by Sean Danker
More blood was running down his EV, but Bjorn knew that if he was still conscious, his arteries were intact. He clamped a glove to the wound on his neck, then got out his sealant and did his best. It was more difficult to seal a breach he couldn’t see. His gloves were slick with blood; he couldn’t even activate his holo to help himself look at the wound.
There were three wide shafts, all stretching up into the dome’s upper tiers.
Somewhere at the very top was the viewing deck.
He leaned over Rada, looking through her faceplate. She was pale, but peaceful. She’d been dead less than a minute. There was still time.
Above, the lift shafts stretched up in darkness. The only light came from the glowing blue emergency lines set into the back of each shaft, all of them running straight up into the gloom.
Outside, Sergeant Golding’s carbine fell silent.
Bjorn swallowed, feeling his heart sink.
He took Rada under the arms and dragged her to the nearest ladder, the one on the far left. He couldn’t let himself think about how far he had to climb or how long it would take. Maybe climbing wasn’t realistic at all, but without power there was no alternative.
He heaved her up and over his shoulder, holding her firmly in place with his left arm. Fire seemed to spread from his side and his hip, but the painkillers were working.
It had always annoyed him that an analyst was required to maintain a level of fitness on par with that of an infantryman. He’d always wondered why.
This was why.
24
BJORN shoved the hatch open and hauled himself and Rada out. He didn’t know or care if it was safe. The starlight seemed blindingly bright this close to the carbon shield. He spilled onto his back, sucking in deep breaths as pain washed through his body.
Above was the dome, only a few dozen meters away. The carbon shielding was dirty, but far from opaque. A pirate cruiser glided past in absolute silence. A moment later there was a flare of weapons fire. An unwelcome reminder that Bjorn didn’t have time to give self-pity its due.
He got to his feet, taking his bearings. He was on the roof of a small structure in the middle of a wide dining area. The viewing deck was part of a restaurant. It didn’t look like much now; the tables were scattered and overturned.
With Rada in his arms, he descended the narrow staircase to the main floor, where the light was the brightest. Movement drew his eyes, and he saw strange shadows playing over the tiled deck underfoot. There were xenos here—they were crawling on the outside of the dome. Whatever they were, they didn’t need atmosphere to survive.
His helmet was picking up audio, and Bjorn boosted it to listen. Footsteps. He got behind a freestanding bar near a small stage. It was the only cover at hand. He gazed at the bottles lining the lower shelf as he held still, listening.
There were two people, and the sharp footsteps had to be coming from magnetic boots.
The footsteps stopped, and Bjorn felt sudden nausea. His skin grew hot.
“Come out,” one of the men said. His broadcast was perfectly clear.
Clenching his jaw, Bjorn eyed the bottles for another moment; then he laid Rada down and raised his empty hands into view. Slowly he rose and stepped out from behind the bar.
Bjorn closed his eyes. The two shots were so close together that they sounded like a single report. Bjorn dropped, but there was no need. Both contractors were toppling over backward.
Dayal emerged from the darkened restaurant, sidearm in hand. The general stepped over the bodies, absently firing another shot into each of them. She had deliberately waited for her prey to focus on Bjorn before she struck. He watched her pick up Rada and sling her unceremoniously over her shoulder.
“Where’s Golding?” she asked, looking up at the things crawling on the dome.
“I don’t know,” Bjorn replied.
“We’re out of time.” Dayal turned back to the dome, starting toward the railing of the patio. Bjorn followed, gazing out at the battle. “Get ready, Lieutenant. We won’t get a second chance.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A sliver of white appeared from below. It was the Lydia.
Bjorn understood. It had been bothering him: how exactly was this an ideal extraction point? The answer?
It wasn’t.
Shooting erupted in earnest behind them, and he threw himself flat as Dayal dodged, firing back. There were more contractors in the restaurant; it looked like Tenbrook’s people had finally settled their business with the xenos and converged on them.
Bjorn stayed low, crawling to cover as Dayal shot down a contractor who had gotten too brave leaning into the open.
A familiar carbine opened up above, and Bjorn spotted Sergeant Golding crouching near the bar; so she had followed him up the shaft. A trail of steam signaled that someone had launched an explosive. The sergeant leapt down, crashing through a glass table and sliding into cover, firing all the way. Bjorn saw a bullet punch through her shoulder as she got up, but she stood her ground and kept shooting.
The restaurant windows dissolved as she swept her fire across the front of the building, forcing the contractors inside to take cover. General Dayal changed magazines and fired repeatedly at someone below the overlook. Bjorn got ready to move; there were enemies in the restaurant, on the dome, and making their way up to the balcony. There was only one way out.
The Lydia was fully in view, bright lights flying out by the dozen, tracing wide arcs toward the swirling storm of unmanned fighters that were pounding at her shields.
An Everwing shot past, rocking the station and causing the cracks in the dome to deepen.
Flares of bright gold began to appear, moving almost lazily, from the far right side of the dome. For a moment Bjorn thought it was a meteor shower, or some kind of weapons fire that he’d never seen before. It was neither. It was the coolant that the Lydia’s crew had initially tried to shield Doyle’s men from.
It wasn’t as though his mouth could get drier.
A grenade landed less than a meter from Bjorn, rolled over, planted itself, and began flashing red. Once it had stuck, it couldn’t be moved.
Bjorn scrambled up and vaulted over the railing, swinging down to let the lip of the deck shield him from the blast. He felt pressure on his gloves, and the sharp sting of cutting shrapnel. There was a sudden flash of pain, and his right hand went numb.
Only his left hand clung to the lip as again he found himself hanging desperately over a fatal fall. It was a hundred meters to the floor of the dome. All of Oasis seemed to yawn out beneath him. He looked down at his hand. His glove was torn across the knuckles, but all his fingers were still there. The shooting wasn’t letting up.
Bullets flew past him, fired from below. They struck the dome overhead, and white bursts of cracks erupted in huge spirals.
Bjorn got his wounded hand back on the lip and pulled himself up, feeling the heat from the scorched tiles through his gloves.
“Get ready,” Dayal called, crouching behind a marble table that only her EVX could have enabled her to flip over. She still clutched Rada and her pistol, but there was bright red blood on her arm.
Bjorn’s suit had lowered its external sound pickup to protect him from all the loud noises, but his ears still rang, and the world swam. He dropped to one knee and planted a glove, bracing himself.
There was a flash of light, and an Everwing appeared outside the dome. Rail-gun slugs tore through the carbon shielding effortlessly, crashing into the face of the restaurant. It was considerably more of a spectacle than Sergeant Golding’s attempt to do the same with her carbine.
The shielding exploded, great masses of carbon breaking away outward, the pieces soaring off into the black in such quick succession that the dome appeared to be dissolving. The roar of violent depressurization rushed in.
Bjorn poured more cling into his g
love, covering his head and trying to get lower to the deck as tables and chairs shot past, along with weapons, bodies, and debris.
The clothes that were all that remained of the unlucky ones who hadn’t made it off the station were thick in the air, and that air was going away fast.
The Everwing continued to devastate the restaurant and the contractors within with its rail gun, bright blue corkscrew trails of smoke marking the hundreds of shots and forming a ceiling over Bjorn’s head. Every slug crashed through the restaurant, into the tower, and into whatever lay beyond. The dome was gone, and the debris created by every impact was simply sucked away in an instant.
The floor shook beneath Bjorn, throwing him onto his back. He kept his hand planted, feeling the station’s gravity falter.
The shooting stopped. Bjorn stared up at the Everwing for a heartbeat before it twisted and vanished in another flash of light, off to rejoin the real fight. The Everwings were identical, but Bjorn knew Diana when he saw her.
The dome’s gravity gave out. Ignoring the pain, Bjorn let go, got his legs beneath him, and pushed off, grabbing the railing and flipping down, just as he had to avoid the grenade. He got his feet firmly against the side of the viewing deck. There was no time to linger. He took aim and shoved off with everything he had, spreading his arms. His EV sealed over his injured knuckles, but that hand was already numb.
He sailed forward toward open space and the Lydia. Ahead, great amorphous globules of golden coolant flew thick and fast. Weapons fire tore through the storm, and the dizzying streaks of the Everwing fighters snapped to and fro in perfect silence.
There was a glitter of white, and Bjorn spotted Dayal flying out with Rada’s body. She was on a collision course with a massive sphere of coolant. Bjorn signaled a warning, and she saw it.
Shifting Rada in her arms, General Dayal planted her feet against the ensign’s chest and kicked her away hard. The two figures split apart, making way for the coolant to pass safely.
Dayal had aimed Rada at Bjorn, and he threw out an arm to catch her wrist. The sudden momentum spun him, diverting his course.
The general was no longer moving toward the Lydia. She was floating freely, and she had no maneuvering wires to bring herself back.
She put both hands on her sidearm and twisted, firing rapidly. It wasn’t much counterforce to her inertia, but the recoil was enough to divert her into a massive chunk of debris from the battle.
Rada’s speed from Dayal’s kick had sent Bjorn careening off faster than he was prepared for. He crashed into the Lydia’s hull, doing his best to protect Rada. He slammed a glove to the white metal and held fast.
Dayal got her glove on the debris and swung herself over it, getting into position and shoving off, but there was yet another spray of coolant. Bjorn’s heart sank, but the general had seen it and taken it into account. Her effortless airborne cartwheel allowed her to miss the threat by mere centimeters and continue on toward the ship. She landed with the grace of a dancer, her face mask turning toward Bjorn, who began to pick himself up.
Rada was considerably easier to handle in zero g; the problem now was his wounds. His suit had healed, taking over for his sealant, but he could feel the tears in his flesh despite the painkillers. He’d lost enough blood that he was getting light-headed.
The Lydia had momentarily deactivated her shields to allow Bjorn and the others to land, and now they came back up, an iridescent webbing over their heads. Weapons fire splashed against the repulsors, blinding Bjorn.
There was nothing but movement. The Lydia was rolling in space, and projectiles were a maelstrom all around them, sprinkled with glowing coolant and debris from the dome. Through it all, Bjorn spotted a contractor climbing the side of the ship. He pointed, and Dayal saw him.
She whirled with her sidearm to take aim from the hip. It was a classical pose, an old-fashioned method of weapons handling that Bjorn had seen only in dramas. It was all style, no substance. Perhaps it was the way the general had been trained in her day. It was flawless.
She fired twice, her pistol punching two neat holes in the contractor’s faceplate and sending him spinning into space, a nimbus of brain matter exploding from his helmet.
Dayal was still too late. The man had taken his shot and landed it; blood sprayed in freezing droplets from the four holes in the general’s back.
They were in zero g, and her boots were clinging to the metal underfoot. She seemed to sag slightly where she stood, her limp corpse moving gently, like a blade of grass in a light breeze.
Bjorn launched himself toward her. Without gravity he could carry as many bodies as he had arms for. He caught the general around the middle and flung himself over the edge of the hull, shoving her ahead of him and using his free hand to swing himself through the force shield. He was entering the bay from above, more than five meters off the deck. Gravity took him instantly as he came through, and slammed the three of them to the polymer below hard enough to knock the breath from him.
Bjorn rolled onto his back, groaning with the pain in his side. He desperately deactivated his helmet, sucking in deep gulps of air. It wasn’t any fresher than what his suit had been giving him, but he’d always hated helmets.
Golding dropped down, landing hard beside Bjorn and deactivating her helmet.
Bjorn pushed to his hands and knees. He felt warm blood inside his suit, though his wound felt icy cold. Golding’s skin was dark, but not dark enough to hide the trickle of blood running from her scalp. She couldn’t be feeling any better than Bjorn, and Bjorn thought he could barely stand.
But if they didn’t retake the ship now, it wouldn’t happen. He could see the sealant Golding had applied to her wounded shoulder; that was what had held her up in getting off the station.
“Get them into stasis,” Golding ordered, raising her carbine and running toward the hatch. That was the wrong order—it was against protocol to prioritize life over the mission, particularly when the mission was as crucial as getting the ship back. A few minutes late getting into stasis could make all the difference for Rada and the general, but if they failed to secure the Lydia, they were all done for. Their best chance was for the two people still standing—Bjorn and Golding—to work together.
But under the circumstances, the only thing worse than following the order would be arguing with it. Carrying one woman wouldn’t have been difficult for Bjorn, but two was another matter, and his injuries only made it worse. Not that it mattered.
He lifted Rada and General Dayal, and staggered across the white grid of the bay floor. He was dizzy, but glad to be standing on Evagardian ground again.
The hatch grew nearer. Golding was at the other one, watching him. The blood on her face shone under the bright bay lights. Bjorn didn’t dare look down at himself. He knew what his EV suit must look like.
White just wasn’t the color to wear into ground combat—but pilots weren’t supposed to be in ground combat.
He reached the hatch, and Golding nodded. Bjorn hit the palm lock, and the hatch hissed open. Golding did the same and pivoted into the spine, opening fire.
The contractors were at the bridge hatch, trying to breach it. Mao and the others must have sealed it when the ship was boarded. Tenbrook’s men had probably been trying to find a way to break through without disabling the ship—but the bridge stairway offered them no cover.
There was something on the deck, probably the base of a deployable shield that had failed to open. The Lydia wasn’t helpless; the AI would break into any hostile equipment that could be remotely accessed and disable it. Without their shield, the boarders were exposed—and they didn’t expect an attack from a bay they’d already presumably checked.
Sergeant Golding gunned them down in an instant, but Bjorn wasn’t paying any attention to that. He dragged Rada and Dayal into the infirmary, sincerely hoping it was unoccupied.
Everything was in its
place. Bjorn let down Dayal and carried Rada to the first of the three mobile stasis units. He hit the control, and the door sprang open. He pushed her inside, propped her up, and shut it. The unit activated automatically. There was a hum, and the interior was flooded with blue light.
Bjorn did the same for the general. She’d been dead for only a minute at most. Rada had been gone longer.
A bio specialist might know if this was the right thing to do. A bio specialist would know if they could be revived. Bjorn was just an analyst.
He had been taught that as long as the brain was intact, death was only a flesh wound. It wasn’t true, but that didn’t change the Empress’ decree that no one be left behind.
For all the good it would do Captain Woodhouse.
25
BJORN left the infirmary and made for the bridge, steadier on his feet now. Evagardian engineering was the best there was, not only in technology, but also in chemicals. His painkillers and stimulant were already helping. He wasn’t at his best, but he was ready to work.
The bodies of the three contractors were still sprawled on the stairs leading to the forward hatch.
Bjorn hoped to find Compton, Morel, and Commander Mao. Instead, he found Morel, Mao, and Lieutenant Ibuki.
The commander was on her feet at the main controls, her hands resting on the twin globes she used to pilot the Lydia manually. The view on the screen rolled sharply as she banked.
Ibuki and Morel were strapped in side by side, hunched over a single tactical hologram. One console, one fighter. There was only one pilot out; Diana was holding off Tenbrook’s ships by herself. Where was Compton? Why wasn’t Yeoman DiJeur out there?
The ship shuddered under heavy fire. Bjorn saw a flash of blue, and a privateer ship exploded off to starboard. Diana streaked past, evading dozens of missiles trailing white snakes of dissipating gas.
