Magnet Omnibus I (Lacuna)

by David Adams

That’s when my heart stopped. I saw Gutterball slumped up against the bulkhead near her console, her head limp. Shifting my pistol into one hand I stepped into the puddle of blood. It splashed onto my boots as I closed with her, reaching up and touching my headset.

  “Shit, it’s Jane. Jane’s down.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder, squeezing tightly. She didn’t move. I eased her forward and she fell like a rag doll. I could see two entry wounds on her back, staining her flight suit and flowing down onto the deck. There were still bleeding.

  “What happened?” asked Shaba.

  “He shot her. He shot her in the back.”

  There was a torrent of swearing as everyone talked at once. I ripped the sleeve off my uniform, cramming the bundle of cloth against the wound to try and slow the blood loss. I reached down and folded her flight suit up for more fabric. The acrid gunpowder residue in the air mixed in with the coppery scent of blood.

  Shaba’s voice cut over the others. “How bad? Mike, how bad?”

  “Bad.” I jammed the makeshift fabric bandage into the wound. “Two entry, no exit, upper chest area from the rear. Faint respiration, weak pulse. She’s non-responsive and there’s a lot of blood. I need a medi—”

  Footsteps. I spun around, levelling my pistol directly at the sound. The Kel-Voran and I saw each other at the same time. He was returning from the aft, the passageway to the hold and the dorsal gunner, Gutterball’s pistol held in both his hands. He raised it at me, his eyes wide.

  But I was quicker. I squeezed the trigger. A bright lick of flame flew from the muzzle. The round whizzed past him, screaming as it ricocheted off the interior hull and embedded itself into the floor. The short Kel-Voran crouched behind a spare oxygen tank.

  I pulled over Gutterball’s seat, using the back as a shield, keeping my pistol trained on where the Kel-Voran was. “You god-damn mother fucker!” I shouted. The bastard wouldn’t make it off the ship alive. Not as long as I was still kicking. “You fucking shot her!”

  The Kel-Voran’s twin voices, his natural one and the translation, echoed from behind the cover. “It was unfortunate, but I required her assistance and she did not cooperate.”

  “No fucking shit she didn’t cooperate! You didn’t tell us there’d be people after your head!”

  A morbid laugh filtered from down the corridor. “No, you do not understand. Those ships were my bondsmen and they were acting on my orders.”

  “Wait, your bondsmen?” I craned my neck to try and see him. “What the fuck? Why would you want your own people to destroy a ship with you on it?”

  A hand appeared and two shots roared in the cramped environment as he fired blind, both rounds missing me by miles. I squeezed off a round in return, barely missing his knuckles. The hand retreated.

  “They were not to destroy your primitive vessel, idiot Human, merely disable it.”

  So that’s why the Kel-Voran fighters had done a lot of shooting but not a lot of hitting, and when they did, it was in non-vital components. We hadn’t repelled them through the strength of our weapons or tactics. They had been holding back. Toying with us.

  “Then they kill us, right?”

  “Of course,” he said, “what else did you expect?”

  Gutterball’s instinct had been right.

  “Why? Why go to all this effort?”

  “Do all Humans talk this much?”

  I kept one hand on my weapon, the other pushing down on the sleeve, trying to keep Gutterball’s blood inside her body. “Yeah, well, I don’t know. And those arseholes? They’re sucking vacuum right now. How does that make you feel?”

  “They died honourably. They died following my orders. Theirs is a death in battle, there is no honour more greater than this. I envy them.”

  “Yeah, they’re so fucking brave. You know one of them tried to ran away before we shot him in the arse?” They didn’t all care about their stupid honour. I shuffled Gutterball’s makeshift bandage. “And if you envy them, well, believe me I’d be happy to give you the same, you fucking short cu—”

  The hatchway to the hold swung open. A concerned looking Smoke stepped into the divider between the hold and the upper part of the ship. His eyes flicked down to the oxygen bottle where the Keln-Voran was hiding. For a split second he didn’t move, surprised.

  Damn it. I tried to wave him back down the hatch. “Smoke! Smoke, get back—”

  The Kel-Voran fired at him, two shots from where I couldn’t see him, and Smoke fell back through the open hatchway.

  “SMOKE! You okay?!” I almost broke cover but I couldn’t leave Gutterball. I didn’t want another bleeding body but going after him would probably make it three. For a moment I was sure Smoke had been hit too, but then I saw his foot push the hatchway almost closed.

  “I’m fine!” Smoke risked a peek around the door of the rear compartment. He saw Gutterball, slumped over, her uniform soaked in blood, my bright red hand pressed against the entry wound on her shoulder. He knew too. The look I saw in his gaze reflected my own.

  Gutterball was in a bad way.

  Another gunshot followed by a painfully loud shriek as it embedded itself in the barely open hatchway where Smoke crouched. The top of the alien’s head appeared as he did so. I squeezed off a shot but it went high.

  Smoke needed to be where I was. I looked around, desperate for anything I might be able to use as a distraction, cursing myself for not being able to knock the gun out of his hand in the first place. I saw a bit of pipe I could tear off and throw if I had some tools and ten minutes, but I had a pistol anyway. Maybe I could throw it down the corridor, but then I wouldn’t have anything to shoot with. I could throw a nearby fire extinguisher, or maybe the holster for Gutterball’s pistol.

  The fire extinguisher. Idea.

  “Smoke! Smoke, listen to me, okay?”

  He opened the hatchway a hair. Even that tiny gap risked another shot from the Kel-Voran. “Yeah?” he said.

  I couldn’t tell him my crazy plan. I needed him to trust me. “Smoke, on the count of three, you gotta open the door and run towards me as fast as you can. Okay?”

  I saw the hesitation painted clearly on his face. The corridor wasn’t that wide. For at least a couple of seconds he’d be completely exposed, essentially running straight towards the Kel-Voran. The alien hadn’t shown a great proficiency with his stolen weapon so far, but luck never needed proficiency.

  “Smoke, I need you to trust me on this one.”

  It took him a moment but he finally let go. “Okay!”

  The Kel-Voran shouted over the top of the oxygen bottle. “Whatever you’re planning, it won’t work, Humans!”

  “Shut the fuck up! You’re wearing a dress made of feathers!” I leaned over and pulled off the clear panel that covered the fire extinguisher. I yanked it out, used my teeth to pull out the pin, and held both the fire extinguisher and my pistol out in front of me. “Okay, Smoke, get ready. Three, two, one-”

  The extinguisher whooshed spray down the corridor, enveloping the entire area with a roiling white fog. I kept the trigger down and focused the gas over the oxygen canister.

  This had to work.

  I stepped into the open. I didn’t know how long the gas would cover me.

  I heard the hatchway to the hold swing open. The Kel-Voran fired once, twice, but from the vapour Smoke appeared, unharmed and sprinting at full pelt. Through the heavy fog I saw the Kel-Voran popped his head up and trained his gun on Smoke’s back. Continuing to spray the extinguisher I squeezed the pistol’s trigger. Aiming one handed was difficult, and the gassy cover worked both ways. I could barely seem him and didn’t want to strike the oxygen canister. I saw the shadow of his head disappear again.

  Smoke ran past me and moved over to Gutterball. The extinguisher spluttered and died. I dropped it and took off, running forward, sprinting into the mist. The chemical vapour stung my eyes and all the gunfire had left me with a profound ringing in my ears, but I knew where to go. I staggered, half- bl
inded towards the vague outline that was the oxygen canister, keeping my pistol up, the sights set in front of me.

  The Kel-Voran rose up behind the fog-shrouded canister, raising his stolen pistol towards me. I had a clean shot. Without a thought I levelled my rear sights with my front, drawing a bead on his centre of mass. I snarled as I squeezed the trigger.

  A dull click was all I heard as the firing pin dropped on the back of the cartridge.

  A failure-to-fire on a military grade 9mm round was almost unheard of. It was one of the most reliable rounds in history. The statistical misfire rate was better than one in two million, but as I tried to end that slimy reptile’s life I defied the odds in all the wrong ways.

  Now I was in trouble, exposed and in the open, the vapour dissipating.

  I ducked to the side as Groomzilla shot again, my feet thumping across the deck as I closed the distance, running the opposite way Smoke had. He went to fire again, but by then, I was close enough. I dove forward, crash-tackling him around the chest, our pistols clattering to the ground.

  My fist flew into his face, twice; then he kneed me in the groin. A sudden burning, stinging, crushing pain arced up my body. Perhaps it was his bony, twiggy knees that caused me so much pain. Perhaps it was, as the crew of the Piggyback had so eloquently pointed out earlier, four years of blue balls. Maybe it stressed my existing injury. All I knew was that guy gave me the worst groin-hit I’d ever felt in my life. I gave a hacking pained cough. For a moment I thought I was going to throw up.

  It was strangely amusing, for a brief second, to discover that some things really were universal across species. Agony drove this fleeting philosophical thought out of my mind.

  The feather-dress-wearing alien got two more right hooks in the face for his trouble. His snout crunched under the impact and the reptilian creature flopped back on the deck, groaning feebly. I gave him one more whack for good measure, then scrambled over and grabbed the two pistols before he had a chance to get up. I clicked the safety on Gutterball’s Beretta and slipped it into the back of my pants, then racked the slide and ejected the dud round on mine.

  My ear, my groin, and my abdomen were burning. I picked one, my ear, and rubbed it with my hand, grateful I had a few moments before Whatever, Son of A Blood-Soaked Guy woke up.

  “Smoke?”

  “I can’t stop the hemorrhaging. She’s lost a lot of blood and she’s bleeding into both lungs.”

  I grimaced. “That sounds bad.”

  “It is. She needs surgery.”

  The Kel-Voran slowly began to stir. I jammed my pistol against his snout.

  “Give me a single reason why I shouldn’t blast your brains out over this ship.”

  The temptation to kill him had faded enough that I didn’t immediately fire. Now that I was in control of the situation, my rational side took over, cautiously talking down that part of me that wanted nothing more than to see this alien’s face blown in half for what he’d done. I knew that if I shot him, then his bride-to-be wouldn’t have a groom, which would endanger the budding alliance. We really needed their help.

  He glared at me, a strange mix of emotions painted on his face. Anger. Resignation. Happiness?

  “I can give you none. I am no coward, I welcome death.”

  I slowly twisted the gun, scraping the metal of the muzzle against his nose, drawing dark green blood. “Funny, it’s not exactly a heroic end in battle, laying flat on your back as a Human wastes your arse. Believe me, I still have more than half a mind to do it, too. Nobody would say anything.”

  Surprisingly the Kel-Voran gave a low, hollow laugh. “A dishonourable death is better than the dishonourable life waiting for me in wedlock.”

  Confusion overtook rage. “Wait, that’s it? You shot... you shot Gutterball because you wanted to preserve your honour? Because you didn’t want to get fucking married?!”

  The Kel-Voran stared daggers at me despite the muzzle of my handgun digging into his nose. “What do you know of our marriage, Human?”

  I snarled, gripping the pistol a little tighter, but keeping my finger off the trigger. I didn’t trust myself. “You wanna know something, fuck face? I have a girlfriend back at home—argh, fucking hell, my ear hurts like shit!—and I’m going to marry her one day real soon now.” I didn’t know why I said that, and even though I knew it wouldn’t convince him of anything, perhaps I needed to hear it myself. “Got a ring and everything. You understand?”

  He hissed, inhaling through his bloody nose. “The Kel-Voran do things differently than your to your species. A man is a man. They are the warriors, the soldiers, the sailors. We fight and die for honour. The females feed us, clothe us, arm us. Repair our ships, communicate, coordinate. They plan strategy. They do everything but fight. That is our task.”

  “Okay, so… so what? So you can’t handle being married to a chick in the logistics core?” A thought occurred. “You’re not… you’re not afraid you’ll be married to someone you’ll never see, are you?” Was that why I hadn’t already proposed?

  “Pah, you do not understand.” The Kel-Voran closed his eyes as he spoke. “War and honour are everything to us, but when a man is married he lays down his blade. Forever. He joins the supply and logistics caste, waiting on his wife hand and foot like a servant. No honour can be gained in marriage. No heads claimed. That is not an honourable way to live. That is no life at all.”

  It was selfish. His reasons for not wanting to go through with it were purely selfish. For a moment, just a moment, I pitied him. “Oh fucking suck it up, princess. You wanna know what no life is? Look.” I gestured over my shoulder with my free hand, pointing towards Smoke, who was frantically cutting away at Gutterball’s jacket with a thin pair of scissors. “That. That’s what it is. The woman you shot? She’s a warrior. She’s a soldier. Strong, brave, funny. She has hopes, dreams, ambitions. She’s a living person. A person, not some faceless enemy, and you put a bullet in her because she was in your way. Look at her. Look at her!”

  The Kel-Voran shrugged again. “I do not understand why you permit your women to be soldiers. We have so few. But if she is a member of your warrior caste she would have fallen performing her duty as my bondsmen did. Her death is hon—”

  “Oh, fuck your honour.” I kept my pistol firmly pressed to the the alien’s snout and risked a quick look over my shoulder. “How is she, doc?”

  Smoke, his hands covered in blood, was obviously trying to control the bleeding with coagulant packs pressed to her raw skin. A tattoo showed through the dry red streaks of blood on her arm. Where he’d cut away her jacket I could see her forearm, including a tattoo I hadn’t seen before.

  Craig

  ♥

  Jane

  “Not good,” he said, his voice strained. “I need Ginger in here, now, or she’s not going to make it.”

  I touched the headset’s talk key. “Everyone, we got the guy, but Gutterball’s bleeding out. Mace, I need you to go get Ginger from the hold. Tell him to bring the shock-trauma kit and whatever else he needs to treat gunshot wounds. Bobbitt, I need you in here to help,” I said over the coms. “But on your way in, be a trooper and fetch a bunch of industrial-strength cable from the rear locker. Our guest is going to need a little restraining.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  I reached up and took off the headset and threw it on the ground. My ear hurt too much to deal with it anymore.

  “What will you do with me?” the Kel-Voran asked, reaching up to rubbing at his bloody nose.

  I leaned closer and sneered at him, keeping the pistol level with his face. “Just what we promised,” I said, “Deliver you to your blushing bride.”

  Piggyback’s cargo hold

  Unknown Kel-Voran Planet

  The moment Shaba opened the entryway to the hold, dry, cold air rushed over me, bringing with it the scent of heavy perfume and leather. The loading ramp swung down on out towards the ground, revealing a barren desert that stretched
to the horizon. Standing near the ship, waiting for our arrival, were a dozen Kel-Voran soldiers fanned out around a single towering female as tall as a Human. She was built like a quarterback and dressed in a similar garb to our little friend, although her feathers were bright green and purple.

  Bobbitt and I walked down the length of the ramp and unceremoniously tossed the bound and gagged groom off the metal and onto the dirt.

  “One prince charming,” I said, casually giving the runaway groom prone male a kick with the tip of my boot. “As requested. Sorry about the mess, he caused some drama on the way over.”

  All pretence of diplomacy and tact was gone now. I just couldn’t care less what they thought of us.

  We had expected the Kel-Voran woman and her entourage to get pissed the moment they saw the poor bastard and how we’d treated him. We arranged for Mace to stay in the ventral turret and Shaba would’ve raised the entryway at the slightest sign of trouble.

  To my surprise, the tall female laughed. Her voice was deep, booming and masculine; it carried far in the dry air.

  “As we expected,” she said. She, too, spoke through one of the Kel-Voran device, her lips not matching her words at all. “Males are so stupid and burdensome. I apologise if he caused you any inconvenience. Your patience is noted. I assume he was restrained because he attempted to escape?”

  I gave a mirthless chuckle. “Something like that.”

  She waved a hand and two of her entourage went to scoop up Priscilla. “Then you did well. The last three males didn’t make it here. One escaped, one was killed while escaping, and one killed himself during a moment of inattention on behalf of his handlers. I am intrigued to see that Humans do a better job than my own people. Binding him was an excellent choice. Belvarn the Undying, son of Vrald the Blood-Soaked, will make a fine husband to add to my collection.”

  Whoa. I blinked in surprise. “Collection?”

  She gestured around herself with a clawed hand. “Human, I have been married a hundred and six times. These men here are all my husbands.”