The Crypt: Shakedown: (A Military Sci-Fi Novel), page 43
When the hauler reached the destroyer, Nitzan knew someone else would interrogate Lafferty. If he could get some info out of her in the next fifteen minutes, he and Bethany might be able to stay on as Lafferty’s primary captors. The more info he could provide to the Ministry of Intelligence, the better off his eventual position would be.
“Cooperate, and you’ll find Nationalite hospitality a lot more fun than screaming in agony,” he said. “Let me help you, Major.”
Lafferty said nothing. She stared at the deck, or maybe at the torn picture of a woman and… was that a farm animal?
Blasphemers, these Unionites. One and all.
“Bethany,” Nitzan said, “I’m so sick of these people. Praise be we’re going home.”
“Uh… yes,” Bethany said. “Praise be.”
It was over. He’d done his duty. He’d won. It felt so good. A weight off his shoulders, off his very being.
“I haven’t seen Nation soil in seven years,” he said. “Can you believe that? Seven years. How about you, Bethany?”
She didn’t answer right away. She seemed to be struggling with the controls. The screens on the dashboard fuzzed with static. Flying one of these things looked like it was more work than he would have guessed.
“I haven’t been gone as long as you have,” Bethany said. “But I guess every minute away is one minute too many. Right?”
Nitzan smiled and nodded. Truer words had never been spoken.
“You’re just full of surprises,” he said. “They teach you how to operate haulers in the Cloister? Oh, I don’t know your rank. Should I be addressing you as ma’am?”
91
Rank? What was he talking about?
Susannah’s thoughts sputtered and spun. She couldn’t process what Nitzan was saying. He was a murderer, yet he was trying to chat with her like they were back on the Keeling?
As a battle raged around them, he’d ordered her to fly to the destroyer. She’d obeyed. A mistake? She didn’t know. What else could she have done? Nitzan thought, somehow, that she was on his team. She wanted to keep him thinking that, lest he turn that gun on her.
“Bethany? You okay?”
Nitzan sounded so friendly. He’d just slaughtered forty-four human beings, and he sounded like he wanted to help.
Susannah faced forward, pretended to focus on her flight controls.
“I’m fine. Sorry, there’s so much interference. Navigating through it isn’t easy.”
“I bet,” Nitzan said. “I asked what your rank was. You a first lieutenant? A captain, maybe?”
Again with the rank. And he’d asked if she’d learned how to operate a hauler in the Cloister…
It hit Susannah all at once—Nitzan Shamdi thought she was a Purist spy.
Just like him.
She glanced at Lafferty, restrained behind the co-pilot seat.
“I’m a major,” Susannah said.
“A major?” Nitzan laughed. “I should have known. You played it so well—I almost didn’t know you were a plant at all.”
Far out ahead, Susannah saw the blurry image of the Purist destroyer.
Nitzan walked forward, his heavy boots clonking on the deck. He knelt down at her right. He placed his rifle angled against his chest—it stuck there with a click—then rested his gauntleted hand on her seatback. It was all she could do not to pull away from him.
“I spent two years in the Cloister,” he said. “How about you?”
She didn’t know a thing about the Cloister. She didn’t know a thing about the Purist military. She couldn’t let him know that.
Susannah looked up at the handsome face behind that visor. A face full of serenity. The kind of serenity Susannah had striven for, lived in a convent to achieve, served High One and Purism for a decade to reach, yet she’d never really found it.
Not until the Keeling.
Not until she’d seen the dark place.
Nitzan nudged her.
“What do you miss the most about the Nation, Bethany?”
“Habanero falafel biscuits,” she said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.
“Oh, me too,” Nitzan said. “Haven’t had the real thing in ages. Close, though. Real close. There was a place on Zackmann Station where Ari and I…”
He stared out at the fuzzy destroyer. “I just want to go home.” Such sorrow in his voice. “I want to go home. Do you?”
Home. Yes, Susannah did.
But home wasn’t the Nation. Not anymore. The Nation had kicked her out, made her flee in the dead of night with nothing but the clothes on her back. The Nation had stolen away a decade of her life, wiped clean all her work, all her sacrifice, all her dear friends in the convent.
No, the Purist Nation wasn’t home anymore.
Keeling was.
She’d driven a hauler similar to this one for years. She knew what it could do. What it couldn’t do. Somewhere in between was an area of failure, but if she didn’t try now, she’d be lost forever, no matter where she wound up.
If she was going to die, she was going to die by her own choices, by her own hand.
“Nitzan, can you move Major Lafferty to the back? I want to tell you something, but I don’t want her to hear.”
There was a short pause as he considered it, then he gently grabbed Lafferty’s ankle and dragged her to the sleeping bin. Susannah glanced back, saw Lafferty adjusting herself, putting her back against the floor lockers beneath the mattress.
Nitzan stepped forward again.
Susannah looked at her instruments so she didn’t have to look at him, so big in that black armor, with that gun he’d used to kill so many people.
He again knelt next to her. “You were saying?”
His armor…
“I’d like to see your face,” she said. “Your whole face, I mean. Can you take off the helmet?”
Susannah stared out the window. The fuzzy ball that was Yankee grew larger.
She heard clasps unfastening.
“I probably stink,” Nitzan said. “We sweat a lot in these rigs. Sorry about that.”
So friendly… so nice.
Susannah glanced at him. Tousled, short hair. Helmet-pad impressions on his forehead. Bright eyes. A beautiful monster.
Now or never.
“I do want to go home,” she said. “I was just saying to Major Lafferty back there, just the other day, that when you get what you want, you have to hold on to it. You have to hold on tight. Isn’t that right, Major?” Susannah looked over her shoulder at Lafferty. “You have to hold on tight?”
Nitzan turned to look as well.
Still looking aft, Susannah flew by feel and memory alone—she quietly increased the curvine’s rate of acceleration.
Anne Lafferty stared back at Susannah. Her eyes narrowed, then widened with understanding. She shifted, turning her back to the starboard bulkhead, pushed with her heels to cram her body into a tight space between the side lockers and the sleeper bin.
Nitzan watched Lafferty with a puzzled expression. Then, he looked into Susannah’s eyes.
Maybe, at that last instant, he figured it out. Maybe he had time to realize he should have strapped in, maybe enough time to realize he should have kept his helmet on. In that split second, Susannah saw into Nitzan Shamdi’s soul, saw an explosion of realization and sadness, of betrayal.
With her left hand, she pulled a lever to disengage the curvine. Simultaneously, she thumbed the pitch control, felt the tug of inertia as the hauler’s nose spun sharply upward.
Nitzan reached for her throat.
What had been up was now down—she released the pitch control and slammed the curvine lever forward, engaging it.
G-forces slammed Susannah against her seat, threw Nitzan aft. Susannah heard the sleeper bin’s composite frame crunch and splinter as his heavy, armored body smashed into it.
The hauler shuddered and rattled like it was made of tin. Metal groaned, plastic snapped, seams sheared.
A distant part of her mind did the math. The force was like that of a car dropped ten stories straight down, but with the impact ongoing and sustained—squashing, crushing, a python’s slow squeeze of inevitable death.
She couldn’t draw a breath. She couldn’t think. Spots formed in her vision, spread out, met each other.
As the blackness overtook her, she locked acceleration on full, praying to High One the hauler was pointed in the right direction.
92
John kept his Rogalinski leveled on the CIC crew. Abshire and Sarvacharya had herded the fifteen Purist sailors into a corner, made them kneel with their hands laced above their heads. If he had to, John could kill them all with one quick burst.
Master Sergeant Sands on the scratchy platoon channel: “Biggie informs me we’ve got company en route. I do not want to be here when it arrives. If Alpha Squad would be so kind as to get to the Ochthera, ASAP, I’d be most appreciative.”
“Raider Lead, if we’re out, we should scuttle the ship,” Jordan answered. “I can try to set the curvine to go critical.”
“Negative, squad leader,” Sands said. “Biggie’s crew has been busy. Inform your new church-going friends they have seven minutes to get off the ship or they’ll see their precious High One face to face.”
“Affirmative,” Jordan said. “Sarge… anyone find Shamdi?”
“Negative,” Sands said. “Biggie made a pass around Zulu, no joy. Get to the crawler, pronto.”
Jordan shot John a glance.
“Affirmative, Master Sergeant,” she said. “We’re on our way.”
Shamdi hadn’t entered the ship with Alpha Squad. He or his body hadn’t been found outside. What happened to him?
Jordan stepped closer to the prisoners. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Purist Nation, when we leave the CIC, you will stay where you are for thirty seconds.” She pointed to a woman in the back. “Lieutenant Major Anderson, you will count out loud to thirty. Count nice and slow. Make sure I can hear each syllable. If any of you peek your head out before thirty, we’ll blow it clean off. When your count is done, you will have roughly five minutes to get to a lifeboat and get clear before this ship blows the fuck up.”
The prisoners exchanged quick glances. They were in disbelief. Because their ship was done for? Or maybe that they’d live to see another day.
“Alpha-One, take lead,” Jordan said. “Make sure no Zulu crew took up positions behind us.”
Sarv, Mafi, and Basara filed out through the blown hatch.
Jordan backed away from the prisoners, careful to avoid John’s field of fire.
“I strongly suggest you take my words to heart,” she said. “And tomorrow, when you’re grateful to be alive, send me a nice thank-you card, expressing your appreciation. Anderson, start counting.”
“Thirty,” Anderson said.
Jordan and Abs filed out.
“Twenty-nine.”
Beaver went out next.
“Twenty-eight.”
Rifle still aimed at the Purists, John backed out of the CIC. A slap on his shoulder told him to turn and run. He sprinted along the passageway behind Beaver and the rest of the squad.
Bennett’s private channel squawked.
“Hey, Grampa,” Beaver said, “what if they stick their heads out before thirty? Shouldn’t we have someone there to shoot them if they do?”
Jesus Christ, this kid…
“Just run, Beaver. Just run.”
93
“One lifeboat, inbound,” Ellison said. “And fifteen… no, seventeen free-floaters, incoming.”
Was Vesna among them?
Trav grabbed the 1MC handset.
“This is the XO. Lifeboat inbound. Flight bay, signal landing area.” He thought of the terrified sailors out there, approaching the ugliness that was Keeling, probably aiming for the superstructure because that part looked familiar. “Chief Sung, get people at the topside hatches in case they come in that way.”
He jammed the handset back in its cradle.
“Ishlangu’s curvine just went critical,” Waldren said. “She’s going to blow.”
The two ships were close enough that there was almost no visual interference. In the orb, Ishlangu glowed from within, sapphire light streaming through cracks and fissures.
At amidships, a deep blue sphere exploded outward, ripping her into two splintering halves.
“Signals,” Trav said, “did the survivors get clear?”
A brief pause, then Ellison answered in a somber voice.
“The lifeboat did,” she said. “The curvine explosion caught two free-floaters. Fifteen people still en route.”
Trav sucked in a sharp breath. A pair of dedicated sailors had survived the battle, had hung in there till the end only to die so, so close to escape.
“Very well,” Trav said. “Darsat, any sign of Yankee?”
Keeling’s last STC torp had put a huge blob of blankness between her and Yankee. It gave cover while the crew hauled in the lifeboat and the free-floaters, but not being able to see the corvette made Trav’s skin crawl.
“Negative,” Waldren said. “STC interference is too strong.”
“Conn, Flight Bay.” Chief Sung’s voice on the 5MC.
Cooley grabbed the handset and switched to that channel. “Flight bay, Conn, go ahead.”
“The lifeboat is in the landing bay,” Sung said. “We’re getting them out now. Free-floaters are entering. We should have all survivors aboard in sixty seconds. Repeat, all survivors aboard in sixty seconds.”
“Sixty seconds, aye,” Cooley said. “Get the lifeboat clear as soon as possible, the Raider team is inbound.” He put the handset in the cradle, glanced at Trav. “XO, the second that crawler is in, we need to dive.”
Could they dive? That was still a question. Hasik put the odds at fifty-fifty. A coin flip. Heads, they live, tails, they die.
“Contact,” Waldren said. “XO, Hauler-One acquired. Starboard zero-one-five. Elevation zero-two-seven.”
The icon appeared in the orb. Its trajectory line showed a slight bow-up curve, indicative of fixed acceleration without attitude adjustment. Was someone asleep at the stick?
“Signals,” Trav said, “connect to Hauler-One by any means necessary.”
94
Something had punched through her cheek and broken a tooth.
Anne coughed, spit blood.
She hoped the blood came from her cheek, but from the way her body pumped pain, it might be from internal damage. Lungs? Intestines? Broken ribs? Ruptured spleen? All seemed possible.
Her head thundered. A concussion? She’d had them before, but not like this.
She tried to touch her mouth, but her hands wouldn’t move. They were behind her back, as though something bound her wrists.
Where was she?
A locker, maybe, tight against her right shoulder. An external bulkhead against her back? Tight against her left shoulder, some kind of flat frame. Wood or plastic, maybe.
In front of her, just past her feet, ruined lockers and a TASH-armored Raider smashed up against a mattress bent in half longwise. Glossy paper fluttered everywhere, descending like wind-blown leaves.
The Raider wasn’t wearing a helmet. Blood streamed from his forehead. A finger-sized splinter jutted from his lower lip. His right arm was twisted at a funny angle.
The Raider… his name was Shamdi, maybe… some woman, yelling at her… Darkwater… the tapping, the all-powerful itch and the need to make the tapping stop.
Anne remembered. Shamdi had murdered the Ishlangu crew and hijacked the hauler. Anne thought she was dead meat, helpless at the hands of a pair of Purist spies.
But Darkwater/Rossi had warned Anne to hold on, so she’d wedged herself into the thin space between the locker and the sleeping bin.
Doing so saved her life—the mousy little ensign had fucking tail-flipped the hauler.
Anne had no idea how many Gs she’d suffered, the unstoppable force smushing her against the sleeping bin’s flat frame. But as bad as she hurt, being tight against the frame meant she hadn’t built up inertia like Shamdi had—a good four meters of it before his armored body smashed into the bin like a wrecking ball.
Where was Darkwater/Rossi? Oh, up there in the pilot seat. She wasn’t moving. Had Shamdi shot her?
The Raider’s foot jerked. He grunted in pain. Still alive.
His left hand moved, gauntleted fingers stretching like a blind spider feeling about for prey. He was searching for his rifle—the rifle that was cracked and bent in the middle, uselessly resting atop a glossy picture of a man wearing only a cowboy hat and leaning against a bull-riding machine
Shamdi wanted to hand Anne over to Purist inquisitors, those savage butchers.
She could incapacitate him, make sure he was down for good, but she had to move before he did.
Her wrists…
He’d zip-stripped her.
Anne tucked her knees to her chest. Doing so hurt. She lurched forward, bending at the waist, trying to unwedge herself from the narrow space. She lurched a second time, popped free and fell to her right side.
Almost there…
Shamdi tried to sit up. He let out a yelp, stiffened, then lay still.
Focusing her will against the pain, Anne tried to slide her handcuffed wrists under her butt. Inside her body, things ground against each other.
“Bethany,” Shamdi said, his voice closer to that of a little boy then a grown man. He moved a bit to the right, a bit to the left. “Help me, Bethany. Help me.”
Anne’s wrists wouldn’t clear. She clenched her jaw, knowing she was inviting utter agony, then rolled to her back and kicked her legs up and over so that only her shoulders and the back of her head remained on the deck. Fighting against the roaring pain, fighting to keep her balance, she cried out as she stretched and stretched…
…her wrists slid under her butt.
Shamdi rolled to his left side. Groggy, he tried to rise.
