“None of them would be that crazy,” Mortimer replied. “Probably one of the scientists. Last resort, kicking over the table when she realized she was losing the game. Assuming it's who I think it probably is.”
“Doesn't really matter who did it right now,” Clarke said. “We're almost there, anyway. If I'm right, that shaft leads all the way down to the beach, maybe a hundred meters from the train.” A rattle of gunfire echoed from behind him, followed by an soul-rending cacophony of wails, the hunting cry of the savages sounding once more, louder than he had heard yet. Gesturing at the ladder, he said, “Ronnie, you go first. I'll take up the rear.”
“Not going to argue,” she said, scrambling down the ladder. Jimmy paused, turned to the passage, then followed, his wounded arm slowing his pace. Clarke waited at the top for a long moment, turning back to the corridor, pistol in hand, and was about to follow the others when he saw someone running towards him, the familiar figure of Lance-Sergeant Fox, red-faced from exertion.
“Wait!” she said, almost colliding into him. “Damn, I'm glad to see you. Should have known you'd turn up.” Gesturing behind her, she added, “We've got people heading this way. A lot of people, maybe a dozen, with Captain Salazar, Lieutenant Lombardo...”
Glancing at his watch, Clarke replied, “This base blows in fifteen minutes. Assuming the savages don't get them first.” He looked at her, frowned, then asked, “Where's your plasma rifle?”
“Out of charge. Left it behind. It was just slowing me down. Rifle too. I'm out of ammo.”
“Hey, John!” Mortimer yelled. “You coming?”
“In a minute,” he said. “We've got friendlies on the way.” He looked back at the corridor, wider than most. Wide enough that he might be able to provide suppressing fire to any group of survivors fleeing for the shaft. “What's the situation down there?”
“Twelve people on the train, ready to go. Come on!”
“Not yet!” Clarke said. “We've still got a few minutes.” Turning to Fox, he said, “On your way, Sergeant.”
“Hey, wait...”
“I've still got three clips. You don't. And I'm not giving them to you. On your way, Sergeant, and if I don't make it down in time, go without me. That's an order.”
She glowered at him, slapped him on the shoulder, then dived down the shaft. Clarke turned back to the corridor, pistol in hand, knowing that his chances of successfully holding back the horde were problematic at best. Somehow, that didn't seem to matter. He glanced at his watch again, and quickly set an alarm to sound once the bomb was five minutes from detonation. He was willing to risk his life for his friends, but not throw it away.
A moment later, Lombardo raced down the corridor, a trio of local technicians behind him, and Clarke slapped him on the back as he wordlessly raced for the shaft, sliding smoothly down into the darkness, leading the first contingent down. It was then that he saw the first of the savages, the leader of a pack, dropping from a hidden shaft in the ceiling. He felled the beast with a single, careful shot, the corpse collapsing onto the floor, but he knew that it was the first of many.
Deep inside, a part of him cried that he had done enough, that nobody would protest if he turned away now, sought the safety of the vacuum train. He looked back at the shaft once more, then turned to see another cluster of survivors racing down the corridor, all of them unfamiliar, wearing the uniform that had moments ago been that of the enemy. Less than an hour ago, he'd fought them, but he couldn't just leave them to die. Not from the explosion, not at the hands of the savages. Somehow, it wouldn't be right.
Two more savages scrambled into the corridor, one of them jumping onto the back of the slowest technician, reaching down with savage jaws. Clarke fired, placing two bullets into the creatures head, blood splattering the screaming victim as he crashed to the floor, his fellows returning to drag him to safety.
“Where's the Captain?” Clarke asked.
“One more party on the way” one of them replied. “Just behind us.” As he raced for the shaft, he asked, “Aren't you coming?”
“Soon,” he replied. “Soon.” He turned back to the corridor, then looked across at the shaft as he heard the sound of someone ascending, getting ready to rebuke Fox for disobeying his orders when he saw Jimmy crawling to the corridor, a machine gun slung over his back, belts of ammunition drooping down after him.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Clarke asked. “Get out of here?”
“I've still got a job to do,” Jimmy replied. “Keep watching the corridor. I've got to set this up.” As the wounded man worked to prepare the machine gun, Clarke looked back as a salvo of gunshots echoed from the walls, the sounds of battle getting ever closer. He felt that he could hear a scurrying noise from all around him, as though the savages were filling every corridor, every passage, swarming in every direction.
It was then he realized that, in all probability, he was a dead man.
Even after getting down the shaft, a descent that the nimble savages would make far faster than he, there remained that long sprint to the train at the bottom, a hundred desperate meters. The survivors would have no choice other than to pull out. Or face being overwhelmed if they waited, making their last stand meaningless.
Taking a deep breath, he settled into parade rest, pistol held high, then glanced at his watch. Twelve minutes to detonation. The blast range would be at least a mile across, maybe more, and the shock of the explosion would be felt ten times that far. He looked down at Jimmy, sliding the last components into position and fitting the ammunition in place, then heard a cry from the corridor ahead. Salazar and two others, both wearing the uniform of Base Security, were charging towards him, rifles in hand.
“They're right behind us!” Salazar yelled. “Get out of here!”
Before Clarke could even reply, still less contemplate following his commander's order, a swarm of savages raced down the corridor towards him, answered by a series of bursts of machine gun fire that held them back for a brief second, the first wave of attackers falling to the ground as Salazar and the others desperately attempted to escape, the guards jumping over Jimmy in their haste to reach the shaft, one of them missing the rungs and falling into space, his comrade desperately snatching at his jacket as he fell.
Salazar slid into position beside Clarke, then said, “Get moving, Sub-Lieutenant. I've got this one.” Glancing down at the machine gun, he asked, “How much ammunition?”
“Enough,” Jimmy replied. He drew a pistol, pointed it at Clarke, and said, “Both of you get out of here, or I shoot him, right now.” Firing another burst with the machine gun, he added, “I don't have enough ammunition for a long argument. Someone has to stay here to hold them back, or none of us are getting out of here, and I don't think we've even got time for someone to take my place.” He fired another burst, then said, “Get moving, damn it! I died here two years ago. It doesn't matter to me. Except that I want someone to remember this, and make sure it never happens again. Now go, damn it, go!” Salazar looked at Clarke, nodded, then made for the shaft. Clarke looked down at Jimmy once more, then pulled a grenade out of his pocket, passing it to him.
“One tap, and its all over in five seconds.”
“Got it. Thanks.” He paused, then looked up at Clarke, adding, “Thanks for finishing it. I couldn't have done it. You've given the deaths of four people real meaning.”
“Five,” Clarke said. “Rest well, my friend.” He slid down the ladder, his palms burning as he dropped to the shore below, then sprinted for the tunnel, Salazar already ahead of him, Mortimer at the threshold, waving the two of them on. He just made it to the entrance when he heard the boom of an explosion behind them, and realized that Jimmy must have been overrun, had opted to take the one-way ticket to Heaven he'd left behind. The last stand had held for less than a minute.
“Come on!” Mortimer said, and the two of them scrambled into
the vacuum train, Lombardo sealing the doors and working the mechanism as a swarm of savages burst onto the beach, running at them from all sides. They slammed into the train, sharp claws sliding down the metal in silent fury, and finally, the train began to move, slowly at first, moving through the tunnel, then quickly accelerating to maximum speed, leaving the underground lake far behind as they raced across the desert beyond.
Clarke looked at the figures sprawled in the cabin, a dozen wounded guards lying on the floor, others sitting by the wall, staring into space. Their dreams of conquest had died, and they were defeated more truly than any fallen army had ever been. The pistol at his belt hardly seemed necessary. They weren't going to run, weren't going to put up any resistance. He looked down at his watch as it beeped, and Salazar glanced across at him, a frown on his face.
“How long?” he asked.
“Five minutes. I think.”
“We're three miles away, gaining speed,” Lombardo replied. “I think we're going to make it.”
“I'll believe it when it happens,” Salazar said. He sighed, then added, “They had it. The wormhole map. There wasn't time to retrieve it.” Looking down at the deck, he said, “There just wasn't time.”
“Hey,” Harper said, “that means that the secret's here, on the Sphere. If they could find it, so can we. There will be other bases, other installations. We just have to find them.” She glanced at the mountains, and said, “And it was worth it. It was all worth it.”
“I hope so,” Salazar replied. “I hope so. But...”
Before he could reply, a blinding flash erupted from the desert, followed by the loud rumble of a colossal explosion, a pillar of smoke soaring into the sky and forming the distinctive mushroom cloud that all of them knew too well. A nuclear detonation, close behind them. The few datapads in their position rang as their radiation detectors snapped into life, alerting them of the hazard they were in. The train shook side to side as Lombardo threw the engines into maximum acceleration, sending them tumbling to the rear. Behind them, the cloud grew, and grew, and the mountains could be seen no more, flame and fury filling the landscape where they had been.
“Brace for the shockwave!” Salazar yelled, and Clarke dived to the ground just in time as the train bucked, the force of the explosion slamming into them. Somehow, Lombardo kept them on the magnetic tracks as he urged the vehicle to still greater speed, finally outpacing the force of the blast.
“I thought you said five minutes!” Harper protested.
“That's how I set it,” Clarke replied. He paused, then said, “The bastards.”
“What?”
“Jimmy and his team. They were dead anyway. Those bombs were set to go off too soon, to make sure that the attack force wouldn't talk about what they had done.” He shook his head, and said, “We damn near fell victim to a Hegemonic attack on their own people.” Taking a deep breath, he looked back at the devastation unfolding behind them, and said, “Nothing could live through that. We stopped them.”
“Maybe,” Harper said. “Those caves are deep. Miles deep. And we never did know how far the savages ran. We've held them back for the moment.”
“That's enough,” Clarke said. “That's enough.” Looking at Salazar, he added, “Let's go home.”
“Five hours to Base Camp,” Lombardo replied. “Assuming anyone's still there when we arrive.”
Chapter 27
Orlova looked out over the plain, watching the mushroom cloud continue to rise, just as it had for the last hour. She glanced across at the awed Koslowski, then looked up at the radiation detector, more for reassurance than any real fear. They were far enough from the blast that there should be no danger, and the desert was bleak enough that it would be unlikely that any civilians would be killed by the blast. Whatever else had happened, Salazar, Clarke and the others had done exactly what they had set out to do.
And there was an increasingly likely chance that they'd died in the attempt.
She looked around the abandoned base camp, a distorted mirror of the first outpost constructed by Monitor when they'd first arrived at the Sphere, now almost a year ago. She tried to remember her brief time on that ship, less than three months from first assuming command to seeing her destroyed at the hands of the Hegemony, the target of a vicious, unprovoked attack that had stranded her crew millions of light-years from home. And as far as she knew, they were still here. She reached across to a control, flicking a switch and turning to a microphone.
“Captain Orlova to any station, any station. Captain Orlova to any station, any station. Reply at once. Reply at once.” She looked up at the monitors, and shook her head. They still hadn't worked out a good way of cutting through the babel of conversation that dominated the Sphere, and increasingly she was of the opinion that there was some other force preventing them, some higher intelligence attempting to keep the different civilizations that inhabited this vast structure from talking to one another. She couldn't think of a good reason why, but it was the only explanation that made sense. The Hegemony had attempted to crack through for years, and had failed.
“Anything on the sensors, Midshipman?” she asked.
“Nothing, ma'am,” the awed Koslowski replied. “Some seismic readings, but that's almost certainly from the explosion in the desert. I have some preliminary reports on that if you want them. Looks like they managed a hundred-and-twenty kilotons, and...”
“Later,” she replied. “As long as it did the job. That's all that matters now.”
“Yes, ma'am,” she said. “It did the job.” She glanced across at another control, and added, “Eight minutes to launch window, Captain. I've completed pre-flight, all systems ready to go.”
“Come on, Pavel,” she muttered. “You're cutting it too damned fine.”
“We haven't heard a word, ma'am, and if they were on their way...”
“We wait.”
“There's an excellent chance they're already dead, ma'am. That explosion was far larger than anything that would be needed to destroy the base. Assuming they didn't trigger some sort of self-destruct system.” Turning back to the cockpit, she continued, “Seven minutes, thirty seconds.”
“In this Fleet, Midshipman, we don't write someone off as dead until we've seen the damned funeral! I've watched Pavel Salazar and Kristen Harper pull off some pretty amazing stunts over the years, and this is just another one of them. Focus our sensors on the train track.” She paused, then said, “And prepare for launch.”
“Aye, ma'am,” Koslowski said with a disappointed sigh.
“Don't give up so soon, kid. We're not going out of the Sphere. Not yet. I want you to program in an overfly of the ruins where I was picked up. A close-range sweep. Maybe they've made it, and we haven't spotted them for some reason.”
“That's going to eat up an awful lot of fuel, Captain.”
“Undoubtedly. That means that your skill as a pilot will be tested as it never has been before. Use all conservation measure you can, but get us there. That's an order.”
With a sigh, Koslowski tapped a series of instructions into the navigational computer, and said, “I'd wanted to serve with Captain Salazar since I was at the Academy. Wrote my thesis on his battle strategies.”
“You're kidding,” Orlova replied, as the young officer fired the launch thrusters. “I didn't know that Pavel had his own groupie.”
Turning to Orlova, she said, “He's taught me a lot since I joined Alamo. And the most important think he's taught me is that there are times to cut your losses and walk away from the table. While there was a chance, I had to give it to him, but we're going to be nursing back home on empty tanks if we try this, and Alamo can't wait for us without risking an attack that will cripple her, strand her crew here like you stranded Monitor's.”
Raising an eyebrow, Orlova replied, “I suppose I could point out that your words are gross insubordination, Midshipman.”
“Pavel Salazar is my commanding officer, ma'am. I'm still following his orders, even if he isn't here to give them.” Tapping a control, she said, “Ruins in three minutes. We'll be thirty seconds late making contact with Alamo.” She paused, then added, “Getting seismic readings from up ahead. There's something coming, at extreme range. Looks like the vacuum car.” Turning to Orlova, she added, “They're four thousand miles away, Captain. Two and a half hours, at their current course.”
“Prepare to return to Base Camp. Signal Alamo, and inform them that they need to make another swing around to retrieve...”
“Captain, I can't obey that order.”
“Midshipman….”
“In all conscience, Captain, I can't. I doubt Senior Lieutenant Francis will, either, and he'd be right to reject it. You know that, ma'am. We're out of time, and we can't stay here.” The communicator crackled, a faint voice whispering through the static, and Koslowski turned back to the controls with a start, sweeping across the frequencies in a desperate attempt to focus the transmission, to boost the power to a level that would make it audible. “Shuttle Four to Unknown Contact. Come in, please.”
“Salazar here,” the voice replied, faint and distant. “Report, Midshipman.”
“We're coming to get you, Pavel,” Orlova said.
“Doesn't answer my question. What's your status?”
“Alamo is heavily damaged and in a position to leave the system,” Koslowski replied. “We'll be able to get out ahead of the Hegemony if we leave now. If we don't, we risk coming under heavy attack. Orders, sir.” She glared at Orlova, daring her to speak, but the veteran commander shook her head.
“You have to ask? Get the hell out of there while you can. That's a direct order on my personal authority as commander of Alamo. Run for cover, patch up the ship, and if you get a chance, return. We've got a lead on the secrets of the wormhole, Midshipman. I had to destroy a part of it, but the secret is here, on the Sphere, just as we thought. Pass that back to Francis. You got that? He's to make no effort to investigate further. Leave that for us.”
Secrets of the Sphere (Battlecruiser Alamo Book 27) Page 20