Indigo Squad
Page 13
He didn’t. He’d kept station, easily dodging Loobie’s attack before jetting off to the hatch control panel. She knew he’d worked on secret propulsion projects for the reserve captain. He must have cooked up some kind of hidden propulsion system.
“I’m sorry,” he called to Indiya as the hatch motors hummed into action. “You know I adore you, but we need to win the coming fight.”
Indiya rubbed at her neck as she helplessly watched the armored Marine in his silver armor advance into the lab. He flew up, taking station above them with his back to the overhead. His SA-71 carbine covered each of them in turn before settling its aim on Indiya.
She readied the kill package she’d used on the reserve captain’s guard, though she knew it was helpless. Even if she had a full supply, she’d seen Arun with a carbine like that on the shooting range. She’d be ripped to shreds with railgun rounds before she could get close.
The specials waited for the Marine’s next move, but he was in no hurry.
When the hatch auto-shut, the motion jerked him out of his fugue and he finally spoke.
“Which one of you ship-rats is called Indiya?”
— Chapter 31 —
Turned out that the little purple-haired bint’s name was Indiya. Stok had overheard Arun saying the name in conversation with his prongbuddy, Springer. Arun had always been a big headed veck. Recently he’d been talking like an officer in front of his squadmates, as if mere Marines could be spoken to as if they were of no consequence.
Just like his brother, then.
Yeah, Arun McEwan was an arrogant veck, but he had saved Stok’s life when he’d stumbled into the backblast of that breaching charge. The sooner Stok paid off that debt, the quicker he could go back to despising the little skangat.
Putting the safety back on his carbine, Stok secured his weapon to his back and told his suit AI – who’d been nagging him endlessly to contact Indiya – to release the pressure seals at the base of his helmet.
“Here,” he said, flying down and offering his helm to the girl. “The helmet should keep things private. Watch and listen to the message I recorded.”
The girl pulled herself up and into his helmet, which was nearly wide enough to fit over her shoulders. She looked ridiculous with her little pixie legs dangling beneath, wiggling as she floated there in zero-g.
“Two days!” the purple rat screamed at him when she’d finished hearing his report on the meeting between Sergeant McEwan and the Navy officer. “Two days you took to bring me this!”
She was an angry thing all right. He laughed. If this little firebrand really was Arun’s vulley-dream, he would be getting a regular ear bashing. Served him right.
“What the fuck’s so funny, you boneheaded moron?”
Stok gritted his teeth. He didn’t have time for a fight, but this little scrap of a girl was spouting fighting talk. “Boneheads are Assault Marines,” he explained, trying to ease the tension, “not Tac-Marines like my unit. Boneheads have thick skulls because they’re specialized for assaulting planets from orbit. Gene-spliced with Neanderthals we reckon.”
Indiya ignored him and addressed the other rats. “This bonehead overheard Fraser McEwan, Arun’s brother. Fraser is… playing for the other side. He can’t track Arun through Heidi, but he’s found another way.”
“What can we do?” asked the boy who’d let Stok in.
“Warn Arun,” said another one.
“But it’s too late, he’ll be at Security HQ already,” said another girl. She was taller than the purple one. A bit of a looker for a rat too, especially when anger fired up her gray eyes with a touch of green. Good enough for Stok to stick around for another moment or two. Stok had followed Arun enough to know he was hanging out with these rats at every opportunity. Maybe there was something in McEwan’s attraction to these waifs?
Stok tried talking sense into the rats. “Arun used to be like you whining lot before his brother fixed him with this weird gifting thing. He was always talking about his feelings when he should have shut up and acted instead, like a proper Marine. I know you’re only rats, but you need to think more like a Marine.”
They all stared at him like he was mad, even the good-looking one.
Stok lost interest. He shrugged inside his suit. “Have it your way. My job’s done. Debt paid. I’ve got to get my ass back to my unit. The whole of Charlie Company is being put on alert and I can’t be seen talking to the crew.”
Stok was in a stirring hurry, but the look of jaw-dropping consternation on the ship-rats was so bizarre that it made him pause.
“What? What did I say?”
But the ship-rats were too stupid to speak and the pull of his orders too strong.
“Don’t know what McEwan sees in you,” grumbled Stok as he put his helmet back on. “And for your information, he’s not gone directly to Security HQ. I saw him on the way here. Looked like he was going back to our squad mess.”
“Can you warn him?” asked one of the boys. “On a secure Marine channel?”
Stok sniffed. These rats didn’t know squit. “Line of sight only, pal.” When the rats gave him that clueless look, he added: “There’s a ship-wide radio comms blackout, and the intra-ship comm system is out too. Don’t you rats know anything?”
Stok left them to it. By the time he’d put two decks between himself and the Freak Lab, the memory of the encounter had dissipated, leaving behind only a vague sense that a weighty obligation had lifted from his shoulders.
— Chapter 32 —
If Heidi ever spoke in words then Indiya was not privy to them. Heidi spoke to her in other ways.
Indiya ducked, hid, crawled, and flew through the ship, taking shortcuts to reach Arun before he gave them all away to his treacherous brother.
Via the access console viewscreens scattered throughout the ship, Heidi showed Arun’s current position and the route ahead of Indiya. If the way ahead was clear, Heidi bathed her display in soft green and yellow; spiky red warned of danger.
Whenever possible, Indiya used the polished silver bracelet Finfth had loaned her. It looked like a genuine adornment, albeit large and masculine, but was far more. She’d always known Finfth had a natural aptitude for engineering, and propulsion systems in particular. With only the faintest of power hums, this pheromone-controlled bracelet could zip her around the ship as quickly as a Marine in her battlesuit. Maybe Finfth had reverse-engineered a battlesuit’s propulsion system.
It seemed everyone dear to her had been keeping powerful secrets. The fact that they were now all revealing them gave her a feeling as if crawling social insects were marching around her insides. Where they were crawling she didn’t know, but the sense of approaching her inevitable fate clung to her like a dark cloud.
Indiya shook aside these unhelpful thoughts, certain that Arun and the Marines didn’t suffer from such worries. She had to get to Arun before he reached the Security HQ. Nothing else mattered.
It was close, but she was going to make it with about three minutes to spare. Up ahead, Indiya’s passageway joined the corridor Arun was racing down, but Indiya would get there first. She’d cut it fine: if Arun didn’t stop, he would be only a minute or so away from the Security HQ.
In her peripheral vision, she noticed something flashing.
Merde!
Indiya carried on, desperate to reach the junction before Arun, but nagging fear slowed her to a halt, she glanced back at the flashing viewscreen.
It was Heidi. Someone was coming… Marines!
Indiya bit her lip. If she tried to brazen it out, chances were the Marines would want to know what she was doing in this part of the ship. The swaggering wastes of mass would probably stop for a little amusement at her expense.
Growling in frustration, she backed up the passageway, ducking into a compartment just before the Marines saw her.
“Heidi,” she commanded, “please show me the Marines outside.”
How could she get Heidi to cause a diversion, just eno
ugh to hurry the Marines out the way and give her a chance to slip past them?
But the view Heidi showed of the scene outside in the passageway froze the blood in Indiya’s veins.
The Marines weren’t passing through. They had taken up positions, spreading out along the passageway to defend in depth, carbines at the ready.
She couldn’t see inside their darkened visors, but she knew the blank expressions she would see there if she could.
The Marines had set themselves up in sentry mode. If she stuck her head out the hatch, they would blow it off before their conscious minds had a chance to question whether she were friend or foe.
Indiya’s expertise was in fleet tactics, not those of small powered-infantry units, but she was certain what she was seeing. The Marines outside were guarding one of the approaches to Security HQ. All over the ship they would be securing critical locations.
This was it! The takeover.
Her sight blurred and she realized she was weeping tears of frustration. She flicked away the tear bubbles ballooning around her eyes, and punched the nearest bulkhead.
The impact made a barely audible slap. Against the armored ceramalloy of the wall, her fist was so flimsy as to be inconsequential.
Without the support of Arun’s comrades, any resistance by the crew to the rebel Marines in their battlesuits and weaponized brains would be just as feeble.
Their greatest hope was Arun McEwan.
Too numbed to seek safety away from this danger zone, she watched helplessly as Heidi showed her Arun sailing through the corridor and into the Security HQ, prey stumbling naively into the maw of a wickedly cunning predator.
If she’d been there mere seconds earlier, she could have stopped him. If only she’d listened to Finfth and opened the hatch to Stok sooner…
But it was too late for regrets now.
They were lost.
— Chapter 33 —
“Will you do it?” Arun clenched his fists inside their thick gauntlets. Time was short.
“You ask a lot,” replied Fraser. The sergeant of Beowulf’s modest detachment of Marines unlocked himself from the secure seat alongside a monitoring console, and began pacing the oval of charged deck that passed around the monitoring screens of security HQ.
Normally, Arun would understand. He often paced. Why shouldn’t his brother?
He waited in silence, fiddling with his helmet that he held in his hands.
“Our enemies have already began to move,” hissed Arun. “Every second you delay, our window of opportunity narrows. You’re our only chance, but only if you act now!”
Fraser halted his pacing, and shot a dark look across the room at his brother. “And yet you shall wait. You asked a lot of me, little brother.”
“Little brother? We’re twins, Fraser.”
Fraser gave a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I’ve lived far more than you. Stop interrupting and let me think.”
Arun steeled himself to silence as he watched his brother stalk deliberately around the room. Expecting Kalis to report in any moment, when he’d explained all to Fraser, Arun had gabbled and sprayed out what should have been the most carefully articulated argument of his life. He thought he’d blown it, but Fraser seemed to grasp it all with ease. The idea of speaking to his twin brother still felt weird, but he guessed it had advantages. Even so, keeping quiet was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
Fraser slowed and looked up. “Your assessment I accept. Your proposed course has merit. But explain this. Marines Ghosh and Lorentz have kindly paid me a courtesy by allowing me to send them off on a fool’s errand to grant us privacy. Suppose I asked them to return, to keep you in that holding cell over there. You would be out of harm’s way until this conflict has resolved itself. What then for us?”
“Then we will have lost.”
Fraser halted. “Yes, but who are we, little brother? If the officers change and their orders with them, why should that make one iota of difference to us?”
Fraser resumed his pacing.
Arun felt hot and clammy at the same time. Was his brother siding with the rebels? He got to his feet and planted himself in Fraser’s path.
No. Ridiculous! Fraser couldn’t be a rebel. Arun had fought alongside Fraser at the Battle of the Swoons. Arun could trust him with his life.
Fraser came to a halt a pace in front of Arun. “I’m waiting for your answer,” prompted Fraser. “I can afford to wait. It is you who say we are short for time.”
“Loyalty,” Arun shot back. “Make your stand for loyalty! This business will pit Marine against Marine. Friend against friend. If we aren’t loyal to each other, then we’re nothing. Those traitors have turned against us – they have murdered members of their own family. We should not suffer them to live.”
Fraser gripped Arun’s armored shoulders and stared so intently into his brother’s eyes, it felt as if his soul were being scanned.
“Gather your evidence and your loyal officers, little brother. I shall coordinate a series of armed drills. As many Marines as possible will find themselves at 19:00 hours in Hanger A. That’s the dorsal hangar, Little Arun.”
“I do know that.”
“Just checking, brother.”
“Oh, one more thing. Whoever gives the Marines the big speech had better do a better job of it then you did. No dribble, drool or fluffing. Tell them what needs to be done as if you mean it.”
“It shan’t be me. Of course, not! I’ll be in the line listening with the rest,” said Arun. “They won’t follow me.”
“Good. Who will address them?”
At the last moment, an instinct for caution told Arun not to say Krimkrak’s name.
“I hope it’s the ship’s captain,” said Fraser.
Arun pursed his lips. He didn’t like this paranoid instinct. If he couldn’t trust his own twin brother, whom could he trust?
But the paranoia was too strong. “You’ll learn soon enough, Fraser. Trust me.”
Barney reported that Fraser’s unpowered hand was squeezing Arun’s armored shoulder. “You’re right not to speak names. We meet at 19:00 hours. Remember… Dorsal hangar, not ventral. No offense, but you’ve always struck me as a little bit… lost.”
Arun shrugged. He would have plenty of time to learn the ways of his brother’s banter when this was over. “Later, Fraser.”
——
The instant Arun left the security HQ, the face of Lieutenant Commander Wotun, Beowulf’s XO, appeared on a monitor screen.
“Well done, McEwan. Perhaps my faith in you was not misplaced after all.”
“Thank you, sir.” Fraser issued commands with a few touches of his fingers on the controls. “As we speak, Security HQ is being sealed off by Marines loyal to us. This shall be our center of operations in the forthcoming coup.”
“Very good. Keep me constantly informed of your brother’s movements. By revealing his contacts, he shall be the key to unlock this vessel. And revise the timetable. I want full control of this vessel by 16:30 hours. Any hints of resistance must be crushed without mercy.”
“With pleasure, sir. McEwan out.”
— Chapter 34 —
Arun glanced at the black splinter of plastic, wincing at the memory of cutting into his own scabbing wound to extract it, and its original insertion into his flesh.
Ensign Krimkrak had given this to him as a means to arrange contact. But what was it? And would it work?
It had to.
Once he’d put a deck’s distance away from Fraser and the security headquarters, Arun ducked into a low–use passageway and brought out the splinter.
He’d never seen anything like it before.
Obeying the instructions the wetware construct had given him, Arun placed it into the universal port in his battlesuit’s armpit. The orifice swallowed the device.
Arun checked his carbine was securely attached to his back and dove for the nearest hatch. He had heard the officer’s order: hurry! He itched to reach the deployment tube because then he would let rip with his battlesuit motors. No compromise. Top speed! Any ship-rats he encountered this time would just have to get out of the way.
— Chapter 35 —
When she showed the image of Arun floating out of the Security HQ alone and unharmed, Heidi ringed the viewscreen with a rotating multi-colored rectangle.
Indiya was so busy trying to stop her lower jaw dropping off that she barely took in Heidi’s pleasure.
Why wasn’t Arun dead? What hadn’t she understood?
When he set off again on his mysterious travels, as fast as he could go, Indiya squealed with delight. Heidi started flashing the image of the Marines outside the hatch to the compartment where Indiya was holed up. They were still on sentry duty, ready to shoot anything that came their way.
Heidi added another view of the scene outside the Security HQ. Marines were spilling out, throwing up a cordon across every approach route. A team carrying bulky equipment brought out a tripod and started securing its feet to the mounting braces in the bulkhead.
Indiya didn’t wait to see what they were going to place on the tripod. She set off in a new direction to hunt Arun down.
Though whether it would make any difference at this late stage…
She tried to tell herself that Arun still had a trick up his sleeve, an ally he hadn’t declared to her.
Deep down she knew she didn’t believe it. After all, she’d injected him with a love potion to make him adore her.
Surely he would have told her?