Engineer: A Sigma Sector Story

by McIntyre, Alistair

  This time the man gasped awake and grabbed at his chest. Reeves ripped the electrodes off the man and without waiting for further instructions, hefted Matt over his shoulder. The fit science tech wasn’t exactly light, but the fear of imminent destruction at the cellular level spurred Reeves’s legs to carry them both down the hallway to the elevator. What he wouldn’t have given in that moment for Malk to be there to help instead of back down in the shuttle bay prepping their escape craft for take-off.

  With a human being slung over his shoulder, Reeves had no way of checking the time on his link. How much time had passed since the first siren? Surely he still had time to get down to the shuttle bay. The scuttling process was intentionally a long one.

  Reeves crashed into the back wall of the elevator and dropped Matt unceremoniously to the ground. The man grunted painfully in response, proving he was still breathing. That was a good sign, right?

  The elevator doors slid closed as the sirens blared once more. Now Reeves really wished Malk was there. Only the Bashan knew if that particular siren tone meant they had thirty minutes to get out, or twenty, or ten.

  Or one.

  ***

  With his adrenaline fading, Reeves slowed down considerably as he marched through the door marked Shuttle Bay. His brain kept telling him to go faster, that Kerubi’s Scythe could explode at any moment, but his legs simply refused. The dead weight on his shoulder grew and grew with each step, gradually hunching his back under the strain.

  At the sight of Alicia and Tilda loading Melissa into the science shuttle, a surge pulsed through his body. He was so close! He had to make it now. His link vibrated, wanting his attention, but he had none to give. Both arms held onto Matt’s limp form, and both of his legs felt numb. Eyes straight ahead, Reeves plodded on, unable to feel his legs moving, but knowing that they stoically drew him closer to safety. Alicia ran from the shuttle, and Reeves gladly allowed her to maneuver Matt in such a way that they could share the burden.

  They lowered Matt’s semi-conscious body into a seat and Reeves’s link vibrated again. Someone really wanted to get a hold of him. He looked around and wondered where the captain was. He tapped his link, expecting to see her face appear, but instead he saw Malk.

  “Alicia and Tilda here,” the Bashan said.

  Reeves poked his head into the cockpit and stared at Malk, comfortably seated at the controls.

  “Yes, I know, Malk. I can see them,” he said. “And you, too.”

  Malk smiled at Reeves’s annoyance. The engineer rolled his eyes and told his subordinate to finish the pre-flight checks and to get ready to leave as soon as Captain Sturm boarded.

  Back in the main cabin, Reeves found Tilda crying and showering her husband with guilty affection. Bless his heart, Matt looked like he really just wanted to be left alone to recover, but he allowed his wife to drape herself all over him as her tears wet his neck. Alicia sheepishly approached Reeves.

  “We wanted to call, but all the links in the lab were damaged when Malk blew it up,” she said, still not making eye contact with Reeves.

  “I figured you were just screening my calls, Alicia.” He glanced out the shuttle’s open door, expecting their last passenger to arrive at any moment.

  “After that siren, we had to leave,” Alicia said, ignoring the jibe. “We didn’t know what was going on. Tilda thought the alarm was for a reactor failure, so we had to go.” She looked back at her friend, and then whispered, “It was hard for her to leave Matt behind, but we couldn’t lift him. It was hard for both of us.”

  “You don’t need to explain yourself to me,” he said, but that was hardly true. She frowned and started to talk, but he cut her off, still looking out the shuttle door. “Where the hell is Sturm? We’re in a bit of a rush here.”

  Nobody knew. Tilda even stopped crying as everyone considered whatever fanciful and terrible implications the captain’s absence entailed. In the grim silence, the vibration of Reeves’s link startled them all.

  “Did you really think I’d let you just leave after all you’ve done, Reeves?” Sturm demanded as soon as Reeves accepted the call. Her voice was oddly calm, and definitely condescending. Reeves did not like where this was heading.

  “That’s exactly what I thought you’d do,” he said. “When are you—?”

  Ignoring him as if he’d not even spoken, she continued, a crazed gleam in her eyes.

  “I spent a lot of time planning this little operation, allowing Banion to think he was the ringleader of some foolproof hijacking, that he had control. I even supplied him with a patsy to take the blame. But of course, he got greedy. They always do. He brought in that damned Zhusaana, changed the whole plan, bugged the long-range scanners and the jump drive,” she said. “I was going to be a hero again. I was going to save Kerubi’s Scythe and all its precious antimatter from a terrorist plot. It’s been a long time since I’ve been a hero.”

  Reeves didn’t even know what to make of that. As he watched in stunned silence, her expression turned grim. In a deeply sad tone, she continued on quietly.

  “And now it’s all gone to shit. They EMPed me. They weren't supposed to do that. I could've jumped us back to safety and received all the glory for saving everyone from Banion and Zhi. Now that little psychopath tech is going to blow up my ship.”

  Yup, she was definitely losing it.

  “You could’ve stopped him!” Her nostrils flared as her face reddened. “You let him destroy my pride and joy.”

  “Uh—”

  “I let you get to the shuttle, but now I’ve locked the bay doors.” She started to laugh maniacally. “I’ve locked the doors, and you’re all trapped.”

  Reeves stared in shock. What the—?

  In a creepy, child-like voice, the once great military captain whispered, “We all go down together.”

  She dropped the connection. Reeves froze, his eyes wide. What now?

  An airy voice called from the back of the cabin. “Hack the doors, boss.”

  Melissa’s suggestion broke Reeves from his paralysis. He opened up the hacking software. The program struggled to break whatever encryption Sturm had placed on the door controls. With each failed attempt, Reeves grew more and more frantic, panicking at the thought of letting all his friends die there in the shuttle together. Then the external communications died on his link, his connection to the server lost.

  In mounting frustration, he looked up at the sound of echoing footsteps in the shuttle bay. His heart stopped for a moment, and he forgot to breath.

  Alicia was running for the shuttle bay operations room.

  He made for the door to chase her, to tell her to come back, to insist he go instead, but Malk and Tilda grabbed him from behind. He wrestled against them, screaming for Alicia to turn back, not to do this. For a tiny creature, Malk’s vice-like grip shocked Reeves. Try as he might, he couldn’t break the Bashan’s hold. Malk’s large purple eyes beseeched Reeves to stop resisting, but he was incensed, furious that his lover was trying to sacrifice herself. She’d have to stay in the control booth to make sure that Sturm didn’t shut the doors on them as they tried to leave.

  It was so frustrating. Every step of the way on this little adventure, someone else had performed each important task. Melissa with the security guards, Malk with the rescue.

  And now this.

  Alicia’s voice filled the entire bay through the intercom system.

  “Reeves, this is the only way, and you know it,” she said, obviously preoccupied with the control panel she was feverishly trying to learn. Most of the ship’s systems were fairly self-explanatory, so she’d unlock the doors in moments. “She scrambled your link’s communications, but she didn’t mess with the direct line from over here.”

  Listening to the booming voice, Reeves sat down on the floor of the shuttle, defeated. Malk darted into the cockpit to fire up the engines. Reeves tapped away on his link, trying to establish a connection with the bay operation booth, but true enough, Sturm had severed his
wireless functionality. He tried the shuttle’s main comm link, but he found that blocked out, too. Defeated, he collapsed on the floor again.

  All he wanted to do was say good bye, to say thank you, to say sorry, to say he didn’t hate her, that they could work it all out. All she had to do was come back.

  Instead, he absorbed the sullen atmosphere inside the science shuttle. Tilda cautiously approached him and put an arm around his shoulder. Part of him wanted to shrug away from her, to insist that he was okay, to be independent and strong. The part of him that won out just wanted Alicia to come back and didn’t care about anything else.

  Alicia’s voice blared from the intercom one last time. The sadness and sincerity in her voice ripped Reeves apart, but he knew her words would never leave him.

  “Reeves?” she asked of no one. “You can call me Ally.”

  Another siren, the highest pitched yet, filled the shuttle bay. And then the shuttle door slid shut. Reeves darted for it, hammered on the door release, but it stood strong. Malk had already engaged the automatic take-off sequence, and the door wasn’t budging, no matter how much a love-stricken young man hurled abuse at it.

  He gave up and strapped himself into a seat, at Tilda’s request. The reality of the situation shamed him to no end, but Ally’s last words to him repaired all of the damage she’d done earlier. That didn’t make it hurt any less. Wanting to see Ally’s sacrifice firsthand, owing her that much, Reeves got up and seated himself in the co-pilot seat next to Malk. On the center display, Reeves pulled up the rear-facing video camera.

  Kerubi’s Scythe quickly shrunk and disappeared from view. Had Zhi shut down the reactor detonation? Surely that last siren had indicated that the reactor was about to blow. Any shriller and only dogs would’ve heard it.

  “Malk, we need to go back—”

  The silent explosion ballooned out in all directions. Antimatter collided with all available matter, each interaction unleashing vast amounts of energy, all together enough to power an entire armada. Reeves had never seen anything like it. So beautiful to behold, yet he felt nothing but despondency. The display dimmed automatically as the growing brightness surpassed the safe limits for human consumption. Billowing chains of explosions rippled across space, fracturing the emptiness with a sight few humans ever survived to describe. Already beyond the reach of the massive explosion, the shuttle cruised away unaffected by the blasts.

  The same couldn’t be said of the crew.

  Ally.

  Malk stared at the display in horror and let loose what could only be described as the Bashan version of wailing. The terrible, throaty cry only lasted an instant, like most sounds in his language, but the anguish etched across Malk’s face remained, evidence of his perpetual gloom over the loss of his child. That engine system had been Malk’s life’s work. And now it was gone.

  And now Ally was gone, too. Reeves watched the screen silently long after all traces of the Scythe faded from view. Beside him, Malk quietly calibrated the jump drive to launch the shuttle back to Kom Nevoje Prime, or at least, what would become Kom Nevoje Prime in the future. The small space station had been under construction when Kerubi’s Scythe had passed by before, but from there they could grab a ride back to a larger system in Delta Sector.

  When they hadn’t jumped after a minute or two, Reeves looked to his pilot. Malk was watching him, waiting for him.

  “Jump?” the Bashan asked.

  Reeves nodded, trying to find solace in knowing that his life couldn’t get any worse.

  Epilogue

  A single communication beacon floated away from Kerubi’s Scythe as the ship ruptured into a brief inferno. As the small jump drive prepared for launch, the beacon began emanating a message in multiple languages and on multiple frequencies, ensuring that someone, somewhere, would capture the recording.

  The publicly retrievable broadcast repeated, “Upon receipt, deliver this message directly to General Daniel Pavlyuchenko immediately.”

  Upon reaching General Pavlyuchenko’s desk, in the office of UTF Naval Command, a further message would be decrypted.

  “This is Captain Nikolina Sturm, formerly captain of the UTF frigate Extravagant, ID code Bravo Echo Nine Zulu One Seven.

  “My posting on the Schumacher, Incorporated Harvester-class vessel Kerubi’s Scythe has ended abruptly. A traitor to the UTF has sabotaged and destroyed my ship, eradicating a full shipment of precious antimatter that the UTF needs to power the Navy that defends it. The man responsible is extremely dangerous and escaping in a shuttle designated Foxtrot Six Alpha Bravo Two Seven Nine Six. He and his accomplices must be brought to justice.

  “His name is Engineer Graham Reeves.”

  Note from the Author

  If you enjoyed reading ENGINEER, please let me know. Remember to support all your favorite authors by taking a couple of minutes to write reviews on websites like Amazon.com or Goodreads.com.

  Also, please visit www.the4threalm.com and sign up for The 4th Realm newsletter to keep up with all the latest releases from our talented crew! Check out the next page of this book for a listing of other works from all of us at The 4th Realm.

  Thanks for reading.

  ALISTAIR MCINTYRE’S PUBLISHED WORKS

  RISE OF CITHRIA SERIES:

  The Chosen

  The Descent

  The Breaking

  The Master

  RISE OF CITHRIA ORIGINS:

  Rise of Cithria Origins: Bruce and Gil

  BRENDAN RHODES SERIES:

  Shallow Creek

  Shallow Grave

  STANDALONE SCI-FI:

  Phalanx Alpha

  Engineer: A Sigma Sector Story

  Other Works by Authors from THE 4TH REALM

  The Chosen

  The first book in our epic fantasy series, The Rise of Cithria. Written by Kris Kramer, Alistair McIntyre, and Patrick Underhill

  “I loved This Book and can't wait to read the rest of the series.” (Amazon.com review)

  The Extraction

  Some over-the-top crime fiction fun from Kris Kramer. Book 1 of The Organization

  “If the author's other works are anything like this one I will be purchasing and reading all of his work” (Amazon.com review)

  Phalanx Alpha

  An expansive sci-fi thriller from Alistair McIntyre

  “…would recommend it for anyone, not just science fiction fans.” (Amazon.com review)

  Sanctuary

  A dark, historical fantasy novel by Kris Kramer. First in the Dominion Series

  “Not only could I not put this book down, I want more!” (Amazon.com review)

  Shallow Creek

  A West Texas Thriller written by our resident Scot, Alistair McIntyre

  “The mysteries and twists made me not want to stop reading.” (Amazon.com review)

  The Wind Riders

  A young adult fantasy from Kris Kramer. First in the Tales of the Lore Valley series

  Acknowledgments

  I wrote ENGINEER a couple of years ago and received a ton of awesome feedback from my team, primarily Franklin Fabrygel, Marshall McKinney, and Kris Kramer. Their input actually framed my success with the works I’ve released in the past year, because I learned a ton in the process of writing ENGINEER.

  The background to the story is fairly simple. I work as an engineer, and this is the story that spawned from my experiences. Sort of. That’s what makes sci-fi great, though, right? All the tech, all the aliens, all the spaceships. What it all boils down to is a series of real life struggles with a colorful backdrop.

  I hope you enjoyed reading. If you did, please stop by websites like Amazon or Goodreads to leave a rating or a review. I deeply appreciate your support.

  Thanks again.

  PUBLISHED BY:

  the4threalm.com

  Sigma Sector: Engineer

  Copyright © 2012 by Alistair McIntyre

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold
or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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