by Jamie Sawyer
I activated my comm. “Jenkins! You read me?”
The comm-link hissed: “Affirmative. Moving through Filtration.”
“Casualties?”
“Negative, but it’s been damned close.”
“We’re coming up on your six.”
“I read you on the scanner.”
Mason, Saul and I jogged into what was once a filtration plant. A tangled network of pipework sat under a heavy plasglass dome. I guessed that water on Maru Prime was a serious commodity, perhaps more so than it was elsewhere in space. This was a recycling centre that had now fallen into disrepair. Liquid gold, lost to the war, pumped from exposed plumbing. Between the sagging remains of two protective plastic tents, the survivors crouched. Jenkins half-stood on our arrival.
“You took your time, Major,” she said with a dark grin.
“Multiple kills en route.”
“Some men will use anything for an excuse.”
“We met Baker, too.”
“How is the old bastard?”
“Dead. Bought it with two rookies.”
“Figures.”
The staff huddled between Jenkins and Martinez. Professor Saul went to join them, patting Anders on the back and muttering something over the private comm. Anders had been crying; her face was streaked red.
“What’s the plan?” Jenkins asked.
“Clearest route to the shuttle bay is through the maintenance deck. You got ears on Kaminski?”
Jenkins shook her head. “Negative.”
Looking back at the terrified civvies, and at the flashing warning on my HUD – SEVEN MINUTES UNTIL TERMINAL DECLINE – made me decide to break protocol.
I switched comm channels. My combat-suit was a command model; I could order a protocol override to boost my signal.
“Kaminski, you still alive?”
“Affirmative, Major, but only just. Hangar is seeing some action, but I’m lying low.”
Jenkins shook her head, laughed to herself. “That’ll be the day.”
“You’re hiding?”
“Affirmative. That’s one way of putting it.”
“Is the shuttle prepped?”
“Primed and ready for evac.”
“Then stay alive, whatever way you can. We’re less than a minute from your position.”
“Solid copy. Kaminski out.”
The staff began shouting and hollering.
“Stay calm, people!” Martinez insisted. “God will protect you. You’re all going to be all right—”
I wasn’t sure that the Almighty was listening. Martinez meant well, but his words were no counter for what the group had witnessed.
The ceiling of the filtration plant was domed – made of reinforced plastic-glass, gridded with metal supports. It presented a good vantage point to observe the developing space battle in low orbit. Some of the survivors had been watching the sky – the multi-coloured explosions, the bright streams of flak, the plasma pulses – but suddenly all faces, in unison, were turned to the spectacle above.
Something enormous exploded.
A brilliant, eye-scorching light filled the blackness. It sent numerous miniature sub-detonations through space. The dying vessel couldn’t have been far from our location, because very rapidly we were being showered with burning debris. Chunks of starship slammed into the plastic dome, assaulted the rest of the station.
“Gracia de Dios…” Martinez whispered.
The pattern of the explosion could only mean that it was an Alliance vessel. Not a fighter: had to be one of the assault cruisers. I took some minor reassurance from the fact that it wasn’t the Mallard, or we’d all be dead right now. But it did mean that the war in heaven wasn’t going as well as planned and that we had even less time to make the retrieval.
“Everyone up!” I declared, shouting over my loudspeaker and indicating with my hands. “Mag-locks on! Follow us. Squad, combat formation—”
The dome above began to crack. Very noisily, very dramatically. Escaping atmosphere began to hiss, then shriek.
“Mason, you take the rear!” Jenkins ordered, locking her boots and helping some of the civvies up. “Martinez, you take left flank. We’ve got to get these people out of here now! Go, go, go!”
The dome suddenly exploded outwards. Glass, metal and frozen liquid were sucked out. I braced, grabbed Saul. His civilian-issue mag-locks were torn off the deck and he flapped around like a child’s doll. Anders sailed past me. Mason reached out a hand to catch her. Too late: the female doctor’s arms windmilled as she flew by. Mason fumbled with her rifle, maybe thought about discarding it to go after Anders, but I warned her against it.
“Don’t, Mason. She’s already gone.”
The hurricane of escaping atmosphere cost us most of the survivors – bodies spinning out, catching on the remains of the dome, slamming into assorted debris raining from the sky above. I barely gave them a thought. Saul was all that mattered.
I might be expendable, but right now I had to survive. If I died, then Saul had no chance of survival. Certain tactical and operational considerations become far more relevant once a human, non-expendable asset is present in the theatre of war.
I have to get Saul out, I repeated. The safest way to do that was to ensure that I remained viable for as long as possible. With the station collapsing around me, that was becoming an increasingly difficult objective to achieve.
I thought of all this as I cajoled the remaining survivors through the ruined facility.
FOUR MINUTES UNTIL TERMINAL DECLINE.
The station’s AI gave up with the warning – probably shut off, maybe diverting what little power remained to the essentials of trying to keep Far Eye Observatory upright. If that was the plan, it wasn’t working.
As we scrambled towards the shuttle, two more Krell appeared ahead – this time, firing stinger-spines. Poisoned flechette rounds, propelled by organic rail shooters. About as powerful as an Alliance-issue armour-piercing round.
“Repressing fire. Move on the shuttle bay – next junction. We don’t have time to get into a firefight.”
“Affirmative,” Jenkins said.
The volley of fire hit our activated null-shields. We fired back with plasma rifles, from the hip, always advancing. One of the secondaries went down. Despite being riddled with plasma wounds the remaining xeno was still combat-effective.
“More hostiles incoming!” Jenkins roared.
More primary-forms swarmed us from the same direction. Two big bastards slipped through the shimmering protective shields without pause – made for firearms and energy weapons only, these did nothing to stop them. I dropped one of the two with a volley from my rifle but the other descended on the group.
“By Gaia!” Saul shouted. He fired his pistol into the approaching alien.
Great: an Earth worshipper. That’s all I need.
Whatever ammo he was packing, the rounds bounced off the armoured head of the nearest Krell. The xeno turned in his direction, mouth split with rage—
“I’ve got this one,” Martinez said.
He grabbed at the target, jamming his rifle into the creature’s underside. The xeno moved faster than him, bladed forelimbs punching right through his torso. He managed a yelp in surprise – it’s always surprising when they get you – and was lifted straight off the ground.
Martinez’s biometrics leapt into overdrive. Even if he didn’t know it yet, he was already dead.
“Good journey,” I whispered.
I used the momentary pause in the assault to fire through Martinez’s body: a full auto stream of plasma pulses. His armoured suit ran like water, super-heated by the impacts, and he stopped trembling. The Krell on the other side of his body exploded.
“Martinez is out,” I said, to anyone who cared.
The shuttle-bay doors were ahead. I dispensed another xeno with a quick blast from my M95, waved on Jenkins with the remaining civvies. Saul was among them.
I caught a glimpse of the interior of the sh
uttle bay. It was a large, mainly empty hangar. The blast-shutters were ahead, promising escape from the dying station – embossed with hazard warnings, suggestions not to open without prior approval. The shuttle sat on the apron. It was a basic runabout – probably the oldest piece of technology on the station. Snub-nosed and worn-out, the name MARY-SUE was stamped on the hull. The model was a not-too-distant relative of our own Wildcat APS, but a strictly civilian version. Although a quad of thruster engines sat at the rear, the shuttle had no quantum-drive capability at all – it wouldn’t be capable of fleeing into Q-space. I just hoped it would be enough to get us off the station.
Kaminski had set up shop at the aft access ramp. His rifle was up in a braced crouch.
“Keep moving, people!” he shouted. “Not much further—!”
The shuttle creaked with the see-sawing motion of the rest of the station. It was moored into place by fuel feedlines. One of those burst under the renewed motion, spilling pressurised fluid across the hangar bay floor. The fuel was highly flammable, meant to be handled under restricted circumstances.
A pool had already formed on the deck.
I froze, detected that something bad – very bad – was about to happen.
The base tilted further on its axis. It had done that already – had been doing that for several minutes – but this was more extreme.
This time, the tilt didn’t correct.
A metal cargo crate slid past me, moving fast enough to send a trail of orange sparks as it went. The crate smashed into the shuttle, another feedline disconnecting.
The fuel ignited.
Violet flame licked the air. In low atmosphere, fire was usually a limited concern; but the shuttle fuel was super-combustible. Fire poured over the deck almost immediately.
Then everything that wasn’t bolted down began to slide towards the exterior bay doors. Those were still sealed shut – would require something big and heavy to cause significant damage.
Oh fuck. The shuttle.
Seemingly in slow motion, it slid towards the bay doors. The noise was deafening: that nerve-jangling shriek of metal grinding against metal. I watched as it capsized.
“Get anchored – now!” I ordered.
The station continued that interminable tilting, almost vertical now.
The shuttle hit the bay doors with an enormous boom.
It settled there for a long second, collected with other detritus from the bay.
“I think the doors might hold—” Kaminski started.
He never got to finish the sentence.
The blast doors creaked, then spectacularly failed. The shuttle fell right through them as they gave way in the centre.
Kaminski scrambled to get free of the shuttle but it all happened too quickly.
Shuttle, Kaminski, any hope of evacuation from Maru Prime: all tumbled through the destroyed doors.
The ship fell side-on, nose down. Kaminski spiralled out of the hatch – waving his hands frantically, his plasma rifle falling with him – to the awaiting lava flows below. There was no way that the shuttle could be preserved, nothing that could be done.
The wave of heat from the open doors hit me like a fist. My mag-locks held me upright, on a wall that had seconds ago been a floor. Debris fell all around me, through the open hangar doors. Krell bodies, station staff – all and sundry were being sucked out.
I lost sight of his falling body and Kaminski’s vitals flatlined. I scanned the area, desperately making an assessment of what damage we had suffered, who was left.
Two staff members remained: one aura-tagged as PROFESSOR SAUL – PRIMARY ASSET. He was locked to the deck, near the entrance door. The other – a middle-aged man – staggered about on his mag-locks. He clutched towards Jenkins, reaching out desperately, arching his back.
“Please!” he screamed. “Don’t let me die!”
Jenkins was attached to a cargo anchor point on the floor. One hand wrapped around the pin, she went to grab for him with the other.
“Jesus,” she moaned, “why is nothing ever easy?”
The man managed to grasp her forearm, just as his mag-locks gave way. Jenkins lost her balance momentarily, but managed to stay attached to the anchor.
Mason was upright, locks holding, terrified behind her face-plate. She was still squeezing off pulses from her M95 into the mass of following Krell.
The fish heads had fared well in the confusion. Some clung to the ceilings, others leapt between sparse cover on the walls. Gun-grafts assembled in the distance – clambering into the station through the destroyed blast doors. Krell fire began to cover the area – stingers, boomers, shriekers. I returned fire with my rifle – sending a volley of explosive grenades across the hangar-bay doors. Xeno bodies dropped from the station in hordes but there were always more.
“Mason!” I ordered. “Cover Saul – get him back towards the entrance door.”
My comm crackled to life: “Lazarus Actual, do you read?”
“This is Actual,” I said,. “I read, but I’m busy right now.”
“Command reads your position. Team appears compromised.”
“Negative. Hostiles present. Shuttle has been lost.”
“We saw that. Suggest that you make extraction. Call it a day, Lazarus. It’s over.”
“Fuck that.”
I thought-commanded the station map onto my HUD, still firing away at the encroaching Krell. It wasn’t over; it couldn’t be. Saul was alive. There was still a chance that the mission could be redeemed. The evac-pod. A route to the pod lit on my map: back through the main corridor, through the living quarters.
“I can make it to the evac-pod. I can do this.”
“The station is crawling with hostiles, Lazarus.”
“Then why are we wasting time talking? I have a job to do.”
“The extraction is hot. More Krell are inbound. We’re bugging out in two minutes, tops.”
“Fuck you. Lazarus Actual out.”
Jenkins grunted beside me. She was still holding the unknown scientist, one hand locked around the man’s wrist, the other grappling with the anchor point. The civvie bashed against the deck—
Jenkins slipped again, and then she was gone.
No more ceremony than that: even in a sim, she couldn’t hold the man’s weight any longer. She spun along the deck – out of the shuttle doors, the blue-suited civvie beside her, and into the inferno below.
Mason had Saul. He was still teetering on his mag-locks, that ridiculous armoured case swinging back and forth.
A Krell stinger-spine clipped me. The round lodged in my shoulder and the impact threw me backwards. It carried a poison load – enough to kill Saul, enough to seriously injure me. My locks gave out, and I started to slide the way that Jenkins had just gone.
“Not me, you bastards!” I shouted.
I immediately let go of my rifle. Irrelevant now; staying alive was far more important. In exactly the same way as Jenkins, Martinez, everyone else I’d lost on this damned mission, I started to claw at the sky – desperate for something to grab on to.
Sim Ops taught me how to die but Special Forces taught me how to survive. I learnt my craft as a soldier during covert ops; using my environment and adapting to it. You don’t forget those skills.
I connected with the deck and grabbed at the space between floor tiles. One hand caught – by the tips of my fingers. Then the other hand caught as well. I roared with the exertion – all of my armoured weight held on my fingertips – but held tight.
“Glove mag-locks!” I roared.
The magnetic strips in my gloves were weak, not intended for use in these circumstances, but they would have to do. Anything to help me stay put.
Above me, Mason and Saul were still on their feet. Mason was shooting at the Krell – now below me.
“Not today…” I whispered to myself.
Out of the corner of my eye, the semi-translucent picture of Elena was still on my HUD.
She’s why I have to do this.
She is why I can’t give up.
One hand over the other, I began to climb towards Mason and Saul. Behind them, the bay entrance door was still open – and that was a route back into the station, to the evac-pod. My gloves were fully powered and I began to dig my fingertips into the metal flooring. I made finger holds of the gaps between every tile. As I prised each one up, I moved on to the next handhold. Meanwhile Krell fire rained all around me and my bio-scanner went berserk with incoming hostiles.
“Fall back towards the door,” I ordered.
“Affirmative,” Mason said.
Her null-shield lit with sidearms fire. It was only a few steps to the bulkhead but in these conditions it seemed impossible. Mason was now bleeding, I realised, from several stinger impacts.
STATION IN TERMINAL DECLINE, my AI declared.
SHUT UP, I commed back.
As I got nearer, I heard that Saul was praying. He wept in great, chortling waves; a man afraid that he was about to meet his maker. His exact words were unclear but he sounded resigned to his fate.
Another Krell weapon hit me, dragging me back to precision of thought. My medi-suite complained that safe drug administration levels had been exceeded. I overrode those warnings, fed more endorphin and adrenaline into my system. I was going to shut down soon – crash and burn. The world had started to take on a dreamlike quality: edges blurred, everything moving in slow motion around me.
Mason lurched over Saul, protecting him from more bio-weapons fire. Her shield suddenly gave out and she disappeared under a wave of flechettes. A secondary-form, attached to the ceiling – now parallel to my position – streamed a shrieker down on her. Even in the low atmosphere, through my helmet, I could hear the weapon’s distinctive sonics: a pitched scream. A jet of super-heated flame scoured over Mason and coated her armour. The flechettes opened her up, the flame cooked her: the perfect combination of weapons.
Mason’s vitals flatlined on my HUD – no doubt, she was dead. Even so, she stood upright in her baking suit for a second or two. Her face boiled through the melted plate of her helmet; skin and bone and plastic. I was quite sure that it was a death that she would remember and the image of her standing there was something I would struggle to forget as well.