by C. Gockel
“Yes,” Noa said. “Dr. Agnes, we need Dr. Okoro released into our custody.”
Gripping Noa’s hand, Dr. Agnes said, “I will help you, but you have to get all the political prisoners out of here, not just Okoro. And Celia, too.” She waved at the nurse at her feet. “The staff and other patients can shelter in place—there is a bunker below the building we will go to. But the political prisoners would mix with the general prisoner population there…and they cannot do that. Do you understand?”
6T9’s hands curled into fists, but his rage was toward himself. He’d thought of torturing this woman who was going to shelter in place with psychopaths and was bartering for the lives of political prisoners?
“How many?” said Noa.
“Only twelve, including Okoro, and they are all on this floor.”
“We’ll do it,” said Noa. Inclining her head to the fallen Marine and nurse Celia, she added, “6T9, we called you in to help with first aid—”
6T9 picked up Celia and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and grabbed the still unconscious—hopefully unconscious Marine—again by the rifle strap and began lugging them toward the door.
Joseph followed him. “Can I help?”
“Joseph’s one of the political prisoners,” Dr. Tran assured Noa and 6T9.
But 6T9 didn’t waste power to answer. The lights flickered on, and the ethernet sparked to life in 6T9’s skull. Noa’s channel erupted in his mind, giving orders through the cipher for the Marines to help the patients that Dr. Agnes would soon be releasing from their cells. Dr. Agnes said, “The Minister’s Service gave Hospital Security orders to stay below, but I’m directing them to start evacuating the regular patient population to the bunker…opening doors for the political prisoners now. They aren’t dangerous…”
There were shouts from the Marines around 6T9 as doors slid open. “Sir, this way, sir, you are being evacuated,” and “Ma’am, the volcano is erupting, you must come with me. I’m with the Galactic Fleet.”
Moments later, the hallway was flooded with prisoners and Marines. 6T9’s steps were awkward with the weight of the two injured humans. The body he hauled on his shoulder effectively left him blind on that side. One of the Marines, unidentifiable through his visor, said, “I got your Devil Dog,” and relieved 6T9 of the Marine. The handover made 6T9 glance down the hall…James had his back against the door of the cell the Minister’s Service was taking shelter in—Dr. Tran hadn’t—or couldn’t—lock it. James was grimacing, straining to keep it closed and failing. The door was grinding open, millimeter by millimeter. The men inside had phasers and grenades, the hallway was crowded, and 6T9 couldn’t run. His Q-comm sparked and his vision went white. He threw Celia into the arms of the startled Joseph and raced to help James with the door. James shouted aloud and into the ether, “Keep Cell 1135 closed!” Distantly, 6T9 heard Noa repeat the order to Agnes, and Agnes’s reply, “But Dr. Darlene Tong is in that cell!”
Reaching the door, 6T9 added his weight and strength to James’s. He shouted into the fingers-width opening, “This is the Galactic Fleet, we are in the midst of a volcanic eruption. Surrender, and you will be allowed to evacuate with us.”
From inside came a muffled swear.
James grunted. “Already offered them that option.”
Someone else within said, “They’ll evacuate us.”
“And then we’ll go to trial!”
There was the sound of scuffling, the door shut a few millimeters, and then there was the sound of phaser fire, and the man who said they’d go to trial said, “We’re getting out of here, and we’re not going to any Galactic prison.”
There were shouts from within, and then the pressure on the door increased.
6T9 looked down the hall.
Agnes was still tethered to the outlet by his cable, but she was standing in the hallway. “You have to get Dr. Tong,” she implored.
To escape they’d need to clear the hall, to clear the hall—
The door opened a fraction more, just wide enough for a grenade to be tossed out. It hit the opposite wall and came to rest on the floor. Releasing the door, James jumped on top of it. Without his weight, the door swung open just as another grenade was launched out of the cell. Someone screamed. Noa shouted, “James!” and 6T9 was blind with the spark of his Q-comm and a heat of rage so strong he felt like he might have gone supernova. He spun around the door. His vision came back, and he was staring into the startled eyes of a man in black armor. 6T9 grabbed him and threw him on top of the second grenade just as the first one beneath James exploded. His auditory apparatus went offline, a shadow streaked through the hall, and a Marine landed atop the second body. 6T9 spun back to the cell and faced a man raising a phaser pistol. The second grenade went off and 6T9 dropped as though hit in the calves, but before his knees hit the floor, he pushed off his toes, plowing into the man with the phaser and knocking him to the floor. Phaser fire erupted from the man’s pistol, and a piece of the ceiling fell in a shower of sparks. There were boot steps behind him, and Marines in their mirror-like suits flooded in. Stunner fire flickered above 6T9. The window in the cell cracked. 6T9’s auditory functions came online to James’s shout of, “No...ah!”
Someone shouted, “Admiral!”
“I’m…” Noa panted. Her voice came from atop the second grenade. She’d been the shadow 6T9 had seen streaking to pin the minister’s agent atop it.
Noa. James. 6T9’s body trembled with fury. The man beneath 6T9 struggled, trying to take advantage of the moment of weakness and bring the phaser pistol up between their bodies. 6T9 caught his arm and smacked it down on the man’s own chest so the pistol was just beneath the chin guard of his uniform. Minister’s Guards in black writhed with Marines in their camouflage armor in the periphery of his vision. The chemical signature of sulfur filled 6T9’s sensory receptors. Something black and hot enough to burn synth skin landed on the floor.
6T9 stared down at the man beneath him. They were in the midst of a natural disaster. The Dark was coming. And this…thing…had hurt James and Noa and was endangering Volka and Carl and the rest of the human race for what 6T9 could only surmise was political reasons. With a cry of rage, he ripped the man’s stunner pistol out of his hand. And then he couldn’t set it down; the man might grab it again. His vision went white, and he brought the hand with the pistol down on the side of the man’s head. The man was wearing a helmet and the shock of the impact raced up 6T9’s arm, again, and again, and again.
His metal bones and synth muscle and sinews were brought to a halt by Noa’s shout. “Marines, get Dr. Tong and move out!”
Noa was alive.
6T9 blinked down at the man beneath him. The human’s head was caved in on one side. The line from a children’s rhyme a thousand years old ran through his mind. Humpty dumpty had a great fall.
“Ramirez, you got Dr. Tong?”
Dr. Tong…they needed to get Dr. Tong so they could leave and 6T9 could get back to Carl and Volka. He glanced up and saw Ramirez sitting on his haunches beside a woman in civilian clothes that had to be Tong. 6T9 scrambled to his feet and stumbled toward them. Ramirez’s visor was up and his lips were parted in a look of shock—or maybe anguish—as 6T9 picked up the doctor and turned around to find Noa—slender, human, centurion—no, a centurion was a Roman soldier—centenarian Noa, with James over her shoulder, sparks dancing along his body. Noa must be almost as much a machine as 6T9 was now. He’d seen her leap into the ship. Centurion centenarian. The spark from his Q-comm made his lips quirk, even as sulfur levels were rising, and his skin was singed by falling ash.
Noa pulled from the doorway and Marines and 6T9 followed her down the hallway. Two Marines were carrying men in black uniforms over their shoulders. Presumably unconscious. 6T9 cradled Darlene against his body and ran behind them. When he reached the roof, all he could see was black.
Sundancer’s interior was pitch black. At first, Volka thought it was fear—the ship was nervous—it was a
constant cold gnawing in her stomach. But then lights from rifle recoil dampeners glowed through the floor, and she just barely made out the forms of the three Marines on the roof below. The ship had closed her keel, and the pitch blackness was above and around, but not quite below. The ship trembled, and Volka’s vision went black completely. She couldn’t see anything…she couldn’t see anything!
Blinded, Volka shouted, “She can’t see! The ship! It’s making her scared.”
“Letting the guys below know,” Jerome said. “There are four centis of ash accumulated out there…do you think it would help if we shoveled off her external visual sensors?”
At his words, Volka automatically pictured the scene in her mind, the three Marines shoveling ash off of Sundancer’s body. Her vision returned, but—
“I don’t know—” Where her eyes are, she almost said. Think, Volka. Her ears tried to flatten. How did the ship see? Sundancer’s dreams weren’t like a television; they were always in 360 degrees, even more immersive than a holo. “I think her whole body is her eyes.”
The tablet Jerome held brightened and lit the dim space. Lights came on inside his helmet, and through his visor, Volka saw a furrow forming in his brow. “Mops would be better than shovels, but not exactly standard kit.”
“The foam in the suitcases!” Volka declared.
“Yeah, that will work if they get on their hands and knees.”
“Not from my bed!” cried Carl, in her mind.
Volka ran to a case that wasn’t Carl’s refuge, opened it, and ripped out the foam, grimacing at the effort.
Beside her, Jerome was doing the same to the contents of another case far more easily. “Can you get the ship to open up again?” he asked.
Could she? She didn’t know why Sundancer had closed in the first place. Maybe the sulfur that Bracelet had complained about? Sundancer certainly protected them from vacuum. Maybe she had a sense for safe levels of chemicals…or maybe her nose was on the inside, and she didn’t like the smell of rotten eggs. Who knew?
Jerome threw a piece of foam padding in Volka’s general direction and ripped out two more. Volka moved the foam to the spot in the ship’s keel that normally opened and pictured the men outside, scrubbing the ship with the foam. There was a whoosh, the floor opened, the foam fell, and the floor shut again. “How will they get up on top of her?” Volka asked.
Jerome blinked inside his helmet as though her question was confusing. “Jump.”
It was meters off the ground, but of course they were augmented. “Right,” said Volka and peered above her. A sort of smear appeared directly down the center of the roof.
“Incoming,” said Jerome. “She has to open up.”
Volka didn’t ask who, just pictured the keel opening again. Her stomach turned nauseously, and her nose itched. “I know it smells like rotten eggs, Sundancer,” she whispered. “But there are people out there.”
The keel opened. There was a Marine below, his suit coated hopelessly with soot and ash, and next to him was an unsuited male figure, blackened from head to toe, his shirt pulled up over his nose and mouth. “Sixty!” she called, but the shirt fell, and an unfamiliar face looked up at her. The Marine’s helmet opened. “Lower the ship—but not all the way to the ground,” he shouted.
Volka pictured the ship lowering. Jerome was at the edge of the opening an instant later, bending over and hauling the human up. Was it Okoro? The Marine who’d escorted him jumped in, turned around, and there was another unfamiliar civilian and another Marine unidentifiable in a coat of ash. Another civilian and another Marine emerged in the darkness, and another. A human woman, unconscious, missing an arm in what might have been scrubs was handed up gently. Volka’s eyes went wide, seeing what looked like Sixty’s shirt tied to the stump. Volka held her breath, but the next to be handed up was an injured Marine, moaning in her suit. Volka scrambled out of the way and then pushed her way between the new arrivals. Everyone was taller than her, packed tight in the space only lit by the tablet and the glow from a few neural ports. Everyone was coated in grime, their features hard to distinguish. She didn’t see Sixty. With her helmet’s visor shut, she couldn’t smell him.
There was a huff of exertion from the Marines hauling people into the ship. Some were dressed in jumpsuits too stained by ash to identify their colors. They were frightened, and the Marines patted them on the shoulders and said soft words as they gently—but methodically—pushed them toward the back of the ship. But others they were hauling up were wearing black armor. They were all unconscious, and the Marines didn’t handle them gently. When one of those armored men stirred, Ramirez growled and stunned him fast.
Volka pushed her way to the opening and saw them hauling up someone in a Fleet envirosuit. Through the suit’s visor, Volka saw a lock of gold hair and half-closed blue eyes sparking with electricity. It was James. There was a crackle, and streams of electricity sizzled along his suit as well. Noa jumped into the ship a few moments later. Heedless of the electricity, she hauled James into her arms. Raising her head, she called out, “Okoro?” A man shouted from the aft passageway, “Here.” At his response, Noa released an audible breath and carried James awkwardly toward the back.
Their bridge was packed with Marines, the people in jumpsuits, and stunned men in black. “Sixty? Sixty?” Volka called out and got no response. More Marines jumped into the ship. From the amount of soot on them, she knew they had to be the ones who’d been cleaning Sundancer. One of them said, “It’s getting worse by the second…it’s like a blizzard out there.”
Could Sixty not see in the ash storm? Volka dropped to her stomach at the opening and hung outside the ship upside down. “Open my mask,” she commanded Bracelet.
It opened with a snick and a hiss. Soot bit her lungs and nose, but in the darkness, she saw two glowing eyes. “Sixty!” she called out. He was already heading in the ship’s direction, and her call wasn’t needed, but she felt better seeing him. There was pressure on her chest, and she was hauled bodily upward into the ship. For the first time, she noticed the rank smell of burning hair and skin.
“He’s fine, Volka. We need you to fly this thing,” Ramirez said.
Volka’s ears struggled to flatten. Translation: Mind your part.
A moment later, Sixty leaped inside. He landed with his face away from her, and she couldn’t read his expression, but she saw that in his arms he carried a civilian. Her eyes widened. It was Darlene Tong. “Sixty,” she shouted. Sixty’s head snapped in her direction, the movement too fast and sharp to be human. His eyes were glowing, and his soot black face was streaked by tears. Turning away, he said, “Medical!” And someone shouted from an aft compartment. “Back here!”
“He’s fine,” Ramirez said again, though Volka couldn’t believe it. The memory of his tears was at the forefront of her mind.
“Everyone is accounted for. Volka, take us back to Time Gate 1,” Admiral Sato ordered, her voice rising from the aft hallway, silencing the din. The admiral said nothing about James. Could he be fixed? Volka couldn’t think about it like Noa couldn’t think about it. Volka closed her eyes and had a moment of panic. “Carl?”
“Suit-cased up and safe! Get us out of here.” She heard the words in her mind. She wouldn’t have been able to hear them with her ears. The bridge had filled with sound and conversation as soon as Noa had finished her command.
Volka focused; she thought of Time Gate 1, and the gnawing anxiety returned, the anxiety of blindness. Sundancer couldn’t see…but how could that matter? When Volka had lost Carl at the Luddeccean embassy, Sundancer hadn’t needed to see him to find him sleeping in a window nook. When Volka had lost Sixty that same night, Sundancer hadn’t needed to see to find him in the kitchen.
“We’re not moving,” someone said.
“Volka—” the voice came from Lieutenant Young.
“Shh…I’m thinking!” Volka exclaimed.
Sundancer was telepathic. Maybe Sundancer’s “sight” through walls hadn’t been
her “sight” at all. Maybe it had been telepathy? If everyone around the ship was blind, she couldn’t see…
“Volka,” Young said in a low voice.
“Please…be quiet,” she begged and bit her lip.
There was no chance everyone in the volcano’s range was blind though…what could it be? She gasped in understanding. The humans in the eruption’s radius were blind, though—they would be relying on machines, reading schematics and charts with symbols that were abstractions, like language was an abstraction. Maybe Sundancer couldn’t understand them?
“Bracelet,” Volka said, opening her eyes and ripping off her glove. “Do you have ethernet access? Are ships communicating with each other?”
“It’s spotty but still available,” Bracelet said.
“Project a holo of us and what is going on around us,” Volka commanded, ripping off her glove. And then added, “Please.”
“On it…” A holo version of the scene outside sprung from Volka’s wrist before the final syllable.
“Thank you,” Volka whispered, focusing on the holo. There were ships above them, and things that might be drones. Bracelet had turned the ash into a shimmering curtain of light that was pretty in the holo—not like the stinking, black shroud it really was. Bracelet showed the extent of the ash around them, above them, and where it came from. Not from the huge smoking peak Volka had noticed this morning, but from one of the smaller mountains. That must be Little Loaf. The scene shifted, and Volka felt the slight pressure of acceleration—muted, as it always was in Sundancer. A Shinar human standing nearby shouted, “That holo can’t be accurate! Little Loaf did not erupt.”
His tone was angry. Volka’s eyes rose to him in alarm. All his attention was on the holo. Ramirez strode by her fast and was in the man’s face an instant later, pushing him to the back of the ship. “This way, sir,” he rumbled.
Lieutenant Young moved her to the side, stood across from her, and shielded her and the holo from the crowd with an arm upon her shoulder. Another Marine backed up against Young’s arm, giving her more privacy. “Get her moving again,” Young said, which was when Volka realized Sundancer’s acceleration had stopped as her attention had wandered—or, perhaps Sundancer had felt the man’s disbelief and had become frightened. The cold heaviness in her gut made Volka think that was true.