by L S Roebuck
“You and I, we don’t deserve peace,” North said, looking into Sparks’ deep green eyes. He noted they were not to dissimilar to the color of Amberly’s. “We’re broken. We’re the kind of broke that doesn’t get fixed.”
“I know you think Amberly and you could never love each other because you are broken, and you may be right. But I know my sister better than you think, and she will never be able to love anyone else, either. You know what else I know? I know she would want you to be as happy as you could be.”
North moved his masculine hands again, this time to gently hold Sparks’ face on each cheek, and face her head to his. “You are not Amberly’s sister.”
“I’ll make that fiction my reality. Why not? Why can’t everyone want me like they want her? You. Dek.” Sparks suddenly pulled her head out of North’s hands. “I’m not jealous of Amberly. I adore her, too. But can’t broken people like you and me have some happiness, too?”
North reached out and grabbed Sparks’ head again, this time pulling her mouth to his.
Sparks melted into his arms. Perfect, she thought.
“I love this sort of crazy,” Sparks said, as she boarded the Prime in the Magnus hanger bay. Marines Goldsmith, Advika and Mateo, fully armed with multiple assault rifles and loads of explosive ordnance, joined Sparks and climbed aboard the Prime. Sparks did not carry the heavy weaponry of the marines, instead opting for a pair of elegant pistols, low caliber and lightweight. They each had a shiny holster, one hugging each of Sparks’ muscular thighs. Slung across her back was a lightweight staff with a dense iron cap. If she had maneuvering room, Sparks preferred the staff in a melee fight. The weapon gave her extra reach, and she had trained enough with the staff over the past two years so she could opt to incapacitate or kill her enemies with it.
North stood on the deck, receiving last-minute instructions from Captain Obadiah. At his side was Rhodes and Lt. Kilo, a tall, quiet, thin Marine who was extremely secretive and introverted. He was also an ace pilot.
“Thirty-six hours, North,” the captain said.
“Yes, sir,” North said. “We’ll cut of the head of the beast and have it for you on a silver platter as a welcome-to-Marquette present.”
“Just stay alive, and get us some actionable recon,” Obadiah saluted North. The officers returned the salute and turned toward the Prime. Sparks had stuck her head and torso out of the Prime’s main port.
“Why don’t you double-time it, Marine,” she chided North with a subtle smile. “This plan is only going to work if the timing is precise.” North strode to the runabout, and looked up at Sparks.
Rhodes detected a little bit of flirting from Sparks that she hadn’t seen before. Sparks and North? she thought. No way.
North, hardened from the horrific acts he witnessed – and participated in – more than two years ago, had found solace in a growing friendship with Sparks since they departed Magellan. He recognized their mutual brokenness, and he liked that in this odd a-little-something-more-than-a-friendship, they did not try to fix each other, but rather accepted each other’s ugly scars. We deserve each other, North thought, sinners that we are, and nothing more.
“Rhodes,” the captain looked at his most junior officer, “I’m counting on you to bring back North in one piece. Don’t let him do anything stupid.”
“Yes, sir,” Rhodes said, smiling at the captain’s jocularity, but also trying to hide her anxiousness. She wasn’t even two decades old, and her ambition had finally caught up with her. She knew that if she was part of a successful military operation, particularly one as crucial as the coming insertion on Waypoint Marquette, her command dreams would be significantly catalyzed.
She practically demanded to be on the Prime as it attempted to secretly deposit a group of Marines onto the waypoint. But the danger was real and she was now afraid she had volunteered for a premature death. Rhodes had a warrior’s faith, like North, who had been a personal and professional mentor. But like all people of faith, doubt nibbled away at the edges of her thoughts.
Ryder entered the hanger and quickly paced toward the Prime. Rhodes couldn’t remember the last time she had seen the woman in anything but a dress, but thought Ryder wore the dark grey light armor well. Hip holster carried small sidearms not unlike Sparks, and she carried a Japanese-style sword in a sheath built into the armor’s back. Rhodes has never seen armor like Ryder’s before. It looked formidable, yet feminine.
“I want your duds,” Rhodes said, and fell in line behind Ryder as both boarded the Prime.
“If we survive this, I’ll fabricate you some.”
The Prime ejected itself from the Magnus hanger, both vessels traveling at just under half the speed of light. The Prime immediately started deceleration. Rhodes felt a queasy turning in her torso as the inertia dampeners worked overtime to keep the crew of the Prime from smashing into human paste against the Prime’s bulkhead.
Who came up with the stupid plan? Rhodes thought, as she scanned the room for a receptacle just in case she was going to toss her cookies. North and Sparks had actually been the ones to devise the insertion mission. Assuming the Magnus had successfully disguised its approach to Marquette, the warship would purposely overshoot the waypoint, so by the time Magnus’ wake was spotted, it would appear to be headed away from Marquette. If Chasm controlled Marquette, as nearly everyone suspected, they would be looking for Magnus because of the desperate message Kimberly Macready sent out two years ago at the height of the Battle of Magellan. All of Marquette’s eyes would be on Magnus. This would serve as a distraction as the Prime, running electromagnetically dark, would quietly attach itself to an obscure and hopefully unguarded airlock.
Chief Petty Officer Bollard, using a modified version of the Macready hacking box, would then slice through Marquette’s security. Using the airlock, North would lead the strike team on its two-objective mission.
First, if they were not detected immediately, North’s team had to conduct rapid reconnaissance to assess to what level Chasm had taken hold of Marquette. Assuming they found Chasm had substantial or complete control over Marquette, the second objective was to create a lot of chaos. This second distraction would allow Wing Commander Nyota to safely lead a second landing assault of nearly the full contingent of Magnus’ fighters and transports to multiple airlocks.
Bollard, Rhodes, Cho and Kilo would keep the Prime’s engines hot in case North’s strike team needed to make a hasty retreat.
Rhodes felt like she might be getting used to the sudden deceleration, when she suddenly felt nauseous.
North looked over at Rhodes from the command chair. “Wow. I didn’t know someone could be that shade of green,” he joked.
“Ugh,” Rhodes replied. “My stomach feels like it’s in my head. Why did we have to hit the brakes so hard?”
Bollard, who was seated behind North, looked up from his infopad. “Well, we have to go from 150 million meters per second to zero over a distance of about 10 million kilometers. You do the math.”
“Math makes me sick,” Rhodes sighed.
“Ten minutes until Marquette contact,” the Condi reported. “Prime is rigged for stealth. All external lights extinguished, complete radio silence mode engaged. Unaided visual range of Marquette in five minutes.”
“Time to suit up,” North said with a hit of wistfulness. “Hopefully there is a resistance to Chasm on Marquette and we’ll have some allies to help us take control of the waypoint before the Magnus returns. I want to wrap Marquette in a bow for the captain.”
“Maybe Chasm doesn’t have control of Marquette?” Rhodes mused aloud.
“If Marquette was not under Chasm control, why have they gone radio silent for the last year? Why would they have moved the waypoint? The timing works out that Marquette would have received Macready’s message one year ago. Clearly Chasm found out we were coming and decided to execute their plan to take control. There is no other explanation,” the pilot said. Kilo was unimpressed with what he saw as Rhodes apparent weak grasp o
n concepts like logic.
Condi spoke up over the PA system. “Magnus has been detected by Marquette.”
North stood from his chair. “Cho, the bridge is yours. Keep the Prime, err, primed in case this goes South in a hurry.”
“What does that even mean, ‘in case this goes south’?” Rhodes asked.
Lt. Commander Cho took North’s command chair. “Well, on a planet, south… it means, well… you know if our Marines start getting shot up.”
“What in God’s sweet Milky Way?” Kilo said, as Marquette became clearly visible to the naked eye through the Prime’s small windows. Marquette, the newest and most advanced waypoint, was a beautiful seven-kilometer long saucer. The waypoint gleamed a silvery spectrum of reflected star light, with a brilliant green garden center. What had caught Kilo’s attention had also grabbed North’s gaze.
“I’ve been to Marquette twice, and it didn’t have that,” North pointed. “Must be how they moved the waypoint.”
A large, rectangular structure stuck out from the far side of the waypoint. Ugly and asymmetrical, the tower had running lights, but at first glance had no viewports or windows. A second main structure was attached to the first tower.
“Is that a ship?” Rhodes asked.
“It doesn’t look like anything docked; it looks fused to the waypoint,” Cho said.
“Whatever it is, we’re going to find out,” North said. “Cho, wait two hours, then break radio silence and send a message to Magnus informing them of Marquette’s new … appendage.”
“This does not look good, XO,” Kilo mused, as he shook North’s hand. “For Magellan! Good luck.” North turned to get ready for the insertion.
Rhodes stood from her chair and grabbed North’s hand as the XO strode off the bridge. He stopped and look back, catching the junior officer’s glance directly. He could see the fear in her young eyes. She’s worried that I won’t come back, North thought. He gave her hand a gentle but firm squeeze.
“Ensign. Rhodes. Listen,” North said. “I’m coming back. In one piece. You’ll see. You know what I believe: If God is for us, who can be against us?”
“Is God for us?” Rhodes asked.
“I hope so,” North replied.
Rhodes leaped forward and embraced North, her mentor and big brother. “I don’t know what I would do if we lost you.” North returned the hug and then released her. She stepped back.
“Sorry, I’m not sure if that was sanctioned by regulations,” Rhodes mumbled.
“Don’t worry, Rhodes,” Sparks, who had just stepped on the bridge, said. “I’ll make sure the big guy gets back in one piece. This isn’t our first Tube race.”
Sparks turned to North. “Well, I’m a traitor to Chasm, so why stop now? Let’s go thwart the will of the Chairman.”
North smiled and followed Sparks to the lower level hatch.
“One minute until contact with Marquette,” Condi reported over the Prime’s speakers. “No evidence of detection. The Magnus has begun its deceleration.”
Good. The distraction appears to be working, North thought. He looked over his strike force. Sparks was stretching and jogging in place. Ryder was testing the sharpness of her blade against her gloved finger. Goldsmith looked like he was about to wet himself. Advika was putting on a brave face, but North could sense her apprehension. Mateo was double checking the charge on his stun weapon and the ammo counts in her extra magazines.
Bollard stood at the interior Prime airlock, ready with the Raven One-designed hacking box. “I hope this thing works.”
“Of course, it will,” Sparks chided him. “Kimberly Macready herself designed the thing. She was a real savant. Genius. I miss her.”
“I can’t believe you were part of Chasm,” Ryder lied to Sparks. Sparks fought her natural eye-roll reaction at Ryder’s misleading comment. “From what I hear, Kimberly Macready was something of a monster.”
“She wasn’t a monster. Maybe she was crazy, but she wanted to make everything perfect,” Sparks told Ryder what she already knew.
From the outer hull, came a slight ping.
“Contact with Marquette,” Condi announced the obvious.
“The slicer is working; the airlocks are connected,” Bollard said with a little surprise in his voice. “It should be only another 30 seconds for me to crack the lock.” The indicator light on the airlock blinked green, indicating atmospheric pressure on the other side.
“Fall in,” North commanded his strike team. He was all business now. His face grew tight, and he raised his rifle and aimed it at the airlock door. Please God, he prayed silently, don’t let there be anyone on the other side.
The team paired off, making a two by three column. Sparks was at North’s side, with her side arms drawn. Behind the lead pair were Ryder and Goldsmith, and bringing up the rear was Mateo and Advika. Ryder had her sword drawn, making Sparks a little nervous. She wasn’t interested in getting stabbed in the back, figuratively or literally, by Ryder, so she pivoted slightly to keep the spy in the corner of her peripheral vision.
“Don’t forget to lock the door once we’re gone,” North said.
“No worries there,” Bollard said. He punched in a command to the hack box. “Door opening in ten.”
“Let’s do this thing,” Sparks bounced.
“Five, four, three, two, one,” Bollard completed.
The airlock hissed, and North pushed the Marquette exterior airlock open, and he quickly stepped into Marquette. The airlock opened up into a waterworks system control center, on the near the rim on the “lower” side of the waypoint. Once all six members of the strike force had exited, Bollard sealed the airlock behind them.
The hall was tight, even for a waypoint, and North had to hunch slightly to keep from hitting his head. The gentle hum of water moving through pipes and being pushed through filters was the only sound.
Ten meters down the hall from the airlock, there was a left turn into what North speculated was a monitoring station.
North silently indicated that he was going to look ahead using hand signals. He ordered the rest of the team to stay hidden on their side of the corner. North swung around with his rifle raised, and saw the monitoring station – a small table with a magnetic resonance screen interface – he was expecting.
He didn’t immediately see the person who was supposed to be monitoring the waterworks life support systems, because she was curled up under the table. When he did see her suddenly, dressed in a white lab coat, he was startled because he was almost on top of her. Her breath was deep and slow.
Then he heard her snoring.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
North quickly examined the woman he assumed to be a life support technician. He guessed she was probably 30, around his age. She had a relaxed ebony face framed with a short cut of shocking white hair that matched the brilliant teeth in her half-open mouth. Her cheek was moist with a trail of drool. She wore a loose-fitting khaki jumpsuit under her white coat.
North eyed Ryder and rotated his right pointer finger around his left wrist and then indicated the woman. Ryder nodded and reached into her supply sack. North pointed to Mateo, and tapped his side arm and then nodded at the snoozing figure. Mateo unholstered his stun gun and aimed it at the peaceful face.
Ryder expertly zip cuffed the woman sawing logs. Goldsmith tapped his rifle against nervously, and Sparks punched the Marine in the arm to show her disapproval. North rolled his eyes, then offered hand signals to tell the rest of the team to keep it quiet.
Advika had moved to a position five meters down the apparently deserted corridor. Condensation on the pipes created a slow drip. The sound was unnerving. A drop fell on Advika’s helmet visor. She cursed under her breath and then moved out of the leak.
“Be ready,” North whispered to Mateo. He reached his hand down to the woman’s face, covered her mouth with his hand, and with his free arm, proceeded to gently shake who he thought to be sleeping technician.
“Hey,” North said. “Wak
e up. Wake up.”
The woman’s eyes jolted open, and her irises expanded as her heart beat with terror and glands pumped her bloodstream with adrenaline. She instinctively wanted to push the man’s hand from her mouth, but realized her arms were secured behind her back. She thrashed reflexively a few times before noticing Mateo’s gun pointed at her.
Then she bit hard on North’s hand.
“Son of an Araran mudstinger!” North swore in pain, withdrawing his hand. The woman and been successful at drawing blood.
“Hey, hey,” Ryder said, putting her hands up reassuringly, “we’re not going to hurt you.”
“Unless you’re Chasm,” Sparks snorted.
“What? No! I’m not Chasm,” the woman said. “You… You, you look like Marines. But they are… Who are you?”
North held his bitten, bleeding hand with his good one. “First things first. Who are you? What is going on here?”
“What?” the woman said, trying to sit upright against her restraints. “I’m Meliana. I work, well I used to work, in the Brazilian Quadrant Medical Center. You guys are armed. And you are not Chasm?”
Sparks leaned over and helped the white-haired woman sit upright.
“Definitely not Chasm,” Ryder said.
“Only Chasm has weapons,” Meliana said as she looked at North. She noted his handsome face as he examined the hand she bit. “You should get some disinfectant on that bite. There must be a million bacteria in there. Like, I haven’t brushed my teeth in days.”
“You’re a doctor?” North said.
“Duh,” Meliana said, gesturing at her white coat. “Now who are you?”
“We’ll get to that,” Ryder said, her spymaster interrogation skills taking over. “What is the status of Marquette? Who is in control?”
“Like, are you with the Underground?”
“If they are against Chasm,” North said, “Then yes.”
“So, Chasm is in control of this waypoint,” Sparks said. “No Scorched Earth. I guess the Chairman decided to keep this one.”
