The service vessel shuddered slightly as the space station’s atmosphere rushed around it in its effort to escape. This close to Cavaras, most of that air would eventually be recaptured, but that wasn’t going to be happening time soon, and was little comfort to the soldiers aboard the space station.
When the rush of air finally ended, Askit took a heavy breath, wondering how many soldiers he’d just helped to murder. It didn’t feel right, killing them like this, and he detached his emotions to avoid the unpleasant sensations of guilt.
He glanced over to Gdugnir, whom it seemed to him was enjoying the feeling every bit as much as he had. She glanced back with a knowing frown, and he recalled that she had been a soldier – or at least a military pilot – before all of this.
He returned to the still open communications link he’d connected to everyone. “This is Askit checking in, we’re okay here.”
“I’m fine, mate,” Adrian reported immediately. “Lots of dead guys floating around. Kind of feel bad for these ones, but they didn’t make it fucking easy.”
“Same condition here,” Jen reported, over a mumble from Adrian who wished to ‘pardon his French’, whatever that was.
“Just be aware that you might not be the only survivors,” Askit warned them. “Come back and grab the jackpoint, then start making your way to the wormhole system. Once the jackpoint is plugged in I’ll be able to interface directly.”
“Straightforward,” Adrian said. “is there a catch?”
“There is,” Askit replied, noticing the readings from the service vessel’s low-end sensors. “Do you think you can be done within (5 minutes)?”
“That’s a tight timeframe,” Margarita said. “What’s the problem?”
“We’ve got company coming up from Cavaras to join us,” Askit replied. “That’s what this equipment says is their estimated time of arrival.”
“More of the robo-slugs?” asked Jen. She sounded worried, and Askit wondered if it was simple disgust at the appearance of the species or something else. Whatever it was would have to wait.
“Let’s assume so and go from there,” Adrian said. “Whoever they were they’re not going to be happy with the new Feng Shui.”
Jen laughed. It was clearly another in-joke between humans.
“Get a move on,” Askit told them severely. “Unless you want to end up fighting Allebenellin in hard vacuum! Four minutes!”
He switched off the link before they could get any wordier, and reclined into his seat where he watched their movements, and the movement of the ship coming up to meet them.
Humans: they never took anything seriously.
+++++
Adrian was a man who enjoyed peace and quiet. The kind of peace and quiet where he could be left alone with the activity of his choice and simply work at it until he was satisfied. The silence of hard vacuum was both peaceful and quiet, but it was not the variety that he found pleasure in.
The drifting corpses of those he’d killed, staring open-eyed into the abyss, were not something to be enjoyed, and neither was the complete and utter silence that accompanied them. He couldn’t hear a damned thing except for the pounding of his heart, and it set him on edge.
But he pushed through it anyway, avoiding the bodies where he could, and gently nudging them aside where he couldn’t. He had to hurry, but he still had to be mindful of any live Nerve-Jam grenades laying in wait, as well as any suited-up survivors of his sabotage. He’d pause at every corner, checking to see if there was anyone else – or anything else, for that matter – coming the other way.
There never was. Some corridors contained the drifting bodies of the crew, their faces a mask of pain and horror, while most were simply empty, looking as though nothing at all had changed.
“This is creepy, aye?” Jen asked, her voice crackling life into the suit communicator and startling the hell out of him. “All the wee bodies floating about?”
“Yeah,” he replied softly. “How far are you from the docking bay?”
“Not far,” she said. “I’d say maybe a minute out, no more. You can move pretty fast when you push off the walls.”
His lip curved in a half-hearted smile. He was doing that already, but he recalled the use of a hover cam was somewhat more convenient for picking up speed. “You’ll be there ahead of me, then. Grab the jackpoint and don’t wait. I’ll catch up.”
“How long do we have before…” she started.
Askit interrupted. It seemed he’d been eavesdropping. “(30 seconds). You’re not going to make it in time.”
Adrian twisted his body to land against a wall, and kicked off it in order to turn the next corner. “I’ll hold them off,” he said. “Jen-“
“I can help hold them off,” she replied, sounding a little angry. “Do you not see that?”
But I don’t want you to, he thought to himself. “We need to get the wormhole system up and running as soon as possible. You’ll manage it faster than I can.”
She was silent for a moment, and he could only imagine what was going through her head. “Fine,” she finally said. “Just don’t get killed, do you hear?”
“I hear,” he replied, and checked the gun in his hand. Not much ammunition left; hopefully there wouldn’t be a lot of robo-slugs aboard that vessel. “I’ll see you when it’s over.”
+++++
Jennifer Delaney. Mid-twenties, space-babe pirate queen and colonial governor. Currently shoving herself through corridors with a gun-toting Spanish dwarf clinging to her back. Somehow, this was not the most bizarre thing to ever happen to her, and she wondered when the exact moment had been where she’d started losing control over her life. Being abducted? Being rescued by Adrian? Discovering her thrust-upon destiny as governor of humanity’s first space colony?
When she thought about it, however, it had only been that brief time when she’d been the one setting up the pirate base that she’d actually even taken control. Every other decision in her life, from schooling to boys to her career in I.T. had all been made by somebody else, and she had simply gone with the flow because it had been easier.
She might have picked a better time than now to get existentialist, however, because any moment now the station would be boarded by hostile aliens and she’d need to start shooting them. The stakes were even higher than before, because when there was air she could have afforded to suffer minor injury. Now, any damage to the suit would mean death, and she was keenly aware of it.
Maybe it was a good time to get existentialist after all.
The station reverberated with a series of rolling shudders that visibly twisted and shifted the corridors around her, and she immediately flicked on the communicator link to Askit. “What the hell was that, then?”
“Multiple assault pods have just made ingress onto the station,” he advised. “One was near you. Be careful.”
“What about Adrian?” she asked, worried how he’d be able to fight in zero-g hard vacuum with a broken arm.
“Two have impacted near his path,” Askit replied. “They’ve likely patched into the internal sensor systems to target their entry points for optimal strategy.”
“So they know exactly where we are at all times?” Jen asked. “That’s how the other guys were able to keep getting the drop on us!”
“Yes,” Askit said, “and they could do it because they knew we were coming.”
“We’ve still got that to figure out,” Jen replied. “For what it’s worth, I don’t really think it was you.”
“For what it’s worth, I’ve already determined that it wasn’t any of us,” Askit said. “While you were all messing about with the defense force.”
“So that means-” Jen began, trying to think what that could mean. She was interrupted by a forceful tugging sensation where Margarita was gripping onto her. Glancing around she saw the cause: Margarita was spraying bullets back in the direction they’d come from. The tugging was the recoil of her gun.
“Margarita!” Jen exclaimed after hurriedly switching the link back over to the diminutive woman who was hanging on to her for dear life. “What are you shooting at?”
“There was something there!” Margarita replied shakily. “A machine, I am sure of this thing.”
Jen spun around to look for herself as they sped along the corridor as fast as her firm kicks at the walls could propel her.
The corridor was empty, aside from the bullet cases drifting around. She didn’t see anything to be afraid of.
And then something pushed its way through the bullet cases.
Jen’s heart almost leapt out of her chest and she pulled hard on the trigger of her own gun, which proceeded out enough brass to kick her backwards into an undesired twirl.
The shadow of the machine rose up behind her, its invisibility flowing away from it like a rush of water and revealing gleaming metal underneath.
With a sudden thud, she felt it strike.
+++++
Undisclosed Location, Cavaras, Corti Directorate Core World
“The prototypes have reached the station,” the mechanical voice relayed. “Boarding action was successful.”
Zero watched the data feed flowing down from the orbital station. The prototypes were tested, that was true, but they had not seen real combat.
Now they faced the same human who had who had humiliated the Hunters in a series of defeats, as well as the human who was driving the Celzi Alliance economy to the brink of collapse.
It was too dangerous to allow either to escape, and Zero had gone so far as to do the unthinkable; he had ordered the Heirarchy into a war on the streets. A war in which they, too, had suffered humiliating losses. A defeat of such magnitude that Zero was in danger of being removed.
It had been staggeringly fortuitous that they had not fled back to Cimbrean then and there, and Zero had had enough time to manipulate the plots of Councillor Hrbrd to suit his own agenda. There were no questions asked about the existence of Allebenellin troopers in ultra harnesses on a safe world such as Cavaras, not when everyone was so terrified of the dangerous humans on the loose. Even their doctor had bought into the lies, reporting on them and their plans at regular intervals.
Zero had had the doctor disposed of as soon as the humans had embarked on the service vessel. There would be no loose ends this time.
The prototypes had everything under control.