by Tammy Salyer
She demands, “Everyone, on your knees. Hands stay up.”
I get down and tilt my head to Venus. Her eyes are wide and scared, but she seems to be staying calm. “Are you two okay?”
She nods.
“How did they get the Sphynx?”
Baker shoves her carbine’s barrel sharply into my cheek. “Shut the fuck up.”
Rage surges through my veins, and I have to clench my fists into tight balls and dig my nails into my palms to keep from jumping up and strangling her.
“Ah, here they come,” T’Kai says.
The rest of my crew is filing out of the control room, their weapons held in the same manner as mine. No one is with them forcing them to surrender, but they know if they don’t, Venus, La Mer, and I are dead. As they approach, I hear footsteps coming down the ’Rize’s ramp behind me. Montoya and Sims?
T’Kai continues talking. “Come, join your comrades. That’s right, down on your knees.”
“What kind of rotten fuck salad is this?” Desto asks as he drops down beside me.
I catch David’s eyes. He doesn’t have to say anything; I know what he’s thinking. There are only three of them, plus T’Kai. How many more on the Sphynx?
We’re forced into a semicircle at T’Kai’s feet, but Rajcik refuses to kneel. He stands a little in front of us, towering over the director, his bulkiness shielding the smaller man almost completely from sight. The muscles in Rajcik’s shoulders bulge through his shirt, tension and rage making him seem even larger.
“Here I am, T’Kai.”
The director’s eyes crease into slits, Rajcik’s insolence and complete lack of fear souring his brute disdain. It only lasts for a moment. Then he smiles, his lips splitting apart grotesquely, like the skin of an overripe tomato.
“Yes. So clever of you to have evaded me this long, János.” He takes a sliding step backward, and Sims moves up beside him with his gun leveled at Rajcik’s stomach. “I’ve been very curious how you figured out that I would no longer be needing your services.”
“You mean how I figured out you were going to kill me?” Rajcik grunts derisively. “It’s what I would have done.”
T’Kai blows air through his nose in an expression that suggests he laments having to speak to a simpleton. “You’ve wasted a great deal of my time, Rajcik. Can you possibly not understand that the resources at my disposal are unlimited? I am the Admin, or all of it that matters. And you—nothing but a speck of dust. You betrayed me when you stole the Nova, and the punishment you’re about to receive is justly deserved.”
The inside of my throat turns to sand at T’Kai’s words. Did he say Rajcik had stolen the Nova? Stricken disbelief causes me to blurt without thinking, “The Nova’s been destroyed. Rajcik detonated it inside the Fortress and blew the whole place apart.”
The director nods at Montoya, who stands to the side of the group. He walks up and jams the butt of his rifle into the back of Rajcik’s right thigh. The smuggler’s leg buckles, sending him to one knee with a snarl.
T’Kai’s eyes shift to me, their strange colors unnerving. “The remains of the space station showed only nuclear residue. I’ve no doubt you detonated something”—they slide back to Rajcik—“but it was not the Nova. You covered your tracks very, very well. However, it was your former crewmember, Ms. Erikson, that led me straight to you at R’Kadia, and I was able to recover the weapon.”
Rajcik looks to where I kneel, his lips drawn back in a predatory grimace, but I return the stare with nothing but confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. “I didn’t even know he was alive.”
“You didn’t have to know to still be of use. Our mutual friend brought us all together. And that, Ms. Erikson, is how you led me to Rajcik.” His leathery skin wrinkles around his mouth and eyes in a reptilian smile, but I’m no longer paying attention to him. The only mutual “friend” he could be talking about…
My body jerks around, looking for Rob, but he’s no longer seated behind me. He stands next to Montoya, a pistol in his right hand. From the corner of my eye, I see David’s face contort into a kind of anguished spasm. It was him who had betrayed us. It was Rob all along. The word sonofabitch drop from David’s lips like a blood spatter.
“Rob?” My throat contracts and turns my voice into a squeak. “What the hell is going on?”
His eyes barely meet mine before skittering away again and he says, “C’mon, Aly. You know I only gamble on winners.”
“You motherfuck—” Thompson begins, rising from his knees, but the flat of Montoya’s rifle butt against his teeth ends it.
I’m stunned, shaking with anger and something else, a deep, writhing feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, have ever believed he’d be capable of this. I whisper, “You turned us in,” needing to hear it aloud for confirmation,
Bored with the spectacle, T’Kai turns and waves at the cockpit of the Sphynx. Shortly afterward, two more men walk down the ramp and join the others. Rob walks around and stands next to the director. The carefree grin he’s always worn is scoured from his face, replaced with carefully crafted neutrality, like an automaton.
Rajcik spits, disgusted, but also amused. “Even I’m impressed, Cross. You had everyone fooled. I can see Aly being blinded by her own gullibility, but I don’t know how you sold her brother on your bullshit. Bravo.”
“I’m happy you’re so impressed. Now shut the hell up.”
“Right, or you’ll shoot me, is that it?” The two men lock eyes, neither flinching.
For the first time, Vitruzzi speaks: “T’Kai, you have us. Arrest us, do what you want. But the settlers having nothing to do with any of this. Just let them go.”
“Dr. Vitruzzi, surely you realize by now that there is nowhere left for them to go.” He stares at her quietly for a moment, waiting for a comeback, but Vitruzzi falls silent.
“Where do you want them?” Baker asks.
T’Kai nods in the direction of the platform’s edge. “Over there. Let them fall into the water and the tides will clean up. Mr. Cross”—he turns to face the Judas—“please prep your ship for takeoff. We’ll be returning to Tunis. And notify my private dock of our estimated arrival on”—he looks at a display on his wrist—“Wednesday.”
Rob climbs the ’Rize’s ramp. Before he reaches the top, I yell, “You made the biggest mistake of your life, Rob! You’ll pay for this!”
He stops for a second but doesn’t turn around, then disappears inside.
“Get up,” Baker grunts, jerking me by the collar and trying to push me toward the edge. I don’t budge, and she jams her rifle butt into my kidney. The pain is sharp and immediate, helping to redirect my fury back to the here and now.
We’re prodded and jostled and finally lined up along the edge of the platform. There is no railing. I glance down into the water before being spun around to face our captors. It’s far, probably far enough to break my neck. Is a bullet preferable?
In a tone that’s nearly pleasant, as if she’s explaining a minor surgical procedure to a patient, Vitruzzi says, “T’Kai, you may kill us, but you’ll still go down.”
He and the five shooters are lined up in front of us, the salty wind whipping everyone’s hair and clothes. “You’re referring to those wire-rats, aren’t you? Cross filled us in, and we wiped that slate clean a couple of days ago. Such wasted talent. But then, the damage sending that information to the public would have caused—it might have had a highly negative impact on the Administration. Dr. Vitruzzi, you have no idea how important the work I do is. One would think that a scientist of your caliber…but I understand. Some minds are simply not capable of thinking beyond a very narrow set of parameters.”
They’d gotten to Quantum. Just like that, my last bit of strength collapses, a desperate sense of defeat pushing my heart to the verge of quitting. The last hope we’d had, smashed in a firestorm by a maniacal psychopath with a God complex. I look down into the water and imagine how it will
feel. A burst of pain, freezing cold; then, thank Christ, it will be all over.
Rajcik takes a slow step forward from the line until he’s standing directly in front of T’Kai. Three guns swivel toward him instantly but have no effect on his smug grin. He levels his gleaming black eyes on the director.
Without turning around, he says, “Vitruzzi, my business with your crew is finished.”
So quickly no one has a chance to react, he lunges toward T’Kai—and the world fills with the sound of gunfire. I drop down and hurl myself forward toward Baker, the will to survive still ruling me. She jumps back and I yank free my Mini-Derg—they hadn’t searched us—firing at her, but she’s too fast and I miss. Movement erupts in every direction; Mason and David charge Montoya. while Rajcik grapples with T’Kai, and Vitruzzi and Brady hurtle toward Sims and one of the other men from the Sphynx. Venus sinks her teeth into a soldier’s arm, and La Mer is punching another one in the face furiously, trying to keep the man from aiming his carbine.
Baker lunges away and trips, landing on her back. I pounce, reaching for her weapon and getting a grip on its strap. I yank as hard as I can, but she’s already lost her hold and it comes away much too freely, flying off over the platform’s side and into the water. She jumps to her feet, dashing frantically toward the ’Rize. I fire the Derg, missing her again. It’s out of juice and useless now, and I throw it after her carbine in disgust.
As I push myself to my feet, something solid connects with my ear, and I immediately fall back. My eyes blur with water, a distant ringing beginning in my head. Pain radiates down my face, into my teeth, and deep into my jaw as I roll to my side. In the panicked melee, I can’t tell who hit me. I put a hand down to get some purchase to push myself up again, and it slides through a wet, warm puddle, the coppery smell of blood bursting into my nostrils. A cavalcade of pistol shots ring out so close that I have to cover my ears. Then, it’s quiet.
“Hey, Aly, you okay?” I look up into David’s face as he reaches down and grabs my shirt, pulling me to my feet. He’s bleeding from his bottom lip, and a dark red bruise sweeps across one cheekbone.
“Yeah. Okay. Baker took off, she’s heading toward the ’Rize.” I pull myself to my feet and look around. Montoya is definitely dead. He’s down on his stomach with his neck twisted at an angle that isn’t natural. Two other soldiers also lie prone, with Desto standing above them holding his own recovered rifle. There’s blood splashed around us like a slaughterhouse. But it’s Rajcik that draws my attention.
He stands over T’Kai’s still frame, his back to everyone. A thin trail of blood leaks into his shirt from a gash on his neck. The wound looks superficial, but the pool of blood growing beneath his feet tells a different story. He must have been struck by at least three or four bullets when he’d jumped T’Kai. He can’t last long with the amount of blood he’s losing.
I glance down at T’Kai’s body, quickly looking away as my stomach does a nauseating flip. There is nothing left of his face but shredded bits of bone and oozing brain matter sticking out of his shirt collar. Rajcik had grabbed my ’Bad from T’Kai’s belt and shot him over and over in the face, no doubt getting exactly the kind of revenge he’d planned and imagined. For better or worse, T’Kai has ceased to be an issue for us.
“Baker and Sims ran back to the ’Rize,” David says, his breathing quick. “Rob’s in there, too. We have to stop them from taking off.”
Vitruzzi waves her arms at the two wounded soldiers. “Mason, tie them up. Watch them. Everyone else, let’s go.” She takes a step forward and then stops suddenly, bending over and gripping her side.
“Eleanor!” Brady grabs her gently, his face terror-filled.
She sucks air through her teeth. “It’s okay, went through. Just hurts like a sonofabitch. Hand me my bag.”
I bend down and pick it up. “What do you need?”
“You go get Cross. Venus, help me with this.”
I exchange a look with Brady; it’s clear that he’s not leaving her side, so I nod at Mason, who joins the rest of us as we start a cautious ascent into the ’Rize’s hold, picking up weapons as we go. Desto and Mason take a flight of stairs for the upper deck while David, Thompson, and I split up to cover the larger lower deck. I take a look back before going in and see Rajcik still standing like a gravestone over T’Kai’s body. He doesn’t budge.
THIRTY-FIVE
My first sweep takes me through an outer corridor that runs along the ship’s left flank, serving mainly as a service tunnel for the engines and life-support components. As I cover the distance, I pass three or four narrow doorways and several service panels that are big enough for a person to fit inside. Cautiously, I flip open every one, listening for movement or breathing to verify if they’re empty. When I find no one, I’m not surprised; Baker doesn’t seem like the type who’ll hide.
The corridor dead ends at a ladder leading to a ceiling hatch near the bow. I decide to turn back toward the hold instead of climbing it, hoping to meet up with another one of my crew. Whatever T’Kai’s people had done to jam our VDU’s, it’s still in effect. The jammer must be aboard the ’Rize, probably somewhere on the flight control deck. Except for my footsteps, it’s completely silent. Rob hasn’t been able to start the engines yet. He must have heard the firefight outside and is lying low, setting up an ambush, planning to pick us off one by one instead of en masse.
My guts tighten up more each time the thought of his betrayal fires through my brain. How could he do this? He’d never been deceptive or malicious, never been the kind of person who’d sell his soul for profit or make a compromise that would fuck over his friends. He and David had practically been brothers. And he and I…I’d believed he cared about me. There had to be something, T’Kai must have threatened him…I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter, the results are the same. Rob betrayed me, betrayed us. There’s only one way to resolve it.
I reach the door to the hold. Closed. I thought I’d left it open. Using the activation keypad, I try to open it, but nothing happens. I hit the button again and again, frustrated by its failure to cooperate, and finally give up. Shouldering my ’80 on its strap, I grab the manual crank and begin pulling with all of my strength. The thing’s locked up tighter than a hangman’s noose. Grunting with the effort, it still doesn’t move, and I begin to think I’ll have to go back down to the ceiling hatch, when out of nowhere, it starts spinning. I jerk my hands out of the way just in time to keep them from getting ripped off inside the mechanism. The hatch opens and I careen off balance into the hold like a drunk, catching myself just before hitting the floor. Quickly sweeping my carbine off my shoulder, I try to look into every corner and angle at once.
A rustling noise makes me jerk my head left just in time for a fist to land squarely on my cheek. As my head bounces back, my attacker strikes my right arm hard, just above the elbow, making it fall momentarily numb. My carbine sling slips from my shoulder, and the gun drops from my grasp. I hadn’t seen the attacker, but reflex takes over and I close the gap between us in one quick lunge.
Water pours from my eye again—the same goddamn side as last time—but I can see fine from the other. Baker stands near the wall, poised and ready to fight. She feints to her right and then jumps forward with a flat hand aimed at my throat. Barely in time, I block her arm and let the momentum spin me into a roundhouse kick that catches her in the ribcage and sends her sprawling sideways. Lightning fast, she’s back on her feet before I can close in and finish the job. She lunges in low, blocking the next kick, and sending me backward off balance. She follows through—so fucking fast—and lands a kick of her own directly into my side. Air explodes out of my lungs and I crumple sideways, my back exposed for another kick, which I know instinctively is coming. Instead of giving her space for a windup, I roll back toward her and scrabble to grab her booted foot as it swings toward me. I catch it as she tries to jump over me and send her smashing into the wall. I have no breath and struggle to unlock my lungs as I roll away th
is time, blinking and trying to get to my feet. She spins around, blood dripping from a cut above her right eye where she’d hit the wall.
“I’m going to fucking kill you, Erickson.”
“Try it,” I wheeze, finally pulling in snatches of oxygen as my chest opens up.
We circle, both looking for an opportunity to tear the other to shreds. I’d felt her animosity like a walking cancer since the first time our paths had crossed, even before my crew had become the Admin’s target. The friction between us was destined to turn into flames and we’re both prepared to fight this out to the death.
She snarls and picks the moment to dart forward and reach for my carbine, still lying on the floor a meter away. I leap toward her, using my body to push her past the gun, but she grabs me and pulls me over. Moving with the dexterity of a snake, she somehow gets on top of me and grabs my throat. I buck furiously and twist onto my side underneath her, forcing her hands to release. But she grabs my hair instead and jerks my head up, then slams it down against the hard floor.
Sparks erupt behind my eyes and she does it again. A warm sensation spreads down the side of my face and the sparks start to dim, as if a shade is being pulled down on the inside of my eyes. I flip my body back to flat beneath her trying to get my arms up to make her release my hair, but she’s ready and smashes her fist into my nose. Ferocious, mind-splitting pain erupts inside my head, my brain stutter-stepping in a dance of agony like a hive of angry bees. I taste the blood pouring down the back of my throat, and suddenly the pain no longer matters because I’m choking on it. Gasping, coughing, gagging, I spray her with blood while I struggle to breathe.
She jumps up, her weight mercifully gone, and I’m able to roll over and get to my knees. I cough hard, nearly vomiting as I clear the blood from my throat and lungs. My vision has narrowed to two small chinks of light directly in front of my eyes. All I see is the floor beneath me and the spatters of blood from my struggle to breathe, like delicate drips of bright red paint.