Cargo (The Ascendants Book 1)

by V. M. Law

  As the crowd threatened to pull them apart again, Edgar clapped both hands on her shoulders and screamed over the din, “My brother! They took Llewellyn!”

  Gustav. She knew she couldn’t trust him, even after his diplomatic air and the refinery of his speech began to win her over. She knew him for what he was, and when comprehension dawned on her, when she realized what she had done, the only thing that came into her mind were the words he uttered to her on their parting at the bar.

  Don’t get me involved.

  Edgar, squeezing Kasey’s hand in a vice grip, pulled her to the side of the crowd and into a hallway, deserted and forgotten in the rush to board ships. They had a moment of quiet, gathering their breath. Kasey felt the sting of a broken rib like glass in her lungs every time she inhaled.

  Edgar spoke up first. “He found me this morning, right before everything happened. He looked like shit, nervous, shaking, looking over his shoulder. He thought he was being followed and wanted me to get him off the surface, back out there.” He, like Gustav, seemed to skirt around mention of deep space, as if terrified that the word itself could draw the Ides like an incantation. “I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t understand.”

  “Hold on, Edgar,” Kasey stopped him, “start from the beginning.”

  “There’s no time! They are leaving now!”

  “Who’s leaving?”

  “Ajax! And he has my brother. This morning, Llewellyn went on about a drug ring. He was investigating, and he found something in the ship, in the Age, and he couldn’t explain it to me. Some machine. He thought it could be a propulsion system, something like that, but the size of the thing rules that out. He was delirious.”

  “Ajax refused to leave. He’s not going to Ganymede.”

  “I didn’t say anything about Ganymede. He wants the Age, and Llewellyn knows why.”

  The Catacombs. Llewellyn had found the Catacombs. Kasey knew it in the bottom of her heart, and now Llewellyn would most likely pay for his discovery with his life as an enemy of the Ascendency.

  “We need to save him, Kasey.”

  She nodded, stealing herself for the terrors that lurked in her imagination. “The Age of Discovery is in the Hangar 3W, it’s the only one there. It needs to prime before it can take off or the fuel rods will blow, so we have some time.”

  “I know a service tunnel. We can bypass all this.” He set his jaw, looked down into Kasey’s eyes, and rummaged through the satchel that hung from his shoulder. When he removed his hand, he extended his arm to Kasey, offering her the cold steel of a pistol.

  “But I don’t know how to shoot one of these.”

  “You’ll know when you have to. We have to move.”

  She looked at it, and Edgar said nothing. The way the glint of the lights overhead danced on its polish reassured her that she would need that gun, that she would take that gun. She set her hand on it, her palms slippery with nerves and sweat. They left, moving farther down the hall to where Edgar opened a latch and entered the underbelly of the complex.

  ***

  Farrow still sat in her office where Ajax last left her, her finger tracing the outline of her jaw and her eyes set rigidly at the same stretch of horizon that captivated Kasey earlier. She looked for something. The telltale reflection of low-elevation bombers cresting the hill line and making for the outpost, the slower though no less deadly advance of alien ground troops that would be swarming the outpost any second.

  “Ma’am,” Kovel said behind her. “Ganymede has fallen. We are all that remains.”

  Farrow accepted the news as it came, not giving any indication that she heard her lackey. He resumed speaking. “Should I ready the base for our guests?”

  “Yes, why don’t you do that, Kovel.”

  “Yes, of course, Ma’am.” He walked away, exited the conference room and began making his way to the generator room. Farrow resumed her search, never taking her eyes off the horizon.

  Soon.

  Chapter 8

  In the narrow passages underneath hangars that received only the dim red lighting of ancient bulbs, Kasey and Edgar felt the earth shake. Edgar threw his arms over her, shielding her from a falling metal grate that landed with a crash beside them. Steam wailed from broken pipes and even through the compact crust that separated them from the people milling about on the surface, Kasey knew that an explosion had occurred.

  “They’re here,” she said, her voice shaking worse than the gun clutched in her right hand.

  “No. The shields are up, they can’t get through.”

  Kasey saw through the pallor in his face; she found no comfort in his words. “Now is no time to stop moving, right? Let’s go get your brother.”

  “I’m with you there.”

  They continued their journey, wandering deeper into the red-lit halls of the service tunnels. Edgar often bragged about knowing the complex more than anyone, and after following him through innumerable turns and around corners that all looked exactly similar to the last one they took, Kasey had a feeling he spoke honestly. When he told her that they sat directly below the hangar that held the Age, she found no reason not to trust him.

  They climbed the ladder, slowly, exercising great caution in their footing and ensuring before they ascended that anything which might fall from their pockets was securely fixed to their person. As she climbed, Kasey felt the weight of the pistol in her waistband, imagining the heat of its discharge, the light of concentrated energy searing flesh, the smell of sulfur that veterans complained about in their nightmares.

  Edgar lifted up the grate at the top of the ladder and rolled onto the tarmac. As they approached the surface of the planet, climbing out of the forgotten passages beneath the facility, the sounds of war carried through the crust with greater volume and more precise definition. Now, she could hear for herself that whatever Edgar had told her about shields had been an empty promise, or else the shields proved inadequate before the technology of the Ides. Explosions and rapid-rate strafing fire burned holes into the façade of the outpost, and the few military units present in the base lay in piles in the dried marsh between the Hangar 3W and the executive offices. Seeing smoke rise from the windows of the highest floors, Kasey wondered if Farrow ever managed to board an outbound vessel.

  Even more disturbing than the explosion and fanfare of lasers, was the groaning of the Age of Discovery’s engine as it climbed higher in pitch until it sounded like a whining screech. She was almost ready for takeoff.

  “She’s about ready to go, Edgar. We need to move.”

  “Small problem,” he said, extending his hand to pull her from the crawlspace. Before her sat the Age of Discovery, an ancient temple flocked by pilgrims. From all sides, men and women screamed for safe passage, begged to be admitted, knowing even as they carried on that they were left for the Ides, who slaughtered their way through the other hangars and the residency complex. The invaders would be here any minute, shooting and burning, laughing in the demented cackle of bloodlust.

  “Now!” Edgar screamed, and he began barging through, bowling people over and sending them to the ground. Kasey ran in the wake of the behemoth, darting past people who tripped her, gnashed, opened their arms wide to block her. With the hanger bay doors on the Age of Discovery closed, it damned those not encased within its shell of protection.

  She slammed the butt of her pistol into the head of a man who grabbed her shirt as she passed, his eyes crossing with the force of the blow. “We have four minutes!” she screamed over the engines’ howl.

  We’re dead if we aren’t on that ship when it goes, she thought.

  Kasey and Edgar stood within arm’s reach of the Age of Discovery, fending off the increasingly frenetic crowd pushing harder against the freighter until they threatened to crush her frame and expel all the air from her lungs. They searched the hull for a fissure, any place they could squeeze through the cracks and achieve sanctuary on board. The search proved fruitless, tiresome and ineffective. The Age had not one weak spot,
no point of entry that could be penetrated without the aid of someone inside, someone who would open the gates.

  “Edgar, the exhaust!” Kasey screamed.

  “There’s no time, Kasey. It’ll fry us.”

  “It’s the only chance, Edgar!”

  They resumed pushing their way to the vessel’s aft, where the cavernous opening of the main exhaust system echoed the screams and the laughter of the slaughter poised to begin. They reached the tail end of the Age, and Edgar offered Kasey a boost.

  Not high enough. Edgar tried again, springing Kasey from his interlocked fingers, and again she failed to grasp the lip of the main exhaust’s gaping maw. “Fuck,” Edgar screamed. “It’s too high.”

  Kasey expected furious rage to erupt from Edgar Mantiss, but the resignation in his voice and his downcast eyes broke Kasey more than any fit could have.

  “Your satchel! Give me your satchel!” Kasey screamed.

  Edgar stared at her blankly before his face animated with the joy of a puzzle solved. He gave her the satchel and tried, for the third time, to boost her up to the exhaust. When she stood at the height of his reach, just short of the exhaust, she threw the satchel up into the hollow, hooking it over a jutting pipe. She hung from the strap, screaming, “I got it, Edgar!”

  She pulled herself up onto the giant metal slab and turned around to offer Edgar the strap. “Jump!”

  He stood, staring at her with calm eyes and said nothing. He shook his head.

  “What are you doing? There’s no time.”

  “Go without me. Go, now! The engine’s about to catch.”

  The titanium lock holding the Ides at bay gave way as a new tenor of fear and mania infected the screaming crowd. When Kasey looked over her shoulder, lasers flew through the air, doing nothing to the impenetrable hull of the Age of Discovery, but laying waste to everything else. Kasey’s first encounter with the Ides stunned her, held her mystified in a trance as blood ran against the freighter. The Ides concentrated their shooting on the vessel, the rapidity of the lasers increasing in speed and intensity as the aliens drew closer to the ship.

  “You have to go, Kasey.”

  “No. You need to JUMP!”

  “Kasey, I’m not going to make it. Get in there and get Llewellyn before you get roasted.”

  The slaughter continued in the hangar and the blood running from slain employees of MarsForm pooled at Edgar’s feet as he activated his pistol and gave Kasey one last word of parting, “Go,” and he ran back into the thick, his pistol echoing and drawing the attention of the Ides, who were glad of the brief resistance offered by the human prepared to die fighting.

  Kasey, not heeding Edgar’s request, drew her own blaster from her waist, fumbling with the controls. When she activated it, the engines beginning to burn her skin, she turned to the hoard of the Ides and unleashed a volley of green light that dissected one of the aliens advancing on Edgar. He looked back at her before jumping from behind his cover, shooting as fast as he could, until the lasers pierced his shirt and ricocheted against the hull of the Age.

  “Edgar!” she screamed, firing into the crowd, not caring who she hit. The hangar would be immolated by the Age of Discovery’s takeoff. Kasey, distraught, unable to hold back tears or banish the glow that surrounded Edgar from her mind, replayed constantly the moment when her eyes met his and the fatal recognition of his decision to stay behind dawned on her with horror. That moment when Edgar’s eyes changed, reflecting the knowledge that he would not be boarding the Age, that his brother’s life rested in the hands of a janitor whom he met one time prior to their mad dash through the warzone of the shipping hub.

  She fled into the blackness of the massive exhaust pipe, her cries echoing loud enough to drown the laughter of the aliens, who seemed oblivious or uncaring of the fact that in a few seconds, the ship that they fired at would ignite, raising the temperature in the hangar to a staggering degree.

  The farther she ran, the louder the engine roared and the hotter the metal surface felt as she brushed against them, feeling more claustrophobic as she journeyed deeper into the Age. The spaces between pipes, banks of wires and catwalks thick with dust grew smaller. As Kasey crashed over the obstacles, clearing pipes and crawling on her stomach, she felt the feeling of her stomach entering free-fall, turning over itself with the innate understanding that she would be dead in seconds.

  ***

  In the bridge of the Age of Discovery, Ajax sat with his back hunched over his control panels, Gustav at the helm and Llewellyn Mantiss bound to a chair behind him. “The engines are live, Gustav. Hit it.”

  The roar of the engine sounded. Below, on the tarmac, the Ides were still massacring the humans that remained until the engines fired, filling the space with immolating heat, and vaporized every molecule of organic matter in the hangar. The bay doors opened, bathing those who remained in the light of the sun, in the moment of their death. Ajax watched the Outpost recede from view as the Age of Discovery climbed again into the atmosphere of Europa, breaking through the gravitational pull and flying into space, toward the Plutonian Field.

  When the hangar and the whole burning outpost slipped away behind them, Ajax activated the vessel’s autopilot computer system and turned to his hostage. He pulled the gag from Llewellyn’s mouth, expecting spit and not being disappointed.

  “Thank you for that,” he said, producing from his cuff a handkerchief and wiping his jaw line. “I must admit that your frustration is well founded, and we have forgotten our manners.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “How trite. Do you know how many times I’ve heard that exact phrase, that relic, in this exact situation?”

  “Go to hell,” Mantiss repeated, never breaking eye contact with his captor.

  “You must understand, given the conditions down there, that we have saved your life. A little conversation is in order, unless you have no shame in being a terrible guest.”

  “A hostage, more like.”

  “No. No, my friend,” he said, relishing the moment, holding Mantiss on the edge and not giving him too much information too fast. “The Ascendency doesn’t much like the practice of taking hostages. Messy. Destroys public support. We prefer to consider you a guest. Now, do rest. You will need your strength in the coming weeks. There is much work to do.”

  Chapter 9

  She crammed herself into gaps between the pipes and valves. Every time she bumped into an outcropping obstacle with her left side, the scorching burns left by the heat of the exhaust system reminded her that she did not die, that the voices floating through her head were just that, and that her current situation would not last. She would not suffocate, nor starve, if she could free herself from the seemingly infinite maze of gadgetry that existed beneath the floors of the Age of Discovery, in its ceilings and forgotten chasms, where her lungs didn’t have space to expand and her nostrils clogged with dust every time she drew a shallow, tantalizing breath.

  After so many hours hurdling everything in her way—all the gadgets and meters and monitors and devices that had been meshed together a century previously while the Age was under construction and never touched since—the vessel had grown in her mind into the proportions of a leviathan. She felt that if it took the notion, it could swallow a fishing boat in one motion and leave nothing behind but the captain’s hat floating on the surf.

  Through her journey, the weight of the pistol also seemed to swell. And though it made no sense to her, she still felt the heat of its handle lingering from her shooting rampage on the tarmac at Europa. The bag that hung from her undamaged shoulder seemed to hitch itself over everything, impeding her progress and making her want to light the damned satchel on fire.

  She struggled, wanting to cry out, but fearing the ears that might listen in the dark. She restrained herself and choked down every cry or whimper of defeat that came to her throat.

  Is that light? she thought. Envisioning the architectural layout of the behemoth space ship, she searched her mind
for any hint of a bearing, a direction, a clue. If she climbed in through an exhaust pipe, and made her way into the workings of the ship, she must have crossed a threshold that closed behind her. If not, she would be dead, popped like a child’s balloon by the extreme pressure differences experienced when one leaves even a poorly terraformed atmosphere.

  So, if she didn’t die, she must have made it into a pressure release corridor, or possibly a cooling tube, meant to inhale subzero air from outside to regulate the temperature of the engines.

  If she was in a pressure release corridor, the light that hung in the dark before her either had to be a grate of salvation, a passageway into the proper annals of the Age that did not remind her of the intestines of a gigantic mechanical whale. Or, Gustav and Ajax were speeding up again, and the pathway she walked down would soon be a rushing river of heat, immolating everything organic in its path and leaving her not enough time to smell the hair as it seared off her scalp, her face, her arms, down to her bones.

  If she sat cramped and claustrophobic in a cooling tube, she would be freeze dried in an instant, forever locked in place where she died.

  She began to move.

  Her heart slamming against her chest from fear and exertion, she pushed forward through the cramped quarters to what she hoped was an exit from the maze.

  Is it heating up?

  Sweat certainly poured faster down the valleys of her creased brow, running in rivulets until it dampened her shirt, but she could not tell if the heat that provoked her sweat existed anywhere but in her imagination.

  Either way, she thought, fighting her way forward. In the fury of her effort with the maddening climb through the piping of the Age, she smashed her knees and bruised her forehead, and burnt her hands further when she reached out to take hold of the wrong pipe.

  “This one is the hot water, this one the cold,” she remembered Corbin Lee telling her, pointing out the spigots when they adventured into the crawlspace under their house on the surface. The pipes burst in the winter freeze, and they needed to fix them.