by Smith, Glenn
“No!” another woman screamed in horror. “Oh my God! No!”
“Stay away from her, ma’am!”
“No! Let me go!” the woman screamed. “No, God! Liz!”
Liz? Royer!
Hansen bolted from his chair and dashed into the hall to find his MP guard hauling an obviously distraught woman off the floor to her feet. It was Karen, he realized even before he saw her face. Liz’s wife, crying uncontrollably, screaming Liz’s name over and over, struggling against the MP’s efforts to restrain her. Royer lay face up and motionless on the floor in front of them, sprawled across the width of the hall in a rapidly expanding pool of blood with her hands cuffed in front of her. Another MP, a stocky female bleeding profusely from her mouth and nose, stood frozen at Liz’s feet and stared down her pulse-pistol’s sights at her, seemingly in shock.
“What the hell did you do?” Hansen demanded as he rushed forward. The female MP snapped out of it instantly, holstered her weapon and stepped into his path, raising her hands to stop him. But he wasn’t about to be stopped. He slapped her hands aside and shoved her out of his way, perhaps more violently than was necessary but he didn’t care about that, and dropped to his knees at Liz’s side as the MP stumbled over her feet and fell backwards to the floor.
“Don’t touch her, Admiral!” the burly MP who’d been guarding him shouted. “This is a crime scene!” But he still had his hands full trying keep Karen under control and couldn’t do anything to stop him.
Hansen saw the standard Military Police-issue pistol lying on the floor beside her and realized instantly what must have happened. “Aw Liz, what did you do?” he quietly asked as he gazed into her lifeless eyes and touched his fingertips to the side of her throat. She had no discernible pulse but blood was still oozing from the button-sized holes in the center of her chest, so he knew there was still a chance to save her. He tilted her head back and pinched her nostrils, then leaned down, sealed his mouth over hers, and blew two quick breaths, watching for the rise and fall of her chest. Then he slid to his left—all that blood on the floor made it easy—pulled her bloodstained bra up out of the way, positioned his hands over her sternum, and started CPR, but bright red blood streamed from her wounds like water from a fountain with his first compression.
“Get me some gauze or a clean towel or something!” he ordered as he tried to seal a hand over her wounds before he started compressions again.
“She’s dead, Admiral!” the burly MP informed him. “Now get away from her!”
“No!” Karen screamed, still bawling and trying to break free. “No! No! No!”
“Get me a goddamn towel, now!” Hansen shouted again, desperate to save Liz’s life.
“It won’t do any good, Admiral!” the MP shouted back. “She’s dead!”
“What the hell happened here?”
Hansen looked up without stopping to find Krieger peering around the corner at the end of the hall with his gun drawn. “One of your trigger-happy MPs just shot Commander Royer!” he shouted angrily. Then he slid to his right to administer two more breaths.
“What!” Krieger exclaimed as he stepped out from behind the safety of the corner and holstered his weapon. “Why? What happened?”
“Ask her!” Hansen said, tilting his head toward the MP, who’d risen back to her feet and drawn her weapon again, as he slid back to his left and repositioned his one free hand. “And get me something to seal over these wounds now!”
“She grabbed Inga’s weapon!” the MP exclaimed, spitting blood as she spoke. “I ordered her to freeze but she turned on me and...”
“Attention all station personnel,” the public address system boomed, drowning out the rest of her words and drawing everyone’s attention to the ceiling speakers. Everyone’s, that is, except for Hansen’s. He couldn’t stop CPR. Liz’s life depended on it.
“Attention all station personnel,” it repeated. “General quarters. General quarters. Man your battle stations. Fighter bays, launch all fighters when ready. All docked ships’ crews, return to your vessels immediately and prepare for emergency launch. This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill. All civilian personnel proceed immediately to your assigned shelters.”
The emergency klaxons started wailing in the distant corridor.
“This is Special Agent Krieger,” Hansen heard the investigator say. “What’s going on?”
“The Joint Chiefs have declared Defense Condition One, sir!” the panicked answer came. “A Veshtonn fleet has broken through the outer defenses and crossed into the inner system! They’re bombarding the Martian colonies from orbit and a full scale invasion of Earth appears imminent!”
Liz still wasn’t responding, and Hansen finally realized that his efforts were in vein. He gave up and sat back on his heels, exhausted. Karen cried out, begged and pleaded with him not to stop, but he ignored her anguished cries. There was nothing more anyone could do for her.
Liz was gone.
And this was it, he realized as Krieger stepped over her body and stood beside him. They were out of time. They were all out of time. The enemy was descending upon them. This was the beginning of the end. The end that a select few had known was coming for the past six months. The end of their freedom. The end of their entire civilization.
He closed Liz’s blouse, and then her eyelids with his bloodstained fingers, then closed his own eyes as if to pray. “Good luck, Mister Graves,” he muttered.
“Might as well save your breath, Admiral,” Krieger said, raising his voice to be heard over the blaring klaxons. “Dylan Graves isn’t going anywhere.”
Hansen looked up at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Royer told me where you sent him and why. His illegal mission has been stopped.”
“What?” Hansen asked as he rose to his feet.
“That’s right, Admiral. We got word directly to the president and she assured us Graves would be stopped immediately. Whatever your plan was, it’s failed.”
Hansen grabbed the front of Krieger’s shirt in both hands and shoved him back against the wall before he could even begin to react. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he shouted angrily, glaring into the agent’s frightened eyes.
“Let him go, Admiral!” the MP shouted.
Hansen looked her way and found himself staring down the barrel of her sidearm. He reacted instantly, instinctively, slapping her weapon aside and grabbing it away from her in one quick motion with his left hand as he stepped into her and slugged her across the jaw with his right. She went down hard, likely unconscious before she hit the deck.
The other MP threw Karen aside like an old rag doll and went for his weapon, but Hansen bounced him off the wall with a flying side-kick to the chest, then dropped him with a bone-crushing roundhouse kick to the side of his head.
“Drop the weapon, Admiral!” Krieger yelled from behind.
Hansen glimpsed their shadows on the wall and saw that Krieger’s arms were extended. The investigator was holding a gun to his back. He raised a hand out to his side to draw Krieger’s attention to it, hesitated a moment, then let go of the pistol, and before it even hit the floor he whirled around and grabbed Krieger’s weapon in both hands, twisted it up and to one side, and pried it free of the surprised investigator’s grasp.
“Nothing personal, Krieger,” he said. He kicked him in the solar plexus, doubling him over, and cracked him over the back of the head with the pistol.
The enemy was upon them. Heather would be okay. She knew what to do and where to go. But he had to find a communications center. He had no time to lose. Graves had to go through the Portal. He had to help Karen, For Liz, and then find a communications center.
Karen had slipped past them at some point during the fight and was on her knees in Liz’s blood, cradling her wife’s lifeless body tightly in her arms, rocking back and forth, crying on her shoulder. Hansen laid a hand gently on her shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, Karen, but you’ll have to leave her.”
“You have to get to a shelter.” He crouched beside her. “I know you don’t want to leave her, Karen. I know how much you’re hurting right now. But Liz would want you to go. She’d want you to be safe and go on living.” He hooked his hand under her upper arm and started to lift her, but she screamed in protest and pulled free. She’d have no part of leaving her love behind.
What did it matter? They might all be dead in a matter of minutes anyway. He had to get a message to X-ray One. That was his top priority now. He hesitated another moment, then left Karen to her grief and ran through the C.I.D.’s inner offices toward the corridor.
A shot rang out behind him. He dove behind a desk and sprang to his knees to return fire, but just as he started squeezing the trigger, the shooter, a young female MP with blood trickling from her mouth, dropped her arms and let her weapon fall to the deck by her feet. She started coughing and spitting up blood, then clutched her arms to her ribs as she fell into the corner. She turned white as a ghost and was obviously in a lot of pain. She stood there, gazing across the office through glassy eyes at him as though she were just waiting for him to shoot her, but since she clearly no longer posed a threat, he held his fire.
“You’re Inga?” he asked as he stood up. She nodded weakly. He lowered his weapon part way but held it ready, just in case. “You need medical attention, Inga,” he told her. “I’m not your problem anymore. Let me go and I’ll call for the medics.”
“You won’t get off the station, Admiral,” she managed to articulate through the pain.
“I don’t need to.”
Her eyes seemed suddenly to lose focus and she started slowly sliding down the wall. She landed on her bottom with a grunt and dropped her blank stare to the floor in front of her, then coughed, spat blood, and fell forward.
Hansen said a quick, silent prayer for her soul, then headed for the corridor.
Another shot from behind sent him tumbling over the receptionist’s desk, grimacing in pain as he crumbled to the floor. He’d been hit! Shot in the left shoulder blade! And God, did it hurt! It hurt a lot! It burned like the fires of hell! He tried to shake it off. He had no choice this time! He had to survive! He had to find a comm-center and send that message to Station X-Ray One. Everything depended on it. Everything!
He came up shooting. Nothing mattered anymore. If they were lucky—if he was wrong about which theory was the right one and if Graves completed his mission successfully—then none of this would matter anyway. None of this would happen. All he had to do was make it to a comm-center.
He and his as yet unseen assailant bobbed up and down from behind their respective cover, firing back and forth. Each of them had the other pinned down, but neither one of them could get a clean shot at the other.
Hansen glanced behind him and to his right as he fired blindly over the top of the desk. The door to the corridor wasn’t four meters away, but he’d have to expose himself to reach it.
The floor vibrated beneath him.
“Give it up, Admiral!” his opponent called out over the din of the klaxons. “I know you’re shot. Toss your weapon over the desk and step out into the open.”
He was shot all right, and it still hurt like hell! And he was also starting to feel a little lightheaded, so he knew he was losing blood. He had to think fast. He had to act while he still could. He had to reach a comm-center!
“Do it now, Admiral!” the man shouted.
The lights flickered and the floor shook with a sound like distant thunder. The Veshtonn had arrived! They were firing on the station!
“We’re under attack!” Hansen cried.
“And you’re still a felon accused of capital crimes, Admiral!” came the response. “Now throw out your weapon!”
Time was running out.
He tossed his weapon over the desk as ordered—he’d emptied it, so what difference did it make?—and heard it hit the floor with a clatter.
“Now step out where I can see you, hands in the air!”
Hansen struggled to his feet and stepped out from behind the desk, hands raised. All he could see of his adversary, who still crouched low behind a desk no more than twenty feet away and held him in his sights, was his dark hair and part of his goateed face. But that was enough. Detective Sergeant Franco, head of the ‘Narco squad.’ Why did it have to be him?
“Do you know what’s happening outside the station, Franco?”
“Turn around and face away from me,” Franco demanded.
“The Veshtonn are attacking!” Hansen told him as he complied. “Invading Earth!”
“That’s not my problem right now, Admiral,” Franco responded. His voice sounded sharper and more distinct. He was coming closer—moving in for the arrest.
“That’s everyone’s problem, Mister Franco!” Hansen pointed out.
“Right now you’re my only problem.”
Hansen sighed. “True enough.” He spun to his right and thrust his elbow into Franco’s face, then followed with a side-kick to the ribs. Then, as Franco lay on the deck screaming in pain, cursing up a storm and holding is hands to his broken, bleeding nose, Hansen scooped the detective’s weapon up off the floor and scurried into the corridor.
He made his way unchallenged to the C.I.D. comm-center less than a hundred meters away. He burst through the door and stopped short when three shocked and confused expressions met him eye to eye, but those three expressions belonged to three armed and specially trained personnel and didn’t last more than a second. All three of them lept to their feet and reached for their weapons, giving him no time and no chance to explain...and no choice. He raised his weapon and fired three times in rapid succession, neutralizing the threat.
It didn’t matter anymore, he reminded himself.
A fiery explosion ripped through the corridor with the thunder of a thousand stampeding horses and the floor heaved as he rushed forward and threw him against the far wall. Most of the secondary consoles were already in flames by the time he climbed back to his feet, filling the room with thick, gray, choking smoke and the unmistakable odor of burning electronics. But the main console, the one he needed, still appeared to be operational.
At least for the moment.
Chapter 73
Akagi had blown his stack at the news that Dylan’s mission wasn’t authorized and had promptly herded everyone away from the Portal under the watchful eye of the guard and his quickly drawn sidearm. In stark contrast to the ferocity of the commander’s rage, a great sense of relief had filled Dylan’s soul immediately afterwards when the commander proclaimed that he would not be allowed to go through the Portal under any circumstances. That was fine with him. He was glad to be staying in the present for any number of obvious reasons, not the least of which was that he’d see Beth again very soon. But he still didn’t understand what was going on.
“I don’t get it, Benny,” he whispered as soon as he and the old captain split off from the others to go to the dining facility while Akagi headed to the comm-room with the two crewmen to contact Solfleet Central Command and ‘find out what the hell is going on.’
“You don’t get what?” Benny asked as he opened the door.
It wasn’t time for dinner yet so there weren’t very many people there—those few who were there were apparently just hanging out, relaxing and talking—but the mouth-watering aroma of spicy spaghetti sauce and garlic bread that assaulted Dylan’s senses when they stepped inside told him that dinnertime wasn’t far off. He was glad for that. In his opininion X-ray One had some of the best food he’d ever tasted anywhere in the fleet.
“Why would Admiral Hansen send me all the way out here on an unauthorized mission?” he asked as he grabbed a pair of plain white coffee mugs out of the rack and handed one to Benny. “He didn’t strike me as the kind of officer who would casually disobey orders.”
“I doubt there was anything casual about it,” Benny said as he started filling his mug. “Besides, acting in the absence
of orders isn’t necessarily the same as acting against orders.”
“What does that mean?” Dylan asked as Benny topped off his mug then stepped aside. But no sooner had the question passed his lips when he realized that he already knew exactly what Benny was inferring. “Oh. You mean that he might not have been ordered not to pursue the mission.”
“Exactly.”
As they started toward what, in the short time they’d been there, had become their usual table near the back of the dining room, Dylan noticed the people around him throwing curious glances in his direction. He stared right back at them but didn’t say anything. Noticing his apparent discomfort and seeing the reason for it, Benny pointed out, “It’s probably the outdated uniform you’re wearing.”
Dylan glanced down at himself with sudden understanding and then looked at Benny and said, “Right. I forgot I was wearing it.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Benny said as they reached their table. They pulled their chairs out—as usual, Dylan chose the one facing the door so he could keep an eye on everyone who entered—and sat down across the table from one another. “Everyone here knows what this outpost is about. They all have special security clearance.”
“I know. It just bothers me that I could forget something like that so easily. Good way to blow a mission.”
“You’re no longer on a mission, remember?” Benny pointed out. “If you were, I’m sure your instincts wouldn’t have let you make any mistakes. Now where were we?”
“I suppose. You were reminding me that acting in the absence of orders isn’t the same thing as actually disobeying orders and we were assuming that’s what the admiral did.”
“That’s right. The president’s message, as I read it, wasn’t at all clear on that point. All she said was that you were to be stopped because she hadn’t authorized your mission. She didn’t say anything about specifically having told the admiral not to pursue the mission.”
“Splitting those hairs pretty fine, aren’t we, Benny?” Dylan asked as he raised his mug to his lips. He took a cautious sip. As usual, the coffee was too hot and too strong. But he’d drink it anyway, of course, when it cooled down a little.
