“Are you all right?” she whispered, her voice carrying in the silence.
Ralla sniffed once, and fiercely wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Through gritted teeth, she growled,
“No. I’m pissed.”
Checking the charge on her gun, she started off down the long empty hallway. And the thunder and the fury followed.
The communicator vibrated in the pocket of Thom’s coveralls. He tapped it and placed it to his ear.
“Thom, it’s Tegit. Huth filled me in, what’s been going on since you left?”
Thom filled him in on their progress so far, and the massive war fleet being built in the bow of the ship.
“You were right to get charges up there.” His voice was wet, punctuated by coughs that were wetter still. “We should make that our priority. If they hit the Uni with that many ships...”
“Are you OK? We weren’t sure you’d wake up.”
“I took a few bad hits when we first tied on, past that I don’t know. I don’t think I can walk.”
“OK, we’ll figure it out. I assume Huth told you about our other objective.”
“Yeah. I can’t say I’m surprised.” Even in his condition, the annoyance in his voice was obvious. “How much more time do you need?”
“We were going to go for another hour, and then start kicking in some doors.”
Thom dropped the communicator away from his ear. There was a new sound, a deep rumble. Thom realized it had been there for a few moments, but now had gotten loud enough to be noticed. He looked over at Cern, who had noticed it as well. He brought the communicator back up to hear Tegit in the middle of a sentence.
“Sergeant, there’s something going on up here. I’ll contact you in a moment.” Thom clicked the communicator off. They were about a quarter of the way down the port side of the ship. After finding nothing on a few of the interior corridors, they had come back out into the concourse area to find a live terminal. They could feel the deep rumble in the deckplates, as if half the engines had been set to full forward, the other full reverse, but there had been no change in the motion of the ship. What they could make out of the actual sound, they heard more of as they passed open hatches towards the inside of the ship.
“Did you ever watch nature vids in school?” Cern asked.
“No.”
“We had to watch these vids from back when there was land. There were these wide open spaces with land as far as you could see. Like being on the bottom but having sky instead of ocean. There were these animals that would run together in big packs, like schools of fish. I remember some of the vids would have the cameras right down there with them, and you could hear their feet on the ground. That’s what this sounds like.”
“I don’t think they have animals on board, Cern.”
“ I mean it sounds like a whole lot of people running.”
“OK...”
“I mean a lot of people.”
Thom stepped through the hatch and drew his sidearm. Cern did the same. The corridor was a narrow one, cutting across what looked to have been an older model cruise ship, one of several on this side of the concourse. They could see the far end of the hallway, tiny in the distance. They cautiously made their way, checking each intersecting corridor. The rumble was getting louder. In the center of the once-cruise ship was a wider passage that ran lengthwise. Thom peeked around the corner and his eyes went wide.
It was a good thing she saw him when she did. If it weren’t for the fact that he was on her mind, she wouldn’t have even registered his face. It took her army nearly the entire distance from when she saw him to the intersection where he stood before they came to a halt. Even still, the people in the back were jostling to keep moving. When it finally seemed like they were going to stop, Thom stepped out of the side corridor, beaming.
“What are you doing here?” Ralla asked, jogging up to him. Her smile was making her eyes do that squinty thing. Thom felt a burst of adrenaline as he saw her arms start to go up as if to hug him.
Then Cern stepped out into the main corridor.
“Cern!” she said, her voice a mixture of emotions Thom couldn’t read. Her arms dropped to her side. “How... what are you... How did you get here?” she sputtered, hugging Cern lightly.
“We snuck on board. I came to rescue you,” he said, kissing her hard on the mouth. Thom bristled.
“I brought an extra suit,” Thom said, and immediately regretted it. Ralla pulled away from Cern long enough to nod an acknowledgement that he had said something, and then Cern went back to kissing her. She stepped back.
“Did you guys see the shipyard thing?” she asked. They nodded. “Was there still a big sub down the end?”
“Yeah, half the size of the Uni’s entire dockyard,” Cern said, his eyes locked on Ralla.
“OK, good. We’re going to take it.”
“OK. Wait, what?” Thom said, still distracted by everything. This hadn’t gone nearly as he’d hoped. As if annoyed at their slow uptake, she waved an arm at the impatiently waiting army of dirty, angry civilians that had so far gone unnoticed by Thom and Cern. “Oh,” Thom said, still trying to catch up.
“But thank you for your suit,” she said, patting him almost patronizingly on the arm. On the last pat, she squeezed it subtlety and shot him a conspiratorial glance. He was more confused than ever. “Are you guys here alone?”
Like latches on a lock, this question caused everything to click into place in Thom’s brain. He pulled the communicator out of his coveralls.
“Lo, Soli, recall at once. Egress in 15. We are leaving. Huth, ready Tegit for transport, Cern and I are coming to get you.”
“Are we blown?” Tegit responded, his voice sounding even weaker than before.
Thom looked down the corridor at the thousands of faces that went farther than he could see.
“Not yet, but this place is gonna get loud.”
He turned to Ralla, who was giving him a look he had never seen before. She looked... impressed.
“We have an injured man. We’re going to need a few minutes to get him to the shipyard.”
“Do you want help?”
“I think it would be better if we do it for now. We sort of blend in. Can you give us a few minutes’ head start before you wake this place up?”
“Thom...”
“OK, hold on. Here...” Thom reached into Cern’s coveralls and removed a communicator. “Take this. We’ll keep you updated.”
She nodded, flipping the thin communications device over in her hand. Thom grabbed Cern by the arm and started jogging back the way they had come. The rumble started up before they had made it to the concourse.
Soli and Lo arrived almost at the same time as Cern and Thom, all winded and sweating. The storage bay was still dark. To avoid any mishaps, Thom shouted for Huth as he flipped the breaker for the overheads. They buzzed, casting a dull orange glow on the carcasses of old submarines.
“Cern, grab two more sets of coveralls from the supply closet,” Thom barked as they entered.
Tegit was pale, sweating, and in the same place they’d left him. Huth looked worried. There was blood on the deckplates.
“I don’t think we can change him into coveralls. I think the suit is the only thing that’s keeping some of his bones inside.”
“OK, hold on.”
Thom weaved his way across the bay to the supply closet just as Cern was exiting.
“I think these will fit them,” he said, holding up two pairs of the blue coveralls.
“Change of plans,” Thom said, brushing past him.
Lo and Cern, being the strongest of the group, carried Tegit between them as they rushed down the passageway. The sergeant couldn’t help but keep his eyes closed, his face a contortion of pain. Thom took point and Soli, with the satchel on his back, took up the rear. They passed two groups of mechanics, who didn’t know what to make of the scene of four men in hooded coveralls carrying a bloodied fifth. Each time, Thom yelled out “Emergency
, emergency,” and their path was cleared.
As they crossed the concourse, after an uneventful elevator trip, the alarms started going off. The ominous angry wail pierced the silence. By the time they had made it to the elevator in the new wall, people started to spill out of cabins above, shouting at or to each other in confusion.
But that was nothing compared to what was happening in the shipyard. It was a full-on firefight, with armed members of Ralla’s army on the port side near a bank of elevators and a few hundred Pop soldiers dug in on the opposite side of the bay. Ralla’s group had excellent cover behind storage containers, but they were pinned down. The elevators continued to open, spilling out more and more people as the word hadn’t gotten upstairs that there was no place to go. The doors were not in the line of sight of the Pop soldiers, nor were the growing groups of civilians, but that wouldn’t last much longer.
More containers and subs blocked direct access to the dug-in Pop troops, but Thom was able to lead his team around the edge of the bay towards Ralla’s people. He found her crouched behind a pallet of plastic piping, which was doing a fine job absorbing the incoming fire by melting. She slammed a new charge into her pistol as Thom waddled up. It took her a moment to register who it was, his face hidden in the darkness of the coverall’s hood. Incoming fire sizzled as it hit the bulkhead behind them.
“You’ve got your man?”
Thom leaned aside and pointed at Tegit, now on the ground beside a heavily panting Lo and Cern.
“We’re pretty well trapped here. If you can hold them, I’ll lead a few of my people around to the other side and get in behind them. We can meet up at Big Ugly over there,” she said with a motion towards the cruiser-sized sub still resting ominously at the forward end of the bay.
She didn’t wait for an answer before moving back to get the attention of her nearby soldiers. Hardly marksmen, they alternately ducked or shot wildly over the heads of the Pop soldiers. Thom grabbed her arm, and flashed her a wily smile.
“We got this,” he said, turning and catching the eye of Soli. The soldier waddled up, keeping his head down and bringing the satchel with him. Ralla watched as Thom unzipped his oversized coveralls and tossed his hood back, revealing the dark gray-on-black armor of his suit underneath. Ralla’s eyebrows went up. The blue cloth fell away as Soli and Thom slipped out of their adopted denim skin. Soli opened the satchel and handed Thom a sidearm and a carbine. Thom couldn’t help himself, and gave Ralla a wink as he slapped the side of his helmet, snapping the facemask shut. Soli signified his readiness with a pat on Thom’s back, who immediately twisted around as he stood and commenced firing.
At first the Pop soldiers didn’t know what to make of the two carapaced juggernauts slowly crossing the bay towards them. Then as the impact from the incoming fire peppered their entrenchment behind crates and submarines, they started firing back. Most of the soldiers had energy weapons, whose bolts were effortlessly absorbed.
Soli and Thom, unbothered by the incoming fire, continued to strafe the different clusters of soldiers. When the soldiers realized their weapons had no effect, two heavy rifles were brought out and placed on containers for support. Thom and Soli had made it halfway across the bay when the first of these rounds hit Soli square in the chest. He was knocked off his feet as if yanked, and slid backwards across the deck on his back. Thom dove and rolled, firing across the crate where the shot had come from.
“I’m OK,” Soli said over the comm. He sounded like he was gasping for breath. The fun was over. Thom got to his feet and sprinted across the rest of the open bay, spraying fire from the carbine as he went. Jumping on top of the crate, he kicked the rifle gunner in the face. As he went sprawling backwards, the rest of the soldiers got up and ran. Within moments, the shipyard was silent.
Thom looked back across the bay from his perch on the crate. There was a steady stream of people filing from the elevators towards the big sub. Already he could hear the whine of the engines. Soli had gotten up and was checking behind the crates and subs for any stragglers. Oddly disappointed, Thom saw Ralla with her back to him, indicating which of the two ramps people should go up to get onboard.
The elevators held 50-60 people each, and there were three of them. It took a little over 15 minutes to get the rest of the people down into the bay. Ten more for everyone to get onboard the sub they had christened Reappropriation. By the time the last of the civilians had made it to the portable stairs accessing the cruiser, Soli, Thom, and Huth started taking fire from above. Some of the more enterprising Pop soldiers had gone up to the upper-level gangways and were firing down at them. Cern and Lo were already onboard, carrying the now-unconscious Tegit to the medbay on the Reap with the help of a broad-shouldered civilian.
Finally, the shipyard was empty. Thom sealed the hatch and made his way to the bridge. Soli and Lo started to round up people to man some of half a dozen turrets along the spine and keel of their new ship.
The passageways, already narrow on the warship, were made almost impassable as people stood or sat any place they could. By the time he got to the bridge, he could tell there was a problem.
The bridge, such as it was, was barely larger than those on transports he’d piloted. It looked as if the craft could be driven by two people, with a support staff of five for communications, weapons, and engineering. The front seats were filled with two men who looked like they knew what they were doing. Toggles flipped, dials checked much as he would have. The other seats on the bridge were filled with men and women looking like they were trying to figure out what each station did, then actually reading the information given there. Ralla stood in the middle of it all, pointing at dials, giving orders, and trying her best to answer the questions of those around her. She looked in her element, like she had been on this bridge, stuck at the bottom of an enemy sub, countless times before.
She noticed Thom and flashed him a smile, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him into the center of the bridge. She squeezed it before she let it go.
“One problem,” she said.
“No water.”
“You’ve done this before.”
“Actually...”
Suddenly, she was serious, the brief moment of levity flushed from her face. Thom assumed the same attitude.
“They’ve sealed us in. We can’t open the lock from here.”
“Where are the controls?”
“They’re on the second level, overlooking the bay. I sent a team there, but they should have gotten the bay open by now.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. One of many things I’m going to be upset about later.”
“My team and I can get up there, no problem.”
“Here’s the thing. The crane isn’t big enough to move this thing. So the whole yard has to be flooded.”
“That’s OK, we can swim out.”
“All the doors seal when there’s water. There were signs everywhere on the way in. They obviously didn’t want someone to do what we’re doing.”
“Or what we did before.”
“Or that,” Ralla replied.
“So it’s a one-way thing. That’s fine. We can fight our way to another bay and get one of the transports out.”
Ralla leaned forward, ducking her head under the curving permiglass viewscreen, and pointed up towards the upper gangways. She motioned for Thom to do the same. There were soldiers covering the gangways. He got her meaning instantly.
“I still think we can do it.”
“No, there’s no way you could escape from all that.”
“So what do we do now? We can’t stay here. Can we blow the doors?”
“No ordnance. The turrets have ammo, but that’s not going to get us anywhere,” Ralla scratched the side of her head, and tried to comb her dirty hair with her fingers. She turned and looked at Thom’s suit. “You said you brought one of those for me.”
“Oh, no. No way. I left you behind once—no way I’m doing it again.”
Ralla cocked
her head to the side and smiled.
“That’s so cute of you, but I’m a big girl now and I don’t need rescuing,” her tone went from mildly patronizing to overtly so.
“I didn’t mean...”
“You sort of did, and it’s fine. My mother does it. My father does it. Cern does it. I was hoping you wouldn’t, but that’s OK.” She put her hand on the shoulder of the man in the right pilot seat. “When there’s enough water to go, you go, I don’t care what else you see. Follow the route we talked about, and don’t go near the meeting place unless you know you’re clear.”
“Got it,” he replied.
Ralla stepped past Thom without a glance, and headed back into the ship. Thom, deflated but not ready to desist, chased after her. They ended up in the ship’s med bay, a cramped room with three metal beds and cabinets of supplies. Tegit was unconscious in the center bed, being attended by no less than five people, each taking authority over a different injury. Cern didn’t notice Ralla’s entrance, but he did when she scooped the black satchel from the floor.
“What are you doing?” Cern asked.
“Someone needs to flood the bay. Their soldiers are under orders not to kill me. I’m the only one that can stay behind.”
“Stay be...what? What are you talking about?”
“Ralla,” Thom cut in. “Please let one of us go instead.”
She opened the bag and started remove pieces of the suit. She slid into the armor, her blouse causing odd bulkiness in the underfabric.
“I need to do this, Thom,” she said, using him as support as she slid off her shoes and put on the armor’s boots. “I need to do it for these people, but more than that I need to do it for me.” Her eyes showed something Thom hadn’t seen before, as if she were a different person. Resolve was there, of course, but she seemed older, somehow. She said nothing else, but her eyes kept speaking.
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