by Rick Partlow
The flat crack of air rushing back into the evacuated corridor the pulse had burned echoed through the corridors and trickled out into the tunnel and I cursed, launching myself forward through the hatch. I was right, there had been a guard left behind. Unfortunately, this time he was looking straight at me. I yelled inside my helmet and jammed my thumb against the firing pad as I sailed right into him, only a meter away.
Light flared between us and I felt static electricity making my hair stand on end even through my suit, and then there was a dull pain of impact as I slammed into him shoulder first. He'd been anchored with magnetic boots or whatever they used, but apparently not solidly enough to keep me from knocking him free. We spun around in the air and I tried to get my stolen laser lined up with him, but he'd grabbed it with one hand while I held onto the receiver of his weapon with my other.
I could feel his strength even with no gravity and no anchor for him to get leverage; I tried desperately to affix a sticky plate to the deck or a bulkhead or the damn overhead, but his legs were clinging to mine and so we spun helplessly. Until my back hit the bulkhead behind me and I desperately yanked backwards with my right foot and slammed the sole into the surface of it, feeling the sticky plate take hold.
I had a flash of the fight I'd had with Isaac the last time I'd been home and a surge of anger gave me the adrenalin I needed to yank my laser away from the Tahni and line it up with his visor. I pushed the firing stud again and lightning flashed from the emitter and punched through his visor, spraying me with a backblast of superheated blood and brain tissue and melted bits of plastic. Blinded, I kept my grip on his gun and used the butt of mine to push him away from me, then scraped the back of my right glove across the front of my helmet to clear my view.
I'd once seen a nature video that showed prairie dogs somewhere on Earth not too far from the Academy, living on the plains. They were funny little things, and when there was a threat, their funny little heads popped out of their holes to see what it was. The Tahni heads that popped out of two of the hatches down the corridor from me weren't nearly as little, or as cute. I thrust the carbine in my right hand out towards the closest of them and thumbed the firing stud, holding it down for a full second before switching my aim to the other hatchway, a dozen meters farther, and firing off the rest of the magazine.
I didn't know if I'd hit anything and I wasn't going to stick around to find out. I pushed away from the bulkhead, trying to switch out the carbine I'd emptied in my right hand for the one I assumed had more ammo in my left, and went straight through the hatch into the Auxiliary Bridge. Yeah, there was a Tahni in there, but at least I knew there was a Tahni in there.
As it happened, there were three Tahni in there. Fortunately, the one closest to the door was in the process of dying, globules of his blood fountaining out from a wound on his neck where I'd miraculously managed to hit him. I saw the other two bringing their own laser weapons to bear even as I noticed that, behind them, two bodies in Commonwealth vacuum gear floated in a cloud of their own blood while three more of the crew were alive but wrapped in some kind of bright-colored adhesive tape that bound their arms and legs.
I didn't know shit about tactics, didn't know a damned thing about zero-g combat and knew precious little about how not to get shot. The only thing I remembered from auditing the video of a veteran of the First War with the Tahni was two words: "keep moving."
I was coming into the compartment at an upward angle, heading for the far bulkhead to the right of the two Tahni troopers, and I could see their emitters moving to follow me. I did a somersault in mid air, took the impact on my feet and into my bent legs, then ricocheted off the bulkhead as they opened fire, heading downward this time and to their left.
Everything seemed like a blur of motion, the material of my bubble helmet darkened automatically at the actinic flashes that filled the compartment, and I saw flares of color from off to my left as metal from the bulkhead vaporized and ignited...but somehow, instinctively I knew that I was directly in line with the trooper closest to me and I fired just before my shoulder hit the deck.
The impact was hard and I nearly dropped the laser, did let the empty one go from my left hand, and my vision filled with stars for just a heartbeat. Before it even had the chance to clear, I realized that I was bouncing upward awkwardly, and that I was going to drift right into the firing arc of the remaining Tahni. I knew that the humans in the compartment were behind me and the Tahni was in front of me, so I cut loose with all the shots remaining in the magazine. I couldn't see shit but I figured you didn't get extra credit for dying with rounds left in the gun.
My teeth were clenched against the shots that I was sure were going to kill me at any second, but they didn't come. I blinked the stars and violet afterimages out of my eyes and saw the last Tahni standing there, anchored to the deck by his boots, staring motionlessly at the lower part of his left arm as it floated away on a string of liquid red orbs, carrying his laser with it. I couldn't look away from him, couldn't make my mind work right for a second and I grunted as my back came up against the overhead, sending me heading downward again, this time at a gentler pace.
Horrifically, the dismembered Tahni trooper tried to move; he took a halting, robotic step with his magnetic boots towards where part of his arm and his gun were twisting lazily in the air and I felt my stomach lurching upwards towards my throat. I latched my sticky plates to the deck, landing less than a meter from the wounded enemy soldier. I couldn't figure out how to reload the damn laser in time, so I reversed it and swung it like a club, smashing the butt-stock into the visor of his helmet.
The tough plastic cracked at the blow and the Tahni staggered, but there was no gravity and his feet were attached firmly to the deck, so he didn't go down. I screamed out the breath I'd been holding and hit him again and again, until the visor was gone and I could see the bloody mess where the upper part of his face had been. The Tahni had prominent brow ridges that sheltered their eyes; his were shattered and sunken into his skull, and his eyes were rolled up and dead.
The room was filled with a red mist now, and so was my mind. I tossed the broken and splintered laser aside, sending it bouncing off the far bulkhead, and grabbed the one still held in the severed hand. I pried the armored gauntlet off the weapon, then retrieved one of the other lasers, the one that belonged to the second Tahni I'd killed. My burst had gone upwards, searing and spalling the armor of his upper chest before it had speared holes through his neck and face.
That was four down, maybe five. Lots more left if that shuttle was full. Had to get moving. Wanted to free the others, but there was no time. Wanted to check on who was dead, but there was no time. I felt like I hurt all over yet I was simultaneously numb, like I was overheated and exhausted but also chilled to the bone. I felt like I had killed five people but had so many more to go...
God, there was blood everywhere.
I edged through the hatch, leaning out to take a quick glance before jerking back at the flash of a laser, vaporized metal from the hatchway lighting up the compartment with our own private fireworks show. There were at least two of them out there and they were pouring it on, emptying their weapons at the hatch and into it, scoring pitted burns into the bulkhead beyond it and filling the compartment with black smoke that wound its way through the curtain of blood that floated all around.
I crouched down and waited out the barrage, trying hard not to close my eyes. I wanted badly to just shut and lock the hatch, but that wouldn't do anything to help the others. Instead, I grabbed the body of one of the dead Tahni troopers, yanked it away from the floor hard enough to break the hold of his boot magnets, then pulled him over to the far bulkhead, just past the edge of the hatchway.
He weighed nothing, but he still had a shitload of mass with all that armor, and for some reason moving him made my side hurt really bad. The isolated part of my brain that had the time to consider the mundane figured I'd pulled a muscle at some point during the madness of the last few
minutes. I fastened my sticky plates to the bulkhead behind me, holding the Tahni by the back of his helmet ring; then I crouched, pulled up my heels to deactivate the sticky plates, and pushed off. I flew out of the hatch at an angle towards the port side of the corridor, pushing the armored Tahni's corpse ahead of me like a shield.
I started praying under my breath, hoping if there was a God, that He was a little more understanding about the whole "thou shalt not kill" thing than the Friends had taught me. If He did exist, I was fairly certain I was about to meet Him. Laser pulses chopped into the suit and into the dead meat inside it, some coming so close that they scored ragged black burns across my vacuum armor; but it had gotten me far enough. I hit the side of the corridor and attached my left foot to it, then pushed the corpse away, straight at the two Tahni firing at me from just outside the Medical Bay.
Then I brought the carbine to my shoulder, sighted it as best I could and pushed down the trigger button. It was the first opportunity I'd had in the whole damn gunfight to aim and I made the most of it. There were two of the Tahni boarders, one on the right side of the corridor, half-leaning out of the Medical Bay hatch, and the other as far as he could get to the left and huddled down in a firing position. My first burst took the one on the right directly in his visor, and he jerked spasmodically, thrashing in the air, half of him inside the Medical Bay and half in the corridor.
The enemy trooper on the left was partially blocked by the quickly disassembling dead body, which was now chopped into a dozen bits, each trailing its own thruster of vaporized body fluid and adding to the ordure and the abattoir atmosphere. There was a veritable particulate screen between us, but I fired anyway and to hell with it. You could see the whole length of the beam this time as it pulsed a long burst through the vapor, a glowing neon red that shed white sparks of flaring bits of armor, spacesuit and flesh. Vaporized metal and plastic sparked off the bulkhead and I wasn't sure if I'd hit him or not until his body went limp, one leg floating akimbo, the other anchored to the deck.
I tossed aside the laser I'd emptied and shifted the other to my right hand, waiting there, trying to blink the weird fog out of my eyes and out of my head. I knew somewhere, deep down, that I should be moving; but I just felt too exhausted to leave the spot I was in, like the floating vapor and liquid was a morass sucking me down to the deck. I blinked tears out of my eyes, not entirely sure where they'd come from, and fought to keep focused.
Dimly, through the haze, I saw figures moving at the end of the corridor. I brought the laser back up and tried to use the alien sighting system on them but I couldn't figure it out and it seemed blurry, either from the crud on my visor or the way my eyes kept watering.
Shit. Just have to wing it...
"Don't shoot!" I heard the rumbling voice in my ear. "It's me, Mat!"
I blew out a breath and felt bile coming up in my throat as I realized how close I'd come to killing him.
"It's Cal." My voice sounded slurred and I couldn't figure why. I lowered the laser and just hung there for a moment as Mat and the others approached, nearly tumbling out of the compartment---I think it was a fairly small storage room, actually, and I wondered how they'd all fit.
Mat clomped up to me, a Tahni laser in his arms; guess they must have done some damage of their own.
"How many did you get?" Mat asked me, looking around. I could see his eyes go wide at the carnage in the corridor.
"Seven, I think," I mumbled. "Left Deke to try the shuttle."
Deke...shit. Had to check on Deke. Ignoring Mat, I gathered the energy I had left and marched into the Auxiliary Bridge, past the clouds of blood and metallic vapor, past the floating corpses and the bound forms of my friends and found the control for the main viewscreen.
It came to life and showed an image of the Tahni ship, still sitting off our port bow. The shuttle was moving towards it and I muttered an expletive of satisfaction. That son of a bitch had done it. Using just the Tahni language translator and technical data Mat had loaded onto his 'link, he'd got that shuttle flying on autopilot. It was moving slowly at first, a normal flight. They'd be transmitting at it, asking it about the status of the crew and the prisoners they'd taken.
They'd get no answer, and just about the time they started thinking something might be wrong...there! The shuttle's main drive flared sun-bright and it covered the last couple kilometers in what seemed like a second. He'd aimed it for where we knew their bridge was. There was armor in the way, maybe enough to take a hit from a laser, but that was a corvette, not a cruiser; the shuttle punched through the armor and right through the hull, into the bridge.
Burning atmosphere vented red and orange, and then the shuttle's solid fuel supply went up too, a white sphere of destruction that ripped the little ship apart and sent it spinning away out of control.
"Fuckin' A," I said aloud. It was one of Deke's favorite expressions and it seemed fitting.
"Caleb," Holly's voice said over my 'link. I looked around and saw her coming up to me almost hesitantly, her eyes wide. Over to the right, I could see two people I thought were Savage and West using utility knives to cut the restraint tape off the ones whom the Tahni had held prisoner.
"Holly," was all I could say. My eyes weren't working right for some reason, and I kept trying to blink them clear. "Wha's wrong, Holly..."
"Cal," she said, hand pressing on my arm, pointing at my lower torso, "you've been shot."
I blinked in disbelief and tried to look down---it was hard in the armor. There was a blackened hole just below my rib cage on the right, and globules of red were slowly escaping from it, spattering on my armor or floating away.
"Huh," I grunted, my vision starting to go black, the world starting to spin. "So, that's where all that blood was coming from..." I was falling and I remember thinking, I can't be falling, there's no gravity. And then nothing.
Chapter Nine
I woke up in a bed, not like waking up from sleep but more like blinking your eyes and suddenly being someplace different. My head was clear, not fuzzy from sleep, and everything was instantly in sharp focus. The room was small, like the compartment of a ship, and featureless except for the light blue shade to the walls. The sheets were a generic white, and not only was gravity holding me down to the bed but there were none of the straps or netting you'd find for use in a ship.
I looked down at myself, pulling the sheet aside. I was wearing a tan Fleet T-shirt and athletic shorts, and when I pulled up the shirt to check out my side, it was unmarked. I silently shaped a whistle. That was impressive. Someone had pumped me full of medical nano or dropped me in a tank of biotic fluid, or both. That had been a nasty wound and there wasn't even a scar.
I swung my legs off the bed and stood up, flexing my knees to test the gravity. Light, I decided when I bounced up nearly a meter off the floor. Very light. Maybe one of the inner decks of a rotating space station, maybe Mars. I looked around for my 'link and didn't see it. No terminals at all, no entertainment center, not so much as a 2D display to be seen. I felt like I was back on Canaan.
I stepped over to the closet set in the wall next to the bed and pulled it open. A half dozen more T-shirts hung neatly, while a half dozen pairs of shorts were stacked on a shelf. No shoes, no utility fatigues, no uniforms.
What the fuck? I wondered. I morosely realized that I was using profanity a lot more freely after two years in the Academy hanging around Deke. But seriously, what the fuck?
"Is anyone around?" I asked aloud, wondering if they---whoever they were---might be monitoring the room. "If you were waiting for me to wake up to explain things, now's the time."
I waited a second, but there was no reply. I walked over to the door and slapped the palm plate beside it, half-expecting it to be locked. To my surprise, it opened on the first try and I stepped out into a narrow hallway. Well, to be fair, it was probably an average sized hallway. When you're from a high-gravity planet, every hallway built for skinnier people seems too narrow. It was also painted a ch
eerful light blue, but lacked any adornment that might tell me which way I should go.
I looked up one way and down the other and saw no difference between them, so I shrugged and went to the right. I passed several more doors identical to the one I'd just left, and thought about trying to see what was in them but I wanted to get a lay of the land first. The only door that was marked was a communal bath and shower room, which I filed away in my memory but didn't currently need to use.
After the last door, there was a stretch of about thirty meters of blank hallway before everything abruptly ended in what looked like some sort of large rec room. An entertainment center with a holotank was at the middle of the room, and there were a few terminals affixed to the arms of what looked like very comfortable padded couches.
At least, it seemed as if Deke, Reggie and Holly found them comfortable, since they were lounging around on them while Roger West and Keller Savage sat watching some movie on the holotank and Brian Hammer and Valeria Dominguez did pushups in the back of the room. Everyone, I noted, was wearing identical plain T-shirts and athletic shorts.
"What the hell's going on?" I wondered aloud.
"Cal!" Deke and Holly said in antiphonal chorus. Deke nearly fell off of his couch as he clambered out of it, and then he was grabbing me in a hug, pounding me on the back. "Holy shit, bud, I thought you must have died!"
