by Jamie Sawyer
He manually cranked the locking wheel on the hatch and showed us through.
The interrogation room was small, with a low ceiling. Stud-lights above were at full illumination and dowsed the room in pure white light. It was boiling hot; caused either by the presence of so many personnel gathered in one tight space, or by the heightened state of emotion.
Strange: how so much fear in one place focused like a light until it became a laser.
There was such fear here, but an equal measure of hate.
I breathed it in, felt the emotions hit my bloodstream like a drug.
“Saul…” I whispered.
He had seen better days. He was shirtless; thick black chest hair sweat-matted, shoulders marked with heavy red welts. My would-be nemesis sat in the middle of the room, on a chair positioned very specifically beneath a metal table. His forearms were both held in front of him, fingers splayed.
When I entered, he looked up at me with terrified eyes, and his lips moved without speaking. He shook uncontrollably. I’d seen the behaviour before: in civilians pushed over the edge, in a state where sanity became like a fine mist. He was either shitting himself or a damned good actor.
That was the fear part of the room dealt with.
Now the hate.
Williams paced behind Saul. Finally: he had the anger in his eyes, looked like a real soldier. He loured at the door as the four of us entered. The muscles along his neckline trembled, spoke of barely restrained emotion. He had a small semi-automatic pistol in his hand, and both of his hands were swollen, with minor scuffs across the knuckles. That explained Saul’s condition.
Lincoln the dog appeared between the legs of the table, feeding on the hate and negativity in the room. He let out a bark in Saul’s direction and Williams scattered him with a loose kick.
“This is the traitor,” the Marine added, quite unnecessarily. He took up a spot by the bulkhead. “Admiral Loeb says that he has to be guarded at all times.”
A seat had been set up directly in front of Saul: empty. Williams nodded to me, indicated to sit. “I didn’t want to start without you, Lazarus.”
I took up the position. Saul started whimpering.
For a long moment, I just watched him. Watched the flicker and flit of his eyes; noted his inability to make eye contact. The easy tells that I was staring at a liar. Was he an Alliance liar or a Directorate liar? That was the question. That was what I was going to find out.
“When did they get to you?” I asked.
Saul gave an exaggerated frown. He glanced over my shoulder, at Kaminski. Then at Jenkins; perhaps hoping that a female face would improve his chances of getting out of this alive.
“I…I don’t understand,” he started.
“Don’t fuck with us!” Williams shouted. He pressed his mouth against Saul’s ear, made the man cringe. “This is Lazarus you’re dealing with here.”
“Everyone has a price,” I said. “Everyone has a breaking point. What was yours?”
“I’m not what you think I am!”
“Then what are you, Saul?”
“Please! I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Williams roared at him. His voice was like a weapon: piercing but impossible to aim in the contained area. “Don’t lie to us, Saul!”
“I’ve dealt with your kind before,” I said. “Don’t forget what happened on Helios.”
“I’m not like Dr Kellerman!”
“Then why have you been sending unauthorised transmissions from the Colossus?”
“Yeah, using a Directorate encryption package!” Williams added.
“I…I was following orders…”
“That’s what they all say,” Williams sighed, shaking his head. Sweat was dripping from his brow, in big ugly droplets.
“Please; there is nothing to tell! Don’t do this! I deserve proper procedure. I’m an Alliance citizen, of the Arab Freeworlds—”
“You’re a fucking terrorist,” Williams spat.
The room degenerated into yelling. The dog began to bark again. Saul was shouting the same old answers, the answers that any traitor would give. Williams was in his face, repeating the accusation again and again.
The noise in the chamber was becoming unbearable.
None of this is real, I decided. None of this matters.
Williams slapped his sidearm on the table in front of me. The noise was loud enough to cut through the rest; to temporarily silence the cacophony.
“You’re the CO,” he said. Not at all like the useless, combat-fresh operator I’d come to know over the last few days. “You make the call. But I say ghost him. No telling what he has planned.”
Elena tried to warn me, I thought. I brought a traitor to Damascus. I imagined him planting viral traps in the Colossus’ AI, malware backdoors to the rest of the fleet’s defences. Williams was right: there really was no telling what damage Saul had already done.
The room froze.
Kaminski and the Marine over one shoulder; Jenkins at the other. The devil and the angel.
Saul’s lower lip was quivering.
“Ghost him,” Williams said. He turned to the Marine. “Security eyes are off, right? He tried to escape, got capped.”
The Marine nodded. “I didn’t see a thing.”
“Maybe,” Kaminski said, “the captain has a point.”
Saul shut his eyes.
I picked up the gun. It was a Berringer M-5, a standard Army sidearm. The weapon felt good in my hands. For a device designed to kill, it was perhaps perverse that it immediately made me feel more alive. The arming stud was depressed, ready to fire.
I aimed it at Saul.
“Tell me what I need to know,” I whispered. “Who were you broadcasting to? What were you broadcasting?”
“By the Earth Herself,” Saul snivelled, “I am not a terrorist.”
I jammed the pistol into Saul’s forehead. He went cross-eyed, glaring up at the muzzle.
Pulling the trigger on the pistol would be a mercy.
It would be for Elena, and what we had lost.
For Carrie.
For my mother.
The Directorate has taken them all.
“I know what it is,” Saul suddenly blurted. “I know what the Artefact does.”
“I’m listening,” I said.
“It…It’s a gate.”
“Yes?”
“Or rather, it can open a gate. A Shard Gate.”
“Go on.”
“This Artefact connects to the others – will allow travel through the Shard Network, through time-space. Beyond Q-space. The Key will give access to the entire grid.”
He’s lying, I decided. But let him speak. Let him trip himself up, so there is no room for doubt.
“Does it still work?” I said.
“P…possibly.”
“How do you know this?”
“I’ve had access to Command’s complete Shard database, to the findings of all research.”
“Go on.”
“Th…they are an artificial life-form.”
“Something made them?”
“No. They advanced beyond the flesh. The ruins on Tysis World prove that they are thinking machines.”
Tysis World was a name I recognised; a planet on the border between the QZ and the Maelstrom. There had been fighting there, during the First Krell War – with many lives lost on both sides.
“And Tysis World was one of the planets on which the Alliance discovered evidence of the Shard?”
Saul nodded. “Yes. During the War, certain structures were uncovered. Nothing as grand as an Artefact, but very old and very detailed relics. We’ve been able to interpret several of the markings found there. I think that the Reaper is just an emissary, programmed to seek communication.”
“Why would they want to communicate with us?”
Saul shook his head. “Not us. The Reaper wants to communicate with the others – to rejoin the rest of the Shard Network. They never
left us, Harris. They’re still out there.”
“More,” I snarled.
Saul talked quickly. “The Krell and the Shard fought in Damascus Space. This was the site of their largest engagement. The Shard won; reduced the Krell to scavengers.”
“That isn’t what Kellerman told me.”
“Kellerman was wrong about a lot of things.”
“When did this happen? Why haven’t we seen any evidence?”
“It was thousands – millions – of years ago. So long ago that we can barely measure it. The Shard left the Krell imprisoned in the Maelstrom. But they underestimated them; misunderstood the true nature of organic life. They thought that they had killed them all, but their methods were imprecise. They let them rise again.”
He swallowed, shook so hard that I thought that he was going to pass out. “The Shard moved on to the next galaxy – left behind the Artefacts. The site on Tysis allowed us to decode parts of the outer hull cuneiform. It shows that the Damascus Artefact was once a node, a part of a much greater Network.”
“You can travel through it?”
“Yes,” Saul said, “to elsewhere in the Shard Network.”
Williams interrupted Saul with a sarcastic laugh. “This sounds an awful lot like bullshit.”
“Why were you broadcasting in contravention of Loeb’s orders?” I said. “What were you broadcasting?”
Saul’s voice dropped. “I am an agent of the Alliance Science Division. My orders were to report directly to a classified location.”
“Without telling me?” I said, my voice rising in volume.
“Specifically,” he said, nodding. The bones of his forehead pressed against the muzzle of the pistol; when he moved, I saw that the gun had left an imprint on his head.
I was mission commander, and I knew that there was no way Sci-Div or Command would’ve approved such an order. There were huge risks in sending out communications this far inside the Maelstrom; risks that Saul had completely ignored. He’d put us all in peril. I was losing my patience with him. His revelations were becoming more outlandish; more unlikely.
“Why?” I yelled.
“C…Cole didn’t know who he could trust. My orders were to avoid comms with Liberty Point.”
“Then where did you send the data, Saul?”
“I don’t know. Just star coordinates.”
“And why were you using a Directorate encryption package?”
“I wasn’t,” Saul said. His voice had become a nasal whine. “I really wasn’t. Loeb has that part wrong.”
Williams let out an exasperated sigh. “Just waste this asshole. Cole selected us, man. He trusts us, not him.”
I focused on Saul. “Why would Cole tell you to do any of these things?” I asked. “None of it makes sense.”
“It was in case I, or the mission, became compromised.”
That word again. Elena’s word. Dropped so innocuously into the conversation, it immediately set me on a different path. This whole episode is a damned diversion, I thought. A diversion from Elena, and from what really matters.
“Tell me about Elena,” I said. “I want to know everything.”
Saul nodded. “She was here, but that was years ago.”
“Did they do it?” I asked, eyes widening. I could barely contain my rage; could barely stop myself from pulling the pistol trigger. “Did Elena operate the Artefact? Did she use the Shard Gate?”
“I don’t know!”
“Where did she go, Saul?” I shouted. The pain in my head was almost all-consuming: and the only way to end it was for me to end Saul. “Where did Elena go?”
My vision wavered and my hand had started to shake.
“I’ve told you everything,” Saul said. “I have nothing else to say. I want a lawyer.”
“Ghost him!” Williams yelled. “This is all lies!”
Maybe this is the only way.
Saul shut his eyes again – eyelids twitching with stress – and began to mumble something under his breath. It sounded a lot like a prayer.
“That’s enough,” Jenkins said. Her hand was on my shoulder with a firm but gentle grip. “No one’s getting ghosted. He deserves a proper trial. Put the gun down.”
I was on a knife edge; could go either way.
A nice clean headshot would do it…
Fuck it.
I dropped the gun to the table.
It clattered on the metal surface. Quick as a Krell primary-form, Jenkins whisked the pistol up and stepped back. She glared at Williams; dared him to challenge her.
“Don’t forget what happened here,” I said to Saul. “Remember how this could have gone.”
Saul let out a pained sigh. “Thank you, Major.”
“Don’t thank me,” I said. “Not yet. Not until Alliance Command has decided what to do with you.” I turned to the room in general. “Make sure that he’s watered and fed. I want him kept alive until we can hand him over to the proper authorities.”
I scanned the gathered personnel. I couldn’t trust Williams to do the job: I suspected that he would kill Saul the first chance he got, and the Marine standing behind me was likely to turn a blind eye to the murder.
“Kaminski,” I ordered. “Keep guard on Saul until we make the Q-jump.”
“Solid copy,” Kaminski said.
“No one else is to be allowed access to the brig.”
The Marine sergeant gave a glum but accepting salute. He looked about as disappointed as Williams that he hadn’t seen Directorate blood spilled.
“Get him back to his cell,” I directed. “Everyone else out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE RUN
I left the brig reeling from Saul’s disclosure.
He was the one under investigation, but it felt as though the interrogation had yielded as many questions as answers. I could think only of Elena. Where had she gone? How had she got onto the Artefact?
The Colossus’ crew wasted no time in preparing for launch back to Alliance space. Everything about the ship set me on edge. Everywhere I went, there were cargo-loaders hauling materiel to safe locations; crew members laughing and joking, looking forward to returning to the Point.
I had to get away from it all, had to find my own space. I had to get my focus back.
If the Run can’t calm my mind, I thought, then nothing can.
I took off my wrist-comp and placed it on the floor beside the elevator door. The end of the corridor looked an impossibly long way away; not helped by the infinite blackness that stretched off around me. I took a deep breath, psyching myself up, and got ready to move off—
Something flickered at the edge of my vision. Moving fast; black against the starlight. I wasn’t far from the Hornet landing bays but from the dimensions and trajectory it wasn’t a fighter. Something more familiar moved beyond the glass corridor, floating above me, barely metres from my position.
A barb ran through me.
That’s impossible. I’m losing it. I’m actually losing it.
It was a Directorate Interceptor. Those waspish engine units, enormous gun pods and the iconic black armour: the ship was a symbol of Directorate supremacy on the worlds upon which it was deployed.
The Interceptor delicately hovered in position on VTOL engines. There was no way that this was an Alliance ship that I’d mistaken for Directorate. This was the real thing. The hydra and sword emblem of Directorate Spec Ops – brazenly printed on the nose-cone – confirmed that.
“Oh fuck…” I whispered.
My instant and overriding reaction was that I had to get out of there – had to take cover. I turned for the elevator, thumbed the control.
“Identity not recognised,” the AI chirped.
“Come on!” I shouted, swiping my thumb again. “Red-clearance – Major Conrad Harris!”
“User not recognised.”
A hundred thoughts ran through my mind and I fought to order them. What was the ship doing here? Why hadn’t it tripped proximity alarms across
the Colossus? Where were the Christo-damned space jockeys when I needed them? The H-28 laser cannon tracked my movements. Mounted on the Interceptor’s nose, the cannon was standard Asiatic Directorate equipment: deployed to eradicate heavy infantry and light armour.
I was neither of those. If that thing fired on me directly, I was vapour. In a split second, my eyes flickered to the armour-glass corridor ceiling. Would it hold against a multi-kilowatt laser discharge?
I was about to find out.
The Interceptor fired.
Bright laser pulses slashed the glass, and I had no doubt that I was the target of the attack.
I turned and started the Buzzard’s Run.
I ran like I’d never run before.
The glass audibly cracked, the corridor giving in all around me. I knew that I would be losing atmosphere in seconds.
Run!
As soon as the glass broke, there was a flash at the end of the corridor. It was the safety lock-box, containing vac and security gear. There would be a breather.
I was engulfed by noise: the pitched whine of the laser firing, the shriek of escaping atmosphere, even the pressing hum of the Interceptor’s engines.
A shadow fell across me, across the remainder of the Run.
Keep going! Keep going!
Lactic burn spread through my legs, my arms. I went from rapid breathing to stilted panting; oxygen suddenly finite, every mouthful precious—
The elevator door felt so far away.
The temperature was dropping rapidly – vacuum leaching away the ship’s heat—
Then gravity collapsed.
I didn’t know how – possibly a malfunction in the grav-generator, maybe some localised damage caused by the Interceptor’s gunfire – but it was a gift. Every footfall became a bounce, my body unable to comprehend the immediate shift, and I kept running. The forward momentum carried me on and I sailed towards the elevator door. In a step, Vulture’s Row loomed over me. Automatically, I outstretched my arms, breaking my fall as I collapsed against the wall.
The Interceptor continued firing, churning up the corridor floor behind me.
I grappled the wall for the emergency box. My body was numb with the ache of exposure to vacuum and I broke open the cabinet seal. The respirator kit floated free. I grabbed the mask with both hands.