“No, fuck you!” He flopped onto an elbow and aimed the pistol back through the door, firing wildly. Pain from his ankle was making his hand shake violently. Noxious smoke sizzled up in front of him.
Then hands were gripping his shoulders, pulling him back along the floor. Bullish shouts all around him. The distinctive thud of a Bradfield slammed against his ears, louder than thunder in the close confines of the corridor. A marine in full combat armour was standing above him, firing the heavy-calibre weapon into the courtroom. Another suited marine was pulling the corpse clear of the door.
Murphy’s neural nanonics started to come back on-line. Medical programs established axon blocks. The courtroom door slid shut, locks engaging with a
He was dragged further away from the courtroom door, allowing the marine squad to set up two tripod- mounted Bradfields, pointing right at the grey reinforced silicon.
“Hold still,” a woman in a doctor’s field uniform told him. She began to cut his trousers away; a male nurse was holding a medical nanonic package ready.
“Did any of them get out?” Murphy asked weakly. People were tramping up and down the corridor, paying no attention to him.
“I don’t know,” the doctor said.
“Fuck it, find out!”
She gave him a calculating look.
“Please?”
One of the marines was called over. “The other doors are all closed,” he told Murphy. “We got a few people out, but the possessed are safely locked up in there. Every exit is sealed tight. The captain is waiting for a CNIS team to advise him what to do next.”
“A few people?” Murphy asked. “A few people got out?”
“Yeah. Some of the lawyers, the judge, court staff, five marines. We’re proud of the fight you put up, sir, you and the others. It could have been a lot worse.”
“And the rest?”
The marine turned his blank shell helmet towards the door. “Sorry, sir.”
• • •
The roar of the machine gun ended, leaving only the screams and whimpers to fester through the darkened courtroom. Maynard Khanna could hear his own feeble groans contributing to the morass of distress. There was little he could do to prevent it, the tiniest movement sent sickening spires of pain leaping into his skull. A gout of white fire had struck him seconds into the conflict, wrapping around his leg like a blazing serpent, felling him immediately. His temple had struck one of the seats, dazing him badly. After that, all the noise and flaring light swarmed around him, somehow managing to leave him isolated from the fray.
Now the white fire had gone, leaving him alone with its terrible legacy. The flesh from his leg had melted off. But his bones had remained intact, perfectly white. He could see his skeletal foot twitching next to his real one, its tiny bones fitting together like a medical text.
The splintered remnants of the dock were burning with unnatural brightness, throwing capering shadows on the wall. Maynard turned his head, crying out as red stars gave way to an ominous darkness. When he flushed the involuntary tears from his eyes he could see the heavy door at the back of the court was shut.
They hadn’t got out!
He took a few breaths, momentarily puzzled by what he was doing in the dark, the waves of pain seemed to prevent his thoughts from flowing. The screams had died, along with every other sound except for the sharp crackling of the flames. Footsteps crunched through the debris. Three dark figures loomed above him; humanoid perhaps, but any lingering facet of humanity had been bred out generations ago.
The whispers began, slithering up from a bottomless pit to comfort him with the sincerity of a two-timing lover. Then came the real pain.
Dr Gilmore studied the datavised image he was receiving direct from Marine Captain Rhodri Peyton’s eyes. He was standing in the middle of a marine squad which was strung out along one of the corridors leading to maximum security court three. Their machine guns and Bradfields were deployed to cover the engineering officers who were gingerly applying sensor pads to the door.
When Dr Gilmore attempted to access the officers’ processor blocks there was no response. The units were too close to the possessed inside the courtroom. “Have they made any attempt to break out?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Rhodri Peyton datavised. His eyes flicked to brown scorch lines on the walls just outside the door. “Those marks were caused when Lieutenant Hewlett was engaging them. There’s been nothing since then. We’ve got them trapped, all right.”
Gilmore accessed Trafalgar’s central computer and requested a blueprint of the courtroom. There were no service tunnels nearby, and the air-ducts weren’t large enough for anyone to crawl down. It was a maximum security court after all. Unfortunately it wasn’t the kind of security designed with the possessed in mind. He knew it would only be a matter of time before they got out. Then there really would be hell to pay.
“Have you confirmed the number of people in the courtroom?”
“We’re missing twelve people, sir. But we know at least four of those are dead, and the others sustained some injuries. And Hewlett claims he terminated one of the possessed, Randall.”
“I see. That means we now have a minimum of eleven possessed to contend with. That much energistic potential is extremely dangerous.”
“This whole area is sealed, sir, and I’ve got a squad covering each door.”
“I’m sure you have, Captain. One moment.” He datavised the First Admiral and gave him a brief summary. “I have to advise we don’t send the marines in. Given the size of the courtroom and the number of possessed, I’d estimate marine casualties of at least fifty per cent.”
“Agreed,” the First Admiral datavised back. “The marines don’t go in. But are you certain everyone in there is now possessed?”
“I think it’s an inevitable conclusion, sir. This whole legal business was quite obviously just a ploy by Couteur to gain a foothold here. That many possessed represent a significant threat. My guess is that they may simply try to tunnel their way out; I expect they’ll be able to dissolve the rock around them. They must be neutralized as swiftly as possible. We can always acquire further individuals to continue my team’s research.”
“Dr Gilmore, I’d remind you that my staff captain is in there, along with a number of civilians. We must make at least one attempt to subdue them. You’ve had weeks to research this energistic ability, you must be able to suggest something.”
“There is one possibility, sir. I accessed Thakrar’s report; he used decompression against the possessed when they tried to storm the
“To kill them.”
“Yes. But it does indicate a weakness. I was going to recommend that we vent the courtroom’s atmosphere. That way we wouldn’t have to risk opening one of the doors to fire any sort of weapon in there. However, we could try gas against them first. They can force matter into new shapes, but I think altering a molecular structure would probably be beyond them. It needn’t even be a chemical weapon, we could simply increase the nitrogen ratio until they black out. Once they’ve been immobilized, they could be placed into zero- tau.”
“How would you know if a gas assault worked? They destroyed the sensors, we can’t see in.”
“There are a number of electronic systems remaining in the courtroom; if the possessed do succumb to the gas those systems should come back on line. But whatever we do, Admiral, we will have to open the door at some stage to confirm their condition.”
“Very well, try the gas first. We owe Maynard and the others that much.”
