The distant pulse of blaster fire stopped them both dead. Reyes pressed the microphone on the side of her helmet. “Dad? Are you okay?”
When his voice came back to her, he had to shout over the loud laser fire. “We’re fine,” he said, sounding strained as he ripped off more shots. “We’re holding back the ones Hicks couldn’t. There aren’t many. Are you at the escape pods yet?”
“No.”
“Well, get running and stop talking. Julius is making good progress here. Get a pod ready for us.”
“Are you sure you don’t want us to come back? We can attack them from behind.”
“No, we’ve got this. We need to make sure an escape pod’s ready for when we get there. Now go!”
It wouldn’t take much to go back. If they surprised the cannibals by attacking them from behind, they could end the battle in seconds. But her dad had said no. She had to respect that.
“Come on,” Chan said.
Instantly on the defensive, Reyes turned on her, her hackles raised.
Again, Chan kept her tone even. “Your dad said he had it covered. We have to make sure we’ve prepped an escape pod for when they get to us. We need to be certain of making it to the Crimson Destroyer.”
Reyes pushed through the reluctance in her leaden legs and set off again with Chan. Just a few steps later, they saw the end of the tunnel.
Rungs ran a vertical line up the wall on their left. Reyes shone her torch up at the ceiling to see a grate like the one they’d moved aside in the dining hall.
A flash of competition rose in Reyes, but she quickly let it die as she watched Chan climb the ladder. It really didn’t matter who got there first. Besides, Chan probably had the clearer head and was in a better place to deal with whatever waited for them above.
Chan pushed the grate clear, a bright white glow shining a spotlight down on them. The alternating flash of red and white had gone. Reyes watched her move out of the way before she grabbed one of the cold metal rungs in front of her.
It dazzled Reyes to climb out through the hole and stand in the bright glare of the light reflecting off the glossy metal. It stung her already sore eyes, and it took a few seconds for her to regain her sight. The corridor had the same onyx gloss as the rest of the ship, but it looked like any normal corridor, much like the tunnels beneath them had. The twisted organic design had clearly been part of the disorientation of their prey, an effective part of it.
Chan—who’d had a few seconds longer to recover her sight—had already moved over to the escape pods. Exactly where Julius had said they’d be, she pressed the screen beside one of them. It had one word written across it in bold red letters on a black background: ENGAGED.
A press of the button on the side of her helmet, Reyes said, “All’s good with the escape pod, WO. We’re here waiting for you. We’ll be ready to go the second you arrive.”
Chapter 42
Just over three minutes had passed, but it felt like longer … much longer. Reyes sat in the escape pod with Chan and looked around for what felt like the twentieth time already. Other than windows, a bench, a control panel, and a small airlock, the pod didn’t have much to look at. Functional, it was a million light-years away from the ghastly design of the ship’s main section.
“I’m sorry,” Chan said, the first words spoken between them since they’d sat down.
Reyes clenched her jaw while staring at her.
“I’ve been an arsehole for the longest time.”
“You have.”
“I dunno. I’ve always been so angry and jealous.”
But before Reyes could respond, the hiss of radio static stabbed into her ears. She straightened on the bench and pressed the microphone on the side of her helmet. “Dad?”
At first she only heard gunfire—a lot of it. While listening to it, she looked at Chan. The small Marine offered her a tight-lipped smile. She looked like she wanted to give Reyes hope but couldn’t find it in herself. While she saw the gesture for what it was—and almost appreciated Chan’s effort—she couldn’t look at her any longer. She turned to the window behind her and gazed into the starry oblivion outside.
The WO finally spoke. It sounded like it had taken him that long to find his words. “There have been some complications.”
Now she could see her reflection in the window, Reyes watched her face buckle. Her tight throat gripped onto her voice, strangling it when she said, “What?”
“We’re not going to make it.” It sounded like he had to fight to get his words out. Like he’d been injured. More gunfire called through the headset. “The good news is Julius has nearly set this ship to blow. She said you must only have a couple of minutes before the Crimson Destroyer gets to you. At the most. I’m going to hold them back while she finishes up and you’ll be long gone before The Faradis explodes.”
“We’ll wait for you.”
“Even if we could get back to you, it’ll take us ten minutes, maybe more.”
“We’ll wait.”
“The Crimson—” he paused as if fighting for breath “—Destroyer won’t. It can’t. It’ll be there for three minutes. If you’re not on it, you’re dead. You need to launch the escape pod. We’re done for. You’re not.”
“We’ll wait.”
A spike of anger flashed through his voice. “You’re not listening to me. We’re screwed! Both Julius and I have taken too many hits. We’re hanging on here. Just. You need to recognise when something’s a lost cause.”
Hot tears ran down Reyes’ cheeks. “Don’t say that. You’re not a lost cause. We have to try. There has to be a way.”
After he’d let go of a hard sigh, he said, “Sometimes, a good Marine has to know when to quit. We’ve lost. Don’t make it worse by letting me die knowing my daughter’s gone too.”
It took several seconds before Reyes said, “I love you, Daddy.” When she felt Chan put a hand on her back, she leaned into it. Chan shifted closer and put her arm around her.
They both listened to her dad talk, his breathing laboured. “I’ve never been the best dad. Since Mum died, I’ve tried my hardest.”
It took a few seconds of Reyes shaking her head before she found it in her to speak. “You’ve been great. You took a career break to raise me. You made sure I finished school with the love of a parent at my side. Don’t you dare feel bad about how you dealt with it. You were everything I needed. You could have packed me off to boarding school with all the other military brats, but you saw the value of being there for me.”
Several deep breaths, the sound of gunfire behind him, he said, “I watched you turn into a fine human being. There were conversations your mum should have had with you that I couldn’t. You had to figure things out because I found them too awkward to talk about. Changing from a girl into a young woman is hard enough without having to do it alone.”
“I had good friends. They helped. I feel guilty about you putting your career on hold.”
“After Mum passed, my career became much less important. I would spend that time with you again in a heartbeat.”
“Besides,” Reyes said, pausing to catch her breath, a damp weight pushing down on her chest, “you were there. That was the most important thing. I was the only girl in my year who went shopping for a prom dress with her dad. That was special.” She laughed in spite of herself. “You were so embarrassed in that shop, do you remember?”
As she listened to her dad cry on the other side, Reyes added, “That was about as uncomfortable as I’ve ever seen you.”
Her dad pulled in a wet sniff and laughed. “I’m glad it gave you so much pleasure.”
Reyes smiled through her tears and leaned back into Chan’s tight hug.
“Look, sweetheart,” he said, “you need to leave the Marines. It’s a mug’s game. I want you to go and see a being called Moses Deloitte. Tell him who you are, what’s happened to me, and that it’s time. He’ll help you.” After a moment—more gunfire ringing through the speakers—he said, “Julius recko
ns you now have about a minute before the Crimson Destroyer arrives. You need to get going. Know I’ll be with you always.”
Blinded by her tears, were Reyes not sitting down, she would have fallen down. Words seemed beyond her grasp, but she had to say it. The one thing she’d never been able to tell him. Not because of him, they just didn’t have those kinds of conversations. “Dad, I’m—”
“I know,” her dad said. “I’ve known since you were a kid.”
“You have?”
“I could see you were never into boys like your friends.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I wanted you to tell me when you were ready. I figured you’d do it when the time was right. Besides, it doesn’t change anything. I love you, little squirrel.”
He’d not called her that for the longest time. For the next few seconds, Reyes wept as she listened to her dad crying too.
“Now go,” he said. “Don’t you dare miss your ride out of here. Make my and Julius’ efforts worth something.”
Barely the strength to move, Reyes pulled away from Chan and turned to see her cheeks were soaked too, her eyes bloodshot. She then looked at the touch panel next to the escape pod’s door. A green button sat in the centre of it that read LAUNCH. She reached for the panel and pressed the button as she said, “I love you, Daddy. So much.”
Chapter 43
The rush of the boosters shook the tiny escape pod as Reyes and Chan shot away from The Faradis. The vastness of space often gave a strange perspective to many things. To see the black ship from the outside made it look so small. So insignificant. Reyes looked at the section she knew her dad and Julius to be in, her eyes burning, her view blurred, her nose running. Even now, despite knowing she had none, she still clung onto the smallest amount of hope. Her dad would make it out. He always made it out.
Reyes gasped when a flash of light punched through the darkness. It came from where her dad and Julius were. The bright spark ignited a line of fire, which streaked up the vessel towards the middle section in a series of grand and brilliant explosions.
Seconds later, The Faradis burst into a swollen sphere of white heat that thrust the black metal vessel away from it in every direction. Reyes flinched to watch some of the large pieces fly at them, but they were already far enough away to be out of range of the worst of it.
For the entire time, Chan had sat beside Reyes and not spoken. She finally broke that, pointing at the screen on the wall. “Good job we came out so close to the Crimson Destroyer arriving. If we’d left too early, we’d be screwed. There’s only five minutes of oxygen remaining in this thing.”
It took for Reyes to rub her eyes and squint at the control panel to see it better. She needed to keep her head. At least until they got on the Crimson Destroyer. “Only five minutes? How?”
“I’m guessing the cannibals drained as much as they could in case we escaped. The five minutes is the emergency backup. They wouldn’t have been able to get that out of the tanks.”
“But we only need one minute, right?”
Chan pressed the WO’s tablet, the screen lighting up at her touch. She opened their connection to the Crimson Destroyer and said, “Chan Furi to Crimson Destroyer; come in, Crimson Destroyer.”
The reply came back instantly. Still wound so tightly she felt like she’d snap, Reyes loosened a little to hear it. Her grief pushed to the back of her being, she’d only let it go when they were safe. “Chan Furi, this is the Crimson Destroyer. We’re on our way and will be there at the agreed time. We now have your exact location.”
“Thank you so much,” Chan said, slumping where she sat and releasing a long sigh. “We’ll see you in one minute.”
“One minute?”
Any slight loosening of Reyes’ muscles snapped tight again. She looked at Chan, whose face had lost all its colour. “Not one minute?”
“We’re going to be just over ten minutes. It’s taken us an hour, like we agreed.”
While staring at Chan, Reyes said, “The EMP. They must have screwed with our timers again.”
“Shit!” Chan said. “Um, Crimson Destroyer, we have a problem. There’s only five minutes of oxygen left in the escape pod.”
The operator on the Crimson Destroyer spoke in a sombre tone. “I’m really sorry, but we can’t get to you any sooner. We’ll be there in ten minutes and twenty-two seconds.”
The tablet shook in Chan’s hand and she looked to be forcing her words out. “Okay. Thank you and see you then.” She pressed a button to disconnect them. After the screen turned dark, she lifted her attention from the tablet to Reyes. “What the fuck are we going to do now?”
But Reyes’ mind had gone elsewhere. The realisation tore her stomach out of her, and it took all she had to not vomit where she sat. “We had enough time to wait for my dad and Julius.”
Chapter 44
“Fuck!” Chan shouted while stamping on the floor. The loud snap of her boot against the black metal whipped through the small space. “What are we going to do? No one can hold their breath for five minutes. By the time the Crimson Destroyer gets here, we’ll be dead.”
“We had the time to wait for my dad and Julius,” Reyes repeated.
Chan dropped down in front of Reyes and held her hands. Although she kept her tone level, the tension around her eyes and the tightness of her grip showed the truth of it. “I hate to say this, but we can’t change that now. We have to work out how we’re going to stay alive.”
After letting her frame sag, Reyes looked back at Chan and nodded. Her dad would be furious with her if she didn’t take positive action so close to being rescued. She stood up and walked over to the small computer in the wall. The warning next to the oxygen tank had dropped to four minutes and thirty seconds. “There must be a way. We’re so close.”
Before Reyes could say anything else, Chan grabbed her by the lapels. Although Reyes nearly swung for her, she saw something in the Marine’s eyes that she hadn’t seen before. Not rage like all of the other times. Confusion, pain, frustration, fear … but not rage.
“I’ve always hated you,” Chan said.
“What are you—?”
“Just shut up, Reyes, and let me talk for once. I saw what you had, and I hated you for that. I saw how lucky you were to have a dad that loved you like the WO did. He cherished you, no matter what. My experience of love is that it comes with conditions. If your dad had his own conditions, he kept them to himself. You were who you were, and he accepted that. Do you know what happened when I told my parents I was gay?”
“You’re g—?”
“Come on, Reyes, are you that oblivious?”
Reyes stared at her small friend.
“They booked me in for therapy with a local religious zealot who claimed he could exorcise the devil from me. They didn’t even have a god before then. But after that, they were all in, living their lives based on a book written by some man centuries ago. For the next two years, they quoted passages at me about how wrong I was. They ignored many parts in that cursed book if it didn’t suit the life they wanted to live, but the very few vague lines about homosexuality became their mantra. Once, Mum even threw holy water at me and staged an intervention with my entire family.”
Reyes felt Chan shake through the tight grip she had on her. She watched her eyes fill and glaze. “So why hate me?”
“Because you had it all. I know what you just said to your dad was a big deal. Believe me, I know that better than most. But I also knew he’d react how he just did. He already knew. We all did. For him, it didn’t matter who you were. I could see he loved you no matter what. I’ve blamed you for that, and that’s wrong.”
Although Reyes opened her mouth to reply, Chan pushed a finger across her lips to silence her. They stared at one another for several seconds before Chan leaned forwards.
After they’d kissed, Chan stepped back and rested against the escape pod’s exit. Her eyes bloodshot, she watched Reyes for a moment before slamming a c
losed fist against the button on her right. A transparent screen shot across between them, cutting them off.
“What are you doing?” Reyes said.
For the next couple of seconds, Chan looked like she couldn’t speak. She then drew a deep breath. “If I go, the oxygen release will slow down. It should give you eight or nine minutes. That’ll be long enough.”
Reyes banged against the glass shield separating them. “You haven’t given me a choice. That’s not fair. Why do you have to go? Why not me? Why not both of us?”
Crying harder than ever, Chan said, “Because you’re better than me. I’ve known that about you from the second we met. The second I fell in love with you.”
The air left Reyes’ lungs, and although she opened and closed her mouth, she couldn’t drag a response from her body.
“You have more to offer than I do. Besides, I couldn’t live in a galaxy that you weren’t in.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I’ve never been very good at expressing myself. Also, your secret was yours to tell, not mine to expose.”
Choked with yet another wave of hot grief, Reyes shook her head at her friend.
Chan looked at the panel with the oxygen timer on it. It read four minutes. “I’ve got to go.” Her fingers splayed when she pressed her palm to the window. “There’s nothing you can do, Reyes. I’ve made this choice and not given you an option. Don’t feel bad. I know you would switch places in a heartbeat, but you don’t have that choice.”
Mirroring Chan’s action, Reyes raised a shaking hand to the other side of the cold glass.
“Make your dad and me proud. Do something great. Not that I need to tell you that, greatness is in your DNA.” Chan then pressed the button to open the airlock.
As much as she looked like she tried to hide her suffering, Chan’s eyes bulged, and convulsions snapped through her body. Suspended in the darkness of space, her tears froze and her mouth spread wide as if she tried to breathe the non-existent air. White frost covered her hair, and her lips turned blue.
The Shadow Order - Books 1 - 8 + 120 Seconds (The complete series): A Space Opera Page 147
