The Silent Army

squeezed off a round before my third shot took it down. The bullet caught me in my left shoulder, and I staggered. Blood seeped into my shirt, and when I moved my arm, pain bored into my chest.

The floor shook again as the sound of explosions boomed through the corridors. They were firing missiles onto the deck of the tanker in response to the stingers.

Wachalowski, we’re getting swarmed. What’s your status down there?

I released a painkiller into my bloodstream, followed by one of the stim packs. Right away, the pain began to dull and the corridor seemed to get brighter. I moved close to the fallen revivor being carried on the belt along with me, and scanned for its signature. It was weak, but hadn’t cut out yet. I used the modification I’d installed in the grind to sample the wave.

I’m getting close.

Is the bomb still in play?

Yes.

The bulk of the revivor signatures were coming in fast. They’d be on me any minute. I recorded a full loop of the revivor’s signature and began to transmit it. Feedback spiked until I put a single round in the fallen revivor and the redundant signature cut out. It wouldn’t be perfect, but in the dark and the confusion, it would keep them off me long enough.

The walkway carried me along as a trickle of sweat rolled down my back. Adrenaline and oxygen flooded my system, keeping me alert. I fumbled a dose of blood-clotting serum out of my pack. Pressing the end to the wound, I pushed the plunger, and pain shot down my arm. The spent cartridge dropped from my hand and rolled off, trailing smoke. The tissue around the wound puckered as the blood hardened into a plug.

The hatch I was looking for was up ahead. I jumped off the walk and a wave of nausea hit. I clenched my throat, tasting vomit as I went through the opening and came out on a walkway above the cargo hold. I slipped, catching the railing, then made a sprint for the doorway on the opposite side.

Cal, where are you?

I made it. I’m in the med ward.

On the map, I saw several signatures headed her way. They’d picked up her heartbeat and her body heat.

Give me full access to your JZI. I’m going to try to connect to the device.

It’s in me.

I know.

Down in the hold, I saw stacks of stasis crates. There were hundreds of them. They cast shadows that flickered in the light of thousands of revivor optical cells. They were moving, flowing in the dark like traffic through a city street at night. They sensed a warm body on the walk above them, but the signature I transmitted had confused them. Several looked up, not sure what they were seeing.

“Stop!”

At the end of the walkway, I caught a glimpse of Faye standing below. She was with three other revivors. Our eyes met for just a second; then I was through the hatch and into the dark corridor behind it.

Cal opened her JZI and I used the package the MSST gave me with to try to connect to the bomb. After a few seconds, it managed to establish a link.

I’m pulling the stats from the device. Hold on.

Information came streaming in. It was true; the payload was nuclear. It was wired to her, but the trigger itself was on a timer that started when she passed a certain distance from shore.

Hold on.

The corridor ahead was filled with debris, and soot had formed on the walls. The hatch at the end had been blown from its hinges and pushed out of the way. I squeezed through into a room where several bodies lay, dead from thirst.

I pulled the information for the timer from the device. She didn’t have much time. Once the virus was injected, it could take up to several minutes for it to break through and disarm the device. That was assuming it could do it at all.

Cal, do you see a bed there?

Yeah.

The med facility has auxiliary power. Find a bed near a power source and get in it. We won’t have much time.

Roger that.

I ran through the hatch on the opposite side of the room, down a hallway filled with human remains. She was close. There wasn’t time to take in the bones and the bloated revivors lying among them. There was only time to run, and I could feel my strength fading.

Give me something …Give me anything …anything to buy me some time.

I planted the virus and it began to drill into the bomb’s systems. As I ran, I saw warning lights flash up red as it tried one deactivation failsafe after the next, and failed.

Nico, it’s not working….

I ran through a set of quarters where the crew had slept, through the door on the other side and down the corridor. The medical ward was through the hatch just up ahead. I saw movement down the hall to my right, where at least twenty revivors were thundering toward us, their eyes bobbing in the dark as they ran.

Cal, hold on …

More warning lights turned red. The virus had nearly exhausted its options and still hadn’t gotten through. Countermeasures added to the device had detected it and were shutting it out. It wasn’t going to work.

There were less than ten minutes left on the timer. The virus was being dismantled and the bomb was still active. It would take hours to get her back to shore and to a facility where they might be able to shut it down. I wasn’t going to make it. I needed more time.

Wachalowski.

Cal.

It’s getting hot. I can feel it.

I shoved the door open and staggered inside. Calliope was lying on one of the hospital beds, waiting. When she looked up at me, her eyes were full of tears and her face was red. Veins stood out in her face and neck. I was too late. She knew it.

I need more time….

“Nico,” she said.

“I’m here. Hold on. We’re about to get company. Do you have an Eckles Transponder? Can you spoof a revivor signature?”

She shook her head, but I’d already scanned her systems. She didn’t; the transponder wasn’t standard issue. I might sneak through that many revivors undetected, but she wouldn’t. They’d tear her apart.

“It didn’t work,” she said.

“I know.”

“You did what you could. Get the fuck—”

“Shut up.”

There was only one thing I could think to do. I hauled the stasis emitter on its track until it was right over the bed. I turned it on and guided it down over her torso. I pointed the lens at the middle of her chest.

“We’re going to die,” she said.

I flipped the switch. The stasis field was focused in a six-inch beam. It radiated through her breastbone and engulfed her heart, stopping it instantly.

The timer ticked down as her muscles relaxed, then went still. The pulsing under her jaw stopped. The light went out of her eyes.

I heard movement behind me and glanced back to see many eyes staring back from the shadows. They’d lost the vitals they’d been tracking, and were scanning around the room, trying to relocate them.

I turned back to Cal and drew my field knife. Looking through the muscle wall of her abdomen, I could see the device nestled in there.

Wachalowski, there are too many of them. We have to sink it. Report for immediate extraction.

I was no surgeon, but it was the only chance she had. I eased the tip of the knife through the skin beneath her