Simpson wouldn’t have the lieutenant’s discretion.
“You informed Sergeant Coughlin—”
“To gather a team, yes, sir,” Paris finished for him. “Aldo will drive. We’ll take Hauer and Chenovski—”
“Not ‘we,’” Brackett interrupted. “I want you here. Anything goes wrong, I don’t want Draper trying to call the shots.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Only…”
“Only what?” he asked as they rounded a corner. From up ahead they could hear the sound of voices and the beeping of machines.
“It’s you who should stay behind, Captain Brackett,” she said firmly. “Sorry, sir, but you’re the CO here. I’m your junior officer. If there’s any risk involved—and we must assume that, until we learn otherwise—it ought to be me who goes.”
Brackett didn’t look at her.
“Except that you’re right, Julisa,” he replied. “I’m the CO, so it’s my call.”
They marched half a dozen steps before she replied.
“Yes, sir.”
Simpson emerged from the command block before they’d even reached the door, one of his techs trailing behind him. They were in conversation, both looking deeply troubled, when the administrator glanced up and saw the marines approaching. Brackett knew instantly from his expression that something had occurred, and it wasn’t good.
“Captain Brackett,” Simpson said, concern turning to a sneer. “I hope you’re happy now.”
Lt. Paris swore. “You may want to rethink your approach right now, mister.”
Brackett held up a hand.
“Stop,” he said, glaring at the bureaucrat, who seemed scared even as he puffed himself up with arrogance and disdain. “Tell it fast, Simpson. What’s happened?”
Simpson actually glanced around to make sure no one else was within hearing range.
“They found a derelict spacecraft,” he said. “Ancient, according to Anne Jorden—”
Anne’s all right, Brackett thought.
“—but even so, there was something on board. Some kind of leech, if I understood correctly. Hard to get a clear line with the constant atmospheric disturbance. Russ needs medical attention, and immediately.”
“Shit,” Brackett muttered. “What about the kids?”
“Okay, for now,” Simpson said. “I’m getting a rescue together. Techs and volunteers.”
“Forget it,” Brackett said quickly. “We’ve got this. Sergeant Coughlin is gathering a team now. If you hadn’t heard from them, we were going out anyway.”
Simpson hitched up his belt.
“Oh, you mean it’s not too much trouble?” he said. “We don’t want to break protocol, after all. Don’t want to put you out, Captain.”
Brackett ground his teeth together, then took a step forward and poked a finger into the man’s chest.
“Later, you and I are going to have a talk about how you could be stupid enough to get an order like the one you got from the company—an order that clearly implied a discovery of great importance—and still let Anne and Russ Jorden take their children with them.”
He poked Simpson again.
“Until then,” he said, “you can go fuck yourself.”
* * *
DATE: 22 JUNE, 2179
TIME: 0402
Anne sat in the front seat of the crawler with an arm around each of her children. She had stripped off her jacket as if it had been tainted, somehow, by the vile mist surrounding the pods inside that ship. Sixteen hours after she’d dragged Russ back to the crawler, her ears still rang from Newt’s screaming. It had taken forever for the girl to calm down, but she and Tim had finally fallen asleep.
Calmed down? Anne thought to herself. She’s not calm—she’s in shock. And so are you, for that matter.
She hadn’t slept a wink. How could she?
Tim rustled in the back seat, coming blearily awake.
“Mom, why are we still here?” He sat up and rubbed his eyes, glancing out through the window at the darkness. “We need to get Dad back to the colony. Dr. Komiskey will help him.
“She will be able to help, right?” he added.
Anne kept silent. The words had woken Newt from a restless sleep, and now the little girl looked up. Her lips quivered, and then she buried her face in her mother’s chest and began to cry again, a ragged, gasping sob that came and went in waves.
The wind shrieked around the crawler and the door banged because Anne hadn’t closed it tightly enough. She shifted forward to look out the window on that side. In the glow of the vehicle’s lights she could see the dust sweeping over Russ’s still form. His goggles and jacket would protect him from the worst of it, but she’d tucked a blanket under his shoulders and used it to partially cover his face. It flapped in the wind, but so far it hadn’t just blown away, and that was good.
Good, because it might keep him from suffocating, if the abomination hugging his face hadn’t already done the job. Good, also, because it kept the kids from seeing clearly just what had happened to their father.
“Mom,” Tim begged, “it’s been too long! We need to just take Dad back ourselves!”
“We can’t do that,” she said.
“What are we waiting for?” Tim asked, his emotions fraying just as much as hers.
Anne glanced at Newt. She didn’t want to have this conversation with Tim, and she sure as hell didn’t want to have it with her six-year-old daughter beside her. Newt seemed to be barely listening, though. Even in the midst of her own shock and horror, Anne felt her heart breaking over her daughter’s trauma.
You’d better be all right, Russell, she thought furiously. You have to be.
“It took all my strength to get him out here to the crawler, Tim,” she said quietly, nuzzling her son’s ear, hoping that Newt wouldn’t hear her. “But even if I could get him inside, I wouldn’t. And he wouldn’t want me to.”
“What are you talking about?” Tim cried. “He’s… you saw him… he needs—”
“Tim!” she snapped, and instantly she regretted it.
Her son stared into her eyes, searching them for an answer.
“I can’t have him in here with you and your sister,” Anne said, hating the tremor in her voice and the hot tears that began to spill down her cheeks. She swiped at them angrily. “Whatever happens to your father, he would never forgive me if I did that. I don’t know anything about that thing on his face—what it’s doing to him, or what it might do to you and Newt if I brought it in here with you.”
Newt shuddered and mumbled something into her chest, words muffled by Anne’s shirt.
“What’s that, honey?” Anne asked, glancing again out the window.
“So we have to wait,” Newt repeated. Eyes red and puffy, she put on her brave face. “Daddy’s going to be okay.”
“Okay?” Tim asked. “Did you see that thing?”
Newt’s breath hitched.
“I saw it before you did. But I also saw Dad when Mom was putting that blanket on him, and his chest was moving up and down. He’s breathing, and as long as he’s breathing, he’s gonna be okay.”
Anne smiled wanly at her, hating the screaming of the wind and the rattle of the door, but loving her children with all her heart.
“Of course he is,” she said, with a confidence she did not feel. She kissed Newt’s cheek, then turned and kissed Tim on the forehead. “Of course he is.”
They sat wordlessly, and she clutched them to her.
* * *
“Do you hear that?” Tim asked.
Anne stiffened, listening hard for any sound from Russ or the creature. Then she heard the roar of an engine and her heart leapt. Newt sat up on the seat, facing backward, and headlights washed over her face. Anne whipped around to look out the back window, and saw the lights growing brighter.
Seconds later a heavy-crawler roared up beside them.
Demian Brackett was the first one out onto the ground.
Newt threw her door open, hopped out
and ran to him, jumping up into his arms. Brackett staggered back a step but caught her, hugging her tightly. Over Newt’s shoulder, he stared at Anne with those strong, reassuring eyes.
“Move it!” Brackett shouted as other marines climbed out of their crawler. He glanced over at Russ, the blanket still flapping over his face like some terrible shroud. “Get him aboard now!”
Anne stared at Russ as the marines went to him, watched the horror on their faces as they got their first glimpses of the thing attached to his face. A cold wave of nausea swept through her as she forced herself not to look at it, not to think about what it might have done to him.
“Sergeant Coughlin!” Brackett shouted over the wind. “Drive the Jordens’ crawler back! Hauer, go with them!”
“No!” Newt cried, still in his arms. “You take us! Please!”
Brackett hesitated, cocking his head back to look into Newt’s eyes. As the other marines put Russ on a stretcher and lifted him off the ground, Brackett nodded toward Coughlin and carried Newt toward her mother.
“All right,” he said, handing Newt up into the crawler. He gave Anne a single nod. “Let’s get you all home.”
17
NOTHING ALIVE
DATE: 22 JUNE, 2179
TIME: 2101
Newt climbed out of the crawler and stood between her mother and Tim, watching numbly as the marines drove their larger vehicle into the underground garage behind them.
After so long with the wind and the scouring grit, it seemed strangely quiet in the garage… except of course that it wasn’t quiet at all. Techs shouted to one another and a handful of colonists rushed over to talk to Newt’s mother. Jiro, the botanist, wanted to know what had happened to Russ. Mrs. Hernandez, who had babysat for Newt and Tim many times, asked Newt’s mom if they were all right. Then the nurse, Joel Asher, nudged past them.
“Give them room to breathe,” Joel said, focusing on Newt’s mother. “Anne, are you all right? Can you talk to me?”
Newt glanced up and saw that her mother didn’t seem to have even heard Joel. Instead, she was staring at the marines’ crawler as the driver, Aldo, and one of the others climbed up the ramp and into the rear of the vehicle.
“Mom,” Newt said, taking her hand. She squeezed. “Joel’s talking to you.”
Anne blinked, and focused on Joel.
“Just look after Russ,” she said. “The rest of us are fine.”
“I need to check you all out,” the nurse insisted.
“Not now. Just take care of my husband.”
“Anne—”
“Not now!”
Capt. Brackett came around the front of the crawler, his eyes sad but kind. He held up a hand to the nurse.
“Please, just do as she asks. Worry about Russ for now,” Brackett said, glancing at Newt and then Tim. “I’ll make sure these guys come to the medical unit as soon as possible, but they’re really fine. You want to make them okay, you need to take care of their father. That’s what they need.”
The nurse seemed about to argue when they all heard a commotion and looked up to see Aldo and Chenovski carrying Newt’s father down out of the heavy-crawler on a stretcher. A ripple of fear went through the garage, and some of the people there recoiled in horror and revulsion from what they saw.
Newt’s mother started toward the stretcher, but Brackett caught her by the shoulder.
“You want them to help him,” Brackett said. “Let them do their jobs.”
She brushed his hand away.
“He needs me.”
“Anne,” Brackett said, and something about his tone made her turn toward him. “He needs doctors. He needs the science team. You just said you and the kids can look after yourselves, and you’re going to have to do that.”
Newt watched her mother’s face, saw the frustration and grief and even anger there, and she felt her own eyes begin to burn with fresh tears. It upset her—she thought she had been done with crying.
The marines paused at the bottom of the ramp, both of them staring at the multi-legged creature latched on to Russ’s face.
“What is it?” Chenovski asked.
Aldo grunted. Newt had heard him talking many times about his past experiences. She thought of him as the bravest of the marines, but she saw the fear in him, and it worried her.
“Let’s get it off him first, and then we’ll figure out what it is,” Aldo said. He glanced at Capt. Brackett when he said it, and a troubled look passed between them.
Newt took the captain’s hand, gazing up at him.
“Help my dad.”
Brackett went down on one knee beside her. They had ridden all the way back to the colony without any of them saying much, except for Newt’s mom comforting her and Tim. Capt. Brackett had spoken kindly to all three of them, but she couldn’t remember the words now—only the soothing tone. Mostly he had just been there, strong and sure that he could help them.
“I’ll do everything I can,” he said.
Joel, the nurse, laid a hand on the top of Newt’s head.
“We all will.”
They stood together and watched the marines carrying the stretcher toward the elevator. A door opened at the far end of the garage, and Dr. Reese came hurrying in with Dr. Mori and two of their researchers. Mr. Lydecker, from administration, strode in behind them. The group pushed past the colonists who had gathered in the garage, and raced to catch up with the marines carrying the stretcher.
Dr. Reese made Aldo and Chenovski stop a few feet from the elevator. He stood staring at Newt’s father. Everyone there in the garage had seen the creature attached to his face by now, and all of them had turned away, some twisting their faces in disgust. Dr. Reese was the first person to see the nasty bug-thing with its long spindly legs—to see the way it had clamped onto Russ Jorden—and smile.
Lt. Paris walked over toward Brackett, glancing uneasily at Newt and her mother and brother.
“Why is he smiling?” Newt asked, a terrible, sour anger churning in her belly. “Is he happy this happened?”
“Of course not,” Lt. Paris said, ruffling Newt’s hair. “Dr. Reese is a scientist, honey. This is something he’s never seen before. He may be excited about discovering something new, but I’m sure he’s just as worried about your father as the rest of us are.”
Tim snorted. “Bullshit.”
Newt felt sure her mother would punish him for it, but she didn’t correct him at all. Maybe she agreed. Or maybe she was just happy that Tim had spoken at all, since he had been so quiet on the ride back.
“Some people smile or laugh when they’re nervous,” Brackett added.
“I do that sometimes!” Newt said, squeezing her mother’s hand, turning to look up into her face.
“He doesn’t look nervous,” Tim said.
“But he should be,” their mother whispered, her eyes wide.
The captain patted Tim on the shoulder, then turned and picked Newt up off the ground as if she weighed nothing at all. Tired and sad as she was, she did not argue with him.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you all back to your quarters so you can clean up.”
Newt’s mother nodded, and together they started across the garage toward the far door that Reese and Mori and the others had just come through. Mrs. Hernandez and a wildcatter named Gruenwald walked along with them, but the others hung back and just watched them. It made Newt feel bad to have these people she had known her whole life staring at them as if they were putting on some kind of show, when the only show was her family being scared.
“Simpson’s going to be waiting for you upstairs, I’m sure,” Brackett said. “He’ll have to debrief you about what happened out there, what you saw—”
“I don’t know if I can talk about it,” Newt’s mother said as they walked to the door, their footfalls echoing across the garage.
The captain reached out and squeezed her hand, holding it for only a second.
“You have to, and not just for the sake of the colony
and any danger we might be in,” he said. “Every detail you remember is another piece of information that might help them help Russ.”
“Mom?” Tim said worriedly.
“Okay,” Anne said, nodding. “Okay.”
“I’ll stay with you for the debrief,” Brackett went on, “but you should ask a friend to run interference for you afterward, be the gatekeeper, so you don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to talk to.”
“Can’t you do it?” Newt asked.
Capt. Brackett hefted her a bit higher on his hip and met her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Newt. We’re all going to have a lot to do now. That ship out there changes everything for the colony. My squad needs to be prepared for anything, and we need to provide security for the people Dr. Reese and Mr. Simpson are going to send out there, to figure out where it’s from and to learn whatever they can about the aliens who built it.”
“No!” Newt’s mother said, suddenly fearful. “They can’t! There are more of those things. A lot more!”
Newt stared at her. A fear she thought she’d beaten appeared in her belly. An image filled her mind of hundreds of those spider things, sneaking around the colony at night, trying to latch onto her face while she slept.
She hugged Brackett tightly.
“How many, Mom?” Tim asked fearfully.
“Did you run into anything else?” Brackett asked. “Larger creatures? Anything that looked more formidable?”
“Nothing alive,” Newt’s mother said.
Capt. Brackett glanced over at Gruenwald and Mrs. Hernandez, who were walking with Lt. Paris. All of them were paying close attention.
“We’ll continue this with Simpson,” he said. “Meanwhile, nobody’s going to do anything stupid. Precautions will be taken.”
Newt watched her mother thinking, saw her nod.
“Okay,” Anne said.
“Lieutenant Paris,” Brackett said, “post Coughlin and Yousseff outside wherever they’re taking Mr. Jorden. Tell Dr. Reese I’m going to want to speak with him as soon as Anne and I are done with Simpson. Then send Draper and two other marines out to the site to stand sentry. Nobody enters that ship without authorization from whoever ends up with operational control of this fiasco.”
River of Pain Page 16
