The Lazarus War (5 page)

He was right next to me but I could barely hear him. My ears still rang with the gunfire. I nodded mutely.

The Directorate troops stalked onwards. Boots crunching debris and bodies underfoot, panning the ground with their guns. The nearest trooper was talking into his face-mask, maybe relaying something. Even if I didn't understand the words – he was, I was certain, speaking in Chino – I recognised the intent. They were searching for something or someone.

Nate lay next to me. He seemed strangely unperturbed. For some reason, I found myself smiling at him: a weak, terrified grin. His own face was fixed and resolute. Arrogant, even.

I saw a boot a metre away from me, a laser dot dancing over a corpse. I held my breath. They were almost on top of us. The trooper kicked at a body: one of the dancers from the bar – still semi-naked, now stippled with glass fragments and streaks of blood. I saw her breasts rising, heard a death rattle in her throat. The Directorate soldier ended her with a single round to the head. Brain matter flecked Nate's cheek.

I put a cap on my response. Again: learnt Pen behaviour. I might be next.

The trio circled the concourse. Moved a few metres away from us. I grasped at the hope that they would pass us by. That they would find whatever it was that they were looking for – because I was sure that was what they were doing here – and just leave us alone.

My optimism was dashed when Nate started to get to his feet.

“What are you doing?” I hissed. “They'll see you!”

Staying down is always Rule One.
I grabbed for his arm, pulled at his jumpsuit. He looked at me, that expression I'd seen him wearing too many times today spoiling his handsome features. When he kicked me to the stomach – a hard, well-placed blow – I wasn't expecting it. He was wearing deck boots, and I writhed in pain on the floor.

“What the damn are you doing?” Daryl said in a loud whisper. “Get away from Taniya!”

I was in too much pain to say anything in my own defence. Sheldon put an arm around me, protectively.

Through tear-filled eyes, I saw Nathaniel stand with his hands raised. In other circumstances, it might've appeared a gesture of surrender. In these, the action stunk of complicity. The Directorate squad responded immediately: weapons trained on him, those red sighting dots dancing across his chest. He barely looked concerned.

“They're over here,” he said, speaking Standard slowly and precisely. That lovely Venusian drawl was gone. “This is them.”

“What in Gaia's name are you doing?” Lucina said. “They'll kill you!”

Lucina was wrong. The Directorate lowered their rifles, stood with Nate.

“They know you…” I whispered.

He was Directorate; one of them. That was the only explanation.

“He has it,” Nathaniel said. He pointed out Daryl.

“I have what?” Daryl said. He was kneeling on the floor, in such a vulnerable position. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Where is it?” a trooper asked in Standard, speaking through the voice-grille in his helmet.

“I'm the captain of a merchant starship,” Daryl protested. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“He's telling the truth!” Lucina said.

One of the troopers turned his gun on her. She wilted, tears streaming down her face. Lucina was beside Daryl, clutching at her husband's shoulder.

What the hell was going on? My eyes shifted from the Directorate soldiers to Daryl, and back again. I desperately wanted to do something to help. I considered whether I should break Rule One: keep your head down. To play out a cheap tri-D action flick – to be the heroine. But those were such empty thoughts. All I really wanted to do was get off the station – to spring to my feet, to run as fast as I'd ever run back to the
Edison
and let the damned military sort it out. I couldn't even do that –

For an old man, Daryl's reactions were a lot faster than I'd expected.

This wasn't the Daryl Boeta that I knew, not at all.

With his left hand he pushed Lucina away. It was a hard, open-palm motion but it wasn't done with malice. He wanted her moved out of the firing line to safety.

With his right, he pulled something from inside his jacket.

A small gun.

It was up and aimed at the Directorate soldier within a heartbeat.

I felt a swell of hope in my chest.

Do it, Daryl! Shoot these bastards!

For all of his bravery, Daryl wasn't fast enough.

The Directorate soldier standing over him fired a single shot. It impacted with Daryl's left knee, and crimson immediately blossomed there. He let out a loud cry and toppled backwards.

As he fell, he fired the pistol – twice – towards the Directorate soldiers. I flinched with each shot; saw the flash of gunfire.

When I looked back at them, the Directorate soldiers were still standing. I couldn't tell whether any had actually been hit.

The nearest leant over Daryl. He slammed a foot onto Daryl's hand. The captain yelped again, rolling around on the floor, and let the gun drop from his grip.

“He has it,” Nate repeated. “I've been on this crew for years. I'm certain that he has it. We picked it up at Barnard's Star.”

“Is the ship in lockdown?” the trooper said.

“I have the access codes.”

“Nate!” I wailed. “Why are you doing this?”

Nate ignored me and started to speak in Chino. The Directorate troops nodded and gathered around Daryl's prone body.

Lucina shouted, “Leave him alone! He doesn't have anything!”

Nate grabbed Daryl's pistol from the floor. “I'll take care of this one—”

The station klaxons had been sounding throughout the encounter, but they were suddenly swallowed by another, louder noise.

An insane metallic scream that was quickly rising in volume: metal grinding against metal, a machine in agony. I had no idea what was causing it; only knew, in the marrow of my bones, that it was a
very bad sound
. I jammed my hands over my ears.
Now you can move. Fucking coward.
The noise had quickly become worse than deafening – too painful to listen to.

Then the concourse just exploded. Light, sound and horror poured into the tunnel. Heat washed over me, so intense that I thought that I might be set alight. But Sheldon – dirty old Sheldon – was on top of me, taking the worst of it. I saw Lucina and Daryl in outline only – also trying to roll to safety, away from the explosion.

The Directorate soldiers had been standing together, with Nate – or whoever he really was – and they also attempted to shoulder the blast. They toppled as the thing tore across the concourse, disappeared beneath the invading bulk.

When I opened my eyes to take in the devastation, they were gone.

After a few seconds, Sheldon asked, “You alive?”

“I think so,” I replied.

My ribs and stomach ached – either from the fall to the floor and Sheldon being on top of me, Nate's kick or both.

I forced myself to my feet. Daryl and Lucina were doing the same; no easy task, given that Daryl's left leg was shredded.

“Holy shit…” Sheldon whispered.

One of the
Point
's monorail trains now lay across the concourse. The bullet-shaped nose had punched right through the wall.

I staggered over in that direction.

“Don't!” Sheldon warned.

I shrugged him off and peered through the punctured bulkhead. In the flickering, schizophrenic light, I could see the interior of a train tunnel: the live electric rail fizzing, twisted out of place. There was more smoke and fire beyond the hole in the wall.

I looked back at the train. It had somehow derailed and landed in the District on its side like a beached whale. Small fires burnt across the dead machine and more alarms sounded from inside.

There was destruction all around us. The train crash caused enormous stresses to the surrounding station modules, and support beams in the ceiling had already begun to collapse. View-screens had been dismounted, fallen to the concourse below. There were bodies literally everywhere, crushed by debris, charred by the multitude of minor fires.

“We should do something to help,” I said. “There could be survivors on board…”

But even as I spoke, I was savvy enough to realise that it was also an empty gesture. People didn't walk away from a thing like this.

“If there are, there's nothing that we can do for them,” Daryl growled. “We've got to get out of here.”

“Come on,” Sheldon said, waving a hand.

“Is Nate dead?” I said. “Maybe we should check.”

“I really do not care,” Daryl groaned. “And I'm not going to wait around to find out.”

The four of us staggered through what was left of the District.

I took the lead, scouting ahead through the corridors.

The chaos and horror of the District had awoken something inside me. For four painful years, I'd lived my life by a code of simple rules. The long-timers in the Pen taught those rules to all of the new inmates. I was putting myself in the firing line. But if I didn't do it, then no one else would. This was my chance to prove what I was capable of. I was going to make sure that Daryl, Sheldon and even Lucina got off of the
Point
.

“My Daryl can't walk for much longer,” Lucina said.

“I'm fine!” Daryl implored. “I c-c-can st-still walk.”

Daryl was a bad liar. Lucina had his right shoulder and Sheldon took his left. The captain couldn't put any weight on his ruined leg. He was bleeding badly.

“Where is everyone?” I asked. “Where are the damned soldiers?”

“Fighting more of
them
, I expect,” Sheldon said, tossing his head back in the direction of the District. The left side of his face was blistered and swollen, caused by exposure to the heat while he was protecting me. “I don't think that they will be here any time soon.”

I paused at a corridor junction. In the emergency lighting, it was hard to remember the way back to the docking station. Everything looked the same now. All of the station maps and visitor terminals were dead.

“The place still has atmosphere,” Daryl explained. “If it has suffered a hull breach, it will depressurise soon. We should make the best of our lead.”

I nodded. “Then we need to find somewhere military. They will have maps.”

We found a chamber labelled
SECTOR COMMUNICATIONS ROOM
. The main door was closed – which was unusual, in that almost every bulkhead we'd come across so far had been open – and Daryl slumped against the wall, breaking away from Sheldon and Lucina.

“Shit on it,” Sheldon said. “Just our luck. If we could get in there, we might be able to get a comm-line up and running.”

“We'll just have to find somewhere else,” I said. I tried to sound as positive as I could. “There must be other communications posts.”

“Let me do it,” Daryl said.

His face was drenched in sweat, and his greying beard was streaked with black stains. That was blood, coloured wrongly by the red emergency lamps. He wiped his palm against his chest then mashed it against the access panel.

“That won't work,” I said. “This is a military station—”

Daryl gave a tepid smile. The access panel illuminated with
SECURITY OVERRIDE
and the door slipped open. The room inside was still and dark.

“How did you do that?”

“Doesn't matter,” Daryl groaned. “Find me some painkillers…”

I rummaged through the pocket of my jacket and pulled out my torch. It was a small but high-powered tool, and I carried it with me for engineering work. The beam flickered over the interior of the Sector Comms Room.

Please be empty. Please be empty.

It was a small and cluttered computer suite, occupied by banks of communications consoles.

“Oh shit…”

Alliance technicians were sprawled across their terminals. Mostly still in their seats, all had gaping holes in the back of their heads. I fought back a wave of nausea as I panned my torch over each of the bodies. I didn't let the light linger for long.

“These people were executed,” I said.

“No shit,” Sheldon said.

With Lucina's help, Daryl staggered into the room behind me and Sheldon closed the door. Among the carnage, I really didn't feel any safer in here than I'd felt outside. This room – what I was seeing – confirmed that the three Directorate troopers back in the District weren't operating alone, that this was part of some larger atrocity.

“You need to take the weight off that leg,” Sheldon said to Daryl. He started to pull chairs out from under desks, assembling them in a line. “I'll take a look at the damage.”

Sheldon and I lifted the captain onto the chairs.

“Thanks,” Sheldon said.

“See to yourself as well,” I said.

Sheldon's face was pretty burnt up, scorched black all across one cheek. “I'll get to me, after the captain.”

I found a medikit in an emergency locker and started to unpack it on one of the terminals. The supplies looked woefully inadequate – a couple of hypodermics labelled
ANALGESIC
and
ENDORPHIN
, some medigel cartridges and a synthiskin patch. None of it meant anything to me and I didn't think that it would be enough, given the extent of Daryl's injuries, but Sheldon rubbed his hands together and set to work.

“I've treated far worse with far less…” he muttered.

“Liar,” Daryl said with a macabre smile.

Sheldon tore back the trouser leg of Daryl's jumpsuit and inspected the gunshot wound. It made my stomach turn. The flesh was all ripped and torn, bone visible beneath. Sheldon worked quickly, injecting the wound site with one of the hypodermics, and packing something into the opening.

Daryl sighed and let him work. “This isn't the first war wound I've received, and I doubt that it will be the last.”

“I'll bet,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and looking Daryl deep in the eye. “How about you give us some answers just now.”

“I'm in quite a lot of pain here,” Daryl replied.

Lucina tutted at me, shot me a hard glare. I ignored her.

“Who are you, Captain?” I let him have that, let him know that he was still in charge. “And what did they want back there?”

“I'm just a tired old starship captain,” Daryl said. “How should I know?”

“That isn't true.”

“Leave him alone!” Lucina implored. She had draped herself across his shoulder, her arms around his neck possessively. “Your questions are only making this worse!”

“Don't you want answers too?” I said, refusing to back down. “Who was Nate? Those soldiers on the concourse – they thought that you were carrying something. What is it, Daryl?”

“I honestly don't know what you're talking about.”

“Back in that casino, when the lights went out, you said that they had come for you.”

“Just let him alone!” Lucina continued. “For all we know you're a Directorate spy. Zeta Rets: always on the fence, all the same! You were the one sleeping with Nate…”

Her voice trailed off. Perhaps she thought that she had gone too far. I just let her ramble. She was not going to get to me this time.

I said, “Before I set foot outside this room, I want some proper answers from you.”

Sheldon paused, put down the synthiskin patch. He stood beside me and looked at Daryl. “Maybe Taniya has a point.”

Now that the chips were down, Sheldon was surprising me. He gave me a meaningful smile. Gone was the leering fool that we'd all endured on the
Edison
, replaced by someone much better.

Lucina's lower lip trembled. “You think that this will get you a night in the bunks with her, Sheldon? Six years you've been on the payroll. Wouldn't you know if Daryl had something to hide?”

“Six years doesn't mean shit,” I said. “Nate had been on the crew just as long, and he was Directorate.”

“Daryl had a gun,” Sheldon said. “And this is more important than a night in the sack.”

“I found the gun on a cop,” Daryl grumbled. “A police officer got shot beside me. It wasn't mine.”

“There were no cops there,” I said. “I saw you, Captain. I saw you take that gun out of your jacket.”

Daryl let out a long, fraught sigh, as though deciding which was the greater evil – to tell the truth, or continue the lie. He made his decision.

“I was supposed to make a drop-off.”

Lucina piped up, “Which we've done. No secret there.”

“Not that drop,” Daryl said sharply. “Not the
Edison
's cargo. Something else. Something restricted.”

Lucina froze. She turned to look at her husband, face dropping ever so slightly. That brief reaction told me that she didn't know about this either. She looked betrayed.

“For who?” I asked.

“Military Intelligence.”

“Who are they? Humour me.”

“The Alliance military's secret wing,” Daryl said. “I had a contact: a man called Ostrow. I was supposed to meet him later today.”

“And you didn't think to tell us this?” I said.

“Why would I?” Daryl said. “What you don't know can't hurt you. I wanted to protect you, wanted to look after Lucina.”

“Has this got anything to do with Nate?”

“Maybe. I don't know who he is. Not who I thought, at least.”

“He knew about what you had,” I said. “And the Directorate wanted it.”

“I don't know how he found out.”

Daryl nodded at a pouch on his jumpsuit thigh just above the bloodied patch. Lucina fumbled with it and removed something from inside the pocket. She passed it to me. It was a data-clip; a memory drive used to store information.

“It was supposed to pay ten times the bonus on the
Edison
's regular cargo!”

“Danger money…” I muttered to myself. “And if you're dead, it doesn't pay anything.”

Daryl shrugged. “You put in your lot with Mili-Intel, it's going to catch up with you in the end.”

I turned the clip in my hand, looked at the reader panel on the side. It was a military-issue model – metal-cased, probably shock-resistant. Encoded with biometrics, it would require appropriate security level DNA to access. I absently thumbed the access panel, and as expected it flashed with
DNA NOT RECOGNISED
.

“Have you tried to open it?” I asked. “You managed to open the door to this room.”

“That was a fluke,” Daryl said. “Probably a hangover from my military days, or maybe this Ostrow has put me on the database. But I can't open the clip; I doubt that anyone less than General Cole or President Francis could get it open. I don't know any more than that. Best not to ask.”

“How long have you been doing this for?” I persisted.

Daryl gave a bitter laugh that ended in a cough. “I've been with Mili-Intel for years. Since I left the Army. Whatever is on that clip, it must be very valuable to the Alliance.”

“Maybe this is why the Directorate are here,” I suggested. “We have to get it off this station. Someone will want to see it. I'll try to call up some station maps, find a route back to the
Edison
—”

I broke off.

A pair of wide, white eyes stared back at me from beneath the nearest desk.

There was a woman under the terminal, curled up with her arms crossed over her knees so that she couldn't be seen without searching. It was obvious that she wasn't Directorate; she wore the deep blue uniform of an Alliance technician. Like us, she'd been caught up in all of this – whatever
this
actually was.

Everyone paused and stared down at her.

“You shouldn't be here,” she whispered.

I began, “Something terrible has happened down in the District. They need medical attention. A monorail has—”

“I know. I saw it on the security cameras, before they went down. Fire suppression is offline.”

“Can you summon help?”

“No one will be coming,” the tech said. “Try not to make too much noise.”

The woman was about my height and build – that's to say, thin and short. She grudgingly crawled out from under the desk, pressing down her uniform with both hands and wiping at her face. Her eyes were teary. The words
K PINDER, SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATION
were stencilled on her blouse pocket.

“They came here as well,” she started, swallowing. “They came here and killed them.”

“The Directorate?”

She nodded. “Special Operations.”

Pinder leant over a console, started to call up vid-feeds. There was something almost manic in the way that she was working. Soon she'd called up a dozen different holos and scattered the feeds across her workspace. She waved at the nearest visual.

“The bastards have taken control of
Liberty Point
's sensor-suite. The grid went down yesterday; no one could explain why. Since then, we've been flying dark. We didn't see them coming.”

“Where are they now?”

Pinder stared at the vid-feeds. “They have hundreds of troops and they've occupied the docking stations. Before I knew it they were here as well; they just came in and shot everyone.” She shook, looked away awkwardly. “I hid.”

“The things that people do to each other…” Daryl whispered. “Christo bless the Alliance.”

“Or what's left of it,” Lucina said.

“Can you get us comms to the rest of the
Point
?” I asked Pinder. “Maybe call in some soldiers?”

“I've tried,” she said. She shook her head. “We're cut off down here. I suppose that there might be survivors on some of the upper decks, but I can't reach them, and they can't reach me.” Pinder shrugged. That manic aspect returned to her eyes. “Like I said, no one is coming.”

I thought of my mother in all of this. Was she already dead, or was she locked down somewhere else on the station? She was literally all I had left now. I wondered whether she was thinking of me, whether I factored into her thought processes at all. Had she been trying to warn me back at the bar? Did she know what was going to happen…?

“We need to get out of here, off-station,” I decided. “Right now. Can you help us get to Civilian Docking?”

Pinder gave me an empty look. “I'm staying here.”

“You'll die like the others.”

She remained pan-faced. “I'll take my chances. You can take yours.”