Baron stood at a screen affixed in the wall. She ground her teeth between coughing fits as she pounded away at the buttons.
“Engines down,” she said. “Bridge targeted and destroyed. Weapons inoperable. Half the crew sent into vacuum without suits.”
Chare yelled and ripped his suit off. He threw it to the ground and looked around. “Where are the P’you suits?” said Chare. He doubled over coughing. His eyes watered, matting the fur to his face.
Baron slammed her fist into the screen. She leaned her head back and yelled, “Abandon ship. Abandon ship.”
Her order came in a split second later over my suit’s intercom, the beginning of it overlapping the end of her original statement. Wards nodded to me and pointed down the hallway. A way marker popped up on my HUD with a tag: Escape pods.
Baron grabbed Chare by the shoulder. She dragged him down the hallway in the opposite direction of the way marker. Wards slapped my arm.
“We’ve got to go,” she said.
I looked back down the hallway at the lumbering shadow disappearing into the smoke. Baron knew what to do.
“Okay,” I said to Wards. “Let’s go.”
Wards took off into the smoke. She appeared on my HUD as a green outline. Periodically she’d turn around and look back at me. I knew she could outpace me. It felt comforting knowing that she wasn’t.
The escape pod tag continued to blink ahead of us. The distance ticked down as we got closer. As we ran we were joined by other members of the crew. Some had on emergency suits while others were protected only by an arm over their mouth to try and filter out the smoke. None appeared to be uninjured. Out of everyone in our little herd Wards and I looked to be in the best shape.
The ship shuttered, and we stumbled as it began to list to one side. Wards continued without missing a beat. A crew member stumbled and fell into me. We tangled limbs and started to go down. I felt hands grab me under my armpits and heft me. My feet dragged for a bit, but I managed to get my legs back under me and took off running again. The crewmember who helped nodded once and we continued.
Most hallways we passed were obscured with smoke. I could hear yelling and shouting as we ran by them. Some had screaming and moaning of the injured.
I winced at the realization that those sounds had become familiar to me. Escaping a ship had become familiar. Running from another attack had become familiar. My heartbeat wasn’t elevated because of fear. It was elevated because I ran. My body wasn’t drenched with sweat because of panic. It was drenched because of the heat and exertion. Escaping a dying ship had become the new normal of my life.
We turned a corner andfell to the ground in a jumbled tangle of arms and legs. Three Vantagax had run from a side corridor straight into us. Wards separated herself and pulled me away, flinging me behind her with little effort. One of the Vantagax screeched in surprise as Wards opened fire with her arm cannon. The three died without firing a shot.
“Boarding party,” said Wards. Her tone was cold and straight to the point. She jumped over the bodies and continued moving forward.
We heard more screeching behind us and small arms fire. Some of the Omanix crew returned fire with their arm cannons. Someone cried out in pain and fell with a thump. I looked behind me as one of the crew members rushed back to help. The Vantagax continued to shoot and both crew members were cut down. Their tattered corpses streamed blood onto the floor.
“Don’t stop,” said Wards. “You stop to help you’ll die.” She continued to rush forward at the head of the pack.
“But what about the injured?” I said. The whomph of arm cannons mixed with the cracks of the Vantagax rifles echoed down the passages. Unintelligible yelling filled the empty space between shooting. Our herd had gotten much smaller as some had been injured and others had gotten involved with the fighting.
“I don’t care about the injured,” said Wards. Her words fought against her breathing, which came labored, almost panting. “I have to get you off this ship.”
We ran past a makeshift barrier thrown together with pieces of fallen bulkhead and wall material. Omanix crew members popped their heads above the top then pulled them back down and fired without aiming. Dead Vantagax and Omanix crew alike littered the floor. Some were propped against the walls. Others were splayed on the floor where they had fallen. A few were splattered across multiple surfaces. One Vantagax must have materialized in a wall after Traveling. Its arms, legs and parts of its torso protruded from the plastic.
The Omanix shook and rattled. It felt like something punched it. Another punching shudder followed in quick succession. My body became lighter, and my feet came off the ground. I started to careen out of control as my forward motion took me towards a wall.
“Gravity,” said Wards “The ship’s lost gravity.” I heard her take in a shaky breath. “We have to get to the escape pods.” It sounded like she spoke to remind herself as much as me. For the first time she sounded scared. A trickle of fear began to seep through.
The world went silent. I felt a sucking sensation and reached for the nearest thing to hang on to. Time slowed down. The ship, piece by piece like a jigsaw puzzle coming apart, dislodged around me. It traveled away into the darkness of space. A section of the ship’s air circulation system pulled out of the wall. It slammed into Wards, sending her spinning end over end. Her body slammed into a piece of hull, and she spun away bent in half, backwards. Other members of our herd flew past me. Their hands grasped for something, anything to grab, and I saw the panicked look on their faces as they went by, the realization that they were going to die in a few seconds not yet comprehended.
The muscles in my arms cried for relief. They screamed in burning pain. I felt my grip weakening. My suit strained to assist in keeping me onboard the Omanix. I focused all of my energy, all of my pain and newfound fear of being sucked into the emptiness of space, into holding onto my piece of the ship as the vacuum sucked out the atmosphere and everything else with it. I focused it into my hands, into my fingers and forearms, my biceps and triceps. As my body whipped in the storm of decompression, as everything around me bounced and rolled and tore and departed, I spent every bit of energy I had keeping myself from joining the debris cloud.
I failed, and I spun. End over end I went into the vacuum. Centrifugal force spun me into the back of my ill-fitting suit. I rattled around in my shell as the stars streaked by. Whatever luck I had left prevented me from coating my visor with my most recent meal.
My suit fired small stabilizing jets. The spinning slowed and then came to a halt. The stars stopped streaking by, and I got a firsthand view of the system we were traveling through. If there was a ship to have gone back to I might have enjoyed the scenery, but bits of the Omanix continued to hurtle past me.
I ordered my suit to turn me towards the chaos. I needed to see what had happened. Small jets puffed me around and into a point of reference where the ships and I were both standing “up”. I thought I could jet myself back to the Omanix and get on board, but I needed to know what obstacles I faced ahead.
“No,” I whispered. My chest tightened, and my stomach dropped.
The Omanix was broken into three main pieces. Debris from the ship floated in a large cloud. Corpses of both the Omanix crew and Vantagax boarding parties bumped around in the tangled mess. The debris cloud continued to expand and push out as small explosions rippled across the corvette’s surface.
Dwarfing the remains of the Omanix was a skyscraper. It hovered above the ship, blocking out the stars in nearly my entire field of view. Multiple beams of light zapped from its hull. Some struck the corvette while others seemed to strike bits of debris. I zoomed in and realized the bits were Omanix crew. A small pod burst forth from the rear section. It shot out at a perpendicular angle, slowed down and then started to take off in a different direction. My suit showed five life signs on board. The skyscraper zapped it and snuffed out all five.
I watched it in a near silent void. The only sound to accompany the sla
ughter was my breathing. It rang in my ears and felt like it echoed in my head. I wanted Wards to call up on the radio and tell me to do something. Her life signs were nowhere to be found.
My suit started picking out survivors and opening hailing channels to them, but as quickly as the suit found them the skyscraper hit them. SOS alerts pinged my suit from others but were then snuffed out. I didn’t want to open the general channel, afraid of what I might hear. With no objective I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. Floating alone didn’t help me think beyond when I was going to be next. When was it going to be my turn at being burnt to a crisp in space?
My suit flashed a warning that my automatic emergency signal had been bounced. I didn’t know that anything had been sent, let alone why it wouldn’t have made it. “Radio jammed” flashed on my HUD. The suit wasn’t picking up any more life signs, and I couldn’t call for help.
I don’t know why, but at this moment it kind of felt fitting to be the last one. I was the last apparent sane Terran. I was the last of the little group that had saved me, and now I was the last of the Omanix. I was destined to be the last. The tightness in my chest lifted and my heartbeat slowed down. My breathing became shallower and a feeling close to contentment settled over me.
The world around me began to turn into a solid wall of golden yellow light, interrupting my thoughts. In my head I cursed those who pulled me from my reverie. I was alone. I had faced my end. It was time. They couldn’t snatch that from me now.
The light strengthened around me until it was all there was and then started to dissipate. A room began to fade into view. First the outlines then the substance of objects then the textures and finally the colors appeared. The world came back into focus, and I found myself on my hands and knees staring at the floor grating. I built up a giant diatribe about being saved at the last second once more. Maybe it would be more appropriate once we were out of danger, but I didn’t care.
“I was alone and ready to-” I started, pushing myself up from the ground. My words caught in my throat as I caught the eye of my savior: General Braxa.
Her head bobbed from side to side, and she said, “Welcome back, Terran.”
Chapter Twelve
Braxa gave a low whistle that sent shivers down my spine. Even if it was meant to be happy I knew it didn’t bode well for me.
“Braxa,” I stuttered. All of the saliva in my mouth evaporated, and any kind of additional response left my mind.
Five Vantagax trained their weapons on me. My HUD scanned their firearms and popped up a warning that my suit wouldn’t stop the projectiles. It didn’t seem as noble to die on my hands and knees in a loading bay as it did floating alone in space.
One guard moved around to behind me, his weapon steady and aimed at me the entire time. He took something off my back and handed it to Braxa without me seeing what it was. Braxa turned the object over in her hands as the guard moved back to his post. She dropped the object and watched as it fell to the ground. It bounced and clattered on the ground, at last coming to a stop that I could see that it was a Traveling beacon. It must have been placed on me in the chaos and confusion in the Omanix without my knowledge. Braxa cocked her head to the side and looked at it for a split second before crushing it under the heel of her boot then focusing her attention on me.
“You won’t have anybody to happen along and save you now,” said Braxa. She began to strut back and forth, head bobbing, hands behind her back.
I clenched my fists. Bile rose and burned against the back of my throat. The memory of my suit’s scans turning up no life signs flooded back. In the moment, floating amongst the debris, I’d been ready to go. It hadn’t mattered who’d attacked or who’d destroyed the Omanix, but now, with the perpetrator in my face, my anger at the act began to build.
“You don’t have a sniveling scientist to keep you safe,” said Braxa. “You don’t have a bunch of thieving lizards to whisk you away.” She clacked her beak open and shut in rapid succession.
“And what do I have?” I said through gritted teeth. I started to stand. The Vantagax guards tensed. One of them shook, his gun quaking in his hands. I continued, making smooth, slow movements, keeping my hands visible until I stood up straight. The guards could have itchy trigger fingers. I’d already seen enough death to know that even with advanced medicine getting shot wasn’t a good game plan.
Braxa stopped pacing and cocked her head to the side, looking at me with one eye and then turning and looking at me with the other. Her eyes held nothing. They were blank, like the dead eyes of a computer interface program.
“You’ve only got me,” she said. She leaned her head back and gave a quick, shrill whistle. As she repeated the whistle in succession she extended her arms and moved them as if flapping. After a second the guards matched her in the whistle. I took it as some kind of laugh.
“And what are you going to do with me?” I said.
She stopped whistling and, as if on cue, the guards stopped as well. Braxa walked up to me and extended her neck until her beak almost tapped against my visor. Her breath fogged the material as she exhaled.
“You’re going to tell me how to contact your fleet admiral,” said Braxa.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Braxa nodded and stepped back. “I find that hard to believe, and you know why?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I find it hard to believe because everywhere you go a little bit more of the Terran puzzle falls into place,” Braxa said. She started her pacing again, hands behind her back. “We know where your fleet was supposed to go, and when we investigated there was nothing to be found.”
“So?” I said. “I didn’t find the fleet either.”
“No,” said Braxa, “You didn’t, but you did find other things.” She stopped pacing, turned on her heel and looked at me. “It’s like a trail of breadcrumbs were left for you, like they left something for other Terrans to find and to follow.”
I shrugged. It seemed like anyone could have found the monument or the altar or the heavy particles. I told Braxa so.
“Maybe,” said Braxa, “but you’re still hiding something.” She shook her finger at me. “Why were you going to a disputed area?”
I narrowed my eyes. “How did you know where we were going?” I said. It seemed obvious, but she’d been close behind us the entire time. “How’d you even know where we were?”
Braxa gave a low whistle and shook her head. She walked over and tapped my head. “Think about it.” Her voice was condescending. Her tone was one you would use when explaining something to a child. “The Vantagax have a vast and wide spy network feeding me information at all times. I always knew where you were.”
“No,” I said. It couldn’t have been right. If that was the case she could have just scooped me up at any time. “You’re lying.”
Braxa gave her whistle laugh. “Doesn’t matter.” She stopped laughing and focused her gaze on me again. “Because the Confederacy wanted to get your people on their side, swing the war in their favor. Well, they won’t,” yelled Braxa. Spit flew out of her mouth and splattered on my visor.
“You know,” I said, “if you’d been a little nicer to me at first you might be the one getting help from me right now.” I smirked. I was beyond caring if I tweaked or struck a nerve with Braxa. “We could be flying around finding the breadcrumbs, and it could be the Vantagax benefiting from my help.”
The rage boiled in Braxa’s eyes. Her feathers puffed out, rippling underneath her uniform. It looked like she gained a third of her size in an instance. She pulled her hand back as if to strike me with the back of it. Her beak clacked and then inch by inch she lowered her hand back to her side. Perhaps it was the realization that hitting me wasn’t going to get what she wanted, but I think it was that I still wore a helmet. She’d do nothing but break bones against it.
“You’re going to help,” said Braxa. Her voice was low, almost a growl. It was deep and coated every word she spoke with mali
ce. “We’re going to the disputed territory. We’re going to wait until your fleet shows up and then you’re going to explain the situation to them.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you’re going to get thrown out an airlock and your colonial fleet will be destroyed,” spit Braxa. “I will bring to bear the full weight of the Vantagax Republic’s military power against your pitiful people. Your fleet will be crushed underneath my might.” She leaned in and curled her hand into a fist. “And I will feel no remorse in wiping the remains of an extinct species off the heel of my boot.”
I believed her. I saw it in her eyes. It didn’t matter what I thought of Kaur or whether there was anything worth saving from the colonial fleet. It didn’t matter that pulling ships in to destroy the colonial fleet might swing the war in the Confederacy’s favor. Right now, at this moment, with this train of thought, in this mindset, Braxa would do everything in her power to destroy the last vestiges of Terran society and me with it.
“We’ll see what happens,” I said. I couldn’t make myself agree to do her bidding. While I knew she’d make good on her threat I thought if I could walk a fine line between saying yes and saying no I could keep some of my pride intact, maybe even get out of this alive. Neutrality seemed like a good move.
“Yes,” said Braxa, drawing out the “-es”. “We’ll see what happens.” She made a motion and the guards stepped forward. They grabbed me and manhandled me into a standing position. Manacles were slapped on my wrists and ankles. Braxa smirked, watching as I was led out of the room.
The Vantagax guards and I marched through the ship. The two in front walked just far enough ahead that I couldn’t lunge forward and grab them. The two behind me walked just far enough behind that I couldn’t spin around and hit them. I strained against the manacles to test their strength figuring my suit would help, but I had no luck. Something prevented me from using my exosuit’s abilities.
The Terran Representative Page 8
