by J. N. Chaney
"Don't do me any favors." I tried to access X-37 but couldn't get through.
"What's the matter, Cain?” Hastings asked.
"Don't worry about it,” I said. “Where is your daughter?"
"They have a small brig, so they tossed her in there," the doctor said, exhaustion bleeding through his words.
I assessed the room and made a note of anything that might help me escape or fight back.
"It's better this way," Hastings said. He checked and rechecked the bandages and wraps that had been applied. I couldn't remember which ones I had received during my fight with Callus and which with the ship security detail.
It probably didn't matter.
"If you get out of this, and if you ever get released from prison, you should find Jason Domingo on Carver. He can help you start a new life," Hastings said, guilt evident in the tone of his voice.
“That’s incredibly generous, Doc,” I said. “What about the political refugees and nonviolent criminals who found themselves abandoned on Dreadmax? Do they deserve to die?”
A flicker of what I assumed to be decency flashed in the doctor’s eyes, and guilt. He looked at the floor. “There’s nothing to be done for them. The shipbuilders are close to having a working ship, but they won’t be able to launch without the slip drive regulator.”
“You’re telling me they have a functioning slip drive?” I couldn’t believe what he was telling me. The ability to travel through slip space was a game changer. Not only could the people on Dreadmax escape, they could harass the Union with guerilla warfare. Or vanish into the Deadlands and start new lives. Maybe a little of both.
The freighter, if they had it fixed, could move more personnel than a warship, but lacked more than asteroid busters for weapons. The haulers were also much slower.
I needed to concentrate on first things first.
“They’ve done amazing work. I should have warned the Union, but sometimes I’m nearly as rebellious as you,” Hastings said.
“Doubtful,” I said.
“You’re not the only person who has second thoughts. I’m not a monster.” He paused. “I only do what I think is right. If it’s safe. And no one gets hurt.”
“Aren’t those the same things?” I asked.
He looked away.
“Tell me about their freighter,” I demanded.
“Without a slip drive regulator, any voyage they begin would be suicide. They’d either get stuck in this system or hit the tunnel walls inside slipspace and obliterate themselves down to the atomic level. I can’t stop thinking I should tell the Union.”
This guy was going to make me kill him. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“I thought maybe they would help, loan them a regulator,” he postulated.
“You know they’d just nuke the shipyard. The Union put those people there for a reason. Maybe they weren’t murderers and traitors, but they definitely crossed the wrong people.”
“It was just an idea. I know what you’re talking about. I’m not a fool. It’s just that it would take a spec ops team to get to the spine and recover the regulator,” he said, stopping to look me in the eyes. “Or maybe a Reaper.”
25
FATIGUE HIT me like a falling building. Running and gunning across the top deck of Dreadmax had my adrenaline pumping to stay alive. Now I was sitting in a storage closet, basically, with my hands and feet zip-tied together.
It was humiliating. Here I was a death row inmate and former Reaper and they didn’t even put me in actual brig. That was reserved for a teenage girl who was apparently more of an escape risk than I was—a fact I would have found much more interesting if I wasn’t so banged up.
Everything Doctor Hastings had told me during his moment of weakness echoed in my imagination, slashing away at my conscience and screaming at me to do something. There were a lot of people on Dreadmax the galaxy would be better without, but the shipbuilders and a lot of the other regular folk I had seen didn’t deserve what was coming.
The end had to be coming soon, because the mission clock had expired hours ago. I’d seen holes in the atmosphere generator where steam from broken pipes rushed out into the void. I’d thrown Callus into a dead spot created by the failing gravity generator. All of the tremors and the sounds of twisting metal were previews of what would happen soon.
I was headed back to death row and had a strong suspicion my appeal had been denied and the execution chamber prepped for immediate use. But at least I wasn’t going to die on Dreadmax. Lucky me.
The door to my cubicle slid open and I saw Callus’ second in command, Jordan, blocking most of the light with his large, still fully armored frame. “Callus was a better man than you’ll ever be.”
“I think we can agree neither of us were ever good men,” I said, knowing what was coming.
“Fuck you, asshole. We’re doing a job,” Jordan said. “The Union can’t survive without warriors to protect it. You could have been part of that, but you’re damaged goods. Too selfish. Not open to what’s best for everyone.”
“You’re one of those people,” I said, measuring his reaction.
“Watch yourself, convict. What do you mean, those people?” he asked.
I changed position slightly, looking for an advantage. “The brainwashed psychos who were just following orders.” There wasn’t much space in this makeshift cell for maneuvering.
“That’s nice coming from the guy who’s killed more people than the galactic plague,” Jordan said.
I shook my head, looking at the deck as he made mistake after mistake. “Maybe you ought to remember that before you come in here and push my buttons.”
“The only thing that’s going to get pushed is your face,” he sneered.
“Why are you doing this, Jordan?”
“Because you killed Callus. We looked up to him. He was the best.” The man shook with anger.
“He was a clumsy dumbass who fell into a gravity dead spot,” I said.
“Fucking asshole liar!” Jordan pulled me out of the closet cell, lifting me onto my toes before slamming me down hard.
With my hands and feet bound by zip-ties, I wasn’t able to stop the fall. Stars exploded across my vision as my face hit the deck.
“What are you doing, Sarge?” one of the other spec ops soldiers asked.
“Payback time. Get in or get out,” Jordan spat, voice cracking.
Jordan’s boot caught me in the ribs. For several seconds, I thought the rest of Callus’ team had better self-control than the sergeant, but I soon learned different.
The lights were low and the ship’s internal security cameras were turned off, I was guessing.
“Come on, Reaper! Do something.” The man stepped back to gather force for his next kick. “Let’s see how you get out of this one. You’re not such a badass after all!”
More boots. More getting dragged into walls, picked up, and slammed back down.
“I was spec ops. Served with dozens of other spec ops teams,” I croaked.
The abuse stopped.
“What’s your point, Reaper?”
“Never met a squad that beat a prisoner. What the hell happened to the Union’s finest?”
Jordan and a few of the others went at me with renewed vigor, but I was glad to see most of the others drew back, then started to pull their friends off me.
“He’s had enough,” one said.
“I’ll say when he’s had enough. You better get in here and show whose side you’re on,” Jordan demanded.
“I’m on the Union’s side, Sarge, but this is against regulations.”
I never saw who the brave soul was, but Jordan and the others stopped their attack… after getting a few final shots in.
“I need the doctor,” I said.
“Fine,” Jordan spat. “Get Hastings in here. I need our medic to look at my hand. Think I broke a knuckle or three.”
“He’s with his daughter,” a voice said.
“I don’t give a fuck
! Do it. You’re seriously on thin ice, Carter. I better not hear you talking about this later. What happens on mission stays on mission,” Jordan said.
Doctor Hastings didn’t say a word as he cleaned my wounds and glued my face back together.
The recon ship was small. This was a newer version, but the layout was familiar. I glanced through the main room and saw that whoever had removed the doctor had brought Elise as well. Out of her cell, she hadn’t wasted time watching her father patch me up.
Doctor Hastings sat up. “That’s the best I can do for you. The wounds are clean, the lacerations glued shut because I don’t have what I need for stitches. I wrapped your right wrist. Looks like a sprain.” He looked around the small room, chastising the soldiers with an uncharacteristically hard expression. A moment later, his face changed. “Where is my daughter?”
“Oh shit!” the men cursed.
I heard the door to the cockpit lock shut.
“Doc, can your daughter fly a ship?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Hastings answered, appearing more than a little uncomfortable.
“You better grab on to something.” I really hoped Elise knew what she was doing in the pilot’s seat.
Jordan and the others hammered on the door to the cockpit, cursing and making threats. The ship lurched and went down hard.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it to the UFS Thunder,” Hastings said.
“Welcome back to Dreadmax,” I said, laughing.
WAKING up in the smoking wreckage of a crashed ship wasn’t a new experience, unfortunately. Chemical fumes gagged me. My eyes watered and something made me laugh like a lunatic. I’d just been patched up, now this.
I rolled onto my side, searching for Elise and her father. To my surprise, the recon vessel was mostly intact, having activated shields right before impact. The area around it, however, was a tangled mess of steel.
A man in a Dreadmax jumpsuit knelt beside me. “Are you okay, mister?”
His voice was rough, probably damaged from an industrial accident or years of smoking, but he reminded me of Bug. My stomach went hollow at the thought of the kid I had never met meeting his fate on this place.
“How did I get outside?” I asked.
“A girl and her father dragged you, then got in an argument with one of the soldiers. I didn’t see what happened after that. What’s wrong with your fancy prosthetic?” the man asked.
I sat up and turned away from him to deemphasize his attention to my cybernetic enhancements. Next thing I knew, we’d be discussing other things that were wrong with me and I didn’t think this was a good place for that type of conversation.
“Not important. You should probably get back. This isn’t safe,” I said.
The man shook his head, sad eyes suggesting he knew the end of Dreadmax was near and safety was a useless concept. “Won’t be able to keep people back. That ship might be functional, and that’s a pretty valuable commodity right now.”
People crowded forward, stepping over the damaged top deck to avoid bodies. Some of the crew and soldiers had been thrown from the crash. A blood smear decorated the side of a decommission point defense turret. I looked again at the recon ship and realized it wasn’t in as good a shape as I had first thought. There was a gash down the side that could be repaired, but not in time for these people.
Or for me.
“Don’t worry about the ship,” I said. “Worry about some really pissed-off spec ops soldiers.”
“We’ll get you out of here,” another man said.
Hands lifted me to my feet. It wasn’t long before there were dozens of people between me and the downed ship.
“Why are you helping me?” Nothing made sense. My legs felt like rubber. “Where am I?”
I fell, scraping my hands and knees.
“Reaper Cain, you must remain conscious,” X-37 said.
“Yeah, sure thing, X. Just give me a second,” I said.
“Who are you talking to?” one of my rescuers asked.
My vision cleared. These people were in danger.
“Listen, there’s going to be trouble. You need to clear out,” I said, grabbing the first man by his jumpsuit and forcing him to look at me.
He nodded and talked to the others.
Jordan and his squad climbed out of the starboard hatch, which was facing the Dreadmax sky. They slid to the deck and checked gear, weapons, and each other.
I pushed away from the good Samaritans and searched for Elise and her father.
“Well, look at that son-of-a-bitch,” Sergeant Jordan said. “Still alive. That’s not fucking right.”
I rolled onto my knees, then made it to my feet even as I started running for another downed soldier—one of the ship Soldiers who had been thrown to his death when the ship went down. There wasn’t time to show the proper respect. I ripped the shotgun from his kit and dove behind a slag of cooling metal.
Gunfire cut apart the scene. Bullets ricocheted off the buildings near me. Crouching low, I ran to a new position, fully aware that staying in one place was the best way to get killed.
“Warning: elevated heart rate,” X-37 said.
I could see my pulse thumping in my vision. Breathing was agony. When X said I had an elevated heart rate, he meant I was about to have a cardiac arrest if I didn’t slow down. Pain and desperation drove me like a hunted animal.
A second later, Jordan and one of the other spec ops soldiers came around the corner and fired into the place I had just been.
In a perfect world, I would’ve been able to leave a grenade behind, but I wasn’t exactly equipped for this confrontation.
No time. No plan. No gear. Shit was getting real.
Adrenaline kept me going. Ironically, the only pain I felt was in my enhanced arm. Random symbols danced in my HUD, suggesting X-37 had been overloaded or otherwise damaged. The nerve-ware interfaced with my consciousness through neural pathways, but the actual hardware was spread out through my other cybernetic enhancements. Computer processors had to go somewhere no matter how small they were.
I dove over a piece of the recon ship’s wing, hit the ground, and rolled to my feet. A spec ops soldier came around the corner of the ship, weapon up, his eyes searching for a target. I shot him in the face, flipping him onto his back with his feet in the air.
Rushing forward, I yanked his weapon from his hands before he was finished dying. The familiar HDK felt heavy, as though fully loaded. I pitched the shotgun and opened fire on Jordan and the others as they came after me.
Right before I left the man I’d shot, I grabbed a grenade from his kit.
The fight turned into an undignified version of hide and seek. I couldn’t claim that everything I did was graceful or well-thought-out, but I managed to stay alive second by second. Meanness and desperation drove me onward.
Tossing a grenade over the ship I’d just run around to escape the most recent attack, I crouched and reloaded as it exploded.
Jordan came around the corner, aiming his weapon and charging straight at me in the smooth stride of a pro clearing a building in a half crouch. “I got you now, jerk-off.”
I threw myself sideways, shooting as I fell toward the ground. At least one of the rounds struck him in the hips, twisting him and driving him backward at the same time. His shots went wide.
With no time to get up and take a proper fighting stance, I fired from the ground, stitching him with bullets. Blood sprayed out the top of his helmet. I didn’t see where the bullet went in but thought it might’ve been under his jaw.
Either way, I wouldn’t be having any more problems from the sergeant.
Clawing my way to my feet, I looked for a place to hide. It was hard to say how many of Jordan’s men were still hunting me. I needed to get out of the area, but first I wanted to find Elise and the doctor, even if they were dead.
26
OTHER RECON SHIPS LANDED NEARBY. I had to give it to the spec ops teams. They weren’t afraid to make an assa
ult, even when it was obvious the odds were stacking up against anyone surviving.
In the distance, one of the Dreadmax towers broke apart and floated several meters above the surface. It never actually floated away but just hung there, twisting slowly, drifting toward the horizon of the rust streaked world.
A tremor ran through the top deck. Seconds later, I heard what sounded like an explosion from below. Not good. “I hope that wasn’t anything important.”
“Humor detected,” X-37 chirped.
“You’re back, X. Have a nice nap?” I made my way to Sgt. Jordan’s recon ship, confirming it was too damaged to be of use. The civilians I’d encountered when I first woke up scrambled over it, looking for anything that might help them survive.
In a way, they reminded me of the elite soldiers. They hadn’t given up, even though it was obvious all hope was lost.
I grabbed hold of the man who had woken me up. “Do you know where the shipbuilders are? Can you get there with your people?”
“Everyone knows that. They’ve got a big ship, but it won’t get far. They’ve been trying to buy parts that no one has for months. I’m no genius, but it’s pretty clear they’re not going anywhere.”
“Can you tell me how to get to the center of Dreadmax, to the spine?” I asked.
“There is no way to do that without taking one of the speed lifts, and if you ask me, it’s not worth it. I’m claustrophobic. No way I’m going in one of those things,” the man said.
“X?”
No answer.
“Fucking great. Come on, X. I need some help.” Right when I needed my AI, he went on the fritz.
“Who the hell is X?” The man asked.
“Never mind. That recon ship is a waste of time,” I said. “There’s going be more shooting soon. You need to get your people out of here. If you can make it to the shipbuilders, maybe they’ll figure out a way to get off this place.”
The man laughed fatalistically. “Yeah, for all of us pretending there’s a way to survive the collapse.”
I thought of Bug and his reference to Climbdown Day. Sheltering below decks when the environment shield gave out wouldn’t save them for long, but it gave me an idea. I continued to look for the doctor and his daughter, but also for one of the call boxes I’d used to talk to Bug and his friends.
