by G J Ogden
“On my mark. Three... Two... One... Go!”
TEN
Taylor yanked open the door so that the others could rush through, but instead of leading into another room or corridor the door opened onto a wide balcony, which surrounded and overlooked a multifaceted command and control center below. The simple wireframe map had not indicated the presence of the balcony and the unexpected setting temporarily threw Taylor off guard. He quickly surveyed the command center below, which was split into four sections, each of which provided ample opportunity for a Hedalt soldier to lay in wait for an ambush.
“Stay focused, everyone...” Taylor called out, trying to keep a lid on his volume level, despite the sudden flood of adrenaline. He moved further onto the balcony and stepped right to catch up with Satomi. Blake and Casey had swiftly moved left, but were still within earshot. “The soldier could be hiding anywhere in that lower level.”
“I don’t like this,” Blake answered, “We’re too exposed up here.”
Satomi dropped to her knees, taking cover behind the glass balustrade that surrounded the balcony. “If Blake and Casey circle around counter-clockwise and check the other angles, we can then all meet up down by that corridor.” She pointed towards the far right corner on the lower level and Taylor spotted the passageway that had been indicated on the wireframe map. He remembered that it led onto another room, perhaps a ready room or a briefing room. “If we move around in the other direction, it should make it impossible for anyone down there to stay hidden,” Satomi continued.
“Okay, good plan, Satomi,” said Taylor, dropping to a crouch beside her, while still keeping a watchful eye on the command center through the glass barrier. “Relay the instructions to Blake, but do it quietly; I’ll cover you from here.”
Taylor stood up and swept the barrel of his handgun over the balustrade, while keeping tabs on Satomi in his peripheral vision as she stayed low and hustled along the balcony towards Blake and Casey. Given their conspicuous earlier entrance onto the balcony, if the Hedalt soldier was hiding below then it would surely have been alerted to their presence. As such, he didn’t want to risk just calling out the instructions to Blake, which could give the Hedalt the chance to overhear their plan.
Satomi had just reached Blake when a brief flicker of movement caught Taylor’s attention; he aimed the weapon towards it and peered intently into the gloomy space below, his pulse quickening. He saw it again, just a hint of a shadow moving towards Satomi and the others, using the many consoles, desks and other items below as cover. Taylor slid his finger onto the trigger and steadied his breathing. He traced the path of the shadow and caught sight of it again. “Not so fast…” Taylor whispered and added pressure to the trigger, but before he could fire, light pulsed towards him from below and the glass balustrade shattered, showering his face with glass. He threw himself down and away from the edge, feeling the glass bite into his elbows and knees, as needle-like shards of purple energy slammed into the wall inches above his head, pockmarking the surface with singed holes the size of cherries. Taylor rolled to the side, wincing as the glass continued to slice into his thighs and arms – though the body armor at least protected his chest – and then pressed himself up, firing blindly in the direction of the shadow, but it had already moved. Shards of purple energy blinked up from the lower level again, but this time they were directed towards the others. The balustrade shielding them also shattered and he saw Satomi get hit in the chest and fall heavily.
“Satomi!” cried Taylor running towards her while again firing blindly at the shifting shadow of the Hedalt below, which ran into cover, before taking up a new position that blocked Taylor’s line of fire. Blake took advantage of the opening and scrambled further around the balcony away from the others and also opened fire, while Casey dragged Satomi back from the edge. But the lull was short-lived as more plasma shards lashed the wall above their heads. Casey fired back, before the intensity of the incoming fire forced her to dive for cover too. Taylor landed beside Casey moments later and hurriedly checked Satomi for signs of injury. There were several smoldering holes in her body armor, but none of them appeared to have penetrated all the way through. There was also a small trickle of blood from where she’d hit her head on the balcony floor, but all things considered she did not seem seriously hurt. Relieved, Taylor rested his forehead on Satomi’s shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief. As close calls came, it couldn’t have been much closer.
“We have to concentrate our fire and drive it back!” Taylor called to Casey over the searing roar of the Hedalt’s plasma rifle as it continued to engage Blake, who was fighting tenaciously and without fear. He grabbed Satomi’s weapon in his left hand and then steeled himself. “Are you ready?”
Casey nodded and shifted position, ready to leap up beside him. Taylor remembered her reticent earlier admission that she had never seen action, and was impressed at how coolly she was handling her first contact. She looked a hell of a lot more composed than Taylor felt, that much was certain.
Taylor jumped up with Casey at his side and both of them fired frantically towards the Hedalt, forcing it to retreat behind a low wall that separated a row of computer consoles from the adjacent walkway. Bullets rained down all around it and the Hedalt soldier let out a dull roar, before disappearing out of sight.
“You hit it!” Blake called out. There was excitement in his voice; for Blake, this was the thrill of the hunt. “It’s hunkered down behind that partition; keep it suppressed, I have an idea!”
Taylor reloaded, fumbling his first attempt to slide in the new clip due to the adrenalin causing his hands to shake, and then frantically discharged his weapons towards the Hedalt’s last known location. Bullets smashed through the computer consoles, causing them to spark and fizz like angry fireworks, but the thick partition wall continued to provide effective cover for their adversary.
“What are you going to do?” Taylor called out, glancing over at Blake, but he didn’t need to hear an answer, because he could see Blake reloading his weapon with a bright red clip that had been stored in a pouch in his body armor. He was switching to experimental, explosive-tipped rounds.
Taylor’s handgun clicked; he released the clip and reached for another, while Casey continued to fire, forcing the Hedalt to remain hidden. Taylor reloaded again and then saw Blake taking aim.
“Take cover, Casey!” he shouted, and then he ducked down behind a twisted section of the balustrade that hadn’t already been obliterated by the Hedalt’s previous onslaught.
Blake fired, but at the same moment the Hedalt darted across the back of the room, as if it had somehow sensed the impending danger. A cascade of small detonations disintegrated the partition wall and computer consoles where the Hedalt soldier had been moments earlier, kicking up thick plumes of acrid black smoke that filled the entire rear half of the control center.
Taylor sprang up and leant over what remained of the balustrade for extra support, searching for the Hedalt soldier, but the smoke had entirely obscured his view. If the Hedalt had survived the barrage, he had no way to know.
“Did you get it?” Casey called over to Blake, but her voice was drowned out by the crackling fires below. “I can’t see anything!”
Suddenly the black cloud lit up from the inside with flashes of purple light and a burst of fire erupted from the darkness, obliterating the balcony supports underneath where Blake was standing and sending him crashing to the lower level in a mass of rubble, as if he’d been caught in an earthquake.
“Blake!” cried Casey, and she ran towards the collapsed section, firing randomly into the black cloud with one hand outstretched, until her clip was empty. Taylor also fired into the cloud, but then out of the corner of his eye he saw the Hedalt slip away down the corridor that the wire-framed map had suggested led towards one of the hangars. He covered the passageway in case the soldier re-emerged to chance another attack, but his gut told him the alien had fled to regroup in another location, where it would lie in wait to
ambush them again.
“Blake! Where are you?!” Taylor heard Casey call out. She was standing at the edge of the collapsed balcony, peering down in the dust and rubble. Closer to him, he saw Satomi stir and then draw herself up to a sitting position, holding her head with one hand and pressing another to her chest, where the Hedalt weapon had almost penetrated. He rushed over and knelt at her side.
“Satomi, are you okay?”
“I think so,” Satomi answered and then she tried to stand and it felt like needles were pressing into her chest. She halted half-way up and rested on her knees, pressing her fingers into the holes in her body armor. “What the hell hit me?”
“A Hedalt plasma rifle,” said Taylor, “you’re lucky to be alive.”
Satomi then became aware of the two plumes of smoke; one from the explosive-tipped rounds that Blake had fired, and the greyer cloud of dust that was rising up from the pile of rubble where the balcony had collapsed, taking Blake along with it.
“What happened?” she said, with greater urgency.
“The Hedalt managed to slip away and Blake fell, I don’t know if he’s alive or dead.”
“What? Where?”
“Can you stand?”
Satomi tried again to get up, but the effort shot more needles through her body. Taylor didn’t wait for her to ask and helped her up, throwing her arm over his shoulder to take some of her weight.
“Help me to him,” said Satomi; now that she was on her feet, she could see the full scale of the devastation for the first time and she feared the worst. Together, they hobbled along the balcony until they reached Casey’s side.
“I can’t see him!” Casey yelled, growing more frantic by the second, “We need to get down there.”
“Okay, Casey, but we all go together,” said Taylor, trying to keep his voice calm and level, “That soldier could be back any moment.”
Taylor led the way back along the balcony and down the stairs on the wall opposite to where Blake had fallen. Satomi had regained some of her strength and was able to walk unaided again, and together with Casey they kept their weapons trained on the entrance to the corridor down which the Hedalt soldier had escaped. Taylor ran ahead and peeked down the passageway, seeing that the coast was clear.
“It’s gone,” said Taylor, edging out further into the corridor and keeping his weapon aimed down it. “Go and help Blake. Hurry!”
Casey ran to the pile of rubble and started clawing through it, pulling out jagged stones and crumpled metal as easily as if they were egg cartons. “Blake! Where are you?!” she shouted, “Call out to me, please!”
There was a weak shout and Casey clambered over the rubble towards it.
“Here... Casey, I’m… here.”
Casey saw him, pressed beneath a girder, which lay across his waist. “He’s over here, help me!” she shouted back to the others, before dropping down beside him. Satomi was still several meters away, her injuries impeding her progress, while Taylor backed himself towards the rubble, keeping his weapon aimed along the corridor, just in case the Hedalt decided to make a sudden return.
“I need your help!” cried Casey, but Satomi and Taylor were still too far away, and she could see that the life was quickly ebbing away from Blake. Panic overwhelmed her, and with it came desperation. She had to do something; she had to try. She threw down her weapon and grasped the girder with both hands. Without thinking she lifted, screaming with exertion, like the ethereal cry of a banshee, wailing until the girder shifted and Blake managed to awkwardly slide out from under it. Taylor and Satomi finally arrived and hurried across the pile of rubble just in time to see Casey toss the girder aside and then collapse onto her back, panting for breath.
Satomi ran to attend to Blake, while Taylor dropped beside Casey and helped her into a sitting position, resting against the wall.
“How the hell did you manage that?” asked Taylor, glancing back at the enormous lump of metal that Casey had just tossed aside. He let out a giddy laugh, a mix of surprise and fear, and then looked back at his pilot. Casey was lithe and strong like a dancer, but it should have taken ten Casey’s to lift the mass she had just heaved off Blake by herself. “Have you been hiding superpowers from me all this time?”
“I... don’t know, Cap...” said Casey smiling, but still gasping for air. “I just… did it. But now my arms feel like they’re going to fall off.”
“Well, make sure they don’t,” said Taylor, and he found himself automatically looking at her arms to check they weren’t actually hanging loose by threads of tissue and tendons. “We need you and your arms to fly us out of here, remember?”
Casey let her head flop back against the wall and closed her eyes. She felt like she’d just run a marathon, “Aye, aye, Captain Taylor Ray.”
“Captain, I need you now...” said Satomi, calmly but with firmness.
Captain again... Taylor thought, and his gut churned, expecting the worst. He left Casey resting and joined Satomi, but it was only then that he saw the extent of the injuries to Blake. Cuts, bruises and even breaks could be fixed easily, but without the medical bay on the ship, there were limitations to what they could do in the field, and they were certainly not equipped to deal with serious trauma.
“We’re looking at multiple rib fractures, probable flail chest, and a massive hemothorax,” said Satomi in a hushed voice, “I think also a punctured lung, and a number of other internal injuries that I can’t assess without getting him back to the ship.”
“Hey, don’t talk like I’m not here...” said Blake weakly. His breath was rapid and shallow and his skin had turned pale and clammy. “Just tell me straight; am I gonna die?”
Satomi looked at Taylor and her eyes both implored him for help and told him the answer to Blake’s question at the same time. Taylor knew Satomi well enough to be able to determine her answer from the lines around her eyes and the way her chin tightened. Blake was dying and there was nothing she could do about it.
“Don’t look at him...” said Blake, struggling harder to breathe, “Satomi, just tell me, please. I’d rather the truth than you string me along.”
Satomi looked down, “Yes,” she said softly, “I’m so sorry, Blake.”
Blake coughed and then reached out and took Satomi’s hand. His grip was weak. “It’s okay, Satomi, it ain’t your fault.”
Satomi managed to raise her gaze just enough to look into Blake’s eyes. He smiled at her and squeezed her hand again, though Satomi barely felt the increase in pressure.
“We can try to stabilize you and make you more comfortable,” said Taylor, sensing that Blake did not have long left. “We’ll stay with you.”
They were all silent for a moment, save the sound of the raspy, shallow breaths coming from Blake. Then Blake closed his eyes and shook his head, so gently that the gesture was almost imperceptible.
“No, don’t stay,” said Blake between raspy breaths, “I don’t want Casey to know.”
Taylor understood where Blake was going, but he didn’t like it. Deceiving Casey now would only delay her pain, and ultimately make it more acute.
“She needs to know, Blake…” Taylor began, but Blake reached out with his other hand and managed to grab Taylor’s body armor, and with excruciating effort pull him closer.
“No, not now. It’ll kill her too,” said Blake, spitting blood onto his chin and lips. “Wait till you’re safe. Wait till that bastard Hedalt is dead. Just tell her…” he paused and seemed to wane out of consciousness for a moment before coming to again. “Just tell her I’m gonna be okay. Tell her you’ve medded me up, but that you have to leave me here. She’ll believe it comin’ from you, Cap. You know she will.”
“Blake, I don’t think we should lie...” Taylor began, but Blake just wrestled him closer, his face contorting with pain as he did so.
“Don’t tell her, you hear me? Just kill that alien scumbag and get the hell off this rock.”
Taylor glanced back at Casey; she was still resting with h
er eyes closed. The exertion of lifting the girder had seemingly wiped her out. He looked back into Blake’s eyes and then grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly.
“Okay, Blake, I won’t tell her,” he assured him, “but that’s because we’re not giving up. Satomi will do what she can to fix you up, and then you just hang on, you hear me? Hang on, and we’ll come back for you with the medevac gear once we get back to the ship.”
Blake attempted to laugh, but his chest spasmed and he coughed more blood onto his chin, “Hell, Taylor, I always did admire your optimism.”
“Just do it, that’s an order,” said Taylor, his voice as grave a Blake’s condition. Then he turned to Satomi and with more sensitivity, added. “Do what you can, Satomi. I’m going to check out what’s at the other end of that corridor, and try to figure out our next move.”
Taylor tried to stand, but Satomi caught him by the front of his body armor, her hand covering the bloody mark left behind by Blake. “Be careful, Taylor,” she said, fixing him with wide eyes, “That’s an order.”
Taylor smiled, “You got it, boss. Don’t worry.”
Satomi’s grip remained and it felt almost as if she was trying to pull him closer, but then her eyes narrowed and her expression hardened, and she released him. She held his eyes for a second longer, as if there was something more she wanted to say, before turning back to her patient.
Taylor took a fresh clip of armor-piercing rounds from the pouch on his body armor and slowly slid down over the rubble towards Casey. Her eyes opened narrowly as he approached and she lifted her head off the wall.
“How’s he doing, Cap?” asked Casey. Her tone was hopeful, which made the lie that Taylor needed to tell all the more painful to bear.
“He’s pretty beat up, Casey, but he’s going to be okay,” said Taylor. He must have sounded convincing because Casey smiled.
