by Unknown
Oswald wiped his cheeks. The simple fact that the tears rolled instead of floating in aggravating globs like they did in space made them feel more real. Real tears for a real friend that was just really murdered.
Oswald slipped quietly from the room. There was no lock on the door that he recognized, so he cut the outer handle off with the laser and kicked it inside the room as he let the door to Hashi's well upholstered crypt swung shut. The laser was a silent tool and only a few sparks had popped from the door as he worked; he doubted anyone would have heard what happened in that crime scene. Oswald closed the eyelid of his laser and slid the pistol back into its holster. He slowly stepped down the stairs, wiping the second wave of tears away before Mathesse saw him.
But Mathesse had known, had seen or figured it all. He searched Oswald's eyes momentarily before giving a somber nod of approval. Oswald glared back. He hated Mathesse and his good points even more than before. Hashi would have died at Oswald's hand by laser or by planetary cataclysm, but he hated Mathesse and he hated the man's commander, who was apparently just like him.
"It had to be done," Mathesse whispered quickly and walked away.
There was little time left to them Oswald knew, but he needed a few minutes to compose himself. Once he managed to swallow his own numbing rationalizations for Hashi's murder he gathered the crew. The prisoners grew anxious once again when they saw the crew suit up. They didn't know what the attackers were going to do next. Most waited with baited breath, but Rocketman's algorithms ordered the robot to gun down the two men who desperately tried to flee to the back of the dome. One was Tok-Een-Glet.
Oswald enjoyed a grim satisfaction in the fact that it was unfolding as horrifically as he thought it would. He had seen the outline early on of how the war-game would play out. More importantly he saw that it would play out this way regardless of Roland's heroic quest for revenge. He realized that he'd been lying to his crew and himself about it longer than even he realized.
Oswald hadn't wanted to kill Hashi but now coldly accepted it as a variable that needed to be solved to balance the equation. That his own death was part of the solution had been a foregone conclusion. Hopes and dreams had no place in mathematics. Oswald latched his helmet.
"Program it, son."
Breen hesitated, even the fingers of the heavy vacc-suit unable to hide the trembling. "Do we have to, Colonel? Isn't there—"
"No, Breen. There is no other way." Oswald slammed his suit's fist onto the astrogator's shoulder. "If you can't, just lay it in and I'll commit the jump."
Both of Breen's hands were trembling violently. He managed to enter the final numbers in the Q-puter before slowly pointing out the execution button. Oswald nodded grimly. Breen gingerly ran his hand up and down the Q-puters frame like he was caressing a dying pet. He clambered up the steps leaving Oswald alone, staring at the button that would finish the game. Earth was dead so there was no winning, but sometimes you had to settle for the draw. He checked the jump plot to make sure Breen had not decided to change the plan on his own; the astrogator hadn't.
Oswald attached the trigger to the war-head's booby trap as Mathesse had shown him—insisting that it couldn't be disarmed in any short amount of time once the door was shut—and pressed the execute button to start the jump. The little room sprang to life as long unused circuits powered up and the energy needed to move a planet began to build in the bowels of the Earth. Oswald sealed the door behind him and joined the small cluster of Roland's survivors huddled together, fearfully watching the universe fold and unfold right outside the dome.
Chapter 33 Oswald immediately wished had just surrendered, that he had listened to Hashi instead of murdering him. Or even murdered Hashi and then surrendered. Perhaps if he'd known that the Ay-Yon Earth Reclamation Protectorate had banned any humans from being on the planet for safety reason when they relocated it to Beta Hydri, Oswald would have been less cavalier about pushing that button. He might have spent more time learning the details of moving the planet instead of just how to make it move on the computer screen.
He would have chosen any option that would have kept him from seeing the nightmare landscape that flashed before his eyes just on the other side of the dome. Impossible colors, shapes, and sounds tore at his brain. A haunting cacophony was trying to rob him of his sanity—he laughed out loud when he realized he hadn't any to steal.
His Delamain had been on Roland when she died and it made him sad. But it was OK, because Hashi, fresh blood running out of the hole in his chest was walking through the dome with a bottle of chicken flavored schnapps! That made Oswald happy and Hashi gave him a friendly wink.
" Oans, zwoa, drei, g’suffa!" Hashi took a long pull on the bottle then handed it to Oswald; the drink ran out of his chest. But it didn't bother Oswald because it was chicken schnapps, and there was nothing better. Except drinking in German!
It burned his chest on the way down, taking his breath away. Oswald laughed and handed the bottle back. A skeletal hand happily grabbed it. A rotting corpse in a tattered Earth Force flight suit winked back at him before being blown away in an electric wind.
"That was stupid," Oswald gasped, realizing he was still not breathing. The pain in his chest began pulsing deeper, it became sharper, until it was a single overwhelming ache right where he'd shot Hashi. A bolt of lightning threw him bodily to the ground, the sound of it echoing in his vacc-suit well after he had slipped into darkness.
It was the throbbing in his chest, the sharp pain of hurt ribs that woke him slowly from death. A bright red light that shone through his eyelids changed to green. Oswald just lay there, his mind scattered, his body unresponsive. After a time that he could not even fathom, a bright light pierced his eyes.
He struggled feebly to cover his face with his hands, but they still wouldn't move. The light was thankfully blocked by a friendly—or at least familiar—face. Mathesse was lying on top of him, visor to visor.
"Holy crap, Colonel." Mathesse yelled so the sound would get to Oswald. "That was a trip."
Oswald nodded absently, now unable to recall most of it. But he had a deep feeling, like a surgery scar, that reminded him that it had actually happened. He pushed Mathesse unceremoniously to the floor. They helped each other up to their knees and had to stop for a rest.
Oswald became aware of the green light again when it started blinking, requesting confirmation that life functions had been restored.
"Was defibrillation successful?" the screen read.
"Yes," Oswald croaked.
"Report of defibrillator activation in queue due to network error. Please report to Life Support department for immediate treatment."
Oswald ignored the helpful advice and tried to look about. It was his first defib and it was not pleasant. He should have realized that jumping a whole planet would be hard on the body. When he tried to twist around to scan his ribs and back exploded in pain. A groan escaped his mouth as he reached out and pushed himself to his feet on Mathesse's shoulder. Mathesse reached up and in a moment both were staggering on unsteady legs. Oswald tried to take a step but immediately tripped on something.
It was Norris' hand. She and Hines were curled back to back in fetal positions. One hand clutched tightly at the EVA suit she had been wearing; the one he tripped on had been reaching towards where he had collapsed.
Oswald pushed down a wave of guilt. Only he, Mathesse, Breen, and McFarran had brought their vacc-suits. He had allowed the others to wear the EVA suits for ease of movement in the dome. The thought to order everyone into their vacc-suits had occurred to him after the final Centauri squadron attacked, but he dismissed it. Everyone one else in the dome had lost their vacc-suit on Roland. The EVA suits had no built in defibrillators, as everyone was supposed to use their combat suits when jumping. Oswald hadn't thought about offering up Hashi's suit to someone, but what sort of questions would that have brought if he had?
He swallowed down his guilt like bile, able to wave off the mad desire to try to bri
ng Norris back, with the simple realization that he had consigned them all to about the most violent end any human had faced. It seemed cruel to awake someone from their peace only to have them live in fear for the next six hours. It didn't seem as cruel a fate as facing the end with Mathesse and Rocketman as his only companions. He activated Anahita's portrait in the corner of his visor.
Oswald suddenly popped open his visor and leaned over as far as his suit would allow and vomited. The sharp protest of his ribs rose up through is throat, bubbling through his puke in a choked scream. The metallic glove he wore removed little of the stinging juices that clung to his lip. The spew covered Norris and Hines and Oswald stumbled out of the clutch of the dead with some difficulty.
Rocketman stood guard over a pile of curled up Centauri. They died grasping and clawing at themselves and one another. The robot stood dumbly over the corpses, waiting for someone to move so it could kill them.
Looking at all the death, Oswald was strangely comforted. He now knew that trying to jump Earth back to Sol would have killed them all, leaving the Centauri to take back his planet at will, Earth being tossed back and forth in an interstellar game of keep away.
"Where's Breen," Mathesse breathed over the headset. "He had his vacc-suit."
"I think that's him by the airlock," Oswald replied. A lone figure sat on one of the benches just inside the inner hatch. "Breen? Can you hear me?"
Breen had still not responded by the time Oswald and Mathesse approached. Oswald reached out a tentative hand and gently pulled on his shoulder. "Breen?"
The vacc-suit toppled heavily to the floor with a resounding crash. A laser pistol slid from the suit's hand and Breen's half-burned face offered them a rictus smile from the floor.
Oswald checked his oxygen; he had two more hours than the Earth did. "Rocketman, guard the equipment room door. Mathesse, let's get the blazes out of here."
They walked out of the dome, leaving Rocketman to end his days as a mechanical doorman, shutting the airlock behind them.
"It's so bright," Oswald whispered.
"Nice."
The dosimeter in Oswald's vacc-suit beeped urgently and lit a radiation alarm light on his visor. Roland's blown reactor was irradiating the whole area, giving testament to the efficacy of the shielding that Centauri dome provided—and to those long dead voices of Earth who banned nuclear rockets from landing planetside.
"Burn me," Mathesse cursed.
"Not yet. Let's go."
Beta Hydri peeked over Earth's horizon, coloring her long dead face with warmth. The dark and frozen terrain had been replaced by thawing browns and greys. Not much of an improvement but Oswald still liked it. He wondered what the Ay-Yon home world looked like.
"Earth's long night has finally ended," Mathesse intoned, "though the respite be a short one."
"You are quite the thespian."
"I am not," Mathesse snorted. "I am a man."
Oswald rolled his eyes and began trudging to the nearest hill. He wanted to see the end without looking at that uninvited dome, that alien implant on Earth's skin that stood out like an infected boil. Not really having anything better to do, Mathesse followed.
As they crested the hill the air around them began a familiar crackle. The tell-tale scream of the UXA assaulted them from the dome.
"They're accessing remotely!" Mathesse yelled into his mic.
"No!" Oswald yelled. "I didn't even think of that." He stared dumbly at the dome as traces of unimaginable energy began to dance across it surface.
"Do something!" Mathesse demanded. "We can't let them do this!"
Oswald wondered if this was some rebellion of Breen's. Hadn't he changed the security when he hacked the system? It was possible that the Centauri had a back door into the system. He realized it would actually be foolish not to have such safeguards to prevent just what Oswald was attempting. Mathesse released a string of imaginative yet vulgar curses into the universe. They could feel the power building up. Oswald suddenly felt the urge to scan around for Hashi, though he didn't know why.
"Rocketman! Open the door to the equipment room!" Oswald didn't know much about the process to jump a planet. He didn't know if there was a point of no return where the jump couldn't be aborted, but he hoped they hadn't passed it if there was.
The dome lit up with fire. Oswald thought it might actually hold but the pent up fury of the warhead could not be contained. The dome top like the pedals of a dying flower. He could feel the hair all over his body relax.
"That was close," Mathesse sighed. "Good job, Pierce. Quick thinking."
"Just balancing the equation." There was absolutely no going back now. “We have burned our ships,” Oswald said grimly as he watched smoke escape into the frigid air. "We will burn with them."
They continued over the ridge and found a pleasant rock outcropping that afforded the men seats and a view to the distant horizon. Oswald imagined the beautiful savannah that once lived here. A thin mist from the defrosting ground rose around them, the ephemeral tendrils caressing the Earth's lost sons.
"Will we be able to see the planet in the sky?"
"I'm not sure," Oswald admitted. "I think we might see part of it. I could have had Breen drop us a little farther along the orbit to make sure we could. But I don't trust the Centipedes, so I put us as close as possible. I bet we'll get a good light show though."
Two hours later two contrails raced high above them. An hour after that a shifting curtain of glowing lights covered the sky.
"It's beautiful."
"I never saw the aurora borealis planet side," Mathesse commented. "I saw it from space a few times, but never from below."
"I saw it once in artic survival training, way back when they thought crews might survive crash landings on distant moons." Oswald laughed, thinking of Captain Yasmina and the Ice Pirates of Dronthul VII.
The lights in the sky continued their colorful dance. The display eased Oswald's heart. He saw it as a final parade put on by Earth for her two prodigal sons. A tremor rumbled deep beneath them.
"It shouldn't be too long now," Oswald said absently.
Mathesse opened the tool compartment on his vacc-suit and pulled out a small flask and extended a hose. "You want it?"
"What is it?"
"Does it matter?"
"I guess not," Oswald admitted, but a strange memory of chicken schnapps made his belly quiver. "You first."
"Naw," Mathesse drawled. "I brought it help take the edge off. But now I want to be sober when I meet the end. You though, you might need a strong drink."
"What do you mean by that?" Oswald hooked the tube to his vaccsuit's hydration resupply port but didn't drink.
"Pierce, if there is a God, a creator that cares about his creation, mind you I'm saying there is, but if there is, you'd better hope he, she, it, is merciful. Or, that it doesn't care what we little ants do in its sandbox.
"But if it does," Mathesse pointed an armored finger, "you are destroying a total of about ten billion deity-hours worth of work. Planets take a long time to bake in the oven you know."
"And how will it judge you, do you suppose?" Oswald replied curtly.
"As for me, people are easy come easy go. I doubt God cares that much—look how many it's killed. It is the same if it is nature or some fairy tale old man or woman." He took a deep breath that roared loudly in the mic. "I am more worried about how those people I murdered will judge me. If there is an afterlife, I expect they'll be there waiting. And I hope to God that they are merciful."
"I hate you, Asher."
"Me too."
Oswald took a long pull on the hydration tube in his helmet. The liquid burned and warmed him to his belly. At the moment he didn't care if it was jump drive coolant. He wasn't worried about divine judgment, though he did entertain the idea that there might to be something out there occasionally calling the shots. But he lived sober his whole life and if God was going to be angry about young Oswald breaking the furniture, he was going to
enjoy one last taste of Earth before being consigned to the flames.
"I joined EF because I hated Earth," Mathesse said in a wavering voice after another, more powerful rumble shook them. "Hated the people. Hated that I had to be around those people. But now that I see it like this, the Earth isn't very beautiful without them."
Their attention was drawn to a distant explosion in the sky. Several bright lights were slowly traversing at very high altitude. One exploded into a tiny cloud, its debris burning brightly for a few seconds.
"I think those are escape craft," Oswald said sadly. Two more burned up as Earth's atmosphere grabbed them, shook them, and spit them out. Two more burned away. But two made it, skimming the Earth but for a moment.
"I hope they make it," Mathesse said.
Oswald's sidelong glance went unseen. "Me too."
The end came quickly for them. A slim crescent of Beta Hydri II became visible for just a moment before the horizon was obscured by a wall of fire. Distant terrain began crumbling and wide cracks raced everywhere. Oswald's head swam as he sucked down the rest of the flask. Anahita's face smiled at him knowingly, reminding Oswald of the drink he turned down so long ago.
Mathesse began screaming incoherently over the mic. Oswald shut down his headset just before they were both thrown to the ground. They were bouncing up and down violently. If each jarring impact didn't send his ribs and back into a painful frenzy, Oswald would have considered it comical. The booze helped him fight the urge to scream "Stop it!" at the top of his lungs; instead he only whimpered it over and over.
But it didn't stop. The sky above grew angry as the atmospheres of the two planets fought to claw each other to shreds. Lighting began raining down, the blinding flashes automatically filtered to comfortable dimness by the visors.
Oswald found a purchase on a newly upturned shard of rock and clung desperately. His bones rattled and his teeth were jarred loose despite him painfully clenching his teeth. Mathesse's face silently screamed in terror behind his cracked visor as he was swallowed by one of the Earth's mortal wounds.