Waypoint Magellan

by L S Roebuck

  As Dek circled, he could tell that North was considering the truth of his words. He also realized he must kill North. Dek figured North would not give up his cause to keep Amberly on Magellan, doomed or not. Dek knew Amberly’s only chance of survival was to escape with him on the American Spirit, and North would stand in their way as long as he still drew air. Also, killing North would earn him some credit with Kimberly, possibly what he needed to get the space to have a relationship with Amberly.

  Dek dodged a clumsy right hook from North’s weak arm and decided to try a psychological attack to get the upper hand.

  “You know she fancies me?” Dek chided. “And why not? She and I are the same: Students of the universe, masters of science. And didn’t you hear Kimberly? She’s one of us now. She’ll be a great leader of Chasm one day, just like her mother. She’ll be a founding mother to the new order, remembered for her greatness and for surviving the destruction of Magellan. Let us go, North.”

  North sprung across the hallway and managed to get both of his hands around Dek’s throat while using his own weight to hold the smaller man to the wall. “What did you do to her?” North demanded. “How did you corrupt her?”

  North pulled Dek’s head forward and then slammed it forcefully against the steel wall. Dek had underestimated North’s raw strength. Dek was seeing dark spots in his peripheral vision. A flash of panic made him consider that his miscalculation could be his end.

  Was this worth it? Dek wondered. For Chasm? For Arara? North had Dek pinned, the Marine’s hands crushing Dek’s windpipe.

  Dek’s gaze fell down the hall, and he saw Amberly running toward them. Now, as he faced certain death — either by asphyxiation at the hand of this brute, or by airlock as a traitor to Earth — he knew that the new Arara order would never give him what he wanted: Amberly as his own.

  Not as his possession, but he wanted Amberly to belong to him, and him to her. The want was powerful, and Dek understood why the Chasm leaders wanted to destroy this personal bond. No loyalties this strong, however personal, could be tolerated in deference to loyalty to the new order.

  He couldn’t be sure what it was that made him long for Amberly. He had known plenty of smart and attractive women, but she was special. His analytical mind couldn’t decipher the cause. He pictured her soft, round cheeks, blushing to match her rouge hair.

  Deep down, he knew that Raven One would never permit them to have any sort of committed relationship, to perpetuate the old ways of love between a man and a woman. Dek tried to call out to Amberly, to tell her that he loved her, before he entered oblivion, but only a faint gurgling sound escaped his mouth.

  “North! Stop!”

  Amberly’s voice was sharp and clear. “North, you’re killing him! Stop! Please.”

  North looked at his hard hands encircling Dek’s neck, where a whitish-blue ring started to form where blood was being cut off.

  “Please, North, please. This isn’t you.”

  Amberly was right. North the murderer? North felt a powerful shame that his passions had gotten the better of him. Moreover, he was ashamed because he knew his God had seen the murderous intent in his heart. North breathed heavily and fought back tears as he released his grip from Dek’s marred throat, shoving the transient back into the wall. Dek gasped as air filled his lungs.

  North looked over and saw the disappointment and fear in Amberly’s eyes, and he felt broken again.

  To see Amberly defend him so vigorously, to beg for his life, sparked a powerful new hope in Dek. Maybe there was a way he could be with Amberly, Dek believed again. He didn’t have North’s strength, but perhaps he was just clever enough to figure it out, how to survive and start a new life with Amberly. But there would never be a life for him and Amberly on Magellan. This waypoint was doomed. For them to be together, they had to survive. And for them to survive, it meant the return to Arara.

  Dek took a long breath and then unexpectedly pummeled North with his free arm, landing a kidney punch that caused North to double and completely release Dek for just an instant. Dek had enough space to draw his short blade from its hidden sheath.

  “Dek, no!” Amberly shouted.

  Following the commotion, now Lydia and Kora had also found their way down the hall.

  North was already recovering when Dek, with all the strength he could muster, drove his knife into the heart of the existing wound on North’s arm. The pain drove North into instant shock. Dek pulled the blade out and stabbed North’s torso beneath the left rib cage, and in a flash pulled it out again only to stab North’s injured arm again, leaving the blade piercing the wound.

  The large man cried out in excruciating pain and stumbled back into Kora, his arm immediately bleeding profusely. The blade remained lodged in North’s muscle and bone as he collapsed to the floor.

  “North!” Amberly shouted. She and Kora both moved to him as he clutched his arm.

  “Lord, no,” Kora said, “I think he hit an artery. Lydia grab that med-pack.” Kora waved over at the nurse’s bag she had tossed on the floor down the hall where they had first encountered Kimberly and Dek. Lydia retreated to recover the requested kit.

  With the attention on North, Dek slowly reached over and picked up the assault rifle and aimed it squarely at North. North had to die.

  “Amberly, Kora,” Dek said with a quivering voice, “Please step away from him.”

  Lydia returned with the med-pack, handed it to Kora, and nervously noticed the gun Dek had aimed in the general direction of Amberly, Kora and North.

  “Lydia, hands on your head,” Dek requested firmly. The tall woman slowly complied, lacing her fingers against her soft yellow hair. “Please, step away from North now,” Dek repeated with more intensity, indicating all three women.

  “No!” Kora said, with tears running down her face. “He needs my help! Please.”

  “I don’t want to, but I will kill you if you make me,” Dek said, looking hard into Kora’s eyes. “North will never surrender or stand down — he has to die. We’ve come too far, so close to perfecting humanity, to let this Marine get in the way. Death comes for us all; for North it comes today.”

  “Go to hell,” Kora growled. She knew she should pray for her enemies, but she had no place for that Christian practice now.

  Dek lightly pulled the trigger and a single bullet rang out, a warning shot aimed purposefully well above North’s head. Amberly yelped in surprise at the sound of the gunshot, but she stayed by North’s side.

  “You don’t scare me,” Kora said, turning her back to Dek and preparing to pull the knife from North’s wound. “Shoot me. I know where I’m going when I die. Do you?”

  “Apparently to hell,” Dek mocked Kora.

  “Save yourselves,” North gasped. His breaths were rapid, but shallow. Both the Macready sisters knew North would soon die from blood loss. “Maybe Dek’s right. Maybe it is my time. No reason for you to die, too. Save yourself. Be happy. Kora, you're a dish. I’ll always love you, Red.”

  “North,” Amberly said, tears running down her face. North shook his head at her in surrender.

  Dek looked at his beloved. “Amberly, please step away from North,” Dek begged.

  North slowly forced himself to stand, blood trickling from his wounds onto the cold steel floor. He gently pushed Amberly and Kora out of the way and stood vulnerably in sights of his own assault rifle, which Dek had trained on North’s torso.

  North looked at Dek hard. “Kill me if you must, but promise me you’ll take care of Amberly. Promise me you’ll die for her.” Then North closed his eyes and fell to his knees. He was bleeding out, shot up, stabbed, stunned, broken and worn out, but mostly just tired. The day had tested his mettle like none other. He leaned against the wall, and slid down into a seating position, leaving a crimson streak on the wall. Dek’s blade still protruded from his arm.

  He smiled, closed his eyes, and prepared to die.

  Amberly knew what she had to do. It was the only way to save Nort
h. And Magellan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Amberly stepped between Dek and North, confident and resolved. Her face was scratched and dirty, perspiration and dust streaked across her face.

  After all this time, she finally figured out what she felt about North: She loved him. She didn’t know if it was romantic or platonic or anything else, she just knew it was a real, selfless love. And she knew she loved him because she was ready to sacrifice herself, her hopes and dreams for the future, if needed, for his sake. She was ready to leave him, so he could live. She loved him, because he first loved her. He always had, even if he hadn’t known it. And now she reflected that love back to him.

  She knew that to save North, she would have to let him go – painfully.

  “Dek you need to listen to me very carefully,” Amberly took a step toward Dek and positioned herself between the rifle and North. “Dek, I want us. I want us to be together,” Amberly said, her heart breaking as she imagined the pain these words would have on North.

  Amberly continued. “But that will never happen if my mother wins. You know it. You think you can outsmart my mother? You think she’ll let us be together?”

  While Amberly distracted Dek, Kora removed the blade from North’s arm. The pain electrified his nerves, but North didn’t even have the strength left to cry out. Kora was spraying wound care on his arm while Lydia was applying pressure to his fresh torso wound.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Dek said. “We’ll run away and hide in the Arara wilderness.”

  “Maybe,” Amberly said. “But with a mark of death always on our heads, we’d never be free. I would never be happy.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Surrender to the Magellan authorities,” Amberly said. “You can still be granted amnesty. And you must know how we can stop Chasm, how we can save Magellan.”

  “They’ll exile me… send me back to Earth,” Dek said. “There is no escape for me. Arara is our best hope. We should take our chances with your mother and the Chairman.”

  “My mom will kill us just like she did Joti, in a snap, if she thinks we’ll harm the cause,” Amberly argued. “If Magellan exiles you, at least you’ll still be alive. I can’t see you die, not now.”

  “Yes, but I’ll never see you again,” Dek said. “That’s not a round trip to Earth.”

  “Amberly, I can’t save North here,” Kora said, interrupting her gunpoint discussion with Dek. Kora was disgusted with her sister, for apparently choosing Dek, but she knew now wasn’t the time. “If we don’t get him to the medicenter soon, he will die.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Amberly said to Dek, ignoring her sister. “So two decades on a ship won’t be so bad if we are together. Maybe we can start a family, who knows?”

  How did this happen to him? How did he come to love this woman? And with love, Dek reasoned, comes trust. He had to start trusting Amberly now.

  “Please Dek, surrender,” Amberly said. “Let’s go on a great adventure together. Do you love me?”

  “I don’t know what love is, Amberly,” Dek said, hardly able to process the emotions exploding inside of him. Nearly his whole life he’d given his life for the cause, and the belief that the greater good, the state, Chasm and the perfect society to come, would always be more important than one person. But whatever he felt for Amberly was so powerful, he was willing to throw nearly 20 years of loyalty to Chasm away. “But how can what I feel toward you not be love?”

  “Please, surrender.”

  “Amberly! North’s unconscious,” Kora gritted.

  “Please, my love, surrender.”

  Dek lowered his weapon, and Lydia stepped forward slowly. Dek handed the butt of the gun to Lydia and put his hands on top of his head.

  “Amberly Macready,” Dek said, his face beaming with a strange joy, “I surrender and disavow Chasm and ask for asylum and amnesty.”

  As Lydia took possession of the assault rifle, Amberly stepped up to Dek and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Welcome to the good side,” she said. “Now, how do we stop my mother?”

  Just then Boro and Wong rounded the corner, weapons raised.

  Dek raised his hands in surrender. “Kimberly Macready will have one objective in mind, getting to the command center with as many troops as possible.”

  Kora, who was leaning over North’s prone figure, trying to stabilize him, pointed at Dek. “Secure him. He’s Dek Tigona, a Chasm leader.”

  Wong pulled out a zip cuff and secured Tigona’s hands.

  “He surrendered to us willingly,” Amberly said rapidly. “He gets amnesty. Get as much information from him as you can, okay? We have to stop my mother before it’s too late.”

  “Amberly,” North spoke weakly.

  Amberly knelt beside North. “North… I… I…”

  North motioned for Lydia to hold his head up. “I hope you and Dek … are happy, Red, I really do,” he said, smiling faintly. Amberly could see the bittersweetness in his dark brown eyes, and she could not hold back her tears. North was crying too when his eyes rolled back into his head, and he slipped again into unconsciousness.

  “We have to get him to the medicenter, now!” Kora said. “Lydia, help me carry him.”

  Boro reached down. “I will carry him.” The large Marine gently picked up North.

  Wong was communicating with his radio earpiece. “I need a dispatch of a gurney stat.” Wong listened to the reply. “Okay. Tell the Science Quarter medicenter we have Lt. Commander North incoming with multiple stab and bullet wounds. Lots of blood loss. He is unconscious.”

  Wong looked at Kora.

  “No ambulance, let’s move.” Wong said. “The medical response teams are in chaos right now. Either they are out responding, or they never came into work today. We’ll have to get North there ourselves. Boro, you got this. I am going to get this fellow to the Brig — North said he trusts you with his life. Save him again.”

  “So I shall.”

  Boro started down the hallway, his arms outstretched, holding North. Lydia and Kora followed. About ten paces down, Boro stopped and grunted. North was not a small man. It was at least a kilometer to the nearest medicenter. Lydia came up beside him and slipped her arms under North and locked them onto Boro’s. He smiled at her and appreciated her strength. Together they carried the fallen Marine as fast as they could.

  Wong pointed down the hallway that led to the tube. “Let’s get you both to the command center. We can interrogate this traitor there. I am sure that XO Moreno will want to question him personally.”

  Amberly watched as North, Boro, Lydia and Kora disappeared behind a steel wall around a corner.

  Dek looked at Amberly with soft eyes. “I’m sorry about North. I just…”

  North was gone. Now Amberly could focus on the task at hand. She needed Dek’s full allegiance to save North, Kora and the rest of Magellan, so she played the only card she had left. She threw her arms around Dek’s neck and kissed him.

  “Dek, of course I care about North, and I want to save him, and let’s do that,” Amberly said. “But this is the beginning of us. Now, how can we stop my mother?”

  “We better hurry,” Dek said. “We don’t have much time.

  So unfortunate, Raven One thought. This is war, and I am doing what is necessary.

  She reached over Twig’s lifeless body and took his stun gun. The pilot’s arm had been snapped by the Chasm leader after she had ambushed him during his pursuit. The arm extended from his torso at an unnatural angle. He didn’t suffer long, Kimberly mused, recalling how she broke his neck less than a minute after she confronted her pursuer.

  Kimberly was in a vacant police substation and was accessing the system-wide public announcement system with her hacking box. She had to get to the command center. She couldn’t remotely issue self-destruct commands — she had to be in the command center to make it happen. If only Järvinen and Johnson had been able to secure the command center — or even establish acc
ess to the American Spirit. But they had failed.

  And they weren’t the only ones who failed. The fact that they were not keeping Magellan as a prize of the new Araran order meant someone on one of the other waypoint cells had failed, too. How can we build the perfect human order on people who are so susceptible to failure? Kimberly thought.

  A green indicator light strobed on her hacking box indicated that she now had control of the waypoint-wide public announcement system.

  Kimberly took a deep breath. Chasm was hanging by a thread. The hopes for humanity perfected, after generations of planning, would come down to this. Could she convince the remaining Chasm loyalists to sacrifice what was needed complete the mission?

  She closed her eyes, centering herself, feeling emotion and reason welling deep inside of her bosom. She spoke into the terminal microphone, slowly, pouring every ounce of confidence into her words.

  “People of Magellan, today is a glorious day. You are all about to be a part of the most pivotal moment in human history since the birth of Christ. I am Raven One, but you might remember me as Kimberly Macready.”

  In the medicenter, Kora couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was inserting an intravenous needle into North as the surgeon prepared to go to work on the Marine’s wounds. “Can’t we shut that off?” the surgeon asked her medical assistant. The assistant shrugged.

  “I represent Chasm. For generations, we have been planning a great separation, to disconnect Arara from Earth, so we can build a truly perfect society on Arara, free from the shackles of Earth’s history. Think of a society with no war, no disease, no money — where everyone believed that the community was more important than the individual, where everyone is truly equal. We are going to build that place. And some of you are going to come with us.”

  Dek, Amberly and Wong were sprinting toward the tube, and Kimberly’s voice filled the waiting area. “We’re going to be too late,” Dek said, already second-guessing his choice in throwing in with the Earth loyalists.