Quarantine (The Shadow Wars Book 7.5) (3 page)

Fletcher heaved a sigh. “Great,” she muttered.

She went back to staring sullenly into her coffee.

Allan lingered a moment longer, then stood up and left.

* * * * *

Hunter was back in the armory by herself, looking over a good cache of weaponry in much the same way Smitty had been fussing over his medical gear.

“Hey,” she said, her voice a study in casual as she quickly and smoothly disassembled a nasty looking silver pistol.

“Hi...you seem like you know what you're doing,” Allan replied awkwardly, uncertain of how to handle conversation with Hunter. He'd spent time around people who were at ease with murder, but Hunter seemed to be a level above that. It was something about her, something in the way she walked and talked, that spoke of death.

“I sure as hell hope so,” Hunter replied. “So is it true what they say? You're really a planet killer?” she asked.

Allan felt something that was both intensely white-hot and shockingly cold drop into his gut. With a great effort, he controlled himself, tried to keep his hands from trembling. He swallowed. “Yeah, it's true,” he said.

“The largest amount of people I've ever killed at once was around sixty five, give or take a few. They never did get an accurate count. I set a bomb at an enemy base and blew the whole thing sky-high. I've always wondered what it would be like to kill more than that. Preferably all hostile targets but,” she shrugged, “sometimes it can't be helped.”

With a slow, growing horror, Allan realized that Hunter was actually, in her own way,
applauding
his massacre on Lindholm.

Without a word, he turned and left the room.

* * * * *

Allan stumbled into a storage bay.

He was shaking all over and he felt like vomiting. Not a good idea inside of a power suit. His vision was slowly dwindling down into a dark tunnel. He managed to hit the close and lock buttons for the door behind him. Sweeping the room with his gaze, he saw a crate marked as spare parts for power armor. A tremor of something like serenity rippled through him, and he lurched across the room to the crate. Remembering that he needed to at least replace the power cells in his suit, he pried the crate open, dropped to his knees and began sorting through it.

Several minutes passed and his panic melted off of him in layers. He lost himself in the monotonous tasks of hunting down a trio of new power cells and a toolkit, then opening up the appropriate panels spread out across his suit. Taking out the old power cells and gently fitting in the new ones. When that was done and the panels were back on, fitted firmly into place, Allan ran a quick suit-check.

There were a few other things that needed tending, but he felt himself growing sleepy. Being so tense and worked up all the time was emotionally and physically taxing. Allan yawned and sat down with his back to the far wall, stacks of crates on either side of him. He stared at the door and let his thoughts come and go, now that he was as close to relaxed as he was going to get in his post-Lindholm life. He had something like two more hours in transit before they arrived at the
Stygian
. Surely he could catch a nap.

They'd manage without him for a bit.

Slowly, in bits and pieces, Allan allowed himself to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter 03

–
Stygian
–

“Five minutes out.”

Allan gasped awake, his eyes snapping open, body going rigid in a sitting position. He looked around, utterly lost for a moment, those three words, tinny through his suit's comm system, ringing around in his head. It took him a moment to realize it, but he'd just received the warning. Hadn't they said they'd give him a ten minute warning? His brain was mired in tar-like confusion. Allan closed his eyes and focused.

If they'd given him the five minute warning, then he'd obviously slept through the ten minute warning. Stupid of him, and not a good sign. He was a light sleeper by necessity, you had to be in his line of work, so why hadn't he been woken by the call? Allan tried to stand but his equilibrium was thrown off because he'd fallen asleep on the floor. He fell forward, collapsing onto one knee, as though waiting to be knighted, and took a moment to get his balance back. He'd been having some kind of nightmare, something that left him in a cold sweat.

Allan counted himself lucky that he couldn't remember the specifics of the nightmare, though unfortunately he could still feel the negative emotions it had stirred up. Keeping his breathing calm and even, his eyes closed, he finally felt confident enough to stand up. He did so, moving slowly. Two hours, he'd been asleep for about two hours. His thoughts were still gently floating away from him, his head foggy. Someday, he promised himself, someday he'd been able to get out of this fucking suit and lay down on a comfortable bed and get some
real
sleep.

He was standing now, at least. Which was an improvement, but now there was a new problem. An indicator was silently winking at him, a little red light, flaring and dying, in the upper right-hand corner of his heads up display. Allan frowned, activating it with eye motions, and brought up a warning message. In pristine, glowing white text, his suit informed him that one of the power cells he'd installed was malfunctioning, leaving him with just sixty five percent power. He sighed. Well, it happened sometimes, they couldn't all be perfect.

It was a two minute fix. He moved over to the crate he'd pilfered previously and set to work on replacing the cell. After finishing this up, he'd make for the bridge and be there when they came out of hyperspace, or at least be only a little late. Hopefully no one would notice his brief absence. Allan got the panel off and retrieved the malfunctioning power cell. He set it aside, wondering if he should bother mentioning it to anyone, and grabbed a new one. Taking a moment to examine this one, Allan finally decided it was functional and slipped it in.

He replaced the panel after ensuring it was in right, then ran another check. The power cell seemed to be functioning adequately.

Allan's radio crackled to life.
“Specialist Gray, we need you-”

The rest of the sentence was lost in a sudden, violent explosion that rocked the entirety of the little speed ship. Allan lost his balance and fell to the floor. He landed on his back, stared up at a crate that had been atop the stacks along the peripheral of the room. It was falling towards him. He began to move, but saw its trajectory abruptly change, as though it was attached to a wire and someone had suddenly yanked on it.

It shot towards the far wall. Allan turned, following its path, and saw it slam into the wall, where it was briefly held before being sucked out into the dead of space. Allan felt cold fear tear through him. There was a hull breach in the storage bay and he could feel himself being inexorably sucked towards it. Turning, he began fighting against it, preparing to crawl through the door and put it between himself and the breach.

He made it perhaps half a foot before a second explosion rocked the ship and something slammed into him.

Everything came at him in a confused series of images and sensations after that.

Flying crates, smashing open against the walls.

Ripped metal and shrieking winds, overloading his audio sensors.

Crackling static on the radio, screaming voices rising and falling behind the wall of white noise, the words incomprehensible but their meanings not lost. He could hear fear in those voices, absolute, total fear.

Space, stars and darkness.

He was spinning violently, trying to get a hold on something,
anything
, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing around him.

Spinning still, catching a confused, twisted sight of one ship, then another, significantly larger ship. He was heading right towards it.

Panic ignited, white-hot, inside of him.

His visor was cracked and he was leaking atmosphere.

His HUD flared red warning lights and a great, terrifying beeping sound filled his helmet. The hull of the
Stygian
was getting closer.

A great force began to overtake him, raw energy, and he spun around around, caught sight of a massive ball of red-orange light that was already dying, where the speed ship had once been. Then he spun once more, the sight gone, the
Stygian
closer, and spinning around once more, he barely had time to see a piece of debris flying right at him.

It hit him and he was out again.

* * * * *

Allan's consciousness exploded once more into an existence of pain.

He couldn't have been out for very long, a few seconds at most, because the
Stygian
was closer now, much closer, and he immediately knew that if he didn't somehow grab onto the hull of that mystery ship and get inside, he was a dead man. He was still spinning, his world a painful, twisting confusion of stars and ship and debris. Still no fucking EVA thrusters. How to stop spinning? He realized that there
was
no good way.

Focusing on the
Stygian
in the scant glimpses he was allowed, Allan slowly became aware of the fact that he was coming up on a comms antenna cluster. Well, about as good as anything to grab on to, he supposed. It was going to be tight. No time to think. Allan continued spinning and flying forward. When he thought it best to, he reached out and grabbed. Nothing in his hands for a cold-gut second of raw fear, then he found the tip of the nearest antenna and gripped with all he had. His muscles and suit of armor protested, but it worked.

He grunted as he abruptly came to a halt, losing his grip twice as he killed his velocity, and then slammed painfully into the hull of the
Stygian
. Okay, that was done, no time to think, though. Working fast, Allan activated his magnetic boots and locked them onto the hull. Breathing wildly, he cast a glance at his oxygen tank meter. It was in the red, bottoming out, he didn't have long before he started to suffocate.

Worst of all...

His visor was fractured. Terror stole over him, a fresh layer of it, but he fought against it for control. No, he would not give in. He could do this. Allan looked around, trying hard to see through the minute fractures in the visor. About twenty meters away, he spied the telltale bulge of an airlock. Good. Inside, he needed to get inside. That was his top priority. That or some more oxygen. They usually had spare tanks by the airlocks.

Allan raced across the hull, listening to the dull, metal clangs of his boots reverberating up his suit. He'd made it halfway there when a huge piece of blackened metal nearly hit him, crashing into the hull a mere foot ahead of him, and bounced off soundlessly. Allan let out a short, strangled cry and looked up. Overhead, (or down, or right, or wherever the fuck, directions tended to lose meaning in space), he spied an incoming field of debris: the remains of the speed ship. For a second, he wondered what the hell had happened, but there was no time for that. He kept up his pace, dodging two more pieces of debris, before reaching the airlock.

The spare oxygen tanks were there, but as he was reaching for them, another piece of debris smashed into them, crushing them instantly. Allan cried out again as a brief spark of flames shot out, the oxygen that fueled the flames quickly dying in the open space, and knew that he had even less time than before. He rushed up into the indent of the airlock and hit the access button. The doors opened smoothly enough, and closed smoothly enough behind him when he hauled himself inside, but his panic reignited yet again as the airlock refused to cycle.

Allan stared at the flat, plastic face of the terminal that was telling him there was a circuit malfunction, indicating the panel behind which the error had occurred. Allan turned and found the panel. He checked his HUD: five minutes of oxygen left. Just enough time. He hoped. Loping across the small airlock, Allan tore a repair kit off the wall, knelt and cracked it open. Selecting the appropriate tool, he set to work prying the panel off. It opened and dropped to the ground. Well, at least he knew the gravity was working on the ship.

Immediately, he spied the circuit that was damaged. It had, for whatever reason, fried itself. Sighing, he reached in and tried to extract it, but his gloved hands were too big. Allan let out a frustrated, fearful growl and grabbed a tool to do the job. Another thirty seconds later, he had the thing out and was reaching for a replacement. The tension kept cranking up each second that slammed by. His pulse was racing, his heart feeling like it was going to leap right up out of his throat, blood and adrenaline pounding in his head.

Allan fitted the circuit into place, then hastily replaced the panel. Too much time had gone by. His oxygen was almost completely gone. His breath was coming shorter. Standing, he turned and hurried back across the small airlock bay that somehow seemed a lot bigger. He found himself gasping for breath as he hit the cycle button.

There was a pause.

“
Come on
!” Allan screamed, banging his fist into the wall next to the console.

The pause stretched, continued...

His oxygen ran out.

Allan felt pure, mindless panic fill his entire body. The airlock began to cycle. Remembering a little bit from EVA training, he pushed what remained of his oxygen out of his lungs. He couldn't remember why, but he knew that it was vitally important to do so. The panic and absolute terror of not being able to breathe continued to grow as the airlock pressed on through its cycle. His vision started to black out, losing ground, the edges of his sight being consumed by darkness. His heart thundered in his chest.
How much longer!?

The airlock finished its cycle and the opposite doors popped open. Allan was on the verge of passing out. He tried to take a breathe. There was nothing. Why?
Why?!
Then he remembered. While his suit was compromised, he didn't know how many cracks there were in it, there weren't enough to get him the oxygen he needed.

With a final command, he opened up his suit's oxygen vents and promptly passed out. He had a brief feeling of his muscles going totally relaxed, of falling...

Then of nothing.

* * * * *

Yet again, Allan awoke to a world of pain and misery.

His muscles ached, his chest burned and his throat felt raw. He was alive, at least. That was something. Slowly, cautiously, Allan opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was how cracked his visor was. He would have to fix that, at least if he expected to be able to go outside the ship again. A thousand thoughts assaulted him. Who else made it? Did
anyone
else make it? Was anything broken? How was he going to get home?

Allan pressed down on the thoughts, closing his eyes again, making himself focus. Okay, the first thing he needed to do was make sure he and his suit were okay. After that, he'd complete his mission: gather data. Then he could make a call and hitch a ride home. Hopefully. Okay, he could do this. He'd put up with worse.

As Allan reopened his eyes, he became aware of the fact that someone else was in the room. How could he have missed that? He heard a shuffling noise, like someone sorting through garbage, and sat up slowly, as noiselessly as possible. Pain screamed through his head as he did so, but he forced it out of his awareness. He might be in danger. Allan quickly scanned the room and immediately found the other individual who was sharing it with him. It was someone who was hunched in the corner, facing away from him, crouched down.

Whoever it was wore a dark uniform, but it was in a very poor condition. Bloodied, ripped and, in some places, burned. What the hell was he doing over there in the corner? Allan considered the situation. He slowly began to reach for his pistol. It was obvious that his shotgun was gone, and it was equally obvious that he'd have no friends on this ship. His hand reached his holster...and found nothing. So his pistol was gone, too.

Fantastic.

Allan was considering what to do when the man abruptly froze. Allan swallowed, wondering if he'd tipped his hand. He'd just decided to get to his feet when the man turned around, locked eyes with Allan and let out an ear-splitting scream. The man, who Allan immediately realized something was very wrong with, leaped at him. He had about a second to realize that the man had been able to leap far further than he should have before the Rogue Ops crewman landed atop him. Allan grunted as he was slammed back to the ground.