by S E Zbasnik
After he placed it through the opened door, he scuttled back as if a nest of vipers rested inside. The leader shook his head, but walked away. With another nod of his head, the door collapsed, sealing in the canister. Then a familiar noise, like someone breaking the seal upon a can of spiced ale, reverberated through the room and up their spines.
Variel’s armored head broke from the vigil to reflect back Taliesin’s eyes. She shook it in disbelief, “They can’t…”
To punctuate her words, the klaxxon blare of universal warning beat from above the door altering everyone that someone was about to break the containment seal upon the station. The leader watched, his stance relaxed, as the canister was yanked into frozen space, left to never properly rot in the vacuum of the expanse.
“Orville’s fucking bow tie,” Variel cursed, her voice raspy. “They aren’t hostages, they’re sacrifices.”
The leader nodded his head towards the mages, who closed the outer hull, re-pressurizing the airlock within so the rest of the room wouldn’t suffer. As he turned to the pile of innocents corralled from their homes and businesses, the leader didn’t look upon the faces rising in horror as their fates appeared. He only gestured to one of his men standing beside the jail.
“We have to do something.”
“We must stop this.” They spoke simultaneously, watching as the jailer slipped a pair of armpit length gloves over his hands and reached into the twitching mass of terrified walking dead. He froze for a moment as he looked back at the leader, a question crossing his murdering back.
“The dwarf. I always hated their kind. Stuck up snots. We’ll see how well they can fly,” the voice blared out of Variel’s right hand.
“Shit crackers!” she cursed, then slammed her left hand over her helmet’s mouth.
Taliesin placed his hand over her glove and whispered, “Must have dislodged when we removed the gauntlets. Running on battery power in the glove.”
“It must not be open,” she whispered back as well as she could.
“Why do you believe that?”
“Overhearing two people bitching about climbing down three decks and killing a couple of their guys? I think even they’d figure out something was up.”
Variel kept her right hand open and watched as the jailor’s hands slipped around the dwarf’s bicep. She tried to struggle, but time seemed to be slowed within their trap, and he easily yanked her free. As he was about to pull her other arm behind her back, she bashed her thick dwarven skull back, smashing him in the groin. The human staggered, but he didn’t drop his hold.
The dwarf yanked her arm against her captors, but the leader stomped methodically towards her and punched his fist against her face. She crumpled to her knees in pain and the wheezing jailor finally got her into a lock. “Get it,” the leader said through Variel’s hand, and two terrorists scampered off.
“If you have any suggestions,” Taliesin started, watching the men struggle carrying a barrel.
“Working on it,” Variel said. “How much force do you think that jail bubble can withstand?”
“Exploding it would not be wise. The ones inside who survived would not stand long against that much munition.”
She only snorted in her human way and recounted the men. “Look, one of the separate five are poking their PALMs. New orders?”
Sure enough, one of them stood upright and said something to the leader still tutting over the dwarf. He shifted his body towards them, and shouted through Variel’s hand, “Like you were a big help, anyway. Go see what those morons fucked up at the whorehouse.”
The one of the new ordered five stretched his neck as if he were about to start something, but one of the others touched his shoulder and they all turned away towards the proper platform lifts. “Not the most professional of reactions to orders,” Taliesin said.
Variel scoffed, “They’d get tossed out an airlock for that shit.”
“Really? Which one?”
“All of ‘em, but the odds are better in our favor now,” she strained over him, as if she could see what the mages were scribing into the computer while they fussed.
“Oh, yes, of course, fifteen to two. Why even break a sweat?”
Her black-plastic face turned to his and he heard the smile, “You’re cute when you’re sarcastic.”
He swallowed the smile from her banter and responded, “Perhaps it is not sarcasm. But, I’d prefer to hear your plan. To give you an opportunity.”
“Thanks,” she watched as the two terrorists finally finished carting the barrel and set it upon the ground. One stepped up to the side and pushed upon two buttons. A pair of levers emerged from the side and he yanked them down. The barrel extended itself, unfolding to reveal a weapon of quick destruction.
“Ass splinters!” Taliesin swore. “A turret?”
Variel’s breathing slowed as she weighed the disengaging bullet machine and the even more stacked odds. “I’m going to ask you a very strange question and I want absolutely no bravado from you. None of this ‘Yes Ma’am’ ‘giving 110%’ bullshit. Honest truth.”
“Very well,” Taliesin turned away from the scene to look at her, afraid she was about to insist they both run out there naked demanding the attention of the gnome king.
“Do you think you can hold onto a turret while it’s firing?”
*~ *~ *
“Commander, Sir, um, I mean, uh,” the droopy eyed mage blathered, her helmet tipped to the side again. He insisted they all practice a few times with the new armor before getting into the field but their mages were above such matters. Intelligence trumps brawn and all that. Maybe so, but a bullet to the brain trumps intelligence, especially when your helmet seal is cracked.
“What?”
“The, sorry sir, it’s about the, well, that is to say…”
“Sweet whore of the gods, spit it out,” he shouted, stepping closer to the mage hunkered over the computer they stole from an elven distributor. It was hard to say purchased even when coin was exchanged after gunning her down so there’d be no tracks.
Her fellows were even more skittish in the grizzled warrior’s presence, dashing about like sparrows facing oncoming traffic above scraps of bread. The mage gestured to a string of letters and numbers across the screen as if it meant a damn thing. “We’ll only get the doors to open a few more times before the entire system crashes. The safeties weren’t meant to be overridden.”
“What with them being safeties and all,” one of the other mages cut in before dashing behind the only true patriot assigned to guarding them.
“I see,” the commander muttered, “Jettle, start yanking them out one by one. We’re doing this the hard way. At least we set up old Belle.”
The mage didn’t look at the turret aimed at the contained NC’s but she had to feel it glaring back at her through the bolt eyes at the top of the rotating head. As she returned to her job of trying to stay out of things, a voice broke through the lines.
Their rear guard moved aside as an armored woman appeared, an elf stumbling beside her. One hand gripped his shoulder as she drug him towards them. The commander eyed her up, not recognizing the person in the uniform, but that was the problem with keeping off any identifying marks.
“What’s this?”
“Sir,” she shifted the gun over her shoulder as it dangled dangerously close to the elf’s reach. He’d grab it in a second if he weren’t bound. Amateurs, he was surrounded by amateurs. “I found this tree fairy and subdued him.”
“And…” the commander remained unimpressed, even as the sharp eyes of the elf burned through his helmet. Elven combat was something taught only to those of the upper echelons. Something he’d never achieved despite trying. How that whelp took one down…she must have gotten incredibly lucky.
“He was near the St…the whorehouse,” she said and then saluted with her free hand. For a moment he feared she would use the arm still holding the captive elf.
“I see,” the commander said. “And I’m to be
lieve one elf took out an entire platoon?”
The elf didn’t respond, but the woman filled in for him, “I wouldn’t know, Sir. Only reporting what I saw.”
“Ex-Crest?”
His question paused her, and her crisp answers wavered, “Sir?”
“You only report what you saw, not what you thought. Any common idiot yanked out of a bar raving about all the aliens destroying the economy would’ve given me his entire fucking life story.”
“I don’t like to talk about it,” she said, hammering so hefty a final nail in that conversation he didn’t want to pry it back up. When she spoke he almost wanted to salute himself.
“Right,” he shifted the greaves, hitching up the oversized pair as he stepped into the face of the elf. The demon eyes, yellower than dehydrated piss, glared through him. “Boy, you best pray to your flowers because tonight you’re joining ‘em.”
The elf didn’t shift, didn’t seem to acknowledge his words. The commander leaned his face closer, his own hand grabbing onto the elf’s arm when he felt the movement of free wrists. Only having enough time for his brain to register than something went wrong, the soldier dropped her grip on the elf and the alien’s arm dashed across the commander’s throat.
He was about to chuckle “Missed,” when blood pooled under his tongue, coating his words. As he tried to stumble away, the elf sliced again, knocking off the gas tubes on his back. How the fuck did he know that? was as far as the commander’s brain got before the elf kicked his dying body away. He tumbled towards the pair of soldiers rushing away from Belle to assist and the familiar tch tch tch of his suit caught. Oh shit…
*~ *~ *
Variel spun away, the gun firing off her hip towards the lone merc beside the mages. It didn’t really aim, but at point blank it didn’t matter. The slugs ripped through the thin armor as he struggled to get his own gun into firing range. Ha, by the time the battery’s done you’ll be hamburger, she thought. As she advanced upon him, the mages scattered to the floor, some covering their ears.
An explosion burst behind as their illustrious leader succumb to his fatal flaw, hopefully taking another two with him. Taliesin lifted up the commander’s abandoned gun and fired towards the line of terrorists realizing something very bad just happened and perhaps they should do something about it. Finally, Variel smashed the butt of the gun into the guy’s head, scattering whatever remained to the ground as she poked at the computer.
“Sin!”
His round of spray sent the mercs diving for cover, but they’d be back soon. “Yes?”
“Turret!”
“Very well,” he kept his suppressing fire even as he ducked towards the turret. She thought she heard some elven cursing as he flexed his hands and grabbed onto the turret’s head, aiming the barrel back towards those about to fire it up. Variel poked at the computer, trying to make sense of the hexawhatever flashing across the screen. “Fucking…” she yanked the collar of one of the mages and pulled him to the screen. Yanking off his helmet she ordered, “Tell me how to open the door.”
“I…uh, how about I do it instead?” the man gurgled.
“Try anything funny…” she gestured to the raw meat that was in charge of keeping the man alive.
The mage gulped and began to punch in letters. As she broke for a moment to see how her elf was getting on, a dwarven face — confused by the turn of events, but grateful for the assist — hustled over. “This isn’t a safe place, you should take cover,” Variel shouted.
“You need me,” the dwarf said.
“Is that so?”
“Your friend there is trying to send a charge through the software to fry everything.”
The mage froze, his fingers poised over the keyboard as a terrified rictus rose across his face. He lifted his hands up in capitulation as a gauntleted fist slammed into his nose, crushing the bone. Variel kicked him in the knees, and he collapsed to the ground with the others. She stepped away from the panel and said, “By all means.”
The dwarf cracked her fingers, “Shouldn’t be more than a minute, maybe two.”
Variel picked up the dead guard’s gun and said, “If we live that long.” As the words left her mouth, a hum rose from the turret. She could almost feel a chuckle from the men hiding behind their cover. Then the chuckle fell as the bullets bounded towards them, ripping their makeshift cover to shreds.
“Sin?”
“I. Am. Fine,” he grunted, his fingers digging into the vibrating frame of the turret.
Without breaking his concentration, she watched for the peek of heads around cover, trying to pick off anyone attempting to aim for her elf. A few of them dodged down. One slid by the side and shot at her, winging the shoulder
“You want to play? Let’s play,” she shouted as she shrugged off the minimal damage thanks to the armor. She sighted down the notch on the rifle, waiting. When a head poked, trying to kill Taliesin, she aimed not for the headshot, but the area to his left shoulder. Firing rapidly, her target didn’t flinch much but then suddenly fell back. Smirking, Variel began to count when the dwarf shouted.
“What door did you want me to open?”
“Both!”
“You know that would…”
“Yes, so set it on a timer, ten seconds,” she answered back just as the wounded gas tank exploded. “Sin?”
“Still. Holding!” he shouted as his arms wobbled. The smell of burnt keratin began to fill the air as the turret heated from the firing rate.
Variel shot at another head, men running up to replace the few that exploded, missing entirely. “Not to rush you or anything, but…”
“Okay, okay, okay,” the dwarf said, stretching out a few more okay’s for good measure. “When you say the word the countdown starts.”
“Sin?” Variel shouted.
She didn’t look over as her lover screamed a, “Please!” Instead, Variel shouted, “Now!” before the please died away. The dwarf smashed onto the button and the captain nodded her head to Taliesin. He let go his unearthly hold and ran towards the prison bubble.
Variel grabbed onto the back of the dwarf’s starched shirt, getting a, “What are you doing?” even as she trundled along, her shorter stride struggling to keep up. Variel dove after Taliesin, pushing the dwarf before her into the bubble as the numbers counted down. Out of the corner of her eye she caught one of the mages rising from their terrified squat to try and stop the dwarf’s orders but there was no time.
She jumped into the bubble, her body hitting the reality dilation like a brick wall. The mages were struggling to save themselves, all her focus on their meddling, when a hand grabbed onto her pulling her forgotten foot inside. Her head whipped around to Taliesin and he smiled grimly. So far, so good.
The popping resounded through the station, but was muted inside the bubble as it echoed across unreality. As the airlock opened, the klaxon rose and a voice calmly stated, “Decompression occurring on deck 24 section 38 B, the Settler’s Choice deck. Please secure all life suits before…” the computer cut out as the hull door popped.
Vacuum yanked at everything outside their bubble, its greedy fingers searching for whatever wasn’t nailed down. In this case, the bodies of fifteen humans would suffice nicely. Within the bubble, time did and didn’t move slowly. It was only something a quantum philosopher could explain, probably while free basing unicorn, but she could see shadows of the man she killed yanking inside for the dwarf and also the future of an empty deck. Reality enacting upon the bubble would take a few more seconds.
“Hang on, everyone,” she shouted to the others, “this is gonna hurt.”
As the endless tug of space yanked away two of the mages, its tendrils finally reached inside the bubble. Scooping up those not frozen across all realities, it pulled the corporeals towards itself. Variel smashed into Taliesin as he turned, his back splattering into the goblin. He tried to mutter his apologizes, but breathing was difficult as the air struggled against the pull. Still, the bubble held against
most of the forces, allowing some oxygen to enter into their flattening lungs.
She tried to crawl around his crushed body to watch as the bodies of the men she’d killed tumbled past and out the airlock. One’s dangling head smashed into the computer, kicking up sparks that quickly died in the lack of atmosphere. Another two men, struggling as best they could, tumbled past. One tried to reach into the bubble, hoping to find someone to pull with, but the force was too strong and the vacuum yanked him onward, leaving his fingers trapped within unreality.
“How much longer?” someone shouted below the crush of bodies.
“Shouldn’t be much,” Variel tried to shout, but it plummeted out as a whisper.
“How do you know?” the voice demanded. She wondered if it was the dwarf who inputed in the commands herself just as the monitor was sucked into space.
“Because…” Variel started when the klaxon blare began again, the lights flashing, and a foot thick door slammed into place over the airlock. It took a moment for the lack of universal force to reach back into the bubble, but as a collective heap, the people tumbled to the ground. She was grateful for her elf’s skinny stature as he collapsed on top of her, and then the goblin as well. Quickly, Sin pushed the goblin off, then tried to offer a singed hand to Variel. She picked it up in her gauntlet and felt the burned nails smush into her armor. As she was about to reach out to him in a moment of, “Why the hell did you agree to burn yourself for my stupid plan?” when the dwarf shouted again.
“How did you know it would do that?”
“Emergency lock, can’t leave the door open for more than 90 seconds. Every station’s got them.”
“Every station?” Sin asked, noting the places he as well as she had visited in their time together.
She acquiesced, “All right, not every one. But if you name your decks after anchor stores, you’re going to.”
“Geode,” the dwarf muttered, breaking up the banter, “just geode. So, miss tactical genius, in all this scheming did you fail to notice that we’re trapped in here?” She wiped away the spittle and blood clinging to her mouth with the back of her hand and absently smeared it across her cream blouse.
