Sylvia looked at all the people in the room. She took a couple steps toward me, standing in my face, though I certainly had height on her. “Don’t think I’m afraid of you.”
I winked at her. “Noted.” I looked again at Wade.
He tossed me a small fob, which I luckily had just enough reflexes to catch. “There’s the access key. Head out the door I came in and go to the four-story building just ahead. It’s on top of there.” He added, with a bit of uncertainty, “Good luck.”
“Get everyone to the transport,” I said. “When things are clear, get off planet. And look for me. You’ll not be getting the ship back, by the way.” I walked toward the door and turned to face everyone. “You might hear panic and screaming outside.” I flashed them a smile. “But that will be a good sign.”
I stepped outside. It was night, but things were lit well enough by the three moons in the sky for me to see. There was also what looked like a bright star overhead that I assumed was the gunship up in orbit. There weren’t really any places in my hospital gown to stow guns, so I just held them casually to my sides as I headed for the building ahead of me. I did stumble a bit as I walked, as I was still not completely together. That was helpful, though, as it kept me from looking like an immediate threat to the mercenaries who spotted me.
“Hey!” one yelled at me, backed by two others. “You need to —”
I have a bad habit of interrupting people. Mainly because I find most people completely tedious with nothing of even the slightest interest to tell me. It’s something I had wanted to work on, but now was not the time. So I cut off the merc’s words by burning a hole in his chest and shot the two others next to him before they even thought to react. I then continued to the nearby building with no more conversational awkwardness.
Even though you’re not supposed to use it in the case of an emergency, I took the elevator to the top, as I really felt too winded for more stairs. On the fourth floor was a door that led me outside, where on the roof sat a small black craft. I used the fob Wade had given me and a side door opened up. I stumbled in, closing the door behind me.
Dip, can you interface with this thing?
“Yes, I can.”
Get us in the air. Keep your distance from the gunship until I say I’m ready.
The craft began to rise, and I headed to the well-marked emergency compartment. Inside were a couple of basic brown spacesuits with oxygen. As the ship continued into the atmosphere, I put on one of the suits, finally feeling a bit more prepared to take on a massive military ship now that I had pants. I couldn’t find a place to store my guns, though, so I tossed them to the floor. I was heading to a military vessel — surely there would be plenty of guns on it.
I walked to the craft’s small airlock and looked out the window as the dark sky started to fill with more stars. I want you to fly right past the gunship, Dip — close as you can. On an upward trajectory like we’re trying to escape. And keep the airlock pointed toward it and try to match the gunship’s speed and orbit just before everything happens.
“Before what happens?”
You’ll see.
“This seems dangerous.”
The danger is what makes it heroic.
“Unless this is some weird suicide attempt.”
I’m pretty sure it’s not.
The ship picked up speed as I entered the airlock and closed the internal door. Out of a small window in the exterior door I could see the massive gunship, which now took up almost all of my view. Alarms started blaring, waking a nearly dormant headache in me. “We’ve been detected,” Dip informed me.
A few glowing things started flying from the gunship, heading straight toward me. “Yep.”
CHAPTER 3
I opened the airlock just as the first missile impacted the not-quite-stealthy-enough stealth craft, which had now slowed to stay next to the gunship. I activated the small jets on my suit to get away from the craft as it broke apart, toward the side of the gunship. The idea was to hit the ship at the same time pieces of my destroyed vessel pelted it. If I set off sensors when I hit the ship, I would be dismissed as debris. I hit rather hard, though, and it knocked the wind out of me.
But that was just the start.
Another spasm of pain shot through my body. For a moment I felt like my skin was being torn apart all over my body, but it soon died down, and I caught my breath as my heart raced once again. As I calmed down, I tried to see where I was. I was clinging to the side of something like a massive skyscraper, except this one lacked windows or other obvious entry points — well, besides the missile ports that covered the vessel, as part of its main function. Many of them were just large enough for a man to crawl inside.
The one I chose was still radiating heat from blowing apart my ship (well, Sylvia and Wade’s ship, but I had warned them). I found myself staring down another missile that blocked my path. I knew the obstruction sensors would be going off now, but the crew would again just assume it was debris from the craft they had just blown apart. In reaction to the obstruction, the ship would flood the missile port with a plasma blast, incinerating anything inside. I was counting on this. I mean, I didn’t want to be incinerated — this would have been a really convoluted way to commit suicide — but for the plasma torch to operate, the missile blocking me first had to be moved. As machinery moved the missile out of my way, I quickly engaged my jets to launch myself past where it had been and then kicked down into the maintenance area just as the area above me became a furnace of thousands of degrees.
It was a small maintenance area with just enough space for a person to squeeze through when someone had to come back here to fix the machinery that loaded ordinance. This part was still vacuum, but ahead of me I could see the light blue glow of a soft airlock — a gravitational field that holds air but that larger solids can be forced through. It was a bit like moving through water — though much thicker — and on the other side I had the sickening feeling of suddenly being hit with artificial gravity.
Dip, can you grab any communications?
“A lot of it is encrypted,” Dip answered. “I’m getting some general chatter. Some is from planet Lavaria. Somehow all their missile defenses are failing. They expect to be completely defenseless in less than ten minutes. And then ... well, they’re expecting an attack from something.”
So I have a few minutes to get this done.
I took off my helmet and let it hang from the back of my suit; I would need to be able to see here and step carefully. The exit from the maintenance area was only sealed tightly if the soft airlock failed, so it opened easily into a hallway of the gunship. My entrance was unseen, but I could hear voices nearby. Two females.
“So what did we just shoot down?” asked one.
“It was like a stealth ship,” said the other. “Didn’t pop up on sensors until it got close.”
I glanced down another hall and could see two young human women in military uniforms watching some monitors. They each had a holstered pistol, which would certainly work for my purposes. Killing people hand to hand was always messy, but I just had to lure them my way by making a noise, and then I could easily kill them with their own guns.
“They don’t seem like much of a threat,” Dip said.
They’re part of a group attacking a hospital. I’m pretty sure that gives me moral cause to kill everyone here.
“Still, it seems like you shouldn’t just kill if not directly threatened. Plus, you don’t really know enough of the whole situation yet to start executing people.”
I could hear the two young women joking about something I didn’t recognize — a TV show, maybe. They certainly didn’t seem like hardened mercenaries. They seemed more like the people you might find in the military on some planet that hadn’t known war in a long time — which was most of the civilized ones recently. And this was certainly a military vessel — not something those killers down on the planet would be in possession of.
Fine. Whatever. I don’t care. I won�
��t kill them if they don’t try to kill me.
But I did have to get past them. I decided there was no reason to make it complicated, though. I just walked down the hallway at a normal pace. One of the women, freckled with light brown hair, turned to look at me, looking slightly confused. I flashed her my very well-practiced charming smile, and she returned it. The other woman, a cute girl with dark hair tied in a ponytail, looked and smiled at me too. Even just out of a coma, I've still got it.
After I was past them, though, I realized it had been quite a while since I had been on this type of ship. I only had a few minutes to stumble through remembering things, so I headed back to the two women.
“Hey, do you know where the nearest sensor maintenance panel is?”
“Just down the hallway to the right,” the freckled one answered.
“Why are you wearing an emergency spacesuit?” the dark-haired one asked.
“I don’t even want to go into it,” I said as I waved my hand in the air. “Thanks.” I followed the directions and found the panel in a small, secluded alcove. I opened it and stared for a moment at the wiring and sensors inside. There were a number of things I would need to pull off my little stunt, and they weren’t things I could easily find lying around. I started to realize how foolish it was for me to just charge in when I had any goal other than shooting everyone, especially when all I wanted right now was a nap.
I headed back to the two women again. “Hey, I know you two must be really busy, but is there any way you could both help me for a sec?”
“What do you need?” the dark-haired one asked.
“There’s a quick maintenance check I need to do on the sensor panel. It would be easier with a little help.”
“Sure, we can help,” the freckled one said. “We’ve just been standing here for hours staring at sensors. I’m Whitney, by the way.”
“And I’m Cheri,” the dark-haired one said.
“Rico. I don’t think I’ve met you two.”
Whitney shrugged. “It’s a big ship. You ... you don’t look so good.”
I shook my head. “I literally can’t remember last night. But I have to get this done. Thanks for the help.”
We headed for the panel. “I wonder what the Fathom are doing down there,” Cheri said.
I shrugged. “I’m not the one to ask about what’s going on.”
“I heard it’s a hospital,” Whitney said.
“And now we’re supposed to hold everyone there while the planet’s missile defenses are being taken down,” Cheri added. She trembled a bit as we reached the panel. “You think the Fathom are going to do to Lavaria what they did to Bastor?”
I nodded. “Probably. So I need a vacuum and a communication module — and an adapter for whatever that plug is on here.” I pointed to a small V-shaped plug.
“Why don’t you have the equipment for this?” Cheri asked.
I sighed. “I don’t want to catalog the extent of my screw-up if I don’t have to, but I need to get this done quick.”
“There’s a closet near here that has a vacuum.” Whitney rushed off to grab it.
“I have a communication module.” Cheri held up a small, square computer. “If it has the standard interface, it should work.”
“Awesome.” I took it and plugged it into the sensor panel. I then typed on the small touch screen the parameters for a looped message output. “Does this have the right key in it so the system will accept it?”
“No, I’ll put it in there.” Cheri took over and entered in the encryption key.
Whitney returned with a handheld vacuum. “So what am I doing with this?”
“Oh, I can take over now if you two need to get back to what you were doing,” I said.
Whitney smiled at me. “It’s no problem.”
“We’ll hear our console beep from here if anything comes up,” Cheri added.
“Okay.” I pointed to an indented area on the panel. “There’s a sensor in here. I need you to use the vacuum to lower the air pressure around it.”
Whitney tried to fit the vacuum nozzle in the indent. “Oh, I get it. That’s the inner breach sensor. We’re simming a hull breach.”
I nodded. “Yep, you got it.”
Cheri turned on the vacuum. “Why are you doing this now?”
“We’re in combat,” I explained. “That makes it all the more important to make sure the sensors are working. When was the last time you saw someone doing a check like this?”
They both shrugged.
“I can’t believe what’s going on right now,” Whitney said as she tried to hold the vacuum nozzle in place. “I just joined up because this was supposed to be a fun thing to do and would help pay for university. I never in a million years thought there would be a war.”
“There’s not going to be a war,” Cheri said. “When those allying with the old faction realize it’s pointless to go up against the Fathom, they’ll give up, and there will be peace.”
“Who do you think the Fathom are?” I asked.
“I’m not even worrying about it,” Whitney said. “They’re obviously very advanced and very powerful.”
“I heard they’re not even corporeal,” Cheri added. “No bodies. Beings of pure energy.”
“Whatever they are,” Whitney said, “I’m happy letting them be in charge and staying out of their way.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay out of their way.” I smiled. “I’m a troublemaker.”
They didn’t smile. “Don’t even joke about it,” Cheri said. “Hey, what are you doing with the communication module?”
I tapped the module. “I’m going to jam the system with too many messages to sim a communication failure.”
“So you’re simming a hull breach plus communication failure?” Cheri asked.
“That’s right,” I answered. “It’s a special condition. If the hull is breached and command can’t be reached, the system assumes the ship has been extremely damaged. It then automatically performs a jump to safety.”
“So like back to planet Cotra?” Cheri asked.
I nodded. “Probably.” I handed the communication module to her. “So make sure that’s running in a loop.”
Whitney fiddled with the vacuum nozzle. “I don’t think we’re setting off the sensor, though.”
I took the nozzle from Whitney and tried to stick it into the indent, but it wouldn’t fit. “We must not have enough of a seal around it.”
“So do you think something is going wrong on the planet below?” Cheri asked. “I heard chatter that we lost communication with whoever is leading that assault down there.”
I looked around for something to help make the seal on the sensor. “I heard they’re dead. Killed by someone claiming to be the Angel of Death. And he says he’s coming for this ship next.”
“You’re really pushing it,” Dip intoned.
If I’m not killing anyone, I have to have my fun somehow.
Whitney and Cheri both stared at me, mouths agape. “You’re joking, right?” Cheri demanded.
I tried to cup around the vacuum nozzle with my hands. “That’s the communication they got from the ground.”
Whitney gasped. “Could that stealth ship we just shot down have been him?”
I shook my head. “If that was the Angel of Death, I doubt he’d go down that easily.”
“What if he got off of the ship before it was blown up?” Cheri suggested. She took another look at me and the emergency spacesuit I was wearing.
“Why aren’t you two at your post?” a man asked. I turned to see a young soldier with a rifle — ship security. He was staring right at me and started to grip his gun tighter.
I was about to say something, but Whitney spoke first. “Kohler, can you grab some duct tape? It would be in the storage closet.”
“We’re doing a sensor test,” I added. “We need to make a seal on this vacuum.”
His grip relaxed on his gun. “But what —”
“
Quickly!” I shouted. I find if you yell at people, they often just assume you’re in a position of authority.
Kohler rushed off and returned a few seconds later with a roll of duct tape. “Why are we doing a sensor test in the middle of combat?” he asked as he handed the roll over.
I quickly wrapped tape around the vacuum nozzle, sealing it in the indent. “Trust me, this is for everyone’s safety.” A red light started going off on the panel.
“We did it!” Whitney exclaimed. “We set off the sensor!”
An alarm started blaring above us as red lights flashed throughout the hallway. There was a loud thud as doors sealed around us in reaction to the sensed hull breach.
Cheri went wide-eyed. “I thought this was just a test.”
I waved my hand in the air. “Just ignore all that. So are you still blocking the communications with command?”
“Yeah, but —” Cheri took a couple steps away from me, freeing up one hand to go for her gun. They weren’t buying it anymore; I had pushed this about as far as it would go.
“Who are you?” Kohler demanded, again tightening his grip on his gun. It was time to say goodbye to my new friends.
“You could still try to resolve this nonviolently,” Dip suggested.
Fine.
I landed my fist on Kohler’s chin as he began to raise his rifle. Even though I still wasn’t a hundred percent, it was a picture-perfect punch, bouncing him off the wall and dropping him unconscious to the floor.
“That wasn’t nonviolent,” Dip said.
Oh. When you said “nonviolent,” I just took that as don’t shoot them all. I’ll handle my assistants nonviolently.
Whitney and Cheri were both frozen and staring at me, Whitney still holding the vacuum in place and Cheri with the communications module in one hand. Neither had reached for their guns yet, as they were too shocked and too scared. “Who are you?” Cheri managed.
I smiled, and they both went white. “You know exactly who I am.”
Whitney didn’t move. Cheri, though, made an ever-so-small movement with her hand. She was trying to build up the will to draw her gun. I was going to have to put a pin in that.
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