by Gwynn White
But the guards passed him by and seized El-erae. He expected her to scream and fight, but she offered no resistance. Stars, they could have just asked her to escort herself out. She might have been at peace with it, but Skip was at war.
“Hey!” Skip shouted, but one of the guards kicked him back. Normally he would have grabbed that boot, twisted the leg, snapped the knee, and moved on to the next one. But now, after having died once, his reflexes weren't the same. He hoped it just required some time. He hated the idea that maybe part of him, the fighting part, hadn't come back with the rest of him.
They hauled El-erae outside, kicking and screaming, then slammed the gate shut.
El-erae's shouts diminished slowly as she was dragged away. Then the silence kicked in. That was when Skip could hear his own racing thoughts. It was also then when he saw a vast shadowy form, a billowing black smoke, creep down the corridor, passing by his cage. It almost seemed to turn and look at him, and he felt a horror beyond horrors. It continued on, down to where El-erae had been taken.
Skip tried to calm his breath. He'd learned techniques for that too, and they'd largely become second nature—except for now. He found the basics were becoming a struggle. His doctor had warned him about this at his last fitness test before taking position on Gemini. He gave him pills to counteract things. Those pills were in his armour, wherever they had taken that.
Skip tried not to think about the shadow, and tried not to flinch at his own. He suddenly felt like a child again, shaking as his father told him stories about the Umbra. They'll get you if you don't go to sleep, his father warned—as if that would help him slumber.
He listened out for El-erae's distant whimpers. It was silent. Maybe she was dead now. Maybe, after all, they only got one life. In place of her comforting presence and encouraging calm, he let his fears and paranoia build something else. He hadn't realised until now how much he was depending on El-erae, how she was keeping him sane.
30
Last Stop
Maggie waited for the boarding party. They didn't knock. They didn't ask her to open up. They took laser drills to the door, searing a hole in it.
Maggie stood on the other side in her full armour, ready to run.
They finished cutting, and the metal piece fell in with a clang. When they saw her, they were so off guard, they flinched. Some of them had seen an armoured foe like that before: Skip. Though they had defeated him, he had defeated many more of them in the process.
They pointed their guns, but Maggie didn't have any to point back. Instead, she hit the thrusters she'd built into her suit. They flung her forward, and she ran with them, half-galloping, half-propelled, darting right through the gathering guards. She knocked them over like bowling pins, shouldering some away, scaring away others with the sheer size of her armoured form.
She kept going, straight through the door they had come from, just as the first rounds of gunfire came her way. She slammed her wrists together, triggering the full automatic cycle of shielding. The energy shields kicked in all around her, knocking away the laser blasts.
She saw the route she'd mapped overlayed on her viewscreen. She had kept her scanners working almost silently on the ship as the Raetuumaka cut through. They were still working now, feeding her updates on the space barge, enhancing the scanners in her suit, which continued to map the route ahead. From that distance, they couldn't detect every corridor in the ship. She had to get closer.
She counted on one thing that counted against her before: the Raetuumaka would have their vitals dampeners on. Skip didn't have that technology. That meant the only life sign Maggie picked up had to be him. She was hoping the Raetuumaka wouldn't cop on to her plot and start randomly disabling their dampeners. This was already enough of a death trap as it was.
She continued her race through the corridors, bowling over any Raetuumaka in her way. The force of her strikes, enhanced by the boosters, knocked many out cold. A few that weren't quite unconscious played dead. Sometimes in the game of battle, that was the right way to play.
Finally, she picked up the vitals signal, but when she did, she halted. That can't be right, she thought. The signal was coming from behind her, closer to her own ship. She hoped against hope that it wasn't one of the Raetuumaka luring her into a trap. In her mind's eye, she visualised Skip having broken free from whatever cage they had him in, hobbling his way towards the ship. It would've been some irony for him to depart and unwittingly leave his rescuer behind.
She turned and charged back the way she came, taking a slight detour as her scanners calculated a faster (and safer) route. Then she saw the blinking dot start to head up the passage she had just come back from, so she was forced to double back again. For whatever reason, the Raetuumaka were nowhere to be found. She could have sworn she heard them chasing after her. She didn't think they'd give up that easily, but then she had very little to go on with this new species. If she survived this, she would fill up many datapads with her observations.
She chased after the fleeting dot, which seemed to be taking a similar route to the one the computer had mapped—not to the ship but away from it. Maggie wondered for a moment if they had tortured Skip, if he had finally cracked (completely) and was now just wandering in circles. As far as she was concerned, that could have pretty much summed up his life.
Then, as she caught up and turned a corner, she bumped right into him. Except, it wasn't him. It was Alex Primus, and she almost crushed him in the impact. He fell back to the floor, letting his blaster slip from his fingers.
“Alex!” Maggie blurted.
Alex gave a sheepish smile as he fumbled with the blaster.
“What in Nyron's name are you doing here?” she asked him, pulling him to his feet. She snatched the weapon from him. By the looks of it, he'd left the charge on for ages. It was half empty already.
“I … uh, I … I—”
“Right, we don't have time for that. I'm looking for Skip.”
“I know. I … I thought I could help.”
“But you're a royal,” she said. She realised that sounded offensive, but the truth was that his job wasn't to help, or to do much of anything. He was a prop, another part of the Empire's grand scheme to appear unified. It was anything but.
“I'm more than that,” Alex protested.
“Go back to the ship. You'll be safer there.”
“I don't want to be safe. I want to be out here, on the front lines.”
Maggie grabbed him by the arm and started to haul him back to the ship. He tried to fight her, but he was just a kid. Even without her armour, he wouldn't have had any luck stopping her. His feet skidded along as she dragged him away.
“I'm not a child!” he cried.
That was evident when she approached the docking bay. The bodies of Raetuumaka were strewn across the place. She'd knocked many over, but she hadn't killed them. There were scorch marks all over the room from stray blaster fire.
“What in—?” was all Maggie could manage. The scene stole her breath.
“I told you I could fight.”
You never told me you could kill, she thought. Maybe this would have impressed Skip, and boy did Alex want to do that bad, but it made Maggie feel ill. So much wasted life. This kid was undoing everything she was trying to achieve there.
She tried to refocus, opening the doors of the Bridge and throwing him inside. He rolled on the ground, groaning like a child that had just receive a spanking. He might have deserved worse.
Maggie looked at the blaster in her hand. She wasn't sure what to do with it. If she gave it back to him, who knew what trouble he would cause? Yet, if she didn't, he might have wound up dead—and there'd be hell to pay with the Empire for that. He was one of Skip's guests, on Gemini Left's manifest, but right now none of that mattered. Maggie felt almost entirely responsible for him. Indeed, if she hadn't flown back there, he wouldn't be there either.
“Here,” she said, casting the blaster inside. “It's not a toy.” She closed
the doors and locked them with an encrypted code. He banged at the glass as she walked away.
She thought she heard his muted words. “I know.” And maybe he did.
That frightened her.
31
A Small Step
Maggie continued on through the seemingly never-ending corridors of the space barge, attempting to move as quietly as she could in a suit that clanged with every step. For a while, there were no more guards around. She wondered if they had all congregated around the Bridge, and if they had all died there.
She pressed on, until she saw the backs of two Raetuumaka guards, who chattered away to each other in their strange tongue, which was mostly guttural. She tried to calculate an alternative route, but there wasn't one. She was about to dart towards them when she saw the weapons they carried: foot-long electrified rods, or electro-bludgeons, the kind of weapons designed specifically for the bulky metal power armour of the Pan-Galactic Marines.
She stepped forward gently, unsure if her movement really did make so little noise or if the noise was just muffled by her helmet. She hoped to the high stars that the Raetuumaka were talking loudly, that they were so lost in their conversation that they wouldn't hear her. One turned to the other and cackled. Maggie could see the corner of its eye.
The talk continued, and she took another step. This was a time when ranged weaponry would have come in handy. She knew Skip would have scolded her for her lack of wisdom in not having a weapon at least as a last resort, but she would have just rerouted the energy from a blaster to support one of the scanners or shields.
Skip had questioned her focus on shields almost the moment she had boarded the Gemini, when she stripped the weaponry from Gemini Right. Skip took those weapons willingly. He spent much of his time replacing the apparently “useless” elements of Gemini Left, like the medical bay, with a bigger arsenal. The arguments they had were endless. Then, one day, Skip stopped debating her. She wondered why, until Toz revealed that the Captain had secured a tape of her capture. It was a long video, because it wasn't a quick capture at all. It took government forces almost ten full hours to break through her defences. Skip didn't argue then. She almost thought she even saw a glint of admiration in his eyes. It was a pity it didn't last.
Maggie took another step. She barely noticed that she was holding her breath. This was just like sneaking into the Omega Alloys facility on the desert world of Omega Prime, where she was certain the Pan-Galactic Empire was testing world-destroying weapons. Her little band of activists from the EEE had to tip-toe their way through security. It was agonising. So was this.
She was almost on top of the Raetuumaka. She stretched her arm out, reaching for one of their shoulders, ready to inject a temporary paralysing agent built into a retracting needle in the knuckle of her gauntlet. She wasn't entirely sure it would work on these, so she clenched her left fist as well. Just because she didn't want to fight didn't mean she wouldn't if she had to.
The Raetuumaka continued their chat, but one of them swiped its tail behind it, lashing off the side of Maggie's leg. Everyone paused. The rat-men turned their heads slowly, their eyes widening as they saw Maggie standing there.
In the flurry that followed, Maggie jabbed the needle into the neck of the closest Raetuumak. The force of the blow sent it stumbling, and the drug worked quick, forcing it to the slump to the ground. The other Raetuumak swung its bat at her. She blocked it with her left forearm, but the electric shock travelled through her whole body. She had built in some absorption for shocks, mostly from her own equipment, but the voltage of the Raetuumaka weapons was high. She hobbled back, gasping for breath, almost toppling over from the jolt.
The Raetuumak checked its slumbering colleague. It must have believed it was dead, for it went into a terrible rage, turning to Maggie with fury in its eyes. It swiped and swatted the air with the electro-bludgeon. The weapon made a threatening buzz.
Maggie tried to regain her wits, shaking off the shock of the electric sting. Her heart rapped and her skin crawled. Her eyes were more alert than ever, taking in the sight of the advancing enemy, waving its weapon around madly.
She had just enough clarity of mind to ignite her shields as the rod came down at her face. The electricity dissipated into the energy shield. Then she struck back, launching her fist at the Raetuumak, dropping her shield just in time to press her arm through. The rat-man ducked, then swung again, catching her arm with the rod. Another jolt zapped through her body, sending her stumbling back into the wall. It came again, and she barely got the shields up in time. Each time the rod hit the energy wall, its electricity seemed to weaken, but it also weakened her shields. In some fights, stalemate was a good thing, but there was another kind of stalemate where both parties were dead.
Maggie kept the shields up this time, and the Raetuumak kept its rod held high, waiting for the opportunity to strike. They circled each other, challenging each other with their eyes, watching for a slight tell, for a sudden movement.
“Warning,” the computer on her viewscreen said. “Power at fifty percent.”
She had lost too much power too quickly. She couldn't afford much more of this. It would do no good to drag Skip from his cell with no shields left for the race back to the ship. She hadn't came as prepared as she was on Omega Prime, when she brought backup generators, and backup crew.
She watched as the electricity circulating around the Raetuumak's weapon started to flicker. They were running out of charge too. The rat-man caught her gaze and glanced down at the rod. That was when she pounced, pushing the Raetuumak with all her force. It fell, and she came down on top of it, struggling with its arms. It struck with the rod, and she yelped and spasmed, then pressed one of its arms down. It hit again, and she cried out louder and gritted her teeth through the surge. She punched it once in the face, almost knocking it out completely, before she jabbed the paralysing needle into its neck.
As the Raetuumak's limbs slumped to the ground, she panted and wheezed. The sweat from her forehead seeped into her eyes, giving its own little sting. She rolled off the creature, onto her back, regaining her breath, taking a moment to rest, to let her tense muscles relax. Yet, she knew she couldn't relax. She couldn't rest. So, she struggled to her feet, feeling weak. She took a step forward, grimacing. Then another, letting the air whistle through her clenched teeth. She walked like the wounded, knowing well that she was walking to the next battle.
32
Some Kind of Rescue
Maggie picked up a signal. A little green dot flashed in her visor, staying perfectly still. She hoped it was Skip, and assumed he must have been locked up, because he wasn't moving. Not moving wasn't good, but at least the vitals signal flashed—it meant he wasn't dead.
She followed the signal, ducking into an alcove just in time as a much larger Raetuumak, around eight feet tall, strolled by. She watched as it patrolled the corridors, with no weapon in hand. Its bulging muscles suggested it didn't need one. She made a mental note to describe it as a Marauder in her classification of this new species. It passed around a corner, and she continued on.
In time, she found the cell where Skip was being kept. She could see him from the distance, through the bars. He looked a little like he had almost given up.
Suddenly, another Raetuumak Marauder came around the corner close to Skip's cell. It glanced at the Captain, then continued its patrol, passing the place where Maggie hid. She waited, and, as predicted, another Marauder passed by, perhaps the first she saw. They were making a circuit of the area, with a gap of about fifteen seconds between each.
She weighed up her options. Fighting them didn't seem like a good idea. They towered over her, and likely outmatched her strength, even with the support of her armour. She had a feeling she'd have a hard time sending them to sleep, and wasn't sure the chemical was strong enough for them. She needed a different plan. She needed Skip's help.
She waited for a Marauder to pass, then cast a data orb across the floor towards the cag
e. It was meant to roll inside, but struck one of the bars instead. She never had a great aim, which was another reason she didn't carry a blaster. Skip perked up, glancing about. He couldn't see anyone, so he sunk his head again.
Maggie hid once more as another Marauder came by. She was glad it didn't notice the little steel bauble perched by the bars. She could hear its snorts as well as its heavy footfalls. She wondered if they were a natural subspecies of the other Raetuumaka or if they were genetically altered forms, enhanced with steroids like the Bulkers of the Pan-Galactic Marines.
She repeated the procedure, rolling another data orb towards Skip's cell. Again, it missed, striking the cage. He looked up, but didn't seem to notice the objects outside. Maggie wondered if he thought he was imagining things.
Another Marauder came around the corner, but this one caught the edge of the newest data orb with the tip of its toe, kicking it down the corridor. It bounced off the walls, back and forth. The Marauder jumped on the spot, launching into a fighting pose. It snarled and growled, looking around slowly with crazed eyes. It sniffed the air several times. Maggie was glad her suit disguised her scent. It passed on, slowly, making the ground tremor as it went.
Maggie peered out and saw Skip at the bars, reaching through. He had finally noticed the first orb there. She signalled to him before diving back into the alcove, where the shadows were her only ally. She waited for one more patrol, then gave another signal to Skip. She didn't know military signs, so she had to make it up on the spot. She waved her hands madly, hoping he got the idea that she wanted a distraction.
She hid and waited. Then she heard Skip shout, “Guard! You!”