by Mike Freeman
Tyburn circled around the room like a stalking predator.
“You felt ill earlier, didn’t you, Stone?”
On the far side, Karch circled the other way. And, of course, Marsac was right on top of him. Bergeron sounded scared.
“What does this mean?”
Tyburn spoke in a calm voice.
“Just stay there, please. Nobody move while we deal with this. No need to be alarmed.”
“I can take him from here,” Ekker said.
Ekker was pointing a pistol at Stone. Stone’s eyes widened in terror.
“What?!”
Brennen’s voice was clear and commanding.
“No.”
Ekker licked his lips, keeping his eyes firmly on Stone.
“If he goes up, we're all fucked.”
Tyburn moved slowly inward.
“You probably felt sick from the contaminants leaking into your system.”
Stone’s expression was that of a young wildebeest carved out from the herd, isolated and vulnerable. The lions stalked round him, positioning for the kill. Stone sought out Havoc as his panic mounted.
“Havoc?”
“Let me take him,” Ekker said.
Ekker cast to the security team only.
Havoc spoke slowly and calmly.
“No one is going to do anything, Stone. We might need to segregate you until we understand what's going on, that’s all.”
Tyburn pointed at the nearest lock.
“Ok. Let's take him out to the shuttle on the rim of disc five. Marsac, escort him out.”
Tyburn glanced at Brennen.
Brennen nodded.
Havoc’s intuition had a problem but he didn't know what it was.
“Wait.”
Tyburn shook his head.
“Later. Let's move him out, nice and easy.”
Havoc frowned.
“No. Wait.”
He tried to understand what was bothering him. He knew he had to nurture his intuitive uncertainty or it would evaporate into nothing. He turned to Brennen.
“I need ten seconds.”
Brennen silenced Tyburn with a look.
“You've got it.”
Havoc studied Stone carefully.
“I need you to step forward for me, Bob. Forward and back.”
Havoc watched as Stone stepped forward, sweating profusely.
The alarm flared on.
“We're wasting time,” Tyburn said.
Havoc waved Stone back.
“Bob, step back against the counter.”
“What?” Tyburn said.
“Do it, Bob,” Havoc said.
Stone moved back.
Everyone but the security team looked at Havoc, confused.
“Is there any purpose to this?” Bergeron said.
Havoc shifted his focus. He didn’t want to be right about this.
“Marsac, please step forward.”
“What?”
“Please, Ethan, just step forward for me.”
Tyburn protested.
“Wha––”
“Quiet,” Brennen said.
Brennen nodded at Marsac.
“Go ahead, Ethan.”
Marsac’s eyes widened.
Everyone watched Marsac as he stepped forward: scared, massive, exceptional and armed to the teeth.
Nothing––
The alarm kicked in, red light illuminating the room. The alarm grated their senses. Marsac’s eyes went round and his jaw dropped. The room was transfixed.
Havoc couldn’t believe Ekker could be so stupid.
Marsac's upper body rotated toward Ekker unnaturally fast. Marsac was on the security circuit, of course. Squat cylinders lifted out of both his forearms and the surface of his eyes turned silver. Bergeron screamed. For a moment, Havoc thought Marsac was going to blow Ekker away. Thankfully, Marsac was better than that.
It was a stand off. Havoc breathed again.
Humberstone took a step backward as the reality sank in.
“A bomb, we've got a bomb on board, in here?”
“Nobody move,” Tyburn said.
Bergeron’s glass bounced off the floor.
“Oh no.”
Stephanie looked horrified.
“Inside someone?”
“Everybody stay calm,” Brennen said.
Havoc's mind raced. Marsac was a Titan X, a combat machine. Something that could potentially take down a blade. The weaponry that Marsac carried was enough to take out the Hub Hab a thousand times over. Marsac’s cannon ammunition would include micronukes – Marsac would have them on him right now. And Marsac had a chemical bomb inside him. The room began to tip and roll on the edge of panic. It was evident that Marsac himself was toppling into panic. Havoc saw him going over the edge.
“Marsac, don't do anything stu––”
Marsac ran for the lock.
Brennen shouted and cast at the same time.
“Hold your fire!”
The lock shut behind Marsac.
“He's moving through the flexipipe,” Yamamoto said.
Whittenhorn pointed.
“Trap him in the tube!”
Havoc raised his hand.
“No. Don't trap him!”
Brennen frowned at him. Havoc turned to Tyburn.
“He's a Titan X right?”
“Right.”
“Don't trap him, let him run. This needs to end without a fight.”
Tyburn considered briefly.
“I agree. Let him go through.”
Brennen nodded.
“We need to go after him, right now,” Havoc said.
Ekker scowled.
“Fuck that.”
Havoc persisted.
“If someone can remote detonate that bomb, do you think they were going to do it while he was in the same room as them?”
Tyburn looked at Brennen.
“Havoc's right.”
Ekker shook his head.
“That’s a human fucking blade you’re talking about there.”
Havoc walked to the lock.
“If Marsac gets far enough away that his controller can detonate him, then he could die and he could take the ship with him.”
People stood stunned in their tuxedos and evening gowns. Those who could were vening stimulants and devening alcohol, trying to claw back their ability to respond as they struggled to adjust to their dramatic change in circumstances.
Havoc could see Marsac on shipnet, running hell for leather toward the spindle. Brennen joined him at the lock.
“We have to follow him.”
Karch kicked off her heels.
“Better get moving then.”
Leveque sat inert, tears dripping onto her pastel yellow dress.
“Oh my God, this can't be happening.”
27.
Marsac ran, crawled and dodged his way down the disc two spoke heading toward the spindle.
He had no idea what he was doing or thinking, he wasn't thinking anything really. He couldn't believe what had been done to him – it shocked him to the core of his being. He knew about biobombs; he'd been in conflicts where they'd been used. The idea of actually being one was beyond his comprehension. If that thing was really inside him, inside his shielding, armed at this second, ready to detonate – he was fucked. The forces were too much to contemplate. He was a dead man, running.
He reached the spindle and started clambering down it, assisted by gravity as the ship decelerated into the target system. He dodged left and right, in and out. What if he didn't make it out of this? He'd just be gone. He thought about Sylvie and little Lucas. He never usually contemplated dying but he was so helpless. Some bastard could signal, reach out and kill him right now.
When he'd been a young boy, long before enrollment on the Titan program, little Ethan Marsac had sat near the back of a large, mixed and unru
ly classroom. A much older boy had sat just behind him. Every now and again, for sport, the older boy would lean forward and punch Marsac in the back of the head. Marsac had dreaded that class. The anticipation of it made him ill. He felt physically sick an hour before it started. He would lower his head further and further forward, to no avail. The teacher had seen but not cared. Marsac had sat there, for ninety minutes, not knowing from second to second when he was going to get another punch in back of the head. And now, years later when he was so powerful, he was having that exact same feeling again. He felt sick, exposed and vulnerable; just like that little boy.
He kept moving, his thoughts racing as he cycled through and discarded non-existent options. His stomach churned. He was humming now, his electronic countermeasures crackling as he pumped out heavy wattage across the spectrum. They would be tracking his position. They had already blocked his access to shipnet so he couldn't track them.
Marsac opened the command frequency. Brennen cast to him on it, telling him it was ok. How the hell was it ok? What if that was the frequency they used to blow him up? He didn't know what to do. He jammed the frequency.
He scrambled as fast as he could, trying to outrun the signal; trying to outrun light. It was futile. But he kept going. He was being hunted. This must be how a rabbit felt, chased by a pack of hounds.
He headed toward the shielded military shuttle on disc five. He could jam any incoming signals there. As he climbed quickly down the shaft, he reconsidered. It would be too easy for them to block his access or fly him out. He would go to the test labs on disc four instead.
He reversed direction and climbed back up. He thought about Brennen. He unblocked the frequency so Brennen could talk to them. What if he met them on the way back up? He pushed past cable racks, conveyor trolleys, storage units and shelving, moving up. He kept checking that his ECM output was maxed, terrified. He couldn't bear the idea that any moment he’d be gone. He jammed Brennen’s cast frequency again.
He hurried on, trying to outrun his fate. He thought about Brennen. He desperately wanted help. He opened the cast frequency again.
His feet pounded out a rhythm on the steps passing under his feet: he didn't want to die, he wanted to live, he didn't want to die, he wanted to live. He hurried on. His face was grim.
Grim as death.
28.
The crew chased after Marsac, the men in their tuxedos and the women in their dresses and mostly barefoot. They moved in single file through the narrow spoke of their disc toward the spindle, strung out both physically and mentally. Brennen spoke from the front.
“No one falls behind. Whittenhorn, bring up the rear and make sure.”
Havoc stayed close to Whittenhorn at the back. If anyone looked like they might drift off the back 'by accident', it was Whittenhorn. Havoc found the lawyers Bergeron and Humberstone there as well.
Brennen passed an emergency station up ahead.
“Everyone take a rebreather mask.”
Faces turned continuously, looking back along their line. The sudden realization that their ship, light years from Hspace, could be destroyed instantly was akin to being roused from your sleep at three in the morning, handed a gun and forced to play Russian roulette.
At Havoc’s suggestion they were dropping the internal air pressure. This would reduce the shock wave of any internal explosion. It was at the margins, of course, but Havoc would take any edge he could get. He'd also suggested Brennen tell Marsac about the pressure drop and recommend that he get a mask. Marsac didn't need one, of course – a Titan X could rebreathe for years – but the last thing they wanted to do was surprise him.
It was almost certain that one of them was a saboteur. Someone who might try to separate from the group and blow Marsac and the Intrepid apart. Maybe the saboteur was trying to detonate Marsac this very second and Marsac was jamming them.
Brennen reached the spindle and they began to filter along.
“Slowly. We don’t want to get too close to him here.”
Havoc agreed. Whilst the hull behind the bow shielding was paper thin, the spindle was the Intrepid's most critical structural vulnerability. Stephanie turned back in the narrow space.
“He wouldn't do that, would he?”
Havoc gave her a reassuring look.
“Don’t worry. We can get through this.”
Marsac was heading to disc five, presumably for the shuttles since they were both armed and shielded, when the Titan X suddenly doubled back toward disc four. The test labs, Havoc thought.
The crew followed Marsac. When they reached disc four, they separated and regrouped at each intersection, blocking the paths back to the spindle. Marsac finally came to a halt in a shielded test lab on the rim of the disc.
There were three exits from the test lab where Marsac was located and the crew gathered at the three intersections that led to them.
They had Marsac surrounded, whatever that meant.
29.
Havoc stood in one of the spherical intersections, called bubbles, that connected the passages and struts of disc four. Crowded around Havoc were Whittenhorn, the two lawyers, Stephanie and Weaver.
Brennen cast to Marsac on an open channel for everyone to hear.
> I want to come in and talk to you, Ethan. Just me. Talk to me, Ethan.
There was no reply.
It was a ballsy move by Brennen, Havoc thought. Marsac would be terrified that they would dump his module at the first opportunity. Brennen offering to join him inside the test lab would reassure him.
Tyburn cast to everyone but Marsac.
> Don't go in there, Commander. We should jettison the test lab module.
> Thank you, Tyburn, noted and rejected. No more of that suggestion for the moment, thank you.
Brennen cast to Marsac again.
> Ethan, you must be shocked right now but we can deal with this. I'd like to come and talk to you.
In Havoc’s bubble, Whittenhorn looked flustered.
“I don't think there’s any advantage to us being here. Not now that Marsac is contained.”
Bergeron nodded.
“The non-security personnel should move back to the front of the ship.”
“Exactly. I'm not qualified for this,” Humberstone said.
Havoc frowned as he studied shipnet. He could feel waves of jamming surging on and off – Marsac didn't know if he was coming or going.
“No one is going anywhere.”
Bergeron wrapped her arms round herself.
“We’re putting extra lives at risk. It’s stupid and wrong.”
“Shut up,” Stephanie said.
Whittenhorn looked around the group.
“Some of us should move to the command hab, so we can better co-ordinate.”
Bergeron and Humberstone nodded their agreement.
Havoc studied Whittenhorn. Their executive officer looked pale and terrified. Havoc tried to keep his tone reassuring as he shook his head.
“We're fine. Hang tight and we'll get through this. Have you all got your masks?”
They nodded.
“Great. Put them on for me, would you?”
People fumbled their masks on. At least it gave them something to do.
For the first time, Marsac responded.
> Alright. Just you, Brennen. Alone.
Progress.
Havoc cast to Brennen, excluding Marsac.
> Brennen, take a blast shield from the bubble.
> Will do, Havoc.
> Don't go in there, Commander.
> Noted, Mr Tyburn.
> It's a pointless risk, Brennen.
> Noted and disregarded, Mr Tyburn.
“You don't have any authority here.”
Havoc turned, surprised. Whittenhorn stared at him defiantly.
“I’m in charge here.”
Havoc n
oticed Whittenhorn’s hands clasping and unclasping by his sides.
“Ok, everyone, Brennen is moving in. We should be there soon.”
Whittenhorn raised his chin.
“If I order us to move back then we will. Now that Brennen’s moving into the lab the risks are higher and our need to be here is gone. We’ll leave one or two people here at most.”
Havoc monitored Brennen moving along the flexipipe toward the lab module, conscious, as they all were, that this could go disastrously wrong at any moment.
“It's negligent to take unnecessary risks with the crew,” Bergeron said.
“Mr Whittenhorn has a duty of care,” Humberstone said.
Whittenhorn nodded vigorously.
“Exactly. It’s my duty.”
Brennen entered the lock leading into the test lab. Whittenhorn’s eyes roamed wildly.
“Ok, I'm going to move us back. Havoc, you can stay here.”
Havoc looked at Whittenhorn.
“Look we're all scared, but you know as well as I do everyone has to stay here. If Brennen can calm down Marsac we're there. We can segregate him on a tethered shuttle and disarm the device.”
Whittenhorn looked more affronted than placated.
“I'm not scared.”
“I resent that suggestion,” Humberstone said.
Stephanie gasped with exasperation as she rolled her eyes.
On the shipnet feed, Havoc watched Brennen step out of the lock.
> Ok, Ethan, the lock is open and I'm moving into the lab. You should see me soon. I'm holding a blast screen in front of me as a precaution. You can scan me if you want. Stay with me, Ethan.
> I'm scared, Brennen.
> So is everyone, Ethan. Look on shipnet, we're all here with you.
Nicely handled, Havoc thought. He watched on shipnet as Brennen slowly approached Marsac.
Whittenhorn lurched for the lock leading to the spindle.
“We're leaving.”
Bergeron and Humberstone pressed after Whittenhorn.
“You can’t leave,” Weaver said.
Havoc reached between the lawyers and grabbed Whittenhorn's dress uniform. He pulled Whittenhorn around.
“No one is leaving. Any one of you could be the saboteur with the codes to blow up Marsac.”
“That’s outrageous!” Bergeron said.
Whittenhorn’s eyes flashed with panic.
