by S. T. Boston
* * *
Oriyanna stood silently in the elevator as it swiftly carried them up one deck and toward the bridge approach passage. The two men with Namtar were Earth-Breed, she was almost certain, which meant there was a possibility she could use one, if not both to her advantage. It was a tall ask, and a display of mind control the likes of which she'd never attempted before. The taller of the two males glanced at her, the way she knew men often regarded women they found attractive on Earth.
Instead of shunning his look she met his eyes and smiled. Liam Granger, that was his name, she'd plucked the knowledge from his mind. Liam held her gaze, and he could do nothing other than look at her, because she'd ensnared him. Now was not the time to push herself though: she'd need all the energy she could muster when the time came. Instead she looked away, allowing Liam Granger to have his thoughts back.
* * *
Adam was numb, his legs hung like two lumps of dead meat from his hips, yet they still carried him forward as if operating on their own agenda. The walk from the elevator to the bridge seemed miles long. His mind wandered to Lucie, who was no doubt watching the timer tick down on the display aboard Niribus, foolishly hoping that when the time came they would appear, slapping each other's backs triumphantly. It was a nice thought, but it was a fool's assumption.
Adam had figured out that at least two of the three escorting them were responsible for Sam's capture. He was certain one was an Elder – the other guy, who wore a badly-fashioned bandage over his right eye was Earth-Breed, because if he wasn't he would have healed by now. He hadn't had an opportunity to question Sam regarding what the Elder had said, about him not being able to take a bullet. What had they done to him during the trip to Nazca? Had he really been stripped of the Gift? Sam had a strange marking on his forehead which Adam also hadn't had a chance to ask about.
Like a group being led to their execution – and that's exactly how it felt to Adam – they arrived at the main door to the bridge. The guy with the one eye pulled him roughly out of the way and used another recess to open the door. The bridge of Arkus 2 was vast compared to that of Niribus. Instead of three control chairs, Arkus 2 had a bank of ten. Only two were currently occupied. It was an odd scene, while the bridge seemed completely alien, the figure sitting at the largest chair wore a dark brown hooded top, jeans and a pair of Nike trainers. He was a man, probably no older than forty; the kind of person you'd pass in the street and not look at twice. For some reason, it was the trainers which struck Adam most, they looked completely out of place. Next to the man, sitting at a slightly smaller console was a second guy. He was of similar age, perhaps a little younger, and he wore thickly rimmed black glasses. His clothing, also exceptionally casual, seemed to hang from his scrawny body. When this guy went to school, Adam had no doubt he would have been the kind of kid who was president of the chess club.
The vastness of the room only seemed amplified by the lack of crew. On a plinth behind them, closer to the door stood a third male. Smartly dressed, his suit looked expensive, and his shoes were so well polished they might as well be made of patent leather. His blonde hair, which fell in messy waves, still seemed to compliment his formal attire. When Adam looked at his strange amber eyes, an icy hand clenched around his heart. He didn't need any introduction, Adam knew instantly who this was. The thing which really struck him was how young the man looked, perhaps in his late twenties at most.
He watched a warm, almost welcoming smile form on the man's lips. “Adam Fisher,” he announced in a loud voice, his eyes glinting charismatically. “It really is a pleasure.” He almost bounded over to where Adam stood, taking his hand and pumped it vigorously up and down, behaving like an overly-familiar game show host. His fingers were as cold as ice. “You know, I was so disappointed that my friend here,” he gestured to the one Adam had pegged as an Elder, “didn't manage to bring you back with Sam.” The grin faded and turned a little reptilian, cold and not as welcoming as it had initially appeared. “But I shouldn't have been such a pessimist, because your own stupid fucking tenacity, and inability to leave things alone, meant you made it here all on your very own.” He turned and stared at Oriyanna. “With a little help from your friends, of course. I mean, credit where credit is due, right?”
Asmodeous glanced from Adam to Sam and then back to Oriyanna, as if he expected one of them to respond. “But one thing is bugging me.” His eyes fixed on Adam, boring into his soul. “Why would you two lovebirds run a suicide mission to rescue good old Sam, here? Something tells me you know exactly what we're intending to do, and if that's the case, what would be the point of saving Sam Becker when the rest of the world is about to go to hell in a hand basket? I'll tell you why, because this is merely one part of your plan. Although we're merely minutes away from all systems being ready to go, and far too late for any heroics, I would ask you to humour me.”
Adam watched him stride over to the guy with the bandaged eye and snatch his handgun from his fingers. “I would suggest, either you tell me right now what the other part of this plan was, or I shoot her in the head!” And he thrust the gun against Oriyanna's left temple.
* * *
Asmodeous' speech was nothing more than a distant voice to Oriyanna, similar to when you hear two people talking in a nearby room, and you can distinguish the voices, but not what's being said. With Asmodeous taking centre stage, no one had noticed the vacant expression on her face, nor had they noticed a similar vacant expression on the face of Liam Granger. With every passing second, Oriyanna could feel her strength depleting, and she knew this task was going to take all of her energy reserves.
Getting into his head had been easy; for as soon as he'd had the opportunity he'd given her another one of those looks, and she'd accepted it, snaring him like a spider in a web. She didn't know how Enola worked, but she was certain the two Earth-Breeds at the control console were the ones running it. Asmodeous was calling the shots, but he wasn't the brains behind the program.
'All you need to do, Liam, is raise your gun and shoot the man at the main console. Once you have done that, shoot his friend, and if you are still alive, shoot Asmodeous,' she suggested in his mind. 'It's alright for you to do this, for this is your destiny. You want to fulfil your destiny, don't you, Liam?'
Through the conflicting white noise in his head she felt him say 'Yes,' but his own thoughts and subconscious were still getting in the way, screaming at him to ignore her pleas.
'Then what is stopping you? Just raise the gun and shoot – the gun was built to shoot, that is the gun's destiny, just as your destiny is to pull the trigger. Don't deny yourself that, Liam. Time is short. Shoot, Liam, shoot the gun.' Oriyanna was so far gone that she didn't even register Asmodeous as he thrust the Diablo against her temple.
'Liam, time is short, you know this is the right thing to do, shoot the gun, Liam, shoot it NOW!'
* * *
Adam knew he couldn't tell Asmodeous what he wanted to know, despite the gun aimed point blank at Oriyanna. The task at hand was of greater importance than any of their own lives, but it still ate at him like a rabid animal, every fibre of his being wanting to scream the truth at Asmodeous. There is someone else, he's copying your fucking program right now, and he's going to stop you, no matter what happens to us! Despite the overwhelming desire, he bit his tongue, and held back the admission. He glanced into Oriyanna's eyes, and noticed that while she was here in body, her mind may as well have been on another planet. Before he had chance to question it, one of the team who'd confronted them in Sam's room, the largest of the ones he'd pegged as Earth-Breed, whipped his handgun up and shot the guy in the brown hooded top through the back of the head. In a flash, he dispatched the second male with the same finesse, and the man's goofy glasses tumbled from his ruined face. The cubed console in front of them got splattered in a grotesque mixture of blood and brain matter, breaking the projection up into a series of crazy lines like a broken barcode. Pirouetting on his left leg he twisted toward Asmodeous, but A
smodeous was faster. The gun was whipped away from Oriyanna's head and he fired, obliterating the left side of his face. He swayed on the spot for the briefest of seconds, what was left of his face staring at Oriyanna in confusion, before his legs collapsed and he hit the floor. A split second later Oriyanna went down, blood flowing from her nostrils. Well trained on how to react in such situations, Sam threw himself onto Namtar, struggling to get the upper hand. Adam sensed the weight of Asmodeous' gun as the muzzle bore down on him, but before he had a chance to react the lights went out.
Chapter 37
Despite the ventilation and air-conditioning systems humming away in the background, the PEOC smelled of perspiration, mixed with a healthy dose of tension. America's nuclear launch capability had been live for a little over an hour, and to no-one's surprise, it had shown no signs of malfunction or hacking.
President Hill was more certain than ever that the Dae Wonsu had lied, which made the task at hand even more critical. Since the call from North Korea, they'd offered up no further evidence to support their claims that their systems had been overridden and controlled by some unknown third party, other than the questionable video feed. The decisions which needed to be made now, regarding how best to deal with such an unprovoked and heinous act against humanity, could not be made lightly.
“I say we strike them hard,” suggested Roger Stanbrook, General of the United States Army. He slammed his fist down on the conference room table, which was littered with an array of half-finished mugs of cold coffee and the occasional discarded plastic cup from the water coolers. “We have vested trade interests with Japan and they'll be looking to the western world for support.”
Hill buried his face in his hands and let out a long, stressful and tired sigh. “If we do that, we face retaliation from China. While they've condemned the attack, we all know they're in bed with the North Koreans. Despite their dislike for North Korea's nuclear program, it's one heck of a risk.”
“We have the firepower to manage such risks,” Stanbrook responded coldly.
“I'm not going to be the president who is remembered for turning half the civilised world into a nuclear wasteland,” Hill spat. “The fact that one nuke has been used, is already one nuke too many in my book. And just how do you think Russia will respond, if we get trigger happy?”
“With respect, sir,” Stanbrook argued, “there's no point having one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world if you're too frightened to use it!”
Hill fixed him with a venomous look, and stood up. “With respect, I never wanted to re-sanction the nuclear weapons program in the first place! Congress forced my hand into it, and you know that.”
“Because if they hadn't, we'd have been a sitting duck!”
“I understand that, but we need to look at alternatives. While congress forced my hand into initiating the program, the decision to launch lies with me.” Before Stanbrook could voice his side of the argument, a deep noted alarm vibrated through the whole of the PEOC. “What the hell?” yelled Hill as one of the two nuclear launch operators barged into the room, his brow clammy with a sheen of sweat.
“Sir, we have a problem,” he panted. “Our targeting systems just went live, and the same goes for our other NATO allies.”
“Who the hell sanctioned that?” Hill cried, kicking his chair out of the way and heading for the door.
“No one, sir! We've lost control. We're trying to shut it down now, but everything we try fails.”
“Dear God,” President Hill gasped. “How long do we have?”
“Five minutes at most, sir, maybe less, before every single one of our launch-ready birds is in the air.”
Chapter 38
Taulass tried his best to keep an eye on which green dot belonged to who on the life support system, a difficult task and it had him almost seeing double. As the Enola files finished copying to his handheld, he snatched it away from the server cube and prepared to leave, but as he turned he watched two more lights blink out – two more people dead. Something was happening on the bridge. Frantically, he watched the other dots, sure that those belonging to Adam, Sam and Oriyanna were still in play. Cursing he placed the handheld back on the console. He knew he was of no use to them in person, it would take far too long to reach them, and he was about as good in combat situations as he was at dancing the tango – not proficient at all. He was a tech nerd, and tech nerds had their place, and he was in it.
Instead he accessed the ship's power grid, quickly locating the lighting control and hoping that what he was about to do would help, rather than hinder. He knew the other team had zero chance of making the first return window, but if he could buy them a distraction, it might give them time to get away and make the second and final one. He paused briefly as he weighed the options in his head, but he quickly reassured himself it was the best option and killed the lights to the bridge. He simultaneously turned on all the lights in the lower section of the ship, making it easier to navigate back to the hub. He stole one last glance at the mirrored screen from the bridge, Enola had chosen her targets and switched to launch mode. Not wasting any more time, he bolted from the server room and pounded down the passageway. Reaching the stairs he bounded down them, taking two at a time. Running at full sprint toward the hub room, he glanced at the handheld. The first return window was seconds away from opening. If he didn't make it, he had no chance of stopping Enola in time.
Arriving at the door he thrust his hand into the recess; waiting impatiently as it slid open. The arch was live, humming softly to itself as cotton-thin flashes of blue danced occasionally across the glassy surface. Not wasting another second, he threw himself forward and vanished.
* * *
Sam grappled with Namtar in the darkness, feverishly hammering his fist into the man's gut, and felt his hot, rancid breath on the side of his face. Pain raged in his damaged shoulder but good old adrenalin kept him fighting through it. In the darkness, he heard the Diablo drop to the floor and with his free hand he scrambled for it, but the move allowed Namtar to get the upper hand. Using his immense strength Namtar lifted his large body over Sam's, gripped his head and pull forward. In the brief seconds before Sam's head was going to slam into the floor, his fingers touched the gun. Snatching it up, Sam moved his arm forward and fired. Namtar's body flew backwards, the blast at close range knocking him off kilter. Sam thrust himself upward and unloaded three more shots in the area where he gauged Namtar's head would be. The gunfire was deafening, but a satisfactory spray of blood splattered over Sam's face and across his hands, confirming he'd hit his target.
Getting to his feet, he searched in the gloom for Adam or Oriyanna. He didn't have the first clue as to what had happened, or why the guy in the tight tee-shirt had suddenly gone on a shooting spree, but he didn't care.
“Adam?” he called, the dim glow of the holo-display casting enough light to see.
“Here,” he heard his friend shout. “Can you see Oriyanna?”
Before Sam had time to react he was knocked sideways, punches raining down on his abdomen and face. In the partial light, he caught a glimpse of the white bandage covering Croaker's eye. Adrenalin pumping, Sam brought his knee up, connecting perfectly with Croaker's groin. The blow was hard, but the determined son of a bitch kept his grip, pinning Sam to the floor and knocking the Diablo from his grip. Cursing, Sam thrust his arms upward, groping at Croaker's face until he located the bandage. Using his thumb as a guide, he worked out roughly where Croaker's ruined eye was located and sunk his thumb into the cavity, as hard as he could. Croaker screamed, the sound loud enough to break glass, and gave up his struggle. Sam managed to get to his feet and Adam joined him. Before Croaker had the opportunity to get up, Sam slammed his boot down hard onto the side of his head, lifted it, and then repeated the action with just as much gusto.
“Thanks for the help, bud,” he grinned, his eyes fully adjusted to the pale green light from the holo-display.
Adam ignored the wisecrack. “I can't find Ori
yanna,” he said in a panic. “Asmodeous is gone, too.”
* * *
Asmodeous knew the tables were on the turn the second the lights went out. None of it mattered to him as long as Enola was live, she no longer needed Hawker to hold her hand and she would do her job no matter what. For reasons unknown, his unusual eye pigment had always afforded him better than normal lowlight vision, and when the bridge plunged into darkness he snatched Oriyanna's unconscious body from the floor and made his escape. In the melee, no one had seen him slide out of the door. To his satisfaction, the lights in the long passage were also out.
Pacing down the darkened passage with Oriyanna's limp body over his shoulder, he grinned wildly to himself. The fact that almost his entire small team were dead didn't bother him, not in the least. He didn't care what happened to Fisher and Becker either; the ship was vast and he doubted they would find their way back off the Arkus 2 before zero hour. Later, he would enjoy hunting them down and killing them. Oriyanna, though, if left to run free, could cause him issues. She knew the ship and the technology, and out of all of them, she was the one who needed to be dealt with first.
Switching left at the first crossroads, he accessed one of the living quarters and threw Oriyanna onto the floor before calling up the ship's computer. He wasn't going to miss the launch, not for anything.
* * *
“We can't just leave her,” Adam protested as he guided Sam down the corridor and away from the bridge.