sank to his knees. James cut his throat with the knife as the man with the stunner unloaded bolt after bolt until the stunner lost its charge.
James turned. The knife in his hand was still hot, and his body was pulsing with power. The man gazed at him with wide eyes. “What are you?”
A few seconds later, his throat was slit, too, and his body lay on the floor. James stared down at them. There was very little blood; the knife cauterized the wounds. He touched a button with a Chinese character for “cool” on the handle, and the flame went out and the heat almost instantly became bearable. Slipping it into his belt, he tried to access the monitor for the lower turret, but all the monitors on the whole floor it was located on were dark in the ether.
“Get down here, Malik!” the captain screamed over the channel.
James tilted his head. Gunny was alive and causing the captain problems. Turning back, James divested the corpses of their weapons, his mind flitting through the ether channels—there were ten souls aboard, at least. He didn’t hear Wren. Dead? Hiding? Hitting the lift controls for the level just above the level of the lower turret where he presumed Gunny was and the ship was depressurized, he took as much cover as he could against the side of the lift, expecting incoming fire from Murd's men.
The door slid open to complete darkness. Before James could think, two blasts hit him in the chest, knocking him with such force that the back of his head hit the wall and bounced.
Everything was white, he couldn’t hear, but he could feel pain in his palms and in his head. The voices of the gates poured into his mind.
“Kill him.”
“He saw.”
“He must be sacrificed.”
Pain shot from his hands and from the back of his skull. “Kill who?” James managed to ask.
“Gunnery Sergeant Phillip Leung,” the gates answered as one.
James remembered Noa, laying on her side in their bed, leaning on her hand, surrounded by white linens, a smile on her lips. She’d touched his nose. “Gunny likes you.”
He’d arched an eyebrow. “And that makes you happy because?”
She had shrugged. “Gunny’s good.” She’d looked down. “Alcoholism and all … I trust Gunny.”
Gunny had saved James when Xo's drones had attacked, and had offered to come on this near suicidal mission.
“I can’t,” James said.
“You can. Your circuits were temporarily overloaded,” was the response.
“Open your eyes,” One commanded.
James’s eyes snapped open and he was staring at a vaguely human-shaped blur. The pain in his hands was his own nails biting into his skin. He dropped his stunner on the floor. The pain in his head was from the blow he’d received when the stun blast had knocked him against the wall.
He lunged at the blur, and his hands were around its neck before he’d thought about it.
“James!” Gunny shouted through the ether. “It’s me.”
“Kill him!”
“Take his helmet off!”
“I didn’t mean to shoot you, James!” Gunny cried across the ether.
A light blinking in his visual cortex transmitted
Gunny's sincerity, guilt, and despair. Another less frantic light told him that the oxygen in the elevator was 10 mm/HG—a quarter of the amount available at the top of Mt. Everest. Though the lift was still oddly pressurized, without the helmet Gunny would die in a few minutes.
James didn’t move. “No, no, no …”
“Crack his helmet!” the gates commanded.
His body wanted to plunge his skull against the glass covering Gunny’s eyes. His jaw locked in effort, James managed to only drop his head against Gunny’s helmet, instead.
“James!” Gunny cried again.
James couldn’t withdraw, and barely was restraining himself from doing exactly as the voices said.
He felt Gunny shifting, heard a click, and the polyglass between him and the sergeant disappeared.
“Kill him!” screamed a voice he knew was Eight. “He’ll betray you.”
“He can’t be allowed to know you’re immune to stuns!” said another gate. “He’ll know you’re inhuman!”
James whined and his forehead fell against Gunny’s—gently—but it took all of his self-control not to drive his skull into the other man’s.
He felt a hand on his back. “There. You’ll be all right. Share my oxygen.”
And that was when James realized Gunny had opened his helmet to share the CO2 converter. The device was going on overdrive, its usually barely perceptible hum a choking whir. It wasn’t enough to raise the oxygen in the lift to breathable levels for all its efforts.
“He’s trying to save me,” James protested to the voices in his head.
“He’ll try to kill you!” Eight screamed.
“Lucky your augments protected you from the blast,” Gunny panted, already breathless in the thin air. Over the ether, he continued. “I gotta get us to the next floor, okay, buddy? We both gotta breathe and we still gotta clear this ship out.”
James squeezed his eyes shut, and protested the gates decree. “He thinks it’s just my augments. He doesn’t think I’m not human! Don’t make me kill him.” His mind wrapped around the pulse that was Noa’s consciousness, tethered to him by the ethernet buoys. She hadn’t spoken in long minutes—like he never interrupted her when she was on the bridge engaged in something important. “Noa will never forgive me.”