The Lazarus Particle

by Logan Thomas Snyder

  “Fascinating.” Her voice was flat and toneless as she stared forward.

  “Speaking of hip-deep…” He lifted the bottle she was cradling in her lap out of her hands, took an emboldening sip. “You find someone to celebrate with yet, Lexi? ‘Cause I still got room on my dance card.”

  She fixed him with a murderous glare as he sipped from her bottle. “Now isn’t that a fucking surprise.”

  Lowering the bottle, he swiped the back of his wrist across his mouth. “You know, you don’t always have to be such a—”

  “Vron, let me be as clear as possible: the thought of your defective, gin-soaked seed anywhere near my womb is so revolting as to make me physically ill. I would sooner flush myself out of the nearest airlock than feel your fat ass flopping around on top of me. Now leave the bottle and see yourself the fuck away from my area of operations.”

  Vron leaned forward, sneering. All his lecherous confidence was courtesy of the generous quantities of drink coursing through him. “You come off as such a tough, stone-cold bitch. But you didn’t even buck when I took this bottle. I bet if I really wanted I could take—”

  There was a soft snick as Alexia’s hand landed flush against the inside of Vron’s splayed right thigh. He started to smile until she flicked her wrist, pressing the blade of a small slipknife against the crease of his jumpsuit where thigh met groin. “Want to know what I could take? I could take your life right now, Vron. Just one flick of my wrist and there goes your femoral artery. You bleed out in two minutes and I never have to see you undressing me with your stupid moon-face again. What do you think? Should I do it, Vron? What’s one more death today? Huh? Answer me! What’s one more piece of shit like you when good men and women laid down their lives today for a cause they believed in?” She gritted her teeth, seething as she pressed the blade in so close it split fabric and made him wince for its presence against bare skin. “That we believed in, once upon a time?!”

  Vron gaped at her as if she’d completely lost her mind. Probably she had.

  Finally she pulled the slipknife away. “Get the hell out of here, you worthless sack of shit.”

  His face twisting into an emasculated scowl, Vron shuffled off muttering something to the effect that he’d always known Alexia was a crazy fucking dyke anyway.

  Alone again, Alexia traded the slipknife for the bottle. She made a point of wiping down the mouth with the sleeve of her jumpsuit, far preferring the familiar tang of grease and oil to anything left over from Vron’s mouth. Drawing deeply from the bottle after she felt reasonably sure it was deloused, she reflected on the grisly events of the last twenty-four hours.

  People would think she’d leant her name to this coup because of her brother, she knew. In fact, the truth was anything but. The truth was that in those two days in immersion she’d had an epiphany.

  She had come to forgive Vichante Harm for the death of her brother.

  At first, of course, she thought it was just the loss of sensation getting to her. The feeling of formlessness, of non-being, like a bizarre and punitive sentient death. She screamed without hearing her voice, thrashed at the boundaries of her cell without injury, tried to taste and smell of the air only to find it devoid of even a hint of flavor…

  It was maddening. Yet just when she was about to give up and let the madness take her, there was Dell. Not so much in person, not so much a ghost. Just that familiar voice in her head, so warm and easy and sadly melancholy.

  Hey Lexi.

  Dell? Is… is that you?

  Who else would it be?

  Where are you? Are you here?

  Sure I’m here. I’m wherever you are now.

  Does that mean…

  Yeah. But Lexi.

  Yeah, Dell?

  I chose my own path. You know that. And you did everything you could to protect me.

  Dell…

  I know this was never really your fight. I know you were only here to look after me. You did the best you could; I just got unlucky early. It happens to the best of us.

  I miss you so much, Dell. I don’t know what to do without you.

  I miss you, too, Lexi, but I don’t believe that. You’re still there. You can still help make things right.

  How?

  Believe in Commandant Soroya and Commander Harm.

  Why? They got you killed.

  Something is coming, Lexi. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but something is coming. It’s going to change everything. Until then, you need to believe in them. Okay? You have to trust me.

  I do trust you, Dell, but why? Please, Dell, you have to tell me—

  Alexia felt her feet hit the floor and was already whirling into a fighting stance, holding one arm out before her defensively, the other reaching for the slipknife—

  But there was no one there. The entire galley and stretch of corridor beyond were bathed in muted twilight. Had everyone gotten so hammered that second and third shifts weren’t even bothering to report for duty?

  More to the point, had she just remembered that strange, ghostly exchange? Or was it a fresh construct of her grief-stricken mind?

  She’d been dozing, she realized. She rubbed at her face. Closing the slipknife, she was in the process of collecting herself when something suddenly occurred to her. If everyone was so torn down from celebrating, then maybe, just maybe…

  Poking her head out into the corridor, she saw people sitting and splayed wherever their last drunken steps had deposited them. She picked her way quickly but carefully through the sleeping minefield of bodies. As she went, Alexia stripped the weapons from anyone who had been careless enough to remain armed up to the point they collapsed under the weight of their own inebriation. Soon she had a nice little arsenal clacking softly against the small of her back as she darted here and there, nimbly avoiding the telltale sounds of the few Oviddian forward forces still actively patrolling the station.

  Alexia reached the brig without incident. Even the immersion chambers were unguarded. She guessed that was due to a lack of able-bodied personnel. That, and the prisoners were hardly a threat. And with all their sympathizers killed or in custody, why bother posting a guard?

  Well. All their sympathizers but one, Alexia thought as she edged toward the chambers. She searched the keypad for any hint it had been adjusted or tampered with, but of course there were no outward signs. This was the biggest gamble yet; if she set off an alarm, would she have enough time to make herself scarce? Maybe. But then maybe not. She would just have to chance it and hope like hell everyone was still too seduced by Gatz and Poe’s regime change to worry over minor points of overlap.

  She punched in the code she remembered from her brief rotation on guard duty many months earlier. Waited for the three quick beeps and the flash from red to green. Waited for the familiar snick-snack of the heavy magnetic locks unlatching (so loud on this side of the door!). Waited. Waited…

  Success!

  Carefully she prized open the heavy door, willing it not to squeak on its massive hinges. But no, it never had and never would. The immersion chambers were maintained to the highest, most exacting standard. One simply never knew when discipline might break down and they would be needed most; best to be certain they were ready for use at a moment’s notice.

  Vichante had her on her back before she even knew what hit her. She grunted hard, trying to roll away even as she landed awkwardly atop all her pilfered firepower. Probably she should have figured that as seasoned vets he and his staff would not yet have succumbed to the more deeply unhinging effects of the immersion chambers. Already he had her pinned beneath his considerable weight, one hand closing tightly around her throat while the other blindly fished about for her flailing limbs. Her vision was already starting to squeeze in at the corners, her focus diminishing rapidly. Rather than fight back, she made a point of tapping his shoulder three quick times. Tapping out. Then again. Then again and again until she was pounding on his shoulder with her little fist and he seemed—finally, jus
t before she was about to black out—to take the hint.

  “Alexia?” he rasped down at her. His grip loosened and the life flooded back into her.

  “Yes,” she hacked through huge gulps of air. Every word was like coughing out thousands of tiny needles. “Guns… I brought… The others… Have to… hurry…”

  They were in the process of opening Soroya’s chamber when the company of soldiers stormed into the brig, rifles at the ready.

  “It would appear someone has had a change of heart,” came the amused, softly chiding voice of Poe. “A pity.”

  “Indeed,” concurred Gatz with an affected sigh. “Thank you for alerting us to the change in Miss DeCoud’s disposition… Mr. Dumphy, was it?”

  At the sound of the name, Alexia felt her blood run cold.

  Vron came forward, his sneering swagger in direct opposition to the humble servant role he was playing up for the new bosses. “Oh, y’know. Just doing my bit for the cause.”

  “Nevertheless, we are indebted to you. If there is anything we can do for you, please, you need only ask.”

  But Vron was already sizing up his reward, his eyes rolling lecherously over Alexia’s prostrate form. “Oh, I think about an hour or so alone with Miss DeCoud here will suit me just fine.”

  19 • TURNABOUT

  Everything had happened so fast.

  So fast. So ugly.

  The only consolation Vichante could take from that, from all the lives lost and casualties endured, was that whatever else was coming, it too was coming fast.

  With that in mind, he did his soldierly best to stay sharp. The immersion chambers were a formidable deterrent to the civilians and reserves, but for seasoned vets like Vichante and his crew, they were temporary, a nuisance to be endured. They had all spent many hours over their careers in similar non-environments, trained to find ways to keep their minds focused and their bodies attuned. Most importantly, they had been trained to trust their brains.

  Don’t feel. Know.

  So went the mantra of those prisoners who had endured. It was the techniques they pioneered that Vichante now called upon to help preserve his readiness and sanity.

  Know that you are kicking your legs, moving your arms, wiggling your toes, flexing your fingers.

  Know that you are praying, talking, humming, singing, shouting.

  Know that you are alive. Know that you are missed.

  Know that you will be found at any and all costs.

  Most importantly, know that every second you persevere, you do exponentially more damage to your enemy than they could ever do to you.

  So that’s just what he did.

  He flexed every limb and appendage he had, reminding himself that even if the chamber’s dampening field kept him from feeling the actions, his brain was still entirely functional, still sending the signals, still moving the muscles. He hummed military marches, he hummed drinking songs, he hummed latrine hymns and long-forgotten lullabies from childhood. He told himself jokes in the voices of Corliss and Rishi, always pretending not to know the punchline, always roaring with laughter even after the hundredth, the thousandth, the nth delivery.

  Anything to feel, to keep pace with the lost rhythms of life.

  Snick-snack.

  The door.

  He was on his feet immediately, throwing himself at whoever was on the other side of the door. He wasn’t even sure he’d managed to wrap his hands around that scrawny little throat. The slight, dark silhouette burning against the nuclear backdrop of light flooding into the chamber had been entirely swallowed up within seconds.

  Don’t feel. Know.

  He willed his fingers to grip, began to feel flesh giving way beneath his strong hands. Then a steady strumming. A pulse. Whoever it belonged to, Gatz or Poe or one of their minions, Vichante had every intention of taking the Oviddian son of a bitch with him.

  Slowly, though, a thought began to percolate in the back of his immersion-addled mind. Freed from the mentally confining prison of the chamber, he was starting to think critically again.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Why had only his chamber been opened? Why was he being allowed to choke out some form of administrator, be it Gatz or Poe or one of their underlings, without being shot or stunned or clubbed into submission by a gang of heavily armed thugs? Why wasn’t the person he was choking trying to fight back?

  That’s when he felt the pounding on his shoulder. Three quick strikes.

  Vichante reared back suddenly. The terrified form of Alexia DeCoud rapidly clarified itself before his reconstructed vision. She was gasping and spitting out words as quickly as she could form them. Something about guns and others. No time to lose.

  He had to admit, she had collected quite a nice little arsenal for herself along the way.

  Finally Vichante nodded, swinging bodily off of her. He quickly picked through the weapons she’d brought with her, selecting a high-caliber pistol with a good heft to it for his sidearm and a nasty looking assault rifle. Slinging the rifle across his back, he hauled ass to the next tube over from his. “C’mon, then, if you want to help so much all of a sudden!”

  “I need you to know I didn’t want to betray you, Commander,” Alexia said as she scrambled to his side. The words came at a quick clip, thick and raspy but otherwise intelligible. “I had plenty of time to think while I was in here. Not always all that lucidly, but still. I know Dell’s death wasn’t your fault. I only agreed to back Gatz and Poe because I thought it would give me the best chance at helping you, but then everything happened so fast—”

  The sharp, machined click of several rifles being brought to bear behind them interrupted Alexia’s mea culpa. Turning to face their captors, Vichante was almost glad they’d failed to revive Soroya. This failure deserved to be absorbed alone, absent any additional suffering on her part.

  He stood by impassively as Alexia was more or less sold into the temporary possession of Vron Dumphy. The name rang a bell somewhere far back in his mind. There had been certain allegations against the man, he recalled, but he had been allowed to stay on active duty anyway.

  There was a war on, after all.

  And now here he was, reaping the spoils without fear of consequence. Vichante’s gut twisted vehemently at the thought. Whatever else Alexia DeCoud was or had done, she didn’t deserve what was coming to her.

  To her credit, she allowed herself to be led out without making a scene. Back straight, eyes fixed determinedly forward, she was already in the process of detaching her conscious mind from her body, sending it somewhere else in anticipation of the punishment she was about to endure for daring to question the rule of Gatz and Poe.

  “That’s a progressive look for your little revolution,” he said after the doors had closed behind Alexia and Vron. “Institutionalized rape of prisoners of war. Nice.”

  “War criminal,” Gatz retorted evenly. “She is a traitor.”

  “She’s a soldier! More than I can say for any of you. Even the Tyroshi don’t rape their prisoners.”

  “Because they do not take prisoners, Commander Harm, not outside of their clan wars. Surely you understand this is not personal. No one appreciates what you have done for our people over the last year more than I, but the facts speak for themselves. Faced with an offer to rid ourselves of the Tyroshi threat once and for all, my compatriot and I would be remiss not to accept. If your lives are the price, I am profoundly sorry, but your movement will go on; victory can still be achieved in the balance of the broader struggle. My people, our planet—we have considerably fewer options. As for Miss DeCoud, she will not be especially missed, I suspect even by yourself. She has served her purpose.”

  “In a sense,” Poe offered glibly, “she continues to.”

  “Ah. Indeed.” Gatz favored his shadow with a tight-lipped smile. “Well observed, Poe.”

  Vichante couldn’t help himself. Dropping his chin to his chest, he hitched with a broad, only half maniacal laughter that rolled through his barrel-che
sted upper body and rippling shoulders. “You two have it all figured out, don’t you?” he asked, lifting his head just enough to eye them critically. “You’re just going to hand over the Commandant and the rest of us and that’s it? You’ll never hear from the Tyroshi again?”

  Poe shifted in place, trading an awkward glance with Gatz. “That is essentially the substance of the arrangement.”

  “You ignorant retch. Do you know what the Tyroshi hate more than traitors? Cowards. You think you negotiated with them? All you’ve confirmed is that you’re gutless. That you’re willing to do whatever it takes to sell out your own cause, up to and including the people who rallied around your banner when no one else would.” Grinning morbidly, Vichante leaned forward just so. “They’re going to take me and my people, and then they’re going to rape your moons and slag this planet—your planet—into a ball of molten shit. Nothing will ever live on it again. You and your people won’t just die, you’ll be erased. So congratulations, you halfwit curs, because you’re half right: my cause, my movement, will go on. But you two, you’ve signed your own death warrants. You and all your people and your shit heap of a planet with you.”

  Silence reigned on the deck in the wake of Vichante’s bleak prediction. Even the rifle-toting grunts were starting to show signs they were no longer entirely sure they had thrown in with the right lot. Glances were exchanged; rifle discipline began to degrade ever so slightly. It was nothing Vichante could make use of directly, not with the number of barrels trained on or about him, but if he could just plant a seed…

  “That’s right. You all hear me. Those are your families I’m talking about, your friends and loved ones. You think it’s only my people they’ve doomed? Do you honestly think it ends here? This easily?” He fixed Gatz and Poe with a deadly stare. “These two, what are they telling you? That you don’t have the fight in you! That you should throw in the towel, sell out your allies! I’m telling you you’re better than that! That together, we can still snatch victory from the jaws of—”

  Vichante doubled over as a rifle stock came down hard between his shoulders, sending him crashing to his knees. Several shouts rang out then, followed by even more shots. Realizing he was caught in the middle of a firefight, he curled up and kept as low a profile as possible until the shooting came to a stop.