by Jamie Sawyer
Zero was probably in the worst condition of all. Sure, she was fit and healthy, if you discounted the fact that she had just been almost redacted, but she was strictly rear echelon. Operations officers didn’t go into the field—or at least they weren’t supposed to. Zero’s breathing, verging on hysterical, was even more pronounced than Novak’s.
“You okay, Zero?” I asked her.
“All good,” she said. She made deliberate eye contact with me, and repeated: “All good.”
“Breathe in,” Feng said quietly over the comm. “Breathe out. Keep the rhythm nice and slow.”
“Jesus, Feng,” Lopez retorted. “Give it a rest. You’re freaking me out.”
“He’s only trying to help,” argued Zero.
Feng took Zero’s arm, and added, “Stay with me, and you’ll be fine.”
The cargo terminal was an empty platform, a tangle of steel girders and docking berths. Fully open to vacuum, it was manned by a dozen robot dockers. Those currently sat inert, locked to the deck by mags. The platform was big enough to hold several pods and freighters at the same time. Starlight was visible through the open space between gantries, but the structure didn’t look like it had suffered damage.
“We’ve got company,” Lopez said, indicating Cargo Rail Two.
The second cargo pod was behind us, closing fast on our position. A red warning light flashed on its roof as it accelerated up the track.
“On me,” I said. I moved farther along the structure. “Make safe distance from the pod’s dock.”
I plodded across the platform. The Jackals followed, with Pariah scuttling alongside, using all six limbs. It was as adept at moving in zero-G as in any other environ, but already the effects of vacuum were taking their toll. Ice crystals were forming on the alien’s carapace.
“P, how long can you survive out here?”
“Long enough,” it said, without looking at me. The xeno’s gills and mouth were clamped tight shut.
“That’s not very encouraging.”
“It is the truth.”
“You never mentioned that you could survive in vacuum before. I seem to remember you wearing a bio-suit last time we went EVA.”
“Things change.”
“I guess they do.” I toggled the Ikarus suit’s comms channel. “Voice, do you copy? We’re on the cargo platform.”
“We’re still several minutes out,” the Voice said.
“Fuck it. The Directorate are coming up the rail.”
“Do you have weapons?”
I laughed. “Very funny.”
We still had the salvaged PDWs and pistols. None of them was rated for space combat, and the recoil off a semi-auto in zero-G? Yeah, I had every right to laugh. If it came to a firefight in space, the Jackals were as good as cooked.
“You need to hold your position,” the Voice insisted. “What’s the terrain like on that platform? Can you deploy into cover?”
“It’s bare metal!” I retorted. “There’s nothing up here.”
“What about an evacuation-pod, or a lifeboat?”
“It’s big. We don’t have time to search it.”
“Any sort of manoeuvrable craft?”
“I don’t know!” I said in exasperation.
“Hold on. We’ll be with you soon.”
Lopez waved towards the pod dock. “They’re almost here! What do we do, ma’am? Where’s our evac?”
“Good question, Lopez.”
Space around us was busy. There were hundreds of ships out there, their running lights and chemical thrusters visible against the black of space. But without proper equipment, it would be impossible to identify a specific vessel. That and, looking out across the prospect of space, everything seemed so impossibly distant.
“We will assist.”
I turned to Pariah. The exposed antennae on its back wriggled in agitation.
“We can read communication-waves,” it said bluntly. “We can hear it; read the craft that sails stars.”
Novak nodded enthusiastically. “Is fish skill, yes? Can follow Voice’s communication!”
The idea seemed obvious in hindsight.
“Sixty seconds until the bogey reaches dock,” Feng declared.
“Are you sure about that?” Lopez said to P. “How can you tell which ship we’re looking for?”
Pariah seemed unconcerned. “We can read waves.”
“This is crazy,” Zero said, shaking her head. “I … I think that we should wait. Help’s on the way and—”
“There’s no time,” I said. I was already imagining the pod docking, Directorate assholes spilling out and taking us back down to Jiog. “P, can you guide us to the ship if we use these suits?”
“We can.”
“For sure?”
“We can,” the alien repeated.
“Because if you aren’t sure,” I continued, “we’re finished. There are a lot of ships out there. We get the wrong one, we’re going to end up plastered across the hull at best, captured by the Directorate again at worst.”
Pariah wasn’t cowed. “We have no wish to self-terminate, either.”
That was good enough for me. “Voice, we’re coming to you.”
“That’s not a good idea,” the Voice argued. “The variables are—”
“Fuck the variables. This is my squad, and I’m making the call. We can’t stay here.”
“Twenty seconds to pod dock,” Feng said. “If we’re doing this, we have to do it now.”
“Then let’s go. Pariah, hold on to my back,” I ordered.
Pariah grabbed my flight-pack. It would’ve been funny if not for the imminent risk of death by vacuum: P was twice my size, and in anything other than zero-G would be an unmanageable weight. Not so long ago, being this close to a Krell would’ve repulsed me to the point of nausea. Christo, things have changed, I thought.
“Disengage your mags!”
In an instant, I was free of the platform. As one, the Jackals disengaged too.
“Activate flight-packs!”
The Ikarus’ thrusters ignited, and acceleration kicked in. The suit’s flight-pack hurled me onwards, moving faster and faster, at a breakneck speed.
I was no stranger to planetary drops, and I’d done my fair share of deep-space operations. But this? It was something else, on a different scale. This was proper, seat-of-your-pants, shit-yourself-scary. I was doing this for real. Not simulated. No safety net: one foot wrong and I was wasted.
Lights spun past me at an alarming rate. Explosions, debris, wreckage. Rather than being distant, everything suddenly felt far too close. Orbital facilities were either taking fire or self-terminating. Coordinates tracked over my HUD, symbols flashing across the black of space.
Pariah tugged at my right shoulder. Pain speared my arm. I swallowed it back.
“There,” it said.
The alien was giving me directions, but they were so vague as to be next to useless. I couldn’t differentiate the many lights that were scattered across the vista, and I really had no idea where I was being directed. But I did my best, and veered in that course. The sharp turn made my gorge rise. Was I actually going to be sick inside the suit? First time for everything, I thought.
“Stay in formation,” I ordered the Jackals.
The squad changed course. It was a messy manoeuvre, but it was good enough. I tracked them visually on my HUD, tiny glowing graphics projected onto the interior of my face-plate. It was impossible to know how close we were to the target, how much longer we had to do this for.
“Maintain thrust.”
We followed the curve of Jiog’s atmosphere and kept pace. If we slowed, we’d be pulled down into the planet’s mesosphere: would eventually burn up on re-entry. That thought alone kept me moving at full tilt. Technically, we were in orbit around Jiog. Sure, it was an assisted orbit thanks to the Ikarus tech, but we followed the same principles of physics as any other orbiting body.
“Ah, what does this flashing red icon mean?”
“Which icon?” Feng asked.
“The flashing red one. Like I just said.”
Lopez was at the rear, trailing back a little.
“Ignore it,” Novak said. “Maybe will just go away, yes?”
“It’s not going away,” said Lopez. She sounded remarkably calm, given the circumstances. “It … it could be a motion tracker.”
I turned my head, just slightly: took in the others, moving in a jagged arrow-shape behind me. What with Pariah still on my back, it wasn’t easy to see what was happening.
“Is just debris,” Novak said. “Probably floating junk …”
“It’s not debris,” Lopez countered. “It looks like it’s moving—coming up behind us …”
I saw it too now.
A cluster of blips appeared on my scanner. Glowing red stars: too fast to be debris, adopting too tight a trajectory to be random.
“We’re being followed,” I said. “Hostiles incoming!”
But even as I spoke, Feng flipped out of formation.
He and Zero hurtled off-course. A beam of hard light sliced the sky, barely missing the pair as they tumbled back towards Jiog.
The Directorate were giving chase.
My mind was a jumble of half-remembered Army physics lessons and space operations training courses.
Zero screamed. It was a gut-wrenching sound, made all the more painful by the fact that there was nothing at all I could do to help. If she was hit, if her suit was breached, then there was no force in the universe that could save her.
There were a half-dozen hostiles in pursuit. They were currently a good distance behind us, but closing the gap fast. They moved with perfect precision; firing the thrusters of their flight-packs, accelerating harder and faster than us. The Jackals were rank amateurs in comparison.
“We’re taking fire!” Lopez shouted.
Lasers stitched the area. It wasn’t easy to shoot and fly at the same time, but the Directorate Shadows managed it well enough. Their accuracy would only get better as they got nearer …
“Hold your altitude,” I ordered. “I’m coming back—”
“Stay in formation!” Feng barked. “I’ve got this!”
He fired his thrusters, just managing to correct his approach. Zero clutched his side, making him a larger target, and more ungainly too. They trailed behind, dodging more fire from the Directorate. Feng’s flight path dipped.
“Am coming, Feng,” Novak rumbled.
“I’ll do it,” I said, powerless to stop the Russian.
Novak ignored me. He altered his course, following Feng. He was a speeding bullet: a blue smear against space. I saw his hand reaching out to Feng, saw him grasping for Feng’s flight-pack …
And then he had him.
Feng, Novak and Zero accelerated to catch up.
“Signal is close,” P intoned. “Remain on course.”
The alien’s carapace and skin was frosted with a sheet of ice, body shivering violently. Whatever P said, I knew that it didn’t have much longer out here in the cold of space.
My head was spinning, my heart thundering. I dodged a piece of debris as it spun past, then more laser-fire—
“I … I see it,” I said through gritted teeth. “Voice? Do you read me?”
Gradually, as we got nearer, a starship began to take shape. She was a transport vessel, grey and austere and not very memorable at all. With nacelle-mounted thrusters and a segmented hull, the starship was a battered old warhorse of a thing. Her running lights were flashing cyclically, beacons against the black of space.
I’d never seen anything so beautiful in all my life.
“We’re going to make it,” I said. Started repeating the words over and over. I wanted them to be true. “We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it.”
But the Directorate closed on us: were almost among the Jackals now.
Without explanation, Pariah let go with one claw.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
“Saving my Kin,” Pariah said back at me.
Pariah held on with two claws, but released both of its upper limbs. Barb-guns popped free from the xeno’s forearms. P opened fire with them, peppering our retreat with living ammunition.
At this distance, I saw a glimpse of the trooper’s face: saw that it was Ice. The clone’s features creased in surprise—a reaction I hadn’t yet seen from the Directorate thugs—and he brought up his rifle to take a shot at Pariah.
P responded.
Ice took a volley of barbs to his face-plate. The commando’s suit popped, decompressed, and the corpse folded. Immediately began to drop towards Jiog. Burnt bright as it hit the upper atmosphere.
Pariah wasted no time. It readjusted its position on my back, and opened fire on the next target.
It was Fire. This one didn’t go down so easy.
“P!”
“We are undamaged.”
The Ikarus suit’s face-plate was fogged with condensation from my breath. I probably should’ve been panicking, but there really wasn’t time. Everything was happening so fast.
Fire altered his course. It briefly looked like he was going to evade Pariah, but the xeno kept shooting.
An alarm sounded in my ear. Not from the earpiece, but from the Ikarus suit itself. Red text flashed on the HUD. I didn’t need to understand Korean to know what it meant. Impact warning.
“Coming up on destination!” Lopez said. “Target ahead!”
The starship’s thrusters were muted, and she waited there in space ready to receive us. As we closed, I saw that hope had a name. PALADIN ROUGE was stencilled on her hull in bright white letters. The plating was stamped with the French and Alliance flags.
“Voice! Require assistance! Directorate on our six!”
Weapons pods on the Paladin’s spine swivelled in our direction, tracking targets.
“Danger close,” came the mechanical reply. “Danger close.”
The flak cannons opened fire.
A Directorate signal disappeared from my scanner. Then another. P kept shooting too, my body quivering with each discharge.
The Paladin had a rear cargo hold typical of a smaller freighter, and that hung open: a target to aim for, an entrance to the ship. But at this distance, moving this fast, it seemed an impossibly small mark to hit …
With another thrust of his boosters, Fire came up almost alongside me, shooting his laser rifle at Pariah. I jinked, or did my best impression of jinking, while trying to retain speed.
Beep-beep-beep!
“We can do it!”
Feng, Zero and Novak tumbled below me. Only one chance at this.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
Novak’s flight-pack flared. He was losing pace, spinning. Fire saw an easier target, and veered in Novak’s direction.
“Correct that path, trooper!” I screamed. “Stay with me! Do it for your daughter!”
Novak roared.
Then Pariah had Fire in its sights. Twin barb-guns firing, the alien peppered the commando’s body with living ammunition. P kept shooting as the body spun away, as it fell towards Jiog. I should’ve felt some vindication, some sense of relief. Fire and Ice were bastards. They deserved everything they got. But I could only wish that I felt something as I saw the last of the twins …
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!!!!
I had tunnel vision. Eyes only for the target of the freighter’s open hold. I was suddenly close enough that I could make out every detail of the cargo bay’s interior. It was a large, empty chamber: probably big enough to hold a couple of shuttles. Well lit, as though inviting us in.
“Brake! Brake! All brake!”
The suit’s HUD was filled with warnings.
The rear of the cargo bay came up to meet me—all of us—with such speed that there was no way I was going to stop in time.
Then I was in the ship.
Actually inside the
ship.
I felt the tug of artificial gravity, my suit’s stabilisers kicking in.
I’m wasted. There’s no way that I am going to slow down fast enough …
But … but …
Every organ in my body was squeezed, squashed, compressed. Gravity and velocity and momentum and whatever else took their toll. I tumbled across the starship’s metal deck. Pariah was loose, bouncing free. Came to a stop farther along the deck.
The Jackals did the same. Feng, Novak and Zero rolled in a ball of arms and legs and bodies that almost certainly spelled broken bones. Lopez skidded on her chest, arms outstretched, making a better landing than the rest.
I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive.
“Everyone with me?” I finally asked.
I could hear breathing, so that was good.
“Not dead,” Zero said.
“Only just,” Feng added. “Thanks for the save, big guy.”
“Is not problem,” replied Novak.
Lopez swallowed, gasped. “That … that was hardcore.”
Pariah gave no verbal response, but was moving. Wisps of smoke rose from its body.
“Seal the deck. Get this place pressurised.”
A half-dozen figures watched us from the other end of the hold. They were armed with pistols, wearing re-patched survival-suits with respirators and hoods pulled up over their faces. Not Directorate, but they weren’t wearing any Alliance military uniform I recognised either.
I rolled onto my hands and knees. I was so damned tired of this shit, and my arm not only hurt like all hell, but was wet with blood inside my suit. I grappled with the PDW holstered at my belt. My hands shook. But after what we had just been through, what was one more fight?
A member of the group came forward, the others parting to accommodate him.
“Welcome to the Paladin Rouge.”
It was the Voice.
I recognised a voice-disruptor at the figure’s neck, a transmission scrambler that probably accounted for the weird vocals. The figure disconnected the apparatus and tossed it to another of the group.
“I swear to Jesus, Gaia, and whoever else is listening,” I said, getting to my feet now, “if you don’t tell me who you are in precisely three seconds, I will shoot.”
The Jackals closed ranks around me, readying for whatever came next.
