Prodigal (62 page)

He nodded once, so Lea would understand this was
his
choice.

Then he let go, into the churning ice and debris.

Lea slammed the hatch down over her head. A muffled explosion beat against the exterior hull as the LSRV separated. Two more booms followed, the distinct signature of weapons fire—then one last rumble, an impact tremor as the ASAT found its mark. Lea clutched the ladder as
Almacantar
shook, the echoes of Tiernan’s death quickly fading into the heartbeat of the ship.

Gone, as if he had never existed.

Lea closed her eyes, forcing back tears—and hoping she could come to grips with his death later. She stared down the access ladder, which stretched another few meters down to A-Deck. Nathan and Avalon were already out of sight, waiting for her to join them. She started climbing down, wondering how long it would take the enemy to figure out what had happened. If they were lucky, they might still have a few minutes—and by then, Lea wanted to be in main engineering. Even without the explosives, she just hoped that Nathan could find a way to trip the reactors.

“Nathan,” she called down. “Change of plan—we just lost the LSRV.”

Lea didn’t even think about it when he didn’t respond, and simply dropped off the ladder into an open corridor. She didn’t see anyone at first, which instantly sent her adrenaline into overdrive—her body crouching into a combat pose, her hand clutching for the pulse pistol.

“I wouldn’t do that,” a stranger’s voice said from behind.

Lea spun around, finger on the trigger and ready to fire. There Nathan stood, shielding the person who spoke to her—a man in a black uniform, holding Nathan’s throat in one hand and his pistol in the other.

He took aim at Lea’s head, making it clear he would kill both of them before she could get off a single shot.

“That’s right,” the man said. “Nice and slow.”

He didn’t even give Lea a chance to comply. Before she could react, another person grabbed her from behind, expertly disarming her without even the hint of struggle. Powerful arms took her in a chokehold, peeling the helmet from her head. Lea gave token resistance, but her assailant unleashed exquisite pain—more than was necessary to make his point.

He then reached deep into her pocket, seizing the vial Novak had given her. Lea felt all hope drain in that instant, devoured by the feral breath that steamed the back of her neck.

No longer a threat, the arms released her. The other man let go of Nathan as well, shoving the two of them together. Lea recovered to find four more uniforms stalking them, surrounding them like a pack of predators.

Solar Expeditionary Forces, awakened from a ten-year sleep.

From among them, another woman emerged—also dressed in black, though her uniform was far different. Lea should have known, of course, but had wanted to believe otherwise. Now she could only shake her head and curse herself, a bitter smile on her lips.

Avalon slapped the expression off her face.

“Take them to the sickbay,” she said.

They walked through the door to find sickbay empty. The SEF troops had since cleared out the dead, though smears of blood remained—along with a stale, dry charge of violence that permeated the atmosphere, as if restless spirits still prowled
Almacantar
’s decks.

Avalon jabbed at Lea’s back, pushing her in first. Nathan quickly followed, the two of them walking closely together as their captors urged them on at gunpoint. They stopped outside the lab, where Avalon circled in front of them and leveled a blind, hateful stare at Lea—betraying only a hint of the true rage that seethed beneath.

“What’s with the floor show, Avalon?” Lea asked. “Just get it over with.”

“You’ll die on my terms, Prism,” she replied. “Soon enough.”

Avalon threw her into the lab. Lea crumpled to the floor, getting as far as her knees before Nathan rushed in to help her. Avalon took him by the shoulders and forced him down as well—the two of them side by side as if awaiting the executioner.

“They’re here,” Avalon announced.

Up ahead, the force field within the containment sphere flickered. A rush of escaping air accompanied the heavy door as it swung open, and a single person stepped outside. Lea fully expected another SEF uniform, decked out in the regalia of a full colonel—and the harsh, angular features of the Martin Thanis she imagined.

But not the woman who appeared before them.

“Welcome aboard, Commander Straka,” Eve Kellean said. “Glad you could make it back.”

Lea thought Nathan would pounce, but he didn’t take the bait.

“Go to hell, Kellean,” he said.

“Already been there,” Kellean replied, surveying the others—her gaze falling upon Avalon last. She walked over to the
Inru
agent, who left her prisoners behind and stood at attention. “As have we all,” Kellean finished, while Avalon saluted her. “It’s good to see you again, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Avalon said. “It’s been far too long.”

Lea frowned curiously. Nathan, meanwhile, appeared to be in shock.

“You two
know
each other?” he asked.

“From a long time ago,” Kellean explained, patting Avalon on the shoulder. “We served together—on Mars.”

“You were SEF,” Nathan said, still incredulous.

“Still am.” Kellean looked down at him, almost showing pity. “There’s an old saying, Commander—you never leave the Forces.”

“Unless you sell out,” Lea interjected. “She’s a free agent, Nathan—just like Avalon used to be. The only reason she’s still alive is because she agreed to do the Assembly’s dirty work.”

“And like Avalon, I have a problem with that authority,” Kellean said. “Now it’s time for them to see the error of their ways.”

“By launching a missile strike?” Nathan asked. “What the hell is that supposed to prove?”

“That we’re serious,” Kellean answered, “and that we’re not afraid to use that power.”

“We just came from JTOC,” Lea implored. “The Collective is fully prepared to negotiate whatever you want. Just call off your attack.”

“The Collective can’t give what it doesn’t have,” Avalon said. She circled around Lea and Nathan while the rest of the SEF officers spread out across the lab. “CSS knows about your hive mind, Captain—and they
will
stop at nothing to destroy it. Just as they tried to destroy mine.”

Avalon showed Kellean the vial.

“This is the only weapon they had left,” the
Inru
agent continued. “A biological agent they hoped to deploy against you in secret.”

Kellean examined the vial.

“What is it?”

“Something my own people developed,” Avalon admitted. “Seeing our comrades, as they are now—I realize it’s no longer necessary.”

Kellean studied her former lieutenant closely. “You did all this,” she asked, “to
protect
them?”

Avalon lowered her head in deference. “Honor to the Forces, Captain. I only ask one thing in return.”

Kellean motioned toward Lea and Nathan. “You want to kill them?”

“On your orders—but not yet. I want them both to see what’s coming first—especially the woman.” Her stare drilled right through Lea. “I owe her that.”

“What else?”

Avalon looked back at Kellean, this time meeting her eyes. “I want to join our brothers.”

Kellean smiled, because she understood. “To awaken your potential.”

“Yes,” Avalon replied, an almost spiritual validation.

“To be one with them.”

“Yes.”

“To complete the journey.”

A tear rolled down one of her cheeks, the first in a lifetime.

“Give me meaning,” Avalon begged. “That’s all I ask.”

Kellean placed a hand on her forehead, a priest giving benediction. “Then that’s what you’ll have.”

She nodded at the other officers. Two of them entered the containment sphere, reemerging moments later with one of the cryotubes. They wheeled it to the center of the lab, where Kellean and Avalon waited. Lea and Nathan rose to their feet slowly, their captors making no attempt to stop them.

Even prisoners, it seemed, owed the man inside all the deference of a god.

Kellean touched the side of the vessel with reverence, then stepped aside and allowed Avalon to approach. Framed within the tube’s small window, the pallid face of Martin Thanis stared back with eyes blacker than the deepest abyss.

“The colonel was among the first infected,” Kellean said. “The virus was almost at its terminal stage when he went into stasis. He’s conscious—but I haven’t been able to revive him fully.”

“Not yet,” Avalon added.

“But soon,” Kellean finished. Another one of the officers brought her an intravenous line from sickbay, which she plugged into the cryotube’s feed panel. “Maybe your blood combined with his will make you both stronger.”

Avalon extended her left arm. “I know it will.”

Kellean smiled. She peeled back the fabric over Avalon’s wrist, affixing a transdermal contact there.

“Let’s not keep the colonel waiting,” she said, and started the flow.

Lea watched helplessly as Avalon’s blood filled the tube. She wanted to reach out and stop it—but knew the SEF officers would cut her down before she could even get close.

“What’s going to happen?” Nathan whispered to her.

Lea shook her head. “Damned if I know.”

Avalon closed her eyes. She drew in a deep breath and held it, while the others stood back and absorbed the spectacle. Kellean leaned over Thanis, closely observing his reactions—talking to him gently, coaxing him out of his forced stupor. Lea inched closer, trying to see what Kellean saw—a surge of raw power building within the confines of the cryotube.

Color rushed in and displaced the colonel’s pallor, his features blooming with new life. His eyes darted back and forth, taking in his surroundings before settling on Lea—staring at her, then
through
her, then into some reach she couldn’t comprehend. Thanis began to tremble, sporadic discharges of energy crawling over his face and down the length of his body. Avalon almost crumpled next to him, steadying herself against the metal sarcophagus as Thanis drew more and more from her.

Until he convulsed, his expression frozen in terror.

Kellean instantly sensed that something was wrong.

“Wait—”
she began.

Avalon buried a prosthetic fist in her face.

Kellean’s features disappeared in a bloody pulp. She stumbled backward, a scream whistling through shattered teeth before she hit the floor. Nathan dived on her prone form, just as the SEF officers started to close in on Avalon. He ripped the pulse pistol from Kellean’s belt, tossing the weapon to Lea. She fired off two quick rounds, blasting one of the officers against the closest wall. He collapsed in a smoldering heap as the others ran for better positions.

Nathan, meanwhile, finished with Kellean. “This is for Lauren!” he shouted, bashing her head against the deck over and over again. Blind to everything else in the room, her blood streaming down his cheeks, he kept thrashing her long after she went limp.

The rest proceeded in a slow blur, like the disconnected nightmare of a Deathplay upload. Thanis opened his mouth in a wordless scream, his black eyes rolling over silver—the same as Avalon. They cascaded through a panoply of colors as her virus invaded his system, washing through his mind in a pathogenic flood.

And in the midst of his contortions, Thanis began to liquefy.

His skin faded to a cadaver pale, sloughing from his skull in sticky sheets. The other officers rushed in to assist the colonel—but their legs decayed to jelly before they could take even two steps. They shrieked in succession, as if a wavelength of agony passed from one to the other, Avalon’s virus conducting itself through the hive. Lea grabbed Nathan and retreated with him to the back of the lab—but neither could tear themselves away from the graphic scene unfolding before them. It was just like the human destruction Lea saw at Chernobyl, bodies twisting themselves into rotting meat.

“Jesus Christ,” Nathan whispered.

Almacantar
’s deck heaved, her thrusters firing off at random. A mechanical snarl broke through sickbay, the ship’s frame groaning under a tremendous load. Nathan ran over to a nearby console, patching it through to main engineering. The display responded with waves of conflicting data, directly from the crawler itself.

“The core is back online,” Nathan said, attempting to gain access. “Mission-critical systems are in total free fall—including navigation. I don’t think I can jump-start them in time.”

The bodies around Lea began to disintegrate. One of them reached out for her, flesh dropping off bones before imploding into a gory heap.

“Leave it!” Lea shouted, running back toward Avalon.

The
Inru
agent still clutched the cryotube, refusing to let go. Her own skin compressed against muscle, like a speedtec meltdown, while the colonel dissolved into a wet sack of gristle. He finally slipped out of sight when nothing was left, soaking the base of his coffin with a viscous puddle. Depleted, Avalon collapsed with him.