Antonov was unbalanced, McKay realized, and even more dangerous than he had thought. Whether that was the result of the treatments he’d received to preserve his life or whether he had
“General, sir,” the Lieutenant insisted, “I have checked the cameras, the heat sensors, the sonic monitors, everything. They are not on the ship.”
Jason flexed his fingers, feeling the strange numbness fading from his body. To his right, he noticed Jock surreptitiously flexing his arms, trying to force feeling back into them. Maybe they could make a move while Antonov and the others were still distracted.
“No matter,” the General decided, still scowling. “They may have seen through our trap and left the ship, but it will do them no good.” He turned and speared McKay with a venomous stare. “I warned you,” he growled, switching back to English. “I warned you not to attempt something so foolish, that the consequences would be the deaths of thousands. Yet you have ignored my warnings, just as your people ignored my warnings so many years ago. And now you will suffer the consequences. Dubronov,” he said, without looking at the man.
“Yes, sir?”
“Launch a spread of nuclear missiles into the area they call ‘Capital City.’ I want it and the orbital weapons control center levelled.”
“Yes,
Jason’s pulse pounded in his ears and he stole a glance at Vinnie. The Sergeant nodded. It was time.
“Lieutenant Matviyenko,” Antonov addressed another of the human troops, “take whatever of the clone troops we have left and kill the enemy soldiers in the auxiliary control room.”
“What of the prisoners, sir?” the man asked, his eyes flickering uneasily behind his helmet’s clear faceplate toward Jason and the others.
“I’ll take care of them myself,” Antonov said with a cold matter-of-factness, motioning meaningfully with his machine pistol.
Moving ever so slowly, Jason moved his right boot toward the deck, attaching the electromagnetic plate on that heel as quietly and carefully as he could—he would need leverage for this. The moment Lieutenant Matviyenko turned and motioned his force of humans and biomechs toward the jagged metal hole that was the bridge entrance, Jason moved. Snaking out his left hand, he grabbed Vinnie by the arm and swung him bodily into Antonov, the Sergeant’s feet slamming into the General’s chest and sending them both crashing into the viewscreen on the far wall.
Antonov jerked the trigger of his machine pistol as he was struck, but the burst went wild, ricocheting off the hull with a muted, musical spanging. Jason felt one of the errant slugs impact against the armor plate at his back, but ignored it, pushing off the floor as he deactivated the electromagnet in his boot and aimed for the back of Lieutenant Dubronov. The Russian officer began to turn at the sound of Antonov’s pistol going off, but Jason caught him by the shoulder and yanked him away from the weapons control console.
Dubronov tried to bring around his slung carbine, but Jason grabbed the muzzle of the weapon and jerked it upwards, slamming his elbow into the side of the Russian’s helmet. The Lieutenant let loose of the carbine, floating away from McKay, and Jason spun around, bringing the rifle up to his shoulder.
The room froze before Jason like a still photo: Antonov and Vinnie tangled together, backlit by the glow from the main viewscreen, Jock and Tim hanging on the backs of a pair of biomechs, and Lieutenant Matviyenko bringing around his rifle, searching in confusion for a target. Jason centered his carbine’s sights on Matviyenko’s head and squeezed the trigger. The carbine bucked against his shoulder, sending him floating back up against the bulkhead, but the Russian Lieutenant’s faceplate disintegrated in a spray of blood and he flew backwards into the corridor, limp as a dishrag.
Even as Jason tried to regain his stability and choose a new target, a dull stutter echoed across the bridge and a cone of fire erupted from the muzzle of one of the biomech’s weapons. The clone trooper swung the weapon indiscriminately, spraying the bridge with slugs, and Jason saw Vinnie jerk as one of the bullets struck him in the back. Jason tried to target the biomech, but before he could move the thing swung its weapon his way and McKay felt a red-hot lance of pain spear through his right leg.
The impact of the slug sent Jason tumbling forward, spinning slowly head over heels, the carbine floating out of his hands as his vision filled with stars. By the time he spun back around toward the rest of the room his eyes had cleared, but what he saw made him wish they hadn’t. Vinnie floated motionless, red globules of blood bubbling out of the hole in his back. Antonov was heading for the missile launch controls while Jock and Tim were doing all they could to hold onto the biomechs they were wrestling. And the rest of the clone troopers in the squad seemed itching to open fire at something.
Then everything exploded.
Looking back, Jason would realize that the blast had come from inside the escape pod, but at the time it seemed to him that the whole ship was going up as the concussion threw him back against the bulkhead. A blinding pain flared again in his leg, and he felt pinprick penetrations on his face and neck as shrapnel from the explosion peppered the bridge. Then suddenly his ears popped. Dimly, through a haze of pain and an eyeful of bright afterimages, he realized that there was a hard vacuum on the other side of the hole in the hull, and it wanted in.
Jason flailed wildly, trying to plant a magnetized boot on the deck, but the outgoing air was sucking him toward the opening in the hull with inexorable force. He could see the blackness of space through the gap. Metal and plastic fragments swirled lazily through the air in spiral patterns, preceding him through the gap, joined abruptly by a screaming Lieutenant Dubronov. The man spun through the hole where the escape pod used to be, arms and legs flailing, and then he was gone, disappearing into the eternal night.
Jason felt the breath leaving his lungs as he came closer and closer to the dark gap. He had time to think that he was glad he’d heard Shannon say she loved him… before a camo-clad arm reached out and grabbed him around the chest. Wondering if the lack of air was causing him to hallucinate, Jason found himself staring through a helmet faceplate at Ariel Shamir.
McKay blinked at the unexpected sight, and he thought he would black out, but then he felt something plastic slide over his head and tasted the sweet nectar of fresh oxygen. He realized that someone had fitted him with an emergency air bubble, a standard item in a Marine EVA kit which could be sealed onto the neck yoke of his combat armor.
As reason returned to his oxygen-starved brain and fresh pain revived itself in his wounded leg, he let Shamir help him back onto the bridge. He affixed his boot magnet to the deck and observed the rest of Shamir’s people aiding Vinnie, Jock and Tom into their emergency bubbles. Vinnie was still not moving. One of the biomechs had managed to get a grip on a piece of bridge railing and attempted to aim its weapon at the incoming Marines, but Clarke, Shamir’s autogunner, cut the thing in two with a quick burst.
Of the other biomechs there was no sign, nor, he noted, was Antonov anywhere to be seen. Was the man dead? Or had he slipped away somewhere into the depths of the ship? Well, once they did their job, it wouldn’t matter. He waved an arm to try to get Shamir’s attention, but saw that the man was already mounting the second of the pair of AI computer modules they’d been given onto the weapons control console.
While Shamir did his job, one of the other Marines was unfolding what appeared to be an opaque tarpaulin from his backpack kit. He and two others spread the patch over the hole in the hull and then sealed it with a palm- sized heating unit. Jason could hear the outrush of air slow and then cease as the plastic of the tarp melted itself to the interior of the bulkhead.
Tentatively, Jason pulled the plastic air bubble off of his head and took a deep breath. The air was thinner but still breathable. Moving slowly and painfully, Jason made his way to where a Marine medic was looking at Vinnie, with Jock and Tom hanging over his shoulder.
“Is he alive?” Jason asked, surprised at how raw and hoarse his throat was from the exposure to the vacuum.
“Yes, sir,” she said, looking up from her scanner readout. “But he has three broken ribs and a collapsed lung. We gotta get him out of here and into a hospital.”
“Working on it, Corporal,” he assured her as he moved toward Ari Shamir.
“Sir,” the Corporal called to him. “What about your leg?”
“Later.” Jason didn’t look back at her.
“The program is in, sir,” Shamir reported as he approached, his voice tinny through his helmet’s external
