Breaking Point

by David Alastair Hayden

  “You miscalculated?” Tamzin snapped. “How could this be? Aren’t you the great expert on rocks collapsing?”

  “In tunnels, asshole,” Silky responded. “I can’t know everything, especially when I’m working with limited resources.”

  “Well, are we screwed?” Mitsuki asked.

  Siv poked his head out through the hole into the partially lit area just outside then snapped it back as he realized a boulder was lodged precipitously over his head. Silky sometimes wondered how he’d kept the boy alive so long.

  “I think we could dig our way out,” Siv said, “but it would take way too much time.”

  “There’s got to be a better way,” Mitsuki said. “Silkster?”

  Silky didn't answer because he suddenly had another thing to worry about. The WOW signal was closing in, and now that he could get a better reading on it, he was sure it was a Terran Federation masking pattern. A special ops team? They hadn't seen any Feds involved in this since Ekaran IV, but it was only a matter of time before they rejoined the mix. That was his best guess anyway.

  He consulted with Artemisia and Rosie then updated the crew of the Outworld Ranger on the shuttle’s status as the light-cruiser touched down forty-six meters away. Kyralla had skirted dangerously close to one jagged outcrop, sapping the one percent that had made it back into the ship’s force field. Otherwise, she had done an excellent job bringing in the ship, considering that two out of eight maneuvering thrusters were offline while another functioned at thirty-two percent capacity.

  “The best thing would be to place the second charge against the ceiling,” Silky told them.

  “Why didn’t we start with that?” Tamzin demanded.

  "Because I thought it would be easier to climb out through the side given how injured everyone is, and I didn't think about the environmental suits having antigrav units, and I didn't notice the fault in the canyon wall. I'm not perfect, you know, and I've got a lot of balls in the air."

  “Are you okay, Silkster?” Siv asked privately.

  “I hope so, sir.”

  Mitsuki retrieved the other shaped charge. “Where should I place it, professor?”

  “Toward the front. The shuttle’s at an angle. Fragments are less likely to fall back down on you that way…not that any would fall back onto you since you can crowd into the back and—”

  “For ‘Nevolence’s sake!” Tamzin shouted. “We should have done that to begin with. I don’t think you’re nearly as clever as you claim. You’re—”

  “I’m doing my ‘Nevolence-damned best to keep you all alive—constantly! You have so many enemies and challenges to deal with. You have no idea how much I’m doing or how much I’ve done. Not a clue.”

  Tamzin cursed. “Sure, you’ve come up with some clever ideas and saved our asses. I’ll give you that. But you’ve also gotten into us into trouble just as much with your bullshit schemes replicating movie plots and—”

  “Say one more word,” Silky seethed. He’d absolutely had it with her and couldn’t take anymore. “I dare you.”

  A malevolent gleam sparked in Tamzin’s eyes. “One more—”

  Her choice. He sent the pulse to her chippy, and Tamzin fell to her knees crying out, with her hands clapped over her ears. As if that would do any good when he had full access to her auditory nerves. If only all their enemies would grant him access to their chippies…

  “Make it stop!” she screamed. “Make it stop!”

  “Silkster! I don’t know what you’re doing, but you need to stop!”

  Silky ended the blood-curdling scream he'd projected into Tamzin using his access to her dumbass chippy. He'd pulled the cry from one of his favorite classic movies.

  “Explain yourself,” Siv said on a channel that only included him and Mitsuki.

  As Galen squatted to check on Tamzin, Silky told them what he’d done.

  “Look, I don’t like her either,” Wings said, “and I agree she was riding your ass, but that was uncalled for and just way too much.”

  “I’m a lot older than the both of you, and I do not appreciate being chastised as if I were a child.”

  “What’s got you off your game?” she asked.

  “I really am dealing with a lot of things at once. Plus… I don’t know how to describe it, but something’s affecting me, making me tense up, making it harder to keep up with everything.”

  “That sounds like stress,” Siv said with an odd note of surprise in his voice. “And maybe you’ve never been stressed out before. I get it. But that’s not the way to handle things.”

  “Maybe it is stress, sir.” Partly, he believed that it was. But there was something else at play. Ever since they had met Tamzin, he had felt…different somehow. Repeated trips through wraith space and two trips through the wormhole may have adversely affected him. He needed to do a full reboot and maintenance cycle, but he didn't have anything like the kind of time that would take.

  “You need to focus on the most immediate problems,” Mitsuki said. “Worry about the present, not twenty minutes from now.”

  “If I did that, then you’d all have died days ago. But your point is valid. One problem at a time is where we’re at right now.”

  The link to Tamzin’s chippy winked out as she “permanently” severed the connection. Silky laughed. As if that were going to stop him now that he’d inserted a trojan in her chippy’s firmware.

  “How were you able to do that anyway?” Siv asked. “I thought she only gave you communications access.”

  “I seized additional access to see if I could learn anything important, but she doesn’t let her chippy record anything, so I got nothing for my efforts. Although, refusing to let your chippy record when it has more than enough storage is sufficiently suspicious in my book.”

  “You do realize you’ve made things a lot worse at a time when we can’t afford such nonsense,” Siv said.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’d just had enough of her attitude. And I—”

  Tamzin leaped up and leveled her blaster at Siv. “Take the chippy out now and hand it over to me, or we’re finished here.”

  In a flash, Mitsuki forced the barrel of her plasma pistol against Tamzin’s right temple. “That chippy is my best friend, and you are the only one here who isn’t necessary. Trust me, I won’t hesitate to splatter your brains on the wall if you act against my friends.”

  Galen stood and edged forward with his hands held out in a pleading gesture. “I don’t understand what’s happened here, but I think we can all agree that this is not the answer to the situation. Tamzin, put your gun down.”

  “But they started this,” she argued.

  "That does not matter, Tam. Tensions are high because of the danger we are in, but none of us here are enemies. So let's calmly settle this."

  “Silky, apologize to Tamzin.”

  Silky beamed as sincere an apology as he could manage to Tamzin’s chippy. She accepted the message but did not respond. She did, however, lower her gun. Mitsuki did likewise and stepped away.

  “We will settle this later,” Tamzin seethed.

  “Peacefully,” Galen said. “We have many enemies and few friends. We can’t afford to turn against each other.”

  “I’m sorry Silky did what he did,” Siv said. “He will not do it again.”

  Mitsuki placed the charge, and they huddled in the back. Silky explained what they were doing to the Outworld Ranger crew who had already exited the ship, except for Oona who remained on the boarding ramp due to Kyralla’s vehement insistence that she do so.

  The charge popped a new hole in the shuttle.

  “See, nothing bad happened this time,” Tamzin stated pointedly. “This was definitely—”

  The shuttle vibrated. Sparks shot out through the non-functional lights along the ceiling, bursting them. A sizzling sounded menacingly beyond the door leading to the crunched cockpit.

  “Out now!” Silky yelled, sending his words to Tamzin as well, bypassing her chippy’s firewall.r />
  “What’s going on?” Siv asked.

  “The blast set off a chain reaction through the power conduits, sir! And it’s going to be bad.”

  “How bad?” Mitsuki asked as she ushered Galen to the hole in the roof, sparks falling onto them along the way. She activated the antigrav for his environmental suit and boosted him upward.

  “I have no idea yet!” Silky returned. “Just go!”

  Tamzin glared at Siv but said nothing.

  Galen caught onto the edge and pulled himself up onto the roof. “Hurry!” he shouted as he slid down the shuttle’s side. “It looks bad out here.”

  “You next!” Mitsuki said to Tamzin.

  Not hesitating to take advantage of the offer, Tamzin leaped up and crawled out.

  “You next, Sivvy. Don’t argue.”

  Siv made it up and cursed once he saw the sparks firing off from exposed conduits on the roof and flames spurting out from the cockpit, through the hole Kaleeb’s laser had torn.

  He helped Mitsuki up, and they slid down to join Galen and Tamzin who were hurrying away from the shuttle toward the Outworld Ranger.

  “Move, move, move!” Silky said. “The shuttle core’s going to blow!”

  “Can we escape to wraith space?” Mitsuki asked.

  “Not here!” Tamzin said.

  Hobbled as they were, their desperate sprint away from the shuttle was a pitiful effort. It reminded Silky of the time he and Eyana had scouted an alien world where intentionally crippled beings were forced to race one another. He'd never understood the point of a sport where the contestants moved slowly. Similarly, those poor athletes had faced death since the loser of each race was executed.

  Tekeru, Bishop, Kyralla, and Octavian were rushing toward them. Silky ordered them to peel back.

  With the rush of a geyser, the core spewed coolant.

  “Hit the ground!” Silky cried out. They were twenty meters away from the shuttle. He hoped it was far enough.

  Mitsuki tackled Galen, who couldn’t hear the order. The core’s control fields failed. It imploded with a muffled pop then exploded outward, blasting the shuttle apart.

  Silky’s companions covered their heads as fiery debris rained through the canyon. Fortunately, the shuttle’s angle combined with the core’s forward mounting sent most of the blast in the opposite direction from them.

  Cabling, insulation, metal bits, and plastic shards fell upon and around them, but no injuries worse than a scrape or bruise resulted from it. Five meters back, a large chunk of debris simmered. Had they moved any slower, Siv and Galen would now be dead and Mitsuki would at best be missing a wing. It was unfortunate it hadn’t struck Tamzin, though.

  “What the hell caused that?” Mitsuki asked.

  “The vibration from the second charge jammed two exposed wires together, causing a chain reaction. Completely unpredictable. The Benevolence might have seen it coming right away…maybe. It would’ve taken me an hour of simulations to see that possibility.”

  Siv dusted debris and dirt off his environmental suit. “It’s okay, Silkster. No one’s blaming you.”

  “Are you sure about that, sir?”

  “I’m not blaming you,” Tamzin said. “This time.”

  Twenty meters away, the Outworld Ranger crew got up and started toward them. Explosion be damned, Octavian had never paused and had nearly reached them. ‘Nevolence bless that cog. He was supremely annoying and admirable all at once. The upgrade Silky had sent to his AI a century ago hadn’t hurt, of course.

  The WOW signal peaked then disappeared when it reached the atmosphere…only to be replaced by a signal Silky knew far too well, even if it were partial and disrupted. Silky spewed every nasty curse he knew as the cloaked forward section of Vega’s infiltrator entered the moon’s atmosphere, powered by a small ion engine and secondary thrusters. Its speed and steering were poor but sufficient.

  “What’s the hell’s going on?” Siv asked.

  “It’s gotta be bad,” Mitsuki said. “Some of those phrases made me blush.”

  “Oh shit,” Siv muttered, eyes locked onto the locator in his HUD. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yes. Get to the ship! Now!”

  Octavian reached Galen and pulled out his medical kit, only to be confused when Mitsuki pulled Galen to his feet and told him to run. The cog sputtered a storm of angry bleeps.

  “Back to the ship, Octavian,” Silky told him, explaining the situation in a data burst.

  “That’s the designation for Kaleeb’s ship,” Kyralla said hollowly, seeing the info Silky was now beaming to everyone. “How could he have survived that explosion?”

  “He must’ve separated the ship’s forward section just before the plasma bolt impacted.”

  “I didn’t know that was possible,” Artemisia said.

  “Neither did I,” Silky replied. “I’m guessing it’s a secret, experimental feature added to a few infiltrator class vessels that debuted after Eyana’s service ended. Section separation and high-powered masking gear to protect a downed agent from being discovered.”

  It was rotten luck, but not the worst. The infiltrator passed overhead and began a slow, turning arc and descent. They had already cleared half the distance to the Outworld Ranger. There was no way Kaleeb would reach them in time, and the remnant of his infiltrator didn’t possess any weaponry. Unless he wanted to ram the ship, there was nothing he could do to them.

  A blip on the ScanField-3’s sensor sweep altered him to a new and familiar danger closing in. His confidence in their temporary safety just a moment ago now seemed supremely foolish.

  “Evasive maneuvers!”

  Siv ducked his head and zagged right. Mitsuki hunched and zigged left. Kyralla weaved. Everyone else, apparently having no clue what he meant, just increased their pace.

  Two plasma bolts zipped over their heads and kicked up dirt ahead of them.

  Using the spy-flies, he captured video data to confirm the shaky sensor readings showing that Kaleeb had bailed out of the infiltrator and was rapidly descending on them using the jetpack mounted to his centurion assault armor. Faisal was nowhere to be seen, visually or otherwise.

  “Where’s the sky-blade?” Siv asked, a note of panic in his voice.

  “Cloaked, sir. I’m doing my best to find him, but the ScanField-3 can barely manage a level three sweep.”

  Given his current range and speed, accurate shots against running figures would prove difficult, so Kaleeb did the logical thing and forced them to slow down by spraying the ground ahead with wild shots. If he could keep them from reaching the ship, he could slaughter them all easily enough.

  Tamzin spun and fired her laser rifle, missing Kaleeb by several meters. Backpedalling, she continued to shoot at him. One beam swept across Kaleeb's force field, but it held steady, dipping only a half percent in strength. He was undoubtedly using an expensive field booster this time around.

  Siv drew a neural disruptor and a plasma pistol. Half turning, he fired a few wild shots. Mitsuki then did the same thing.

  “You’re wasting your time,” Silky told them. “Those shots aren’t going to deter him, and taking them will just slow you down. Look at Tamzin and how she’s falling behind. Trust me, I’ll tell you when to turn and fire.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if we all just turned and fought him at once?” Tamzin asked. “That’s better than getting picked off along the way.”

  “Reaching the ship is your only hope,” Silky responded. “You’d need luck to take out just Kaleeb, never mind the sky-blade.”

  They were only twenty meters away from the Outworld Ranger, but Kaleeb would be in accurate range in a few more seconds.

  A ping on his radar sweep alerted him to an immediate, up-close-and-personal danger speeding toward them. “Sky-blade incoming! Deploying countermeasure.”

  Silky initiated his retooled sonic burst with its rotating, high-burst, ultrasonic frequency. The spy-flies mirrored in miniature the full discharge from the senso
r pack, spreading the signal across the area.

  Siv flinched, his innards no doubt shaken by the sonic burst. Faisal’s cloak failed, and he careened along his attack vector.

  “Sir, stop!”

  Siv skidded to a halt, and Faisal, blades whirring, swept between him and Mitsuki. The hurtling cog tried to pull up but failed and slammed full-speed into the canyon wall eight meters away. Dust and debris flew everywhere. The crash had brought its shields down to just over thirty-two percent.

  Mitsuki slowed to fire several shots at the combat cog as it bobbed crazily along the ground, blades sheering through rock. Before she could hit it directly, the sky-blade regained control over some of its flight systems and shot straight up into the sky.

  A plasma bolt lanced through Mitsuki’s right shoulder. She stumbled and rolled onto the ground awkwardly. Tamzin paused to help her up, and a bolt burned past her head, blistering her right cheek. Siv hesitated a moment, and a plasma bolt grazed his left calf, easily burning through the environmental suit.

  Wincing, Siv picked up his pace, now with a noticeable limp. Silky missed the days when everyone had at least one emergency implant capable of releasing an immediate dose of medibots. Siv had been given the implant, but the specific strain required by the implant was extraordinarily rare and expensive now.

  Kaleeb reached a low altitude and closed in fast. He would soon overtake Siv, Mitsuki, and Tamzin. His shots zipped between everyone, coming closer and closer to scoring direct hits.

  Nearing the ship, Bishop and Tekeru kept their heads down and sped forward. Neither were armed, and running was all they could do. Kyralla, however, pivoted, dropped to a knee, and fired at Kaleeb with her plasma pistol, twice landing highly accurate bursts against his force field. He returned fire. Using her predictive ability, she dodged between the shots.

  Faisal stopped his ascent, turned, and plunged toward them.

  “The sky-blade’s coming, and he’s got one thing on his mind, sir: cleaving through your skull to get to me. And unfortunately, I’m all out of tricks.”

  Siv activated his force-shield. “Just tell me what to do.”