PART 4
“Come back, Captain.” Alyssa’s voice played through my earpiece. Her tone was soft and unusually restrained.
I left Ivan to his post and crossed through the airlock for the third time. Emerging into the control centre, I found Alyssa sitting on an office chair, grinding a whetstone against her sword. The floor was slick with blood, but the bodies that spilled it were nowhere to be seen.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
The Princess pointed to the bathrooms. “Don’t go into the ladies’ room.”
“I won’t. Not like we’ll be here long anyway.” I moved to the main console and looked over the display panels. “I’m gonna need an ID chip.”
“Right here, boss.” Alyssa stowed her sword and stone. She came up beside me and presented a bloody PCB the size of a fingernail.
I used the chip to gain administrative access and set the reactor to maximum output while disengaging all the safety protocols. Before long, the station would be bathed in fatal levels of radiation. But that wasn’t enough for me. The only good xeno was a dead one and I am a thorough man.
There was no mechanism to vent the station’s atmosphere. Almost like they didn’t want someone like me killing everyone on board. I opened a line to the Iron Maiden.
“This is Captain Mason to Admin Chief Baker,” I said into my earpiece.
“What do you need, boss?” asked Scott.
“I need a hole. Right through the hull of the station and on every level.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because I want to vent the atmosphere and every alien bastard on board with it.”
There was a pause. I could hear Scott talking to someone on the other end. “Captain… You know you need atmosphere too, right?”
“I’ve got a space suit and a spare for Alyssa,” I said. “How soon can you get it done?”
“Immediately. How fast can you suit up?”
“Give me fifteen minutes. I’m currently in the central control cluster. Sending you a blueprint now. Avoid the reactor… And Scott, don’t miss.”
“Sure thing, boss. I’ll tell engineering to warm up the rail guns.”
I nodded. “Fifteen minutes. See you soon.”
“Aye, aye. Baker out.”
I turned to Alyssa. “It’s go time, Princess. This station is going hard vacuum in fifteen minutes. Get your space suit on.”
“On it.” Alyssa pulled off her helmet and started yanking at the locks on her body armour.
After setting a fifteen-minute countdown on my wrist link, I removed my shoulder strap and pistol belt, before dawning the nearest space suit. It did not come together with the grace of my standard combat dress, but it fulfilled its purpose. I dressed faster than the Princess, since she had to change out of her armour. After locking my helmet, I redressed my various holsters and took up Jessica.
By then, Alyssa had removed her armour and forced a leg into her space suit. It appeared to be a significant challenge for her. The rigors of combat had left the woman profoundly sticky. Her clothes and hair were soaked with alien blood in various states of drying. I smiled. Of all the amazing things in space, what was more beautiful than a woman who could so effectively go toe to toe with a xeno swarm? Nothing.
Of course, there wasn’t much time to appreciate my companion. With the grace and ease of a fly in a spiderweb, Alyssa yanked the suit on and sealed it. Her blood-stained face disappeared behind the helmet of her suit and she gave me a thumbs up.
“Good to go, boss.”
“Alright, Princess,” I said, checking the countdown timer. “Keep your tongue in your mouth and hold onto something solid. You’re about to experience your first depressurization.”
Alyssa crossed her arms and nodded slowly. “Right… Hey, Jack, remember when you said I was gonna make friends? This has to be the exact opposite of that.”
“I’m afraid events have occurred beyond even my control, Princess.” I checked my wrist link, confirming I had enough time for a follow up statement. I did, but only just. “You’ll often find the government will attempt to seek out and shit on fun wherever it can.”
“I know that, but-”
“Princess, tongue!” I said, grabbing a nearby pillar.
“Right, just-”
The station rocked and Alyssa was thrown hard into the control console. Her head bounced off the edge of the surface, then the floor. A secondary shock hit us as the air vacuumed out of the room, cutting out all sound as though the bones in my ears had been sucked out with the air.
Alyssa’s voice crackled into my helmet through the built-in radio. She spoke with a newly made lisp. “Motherfucker. I just bit the tip of my tongue off.”
“I warned you.”
“Kiss my sticky white ass.”
“Right after you shower,” I said.
The Princess stumbled to her feet and cracked her neck. She drew her sword. “Fuck. This sucks. Let’s go home. I need to ice my fucking head.”
I motioned to the door. “Ladies first.”
“You’re just saying that because you want me to fight the aliens.”
“You slander me madam,” I said in my best cowboy voice. “But yes.”
Alyssa shook her head in a condescending maternal sort of way but obeyed my order regardless. She was first through the airlock, with me following close behind.
Upon leaving the control room, we were greeted to the most satisfying sight in the universe. Dead aliens. The xeno blobs had fallen pale and soft, their skin flaking off in the vacuum. I kicked one of the dead pests, splitting it open on the grating.
“No signs of life,” said Ivan. “All xenoforms have been terminated.”
I smiled. Then cringed, remembering how many humans suffered the same fate. “We need to do something to honour the dead.”
“Like what?” asked Alyssa.
“I don’t know. Not like we can bury them.”
Alyssa sighed while loudly and violently sheathing her sword. “I say fuck the loot, can’t risk breaking quarantine anyway. We should head back to the Iron Maiden and hit this station with the biggest, hottest round we have and turn it into a pyre. Then we go after the ship that brought these freaks here and peel the captain’s head off.”
“That sounds like a good idea, Princess. Let’s get it done.”
“I’ll burn his eyes out,” said Lucas.
“Yes you will, friend, yes you will.”
With that, we left the service deck for the commerce level. Since the reactor was still intact, power remained. It was a quick ride. We emerged onto the service level to the sight of a catastrophe.
Corpses were everywhere. Aliens laid dead beside the warriors who had been fighting them and the bystanders who had attempted to flee. A gnarly, red hot hole loomed overhead, punched clean through the deck. I could see the gases of the nebula twisting beyond the window, framed by the searing edges of five other levels.
It was a surreal sight, to stand both inside a human habitat and within the reach of naked space. Like the ruins left behind after any great depopulation event, whether it be a war or a plague, the once busy station had become a shell. It was a picture of a time now past, a graveyard to what was.
We left that awful place behind and returned to the airlock we had arrived at. Of course, the Maiden was no longer docked there. It loomed nearby, a few hundred metres from the station. Ivan pried the airlock doors open for us. Normally that would result in my team being sucked out of the station and suffocating in the naked vacuum, but that ship had sailed. In our current predicament, breaking the airlock was no more hazardous than cracking a window.
“So, is it gonna come ‘round?” asked Alyssa.
“No, it’s best it doesn’t touch the station,” I said. “We’ll just jump.”
“Jump?” Alyssa looked to me and crossed her arms. “Did you just say jump!”
“Yeah. What’s wrong?”
Alyssa threw up her arms in irritation. “I’m not an acrobat, Jack, I’m from Titan, we don’t jump on Titan. Hop, maybe, occasionally leap over pits but never jump. How the hell do you expect me to fly through the empty void at a god damn spaceship?”
“Would you rather stay here?”
“No, but-”
“Then you’ll have to jump. What, you can kill a man with a fork, but you can’t push yourself forward.”
“I’m in control when I’m fighting. There’s no gravity out there. If I miss, I die.”
I shrugged. “Welcome to space warfare. It’s cold and everything wants to kill you.”
“Fine. I’ll do it…”
“Good.” I looked to Ivan. “Get ready to catch her.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alyssa moved to the edge of the airlock, leaned forward and pushed off. As was typical for an Olympian, her form was good, but her force was excessive. She launched herself out of the station’s gravity field on a diagonal upward angle.
There was a clearly defined moment when she realized her error. It was when she started flailing wildly as she was flung into the void. It being space, however, her panicked swimming motions were of no value.
“Ivan, go!” I yelled.
The Machine responded instantly, releasing its shotgun, throwing off its jacket and charging toward the breach. It dived out of the airlock on a ballistic collision course with the princess. It caught her roughly, body slamming her before wrapping all four arms around the panicked woman.
Point thrusters engaged on Ivan’s feet and back, propelling it toward the Iron Maiden.
I got on the radio and opened a line with the bridge crew. “Scott, you there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Open up the port airlock. We’ve got a package coming your way.”
“Opening the airlock now.”
“Thanks, Scott. Have a decontamination crew ready.”
“Of course.”
“Captain Mason out.” I killed the connection.
After watching Ivan safely pilot Alyssa into the Maiden’s airlock, that could be a euphemism for something, I picked up the discarded coat and shotgun under one arm, collected Lucas under the other and I made my own leap of faith.
I had an advantage over the princess. That advantage was that I had done dozens of space jumps before, often onto ships that were actively trying to repel me. I crouched down slightly at the mouth of the airlock, eased my feet over the edge and pushed myself off into the void.
My stomach lurched as I left the station’s artificial gravity field. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but It was minor compared to the sinking dread I felt as I slipped through the most hostile environment known to man with nothing protecting me but a half inch protective suit.
All around me the gases of the nebula twisted and churned, purple, orange, and grey mixing together in vast clouds of mineral wealth. It reminded me of the auroras on earth, except taking place on a much larger scale.
But what was infinitely more beautiful to me, was the sight of the Iron Maiden’s thick, armoured, air-tight hull, its airlock doors wide open, like the waiting embrace of a loved one. I flew through the airlock into the Maiden’s gravity field, whereupon I crashed hard onto the deck.
I landed at Ivan’s feet and slid about a metre before stopping. Lucas removed itself from my arms and floated away while Ivan took back his recovered property. I stumbled to my feet and looked to Alyssa.
The Princess had pressed herself against the innermost wall of the airlock, like a scared dog retreating into its carrier. Her chest rose and fell quickly as she looked out at the swirling nebula.
The outer airlock snapped shut and the room was pressurized. A pleasant robotic voice played through the ceiling speakers, stating that we could remove our suits. I did so quickly, unlatching my helmet and peeling off my space suit like a shed skin.
My bloody, soiled space suit fell in a heap behind me. Alyssa deposited her own stained gear on mine. She stepped away, a pissy scowl on her face and her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She glared at me with a look of mild disgust.
Ivan laughed. “Tell me more about that human superiority now.”
It was a rather mild jab, but one the Princess did not take well. She put a hand on her pistol and spat a sharp exhale. “Learn your place machine, or I’ll break you down and make you into a nice new suit of armour.”
Ivan lifted his shotgun and checked the chamber. “Go ahead and try.”
Alyssa’s eyes glazed over as she disengaged the leather latch on her holster. I didn’t know the woman very well yet, but I did know a dangerous look when I saw it, and that was a dangerous look. She was not playing.
Before the situation could escalate, I grabbed the Princess by the wrist and extended an open palm toward Ivan. “Both of you, cut it out and I mean now!”
Alyssa shot me a look that could melt steel and re-secured her holster. “Get that fucking thing away from me.”
I shook my head. “About that. We can’t leave the airlock until we all go through decontamination.”
“So what?”
“So, we’re gonna be here for a while.”
“What do you mean, it takes like a second.”
I sighed. “It normally takes a second. But we’re covered in alien entrails. Which means we have to be scrubbed. Naked.”
Diary of a Malcontent 