Redemption Protocol (Contact)

by Mike Freeman

  A stunning flash burst overhead and time sped back up as the debris rained down around her. Tyburn leaned out of the shuttle with his hand outstretched.

  “Come on, Weaver!”

  Explosions burst around her.

  She jumped. Tyburn grabbed her and flung her toward a seat. The engines howled and the door slid shut as they catapulted upward. The wind and snow stopped abruptly. She looked down through the window as they lifted away. Havoc's smoking body lay stretched out on the ice with flames guttering around it. She slumped her head back.

  Thank goodness, she was safe.

  193.

  Havoc couldn't hear. He was looking into a waterfall. The roaring water bombarded his senses as it crashed down on him.

  He stumbled forward. The world revolved around him, tilting and swaying. The front of his suit was missing sections, burned away. He was blundering and incoherent, drunk with shock. There were massive holes in the ice around him. He was running through a river in spate. He tripped and toppled over backward.

  He rolled onto his front. He crawled for a moment, then pulled himself onto his knees. His vision was streaked with white noise. He couldn't see his left arm. He fell forward again. Liquid splashed the ice in front of him. His blood? Where was he?

  He staggered upright. His legs were jelly. He couldn't balance properly. He needed to get to the medstation. What could it do for him? He fell against the second cabin. The lock opened.

  The outer door of the lock closed behind him. He couldn't concentrate. He tried to remain upright, wavering. The inner lock opened. He blacked out and fell in.

  194.

  Weaver sat in the seat of the shuttle with her knees pulled up to her chest. Tyburn stood over her, hanging off a support strap. Ekker turned to look at her from the open cockpit. He smiled then turned away. She didn't feel reassured.

  “You ok?” Tyburn said.

  She nodded. No, she thought.

  “Ugh. That was too much.”

  “It was you or him.”

  She nodded again.

  Yamamoto's voice cut in.

  “Tyburn, where are you heading?”

  Tyburn gazed at Weaver as he answered.

  “We’re heading north.”

  “We track you on a course to make orbit.”

  Weaver hugged herself. She kept seeing Havoc flailing on fire.

  Tyburn nodded.

  “That is an affirmative, Intrepid.”

  “Your course is flawed for reaching the platform. You may have instrumentation issues.”

  “Affirmative, Intrepid, we took hits from a United Systems drone.”

  Weaver looked around, confused.

  “Did we?”

  “We see no damage from your telemetry information, Tyburn.”

  “We’re checking our systems now, Intrepid.”

  “Your course is wrong, Tyburn. It will converge with... the ORC platform.”

  Tyburn smiled at Weaver as he pointed his tricannon at her. He lifted a finger to his lips.

  “No comms.”

  Weaver stared at Tyburn, horrified. Oh no, no, no. She felt crestfallen.

  “I shot Havoc,” she whispered.

  “Tyburn, please make your intentions clear immediately.”

  Tyburn turned to Ekker and nodded.

  “Alright Ekker, it's time to see what the EOS Brilliance can do.”

  A tsunami rolled over Weaver’s senses as reality dawned.

  “Now?” Ekker said.

  Tyburn grinned.

  “No time like the present.”

  195.

  Havoc was swimming amongst indistinct shapes. He thought his kids were nearby but he couldn't find them. A brightly colored fish swam up to him. Its wide eyes were vivid and clear. It looked like a wise fish; he thought it would have some answers. The wise fish hovered in front of him, flicking its tail to stay in place. He stared at the wise fish and the wise fish stared at him. It was trying to tell him something.

  A little fish swam up to his neck. It was a tiny one-toothed payara. It nibbled him, tickling his neck. It distracted him. He wanted to listen to the wise fish – he knew it had something important to say. The tiny payara swum back a little and, with a flick of its tail, it thrust forward again. The payara’s sharp tooth stung as it pricked his neck.

  He opened his eyes, suddenly conscious. He was greeted by a pleasant sight. Stephanie leaned over him, her long hair falling around his face. She looked startled. She’d probably thought he was dead. She jerked back as he awoke. He'd frightened her. He was still partly dreaming. All women are scared of men at some level, he thought; one of their field psychologists had explained to him that it’s built in, hardwired from evolution. He looked at Stephanie, questioning.

  “God, John, I was checking for a pulse. I thought I'd lost you.”

  He smiled at her. She frowned. Maybe his smile didn't come out right. His senses awakened. Stephanie gazed at him, concerned.

  “What hit you?”

  He pulled himself up on one elbow and looked down. The chest area of his suit was missing; the flare star was designed to dwell on the armor and destroy it. His flame retardant thermal was also missing. His chest was smooth and hairless but otherwise unmarked. The thermal would have burned away at three thousand degrees, give or take. What had the Morvent Academy done to him?

  “I'm... not sure.”

  Stephanie trailed her fingertips over the smooth skin on his chest. She looked mesmerized. Covetous, even.

  “It's amazing.”

  He watched her hand.

  “Did you get Fournier and Touvenay?”

  “No. They got away, up to the platform.”

  “Great.”

  “You lost Weaver?”

  He remembered the ball of glowing plasma bursting through the lock.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where is she?”

  He exhaled slowly.

  “If she's not here, I imagine Tyburn has her. How are the others?”

  “Useless.”

  He flinched a little, startled. He knew that tone. She was pissed off.

  “What do you mean?”

  Stephanie sighed.

  “Kemensky's dead. And there was a major disturbance at the pyramid, John. The alien escaped somehow – the Gathering let it out after you left the site unsecured.”

  Wow, Havoc thought, Stephanie was really pouring it on here. She shook her head as she went on.

  “Jafari is dead and Abbott seems to have gone over to the Gathering. We think that he might have been, well, taken, by the alien. A Talmas or something.”

  “The Gathering managed to get into the pyramid? And Abbott has been taken?”

  She transferred Jafari's feed of the pyramid incident as she nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Havoc skimmed through it. It looked grim.

  “Do we have Abbott's location?”

  Stephanie shook her head.

  “No. Do you know of any way to get into the library?”

  “No.”

  “Is anyone left in there?”

  “I don't think so.”

  “What happened to the energy systems?”

  He felt like he was being debriefed by a senior officer, who was writing 'poor' in his file as they tabulated his growing list of shortcomings.

  “The ORC took them.”

  “Oh, for fucks sake, John.”

  “Stone's alive.”

  Stephanie stood up.

  “Oh well that’s just great then.”

  He knew the body language. It was odd, incongruous. He recoiled somewhat.

  “Stone feels pretty good about it.”

  Stephanie walked to the lock.

  “I’m sure he does.”

  He blinked in confusion.

  “Hang on a minute.”

  “No, you hang on.”

  Stephanie stepped into the lock.

  He inspected his suit. It was completely fucked. He had a drop pod with another suit in it less
than two klicks round the perimeter of the Colosseum. He gazed through the walls of the cabin. There were a lot of figures moving around in suits.

  United Systems suits. Stephanie was standing beside one. He could see her in the ghostly image formed by his wide spectrum vision.

  The United Systems was here.

  He felt cognitive dissonance; the dislocating sensation of believing two mutually exclusive ideas simultaneously. His mind fought to rationalize, throwing up spurious justifications to enable it to return to its comfortable, self-consistent world. His emotions flooded with denial.

  The United Systems was here and the Alliance wasn’t.

  It wasn't possible that his ex-fiancée was the enemy agent but it fitted all the facts. The truth drove into him like a stake through his heart. He’d been skewered on his own trust.

  He knew from bitter experience that there was no gentle way to find out you’d been played. There was no transition time. When you trusted someone was on your side and then you found out that they weren’t it was a binary switch with no middle ground.

  His head dropped back against the floor of the cabin. He'd rather die than be betrayed again. Betrayal was dying without the release. He didn't know how to live in this universe – he'd been born into the wrong reality.

  She’d debriefed him. The United Systems would either take him or kill him. Why would they take him? He was just excess mass. He thought about the look in her eyes. She might want a sample of his skin. He looked around at the equipment racks. Stephanie had no idea about how augmented he was – after all, he hadn’t. All they knew was his suit was fried and he'd been unconscious. He was a wounded, broken prisoner.

  Stephanie probably wouldn't come back in now. It would be a United Systems commando to finish the job. If they even bothered to come in. He would have to give them a reason. Give her a reason, he corrected himself.

  The look on her face when she’d stroked his skin reminded him of her shopping for designer shoes. He laughed in disgust at the truth of the insight.

  His lip curled in anger.

  196.

  Yamamoto sipped her coffee on the bridge of the Intrepid. It wasn't as good as Fournier's. She glanced down at the cup. It might have been better if she'd never drank Fournier's coffee at all.

  Yamamoto thought the mission was going to hell in a handbasket. They didn't know what had happened at the pyramid or the shaft. Allegations were flying back and forth. They'd lost touch with Abbott. Darkwood's shuttle was gone. Nuclear explosions had detonated across the surface. Two lawyers stood on her bridge, on either side of her biggest headache of all. Her pathetic, whining, ass covering mission lead.

  She walked back over to the mission holo, on the opposite side to Whittenhorn.

  “Well I'm not sure. I don't think there is a precedent for it,” Humberstone said.

  “Clearly you cannot be held responsible, Commander. It was a diplomatic decision,” Bergeron added.

  Whittenhorn nodded, apparently satisfied. He glanced at Yamamoto.

  “Shall we retire for dinner, Captain, until we know more?”

  Yamamoto frowned at the holo. She called up information on the console screens.

  Whittenhorn frowned at her impertinence.

  “I said––”

  “I heard you,” Yamamoto said.

  The instruments couldn't be right, could they? She called up more tracking information.

  “Well, I don't think––”

  Whittenhorn was interrupted as the bridge was bathed in red light. Alerts flashed across the console.

  Yamamoto frowned.

  “We appear to have launched a missile at the Empire of the Sun Brilliance. They have given us five seconds to destroy it.”

  Whittenhorn blinked.

  “What?”

  Yamamoto couldn't understand it.

  “It’s one of our sleeper platforms. A definite launch. Initiating self-destruct.”

  Bergeron turned to Whittenhorn.

  “Surely––”

  “Please be quiet,” Yamamoto said, distracted.

  She monitored her instrumentation.

  “Nothing. It failed.”

  More alarms lit up.

  Bergeron looked panicked.

  “What can we––”

  Yamamoto flicked up multiple displays as she worked the process.

  “Please be quiet or leave the bridge. I am relaying inbound communication about the missile launch to screen five. The Brilliance threatens immediate response.”

  Whittenhorn frowned.

  “Well, we didn't––”

  Yamamoto monitored the data feeds surging with battlespace information.

  “Actually, we did, Commander. The Brilliance has successfully destroyed the missile. They have a lock on the Intrepid.”

  “They won't––”

  Yamamoto winced.

  “We have launched another two, four, six missiles at the Brilliance.”

  “Six missiles!”

  Alarms shrieked across the bridge.

  “We have incoming laser fire. Gigawatt range. Our shields are partially deflecting. We are exposed.”

  Yamamoto stepped back, shaking her head.

  “Our phase array is disabled. Overkill imminent.”

  Whittenhorn wrung his hands in distress.

  “Should we evacuate?”

  Yamamoto looked at the idiots on her bridge, staring at her wide eyed.

  197.

  Havoc needed to lure Stephanie back in. He had to give her something she could use to score brownie points with the United Systems.

  > If you’re ever coming back in here to help me, we can at least try and stop the ORC from taking the other weapon system.

  > What other weapon system?

  > What, am I meant to just lie here?

  > I'm coming.

  Stephanie came through the lock a minute later. She retracted her visor and smiled as she squatted next to him.

  “You repaired your suit?”

  He looked down at the replacement panels he'd locked in. They were a patchwork of basic components, like a multicolored jigsaw puzzle slathered with sealant. Its capability was a fraction of what his full suit could do, but it was better than nothing and hopefully good enough.

  “Looks a real mess, doesn't it?”

  You lying cheating bitch.

  “Tell me about these weapons, John. What are the ORC doing?”

  He scrutinized the face of the woman he'd asked to marry him.

  “We've got a real problem here, Steph.”

  She eyed him oddly. He obviously wasn't hiding it very well. Probably too 'emotionally invested'.

  She pulled a hand through her hair. Her voice faltered a little.

  “What is it?”

  “Well we're both sitting on a pile of ONC. Switch your comms public or I’ll kill you.”

  Her eyes widened as she took in the dull ring of ONC around her. Her face turned bitter and she snapped at him.

  “You'll be gone too.”

  And there it was. The final thread of a possible alternative reality that he couldn't imagine but still hoped might exist, snapped.

  “If you move, and I mean move a muscle, even twitch an eyelid, I'll blow you to hell.”

  “You wouldn't.”

  “You decide.”

  “They'll pay you.”

  “Not everyone is as interested in money as you.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “How long?”

  Stephanie rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, please.”

  “How long?”

  “Yes.”

  His mind spun at the revelation. Their entire time together.

  “But I would have stayed with you, John, if you’d gone Flag. I mean, I wanted to.”

  His head was splitting as his entire life reshaped to accommodate the facts. She'd been a United Systems agent since the day he'd met her.

  “You lived your entire life based on a lie.”


  “I didn't deceive you, you deceived yourself.”

  “Is that what you think about everyone you lied to?”

  “I was always true to myself.”

  “Is that more of your mother's wisdom?”

  She snapped at that.

  “You don't know how we suffered. My mother told me it takes more courage to suffer than to die. She said we'd suffered enough.”

  “You don't even know what suffering is.”

  “Ha! Of course it's all relative, just because we didn't starve. My father let us down. I didn't have a choice.”

  Havoc couldn't believe what he was hearing.

  “He sacrificed everything for you.”

  “That's a man's job. Of course, he should be happy to sacrifice himself for that.”

  “Spoiled brat.”

  “Don’t you fucking dare call me spoiled! Do you know how hard it is, what I've done?”

  “You have no guilt at all, do you?”

  “What do I have to feel guilty about? Mother told me to take what I can and forgive myself. She taught me if I love it, I should have it and if I want it, I deserve it. We suffered enough.”

  “You may be the most selfish person I ever met.”

  She raised her chin indignantly.

  “Everyone is selfish. People are just annoyed when other people beat them to it. Life doesn't have any purpose except to do as well as you can.”

  “People trusted you.”

  “That’s their fault. If you have to sacrifice someone, sacrifice someone else.”

  His eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “Like Novosa?”

  “That wasn't my fault. She was on to me. What could I do?”

  He nodded slowly. She wasn't a friend. She was the enemy.

  Stephanie watched him, realization dawning. She looked around desperately. Her brow furrowed.

  “They'll kill you.”

  He stared at her.

  He said nothing.

  She hissed at him.

  “You wouldn't dare.”

  He smiled, his mouth twisting in disdain.

  She gazed at him, wide eyed and sincere. Her voice was plaintive.

  “Please, John, I still have feelings. On the ship, earlier, that was real.”