Revolution: The Ship Series // Book Two (8 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Why
did you do that?

The
Flight Boss didn’t allow the cadets so much as a sec to recover from the shock
of his words. They had just risked their lives to free the Boss from the civilians,
and now the man was asking them to turn around and head back towards the
biggest group of insurgents in their immediate vicinity—the ones in Engineering
Control. The group who almost certainly had rigged the compartment with
sufficient explosives to kill all of its occupants along with anyone else
nearby. The Omega laid out his plan, and it was clear from his posture and tone
there was no room for question or suggestions.

Zax led the way as the five of them double-timed through
the tunnels until they came to a path the cadets had passed by earlier. This
time, they turned and followed the new passage until they reached a different
ladder which would access a different crawlspace and eventually run above
Engineering Control. Sergeant Bailee held his hand out to Kalare for the
blaster, and she heeded the unspoken request without hesitation. The Marine
tucked the weapon into his waistband to free up his only functional arm and
then gestured for Zax to lead the way up the ladder.

The plan was for the Boss to remain behind with Kalare
and Aleron while Zax led Bailee through the crawlspace to Engineering Control.
The Marine would then pop his head out of the hatch and deliver whatever
message the Boss felt was so critical he was willing to risk all of their lives
to deliver it. Zax could not imagine anything important enough to delay
hightailing it over to the relative safety of Waste Systems, but kept that
counsel to himself.

Zax crawled towards their destination. He turned back
after ten meters and saw how much Bailee was struggling to keep up. The man
winced each time he was forced to balance his weight on his right arm. Zax
queried the Marine.

“What happened to your arm, Sergeant?”

“A little misadventure with zero-g after that surprise
FTL Transit. It was pretty challenging to maneuver with my hands bound behind
my back, and I ended up landing funny when the grav-gen kicked in. I heard a
good
crack
so I’m pretty confident it snapped my collarbone. I can use
the arm a little, but it hurts like hell.”

“Can you share what message is so important the Boss is
sending a cadet and a seriously wounded Marine back into the thick of armed
civilians to try to deliver it?”

“No. Let’s get moving, cadet.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Zax started crawling again, and after a few mins they approached
the first hatch in the vicinity of Engineering Control. They stopped for a
moment to eavesdrop on the compartment below. Numerous voices spoke at full
volume. It was impossible to know for certain whether it was Crew or civilians,
but Zax couldn’t imagine a group of Crew sounding so calm and cavalier in this
situation and assumed it must be a large group of renegades. A similar number
of voices emanated from the second compartment they passed and Zax’s spirits
plummeted even further. It was clear there were now far more insurgents in the
area. Zax pressed onwards, as he had no choice in the matter, and they soon
reached their destination. He stopped at the appropriate hatch and signaled to
the Marine that they had arrived.

They paused to listen. There were fewer discussions in
the compartment below than the others they had passed, but there was one voice
which Zax easily recognized. Rege, the leader of the civilians who had captured
Engineering Control, was doing most of the talking. Zax took a deep breath in a
hopeless attempt to calm his thundering heart as the Marine primed his blaster.
Zax assumed the man wanted to be prepared to defend them in case a civilian
managed to react quickly and got off some shots while the sergeant was still
delivering his message.

“Zax,” the Marine whispered, “here’s what I need you to
do. It’s a big compartment, and we aren’t going to have a lot of time. We’re
going to surprise them by popping out of the overhead, but all hell’s going to
break loose faster than you know it. I need to get eyes on the Chief Engineer
as fast as possible, so we need to cover the whole compartment simultaneously.
I want you to look to your left once the hatch opens and I’ll look to your
right. We’ll call your half of the compartment zero to 180 degrees and you
should call out the Chief’s position by degree if you spot her first. OK?”

Zax nodded agreement and took another exaggeratedly deep
breath. The sergeant reached for the hatch’s manual override with his injured
arm and mouthed a silent countdown from five. As soon as the hatch flew open,
Zax popped his head down and scanned his portion of the compartment.

Everything looked pretty much the same as when they had
left, though the bodies of two additional Crew had joined the pile of dead. Zax
didn’t allow himself to dwell on how mangled one of the new corpses was and
instead focused on spotting the Chief Engineer.

“Sergeant—120 degrees!”

Two things happened immediately after Zax yelled the
words. Rege looked up at the open hatch with a look of complete disbelief, and
Bailee’s blaster went off right next to Zax’s ear. His eyes closed
involuntarily in response to being so close to a weapon discharge, but not
before Zax saw the Marine’s shot find its target and the Chief Engineer’s head
disappear in a shower of bloody mist.

Before Zax could even think to react, the sergeant
pulled him violently out of the opening, slammed the hatch shut, and engaged
the lock. The compartment below exploded into a cacophony of blaster shots
which Zax feared would shred the crawlspace at any moment.

“Move cadet! They can’t penetrate the overhead with the
blasters they had earlier, but if their reinforcements brought heavier weapons,
we might be in trouble.”

Zax saw the Marine’s lips moving but barely heard his words.
He wanted to move, but his ears rang too loudly and he was unable to focus his
eyes. He closed them for what seemed to be a moment, but when he opened them he
recognized how he’d been dragged by the Marine at least 15 meters away from the
hatch. The agony on the sergeant’s face was plain as he used his injured arm to
crawl and pulled Zax’s mass with the other one. Zax swatted the Marine’s hand
away and moved under his own power until they reached the ladder which led to
the others.

His initial shock subsided by the time Zax descended the
ladder. When he came face to face with the Boss, it had been replaced with
enough rage that he exploded at the Omega.

“We didn’t deliver any message—you had him kill the
Chief Engineer! Why did you do that? Why did I risk my life just so you could
take the Chief’s?”

“Watch yourself, cadet. The rules about insubordination
don’t get suspended just because we’re under attack. When I feel the need to
explain myself, I’ll let you know. Until then, I need you to quit squawking and
get us the hell out of here.”

Zax considered a couple of inappropriate replies, but
the threat in the Boss’s tone was even more pronounced than the man’s words. He
controlled himself until the urge to speak passed. He stomped down the tunnel
and brushed past the idiotically grinning Aleron. Even when his own life was in
danger, that tool still managed to find pleasure in Zax’s troubles.

Kalare caught up to him a moment later and put a hand on
Zax’s shoulder to silently commiserate. He swatted it away.

“Get back there with
your mentor
and leave me
alone. At least there can be no argument about whether he was responsible for
this
murder!”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

With all due respect, sir, we shouldn’t split up.

The
group trailed Zax in silence as he led them towards the tunnels which connected
with Waste Systems. His body ran on autopilot while his brain spun about what
he had just been part of. Try as he might, no valid reason came to mind as to
why the Boss might want to kill the Chief. The additional dead bodies he had
seen confirmed the civilians were using the collars and torturing the Crew, but
Zax couldn’t imagine their goals. Anything they might try to negatively impact
the Ship from the Engineering compartment could be easily overridden by the
Captain from the Bridge. He finally pushed the thoughts aside and chalked the
woman’s murder up as just more evidence of the Boss’s callous insanity.

Zax dedicated his focus back to their journey and
getting safely to Waste Systems. He expected at any moment to hear the clamor
which would signal the civilians had forced their way into the maintenance
network. The closest they got to this outcome was a loud commotion on the other
side of one access port as they scurried past. Zax thought the racket might
have included the hum
of a drill being used in an attempt to force open
the port, so he concluded a shift in route was in order.

At his next opportunity, Zax took a ladder down to the
lowest level it connected with. He did the same at the next ladder and then
once again when they encountered a third. At the completion of that last,
lengthiest ladder descent the Boss called for a halt.

“Why are you bringing us so deep, cadet?”

“Sir—if the civilians break into the tunnel network,
they will search for us around the levels where they know we were last active.
Rather than make things easy for them, I figured we were better off dropping
lower. I think we’ve gone deep enough now, though, and intend to bring us
straight over to Waste Systems from here.”

The Boss seemed pleasantly surprised and nodded his
agreement with Zax’s assessment. As he started walking again, Zax picked up the
smell of sewage. He didn’t know if the others noticed it as well, but the human
nose is finely attuned to the scent of feces, and Zax’s had always seemed to be
even more sensitive than most. The odor provided a means of gauging their
progress because it became more and more pronounced the closer they got to the
treatment cavern deep below the Waste Systems control room. That vile compartment
held the massive sewage processing vessels. Zax had visited once but hoped to
never see it again.

The group finally reached a ladder, and Zax gazed up the
towering shaft with gratitude. Their ascent would take them away from the
treatment cavern and its stench of human waste. When they finally reached the
top, he stepped aside and waited for everyone to catch up. Sergeant Bailee
brought up the rear, and Zax almost gasped when he saw the physical distress
the Marine appeared to be in after his one-armed climb. He was trying to find
the courage to suggest a rest break when his thoughts were interrupted by the
Boss.

“Cadet—I want you and me to scout up ahead before we go
further. This seems like as good a place as any for the others to wait behind
for us.”

Zax was gratified for Bailee’s opportunity to rest, but
Kalare seemed agitated by the plan and voiced her concerns.

“With all due respect, sir, we shouldn’t split up. We
don’t know what’s going on in this section, and it seems like a bad idea for us
to not stay together.”

The officer smiled benevolently at Kalare as he replied.

“The lack of knowledge you mention is exactly the
rationale for us to split up. Rather than rush all five of us into a potential
danger zone, it seems prudent to get a sense of what we might be walking into.
Zax and I will press ahead to see if there is any civilian activity outside of
the tunnel network along our route.”

Zax agreed with Kalare’s assessment but knew any
hesitancy he might express would not be greeted anywhere near as patiently by
the Boss. Zax gave her a wan smile as he walked past, and she returned a
brighter one along with a pat on the shoulder for encouragement.

They had only walked a couple dozen meters when the Boss
stopped and turned to Zax.

“I thought it was prudent for Bailee to have a few mins
to recover from that climb. I knew he would resist the suggestion, so I thought
a short scouting mission by the two of us would provide the excuse for him to
rest. I’ll call you a liar and whack you with some serious demerits if you let
the Marine know I cut him some slack.”

The Omega’s wan smile and his tepid joke made it seem
like he might be extending an offer of truce, but Zax didn’t trust it to be
genuine. He almost wished for the return of the Boss who had alternated between
cruel and rude since Zax had set eyes on him a few hours ago. At least Zax knew
where he stood with that man, versus whatever subterfuge the officer was likely
disguising now with his faux humor.

“Is there a crawlspace that can get us above Waste
Systems Control, Zax? It would be good to see if there are any unattended Crew
in there as that would confirm the civilians hadn’t bothered coming here.”

“Yes, sir. Follow me.”

Zax wasn’t enthusiastic about being alone with the Boss
for as long as it would take to scout out the control room and return but
having a defined destination took some of the edge off his worry. They took
advantage of every opportunity along their path to eavesdrop on the world
outside the tunnels. There was not a sound to be heard outside any of the
access ports, and once they got up into the overhead crawlspace, they heard
nothing but silence in the compartments they passed. This was initially true of
Waste Systems Control as well, but just before they turned to leave Zax heard
Westerick call out and Salmea respond. The two officers spoke back and forth
for a couple of mins without any other voices interjecting, so Zax concluded
they were indeed alone and signaled for the Boss to head back out of the
crawlspace.

“Sir—those voices we heard back at the hatch were
Lieutenant Salmea and Major Westerick. She’s my supervisor and he runs Waste
Systems. I believe they’re alone since we only heard the two of them speaking”

“I don’t know her, but I’m familiar with him. What’s
your opinion of the Major, Zax?”

One look at the Boss’s face made it clear to Zax that
the man was testing him. He didn’t know what answer was expected, but after a
short deliberation decided that honesty was the best policy—within reason.

“The Major seems perfectly suited to run Waste Systems,
sir.”

The Flight Boss appraised Zax for a long moment and then
broke into one of his hearty laughs before finally responding.

“Well said, cadet, well said. Let’s get back to the rest
of the team.”

They walked for a few mins and were getting close to
where they had left the others when Zax was startled by pounding on an access
port as they walked past. The boss put his finger across his lips to signal
silence and then motioned for them to double-time it the rest of the way. Zax turned
the final corner and stopped short from the shock of discovering the junction
where they had left the others was empty. The Boss almost collided with Zax but
quickly recovered and voiced his disbelief.

“Where in the hell did they go?”