Black Box (23 page)

Doing a quick calculation, he summed up the
situation. Icknor had gone into the
Einstein.
Rafferty was
gone. Despite his wounded shoulder, he must have gone into the ship
as well. Tedesco was probably sticking close to the
rumbler,
while Yamata would be keeping an eye out for Bonamo’s return.
MacDonald and one person from the rear of the ship would have
likely moved into the trees in search of the snipers. That left two
people guarding the escape hatch. Two people out of Irvin, Knudson,
and Goldfarb. Knudson was good in a fight but prone to
recklessness. Irvin was a solid soldier, well on the track to being
an officer. Goldfarb was average. Bonamo figured that MacDonald
would have chosen Goldfarb, leaving Irvin at the rear to keep
Knudson in line.

Despite wanting to move fast, Bonamo knew
that he had to be extremely cautious when dealing with MacDonald.
He needed to outwit the older man. In a fair fight they’d get their
asses kicked. Doubling back toward the front of the ship, he
signaled Burbank to stay behind a bit. If they could avoid
MacDonald at least until they were able to get inside the
Einstein
, they’d have a much better chance of success.

As they came around the front, Bonamo could
see Yamata. His gun was quiet now, but he was alert for any
movement in the trees. Bonamo got down on his belly and aimed his
rifle. With a hand signal, he sent Burbank on her way. She was
bait. And Yamata took the bait. He either saw her or heard her and
he swung away from Bonamo, who fired off a clean shot, taking
Yamata in the chest. That gave him about four seconds to rush the
ship.

“
Let’s go!
” he cried, leaping to his
feet.

The two of them charged the hatch, Bonamo
never forgetting about Tedesco by the
rumbler
. He opened
fire on her as he ran, none of his bullets finding their mark. As
they passed Yamata’s prone form, he could tell that his shot hadn’t
done anything more than knock the wind out of the soldier. His body
armor had been more than enough to protect him from damage. There
was no time to finish the job. Already, they could hear MacDonald
rushing from the trees. They cleared the hatch just as he took aim
and began to fire on them.

Once inside the ship, the walls closed
around them. There was no way to seal off the hatch so they needed
to move quickly. Situated in the middle of the long shuttle’s
fuselage, the hatch opened up into a small airlock, which opened up
into a narrow corridor running both left and right. The ship’s nose
was to the left. Bonamo took off at a run, Burbank hot on his
heels.

Halfway down the passageway, squeezed into a
tiny alcove, they encountered three people, two women and one man.
Each was dressed in a pair of off-white pants and a green T-shirt.
Sewn into the right thigh of the pants was an American Flag. When
they saw Bonamo and Burbank, they stopped up short, a look of panic
crossing their faces.

Bonamo had to take a minute to breathe. He
had seen these people before. Their smiling faces had dotted the
pages of textbooks and magazines for as long as he could remember.
Geoff Markakis was a solidly built man with a round dark face and
what always looked like a four day growth of beard. He was shorter
than Bonamo expected. Alice Roberts stood half a head taller than
the pilot. Her hair was pulled back tight and her brown face had
this papery look to it that seemed to add years to her frightened
eyes. Finally, there was Marcia Thomas, with her head almost shaved
down completely and her stern features that tried ever so hard to
combat her terror. These regular people were some of Earth’s
greatest heroes.

“We’re friends,” Bonamo cried, edging past
them. “Is there anyone else down there?”

They hesitated momentarily, unsure of the
truth. Finally, one of them, Marcia Thomas, screwed up the courage
to speak. “The Colonel,” she said. “He went to launch the black
box.”

“Protect them,” Bonamo ordered Burbank and
took off toward the cockpit.

In the two seconds it took for him to reach
the cockpit at a dead run, Bonamo was suddenly aware that he was
defining his career here right at its very beginning. The difficult
decisions that he was making were not unlike the very difficult
decision made by a young Captain Ted Beckett ten years before. He
was clearly violating the orders of the
Admiralty
even
though those orders had never been made known to him. He was
standing up against his own people for something that he believed
was right. When it was all over, he would understand what his
father had meant about keeping your mouth shut and your nose
clean.

Just outside the small cockpit was a control
center. There was no door; the corridor just opened naturally into
it. Four stations were spaciously situated, each with a stationary
computer access terminal and good reach to the wall consoles. There
wasn’t a lot of walking space, but there was enough. Walker was on
the floor, a gash running across his forehead. He seemed to be
alive. Roger Rhodes, the
Einstein’s
doctor, was hovering
over him, tending to the wound with shaky hands. As for Icknor and
Rafferty, they were just heading out as Bonamo was heading in.

“You shot Lita,” Icknor said, venom in his
voice.

“We don’t have time for this,” Rafferty
said, his square jaw working out the tension as he spoke. There was
a tear in the shoulder of his uniform and the whole area was dark
and wet.

Icknor began to bring his weapon up but
Bonamo’s was already raised. He fired and the blast rocked the
small space. All three men were temporarily deafened, which was
good because they couldn’t hear Icknor’s screams as the bullets
tore into his chest and midsection. At that range, even the armor
was no help. It was a slow death for poor Icknor. One bullet nicked
his heart which created a blood leak. Another perforated his small
intestine which spilled detritus into the surrounding regions of
his body. A third bullet simply wedged itself in his abdomen,
embedded in a rib and scraping against his lung.

Guns are horrible things.

Rafferty launched himself at Bonamo,
recognizing the futility of trying to get off a shot now. Bonamo
was not ready for him. He was pushed back against the uneven
bulkhead. A support strut slammed into his spine and he felt his
legs go completely numb. He crumpled like a ragdoll and didn’t even
notice the three kicks Rafferty landed just to make sure his
opponent wouldn’t come and follow him down toward the others.

And then that was where he went. To finish
the job.

When MacDonald saw that his three soldiers
were unhurt, he left them with their previous orders and started
back toward the front of the ship. Initially he was scanning the
trees for any sign of the snipers, but he heard them bolt and knew
it was safe to charge. He saw them as they made for the hatch and
he opened fire, chiding himself for doing so. Every shot missed, as
he knew they would, and he had wasted precious seconds taking
aim.

Yamata was beginning to stir as MacDonald
approached.

“Get up,” he said.

Yamata cursed at him.

“Lieutenant,” MacDonald began, then stopped.
There was a foreign sound coming out of the jungle. Tedesco must
have heard it as well because she turned to look.

At that moment, the airbike carrying Ted
Beckett came shooting out from between the trees. He clipped
Tedesco on the side and she tumbled into the
rumbler
and
went to the ground. She heard, more than felt her arm snap and was
waiting quietly for the pain to make its arrival.

MacDonald, for his part, did not wish to
face an incensed Beckett. Clearly he had bested Rodrigo which meant
he was in a formidable mind set. MacDonald would not bother to
challenge that. Instead, he would finish the pivotal job assigned
to him. He made quickly for the hatch. Beckett pursued, but there
was enough distance between them so that MacDonald was able to just
scramble through the blast hole safely.

Coming up the corridor, he spied Rafferty.
The man was huffing and puffing, holding his gun in the wrong hand.
Clearly the wound to his shoulder was bothering him.

“Ken?” came a small voice from a tiny niche
somewhere between the two of them.

Suddenly, Burbank poked her head out of the
niche and around the corner. When she saw Rafferty, she slipped
back inside. MacDonald heard her whisper, “I may need help.”

MacDonald didn’t waste any time. He pushed
forward and grabbed her around the throat, pulling her gun away
before forcing her to the ground. Rationally, he knew he didn’t
have a lot of time. Beckett was maybe ninety seconds behind him.
Yet, having her down, his fingers clenched around her windpipe,
felt so right. He desperately wanted to finish this.

Then someone was on his shoulders. It was
Markakis. The stocky Greek pilot was strong and his fear seemed to
have fled. He tried to get an arm around MacDonad’s neck, but
MacDonald was a seasoned combat veteran. He gave up his
entertainment quickly and turned his attention to the attack.
Markakis was no match for him. Even as his two crewmates tried to
intervene, MacDonald slammed one in the face with his elbow and
shoved Markakis into the other. Defeated, they huddled back into
niche as Rafferty awkwardly raised his rifle in their
direction.

The looks on their faces showed only fear.
Suddenly MacDonald felt nothing but disdain for them. Were they
children? These were supposed to be pioneers, the greatest of all
of the human explorers history had to offer. What had they thought
they would find out in space? Chocolate and lollipops?

But there was no time for reproach.

“Gimme that,” he said, grabbing the rifle
away from Rafferty. Then, without a second thought, he sprayed the
entire niche with bullets.

Beckett charged into the ship as the sound
of gunfire reverberated off of the bulkheads. He shouted out
MacDonald’s name but his cries were lost in the noise. He came
barreling down the corridor as fast as he could, just in time to
see MacDonald finish his slaughter and scramble away toward the
forward part of the ship. Rafferty caught sight of him instantly
and went for Burbank’s weapon, laying on the deck. Beckett brought
his own gun to bear but there wasn’t time to take aim. Rafferty
crawled across the deck, using the bodies for cover.

Beckett was incensed. He slipped and slid on
the blood spatters, as he pushed forward, heedless of the danger
Rafferty presented. There was no time to lose. By now, Walker would
be ready to launch the black box, ready to start the cycle all over
again. And right now, two hundred years from two hundred years ago,
locked in an endless cycle of futility, Captain Ted Beckett would
try and fail.

Which was at least better than failing to
try.

Rafferty jumped up, his face and uniform
covered in the blood of heroes. Had he not leaped right into
Beckett’s line of fire, the captain would never have had a shot. It
was pure luck, good for one, bad for the other. Beckett fired
immediately, cutting Rafferty down in an instant and leaving him to
lay amidst the rest of the dead.

“
MacDonald!
” he screamed down the
hallway as he charged forward.

“You can’t stop it, Beckett,” MacDonald
called back. Beckett came to a quick halt. Just ahead, in the
control room, MacDonald was waiting, his gun aimed forward. “It’s
already happening.”

From his position, Beckett could see the
four chairs and their consoles. He could see Bonamo lying on the
floor, not dead, not even unconscious, just unable to move. Another
body was next to his. It was Roger Rhodes. There was no sign of
Colonel Nicholas Walker, though. Of course not. He was behind the
closed door of the cockpit, recording his final message, getting
ready.

In the three seconds between coming into the
room and recognizing where the Colonel had gone and what he was
doing, Beckett made a choice. He had two options, one of which was
self serving and the other heroic, if futile. He could charge
MacDonald, engage him in combat and unleash all of his fury on this
animal the Space Force had the temerity to call a soldier. Or he
could call out to Walker, try and prevent him from launching the
black box and hopefully save the lives of these poor pioneers.

Beckett chose to be self serving. He wanted
to get his hands on MacDonald so badly that he let go of any
altruistic motive and bolted forward just as the foot soldier
brought his weapon to bear.

MacDonald fired and the bullet tore into
Beckett’s gun shoulder. Another second’s hesitation and it would
have gone into his chest, pierced his heart, and ended his life.
Beckett ignored the wound, ducking under MacDonald’s aim and
barreling into him. Together the two men went to the floor, their
arms and legs banging against the consoles and the chairs, all
weapons lost in the melee. There was no room for a brawl, yet brawl
they did. Any pain that might have sprung up in the captain’s
shoulder was forestalled by the adrenaline rush that came with the
battle. The men fought like animals. There was no finesse, no
grace, no dance. They scratched and bit and tore at each other like
ferocious beasts, all hate and venom. MacDonald grunted and cursed
while Beckett repeated
die, die, die,
over and over
again.

When it was over, MacDonald lay backwards
over a chair, blood smeared over his face and hands, his eyes
fluttering, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Not much better but
still on his feet, Beckett went to the cockpit and pushed on the
door.

“Colonel!” he cried through the metal.
“Colonel Walker!” His words were slurred, barely even recognizable.
He could make it. He could do this. He was so close to actually
winning one. “Please,” he sobbed, going to his knees.
“…
please
…”