by Dean M. Cole
Then, as if the planet's local weather had reached up into space, white skin propagated inwardly from the opening's perimeter like a time-lapsed video of frost spreading across a window. After several starts and stops, the hatch finally closed. When Sandy had opened it, the door had dissolved in the same halting manner. Viewing the stuttering movement was like watching a video feed that kept pausing to buffer.
A hiss leaked into Sandy's sound-starved ears. She twitched as all three of their helmets suddenly retracted, responding to the atmosphere pumping into the lock.
Richard turned to face her. "How did you launch out of there?" He paused, and then gestured to the exterior hatch. "And how did you find this?"
Sandy shrugged. "My ship was dead in the water … space, whatever. Anyway, I remembered that the nanobots can draw energy from mechanical movement."
She looked around the room impatiently. Her inner ears popped as they equalized, adjusting to the ship's higher atmospheric pressure. That was new. It had never happened before.
Waiting for the internal door to manifest, Sandy turned toward Richard and Colonel Newcastle. "I didn't have gravity. So I grabbed the fire extinguisher and placed my back against the floor. Then I used short bursts to keep my body pinned down while I slid across its surface. As I did that, the suit's nanobots added mass like a rolling snowball. They also converted the mechanical energy into electricity and stored it for later."
"How in the hell did you think of that?" Richard asked.
"The GDF Liaison, Lieutenant Thramorus, told me what they could do. Once I had enough of the boogers, I had part of them attach to the fighter's floor and toss me out. The rest cocooned me and then acted as a smart, sticky spring to arrest my velocity and attach to the hull at this end of the trip."
"How did you find the airlock?" Richard said.
"I didn't. The nanobots took care of that one. After landing here, the cocoon slid across the hull like a speedy snail. It stopped over that small rectangle. When I placed my gloved hand on it, the hatch opened."
Suddenly, an inner wall disappeared. The three officers exchanged glances. Sandy craned her neck and surveyed the next room. "I keep expecting to see that damned gene weapon's light," she said in a hoarse whisper.
Standing to either side of her, Richard and Newcastle nodded.
"This close," the CAG said, "I reckon we'd never see it coming. One minute we're here, the next …" He paused and then shrugged. "Pearly gates and blaring trumpets."
"He must be dead," Richard said, whispering as well. Seeing Sandy's angry reaction, he held up a hand. "The enemy commander. Otherwise, the bastard would've fired the weapon by now."
While he spoke, Sandy tried to open an EON channel with Jake. It still wouldn't connect; the icon remained grayed out.
God, please let him be okay, Sandy prayed.
Fresh lip pain blossomed.
With a quick head shake, she pushed away the thoughts. Her teeth clicked together as she clenched her jaw to prevent further lip chewing.
Sandy stepped into the next room. "Jake is here somewhere. We will find him!" she said, almost screaming the words.
Turning around, she saw Richard and the CAG exchange glances.
Newcastle raised his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. "I know better to argue with a woman when she uses that tone."
The two men joined her in the new room.
With uncharacteristic empathy, Richard squeezed her arm. "You're right. We'll find him."
Sandy gave him a curt nod. Then she turned and walked deeper into the unfamiliar room.
Judging by the airlock's position, they had to be just aft of the bridge. With a relatively low ceiling and plain white walls, this room was smaller than most she'd previously seen in either of the carriers. The trio walked down a passage that led to the chamber's far wall. They passed between banks of strange hardware. Like tiny streams of mercury, undulating silver threads of nanobots linked all of the components like a web spun by a metallic spider. With the smell of an impending springtime thunderstorm, cool, ozone-tinged air flowed across the racks.
"Computers," Richard whispered. "Must be a server bank or something like that."
Sandy reached the opposite wall, and an opening appeared in its smooth surface. For a moment, it halted halfway open. Frozen in the act of dissolving, the material at the edge of the narrow opening looked unfocused. The closer Sandy inspected, the blurrier it appeared. She tried to blink the image into focus, but it finished opening, and the edge solidified.
Pouring through the freshly minted doorway, a wave of warm, humid air washed across them. The acrid smell of burned rock assaulted her nose. A surreal scene revealed itself in the flickering light visible through the new opening.
"Oh shit!" Richard said.
Sandy stared in shocked silence.
The floor of the Warden's bridge was gone. Instead of gothic tiles, an uneven cratered rock jutted into the room. The asteroidal hull of the enemy ship dammed the lower third of the door and disappeared from view at its top right.
Sandy stepped closer and looked right and up, following the rock to its apex. The jagged extremity melded into the sculpted bird of prey that protruded from the ceiling of the bridge. Its bronze feathers now appeared to grow from fractured gray rock. She shifted her gaze back to the rock's base. Before an asteroid had merged with the ship, this doorway had opened onto the bridge's lower floor.
After the event, a chunk of asteroid must have broken off from somewhere above them. It had come to rest against the left wall, tucked into the acute angle where the down-sloping floor formed by the asteroid joined vertical bronze metal. She started to look away from the boulder, but then something about its shape drew her eyes back.
With sudden recognition, Sandy screamed, "Jake!" and then launched herself through the opening. She scrambled across the rock slope. Bracing her left hand against the tarnished bronze wall, she scurried along the rough, V-shaped seam.
"Jake!" she screamed again.
No answer.
No movement.
Closer now, she saw that he was face-down.
"Oh God, please," Sandy whimpered.
Scrambling across the uneven surface, she barely registered the gray powder that already covered the white skin of her spacesuit's legs. The same dust covered Jake from head to toe. That's why she had initially mistaken him for a broken piece of asteroid.
Reaching his motionless body, Sandy dropped to her knees. She grabbed his shoulders and pulled his face out of the dusty soil, launching a small cloud of the stuff. Rolling Jake over, Sandy dragged his upper body onto her thighs. She cradled his head with her left hand and gently brushed gray grit from his face with the other.
He didn't respond.
"Jake…? Jake…!" Sandy said, gently slapping his face with her open hand. Each pat launched a fresh puff of dust.
Allison and Newcastle stumbled up to her side. The Texan cast a wary eye about the room. Richard dropped to a knee. "Come on, Jake," he said. "Wake up, Colonel." He sounded way calmer than Sandy felt.
Her man still didn't respond.
"Baby," Sandy said through a sob. With the back of her right hand, she wiped at the tears streaming down her face. It came away covered in dark, gritty mud. In the hot room's unreliable light, she couldn't tell if Jake was breathing. Wanting to check for a pulse, but afraid of what she might discover, Sandy extended two trembling fingers toward his neck. Then, in the strobing light, she saw a small vortex of particles swirl beneath his nostrils.
"He's breathing!" she said.
Jake spasmed and coughed. His eyes fluttered and then opened. Confused, they darted across each of them. Then they focused on hers.
Jake smiled. "Sandy?"
"Oh thank God!" she said. "Yes, baby. It's me."
After another coughing fit, he looked around, eyes wide. "Where are we?"
He reached up and caressed her face. Then he sat up. Perplexed, he looked at the point where the jagged, colorless surface of the aste
roid joined smooth golden wall. "What happened?"
Sandy gently wiped the dust from his face.
"Well, Captain America," Richard said. "You jumped the Warden into the battle."
Comprehension dawned across Jake's face. He stood and looked around the bridge. Gazing upward, his eyes followed the steeply sloping rock to the point where its buried apex disappeared into the bronze bird of prey. "Shit …" he whispered, then smiled. "I guess it worked then."
"We don't know yet, son." Colonel Newcastle said gruffly.
Jake flinched, launching another dust cloud. He looked at Newcastle. "Hello, CAG."
The older Texan gave him a curt nod. "You did a brave thing, Giard."
Jake ran the fingers of both hands through his short hair, shaking them vigorously. The cloud that rose from him reminded Sandy of Pig-Pen, Charlie Brown's perpetually dirty friend. The thought made her smile in spite of their situation.
"Where's Thramorus?" Sandy said.
Her man froze with his fingers still buried in his hair. After a moment, he lowered his arms. As his eyes raised toward hers, they lingered on her abdomen.
He knows, she thought.
His gaze finally met hers. A storm of emotions crossed his face. Finally, he said, "He's … gone." Then he glanced at her stomach again. A battle as intense as the day's worst raged across his face.
Sandy's heart hurt. There was so much they needed to talk about, but now wasn't the time.
Jake looked down. He took a deep breath and then looked up and stared into Sandy's eyes. The love and kindness in his made her melt inside. He mouthed, I love you.
Before Sandy could recover, much less speak, Jake's eyes widened again. He glanced at his watch and turned toward Newcastle. "What about the weapon?"
The CAG shook his head. "Still hot, we think. But we need to find out for sure."
Jake jiggled the last of the dust from his hair and then raised questioning eyebrows at the fellow Texan. "Then what the hell are we waiting for, sir?"
Newcastle smiled and said, "Follow me."
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Colonel Newcastle pointed to a flat section of wall on the right side of the long hallway. "There."
"Are you sure?" Jake asked. "So far, decorative casing or trim has framed every door I've seen on these carriers."
They walked up to the indicated point, but nothing happened. Newcastle reached out and tapped the wall. No opening manifested. "What the hell?" he said, his East Texas accent giving the last word an extra syllable.
Richard cocked a skeptical eyebrow. "I don't know, Colonel. I think Jake is right."
"Tekamah said it was here!" the CAG said plaintively, pointing at the wall. "It's supposed to detect my presence and open automatically." He pounded the bronzed surface with the side of his clenched fist. The third swing passed through empty air as the metal dissolved in stuttering, stop-animation movement. Inside, flickering, unreliable light revealed a small chamber.
Still standing in the long hallway, Newcastle looked into the room. Then he glanced over their heads at the flickering indirect lights that illuminated the hall's high ceiling. Finally, he looked at Giard. "Your stunt did a real number on the ship."
Jake nodded and gave him a withering grin. "You should see the other guy."
While they had worked their way deeper into the Helm Warden, toward this weapons cache, the CAG had briefed Jake on the situation. They'd told him about the visible portion of the dreadnought. (Thus his joke about the other guy.) The news of the melding of the two ships had shocked him most. Jake hadn't known it was a possibility. Considering the energies involved, he had thought they would both explode.
Sandy's heart had nearly broken when he'd told them of the events that led to his jumping the Warden into the enemy ship. Even now, it ached as she remembered the look on his face and how she'd felt when he told them about Remulkin's sacrifice. Then Jake had described the helplessness he'd felt upon seeing her ship hit by enemy fire.
After all that, when the unstoppable hand of time had removed all other options, he'd decided to sacrifice himself.
Sandy closed her eyes. Thank God that hadn't happened.
Presently, Jake nodded to Newcastle and said, "Maybe the enemy's systems are just as screwed up as ours."
"Well, I'd like to have a little insurance," the colonel said. Pointing into the new room, he added, "And I think this is just the ticket."
Sandy peered through the opening into the promised supplemental GDF armory. Racks of weapons lined shelves along both sides of the small chamber.
Admiral Tekamah had previously briefed the Terran fleet's senior commanders on its existence and had granted them unlimited access. Fortunately, Newcastle had been in the know, one of the few officers he'd trusted with the information and the access.
Sandy walked into the airlock-sized room.
"This is an emergency weapons cache for use in the event of an enemy boarding action," Newcastle said as he followed her in.
Behind them, Richard and Jake hung back, framing the left and right sides of the opening as they watched both ends of the long hallway. After checking his sector, Jake looked back into the armory and glanced at her abdomen again. Pursing his lips, he shifted his gaze to Newcastle.
She knew he wanted to tell the colonel, try to get someone to fly in here and whisk her away.
Waving a hand by her left hip, Sandy drew Jake's attention and shook her head, mouthing, "No!"
Myriad emotions scrolled across his face as competing priorities fought for dominance.
Come on, Jake, she thought. There was too much on the line, too much to lose. With pleading eyes, Sandy tried to will him into accepting the truth of their situation. The weapon could go off any second. It wouldn't matter if she were here or with the thousands of Argonians and humans still alive aboard the stranded remnant of the Galactic Guardian. Even if she could get outside of the weapon's range, she would gain nothing that mattered to her. Their child needed a father, needed a secure world in which to grow up. Any delay at this juncture could jeopardize all that.
Finally, Jake gave her a short nod.
Sandy sighed inwardly and returned the gesture.
Then Newcastle began pulling weapons off the rack. He handed each of them two firearms. "The stubby one is a plasma gun," he said. "Fires a beam like a laser on steroids. The long, heavy one is a kinetic rifle. It launches small pellets at hypervelocity."
Sandy took the pistol-sized weapon and placed it against her right hip. As promised, it stuck there, the suit's nanobots recognizing her intentions and holding it in place like velcro. Testing its security, she pulled it off. The nanobots released with a sound also reminiscent of velcro. She stuck it back in place and accepted the offered rifle.
She nodded to Newcastle. "Thank you, sir."
The colonel returned a very Texan-like nod and then handed the men their weapons.
Now armed like space cowboys, the foursome left the miniature armory and headed deeper into the Helm Warden. At the end of the long hall, they rounded a corner and pulled up short. Richard shook his head and said, "Damn it!"
Standing side-by-side, they looked up, scanning the rock that blocked their path. Craters covered its charcoal surface. From the tiled floor to the peak of the pointed arch sixty feet above their heads, the pitted rock formed a solid wall.
Sandy didn't see a way around it. They'd have to find another route. She tried to envision where they must be in relation to the sculpted alien head that formed the bridge of the enemy ship. Jake had told her they found the commander of the first Zoxyth ship on the top deck of that section.
"We need to go up a level," Sandy said. She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. "Let's go back to that service corridor. I saw a stairway there."
Jake nodded. "I think she's right. Their command deck is near the top of their bridge. From what y'all told me about the protruding part, that's at least another level above this one."
"Sounds like a plan," Richard said,
nodding as well. "There was a bunch of portals around that deck. Maybe we can get into the dreadnought through one of them."
Sandy had already reversed course. Jogging, she quickly covered the hundred yards. As the men caught up, she stepped into the narrow corridor. Off to one side, a spiral staircase disappeared up a tube intermittently illuminated by flickering rings of light.
She pointed into it. "See—"
Suddenly, Jake's hand was over her mouth. He held a finger to his lips.
A bone-chilling screech followed by an impossibly low roar rumbled down the tube.
Having resisted him initially, Sandy froze. After a moment, the sound tapered off. She looked at Jake with wide eyes.
Hoisting his eyebrows, he gave her an okay sign.
Sandy swallowed but then nodded.
Jake looked at the men. He pointed two fingers at his eyes and then gestured up the stairs. Then he pointed at each of them in turn and signaled one, two, and three, Sandy last.
They all nodded.
Silently, the foursome stepped through the access hatch.
Jake slowly pulled the pistol off his hip, making sure not to let it make the tearing velcro sound. With a final, worried glance at Sandy, he started up the stairs. Then Richard and Newcastle pulled off their weapons and followed him.
After scanning the hall behind her, Sandy pealed the pistol from her side and placed a foot on the first step. As she extended a trembling hand toward the rail, a fresh roar caused the tread beneath her foot to vibrate.
Sandy flinched and thought, Oh Jesus!
CHAPTER FORTY
Holding his breath, Jake extended a leg over the broken rock. White-knuckled in the flickering light, his left hand gripped the curving stair rail. He shifted his weight to the foot that rested on the tread above the far side of the small boulder. A smooth, curving surface interrupted the rough, broken exterior of the wedge-shaped chunk of Zoxyth asteroid. Its radius matched that of the walls of the spiral staircase. This was the last of several pieces. Having dropped from the point where the tube's smooth walls had sliced through the dreadnought's outer hull like a cookie cutter, the pieces had rained down on the stairs below. The corkscrew-shaped formation of rocks sat precariously balanced on the rungs. It appeared that the slightest disturbance would send the whole mess careening down the tube.
