by David Ryker
Quinn steeled himself to follow that advice and turned to face another wave. They had a long way to go, and when he faced his next opponent, another former guard, he drove his fist into the man’s teeth with all the strength he could muster.
But they kept coming. Quinn counted at least a dozen more jammed in the corridor between them and the hatch to the lift tube. There was a chance to cut the Gordian knot, but he’d need Ulysses to work with him. He looked to his left and made a hand signal, which he hoped Ulysses, being a Texan, would pick up on. A quick nod was enough to indicate that he did, and the pair dropped low and rushed into an opening in the center like a pair of linebackers trying to take out the quarterback. They knocked the mob aside with each step, driving forward with all their strength.
By the time they reached the hatch, Quinn’s heart was thundering in his chest, but it had worked. They slipped through and hit the close button, and Quinn followed that up by smashing the control panel with his truncheon just as he began to float upward.
“Sweet Jesus,” Ulysses puffed. “I always knew I coulda played college ball. I mean, if’n I’d ever gone to college. Or high school. Or, y’know, middle school.”
They climbed as fast as they could, taking three rungs at a time, heading for the bridge.
35
Schuster switched to autopilot in an attempt to recover from the blast and get back on course more quickly than he could have done manually.
“Dev!” Bishop called over the radio. “What’s your status?”
“We’re all right,” he said. “These babies are armored better than FUBAR. Like I was just telling Gloom, I learned my lesson last time.”
“Well, get back here!” said Maggott. “We got three on two!”
The ship righted again and Schuster switched back to manual control, steering it back toward the dogfight. Bishop and Maggott were both proving to be deft pilots, which he supposed shouldn’t surprise him, since he’d become one himself.
They closed the gap in the space of ten seconds, which apparently came as a surprise to their opponents, since Schuster was able to fire a plasma blast straight into the tall fins of the closest Raft and send it shooting forward. Bishop took quick advantage, approaching from its port side and letting loose with his own cannons, cleaving the already damaged ship right through the middle.
“Two down!” Gloom crowed.
“You have to look at it as two left,” Schuster warned.
“Is that how they teach you in the Marines?”
“Exactly. It’s why we’re no fun at a poker game: we never bluff.”
In the monitor, he saw Bishop and Maggott break formation and bank off in opposite directions, each one followed by one of the remaining ships. Schuster instinctively took the place between them, so that when they came back around, he would be facing the two pursuing ships.
Gloom looked at him, eyes wide. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
Bishop and Maggott completed their circles and had come back around to close formation, to the point where they were flying only meters away from each other. Their pursuers followed straight behind them, as Schuster had hoped they would.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Gloom breathed.
He felt his pulse quicken. “Yeah, me too.”
The two ships were filling his monitor when Bishop and Maggott banked hard just as they had earlier, leaving their two stalkers barreling straight toward Schuster’s nose. He quickly spun the ship so that they were facing his tail, and dropped two more hydrogen cell charges. With that, he punched the Raft to its maximum speed yet again, leaving the bombs to eat the last two ships that Kergan had sent after them.
Schuster dropped back to cruising speed and banked back toward his friends. Gloom, meanwhile, goggled at him from her seat.
“That was incredible!” Ben crowed over the radio. “And I got it all recorded!”
“Holy shit, dude,” said Gloom. “You’re like a secret agent or something.”
He felt hot blood rising in his cheeks. “Just lucky,” he croaked.
She gave him a grin that was almost a leer. “If you play your cards right, you might get even luckier when this is all over.”
Schuster’s heart gave a hard thump against his chest while his stomach did a somersault. He probably wouldn’t have even noticed what happened next if Bishop hadn’t pointed it out.
“Uh, Dev,” he said. “Is it a bad thing that those satellites are starting to glow?”
Schuster felt his heart slam into his sternum again as he looked up at the monitor in front of them. In the distance was a triad of what looked like new stars, only much closer, and something was happening between them. A wave rippled from each satellite to the other two, creating a shimmering triangle. Inside the triangle, space itself appeared to be flowing like thick, black syrup.
This is definitely a bad thing, Sloane pointed out in his mind.
Schuster swallowed hard. The wormhole was opening.
36
Kergan stared at the three white lights on the monitor like a child looking at a Christmas tree.
“It’s working, Doctor,” he said with barely contained glee. “You’re doing it. Keep going.”
Beads of sweat were forming on Toomey’s forehead as he performed his mathematical search-and-rescue mission with the computer’s algorithm. Each time he was a second too slow in his adjustments, the shimmering triangle would waver in response, then solidify again as he caught up with it. Kergan almost felt sorry for him, since he had to keep his beady little eyes on his work and couldn’t watch the spectacle of the wormhole opening.
“I don’t know how long I can keep this going,” said Toomey, his voice trembling.
“You’ll keep it up as long as you have to,” said Kergan. “And you’d better speed it up, because Quinn and his buddy have already made it into the tube, and the others have destroyed my Rafts. This is what gamblers refer to as ‘all or nothing,’ Doctor.”
“I don’t understand,” said Toomey. “What is Quinn doing?”
Kergan looked at the monitors and realized the cameras had lost sight of them. No matter.
“They’re trying to destroy the little doohickey you’re working on,” he said. “And by extension, us. They’re carrying explosives with them which they’re likely planting as we speak.”
Toomey finally looked up from his work, his rat-like eyes wide. “We need to get out of here then!”
“You need to open that wormhole!” Kergan shrieked. “Don’t worry about Quinn. Obviously he won’t set off the charges while he’s still on the station, and I have no intention of letting him off the station.”
“How will you stop him?”
Kergan glared at him. “There are two options here, Doctor. Either you open that wormhole and bring the warships through, or I’ll activate the amplifier and take over every last mind around me, including yours.”
Toomey’s reaction was not what Kergan had expected. Instead of fear, he saw defiance in the old man’s eyes.
“You can’t do this without me,” said Toomey as he returned his attention back to his work. “You don’t have the brain power.”
Butch Kergan’s hold on his burgeoning emotions had been steadily eroding since Dr. Toomey had first arrived on Oberon One, and he felt he’d done a remarkable job of keeping them in check over the past thirty minutes, given the circumstances. But there was only so much a man could take, especially from someone he’d welcomed with open arms and was now shitting in his breakfast cereal. Someone who was betraying him just when he needed him most.
“You’re a bad friend,” he said, a distinct pout in his voice.
Toomey glanced at him for a moment before returning to his screen.
“And you are insane,” he replied.
Kergan’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t have heard what he thought he’d just heard. He took a deep breath, fully intent on screaming at Toomey, when he caught sight o
f movement on one of the monitors. He peered at it just in time to catch Quinn and Ulysses climbing back down the central tube. He cursed himself for not paying attention.
Neither of the men were carrying the cylinders on their backs. They had succeeded in setting their charges. Anxiety began to well up within him, an emotion he hadn’t felt since the Jarheads had broken out of the station weeks ago, beating him and leaving him alone with his drones.
He hated this feeling, more than any other. Losing was something Butch Kergan had experienced far too often in his life before merging with his new partner, and he would be fucked if he was going to allow it to happen to him again.
“You’re awfully quiet,” said Toomey, and Kergan could hear the disdain in his voice.
“Just thinking,” he replied.
His lone viable option was clear: he had to activate the amplifier in order to stop his enemies. But he would have to wait until Toomey opened the wormhole and got the ships through. It would be a game of inches, he knew, since Quinn would set off the charges as soon as he was clear of them, and Kergan couldn’t spare precious time to search for them and try to get them off the station.
On the monitor, he saw the swimming blackness of the satellite triangle turn to white, and he grinned. The first ship was coming through.
His patience had paid off. Everything was coming up Kergan.
37
Quinn couldn’t believe their luck as he and Ulysses shimmied down the tube. They would have to stop one floor above the docking bay since he’d been forced to wreck the controls for the door on that level when they came in, but other than that, they were gold.
“This ain’t right,” Ulysses said from below him on the ladder. “That was too easy.”
“Kergan’s attention is spread thin. He can’t keep track of everything at once, and it’s taking a toll on him.”
“Is that what you know or what you hope?”
Quinn didn’t answer. They’d reached the level above the docking bay, and they exited the tube into the increasing gravity of the mezzanine floor that overlooked all of the bays. There was a set of stairs that led down to the floor of the corridor outside the airlock leading to their Raft, and they took it three steps at a time and jogged until they were outside the hatch. Quinn hit the controls to open it.
Nothing happened.
Ulysses shook his head. “I toldja, man! Din’t I tell yuh?”
Kergan must have caught on to them and hit the central lock controls from the bridge. It was something they could work around; they just needed a little time. He scanned the area, looking for anything he could use to override the lock or pry the door open.
“Whassat noise?”
Quinn heard it too, a buzzing coming from his neck. His heart kicked in his chest as he realized they had left their radios turned down for the better part of fifteen minutes. He hit the volume control and his ears were suddenly filled with news he really didn’t want to hear.
“I repeat,” said Schuster, “the wormhole is opening!”
Quinn activated his microphone, his throat suddenly dry.
“Dev, are you sure?” he rasped.
“Yessir. I can see something through the hole. It’s like a tunnel in space, and there’s something headed this way!”
His mind raced furiously, running through possible options.
“Can you target it with your cannons?” he asked.
“Negative,” said Bishop. “Too far for an accurate shot, and we can’t get any closer without risking hallucinations.”
“Are you off the station?” asked Chelsea. Quinn could hear barely controlled panic in her voice.
“Not yet. Kergan’s locked the doors to our airlock. We can’t get to the ship.”
Ulysses looked him in the eyes, his glare cold. “We only got one option, dude. No point pretendin’ there’s another.”
“Fuck that,” said Quinn. “I don’t believe in no-win situations.”
“Well you better fuckin’ start. If we don’t blow those charges and shut down the control thingamajig, them ships is gonna come through. That ain’t an option, an’ you know it.”
“Sir, there’s no way you can outrun the range of those blasts,” said Schuster.
Quinn took a breath and looked around the corridor again, but he knew it was no good. There was nothing that would open the door. Ulysses reached out and put one hand on his shoulder and another over his own microphone.
“It’s over, man. We got no choice.”
“We can at least try to get to the farthest point in the station that we can reach when the explosion goes off,” said Quinn. “It’s a fighting chance.”
Ulysses stared at him for a moment before breathing a soft chuckle.
“Man, you are sumthin’ else. You cain’t accept defeat, no matter what.”
Quinn shrugged. “I’m a Marine.”
“All right, you crazy sum’bitch, let’s get the hell outta here. If the devil’s gonna take us today, he’ll damn well know he’s been in a fight.”
They headed back up the corridor to the stairs that would lead them to the tube. Quinn cast his mind back to their days as inmates, trying to come up with the area that would offer the most cover from the explosions. They had just reached the hatch to the tube when it came to him.
“The back channel!” he crowed.
“The whut?”
“The maintenance shaft we used to get to our people when they were in solitary! It’s practically dead center of the lower levels, and it’s got three shells that separate it from the outer rings. It may not work, but it’s as much of a shot as we’re going to get.”
“Then let’s go.” Ulysses motioned for him to lead the way. They entered the tube and Quinn began the climb downward toward the third level, where they would find the latrine that housed the formerly secret entrance to the back channel.
Bishop’s voice came over the radio. “What’s your status, Lee?”
“We’re going to try to find cover. What’s going on out there?”
“Holy mother o’ God,” Maggott breathed. “What in the fook is that?”
Quinn felt a sharp jab of adrenaline.
“What’s going on?” he barked. “Report!”
“There’s something coming through the wormhole,” Schuster said in a bleak voice. “And it’s horrible.”
38
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Kergan stared through the bridge porthole, transfixed, at the ship as it slowly crossed the threshold of the wormhole into its new space, some twenty-five light years from where it had been only seconds earlier.
Toomey looked up from his control panel and felt his mouth go dry. What he saw made him think immediately of a predator, some sort of mindless animal that lived only to consume. There was nothing subtle about this ship—no sleek lines or smooth edges, only hard angles and jagged spines. Its bow was deep and snub-nosed, with ferocious-looking cannons set in either side, while its stern angled up like a small tail that was attached to the body of a much larger fish. To Toomey’s eyes, it was the antithesis of the inherent beauty of science. It was how he imagined technology would look if it were designed by monsters.
In a way, he supposed, it had been.
Kergan’s head tilted back and he raised his arms in a beatific pose. “Welcome to the new frontier,” he whispered, though Toomey got the impression it wasn’t him he was talking to. “A whole new world to conquer, and a new species to discover.”
By the time Toomey realized how long he’d been looking away from his terminal, it was too late. He had lost the algorithm beyond any hope of recovering it. He looked at the porthole with dawning horror as the triangle began to lose its white hue and shrink.
Kergan’s eyes snapped open so suddenly that Toomey let out a gasp. His glare was fire, and it quickly locked onto Toomey’s gaze.
“What did you do?” he hissed.
“I lost—It was…”
Toomey braced himself for one of Kergan’s ta
ntrums, but instead, the former guard simply let out a sigh.
“Oh, Doctor,” he said. “Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. I really hoped it wasn’t going to work out this way.”
“Wh-what way?”
“Well, seeing as how the wormhole is collapsing and Quinn is about to detonate his charges, it would appear you’ve left me no choice. I’m going to have to activate the amplifier.” He grinned. “I hope you enjoyed your brain while you had it, Doctor, because it’s going to be mine now.”
Toomey held up a warning finger. “You can’t,” he breathed. “You won’t be able to open the wormhole. Only I can.”
Kergan placed his hands on his hips and cocked his head. “Looks like somebody’s a little full of himself, now doesn’t it?”
“Don’t do this—”
“Fuck off, Doctor.” He said it with no inflection at all, then closed his eyes. “I have to activate the amplifier.”
Toomey stared at him for a moment, with no idea what to do.
Then the explosion rocked the bridge and sent him flying across the room.
The woman pitched backward with the force of the blast, her ribcage connecting with the steel railing that ran along the gangway of the storage area where the amplifier sat. Kergan registered the pain with the same lack of feeling that he always did with his drones, but he also realized he could no longer move her body. He watched with horror through her eyes as the device teetered against the railing and finally flipped over it, landing on the floor some ten meters below with a resounding crash.
“No,” he breathed through her mouth. “No, no, no, no, no.”
Suddenly he was drawn back into his own body, just in time to see the room sweeping past him. He was sailing through the air on the bridge. The next second he was landing against a terminal in the wall on his belly, and the air whoofed out of him. He laid on the floor flopping like a fish on dry land, trying to catch his breath. As his eyes widened in fear, they caught sight of Toomey on the floor, struggling to get up onto all fours.
