Spectra Arise Trilogy

by Tammy Salyer

  And it hits me—I’m not getting anything off, not with only one functioning hand. The left arm, definitely broken, is also dislocated, though only at the shoulder, not the elbow. That at least is something to be grateful for, but the satisfaction is short-lived. How am I going to fly this thing? The controls can’t be handled without authorization, and Quantum—

  Shit!

  “Quantum, man, you okay?”

  No, he’s not. He’s still on his side, leaking vital fluids at a rate that I wouldn’t be able to stop, even with the help of a full medical team. Gutshot.

  “Quantum?”

  His eyes, sharp and clear and tortured, find mine. “This wasn’t supposed…to…to…”

  “Wasn’t part of your plan, huh?” I whisper, surprised to discover a hint of sorrow, or maybe just regret, in my reaction.

  It occurs to me that if I hadn’t told Medina Quantum was behind her, she might not have got off the shot that killed him. More likely, though, she’d have shot me point-blank when he had fired into her back instead of her chest. The thought quickly follows: I’m sure Quantum wouldn’t have cared. Which in turn puts definitive limitations on my own survivor’s guilt.

  The problem is, in my condition I can’t climb back into the ducting to look over his hacked systems controls and figure out a way to undermine the remaining crew or keep them from carrying out their original mission. Not on my own. When the crew wakes up, whoever’s in charge will immediately start searching for the saboteur, and I doubt, after this havoc, they’ll be in a negotiating mood. And Van Heusen is still out there. He’s proven his appetite for carnage. Which leaves KL still vulnerable. Even if Quantum weren’t down, there’s no telling how much time I have left to turn the tide of our completely FUBARed plan, but I’m sure it’s not enough. It’s never enough.

  There’s only one thing I can do: I have to destroy the ship from here.

  The thought provokes a wave of such intense exhaustion that I can’t move for a few seconds. Because destroying the ship means I’m not going anywhere. I’m trapped.

  My body feels denser, heavier than a neutron star, and I don’t have the will to even think about other options. There just…aren’t any. Is this what Vitruzzi feels? It suddenly seems so clear, so obvious—why keep fighting when there’s nothing left to fight for? All I can do now is try to ensure Keum Libre at least has a chance. Leaning against the pilot’s bench, feeling the warmth of the blood trickling from the back of my scalp against my neck, I close my eyes and take a minute to let my mind go blank, just let everything go.

  A single thought comes to me, a memory of the way Karl’s hair had smelled during those three months living at Agate Beach before Cross showed up and betrayed us all, before the Corps killed Bodie, before Rajcik dropped the bomb that pushed Quantum and Medina to start the war, before everything fell apart. We’d worked hard that summer, and his hair had always smelled of warm sand, sweat, and the soap he used, something both musky and sweet. That smell had lingered with me all day, like perfume, like the scent of pure happiness. I couldn’t get enough of him. I’d let myself believe it would last forever.

  I’ve never luxuriated in the illusion that anything, any part of ourselves, continues on after we die. If humans had an everlasting spirit or soul, why wouldn’t we have come to some kind of enlightenment by now? Why do we continue making the same mistakes century after century? Because it’s just one life. One brief, rushed life, and I know, now, that these will be my life’s last minutes. The one thing I want to keep with me until my final moment is that memory. The smell of warm sand in Karl’s hair. And what he means to me.

  A chime pings on the array behind me, jolting my senses back to the present. Am I going into shock? No, got to get on top of this. There is still work to do. Intentionally and abruptly, I grab the pilot’s chair and yank myself to my knees. The scream from my arm and shoulder seems to echo throughout the bridge, though it’s only in my head. Sweat pops to the surface of my skin, from my scalp to the soles of my feet. Gritting my teeth, fully alert again, I pull myself onto the bench and scan the flat screens arranged in front of me. Vertical holocontrols will make this easier, and the first thing I do is activate them. The glowing blue, red, and green lines of the ship’s control system menu rise before me. Without thinking, I select “Communication,” wait for it to activate, then input the satlink codes to transmit to the Nebula. I want to know what happened to them. And…I want to say goodbye.

  “Nebula crew, this is Erikson.” Transmit. Wait. Repeat. “Nebula crew, this is Erikson. Do you read?”

  Remembering to engage the video-link, I click it just as Karl’s face comes into view in front of me.

  “Aly!”

  He can’t see me yet, and for a moment I’m glad about that. I can’t speak, the knowledge that this is the last time I’ll ever look into his shining sepia eyes rendering me paralyzed and devastated. But I swallow, activate the feed, and reply, “Karl.”

  “You okay? You must be okay, right?”

  “Yes. Right now it only hurts when I bleed.” I don’t mean to be funny, but how do you tell the man you love that you’re going to be dead within the hour?

  “Aly, what—?”

  “Listen, Karl, it didn’t work out here like we planned.”

  “Okay, but it doesn’t matter. You’re alive, that’s what counts. Aly, I’ve been going crazy—”

  I cut him off again, not liking myself for doing it, but time’s getting short. Do you have to hurt the ones you love to save them? I don’t like the answer, but I don’t have a choice. “Listen, there isn’t time. I have the bridge, but I’m trapped and Quantum’s dead. It’s just me now—the Celestial’s crew are still in the picture—and I have to blow the ship. It’s the only way.”

  “Okay, get to an escape shuttle and set your coordinates. We’ll come back for you.”

  This time I don’t cut in. I want to hear him out because his voice gives me a second of hope. I wish I could live the rest of my life in that second. My good hand goes to my neck, pulling the cord with Karl’s ring free from my shirt. My fist clamps around the circle of metal, warm from my skin. “Babe, I-I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “It’ll only take us about a day to get to you, maybe two. You can hold on that long, right? How badly are you injured?”

  He isn’t listening to me. For once I don’t mind. If I don’t do this now, I’m going to lose my nerve. Leaving Karl’s feed open, I go to work on the pilot’s console. It won’t be enough to just blow the compound drums with La Mer’s detonator. The Celestial is a lot bigger than the Nebula, where he’d built and tested it, so there’s no guarantee it will even work. Even though I can’t control flight systems without crew authorization, I can still access maintenance systems. I’m going to sabotage the ship, burn out the engines and force an overload that will start an irreversible series of internal malfunctions and melt this intergalactic death trap from the inside out. I have maybe five minutes until the crew starts to wake up, if that. No matter. This ship is doomed.

  “Aly, do you hear me?” Karl’s been talking to me while I concentrate on the ship’s destruction, but I haven’t responded. “We’re already turning back. Just send me the coordinates you’re at now.”

  His eyes are so sincere, so calm, but the dark fear—or is it fury?—lying behind them is another face of the Karl I know. The Karl that has seen battles and blood, wars and violence, and has fought through them all with the same stoic and indomitable resolve each time. The steel in him that will outlast any foe or enemy he confronts. It’s that hard-burning, powerful rage that I’m counting on to get him through this next battle. I may not have told him enough, but he became my reason to go on, my reason to live and face every new tragedy and fight. He was my strength. Now he has to be that for himself.

  “Karl, I can’t make it to the escape shuttles. There isn’t time. Tell David goodbye for me, okay? And keep the crew safe.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talk
ing about. Are you saying you’re too hurt? Can you get an IV in?”

  He’s going to keep denying what he’s hearing until the ship turns into frozen space-borne carbon. I don’t want his suffering to be the last thing I see, or mine his. “Karl.” This time something in my voice catches him, makes him take a breath of silence. “Be strong. And remember that I love you.”

  I turn off the feed before he can respond.

  Leaning back into the pilot’s bench seat, I let my eyes fall closed, the thump of pain from my wounded arm settling into rhythm with my heartbeat and dulling enough for me to just sit here for a few last seconds and count them. With no other living people on the bridge, it is completely silent, even the constant ambient hum of the ship’s engines and life support systems seeming to have faded away. Most of the bridge’s lights were blown out, and behind my lowered eyelids I can almost imagine that I’m suspended in space, already free from the entrapments of my body and its suffering. In another moment I recognize what this feeling is, though I’m not sure I’ve ever really felt it before. Peace.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Noise like screws rattling in a plastic box jerks me out of my semiconsciousness as abruptly as if I’d been shot. Before my eyes focus, something hits me in the leg and bounces off. As I bolt upright the shrieking in my arm pitches to a new fervor, and then I see what happened. Quantum is awake, not dead like I thought, and staring at me with eyes lit feverishly bright. A medkit lies at my feet.

  “Take it,” he says, his voice no thicker than a spider’s strand. “Morphone Z. It’ll kill the”—he squints and sucks air through his teeth as if in sudden pain—“kill the pain. Get to the…to the…” Unable to finish the sentence, he waves toward the front of the bridge.

  “What, Quantum? I’m not quite prepared to hurl myself through the viewscreens.”

  “There’s a fucking e-pod under the nav bench.” Somehow, even dying, his voice still manages to carry the Why am I surrounded by such towering stupidity? tone. “I already set the ship to blow from my link up.”

  It’s as if a Glower missile just hit me in the forehead. “You mean you programmed it to self-destruct?” Then another thought smacks me. “How many escape pods are there?”

  “One.”

  So he was going to let me do the dirty work, destroy the ship on his own, then take off using the escape pod and leave me here to die. Or maybe he never thought I’d make it in the first place. Which leads back to the fact that he’d set me up to take the fall while he got out in one piece. I’ve been right about him all along. But…but he didn’t have to tell me about the pod. Should I be grateful, or just put him out of his misery for good? One look at him tells me that’s going to happen within a few minutes anyway, no matter what I do.

  “How long do I have?”

  He mumbles something, but I can’t hear it. The puddle he’s lying in hasn’t stopped growing, and the strong smell of blood swims in the air like aerosol. He knows he’s already dead, that’s clear.

  My heart speeds up, and it takes me a minute to recognize why. I could still make it through this. There’s a chance—a tiny, almost imperceptible one, but a chance—I could still make it out of this.

  Decision made, I ease off the seat and try to crouch low enough to get to the medkit. If I bend over, the weight of my busted arm pulling against my dislocated shoulder could make me pass out. Grinding my molars together, I dangle my good hand and scoop up the kit, then straighten. I don’t know if I have time to call the Nebula back and tell them what I’m doing, but Karl said they’d already started to double back. If I get out in the pod, they’ll pick up my emergency beacon. They’ll come back no matter what. I know they will.

  I hope.

  The world wavers in my vision for a second, the edges of it bleeding dry of color, then it comes back into focus. I take the ramp down from the pilot’s bench to the main deck and reach the navigator’s array, sparing one last glance at Quantum. His eyes remain open, but they don’t follow me. After reaching the bench, a few seconds of exploration reward me with access controls to the emergency sardine can—which is basically what it is.

  I don’t have the time or energy to care if the deck is clear of danger. If there’s anyone else breathing down here, they can take their best shot. Right now, I just want to get out. Regardless, a lifetime of surviving prompts me to do a quick scan. Nothing moves.

  I gaze through the hatch that’s slid open beside the nav bench into the coffin-sized pod and let the idea of staying aboard the Celestial until it blows tease through my mind. If this is truly the only escape pod on the bridge, it must have been built to evacuate the last person left in the case of attack or total ship failure. There aren’t many weapons powerful enough, with the exception of the Mini-Nova of course, to instantly obliterate a ship this size. Any attack or malfunction would generally give the bridge crew enough time to get to their nearby evacuation-pod bays.

  A heavy thump at the bridge’s main entry echoes across the deck. They’re awake. I only have a minute or two until they find their way through—that’s if Quantum jammed up the hatch. Acute claustrophobia aside, I’m not fitting into the pod’s cradle while still in this bugsuit. It has to come off. Which means I’m about to suffer. A lot.

  I drop the medkit on the console display and thumb the release catch to open it, but it won’t budge. The kit looks abused and probably hasn’t been opened in years. As Desto would say, what kind of fuck salad is this? With my one usable hand, it’s hard to get a grip on the box to work the release tab. Squinting in frustration, I end up picking it up and slamming it hard against the console, breaking both the console and, thankfully, the kit’s latch. Everything flies out across the console table, but I manage to slam my palm across the morphone syringe before it gets away.

  Pulling the cap off with my teeth, I press the flat delivery end against my neck just below my earlobe and hit the button. A tiny spike of pressure against my skin, followed by a moment of what feels like ice running down my neck, then heat. It’ll take a few seconds for the narcotic to kick in, but there’s no time to wait. I can hear a dull whine coming from the entry. They’re cutting through.

  I take a deep breath and don’t hesitate, yanking first against the chest buckles that hold the bugsuit on, then the sleeves. Before I start to pull my arms through, I use my right hand to grip my left arm just above the elbow, and simultaneously drop to my knees and press the bad shoulder into the nav table’s solid edge.

  Okay, Aly, just a quick yank and a push and your humerus will be reseated. You’re not getting into that tin can with your arm hanging by the socket like dead meat. On three, two, one… OWJESUSFUCKINGCHRISTTHATFUCKINGHURTS… SHITI’MGOINGTOPUKE… OHHOLY… OH, that’s a little… oh, okay, I’m okay. It’s all okay.

  The head of my humerus slips back into place with a wet sound just as the morphone hits like a tidal wave of pure bliss, sending the spiking pain to a dark, lonely corner at the very edge of my brain. I’m even feeling a little happy. Until I look into the waiting bucket of terror that will take me into airless oblivion.

  A shudder runs through the floor of the bridge, subtle at first, but quickly building in intensity. Quantum’s destruction sequence beginning? It has to be. No more time to wait.

  I quickly pull my broken arm through the bugsuit sleeve, feeling it but not feeling it at the same time. That hand is completely numb and won’t grip the wrist of my right-arm sleeve. So I hold onto the edge of the nav console table and pull myself to my feet, step on the hanging suit arm to hold it down, and perform a wriggling dance maneuver that eventually gets the unit off. It takes less than a minute, but a high-pitched, whining buzz has begun emitting from all the electronics on the bridge, threatening to turn my inner ear into jelly, and the remaining lights waver between off and blazing. I sit on the edge of the open emergency pod hatch, dangling my feet inside, then slowly slide into the tight passenger cradle. The pain and fear of small spaces sing in a deep, fading baritone in my head, but the t
une is drowned out under the morphone ocean. If the e-pod thrusters get me far enough away to clear the debris and flak from the vessel’s self-destruction, I’ll be lucky. But the morphone drowns that anxiety, too.

  Once I’m nestled and buckled, I press the syringe against my neck once more. If I don’t live through this, I’m not going out screaming. I’m doing it in quiet, unbroken serenity.

  Just as my lights start to fade, I activate the release sequence and emergency beacon, and let fate decide what to do next.

  THIRTY

  Flutter, flutter, flutter.

  I shake my foot, trying to get the cat at the end of the bed to go away and stop tickling me with its whiskers.

  “…awake…”

  Flutter…flutterflutterflutter.

  “Would you stop!” My eyes slowly peel open, the lids nearly gummed together by what feels like years of being asleep. It’s not a cat, it’s Karl. He stands at the foot of a bed—a med-bay gurney?—lightly rubbing the tips of his fingers along the sole of my bare left foot. “Whuh…?” The words What are you doing here? stick in my similarly gummy throat.

  “Welcome back, lover.” He smiles, and, whether it’s just a trick of memory or an actual sense, I smell the warm sand and sweet soap of his hair drift to me.

  Besides the tickle in my foot, my body is gloriously absent of any other tactile sensation. Blinking with the cinder blocks that compose my eyelids, a glance tells me I’m wearing a sling on my broken arm.