by Bobby Adair
“Commander of the Free Army Ground Forces and Fleet.”
Hawkins steps forward and extends his hand to shake, “Good to meet you, Colonel Blair.”
Blair doesn’t reach out a hand. She doesn’t stand up. “Who are you, Jake Hawkins?”
He steps back, unfazed. “You might say I’m with the UN, or what became of the UN.”
“The United Nations?” Blair scoffs. “There’s no UN anymore.”
“Like the Free Army,” says Hawkins, “we’ve taken our operation off-planet.”
“Where?” she asks.
“Off-planet.” His tone makes it clear that’s all she’s going to get.
“How am I supposed to trust anything you say if—”
“Let’s not play that game,” Hawkins tells her. “I am who I am. Believe it or don’t. It doesn’t matter to me. In fact, I hope you don’t, because to tell you the truth, I don’t want to be here. I was ordered here. So here I am. I was told to offer you what assistance we can provide. If you want it, good. If not, I don’t care. I’d prefer to go home.”
“Assistance?” asks Blair, her interest piqued. “Do you have ships? Soldiers? Are you going to fight with us?”
Hawkins shakes his head. “We can provide technological assistance and intelligence.”
Blair throws her head back and laughs.
The three of us share a look and let Blair finish.
“They modified my ship,” I tell her.
“While you were supposed to be scouting?” Blair shoots back. “Were those reports you sent back genuine, or made up?”
“While we were gone,” I explain, “we stopped at their base. They sent out a ship to cover our scout duties, and in the meantime, they modified my ship.”
“This all sounds so convenient. So preplanned.” Blair’s glare settles on me. “Who are you working for, Kane? The Trogs? The SDF? The MSS? Or this reincarnation of the UN? Do you wonder why we don’t trust you here?”
Hawkins turns to me. “This is a waste. We should go.”
“Who says I’m going to let you?” asks Blair.
Deciding I should have taken one of the ambiguously coded helmets offered by Dr. Spitz’s people, I step forward and lean on her desk. “Don’t start this shit again. You’ve made your accusations one too many times. I’ve proven myself. I’ve fought, and I’ve bled. I’ve led my people into war while you sat in your lair and played your games. I don’t care what you think you’re implying by saying you might not let us go, but let’s get straight to the point. I’m out of the Free Army. Right this moment. I’m done with you and your sad shit. We’re leaving, all three of us, and if you have the slightest inkling that you’re going to stop me, then spit it out, tell me right now. Because whatever you believe about us bug-heads, and especially about me and Phil and his little stick-figure buddy, we’re in communication right now. Phil reads my thoughts like you read a book. And it won’t matter if you believe my ship was modified or not, you know if you do anything to us, he’ll ram so many holes through this place there won’t be anybody left alive when he’s done. So you pick—do you want to play your game or do you want to give me a cordial send-off?”
Blair is mortified.
She glances at her guards.
I feel them tense. They’re ready for violence. “Don’t do it,” I tell her. “Don’t put your people at risk for your ego.”
I see the mean defiance in her eyes as her mouth starts to open, and I guess what she’s going to do. That preemption is my only choice.
I juice my grav plates to max capacity and shoot across the room, slamming one of the guards into the glass wall he’s standing in front of. The wall flexes but doesn’t break. I avoid injury by cushioning the impact on my body with defensive grav.
The guard is unconscious before he even knows he’s been hit. The other guard is shouting something furious and raising his weapon when Brice copies my move and slams him against the glass wall on the other side of the door.
Three seconds later, the guards’ weapons are in our hands, pointed at Blair. She freezes, stuck in mid-reach beneath her desk.
“Show me your hands,” I tell her. “Do it slow.”
Blair doesn’t move, but says “No.”
Chapter 43
“They’re looking,” says Brice.
Blair still isn’t moving. I know she’s trying to guess if she can reach the weapon hidden under the desk before I pull the trigger on the railgun I have pointed at the center of her chest.
In my peripheral vision, I see Hawkins point through the glass wall at the front of Blair’s office. “Out there in the control room,” he says, “they’re looking.”
Blair decides on the weapon that’s always worked best for her. “If you think—”
No time for thinking.
I turn a shoulder toward Blair, goose my suit grav, fly over her desk, and slam her into the wall behind before she has time to gasp.
I bounce off her and stumble to my feet as she crumbles to the floor.
“They’re coming!” Hawkins tells us.
“Brice,” I order, “make sure they know you have that railgun.”
“Do you want me to use it?” he asks.
“You know I don’t.”
“Are you willing to die, so people will think you’re the good guy?”
“No.” I find Blair’s pistol and attach it to my magnetic belt clip.
I hear the grin in Brice’s voice as he says, “Then we’re on the same page.”
Kneeling down, I check Blair’s pulse, realize I can’t feel the subtle rhythm through my thick gloves and see her chest rise and fall. She’s not dead. Her eyes flutter, she’s not even unconscious—not really. She just had the crap knocked out of her and she’s dazed, but anger boils back quickly in those eyes.
I drag her to her feet and pin her against the wall. “Hawkins, get over here.”
He hesitates.
“One of us has to manage her,” I tell him. “One of us has to take this railgun.”
He was just supposed to ask a simple yes/no question and then go back to Iapetus. He doesn’t want responsibility for Blair. By the look on his face, he doesn’t want any of what’s going on in front of him.
I can’t blame him. I nod at the railgun. “Listen, the faster we do this, the higher the chance it’ll work.
He reaches a conclusion. “I’m pretty good with a railgun.”
“Can you use your grav plates to fly?” I ask.
“Don’t assume because we’re not in the war we’re not trained. I’ll do my part. Let’s stop yacking and get this show on the road.”
“Helmets on,” I tell Brice and Hawkins. “Do it quick. Brice, check on those two guards, make sure they don’t need medical attention.”
He looks down at them. “They’re both breathing.”
Moments later, we’re in front of Blair’s glass door, ready to exit. Most of her people in the control room are stunned, staring, immobile. Some are hurrying to the exit. Others are on their comms, calling reinforcements. A few of her loyal guard, I sense, are already here. They’re in the hall, positioning themselves to contain us inside.
“Time to rock,” I tell Brice and Hawkins. “I’ll lead, you two stay close and watch our six.”
Blair is standing rigid and angry. I know she wants to resist, yet I’m not going to give her the chance. Once we’re out of her office and out of its artificial gravity, we’ll be subject only to the asteroid’s nearly null grav. I’ll carry her by the collar outstretched in front of me, my shield. She’ll be a hefty mass to shift around, but as long as I keep her hands away from the walls and her feet off the floor, there’ll be precious little she can do to resist.
“Hawkins,” I point with the barrel of the pistol I’m now holding, “grab that mask and breather off the guard’s belt.”
Blair tenses. “You are not taking me outside.”
I give her a shove toward the
door, stopping just before I push it open. “Life sucks when you’re a conniving pog. You’ve got no authority over me anymore so keep your orders to yourself.”
“Pog?” Blair asks, like that’s the most important thing I just said. “What does that even mean?”
“Persons other than grunts,” laughs Brice.
Unexpectedly, Blair tries something different. Her tone softens, and she affects the voice of a normal, feeling human being. “We can work this out.”
“We are working it out.” I push her through the door, amping up my defensive grav as I go.
Chapter 44
In the hall, without the grav field from Blair’s office floor pulling her weight down and my suit’s defensive field pushing her from behind, I have to hold onto her like a helium balloon trying to fly away in a breeze. I grav my feet tightly to the floor and keep her body between me and the three coverall-wearing soldiers up the walkway, all aiming their weapons at me.
One step forward. “I’m Captain Sokolov, and I order you to release Colonel Blair.”
I brandish my pistol just long enough for Sokolov to glimpse at it before shoving it back against Blair’s skull. “I don’t like your toady,” I tell her. “Make him and his buddies go far away, and remind them, they’ve got no defensive grav. I can exterminate them as easily as I can kill you.”
Blair blurts out rapid orders, and her men turn and clear the hall.
“Follow me,” I tell Hawkins and Brice.
I hustle up the hall and shove Blair through the door into the control room’s lobby, taking a second before I step through to use my bug to make sure the room is empty of hostiles.
Brice seals his faceplate shut, and so does Hawkins. I leave mine open, so I can talk to Blair.
Over the comm between the three of us, Brice says, “I’m connecting with the ship, although as soon as someone in the control room realizes we’re on their network, they’ll kick us off.”
“If we move fast, it won’t matter.” Hurrying across the lobby to the main doors, I ask, “How long do you think it takes to put on one of these suits?”
“In a hurry,” Brice answers, “with help, five minutes? Three if you’ve practiced.”
“Three to five minutes,” I tell him. “That’s how long we have to get to the surface. Then our advantage goes away.” I glance back at the control room. “My guess is it’ll take them longer than that before it occurs to them to cut us off the network.”
“What about freezing our suits?” asks Brice. He and I are in our original helmets, still coded under Blair’s command hierarchy.
“She doesn’t have her helmet on,” I tell him. “I guess we’d better hope we’re out of range before somebody thinks to use it against us.”
“Three to five minutes on that, too,” says Hawkins. His UN troops use the same orange suits we do. Earth produces the uniforms by the million, and the solar system is just awash in them. “The helmet won’t work independently. It has to be powered through the suit, which won’t fire up until it has a body inside.”
We’re at the door.
“Once through,” I tell them, “we’ll go left, fly as fast as we can to the end of the corridor, make another left down a short hall, and then a lift will take us up to level one. We have to pass through the domed recreation pavilion up there to reach an airlock that’ll give us access to the surface.”
“That glass dome we came through after the Trogs first attacked us?” asks Brice.
“That’s the place.” I turn for a quick glance at each of them. “Brice, tell Penny to bring the ship down for the pickup.”
Brice laughs. “I thought you and Phil were connected via bug-net.”
“Him and his Tick might know what’s going on, but they’re too far away for me to sense them.”
Hawkins chuckles as I shove Blair through the door.
Chapter 45
I glance in both directions. “Shit.”
Brice and Hawkins are out of the lobby and into the hall in seconds, weapons up, one pointing left, the other right.
A handful of soldiers is taking up positions in both directions, weapons readied, making the threat. More are coming into the hall.
“Well, boss?” asks Brice.
“Shoot if they shoot,” I tell him. “Stick to the plan, let’s take this witch for a ride.”
Blair glares at me and shouts something I don’t listen to because her shout turns to a scream as I hold her by the collar and take off. Flying down the hall, I accelerate toward the soldiers arrayed to stop us.
Brice and Hawkins don’t need instruction. They’re right behind me.
Ahead, I see wide eyes and hesitation.
Blair sounds like a Stuka screaming down from above.
“Max defensive grav!” I shout into my comm.
Red railgun rounds spray past us from behind, hitting walls after deflecting from our shields.
Brice curses. Like me, he doesn’t want to shoot. Despite the situation, these soldiers aren’t our enemies.
“Fire?” asks Hawkins.
A few more rounds hit the wall just ahead. I hope they’re just trying to scare us. I shout, “No!”
The soldiers ahead dodge out of our way, diving to the floor or pinning themselves against walls. We blow past, bowling them over with the combined effect of three strong grav fields.
The fire from behind stops.
We reach the side hall, and I decelerate hard. I have to grab Blair by the belt to keep her with me as I make the turn. We both hit the wall on the way around. My defensive field bounces me off, and I careen forward. Blair is bumped and scraped, but we stay together.
We reach the lift in a flash and come to a stop, panting.
I glance up to make sure the lift is clear. “Everybody good?”
Nods from both Hawkins and Brice as they level their weapons at our rear flank.
“Up we go!” I jump into the lift tube and accelerate.
Hawkins comes in right behind, and Brice follows—all too close, all too fast.
I exit on sub level one.
Hawkins pops out half a second later, knocking me down and sending both Blair and me tumbling into the hall. Brice is out of the tube next.
I’m tumbling, a victim of my defensive grav field, as I realize three of Blair’s troops are standing just down the hall, surprised.
Blair situates her feet beneath her and pieces the situation together before I do, shouting at the three that she’s being kidnapped.
I bounce off the ceiling, trying to figure out which way is down as my head spins, and I scold myself for using too much defensive grav.
The three soldiers rush me.
Before I know it, I’ve got hands all around, trying to push through my grav field and grip me, grasping at my weapon, my helmet, my H pack.
Brice hits all of us unexpectedly with the full force of his accelerating suit. The impact sends me spinning down the hall amidst the three soldiers, one with blood and teeth burbling from his mouth, another cursing, and the last dazed, with eyes rolled back in her head.
I focus on orienting my suit and taking control of my trajectory, and turning down my defensive grav. “Where’s Blair?”
“She was just here,” says Hawkins.
I turn to see he’s on his feet, back by the lift, weapon up, and coming toward us.
Brice is in the hall near me, watching the three soldiers spin off toward a ninety-degree turn ahead of us. “Only one way she could have gone.” He takes off in a burst of blue grav wash.
I wave Hawkins to come, and I follow Brice, making the turn just in time to see Blair struggling with him as he grabs her from behind and lifts her. Brice glances back at me.
“Just through the open doorway ahead of you,” I tell him.
Brice gives me a nod and accelerates away.
Hawkins catches up in a snap, and I give him a smile as we take off together. I realize he’s exceptionally comp
etent with his grav controls.
We zip through the doorway a few seconds behind Brice and fly up a dozen stairs, and suddenly we’re in the dome in the company of nearly twenty people, all lounging in chairs, taking their leisure time to sit under the stars and watch the low-g fountain undulate its water into living art.
“Everybody stay seated!” I shout as I wave my weapon at them.
Hawkins brandishes his as he pans across the room, making sure they all know they’re each a trigger pull away from the end of their lives.
Brice pushes Blair toward the airlock door.
She protests and flails her limbs.
“Put on your mask,” Brice orders as he punches the button to cycle the airlock. “This next part is going to suck for you, but not as much as it will if you don’t have your mask on.”
I don’t know if Blair can hear him through the helmet, nonetheless, she grabs at the mask we gave her. She knows what’s coming.
A woman and then a man courageously stand. “You can’t take her out there,” the woman says, pointing at the airlock. “She’ll die.”
“What are you doing, Kane?” It’s some guy. “Is this it? Are you really a Trog spy?”
“I believed you,” says the woman. “I thought the propaganda was bullshit.”
“Look,” I shout, “Blair’s going to be fine. She threatened to kill us.”
“Don’t,” Hawkins tells me. “You can’t litigate this here.”
The airlock door is open, and Brice pushes Blair inside. “The comms are down,” he tells me. “I can’t raise the ship. It’s just us three now.”
Hawkins taps his helmet as he backs toward the door. “I’ve got just you two.”
“Inside,” I tell him.
I back in, pointing my pistol outward as I pull the door closed behind me.
Blair has her mask on, and she’s screaming at me about all the terrible things she’s going to have done to me when her wrath comes home to roost.
I pull my faceplate down just as I pick up a telepathic image from Phil.
The ship is coming down outside.
