The Final Dawn

by T W M Ashford

  Rogan shot him a quizzical look.

  "What?"

  "I said, how do I get to the bridge?"

  "There's an elevator at the end of that corridor there," she said, pointing to a door on their right. "Should take you straight up. But—"

  "But nothing. If we set off without disabling those cannons, we're all dead. But if I can get up there and shut them down somehow—"

  "You'll never make it back in time…"

  "—if there's even a chance, then it's worth a shot. Come on. What have you got to lose?"

  "You, Jack." Tuner sidled over. "We'll lose you."

  Jack waved Tuner's worry away.

  "That's not much of a price," he said, trying to smile. "The world thinks I'm dead anyway."

  "Jack…" said Rogan.

  "You punch out the second you see those guns go down," he said, talking straight to 11-P-53. "Do not wait around for me, you hear?"

  11-P-53 nodded slowly, as if in shock.

  "I hear," it said.

  "Good." Jack gritted his teeth and squeezed his rifle tight. "Now give me covering fire in three… two… one…"

  He wasn't even sure he could run. His legs were shaking and his throat had clenched so tight it hurt to breathe. Yet he did. He ran for that door without so much as a glance at anything else… not the guards who undoubtedly shot at him, nor the friends he left behind.

  23

  Gaskan Troi

  Jack raced down the length of the bright, white, hexagonal corridor, glancing over his shoulder at the industrial dark-grey door which had slammed shut behind him.

  The wailing of the sirens became muted. Softer, distant – the way an alarm clock sounds when one first wakes from a thick dream. The sharp screech of lasers and deep grumble of plasma explosions were reduced to nothing more than vibrations in the floor.

  Vents along the ceiling let out frigid air in an endless sigh. It kissed the sweat on the back of Jack's neck as he passed. He shivered but focussed only on making it to the elevator. If he stopped to think about what he was doing, he feared he might not start running again.

  The scar on his chest burned. The calves in his legs felt like lead. His brain screamed with the worst stress headache of his life.

  None of that mattered.

  The elevator doors were white too, which Jack discovered when he near enough ran into them. He spun around, clutching his rifle and looking for guards, cameras, drones – anything that might stand in his way.

  He found nothing. Suspicious, he pressed the lone button beside the curved elevator doors. They slid aside without a sound to reveal a small, cylindrical chamber. Its panels were similarly white and well-lit, though the floor was the colour of red wine.

  Another lone button waited for him on the left-hand wall. He stepped inside, pressed it with a trembling finger, and prepared for the worst.

  The doors closed. Other than that, nothing happened. The floor didn't drop away. Gas didn't pump into the chamber. Nails didn't shoot out from the walls like some futuristic iron maiden.

  Jack couldn't even tell if the elevator was moving. There was no rumble of motors, no whistling whine of cables, no sensation in his stomach of rising or falling. He could have been launched out of the Confession for all he knew, sent on a collision course with Ceros' sun.

  He wiped fresh sweat from his eyes and tried to control his breathing.

  Was it a trap? No, it couldn't be. Gaskan had no way of knowing he was on his way up to the bridge. And why would Gaskan make it easier for him if he did, anyway? No – it had to be complacency. Or an oversight, or something. Nobody expected anyone to head deeper into the ship during an escape attempt, that's all. Any and all remaining guards must have been redeployed to the hangar.

  Still, it all seemed too easy. It would have almost been more reassuring if people had been shooting at him – at least in a firefight he had a decent idea of what the other side were trying to do.

  The elevator arrived at its destination. There was no indication that it had slowed down, nor any pleasant jingle to mark the end of the journey. The doors simply slid apart again. If they'd opened up on the same white corridor he'd come down, Jack wouldn't have been surprised.

  Instead, he found himself standing at the rear of an enormous command centre. Many magnitudes greater in size than that of the Adeona, it was the sort of bridge one would expect to find on a battlecruiser. Dozens of expensive-looking computer terminals in sunken rows to the left and right of a grand central walkway; giant video screens showing star maps and ship data in real-time; a viewing window perhaps twenty-five metres in diameter, offering a breathtaking panorama of the Ceros system.

  Standing in front of the window with its back to the command centre was Gaskan’s tall, gaunt silhouette. Steeling his nerves and tightening his grip on his rifle, Jack marched down the walkway…

  …and immediately came face-to-face with the security he had expected to find down on the other end of the elevator shaft.

  Jack had no idea what they were, but they sure weren't Rakletts. They wore sleek obsidian armour that covered every inch of their slim, seven-and-a-half foot frames. Their helmets were flat and featureless – not unlike the one Jack had seen Charon wearing in his video message. Each carried a silver circular throwing blade that flashed blue in the Ceros starlight.

  Gaskan's personal guard, perhaps.

  The black-clad guards said nothing, only stared at him. Then they swung their arms back in unison, preparing to throw their weapons.

  Jack dived behind the partition nearest the elevator just as the two circular blades whizzed past the spot where his head had been a millisecond before.

  He took it all back. Being shot at wasn't more reassuring at all.

  The blades carved deep gashes in the wall beside the elevator and clattered to the floor. Jack watched them shake on the spot and then rocket back into the hands of Gaskan's guards. They must have had some sort of magnetic instrument inside their armoured gloves.

  Jack didn't wait for them to follow him around the partition wall. There was another opening to the bridge a few metres further down – he sprinted the distance and then leapt into the sunken pit beyond. He landed behind one of the computer consoles and winced as a circular saw cut through the air an inch above it.

  It was on a collision course with the viewing window. Jack grabbed the computer and held his breath. But the blade never made it that far. It slowed to a stop in mid-air and then was yanked back towards its owner as if attached by an invisible bungee rope.

  Jack took his chance.

  He popped up from behind the computer and shot two bolts at the guard to whom the blade was returning.

  She was too focussed on the flight of her weapon to dodge out of the way. The first of Jack's bolts exploded against her torso roughly where a human's ribcage would be. The rifle’s recoil threw off Jack's aim. The second bolt hit the guard closer to her shoulder, but it was still enough to throw her backwards off the walkway.

  By the time Jack noticed the second blade, it was almost too late. He ducked back into cover but not before it sliced through the fabric of his left sleeve. The blade didn't even slow down.

  Jack grabbed at the flapping tear in his suit. The damage looked purely cosmetic, but it was hard to tell. Shock could be quelling the pain. A cut that thin might not even bleed for a few seconds. He could still move his arm, so for the moment he guessed it didn't matter.

  He popped back up, ready to do the same to this guard as he had the last… and then remembered that she hadn't called her circular blade back yet.

  Jack rolled to the side a nanosecond before the returning weapon could take a few inches off the top of his head.

  He went to take another shot. But once again the guard was too quick – the blade whistled as it narrowly missed the top of the computer terminal, then sprayed out waves of sparks as it skimmed across it on the way back.

  He was trapped, exhausted, unable to stand up long enough to aim let alone fir
e off a plasma bolt.

  And he was still no closer to shutting down the Confession's exterior cannons so that the Adeona could escape.

  "What sort of idiot thinks he can single-handedly commandeer the bridge of a battlecruiser?" Jack whispered to himself, clenching his jaw.

  One who expects to die anyway, he realised.

  He lunged towards the next computer terminal along. He'd hoped to surprise the guard by flanking her, but it didn't work. She almost took his foot off as he scrambled back into cover.

  For crying out loud. He didn't have time for this.

  Still the blade kept coming, screeching like a buzzsaw as it lacerated the computer protecting him, each time slowing to a hovering stop a few feet above his head before boomeranging back into the guard's hand.

  Jack hunkered down even further. A thick, rubbery cable ran out from the back of the computer in front of him and coiled itself into a messy pile by his feet. Jack kicked it aside to make more room for himself, then froze.

  He had an idea.

  It wasn't a good one, but it would have to do.

  He gave the cable a hard yank, pulling its fat plug free from the computer. The machine died with a short, sad whine. He unravelled the cable until it had just the right amount of slack, then stamped his foot down on the other end.

  Hopefully he had enough weight to hold it.

  The blade still flashed above his head, then disappeared – flashed, then disappeared. She was toying with him. She thought this was a sport. Well, he'd show her. Or him. Or whatever the alien was.

  He had no way of knowing when the blade would appear above his head again, but he could count how long it stayed there. From when it first burst into view to the moment it reversed its direction, he had maybe a second to act.

  Three times he watched it carve through the air above his head. On its fourth pass he threw the cable.

  The head of the plug looped twice around the circular blade's central handle. As the guard used her glove to call it back, Jack stood up, putting all of his weight on the other end of the cable.

  The cable ran out of slack and the blade jerked to a stop in mid-air, tethered halfway between the two of them. Jack lost his balance, but not before firing a single shot at the perplexed guard. It was enough. He might not have dealt the killing blow, but she was still stunned when Jack's foot lifted off the cable. The blade whipped back at blistering speed, severing her hand above the glove and slicing through half of her torso before crashing into the consoles on the other side of the room.

  She had already collapsed into a bloody heap on the walkway floor by the time Jack regained his balance. He lowered his rifle and took a moment to catch his breath. The sight of her spidery dismembered hand made him want to throw up.

  Then, with wide-eyed panic, he remembered who else was still in the room with him.

  Jack couldn't turn fast enough. The gunshot rang out and he tumbled backwards, landing only inches from the second guard's corpse… not to mention the dark pool of blood spreading from the gash in her side.

  He blinked his eyes, confused. He didn't feel dead. A frantic inspection of his spacesuit showed no damage for which either the bounty hunter or elite guards couldn't claim responsibility.

  Then he noticed the smoke billowing from a jagged hole in the rifle he still had clutched in one hand. He gave the trigger a couple of cursory pulls, then tossed it aside when nothing happened.

  He sighed and then stood up, his hands raised in the air.

  "Very good," said Gaskan, standing at the other end of the walkway. He had a pistol pointed at Jack. "An impressive display. To best a Luethian bounty hunter is one thing, but two Sisters of Camulus…" He nodded sagely. "Did you know that after taking their vows, they dedicate their whole adult lives to mastering a single weapon?"

  "I did not." Despite himself, Jack felt a small swell of pride.

  Gaskan bobbed his head from side to side. "These two were young, and clearly didn't study hard enough. Still, impressive. You should come work for us. Under my master's tutorage, you could cause some real damage."

  Jack scoffed.

  "Why on Earth would I want to work for Charon after all this?"

  Gaskan's skull-face grinned. The hair on the back of Jack's neck stood on end.

  "Who said anything about working for Charon?"

  Jack shivered. The air in the bridge suddenly felt a whole lot colder.

  "You'd heard of Earth before," he said, taking a step forward. Gaskan raised a hand, and he stopped. "How?"

  "Join us and I'll tell you everything I know."

  It scared Jack how much he wanted to say yes.

  "Let the automata go free and maybe I'll consider it."

  Gaskan barked a single dry laugh.

  "Not happening. They worked on one of the projects. We can't risk them telling anybody what they saw."

  "This Iris thing I keep hearing about?" He shook his head. "They won't tell anybody—"

  "They told you."

  Jack cleared his throat and prepared himself for what he knew was coming next.

  "That's the deal. I came here to save them. I won't leave here by selling them out."

  Gaskan sneered.

  "So shortsighted," he said, aiming his pistol at Jack's head. "Just another lesser species after all."

  There was a much louder bang than Jack anticipated. Gaskan flew backwards towards the viewing window, blood spraying from his tattered robes. His gun went clattering across the metal floor.

  Jack spun around. Rogan and Tuner were stood in the elevator doorway, each with a plasma rifle in hand. Rogan's looked the more freshly used.

  "What the bloody hell are you doing here?" yelled Jack. "I thought I told you to wait by the ship for the cannons to go offline!"

  "We figured you could use the help." Rogan marched into the bridge. "You're welcome, by the way."

  "And let's be honest – you're pretty crap with computers." Tuner hurried over but stopped short when he saw the dismembered guard. "Wait, did you do that?"

  Jack nodded, embarrassed.

  "Oh, that is badass!"

  Rogan rolled her eyes. "Which one is the security terminal, Tuner?"

  Tuner pointed at the console Jack had been hiding behind. The screens and keyboards had been smashed to pieces by the throwing blades. Its power cable lay torn to ribbons far on the other side of the room.

  "Ah," said Jack.

  "Doesn't matter," said Tuner, rushing over to a floor panel at the end of the walkway. He prised it open with a grunt. "I should be able to access everything on the bridge through here anyway. Give me a minute."

  Rogan stood by the window, checking Gaskan's body. Jack joined her, bending down to pick up Gaskan's pistol on his way.

  "How's it going down in the hangar?" he asked, stuffing the gun into the compartment on his spacesuit trousers.

  "It's getting tight." Rogan gave Gaskan's corpse a kick. "The Rakletts' rifles haven't got through the Adeona's shields yet, but we can't hold them off forever. There hadn't been any fatalities when we left. Brackitt lost an arm, but he seems to be taking it pretty well."

  Jack's nerves got the better of him. He let out a laugh by accident and had to pretend to be coughing.

  "Well it's only an arm, I suppose."

  "And it's done," said Tuner, letting the panel slam shut. "The cannons are offline. We, erm… we might want to be extra quick getting out of here, though."

  The look Rogan gave Tuner was sharp enough to crack Ceros-VI in half all over again.

  "What did you do this time?"

  "Well, you know how a ship this size has to run off a central fusion reactor?" Tuner bowed his head and pretended to inspect a spot of rust on his foot. "I may have pushed it a little past the recommended limits. We probably have about two minutes before it blows."

  "I'm sorry, what? Why in the galaxy did you do that?"

  "The failsafes were right there – what else was I supposed to do? Do you want these guys following us a
fter we leave?"

  Jack's heel jackhammered the floor in terror.

  "Sorry, do you think we could have this discussion on the Adeona instead?"

  The three of them sprinted to the open elevator doors. Jack was almost inside when a monitor at the back of the hall stopped him dead.

  The screen displayed schematics of some kind. Jack wondered if they were the same blueprints retrieved from Tuner's head. Photorealistic graphics showed a colossal ring, thousands of kilometres in diameter. It made Jack think of a giant iron snake devouring its own tail.

  He shook his head clear. Whatever the pictures on Gaskan's computer showed, there wasn't time to waste thinking about them.

  Jack squeezed into the cramped elevator cabin alongside Rogan and Tuner. They were lucky it still worked – the throwing blades had cut an ugly gash through one of its doors. Going down was a much less comfortable ride than going up. The battlecruiser's reactor engine had already started to break apart.

  "Maybe I should have set a delay," said Tuner.

  Rogan crossed her arms. "You think?"

  The elevator doors slid aside at the bottom. They wasted no time getting to the end of the corridor. The doors to the hangar were infuriatingly slow to open.

  A lot of dead Rakletts waited for them on the other side. Jack stepped through first, frantically checking the bays.

  "Where's the Adeona?" He turned back to Rogan and Tuner. "Did they leave without us?"

  A deafening roar erupted overhead. They looked up with delight as the Adeona descended from a holding position above their heads. The rest of their crew, plus a blood-soaked Doc, stood at the top of the open loading ramp.

  "The Adeona—" 11-P-53 struggled to make itself heard over the ship's thrusters. It shook its head. "Some reinforcements got up onto the balcony. She had to roast them before you got back. Get in!"

  The lip of the loading ramp hovered only a couple of feet off the ground. Jack and Rogan helped Tuner get on first, then climbed up. By the time they reached the rest of the crew at the top, the ramp was closed and the Adeona had turned herself back around.

  Jack sagged against the hull and caught his breath. He pointed a tired finger at 11-P-53.