Protocol, page 15
part #1 of Burns Series
'Hurry up, Lieutenant,' said Octavia. 'A million people's lives depend on you.'
'Too late,' said Drusilla. And then, over her shoulder she called something in the weird Roman language. My guess: ready the laser for a second blast.
'We're waiting, Alex,' I heard Octavia say. 'All of us are waiting. We'll give you thirty seconds more.'
I walked slowly toward Le Seaux and Chen. Le Seaux's face wasn't nobly resigned any more. Chen's face was twisted with panic as he struggled against his restraints.
'Don't take too long,' said Octavia.
I stopped in front of them. Could I really do this? Could I raise the rifle and smash the stock into Le Seaux's face?
'You have to,' whispered Le Seaux.
That was when I heard a terrible and ear-shattering snarl. It sounded like a command to stop. So I lowered the rifle and looked around. Three Marines were restraining someone at the entrance to the room. Everyone had turned to see what was happening.
Then, there was an almighty explosion at the back of the stateroom, right beside the troop formation.
Pink mist and pieces of flesh hit thwacked onto the deck beside us. Smoke billowed all around. Several of Octavia's officers were on the deck. Confusion everywhere. I had been knocked down with the rifle still in my hands.
I looked up.
The snarl must have been from one of the Goths.
A Goth wearing explosives.
31
WITH MY HEAD thumping, I climbed to my feet.
'Here's our chance!' I shouted to Chen and Le Seaux.
'What?' said Chen, cocking an ear. 'Can't hear anything. Just ringing.'
'Never mind,' I shouted. 'Stand still.'
'What?' said Chen.
'Wait, Lieutenant!' said Le Seaux. 'Don't touch Chen. Don't touch me, either. Don't do a thing.'
'We've got to get out.'
'I said wait.' Le Seaux was glaring at me. 'That's an order.'
'You want to stay tied up, Captain?'
'That's what the Accord Commission commanded, Lieutenant.'
Her face was resolute. Her eyes clear. Her brow creased. She meant it. She was totally serious. She was prepared to die for the Commission and the Accord.
'Sorry, Captain,' I said. 'Not this time.'
I got behind Chen and examined the clamps on his wrists. They looked like they could be undone with blow from the rifle on their mountings. I picked up the rifle and raised it, stock downward.
'What are you doing?' said Chen.
'Calm down,' I said. 'I'm freeing your hands. Think of it as a great scene for your movie.'
'Burns, wait!' Le Seaux repeated.
I looked away and jammed the rifle butt down on the mountings of Chen's wrist clamp.
'Burns!' Le Seaux shouted.
'I'm disobeying you, Captain Le Seaux,' I said, raising the rifle again. 'I'm disobeying you because I think you are traumatized. Navy Spirit code allows an officer to assume command when his superior has lost their wits. Totally understandable after what you just went through.'
'I've never been more clear in my life,' said Le Seaux. 'If you undo those restraints, you're disobeying an order, which as you know will mean the end of your career.'
I smashed the rifle down into the Chen's other restraint. It broke and freed up his wrist.
Around the great room, the chaos was slowly coming back to order. Marines climbed to their feet, but no officers were snarling out commands. Their attention elsewhere.
Not on us.
I stepped over to Le Seaux's frame and raised the rifle butt over the clamps holding her wrists.
'Burns!' said Le Seaux.
'It's time to grow up, Katherine,' I said.
'How dare you call me that,' she replied. 'What do you mean it's time to grow up? If anyone needs to grow up, it's you, Burns.'
'It's time to grow up for all of us. It's time to stop being treated like children by the Accord.'
The two Marines who had tied up Le Seaux and Chen were also climbing to their feet. They looked in bad shape. Their bodies had taken the force of the blast, shielding us from it. One was staggering towards me, arms out. The second was about to follow.
I stepped back while Le Seaux and Chen climbed away from the frames. Then I faced the first of the two Marines--all ten feet of him.
'You two go,' I said over my shoulder.
'What?' shouted Chen.
'Go!' I shouted.
'Go where?' said Le Seaux.
'To one of the shuttles.'
'No!' shouted Le Seaux. 'We'll go to the side and wait till this is over. The Accord will sort this out with our galactic friends. There's been a misunderstanding. That's all. It can be fixed.'
'Doesn't look like a misunderstanding to me. Just look at this guy. You think he misunderstands?'
'You're presuming gender, Lieutenant?'
'I might be, Katherine, but do the Romans even have genders? Seems like they can be anything shape they want, be anywhere they want.'
'Which is exactly why you should never presume their genders.'
I didn't have time to argue. The tall soldier came at me, arms out, helmet beaver down, no eyes or features visible.
He held out his arms. He was going to grab me like a toy.
But I wasn't going to let that happen.
I swung the rifle butt at the outside side of his left knee, ready to follow it with a kick to make sure the joint bent inward, tearing enough ligaments to ruin his mobility.
That's if these things even had ligaments.
Then, once he was immobilized, I would turn to his head, perhaps with an upper smack with the rifle butt to the underside of the helmet--if I could reach it.
I swung hard. The butt rifle hit his knee with a metallic whack that would have smashed a human knee as if it were a paper drinking straw. But the rifle simply bounced backward in my hands, jarring me all the way to my collarbone.
'Are you running yet?' I called over my shoulder.
'No,' said Le Seaux.
'What did you say?' said Chen.
'Get out of here!' I yelled.
The Marine kept coming. He was like a zombie. No pain. No fear. Obviously this was a fight I was about to lose. I looked around for something else I could use. Saw that some of the Marine's had dropped their weapons after the explosion.
'Grab one of the loaded rifles!' I shouted to Le Seaux. 'You're Army, right? Infantry? Weapons are your thing, right? So shoot him. Shoot him where there's no armor--in his neck, the gap under his helmet.'
'No,' shouted Le Seaux. 'It is against the Accord laws to attack a friendly nation.'
'They're not friendly. They just wanted me to murder you. You have a right to defend yourself.'
'A misunderstanding. It's their culture.'
'Oh for fuck's sake!'
'Disgusting patriarchal language,' said Le Seaux.
At that moment there was a crash--not an explosion. The whole ship was flung backward as if something had crashed into it.
Everyone was thrown off their feet. Chen, Le Seaux, me. And the Marine.
'A Goth raid,' I said. 'Has to be. They've rammed this thing with their own ship. The suicide bomber must simply been the distraction.'
'Where are they?'
'Don't know,' I said. 'Breaking open the hull somewhere.'
But now both Marines were coming for us.
'While they're still groggy,' I said. 'Let's go. Now!'
'Where?' said Le Seaux.
There were two entrances to the stateroom. The one we had entered into that morning and a second one--a closer one.
'There,' I said, pointing. 'Go to that exit first.'
I ran at the Marine. He wasn't quite on his feet. I launched an almighty kick to the underside of his helmet where his chin might be. It snapped his head back about one degree.
These guys were as tough as they looked.
Time to get myself out.
Through the smoke, I could see Drusilla shouting, trying to restore order. I didn't see Octavia.
I turned and ran after Le Seaux and Chen, or at least tried to run. My knee felt like a rusty hinge. It creaked all the way to the entrance.
'Your knee is all bloody,' said Le Seaux.
'Never mind,' I said. 'It's working.'
'Where to now?' said Chen.
'Let's go to any of the sections of the ship that can fly,' I said.
'Why?' said Le Seaux. 'What are you planning to do? Hide?'
'No,' I said. 'I'm going to fly us home.'
'You're going to what?'
'At least I'm going to try,' I said. 'How else will we get out of here.'
'We aren't getting out of here,' said Le Seaux. 'We're going to wait till order is restored.'
'No we're not,' I said. 'We're going to a shuttle.'
'You want to add theft to assault as well as disobeying orders and attempted murder?'
'It doesn't matter any more. We're at war.'
'Really, Lieutenant? There's no war until war is declared, which won't happen.'
'I'm declaring it. So let's get moving.'
'Only the Commission can declare war, which it would never do.'
'That's the trouble,' I said.
'Where has this insubordination come from, Lieutenant? This swagger?' said Le Seaux. 'What's happened to you?'
I was about to answer when Chen said, 'What's that noise--apart from the ten thousand bells ringing in my ears?'
We stopped and listened. Thunder again. Hundreds of boots coming up a passageway.
'Get to the side!' I said.
Around the corner they came--Marines stampeding into the room like the herd of bison. They rolled past us to where Drusilla was standing. She ordered them into a formation facing the other entrance to the stateroom.
Then, I remembered the weapon Le Seaux had failed to pick up.
'Wait for me here,' I said.
'Hey where are you going?' said Le Seaux. 'Burns!'
I limped back into the hall, picked up an alien rifle. .
Then, I ran back to Le Seaux and Chen.
'This one's feels loaded,' I said.
'No shooting our galactic friends,' said Le Seaux.
'Your friends, not mine,' I said. 'Now come on,' I said. 'Let's find a shuttle.'
'Then what, Burns?'
'Then we'll work out what,' I said.
'You think you can fly a shuttle?'
'I'm the only one here with a pilot's license.'
'This is not a Slingshot. It's not a J-Pack. You can't just jump and push a button. This is space not some practice field outside AONS Harmony.'
'No, it's not,' I said, 'but I'll work it out. Can't be too hard.'
As I said this, the entrance at the other end of the great room became a mass of fur, teeth, and claws as the Goths burst in. The whole battle scene from the previous day was repeated with the bear wolves screaming their battle cry and the Roman Marines almost stunned by the ferocity of the attack.
'At least I told them our values,' said Le Seaux, defiantly.
'Yeah,' I said. 'And we heard what they thought of them.'
32
WE RAN ALONG the passageway, the roar of growling goths and blasting weapons swelling louder behind us.
'Why do those freaks keep attacking?' yelled Chen. 'Won't they just get smashed all over again? They don't even carry weapons.'
'They've done us a favor,' I said. 'If they hadn't showed up, we'd still be back there.'
'Yeah, and you were going to beat our brains out with a rifle butt,' said Chen. His hearing or his senses must have returned.
I turned and hobbled off down the passageway, yelling 'Come on!' over my shoulder. Chen and Le Seaux came after me.
I guessed from the number of doors along the passageway, that we were still a long way from the outside shuttles--and that meant a long way from freedom. The only way to reach the outer shuttles was to keep walking going, however long it took.
When I reached the far end of the passageway. I looked behind. Le Seaux must have changed her mind about following me. She and Chen had stayed behind again. Le Seaux was talking at him and shaking her head, looking at me, then looking back at where we had just been.
It's like a death wish with her, I thought. That was the power of the Accord. Freedom or slavery. She chose slavery.
I was about to go back and argue with them when a giant Goth appeared in the doorway at the passageway's far end. It was rabid with fury, snuffling the air. Then it dropped to all fours.
Le Seaux stopped talking and started running. Chen followed behind. The Goth charged after them.
I raised the rifle, resting it on the jam of the doorway and aimed in front of the creature to offset the speed it was traveling, just like yesterday. But this time Chen and Le Seaux were blocking my line of fire.
'Out of the way, Chen,' I said. 'OUT OF THE WAY!' I yelled.
Too late! The creature had swung a paw and knocked one of his legs, sending him skidding to the deck. Then it was on him, its claws slashing his chest.
I fired once, hitting the creature in the neck. It reared up. Now I could hit in the face, but the recoil from the first shot had knocked me several steps backward and I had to climb back to the door jam and aim again. Chen by this time was clutching his chest silently with red hands.
I put the bear wolf's head in the sights of the rifle and pulled the trigger. When I was able to stand up again and look, I could see the blast had hit its neck a second time. Not a great outcome, but it would do the trick. The monster was on its back, roaring and clutching its throat from which brown fluid sprayed all over Chen, mixing with the scarlet of his own blood.
'Is he OK?' said Le Seaux.
'He got slashed in the chest,' I said.
When we reached Chen, he hadn't gotten up.
'I was nearly dead back,' he panted.
'Sorry about that. My shot hit a little close to your head.'
'What shot?' he said. 'I meant the freak,' he said looking at the twitching mass of Goth. Then he said, 'You shot at me? Again?'
'Show me your wound,' I said.
We opened Chen's shirt. Three scarlet streaks crossed his chest, like a sash.
'Deep but not dangerous. No arteries hit. Can you run?'
We helped him to his feet.
'Something not right with my knee,' he said.
'That makes two of us,' I said.
Suddenly, a new sound was added to the swell of growls and fighting coming from the stateroom, the groaning of metal, as if the entire ship was complaining.
'What's happening?' said Le Seaux
'I don't know,' I said. 'Maybe we're moving again.'
Then, the pandemonium in the main hall spilled out into the passageway. More Goth bear-wolves. More Marines.
'Come on,' I said. 'Let's go.'
We limped to the passageway's end and I slammed the door closed and dogged it shut.
Another long passageway lay ahead. Fortunately, no-one and no creature was in it? But the loud metallic groaning persisted.
'So where to?' said Chen. Le Seaux remained silent.
'I think all the pieces of the ship can fly,' I said. 'It's part of the ship's defense tactics. If it's boarded, they can split it up, and isolate the fighting. I think that's what all this metallic scraping might be.'
'And you know that from your tour of the ship?' said Le Seaux.
'No,' I said. 'It's just a guess.'
'What else did you discover on your tour?'
'Like I told you,' I said. 'Octavia's plans. Invasion, destruction, enslavement.'
She shook her head. 'Once this Goth attack is ended, I'm going back.'
I ignored her and looked at the passageway.
It was similar to the one we'd arrived in the day before, the one that was like a brig. Same black slimy walls, same heavy doorways either side. Then, I checked on Chen.
'You OK there?'
'Do I look OK?' he answered. His shirt was soaked red and black.
'Hold on till we get into a shuttle. Then we'll take care of it.'
'You keep talking about when we're in a shuttle,' said Le Seaux. 'How will we get moving? How will you fly a shuttle? How will you even operate it let alone aim it at Earth? How will you land it when you get there? And how far is it to the outside of the ship? Based on yesterday's train ride, it's miles. It would take us a day to walk there, even if you and Chen weren't both injured. What about the air? Will it be breathable? And for all we know, we're right in the middle of the ship itself, as far as possible from its outer edges.'
'I know,' I said. 'I know. But if we don't try something, we'll just end right back in some game for Octavia's twisted pleasure. And the Accord will be powerless to help us. Or worse, I added, actually endorsing whatever Octavia demands. You saw how they've already arranged for Octavia to be at the Establishment Day.'
'It's what the Accord Commission wishes,' said Le Seaux
'And did you see the sign they made, authorizing me to kill you and Chen?'
'I don't believe it.'
'Well, you should. They were willing to sacrifice us in the name of tolerance. It just doesn't make any sense. They're supposed to protect us.'
'They were in a difficult situation,' said Le Seaux. 'What else could they do?'
'Hey!' shouted Chen.
We both looked at him, his shirt soaked in blood, his panicked face.
'Go back or get moving,' he said. 'As long as we do something.'
We moved off down the passageway and into a shuttle, almost identical to the one that had carried us to this hostile ship not twenty-four hours ago. It had the same hold and the same enormous whispering void.
'Now, where's the bridge in this thing?' I said.
'Well, it's not here in this hold area,' said Chen.
'You're assuming that it has a bridge,' said Le Seaux. 'You're also assuming we are on the outside of the main ship. Which, clearly, we cannot be.'
She had a point. In the rush, I hadn't thought straight. The shuttle looked the same, but it couldn't be the same one. We must have been in a similar shuttle, still deep inside the mothership.
But then I looked at the screens above the exit to the passageway near the bow.
