Chosen (HMCS Borealis Book 2) (32 page)

Heather had crawled up next to him, her face near to his.
 
"I knew it.
 
That Beatty asshole sold us out.
 
God damn it."

Elan kept watching the two humans.
 
They weren't moving away, but neither were they interacting with the Bezod crew or the technicians.
 
"They're together, the two of them," he mused.
 
"Part of a unit of some sort.
 
Maybe a mercenary company?"

"That guy back on Earth," said Heather, "the fake cop who tried to kill all of us — they must be connected."
 
She turned around, slumping to the deck and leaning back against a crate.
 
"Damn it, we're screwed again."

The two armoured men still hadn't moved.
 
Elan watched as the Bezod captain pushed himself away from where he was leaning, and stepped forward to speak to the other crew.
 
When the cargo loader came down the ramp, no more loaders went up inside.
 
"I think they're almost ready to go," said Elan.
 
It was nearly time.
 
They had to decide, and soon.
 
He kept watching, hoping the armoured humans would step away, or do anything to give Heather and him a chance to sneak past them and onto the ship.
 
Maybe if they waited until the very last moment, and made a run for it…
 

Then a different idea came to him.
 
"What if," he said quietly, "they're the good guys?"

"How would we know?" asked Heather.
 
She was wringing her hands together in front of her, pausing to scratch at her arms.
 
"We need to know.
 
If we get it wrong, they'll shoot us.
 
Are they still there?"

"Yes," said Elan.
 
He pursed his lips as the Bezod crew began to walk up the ramp.
 
The captain took one last look around the docking bay, then disappeared inside.
 
Still the armed humans remained, next to the ramp, heads slowly turning back and forth as they scanned the landing bay.
 
"If we're going," he said, "we have to go right now."

Heather shifted around, nudging him aside to poke her head over the top of the crate.
 
"I don't know, Elan, I'm just…"

"I'm afraid too," he finished.
 
"We could try to find another ship.
 
Go to a different broker, see if—"

He trailed off as the ramp began to rise on the
Vorune
, smoothly folding against the front of the hull, its edges blending in with the ship's layered surface.
 
With a sharp, high-pitched whine, the ship lifted off the landing deck, rising upwards and backwards away from the dock.
 
One of the armed humans turned to watch the ship leave, while the other spoke into a console on their wrist.

Elan let out a sigh as the Bezod ship headed higher, backing out of the landing bay.
 
A blue light flickered briefly over its hull as it passed through the magnetic fields.
 

He turned to Heather, who was still watching the ship lift away from the station.
 
"I don't know," he said.
 
"I feel like we've made a mistake."
 
Here they crouched, escape only twenty metres away, and they'd let it go.
 
They didn't have enough money to try again.
 
What if—

Something glittered out of the corner of his eye, and he glanced up.

Like a sparkling flower, an orange and yellow flame had blossomed on the side of the departing
Vorune
.
 
It grew and expanded without a sound, as the ship shed pieces of metal.
 
The flame grew abruptly larger as the ship broke in two, the two halves beginning to tumble in the expanding cloud of fire and debris.

A brilliant flash of white stung his eyes as a ball of blinding bright light erupted from the stern of the Bezod ship.  The light quickly engulfed the wreckage, exploding a sphere of fire and debris outward as it grew.
 

Down on the landing deck, people began to run.

Elan stared at the blossoming ball of wreckage that expanded toward the station.
 
Thundering footsteps pounded by on the other side of the crates, as shouting filled the air.
 
The armoured humans had sprinted by their hiding place without a second look; they were headed toward the line of smaller ships back where he and Heather had entered the docking bay.
 
A large crowd was already gathering, as frantic people ran toward the blast doors.
 
Red lights came on and the blast doors began to close, causing the crowd to shove forward with increasing panic.
 
Other people were clambering aboard ships, trying to get off the deck before the debris reached the station.

Heather crouched next to him, her ashen face staring wide-eyed at the wall of debris in space above them.
 
He grabbed her by the arm.
 
"Come on," he said, as shouting filled the docks.
 
"We need to go."

She raised her voice.
 
"Where?
 
Where the fuck are we supposed to—"

"This way," he yelled back, over the shouts of people and the whines of ship engines.
 
Elan yanked at her arm, pulling her to her feet.
 
"We have to take cover."
 

A quick scan of the deck offered little choice.
 
Most of the larger ships were already starting to take off, their engines howling.
 
Elan looked at the massive Jaljal ship, its bow perched, unmoving, on the deck.
 
"There," he cried, breaking into a run.
 
"It's the biggest thing here.
 
Get behind it."

As they crossed the deck toward the Jaljal ship, other people ran by, going as fast as their legs could carry them.
 
Most were shouting, crying out for other people.
 
Others had stopped moving, and were cowering behind crates or cargo loaders, trying to find shelter wherever they could.
 
Heather accelerated past Elan, racing him into the shadow of the big freighter.

With neither air nor gravity to slow it, debris from the
Vorune
continued to tumble outwards with all the force of the initial explosion.
 
The magnetic field lit up, its surface glittering in a spasm of brilliant blue, as the wave of debris punched through and slammed into the air of the docking bay.
 
After a moment the sound came, a shattering blast of noise.
 
Sonic booms thundered through the bay as the air was punished by hypersonic debris, everything from individual screws to the sheared-off half of a drive engine that leaked plasma as it tumbled.
 
Brilliant red and yellow streaks of incandescent metal rained down in the landing bay.

Elan slid behind the freighter, clinging to Heather, a scream escaping his lungs.
 
It was like a thousand guns being fired into the landing bay.
 
Glowing wreckage streaked through the dock area, crates launched across the deck, and floor plates leapt up into the air.
 
The station shuddered under the impacts of debris.
 
The decking under his feet kicked upward, knocking Elan off balance, as a man running by disappeared in a brilliant burst of flame.
 
Points of glittering metal flashed by, trailing dirty black smoke, sending deck plates and lengths of twisted beams catapulting through the air.
 
A nearby crate was struck, launching it across the deck, carrying with it a screaming woman who had been cowering behind.   Elan was still trying to get to his feet, as the bow of the Jaljal ship shuddered and started to scrape across the deck toward them.
 
It slid closer, screeching as it sprayed sparks and chewed up plates.

Heather was already on her feet, and it was her turn to haul him up.
 
Her hat was missing, and her dirty hair was strewn madly about her head and shoulders.
 
"Elan!" she yelled into his face.
 
Her eyes widened as she stared past him.
 
"Oh fuck," she mouthed, the words unheard to him, and she backed away from the sliding bow of the freighter that loomed toward them, billowing smoke.

Elan glanced over his shoulder as he scrabbled closer to her.
 
Back the way they'd come, one of the smaller ships had managed to take off from the deck.
 
It now drooped drunkenly, one engine hanging at an awkward angle and leaking glowing plasma.
 
With one final staggering lurch forward, it slumped down to the deck, sliding toward the crowd of frantic people hammering on the sealed blast door.
 

Elan turned away.
 
This wasn't about him.
 
It couldn't be about him.
 
The
Vorune
just blew up by accident.
 
No one would do such a thing to kill him.
 
He turned back toward Heather and tried to speak, but no words came out.
 
When his eyes met hers, he just opened his mouth and closed it again.

It was as if she understood.
 
"We can't stay here, Elan," she yelled.
 
"And we sure as hell can't go that way."
 
She had put a hand on his arm, sliding down to grasp his hand, and it felt reassuring.
 
There was too much going on; he needed time to think.
 
Time to consider what it all meant.
 
But there wasn't time, so he simply nodded and started to follow her.

Heather ran ahead of him, pulling him by the hand.
 
They had to keep zigzagging, ducking around smashed crates and gaping holes in the deck.
 
Burning cargo loaders belched black smoke; one of them still moved its robotic arms, feebly struggling where it lay smashed on the deck.
 
Then he saw a body.
 
Then another.
 
Some were missing limbs, some had holes punched right through them, some were nothing more than mangled gore.
 
Some of the less-injured were still moving.
 
He wanted to stop, to help them, to say something, but Heather's warm hand kept pulling, kept moving him along.  He followed, his tear-stung eyes staring down at the deck.

They neared the deepest part of the dock, where there was less damage from debris.
 
The ships parked here were in pieces, but not because of the explosion.
 
Repair equipment and tool cabinets had been scattered across the deck, amid the bent plating and ruptured piping.
 
A trio of smaller ships perched on the edge of the deck, like fledglings ready to leave the nest.
 
Their hatches were open, and access panels lay scattered about.
 
One of them leaned at an odd angle, wisps of smoke coming from within.

Heather stopped, and Elan stumbled to a halt next to her.
 
He didn't know what to do; he couldn't see any obvious exit from the repair area, and feared she couldn't find one either.
 
Elan wondered if they could climb down through one of the holes in the deck, to the levels below.
 
He turned his head to ask her.

A brief, ear-shattering sound ripped the air in front of his face, as a flash of yellow light zipped past his eyes.
 
Off to his right, there was a ringing metallic clang as a hole appeared in a tool cabinet.
 
He turned around, wondering where it had come from.

Amid the chaos, the wreckage, the fire, and the death, stood the silhouette of a man.
 
He was back near the Jaljal freighter, unmoving against the backdrop of dark billowing smoke and bright fires.
 
His arms were raised and his head tucked into his shoulders.
 
"Heather!" cried Elan.

"Jesus fuck!" she yelled.
 
"He's got a gun!"

Elan fought to keep his legs under him as Heather pushed him backward, propelling him toward the lowered ramp of a small ship.
 
"In here!" she shouted.

He tripped, the back of his foot hitting the bottom of the ramp.
 
Even as he fell back, Heather was climbing past him, scrambling toward the tiny ship's cockpit and its single seat.

The ramp began to close, pivoting upward underneath him and raising his legs over his head.
 
There was a pinging sound, of something striking the underside of the ramp.
 
Elan rolled onto his side, struggling to get to his feet.
 
"Wait," he said, as Heather clambered into the pilot's seat.
 
"Do you know how to—"

"No," she said curtly.
 
"No fucking idea."
 

Elan steadied himself against the wall of the ship as he stood up, watching the back of Heather's head pivot left and right, surveying the panel in front of her.
 
"At least it's all in English…," she said.
 
She read the label on one button.
 
"'Engine start'.
 
Good enough for me."
 
With one finger, she jabbed the button.
 
"And this," she said, grabbing a worn lever in front of her, "has got to be the throttle."
 
She shoved it as far forward as it would go.

Outside the ship's thin hull, the engines screamed to life.
 
Elan was thrown back against the raised ramp as the ship leapt into the air.
 
Beyond the windshield, the station abruptly dropped away, falling to one side as the ship pitched.
 
"Um," said Heather, pulling at the control stick.
 
"I'm not sure what I'm…"
 
She trailed off as the nearby star's glowing orange orb slid across the cockpit windows, then disappeared.
 
Shadows played across the inside walls of the ship as Elan grabbed the back of the seat, pulling himself to his feet.
 
"Where do we go?" asked Heather.