Insidious

by Michael McCloskey

  He hoped he could remember the way without consulting the map services.

  Only two more corridors. But if Slicer catches us in the open, we’ll be dead in seconds. Or less.

  Bren opened another door with his hand. The manual mechanism felt awkward. He glanced out into the corridor. Two human bodies lay sprawled on the deck.

  One was female.

  Bren froze. Was it Nicole? For some reason his mind had raced to the conclusion that it was her. He studied the prone form. It wasn’t her hair. The body shape wasn’t quite right. He felt immense relief.

  Such an irrational fear, considering what you’re planning.

  Bren steeled himself and moved quickly down the corridor. The soft footsteps of the lieutenant padded along behind him. Bren slowed to peek to his left and right at the first intersection. Nothing. He turned left and snuck another twenty meters.

  “This is it,” Bren whispered. He glimpsed behind him.

  No one was there.

  A scream ripped out from somewhere nearby. Less than fifty meters away, Bren thought.

  “Frick! Jesus!” he said, immediately regretting his outburst. Bren pushed down an animal panic let loose by the unexpected disappearance of the junior officer and the scream.

  You’ve got lousy survival instincts.

  Bren thought of his goal again. He leaned against the heavy access door. He’d have to either pop the manual access plate or turn his link on to open it.

  He activated his link, opened the door, and slipped into the room. Tall banks of electromagnetic effectors sat in rows like the skyscrapers of an orderly city. Bren ran past a couple rows and then dodged in trying to find cover.

  His heart sank when he saw a prone man. He rushed up to the body, eyes wide, waiting to see if it was Jackson.

  The blood lay thick on the deck. Jackson looked up at Bren, a look of bewilderment and pain on his face.

  “Shit. Jackson. You’re alive,” Bren stuttered.

  Jackson opened his mouth. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  “It … cut me,” he said. “I don’t know how. Didn’t even … touch me.”

  “I know. The molecular cutters. Same thing they use on the ASSAIL armor before they hit it with a projectile.”

  “Damn.” Jackson coughed up more blood. His whole body shook.

  He’s not going to live long.

  “Jackson, this is important. Tell me the codes,” Bren demanded.

  Jackson breathed heavily and erratically.

  “What?”

  “The codes. I’m blowing us all to kingdom come. Tell me the codes!”

  “Ah …” Jackson burst out as if in pain. Then he closed his eyes.

  “No! No you can’t die yet!” Bren urged.

  Bren received a pointer in his link.

  The codes!

  Bren heard a skittering sound. A picture of a rat appeared in his mind until another, slower, darker thread of thought came forward: it was the sound of a rapidly twirling machine balancing on one leg at a time as it closed on Bren to make the kill. Bren sent the codes and armed the nuclear detonator. He only had to send one more message to end it all. Just thirty-six bytes over his link.

  He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He saw a big red circle on the side of a metal sphere.

  He closed his eyes and transmitted the detonation command.

  There was a bright light.

  Epilogue

  As soon as the Silvado cleared the station, Aldriena’s navigation display lit up in her PV. The first active sensor scan revealed a fleet of ships scattered in nearby space surrounding Synchronicity. It took Aldriena only a few seconds to see that they were Chinese warships, based on their absorption signatures. She immediately deactivated her active sensor sweeps. No point in announcing her presence any louder than she’d already done.

  Apparently, luck still favored her. The Chinese weren’t launching any missiles in her direction. She selected an evasive course away from the fleet, worried about energy weapons fire.

  Long seconds passed. A direct hit by a high-energy weapon could wipe her life out in an instant. Aldriena relaxed a notch. She wasn’t dead yet.

  Apparently, the recent engagement with the UNSF had taken the edge off the Chinese fleet’s aggression and forced them to conserve their firepower.

  If they knew who I am and what I have, they’d probably open fire anyway.

  Once the fighting had broken out, Aldriena had received the codes for her new weapons. She’d sent off a detonation command for the grenade she’d left behind in the bin. After learning of the Chinese task force, Aldriena had changed plans. She hacked into the spy’s links and retrieved as much information as she could. She found a copy of the information that the Chinese spies had managed to accumulate on the alien ship. She wasn’t sure how that would compare to what they’d garnered for operation Insidious thus far, but it counted as a major victory. If she could get out alive.

  Then she had abandoned her stolen grenade in the lap of the spy as he sat tied up in one of his chairs. She had run straight to Silvado, brandishing the submachine gun as if headed into combat at the command of the spinners.

  The Silvado’s communication interface opened in her PV. Her link alerted her to an anomaly on the communications interface. Someone was attempting to initiate an emergency link with her ship. They wanted to talk to her. She hesitated while a red dot pulsed in her mind’s eye, waiting for her assent to begin.

  Aldriena considered the possibilities. Foremost in her mind was the image of a team of Chinese electronic warfare specialists attempting to disable her vessel. What else could be going on? UNSF remnants begging for rescue? A Chinese commander giving her one chance to stop before opening fire? An artificial intelligence trying to take over her ship?

  Aldriena used her override and shut down the communication interface completely. She was running. She didn’t want to communicate or take any action that would risk her ship becoming compromised.

  New panes exploded across her PV. Red ones. Space glowed outside Silvado’s tiny view ports.

  “Caralho!”

  Synchronicity had gone up like a supernova. Aldriena’s PV wavered erratically. She’d never seen that happen. Even when she was kicked in the head.

  A nuclear strike. She swallowed. The Chinese had destroyed the station!

  She felt a moment of panic. Would Silvado’s EM shielding keep her electronics intact? If they didn’t, she’d die, or be picked up by the Chinese.

  No, I’d die first, she vowed.

  Her PV cleared. She ran a diagnostics check. It reported a long list of anomalies in a tiny red font. But her basic systems appeared to be functional.

  I guess the cold war is heating up. Why would they do that? Oh, of course. The Chinese didn’t nuke the station. The UNSF did it to keep the starship out of the hands of the Chinese.

  Aldriena increased Silvado’s thrust, pushing her deep into her pilot’s couch. The Chinese weren’t likely to take the destruction of their prize lightly. They might well start shooting out of spite, even on civilian vessels. Aldriena wondered if the nuclear blast would inhibit their tracking capabilities.

  She accelerated for another sixty seconds. No long lances of killing light reached out to incinerate her ship.

  Aldriena let her hopes rise. Apparently, she was now the only soul in possession of the information gleaned from the alien vessel.

  She wondered what Black Core would do with it.