by L S Roebuck
Sparks was struggling to walk in a semi-straight line, as she followed behind Meliana. Meliana was holding the Queenie’s pistol out. The common waypoint speakers were blaring. A shrill female voice spoke, “Residents of Marquette. This is a drill. Please return to your quarters and comply with general curfew rules. Failure to participate in the drill will result in your immediate termination, by order of Chasm command.”
The pair were walking through a brightly lit corridor, with blank white walls and a series of portals. This section of the Africa Quarter was full of professional offices – lawyers, independent software engineers, and others had small workspaces here. The women found that all of the occupants of these offices were obeying curfew. The place was deserted.
“Like, we’re almost to the hanger,” Meliana said. “Gawds, you are smashed.”
“I havennnn’t had a drop. Drop. Drop.”
“This way,” Meliana opened a side hatch which led down a small, steep stairwell.
“Um… I don’t know if I can… umm…” Sparks put on foot tentatively on the first step, missed it entirely and fell down the flight to the hard metal floor.
“Owwwwwie,” Sparks mumbled, sitting up sticking a finger in the air. “I’m oooooo-kaaaay.”
Meliana looked both ways to see if anyone had seen them enter. When she was convinced they were not being followed, she descended the stairs, closed the hatch and helped Sparks to her feet. “That was noooot fun,” she said.
A few minutes later they were around a corner from the entrance to the secret headquarters.
“You think he is still in there?” Meliana asked Sparks.
“How’s shooed I know,” Sparks slurred. “But we better hurry. Hurry up. Getty up.”
Meliana rounded the corner with her gun drawn. The liar who said he was part of the Underground was still at this post, in dirty, baggie civilian clothes. He saw Meliana with her gun drawn and he just laughed.
“I guess you don’t know what a point defense system is,” he said. “All the elite guard have it. Go ahead, shoot.”
Sparks stepped forward and pushed down Meliana’s arm holding the gun. “I got this sister.”
Sparks sauntered toward the guard. “Hey cutie, you wouldn’t shoot something this beautiful.”
“Actually,” the man said, “you’re kind of a wreck. Your hair is messy, your face is filthy.”
“And I’m drunk as a skunk.”
“Is that so,” he said.
“You know what I like to do when I am drunk as a skunk,” Sparks said, as she licked he lips.
“No, but maybe I want to find out.” The man’s gaze had turned into a leer.
Sparks walked right up to the guard and started licking his ears, then his face, and his nose.
“Gross, stop,” the man pulled away a few centimeters. “I can find a better place for you to use that tongue though.”
“Elite guard, puuuushaah,” Sparks asked. “Pretty laaaame. I just swiped your gun.”
Sparks put two or three stun bolts into the man. Who fell to the floor, convulsing.
“Like, wow,” Meliana said as she stood next to Sparks.
Sparks grabbed the pistol out of Meliana’s hand and placed it next to the temple of the now unconscious guard. “Let’s see if point defense works at point blank range.” She pulled the trigger.
“Nope.”
The main door opened, and two guards came out, both holding onto one of North’s arm.
“Which airlock do we take him too?” one said as he looked up and noticed the dead man lying at the feet of Sparks and Meliana, with Sparks literally holding a smoking gun.
One of the guards immediately aimed his rifle at Sparks.
“Drop the gun, traitor,” he said. Sparks complied, slipping her now empty hand into her pocket.
“Sparks? What are you doing here?” North asked.
“I’m drunk off my ass! Woooot! And we’re saving you…. because I loooooove you North. I love your hard arms and your tight bu—”
“Shut up!” the guard said.
“Ready to go boom!?!” Sparks shouted with just a little too much crazy in her eyes.
“Holy crap, Sparks,” North said.
Sparks pulled out the last micro-bomb, inserted her fingernail and tossed it in the general direction of the escort guards – and North!
North’s self-preservation instincts kicked in, and though his hands were still zipped, he shoulder-butted the guard that still held him, knocking him to the ground. North dove to the ground himself and tried to roll away from the explosive pebble.
“What the!?” asked the guard who still had his assault rifle trained on Sparks.
Meliana jumped away, hitting the ground too and covering her head with her arms. Sparks just stood there, smirking. “Five, four, three –”
“No way that’s a bomb; you’re bluffing. What is it going to do, make a puff of smoke?” the armed guard said. He called to the other guard who was standing up after being knocked down. “Hey, come take a look at this.”
Wow, you are that dumb, thought Sparks as she turned around and started to walk away.
“Stop,” the armed guard said, “or I will shoo—”
Both guards were decimated in the blast. The explosive force caught Sparks by the back and threw her to the ground.
Alert alarms begin to blare as a pair of guards came out of the HQ to see what was going on. They saw Sparks on the ground, and then the smoldering pile of human flesh. North came from behind and kicked them in rapid succession in the back of the knees.
Sparks sprung down and picked up the stun gun and put both of the new Chasm troopers to sleep.
“Could you cut the zips off? Let’s get out of here, there’s a dozen more troopers in there,” North said.
Meliana started working on the cuffs.
Sparks walked up to North. “What? I saved your ass. Time for my… my… rewaaaard. I’m so lit!”
Sparks pushed her mouth onto North’s just as Meliana freed North’s hands. North put his strong arms around Sparks and held her tight.
“You almost blew me up,” he whispered in her ear.
“It was worth it.”
“Come on! Like, let’s go!” Meliana urged.
“Captain, Carlos is gone,” Rhodes said, starting to tear up again. She hadn’t known Lt. Spike that well, but he was a brother in arms, the first one that she lost. Maybe the second, if they have already killed North. The thought burned in Rhodes’ brain.
Cho saw the instability in Rhodes’ eyes. He stepped over from the command table to the comm station and put a hand on Rhodes’ shoulder. “Steady now,” he said, softly and deeply.
“Anti-basaltic missile system online,” Blight reported.
“Bring us around,” the captain said as he looked up from the tactical display to the portal on the bridge. He saw Utopia with his own eyes for the first time. The mammoth ship was almost twice as large as Magnus, and at least equally armed. Utopia was not trying to hide. The ship was brilliantly lit, with a metallic blue hue. The ship had a secondary hull which was the primary mechanism that allowed it to seemingly fuse with Marquette. Port and aft hanger doors slid open, and a swarm of half-size corvettes buzzed out of Utopia.
“I count fifteen, maybe twenty new bogies,” Cho reported from the tactical display.
“Helm, try to slip us between Utopia and Marquette. If we can’t disable Utopia, I still want to get our Marines onboard the waypoint,” the captain said.
“Wilco,” the short helmsman said.
“Prepare to empty our tubes. Let’s hit Utopia with everything we’ve got.”
North, Sparks and Meliana were looking for an escape pod. North’s plan was to eject from Marquette with the hope that they could get towed by a runabout or a corvette back to the Magnus. The pods had minimal propulsion, an emergency radio beacon, and not much else.
“Are we lost?” Sparks asked, rubbing her head. North instinctively grabbed for his infopad from his pa
ck, but forgot that Chasm had taken his gear.
“Let’s try this way,” North frowned, pointing toward what he thought was the exterior rim of Marquette. “You never have an infopad when you need one. I miss Condi.”
Sparks stim-high was fading, and she had descended into another headache. She signaled for her party to stop and get quiet, and listened. “Hear that,” she whispered. “We’re being followed.”
“Like, over there!” Meliana shouted as she pointed to an emergency direction marker. “It should be around the corner.”
North stepped around the corner and nearly ran head first into Ryder. She immediately drew her sword and swung for the Marine’s head.
“Ha! Knew you’d come for the escape pod,” Ryder said mid-swing. North dove under the blade and wrapped his arms around Ryder’s legs, bring her to the ground with a hard thud.
Sparks looked behind Ryder and saw a hideous Queenie, covered with freshly burned flesh and blast wounds, hair stuck together with matted blood. His leg was splinted and braced, forcing him to limp. He held an assault rifle at gut level and immediately started spraying bullets.
Sparks jumped and rolled, attempting to get out of Queenie’s line of fire. She felt a sharp pain in her right thigh. She made a show of reaching into her pocket and then flinging her hand at Queenie.
“No! Not again! Bomb!” Queenie shouted deliriously, dropped his rifle, and threw himself backward, stumbling over North and Ryder, who were struggling over Ryder’s katana blade.
I can’t believe that worked, Sparks thought as her imaginary bomb did no real damage. She reached for the fallen rifle.
Queenie’s momentum pushed North clear of the Ryder, and he was able to kick her swiftly in the head before springing to his feet. Still mad with hallucinogens, Queenie lunged at North. The pair grappled, but North clearly had the upper hand.
Sparks was lifting the assault rifle from the ground as Ryder thrust her sword, attempting to strike Sparks’ torso. Sparks lifted up the rife and used it to parry with Ryder’s lethal blade. Beads of sweat glistened on Ryder’s forehead, as she kept beating down on Sparks and the rifle, forcing Sparks to aggressively block. Sparks kept trying to get the lethal end of the rifle pointed at Ryder, but the spymaster’s relentless attacks forced her to keep using the gun as a shield.
North punched Queenie in the gut with so much power he was nearly lifted in the air as he vomited. Queenie forced himself to move through the convulsive expulsion of his last meal. North stepped back, and began to draw up another punch as Queenie reached for his sidearm, a stun weapon.
He was too slow, and this time, North hit him square in the nose. Queenie began to see stars and collapsed.
Sparks ducked a full slice from Ryder. “I treated you like a sister. I protected you. And now this is how it is?”
“I have no idea what game you are playing,” Ryder said as swung again. Sparks leapt back and tried to train the rifle on Ryder, but she was too quick and forced Sparks to defend again. “You’re playing North. You’re playing me. But it ends today. We’re both survivors, Sparks. You just bet on the wrong side at the wrong time. You actually thought you could kill the Chairman? So ignorant.”
Ryder lunged forward with her sword, and this time the blade slipped through the trigger guard. Sparks spun the rifle, and both it and the sword flew out of the women’s hands.
“You used up all your luck at Cortes,” Sparks said as she kick-boxed Ryder back a half-meter. Ryder sauntered out of range, and Sparks could see she was drawing her short knife. Pumped with adrenaline, Sparks did an impressive back handspring and reached for the entangled weapons. She came up with the katana.
“Goodbye, Ryder,” Sparks said. “Survivor no more.”
Sparks moved quickly to strike Ryder down. Ryder knew Sparks had the upper hand with the long sword, so in desperation she threw the knife at her former Chasm conspirator. She flung the nine-centimeter blade with expert aim at Sparks head. Sparks flinched to the left, and the knife stuck deep into her right shoulder.
The pain made her entire nervous system scream, but Sparks, on autopilot, stepped forward and pushed the katana into Ryder’s midriff. The sword had barely penetrated Ryder’s armor when the blade became stuck. Ryder struggled, but Sparks was the stronger of the two. She exerted herself, and drove the blade clean through Ryder. “I’m sorry.”
“Well done,” Ryder said, a smile lighting her face as she struggled to stand, impaled with her own blade. “So, this is how it ends? I was living on borrowed time, anyway. Don’t think ill of me, Sparks.”
Ryder fell to her knees. She was still struggling to stand, but the life was draining from her too fast now. Sparks pulled the short knife from her own shoulder and groaned.
“After all this, what do you care what I think of you?” Sparks said, as tears started to stream from her face.
“Because when I’m dead, all that remains …” Ryder fell down on her side, and tried to prop herself up on her elbow to keep her weight from pushing the blade laterally through her torso. “Auuugh… all that remains …. are the memories of me. No one… left from Cortes to care. And the Chairman —”
Ryder didn’t have the strength to prop herself up anymore, now fully collapsed on the floor, lying on her side as the blade twisted inside her from her own weight. Her head fell at an awkward angle. Sparks kneeled beside her, and gently lifted her head.
“The Chairman doesn’t think highly of failures, I know,” Sparks said softly. “I’m sorry, Ryder. I’m no saint. But we are not the same. You never repented. And I am an adopted Macready sister. Why should I think well of you now? What good have you done.”
“I… saved …” Ryder choked. “I saved Nora.”
“Yes. The girl from Cortes,” Sparks remembered.
“Don’t leave me… I am not ready to go. Oh, God.”
“I’m here, Ryder,” Sparks said gently. “I’m here.”
North came and kneeled next to Ryder.
“Godspeed, Ryder,” he said. North closed his eyes. “Lord, forgive her.”
When he opened them, Ryder was straining her head with her very last strength to catch his gaze. North reached out and stroked her jet-black hair.
“Don’t… trust … her,” the she-spy whispered nearly inaudibly with great effort.
Ryder’s eyes were filled with fear, and North smiled to comfort her.
She went limp.
“Senseless,” North said as he slowly stood up. “Crazy senseless.” He punched the wall in fury.
Sparks gently set Ryder’s head on the floor, and stood up as well. “I need a med kit. Looks like you KO’d Queenie.”
“Where’s Meliana?” North asked. “Did she run?”
Sparks scanned the corridor, then turned around the corner they came from. “North!”
The Marine rounded the corner and saw Meliana leaning up against the wall with a least a half dozen bullet holes permeating her body. Sparks had not even thought to consider if Queenie’s initial assault hit someone else.
North kneeled beside the bullet-ridden woman. Meliana’s breathing was shallow, and with the amount of blood on the floor, North knew her wounds were fatal.
“No! Queenie shot her! Sonofabitch,” Sparks grew enraged.
Meliana coughed blood. “Did you kill him? Did you get Queenie?”
“No,” North said, “I just knocked him out.”
“Please, kill him,” Meliana gasped.
“Meliana,” North protested.
“You … promised… me.”
Sparks limped back around the corner, blood leaking from the entry and exit point on her thigh wound, and stood over Queenie’s unconscious body. She pulled on his arms and dragged him. Her wounded shoulder spiked with intensely sharp pain, as did the ripped flesh in her thigh, but Sparks had learned how to use anger to ignore pain.
When Queenie was past the corner and in plain sight of Meliana, she dropped his arms. The jolting caused the man to stir. North stood up and ste
pped into a defensive posture.
Sparks limped to Ryder’s corpse, and with a quick yank from her good arm, she pulled the katana from the body. She returned to Queenie, who was still lying down, but rubbing his head as he slowly regained consciousness.
Meliana looked over at Queenie, her tears mixing with her blood.
Sparks swung as hard as she could to take Queenie’s head off. With her wounded shoulder, she didn’t have the strength to decapitate him cleanly, so the first blow didn’t kill him. Queenie shrieked in pain, and then fell unconscious again. Sparks hacked at his head a few more times before fully separating the cranium from the spinal cord.
She dropped the sword, walked over and collapsed next to Meliana.
“There you go,” she said. “Now Ehud and Barack can rest in peace. And so can you.”
Meliana smiled, and then she died.
“Let’s get out of here,” North said, as he wrapped his hand around Sparks waist to provide her support, and then they moved around the corner. North noticed Sparks was losing significant blood from her shoulder and thigh wounds. He made a mental note to find a medkit in the pod.
Sparks stopped them as they passed Queenie’s mangled body. She reached down and grabbed Ryder’s sword. Then the pair made their way down the hall to the pod.
North opened the pod door using a brute force manual override, and then allowed Sparks to climb in.
“I hope Magnus is waiting for us,” North said, and he sealed the door and started the eject sequence. He found the medkit, popped it open and began to tend to Sparks’ wounds.
With the briefest of wooshes, a burst of air ejected the pod clear of the Marquette. North felt the waning of the artificial gravity as the pod gained distance from the waypoint. He started to float, and pushed off the pod wall to position himself to peer out the small portal.
“Wow.”
Through the window he saw two of the most magnificent war machines ever built facing off against each other. Magnus, at full alert, appearing to stand its ground as Utopia, with its asymmetrical dual hull, drawing itself toward its nemesis. In the 20 or so kilometers between the ships, several dozen corvettes were engaged in a lethal dance, against a backdrop of a billion brilliant stars. The sight was horrible and beautiful at the same time. We’re so alone out here, and we’re killing each other, North thought. Humanity is sad.