by Barry Kirwan
Louise paused mid-corridor. For a moment she thought she heard something, maybe Kat, who’d been recuperating from her coma; but then it went quiet. She continued walking her thoughts. Trading the past seven years of her life against Qorall’s self-serving act of saving her – it was no longer enough. The trouble was, there was no glory in Qorall’s war: those conquered were afraid, broken and subdued, and most of those not yet conquered were simply afraid. She had been a maverick for too long. She wanted a cause again, like she’d had as a Chorazin agent with Vince, and as an Alician with Sister Esma. Now, there was a cause; screw looking for Hellera. Her step lightened. She should get Qorall working for them, helping the Alicians. Now, that would be motivating. For the first time in weeks she felt clear, energized. Now would be a good time to update the clone’s memory core, just in case.
Arriving at the lower deck area, she saw the dried blue footprints on the floor, and sprinted to the chamber, found the room and entered. She touched a panel area and the body began to rise to the surface, and stared at what had to be Kat’s handiwork. Louise lifted the listless, blonde-haired head toward her, its lifeless innocent eyes open wide, a gash across its throat. Louise studied the face awhile, remembering who she used to be, a lifetime ago. Each time she’d tried to find her way back there… no matter. She let the head back down gently. There was no time to grow another one.
Kat. Probably aided by Aramisk or even Tarish. She kicked the sarcophagus. Why did everyone betray her? Leaving the door open, she headed to the unoccupied secondary battle bridge. En route, she lifted her wristcom to her lips. “Where is Kat?”
“Unknown,” came the synthetic Q’Roth computer reply, “Sensors are not functioning normally.”
“Internal or external problem?” If the former, she would choke the life out of Aramisk personally.
“Unknown.”
Louise gritted her teeth and broke into a run.
* * *
Kat arrived at the bridge, bedraggled, her forehead and armpits perspiring, her hair still damp and sticky and no doubt coloured blue. She’d nearly bumped into Louise en route, and had then taken a tertiary pathway to get to the bridge. Once Louise had passed, Kat had sprinted all the way. She hated running: it sped up her pulse for all the wrong reasons – fight or flight, she knew Pierre would have said. For her it always seemed to be both. But she didn’t feel well. Dizziness threatened, and her neck hurt.
Kat raised and steadied her pistol arm. The four Mannekhi turned one by one to stare at her. All of them looked her up and down.
“Where’s Louise?” Kat croaked, addressing Aramisk.
Aramisk walked toward Kat but a raised hand from Tarish stopped her. He placed himself in the firing line, taking command.
“She left five minutes ago,” he said, arms folded.
“You’re injured,” Aramisk said, peering at her from behind Tarish’s gaunt frame.
Kat leant hard against the wall, catching her breath. Don’t pass out now! She waved the pistol at Tarish. “Seal the Bridge, the Battle Bridge, too.”
Tarish nodded to one of the other Mannekhi to execute the request. “Such measures will not keep Louise out for long.”
Kat shrugged. Her attention fell on the viewscreen split in four sections, showing Esperia and several ships she didn’t recognise, except for the disabled Ossyrian pyramid drifting in space. She kept the gun levelled on Tarish. “Looks like I need an update.” Her head began to throb hard, almost making her eyes water. She stumbled, her legs almost buckling, but regained her balance.
Aramisk sighed, snatched a small case from the wall, brushed past Tarish and ignored the barrel shifting in her direction. “What you need is medical attention, right now, before your carotid fails and you stroke or die or both.” She knelt down at Kat’s feet and opened the case, fishing around until she found what she was searching for. “This may hurt,” she said.
Kat laughed. “What, more than it does already? Don’t see how that’s –”
Aramisk sprang to her feet and plunged a syringe into Kat’s neck.
Kat shook violently, a feeling of ice flooding into her neck and head, freezing the back of her eye-balls. She gasped, placing her left hand on her right wrist to steady the pistol, eyes misting with pain. Tarish didn’t move. Kat’s strength ebbed as the coldness flushed down her arms, and then her legs gave way. Aramisk caught her, lowered her to the floor in a sitting position, and held her there. Tarish had already snatched the pistol, moving faster than his age would suggest likely.
“Wait,” Aramisk said to Tarish. “I’ve been in communication with the Spiker Captain. It’s Commander Xenic. He just sent me a file.”
Tarish loomed over her. “That was not your place.”
She shrugged. “Check your console. You won’t believe it, but you’ll want to.”
Louise’s voice cut through to the Bridge. “Open the door down here. Now!”
Tarish pocketed the pistol, and moved to the access control panel.
Aramisk placed both palms over her heart. “Check your console, Tarish! Please. Kat is of the Helgothora. I’ve verified the Captain’s analysis. It’s Xenic, for the Ancestors’ sake. My father fought alongside him in the Cretachian Campaign. We can trust him!”
Tarish’s brow furrowed, then he regained his composure, moved to his console, and spoke in measured tones to Louise as he scanned the file. “Commander, Kat is here, she tried to take the bridge, but we overcame her.” His all-black eyes suddenly widened and he turned from the console to stare at Kat, then Aramisk. His voice betrayed nothing of the revelation. “However, she temporarily locked us out of certain command functions. Aramisk is working on it as we speak.”
Louise’s tone sharpened. “You have five minutes, after which I will decide you are liars and mutineers, and I will kill you all, do you understand? I have already segregated the ship and still have control over the Nova bombs, and a way off this vessel.”
“It will be done.” Tarish cut comms. He spoke as if to himself. “She will not wait five minutes.”
Kat shivered. With a grunt, she tried to get up, and slipped. Aramisk caught her again and helped her upright. Kat felt her pulse slowing, steadying; her right carotid ached, and the puffy swelling around it was tender to her fingertips. “What was in the file? What just happened?”
Tarish looked over his Mannekhi crew, then back to Kat. He took her hand, held it as if it was priceless, and smiled. “For all the good it might do, Katrina of Earth and Helgothora, daughter of the Eleventh Tribe, we just changed sides.”
* * *
Louise had been considering her next move – after Esperia’s destruction – for some time. Qorall had her running errands, and it wasn’t her style. After so many years on the move she wanted a ‘centre’, a home of sorts. No matter which way she played it over in her mind, it always came back to the Alicians. She believed in their cause, and she was still Alician.
She reached a secondary communications room and activated short-range comms, directing an encrypted beam at the Crucible. “Sister Esma,” she began, “I know it’s you. This is Louise.”
The lack of reply was expected, so Louise raised the stakes. “I have seven Sclarese Level Nine Nova bombs onboard, and I only need one to finish off Esperia. If you do not respond I will target your vessel.”
Louise tried not to react when she saw the golden skull cap framing Sister Esma’s angular face, her high cheekbones guarding a hooked nose. Her former mentor had aged. But that wasn’t all of it; she was diminished somehow, the years had taken their toll on her. In the background of the holo she heard the dull sound of explosions. Sister Esma’s large black eyes darted over unseen displays. “Louise, this was expected, but I am a little busy right now. What is it you want?”
Louise found the words didn’t come so easily. But she was running out of time. She recalled she’d never seen the new Alician homeworld. “I’ve heard Savange is beautiful at this time of year.”
Sister Esma’s head
swivelled directly towards her former protégé, raven-like eyes probing. “Are you serious? After all this time you want to come back into the fold?”
Louise nodded, becoming more convinced of it with every second that passed. But she had other reasons, too, which she had discussed with nobody, ideas concerning Qorall.
“Your crew?” Sister Esma asked.
“Not invited. Clean slate.”
Sister Esma’s thick lips curled into something approaching a smile. “Fire the weapons at Esperia, then join me as fast as you can. Once we have destroyed the Spiker, we depart.”
Louise nodded again.
“One more thing, Louise.” Sister Esma’s eyes appeared to soften. “It is good to see you.”
Louise stared at the blank screen, wondering how it could all have been so different if she’d have stayed with the Alicians from the start, what she and Sister Esma could have accomplished together. There was still time. She raced down to the space deck, issuing a Commander-priority override to the Marauder’s control-mind on the way. By the time she arrived at the hangar where five Raptors lay, six of the seven Nova bombs had been loaded onto one of them; the seventh would detonate with the Marauder when it self-destructed.
She didn’t need to check the time to know that five minutes had already elapsed. The fact that Tarish and the others had not communicated with her was as clear as an outright admission. As she boarded the craft, her one regret was that she would have to leave Kat behind; she’d grown to like her. But betrayal was betrayal, and according to Q’Roth and Alician tradition, there was only one punishment fitting for treachery.
The Raptor powered up as she checked that the Shrell decryption algorithm had been downloaded from Aramisk’s console. The map of Shrell wires, as she thought of them, might not be fully accurate, but it should be good enough to get within firing range of Esperia and then reach the Crucible.
Once outside she sent the auto-destruct codes back to the Marauder. The ship’s self-destruct was intended to stop it falling into enemy hands, and would cripple the ship. But the Nova bomb left onboard would vaporise the Marauder and anything else in range. Clean slate.
Heading towards Esperia, Louise dodged the Shrell-wires using manual control rather than autopilot. While doing so, she weighed the choice she had just made, the implicit contract with Sister Esma, who had originally saved her and then condemned her to death. Yet there was mutual respect. Besides, after such a long time, Louise wondered what it might be like to be amongst her kind again, even if she had too much Q’Roth DNA in her ever to be considered a ‘normal’ Alician. But she hoped to turn the Alicians to Qorall’s side – the winning side – when the time was right.
The Raptor’s onboard computer mind signalled that she was within firing range, and plotted six independent trajectories to see the bombs through. Probability of at least one getting through – and she only needed one to strike the planet – was 99.786%. Probability of two bombs getting through was 91%. More than adequate. She decided to keep one on board, as an insurance policy.
Micah, I was hoping for this to be a little more personal, but never mind. She touched a panel and then counted the five rapid zips as her cargo left for Esperia. Then she swung the Raptor hard about and aimed toward the Crucible. Space lit up behind her as two of the Nova bombs snagged Shrell-wires, the shock waves catapulting her Raptor forwards. Louise executed a series of manoeuvres requiring all her enhanced Level Six reflexes to avoid being sliced by the wires, and then the ship came back under control. Another ignition buffeted her craft, and then quiet. The remaining two intelligent missiles would learn from their fallen comrades, and would proceed slower, but reach their target.
Louise thought about her ex-lover Vince, how often they’d had close calls like that one. But Micah and the others had stolen Vince from her. She smiled, embellishing one of Blake’s favoured aphorisms: You reap what you sow, humanity. Accelerating, Louise slalomed through the wire mesh towards the Crucible, wondering what Savange would look like at this time of year.
* * *
Aramisk bowed her head over her console, her voice resigned. “Louise has activated the Marauder’s self-destruct sequence.”
Kat moved next to her. “Can you disable it?”
She shook her head. “Louise convinced the ship’s mind that her crew has mutinied.” She cast Kat a look. “Five minutes, just long enough for her to get clear. And she wasn’t joking about segregating the ship, there’s no way to reach the Raptors. We wouldn’t have time anyway.”
Kat thought hard, wishing Pierre were there: he would think of something. But she hadn’t gotten this close to Esperia – to Antonia and Petra – to be blown to smithereens when practically in orbit. She slapped the side of the console. “We need to think outside the cube,” she said, as much to herself as to the others. And fast!
“Curious expression,” Tarish said.
Dammit! These Mannekhi – so detached… But something snagged her mind. Outside. “How far do we have to be to avoid the blast?”
Aramisk frowned at Kat from beneath her dark fringe. “With a Nova bomb added into the mix? About twenty kilometres. Wait, you’re not thinking…?”
But Kat had already moved to the rack of helmets and began tossing them to the four Mannekhi, picking up a Gel-suit for herself. “Select two Raptors, instruct them to depart and pick us up outside.”
Tarish caught the helmet, and stared at it. “Your plan won’t work.”
The others, including Aramisk, looked towards him, but no sooner had a klaxon begun its Q’Roth countdown than Aramisk spoke. “We have to try.”
Kat stepped into the self-applying space suit, feeling the cool, wet, chamois-like material race up over her one-piece and exposed flesh. She held her breath momentarily as it slowed then stopped just beneath her chin, then slipped the hood-like helmet on, feeling it connect seamlessly to the gel material. Air breathed into the suit and helmet, its black exterior toughening while remaining smooth and flexible on the inside. Tarish placed his helmet on Louise’s chair and walked calmly to Aramisk’s station. “One of us must stay. You are relieved.”
Aramisk met his eyes, then took his hand and bent her forehead to touch his upturned palm. “Walk with the Ancestors,” she said.
Kat decided not to intervene. She squeezed his arm as she walked past him.
“Go, all of you,” he said. “I will direct the Raptors, and will signal Xenic. I will also try to warn anyone else out there as to what Louise is about to do.”
Kat considered that she was just buying time, getting a better view of Esperia being obliterated. Nevertheless, she and the others hurried to the airlock behind the bridge. As the inner hatch sealed she watched the tall frame of Tarish at the console, and for the first time decided she could maybe get to like the people she’d been stuck with the past nine months.
Aramisk activated the depressurisation sequence, then sighed. “Problem,” she said, her voice transmitting clearly into Kat’s helmet.
“What?” asked Kat, aware how fraught her voice sounded.
“The depressurisation sequence will take thirty seconds, but the ship will detonate in one minute. We’ll still be in the blast zone.
Kat studied the airlock control scripts. Louise had taught her how to use them a year ago in one of her rare, kinder moments. “Tarish, emergency decompress in five seconds. The Raptors will have to work fast and deploy gravitic scoops.” Kat looked at her three helmeted companions. “Take a breath.”
It was like a fairground ride in the dead of night, a rollercoaster that at the height of its pitches and rolls flew off its rails. Kat spun wildly, saw the Marauder tumbling silently around her, glimpsed one of her Mannekhi colleagues head-strike an antenna and careen off in another direction, a white puff of gas from his or her helmet billowing around the head, arms and legs flailing uselessly. The sound of her raspish breathing accentuated the whirling vista, and she tried to count down. The suit’s thrusters engaged, and stabilised her, the s
hip rolling into view, already a kilometre away, fish-shaped and muscled with gun ports. A grey dot loomed in front of her – one of the Raptors – and the gravity net scooped her up, hauled her into the cargo bay and flung her next to another suited colleague. The aft doors started to close as the Raptor accelerated away, leaving the Marauder behind to shrink to a dull point of light.
Tarish spoke softly from the Marauder via the suit-com. He sounded so close. “Goodbye Katrina, I wish we had known who you really were. I wish I could have known you better. You have no idea what you mean to us. Live.”
Through the final chink between the closing bay doors, harsh white light spilled into the bay where Kat and one other survivor lay.
Goodbye, Tarish. Wish I could have known you better, too. I’ve never trusted father figures, but you… What a waste of the nine months she’d had onboard with them. Kat kicked herself. But maybe she could honour him. She tried to think like a Mannekhi, knew they would simply move on. Antonia, Petra, even Micah; she had to contact them somehow.
A chime told her the bay was pressurized, and she removed her helmet, as did the other survivor.
“I’m glad you made it, Aramisk,” Kat said.
From the cockpit they tried for ten minutes to raise the other Raptor, finally detecting a small debris pattern.
Aramisk spoke, her voice montone. “Where now?”
Kat knew they wouldn’t get within a hundred klicks of the Crucible without an approach code, and they would be too far behind Louise to catch her. Besides, her mind brimmed with thoughts of Antonia and Petra.