“Close,” Luke nodded, waving off the water bottle with a muted 'thanks' and indicated the table. “The A90 is a straight up beacon. This one is more like a relay. We've got to turn it into something capable of generating a signal strong enough to pierce the atmospheric ionisation.” This was good. Concentrating on a problem he could solve distracted him from the battles already lost.
Cori bit her lower lip for a minute, fingers drumming on the small table he was using as a workspace. “You know, the geologist squints have those core sample tubes. Some of those have a GPS kit on them. It's a real basic design but the code for them is written in HT29.” The computer language was one of the most basic but it was also one of the most adaptable. She didn't look at him, instead choosing to search the room for the squints in question.
Luke hid the mild irritation at the suggestion. It was a smart one; he should have thought of it since he'd been responsible for caring for most of that equipment to begin with.
“That's actually… a good idea,” he offered, nodding.
“Better write that down. I don't get good ideas that often,” Cori grinned at him. “Bad ones, sometimes. Questionable, all the time.'
Harwood's laugh was kind of infectious and Luke found himself fighting to hide a smirk. Devastation still ruled him, but at this moment, she made the broken pieces inside of him, grind a little less.
* * *
It felt odd sketching for the first time in years.
When Captain Curran approached her earlier, Ren expected a request to perform some Shark-related duty. Instead, the woman handed her a pad and a pencil (an honest to God, graphite pencil) scrounged from one of the squints and asked if she could sketch an image of the subs. It would be useful for them to study. The request took Ren so completely by surprise, all she could do in response was to nod like some dumbstruck kid.
Not that she couldn't draw the nasty fuckers - her earlier, up-close encounter with them made sure of that. No, her astonishment came from the fact that — of all the Sharks — Captain Curran singled her out for this duty.
As the pencil rhythmically scratched and rasped against the paper, she was reminded of the art school scholarship she'd won. A full ride because she was that good. Being invited to join the prestigious Arts Student League was the first time in her life Ren ever achieved anything on her own, without needing her parents' money as a buy in.
Thinking of her parents prompted a wave of sadness through her and even though they were estranged when Earth was destroyed, she missed them.
Of course, missing them was a far cry from forgiving them, which was something Ren would never do. Perhaps if they'd bothered to show up to the funeral, Ren might have tried to rebuild their fractured relationship. But no, they were dead set against Emma's birth to begin with. Why the hell would they care when the baby died?
She hadn't drawn a thing since the day she found Emma and now, something as simple as sketching had cracked everything open again.
It had taken a moment to get started. She used to sketch a subject for hours, without any sense of time. She'd been known to stop everything she was doing and start drawing due to some trick of the light, or the shadows loving the lines on a person's face. Other times, it was the scene, a need to capture the feeling of the moment. Back then, it felt like hunger, where her mind was starving and her fingers needed release.
Ren didn't want such flames rekindled. Not only was this new world too dangerous for such distractions, but also, she didn't want the reminders of her old life.
She knew her mother. Adele Richards would have ended her last day on Earth with a high society luncheon with her country club set, toasting the end of the world with the last of the good wine. Her father, Ren thought with a pang of sadness, would probably aim for a last round of golf with his buddies.
They would have made no attempt to save themselves, not when the future awaiting them would be undoubtedly meaner than the high society life they'd known since birth.
And what about David? Had David tried to find a way off Earth with his new family? Last time they spoken, he'd welcomed a second child and she was touched by how hesitant he'd been to tell her about baby Anson. Ren didn't blame him for moving on, and often reminded him he'd lost too. Of the two of them, David was the one who really moved on.
Ren didn't blame him for the things that happened. They'd been two stupid kids thinking they could make it work on their own with school, jobs and a baby. For a time, it had worked. And then the bitch that was Fate steamrolled through their lives and ruined everything in a single night. Fate was the one Ren was truly angry at, stealing away her beautiful little Emma, not even allowing Ren the badge all mothers earned when they fought to save their child.
She and David had stayed together for just a few short months afterwards, but it was too much. Seeing him every day only reminded her of the beautiful, happy, red-headed baby. David had felt the same and they split. David had returned home to his family estate. Ren joined the Sharks.
Now she found herself in a quiet corner of the temple, sketching the subs from memory. While she would have preferred a different subject for her first piece of artwork in years, Captain Curran convinced her it was important. That, and you just don't tell a ship's captain 'no'. Maybe she'd be lucky and the subject matter would keep those stirrings at bay.
She was about to put the finishing touches to this so-called masterpiece when a loud crash reverberated and echoed through the entire building. Dust showered over them, sending people ducking and grabbing up equipment to keep the dirt out.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” The hysterical pitch to the demand made Ren think it wasn't a Shark.
“SHARKS! Form up on the door!!” Gunny's bellow was loud enough to be heard over everyone as Ren set the drawing aside, snatched her rifle and hurried to join the others as everyone (so it seemed) started moving and talking over the top of each other.
With an order from Sarge, the Sharks tiered up in three rows, facing the door as the temple room went quiet. They waited, some patiently, others fidgeted on the line as every eye in the room was on the makeshift barrier.
BOOM!!!!
Dust rained down again when a different noise caught Ren's attention. Glancing over her shoulder, she was just in time to see the rear wall shudder with another crash.
“Gunny!” she called out, turning towards the wall as mortar cascaded to the floor. “It's not the door, it's the back wall!!”
XXVI
Expendable
Tom had just left Jules with some of the squints on the second level and was descending the narrow-rough-hewn stairwell to the main floor when the first hit impacted the building and showered grit and dirt around him. The second hit made the stairwell drop a few inches, slamming stone against stone pillars with a deafening crack. Not wasting time, Tom all but jumped the last few steps as the building shuddered and groaned around him again, over top of the voices shouting from the other room. Too well-seasoned to let the shock stay for long, Tom hurried into the temple room he tried to raise Jules on her link. Another boom shook the building again and this time, he felt it in his bones.
“We're heading down now!” Jules finally responded.
“Watch the stairs, they've come loose!” Tom replied, his gaze going first to the Sharks, expecting to see them formed up on the newly erected door to fend off the subs. The titanium plated door: his logical mind argued the impossibility of anything breaching four inches of stuff that could withstand atmospheric re-entry. Then again, this bloody planet kept reinventing 'possible' every chance it got.
Except the squads weren't facing the door. Their attention was fixed solidly on the back wall of the temple, rifles raised.
“What the fu…”
BOOM!
This time, he saw the wall in question shudder as mortar cracked and tumbled pieces of the ancient frieze to the floor below, sending up clouds of dust. Fuck, he hated being right sometimes. The ugly bastards did have a plan and, worse yet, they weren't
wasting time putting it into action.
The former occupants of Babel probably had no idea what hit them.
Jazz was not-quite-shouting at the squints to halt their rising panic, his voice calm but loud enough to be heard over their noise. Amid the packing up to move upstairs, most of the science teams returned to that task, albeit hastier than before. Others were anxiously looking to the Sharks for direction, uncertain of what to do next. Another deafening thud against the wall startled everyone, making them jump like ants about to scatter.
“That wall is two feet thick!” Ren shouted over her gunsight. “How many of them are there?”
Tom wasn't sure he wanted the answer to her question. While the bombardment masked the sound of fracturing rock, he could see the damage with his own eyes. Fuck them sideways, that wall wasn't going to hold. A sick sensation churned in the pit of his stomach at the thought as he scrambled to get his helmet on. Flipping his eyepiece into place, he scanned the wall, hoping to catch a glimpse of how many of the fuckers. Nothing, just blobs. Not surprising, considering the outer wall had interfered with their signals earlier.
“Harwood!” Tom called over the next thunderous hit. “Get upstairs to the windows and get me a sitrep! Watch those stairs!”
“On it!” Cori broke from the formation and headed for the stairs at a run. As she rounded the corner through the door, she sidestepped Captain Curran and two other squints, one of whom limped along between the captain and the other man. “Mayday, you're needed on the stairs!” Cori said quickly into her link as she headed up the way they'd come.
At her nickname, Maya glanced at Gunny, who nodded quickly in the direction of the stairs just as the Captain appeared.
“Sprained ankle,” Jules told the medic as she passed the wounded doctor over.
“I got him,” Maya replied but Jules was already joining Tom and Derick. “What the hell is going on?”
Tom pointed several cracks in the wall. “I think they're trying to breach the wa…”
“Fuck me running…”
“Report…” Tom ordered, not liking the sound of the normally unphased Lance Corporal Harwood's voice.
“Sending you the feed, you gotta see it…”
Tom glanced at Jules as he pulled out his slate and slid it on. A second or two later, a live, jilting feed appeared on the screen from where Cori had stuck her slate through one of the slotted windows. When he realized what was on the screen, he decided fuck me running was an understatement.
It took a lot to shock the buggery out of him, but Harwood's feed certainly qualified. The spectral outline of the thing assaulting the outer wall like a battering ram wasn't any man-sized sub. Not even close. What was determined to smash its way inside the pyramid was BIG, like Godzilla fucking big The wall coming down wouldn't be an if but a 'when'. He could almost hear a computerized countdown to critical mass, as if this was one of those awful science fiction movies.
“They're all joined together like fucking blocks!!” Cori called out, giving up on proper radio etiquette altogether. “Maybe… Ten feet or mo… Ohshit!”
“They what like what?” Jules glanced at Tom and did a double take because the experienced combat veteran, had gone pale. Worse, there were no answers in his face.
“It's using its spit to destroy the wall!” Cori's voice resounded through their headsets.
As if brute force wasn't enough, Tom thought.
WHUMP!
This time, the impact rattled everything, walls, equipment, and personnel. Someone screamed in the gathering of scientists. “Harwood, get back down here!” Tom ordered, doing a mental inventory of their ordinance. “Ozzy, how many Thumpers are left?”
“Three!” Ozzy replied, swearing under his breath as he glanced at the Frog, who was crossing himself and probably praying to every French saint available. Shit. If they lived through this, Ozzy would learn every one of them as well.
Three Thumpers and the C4. The power pack and fire pod from each rifle, any of which might be running low.
The mission to Gaia had been a scientific expedition with most of the Firefly's cargo space taken up by the squints' equipment. They'd come to Babel to conduct a survey mission, not to engage in jungle warfare. There didn't seem any need to stock up on ammunition when it was just as easy to leave if things got rough.
Of course, no one counted on the ship getting demolished by whale-sized cockies from Hell.
Scanning the room, frightened faces stared back at Tom Merrick. For a brief second, Olivia Hall flashed in his memory. He remembered seeing her for the first time when they stood on the deck of the Olympia, ready to discover the new world. The squints soldiered on even after she died, displaying as much mettle and dedication as any Shark who'd lost a fallen comrade. And they hadn't lost just Olivia, they'd also lost Hanae and Tamara Adelaide.
Their fear was the lens he needed to see clearly and come up with the only plan that mattered at this point. Getting the civilians to safety. What it all boiled down to was the scientists in this room needed to survive. Humanity needed their expertise. His soldiers were like all soldiers, expendable.
While he had no intention of re-enacting every Kamikaze remake, he had to be realistic. Getting the squints out was going to get bloody, and everyone who'd signed up knew it.
Tom turned to Jules, oddly calm, he noticed, even if a slight twitch of her fingers gave away her own anxiety. Brilliant, brave, bloody beautiful — and whether she knew it or not, she'd saved him. Up until a few days ago, when he'd met her face to face, he was prepared to wallow in his self-imposed misery and die at the bottom of a bottle. She restored his wounded heart and gave him something he never thought he'd feel again: hope.
Whatever happened today, he was grateful for that. Looking at her now, he could feel that hope starting to burn.
“Luv, I need you to take the squints out of here and make a run for the ship. The Firefly may not be able to get you back to the fleet but it can take you far away from here. We Sharks will be right behind you but it's going to be a shit fight all the way there, you know that.”
What he wasn't saying was the Sharks might need to hold the line for the civilians to get away, but she'd figure that out herself.
Realization hit Jules hard. Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “No. No, Tom.” This time, she grabbed him, one hand snatching his combat harness. “There has to be another way. I'm not leaving anyone else behind!”
“Jules, we're not going to be left behind, but that wall is going to come down,” Tom gestured to the fractures were now spreading like fine webs across the limestone. The massive two by two-foot bricks were rippling like they were fluid, weakening with each impact. “We're going to blow the door so you lot can get out. We'll be right behind you. I'm not letting my people die any more than the squints, but this is the only chance we've got of getting them out of here alive.”
Pilots had done this. Pulled a last-minute Hail Mary so others could get to safety and Jules had yet to meet any pilot who'd survived such last-ditch heroism. She glanced around the room, at the walls and the truth sank like a rock in her stomach. He was right. They had no time for anything else. No time, no other option. Like him, she understood. Get the civilians to safety.
“Fine,” Jules yanked Tom to her, pulling him down to plant a hard, fast kiss on him, absolutely not caring who saw. “You come back to me,” she hissed, pressing her forehead to his. “You get the fuck out of this place in one fucking piece and you come back to me. That is a fucking order, Major!”
Helllloo. Tom blinked and grabbed her face, returning the kiss with just as much intensity. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, she tasted sweet and invigorating! This bird could change your life if you gave her a chance. Tom accepted he might never know for sure but as long as she lived, he was okay with that.
“Yes ma'am,” he said, planting one last hard kiss on her lips before letting her go. “If I make it back, can I get my own office? I mean now that I'm a kept man and everything.”
/> “When, not if,” Jules retorted and glanced towards the door. “Where's Godzilla when you really need him, huh?”
“Probably mucking around in a volcano somewhere. Lazy fucker,” he winked, stepping back, ending the moment whether it was over or not. “Gunny!”
“Right here!”
Jules turned away from them. “Luke! Dr. Nordin!” she called out, picking out the two people she was certain could help her the most without breaking down.
“The exit we spoke about earlier,” Tom said when Derick reached him. “We need it now. Captain Curran is going to take the squints and make a run for the ship. I need three bodies to escort them there. The rest of us will hold this position until they're clear, then we get the fuck out, but not before we blow this bastard back out its arse.” Blowing things up should make the big guy happy. “Get this place rigged with enough C4 to bring it down, preferably with some kind of remote switch. Jackson! Get over here.”
Jazz, who gratefully turned over charge of the squints to the Captain, jogged up to his superiors.
“Sarge, we're blowing the door so you and Captain Curran can get the squints out. You're going to make for the Firefly. Take Lorio and Anderson with you for backup.”
The sour look on the younger man's face spoke volumes as to what he thought of this plan for him to leave them behind. “Sir…” he started to say before he remembered himself and bit back on what he was going to say. He wasn't happy and it was clear.
“Jazz,” Tom grabbed his sergeant by the arm and glanced around, making sure Jules was nowhere in earshot when he spoke. “If it becomes problematic for the Firefly to come back and get us, you tell her my last orders were to take off. This mission is still under Shark command. I want her to leave and get everyone to safety. Understood?”
“But sir…” Jazz shot the Gunny an entreating look, hoping the guy would say something. They didn't leave people behind and the idea of just turning tail and running…?
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