by Dan Moren
“The tablet. Now.”
Hefting the artifact speculatively in one hand, Addy eyed the man. “You’ve got to know I’m not just going to give it to you, right?”
“I can take it off your body, if that would be preferable.”
Oh, good, this one has a sense of humor. She let her peripheral vision widen, trying to see everything in the room at once, but the only things nearby were Xi’s unconscious form and the White Star security guard that someone – Taylor, she had to assume – had shot. The latter had a KO gun and a concussion grenade on his belt, but if she so much as made a move she had little doubt the IIS agent would shoot her. What she needed was a distraction.
“Sayers!” shouted a voice from overhead that she recognized as Taylor. “Jump!”
She just resisted the temptation to ask “How high?”, recognizing it for what it was: an order. The yell had been enough to get the attention of the Eyes operative, who glanced over his shoulder as Addy crouched and sprung.
As she did, the lights in the observatory flickered and she heard a sound that reminded her of nothing so much as an electronic version of water gurgling down a drain.
Then she was floating upward.
And not just her. Everybody and everything in the compartment that wasn’t bolted down – Kovalic’s limp form, a curled-up Dr al-Kitab, the unconscious Xi and her security guard – had suddenly gone weightless, as if the local artificial gravity had just died.
Taylor must have deactivated it.
Even as he bit off a swear, the IIS agent recovered impressively fast, snapping off a shot with the slug thrower. But Addy had already risen ten feet off the deck, and was still moving from her momentum. The slug hit the tablet, knocking it out of Addy’s grasp, even as the recoil sent the IIS agent tumbling, heels over head, in the opposite direction.
Addy’s fingertips brushed the corner of the tablet as it spun away from her, but with her hands still manacled she couldn’t extend her arms far enough. Damn it. She floated upward towards the metal shutters of the observation deck’s ceiling.
Below her, the IIS agent rebounded off the floor, somehow getting his feet beneath him, then pushed off along a trajectory that would take him towards the tablet.
Shit. Shit shit shit. But at least he couldn’t fire again without risking knocking himself off his path. Addy still had time.
She bumped gently off the shutters, managing to find a handhold and stop her rotation. Not enough time. Getting to the tablet before the IIS agent would be almost impossible, and then she’d be a sitting duck for his slug-thrower.
But maybe there was another option. Lining herself up, she pushed off the ceiling with all her strength, aiming herself toward the body of Xi’s unconscious security guard.
She and the IIS agent glided past each other like sharks in the night, eyeing one another, but unwilling to deviate from their courses. Addy craned her neck to watch him grab the tablet; a moment later she collided gently with the security guard.
As the IIS agent turned and fired off a shot, Addy wrestled the security guard’s body in between them – she’d seen the armor he’d been wearing, and it deflected the slugs without significant injury to either of them, though the impact knocked them backwards toward the deck. The guard spasmed slightly and let out a piteous moan, but he was still alive and, well, if not kicking, then thrashing, as they bounced gently off the floor.
Addy fumbled around the man’s belt, but couldn’t find his gun – it must have floated away when the gravity went off. What he did have was a pair of plasticuffs and a concussion grenade.
Not that I’m complaining. Addy grabbed both, then risked a peek around the body. The shots had cost the IIS agent, who was floating backwards, propelled by the equal and opposite force the weapon had generated. But he still clung tightly to the tablet.
She couldn’t let him have it. Kovalic had made that clear – the tablet couldn’t fall into Illyrican hands. The cylinder of the concussion grenade was heavy, but it was all she had. Hefting it, she estimated the angles and the distances to the agent, who was still on the float, spinning towards the far bulkhead. But if he caught a handhold there, he could reorient himself and get to the exit. They might never catch up with him after that.
There wasn’t time to agonize over it. Pulling the safety tab Addy hurled the grenade at the IIS agent with an awkward two-handed throw. She spared a glance at al-Kitab, who had anchored himself with surprising adroitness, hooking his feet under a nearby table. Sorry, doc.
Her throw sent her flying back towards the deck; she bumped off it and started to float upwards again, spinning off her axis – this time, though, something caught her by the arm. She glanced over her shoulder to see Kovalic, hand wrapped around her forearm; he yanked her back down towards the deck, where he was somehow securely anchored.
What the…? Her eyes flicked down to his feet and noticed for the first time the gravboots Kovalic was wearing. Where’d he get those? But she didn’t have time to say anything as the concussion grenade, having continued its tumble towards the agent, reached its mark.
The agent had rotated just in time to see the grenade a mere foot from him, and instinctively raised the tablet in front of his face just as the grenade exploded in a shockwave of light and sound.
A concussion grenade was generally designed to disable targets without causing significant destruction to objects, but something must have resonated with whatever material the tablet was made from. The artifact shattered, fragments flying in every direction. Addy couldn’t tell who screamed louder: the Eyes operative taking a hail of shrapnel or the professor watching his life’s pursuit disintegrate in front of his eyes.
“What the hell?” said Kovalic as he pulled her back down to the deck.
“Sorry about that. Just tell me you’ve got an exit plan, because we probably shouldn’t stick around.”
Kovalic looked up at the metal shutters overhead and tapped his earbud with his free hand. “Aegis, we ready to do this?”
Besides them, Addy heard another groan and glanced over to see Xi’s eyelids fluttering. “Uh, now would be good.”
There was a flicker of motion from beside them as Taylor drifted to the floor with the impressive and somehow entirely unsurprising grace of a ballet dancer on pointe. “Updraft is in position. Hold tight everybody.” Somewhere along the way she’d scooped up Xi’s slug-thrower.
“Hold… ti…?”
Overhead came the loud sound of machinery as the metal shutters clanked open, revealing the transparent lattice of the observation portal and the void of space beyond.
“Going to borrow these,” said Taylor, waving her sleeve at Addy’s cuffed hands; the manacles popped open, and Taylor deftly used them to attach her belt to Kovalic’s. Her arms circled Addy, who was watching the floating body of Xi stir. The gangster’s dark eyes were wobbly as they focused on her, disorientation followed by a look of utter and complete contempt.
The shutters overhead ground to a halt, leaving only a small gap between them in which Addy could see the open starfield, shimmering through the latticework. Why only partway open?
Taylor tapped something on her sleeve. “Reactivating gravity in three… two… one…”
Reactivating gravity?!
And Addy suddenly felt all of her cells pulled back down at one g, watching as the floating objects and bodies drifting around the room fell to the deck with an assortment of thumps, clanks, and curses.
But she didn’t have long as there was a high-pitched whine beneath them, and she looked down just in time to see Kovalic’s gravboots still at full power. Wait, you’re not supposed to–
And then the three of them shot upwards, hurtling towards the small gap in the shutters. As they rushed towards the viewport, she could see the individual hexagonal panels and the thin joins that formed the lattice.
Beside her, Taylor raised the slug-thrower and emptied the clip in a cluster that would have made any firearms instructor proud; the panel right a
bove them spider-webbed with cracks.
She heard Kovalic reminding her to exhale and had just enough time to expel all the air from her lungs before the transparent aluminum was wrenched apart by the force of the vacuum and they were blown out into open space, the shutters immediately clapping shut behind them.
Black, harsh cold expanded around her, seeping into every inch of her being as she swore she could feel the blood starting to boil in her veins.
What the f–
Even as she felt the heat being leached from her body, her fingertips and toes going numb, something big and bright swooped overhead. And blearily, through the tears filling her eyes, she thought she saw a figure reaching out a hand, like that famous mural back on Earth. The one on the church ceiling… she could remember the name if only she could just stay awake…
CHAPTER 30
Tapper’s voice crackled over the intercom of Ofeibia Xi’s personal yacht, echoing in the cockpit. “Three for three aboard. Get us the hell out of here, kid.”
“Roger that,” said Eli, tapping the control to seal the ship’s emergency airlock, then bringing the ship around. All they needed to do was outrun the Queen Amina – which hopefully had bigger things to worry about right now. “ETA to the Badr gate is thirty minutes.” He slid the throttle up and felt the acceleration press him back into the pilot’s seat.
Man, this thing really moves. Custom from stem to stern, just like Mal said. I wonder if Kovalic would let me upgrade the Cav with some of the components. Sure, they could just keep the whole ship, but something told Eli that the yacht might just be a little too recognizable for everyday usage.
But I’ll enjoy it while I can.
The cockpit door slid open, nearly silent against the deep, throaty rumble of the ship’s engine.
“Everything all right back there?”
“Yep,” said Tapper. “We got ’em before their blood started to boil, so that’s a real plus. Treating for exposure but they ought to be OK. Mal’s keeping an eye out.” Since humans had expanded into space, they’d gotten pretty good at treating these kinds of incidents. Accidents happened. Probably fewer cases of people doing it intentionally, though.
“Good,” was all Eli said, focusing on the holoscreen overlay on the canopy. The HUD had isolated the gate, magnifying it so that Eli could see the blue-purple vortex of the wormhole glowing in its center.
A heavy hand descended on Eli’s shoulder. “That was a damn risky move you pulled back there with the grenade, Brody,” said Tapper, his voice even more gravelly than usual. “Could have gotten us all killed.”
Eli pushed the hand away. “I did what I had to do.” If his tone was a bit on the frosty side, it only mirrored how he felt. I didn’t get into this to barter human lives like so much commodity trading. “We couldn’t leave her behind.”
Tapper collapsed into the co-pilot’s seat as though all the energy had been siphoned out of him. “I get it. Look, you gotta understand, kid. Page…” The sergeant’s voice turned uncharacteristically wistful, “he did some shit he shouldn’t have. We – you, me, the major, the commander…and yes, even Sayers – we’re a team. A family. And when somebody in that family betrays you, well, you take it hard.”
Family, Eli thought, bitterness seeping in from around the edges. He knew a little something about being betrayed by the people you thought you could trust.
“If we’re family, then I need to be treated like it, OK? You, Kovalic, Taylor – you can’t keep this kind of stuff from me. I’m either on this team or I’m not.”
For a moment, he thought Tapper would fight him, but the sergeant just let out a long sigh. “You’re right, kid. I’ve been doing this a long time – probably longer than I should have. And that whole time, I’ve been looking out for people. My family. The soldiers in my squads. The major – even before he was my CO. You. Folks like Mal. That’s what I do. Sometimes that means taking a bullet for ’em, sometimes it means not telling ’em the things that you think will hurt them.”
“I’m not a kid! I’m out there facing death with you. Every time we go on one of these missions, we’re putting our lives in each other’s hands. You trust me enough to watch your back, you gotta trust me with everything.”
“I know, I know,” said Tapper, hands raised. “Like I said, you’re right. I have to… recalibrate a bit. Not going to happen overnight, but I’ll work on it. OK?”
Eli spared a glance from the controls to meet Tapper’s eyes, and was surprised to see a warmth there that he’d never really noticed below the gruff exterior. He gave a grudging nod. “OK.”
“OK,” said Tapper. “So, what do you say we go home?”
Half an hour later, Xi’s yacht was safely ensconced in the same wormhole they’d so recently exited, and Kovalic had assembled his team – minus the tech that Tapper had brought aboard and said he would explain when he had more time – in the ship’s rather well-appointed and luxurious lounge.
Lowering himself gingerly into one of the couches, Kovalic heard from each and every bruise and pulled muscle in harmony with the aches from his – thankfully brief – trip in vacuum. Plus, his feet were still sore from the gravboots he’d pilfered from one of the other lifeboats. He’d gotten the idea from Brody’s trip outdoors and was only slightly regretting the decision.
Nat and Sayers looked similarly worn out, but the good news was that none of it was anything a cup of coffee and liberal application of pain relievers couldn’t handle.
“Poor Dr al-Kitab,” said Nat. “His whole life’s work and now he’ll never know the truth.”
Sayers frowned from her couch, taking a sip of coffee to cover it, but Kovalic could read the tension in her pose.
“We didn’t get anything?” Brody asked. “Didn’t he make scans?”
“Preliminary only,” said Nat. “There wasn’t enough time for a full scan.”
“Disappointing as that is,” said Kovalic, taking each of them in turn, “the important thing is that the Illyricans don’t have the tablet. This was a win, people.”
Nobody in the room was exactly celebrating.
Brody was leaning against a bulkhead. “Seems like a lot of trouble for not a lot of reward.”
“Some days that’s the job,” said Tapper.
“Tapper’s right,” said Kovalic. “This is about the big picture. And because of us, the Illyricans won’t get their hands on new worlds to exploit.”
“What about Xi?” said Sayers, and Kovalic could see the anger, hard and sharp, simmering in her eyes.
“Well, we did take her yacht,” said Brody. “So, uh, she’ll have to replace that.”
“Oh, great,” said Sayers, rolling her eyes. “That ought to take her about two days.”
“We weren’t there to take Xi down,” said Nat. “Like it or not, she’s part of the ecosystem. With her gone, we’d just end up with half a dozen fractured criminal organizations battling it out with probably a lot more bloodshed.”
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m just bummed that we’re not any closer to knowing if aliens are real,” said Brody. “Wait, if we destroyed the tablet, which could have proved the existence of extraterrestrials… are we part of the conspiracy?” He clapped a hand to his mouth.
“And on that note,” said Kovalic, “I think we should all get some much-needed rest.”
The others rose, Tapper nudging a still-thinking Brody towards the cockpit. Nat stretched and, at a look from Kovalic, headed aft, towards the ship’s personal quarters.
That left him alone with Sayers, who was still sitting on one of the couches, massaging her hip while she stared off into the middle-distance.
“Something on your mind, specialist?”
She blinked, as if suddenly realizing they were alone, and hastily got to her feet, coming to a parade rest. Something flashed across her face – regret? – but it was quickly layered over with a stoic resolve. “I’d like to surrender myself, sir.”
Kovalic leaned back, trying not
to wince at the twinge down his spine. “Surrender yourself?”
Sayers’s parade rest broke and she waved a hand in frustration. “I didn’t follow orders, I compromised the mission by giving your identities to Xi, and I destroyed the mission objective. The only thing waiting for me on Nova is a court-martial.”
She had a point. In a normal unit, Sayers would have been put on trial for any number of the choices she’d made during this operation, and would have been lucky to get a discharge over being thrown in the brig.
Good thing this wasn’t a normal unit.
Kovalic let out a breath. “You’re not going to be court-martialed, Sayers.”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Kovalic saw genuine shock on her face, a conviction that she could not have heard him correctly. “I… I… Sir?”
“Look, I’m not going to lie: I would prefer you not have given Xi our real identities, but I understand why you did.” He waved a hand for her to fill in the blanks.
“I didn’t know how much she knew,” said Sayers. “If I’d used your cover identities and she already knew who you really were, I would have looked at best like a dupe, and at worst like I was still trying to play her. I had to sell it.”
“Exactly. You picked what you thought was the best of a slew of bad options. Everybody else on this boat has done the same.”
Sayers snorted. “Probably not Commander Taylor…”
“Even Commander Taylor. I’ll vouch for that. Nobody’s here because this job is easy. Sometimes you have to make the best bad decision you can. I’m not going to say your first outing was an unqualified success, but I still believe you have promise, specialist.
“Look, I offered you a job. I don’t intend to rescind that now. If you want the gig, it’s yours.”
Blinking, Sayers opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“It’s OK,” said Kovalic. “Think it over if you need to. You know where to find me.” He got to his feet.
“Wait! I mean, yes. Yes, I’ll take the job.”
“Good. I’m glad.” He turned to go then paused. “And Sayers?”
