The Core

by Jack Robuck

  Matthew nodded. “I have to be. Let's go.”

  Ella stepped forward and grabbed him by the wrist and forearm with both hands. She held onto him and when he met her eyes, she said, “Matthew. I'm not going with you. I understand why you have to do what you're doing, but that's not who I am. Coming all this way, I feel like I have a reason now and that's all I ever wanted. I'll see the ocean someday. But not like this.”

  Matthew squeezed her elbow with his free hand. “You won't be safe here. Whatever the outcome of this fight, the city will be filled with soldiers. The Salt People have left this place, and from the way they're armed, I doubt they've fled.”

  Ella nodded. “I don't care. I can't protect myself. But I can't live my life afraid. I can only do what I can do.” She waved a hand toward the doctor and nurses. They all turned and looked. Across the open room, on a slab of wood near the door, the nurses were holding down a patient as the doctor gripped a large piece of shrapnel in the man's thigh with both hands. As she pulled it out, a fountain of blood shot over her forearm and shoulder.

  Ella rushed to help, but she turned back and looked at them all. “Do what you can do. If you live, come back here to us. We may need you. You might need us.”

  Chapter 21

  The water facility sprawled along the shoreline like the beached skeleton of a vast robotic kraken. Floating collection towers pumped salt water through hoses clamped to long hinged arms that craned out over the rocky shore. Water was filtered and distilled in various processes, the salt was collected and shipped all over the planet, and the pure water was piped to Gate City.

  Enormous vertical tanks gleamed white in the sun. They reminded Matthew of the oil refinery and his mind drifted to thoughts of Rachel.

  What would she do here? Are we making the right decision?

  He stopped his little team under a shadowed catwalk that jutted over the shore. “I think we should attack right at the heart of it. The control station.”

  Sean and Charlie nodded. “We can turn it off and get their attention. From there we'll deal the damage that keeps it off, but we need to raise some red flags in the tower immediately,” Sean suggested.

  Matthew nodded. “Agreed.” He pressed the call button on the radio strapped to his shoulder. “Somebody let me talk to Jimmy.”

  Jimmy's voice crackled through the air. “What's the status?”

  “We're in position. You?”

  “We're here. On your go.”

  Matthew closed his eyes. “Go.”

  He, Sean, and Charlie hoisted themselves over the catwalk railing, high up on the beach where the sand dunes rose to meet the facility. They jogged forward, ducking between buildings and behind equipment stacks to avoid detection for as long as possible. The cyclical crash of waves masked their tinny steps on the metal grating.

  The control station loomed ahead; a second-floor command center behind a broad window overlooking an open area of platforming. Around the railings of the platforming, behind the windows and on top of the control station, stood a sentinel watch of dark men, their foreheads marked with the white blaze and long barreled assault rifles in their hands, all looking back toward the city.

  Charlie was in the lead. He drew up short, and turned back to look at Sean and Matthew. “I guess this is the loud part.”

  Sean looked at Matthew and pulled back the slide on his rifle to chamber a round. “These guys don't deserve this. We had a deal with them.”

  Charlie nodded. “Maybe. They offered one, that's for sure. But can armed men be innocent men?”

  “They sold us out. From the moment we arrived, they've been telling Trague our every move. That bullshit in the Temple was just hedging their bets. He knew we were on the train. He knew we were at the hospital, and he knew we had reinforcements coming.”

  He looked from Charlie to Sean. “Trague cannot take control of the Core. With the flick of a button, he could blow us all out into space. You know what he did to us in the camp.”

  Sean nodded. “Fine.” He gestured, offering Matthew the lead. Matthew swallowed and pulled back his slide. He raised his rifle, closed his left eye, and looked down the sights with his right. He zeroed in on the nearest man guarding the control station. He brought his sights up the man's torso and to his head for a clean kill, just as the man twitched, turning his head slightly to flick away a sand fly. It was the man with the scar.

  Matthew trembled. He felt the weight of his weapon on his forward hand, and he tensed his elbow, trying to steady his aim. He held his sights on the man for a long moment, and lowered his weapon. He looked at Sean apologetically.

  Sean said, “It’s not so easy to murder a man.”

  Matthew looked down at the grating under his shoes. “We can sneak inside. Or try to. There's a dozen of them, anyway, let's not die out here on the platform.”

  Sean and Charlie stared at him. Matthew took two long breaths, then nodded. “You're right. We'll take them now while they're not looking. On the approach, my signal. Ready?”

  They both nodded. Charlie chambered a round, and they raised their rifles, quick-stepping across the platform. Just as they reached the center of the open area, there was movement behind the big glass window. A guard inside hit the alarm. The three rebels reached the group of guards just as they spun around, raising their rifles.

  Matthew met eyes with the scarred man. They both raised their rifles. Matthew fired. Charlie and Sean fired. They were outnumbered. They fired, zeroed in, and fired again, and again. The men were on the ground. Matthew looked at his friends. They were standing. He looked at the scarred man on the ground. He was dying and his fixed, open eyes stared up past Matthew's head. Matthew dared not move into the line of their gaze. His stomach felt frozen solid.

  Charlie screamed, “Look out!”

  On top of the control station were more armed guards. All three rebels turned and fired. They shot two guards and ran for the control station door just as another guard was slipping inside. He tried to close the door, pulling on the inside handle. Sean and Charlie both grabbed onto the outside of the door, and wrenched it from his grasp. Matthew shot the man before he could untangle his rifle in its sling.

  They bolted the door behind them and climbed the ladder to the control station. Matthew pushed the talk button on his radio. “Jimmy, what's the status?”

  Stephen's voice: “Jimmy's flying, you'll have to settle for me. We're en-route, but we're seeing a lot of Fleet assholes out here.”

  “Okay.” Matthew looked to where Sean and Charlie were figuring out the control panels and readouts for the facility. “That should be changing real soon.”

  He joined the two large men at the controls. “Anything good?”

  Sean nodded. “Yeah, yeah. This should shut the whole thing down.” He dragged a group of sliding levers down to the bottom of their slots, and turned off a key in the panel. As he pulled the key from its slot, the glass window exploded in gunfire, showering them in a blizzard of crystalline shards.

  They pulled themselves up, taking cover behind the console. Matthew peeked above the window ledge and nearly took a bullet to the head. “More fighters!”

  Sean sat with his back against the console, dabbing blood from his face with a handkerchief. “Now we're getting somewhere.”

  Charlie raised his rifle over the edge of the window, blind firing a dozen rounds before taking a quick look. “Looks like trouble. Two dozen, maybe more.”

  Matthew shouted, “That's no fun, we haven't finished breaking things. If we don't blow something up, the only Fleet Troopers who know the water's off will be the ones in the toilet.”

  “I think we're gonna have to deal with this first.”

  “Cover me.”

  Charlie and Sean both popped up firing. Matthew stood up. He spotted a large welded tank behind the Salt People. “Got it,” he said. He lined up the shot, and fired. The tank popped, a long gash splayed open across its side, and a pressurized jet of briny water sprayed out, covering the gunm
en on the platform.

  Matthew said, “Shit.”

  Charlie looked over at him. “Great work. They're wet now.”

  Matthew slapped the computer console. “What are we gonna do?”

  Charlie shrugged and blind fired again. “Maybe they'll slip and fall.”

  Sean chuckled. He peeked over the console and whispered, “Oh shit.”

  Matthew's attention snapped to Sean. “What?”

  Sean shouted, “Run!”

  They crawled away from the window. Sean threw himself down just as a rocket-propelled grenade blasted through the opening and exploded against the back wall.

  Matthew covered his head with his hands and turned away from the window, his chin on the floor and his head pointed at the exit. A gun barrel appeared over the edge of the platform down to the ladder. Matthew, lying prone on the tile, sand sticking to his sweating skin, swatted it away with his own barrel and climbed to his knees. He blind fired over the edge, and heard a screech and the heavy slump of a body onto the floor below.

  Another rocket screeched through the window. The blast destroyed the control console. “Well, that's broken,” Sean said with a crooked smile. They climbed to their feet.

  “Let's get out of here.”

  They covered the door behind the ladder as Matthew climbed down. At the bottom, he stooped over the two bodies lying there, below the shattered window opening, aiming down his sights looking for targets.

  Just as his friends joined him, the staccato rumble of turbines roared overhead. Charlie hit him on the shoulder. “Hey, we didn't have to blow up anything for the Fleet to come. We just had to let them blow us up!”

  Matthew smirked. He looked back up toward the console. The room was filling up with black smoke. The distant clap of gunfire. A divot exploded from the concrete wall near his head. They hid as a squad of Fleet Troopers ran by, guns raised.

  Ducking behind the door, Matthew yelled, “It’s a good thing they showed up! We're getting our asses kicked.”

  Charlie's broad, stubbly face spread into a grin. “Oh yeah, woo-hoo. We're saved!”

  Rockets streamed overhead. He could hear the Salt People turning their gunfire skyward. Assault craft chain guns whined in response. Matthew tapped the radio button. “Stephen, how's it going?”

  A crackle. “It's Jimmy! We have a little problem here.”

  Matthew frowned. “You having trouble breaching the perimeter?”

  Jimmy's laughter came staticky through the little speaker. “No, man, we blasted the windows out of the Admiral's personal condo eighty floors up. We've been in for a while.”

  Matthew smiled, crouching on the shards of window glass. “So what's the problem?”

  “We found the control console. It’s not a dedicated piece of hardware like at The Core and on the flagship. It’s just a standard wireless node with range all over the Command floors. Hell, once I breach the encryption, I'll be controlling the planet from your old ass handheld from The Waverly. I doubt Trague even knows what this system is, and that's why he hasn't fried us with it yet.”

  Matthew frowned again. “So...what's the problem again?”

  An explosion drowned out part of Jimmy's response. “...to destroy.”

  One of the Salt People ran up to the door, pointing his rifle into the window. Charlie grabbed the gun and yanked him forward, and Sean shot him just behind the ear.

  Matthew screamed into the radio. “What? I lost you!”

  “I'm telling you, mother fucker. There's nothing here to destroy. Unless I personally pull about fifty thousand miles of standard optical cable down through this building and rip it up through the surface of the planet, this connection is repairable.”

  Matthew leaned his forehead against the door. “So we have to hold the tower.”

  Charlie and Sean looked at each other. Stephen's voice spoke over the radio. “We can't hold the tower, my friend. While your diversion is much appreciated, there's quite a force attempting to batter down the stairwell door.”

  Matthew said, “So we're fucked?”

  Looking out through the window, he could see the Salt People rallying. A Fleet assault craft trailed black smoke as it spiraled toward the shoreline, crashing into the maze of green-painted pipes with an explosion that warmed Matthew's face.

  Two more ships flew overhead. A large group of fighters came running around the corner. One of them, carrying an RPG, stopped and turned to launch a rocket after the ships.

  Jimmy's voice spat out of the radio. “There's only one thing we can do. We have to destroy the chalice. Put everything back the way it was.”

  Matthew raised his head. “You said before, we can't go back!”

  “I know we can't. But I can do it from here.”

  Matthew squinted. The bodies at his feet turned his stomach. “It was a hardware error, you can't remove the chalice from the tower!”

  He could hear explosions coming over the radio. Stephen's voice in the background, Natalie's yell, and gunfire.

  Jimmy said, “No, but I control its operation. It’s a delicate piece of equipment. I can hack through the safeguards and ramp up the spin on the turbine until the damned thing shatters. But there's no going back. Rachel's grandfather just went in there and took out the battery. If I do this, spin it up and the chalice blows, we go back to everything the way it was before.”

  Matthew closed his eyes. “And Rachel died for nothing.”

  Jimmy yelled over gunfire. “What was that?”

  Matthew shook his head. “Nothing. Jimmy, don't do it! There has to be another way.”

  Charlie looked down at Matthew and they met eyes for a long moment.

  Sean put his hand on Matthew's shoulder. “Let's get the hell out of here. The Fleet's here.”

  Charlie nodded. “Distraction over. Let them fight it out.”

  Matthew pressed the radio button. “Jimmy, hang on, we're coming to you! We'll figure this out! Don't do it yet!”

  They waited for a loud explosion, and snuck out of the building. Matthew pointed to a narrow footbridge snaking through a grid of tall tanks. “Out there!”

  He crept to the corner of the building and checked their way forward. All clear. He turned back, waving Sean and Charlie on. He watched them skirt around a cargo pallet, then leaned back around the corner to check the way forward again.

  Commandant Trague was standing in the open area, screaming orders at Fleet Troopers somewhere on the far side of the building. Matthew inhaled sharply and narrowed his eyes. He stepped clear of the building, took a firm stance and raised his rifle. Trague turned. Matthew's first shot passed through the space where Trague had just been, and he pulled down hard from the recoil, breathed and fired. The second shot smacked wet into Trague's stomach. The tight black T-shirt immediately stained darker.

  Trague roared and doubled over, craning his neck to look up at Matthew, his face muscles ripped back in hatred. He screamed, “You!” and sprinted toward Matthew.

  Matthew turned to run, spraying wild rounds. He ran straight into Charlie, bounced back, and Trague tackled him to the ground. He sat on Matthew's chest and punched him in the face.

  Charlie swung his rifle, clubbing Trague across the bridge of the nose with his rifle butt. Trague reeled back, standing, clutching his face. Charlie hit him again, in the ribcage, but Trague wrapped his arm around the rifle as he collapsed, pulling Charlie forward. He reached up from his knees and punched Charlie in the groin. Charlie relaxed his grip on the rifle. Matthew saw his jaw drop in pain.

  Trague pulled himself up by the rifle barrel and twisted it from Charlie's hands. He turned toward Sean, who was firing. Sean's shot hit Trague in the right shoulder. The Commandant grunted and bared his lips over clenched teeth. He raised Charlie's rifle and fired. The shot hit Sean in the thigh. Trague raised the rifle to fire again and Charlie grabbed for the gun. The shot went wild.

  Charlie had the weapon's sling. Trague wrenched back hard, swinging against Charlie's weight like a pendulu
m, sidestepping. Sean's next shot hit Charlie in the back, and as Charlie crashed to the ground, Trague released the assault rifle, sending him rolling across the grating.

  Matthew pulled himself to his knees as Trague and Sean faced each other. Sean looked at his rifle. The slide was back. The gun was empty. Sean looked at Matthew. Trague was holding his stomach wound. He wiped his hand on his pants and reached toward his pistol holster.

  Matthew screamed, “No!” He lurched to his feet and grabbed Trague in a bear hug, tackling him back on to the steel pipe railing.

  He could feel the slick, sweaty skin of Trague's face against his cheek, the stipple of the man's facial hair scratching the indentations from the bite marks in Matthew's jaw from weeks before. Wild eyed, he tightened his grip on Trague and grabbed the railing with both hands. The long bar handle of the escape pod flashed through his mind.

  Trague was taller, his reach longer, and his hands were free. He brought his fists down on Matthew's back again and again; Matthew could feel the impact battering his ribs and kidneys. He knew if he gave Trague an inch of space, the Commandant would bring his knee up in that punishing, unstoppable kick he'd seen before.

  In a blur, Matthew saw Sean running towards them. As if time had slowed, he felt the crush of Sean's tackle arch back his own spine as the huge man head butted Trague with all his weight. Matthew felt Trague give back, impossibly far, pulling Matthew with him.

  Matthew tried to let go of the railing, but he, Trague and Sean were already over the void before he realized the rusted steel pipe had shattered. He felt the ragged edge rip into his palm, his shoe slip on the grating and, for a moment, he was airborne, falling toward the surface of the planet again.

  They landed with a slam onto the tidal shore below, Matthew's impact cushioned by Trague's muscular form, Sean landing on them both. The water exploded away from them, the green foam rushing back toward them as they lay there in a stupor. Trague was out cold. Matthew couldn't move, couldn't turn his head. Sean was immobile on top of him.

  "Sean!"

  No response.

  The swirling, sandy water lapped at Trague's face, still pressed against Matthew's own. Trague spluttered water. He was waking up. Matthew pawed at the man's flank where the pistol was still strapped, but he was crushed, completely trapped under Sean's giant body. He managed to unsnap the strap, and pull the pistol from its holster. Trague's sand-crusted lashes blinked. The man's skin felt clammy against Matthew's cheek. He could see one of Trague's eyes, wide, searching, crazed. The other half of his face was buried against the gritty sea bed.