Haywire (40 page)

“
Good lord above,” Crowe said after Artemis issued her challenge and closed the comm channel. “Did she say Hygeia?”

Gimble frowned and striped a pair of wires, then spliced them together and sprayed them with insulating foam. “It sounded that way, yes.”

“
Then does that mean they’re coming back this way?”

“
I believe it does.” Gimble pulled out a damaged circuit board and replaced it with a spare. “In light of that revelation, perhaps you should worry more about helping me and less about fretting over things we can’t help. Eh?”

Crowe nodded enthusiastically, and his hands were especially fast as they replaced frayed wires and blown components. Their port side engine was fully operational when the Mars conduit flared and the SWAT shuttle returned.

“
Ignore it,” Gimble said, hating that he had to herd his crewmate, but doing it all the same. “More are coming, and from the sound of it we’ll soon be up to our berries in bloodshed. The sooner we get that starboard engine fixed, the sooner we can be on our way.”

“
I’m only too happy to obey,” Crowe replied. The look on his blanched face said he meant every word of it.

Gimble hoped so. He had a sinking feeling that the space around Hygeia was about to get terribly busy, and he’d had his fill of danger for one day. More than his fill.

“
So-o-o, remember, stay on its far side and dra-a-aw what fire you can,” Artemis said as she looked at a communications panel in the rear of the shuttle. Three faces looked back at her, two wearing blue Eurasian Union uniforms, and one wearing Alliance black. “Keep i-i-it busy, and we should be good. If we-e-e need you, we’ll call.”

Captain Townsend nodded. “This ship wasn’t made for a toe-to-toe fight, especially against a dreadnaught, but we’ll do our best.”

“
The
Amsterdam
is ready, Ma’am,” Commander Williams said from the bridge of his gunboat. It wasn’t a large ship, but it was fast, and it carried more weapons per square meter than any other naval vessel in space.

Commander Sobel of the EUS
Shenzhen
dipped his head in agreement. “Our guns will keep them busy, that I can assure you.”

A determined look settled on Artemis’s features. “Then good luck, and th-thank you.”

The three officers nodded and closed their comm channels.

“
Are you sure this is wise, Ma’am?” the shuttle pilot asked, a subtle tremor to his voice.

As Alex stepped to the front of the shuttle and looked out the forward window, he didn’t blame him. There were enough rocks floating nearby to fill a star cruiser, and many of them were larger than the shuttle floating in their midst. Small pings reverberated through the hull as smaller chucks of asteroid pelted its metal skin.

“
As sure as I-I-I can be,” she replied.

The pilot grimaced over his shoulder, then turned back to his controls. “Okay. Powering down in three... two... one.”

With the press of a button, the interior of the shuttle went dark. As the engine rumble died out and the electronics shut down, Alex was shocked at how used to them he’d gotten. The stillness that followed was unsettling.

“
All systems at stand-by,” the co-pilot said. “We are now one with the rocks.”

Shawn chuckled in a low grumble. “Let’s hope that doesn’t become literal.”

Alex couldn’t have agreed more.

Townsend felt like an animal in a cage. One of the reasons he’d been chosen to command the
Culper
was because he was patient and methodical, but knowing what was about to happen had blown all of that away. Now all he wanted to do was get to it, end the suspense. It took everything he had to not leap from his chair and pace the bridge. It wouldn’t have helped anyway, and the crew didn’t need him adding to the tension. There was already enough to go around. When the Mars conduit finally flared, he nearly cheered.

“
Captain, a ship is coming through!”

Townsend shifted forward in his chair and looked at his radar operator. The young sailor’s voice was strong, but she had a tremor in her hands as she worked her console.

“
Is it the Titans?”

“
I can’t tell, Sir, it’s– Wait! Yes, Sir! The Titans are here, and their engines are blazing hot.”

A flush spread across Townsend’s chest as his heart hammered behind his ribcage. “Sanchez, have we heard from Admiral Kaiser?”

Petty Officer Sanchez’s brow was slick with sweat as he stared into his communications screens. “Not yet, Sir.”

A bead of sympathetic sweat popped out on Townsend’s brow. “She may not even be–”

Sanchez held up his hand for a moment, stopping Townsend in his tracks, then said, “Sir, the admiral and her ships are coming! They’re down to half their strength, but damn it they’re coming!”

“
Good.” The captain was thankful for some good news. “Now let’s get this fight over with and go home.”

As the crew bent to their work, the captain looked at his small radar screen and saw more blips appear from the wormhole. They were a lot fewer in number than what he’d seen before, but anything was good to see. They still had a chance.

Artemis watched the dreadnaught rumble toward them, and though she was surrounded by SWAT agents, she might as well have been floating on driftwood in the middle of the ocean, alone and afraid. For more years than she wanted to think about she’d served beside Thanatos, obeyed his every order, saved his life, and in turn been saved. The Titans were her family, and he was like a father.

And now she had to kill them.

It wasn’t an easy thing to contemplate, and she knew it would be an even harder thing to do.

“
I feel like an armadillo in the middle of a highway,” the pilot said in breathless tones as he stared at the dreadnaught crossing in front of them, Alliance and Union ships flying around it in complex patterns. “And the cars are shooting at each other.”

The forward window dimmed for a moment when an Alliance cruiser exploded, the automatic polarizer saving them from the blistering image of engines and unspent munitions blasting the ship apart. A smaller ship shot through the expanding debris cloud, and Artemis recognized it as the AAS
Culper
, which until just a short while ago had been hounding her through space. One of her old drill instructors had said that war made for strange bedfellows. How right he’d been.

“
We’re coming up on our optimal launch window,” the co-pilot said, a small computer in his hands and complicated equations scrawled across its display. “Just another few minutes.”

Taking that as her cue, Artemis took a deep breath and walked to the rear of the shuttle where Shawn sat alone, his armored hands in his lap and his eyes staring blankly at the wall. She’d put this off long enough.

“
Shawn, w-we need to–”

His head tilted up, and when he looked at her his eyes were wet but steady. “I know. I might be a kid, Artemis, but I’m not stupid. We’re about to jump into a ship full of infected Titans. I know what that means for me.”

His voice was steady, but her enhanced eyes saw the micro tremors that shook his hands, his elevated heart rate, his increased breathing. He was scared as hell, but he used every ounce of will he had to hide it. He impressed her, and whether he knew it or not, he inspired her. In him was everything she’d fought for. She wished like hell she’d had a chance to know him better. He was a hell of a kid, and more of a man than a lot of guys she’d known. His mother and his girlfriend were both lucky ladies. In spite of that, she pushed her feelings down and focused on the grim duty she had before her, because if she didn’t, all their fates were sealed.

“
Then are you re-e-eady?” she asked.

He nodded and tried to stand up, but his legs barely moved. He tried again, got a little further, and on this third attempt he got to his feet. His face was sheepish when he looked at her, and she wanted to tell him it was okay, that he was doing great, but she didn’t. Coddling him wouldn’t serve either of them, so instead she simply dipped her chin and squared her shoulder as best she could.

“
I wo-o-on’t lie, this is gonna hurt li-ike hell, but if you concentrate on your internal systems and envision them surrounded b-by an impenetrable wall, you should be okay. Your firewalls will do the rest.”

Shawn blinked, but he didn’t back away. “Sounds easy.”

Seeing his courage made her smile, but her lips rolled down when she said, “Compared to the do-o-ownload I’ll deliver straight to your brain afterwards, yeah, it will be.”

He shook his head and looked down at his feet for a moment. “That’s right. You mentioned something about that back when we were on Callisto. I’d completely forgotten.”

Artemis couldn’t blame him. Things had been rather busy since then. “Fe-e-ending off the infection will seem like nothing compared to wha-what the upload will feel like, but if you want to have a hope in hell of making it through that sh-sh-ship to Thanatos, we’ve got no other choice.”

“
Okay,” he said, holding out his hands. “Let’s get it done with then.”

Admiring him all over again, she looked him straight in the eyes and nodded. “Alright the-en. Here we go.”

As she reached to take his hands, Alex turned from the cockpit and said, “Hey, what’s going on back there? What are you two–” But he was too late. Her fingers curled around Shawn’s, and when they locked together, not even starships could have pulled them apart. Screams filled the shuttle.

Shawn’s skin was on fire as the techno-virus ravaging Artemis’s body jumped to him and attempted to infiltrate his nanites. They made short work of his exterior layers, turning his very flesh against him. He fell to his knees, screams pouring out of him in a wave of pain and noise. His hands squeezed Artemis’s until he was sure her fingers would break, but they didn’t, and in them he found the strength to fight back.

In the core of his being was the image of a shield. It was heavy and thick, and he held it out in front of him like an impenetrable barrier. As the infection burrowed deeper, he turned the shield into a ball of light that he pushed and shoved until it expanded past his brain and set his body aglow. It didn’t destroy the infection, but nanite by nanite, system by system, the glow of his neural net firewalls locking in place pressed it back and held it in check.

“
That’s good,” Artemis said, her voice sounding like it came from far away. “That’s re-e-eally good. But now comes the hard pa-art.”

Her words barely settled in his head when a fresh wave of pain overtook him. It poured through his body, immense, all consuming. He didn’t know where he ended and it began. His brain was under assault, and though he wanted to fight it off just as he had the infection, he knew he couldn’t, so he opened his mind and let it in.

The screams that came from his throat reached new heights, and his eyes rolled back as his head tilted up and his back arched. But still Artemis didn’t break, and he held onto her for all he was worth.

Pictures and sounds pounded through his brain, videos and text and graphs, all of it hitting him in an unceasing stream of information. He gritted his teeth, taking everything she threw at him, hoping his brain could hold it all, and that when the time came he’d know how to use it.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of torture, Artemis unlocked their hands, and he fell to the shuttle’s floor. The cells in his body sizzled, and his nanites vibrated within him, but every second that went by diminished the pain. It had hurt more than he could have imagined, but the lives of everyone he loved were in the balance, so if what he’d gone through helped save them, then it was worth it. He was ready to give up his life if he knew it would keep his parents and Ilona safe. When he passed out, it was with relief.

Alex’s heart hammered in his chest, and the frantic beating didn’t slow even after Shawn stopped screaming and slumped onto his side. On the laundry list of Alex’s greatest fears, Shawn getting infected by the same virus that had driven the rest of the Titans to madness wasn’t at the very top – that slot was taken by Thanatos and his dreadnaught full of killer crazies – but it was in the top three. Alicia had begged him to watch over Shawn and do what he could to keep the kid safe, and he’d promised to do just that.

He’d failed.

“
What did you just do?” he asked as he stormed over to the Titan and stabbed his right index finger into her chest armor.

Artemis looked down at his hand, then at his face, the blue glow in her eyes weak. “I di-i-id what needed doing. We’re abou-ou-out to fight Titans, so infection was inevitable. Better it wa-was done here, when he was ready for it. He knew that, and so-o did I.”

As much as it pained Alex to admit it, she had a point, and he chided himself for not having thought of it as well. “I... Yeah, okay. You could have warned me though.”

Artemis nodded, then looked down at Shawn’s twitching body. “Sorry about th-that. What’s done is do-o-one though.”

“
Will he be all right?” Alex asked, taking a slight step backward.

The Titan leaned against the wall behind her and slid down until she was sitting next to Shawn. “He-e-e’s strong, and he’s sharp. For no-o-ow he’s okay.”