by Rob Dearsley
“I don’t know. They’ll probably make for the docking bay as well.” Aarav said. “We have to go.”
Dannage pulled up. “No. You Stars-damned coward. I need to help my friends. Or at least get in contact.” Yes, he needed a com-link. “We need coms, where?”
The roar of the Turned echoed Dannage’s anger.
“Yes, good plan. There are coms in the Gondola,” Aarav said, his voice getting high and tight. Maybe it was the Turned on the loose or maybe it was seeing what Dannage had done to Craven. Dannage didn’t really care.
“How far?”
“We’re at the mid-point of the station, so a little over five-hundred meters, but we need to double back past the lab.” Craven was interrupted by the whump of a siren.
“That’s the security lockdown. We’ll need to go around it somehow,” Aarav said, his eyes too wide, his breathing shallow.
“Comms, man,” Dannage snapped. Shaking Aarav by the shoulders. “There has to be something closer.”
“The old core room,” Aarav said. “It’s just down there. It used to be linked in to everything on Garrison. It should have access to coms. And it’ll be the most secure room on the Garrison.”
Aarav led them up a ramp and through the tight curve of one of the central hallways. The wall and ceiling panels had been ripped out to make room for a snaking tangle of data cables that covered every spare inch of space, mixed in with the cables were clear tubes, traces of orange liquid still resting in the bottom of the loops. What the heck had they been doing in here? It looked like Craven’s experiments, but there was no way he could have gotten set up that fast. Was there?
Aarav swiped his flex over the control panel and the doors opened. The walls of the room were lined with server racks, chittering away with activity. In the centre of the core was a giant brain-like structure held within a tank. The lighting filtering through the orange liquid gave the room an odd underwater feel. Masses of scar tissue crusted the right-hand side of the brain. Stars, what was that thing? His head remained clear, so it was either properly dead or not Terran.
Aarav fidgeted nervously, as Craven marched over to a console a hit a couple of controls. “Your com-link.” He held a receiver unit out.
Dannage snatched it off him. “Arland? Arland, you there?”
The speaker buzzed.
“Outterbridge? Luc? Anyone?” Damn it, Arland. Pick up.
He thumbed the unit again, about to make another plea into the sea of white noise.
“Captain? Are you okay? Did you get away?” Stars it was good to hear Arland’s voice.
“I’m with Aarav and Craven. We’re fine. You got the Doc with you?”
“Yes, we’re fine. We’re heading for the docking bay, but we’ve lost sight of the Turned.”
“Last we saw it, it was back in the lab, but I doubt it’s there now. Anyway, can you meet up with us?”
The soft sound of voices, Arland talking to the others, then she was back. “We’d have to go back through the lockdown. If you can get this side of the lockdown, we can link up with you.”
“Okay, we’ll see what we can do.” Dannage looked from Aarav to Craven. “Stay safe.”
“You too, sir.” And with that, Arland cut the com-link.
Dannage looked down at the inactive com unit for a moment as though it would give him the answers he wanted. “Right. What’s the best route to the docking bay?”
Aarav looked around, wringing his hands and pacing. “We can’t go back out there. It’ll kill us. We should hold up until help comes.”
“Doctor Aarav does have a point,” Craven said from the coms console. “This room is secure and we’re safe here.”
“You want punching again?”
Craven put his hands up, backlit by flickering from the tank. “No need for violence. At the very least, we’ve got computer access here, plans, station scanners, we should take advantage of it.”
He was right. Damn his smug-assed look. But he was right.
“Fine, bring up the station plans.” Dannage moved to look over Craven’s shoulder as he worked the console bringing up a wireframe schematic of the station. Concentric rings of corridors radiated out from the central tramline that ran almost the whole length of the Garrison, dotted with stations like the one they’d used. Several sections flashed orange, locked down.
“If we loop around the planet-facing side we can get past, then make for the tram station here.” Dannage pointed.
“So,” Aarav said. “That thing could be anywhere.”
“You got scanners?” Dannage asked.
Craven worked the console for a moment and the map was punctuated by a series of red dots, thirty, maybe thirty-five of them.
“Thermal signatures,” Craven informed him. “Hang on, I think I can track the SDF ID passes.”
Most of the traces turned blue. He guessed the mix of red and blue moving toward the docking port was Arland and the others. There were maybe fifty other people on the station. Fifty people trapped in this tin-can with a murderous Turned and no one coming to rescue them.
As he watched one of the red dots moved through a wall into a larger room filled with half a dozen blue ones. The blue dots scattered. People running screaming.
His mind furnished him with images of the sandstone creature ripping into a room full of unarmed men and women. Claws flashing, rending flesh with each blow.
Blood dripping from his hands, its coppery stink filling his nose, mingling with the antiseptic of the modern air processors. He – no not him, the Turned – rose, its head banging on the overhead. He – it – ripped a light fitting from the ceiling in frustration. Everything was so damn small. Roaring he lunged for the last living human, a young girl with coppery red hair and aqua eyes.
No, don’t. Please don’t. Dannage begged. Please stop. You don’t need to hurt them. Please.
The Turned lunged. Dannage screwed his eyes shut, desperately trying to break the connection as the claws dug into her stomach, lifting her.
Cool metal pressed into Dannage’s check. Aarav fussed by his left ear. He pushed the scientists away rising to look at the screen.
The Turned had already moved on, the compartment it had just been in was a red smear.
“The Scanners can’t pick out any individuals,” Craven said quietly, avoiding Dannage’s eyes.
On the screen, the Turned was heading for another occupied compartment. There had to be something they could do.
No, damn-it, he wasn’t getting sucked into this again. He wasn’t a hero. This wasn’t his problem.
Sighing, he grabbed the com unit and thumbed it on. “Arland, we need to stop this thing.”
After a moment the line clicked open. “Sir, we don’t have the equipment. Captain Rossini is sending troops over, they’ll be here in… Seven minutes.”
The Turned crashed into the next chamber.
“The people on this station don’t have seven minutes.”
“Damn-it, Michael. I can’t get to you. We don’t have any heavy weapons. There’s a couple of fighters on standby, but it doesn’t help you up that end of the Garrison.”
Maybe. Dannage could still feel the Turned clawing at the back of his awareness. Anger, frustration. Trapped, confined.
Confined. Maybe.
Taking the controls, he spun the station plans. F18 bays lined the spaceward side of the station. They were designed to open on to space, lightly armoured, heck they’d cut their way into one before. Based on what he’d seen they probably hadn’t done more than patched that hole. But were they big enough?
“Which is the biggest F18 bay?” he asked.
“Bay five is the biggest by volume,” Craven said. “But most of that’s technical space in the overhead, according to this. Why?”
“Perfect. You two should stay here.” Dannage started toward the door.
“You’re going out there?” Aarav was aghast.
More than that, he was going to run headlong into trouble, again.
<
br /> He thumbed the com open. “Arland, F18 bay five. I’m leading the Turned there. Make sure the fighters are ready. In fact, patch them through to this com.”
“Don’t do this. Please, sir. Don’t do this.”
He clutched the com to his face like a child’s teddy. “I’m sorry.”
He bulled out the door and down the curved hallway toward the space facing side and the F18 bays. As he ran, he let his mind slip, let in the stench of blood and the roaring rage of the Turned in, sending it one thought. One command.
Follow.
◊◊
Arland slammed the com-link down on the side of the tram. Why did Dannage have to play the hero all the bloody time?
Fyffe had linked the Pyrite fighters in with Dannage’s com. Arland needed to do more. She had to get to him. But the bloody lockdown was in the way.
“Can we release the lockdown?” she asked.
“Not from here,” Fyffe replied. “We’d need either a security terminal or direct computer access.”
She needed to get to Dannage, to help him. To save him. “Fine, I’ll go around. Show me how.”
Fyffe brought up a map. “The quickest way to the F18 bays would be through the ventilation system. You can get in here.”
“No,” Rutter cut in. “There’s no way we can fit through the vents, not in armour.”
It didn’t matter. “Fine, I’ll go alone.”
Luc grabbed her shoulders. “What do you expect to do, alone and unarmed?”
“He’s alone and unarmed!” Luc knew damn-well who she was talking about. “I have to help. I can’t let him do this alone.”
“How does you both dying help anyone?”
“If you could fit, would you go?”
Luc didn’t even pause. “In a heartbeat.”
Arland looked around, Rutter had already stopped the tram.
“Access is just down this way,” Fyffe said, passing off her compact rifle.
She hopped off the Tram and started down and outward, following Fyffe, Luc and Rutter on her heels. They went out another four levels and down a longitudinal corridor to where a maintenance panel was set into the wall. Fyffe pulled off the small control panel and jacked her console in. After a moment of typing, the panel clicked away from the wall.
Arland ripped the panel away and climbed inside.
Fyffe’s voice followed her in, “Two hundred meters down. You’ll come out into a lab just beyond the lockdown. It should give you a straight run to the bays.”
“Thanks,” she called. “Stay safe, guys.”
Then she started to crawl down the cramped air vent. The vents had clearly been used to fit additional data lines at some point and were chocked with cables and pipes. The closer she got to the station's midpoint and the computer core, the worse it got.
She wriggled her way through the web-work of cables and pipes. Pain lanced through her hand, searing hot. Crying out, she pulled back, banging into the overhead cables. Thick fibre-lines wrapped around her shoulders holding her back. She pulled against them. The captain was probably already there. Probably facing off against the Turned. The word dead flashed through her thoughts, but she pushed it down. She couldn’t think like that. Panic wasn’t going to help anyone.
Finally, the cables let go and she slipped through practically crawling on her belly beneath a bank of clear tubes. She pushed forward, picking up the pace. Time was running out, she knew it. Just keep going. Keep pushing.
Dannage might have been a muppet, but he was a survivor. If anyone could make it out of this alive it would be him.
Finally, an access hatch blocked Arland’s path. The lab, then a straight sprint for Dannage.
At her touch, the hatch clicked open. Arland gave it a shove and tumbled out into the lab.
Ebony arms grabbed her, hauling her to her feet and before she could react, she was slammed back into the wall.
Eleven
(Pyrite Garrison)
Arland’s vision slewed. She could barely breathe past the hand clamped around her throat. She slammed back into the wall again.
“What’s going on?” Donna demanded, slamming Arland against the wall, again.
Arland focused on the other woman. A bloodstained tank-top exposed her muscular arms. The anger was still there in Donna’s eyes, but a paper-thin covering over fear. Behind Donna, the room was a mess, overturned tables and consoles, shattered equipment. The door had been smashed off its runners.
“I don’t...” Arland gasped, trying to get her breath. She had to get past Donna, get to Dannage. “What happened in here?”
“One of those Terran things attacked. Killed the lab techs. What did you people do?” Donna put Arland down.
“Same thing you and Craven were doing, they experimented on the Turned. Look, I’ve got to get to Dannage. It’s going to kill him.”
Donna let out a mocking laugh. “Why should I care?”
“He saved Craven.”
Donna stepped away, her posture relaxing.
Maybe she could convince Donna to help her. She was a good fighter. “Help me save them. Help me save everyone. Please.”
Donna narrowed her eyes. “Mr Craven is with Dannage.”
No, Dannage wouldn’t have let anyone else tag along on his crazy mission. Arland considered lying to Donna. Bad idea, she’d only be borrowing trouble for later. “I don’t know, but he’s here on the station. If we don’t stop that thing everyone’s dead.”
“Dannage has a plan.”
Arland was already running for the ruined door. “He always does.” Even if most of the time they were stupid ones.
The two women pounded down the corridor. Heavy double doors into the F18 bays whipped past.
Bay five. Arland skidded to a halt, Donna almost crashing into her.
“This where Dannage is?” Donna asked.
“Yeah,” Arland said. Tapping the door controls. The doors let out a hiss-click and parted a couple of inches, then stopped.
No, not now. Arland peered through the gap. In the middle of the bay, Dannage turned a half circle. Stars, he looked drawn and tired. Barely hanging on. They had to get in there.
The far wall exploded outward in a shower of metal and polycarbonate, as the Turned burst into the room. A fuel line ruptured, fire rolling across the room around the Turned. Dannage scampered away from the flames, stumbling and sitting down hard.
“We’ve got to get in there.” Arland grabbed the door and pulled. The bloody thing didn’t move. She pulled harder, leaning her whole-body weight into it.
The Turned stretched itself up to its full height, letting out a high screaming roar. Dannage cast about the room, scampering away while holding one arm out, as though he were sighting down it.
Arland’s com crackled with Dannage’s voice. “Flight Nine-Two, open fire along bearing one-five, by four-nine, relative. Hold for my mark.”
“No!” Arland threw herself against the door. Donna put her shoulder to the door, adding her considerable strength or Arland’s. The door mechanism groaned and whined, but gave way. The door jerked back by a foot, and they tumbled forward, Donna atop Arland, in a tangle of limbs.
“Fire,” Dannage said over the com.
Tracer rounds tore across the room, shattering wall plates and storage crates in a cloud of plastic and composite. The Turned took a glancing blow and reeled away.
Arland squeezed through the gap in the broken door and into the storm of shattered containers. The rushing air whipped her hair and tugged at her clothes as she stumbled toward Dannage.
The Turned, wounded and broken but still moving, came at them. Arland pulled her pistol from the small of her back and fired, aiming for the damaged head and the shoulder wound. Maybe she’d get lucky. If not, at least she was here with Dannage.
The Turned loomed over them its last working arm crashing down toward them. Dark brown claws, still damp with blood, glinted in the overhead lighting, curved like scythe blades. Death taken form and come for the
m.
Dannage’s slate blue eyes were oddly calm. She’d heard it before. The idea of death scares people, but its certainty is calming.
Donna leapt between them and the Turned, grabbing the creature’s arm and throwing it aside. With an animalistic cry, she tackled the eight-foot-tall Turned, bulling it back by main force.
Dannage pulled away from Arland and tapped his ear. His eyes wide, he groped for his dropped com-link.
The Turned sank claws into Donna’s chest and shoulder, drawing a pained scream from the woman, and lifted her.
“I can’t find the com,” Dannage shouted over the constant rush of air. “We need them to fire again.”
Arland looked across the chamber. She could com the fighters, but she couldn’t work out the angles, not without risking Donna.
She pulled out her earpiece and pressed it into Dannage’s hand.
He nodded and tapped the com-link open. “Target bearing one-one by four-seven, relative. Fire!”
Donna screamed again as the turned slammed her into the floor, gouging with its claws.
“Redirect, two degrees up, relative,” Dannage shouted.
Tracer fire slammed down through the overhead, shattering lights and ripping panelling apart. The fire slammed into the Turned’s lower body, tearing sandstone like flesh and shattering bone. But still, the damned thing would not die.
They couldn’t angle the fire any further up the Turned’s body without risking Donna, the fighters just didn’t have the angle.
Only one thing for it. Arland steeled herself and rushed forward. She jammed her pistol into the head wound the Turned had taken breaking out of the observation chamber and pulled the trigger.
The Turned roared in pain, jerking away. The move pulled the pistol from Arland’s hand, the weapon lodged in the creature’s head. Ignoring the gun, Arland grabbed Donna by the back of her tank top and pulled her away from the thrashing Turned, leaving a trail of bright crimson in their wake. They were barely clear of the creature when more tracer fire slammed down into the Turned.
◊◊
Dannage felt the tracer fire slamming through him, rending flesh and shattering bone. He nearly blacked out from the pain. His lifeblood poured from the ruined body.