His neck ended in a cleanly severed stump.
His head came rolling out a moment later, half-coated in red icicles.
*
“DONE,” COLM SAID. HE wriggled out from behind the reactor. Sweat dripped down his face inside his helmet. He blinked it away and checked the readouts on the reactor control panel. He had melted enough fuel salt to fill the core. The reactor was once again reacting.
It felt like life coming back to his body, as if the molten salt were flowing through his veins, restoring deadened senses. His 360° eyes surveyed the hangar. His subsonic ears detected the rumble of the base’s pumps. The metallic taste of the vacuum prickled his palate. His nose tingled with the chemical smell of explosions. Hunger bit at his belly ...
.. and he staggered, assaulted by stabbing pains all over his flanks and sides. It felt like someone was sticking him with a sword.
The Ghosts’ grenades had not breached the hull, but they’d dented it up badly.
Tan grabbed his elbow. “OK?”
“Fine.” He needed a pill. Or two. Or three. “Where are the girls?”
Smythe answered. “The girls,” she said, “are outside. Freezing our asses off.”
“Outside!”
“That engineering hatch turned out to be a maintenance tunnel. We crawled for our lives, found an exit near the service airlock. Plugged a few Ghosts. Walked out. Are you coming anytime soon?”
Colm grinned. “If it’s all the same to you, there are a couple of things I’d like to do first.”
“Collie Mack, can you be serious for once in your life?”
“I am being serious. Sit tight for about half an hour.”
“Your girlfriend already looks like a corpsicle. But OK.”
Girlfriend? Since when did Smythe know about his relationship with Zhanna? Colm was not entirely comfortable with the girlfriend designation at the best of times. He ignored it. “Board the gearship. It’s warmer in there. And disconnect the power cables while you’re at it.”
“What if there are Ghosts in the gearship?”
“Then they’ll be dead Ghosts, because there’s no air in the gearship.”
“We found Fitch’s body. It was in the crawlspace.”
“Oh, shit.”
“So it wasn’t him that went out to the gearship. It was a Ghost.”
Colm flashed back on shooting ‘Fitch’ in the service corridor. “Right, and I killed it.”
“But what if—”
“What if nothing! Just board the bloody gearship, close the cargo hold so they can’t come in after you, and you’ll be fine.”
He cut the connection. “I get so sick of her backtalk sometimes,” he said to Tan.
“Miss the Navy?”
“Sure. Especially the gourmet dining.” He kept thinking about food, the esthesia hunger gnawing cruelly.
They crawled through the dogleg tunnel around the water shield, into the crew quarters. The ship had started to warm up again. The frost covering everything had melted into puddles. The air didn’t taste strong enough to Colm’s esthesia yet, so he told Tan to keep his helmet sealed. They hustled into the cockpit and plopped into their seats.
“I don’t miss the Navy,” Tan said. “Less chance of getting killed on the job when you’re working construction in the private sector. Right?”
Colm winced. “You’re going home to your girls,” he said, dropping the levity. “I promise.”
Tan grunted, and cued the screens with practiced gestures.
They revealed the same view that Colm had already seen with his camera eyes.
Ghosts surrounded the ship at a distance, sitting or squatting, motionless. Since they were wearing Marine Corps EVA suits, it looked as if half a hundred troopers were sitting out there.
Colm shivered. “Actually,” he said, “I do miss the Navy sometimes.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. For instance, if this was a gunship, it would have guns. And I wouldn’t have to do this.”
Confirm power supply to drive.
Ignite drive. Throttle: 2%.
Duct the plasma to starboard auxiliary, and—
The crewship spun around like a propeller, dragging the crawler with it, impelled by its own off-axis thrust.
The plasma from the auxiliary engine nacelle scythed across the hangar like a blade of blue fire.
It blew the Ghosts off the ground. Then it burned their EVA suits off.
Tan clung to the sides of his seat, yelping gleefully, “Fry ‘em! Oh yeah!” Maybe he didn’t miss the Fleet, but it had left its mark on him.
Colm killed the drive. “That looks like all of them.” He stood up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Where are you going?”
On an impulse, Colm crossed himself. “I’ve the Lord’s work to be about, young man.” He shifted back to his normal voice. “Have a go at opening the hangar doors. If the controls are fried, you might have to disembark and do it manually. In that case do it quick, before any more of them show up.”
He left the ship, taking his Void Eagle. On his way across the hangar, he also scavenged a combi. The weapon still functioned. Tougher than an EVA suit, and much tougher than flesh and bone.
CHAPTER 21
MEG AND ZHANNA SAT in the cargo hold of the gearship, in the giant bulldozer’s scoop. It was like a deep metal sofa. Their legs fit in between the scoop’s teeth.
“Why do you think they’re all men?” Zhanna said.
“Who?”
“The Ghosts.”
The question took Meg by surprise. She had never thought about it before. Zhanna, new to the conflict, had noticed something so elementary that no one ever remarked on it. “Why is the sky blue?” Meg said.
Zhanna put on a droning expert’s voice. “Air molecules scatter shorter wavelengths ...”
Meg laughed. “No, I mean the Ghosts ... just are. I mean, they’re not human. They aren’t men.”
“They sure paid attention when I took my top off.”
Meg smiled. “Anyone would.” She was now determined to accept Zhanna’s relationship with Colm. If she could survive this clusterfuck, she could damn well be a grownup about other people’s love affairs.
“Where do you think they come from?” Zhanna was still talking about the Ghosts. If she had served, she’d have known better. You do not talk about the Ghosts. Kill them, yeah. Don’t talk about them. The unwritten, powerful taboo had partly to do with superstition and a lot to do with humanity’s collective shame: it was embarrassing that these ruthless, genocidal things looked so much like people.
“I have no idea,” Meg said shortly. “No one has any idea.”
“They just look so ... human.”
“I know. But that doesn’t mean anything. The sentrienza look human, too.”
“Kind of.”
“There could be other species out there that look even more like us. Convergent evolution. It’s a thing. I’ve heard that non-humanoids like the queazels are the exceptions.”
“Has anyone ever done a DNA analysis of Ghost remains?”
“If so, they haven’t told me about it.” Meg’s patience was fraying. “Listen, I shouldn’t even have to say this, but the fact that they look so much like us? Makes humanity look really bad. It creates the impression that hairless bipeds with five fingers and toes are innately vicious and spooky. In fact, I’ve heard that the sentrienza are protecting us from other species that consider us a potential threat to the galaxy.”
Zhanna laughed.
“It’s true! There are some species out there that want to wipe us off the face of the universe, just to be on the safe side. So the last thing we want to do is draw attention to our similarities with the Ghosts. Does that make sense?”
The bulldozer scoop moved.
Hydraulics grinding, it lifted the two women high off the deck of the cargo hold. It jerked, tossing them into the vacuum.
*
COLM REACHED THE REACTOR room without enco
untering any more Ghosts. Maybe he’d killed all of them with his spinning plasma jet, but he couldn’t count on it. And even if he had, there was nothing to stop more of them from ... materializing.
Coming from wherever the hell they came from.
Where do they come from?
What’s it like there?
Stop it. You don’t talk about the Ghosts, you don’t think about the Ghosts, you don’t ask questions about the Ghosts. You just stop the Ghosts.
And that meant turning off the power.
He could put the reactor into cold shutdown, but that’d just be kicking the can down the road. Leaving the problem for the Marines.
He had something more final in mind.
He’d brought a bottle of Pepto-Bismol from the ship. He opened a valve in the reactor’s heat exchanger pipeline and carefully poured the medicine in. It mingled with the cold salt that would momentarily be returned to the reactor core.
Then he wrestled with the service hatch in the shielding. A small door swung open. He stepped into the dark gap between the shielding and the chamber. As quickly as possible, using his power screwdriver, he chipped some flakes off the outside of the chamber. The metal flaked easily. It was almost pure beryllium, a neutron reflector that protected the core from stray neutrons zipping through the cosmos.
He retreated, slammed the service hatch shut, and added the flakes of metal to the heat exchanger pipeline.
Like baking a cake.
Add your ingredients in the proper order and magic happens.
He dared not hang around too much longer, but he took the time to check the uranium reprocessing unit on the back end of the reactor’s fuel cycle, which stored the byproducts from the thorium cycle. It stood near the turbine and the generator that provided electricity for the base. It was functioning A-OK. There was enough uranium in there for this to work.
Jesus, his hull hurt. The distance between him and the crewship did not block the esthesia feedback. The stabbing pain in his sides and thighs crested. He sat down on the floor.
It’s just an illusion.
There is nothing actually wrong with you.
He rubbed his sides, pointlessly. He could hardly even feel the pressure through his suit.
I can’t go on like this.
The decision made itself. As soon as they got back to Gna, he was going to make Crasibo Lovelace take this crapware out of his head. He didn’t care anymore if they said it was his fault. Didn’t care if they made him pay for a replacement himself. He could not live like this.
He gathered his strength, preparing to stand up.
The lights dimmed.
Streamers of electricity wriggled from the turbine housing.
Fractal tendrils outlined a shimmering shadow in the vacuum.
A man-shaped pool of darkness in front of the turbine.
Forgetting the pain, Colm leapt to his feet. He grabbed his scavenged combi off the floor and levelled it at the shadow. His heart thudded. His own panicky breath filled his ears.
Second by second, a humanoid form took shape.
Colm expected yet another clone of the gaunt Ghost with the pale eyebrows.
Instead, with cold horror, he recognized his old acquaintance from the TDP plant on Majriti IV.
This face had haunted his nightmares for two years. He’d have known it anywhere.
Just like on Majriti IV, the Ghost was stark naked except for his forage cap.
He’d lost some weight. His ribs showed.
His cocky, inquisitive smile hadn’t changed a bit.
Colm squeezed the trigger.
The shells went straight through the Ghost, and gouged craters in the turbine housing behind him.
Recoil shoved Colm backwards, staggering.
The Ghost’s smile got wider. Hs lips parted.
Steam spurted out of the damaged turbine. The floor vibrated as if it were being struck by a hammer.
The Ghost stood in the steam, apparently unhurt by the scalding vapor. He raised one hand and deliberately saluted Colm.
Then he began to fade.
Colm ran for his life.
*
MEG COLLIDED WITH THE ceiling of the cargo hold, and fell all the way back to the deck.
On Earth, the fall would have killed her. Here, she only bruised her knees. She jumped up, staring wildly at the bulldozer, which had just come to life and tossed her and Zhanna into the air.
“Zhanna!” She couldn’t see the other woman.
The bulldozer’s scoop descended again. Meg threw herself out of the way. The scoop hit the deck with a thud that jarred her bones.
“Meg?” Zhanna’s voice sounded weak.
“Where are you?”
“Over here ...”
Meg spotted Zhanna lying on the deck in front of the big crawler drill. She bounded towards her.
The drill ground forward. Its caterpillar treads ran over Zhanna’s leg.
Meg had not heard anyone scream like that since she left the Fleet.
“Colm! Sully!” she yelled over the radio. “One down, request assistance.”
The drill kept crawling, its treads hugging the deck. Zhanna kept screaming.
Meg dragged at the other woman’s upper body, then let go, realizing she was doing more harm than good. “We’re gonna get you out of here,” she promised desperately. She wasn’t sure Zhanna even heard her. Zhanna’s screams dug into her head, her heart. She detached.
Blood spread out from under the treads, along the corrugations in the metal deck, sublimating and freezing at the same time.
“Guys,” Meg said. Detached. Calm. “Need some fucking help. We’re in the gearship. The machinery in the cargo hold’s switched itself on. Zhanna is trapped, and she has a suit breach.”
Tan came on the radio. “Colm’s not back yet. Suit breach?”
“Yes.”
“Can you get out of there? I’ll pick you up.”
He didn’t understand that Zhanna was trapped. However, getting out of here sounded like a very good idea. With half a plan in mind, Meg sprinted to the door of the cargo hold.
She’d closed the door behind them, for warmth, when they came in. It had a manual release. She spun the wheel. The door began to hinge down, turning into a ramp. She got it halfway down and then ran back for Zhanna.
The drill had crawled off her at last. She lay unmoving in a puddle of black ice.
Detached, Meg knew Zhanna was dead. She had suffered a suit breach and massive blood loss.
She picked her up, anyway, and ran back to the door.
The crawler drill ground out onto the ramp. Meg ran out alongside it. The machine’s immense weight bowed the ramp the rest of the way down. Meg half-slid, half-ran out onto the ice. Behind her, the drill reared up. Its drill bit stabbed down and struck the ice behind her heels.
She kept running in big awkward hops, carrying Zhanna in her arms.
Light spilled out of the hangar bay.
The cargo crawler rolled out of the base, with the crewship balanced on top of it, headlights sparkling.
“Got you,” Tan said.
The crawler stopped.
Tan opened the crew airlock and helped Meg on board with her awful burden.
For the next fifteen minutes Tan kept the crawler circling on the ice, in a ponderous slow-motion dance of avoidance, as the drill tried to get close enough to attack the ship. Meg, still detached, understood what was happening. The Ghost that went out to the gearship in Fitch’s EVA suit must have pressurized the gearship’s control compartment. That had prepared the way for more Ghosts to materialize in the compartment. Once there, they had figured out how to operate the machinery.
And some people still thought they were mindless automatons ...
At last, at fucking last, Colm came running out of the base. He vaulted onto the crawler and boarded the ship.
Meg didn’t see his face when he found Zhanna’s body. She saw it as he dropped into his seat in the cockpit. She looked away. She
was sprawled in her own seat, drinking lemonade, her mind a merciful blank.
They launched.
The crewship was 50 klicks off the surface of Mezamiria when the base blew up. The shield exploded into shrapnel, revealing a fireball that burnt brighter than the sun for a few moments, then went out.
The gearship toppled into the crater where the base used to be.
The lighter pieces of debris flew up into orbit, spreading into a ring of dust and ash around the lonely little iceball.
CHAPTER 22
THE UZZIZELLAN EMBASSY ON Gna had moved. They’d towed the whole thing close to shore and built a covered causeway connecting it to Regnar. The castle-like alien pile loomed over the loftars on shore, its radio masts level with the tallest high-rises. It said: We are here, we’ve arrived. No need for secrecy anymore.
So Colm simply walked across the causeway, into the embassy, and claimed that he had an appointment with Gilliam Tripsilion Nulth.
He didn’t really have an appointment. He figured the queazel would find time for him.
After sitting in reception for three hours, he started making trouble. He got out his computer and showed pictures of Zhanna to the other people waiting: the construction industry suits and the Fleet liaison officers and the technology joint-venture pinheads. He told them who she was and where she’d died. The way they reacted, you’d think they had never seen pictures of a dead woman before.
Or maybe it was just that Colm came off as a nutter. He was still wearing his Crasibo Lovelace leathers, and most of his hair had fallen out, rad pills notwithstanding. He was also in a lot of pain from the ship repairs currently underway at the spaceport. He’d run out of tropodolfin and didn’t have a prescription to get more.
Embassy security discreetly cut him off from the civilians and escorted him upstairs.
Gilliam Tripsilion Nulth had a ritzy office in one of the embassy’s towers. It was a big improvement over the conference room where Colm had met him last time. Pen and ink drawings decorated the walls. “My impressions of Uzzizel,” Gil purred. It was funny to think of those little clawed hands holding a pen, but why not? The sketched landscapes looked remarkably like the Highlands.
“I need a new esthesia implant,” Colm said.
The Chemical Mage: Supernatural Hard Science Fiction (The Tegression Trilogy Book 1) Page 13
