43 · Crash
Cat followed the Wadi’s scent trail to a bank of elevators as the weak odors thinned out to a vaporous nothing. She pressed all the buttons arranged on the shiny column between the lifts, the symbols as meaningless to her as the jabber she’d squeezed out of the guard at the last station. Doubt crept up inside, making her feel stupid for jumping off to orbit all half-cocked like she always did. Of all the things she’d expected to find when she jumped after Molly and Walter, she hadn’t been prepared to find nothing.
She looked down at her emerging toes while she waited on one of the lifts to arrive. So focused was she on her healing wounds, Cat missed the silent swish of the opening doors. There was just a soft ding, and by the time she looked up, two stunned Bern had already drawn their guns.
One Bern got a shot off before Cat could slice them both in half. The blast went through her chest, right by her shoulder. Cat staggered inside the lift, reeling from the physical impact of the blow, her nostrils tingling with the smell of burnt self.
The doors closed, snapping shut across a new stream of Bern blood. Cat looked for buttons to press, her pursuit having become mad and completely blind. The dizziness from her blood loss worsened with the new wound, filling her with despair but very little pain. She blinked away the cloudy thoughts and realized there were no buttons in the elevator to press, just a badge scanner and four massive knobs beneath it, each of which was ringed with more Bern symbols.
Left or right, Cat thought to herself, peering at the knobs. Either way, she wanted to go to the max. She wanted to be wherever the important shit was. The Callite in her wanted to turn them all the way to the left, knowing that would take her to the top, but these weren’t Callites. They shared more genetic code with Humans, who loved all things right and clockwise. She turned the knobs that way, all four of them, then waved each of her plucked ID cards in front of the scanner, not sure which was the highest-ranked.
To the max, Cat thought, smiling as the lift rumbled into motion.
????
Cole felt powerless as the wounded Bern craft plummeted toward the surface of Lok. Group two’s suicidal dash for the rift, spurred by a fear for Mortimor’s life, had drawn copious amounts of fire from the Bern fleet still in hyperspace. He knew Arthur was in the cockpit doing his best to manage the crippled ship, but as they passed through the rift and screamed down through Lok’s atmosphere, the pilot in Cole wanted to be up there in the cockpit doing something with the controls, even if that something proved futile.
Around him, the ship’s cargo bay had become a physical manifestation of his internal chaos. A wide mix of aliens screamed and shouted as the ship bucked and shivered. Fear had each of them resorting back to their old, primal tongues. Gear was scattered everywhere and still rumbling about. What remained of a once-noble resistance force was now jumbled, confused, and frightened as it fell out of the rift toward the sucking gravity of the planet below.
Cole stayed wedged between one of the storage lockers and a bulkhead as he held Mortimor, whose body had grown perfectly still. Gone was the fierce and calm bravery he’d seen the man possess during the past days. That vitality had been replaced by the sagging slowness of a man with half his life drained away.
Penny helped Cole hold him in place, the three of them braced together for impact. They were no longer able to do any first aid as the Bern craft rocked from side to side, the screaming of disturbed air audible through the hull. Every now and then, the sight of Penny’s severed arm caught Cole’s attention—the trailing wires and dripping fluids adding to the surreal nature of his environment.
A loud wail emanated from the cockpit, the shrill call of a collision warning perhaps. The yelling and shouting from the passengers grew in noise and pitch, matching the changing Bern alarm. As it grew in frequency and duration, Cole marveled at the psychological similarities Humans and the Bern must share. The clatter of the warning siren eerily mimicked the sound a Human engineer would choose to signal impending doom—
????
Doctor Ryke made his way to Parsona’s cargo bay as soon as the ship leveled off and the Gs relented to a level the grav panels could compensate for. They were still moving at quite a clip, heading back around Lok to the small ruin of a village where the whole mess had begun. The mess he had created.
“If only I’d gotten married,” he said aloud as he helped Scottie to his feet. His two old friends had remained seated on the deck by the rear bulkhead, pinned by Parsona’s acceleration.
“If only you’d done what?” Scottie asked.
“Nothing.”
“I thought she knew how to fly herself,” Ryn said. “You sure it’s safe to stand?” The large Callite accepted the help up, but with the wary stance of a man distrusting gravity.
“It should be fine.”
“What in the hell just happened?” Scottie asked.
“Mortimor’s ship just came through the rift from hyperspace and went down. It looks like our missile plan is off.”
“But the crews we sent out to get that fleet—” Scottie said.
“Toast,” said Ryke, nodding. He pulled on his beard. “Now help me with that console we were gonna use for the missiles. We’ve got other things that need doing with it.”
“We’re gonna leave them to die?” Ryn asked.
“Afraid so, but now it’s up to us to slam shut my damned door forever. Let’s just hope the end of the many massacres to come will get its start right here.”