Battlecruiser Alamo: Malware Blues

by Richard Tongue

   “Are you happy with an admitted traitor walking around the ship?”

   Scott rose, her head hanging low, saying, “I’ll come.”

   “No, you won’t,” Cooper said. Two of the troopers moved quietly to block the door. “Do you know why she has that pistol? Because she snatched it from the ground and killed one of the traitors, the real traitors, who boarded the ship. Incidentally saving my life in the process. Then she charged after Steele, and if I hadn’t slowed her up, would almost certainly have stopped her.”

   “I’ll back that up,” Gurung said, moving to stand behind Cooper. “I saw everything that happened.”

   “The footage…”

   “None of the security cameras point at that elevator airlock, and I’d set off a smoke grenade in that area. How you can possibly think that you can make anything conclusive out of a few blurred images is a mystery to me, but I will not permit you to conduct a witch-hunt based upon it.”

   Glancing at the troopers, Grant said, “Should I be nervous for my safety, Ensign?”

   “Of course not, sir. These troops are under my direct command, and will not hinder an officer in the performance of his lawful duties. Sub-Lieutenant Scott,” he made sure to stress the rank, “is safe enough where she is, and I can assure you that there will be a trooper with her at all times. Evidently for her own protection. Should there be other traitors on board, she might be in danger.”

   Raising an eyebrow, Grant said, “Are you implying that you consider she needs to be protected from me, Ensign?”

   “Take it any way you want, sir.”

   “Let’s try this dance one last time. Ensign, you will release Sub-Lieutenant Scott into my custody, and you will secure the weapon that for some unfathomable reason you have given her.”

   “No, sir.”

   “This is a direct order.”

   “And one I am not obliged have to obey. I am not in your chain of command, Lieutenant, and I report to Captain Marshall, or in his absence, the acting commander of this ship. Last time I checked, that wasn’t you. If I receive lawful orders, I will protest them, but I will obey them. Until then, she stays with us.”

   With a sigh, Grant said, “I’m sorry that you feel so obliged to protect a traitor, and that you cannot see the obvious dangers of her remaining free. Nevertheless, given that you outnumber me twenty to one, I will concede for the moment. I will be contacting Senior Lieutenant Orlova…”

   “Acting Captain Orlova,” Watkins added, earning a sharp look from Gurung.

   “And you can expect to receive such orders in the near future. If I am listened to at all, you will be censored at that time.” He turned to the door, and the troopers stepped to the side to let him go. Pausing, he added, “You should know that Private Dean died a few moments ago. Doubtless Doctor Duquesne will be contacting you shortly, but she was going right back into surgery when I left sickbay. My condolences to you all.”

   As the door closed, the room fell silent, everyone looking around. Cooper struggled to picture the youthful trooper, a rookie on her first deployment, already the veteran of operations on Thule. He tried to conjure up her face, and shook his head. Gurung looked around, then gestured at the pile of bags on the floor.

   “This mess won’t sort itself out. Snap to it.”

   Slowly, reluctantly, the troopers began to return to their work, silently stowing away the debris of battle. Where before there was banter and talk, now there was a grim silence, each of them trading off the shock of losing a comrade with the guilty relief that they had lived through another battle.

   Scott sat, dazed, and said, “I should have done more. If I’d been a few seconds faster, she would have lived.”

   “Steele pulled the trigger, not you,” Cooper said. “We’re going to see that she and the others are brought to justice. You have my word on that.”

   “And what about me? What does justice mean for me?” She looked at the door, and said, “Lieutenant Grant is right. I don’t know what I’m capable of.”

   Forcing a smile, Cooper said, “All I know is that when it really counted, when we needed you, you came through for us. You grabbed a gun and started shooting the bad guys. Without you, the Battle of the Hangar Deck would not have gone so well. Steele and the others could have rallied, and could have done anything they wanted.”

   "They had three pilots with them,” Gurung said. “The plan seems pretty damn obvious to me. Secure the deck, steal the shuttles, then pick up reinforcements from Wyvern. Throwing another twenty or thirty people into the fight would have hurt us, especially with all the other damage we’d suffered. It’s not impossible that your intervention saved the ship.”

   “My after-action report certainly says as much,” Cooper added. “Under other circumstances, you’d already have received a commendation. One that would be extremely merited. As it is, I understand that it is somewhat difficult, but I’ll be damned if I let that idiot Grant throw pointless questions at you for hours as a reward.”

   “You stick with us, Sub-Lieutenant,” Watkins said. “Keep one of us grunts with you, and I don’t think anyone will give you any trouble.”

   “Will you be censured?” Scott asked.

   Shaking his head, Cooper said, “I doubt it. Maggie’s got enough to deal with as it is, without having to babysit temperamental officers.” His communicator contradicted him, and he fished it out of his pocket, trying to suppress a smile. “Barracks here. Cooper speaking.”

   “Bridge here,” Orlova’s voice said. “Lieutenant Grant has just informed me of your intransigence.”

   “I should have been more diplomatic, ma’am, but I stand by every word that I said.”

   “Somehow I thought you’d say that.” She paused, then said, “I’ve taken a look at your report. And those of Sergeant Gurung and Corporal Hunt.”

   “I stand by those, as well.”

   “If you’re willing to vouch for her good behavior, I’ll trust your judgment.” Cooper could hear a brief noise of protest from the rear, quickly silenced. “Nevertheless, my past orders stand. At least one trooper is to be with her at all times. Is that clear.”

   “As crystal, ma’am.”

   “Good. And try and at least pretend to be polite to senior officers, Ensign. One day it’ll be someone I can’t pacify. Orlova out.”

   “You see?” Cooper said, looking across at Scott with a smile. “All fine. We look after our own.”

   Shaking her head with disbelief, she said, “I tried to kill your wife, Ensign.”

   “No, you didn’t,” Gurung said. “It was theory before, it’s fact now. I saw you take that second shot. You hit a target while both of you were on the move in variable gravity over cover at long range. I’m not sure I could have taken that shot.”

   “I didn’t, remember,” Cooper said. “My shot went wide.”

   “Maybe I got lucky.”

   “Twice in two shots?”

   “I…”

   “What you did, who you were, really doesn’t mean a damn thing any more. That person’s dead. You proved that today.” Cooper placed his hand on her shoulder, and said, “On that deck, there were maybe a dozen people with sidearms training who could have picked up a weapon and opened fire. They didn’t. They headed for cover.”

   “And that was the smart thing to do,” Vaughan said. “We’re the ones with the training in close-quarters combat. Giving a shuttle technician his own gun is asking for a hole in the hull.”

   “You could have stayed down low, gone into hiding.” Shaking his head, he said, “You picked up a weapon, and you stood your ground. You stood with us. That isn’t something we forget easily, or quickly.”

   “Goes for the rest of us, too,” Gurung added.

   “What about Grant? And the others?”

   “I get odd looks everywhere I go anyway,” Watkins said. “You get used to it.”

   “
If you showered regularly, you wouldn’t have to,” Vaughan replied, getting a laugh from the rest of the platoon. “Look, you did your best to save Erin’s life, and that’s more than a lot of others did. It’s part of the game when you put on the uniform, far more so when you join the Espatiers. We’ve lost a dozen since we left Mariner. Might lose more yet. We’ll get drunk in her name when we’ve got time, same as we always do. And we never forget.”

   Cooper nodded, and said, “There’s a wall, down in the heart of the ship, close to the midshipmen’s quarters. Everyone who has given their lives for this vessel is listed there. Name, rank, time of death. There must be more than a hundred people listed there, those who have died on board while this ship has been in service. When you feel up to it, go down and take a look at it. I guess every ship has something like that.”

   “We didn’t on Thermopylae.”

   “That’s a pity. Traditions are important. I find it comforting, strangely. In ten, twenty years from now, someone will be reading through that list, will come to Private Erin Dean, and for a moment, she’ll live again. They all will.” He smiled, looked around, he said, “What is this, a symposium? Come on, let’s get this done.”

   “You heard the officer,” Gurung said. “Back to work.”

   “It’ll just get messed up again,” Watkins grumbled.

   “Then we’ll damn well clean it up again, Private,” Vaughan said. “That’s what we do.”

  Chapter 15

   “You must really think I’m dangerous,” Salazar said, looking around at the dozen guards surrounding him on their way back to his cell. At the rear, the man he had saved was being carried on a stretcher, a medic periodically making adjustments to his injection armband. He tossed his knife in the air, catching it by the handle, all eyes briefly on him.

   “Don’t do that,” Tarrant said.

   “Are we actually going to have a conversation, then?”

   “I’ll speak to you when we get back to the rest of your people. I don’t see any point in repeating myself.”

   Glancing back at the wounded man, he replied, “Unless someone’s been taking some correspondence courses that I don’t know about, we haven’t got a doctor with us. Why are you dragging that poor bastard along?”

   Turning, Tarrant barked, “Be grateful we bothered to save your worthless…”

   Drawing his knife again, Salazar said, “I saved your crewman, remember, not the other way around. And I gave myself up. You’d never have found me down in those tunnels, and you damn well know it.”

   “He’s got a point, Lieutenant,” Lombardo said.

   “You be quiet as well,” Tarrant snapped.

   The group turned a corner, reaching the threshold of the dome, and Fitzroy raced forward to work the door. On the other side, Ryder was waiting, her arms crossed, the crew gathered behind her. Salazar nodded as he saw her, making to move over to her, but Lombardo stopped him with his arm.

   “Not just yet,” he said.

   With a shrug, Salazar remained where he was, as Tarrant stepped out to look at both groups. The stretcher was placed on the ground, the medic propping the man up to make him as comfortable as he could. He began to groan, slowly reviving, his eyes dragging open.

   “This man,” Tarrant began, pointing at Salazar, “is responsible for the deaths of at least nine people.”

   “Nine people?” Salazar said. “Did I miss something?”

   “Where are Lieutenant Riley and Sub-Lieutenant Merrick?”

   “Dead. Defying our warnings…”

   “What warnings?” Salazar asked, stepping out of the crowd, shrugging off Tarrant. “I think I see where this is heading, and if you expect me to sit back and accept some sort of drumhead trial, you’re damn well mistaken. Those creatures killed them, and your people, and you know it.”

   “Creatures?” Ryder asked.

   “We found them in one of the domes. Seven feet tall and full of teeth and claws, with a taste for humans. I managed to kill one of them, but there are more of them out there.”

   The group murmured, and Tarrant said, “There was one, and he’s dead.”

   “That’s a lot of crap, and you know it.” Turning to Lombardo, Salazar said, “You told me there were more of them out there.”

   “I’ve heard at least two,” the technician said. “Lieutenant, he’s right.”

   “If this man and his friends hadn’t disturbed them in their nest, those people would still be here today. We went in to save them, and the price we paid was six men dead. Anything that happens now can be blamed on him.”

   Shaking his head, Salazar said, “We were hearing those creatures long before we got into that dome, and they already had access to the tunnels, which means that they are able to get from dome to dome without using the corridors. Tell me, have you had any disappearances since you arrived here?”

   “I’ve been here for four months,” Tarrant said with a sneer, “and this is the first time we’ve had anything worse than a paper-cut. All of this is down to you.”

   Ryder stepped forward, and said, “Sub-Lieutenant Salazar acted under my authority at all times. He’s a reliable officer and I trust his word.”

   Pulling out his pistol, Tarrant said, “I ought to…”, but before he could finish his threat, a loud howl echoed through the corridors behind them, one that sent a wave of fear and revulsion running through Salazar. He glanced at Lombardo, who nodded.

   “We need to get into defensive positions, now.”

   Nodding, Ryder said, “Trent, Howard, Ortega, start moving those boxes into a barricade.”

   “No-one moves,” Tarrant said. “This is a trick. You’ve got reinforcements coming down from Alamo.” He swung around to cover the crewmen with his pistol, and said, “I’ll kill the first one who so much as blinks.”

   “Wake up, Lieutenant,” Salazar said. “These monsters are real, and this is not some sort of deception. I didn’t even know Alamo was in-system until now. We’ve got to get ready.” Turning to Lombardo, he said, “You’ve got extra weapons. We need them issued. Bullets might be more effective if we can choose our shots carefully.”

   Lombardo glanced from Salazar to Tarrant, and said, “Perhaps we should consider it, sir.”

   “Damn it, Spaceman, can’t you see what he is doing? You want to lose your percentage, spend the rest of your life in prison?”

   Taking advantage of the brief distraction, Salazar leapt forward, swinging a punch that connected perfectly with Tarrant’s chin, sending him crashing to the floor, his pistol dropping from his hand. Quickly retrieving the weapon, Salazar turned to cover the rest of the mutineers.

   “There’s been a change of command. Anyone got any objections?” They looked around, shaking their heads, and he continued, “Where are the rest of you?”

   “This is it,” Lombardo said. “There were nineteen of us originally.”

   “Lucky thirteen,” Ryder said. “Trent, Ortega, get that barricade built. Lombardo, start passing around the weapons and ammunition.”

   “Are there any more stores we can get at, quickly?” Salazar asked.

   Shaking his head, the technician said, “We only had small arms with us. Didn’t think we’d need anything heavier.” He gestured at the others, who started to pass around their spare pistols and knives. “Not much ammunition, either.”

   “We’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got,” Ryder said, as the two groups of crewman started to move as one, shifting crates and boxes around to provide some cover. At best, it would only slow them down a little, provide stable firing platforms. “Weak spots, Sub-Lieutenant?”

   “The eyes,” he said. “Go for the eyes. Nothing else even seems to slow them down, so there’s no point in anything other than a precision shot. If you have to get in close, watch for the stingers. They’ve got some sort of paralyzing venom.”

   “Can’t we get out of h
ere?” Ortega asked, looking around nervously.

   “Where do you want to go?” Ryder asked.

   “Up to the surface,” Trent suggested.

   Fitzroy shook his head, and replied, “Not an option. We can’t get up there without the submarine, and that’s upstairs at the moment.”

   “Can’t you contact them?”

   “We tried,” Lombardo said, looking down at Tarrant. “They didn’t respond.”

   Another loud howl filled the room, and Salazar could hear the sound of footsteps approaching. The wounded man was placed carefully behind the stockade, Tarrant’s unconscious form dragged next to him. They might outlive the rest of them if this went wrong.

   “Wait for it,” Salazar said, taking his place at the side of the barrier. He placed his knife in front of him where he could grab it in a second, and hefted his pistol in his hand. Six shots was all he had to work with, and he was luckier than most. He cursed as he heard a crack, someone wasting a round.

   “Fire discipline, damn it,” Ryder said. “Pick your shots!”

   The door opened, and a quintet of the monsters burst into the dome, tirelessly sprinting towards them, their cold, dead eyes staring at them as though they were able to turn them to dust with a thought. More shots went off, futilely bouncing off their hides, not even slowing them down.

   “The eyes!” Salazar said. “Go for the eyes! Don’t take a shot unless you can bring them down!” He leveled his pistol, resting it on his arm, and pulled the trigger, the bullet bouncing off the creature’s forehead. Cursing under his breath, he fired again, and this time was luckier, the beast tumbling back, writhing in desperate agony as the bullet found its way into his brain, bringing him to the ground.

   On the far side, another fell, Lombardo waving his gun in the air in obvious glee, but that still left three of them charging forward, pausing for a second before simultaneously jumping over the stockade in a single bound, a fusillade of wasted shots bouncing off their sides as they landed, each of them snatching one of the defenders, tearing and ripping at them as blood spurted into the sand.