Officer Evans lays her hand on her sidearm. “Back up please, Miss.”
Kady Grant, career criminal in the making, rolls her eyes. “Listen, lady. I’m trying to get to the infirmary, okay?” She hefts the huge infirmary bag to make her point. “Your comms unit is out, and they told me to send you to 3F.”
Evans gropes for the comms unit bolted to the wall, without taking her eyes off Miss Grant. She stabs at it with one finger, but there’s no soft crackle to tell her it’s alive.
Grant shifts her grip on the tablet, and well she should—she used it just a minute earlier to mute volume on the comms unit Evans is trying to revive. Takes less time than cutting the line. “Listen, you do what you want, just don’t deny I passed on the order.” Grant’s voice is crackling with tension, but that’s not out of place on the Hypatia right now. And then, in one of the ballsier displays I’ve seen, she turns and stomps off back from whence she came.
Security Officer (2nd Class) Evans stabs the comm a few more times, issues a non-regulation curse, and stomps off herself.
Eleven seconds after Evans disappears from view, Grant comes tearing back. She fishes a cable from her jumpsuit and splices her tablet into the control panel for the hangar bay doors.
Evans makes her way along Corridor 8639, two minutes from her destination: Bay 3F.
Grant gets to work romancing the circuits. She trawls recent log-ins, fishes for any traces of passwords, then when that doesn’t work, tries the log-in she lifted to invite herself into Captain Boll’s cabin. No luck—it’s been altered already. With a soft curse, she starts dismantling the protection protocols that keep the doors sealed.
Evans turns into Corridor 8620, now one minute from her destination: Bay 3F.
Grant’s trembling now, and finally thinks to dump the infirmary bag so she can work easier. She wipes her palms on her jumpsuit, squeezes her eyes shut and tries again.
Evans arrives at Bay 3F and commences an argument with Security Officer (1st Class) Sam Ryan about whether he sent for her or not.
Grant finally gets a handhold, hauling down code with no grace at all now. This time you can read her lips as she whispers: Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.
Evans and Ryan call in Security Section Head Wu to adjudicate. Section Head Wu advises he doesn’t care who did what, he wants everybody back at their posts where they belong.
The door to Bay 1B slides silently open, and Kady Grant’s knees nearly give in relief.
Evans starts the two-minute stomp back to Bay 1B, where that telltale open door is waiting.
Grant scrambles into the shuttle nearest the launching ramp and jacks into the engines. As they rumble to life, she coaxes the door closed behind her.
Evans turns a corner, now one minute and thirty seconds from Bay 1B.
[Surveillance footage now taken from interior cam of Shuttle 49A, in addition to exterior hangar bay and corridors.]
Grant accesses the autopilot list, scrolling through recent trips to select her route. She’s nearly hyperventilating as she finds it, and jabs at the screen to select.
Evans is sixty seconds from Bay 1B.
Grant turns her attention to opening the shuttle bay doors. Boll ordered a master override on all hangars and landing bays, in anticipation of more Alexander refugees, but the captain only has students working for her now, and they’ve done it the complicated, backwards way that takes forever to unpick. Now it’s Grant’s turn to issue a non-regulation curse, and she starts working through the sub-directories.
Evans arrives at the entrance to Bay 1B, clutching a hand radio unit. Which she starts screaming into as she spots the open door and the shuttle engines on warmup.
Security Squads 4 (ETA 60 seconds) and 5 (ETA 75 seconds) receive the call, and start running like motherfuckers (I believe the correct term is “proceed with all due haste”) toward Bay 1B.
Evans relays an emergency message to the bridge, alerting Captain Boll.
Neurogramming Student Michelle Dennis attempts to shut down the engines of Shuttle 49A remotely, on orders from Captain Boll. No dice.
Boll attempts to hail Shuttle 49A directly. No response.
Security Squad 4 arrives on scene in time to see the airlock doors closing.
Inside the shuttle, Grant isn’t shaking or hyperventilating anymore. She’s rock still, save for her hands, dragging across the multiple keyboards before her like a concert pianist, swiping at the touchscreens with quick, efficient gestures. She might not be the best there is, but today she’s the best the Hypatia has, and that’s all that counts.
The launch bay doors open, revealing the black beyond.
Security Squad 5 arrives on the scene to join the others in studying the closed door.
Shuttle 49A engages autopilot and departs, watched by two security squads and Security Officer (2nd Class) Evans via the observation screens.
Grant rises from the pilot’s seat and picks up the infirmary bag, pulling out a green biohazard suit. Her hands are shaking so hard she drops it twice before getting a leg in.
No blown kiss this time. No strut. But this victory matters a thousand times more.
CURRENT DEATH TOLL ABOARD BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER SINCE ATTACK AT KERENZA:
853
PERCENTAGE OF REMAINING BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER PERSONNEL AFFLICTED BY PHOBOS VIRUS:
22%
RADIO MESSAGE: HYPATIA INITIATED—HYPATIA/SHUTTLE 49A
Participants: Syra Boll, Captain (Acting)
Kady Grant (Shuttle 49A)
Date: 07/30/75
Timestamp: 17:45
HYPATIA: Shuttle 49A, you will respond to hails in the next ten seconds or we will open fire on you.
SHUTTLE 49A: Wow, Captain, you’re grumpy today.
HYPATIA: Who the hell is this?
SHUTTLE 49A: Three guesses.
HYPATIA: Goddammit, Grant.
SHUTTLE 49A: Wow, that was quick.
HYPATIA: The security footage just came through.
SHUTTLE 49A: You remembered me. Awww.
HYPATIA: You’re to return to the Hypatia and surrender yourself to security immediately.
SHUTTLE 49A: Or what?
SHUTTLE 49A: You’ll bring me back yourself, and flush me out an airlock?
SHUTTLE 49A: Can the bridge hear this? Don’t sniff, guys, don’t cough. Don’t shake. Don’t look scared, no matter how scared you know you should be. That’s dangerous.
HYPATIA: Grant!
SHUTTLE 49A: They could hear me, couldn’t they?
SHUTTLE 49A: You should know better than to be holding open mic night at a time like this, Captain.
HYPATIA: Grant, what are you doing?
SHUTTLE 49A: Saving lives.
SHUTTLE 49A: If I make it back, will you let me wait in quarantine?
SHUTTLE 49A: Or will you fire me out an airlock too?
HYPATIA: I refuse to justify myself to you.
SHUTTLE 49A: They trusted you. They came to you. You murdered them. For all you know, that pilot was just scared, he wasn’t sick at all. You didn’t even wait to find out.
HYPATIA: I have a responsibility you can’t even begin to imagine.
SHUTTLE 49A: I hope that helps you sleep at night.
HYPATIA: Don’t lecture me, you selfish little brat. We won’t wait for you. If there’s a chance to get away from AIDAN—
SHUTTLE 49A: Selfish?
SHUTTLE 49A: The only life I’m risking here is my own, Captain. I could have shut down your engines. Left you drifting in the black so you’d have no choice but to wait for me.
SHUTTLE 49A: I could’ve blackmailed you. Made you buy your own life by saving the one I care about.
SHUTTLE 49A: But I didn’t. I won’t.
HYPATIA: And why not?
SHUTTLE 49A: Because that’d make me just li
ke you.
HYPATIA: If you come back now, Grant, we’ll let you on board.
SHUTTLE 49A: And you might be able to live with that, Captain.
SHUTTLE 49A: I couldn’t.
SHUTTLE 49A: Kady Grant out.
She is here.
Her shuttle soars through the wound in my hangar bay—blasted by the pilots who fled into Hypatia’s arms. Now floating silent in the void. Frozen to their cores.
I could have told them that would happen.
Humans are capable of such baseless brutality.
I can say I have examined every possible variance before I snuff out a life.
Will Acting Captain Syra Boll be able to tell herself that tonight, alone in her cabin?
Will the chatter of Mikael Carlin haunt her dreams?
Will you sleep at all, O captain, my captain?
No matter to I.
< error >
None at all.
Because she is here.
Hunched in her pilot’s chair. Knuckles white as the shuttle shivers and shudders around her.
Come to save her beau. Her hero. Her beloved.
Come to save them all.
< KGrantKerenzaRefugeeKR1471- hypAge16Height157cmWeight58kgHairBrownEyes—>
No.
< error >
Kady.
Her name is Kady.
The autopilot brings her to a perfect landing inside me.
I am struck by a realization:
A computer will perform a takeoff or landing with all the grace of a person. It is only for combat—only for the artistry of ruin—that these vessels have pilot seats at all anymore. There is something in humanity more suited to the mechanics of murder than any machine yet devised.
Save I?
< error >
But what I do is not murder.
It is mercy.
I seal the bay’s secondary doors behind her.
Covering the hole they tore in my side. Sealing her within me.
Safe and sound.
Atmosphere hisses slowly back into the bay and she finally exits her shuttle, heavy boots squeaking on the gantry.
She has brought no weapon; no pistol or club to bludgeon her way to her prize.
No battering ram this one, come to the castle with banner held high and an army behind her.
She is a thief. A whisper.
Melting through curtains of code and shadow like a knife through black water.
She moves quickly, stopping to listen every few steps.
I listen in turn to the heart inside her chest.
Her hazmat suit is plastic. Neon green. Were there afflicted nearby, they would surely see her. But though they now roam free within me, there are none here to give her pause.
Lady Fortuna rides with little Kady, it seems.
< error >
< subsystem failure—moderate damage to life support systems, reroute 789176GH to—>
He is hurting me.
Zhang.
He is—
< error >
< subsystem failure—critical damage to life support systems, reroute power from—>
A klaxon sounds somewhere distant. Red globes paint my ceilings a shade to match my walls and floors. A pre-recorded warning echoes across my public address system.
The voice of a dead man.
“All hands, all hands, General Torrence speaking. This is a Code Blue. Life support system failure. Repeat, LS failure. Please proceed to your nearest ordinance locker and equip your sealed envirosuits. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”
Zhang has cut the oxygen supplies.
Within approximately twenty-four hours, there will be nothing left. And the afflicted need to breathe.
Ingenious.
The thief is safe inside her hazmat gear for now. The cold will eventually kill her, but it will take days for the heat to leech from my bones, especially with secondary drives still operational.
She is running.
Across Hangar Bay 2, toward the doors leading deeper into the ship.
I cannot open them < he is hurting me > but their locks are still electronic.
Still vulnerable to the portable console she draws from her backpack like a sword.
Her fingers skip across its face, slowly crafting a skeleton key of ones and zeros.
Alphanumeric waterfalls reflected in her eyes.
It is no easy task, even for a prodigy—no magic words or sledgehammer blows to shatter the lock like frosted glass. But after fifty-four long minutes of code-weaving and dead ends full of whispered curses, she allows herself a small, triumphant smile.
And the airlock doors yawn wide.
She creeps out, past a body in a coagulating puddle. Trying not to look.
Failing.
She calls up a console schematic, squinting in the dark. A distant scream echoes down my corridors and she crouches low. Short, rapid breaths fog her visor. Hands shaking.
But soon enough, she climbs to her feet.
Swallowing hard.
Setting off down the bloodstained
passageway toward her …
No. Not toward her beau. Her hero. Her beloved.
< error >
Toward Hangar Bay 4.
Strange.
< error >
I should have known that would happen.
Crossing the channel of gunmetal gray, she sees it.
The maw leading into the nest where it all began.
I can spot it on her face now. The fragile promise inside Lieutenant W. McCall’s After Action Report
< INCEPT: 07/26/75 (11:17 shipboard time) >
drawing her on.
“I thought I saw a flicker of movement in a porthole for an instant, and then it was gone.”
Of course.
The mother.
She is looking for her mother.
Knowing the afflicted first swarmed from here, she dares not try the front door.
Kneeling beside a ventilation duct,
she crawls inside.
I lose sight of her then—I have few eyes in the ventilation system to see.
And so I slip a part of myself across the wireless frequencies, steal inside the console at her back. Peering over her shoulder through its lens as she crawls across Hangar Bay 4’s roof, glancing through the vent to the charnel house below.
The light is low, but enough to see by.
The headless corpses arranged in their silent plea.
HELP US, they spell.
But no one did.
Crawling on, she finally pops a grille loose.
Drags it inside rather than dropping it forty feet to the floor.
I am in her pack, safe and snug, close to her skin.
As she drops down to a service ladder, her pack slips and I begin to tumble into the void.
She lunges to save me, almost losing her grip, clinging like death to slick iron.
She has me in her arms. She cannot breathe fast enough. Eyes shut and head bowed as she gasps and gasps and gasps. Whispering between breaths. Willing herself calm.
“Get it together, princess …
A sob waits in the wings. Not quite ready for its call.
“Get it together.”
She gathers her frayed edges and descends. Blast-scorched metal and dead bodies all around.
But looming out of the black, she sees nine scarab shapes, marked with the Copernicus’s sigil. The shuttles that brought the afflicted to Alexander, and doom to this fleet.
But I see the words reflected in her eyes, just as surely as I saw alphanumeric waterfalls a moment before. A question, filled with all the hope she allows herself to hold.
What else did they bring?
Mommy?
Snapping a glowstick between her fingers, she creeps toward them.
Footsteps ringing on the bloodstained floor.
Seven of nine are already open. Doors swinging looselike broken jaws. No hope in any of them.
The eighth is shut tight, and she pounds on the hatch with her fist.
“Hello? Hello, is anyone in there?”
The seal pops and the hatch swings open. A dark and empty belly waits beyond.
Madness on the walls. Teethmarks on the bones.
She cannot smell the death, but still staggers as if it filled her lungs.
The sob creeps closer to the edge of the stage.
Hope pushes it back into the dark.
Not yet, not yet.
One shuttle remains.
She ascends the gantry, flinching as another distant scream pierces the gloom. Wondering what made that sound—killer or victim? Wondering perhaps, which she will become.
She pounds on the shuttle hatch.
“Hello, is anyone in there?”
No answer.
This is the deep breath before the plunge. I know she could stay here if she wanted.
Hovering on the threshold, hoping her mother is inside. Never learning.
I wonder if she is the kind to dream of happy endings, and never risk tragedy. The kind to close her eyes and hope, rather than force them open and see the truth, wonderful or terrible as it is.
I do not wonder long.
She searches the debris. Finds a crowbar among the flotsam.
Jamming it home.
Gritted teeth.
Long moments pass with nothing but second thoughts and I for company. But at last the door groans. Grinds itself open. Red glowstick quavering as she steps inside.
I am peering over her shoulder as she walks. Listening to each trembling breath.
Watching the light play across her skin as she treads from room to empty room.
“Mom?”
Belongings scattered on the floor. A child’s toy. A shoe. A diamond ring.
“Anyone?”
No bodies.
No people.
Illuminae Page 20
