The Lazarus War: Artefact (37 page)

In impossible agony, I hauled myself to my knees. My vision was cast red, blood weeping from wounds all over my face. Every breath, every heartbeat, was a war.

Through teary eyes, my vision shaking – my
reality
destabilising – I looked up at the sky.

Not Death
.

Something else
.

Something less familiar
.

There were lights. Not lightning, but electric lights. Bright, angelic lights – scanning the area. Two searchlights, mounted in unison.

The lights abruptly focused on me. A black shadow appeared overhead. That noise – the thrumming – was nothing more than a propulsion engine. As the shape came nearer, I saw the flare of starship thrusters – firing a bright blue as the craft hovered. Through the miasma of dust and rain, it took me a moment to realise what I was looking at.

The angular matt-black armour plating
.

The distinctive nose shape
.

Those bulbous engines
.

The Directorate Interceptor
Pride of Ultris
hovered beside the Artefact.

She had been concealed by the storm. But now, using her VTOL capability, the ship was impossible to ignore.

Here comes the motherfucking cavalry
.

Kellerman was so absorbed in the activation of the alien machine, that he had not even seen the ship arrive. The Krell were more observant: as one, the Collective raised their heads to the invader.

The
Pride
circled the Artefact, engine pitch shifting as she manoeuvred. The operation wasn’t perfect and she tilted hazardously as she began another sweep. The delicate anti-gravitic engine struggled with the conditions.

One hand to my knee, pulling my injured leg up next, I stood. Braced against the wind and the rain, seething with anger – alive, driven. Cold vengeance filled me.

Kellerman faltered, suddenly realising what was happening. He glared up at the ship – his ship – with hair whipping about his face, caught in the backdraft of the Interceptor’s engines.

The weapon pods deployed smoothly under her wings.

The wasp is about to sting
.

“What the fuck?” he managed

The
Pride of Ultris
opened fire.

There was a loud whistle, ultrasonic, caused by the launching of the plasma ordnance.

The entire mountain range became a sea of fire. The
Pride
launched missiles into the massed Krell, scattering them. Her chin-mounted cannon pulsed continuously, clearing the area around Kellerman and me. The Krell shrieked and clamoured, scattering to avoid the slaughter.

A searing heat washed over me, burning my head and neck. I flinched as structures exploded, toppled into the desert. Red-hot embers dispersed in the air, smoke pouring from the surrounding area.

And for the first time since I had met Kellerman, I saw something new in his eyes.

Fear
.

His mouth hung open, strands of blood and spittle and vomit weeping into the wind. He was back on Epsilon Ultris – watching as the world around him ignited.

I took my chance.

I launched into him – gaining strength with every stride, intent on stopping him. This was what I was born to do: in this body or another. I wanted the Key, wanted Elena.

Kellerman turned at the last moment. Our bodies connected – my shoulder to the small of his back, between armoured plates. I bowled him into the console. The jittery searchlight panned over us – dowsing us in bright light one second, plunging us into darkness the next.

I pounded Kellerman with my fists again and again. To the face, the chest, the stomach – anywhere.

“Get – off – me!” Kellerman stammered.

The control console pulsed, so bitterly disappointed that the promise of activation had not been realised. The Artefact’s scream echoed in my mind, made that nausea well up within me again. But this time I fought it down, held it inside.

We struggled over the Key – Kellerman grasping it, recoiling with every new blow. Our hands locked over the relic – now burning hot.

Its edge looked so much like a knife.

Slowly, surely, I turned the blade towards Kellerman. I knew exactly what I had to do.

I brought the Key down, with every possible reserve of strength left in my body.

I planted it into Kellerman’s stomach. Into the meat of the gut; past the armour plating of his exo-suit. Whatever material the Key was composed of, it was hard enough to slice through the exposed workings of the exo. Pushed the Key in further, one hand on the hilt, the other on his shoulder. Through tissue and organs until it hit bone.

“For Blake,” I whispered, drawing his head up to my mouth. “For Elena.”

Then I let him go, with a gentle push. My hands were wet with his blood.

For a long beat, he just stood there: staring at me with defeated eyes. Then he reeled back, crumpling to the floor. Caught in the orange light of the exploding mountain range, rendered immediately human and fallible again. Where the Key had been lodged was an expanding hole – full of blood and intestines. Kellerman futilely clutched at it, tried to hold everything in.

Above us, the ship wobbled and one of the side airlock hatches opened. A welcome face appeared – Jenkins, aiming from the moving platform with a plasma rifle. I’d never been more pleased to see her. Beside her, Kaminski tossed a winch out of the hatch. The heavy rappel cable landed beside me. It was really them; not simulants, not echoes.

“Grab hold of this!” Jenkins yelled.

Another flash of motion in the storm: another Krell primary-form, swiftly moving through the fire and smoke. They were recovering fast from the plasma strike.

The ship tilted precariously again, the engines whining in protest.

“Get in!” Jenkins shouted.

I stooped in front of Kellerman, grabbed the Key from his weakening hands. He lay in a pool of blood; almost too much for one man to hold inside. There was something metallic on the floor nearby – my father’s revolver.

“Good luck,” I shouted, kicking it a little nearer to Kellerman’s position. I tossed him an ammo cartridge. Both just out of his reach – he was going to have to work for them.

“I’m ordering you to get back here!” Kellerman said. “I am supervisor of Helios Station, and have authority over the armed forces posted on this world!”

Death was already on his shoulder.
Will he take the easy way out?
I wondered. It was more than he deserved, more than he was worth.

“Ten shots, Kellerman. Make them count.”

The cable whipped around before me. Hand over hand, every motion agonising, I hauled myself up. When I reached the hatch, friendly hands dragged me inside. Gasping for breath, aching all over, I collapsed onto the deck. It vibrated softly beneath me.

“He’s in,” shouted Jenkins, to the command module. “Medical assist – now! Prime the auto-doc!”

“Christo, Jenkins! That was damned close.”

“We had to thin the Krell numbers to get down to you,” she said. She grinned, a real shit-eating smile. “There were too many of them. We knew that we wouldn’t hit you.”

“We
hoped
that we wouldn’t hit you,” Kaminski corrected.

“I’m okay,” I mumbled. Talking was too much effort. “I’m okay. Just get us out of here.”

“Closing the hatch!” Jenkins hauled the lock shut. “Ready for evac.”

The Interceptor was small, and from where I sat I saw right through to the nose of the ship. Tyler was up front, strapped into the bridge command seat. She looked back at me – her face a mess of bruises and lacerations, grimacing nervously.

“The controls are going crazy,” she shouted. “Might be the storm, or maybe something else. Keeping us airborne is going to be difficult. Something is pulling us back.”

Just then, the Interceptor banked dangerously. I struggled to my feet, Jenkins hauling me up, and we all converged on the command module.

The Artefact was so close that it dominated the viewers. It crackled with lightning, and with every new discharge I felt static erupt in my head. Beyond the Artefact, the storm claimed the desert for kilometres in every direction. As the Interceptor listed unsteadily, I saw a glimpse of the huge Krell force building in the mountains.

“We’re losing altitude,” Tyler shouted.

The ship engines whined again.

“Sweet Christo,” Kaminski muttered. “We go down out here, it’s all over.”

“It’s the Artefact,” I roared. Only adrenaline and determination kept me standing. “Destroy it. Use the warheads.”

Jenkins and Kaminski activated the weapons systems again.

The Interceptor performed a pinhead turn. Something responded on the control panel and warning bulbs illuminated. A sighting grid appeared on the view-screen ahead. Cross-hairs closed on the Artefact.

“Let’s hope this works,” I shouted.

Warheads screamed out from under the wings of the Interceptor, covering the distance to the Artefact almost immediately. Several of them hit home – at this range, it was almost impossible to miss. The view-screen flashed with icons and messages, confirming impacts. Bright explosions coursed over the Artefact, each causing a chain reaction of further detonations.

Gradually, the enormous structure collapsed in on itself, toppling away from the
Pride
. It sent up an enormous plume of dust. With each new detonation, the ache in my head diminished, until eventually it was gone altogether. For the first time since we had arrived on Helios, despite my catalogue of injuries, my head was clear.

Instantaneously, the
Pride of Ultris
righted itself. Tyler breathed a long sigh of relief.

“We’ve destroyed it,” she said. “Ship scans confirm that the signal is dead. It’s gone!”

“Hell yeah!” Kaminski hollered.

I manipulated the ship sensor-suite. I could see the area below us in precise detail.

There was Kellerman, and he wasn’t alone. The Collective advanced through the remains of the Artefact, through the clouds of dust caused by the explosion. Kellerman was still alive: firing the pistol again and again into the oncoming horde. Even from this distance, it was obvious that he was fighting a losing battle.

He looked up at the camera, for just a second.
How many rounds does he have left?
He aimed the pistol at the Interceptor, and fired twice. The gesture was nothing more than futile, given the ship’s armour plating, and I didn’t even feel the rounds impact.

“You want us to go back for him?” Tyler asked, turning in the flight chair. She paused uncertainly, frozen over the controls.

“Let him take his chances,” I said, without even thinking. I switched off the monitor.

Tyler nodded. “Good decision, Captain.”

The
Pride
abruptly started to gain altitude and banked away from the mountain range. The engine tone became smooth. Bulbs across the control panel illuminated green. We were gaining velocity and pulling away from Helios’ planetary gravity, now. It wouldn’t be long before we broke the atmosphere completely.

It was over.

I dropped to the deck, closing my eyes and breathing long mouthfuls of processed air. It had never tasted so good. Kaminski and Martinez noisily chestbumped, yelling in triumph. For once, the noise sounded good: to hear happy human voices. They were dirt-stained and carried minor injuries – Kaminski a swollen jawline, and Martinez a bleeding cut on his head – but they were alive, and that was all that mattered.

“Jenkins!” I slurred. “I think that you could be right about the medical assist.”

We had been in space for three long days.

Helios was a distant memory – another life.

I spent most of my time in the observation deck. There were very few private areas on the
Pride of Ultris
, and the ship felt cramped even with a skeleton crew of five. The deck was cluttered with emergency evac gear – space suits, spare oxygen canisters – but as nobody came up here it was my place, where I could go to properly collect my thoughts.

And there was so much to think about. Some of it good, some not. Dreams and nightmares; hope and despair. Such a mixture of emotion that it was almost overwhelming. I wasn’t one for introspection, or at least I tried not to be, but I felt changed by the experience.

I sat on the bare metal deck, watching the distant stars and planets above me through the observation dome. To call it a deck was an overstatement; it was really nothing more than a glass bubble on the back of the ship, affording a view into the deep of space.

I had a new collection of death-trophies, reminders of the world we had left behind, assembled in front of me.

Blake’s dog-tags
. I was going to make good his wish – that at least something would be returned to his family, to remember him by.

Sara Tyler’s tattered name-tag
. That was for Tyler, and I had been meaning to give it to her since we left Helios’ orbit.

The Key
. The only surviving record of the star-data.

Battered and worn, imprinted with alien circuitry. Ingrained with Kellerman’s blood. I hoped beyond hope that it was still operational. In the darker hours since we had left Helios, I agonised that it might be damaged. The data could have been erased, corrupted. Would Science Division even be able to interpret the star-data?

Just the thought of the device gave me a glimmer of hope, and I had to fight to quell it.

“You need some company, Cap?”

Jenkins clambered up the metal access ladder and into the observation area. There was barely room for two of us up there. She crawled into the opposite corner to me, between two crates.

“Yeah, sure.”

“How’s the leg?”

I patted down my injured leg. It still hurt to touch, but having some proper medical attention from the onboard auto-doc had helped. The bone-ache that had accompanied the original injury had now subsided: a medi-nanite injection meant that I had avoided any lasting damage.

“I’ll live.”

“And the ribs?” she said, grinning now. “And the shoulder …?”

“The same as the last time you asked.” I returned the smile.

“Glad to hear it. You can get some decent medical care when we get back to the
Point
.”

Time heals all wounds
. The auto-doc had removed the bullet from my shoulder – that also sat on the deck, beside the other collected artefacts.

“Tyler tells me that’s where we’re headed,” said Jenkins, “but she’s no pilot.”

I laughed. “We’re taking the long way home, I guess. Thanks for coming back for me. I really thought that I was finished. Go through it with me again – what happened on Helios Station?”

Jenkins had told this story ten times already. I had the feeling that it would be repeated when we got back to the
Point
– both in the bars of the District, and to Alliance Command. On our return, at best we would face a protracted enquiry; at worst a court-martial. I allowed the death of a senior science officer.
Who also happened to be a Directorate defector
. I was quite sure that Military Intelligence would be very interested in our story.

Jenkins sucked her teeth and began. “Helios Station was overrun with Krell. When he extracted, Kaminski was detained by Kellerman. Your plan with the demo-charge – it sent him berserk, and he followed us into the tunnels.” This was her favourite part of the story. “He left only a small security force for cover, and took the rest of his people with him. When Martinez and I extracted, we overpowered the guards. We went for the Directorate ship, and we came after you.”

“Good job.” I was still incredulous that the strategy had worked.

“We broke out Tyler. By then, there wasn’t anyone else left alive on the station. Kellerman wasted Olsen before we extracted. The rest is history.”

Not everything had worked to plan. We were still out of comms with
Liberty Point
. Neither Kaminski nor Tyler could operate the
Pride
’s FTL communicator. Combined with the fact that Helios Station had been overrun, no one knew that we were coming home.

Jenkins’ smile faded a little, when she looked over the collected objects arranged in front of me on the deck.

“Do you think that Command will be able to use the Key?”

I sighed. “I hope so. Maybe I can follow her. Follow Elena.”

Jenkins paused for a long moment, then added: “I’m sure that Command will be very interested in the star-data, but it’ll be for different reasons. It could change everything. Command will want to go back into the Maelstrom.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“I have the feeling that this isn’t over,” Jenkins said. “Not by a long way.” Then she laughed, breaking the tension. “We’ve all been thinking.”

“All of you? Even Kaminski?”

“
Even
Kaminski,” Jenkins said. “We were thinking that it’s about time the squad had a proper name. When we get back to the
Point
, we’re going to be legends.”

If we get back
, I noted.

“We need something catchy. Maybe named after you?”

“What did you have in mind?” I knew Jenkins too well; it was obvious that she already had something.

She smirked. “What about the Lazarus Legion?”

I shook my head. “Maybe. I’ll think on it. How is flight prep going?”

“Martinez is setting the freezers. We’re approaching a possible Q-jump point; time to sleep soon.”

She climbed back down the access ladder, leaving me to my thoughts.

I glanced outside, into space, and traced a thin line of stars across the viewer. Out there was the Maelstrom, beyond the grasp of human understanding or logic. Helios was nothing more than a pinprick of light in the blackness.