Time seemed to slow down for Patrick. He sprinted down the ramp and grabbed Rosa by the arm. The guards seemed confused. Both pulled their guns, one aiming at the truck, the other at Patrick.
Patrick yanked hard, pulling the doctor away from the SUV. He heard gunfire, and pain lanced through his left leg. It crumpled under him, but he doggedly hung on to Rosa’s arm. He wasn’t even sure why he was trying to save the man, except that he knew he meant the world to Carmen, and she meant the world to him.
He hit the ground hard on his left side, the doctor landing on top of him. All his wind left him in an instant. Things started moving at twice normal speed, then. He could barely keep up.
The truck plowed through the space where Rosa had just been standing and smashed into the side of the SUV. The SUV may have been armored – probably was. But the truck had the advantage of mass. The SUV’s window’s exploded in showers of glass. There was a sound of rending steel, and the SUV came apart under the impact, chunks of steel flying about like enormous shrapnel.
Patrick levered himself up onto an elbow. “Come on, doc!” he shouted over the noise. “We have to get onto the shuttle!”
He forced himself back to his feet. His left leg was screaming at him every time he put even a little weight on it, but he hobbled to the ramp and started hopping his way up it. Rosa was right behind him. A glance over his shoulder showed him carnage. Men were jumping out of the truck. They had weapons – assault rifles. The guards went down in a hail of bullets. The kid Rosa was escorting made a sharp yelp as the rounds hit his body, and Dr. Rosa looked back at the sound.
“No!” The anguish and horror in that one word were terrible to hear. Rosa stopped in his tracks, his hands flat at his sides.
“You can’t help him! Come on!” Patrick shouted, grabbing his arm. Just a few more steps and they’d be aboard. The engines were still hot. They could get away.
He turned to run those last few feet, but someone fired a rifle at the ramp in front of him. He stopped in his tracks, raising his hands slowly and turning around.
“Careful!” said one of the armed men. “We need him alive.”
“Who are you people?” Patrick asked. There were six of them, all armed. All white men, youngish. None of them were wearing uniforms. Just jeans, tee shirts, and sneakers. The one who’d spoken had some boots on, sunglasses, blond hair with a scruffy beard, and a southern accent. They didn’t look like terrorists. They looked like desperate men.
“You cretins,” Rosa said. “You killed him.” He shook his head, looking down at the still form of the teen laying on the ground. “The one hope we had, and now he’s dead.”
“We need both of ‘em alive, boss?” one of the gunmen asked.
“Yeah, the one bleeding there is the pilot. The other one is the doctor. We need ‘em both,” said the guy in sunglasses. “Get the others out of the truck.”
Two of the men went around to the back of the truck and opened the doors. There were people in there? Patrick winced, partly from the pain in his leg, which was getting worse. And partly at the thought of being in the back of that truck when it impacted the SUV. It would not have been a fun place to be.
His eyes got even bigger when he saw who was coming out. The first to step down was an old woman, holding her forehead. Blood dripped through her fingers. Behind her were more people, all banged up. He thought he saw one broken arm there, but mostly just a lot of bruises. Women, children, and the elderly. That was the cargo the truck carried.
Patrick felt the ramp tilting under his feet. He reached out to the rail to steady himself before he fell. But then his left leg wasn’t supporting him anymore, and he half-fell anyway. Why did his leg hurt so much? He looked down. The sleek silver cloth was stained a deep red. Shot. He’d been shot, that’s right.
“Better patch him up, doc,” said the sunglasses man. “He dies, so do you.”
Strong hands were there, probing the wound. Patrick screamed in pain.
“I need the med kit from inside,” a voice said. Patrick couldn’t tell who it was. His eyes were closed.
* * *
Patrick came to with a start, feeling like liquid fire was burning its way through his veins. He sat up fast, breathing as hard as if he’d been sprinting, his heart pounding a mile a minute.
“What the hell?” he managed to gasp out.
“Sorry,” Dr. Rosa was kneeling beside him. “They said I needed to wake you up.”
“Drugs?” Patrick asked. A glance down at his leg was more than he really needed. Rosa had cut open his pants leg and put a dressing on the wound, but there was a lot of red on the cloth and on the dressing. He’d lost a good deal of blood.
Rosa nodded in reply. “You’re going to really feel it later,” he warned.
Patrick looked around. Two gunmen stood nearby. He realized he wasn’t on the ramp anymore. They’d moved him inside the ship, and they must have sealed the hatch. Of course they did. The spaceport would have sent reinforcements to take back the shuttle. So why hadn’t they?
“They’re using us as hostages,” Rosa said. “They said they’ll kill us if the men outside assault.”
Now that was a credible threat. They weren’t going to risk Rosa getting killed, not if they thought they could negotiate. “So what do they want?” Patrick asked.
“We want you to take us to the moon,” said the sunglasses man. Only now, he didn’t have his glasses on anymore. Somehow, his face looked familiar, but Patrick couldn’t place him. “We knew they’re preparing to evacuate key people to the moon base, keep ‘em safe there until the good doctor here completes his miracle cure. We’re just making sure that our people are among the key people.”
Patrick levered himself up into a sitting position. “And what makes you think that I will take you there?”
The man laughed, and leaned in close. “I could always shoot you in the other leg. After all, you don’t need your legs to fly this shuttle, do you? But right now, I just need you to negotiate our takeoff with the tower over there.”
Patrick closed his eyes. He was stuck with these people. No easy way out of this one. Earth wasn’t going to risk attacking the shuttle, not at the cost of losing Dr. Rosa. So he wasn’t going to get any help from outside. He looked over at Rosa, who seemed a little pale, and had to stifle a grin at the man’s discomfort. There was a certain pleasurable irony in the fact that he now held in his hands the life of the man who’d tried to destroy him. But it was a short lived humor. He couldn’t let Carmen’s father come to harm before, outside, and he could no more allow it to happen now.
He reached a hand up to his captor. The man took it, and Patrick used the arm to pull himself up to his feet. “If we’re going to be shipping off together, could I have your name?”
“Most folks call me Ed.”
“I’m Pat. Shall we?”
“Oh, after you,” Ed drawled, grinning and waving him ahead.
Patrick limped up the hall toward the cockpit. He popped the hatch and stepped inside. Ed and one of his men came in right behind him, making the space a bit cramped. He sat down, sighing with relief as the weight came off his wounded leg. Whatever Rosa had given him was dulling the pain some, but his leg still felt like it had a hot poker stuck in it every time he stepped.
“If I just take off, they’re going to shoot us down,” Patrick said.
“With the doctor on board?” Ed scoffed. “Don’t worry. I want you to talk to ‘em anyway.” His voice sounded calm, but Patrick could see him sweating.
Patrick turned back to his console and keyed the microphone. “Tower, this is Patrick Wynn, over.”
“Wynn, what the hell is going on over there?” The voice replying was authoritative and loud. Sounded like someone in the military. Probably an officer. They tended to talk in that tone of voice.
“Well, sir, the shuttle has been taken by six armed men, accompanied by some noncombatants,” Patrick paused there to see if Ed reacted. He’d just handed his team some valuable i
ntelligence about his captors, but Ed didn’t seem to realize that he ought to be objecting. Good enough. “Dr. Rosa and I are alive. The rest of the doctor’s party is dead. Our captors want to lift off.”
“This is Colonel Pierce, U.S. Air Force. Put their leader on the radio, Wynn.”
Patrick turned toward Ed, holding up the microphone. Ed shrugged and took it.
“Yeah? What d’you want?”
“You the leader?” Pierce asked, then without waiting for an answer, he went on. “I want to come out to talk to you. To negotiate. You don’t want to go to the moon. You just want someplace safe, right?”
“That’s the general idea, yes,” Ed said.
“Then let’s see if we can come to some sort of deal. I’ll come out to you. We talk. Fair?”
“We can talk,” Ed replied. “But one bit of monkey business, and the doctor dies. You get me?”
“I get you. Just don’t be rash. He’s your only card here,” Pierce said. “You burn him, we’ve got no reason to hold off. We’d be all over you.”
“You play us straight, he’ll stay alive,” Ed said. Then he handed the microphone back to Patrick, who set it back in the console cradle.
Patrick was starting to feel woozy again. Whatever the good doctor gave him was wearing off. He’d been shot, lost blood, been doped awake, and now he was coming down off the drugs. Blackness started to creep around the edges of his vision, and he found himself fighting just to stay conscious.
“You don’t look so hot,” Ed said.
“Don’t feel so hot,” Patrick replied, sweating with the effort.
“Here comes that Colonel,” Ed said. Patrick looked out the cockpit window, and there were three vehicles racing across the runway toward them. Three pretty big vehicles. Why so many? Was this Pierce bringing out an entire platoon of security forces?
He must have dozed for a few minutes. The next thing Patrick knew, there were new faces coming into the cockpit. They ignored him, so he kept his eyes closed. Better they think he was actually unconscious. He cracked his eyelids just enough to see what was going on. These new men were in uniform – United States Air Force. He opened his eyes the rest of the way in relief. The cavalry had arrived.
“Thank god,” he said. “How’d you take them down?”
The men glanced at him but didn’t reply. One of them sat down in the copilot’s seat and began checking the console. Patrick recognized the pattern. He was doing standard pre-flight checks. He was getting the shuttle ready for takeoff.
“Guys? What’s going on?” Patrick asked.
“Shut up,” one of the soldiers replied. “The Colonel thinks you might be useful, but if you get annoying, we can always space you.”
What the hell was going on? Patrick made to rise, but then the engines came alive and the ship rumbled down the runway. He hastily took his seat back and strapped himself in. He wasn’t going to get any straight answers from these men.
And then they were airborne, clawing their way upwards out of the atmosphere. Patrick knew this course, had flown it scores of times. They were headed for orbit. The shuttle accelerated, going supersonic, and he blacked out for a few minutes again.
When he came to, he was floating against the straps, and people were talking nearby. It was great to be back in space again, but he had a bad feeling that all was not well.
“You were supposed to keep the kid alive,” Pierce said. “The kid, and the doctor. How hard could it be?”
“He got in the way of a few bullets,” Ed said. “Your men were shooting back at us. My boys got carried away.”
It sounded like both men were just outside the cockpit compartment. Pierce and Ed in league? This day kept getting worse.
“At least you kept Rosa alive,” Pierce said. “Speaking of whom…” His voice trailed off, and Patrick could hear more voices coming their way.
“Sorry, sir. He said he needed to speak with you. Said it was urgent.”
“Yes, doctor? How can I help you?” Pierce said.
Patrick was done with listening to voices. He wanted to be out there and see what was actually going on. He opened his eyes. The cockpit was empty except for the pilot, who was focused on his console. With an effort, Patrick unclipped his straps and floated free of the seat.
“You awake?” the pilot said. “Good. Jeffries? Come stow this guy somewhere in the back.”
Another soldier pulled himself into the cockpit. He looked a little greenish.
“First time in space, Jeffries?” Patrick asked. “Don’t worry, I’ll follow you. Already been shot once today.” He gestured at his leg and winced theatrically. It didn’t take much acting – the leg wound hurt like hell again.
He pushed off lightly and flitted out of the cockpit into the open passenger space beyond. Ed was there. So was Dr. Rosa, a soldier with officer rank on his shoulder that had to be Pierce, and two other rank and file soldiers.
“Wynn! Awake at last,” Pierce said. The man looked to Patrick something like a cat with a feather caught between his teeth. Smug didn’t even begin to cover it.
“You two planned this thing together?” Patrick asked, incredulous. It seemed the most unlikely team imaginable.
“Ed here used to work for me,” Pierce said. “So when I needed some muscle – and he needed a way to get his family away from the virus – well, our interests just naturally went together.”
“Except he didn’t,” Dr. Rosa said. “Get his family away from the virus.”
Everyone stopped moving.
“Tell me what you mean, doctor,” Pierce said, his voice chilling.
“I examined his people. At least one of them is sick. Maybe two or three,” Rosa said.
Nobody needed to ask what they were sick with.
Chapter 13
CARMEN CARRIED the steaming mug over to Levins’s desk. “Your coffee, doctor.”
He took the drink from her hand, beaming at her. “Thank you, Carmen. You’ve been invaluable since your father left. I couldn’t have done all of this without you.”
She managed not to frown – barely. His ‘all of this’ amounted to almost nothing, chasing down the ongoing dead-end of the vaccine that she was increasingly convinced would take years if not decades to finish. Another batch of test samples was brewing, but Carmen had already written them off. There was no chance that the things would work.
Her new place of work was nestled between a pair of consoles. She’d tucked a chair in there, and had plenty of computing power to work on her hypothesis. So far, she’d had some modicum of luck producing some theoretical samples of a cure. What she was trying to do was find a chemical which would stop the virus from exiting an infected cell – essentially stop the spread of the virus through the body, to buy time for the body’s own immune system to deal with the infection.
It wasn’t a new theory. The same tactics had been used to build anti-influenza drugs. Applying the method to curing an alien virus was complicated, but Carmen was convinced that there was a way. First – because she’d seen the videos in her father’s email, and that was clearly how the teen’s immunity worked. And second, because her gut said that it just made sense. The virus wasn’t natural, after all. It had been made. And she knew that human doctors would never manufacture a virus without also making the cure. She imagined aliens would have much the same qualms about releasing bugs they could not control. Which meant there had to be a way to stop the thing. She just needed to find it – and her gut said she was on the right track.
Carmen was keeping Dr. Levins out of her way by the simple expedient of making the man coffee whenever his cup ran dry. He was ensconced as the ruler of his new domain by the time she got down to the lab, and he was clearly chuffed at the promotion. His hackles went up as soon as she arrived – she was popular with the lab crews, and he felt threatened. Carmen figured he’d be easier to manage if he didn’t feel like she was working against him.
Thus, the coffee. It interrupted her work, but it kept him happy and s
miling. It also made him not question whatever it was she was working on. If she was making him coffee, then she must be a team player, doing her part, right? She chuckled. If only he knew… In fact, he was overdue to find out.
She didn’t have to wait much longer. A clatter from the center of the room got her attention. Levins had dropped his tablet to the floor. He bent over to retrieve it, but blanched white only halfway down. He stood back up and rushed from the room as quickly as he could.
He returned a few minutes later, looking much relieved. Carmen hid her grin. His relief would not last long. He bent again to collect his tablet, and sat back down. That lasted for all of about five minutes, and then he ran out the door again.
Carmen kept her seat and waited. She had time, and it was important to be patient.
Her tablet buzzed. She checked her watch. Fifteen minutes. Which was about right for Levins to get down to the infirmary, for them to confirm that yes, he did indeed have a gastro-intestinal problem, and for them to find him a nice bed to rest in while they checked him out. The tablet buzzed a second time. The call was from Levins. She pressed the button to accept his call, standing up and walking into the middle of the room as she did.
“Carmen! Thank goodness,” Levins said. He still looked fairly pale, but he was laying back against some pillows, and looked more comfortable now at least.
“Dr. Levins,” she replied. “What’s the matter?”
“I seem to have caught a bug. Or maybe some bad food. Something,” he said. “I’ll be down here for the rest of the day at least, I fear. I really don’t feel well.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry to hear that.” Carmen was in the middle of the room now. Her voice and the tablet volume were both high enough that about half the crew had taken notice.
“Can you take over in the lab for now?” Levins asked her. “Keep things running smoothly?”
“Of course. Don’t you worry about it,” Carmen replied. “We’ll keep things going here. Just get better.”
Galaxia Page 36
