Exiles of Earth: Rebellion

by Richard Tongue

  “Powerful enough to get to the moon in a single hop. Orbit in three minutes. A bigger version of the beast I rode thirty years ago. Fast enough for you, Lieutenant?” Neville said, his smile spreading wide across his face.

  “I think it just might do,” Mitchell said, his smile matching Neville’s. “I think it just might do.”

  Chapter 33

  “No good,” Zhao said, turning off the laser. “It’ll take hours to get through.”

  “We’re not going to get hours,” Thakur replied, walking over to him. “Fitzroy’s shut off life support to the hangar deck. Twenty minutes, we all fall asleep. About ten minutes after that, we’re dead.”

  A murmur rose from the crowd, and DeSilva said, “Settle down, damn it! We’re going to work the problem.” Turning to Thakur, she asked, “What about the spacesuits?”

  “Midshipman Mizrahi managed to deal with those on his way out. An automatic burst, right across the locker. They’re all repairable, but not in the time, and the tanks are history anyway. We’ve got one suit in the emergency airlock, and that’s about it. Cracking the tank might give us an extra couple of minutes, but under the circumstances.”

  “We’re not giving up,” Zhao said.

  “There’s another answer. The escape pods. There are enough here for everyone to make it down to the surface. Someone will be able to pick us up as soon as we land, even if it means heading right into a POW camp. That’s a lot better than dying of anoxia.”

  Overhead, the speakers crackled, and a harsh voice began, “This is Acting President Brock. Martial law has been declared across Atlantis, and as pro-tem head of state, I am officially declaring that a state of war now exists between the Commonwealth of Mars and the Republic of Atlantis. I call upon Endurance to surrender immediately and turn the criminal Lieutenant Fitzroy over to us at once. Any attack upon our people will be met with deadly force. You cannot win.” There was a shuffle at the microphone, and a new voice crackled into life.

  “This is Lieutenant Romanova. I am informed that a nuclear strike on the surface is currently being prepared. I call upon…”

  The channel clicked shut, and from the bridge, a smug voice began, “This is Captain Fitzroy.”

  “He’s promoted himself,” Zhao said. “Even for the Tyranny, promotion through assassination seems a little much.”

  “I do not take orders from enemies of the people,” Fitzroy continued. “We will triumph. We will be victorious. Our people back on Mars are depending upon us to provide them with the victory that will defeat the Coalition forever, and I have no intention of letting them down. All hands will report to battle stations at once. In a few moments, we will claim a new world for the Commonwealth, and our names will be remembered throughout history. History is written by the winners. That is going to be us. That is all.”

  “We’re not leaving,” DeSilva said, looking at Thakur. “We can’t. Not if it means condemning millions of people on the surface to die.”

  “He’d shoot us down, anyway,” Schneider said. “What’s your plan?”

  Looking at the airlock, she said, “Go outside, open the hatches and get everyone out. We might not be able to open them from in here, but the manual release on the other side should be working. It’s a short walk along the outer hull.”

  “As soon as they spot you on sensors, they’ll send people after you,” Zhao said. “We don’t have any weapons that work in a vacuum. You’ll be completely unprotected. And besides that, we can’t open the airlock doors any more than we can open the blast doors.”

  “The outer hatch is a lot thinner than the main blast doors. A shaped charge would do it.”

  Shaking his head, Zhao said, “Once it was opened, we couldn’t risk opening the inner hatch.”

  “Then whoever plants the charge will have to be wearing a spacesuit, inside the airlock, when the charge goes off.” Zhao’s eyes widened, but before he could say anything, she continued, “It’s not as dangerous as it sounds, as long as the charge isn’t big. The atmosphere will escape, taking all the debris with it. If I fired my thrusters at the right time, it’ll press me against the inner hatch.”

  “That’s one hell of a gamble,” Schneider said. “One mistake, and you’re dead. Along with the rest of us. Besides, we don’t have the explosives we need.”

  “I do,” Thakur replied, reaching into his pockets. “Always carry a small breeching round with me. You never know when it might come in useful.”

  Frowning, Zhao asked, “Just whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “The side that means I don’t die a horrible, pointless death,” he replied with a chuckle. “I had orders from Lieutenant Romanova that covered this eventuality. Work for Lieutenant Mitchell if he’s around, or Spaceman DeSilva otherwise.”

  “You were working for Ship’s Security?” Zhao asked, turning to DeSilva, his face reddening.

  “Only to catch the traitor,” she replied.

  “It’s true,” Thakur said. “She refused to provide any information about the members of the Underground on this ship but agreed to help catch the Coalition traitor. Or in this case, traitors.” Looking at Ikande’s body, lying on the deck, he added, “There’s been an awful lot of treason today.”

  “Then you’re fighting with us?” Schneider asked.

  He shrugged, then said, “Let’s just say that for the moment, our interests coincide. I won’t betray your cause, and I want to see Fitzroy burn every bit as much as you do. Once the fighting is over, we can let the details sort themselves out. We’ve got to live long enough for that to matter, yet.”

  DeSilva walked over to the airlock, and said, “You position the charge, but leave me to detonate it. The bridge will spot it instantly, but if I can move quickly enough, I should be able to get back into the ship before they can send someone after me. Try and get some of the internal sensors working. It’d be nice to have some warning if they plan an ambush through the corridors.”

  “I think I can manage that,” Zhao said, as Thakur headed into the airlock, carefully placing the charge at the joint between the doors, the detonator flashing as he enabled the device, slowly backing away. DeSilva quickly pulled on her suit, then lowered her helmet into position, walking into the lock.

  “You’ll have ten seconds after you hit the button,” Thakur warned. “No way to change your mind, either, once the detonator is engaged. Are you sure about this?”

  “No, but I don’t think I can afford to let that stop me. There’s too much at stake.” Locking her helmet down, she said, “Prepare the wounded for immediate evacuation when I open the blast doors. We’ve got to get them to Sickbay. Everything else can wait if it must.”

  “Got it,” Zhao said. “We’ll handle everything at this end. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” she replied, closing the inner hatch behind her. Just to make sure, she tried first the normal, then the emergency release for the airlock, both stubbornly refusing to function. Nothing she hadn’t expected. Stepping with her back flush to the wall, she looked around, smiling as she reached for a rescue bubble, activating the release and stuffing it between her and the charge, tapping the detonator as the inflation cycle began, pushing her against the wall. She called up her thruster controls, ready to fire them at the critical second, and counted down the heartbeats to detonation.

  With a loud report, the charge exploded, the force of the explosion ripping the hatch to pieces as the atmosphere inside raced out into space, taking the shrapnel with it. DeSilva slammed the thruster controls, hammering her against the bulkhead, then pushed the tattered remains of the rescue bubble away before stepping clear of the ship, firing another thruster pulse to pivot her to face her destination.

  The book said that she should always use a safety line, to keep her connected to the ship. She didn’t have the time. Firing another long burst on her thrusters, she ranged up the perimeter of the hull, periodically ducking from side to side to dodge protrusions, antenna and sensor nodes breaking the smooth lines of the
hull.

  “Yani, do you read?” Schneider asked.

  “Sofia?” she replied. “How…”

  “We managed to get a communications link set up. We’ve got some internal sensors. Are you alright? No damage from the explosion?”

  “All nominal here.”

  There was a brief pause, and Schneider yelled, “Energy spike, close to you! Turn away!”

  DeSilva fired a pulse from her thrusters, seconds before the bridge fired one of Endurance’s maneuvering jets, a plume of escaping atmosphere that would have sent her hurtling away into space, far faster than her suit could ever burn to bring her home. The ship slowly began to recede, and she dived back towards it, struggling to compensate for the course change.

  “That was close,” she said.

  “They’re onto you,” Schneider replied. “Get back inside as fast as you can.”

  “Way ahead of you,” she said, firing another pulse from her thrusters. She couldn’t use one of the normal airlocks. All of them would be sealed as tightly as the airlock on the hangar deck. There was one, though, that had only been temporarily patched, with a system that hadn’t been connected to the primary computer network. The remains of Turret Nine. She fired another pulse, picking up speed as she swept around the outer ring, narrowly missing a collision with a distant antenna/

  “Where the hell are you going?” Schneider asked.

  “Got to find a way in,” she replied. “Any sign of trouble?”

  “Nothing yet, but a couple of transfer pods just left from the core. Probably carrying components to the nearest satellite.” She paused, then added, “We can’t get through to anyone else on the ship.”

  “That bastard’s going to try and fight an entire planet and the crew of Endurance at the same time,” DeSilva replied. “Have you got anything from the corridors?”

  “Most of the ship is pretty quiet. They’ve probably holed up in a few strategic points. Thakur doesn’t think they have the manpower for anything else.”

  “He’s probably not far wrong about that,” she replied. “At least, we can hope so.” Glancing at her wrist, she said, “Fifty meters to go. Almost there.”

  “Wait one,” Schneider said “I think they’ve worked out what you’re doing. You’ve got incoming. Four of them, by the looks of it, commanded by your old friend Mizrahi. Armed with rifles.”

  “Great. Just great.” She dived towards the airlock, reaching for the controls, almost surprised when they engaged as she pulled the level, opening the outer hatch. “How much time have I got?”

  “Maybe three minutes, at most.”

  “It’ll have to be enough,” she replied, stepping inside. She cycled the lock, atmosphere filling the space between the hatches, cracking her helmet as the hiss of air became audible. She quickly threw off her suit, leaving the pieces lying on the deck, and raced inside, stepping into the battered corridor beyond, still bearing the scars of the battle waged a month ago. The engineering teams had done their best to repair the damage, but with the turret destroyed beyond any hope of reclamation, they’d contented themselves with patching the corridor, leaving the emergency airlock they’d positioned for convenience in repairing the hull in position.

  The network had been their top priority, but a combination of lack of equipment and lack of effort on the behalf of workers disgruntled by the lockdown order had limited those repairs to a bare minimum, and it showed. Most of the security systems had yet to be activated. Giving her a window directly into the control network with the minimum of hacking. She raced to the nearest terminal, activating it with a pass of her hand, quickly burrowing into the network, crawling her way through the security codes.

  There it was. Life support. Fitzroy hadn’t just shut it down in the hangar deck. Three other areas of the ship had been isolated. Other pockets of resistance, presumably. Word must have spread quickly throughout the ship of the massacre he had perpetuated. She quickly isolated the critical systems, then cursed. Someone was monitoring them from the bridge, deactivating them as rapidly as she reactivated them. That plan wasn’t going to work.

  Then she tried the hatches, and once again, they failed to open, the systems disabled. This time, however, she had an alternative, though one that was a last resort. Ironically, one that was typically intended to be used in the event of a mutiny, to prevent a party of crewmen sealing themselves in a fortified part of the ship. Every hatch had a series of explosive bolts, designed to be triggered remotely.

  And just like the shaped charges, once activated, there was no way to stop them from firing. She didn’t even think twice, quickly racing through the command sequence, using the tricks she’d learned from her old classmates at Technical College and the codes stolen by the Underground. As she hit the controls, she heard footsteps racing towards her, running down the corridor, but she jammed her finger on the button as the party of riflemen turned the corner. Sirens wailed, and even half-way around the ship, she could hear the reports as the hangar deck hatches were thrown from their mounts, the explosive bolts easily ripping through the armored metal.

  “Freeze!” Mizrahi said, aiming his rifle at her. “Whatever it is you did…”

  “Forget it”, one of the others, a technician named Hayashi, interrupted. “The mutineers are on the loose. At least we can get this one to the Captain. Unless you want her thrown out of an airlock to save the trouble.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Captain Fitzroy wants to question her.”

  “Lieutenant Fitzroy murdered Captain Ikande, Midshipman, and he did it in cold blood. He shot him in the back. You were there, you saw him. You know what that man is capable of, and you’re willing to trust him with forty nuclear warheads capable of destroying all life on Atlantis?” She stepped forward, and said, “You’re better than that, Midshipman. You’re not going to sit back and let this happen?” Looking at Hayashi, she said, “Arata, you know me. You know that I wouldn’t…”

  “I know that the Captain wants you brought to him alive, but that it might be a mercy to kill you first,” he replied.

  “He killed a dozen people! Saunders, Nkomo, Brice, Munoz! He and his men opened fire on a crowd of unarmed technicians, and he killed the Captain so that he could assume command.” Looking at Mizrahi, she said, “Come on, Midshipman. Somewhere deep down inside, your conscience is telling you that I’m right. Listen to it, for both our sakes!”

  “No,” he replied, shaking his head. “No. I’ve got my orders, and I know who is in command. My conscience is quite clear. You and the rest of the traitors aren’t going to get away with what you have done. Captain Fitzroy has assured me that we are in the right, and his word is good enough for me.” Gesturing down the corridor, he said, “Now move. Before I’m forced to do something I’ll regret.”

  “You’ve already done that,” she replied. “I just wish you knew it.”

  Chapter 34

  Mitchell settled into the co-pilot’s couch, an array of barely familiar buttons in front of him, his tablet resting gently by his side, linked to Endurance’s systems in orbit. A trajectory track raced across the heads-up display, and next to him, Watson worked her controls, throwing switches and pushing buttons, making the final preparations for take-off.

  Glancing to his rear, Mitchell saw all four passengers securely strapped in place, Thiou and three of the more aggressive employees of Curtiss Incorporated. He’d been unsurprised to learn that they had a predominantly ex-military workforce, and the discovery that many of them had borrowed some of their equipment upon leaving the service had been a pleasant one. Six people weren’t enough to take back his ship, but it might at least give him a fighting chance of living through the attack.

  “CapCom to Curtiss Two,” Neville’s voice said, tinny through the overhead speaker. It had taken the combined efforts of Watson, Mitchell and Thiou – as well as the base doctor – to keep the old man on the ground, rather than risking exposure to the acceleration they were about to endure. “All systems look good dow
n here. You’re go for launch, in thirty seconds.”

  “Roger, roger, I show the same,” Watson replied. “All systems go. Course computed and laid in. Endurance is over the horizon now, straight-line approach. Any unexpected visitors?”

  “We’ve got about half a dozen trucks heading our way, but they’re not going to get here in time. No air support. I think we’ve still got some friends in high places.” He chuckled, and replied, “They probably don’t want to get in the way. We’re reading a lot of traffic from Interceptor Command, though.”

  “Surely they won’t attack one of their own ships,” Mitchell said.

  “This isn’t their ship, though. This is our ship, with a couple of escaping enemy agents on board. At least, that’s what they’re reporting on the News. I have a feeling that your share price is about to drop through the floor, kid.”

  “Maybe it’ll be third time lucky,” Watson replied. “Besides, if we pull this off, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about another rights issue. They’ll be begging to invest in us.” Throwing a final control, she said, “Launch systems armed. Ten seconds to boost. Hang on, everyone. This is going to be rough.”

  “Ground to orbit in four minutes,” Mitchell said, shaking his head.

  “Three and a half, if I got my sums right,” Watson replied.

  “And if you didn’t?” Thiou asked.

  “Then all of us are doomed to a terrible, fiery death. Look on the bright side. You’ll be your own fireworks display. And we can probably all share the same coffin. Ground, we’re go here.”

  “Roger. Eight seconds. Seven. Six. Five. Ignition sequence start. Three. Two. One. Ignition!”

  Beneath them, the ten huge engines roared into life, fuel flooding into the ignition chamber, the rocket straining against the mighty clamps that locked it in place, letting the engines build to full power before takeoff. Watson’s eyes were locked on her instruments, the seconds slowly ticking away, and she tapped another control, the force of acceleration immediately pressing them back in their couches as the clamps disengaged, the engines hurling the rocket into the sky.