The Lazarus War (7 page)

The shot completely missed. It scorched the ceiling overhead. The Krell whirled about-face, away from Daryl.
Fucking great.
All I'd done was get the thing's attention. It advanced on me, plodding now.

I should've lived by Rules One, Two and Three
, I blasted myself.
Made for the docking bay on my own. I could've made it on my own –

I pressed the trigger again and again. The reader flashed something in red text – but I couldn't read it through the smoke.

“Work, Gaia bloody damn you!” I screamed at the gun.

The pistol discharged again, two shots in fast succession. I hadn't realised until that point that the creature was wearing an armoured suit: plating so well grafted to its body that it was almost indistinguishable from the xeno itself.

Both shots glanced the armour and bounced off harmlessly.

The alien was moving faster now – closing the distance –

The smell was the worst thing, catching so deep in my lungs that it was almost suffocating.

The Krell stopped in its tracks. Its neck whip-cracked around, bio-armour creaking, and it let out a pitched shriek – a noise that sounded about as alien as the monster looked. Suddenly I knew that I was no longer the focus of its attention.

Then the Krell exploded.

A volley of shots hit it in the upper torso and head; scythed through the armour and the grey-green flesh beneath. The alien staggered backwards, blood and gore pouring from the open wounds.

Events played out at a frightening, phenomenal speed. There were flashes of motion at the edge of my smoke-teared eyes. Two more of the things were in the lounge. They had talons up and bodies precisely balanced to assault something at the other end of the room.

More incoming fire. There was another threat here now.

The two new attackers skidded sideways, out of threat range, but one was hit too.

I found my voice. “Help us in here!” I shouted, eager that whoever was out there knew there were humans inside.

The idea that our saviour, or saviours, might be Directorate barely occurred to me. Right now, being shot dead by Directorate agents was infinitely preferable to spending another second in the presence of the Krell.

A figure appeared through the smoke, wearing a huge armoured suit.
Army; had to be Army.
The dull grey armour had seen action: scars stitched the limbs, a black burn across one shoulder. The soldier fired a bulky rifle on the move. I could just about read a name on the helmet, printed beneath the mirrored face-plate.

SERGEANT ARTEMIS: GODDESS SQUAD.

It's her. She's come back for me.
I couldn't believe it. I blinked away tears, hugged the ground.

“Stay down!” my mother barked. Her voice was amplified by a speaker system inside the armour. “Don't look directly at the gun. It'll blind you without eyewear.”

I nodded, mute. Her rifle spat death. Where the bright pulses hit, Krell exploded.

She had so many targets. There were more in the room now – all shrieking, clawing towards my mother. I couldn't keep track of where they had all come from; only knew that there were hordes of them. She tracked them all, moving in such choreographed motions that it was almost a dance.

Soon she was standing over me. Daryl, dragging Lucina with him, gathered at her feet. Lucina was startled, bleeding from a cut on her head, but alive.

Three Krell xeno-forms leapt from a rent in a wall – tearing through an exposed duct. My mother dispatched one with a single shot between the eyes. As the other two closed on us, she tossed her rifle away, in the same motion grabbing at a pistol holstered on her belt.
Blam, blam, blam
– another Krell reduced to a twitchy, bloody mess. The third got to her, but before I could feel any concern, she had smashed a fist into the monster's face. She was moving almost as fast as the xenos.

The Krell – enormous, brutal – shook its head in bewilderment. The bio-organic armour cracked, oozed something puerile and bloody. The stunned creature was hit by more energy rounds from across the lounge.

I snapped my head around and saw that another soldier had appeared. Dressed the same as my mother, armour perhaps a little more damaged than hers.

She nodded at the trooper. “Thanks for the save.”

“Anytime, Artemis,” he said. He moved into the lounge, evaluating the mess.

My heart was beating so hard and fast that I thought I might pass out. I was trembling. Bathed in sweat and yet freezing cold.
I'm in shock.
For a second or so, I could barely breathe.
If I want to stay alive, I have to stay with it. Keep going.
I focused on the basic act of respiration, grasped it like a mechanical process. It took a few seconds for me to realise that the assault was over; that the wave of Krell attackers had stopped. Smoking alien corpses were piled on the floor.

My mother turned to me. The face-plate of her helmet suddenly became transparent, revealing her face inside. She barely looked fazed.

“Are you hurt?”

There was a tenderness to her voice that was at odds with the deathly work that she'd just completed.

“I'm fine,” I gasped. I was fighting back the urge to wretch, stirred by the smell and the thick smoke. “I think.”

I went to stand on shaking legs and my mother helped me up. I was still holding my pistol, the readout flashing red.

“It's out of power,” my mother said.

She handed me a cell. I stared at it, uncomprehending.

“Universal compatibility for small arms. Clip it into the grip.”

She took the pistol from me and demonstrated.

“This doesn't mean that we're even,” I said, not quite sure why I was saying it.

“Fair enough.”

I looked down at Sheldon's body. His face was the worst part: eyes still wide open, a trickle of blood escaping from his mouth.
I'm breaking Rule Four: stop caring.
But it was impossible not to care. Sheldon had been someone I'd actively disliked but there had been more to him. I suddenly wished that I'd taken the time to get to know Sheldon Trivek. I looked away from his body.

“We had a ship…” I said.

“Civilian docking facilities are gone,” my mother replied. “That route of escape has been terminated.”

“Then what do we do?”

My mother wasn't listening any more, and didn't answer. Her mouth was moving behind her face-plate and the other soldier was nodding. Suit-to-suit comms, I guessed. The pair made a decision.

“This way,” she said, turning to me.

The soldier grabbed Daryl and propped him up. He let out an agonised gasp; the fall had probably taken it out of him. The trooper kept his rifle in the other hand, poised and ready to fire. Lucina tagged along behind them, rubbing the blackened crescent of blood that had formed at the back of her head, visible even through her thick hair.

“In case it matters,” my mother said, “this is Private Moledina. This is my daughter, Taniya Coetzer.”

She nodded at the other soldier. He paused and unclipped his helmet. The unit gave a brief hiss, as though he was working on his own atmosphere. Underneath, I saw that Moledina was the man from the bar. He smiled warmly; a far more pleasant response than the last time I'd seen him.

“Nice to meet you.”

“And you,” I said, gingerly.

I held out a hand on autopilot. I felt stupid as soon as I realised what I'd done. Moledina laughed.

“I wouldn't do that if I were you,” he said. “Not if you want to keep that hand.”

“Powered gloves,” my mother added tersely.

“Sorry.”

We made our way through the corridors of
Liberty Point
.

I was sure that I'd never forget the things that I saw and heard aboard the station. It was hellish. The place had not just been attacked; it had been desecrated. There were bodies everywhere – Krell and Alliance. Burning rafters blocked collapsed corridors. Elevator shafts sat with doors gaping open, no cars inside. Alarms sounded in the background and I heard distant voices as we passed through junctions. Alien shrieks echoed through the station, always closely followed by the bark of kinetic weapons or the pitched hissing of plasma rifles.

Accompanied by my mother and Moledina – having seen the mess that they had made of the Krell – I wanted to feel safe. But whenever the feeling settled in my chest, I heard another nerve-jangling scream and I'd be back on edge again.

My mother tilted her head. Her face-plate was still transparent, now painted on the inside with glowing graphics: station maps, sector schematics.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

In truth, as long as it was away from the Krell I didn't care any more.

“Somewhere safe. Just stay quiet. It's not far.”

“Can't we link up with the rest of your squad?”

“There is no rest of my squad. I came back for you.”

I was grateful for that but in the circumstances it was hard to feel much. I just wanted it all to be over.

Moledina and Daryl plodded along at the rear.

“Are there more of
them
in here with us?” Daryl asked.

He couldn't bring himself to say the word
Krell
. As though saying the name would summon them here.

“Plenty more,” Moledina answered. “This place is crawling with them. Where there's one, there will be many. It's an old soldier's rule.”

My mother suddenly paused, one hand up, the other on her rifle.

“Objective is ahead,” she said. “Stay behind me.”

The sector beyond that door was the worst. It had been hit badly, but that wasn't what made it so terrifying. Rather it was the purpose and content of the chamber itself.

“You shouldn't even be seeing this,” my mother said. “It's highly restricted. Military-grade, need to know.”

“Then why are you taking us through here?” I said.

My mother looked at me with cultured impartiality, addressing the wide-ass new recruit, the back-chatting troublemaker. “Because it's the fastest way through to Sector Three, and that's where we need to be.”

“Okay,” I said meekly.

The room had the look and feel of a factory. High-ceilinged, so big that I couldn't really see the far wall. Whatever had happened on the
Point
, the equipment in here seemed to be working sporadically. Heavy-lifting machinery whirred and chugged overhead. Claws carried smashed cargo across the chamber. Cut electrical cables slithered like live snakes, putting out sparks bright enough to light the chamber.

“What are these things?” I asked.

There were rows and rows of stacked glass capsules – about the same dimension as a hypersleep pod. I looked up and saw that more of the capsules were racked above us.

“Those are si—” Moledina started.

My mother cut him off. “Don't, Private. Cap it.”

Moledina didn't argue, and we marched on through the cavernous factory.

There were naked bodies inside the capsules, suspended in blue liquid. As I passed them, I realised that each one was the same: a hundred copies of the same adult male. Impossibly well-muscled, tethered by cables and pipes which flashed with neon compounds. Around us, the factory ventilation system churned with a mechanical wheezing and hissing; like the clones were all breathing in unison. It was unnerving.

Curiosity got the better of me. I broke off from the convoy and approached one of the capsules. Some were damaged: I broke glass fragments underfoot, and almost slipped on a puddle of glowing blue liquid. Lots of the bodies were snagged among their feeder cables, impaled on the smashed glass of their destroyed cocoons. The place stank of antiseptic. What made it worse was that those bodies didn't seem to care: faces still contorted into that implacable, determined scowl.

The capsule in front of me was still operating. I wiped a hand over the control console set into the pod and saw the small monitor flashing with various error messages. There was a badge and some words stamped onto the terminal:
ALLIANCE ARMY – SIMULANT OPERATIONS PROGRAMME
. While I didn't recognise that name, I knew the occupant of the pod. I'd seen him before. I recognised that face: the scar-faced man back on the concourse. The man on the poster, that they called LAZARUS.

“
Taniya? Get back here. You shouldn't be messing with that shit…
”

I was vaguely aware of a voice behind me but I was enraptured by the man in the tube.

I held my hand against the glass for a long moment. The events of the day were catching up with me. I suddenly felt weak, tired and terrified.

I'm an engineer. I can't deal with this.

The man's eyes sprang open.

I passed out.

“
Get her out of there!
”

The scream died on my lips, faded to a pitiful sigh.

I expected to find myself in a car, sinking too quickly to the bottom of a river. Instead, I was in another command room of some sort.
So this is where the survivors have gone
, I thought. There were hundreds of personnel crammed into the chamber; hunched over consoles, pressed to the open view-ports. As well as the Alliance Army, there were also firefighters, cops, some Navy men. There were a couple of soldiers dressed like my mother and Moledina, and weapons piled up all over the place: on terminals, beside desks, on tables. None of the personnel had escaped unscathed: they were all battered, wounded, dirty. But mostly alive and working feverishly to keep the station afloat.

There was an enormous Alliance emblem on the wall overlooking the workpit. The sight of that badge – a symbol that had meant almost nothing to me a few hours ago – now stirred something in my chest.

Sci-Div medtechs were busy treating the most badly injured, and one corner of the room was filled with makeshift beds, even a couple of auto-docs. I was lying in one of those beds, and when I looked around I realised that lots of the occupants were far more badly injured than me. In fact, patting down my limbs, I found that I wasn't physically damaged at all.

The chamber was noisy enough that no one had even noticed my outburst, and the rest of the medical staff were so busy that my awakening had gone completely undetected. I watched the place work.

A large holo-table in the middle of the room was attracting the most attention. A gaggle of military men – in a variety of Alliance uniforms – were focused on it. I listened in on snippets of conversation like a child eavesdropping on adults.

“All out-system communications are down,” one soldier said.

Another – a much younger man, wearing a peaked cap – rubbed his hairless chin.

“Try to get me a line to Calico, or better yet
Novo Selo Launch
.”

He struck me as far too young to be an officer, but nevertheless seemed to be in charge.

“No can do,” the other man said. That speaker was older, and looked seriously pissed off. “Captain, I can't get you a line to XV-78, let alone Calico.”

“And like Calico is going to do us any good anyway,” another voice chirped up.

The locations that the soldiers were discussing were just names on maps, but I'd heard of them.
Novo Selo Launch
was another military outpost – a pale reflection of
Liberty Point
– but I supposed that there would be more soldiers there. Calico and XV-78 were mining operations, near to the Quarantine Zone: stations which I knew hardly anything about.

“When I want your opinion,” the young captain said, “I'll damn well ask for it. We're trying to fight a fire here, and I don't have the resources to spit on a fucking spark let alone this almighty shitstorm…”

“I say that we bail out,” the older man said. “We should head for the escape shuttles, then make like a fish and swim. Old Man Cole is already out, and O'Neil turned tail fast enough.”

Someone laughed. “Fuck O'Neil, man. Don't even go there. And no one knows for sure whether the Old Man has actually got out.”

“Let's hope that he did,” another voice added. “President Francis is gone. If Cole is dead as well…”

The captain wiped his brow. He was sweating a lot; moisture dripping from his eyebrows and nose. I might've found him handsome in different circumstances, but right now I just felt sorry for him. He looked like he was well out of his depth.

“We stay and fight,” he said. “It's the Alliance way.”

“We're going to be overrun,” someone else said in an accent that I didn't recognise. “There are Directorate soldiers in Sectors Sixteen and Thirty-five.”

“I want that shit stowed right now,” the captain said. “Those reports are unconfirmed.”

Someone lying next to me – on another of the filthy mattresses – groaned, and a medtech darted over in his direction. I sat up, feeling guilty for occupying the bed.

“You back in the land of the living?”

My mother's voice. Calming, confident.

“You were sparked out,” my mother explained. “I told you not to look at those things.”

“Simulant Operations…” I said. “I saw that man's face. There were hundreds of copies of him.”

“He needs them for what he does,” my mother said. She sounded in admiration of the bastard. “You're in shock. Lie down.”

I rolled over in the bed and found her sitting on a stool beside me. She pressed a hand to my chest to suggest that I lay back but I wriggled past her. I finally had some purpose here, had some importance. These people needed to know what I'd seen.

“The reports are true,” I said. “We've seen them. The Directorate, I mean.”

The officer frowned at me, and the troopers around the holo-table fell silent. Lots of pairs of eyes turned in my direction.

“And who exactly are you, miss?” he asked in a tone of voice that suggested I was probably dog shit. “I don't take kindly to civilians interfering in military business.”

“She's my daughter,” my mother said. “And if she has something to say, then you ought to listen.”

“I'm Taniya Coetzer. I'm an engineer, employed by the De Hann Transport Company aboard a civilian starship called the
Edison
. Or at least, I was.” I sighed, got back to the point. “We were in the District, and we saw Directorate soldiers.”

“With your own eyes?” the young captain asked.

When I spoke, both Daryl and Lucina looked up at me. They had roused from nearby beds.

I fished in my pocket for the data-clip that Daryl had given me, and held it out to them. The small device was dirty, had a dent in the casing. I hoped that it still worked.

“My ship's captain was sent here to deliver this to a man called Ostrow.”

Daryl and Lucina perched around the table, and the military listened to our story.

“Captain Ostrow is Military Intelligence,” the young captain said, “but he's MIA.”

“Everyone is MIA,” an American soldier added. “Probably dead.”

The captain took off his cap and rubbed his shaven scalp anxiously. I didn't know how much significance he would attach to the data-clip – to whatever secret it held – but his reaction was frightening. Among all of the devastation and destruction, the clip seemed to be generating enormous interest from the military men. It was something big.

The comms officer had plugged the clip into his terminal. Data scrolled in front of him: images, graphics, text files. The green and red projections skipped across his eyes, although I knew that he wasn't really reading the material in the physical sense. He was hooked directly to the machine by cables running to his forearm and neck ports.

“It's genuine,” the comms officer said. “The encryption can only be broken in certain circumstances and it only allows access by the most senior military officer on the station.”

Eyes turned to the young captain, and he seemed to wilt beneath them. That he could open the files said far too much about the status of the rest of the base.

“Which just so happens to be me,” he said. “Christo, I didn't sign up for this shit. It's above my pay grade.”

“Nothing is above your pay grade any more,
jefe
,” another officer jibed. “You in charge,
mano
.”

I looked at the exhausted faces of the gathered officers. “Did they come here for that? The Directorate, I mean.”

“We can't rule it out,” the comms officer said. “Could've been cover for the wider operation.” He let out a long, fretful sigh. “They planned this, and they sabotaged our systems. They have access to everything: material on the Krell, the QZ, the Maelstrom…”

“What's on the data-clip?” I asked.

It was a ridiculous question and I really didn't expect an answer, but the comms soldier said, “It's intelligence from an operation into the Maelstrom.”

“The Treaty,” the young captain said, glaring at the data-feeds as though he could dispel them with just his eyes. “The package is intel from the
Endeavour
's mission.”

I trawled up the detail: fragmentary, half-forgotten information. That mission had been years ago, while I was in the Pen. The
Endeavour
had been the flagship of the diplomatic mission into the Maelstrom, supposed to settle the war with the Krell. The Treaty – the ceasefire between the Krell and the Alliance – had been the result.

“The battlegroup never came back,” my mother said. “They were lost in the Maelstrom. Declared MIA.”

“It wasn't a battlegroup,” the captain said. “It was an expedition.”

“Same difference, asshole.”

“Why would the Directorate want that information?” I said. “That was so long ago. Surely the…” – I paused, searching for the correct word – “…
operation
is long finished?”

The young captain fidgeted nervously. There were either limits of his knowledge, or limits to what he was going to discuss with unauthorised civilians. “It's classified.”

“There are several teams operating inside the Maelstrom right now,” my mother added. “The Lazarus Legion is still out there. If we're going to bail out, then we have to leave something behind for anyone coming back here.”

“Lazarus will come back,” the comms officer said with a hangman's smile. “He always does.”

“Excuse me, Sergeant Coetzer,” the young officer said. “I'm in charge here. Respect the chain of command: it's going to take a lot more casualties before they put you in charge. There are still several thousand personnel on-station, and we need to regroup – to
rally
– in order to repel the Krell incursion. We can't abandon a multi-trillion credit facility…”

There were mutters of annoyance around the table. My mother didn't buy that. The young man was spouting military school rhetoric.

“Then with
respect
, sir, we're leaving. If the Directorate came after this intel – whatever it is – then it isn't safe here.”

“I've already said that we aren't bailing out,” the captain said. He sounded like an unhappy child. “For a start, you can't leave this station in that—”

“Priority is to make evac,” my mother said, speaking over him.

She'd unscrewed her powered gloves and pointed with her bare hands down at a holo in front of her. It was a map showing what was left of the
Point
: a station now fractured with warning markers, flashing indicators and whole sectors marked as uninhabitable.

“The docking bays are all gone, so no point in looking for alternative transport in that direction. We'll have to make for the escape shuttles.”

I hoped that the
Point
had lots of those. My mother demonstrated a route across the base, through a network of corridors and service tunnels. She'd plotted a course that kept us away from the warning markers – the sectors labelled
HULL BREACH
and
ATMOSPHERIC INSTABILITY
. I noticed that even during the time it took for her to explain the plan, other areas were dropping offline –

The room rumbled. Something exploded outside the view-ports and several of the officers ran for the windows, peering into space. Chatter spread across the room, muted panic. These men and women were better disciplined than the rabble down in the District, but not much.

My mother rose to full height, towering over the rest of the group. That tag on her armour –
ARTEMIS
, and the graceful text
GODDESS SQUAD
– both seemed more than apt. She clipped her gloves back into place, slid the damaged helmet onto her head.

“We're leaving. Goddess Squad is making for the escape shuttles.”

“What do you mean, Goddess Squad?” the captain barked. “There's only two of you!”

“Then that will have to do. I'll take the
Edison
's crew with me, and that intel.”

She unplugged the data-clip and thrust it into my hand. I wasn't sure that I really wanted it, but I didn't have the strength to argue.

“It's suicide,” the captain muttered. “Not to mention insubordination.”

“Then shoot me.”

“I might, if it would make any difference.”

My mother and Moledina stepped away from the table, left the rest of the officers bickering. She tossed me the gun that I'd found outside the District.

“Keep your weapon handy. Don't shoot unless you really have to. Stay away from windows and view-ports.”

“Okay,” I said, breathing out slowly. I was still having issues considering the weapon as my gun.

I pushed it into the waistband of my jumpsuit. I'd seen guns worn like that in tri-Ds, but the barrel pressed against my thigh uncomfortably. My mother watched on, unimpressed at my attempt at bravado.

“But this is far more important than the gun,” she said, passing me a headset.

I clipped it over my head, pulled back my hair so that it would fit.

“The link is secure,” she said, her voice tinny in my ear over the bead. She turned to the rest of the group. “Moledina, you take up the rear and stay with the captain. I'll take point and we move on my mark.”

No one tried to stop us, not even the young captain. The gathered personnel divided to let us pass through. I even noticed a few smiles among the group; near-admiration that someone was doing
something
, even if it was just bailing out.

The station had become strangely quiet, save for that distant creak and yaw of the superstructure.
Expansion and contraction
, the engineer in me explained.
Heat, exposure to vacuum: support beams breaking up. That's the sound of the station dying.
The air tasted of burnt plastic and smoke. It had also taken on a frosty quality and I was glad of my crew jacket. That confirmed it for me: the station was losing atmosphere. Maybe not in the dramatic and immediate sense, but it wouldn't be long before the remaining modules became compromised. Life support systems would soon be dropping offline.