Traitor

by C R MacFarlane

  “Are you sure?” asked her first officer.

  She gripped the console, nodding sharply as her only response.

  The pulse emitter was activated. Amelia screamed, dropping to the floor. She blinked, a hazy vision of a cluttered grey room filled her senses until the fire burning through her bones consumed every thought.

  She was vaguely aware of her bridge officers turning to look, their expressions painted with only dull surprise. The first officer leaned over her. He didn’t seem surprised at all. He met her eyes, staring down at her with disdain. “You’re too close to them,” he said. “Guitteriez warned me this could happen.”

  “W-what?” In her head she felt like a small child, cradling her arms around herself as she shook in fear. Where was the pain coming from?

  Her eyes fell on the tactical console, where a lieutenant was manning the newly installed negative pulse weapon that Guitteriez had designed. She had felt it before, it caused mild sensations of discomfort, nothing more.

  And yet. Guitteriez said he had designed it for Augment 005478F, had used it in her capture. “I don’t understand,” she panted. And yet she did, she had been connected to the Augment. She could feel what she was feeling.

  But how? The chip had been removed. Their connection should be severed.

  “It appears you are still connected to the girl,” the first officer said. He reached his hand for the controls. Amelia shot a hand out to stop him, but it was too late. Her body clenched in pain as his hand dragged over the controls, only bringing the intensity higher.

  “Stop,” she croaked. She panted, her vision going grey. “Stop.”

  He raised a single eyebrow. “I cannot. My orders were quite clear — to keep an eye on you, to monitor you for any strange deviation in behaviour. This was a known possibility.”

  What was a known possibility? Did Guitteriez know the connection would remain? If he wasn’t dead, she would kill him herself.

  “I am taking command of the Comrade,” he announced, turning so the others could see.

  The officers nodded, scarcely blinking.

  What was happening?

  He reached for the controls again, increasing the intensity.

  She screamed. Her mind pulled her away, visions dancing in her head of old dreams. Of a little girl who taught her how to pull away from pain, how to survive.

  A girl with long brown hair she hated to brush herself and a bright smile, despite the horrors of their dormitory.

  FOURTEEN

  SCREAMS ECHOED AROUND SARRIN’S HEAD. They weren’t hers.

  Blinding white light, the quality of it ethereal. A set of polished black boots walked up to her, her face on the ground staring up at the man.

  Something was said, and something else — she couldn’t hear any of it.

  All she could hear were the screams. And… and… was that humming?

  Her ears strained for the melody. It was familiar. She’d heard it so long ago it was difficult to place.

  Her vision started to clear, but she was not in the engine room on the Ishash’tor, she was in some bizarre dream. As she lifted her head, she saw she was surrounded by consoles, all gleaming white — the colour of purity, of prosperity, of the Gods.

  The humming melody grew louder than the screams. It was a four bar stanza, a children’s song.

  A young girl brushing an even younger girl’s hair. Humming.

  She gasped.

  What was this place?

  But she knew it. The central command station, the wrap-around consoles, the elite officers. Even the starfield in the view screen was familiar.

  As was the crumpled little ship set in their targets. She gasped, her mind slamming backwards. This was the UEC warship.

  But how? She was on the crumpled little ship.

  The humming roared in its intensity.

  And she knew too the familiar but strange feeling. This was not her body, not her screams, not her arm reaching out in front of her.

  This was Amy.

  Amy was alive.

  Amy was on the warship.

  * * *

  Kieran stared at Sarrin where she had fallen to her knees without warning.

  Her face contorted in a grimace, every muscle defined as she strained.

  “What’s going on?” he asked out loud. He glanced behind him.

  Thomas answered, his face ashen, “They have an energy weapon.”

  Kieran put a hand to his chest, pressing against the chasm of emptiness that opened there. “Is this what it feels like?” It wasn’t physical pain. He hadn’t felt like this since his sister died. He shook his head to clear it, but it wouldn’t go. “What can we do?” he jutted his chin in Sarrin’s direction.

  Thomas shook his head. “Nothing, but wait for it to stop.”

  That wasn’t good enough. “We don’t have time,” he said. “We have to stop them now.”

  Thomas nodded roughly. “I’ll retrieve Sarrin’s weapon.”

  Kieran pressed his lips together. It would be their only option. He had no doubt the machine would work exactly as Sarrin said it would, that the warship would be torn end to end. What he didn’t know was how it would affect her, if she would ever recover from killing a crew of over a hundred-and-fifty people.

  But Sarrin flinched and groaned on the ground next to him, her eyes distant. He had used the last of the sedative, if she got lost in her trance, there would be no way to stop her, and she was just as deadly as the warship.

  He shouldn’t have yelled, shouldn’t have let Rami get him riled up. Again. Rami stood on the opposite side of Engineering, watching and scowling, and Kieran pushed down his sudden violent urge to scream. Something about this ship was changing him, making him lose sight of what he was here for: to observe, to not interfere and not get involved.

  He leapt to his feet, glancing back at Sarrin’s prone form as he followed Thomas.

  * * *

  Gal forced his legs to run faster. He felt them close in around him. Felt their laser targets fixed on his back. The demons screamed and leaped, running with him like some feral pack of animals.

  Aaron wasn’t with him. Because he was dead. It had only been Gal’s wishing that had brought him back.

  So much had been lost already.

  He slammed into the wall as the ship shook out from underneath him.

  It drove a renewed sense of urgency. If they were fighting back, there was still time. Cornelius could be saved!

  Except this wasn’t real.

  They had killed Cornelius years ago. In his mind he still saw it, still saw the explosion. Felt the heat in the conduits as he pulled them apart.

  He stumbled, falling to the ground. Demons jumped on him, pressing him down, forcing all the air out of his lungs.

  Soldiers were coming to arrest him. There was no hiding what he did on the ship. But he refused to be captured. Refused another cycle on the merry-go-round.

  It was all happening again. He could see the future coming around on him, preparing to sink its rabid teeth into his flesh once more.

  Hap would sit in his office. Pretend to offer Gal mercy when he announced he would let him live despite his actions. Gal would plead insanity, a temporary confusion of the Gods. Gods that had abandoned them all years ago.

  A sick sense of relief would twist in him. Relief that Hap thought destroying the ship’s weapons array was the worst thing Gal had ever done. Relief that he wouldn’t have to face looking over his shoulder, wondering when and how it was going to happen. The Gods always punished those who disobeyed, it was made to look like an accident, but it was the hand of Strength.

  Gal pressed his hand against the access panel. It read his hand print, the silver-grey panel popping out and up from the wall.

  He pushed it the rest of the way up. A dozen laz-rifles stared back at him, lined neatly in their row, ready for any foreign threat.

  What threat did the UECs think they were going to encounter in space. Everyone followed the Gods. Peace was
rampant. At least on the outside. A product of complacency, blind belief.

  He took a laz-rifle. He would only need one.

  There were a dozen ways to use the components in the rifle besides the one the Central Army suggested. All of them deadly.

  Gal pulled the panel off, exposing the delicate circuits.

  Vaguely, he remembered the hackers showing him this trick.

  “What are you doing, Johnny?”

  Gal glanced to where Aaron had appeared. He shook his head. “Super charging the laser.”

  “I know. Why?”

  “It’s time to get off this ride.”

  * * *

  Sarrin came back into herself, on her hands and knees, staring at the cold grey floor. Amelia was alive.

  She was supposed to be dead. How did she end up on the bridge of the UECAS Comrade? But if she was there, could she help them?

  The ship rocked under her as the warship made contact with multiple rounds of lax-cannon fire, their biopulse weapon paused for now.

  Kieran was not beside her, and immediately the black clouds started to close in. But she heard his voice, and turned to see him and Thomas loading the modified torpedo into the chute.

  She had to tell them.

  Her legs were weak, everything wobbled as she tried to stand. Instead she crawled.

  The jolts of landed laz-fire came more frequently now. If what she had seen on the warship was true, they were getting closer. And they would destroy them without hesitation.

  Kieran and Thomas braced themselves, working even as they fought to stay standing. They were making connections, she realized, repairing the tubes so they could fire her weapon.

  Cold shock cleared the clouds from her vision instantly, made her draw in ragged breath. If the weapon fired, everyone on the warship would be killed instantly. Including Amelia.

  “Stop,” she called out. But she sputtered and wheezed, the cry ending on her lips.

  They only had two more connections to make and it would be ready.

  She never would have drawn the plans if she’d known. Amy who had brushed her hair and held her and stood in front of her so Sarrin wouldn’t have to fight.

  She tried to call out again. Tried to stand. None of her limbs worked. What was happening to her? She crawled determinedly forward, hoping someone would notice her. But the flashing emergency lighting and the rocking — everyone was too busy to see.

  She reached the torpedo chute as Kieran slammed the second-last conduit in place. One more and they’d have it.

  “No.” She dove in and pulled the connections free before he could secure it.

  “Sarrin, what’rya doin’?”

  She shook her head, panting. “No.”

  He frowned at her, his green eyes searching. She hoped he would see.

  “Sarrin, they’re gonna tear us apart in the next five minutes.”

  She reached in and pulled the wiring from the launch controls, destroying the delicate internal workings of the machine that would take hours to solder back together. She took a handful of it and threw it across the floor.

  “Sarrin!” he screamed.

  She felt the darkness close in, heard the hummed melody. “I owe her my life.”

  “Gods! What’s she doing?” she heard Rami scream. “I told you she was insane.”

  Her every nerve fibre lit on fire — the biopulse weapon. At least she had time to save the warship.

  * * *

  “Checking out, Johnny?” Aaron asked.

  Gal’s blood boiled. “Don’t call me that. It’s not my name.”

  Aaron shrugged. “It’s who you are.”

  “Were.”

  The demons crowded around. Sick grins of glee plastered on their hairless, scabbed faces. They watched as Gal fussed with the wiring, hands steady from years of practice making the fine connections.

  He had failed all of them. The demon’s hairless heads turned, staring at the far end of the corridor.

  A soldier. Dressed in standard issue, grey jumpsuit. A commander at least.

  They had come for him. It was all happening again.

  She said his name.

  She would drag him in front of Hap, capture him and start the ride all over again.

  “I won’t let you hurt them,” he warned her.

  “Hurt who?”

  There was no way for her to understand. To all the soldiers and the folk, everyone, the Gods were everything. “They’re not going to hurt us,” he said. He clicked the access panel back in place on the rifle.

  Her voice was muffled. His vision was hazy too, the demons somehow taking all of it. “The-the Augments? I know. You have to make the warship understand.”

  “They’ll never understand,” he told her, as much as he told himself. It was true after all. “They’ll just keep coming and coming and coming. They’re afraid.”

  He stood, using the wall for balance.

  “There’s nothing we can do.” He closed his eyes, swinging the laz-rifle around, feeling the cool muzzle against his skin. For some reason, the design of the rifles had always been the perfect length, with the trigger in his hand, it stretched to the hollow beneath his jaw. “Over and over and over.” He tensed against the trigger, feeling its resistance.

  “Gal!” Aaron shouted. His friend lunged toward him.

  Gal’s eyes flew open, and he saw the demons all staring at him. He dropped the rifle to point it at Aaron.

  “What are you doing? This isn’t the way,” Aaron panted. “What about all of them.”

  The demons jumped up and down, their eyes wide, terrified.

  Could he just leave them?

  He swallowed, mouth dry. “Just because you can’t understand it. It’s not wrong. I can’t live on this merry-go-round Hap has set me on, to watch them die over and over again.” He begged Aaron to understand, just a fraction.

  His friend’s face fell, resignation darkening his features. They would be together again, not just some figment of Gal’s wrecked mind. If it worked that way. Who knew.

  He swung the rifle back to himself.

  “Gal!” the soldier called out, her voice sweet and panicked. She took a step towards him, arms outstretched to grab him.

  His eyes slammed to hers. He poured his hatred for the UECs into his gaze — if he was going to go, at least someone would know. He hated what they had done to him, what they had done to his friends, to Aaron. He hated the demons they had created, the thousands of people who died who never had to.

  He pointed his gun at her. “You can’t hurt them.”

  Her hands came up. “I’m not going to hurt anyone, Gal.”

  He almost believed her. “No!” he screamed, pressing his hands to his ears, the laz-rifle caught haphazardly in his arms. “You’re all the same.”

  The demons spun in his vision. They multiplied exponentially, filling the corridor, drowning him.

  The soldier rushed forwards, as he collapsed to the ground.

  He fired the rifle.

  She fell, hard, straight back, crashing to the floor with a thud.

  The demons paused at the sound.

  He stared at the familiar olive skin, the dark curly hair, the strong facial features. He stared at the smoking hole in the soldier’s chest.

  Rayne.

  The world spun, his vision narrowed and became dark and blurry.

  The demons were quiet. One by one they started to fall. Corpses littered the corridor, their weight pressing in, crushing him. He gasped for breath that wouldn’t come.

  One demon remained standing, and he recognized it: the demon that looked just like Rayne, haggard and ruined, but there was no doubt what it meant. He had destroyed her life, dragged her with him into the abyss, and then shot her.

  His stomach churned, bile licking the back of his throat.

  The demon-Rayne fell over, dead.

  He scrambled to his feet, demon bodies flinging away as he pushed through them wildly.

  Rayne’s body was still. />
  His heart raced, as though it was trying to make enough beats for the both of them. As though it was trying to make up for the thousands of people who had died because of him. But the demons lay dead.

  * * *

  Kieran stared at Sarrin as she pulled out handful after handful of wire, tossing it to the ground. Her eyes were glazed, and she was humming. Honest to God humming.

  He looked to Thomas, but the Augment looked just as shocked as he felt. “What’s she doing?”

  “I have no idea.” But one thing was clear: Sarrin didn’t want them to fire the weaponized torpedo. There was something on the warship that had changed her mind, there had to be.

  Thomas cringed as each handful of connections plummeted through the air. “That was our only chance.”

  Rami appeared beside them. “Gods, I told you she was insane.”

  The FTL engine was beyond repair. Their only option was to go around the whole thing. The energy they needed to open a gravity-well through space and time was astronomical. Another jolt shook the ship, the lights flickering with the sheer power of it. Kieran paused. “How many megavolts do the Comrade’s laz-cannons have?”

  “Three-thousand. Why?”

  A terrible idea formed in Kieran’s head. “Do we still have the gravity generators Sarrin used to stabilize the force-shields after the shuttle crashed?”

  “What?” barked Rami.

  “Yes, but they’re micro-generators,” answered Thomas, shaking his head. “We’ll never be able to open a grave-hole with them.”

  “I know. We’ll use them to stabilize the shields.”

  “Are you insane?” snapped Rami.

  “The surge-protectors are melted. The grav-generators will hold the shields for a while, but eventually the energy will overwhelm and the field will collapse,” said Thomas.

  “I think we can use it, harness the power in the shields to make our grav-jump,” said Kieran.

  Rami looked at Thomas. “This man is a lunatic. When the field collapses, it will blow up the ship — the same as when our force-shield tore through the Earth.”