by Watson Davis
"Check, Hero." A secondary visual showed up at the side of my vision.
I blinked, orienting, figuring out which way she was facing, her relation to me and my view, observing bullets whiz by her, and hearing them whiz by me. I looped my arm out the broken window, shutting my eyes and discharging the weapon using Vanessa's eyes and the blaster’s sighting feed to guide me, to help me aim.
“We’re going,” Vanessa called out. “Give us some time.”
The blaster bucked in my hand as it recoiled, but I squeezed the trigger several times, as quick as the mechanism allowed, spraying plasma into the Family lines, pausing when the damned weapon misfired, its mechanism unclean and ill-kept and now overheated. I cast myself to the floor, warning Vanessa, "Damned blaster jammed. Find some cover till I'm back up."
"Fuck," she replied.
I glanced up, seeing the faces of the locals looking at me. I bellowed at them, "Run out the back way! What the hell are you waiting for?"
They wheeled about and scrabbled through the door into the kitchens.
I peeked over the windowsill, getting a quick view before ducking back down, fingers clearing out the intake of the blaster, and then resetting the power cells to restore proper operation. I leapt up blasting, adding some more fire, realizing the row of shops and offices on the other side of the street was now dark, thick smoke filling the air, the power grid failing all along the corridor; even the lights above the main road flickered, growing dimmer, and dark shapes began to shamble out of the buildings across the street.
A message from Vanessa popped up across my vision. "Need some help, Hero."
Using my cover, she had gotten half the kids up and moving toward the vehicles, but now the Family was beginning to target her. I jumped up, firing through the window, picking off the Family men who appeared to be the biggest dangers and drew their fire toward myself, my blaster's energy level fading.
Stacie dashed back, grabbed two of the slower kids, the ones crying with their eyes closed, and carried them forward to Vanessa, getting them all clear; Vanessa helped to drag them behind a barricade. I dropped down and crawled toward the back door, the way the locals had left.
Someone crashed through the front door, spraying the inside with bullets. I spun around, crouching, aiming back toward the door at the figure leaning against the checkout station with the butt of his gun pressing against his cheek. I pressed my trigger, but nothing happened.
The man wheeled toward me, pulling his weapon around, but I slipped off to the side, dropping the empty blaster to the floor. I ran through the doorway into a narrow alley.
The lights went out and the world shook.
# # #
“The Gorovitz main ship, they’re powering up their weapons.” Captain Demaray rose to her feet. “Hold fire. I repeat, hold your fire.”
“Shoot them, dammit!” Darnell Nieve yelled, stamping his feet, waving his arms in the air where he loomed over the captain.
“Forget that little damned ship.” Captain Demaray pointed at the HV before her, flipping through the display, pulling up the intel on the Family’s defenses—mock attack and defense plans she’d created with her officers. “We don’t care about them.”
“They’re going to shoot at us!” Darnell Nieve screamed at her.
“With a peashooter. Allow me to do my job,” Captain Demaray said, calm and gentle, staring at Darnell, lips pursed, until he nodded, conceding, backing away. Demaray stabbed at a light on her display, saying to the gunnery officer, “Sending fire coordinates to you now.”
The gunnery officer nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
# # #
The barrage bypassed Captain Lu and the Old Girl, directed behind them, ripping into the Gorovitz primary ship’s shields, battering them, tearing through sections of the station undefended by the defense umbrella of the primary ship, gashing through the plating and domes erected only to keep atmo inside, to protect humans from the vacuum, not from other humans.
Atmosphere exploded up into space, carrying everything not bolted down with it, even people.
The Old Girl’s lights dimmed as the weapons drew more power and fired, the bolts finding the weakened spots in the yacht’s shields from the Gorovitz attack, exploding through, ripping the yacht into atmo-spewing slices; the debris glittered in the harsh light of the sun, flying off in every direction.
Captain Lu pushed her stick, diving down, trying to lose herself amid the panicking mining ships and freighters. “Okay. Well. Good shot.”
Stemple sighed and collapsed in his seat. “Fuck.”
# # #
I ran through the shadows toward the light at the end of the alley, light coming from another sector of the station, a sector with a separate energy source. The ghostly image of Edmund's assigned rally point blinked in the distance. The smoke stinging my nose, the firing of the guns and blasters growing sporadic behind me, I plunged into the bright light, shielding my eyes with my arm.
Three locals milled about on the corner of two corridors before the door of a machine shop, having a nice little conversation, laughing, joking, shaking their heads, peering into the dark alley from which I emerged. They pointed at me, one man saying, "I think you forgot your clothes."
"Close your sector down," I yelled to them. "Evacuate!"
"Close the sector?" They laughed again.
"Hero," Vanessa called out, waving her arm in the air, the teenagers and younger children crowding around her. "Over here."
"Don't stop." I pointed in the direction of Edmund's rally point. "Get them going."
"Yes, Hero." Vanessa waved the kids on, touching their cheeks, whispering to them, directing them one by one, with a slugthrower she’d picked up from Nemesis-knew-where tucked into her elbow. Streaks of blood and grease crossed her face like primitive battle paint.
The whole world tumbled, everything shifting to the side. My stomach fluttered, floating, and my feet lifted from the ground, then crashed back down along with everything else. One of the kids fell to his knees and puked on the ground.
I stopped, kneeling beside him, setting my hand on his back. "I need you to stand and run. We need to go that way as fast as we can."
"Why?" he sobbed, strings of vomit dangling down from his chin. "What's the fucking use?"
"Shhh." I reached down, putting my arms around him, thinking about what the Sergeant Major would have said—hell, thinking about he did say after I sneaked out of this hellhole the first time. "Someday someone somewhere will love you. You have to be alive so they can."
"Can I go back home to Mars now?" he asked, his body relaxing, giving up, his shoulders drooping and his head falling forward to rest on my shoulder.
"Only if you get your ass in gear, soldier."
The artificial gravity gave out, the whole world sliding to one side beneath my feet, reacting to the spin on this damned rock.
Why couldn't this be a simple weightless environment?
The sector lights dangling from the ceiling went dark, leaving only the lights streaming in from further down the corridor.
The kids around us screamed, and the boy let go of my neck. I let him slide down to the tilting ground, pushing him forward, yelling, "Go!"
He ran, as best he could, the drunken rotation of the asteroid under us not helping. I chased after him, grabbing another little girl who had fallen, setting her on her feet, dragging her forward. "Let's go."
Behind us, a couple of Family men stumbled out, fighting to maintain a semblance of balance, their eyes darkened pits, their jaws slack, their gaits uncoordinated and jerky. They dragged weapons behind them.
A light flashed, strobing across the corridor, illuminating the whole place and casting the goons into sharp relief, their skin gray. The zombies turned toward the light, stumbling toward it, reaching out with their hands, letting the weapons tumble to the ground.
"Mithras's grace, not these assholes, again." Edmund's gruff voice echoed in my head, grating like the hull of a ship torn to shred
s in a gravity well—a sound sweeter than anything I’d ever heard.
Heavy slugthrower fire roared, chunks of the walls blowing out, pulverized ferrocrete erupting into the air, the sheetrock and plastic catching fire, sending thick black, acrid smoke boiling up to the rafters.
"Cover your ears!" I screamed, probably unnecessarily, touching all the kids next to me, around me, having them crouch down but keeping them moving, hurrying them up.
"I see her," Moritz's voice said.
"We've got her." Malordo and Sly plowed through a building, a wall crumbling before the power of their suits, weapons blazing. They thundered toward me, blasting every zombie within sight, tendrils of smoke rising up from their suits and from the barrels of their weapons. They took up spots on either side of me.
I called out to them, "Careful, Nemesis dammit. Take these kids out of here. Escort them to safety."
"Yes, Hero." Malordo took control, ordering Sly, commanding the kids.
Two blasters once belonging to Family men lay on the ground behind me, and I ran to them. I knelt by them, tearing one apart and wiping off the parts and then tore the other down, I created a weapon from the components, cobbling a blaster together from the best pieces of each of them.
"What are you doing, Ohmie?" Edmund's voice said in my head.
I lifted the weapon, still on one knee, seeing a zombie shambling into view. I took aim and caressed the trigger, smiling at the feel of it, the balance of it, at the splatter of the zombie as my blaster shot disintegrated its fucking skull. I hopped to my feet and sprinted up the road, tapping my temple. "You didn't bring a suit for me, did you?"
"Well, no, of course not," Edmund said. "I didn't expect to find you in the middle of a firefight."
"Thanks a lot." I ducked into an alley, sprinting through to a hatchway—the hatchway Mercedez had brought us through earlier that led to the Family's HQ—and brought up the console for my demolition droids, assigning them their commands, ordering them to go.
"Come back here, damn you. No, Malordo, take those kiddies over there, we will extract from that hatch. Lu's on her way."
"Yeah, you take care of the kids," I said, remembering the path back to the place with the drawings. "I'm going to go ask some assholes some questions."
A Family Ship
Children's drawings fluttered, swirling to the deck, breaking off from the metalwork around the hatch to the Family ship. The engines rumbled, the framework securing the ship in place against the station grinding and squealing, my drones having ruined the release mechanisms locking the Family ship onto the station. Two Family goons stood guard at the hatch, bracing themselves against the wall in the flickering gravity, one facing back toward the darkened part of the level, the other with his hand to his temple, listening to commands in his head. A rotating light flashing red and blue above the hatch.
I circled around them, approaching from the opposite side, away from their attention, scurrying from shadow to shadow until one of them noticed the movement and whirled. My blaster fired, pushing back against my hand, the plasma shining brilliant blue, taking off his head before he could aim his weapon. The other cringed, lifting his hand to shield his face from the spatter of blood, brains, and bits of flesh from his relative.
I didn't allow him the chance to present a threat or raise an alarm, my next shot taking him midback, right between the shoulder blades, blowing a hole through his lungs and heart. He tumbled forward, falling in a slow sidelong spiral, back arching, face looking up at the ceiling.
I sprinted as best I could through the uneven grav, jumping at the center of the hatchway into the Family ship, the odd spin making me miscalculate as the hatch sphincter closed. I caromed off one of the panels, the impact knocking the blaster from my hands. I twisted and toppled backwards into the entryway of the ship. I rolled on the gangway, stopping in a kneeling position, my heart pounding, with three guns aimed at me and three children holding them, crouching down. Behind them, Mercedez whirled and pointed toward me, screaming, "Shoot her! Shoot that bitch!"
I rolled as flames lashed out from the ends of the children's weapons, their slugs blasting away at the door behind me, ricocheting in a spray of sparks, the tang of expended rounds hanging smoky in the air. Something hit my leg, and something else cut my shoulder, slicing me like a fine knife.
The ricochets bounced back toward the children, at Mercedez hunching down behind them, flailing her hands, protecting her head. The children flinched, squeezing their eyes shut, and raised their arms to cover their faces, dropping their weapons to the deck as scattered shot and shards of deck and hatch blew back at them, tugging at their dresses, at their shirts.
One boy stared down at his stomach, at the red dot growing on his white shirt, his eyes wide, his mouth a perfect circle. Another little girl grabbed her arm and collapsed to one knee, a line appearing across her forehead, blood spilling out—a bit, then a bit more-with each beat of her heart.
Mercedez jumped forward, shoving the children out of her way. I picked up two of the dropped slugthrowers. I hopped on my good leg, wincing at the pain when I touched the other to the deck, pointing my weapons at Mercedez who knelt with her hand touching the handle of a slugthrower, with children crying around her. She stared up at me. Panting, catching my breath, I checked around me, hearing voices of people yelling, and the stomping of feet.
"If you cry out for help, we all die." I lowered my left arm, setting the business end of the barrel flat down on the deck, the rounded butt in my palm, leaning a portion of my weight on it—a makeshift crutch. "If you or the kids send any messages, we all die. Got it?"
Mercedez said, "Better I die than let an outsider into my home."
"You willing to sacrifice these poor little children, too?" I asked, wondering how far Family ethics went, where the lines were. "That can be arranged."
She glanced back, the anger draining from her face, leaving only the hate. "Leave the innocents out of this, you whore."
"The brats who almost killed me?" I raised an eyebrow, tilting my head to the side. "Not quite as innocent as you make out, I guess."
One girl sobbed, hugging herself against the woman's leg. "Don't let her hurt us, Third Daughter." The little girl snorted, pulling a strand of snot back into her little pug nose.
"Third Daughter?" I smiled.
Mercedez stood a bit straighter, her nostrils flaring, and reached down to touch the top of the girl's head.
"Third Daughter." I smacked my lips. "You're about to do me a big, fat favor."
# # #
Using Mercedez’s palm, I ordered the elevator to the bridge. I knelt beside her as the numbers ticked by, adjusting the dark goggles I’d taken from the locker where I’d restrained the children, finding a comfortable position for the cheap slugthrower in my belt, the brown work boots too big on my feet, but the ill fit of the pants and canvas shirt hidden by their bagginess. I figured I looked like a regular Family goon.
The doors opened. I slid my arms around Mercedez’s torso and dragged her in, yelling, “The Third Daughter’s been injured! I need a hand here.”
A young man at a control console looked up, his face pinched, and pointed to a niche along the wall. “Put her over there and call Medical.”
“Right.” I dropped her where he’d directed me and knelt by her side, tapping my temple to act like I was following orders, but switching my feed over to the Motayen team’s channel.
"Hero?" Edmund's voice said in my mind.
I did not answer him.
"When the hell are we going to be mobile again?" Jarod, First Father of the Gorovitz Family, paced across the bridge of the Gorovitz Family ship, the stars of the Milky Way in all their beauty shining down on him through the giant holo simulating a window, as though the hull of the ship were constructed of glass. He wore cream pants and a white shirt much nicer, more elaborately decorated and embroidered than those of his surrounding Family: his brothers and sisters, his nieces and nephews, his sons and daughters, all
of them surrounding him at their battle stations, sitting before their consoles, standing at their watches, their frightened hands darting across control boards, flicking switches, stabbing at buttons.
"Soon, First Father," one man said, holding up his hands. "We have to finish reattaching the impeller those damned mining drones damaged. Give us a few minutes."
"Do we have a few minutes?" A vein bulged in Jarod's temple, his face red with intense anger. "How close are Nieve's bioweapons now?"
"The power grid for the station’s Knossos and Laremy decks are nonoperational, sir," a man called out, sweat beading up on his face, his brown hair pasted to his forehead. He turned his head back toward Jarod, panic in his eyes. "But we're zipped up tight. We should be safe, right?"
"Don't do anything stupid, Hero," Edmund's voice whispered in my head.
I slid the slugthrower out of my belt.
A woman stood by a console on the other side of the bridge. Her head snapped around, concentrating on something on the holoview next to her, the fingers of her right hand waving in and out. "Sir? I am picking up something odd."
A hatch across the bridge opened, allowing wispy white smoke to weave its way across the floor. A young man ran in, wearing a cream-colored camo light armor suit, a LightDream model, the armor plate on his left shoulder darkened by smoke, his faceplate standing open. He stopped two paces inside the door, raising his arm, sighting down the barrel of his chain gun—a neophyte's mistake, to disregard the sighting info from the gun. More people outfitted in similar suits jogged in through the door past him, lining up inside the door in a ragged line.
Still on one knee, I slid my arm under Mercedez’s body, the slugthrower in that hand hidden by the drape of her arm.
The woman at her console shifted to another display, her hands flying. "Sir, someone has planted some sort of video feed from inside—"
"We've got to get you out, Father!" a young man cried, running across the shiny black floor that reflected the holo of the shimmering stars above, the thundering of his boots joined by that of other men and women running behind him with slugthrowers and blasters in their hands, glancing back as they ran, weapons ready to shoot back the way they'd come.
