by RJ Johnson
"Idle threats." Rincon replied as he typed once again into his ArmBar. The gravity on their deck reestablished and Meade was ready. He landed softly on the deck holding onto Emeline to make sure she didn't fall.
"You see Mr. Koschei, your people have lived a comfortable life. So comfortable, you forget who it was that built it for you in the first place. We built this station. We deserve the resources it produces. Building your fantasy forest on the surface of an asteroid? Who do you think deserves it? You? You alone?" Rincon sneered. "Please..."
"I paid for it!" Koschei snapped back. "Your so-called 'people' were compensated for their time."
Rincon snorted. "A pittance. You wipe your ass with the wages you paid my people to construct the dome and tend the forest with. You lure people to Rosetta with the promise of getting rich enough so that they can one day afford a tiny fraction of the opulence you surround yourself with on a daily basis. But that dream has been revealed to be a nightmare for most as you ensure they become so far into debt they have no where else left to go. You control these people's lives with money and then make sure they never have enough for themselves beyond basic survival. You contribute nothing! You build NOTHING! You are a parasite. Nothing more, nothing less. The host needs to survive, and I am the cure."
Rincon had risen from his seat and loomed over Koschei as he built up into his rant. The rage was evident, and even on the blurry display, Meade could see the man was building towards something. He glanced at Emeline who looked back at him worried.
"We have to do something," Meade hissed. "He's going to kill Koschei."
No sooner than he had gotten the words out, Rincon had withdrawn his blade and sliced through Koschei's neck, the blood spurting out and onto the clean walls of Koschei’s pristine office. Koschei’s lifeless body slumped down on the desk like a marionette with its strings cut. Yanxiong cried out in protest and was quickly cut down by the two security guards who were standing behind him, his body exploding from the combined energy from the Rattlers. Rincon grinned as he watched their former boss bleed out in front of him.
Rincon spat on the man’s corpse as he surveyed his work with a pleased eye. He turned to his Alpha who stood next to him. "Any word on Sinjakama's capture?"
The Alpha put his hand up to his helmet, listening for a status update.
"They have taken Sinjakama from his bedchamber and escorted him to the Command Deck as you requested."
"Good." Rincon looked pleased. "The revolution begins in five minutes. Launch a final check and then execute my orders."
Rincon smiled broadly and pushed Koschei's limp body out of its chair and sat down satisfied. He kicked up his feet on the desk and looked out the window of Rincon's office staring at the star field. "Today is going to be an excellent day."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Meade and Emeline quickly disconnected their ArmBars and hurried away from the door just before the security team exited Koschei's office. They hid around the corner and waited until they were out of earshot.
"Koschei's dead." Emeline's eyes were wide. "What do we do now? He was the only one who could have stopped this before it started."
"We still have another shot." Meade said. "If we can get the..." An explosion sounded out down the corridor. Meade glanced at his Chronometer. 05:30. The revolution had begun.
"It's started." Emeline shouted. Klaxons had begun to sound a general alarm through the hallway they were in. They clamped their hands over their ears and began jogging down the hallway towards the Tun that had taken them to Koschei's office. "We have to get to Sinjakama before it's too late!"
They reached the end of the hallway and were greeted by four of Rincon's security dragging out an Elite and his mistress from their bedroom. The Alpha raised his Rattler and shot the man killing him instantly as his body exploded in a shining bright light. His mistress screamed and the Beta knocked her to the ground.
Meade raised his ArmBar and without thinking engaged the four security men. He shot the first Beta he saw with his stinger, the energy flowing over the Beta's uniform disabling his electronics. Meade leaped from a running start and tackled the Alpha grabbing the man's neck wrenching it hard as he landed. A satisfying crack let him know that the Alpha wasn't getting up anytime soon.
Meade grabbed the Alpha's Rattler and shot the Beta who stood in shock watching his companions fall to the ground. Emeline ran up from behind and slide her knife in between the weave of his protective clothing, the pointed tip of the blade extruding from his chest. He slumped to the ground. Emeline grabbed the man's Rattler and stood, guarding Meade as he got up.
Meade stood and offered a hand to the woman sobbing in terror on the ground. "Go back inside and lock the door." He commanded. "Don't come out for anything. Ping everyone you know and tell them to stay inside, engage the electromagnetic locks and disengage it from the network. Do you understand?"
The woman nodded, the tears streaming down her face. She took Meade's hand and got up, moving quickly back into her room. Meade could hear the electromagnetic lock engage. Satisfied, Meade turned only to hear another explosion sounding through the hallway.
"Getting serious out there." Meade said grimly, and Emeline nodded. Screens lit up along the passageway with Koschei's face with a message scroll underneath telling the Elites that everything was under control.
"We have to get to Sinjakama." Emeline said as she checked the Rattler's charge.
"I'm afraid that might be easier said than done." Meade replied.
"Hey!" A shot rang out and the screen next to Meade exploded as he whirled around to see a contingent of Rincon's security coming after them. There were at least fifteen in this group, way too many for Emeline and him to fight on their own.
"Come on!" Meade shouted and Emeline turned to run down the hallway. They sprinted, dodging fire from the security men behind them.
"Get to the Tun!" Meade said as he crouched and shot back at the oncoming security force. He took down the first two coming after them and she joined him shooting back.
"You and I are in this together." She shot back. "I ain't leaving you behind."
"Noble." Meade replied, "But you'll get us killed."
A shot nearly missed his head and Meade turned to see another team of men approaching their position from the opposite end of the hallway. They were trapped. It was too late. Meade desperately looked around for an escape, and seeing none began to lose a bit of hope... unless...
"Hold them off!" He shouted to Emeline who nodded and continued firing at both ends of the hallway. Meade took his Rattler, adjusted the beam setting and began firing at the bedrock in the hallway. He sweated as he worked quickly in the heat. If he was right, the Tun that took them from one end of the asteroid to the other should be on the other side of the bedrock.
"Put your security suit back on!" Meade shouted over his shoulder. Emeline nodded, withdrawing the suit putting it on and over her head.
"I'll hold 'em off, see if you can grab their rebreather helmets!" Meade said. One or two more shots should get them into the tunnel. They needed the rebreather helmets though if they stood any sort of chance of surviving inside the low pressure tunnel.
Meade popped up from behind their cover and fired several dozen shots in quick succession. Two of Rincon's security force fell to the ground writhing in pain. Meade turned and shot at the other group closely approaching them. They were running out of time.
Emeline crouched low to the ground and grabbed a rebreather helmet from one of the fallen Betas. She threw it back towards Meade who was still holding off the security force. The second helmet was just out of reach and she couldn't risk getting it without exposing herself to the heavy firefight taking place over her head. Without it however, one of them was doomed to die of exposure within the near vacuum inside the Tun. She didn't plan on going out that way.
Suddenly her shoulder was on fire and she cried out in pain. One of the Betas has gotten a lucky shot off and clipped her in the shoulder.
"Em!" Me
ade shouted. He grabbed her and hauled her back behind some cover as he took her Rattler. Standing, he shot back at both approaching security teams one Rattler pointed at each end of the hallway. Both sides took cover from his onslaught and she took the opportunity to grab the remaining helmet for Meade. Gritting her teeth in pain, she grabbed the helmet and took cover handing it to Meade.
Meade crouched down and examined her shoulder. The wound bled all over her borrowed security suit, a decent hole exposing her body to the elements. She slapped his hand off the uniformed.
"Forget it." She gasped, obviously in pain. "Get us out of here."
Meade looked in her eyes. Seeing her in pain hurt him worse than anything he'd known in his life. She clutched his arm and slapped him bringing him back to the reality of their situation as a fire broke out above their heads, ignited by a stray shot from one of Rincon's security.
"If we have any shot to get out of here, it's now." Emeline shouted at him. The shots were coming less frequently now. Rincon's security force was on the move. They would overtake them in moments.
Meade set his jaw in grim determination and nodded in return. He placed the helmet Emeline had grabbed for them on her head as she strained to connect it to her suit. He put his on and began firing at the bedrock.
A small hole opened up and the vacuum of space began to suck out the available air. It was then that Meade realized his mistake. He wasn't cutting into the tunnel; he was cutting out into open space. His eyes widened in shock and he stopped cutting. He would have to time this right if they were going to survive this.
"Hang on!" Meade shouted. Emeline held onto him tight as the remaining security force surrounded them, demanding their surrender.
Meade smiled at them, turned his Rattler and fired.
The wall exploded the vaccum pressure outside proving to be too much for the weakened bedrock. Meade and Emeline tumbled out of the hallway first, blown out into the vacuum of space by the rushing air. He opened his ArmBar and fired a magnetic pulse, the force of which brought them down onto the hard rocky surface of Rosetta. Their two bodies bounced along the surface, kicking up dust and rocks, the ragged and pockmarked surface tearing at their suits.
The security force wasn't as lucky as they too sailed out into open space. The force of the air pressure pushed them out at an incredible velocity, their arms waving and desperately clutching for any handhold. Ten of them floated slowly out into deep space, their cries unheard by anyone who wasn't tapped into their local comm system. The lucky ones hadn't secured their rebreather helmets (you didn't expect vacuum within the safety of Rosetta's hallways) and their blood boiled instantly in the open vacuum of space, their lungs popping like overinflated balloons. The unlucky ones were doomed to slowly asphyxiate as they floated away from Rosetta and far from any rescue until their suit's battery which powered their rebreather, ran out.
Meade and Emeline tumbled along the asteroid's surface as they slowly came to a rest, the magnetic pulses on his ArmBar slowing their velocity. Emeline clutched at her shoulder and pinched the hole in her suit shut, holding it tight to keep any more of her air escaping. Meade frantically took off the security suit's emergency patch kit from his belt and took off a section to place over her shoulder. He taped it off several times hoping that he had gotten to it in time before the vacuum got to her. He turned Emeline over and tapped her helmet.
"Em! You OK?" Meade pleaded. "Come on..."
Her helmet turned clear and she sat up, coughing. She looked at Meade and shook her head.
"Nice one." Emeline said, breathing heavily. "Almost killing us is one way to get away."
"Don't complain, you're breathing." Meade said.
"For now." Emeline checked her ArmBar and checked her suit's settings. "If I don't get inside, this suit won't be able to keep me alive for much longer. The tear isn't big, but it's enough to leak out all the pressure." She looked worried and Meade didn't blame her.
"The bulkheads would have shut down that section of the hallway. We can't go back in from where we were." Meade said glumly. "We'll have to find another airlock."
"Where?" Emeline asked. "With the revolution ongoing, I doubt we'll find a manned airlock where someone can let us in."
"We have to try." Meade said. "Giving up ain't an option. If we don't get inside before the engines fire, we'll suffer the same fate as those poor bastards." He pointed to the bodies floating away from Rosetta, their cries still audible on the local comm channel.
"You really know how to show a girl a good time." Emeline said, the sarcasm thick.
"No one said this gig would be easy." Meade replied.
"No, that's exactly what you said." Emeline shot back, "In fact, I believe those were your exact words."
Meade winced. "I hoped you had forgotten that." He stood up carefully. The gravity from the Higgs generator didn't extend out on the surface of the asteroid so he had to move slowly, lest he sail off into the great beyond like Rincon's security team. "We don't have much time. Let's go."
Emeline got up and looked around the desolate surface of the Asteroid. "Where? There isn't anywhere for us to go."
Meade pointed towards two large protruding towers a few miles away. "There."
It was the engines Sinjakama Sr. had devised for Rosetta. They were enormous, bigger than anything Meade had seen before in his life. They towered over the surface of the asteroid, their power clear even from so many kilometers away.
"There's got to be service hatches scattered all over something that big." Meade continued. "If we stand a shot of getting inside, it'll be there."
Emeline glanced at the readout on her ArmBar. The suit had a half hour at best. "We'd better get moving."
They moved towards the towering engines, two lonely figures trekking their way across a vast and dead alien world. It was eerie in way, but Meade appreciated the stark beauty of it. If Rincon was hellbent on destroying the Homeworld, he may as well have front row seats for it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The journey over the asteroid's surface was tougher than Meade had imagined it would be. The lack of gravity, or rather the existence of only a small bit of gravity made it so that the slightest nudge was enough to launch their bodies off the surface for a good meter or two. Without any real traction to give them forward momentum, their progress was slow and cumbersome.
Meade was used to operating in a zero-G environment - his training for the Zero-G fights on Mars gave him a great deal of experience on how best to land and push off the surface to achieve maximum distance with his leaps. Emeline on the other hand, had no such experience and as such, Meade was forced to wait for her as she struggled to catch up with him. The engines loomed overhead, but they were still a few kilometers away from them. Meade was beginning to lose hope that they would get there before Rincon activated them.
"We have to move faster." Meade said as Emeline finally caught up to him, "There's no telling when Rincon will fire up the engines."
"Hopefully Suresh and Amla got to Sinjakama in time to warn him." Emeline replied, her breathing heavy. Her helmet was fogging up, the suit's ventilation system damaged by the firefight inside the hallway. Meade looked at her worried.
"How long do you have?" He asked.
"Long enough." She replied curtly and angled her ArmBar away from his visor to keep him from reading the output. "I changed the settings to allow for a higher carbon dioxide/oxygen mix. That should keep my rebreather functioning long enough til we get to the engines."
"Keep an eye on those levels." Meade admonished, "Hypercapnia would be a real bitch out here." Meade was worried about her. If she had set the mix too high, the suit wouldn't scrub enough carbon dioxide out of her suit and with too much carbon dioxide in her bloodstream, she would be subjected to hyperventilation, convulsions and eventually, death.
"Let's keep moving." Meade and Emeline bounced their way across the surface holding onto each other. They went a few hundred meters without a word until Emeline spoke.
"Oh yeah?" Meade didn't want her talking, it wasted oxygen, but in the middle of deep space with little hope of making it back inside somewhere to breathe normally, panic was a bigger concern. He'd let her chat to keep her mind off the instant death that surrounded them.
"Yeah. We used to go hunt for ORI sites for the Coalition back before the main mines opened up. Best time I ever had." She paused, her breathing becoming labored. Meade stopped, holding her as she caught her breath. "When I get back, I think I'm gonna go out and revisit our old stomping grounds. Be nice to see the stars from Mars again. I don’t get out to the plains as often as I like."
"Gets hard to see the stars at the bottom of Plymouth." Meade agreed. "Harder still to run a business if you're always running off to play."
