by Jamie Sawyer
We worked in different time-scales: two different realities.
She moved with glacial slowness.
I moved with blistering speed.
I held the sword in a two-handed grip, and with the force generated by my run I thrust it towards her abdomen. This close, I was under her null-shield. She twisted – far too slowly.
I stabbed the blade all the way through her combat-suit.
Soundlessly, the trooper crumpled onto the weapon. Her blood sizzled along the blade edge: boiled against the powered filament. Her eyes met mine for an instant. There was some small consolation in the fact that the last face she saw before death had been mine.
On instinct alone, I knew that there was another of the Warfighters behind me. I jerked the blade free. Whirled about-face; sweeping the sword in an arc. It left an afterimage as it moved.
I finished the second trooper with a flurry of thrusts, cuts, slashes. I was driven by absolute rage. There was no technique to my assault at all. The important part was that she was dead.
“I’m coming for you, Williams!” I yelled.
I slammed a smoke grenade to the floor and darted back into the cover of the Shard structures.
I found the big Martian next. He bumbled through the mist, reeking of over-confidence. He shot his rifle from the hip as he moved, splitting the air with plasma pulses, compensating for lack of accuracy with the quantity of fire.
I lurched out of cover. Caught his head with the hilt of the sword. Like the others, he had no helmet and the blow was hard enough to break his nose. He screamed – blood fountaining from his face.
I reacted fast, brought the sword up to finish him. The blade was keenly sharp and made a pleasing whistle as it cut the air. It hit home: the sweet spot between armour plates on his collar bone. The blade crackled as it slit the armour. I grunted as I forced it into his flesh.
The Martian slumped to the floor, sword still embedded into him.
No time to pull it out.
Williams stood at the foot of the dais, before the Shard control console, with his rifle trained on me. He was smiling, but the expression looked practised: looked more frightened than frightening. He had good reason to be scared.
“You fucking killed her!” I roared. Spittle flecked the inside of my face-plate.
“Give it up!” Williams yelled back.
Plasma fire throbbed all around me. With every other footfall I was encased in a white sphere of energy as my null-shield illuminated. One shot whined past my head so close that it made my face-plate polarise.
Move or die. I ran at Williams: head down, body lowered.
I fired my backpack thruster as I closed – a juggernaut now, moving faster and faster. The backpack was made for use in zero-G, for manoeuvring in space. Inside an atmosphere, it roared as it discharged – and I exponentially accelerated, became a killing force.
I covered the distance between us in a heartbeat.
Williams braced.
Our bodies collided, an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force.
We spun across the chamber.
Williams slammed into one of the Shard structures, hard enough to shatter the crystal and send black splinters across the area. Both null-shields activated and failed: that line of defence rendered irrelevant.
I pinned his arms, threw him back. Another aeons-old Shard structure was smashed apart under the force of his weight. Another piece of irreplaceable Shard tech was demolished.
I knew that it wouldn’t be enough to put him down, because I knew that it wouldn’t be enough to put me down.
He tried to break away from me. In response, I grappled with his webbing and pounded a fist into his face. It was a solid, murderous blow: with powered gauntlets, hard enough to smash a Krell skull, probably decapitate a hardcopy man.
It did little to slow Williams. His face-plate shattered, sent fragments of plastic bouncing around inside his helmet, but it did nothing to stop him.
I punched again and again: roaring as each blow connected. Not just with his helmet, now. I felt bone crunch, felt tissue snapping—
Williams dived out beneath the last blow. Too slow to react to his evasive manoeuvre, I pounded a fist into the floor. I cracked both the metal surface, and my knuckles. Pain shot up my forearm, momentarily stunning me.
Williams took the advantage. He pivoted about-face, kicked out with a powered boot. The blow landed in my abdomen. The armoured plates protecting my stomach cracked. I felt something explode inside me – something break in the bone structure of my ribs – but I rolled backwards with the force of the blow.
Pain was fleeting and immaterial. I couldn’t let it hold me back.
I lurched to my feet, lunged for Williams.
“Who are you?” I shouted, into his face.
He let out a long, maniacal laugh. He got purchase on my armour for a second, hoisted me by the shoulders. Before I could break free, he threw me across the chamber. I crashed against the dais. My medi-suite warned of another broken rib, of concerning levels of adrenaline—
“I could be anyone!” Williams replied, circling me. “I might be the neighbour you’ve known for thirty years. Maybe your commanding officer.” His eyes twinkled with hateful glee. “I could even be the man sitting next to you on the monorail.”
“Fuck you, Williams.”
He was still standing, but only just. His helmet was destroyed and the bloody mess of his face peered out, his teeth white flashes among the gore. He tried to laugh again but the noise was wet and unpleasant.
“Don’t you know, man?” he went on. “I’m a ghost. A fucking ghost, come back to haunt you.” He pulled a face, leered at me. “I’m like the wind, passing wherever I choose. How’s the hand?”
“It’ll pass.”
“I bet it will. Take more than that to put down Lazarus, eh?”
Williams kept his eyes on me, that grisly smile painted on his face, but I suddenly noticed the flash of something in his palm. A mono-blade: a smaller version of the Directorate troopers’ sword. Williams quickly drew the blade back, lurched away from me.
I immediately realised what he was trying to do. This wasn’t about taking me out any more: it was about tactical retreat. He wants to get out of this skin – to extract.
I reached for my sidearm – the holstered PPG-13 plasma pistol, still strapped to my thigh. I flipped the stud, grabbed the pistol grip—
—Williams brought the knife up: still smiling, the blade reflecting light as it charged—
—I had my plasma pistol in my hand—
—aimed it at him—
—the knife was at his own throat – ready to plunge it into his own neck, to achieve the fastest possible extraction—
—my finger closed on the firing stud—
I fired. A bright plasma pulse seared across the chamber, hit Williams in the hand in which he held that weapon.
“Fuck!” he screamed, looking at his right hand.
He dropped the mono-blade.
I dove forwards. Kicked it away from him.
The plasma pulse had bored a hole right through the glove, right through his hand. He collapsed to his knees. Grasped at the destroyed hand: looking in utter incredulity at the ruined appendage.
I took the initiative.
I fired twice into his legs, at the knee-caps.
Williams howled. Blood, bone, armour plating: it was all fused under the intense fire of the plasma pistol. He fell onto his back and writhed in agony.
“That’s got to hurt – especially without a medi-suite,” I shouted at him. “But you’re not taking the easy way out.”
“Fuck you!” he screamed. “Your nation is a relic! Your uniform means nothing! You think that you’ve won here?” He dissolved into an agonised choke, before continuing, “You’re wrong, Harris! The Directorate is everywhere! It’s us who are legion!”
“Shut the fuck up, Williams.”
Debris was now falling from above us. Chunks of machinery lay strewn
across the ground. I stood over what remained of Captain Williams. How long until Loeb blows the ship? I asked myself. This deep into the Artefact, I had no communication with the Colossus. I could have minutes left, could have seconds. I had to act now.
I turned to the dais. The control console rippled, straining to maintain stability.
“Let’s do this,” I declared, and started to climb the steps to the console.
Williams continued screaming behind me. “Is this what you want? If that machine goes off, every fish head in this sector is going to be all over the fleet. None of us will get out of here alive!”
Up close, the console looked like black mercury – composed of the same poisoned quicksilver as the Reaper. There was nothing that I recognised as a control but I felt the Key in my gloved hands. I couldn’t remember having picked it up. It was hot and heavy, as though it had gained mass since I’d entered the chamber.
Elena’s blood was all over my fingertips – dark, indelible. On the index finger of my right hand the chem-analyser probe was extended: a tiny needle device, used to sample blood and other substances. The machine I’d used on Williams’ cigarette butt, that night I found him alone on the Artefact.
“You’re insane!” Williams yelled. “You want to open the Gate? Who knows what will come through?”
The Reaper was suddenly above me. It was bristling, angered by the inactivity. It wanted unity, but there was no understanding there. This thing was alien – was incomprehensibly machine. We were not allies. We were not friends—
ALERT, my HUD informed me.
Fragments of my face-plate still clung to the remains of my tactical-helmet. I’d ignored the error messages flashing there – had been focused on bringing Williams down – but now something caught my eye.
“You’ll never save her!” Williams screamed at me. He had dragged his destroyed legs up the dais, pulling himself nearer to my position. “We will find her!”
Find her. Save her.
A persistent message flashed on my HUD: an urgent update from my chem-analyser. The hand that had touched Elena’s ruined body, that had sampled her blood.
Something hot – blood or tears – welled in my eyes, began to stream down my face so that the message was blurred and indistinct.
SIMULANT BLOOD DETECTED
SUBJECT: DR ELENA MARCEAU
She wanted to tell me that she was simulant-operational.
“I have things to tell you. I need to explain it all.” Then Elena’s last words: “Find me.”
That was how she’d existed out here: because she had never really been here. Her real body was somewhere beyond the Rift. Safe, I hoped, from the Krell and the Directorate.
“She’s still alive…” I whispered. “And I can find her.”
Hope – that most toxic and dangerous of emotions – poured into me, reinvigorated me. I was alive again: driven, awake, directed.
I turned the Key over in my hands. I knew this would be the last time I’d see it.
The Artefact rumbled again. More dust and debris began to fall from above. The Reaper shrieked, bubbling all around me. Williams screamed and screamed and screamed.
A portal opened in the console. The liquid metal flashed with glyphs, pulsed with unrealised power.
“There’s still hope. That has to be something.”
I inserted the Key.
I activated the Artefact.
It began to transmit a signal, broadcasting at a speed that no Alliance or Directorate technology could ever achieve. Like wildfire, it spread through Damascus Space.
I knew all of this as I stood at the console. The air around me was saturated with data – information flowing like an atmosphere. More than just a language: this was Shard lifeblood.
Beneath the churn and whine of the signal, I felt emotions. Loss and longing. Although they were not spoken, words formed: a message that repeated over and over until I understood the meaning.
Find me, it said.
I stood at the console for what felt like an eternity, although it might’ve only been the blink of an eye. Under the onslaught of such perversely advanced technology, my equipment was useless. My combat-suit was off-line. Unpowered, it was a dead weight on my shoulders.
The signal was building in volume and intensity.
Conversely, my sanity was evaporating.
I collapsed to my knees. Felt blood streaming from my mouth, my ears.
The Reaper was everywhere but it was glitching – bubbling with irregular shapes, struggling to control its own body. It had become an iridescent, mirrored silver.
“What the hell have you done?” Williams screeched over the noise.
Then the Reaper dissolved. It splashed to the floor like water, all semblance of form gone.
Its job is done, I told myself. And now mine is too.
I struggled with my plasma pistol. In the unpowered suit, every movement was a war. I prayed that the pistol would operate – that I could escape the Artefact. The chamber was shaking so violently, and the signal was so strong in my mind, that I couldn’t focus on anything.
“Take me with you!” Williams wailed. “Don’t leave me here! Let me out of this body!”
“Fuck you, Williams.”
I put the pistol to my chin and fired.
“Come back.”
I gasped for breath. Choked on a mixture of blood and amniotic.
“Stay with me.”
I’m trying! I couldn’t seem to make my mouth work.
The blue – focus on the blue—
I was sick some more.
I was back on the Colossus. Clambering out of my tank, supported by strong hands. I glared down at the ragged stump of my missing hand.
Martinez stood in front of me. He was saying something – babbling so fast in Spanish that I couldn’t understand him. That didn’t matter though, because I could read the urgency in his eyes.
“Slow down!” I said. “Slow down!”
Alliance Marines, in various states of battledress and injury, stood at the door to the SOC: carbines covering the corridor outside. I guessed that part of the plan had worked and that Alliance troops had managed to retake some of the Colossus.
I stumbled out of Martinez’s hands, caught myself just before I collapsed. My vision was blurred; my world shaking violently.
“His vitals are all over the place,” Mason yelled, standing beside Martinez.
Both were operating simulants. Their helmets were removed, and their faces bore minor injuries.
“I don’t feel so good,” I slurred. “The shaking—”
“It’s not you, Major,” Martinez said. He was shouting to make himself heard. “It’s the ship.”
The entire vessel shook – the deck beneath my feet, the walls around me. Medical equipment rolled across the floor, clattered against walls. I could still hear the piercing wail of the Artefact’s signal ringing in my ears, but there was new noise around me. Mechanical groans echoed through the SOC.
“Whatever happened out there,” Martinez said, still propping me up, “cancelled the dark order. We’re operational again. The Shard Gate is open.”
Mason helped me into some fatigues. With my missing hand and the pain in my head I was in no position to turn her down.
“Are the Krell here?” I asked. “Did the plan work?”
“Too well,” Mason said. She grimaced. “They’re everywhere.”
“We’ve got to get to the CIC now, jefe,” Martinez said. “Clear a path! Lazarus coming through.”
A lot seemed to have happened. The corridors were cleared of hostiles but warning klaxons still sounded and the atmosphere tasted of smoke. There were bodies – Alliance and Directorate – strewn on the floor, and as we moved past one junction I heard the crack-crack-crack of an assault rifle firing.
The CIC was in utter chaos. There were officers everywhere, crew everywhere. No rhyme or reason as to who was in command – deckhands were plugged into control consoles, a couple of Marines occupi
ed the weapons pods. Being alive seemed to have become a good qualification for taking command.
“All power to the aft null-shields,” Loeb shouted across the CIC. He sat at his command station, surrounded by holo-feeds. “Now!”
“Damage sustained to the port-side generator. Shields running at twenty per cent, sir.”
“Better than nothing. Get me power to the drive propulsion unit.”
“What’s happening?” I asked.
Martinez ushered me to the tac-display. Loeb looked down at my missing hand, went to say something, but was interrupted by another officer.
“We have fifty per cent thrust, sir.”
“Bearing ninety-degrees!” the admiral yelled. “Keep the comm-line to navigation clear!”
The blast-shutters to the CIC were open.
The Krell had come back in force.
They had brought carnage with them. Debris scattered near-space. Brilliant explosions flashed across the view-port, impossibly close. Had to be a human ship cooking off, lost to the vacuum. A Directorate Interceptor passed, laser raking the underside of a Krell bio-ship. Plasma fire and kinetics seemed to fill space.
“Someone get me comms with any operating Alliance ships!” Loeb roared. “They need to know we’re leaving!”
The Artefact was a black heart to the battlefield. It throbbed with new life. A beam of green light streamed from the Artefact itself, beyond the battle – out into Damascus Space.
I felt bile rising in the back of my throat; felt that sense of wrongness that only operational Shard technology could evoke. I clutched the display a little tighter to stay upright.
The beam pierced the Damascus Rift. Illuminated it; activated it. The entire Rift had turned an iridescent black – filled with stars, like some terrible mirror. That was where Elena had gone.
“Your Shard Gate is working,” Loeb said to me. “We can’t perform a Q-jump under our own power, so it’s our ticket out of here.” Back to his crew: “Issue the extraction order to Scorpio Squadron. We are leaving!”
“Where’s Jenkins?” I suddenly realised that I hadn’t seen her since I’d made extraction. Then another realisation hit me: “Please tell me that we’ve got Kaminski aboard…”