by Jake Bible
“You’re her superior!” Richtoff snapped. “That woman can’t cut off a captain! You should report her and bring her up on charges!”
“I’ll get right on that, Richtoff,” Valencio said.
“What do we do now?” London asked. “We have Estelian warships heading this way. They’re one punch from reaching the Asteroid Belt stations. If they take those out then it’s only Mars between us and them.”
“We head back to the Perpetuity?” Zenobia asked. “Park these rookies on the flight deck and wait and see?”
“Give me a second,” Valencio said. “Let me think.”
“Not much to think about, Captain,” Richtoff said. “There’re only three of us out here trained to fly combat.”
“You’re forgetting me,” London said.
“No, I’m not,” Richtoff replied. “You’re a cargo jock, not a fighter pilot.”
“Well, that’s just a dick thing to say,” London responded. “I’ve been in as much shit as you have, Richtoff. This cargo skiff isn’t just a mule, you know. It does have two plasma cannons.”
“Good for it,” Richtoff said. “Doesn’t make it effective against Estelian warships, though. They’ll blow you out of the vacuum before you can pull the trigger.”
“Shut up, both of you,” Valencio ordered. “Demon?”
“Yeah, Captain?” Zenobia answered.
“Are there still supply rocks out past the debris field? Or did Commandant Terlinger decommission those?” Valencio asked. “I know he was going to, but North never let me know if he did.”
“Uh…why are you asking me, Captain?” Zenobia responded. “North didn’t inform me either.”
“Because you take joy flights out past the debris field all the time,” Valencio said. “You’re good at hiding your logs, but I’m better at finding them.”
“Shit,” Zenobia said. “I just have to get out of that can every once in a while.”
“I know why you do it, Demon,” Valencio said. “And I obviously have no problem with it or you’d have been busted a long while ago. I just need to know if those supply rocks are still floating out there.”
“Yeah, they are,” Zenobia replied.
“They have fuel cells?” Valencio said. “Enough for all of the skiffs?”
“Not that many, no,” Zenobia said. “Maybe enough for half. Why?”
“Boss? Please tell me you aren’t thinking about doing what I think you are thinking about doing?” London asked.
“That’s a lot more thinking than you normally do, London,” Richtoff said.
“Stop busting my balls, Richtoff,” London said. “Boss?”
“I am thinking about doing it,” Valencio said. “Did you bring enough fuel cells to make up the difference?”
“I did,” London said. “But only enough to get the skiffs out there. We won’t have enough to get back if we need to.”
“We can refuel at one of the orbiting platforms around Mars,” Valencio said. “That’ll give us enough to get out to the Asteroid Belt stations.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Zenobia called. “Did you just say Asteroid Belt stations?”
“I did,” Valencio replied.
“Fuck yeah!” Zenobia cheered. “We’re gonna take it to them, aren’t we? Fly right in their faces and shut their lame ass attack down!”
“That’s the plan,” Valencio said.
“Oh, I am so down for that!” Zenobia yelled. “This is great!”
“I am not in agreement,” Richtoff chimed in. “These rookies will be dead the second we punch out of interspace. The Estelians will tear them apart.”
“That’s if they even survive the punches,” London said. “None of these cadets have ever punched in a fighter skiff. It’s not like being on a transport and punching.”
“I know,” Valencio said.
“And if they do survive the punches without puking their guts out for ten hours,” Richtoff said. “These skiffs have zero shielding. One round from a strafing gun and it is all over.”
“I know,” Valencio said. “I don’t expect any of the rookies to fight. I doubt any of us will fight.”
“They won’t? We won’t?” Zenobia asked, obviously disappointed. “This isn’t sounding so fun anymore, Captain.”
“Not supposed to be fun, Demon,” Valencio said. “It’s supposed to be war.”
“What’s the plan then, boss?” London asked.
“We get to the supply rocks first,” Valencio replied. “We load up on all the fuel cells there then punch out to the Mars platforms.”
“I’ll call ahead and let Mars know we’re coming,” London said.
“Don’t,” Valencio replied. “Let’s keep this amongst us for now. I don’t want anyone tipping off the Perpetuity.”
“Not like anyone’s paying attention on the station,” London responded. “Mars may appreciate knowing there’s still some folks out here that haven’t lost their fucking minds.”
“Maybe,” Valencio said. “Or Mars may be just as bad.”
“Oh,” London said. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Fuel cells first then Mars,” Valencio said. “We stay cautious.”
Thirty-Nine
Two cadets stood facing each other, their scorchers barking plasma bolts. Being training rounds, the bolts only produced minor shocks to their systems, not catastrophic bodily damage like true rounds would. Even still, the shocks should have dropped them to their knees after a couple of direct hits.
Yet both cadets stood there, taking the pain, their mouths open and throats bellowing rage-filled epithets at each other. When the scorchers dinged, the cadets glanced down at their empty weapons, flipped them over so they could grip them by the barrels, then charged right for each other.
The first cadet swung high, while the second cadet swung low. The second cadet’s scorcher hit the first cadet right in the thighs, knocking the young woman off her feet and into the inches of mud that the simulation bay had coated the entire scenario with. The second cadet lifted his empty scorcher up over his head then brought it down with such force that when it connected with the first cadet’s face, it not only caved in the woman’s head, but cracked right through and ended up stuck a quarter meter into the ground.
The cadet grunted as he tried to free the scorcher, yanking and pulling with all of his strength. The weapon began to wiggle free, but the cadet never had the chance to lift it again as his spine was severed from a knife blade to the back. He cried out as he lost all feeling below his waist then collapsed on top of the corpse at his feet.
“You think you can fight, you worthless fuckstick of a maggoty piece of shit infested meat chunk?” Master Sergeant Lawrence Kim screamed. “Do you, you fucking stain on humanity’s taint?”
The cadet tried to roll over to face the master sergeant, but he couldn’t get the leverage. He just swiped at the man that stood over him with a hand that grew weaker and weaker with each pass.
“Oh! You think you can take me!” Kim laughed. “You think you can grab me and do what? Scratch my kneecaps off? Give me a leg cramp? You can’t do fuck all, you failed abortion!”
Kim leapt into the air then brought both feet down onto the cadet’s face, crushing his skull worse than what he cadet had done to his own victim. The master sergeant twisted his feet back and forth, pivoting at the hips and knees as he ground the cadet’s pulverized head deep into the mud.
“Yeah, that’s it. That’s it right there,” Kim said. “That’s the feeling.”
Satisfied, but not satiated, Kim looked up and scanned the area. He saw the thousands of cadets that filled the simulation bay all fighting each other. Most primarily clubbed at each other with their scorchers, while others resorted to more primitive tactics of biting, clawing, and scratching. Kim narrowed his eyes and gripped his combat knife tightly as he focused on a group of three cadets that were busy kicking and stomping another cadet.
“Now, that ain’t fair,” Kim snapped. “Three on one. Ain’t
fair at all.”
Kim broke into a run, lashing out with his knife as he made his way to the three attackers. Cadets fell in his wake, their throats slashed, their faces cut, their hamstrings severed. When Kim reached the three cadets, he was coated in arterial spray.
“You think this is fair?” Kim shouted as he jammed the knife up to the handle in a cadet’s eye socket. He yanked it free and slashed open a second cadet’s belly, sending the man’s guts spilling into the mud. “That seem fair? Does it?”
The third cadet tried to get his arms up to block Kim’s attack, but he quickly found that it did no good as Kim hacked and hacked at the man, leaving only splintered nubs where hands and forearms should have been.
Kim stabbed the cadet in the throat then shoved his gurgling body out of the way to get to the cadet lying in the mud. The master sergeant bent down as the brutalized cadet tried to speak.
“What’s that, you babbling hunk of jizz?” Kim barked. “You trying to say to tell your momma you love her? Fuck your momma! Fuck her right in her puckered asshole!”
Kim grabbed the cadet by the throat and squeezed until the young man’s eyes bulged from his face and blood began to pour from his mouth and nose.
“You can tell your momma you love her yourself when you see her in Hell!” Kim roared.
He stood up, his chest heaving, and grinned at the world. Just before he licked the blood clean from his knife’s blade. He was about to go after a pair of cadets that had stripped down to the waist and were busy stabbing each other in the chests with pieces of broken scorchers, but something else caught his eye.
“Pharma,” he grunted as he caught sight of a cadet sitting off by herself, an injector in each hand. “Pharma!”
Half the cadets on the simulated battlefield stopped what they were doing and turned to look at the master sergeant. Then they turned to see what he was staring at.
“PHARMA!” the cadets roared as one.
The woman with the injectors in hand looked up and saw the thousands of enraged cadets all rushing towards her. She stood up from the mud and stuck one injector into her wrist and activated it then tossed that aside and did the same into the other wrist with her last injector. Her whole body shook as she flipped off the oncoming mob. She opened her mouth and let out a scream of pure triumph as she took off running towards the mob.
Woman and mob collided and the single cadet, freshly pharmaed, continued to scream her scream of triumph even as her body was ripped apart by a thousand hands.
Once the last scrap of the cadet was thrown aside, the mob turned on itself.
Master Sergeant Lawrence Kim stood in the middle of the mob, his face a rictus of glee as he killed anyone he could reach until he himself was taken down and killed by the very cadets he was there to train. If he had a rational thought left in his head just before the end, it would have been pride in the job he’d done, turning all the cadets into stone cold killers.
But rational thoughts were no longer part of Perpetuity.
Forty
“What have you got?” Linklater asked as he sat on the floor of the small room and watched Wendt tinker with the mystery communications system. “Anything at all?”
“Not yet,” Wendt sighed. “So stop asking.”
“You’ve been at this for hours,” Linklater said. “Maybe it’s time you stepped aside and let me take over.”
“You don’t know comm systems like I do,” Wendt said. “You’ll just mess it up and lose all of my progress.”
“Progress? You’ve achieved progress?” Linklater laughed. “What progress?”
“Well, for starters, it’s not transmitting any data,” Wendt said. “I’ve checked it a few times and I can say with certainty that what we have here is an open pipeline. It’s waiting to transmit data, but it hasn’t been activated yet.”
“So it’s just holding?” Linklater asked. “Keeping a line open until data needs to be sent?”
“Yeah,” Wendt nodded. “Whoever set this up wanted it ready at a moment’s notice. Understandable since this isn’t the most easily accessible location.”
“They probably expected to be chased here,” Linklater said. “This isn’t a safe room, it’s a tomb. The person gets here, transmits the data, is boxed in, and dies.”
“Killed,” Wendt said, looking over his shoulder at Linklater. “They don’t just die, they get killed.”
“Okay, so we have an open communications system, ready to transmit data at any second,” Linklater said. “So what’s the data? Those servers held something, but what?”
“They’re destroyed, no way to know,” Wendt said. “Whatever it was is lost now.”
“Maybe not,” Linklater said. “Move.”
“What?” Wendt said. “I’m still working—”
“Move!” Linklater snapped. “It’s my turn. You can handle the mechanics, but I’m better at the deep stuff. I want to get inside this thing and see if there is any residual data. Maybe we’re thinking about this the wrong way.”
“Fine. Whatever,” Wendt said as he stood and stretched, raking his knuckles on the low ceiling. “Ow. Son of a bitch.”
“Just sit on the floor and stay out of my way,” Linklater said.
“Near death experiences usually bond people together,” Wendt said. “It’s just made you more grouchy.”
“You’re welcome to leave,” Linklater said. “Open that hatch and step outside. Be sure and take a deep breath when you do.”
“Eat shit, Linklater,” Wendt said and held up a finger. “And fuck you with rank. Odds are I’m going to die in here, so I’m calling you Linklater. You call me Wendt.”
“Last time I checked you weren’t discharged by the CSC,” Linklater said as he sat down in front of the communications system console. “Unless you want to be brought up in front of a court martial, you’d better keep calling me lieutenant or sir.”
“Unless you want to suck my dick, you better get used to being called Linklater,” Wendt said. “It’s either that or shitface.”
Linklater looked back at Wendt and glared, but the man didn’t even wince.
“Fine,” Linklater said. “Call me Linklater. But don’t come crying to me when you’re slapped in irons for insubordination after this is all done.”
“Slapped in irons? What the hell are you talking about?” Wendt laughed. “You’ve been watching too many period vids. You think you’re some damned sea captain now.”
“Shut up and let me work,” Linklater said.
“Go for it,” Wendt said. “You aren’t going to find anything that I haven’t already found.”
Linklater typed at the console for a minute and then grinned.
“I have something you didn’t find already,” Linklater said. “Fingerprints.”
“Fingerprints?” Wendt asked. “Whose?”
“Terlinger’s,” Linklater said. “Terlinger’s codes are all over this thing. Either he set it up or someone with access to his codes did.”
“That’s not too smart,” Wendt said. “If it was discovered then he’d… Oh, right, no one expected to live if they got here.”
“Exactly,” Linklater said as he continued to work. “Just give me a few more minutes and I’ll have this cracked.”
Linklater tinkered with the system for a good thirty minutes before he threw up his hands in frustration.
“It doesn’t want to talk to me!” Linklater said. “I’ve gone at it a hundred different ways and the system just sits there. It doesn’t respond to any commands, it’s like it’s mocking me, just sending me around in loops.”
“Wait…loops,” Wendt said. “Move.”
“No,” Linklater said. “Just tell me what you want to do.”
“No, move!” Wendt shouted, grabbing Linklater’s shoulder.
“Let go of me, you little shit!” Linklater yelled, smacking Wendt’s hand.
“Little shit? I could kick your ass sideways without breaking a sweat!” Wendt yelled. “Move!”
&nbs
p; “No!” Linklater said as he stood up and shoved Wendt away. “I will fucking snap you in two!”
Wendt and Linklater stood there staring for a split second then they rushed towards each other. Linklater threw the first punch, catching Wendt across the jaw. But the blow barely slowed the sergeant. Wendt brought his elbow up and jabbed Linklater in the throat then tucked and threw his shoulder into Linklater’s gut.
The lieutenant let out a harsh cough as the wind was knocked out of him. He tried to breathe, but his diaphragm was spasming too much. His fists pounded Wendt’s back as the man lifted him up off the floor and then slammed him into the ground. Any air that was in Linklater’s lungs was gone then.
“Just chill!” Wendt yelled. “Relax and you can breathe!”
Wendt rolled away from Linklater and leaned back against the wall, his body still tense and waiting.
Linklater was slowly able to suck in tiny amounts of air until the spasms in his diaphragm eased enough that he could take a full breath.
“Gonna…kill…you,” Linklater said.
“And court martial me, yeah I get it,” Wendt said. “But how about you listen to my theory first?”
“Fine,” Linklater wheezed. “What…is it?”
“You said the system was sending you on loops,” Wendt said. “But I don’t think it is. I think the system itself is a loop. A continuous transmission that is being received back to this very console just to be transmitted back out again. That’s why it looks like an open pipeline. It’s an open loop, continually transmitting and receiving at the same time but appears to be doing neither.”
Linklater blinked a few times then shook his head. “Asshole.”
“What?” Wendt asked. “You think I’m wrong?”
“No…I think you’re right,” Linklater said as he pushed himself up and staggered to the console. “See if you can trap the signal.”
“No, that would be bad,” Wendt said. “If we interrupt it then it will all be lost. The data is here, it’s just in the loop. Break the loop and we’ll never know what was on those servers. It’ll blip out of existence.”
