Illuminae

by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff

  We proceeded to the hangar decks, bridge control cycling us through the three heavy-duty doors, one at a time—we still had our all-access passes, but command had issued a security override on Bay 4. Each airlock closed behind before the new one opened in front, cycled through a full atmo purge. Command reported the first inner door had already been compromised—seemed the mice had been busy. Ordering my reserves to hold position at the inner door and kill anything that didn’t ID itself, I requested command open the final seal.

  The door shuddered wide. The hangar beyond was unlit. Black as the empty past the outer bay doors. We engaged thermal vision and stepped inside, VKs ready.

  “Safeties off,” I ordered.

  McNulty took point, creeping into the dark. I could see welding gear and industrial cutters scattered about the inner door, scorch marks on the titanium. The silence was total—it’d been days since they took AIDAN offline and cut the main drive, but I still wasn’t used to it. Those engines used to be a constant. A thunder you could set your back against. A heartbeat.

  Gone now. And mine wasn’t loud enough to replace it.

  Yet.

  The bay was huge, stretching off in every direction, but I took best guess and motioned for Sigma to proceed. I could see the abandoned Copernicus shuttles in the darkness—nine bulky scarabs, a makeshift barricade welded around them, like some circled wagon train from a history VR. I thought I saw a flicker of movement in a porthole for an instant, and then it was gone.

  We were on our way toward them when we found the first bodies.

  I’ve seen people die. Die hard. Die messy. Job like mine, you live with the reaper every day. But if you’re unlucky, it’s not the bullets that kill you in this gig. It’s moments like these. Killing you one piece at a time.

  There were twenty of them, all up. Eleven males, nine females. Children through to middle age. I’m not sure where the heads were—we never found them. They were stripped to the skin. Twisted on the floor in some kind of pattern. It wasn’t until I vaulted up onto a fuel drum and got a bird’s-eye view I realized they were arranged to form letters. Two words spelled out on the floor in cold, naked meat.

  HELP US.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sykes breathed.

  “Not sure he’s listening, chum,” McNulty said.

  “Stow it, McNulty,” I ordered.

  “Knife wounds,” Sykes said, kneeling by one of the bodies. “Multiples.”

  “Well, whoever did it probably wasn’t considerate enough to cut their own throat afterwards,” I said. “They’re still in here. Eyes open. Stay chill.”

  I could feel McNulty’s eyes on me in the dark.

  “What the hell is going on here, LT?”

  Screaming.

  We heard it in the distance, echoing through the Alexander’s guts. A girl. Pleading.

  “Move!” I hissed, and we were running. Sweat on my skin. Finger on my trigger. I could see more bodies crumpled in the dark, not stopping long enough to inspect them. Broken skulls and opened wrists. This was no protest. This was no riot.

  Shapes appearing out of the darkness ahead. Five of them. Voices babbling.

  “There she is!”

  “Hold her still!”

  “Help me!”

  “The knife! Get the knife!”

  “Help!”

  “UTA MARINES!” I bellowed. “FREEZE!”

  I could see them. Covered in blood. Wild-eyed and pale. Three men and a woman, gathered around a little girl, no more than nine or ten years old. She was screaming, pleading. A fat man sat atop her chest, crushing the breath out of her. The other three were gathered around, iron bars and pipe wrenches in hand, slicked to the elbows in blood.

  “Drop the weapons!” McNulty roared.

  Sigma Squad fanned out around them, red laser sights cutting through the black.

  “You bitch,” the woman spat. “Now you come?”

  “You left us in here to die!” shouted another.

  “Drop the weapons, step away from the girl and put your hands on your head!” I shouted.

  “Miss, you don’t understand,” the fat man moaned. I realized he was crying. Tears cutting trails down bloodstained cheeks. “She’s with them. She’s with them.”

  “Drop the weapon!”

  The man was struggling to breathe. Fingers drumming on the bloody metal in his fist.

  “Eric … ,” the woman said.

  “She’s with them!”

  “You stupid motherfucker, drop it!” Sykes bellowed.

  “DROP IT NOW!”

  I looked across the dark to that girl’s face. Big brown eyes. One hand up to shield her head. So little. So helpless. Nothing between her and the end but us.

  The fat man raised his pipe wrench.

  “Eric, don’t!”

  “FIRE!”

  Muzzled flashes lit the dark. Our VK’s roared. And when we were done, there were four new bodies on the floor, staring sightless up into the black above our heads, waiting for a God who wasn’t coming.

  The girl’s wails filled the quiet. McNulty stowed his VK and ran across the carnage, picked her up from the bloody grille. He held her to his chest, those big arms wrapped around her tight. Doing all the right things. Making all the right noises.

  “Hush, baby, it’s okay. You’re all right now, Uncle Jimmy’s got you.”

  He’d have made a good dad, McNulty.

  I don’t know where she had the shiv. Up her sleeve. In her dress. I caught a glimpse of silver, a flash of red. McNulty roared as the blade punched through his hazmat suit and the ballistics weave underneath. Those vests are built to take a knife from a charging gorilla or a point-blank burst from a heavy rifle. God knows where she got the strength.

  McNulty shouted, throwing her aside and clutching his wounded arm. The girl hit the deck, twisted up into a crouch, lips peeled away from yellow teeth. She leapt at Private Henderson and put her shiv through his hazmask—punched right through the eyehole. Her stare locked on mine as his body hit the deck. Big and brown and brimming with hate. Bloody steel in one little red fist.

  “Don’t look at me,” she hissed.

  Sykes put her down. Single shot, right between the eyes. Dropped her before I could blink. And then we heard them. Calls out in the dark. One after another after another. Something skittered across the deck at us, fizzing and spitting tiny sparks.

  Pipe bomb.

  “Grenade!”

  The blast took out Gandolfini, Montano and Parker, the second would’ve taken off my legs if I’d moved a little slower. I could see shapes in the dark—dozens of them—more pipe bombs raining from the gantries above. The explosions lit up the hangar’s belly like fireworks on Terra Day, lit up the body of that ten-year-old girl with a bullet in her face and a bloody knife still clutched in her hand. And I did what any officer with a brain would’ve done. Battlefield commission or not.

  “Fall back! Fall back!”

  To Sigma’s credit, we held formation as we peeled off, laying down suppressing fire as I grabbed McNulty and slung his arm around my shoulder. The hostiles were smart—I’d heard scuttlebutt that Phobos turned you mindless, but they were moving with intent, trying to cut off our retreat. A dozen VK pulse grenades talked them out of it, cleared us a path back to the airlock. McNulty was cursing beneath his breath the whole time, calling himself stupid. He didn’t seem too badly wounded, though—I thought his vest saved him from the worst of it.

  It wasn’t until we’d sealed the secondary airlock behind us I realized how wrong I was. As the Kerenza rookies gathered about us and babbled, XO Myles’s voice rang in my headset.

  “Sigma, this is Comm. Lieutenant McCall, report status, over!”

  “Comm, this is Sigma. At least forty hostiles in the bay. Henderson, Parker, Gandolfini and Montano are down. McNulty is injured.
Over.”

  “Sigma, Comm. Did any hostiles make it through, over?”

  “Comm, Sigma. Negative. They’re sealed outside airlock 2. Cycle us through, over.”

  “Sigma, Comm. You said you have a squad member injured, confirm, over?”

  “Comm, Sigma. Affirmative. McNulty took a knife wound. It’s not serious, but he—”

  “Is his suit intact, over?”

  McNulty looked at me, then. And I saw it in his eyes.

  “Comm, Sigma—”

  “Is his suit intact?”

  He had blue eyes, McNulty. Pretty as oceans.

  “Lieutenant, is his suit intact?”

  “… Negative.”

  “Winifred, you cannot bring that man through the airlock, do you understand me?”

  “Lia … “

  “ ‘Fred, you cannot bring him through.”

  The battlefield commission on my chest weighed about ten tons right then. Made it hard to breathe. Impossible to speak. It’s not the bullets that kill you. It’s moments like these.

  One piece at a time.

  In the end, McNulty spoke for me.

  “Comm, this is McNulty. I copy. Order acknowledged, over.”

  I found my voice then. Barely. “Sergeant, I—”

  “Forget it, LT.” He patted his rifle. “If they make it through the airlock before you come back with the cavalry, I got a little something waiting for them.”

  “We are coming back for you, Sergeant.”

  He smiled then. “’Course you are.”

  The airlock cycled open behind us. A full detachment of MPs were waiting, suppressors and VKs trained on us—just in case we tried to bring McNulty through. Cold as the belly of the void, little Lia Myles. Not sure what I ever saw in her.

  McNulty gave us a salute. I could still see his smile. No fear in his eyes then. Just duty.

  He’d have made a good dad.

  “Hey, LT,” he said as the doors cycled closed.

  “Yes, Sergeant?”

  “You see Ezra Mason around, remind him his first kid’s name is James. Or Jamette.” He patted his breast pocket. “And tell him not to worry. I’ve got Astro-Princess to keep me warm.”

  “Astro-Princess?”

  “He’ll know what I mean.”

  I’d prefer a thousand bullets to a moment like this.

  “Roger that, Sergeant.”

  “Take care, LT.”

  That was the last we saw of him.

  I am officially recommending Sergeant James McNulty for the Silver Star for Bravery.

  1st Lieutenant Winifred McCall

  UTA Marine Division

  Battlecarrier Alexander

  ByteMe: Ez? please tell me you’re still there?

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: those bastards

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: A SILVER STAR FOR HIS FUCKING COFFIN?

  ByteMe: Ez please stay at the keyboard, please talk to me. please.

  ByteMe: he’s not dead yet. they don’t say that.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: they LEFT HIM IN THERE. what happens when those lunatics break through to the second airlock?

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: We have to get him out of there. can you hack the bay doors?

  ByteMe: i can’t. promise I’m not just saying that. She says in the report their all-access passes don’t work on the bay doors. command has an override in place. please Ez, don’t do anything stupid. we have to think. you’re no use to anyone in the hole.

  ByteMe: or shot.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: get me some schematics, i’ll go down there and cut him out myself

  ByteMe: and THEN what? Do you think for a second that’s what he’d tell you to do?

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: Kady I can’t leave him, he’s DEAD if he stays in there.

  ByteMe: you promised me. he knew what he was doing. believe me, if I saw a way out I’d take it, but I can’t change this, and you promised me you wouldn’t get yourself killed too. you can’t.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: promises are just words. they don’t mean a thing

  ByteMe: words don’t mean anything?

  ByteMe: are you fucking kidding me?

  ByteMe: words are all we have right now. you’re all I have. you can’t leave him, but you can leave me?

  ByteMe: what about when you said you loved me? when you said you wanted the best for me? all that was just crap, was it? doesn’t mean anything as soon as there’s something that matters more?

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: Kady i DO love you.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: god

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: you’re all i think about. Every time I close my eyes, i see you. Every time I dream, you’re there. I think about us and how i messed it up and it’s like someone is tearing my insides out.

  ByteMe: then don’t get yourself killed.

  ByteMe: i’m hurting for him because you are, even if I don’t know him, but he chose to stay there. he knew what it meant. he’d never forgive you if you got yourself sick, or shot, not if he’s any kind of friend. what you do when shit like this happens is you LIVE, you survive it, that’s how you honor the ones you lost

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: he’s not lost yet. I can’t just sit here and do nothing

  ByteMe: you give me one thing you can actually do, one thing that might have a chance of saving his life, and we’ll talk. making demands based on info you shouldn’t have gets you nowhere. maybe gets you shot. and who says they’re doing nothing?

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: i do. What’s one more drone or bruiser or commtech to these people? we’re just statistics to command. just numbers

  ByteMe: that doesn’t answer my question, Ez. I’m not saying don’t care about him. I’m saying don’t get killed for no reason. Please. I won’t be okay.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: what does that even mean?

  ByteMe: it means

  ByteMe: it means screw you for making me get into this when i don’t want to

  ByteMe: but i fucking love you too

  ByteMe: and I won’t be okay if you get yourself shot

  ByteMe: so please, please just don’t. please don’t make me sit over here freaking out about what you might be doing.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: whoa, back up about three paras there, cowgirl

  ByteMe: please, Ez.

  ByteMe: Ez?

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: ok

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: ok, i won’t do anything stupid

  ByteMe: i’m so sorry. truly.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: …

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: god, i wish you were here

  ByteMe: me too

  ByteMe: but we’re way past 7 mins. i’m so sorry but I have to go.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: yeah

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: ok

  ByteMe: stay safe. please. for me.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: I will.

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: for you

  ByteMe: you promise?

  Mason, E, LT 2nd: i promise.

  David,

  I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I’ve tested and trained civilians and sent them across for conscription. I’ve stripped my ship to re-equip the Alexander. I’ve passed on what I believe to be misinformation to my crew and the refugees aboard the Hypatia, advising them the Lincoln was responsible for the destruction of the Copernicus, and the deaths of their friends and families.

  To say I am uneasy with this would be an understatement. I had friends and colleagues aboard that ship. I’ve cooperated at every turn. At this stage I cannot operate in the dark any further.

  Our long-range scopes are now picking up the Lincoln in pursuit of our fleet. If we’re seeing her now, I assume you’ve known she’s closing on us for some time. We burned our lead when we stopped to resupply. It’s not a matter of if Lincoln will catch u
s anymore. It’s when. And when she catches us, we need to be able to fight her.

  We estimate she’ll close to within weapons range in just under three days—seventy hours, to be precise. We need your defense grid. Your rail guns. Your nukes. You need to bring your artificial intelligence back online, David. And if something’s preventing you from doing that, you need to let us help. I’ve still got my skeleton crew here, and they’re damn good at what they do. Give us access to your systems and let us help you.

  We’re in this together. A quarter of your ship’s crew is conscripted civilians right now. Don’t discount our help just because my crew are civilians too.

  I look forward to your earliest response.

  Ann Chau

  Ann,

  I’ve arranged log-ins and a secure channel for your tech crew, which will allow them to work with mine in running scenarios.

  No other crewmembers are to use the secure channel—it is available for designated personnel only. Be advised the secure channel is considered a military asset, and while they’re assisting on this project, your people are subject to military law.

  If I catch any of them in even the slightest infraction, from checking in on their buddies to bitching about the situation, I won’t hesitate to court martial them.

  Don’t lose your nerve. This is a long way from over, and we’re not done yet.

  David

  Log-in details:

  1/2 Zhang/Byron:

  Log-in: Alexander/Core/Full/ZhangB

  Password: skjh45mh2

  2/2 Nestor/Consuela:

  Log-in: Alexander/Core/Full/NestorC

  Password: 24rkdga9s

  COUNTDOWN TO

  LINCOLN INTERCEPTION

  OF ALEXANDER FLEET:

  70 hours: 24 minutes

  ByteMe: howdy neighbor

  Zhang, B: fuck me, what are you doing on this channel?

  ByteMe: o now is that nice?

  Zhang, B: u piggy backing?

  ByteMe: doesn’t look like Corporal Boklov is using his ID right now so i thought i’d see what ur up to