by Kal Spriggs
Mel shook her head, “No.”
Brian looked over at Strak, “You should help them with those four.”
Strak shot a suspicious look at Mel. He smiled at Brian again, “If you think you’ll be all right…”
“I’m fine, Strak. Go.”
The mutant nodded and then moved down the corridor after Bob, Marcus and the four mercenaries.
Brian rubbed his chaffed wrists and frowned. “I’m sorry, Mel. From what he said, he did his best to keep you in the dark.”
Mel just shook her head. She thought about her murdered parents. She thought about her brother. She thought about Marcus and how he’d betrayed her. She thought about Marcus’s drug addiction. She thought about how she’d killed Giles. “I destroy everything I touch.”
Brian looked away, uncomfortable at the look on her face. “I’ll see if they need any help.”
Mel huddled there on the deck.
“He isn’t your brother?” Fenris asked from above.
Mel didn’t respond.
“Your brother betrayed you?” The gravelly voice sounded puzzled.
“No,” Mel said, her voice hollow. “My brother didn’t betray me.” Her head sank and she felt the tears begin to flow. She didn’t care. “I failed him. I failed them all.”
***
Mel sat. She watched the world through a sort of haze. She knew she should care, knew the others were making important decisions, decisions that lives hung upon. But she couldn’t find it in her to care.
She’d failed her parents, she’d never found the men responsible for their murder. She’d failed her brother, and somehow he’d fallen in with the same people responsible for such atrocities. She’d driven away Marcus, so much that he’d found solace in drugs. She’d failed her parents again when she lost their ship, smashed into the hard dirt of Dakota. She’d killed a man by accident. She’d helped set an autonomous warship on a course to destroy a world.
“…not sure why. But apparently he’s been a longtime courier for them,” Brian’s words slowly filtered into her paralyzed brain. “Giran was the first one recruited by Guard Intelligence. He got a message out, somehow, to GFN. They got a message to Rawn. Rawn knew that Agent Mueller would be going to Dakota to pick up someone special there, and he’d need a full crew.”
The words resonated in her brain. If Rawn knew ahead of time that Mueller would take convicts… “Wait, you’re saying he caused our ship to crash?” She shook her daze off, “He crashed my ship, destroyed everything our parents worked for, for his stupid cause?”
The others looked over. The pity she saw in their faces awoke a spurt of pure rage. She’d seen the same pity when she learned of her parents’ death. She’d seen the same sad looks when she resigned from the Academy at Harlequin Station. Those looks gave her a raw pulse of anger.
“Rawn turned on everything our parents believed in. He made a choice to spit on their memories, to spit on the way they died.”
She let out an angry breath, “He’s not my brother.”
She saw a look of alarm on Marcus’s face, “Look, Mel, maybe you’re being too hard on him—”
“He helped Giran!” She snapped. “He must have known about the orders to destroy Vagyr. He must have known what his ‘friends’ in Guard Free Now would do with a warship like this! I don’t care why he did it. Rawn, and his friends, have to be stopped.”
“Well then,” Strak cleared his throat. “I think we’ve only got one option left to stop them.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that…” Marcus said.
“I think it’s time you stayed put,” Fenris growled. “You have food and water. You can wait until I have accomplished my mission.” The doors at either end of the corridor snapped closed.
Strak looked over at Stasia. “Now would be the time for your trick.”
She licked her lips nervously. “We are sure we will do this?”
Mel nodded sharply, “We have to.”
Stasia pulled out her makeshift datapad and tapped at it, “Is done.”
“Fenris?” Mel asked.
There was only silence.
“How’d you manage that?” Marcus asked. “I thought you couldn’t hack the AI?”
“I can’t, but I caused power surge in control circuits for sensors and intercom,” Stasia shrugged. “It must replace circuitry, yes? We have a few hours.”
Strak stood, moving over to the rucksacks, “Without someone who really knows ship’s machinery, I don’t trust any of our abilities to shut this ship down.” He lifted a large metal cylinder. “That leaves us with this.”
“What is that?” Mel asked. The cylinder’s only features were three glowing lights on the top and a seam that ran from top to bottom.
“This,” Strak said, setting the cylinder down in the middle of the group, “is ten kilograms, more or less, of antimatter.”
***
Colonel Michael Frost glared at the solid blast door in front of him.
“How are we looking on explosives, Wallis?”
His explosives expert frowned, “Hurting bad, sir. I really didn’t plan on needing this much.”
Colonel Frost turned his baleful blue eyes on the smaller man, his lips pinched together at the reminder. None of them had planned on this. They should have stepped aboard a ship ready to follow their every command. Someone, somewhere, had bungled. He turned his glare on one of the responsible men. “Armstrong, you had a reputation for success.”
The young man nodded, sharply, “Yes, Colonel.”
“Explain to me again how you let a woman screw this up?”
The young man gulped, “Well, sir, it wasn’t really her. It’s more that bastard Marcus—”
“You care about your sister,” Colonel Frost said, “which is understandable and, really, good in a way. It shows you have loyalty. You should have brought her in on this. If I’d known how damned capable she was, I would have recruited her a long time ago.”
The young man just shrugged.
“Get back there and see if you can help Swaim get anywhere with hacking this damned computer,” Colonel Frost said. He returned his glare to the heavily armored door. The rest of his men sat or lay on the floor of the corridor. Getting what rest they could, as they should.
Colonel Frost tugged uncomfortably at the collar of his uniform. He hated Guard Fleet almost as much as he hated the Security Council that controlled them. Elitist bastards who’d prevented his promotion for years. A bureaucracy that existed only for itself. He hadn’t worn a Guard Fleet uniform in a decade.
He found it uncomfortable now. It seemed absurd, but it made him want to look over his shoulder, almost as if he feared someone would notice and disapprove of the farce. For that matter, he disapproved, but his original plan required it. Unfortunately, his change of clothes lay aboard the transport. The only other clothing he had was his environmental suit.
He hoped the damned AI had lied when it said it destroyed the transport.
“Colonel Frost!”
He turned fixing his icy blue eyes on the electronics expert, “Yes, Swaim?”
Jeremiah Swaim wasn’t a ‘true believer’ – just someone who hated the Guard, and especially Guard Fleet. That didn’t make him trustworthy in Colonel Frost’s opinion.
Swaim spoke quickly, “Colonel, I think someone hacked the AI. The sensors are down.”
Colonel Frost raised his eyebrows, “You’re sure?”
“I thought the AI finally locked me out, but now… yes sir, I’m sure. Whoever he is, he’s a lot better than me at hacking. I don’t know how long the sensors will stay down, but for now, the computer can’t see us.”
Colonel Frost smiled slightly, “That’s excellent. Get to work on the door, find a way to get it open without explosives.” He looked over at his immediate subordinate, “Captain Roush, get the men ready. As soon as Swaim gets the doors open we move out. We link up with the others.”
“What’s the plan, Colonel?” Roush asked as he
stood.
He had been a non-commissioned officer in the Guard Marine Corp, who Colonel Frost knew still had a UNGMC tattoo on his shoulder. He also had a propensity to ask too many questions. Frost knew how to handle that last bit.
Colonel Frost grabbed his collar, “I said, get the men ready to move out. Get them out of these monkey-suits and into their armor and e-suits. Do it now.”
“Yes, sir!” The other man, turned. He snarled and kicked at the men still seated or prone. “Get up, you heard the Colonel, get up, get your gear on! We’re moving out!”
CHAPTER VII
Time: 1500 Zulu, 14 June 291 G.D.
Location: Fenris, Six days from Vagyr
“I don’t like it,” Marcus snapped.
“You don’t have to like it,” Strak snapped, “but it’s our only option, and you know it.” The mutant shrugged his shoulders.
“We will die.” Stasia said.
“We’re dead anyway. This way, we stop this ship,” Strak said. He smiled slightly, “I really don’t give two shits about Vagyr. It’s a haven for pirates and scum. But regardless of what happens there, we’re dead. Either the Guard opens this can up with big guns or they board it and kill us. Either way, we’re dead. I say we die our way.”
Mel stared at the metal cylinder. Ten kilograms of antimatter. It came from the power plant of the John Kelly. Enough to destroy the ship several times over.
“How do we do this?” she asked.
Marcus snapped his head around, “You can’t be serious?”
She shrugged, “I don’t see another way.”
“The containment bottle has safeguards.” Strak said. “Once they’re on, you can’t bypass them. The only way is explosives, a strong acid, or some industrial machinery.”
“How about Bob’s pistol?” Mel asked.
“Wait a minute!” Bob said. “I think this plan is a little hasty. Let’s not assume I’ll be giving you my hardware to do it!”
“Nah, it won’t pierce the outer armor.” Strak shrugged. “We need something much bigger.”
“There are two machine shops on this ship,” Mel said. She brought up her mental layout of the ship; one of them didn’t seem too far away.
“Wait right there. We are not doing this!” Marcus snapped.
Mel turned a flat gaze on him, “Give me another option.” Her eyes went to the others, “Any of you?”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Brian said, “We have… what, six days?”
“A bit more than that!” Bob said, looking extremely nervous at the prospect.
“And we have a few hours before the ship can watch our every move,” Mel said. “Once it sees us trying to do this, it will deem us a threat. It’s got some serious ability to kill us, then. Even its repair robots could kill us. It has several thousand of those. It has six remaining security wolves. Seven if it repairs the one we destroyed.”
“There has to be another way.” Marcus looked frantic, Mel realized. She wondered why he couldn’t see how this was the only way. It's the best way to end this, she thought, and make sure it is done right.
“What, we disable it?” Strak asked. He waved his arms, “How long did this thing coast to a star system last time for repairs? A hundred years? How will buying a hundred-year pardon on Vagyr gain us anything? We’ll still die. Of old age if nothing else.”
Bob spoke, “Let’s think about this, you’re talking about suicide—”
“Let’s just put it to a vote,” Marcus scowled.
“We vote on whether we kill ourselves?” Stasia looked around at the others, “I think you forget something. Her brother did not kill Agent Mueller.”
Mel frowned, “That’s right, he couldn’t have, I had the engine room locked down.”
She hadn't really thought about that, but then again, her brother's betrayal cut her too sharply. It seemed a small measure that Mueller hadn’t died at her brother's hands.
“So… what? You’re saying one of us killed Mueller so we shouldn’t vote on this?” Marcus asked.
“Nyet. One of you is former Guard Intelligence. One of you killed Mueller to hide that. One of you will kill to protect himself,” Stasia’s accent grew thicker.
“You’re saying if we decide to do this, whoever that psycho is will kill us to stop it?” Marcus raised an eyebrow. He looked around at the others, almost nervously. “That’s kind of insane, considering we’re all in the same boat.”
“If this guy got let go for being excessive by the same people who sent a warship to kill a planet, perhaps we need to take that into consideration,” Brian said.
All eyes turned to him. “Hey, don’t look at me, I was with her when Mueller died!”
He pointed at Mel. Mel felt all the eyes in the room go to her.
“And she killed Giran, who might have known the other former agent,” Bob said, thoughtfully. “And her brother is working with GFN for unknown reasons.
“Da, and she killed Giles,” Stasia said.
“Who is Giles?” Brian asked.
“I am not a psycho killer!” Mel said. “God, I wish I could put those bullets back in the gun, okay? I wish I hadn’t shot at that damned robot! As for Giran… fuck him, he was trying to kill one of us!”
“You seem pretty eager to place the blame on someone else,” Marcus frowned at Stasia. “Come to think of it, when I went to get a datapad, I left you alone on the bridge. Where were you when I got back?”
Stasia blinked in surprise, “It wasn't me!”
Mel frowned, “That doesn’t answer the question. Besides, we know Brian and Strak couldn’t be Guard Intelligence, they’re both muties.”
“What!” Brian surged up to his feet. He looked over at Strak with a betrayed expression and Mel hid a slight smile at how taken aback he looked. “You—”
“Oh, shut up,” Marcus snapped. His hand went to the new bandage behind his ear, and Mel saw him wince in pain at the shout. “Look, I don’t care what you are. Mel, aside from her lack of tact, doesn’t care. Stasia said she doesn’t care. Bob, whoever he works for, doesn’t care.” He looked over at Bob. “Who do you work for anyway?”
“Let’s not stray off topic,” Bob said. “I’m not a suspect in Agent Mueller’s death.” He cleared his throat, “We know that Brian and Strak didn’t kill Mueller, that leaves you other three.”
“I was with him!” Mel snapped, pointing at Brian.
“Were you two together the whole time?”
Mel and Brian both nodded.
“So… that leaves you two,” Bob pointed at Marcus and Stasia.
Mel saw Marcus’s eyes go wide. He looked both startled and afraid to Mel. “Whoa, hold on there, I already said—”
Stasia narrowed her eyes. “We are being accused on slim evidence.”
“Concrete enough that I’m feeling nervous about you two,” Bob said, fingering the butt of his pistol in a thoughtful manner.
“Da, nervous that one of us killed Mueller when she killed your partner in front of you,” Stasia said, giving Mel a sour look.
“Look, that’s enough,” Mel snapped. “Forget it. We can argue until our time runs out, or we can take this opportunity.”
She sighed, “Yes, I killed Giran. Yes, I’m an idiot and I killed Giles because I was stupid. Yes, my brother is a terrorist. And yes, someone here killed Agent Mueller. We don’t even know why... just that they didn’t like him. Hell, I didn’t like him. I doubt that his mother liked him.”
She let out an explosive breath. “Okay, here’s the facts. We’re on a warship headed to annihilate a planet. It’s a pirate haven. That doesn’t mean much to the kids living there. That doesn’t mean much to the people just trying to live day to day. We have an opportunity to stop that. We can save millions of people.” She looked around at the group. “We’re going to die anyway. I say we die making a difference.”
Strak nodded, “That’s what I was saying. Anyone here disagree with that?”
Bob smiled slightly, “I’d
like to say we won’t die… but I’m not too good at lying to myself.”
“We cannot get to the AI and shut it down?” Marcus asked.
Brian shook his head, “No. I studied it, just like Mel. It has formidable defenses. And really... if wants to kill us, it could mess with the environmental systems, or flood the ship with hard radiation. It has total control over the ship; we’re like rats in a maze.”
Stasia let loose a stream of Russian cursing. “Da, we must die, we kill it too.”
All of them looked at Marcus, he scowled, “All right, you’re asking the guy in withdrawal if he wants to die? Let’s just get this over with. At least my head will stop hurting.”
***
“They blew themselves up,” Marcus said, “the end.” He scowled at the door he’d tried to bypass, “Okay, Stasia, how do I do this again?”
She swore again in Russian.
Mel pushed him to the side and started pulling wires, “You never were any good at machinery.”
“I’ve got other talents,” Marcus shrugged. “You know, this whole blowing ourselves up thing is harder than it looks in the movies.”
Strak shouldered past them. He carried the heavy containment cylinder and he stepped through the door as soon as Mel got it open, “It’s supposed to be hard. Otherwise, terrorists would hold cities hostage every day.”
“A valid point I suppose.” Marcus sighed, “Still, they could have a button for ‘I really need this thing to blow up, now.’ You know, just for emergencies like this.”
Bob frowned, “You know, if this was a movie… we’d rig it to explode and then miraculously find a possible escape, right?”
Mel snorted, “Right… and then we’d try to get to it, and in the end, only the hero and a pilot would get off the ship alive.”
Brian frowned from the rear, “So… you’re saying I’m going to make it out with either you or Marcus to pilot me?”
“Nonsense,” Bob said, “I, naturally, would be the hero. You’re…” he waved a dismissing hand, “merely an interesting side character, doomed to a dismal death.”
