by C. Gockel
“I was starting to worry this was too easy,” her sergeant muttered as he collapsed against the door. He slid down its side and came to rest on the floor, leaving a bloody smear on the putty colored surface.
“You can go around,” Valen said.
“We ,” Sela corrected.
She prodded at the door’s control interface. It still had power, but someone had tampered with it. A spray of wires extruded from the box.
She knew the reality. Valen was not going around. He had already lost too much blood. The cellseal wasn’t keeping up with it. She had bought him time; that was about it. Just as Valen had for that stupid calf.
“How do you know the cap’n is still there, boss?”
“He’s still there. He’s stubborn. And stupid.”
“And in love with you,” Valen added quietly.
“Can it,” she groused, examining the remaining circuits for the door interface.
It had been shorted. She selected two wire ends and touched them together experimentally. The door jarred to life, rolling up on unseen hinges. Valen maneuvered away from the frame and came to stand at her side.
The door ground to a halt just above ankle height with the earsplitting screech of metal on metal.
Damn it all.
Crouching low, she could crane her neck to look under the door. She caught a quick view of a ruined corridor beyond, littered with debris. The moment she released the two wires, the door rolled shut.
Arms fire echoed somewhere behind them. Definitely organized and high caliber. The sounds were drawing closer. There was no time left.
Sela reconnected the circuit, and the door rolled up once again, stopping at the same height. Something at the other side had to be jamming its upward progress. She could most likely squeeze under on her stomach, but Valen was bulkier. Maybe she could pull him through. But that didn’t solve the biggest problem. With the connecting nodes gone, someone had to physically hold the circuits together to keep the door open. The moment the connection was severed, the door would snap shut.
“Just leave me, boss.”
“What? No.”
She frowned at the circuits. Perhaps with time, they could figure it out.
“You can make it,” Valen urged. “Slip to the other side. See if there’s a way to keep the door open on that side.”
“That’s a big if .”
There was another volley of weapons fire from much closer. He leaned against her. “I can stay here, hold the door up. You slip through.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Who said anything about leaving me? You’re going to come rescue my sweet ass.”
“No.” Half laugh. Half sob.
Shouts echoed from the far end of the marketplace. She recognized it as the barking of orders in Regimental Standard.
Once more she reconnected the leads. The door rolled up and gave another clanging screech as it froze. There was no way to keep it wedged open. Doors like this were meant to come down in a hurry, and often with great force.
“Sela,” he said. “Time to go.”
He placed his giant hands over hers, taking over the circuits.
Another volley of shouts rose from the far end of the market.
“Valen. You are my only friend,” she said haltingly.
“Don’t go soft on me, boss,” he said with a wan smile. He leaned into the doorframe wearily.
Sela reached out, squeezed his shoulder. Her feet were fixed to the deck. They both knew how this would end, but neither of them was willing to say it.
As much as she truly felt attached to her captain, there was an unevenness there that could not be classified as friendship. For all her gruesomeness, Tristic was right. She worshiped Veradin. But Valen was her equal.
“Go, Sela.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to. You have to finish this.”
Frozen into place, she looked up at him. My Valen .
There was movement in the smoky air among the stalls of the marketplace. The EE troopers had found them.
“I’m sorry,” Valen said.
Frowning at his strange tone, she turned just in time for his fist to collide with her jaw. A white-hot jolt of pain snapped her teeth together and thundered down her neck. Sela folded. Roughly Valen shoved her to the deck. Stunned, she gaped up at him. But his attention was on the rigged console wires.
The metal door at her back opened and she rolled under it, unable to stop her slide down the sloping floor. Halfway through, she could go no further. Stuck!
“Your gear,” he hissed.
She looked down. The bandolier of grenades around her body was wedged. He jerked the belt from around her, pulling it back to his side of the door.
“Valen, stop! Don’t!” The effort racked her neck and jaw with pain.
From the door’s other side, Sela reached back through. Valen squeezed her hand once and then forced her clear. The door immediately crashed down. When she opened her fist, she saw what he had pressed into her hand: his ident tags.
Realization flooded her. He had taken the bandolier of shatter grenades.
“No!” She sprang to her feet. “Valen!”
Frantically, she searched for the interface on this side of the bulkhead. There was nothing. The imagined piece of shrapnel that barred the door on its track did not exist. She saw only the smooth planes of the door meeting its frame. It was a secure lock, the type that may have existed on the exterior of the original station, and now, as a consequence of the cobbled-on building technique, it had become an interior door.
A muted staccato of raised voices shouted commands from the other side of the door. Then came the answering bark of an explosion.
“Valen!”
She pressed her forehead to the metal and shut her eyes.
Gone. He was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Around her, the station continued its decline into chaos. Sela was aware of the rumble of the deck beneath her knees and the shouts of the other occupants as they thundered past in their bid for escape or shelter.
The automated voice of the station calmly narrated its own death:
“Alert. Containment breach detected. Levels four through nine. Alert.”
She did not know how long she remained in place.
In honesty, she did not care.
A hand pressed against her back, forcing her to turn.
Veradin. He shouted down at her, struggling to be heard over the sounds of the ghost station’s imminent demise. Overhead the automated voice gave evac instructions to EEVs that in all likelihood no longer existed.
He tugged her to her feet.
“Ty! Let’s go!”
She looked up into his reddened face. The fear and worry etched there. Stupidly, she could only stare.
He pulled, and she took plodding steps to go with him. He was leading her to a docking bay. She tumbled in a vicious current of noise, jostled by panicked figures.
Veradin looked over his shoulder at her. She watched his mouth move. The words fell over her ears, disconnected from all meaning.
Sela blinked at him.
He stopped, hand out in a sudden furious arc. A stinging pain along her jaw, the same side where Valen’s strike had landed. And the world popped back into place with glaring clarity.
“—have to move, soldier! Now!”
She jerked her arm from his grip and took in her surroundings. The crush of bodies had clotted around them. This was the intersection that led to the docking bay where the Cassandra was berthed.
No one was moving.
Over the crowd of heads and shoulders, Sela saw why. The bulkhead doors in this section worked along a diagonal track. However, they were wedged open with a makeshift barricade of furniture and pieces of the station itself. There was room for a bipedal being to squeeze through, but none dared.
She watched as a thick-bodied Trelgin was jostled forward by the crowd. He stumbled into the open hatchway. As he floundered to
his feet, a plasma round from the corridor beyond disintegrated his head.
Two brutish-looking Onari armed with ancient-looking A2 plasma rifles returned fire. They lunged into the open, firing in the direction of the rounds that took out the Trelgin. The A2s were formidable weapons, capable of burning through most standard field armor, but in the unskilled hands of these two, they were virtually useless. The Onari’s efforts were uncoordinated and sloppy. Sela doubted they had hit anything worthwhile.
An answering volley struck the wall above the heads of the two would-be champions, and they cowered further behind their barricade.
“Alert. Alert. Catastrophic breach imminent. Evacuate now. Alert. Alert.”
“This just gets better and better,” Sela muttered, pushing her way forward. The closer she came to the line of fire, the less resistance she encountered from the crowd. No one was eager to end up like the Trelgin.
Ducking low, she approached the far right side of the barricade, keeping the bulk of its wall between her body and the corridor. She sensed Jon mimic her movements.
“What are you doing? Stay back,” she hissed.
“You say that like you expect me to listen.”
Sela scowled at him. More plasma strikes found the wall just above their heads. They flattened against the deck behind the barricade.
“Don’t get your head shot off by those Regime skews, girly.” This came from one of the Onari riflemen ducked into the alcove at her back. To Sela, the voice seemed almost gleeful. But that was an Onari for you. Their kind were biochemically addicted to what passed for adrenaline in their physiques.
“I’m surprised you haven’t already,” she sneered.
“Making friends everywhere,” Jon said under his breath.
“Stay down, sir.”
The Onari opened fire again. Their wild rounds struck bulkheads and sent a lighting element exploding in a shower of sparks. Sela took this moment for cover and leaned out into the corridor.
Looking left, she could make out the passage to the docking bay. The outer hatch was still open. The failsafe would have operated to permit access to escape craft. The way to the Cassandra was still clear.
To her right, in the direction of the station’s inner rings, she saw the true impediment.
At the top of the corridor was the entrenched boarding party of EE troopers. She was able to count three hostiles to each side of the door before a round forced her to pull back behind the barricade. This was their way out too, but something was holding them up.
“Well?” Jon prodded.
“I count six hostiles. EEs. Armed with ML4 compression rifles. Heavy field armor,” she said. “Like the rest.”
Why were they waiting? They could have overpowered this point without a second glance. Even used ‘cussion grenades and traipsed by in a simple fire-and-advance maneuver like nothing happened—
Then the realization struck her. “Pincer movement.”
“Care to share?”
“They’re waiting for the flank behind us. They must know we’re here.”
“What flank?”
She gritted her teeth. “The one Sergeant Valen just neutralized.”
“Valen’s here?”
Her voice was flat as she stilled the angry tremor. “Not anymore.”
Jon’s expression hardened. He did not know the whole story, but he understood enough.
“Glory all,” he muttered, placing a hand on her shoulder. But she shrugged him off.
Can’t get mired up in that again. Get the Captain out of here. Then deal.
Sela maneuvered along the barricade until she reached the Onari gunmen. They were dressed in a half-assed attempt at uniforms similar to the brain-burnt dock agents. She guessed they might be station security, as dubious a mantle of authority as any. Their A2s were compression modifiable, better suited to do damage to the EE’s heavy field armor than her shiny new A6. The rifles were simply in need of better marksmen.
“We need to get that internal bulkhead closed. Seal off the troopers from the corridor,” she said to the one on her right. He seemed larger, more muscular than his partner.
“Firstly, Vokh don’t talk,” the smaller one answered. “Got his tongue cut out back in slam. Second, girly, you conjure we’d not tried that already?”
Sela regarded the speaker. The Onari was thinner across the shoulders. The tiny horns that decorated the brow above the flat yellow eyes were red-tinged, indicating he was actually a she . The nameplate on her neck read: Jint.
“And?” Sela asked.
“Welcome to it,” Jint sneered. She jerked her chin in the direction of the alcove directly across from their barricade. “Be m’guest.”
Sela saw a control interface like the one she had tried to repair near the marketplace. The wall nearby bore a single bloody handprint. On the floor lay two bodies in an untidy tangle. Both were dressed like Jint and her mute partner.
“The keypass don’t work. Code’s gotta go in manual. Those skews will cut you t’meat ‘fore you know what of.”
Sela cursed. But a strategy was already formulating. She turned back to Jint. “I need your weapons. Both of them.”
“Sure. You wantin’ quartz tea and egg dumplings with that, girly?” Jint snarked. “Neither of which is happenin’.”
Vokh seemed to sneer his agreement.
“Look, this station has what…five…maybe six minutes left before we’re all spaced. Do you think your frozen corpse will need that A2 then?” Sela countered.
Jint’s eyes narrowed. A round struck the bulkhead over her right shoulder, but impressively, the Onari did not flinch. Then, she said, “What’re your thinks?”
“Lay down a suppressing fire for one of us to make it across the corridor. The alcove looks deep enough to offer cover while we trigger the control to get the hatch shut on the EE’s.”
“And if’n that don’t work?”
“Then I owe you a rifle.”
“What’re you doing, Ty?” Jon asked, drawn into their exchange.
“My job. Keeping you alive.”
The guard watched them. “That your mate, then?” she asked.
“He wishes,” Sela replied.
Jint made a stuttering hiss, what Sela realized was the Onari approximation of a chuckle.
“Right then, girly.” Jint handed the A2 over to Sela and gave her an appraising look. “I’m guessin’ you know which end to be dangerous.”
Jon extended a hand to Vokh, ready to claim his rifle as well. At this, the male Onari muttered a low snarl. Apparently, life without a tongue did little to impair his ability to make threatening guttural noises. Jint smacked the back of her partner’s head. “Yours too. Ain’t got much t’lose either way.”
Jint pried the rifle from Vokh and handed it to Jon.
“Never one t’follow orders well,” she groused. “Why change with six minutes left to live?”
Pausing, Sela held her hand out. The way Jon had offered her his, what seemed so long ago. The greeting he had taught her that meant respect, truce.
“Tyron,” she offered.
Jint, hesitant, grasped Sela’s forearm. The Onari’s skin was cold, hardened with scales. She shared the tremor of anxiety there.
“Hope you got a good memory there, Tyron-girly. The keycode is a long one.”
“Try me,” Sela smirked.
“There has to be another way,” Jon said, inspecting the battered A2. “I’ll go. I’ll do it.”
“It has to be me, and you know it. You need to get to Erelah.”
Sela kept her attention on the rifle. Its compression settings had been hacked, making them relatively safer for use in the sensitive environment of the station and less likely to cause a hull breach. Hands slicked in sweat, she pulled the cover off. The nodes were corroded, but she was able to adjust the setting to increase the weapon’s output.
“Concentrate fire, waist high, along the jambs. They’ll have to fall back, and it’ll make it hard for them to keep a li
ne of sight,” Sela said, trading weapons with him. “The compression is at max. If you have a clear shot at one of them, take it. But you’ll—”
“Have fewer rounds to fire,” he finished. “I know how these work, Ty. Look at me.”
We’re burning time. Don’t look at him. Look at him, and you’ll freeze up.
She did it anyway. Dark hair mussed up in spikes. Impossibly warm brown eyes that held a silent plea for more time. A new bruise starting at the line of his temple. He was still perfect. Sela carved that moment into her faultless memory.
“You’re the best and the worst thing to ever happen to me,” she said. Quickly she kissed him, pulling away before he could respond.
Sela maneuvered up to the right side of the hatchway. Tucked low, she looked back to Jon as he took up a position across from her along the left side of the door. Its downward angle afforded him cover with a better line of fire to the EE entrenchment.
He drew in a deep breath, then nodded. Ready.
She nodded back.
Jon opened fire. The volley was a well-placed cluster compared to the Onari’s.
Sela crouched under the canted angle of the hatch, rifle raised. She had little time to aim, instead sprayed rounds in a rough pattern at the imagined location of the cowering troopers. But she missed her footing on the other side of the hatchway. It retrospect, it saved her. Her right foot met nothing but air. In the last possible moment, she tucked and rolled into the fall. A well-placed round hit the doorway where her head had been a second before.
A live wire of pain shot up her forearm as her hand went out to break her fall. A sprained wrist. Nasty one. Just enough to make the fingers in her hand feel numb, inflated.
Damnit all.
Jon’s cover fire continued. A round struck dead center of a trooper’s EE visor. The man fell back, never to reappear.
That’s five.
She rolled and pushed up with her right arm. Electric pain raced from wrist to elbow.
Up. Move.
Two strides and she dove into the alcove. It was unavoidable; she had to stand on the body of the dead station security guard to keep cover. Something wet crunched beneath her boots.
