by M. R. Forbes
He charged back toward the debris, and back toward the nest. Trife hissed and charged, but he engulfed them in the freezing mist, sending them to their deaths.
Gunfire rattled around him, bullets kicking up the destruction nearby. Hissing and screaming filled his ears. He started climbing the pile of debris, turning his head and locating another hatch in the direction of the bow.
Another strong hiss alerted him to an incoming trife. Hayden saw it almost too late, barely managing to catch its teeth on his shoulder plate instead of his neck, turning it with his body and shoving the gun in its gut. He pulled the trigger, and it jumped back, crumpling to the ground.
Another one took its place. Then another. And then another. In seconds, nearly fifteen of the creatures were surrounding him, their sharp hisses angry. Hayden could see the battle wasn’t going well for the Scrappers, either. Everyone from Deck Twenty-nine had either vanished or was dead on the hangar floor. The secondary force was still holed up near the first hatch, but the second was almost clear.
He just had to get past the trife.
They were cautious with him, just like before, giving him some room to maneuver but ultimately keeping him close. As he backed up, he realized he was getting close to the edge of the nest. He turned quickly, spinning just in time to catch the group of demons preparing to jump him. A wave of cold launched from his gun, too far away to hit them, close enough to warn. It did hit the nest, though, and the trife screeched as it did, clearly unhappy with any damage to the thick gel material.
He looked at it, and then looked at them. They had backed off further when he damaged the nest, showing almost human concern for the embryos locked inside.
He started moving laterally, searching for a path past the creatures and the Scrappers. He wanted to cut around the loaders and use them as cover, but right now he couldn't get close.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. A growing number of xenotrife were surrounding him, including the group that had climbed the walls to reach the Scrappers. He was vastly outnumbered, and it seemed to him as if all of the remaining creatures had found their way to his position. Bullets still screamed in from the Scrappers’ defensive placement, but they were becoming fewer and further between, more pot shots than a real effort to hurt him.
He triggered his weapon a few times, sending bursts of cold toward the nest. The xenotrife complained each time, but they didn't draw too close. It was a standoff of the worst kind. At some point either they would jump him to protect the nest, or he would attack the nest to keep them from jumping him.
Could he make it to the distant hatch before that happened?
His question was answered almost as soon as he considered it. There was a sudden commotion near the hatch, a shout rising from the Scrappers as reinforcements arrived. Even from across the hangar, Hayden could see the lead soldier was cradling something in his arms, and he knelt at the entrance, shifting it to his shoulder. A long cylinder, with a red-tipped projectile shoved into the front.
The xenotrife cried out at the same time a gout of smoke escaped from the cylinder, and a loud thunk signaled the launch of the warhead. It burst from the device, whistling down the row of loaders, soaring past Hayden and detonating on the other side of the nest.
The explosion knocked Hayden forward and off his feet and scattered pieces of xenotrife and hardened gel all around him. His back was burning, his ears ringing.
The Scrappers were emboldened by the assault, and they broke from their defenses, charging down the aisle toward him with guns and spears in hand. He saw them coming, almost taking too long to fight his way back to his feet and triggering the weapon.
Nothing happened.
He cursed, throwing it aside without another thought, pulling his pistol and taking aim, firing one round after another. Four of the Scrappers fell, and then they were nearly on him.
He grabbed Baby, firing again and dropping two more before his magazine was emptied. With no time to reload, he returned the pistol to his armor, switching Baby in his hands and grabbing the other one. Then the xenotrife seemed to recover, joining him in the fight and pouncing on the humans.
The hatch was still far away, but it was also undefended, both of his enemies’ attention drawn to one another. A trife appeared beside him, hissing and raising its claws. Hayden shifted his arm to shoot it, surprised when it shoved him aside and hit an incoming Scrapper before their spear could hit him.
Had it just saved him? He didn't pause to think about it. He ran for the hatch, sprinting as hard as his legs would allow. He shifted position to cross beneath the heavy loaders, hearing rounds striking the metal around him but ultimately missing him on the way past. He took a few shots at the Scrappers on the way by, dropping two of them with wounds to their legs, leaving them to be finished off by the trife. People and demons were dying all around him, but he didn't look back.
Not until he reached the hatch. He stopped on the other side, tapping on the control panel. It wouldn't keep either group away for long, but it would slow them down. He eyed the carnage as he keyed in the admin code. The Scrappers and trife were both running out of combatants, whittling one another down to nothing.
Had Pig really sent so many of his people down to attack the creatures? Hayden doubted it. The lead Scrapper wanted to get into Metro and was willing to sacrifice dozens to capture him. They had a keen sense of self-preservation, forgetting him in the scrum.
He finished entering the code. The hatch slid closed and locked. He didn't wait to catch his breath, remembering the Pilgrim's schematic.
He was going to make it to the bridge.
Based on how many Scrappers had died down here, and how many Pig likely had remaining, would it even matter?
47
Hayden rode the forward lift to Deck Four, slumping against the back of it as it ascended. His back was still burning, and when he reached behind to feel the area, he could tell something had pierced his armor and lodged itself into his flesh. He brought his hand back with traces of blood on it. It wasn’t bad enough that he was about to bleed to death, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable either.
He would worry about it later. He hadn’t come this far to drop now.
He put Baby back on his hip, reloaded his empty pistol, and checked the rest of his weaponry. Then he looked himself over for any other damage.
The armor had been a cream color with dark armor plating when he first put it on. Now it was stained dark with blood and sweat, had numerous tears in the softer ballistic fabric, and plenty of scuffs, marks, dents, and cracks along the thicker, solid plates. It had saved his life more times than he could count, absorbing damage that would have killed him quickly and allowing him to stay on course to the bridge.
It didn’t keep his muscles from being sore or bruised. He was sure the next time he took the armor off his entire body would be discolored in an ugly rainbow of blacks and blues, yellows and browns.
It would all be worth it once Natalia was safe.
He figured Pig would have guards at as many Decks as he could afford, waiting outside the lifts for his arrival. When the transport stopped at Deck Four, and the doors slid open, he wasn’t surprised to find a squad of Scrappers on the other side.
They cocked their weapons and stared into what they thought was an empty space, until Hayden swung around the corner, both pistols in his hands, firing quickly and with deadly accuracy. He didn’t go right for their heads or chests, taking them down with rounds to the knees and legs first, and then finishing them off as they howled and stumbled. He could vaguely remember the guilt he had felt about the man he killed in Metro, a man whose body reacted violently to being hit with his stunner. There was no guilt in his killing now. No remorse. Especially after what they had done to Jennifer.
The xenotrife were less monster than these people.
They didn’t deserve to be the ones to reach New Gaia. They didn’t deserve to have a fresh new world to live and thrive on. They didn’t deserve to see
the Pilgrim reach her port of call. While the trife might be bugs to exterminate, they were the real demons, and they had to be expunged.
Once Hayden knew their number, once he knew where they were positioned, he could find Natalia. Then, when she was safe, he could go back to Malcolm with everything he had learned. He would apologize for cutting off the man’s hand, but only in part. If he hadn’t done it, they would all have perished waiting for the trife to die, and it was clear they never would on their own. He would get him to rally Law, to arm and equip the deputies and send them out into the Pilgrim. To search and destroy the remaining Scrappers, and then the remaining trife. They had the arms to do it, as long as they were smart about it.
Then the Pilgrim’s computers would send the ship to their new homeworld, and within months they would be free of the failing technology, the rationed food and water, and the crumbling infrastructure. They would be free of the turbs.
It was almost too much for him to hope for, but as he stepped over the bodies of the Scrappers, it was a hope he refused to let go of.
He moved through the corridors of Deck Four, winding his way along the path Jennifer had pointed out to him, moving as quickly as he could. He knew the trife were few in the upper parts of the ship, but he had no idea where the Scrappers might be stationed. He was almost eager to come across them, though. Each one he killed now was one less they would have to kill later.
It didn’t take him all that long to reach the entrance to the bridge, making it without interruption. It was easy to recognize despite the plate that had been scratched and worn away. It had a different hatch than any of the other rooms and corridors, a large, wide entrance that opened a pair of heavy doors to the left and right. Not that they opened when he approached. The doors were sealed, locked and waiting for Captain Bradshaw’s code.
Or the master admin code.
He typed it in quickly, his heart racing as he finished. His breath caught in his throat until the light on the panel turned green, and he heard the doors unlock.
Only one of them moved, clicking loudly in its track as it was pulled into the wall. It traveled less than a meter before a sharp snap sounded inside the wall and it froze. The other was stuck, the motor that drove it dead, keeping it locked in place.
Hayden cursed under his breath. At least the opening was big enough for him to fit through. He turned sideways, starting to push his way in.
He cursed again when one of the plates on the body armor wedged against the door. He tried to shove it through a few times.
“Damn it,” he whispered, realizing he didn’t fit after all.
Not with the armor. He quickly shed the weapons from it, tossing them into the darkened room. Then he evacuated himself from the body armor, the agony in his back growing the more he moved his arms. His luck had been too good up until now. He should have guessed something was bound to go wrong.
He was careful not to lose Malcolm’s identification chip as he pulled out of the arms of the armor, clutching it in his hand. He looked down at his arms, wincing at the sight of all the bruising. Then he finished removing the suit, stepping out, putting the boots back on, and then finally entering the bridge.
The backup lights went on as he entered, but he didn’t see the space right away. He bent at the entrance, grabbing Baby and the pistols before standing upright.
The bridge wasn’t all that different from any of the other control centers in the Pilgrim. A large display sat at the front of the room, with a few rows of workstations backing it and a lead station raised above them at the rear. The biggest difference was in the size of the primary display, which wrapped almost all the way around the room, and in the stations closest to the front, which appeared to have joysticks to help direct the thrust of the ship’s main engines. The command station was also slightly different, home to a much larger number of displays and controls, and a much bigger surface to work from.
Hayden glanced back over his shoulder at the half-open door. He walked to the command station, dumping his remaining arms there, and then returned to the entrance to grab the body armor, pulling it inside and out of sight. He hadn’t come across any more Scrappers on his way here, and he didn’t think there were any nearby. Still, he had to be alert. The broken doors meant he couldn’t hide if they happened to go past. He considered putting the body armor back on, but he didn’t plan to linger here long.
Just long enough to figure out how to activate the sensors and count the number of humans outside of Metro, and then he would be gone.
He stood in front of the Captain’s seat. The terminals had all come to life when he entered, and as before the display was asking him for a passcode. He typed it in.
WELCOME ADMIN.
The screen changed, three adjacent displays coming online with his login. They were filled with different options for different parts of operations, along with small boxes of readings that he was sure Captain Bradshaw would have understood but didn’t make much sense to him.
He scanned the options on the left display, a row of menu items. He tapped on the one that said “sensors.” It brought him to another menu, listing more sensors. He noticed “external cameras” among them. He wanted to see the universe outside, but he wanted to find Natalia more. He bypassed that option, selecting “internal life support.”
There were nearly two dozen sensors listed there, from C02 and oxygen levels to air filtration status, and other terms he didn’t recognize. He understood “oxygen usage patterns” well enough. It wasn’t exactly a specific life form detection tool, but it would tell him where people were breathing, and how much.
He tapped on that option. A display of the Pilgrim appeared on the screen in front of him, showing him green blobs where the sensors detected breathing. He found Metro immediately, the blob large and dark green and positioned near the center of the ship. The rest of the locations were hard to make out on the small display, but he found an icon of a larger rectangle and tapped on it.
The main display at the front of the bridge turned on, the light of it hurting his eyes at first. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, staring at the large, three-dimensional view of the ship. He scanned it quickly, fighting to keep his eyes off Metro, as they were constantly drawn to the massive burst of color in the center. He could see smaller blobs spread around only a small part of the ship, most of them on the upper decks. He identified the lifts, where the Scrappers had been assigned, judging each of those blobs to be worth four or five people. From that, he was able to extrapolate the other blobs he saw.
Two hundred. That was the quick estimation he came to after looking at the display for a few seconds. The largest group was on Deck Three, maybe a dozen targets in all, positioned on the starboard side close to the center, a few decks above the city. Why were they grouping there? Was that where he would find Natalia?
His eyes drifted back to the aft portion of the ship, to the engines. He had always thought they might bring her there, but that entire area was clear. In fact, the entire back portion of the ship was void of human life.
He swept back across the display to the bow of the ship, locating the faintest of green marks near the front, on Deck Four, on the bridge. He had found himself. His eyes tracked around the area, thankful there were no Scrappers registering nearby.
He watched the blobs on the display for a few more seconds. He was going to head to the grouping on Deck Three to look for Natalia. It was the most likely place.
He left the Captain’s station, grabbing the body armor and returning it to the doorway. Then he went back to the station to pick up his weapons. He glanced at the display as he did.
A second, faint green signature had appeared as if out of nowhere.
It was right outside the door.
“Sheriff, I’m hooooommmeeeee,” Pig said.
48
Hayden reached for his guns, grabbing two of the pistols at the same time he jerked his head back toward the bridge’s entrance. Where the hell had the tattooed man
come from, and how come he hadn’t shown up on the sensors until he was right on top of him?
He saw Pig standing there, arm extended, revolver pointed at his head. He barely fell out of the way as the Scrapper fired, the round smashing into the Captain’s station and destroying the electronics.
“I figured if you got past my boys you would come up here. That’s what the little snitch said anyways when she got around to begging for her life.”
Hayden remained behind cover. He could hear the larger man pushing hard against the stuck doors, and the squeal of the tracks as his brute force overpowered them.
“There’s nowhere for you to run, Sheriff,” Pig said. “There’s only one way out of this room, and you have to get through me to make it.”
Hayden looked back at the control surface of the station. He had left Malcolm’s chip up there, and he could still see it, sitting out in the open. He could never reach it without the Scrapper blowing him away.
“I’ll tell you what,” Pig said, his voice slightly closer as he entered the bridge. “You take that blade of yours. You cut off your left hand, and you throw it to me. Then I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”
“Your promise is worthless,” Hayden said.
Was it a good thing that the Scrapper still thought it was his wrist that would open the hatch to Metro?
He crept to the other side of the station. There was another row of them ahead. If he could sneak around to it, maybe he could take the big man by surprise.
“It didn’t have to be personal,” Pig said. “We could’ve done business. But you had to go and kill what was mine.”
“Gizzie tried to kill me first.”
He laughed. “She always was a little impetuous; I’ll give you that. Did you know she was my daughter?”
Hayden grimaced. Had he killed the man’s child? No wonder Pig was pissed. Still, she would have killed him if he hadn’t.
