Battlecruiser Alamo: The First Duty

by Richard Tongue

   He reached for a bottle of water, taking three quick sips, and then stretched, his muscles aching. The clock on the wall was ticking inexorably onward, and at the back of his mind, he wondered what had happened to Cantrell. They were still stuck in enemy territory, stranded on this ball of oil and mud, and the worry that she might have been caught was buried at the back of his mind.

   Evidently the plan had been to move out today in any case; a jumpsuit that looked about his size was draped over a chair on the far side of the room, and his pistol was carefully placed in a concealable holster nearby. The only time he had been standing up to this point was with assistance, but he felt strong enough to give it a try; he experimentally sat up, and only felt a dull pain in his back, not enough to worry him.

   Pulling the sheet away, he swung his legs down to the cold floor, and bracing himself with his arms, rose to his feet. He took a cautious step forward, and then another one, and let go of the bed. His doctor had done an excellent job, that much was certain, despite the primitive conditions he was finding himself in.

   As quickly as his stiff muscles would allow, he pulled the jumpsuit on, taking care not to overstretch his back, and buckled the holster on underneath; a small slit had been cut to allow him quick and easy access, and he made sure that the pistol lined up. He checked the sidearm – it was his pistol, and a clip of ammunition was already loaded. What had happened to his rifle or uniform, he had no idea, but his respirator was hanging up by the door. He quickly checked that it was working, then snapped it into position on his belt.

   Now he was ready for what awaited him, but he had no idea what that would be. He didn’t even know where he was – somewhere in the Smoke, presumably, the collection of shanty huts that surrounded the domed city, but the place was a maze of streets and alleys, and for all he knew, he had a bounty on his head. Someone could be waiting to shoot him as soon as he stepped outside. Or Cantrell could be doing something critical, and leaving now might complicate matters.

   He contented himself with looking around the room, trying to find anything else that might be of use. The contents of his medical kit were spread around the room, and he found a selection of stimulants, slipping them into his pocket. Another clip of ammunition followed them, and still waiting, he switched on the local terminal, tapping in for a local news feed. He was expecting a display of Cabal propaganda, but was not expecting to see the face of Captain Marshall looking back at him.

   “...held in a secure facility for questioning, under Fleet authority. It is expected that a statement will be released soon by the Proctor outlining the charges this terrorist can expect for face, and it is rumored that his trial will take place within the month. A vigil for the victims of the atrocity continues into its thirteenth day, and a spokesman said…”

   The announced was interrupted by the door opening, and Cantrell stepped in, motioning at him to turn the screen off. She looked him up and down, shaking her head, and walked over to the bed, slipping a hand under it and retrieving a fistful of notes.

   “Can you move? We need to be getting out of here as soon as possible.”

   “What happened?”

   “They raised the bounty on your head high enough that I can’t outbid them anymore. Getting you back on your feet was expensive.” She looked at him again, “I see you found your pistol.”

   “Are we going to need it?” he said, quickly popping in a couple of the stimulants from his pocket.

   “Probably. Let’s go.”

   She turned around, working the airlock mechanism – which was mechanical, Cooper noted, a collection of levers and valves, and the two of them stepped out into the street, respirators strapped carefully to their faces. They were at the end of a long alley, with far too few places to hide should anyone be there – a series of flickering neon lights advertised various seedy establishments too controversial for the main streets, even here.

   Trying not to attract any undue attention, they walked down the alley side by side, Cooper keeping his hand close to his pistol. They walked past a pair of bouncers outside a strip club, both of them with small semi-automatics strapped to them, who ignored them as long as they were on the far side of the street.

   “How well am I known here?” Cooper whispered.

   “Too damn well. They’ve got some excellent shots of you. Apparently you are a criminal terrorist mastermind.”

   “Criminal and terrorist,” he replied. “I guess I’m going up in the world. Is anyone believing any of this bullshit?”

   “All they have to believe is that they will pay out on the bounty they’re offering for you if someone brings you in. Dead, by they way, they don’t seem to have any interest in keeping you alive.

   “I saw that they had the Captain.”

   “I think that’s real, though you can never be sure. There have been some carefully orchestrated protests, drummed up public opinion. My guess is a quick show trial and a firing squad, after they’ve got all the information they can out of him.”

   “It’s my fault,” Cooper said, as they walked to the end of the alley and onto the street. It was there that their luck ran out. A trio of men were walking down the middle of the road, all of them with rifles in their hands, and people were streaming from the pavements into the shops and houses.

   “Get out of here,” he said to Cantrell.

   “After what I went through? Not a chance,” she said, pulling out her pistol.

   Bullets cracked all around them as Cooper dived to the dirt, returning fire in an automatic, sweeping move. One of the men dropped immediately as the other two raced to the side, one of them only making two paces before a well-placed shot from Cantrell dropped him. They hadn’t even known enough to find decent cover, just a group of local toughs who fancied their luck. For two of them, it had deserted them; the third threw his rifle to the deck and ran away, giving them a good shot at his back that they both ignored.

   Cooper pushed himself to his feet, his clothes and hands covered in muddy oil, and took a step up to the nearest body. He was a kid, no more than eighteen, probably the younger brother of one of the others. Shaking his head, he reached down and closed his eyes with his hand.

   “Come on,” Cantrell said, tugging at his elbow. “We’ve got to get out of here. Security will have their helicopters overhead in minutes.” She looked down at the corpse, and said, “It was him or us. We didn’t have a choice.”

   Looking at her, he replied, “I know, I know. Let’s get going.”

   Overhead he could hear the whir of helicopters and then another crack over his shoulder, a bullet flying into the dirt by his side. The two of them raced down the street, weaving from side to side, trying to make it to the nearest hatch cover and into the safety of the tunnels. As he sprinted for safety, the ground behind him thudded with the impact of a series of near-misses, oily mud splattering all around.

   Then the firing stopped, but his brief relief was shattered when a searchlight shone down from above the street, a helicopter overhead. Despite his chemical boost, Cantrell was easily faster than him in his current condition, and was outpacing him down the street, skidding to a stop by a hatch cover which she frantically threw open.

   “Come on! Hurry up!” she yelled, lingering for a second in the street.

   Orders were bellowing from the hovering helicopter, augmented into incoherence by the loudspeaker, but the gist was presumably a demand for him to surrender or die. That the first would undoubtedly lead to the second spurred him onward, and he managed to reach the hatch in the nick of time, dropping onto the rusty ladder and sealing it shut behind him.

   Cantrell was already well on her way down to the ground, taking the rungs two at a time, but he was forced to take a slower, steadier pace, and all the way was expecting to hear shots from above, yelled voices ordering to stop. She lingered at the foot of the ladder, pistol raised high, waiting for him to reach her, and with a sigh of relief he
planted his feet in the mud.

   Without waiting any longer, Cantrell sprinted away into the darkness, and Cooper did his best to follow her, not knowing or caring where they were going. Away, into the shadows, that was the main thing. It would take time for the troopers to follow them, and they could use that time to get into the safety of this maze.

   She was setting a demanding pace, turning abruptly down a side shaft, and as Cooper turned to follow her, he saw a beam of light from behind him; they were heading down the ladder after him. His pistol still in his hand, he turned and fired a couple of shots at random, the crack echoing around the tunnel, hopefully enough to convince any possible pursuers to reconsider their choice.

   Cantrell was almost out of sight now, and he pressed on, his eyes slowly adapting to the darkness as he trudged through the filth, the ooze seeping over the top of his boots. That was the least of his problems, and he spent at least half an hour on Cantrell’s trail, turning and twisting into ever more distant passages, until finally she came to a stop.

   “I think we’ve lost them,” she said.

   “And ourselves as well,” he agreed. “Do you know where we are?”

   “Roughly, anyway. There are plenty of ways up to the surface, and we’ll get our bearings quickly when we get back on top. We should wait for a while, though, let them stop looking for us.”

   “Won’t they have the tunnels staked out?”

   “That would require effective manpower, and the local security force don’t seem interested enough for that. They’re fine at the riot control stuff, but actual detection seems beyond them. Most of them are just contract rent-a-cops anyway, not professionals.”

   “Law enforcement on the cheap.”

   “Emphasis on the cheap. You holding up?”

   “Until the pills wear off.” He looked into the gloom, then back again, and said, “Got time to fill me in on what I missed yet?”

   “I don’t know where to begin,” she started. “First of all, though, Ouroboros got away. I found a contact at the starport who tracked it all the way out. So we completed our mission.”

   Nodding, Cooper said, “That’s something, anyway. It was worth it. What about the Captain?”

   “That I’m not sure about. I’m almost certain they’re holding him at the Town Hall, they paraded him through the streets when they captured him, and by then I was able to be in the audience.”

   “He got on board the shuttle.”

   “If you are thinking they might have caught the shuttle, I very much doubt it. If only because they would have been very happy to parade any more prisoners they captured. This local group seems very eager to put on a good show for the cameras.” She smiled, then continued, “To answer your next question, I found a mine shaft out in the mountains and got you down it. It took most of the rest of my ammunition to stop them coming after us, and all the cash I had left to get you medical attention. It was touch and go for a while, but you got through the critical stage a week ago.”

   “What have you been up to?”

   “Trying to find a way for us to get off this rock. The local crime gangs don’t seem to have much skilled talent, so it wasn’t hard for me to get work.”

   “You’re working for the underworld?”

   “Just some intelligence work, nothing more. Which is my job, after all. I can get you a job lined up as an enforcer, no problem. My boss is rather eager to get you on the payroll, I may have exaggerated your abilities a little.”

   Shaking his head, he replied, “No thanks.”

   “We’ve got to get the money to get home somehow, and I don’t think it’ll even take that long. There’s a ship, the Brunel, and it hauls various semi-legal cargoes around out as far as Sinbad. I think we can charter her out to Hydra Station, and it won’t be difficult to get the cash to do it. Three, four months, if the two of us weigh in, and we can be on our way home to what should by then by a Triplanetary outpost.”

   “Sounds like a good plan,” Cooper said, “but there won’t be two of us, but three.”

   Her eyes widened, and she said, “Tell me you aren’t thinking what I think you are thinking.”

   “We’ve got to get the Captain out.”

   “Cooper, he’s being held in a maximum-security facility, and the reason that they haven’t gone after us properly is that all their best people are being held for when we try to break him out. I had a quick look, and we can’t even get in. We are going to have to do something about him, though.”

   “What do you mean?”

   Looking him in the eyes, she said, “Captain Marshall knows far too much for us to safely leave him in the hands of the Cabal. He should never have come on this mission in the first place, but he’ll be expecting for us to try this.”

   “Try…”

   “To kill him,” she said with a sigh. “Word is that they are planning to put him on show again soon. We need to be in that crowd, and it won’t be that difficult to take a shot. Getting away will be a bit more of an effort, but we can..”

   “No.”

   “I knew you’d say this.”

   “Which is presumably why you thought you’d try and get this over with before I woke up, isn’t it. That’s why you went to the Town Hall, to see if you could get at him.”

   Throwing up her arms, she said, “Yes, I admit it! I didn’t want you to get involved in this. We can’t leave him in the hands of the Cabal.”

   “With that I agree.”

   “That doesn’t mean that any sort of escape attempt is going to work, though. The problems we’d have to solve are too many to count! Have you thought what this would involve? Not only breaking him out, but getting him to a ship and out of the system. I’m worried enough about getting you away, but I think we can probably swing it, but his face has been on the news every day for three weeks.”

   “All true.”

   “Then you agree…”

   “I don’t agree with a word of it. There are problems, and we have to get past them.”

   “Which is exactly the sort of flawed logic that left us stuck in this mess in the first place. A plan thrown together at the last minute with damn all preparation or intelligence. It’s a miracle it worked at all, never mind that three of us were left behind.”

   “What about the resistance?”

   “What about them? They’ve gone into hiding, haven’t lifted a finger to help me, and my guess is that they won’t. That mob are far too much in love with their own pathetic hides to do anything to actually help free themselves, I’ve seen the type before.” She placed her hand on his shoulder, and said, “Cooper, we’ve got to face reality. We’re stranded behind the lines, and we still have a job to do, a duty to perform.”

   “And that is to rescue the Captain. He’d do the same for us. That’s why we came out here in the first place.”

   “That was different. We had a chance then, an unprepared target. Now they are ready for us and expecting us.”

   “We don’t leave anyone behind. Not unless there is no chance of getting them out.”

   “I didn’t want to do this, but I’m giving you an order. As senior officer present, you will assist me with the operation to kill Captain Marshall, though I won’t make you pull the trigger. Just get me into a position when I can do the job.”

   Shaking his head, Cooper turned, and started to head down the corridor, “I can’t do it, and I won’t.”

   “Cooper…”

   “What are you going to do, have me arrested? Turn me in?”

   “Don’t be stupid.”

   “That’s what it would take to stop me. If you want to go your own way, fine. I wish you the best of luck in getting home, and it probably will be a damn sight easier for you to pull it off without me around.”

   She stood in the shadows, and he continued, “When you get back, I want you to tell Lieutenant Orlova and Sergeant Forrest that
it was worth it, that I don’t blame either of them for what happened, and that I would do it all again even if I knew in advance that I wasn’t coming back.”

   “I believe you,” she said, as he walked deeper into the shadows. He paused for a moment, and turned.

   “And Barbara...explain it to her. She'll understand, but it might take a while.” He paused, then said, “Thank you, by the way. For saving my life.” She looked at him in silence as he walked on down the corridor, heading vaguely towards the main tunnels and a path that would take him back to the surface. After a moment, he heard fast footsteps running after him, and Cantrell moved up to his side.

   “You haven’t got a prayer of pulling this off without me. Let’s see if we can get this organized. The first thing we’re going to need is money. A lot of money. I think I know where we can get it.”

   “Thanks,” Cooper said.

   “Don’t mention it. Really, don’t, I have a reputation to uphold.”

   “I don’t believe a word of it.”

  Chapter Four

   The Commandant offered Marshall a respirator, and helped him clasp it on as he and their two guards made their way up to the rooftop helipad. From the top, they had an excellent view of the interior of the dome, and he was surprised at how familiar it looked, just like any one of a dozen similar cities on Mars – the only difference being that this one was surrounded by the slums of those who weren’t fortunate enough to share in the luxurious environment.

   A loud noise rattled from overhead, and he looked up to see a vehicular airlock opening, a helicopter dropping through the shaft and heading down to a landing. He took a couple of steps back as it descended, the pilot coping easily with the light crosswind of the air recirculators; up here, they were getting the full effect of the ventilation, and he wondered why they needed the respirator.