And if they hadn’t…March supposed they would find out when he fell over dead. Though maybe he would get to experience the skin melting off his flesh first.
But nothing happened as they raced down the concourse, and with five and a half minutes left March and Carina skidded to a halt in front of the cargo airlock. The station’s airlock cycled, and then the Tiger’s outer airlock door opened. He and Carina stepped into the airlock, and the outer door closed.
“Listen to me,” said March with a grimace. This was going to be embarrassing, but best to get it over with. “Stay in the airlock until I tell you it’s safe to come out.” He pulled off his jacket and his boots, dumping them on the floor. “If you come out, you’ll spread more spores into the ship, and if you take off your suit, the spores on it will kill you.”
“What are you doing?” said Carina, taking a step back as he pulled off his belt and starting yanking off his jumpsuit.
“Leaving my clothes here, so I don’t drag more spores onto the ship,” said March. He yanked off his T-shirt and underwear, dumping them on the floor, and felt a wave of chagrin. He hated, hated for anyone to see the massive Y-shaped scar on his torso, or the mass of scar tissue where his cybernetic arm joined his shoulder or the smaller scars that dotted his legs. But he didn’t want to bring more spores than necessary onto the ship, no one else knew how to pilot the Tiger, and there were several maneuvers that Vigil could not perform under autopilot. “Stay here until I say it’s safe to come out. Understand?”
Carina nodded, her eyes wide, and March cycled the airlock’s inner door, stepped into the cargo bay, and sealed the door behind him.
Then he sprinted across the cargo bay, scrambled up the ladder to the dorsal corridor, and hurried into the flight cabin.
March started the undocking procedure even before he sat in the pilot’s acceleration chair. He had never sat naked in the pilot’s chair before, and part of his mind noted that the gel of the seat felt cold and slick and unpleasant against his bare skin. The rest of his mind was focused on the ship, and he fired the ion thrusters, spinning the Tiger around to point at deep space. A second later he activated the fusion drive, the ship blasting away from Burnchain Station. This close to the station, the radiation plume from the drive would do significant damage to the station, but since everyone aboard it was already dead, and the Machinists were about to blow it up anyway, it didn’t matter.
“Proximity alert,” said Vigil, and March glanced at the sensor display. A squadron of Machinist torpedo bombers was on an intercept vector for the station. No doubt they carried enough nuclear torpedoes to blast Burnchain Station to molten slag. A squadron of heavy fighters escorted them, and another squadron of interceptors was on an intercept vector for the Tiger. The ugly little starfighters were a lot faster and had a far superior thrust-to-mass ratio than the capital ships or the bombers, and they could intercept the Tiger sooner.
Which meant that November’s estimate of how much time they had left might be wrong.
“Time to intercept?” said March, bringing up the shields and sending power to the laser turrets and the flak launchers.
“Sixty-three seconds,” said Vigil.
March flicked a glance at the navigation computer. There were still seventy-six seconds until Vigil finished the hyperspace calculation. All those damned comets and Kuiper belt objects were throwing off the calculations. Likely that was why the Machinist task force had shown up ten million kilometers away instead of right on top of Burnchain Station. Unfortunately, that meant the interceptors would have about fifteen seconds where they could fire missiles at the Tiger.
He snarled a curse and sent the ship into a wild evasive pattern as the warning chime of missile locks filled the flight cabin.
“Incoming missiles,” said Vigil as fifteen seconds remained on the calculation progression.
March sent the Tiger into a spiraling evasive pattern, firing the flak launchers as he did. The flak clouds disrupted some of the missile locks. He set the lasers to point defense mode, and the weapons burned down missile after missile. But the rest of the missile cloud hurtled towards the Tiger, drawing closer even as March sent the ship zigging and zagging through space.
“Calculation complete,” said Vigil.
March had seized the hyperdrive power levers even before Vigil finished speaking the first word. He yanked them back, and the Tiger shuddered as the dark matter reactor sent power surging through the hyperdrive. An instant later the Tiger entered its hyperspace tunnel and hurtled away from the JQ9987H system, leaving the doomed station, the Machinist ships, and the swarm of missiles far behind.
He slumped back in the chair, breathing hard, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
That had been close. God, he wanted a cigarette. Though the life support system was already busy dealing with those damned spores.
“Jack?” came November’s voice from the speakers overhead. “We just jumped to hyperspace. Are we still alive?”
March flipped the intercom switch. “Yeah. Looks that way.”
Chapter 10: Missions
After the Tiger emerged from hyperspace in interstellar space near the JQ9987H system, March had Vigil calculate a hyperspace path back to the Alexandria system. The computer generated a route that would take three and a half days and twenty-seven jumps.
That was just as well because it took nearly that long to clean up the threat of the biomorphic spores.
March started by rigging the sanitizer booth in his cabin into a decontamination shower. This involved spraying himself with foul-smelling decontaminator chemicals, washing them off, and repeating until the system reported that he was clean. After that, he got dressed in a spacesuit and started work on the life support systems, checking to make sure that spores had been purged from the Tiger’s air and life support system. The only way to do that was to cycle the ship’s entire atmosphere through the life support system, and that took a grand total of nine hours and forty-seven minutes, after which Vigil declared that every last biomorphic spore had been purged from the atmosphere.
March hoped she was right.
To test it, he unsealed Alan’s cabin. The traitor glared up at him from his bunk, his faint sweaty and tight with pain. By now he was lying in a puddle of his own waste, which March supposed he would have to clean up.
He waited a half hour, but Alan didn’t die in agony, so March let the others out of their cabins and the infirmary.
Which meant it was time to deal with Carina.
While Siegfried tended to Northridge, March and November assembled a portable decontamination shower around the inner door of the cargo airlock. Thankfully, Carina’s suit had a 24-hour supply of oxygen, so they didn’t have to worry about her asphyxiating while they worked. Once March and November had assembled the shower, they opened the airlock and hosed Carina’s suit down with wave after wave of decontaminator chemicals until the scanners showed absolutely no trace of the fungi left.
Just to be safe, they washed her down twice more.
Then she stripped out of her spacesuit and all her clothing, dumped them into the cargo airlock, and then jettisoned both her clothes and March’s discarded garments into space.
March found the hour after that unpleasant because he and November had to watch Carina to make sure she didn’t show any signs of infection from the fungi. Both Siegfried and Northridge agreed that the first symptoms would take place within three minutes and that death would take place within twelve minutes of exposure. March stared at Carina through the transparent plastic wall of the shower, using all the discipline acquired from years as an Iron Hand and then an Alpha Operative to ignore how stunning she looked. Carina had been genetically engineered to look as attractive as possible, and God, it showed. Especially when she was naked.
It helped that he knew how much her childhood procedures would have hurt.
It helped even more to think about Adelaide.
“It has been sixty minutes,” said November. “I beli
eve we are safe.”
“Good,” said March. He unlocked the portable shower, and Carina stepped out of it, arms crossed over her chest and an expression of mild embarrassment on her face. March passed her a spare jumpsuit. “Please get dressed.”
“I would be glad to do so, Captain Harper,” said Carina, scrambling into it. “Or…Captain March, was it?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said March. He hoped none of his relief showed when she zipped the jumpsuit to her throat. “Jack March.”
She smiled. “Captain Jack March. Thank you for my life. And my freedom. What a strange concept.” Carina shook her head. “I’ve never been free in my life. I scarcely know what to do with myself now.”
March shared a look with November.
“Don’t worry, miss,” said November. “I’m sure our mutual employer will be able to think of something.”
March went to check on the infirmary and found that the news was bad. The expert system and the emergency nanobots had managed to get Northridge stabilized, but her blood pressure and heart rate kept skyrocketing. The expert system predicted that she was going to suffer heart failure within the next four hours unless more advanced medical help was obtained, but none was available.
Melissa Northridge was going to die, shot in the back by a Machinist traitor.
Except she didn’t.
Because as it turned out, several of the Masters of Burnchain Station had suffered from a variety of chronic diseases, and all the Guides received extensive medical training to deal with them. March realized that Carina had the knowledge of at least a nurse, or possibly even a full medical doctor. She took charge of the infirmary, and while Northridge was in a lot of pain, she didn’t die.
Northridge was still alive when the Tiger returned to the Alexandria system.
March called ahead and contacted the local Silent Order branch before he spoke with station control. Several teams from the Ministry of Security and the Ministry of Defense were waiting for them when they docked. In short order, both Melissa Northridge and Kent Alan were whisked away to the station’s hospital, with Carina hovering over Northridge like a protective mother bird, and Alan in the firm company of a guard of military police from the Ministry of Defense.
“I think this is goodbye, Captain March,” said Anna Siegfried as they stood in the docking corridor, and March shook her hand. “Thank you for my life. Several times over, as it happens.” She smiled. “I suppose you didn’t need my help after all.”
“I don’t know about that,” said March. “If any one thing had changed, we might have lost. And you can go back to Mercator with your reputation restored.”
“Maybe.” Siegfried offered a thin smile. “Though I think I might take a break from field work for a while.”
“I’ve heard an office has its attractions,” said March.
She left and headed for another airlock, where a starliner would take her back to Mercator.
“And I must leave you as well,” said November. “It seems there have been financial improprieties with some of the businesses on the station, and our employer wants me to look into them.”
That was a polite way of saying that some of the businesses on the station had been laundering money for the Final Consciousness and November was going to shut them down.
“Sure you don’t want help?” said March.
November’s white smile flashed in his dark face. “Not for this sort of problem. I just point and click, and then the Ministry of Security arrests some people. Problem solved. No, my friend, your talents are a bit more…kinetic, let’s say.”
March snorted. “That’s just a polite way of saying I’m good at punching people.”
“Everyone has their own talents,” said November. “I wish to ask you something.”
“Sure,” said March.
“Carina,” said November.
March shrugged. “Our employer will find a job for her. Probably recruit her. You know how he operates. Truth be told, there are never enough nurses or doctors. He’ll probably find her a job in a hospital someplace.”
“She seems quite fond of you,” said November.
March shrugged again. “That happens when you save someone’s life. And she’s smarter and braver than I expected.”
“It would have taken very little effort for you to seduce her,” said November.
Ah. So that was what this was about.
“You already deduced that I was with a woman,” said March.
“And you did not wish to betray her trust?” said November. “Was that it?”
“Yes,” said March. “That was exactly it.”
“I see,” said November. “I hope to meet this woman someday.”
March frowned. “Why’s that?”
“I want to see if she’s worthy of you, my friend,” said November.
March smiled and shook November’s hand. “Good luck finding those financial improprieties. And if you find someone who needs punching, give me a call.”
###
A few days later March sat at a restaurant on Calaskar Station, eating powdered eggs and vat-grown bacon. He had already docked the Tiger and arranged for a shuttle down to the surface. Adelaide had sent him a message saying she would pick him up at the spaceport, and he was looking forward to their reunion.
His phone buzzed.
March glanced at the display, then around the restaurant, making sure that no one was listening, and then lifted the phone to his ear.
“Sir,” said March.
“Captain March,” came Censor’s dry voice. “I would ask you for a report, but I just read Mr. November’s exhaustive account. Given his eidetic memory, I think we can forgo a report from you.”
“Thank you, sir,” said March. “I am grateful for the reprieve.”
Censor snorted. “Indeed. Both you and Mr. November performed very well.”
“To be frank, I doubt that, sir,” said March. “A lot of innocent people died on Burnchain Station.”
“The only innocent people who died on Burnchain Station were the slaves,” said Censor, “and their blood rests upon the hands of Odin and Alexei Murdan. Both of whom escaped, alas. But do not rebuke yourself. If not for your quick thinking, the Machinists would have escaped with the biomorphic fungi, and then the death and devastation you saw on Burnchain Station would have been multiplied a thousand times.”
“I am just glad it wasn’t worse, sir,” said March. He hesitated. “What will happen to Carina and Dr. Northridge?”
“Carina has already been recruited to our Order,” said Censor. “Her medical knowledge is quite extensive, and after some brief retraining, she should pass the standard Calaskaran medical licensing exam. As I’m sure you can imagine, a doctor is always a welcome asset to our Order.” His voice hardened. “As for Dr. Northridge…she is expected to make a full recovery, and there are no complications with her cloned kidney and intestines. However, she will be invited to seek employment other than the Ministry of Defense. Allowing herself to be seduced by a Machinist agent was an inexcusable lapse of judgment. Still, no further action will be taken against her.”
“Yes, sir,” said March. “That’s probably for the best.”
“The destruction of Burnchain Station and the collapse of the Masters’ patronage network is having some interesting effects,” said Censor. “I expect we shall see a great deal of chaos in the criminal underworld for some time. Odin may have acted prematurely in killing them. Additionally, Carina had a good knowledge of their operations, and she has pointed us in the direction of several promising leads. We shall have a new mission for you soon.”
“Yes, sir,” said March, keeping the dismay from his voice. He had hoped to see Adelaide. But if another mission was already waiting…
“In five or six days, of course,” said Censor in a dry voice. “Even an Alpha Operative needs a rest from time to time, Captain March. And the comforts of home.”
“Yes, sir,” said March again.
“Exp
ect to receive contact in five or six days,” said Censor, and he ended the call.
March stared at the phone for a moment, and then put it back in his pocket.
The comforts of home? For most of his life, March would have said that he didn’t have a home. Or that he lived on the Tiger.
But now…
He realized that home was wherever Adelaide was.
March finished his breakfast and headed for the shuttle that would take him home.
THE END
JACK MARCH WILL RETURN
Thank you for reading SILENT ORDER: MASTER HAND!
Look for more adventures from Jack March in summer 2018.
If you liked the book, please consider leaving a review at your ebook site of choice. To receive immediate notification of new releases, sign up for my newsletter, or watch for news on my Facebook page.
Other books by the author
The Demonsouled Saga
MAZAEL CRAVENLOCK is a wandering knight, fearless in battle and masterful with a sword.
Yet he has a dark secret. He is Demonsouled, the son of the ancient and cruel Old Demon, and his tainted blood grants him superhuman strength and speed. Yet with the power comes terrible, inhuman rage, and Mazael must struggle to keep the fury from devouring him.
But he dare not turn aside from the strength of his blood, for he will need it to face terrible foes.
The priests of the San-keth plot and scheme in the shadows, pulling lords and kingdoms upon their strings. The serpent priests desire to overthrow the realms of men and enslave humanity. Unless Mazael stops them, they shall force all nations to bow before the serpent god.
The Malrag hordes are coming, vast armies of terrible, inhuman beasts, filled with a lust for cruelty and torment. The Malrags care nothing for conquest or treasure, only slaughter. And the human realms are ripe for the harvest. Only a warrior of Mazael’s power can hope to defeat them.
The Dominiar Order and the Justiciar Order were once noble and respected, dedicated to fighting the powers of dark magic. Now they are corrupt and cynical, and scheme only for power and glory. They will kill anyone who stands in their way.
Silent Order_Master Hand Page 17