Dark Star (25 page)

“Try ripping out some wires,” Rosie said.

Gillian slipped the stylus behind a few then pulled. Some of the wires came loose. “That might work,” she said.

Rosie jumped off the platform and it continued to hover at their floor. “It might hold, come on.”

They bolted for the iris, swiping the stylus through the lock. The security field glowed around the weapons cache and, as soon as Gillian disabled it, Rosie began rifling through the stacks.

“I’ll try to disable the platform properly. Get some gear for me, will you?” Gillian grabbed a pulse gun and ran back to the chute, and soon the sound of shots rang out as she blasted away at the controls.

Rosie grabbed a shield belt each, a gun and a handful of poppers, then ran to Gillian who had the holo with the schematics out.

“This way.” Gillian snapped a shield belt around her waist as she ran, leading the way to a corridor on their left.

Everything hurt as Rosie ran. Her head thumped and the pain in her chest cut through with each breath, legs sparking with pins and needles from the nanos in her spine. They rounded a corner and pulled up at a dark blue door marked with a stair logo. Behind it was a narrow staircase spiralling down and up, half encased in a metal cage. Rosie paused long enough to aim a few pulse blasts at the lock to seal it shut. The whump echoed in the hollow space as the heat and energy melted the metallic bolt to the frame.

“Should hold them for a little while,” Gillian said.

They kept going. The sound of their boots rang as they descended, passing the markers too slowly for Rosie’s liking. It seemed to take forever to get to Pip’s floor, but finally they were pushing through the door.

It was quiet, the lighting dim, but the hairs on Rosie’s neck rose, her inner sensor shrieking a warning as they ran to Pip’s room. They charged in, Gillian in the lead, to see Jebediah with Dalton at his shoulder and Sulawayo on the opposite side of Pip’s bed. Jebediah had a pulse gun aimed at Pip who was awake and looked furious.

What was left of Rosie’s breath disappeared. Jebediah smiled as they halted in the doorway.

“Hello, Miss Black,” he said. “Nice of you to join us.”

“You son of a bitch,” Gillian hissed at Dalton, as if she wanted to shoot him.

“Got to say I agree with you there,” Pip said. His voice was husky.

Sulawayo stood on the other side of Pip’s bed and said nothing. Had she been on Jebediah’s side all along?

“So daddy’s boy couldn’t keep his mouth shut,” Gillian said bluntly.

Dalton seemed pained, like he wanted to deny it, but the truth was there in his eyes. Rosie felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. How could he? Even with what his dad had done to him, she’d never believed he would betray her. Not like this. “Dalton?” She wanted him to deny it, to prove Gillian wrong.

He said nothing, an awful misery in his eyes.

“It’s what they do, Rosie,” Gillian said.

Jebediah’s mouth hardened and he pushed his gun against Pip’s head. “I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself, Ms Turi, and throw down your guns. I would hate to pull this trigger by mistake.”

“Don’t do it, Rosie,” Pip said, but she wasn’t about to risk his life like that. Hands trembling, she tossed her weapon at Jebediah’s feet.

Gillian did the same. “I guess the platform jam didn’t work.”

“What are you going to do?” Rosie asked.

“I think the question is what are you going to do, Miss Black? Or what are we going to do with you, more pointedly?” He looked smug. “Sulawayo will escort you upstairs, I think, to a cell. Alpha should be ready for you by the time you get there. It seems some re-education is in order.”

His smile made her cold. “Sulawayo–” He turned to her but Dalton suddenly spoke.

“Stop.” His voice was hoarse, but as his father spun to him, eyebrows raised, a change came over his face. The vagueness Rosie had seen was clearing.

“What did you say?” Jebediah seemed puzzled.

“I said stop,” Dalton said more firmly. “You lied to me, Father. You did something to me, forced me to betray them; you even forced me to come here. I remember now.”

“No, son, you came here of your own accord.”

“Stop lying!” Dalton shouted and his father hesitated. A flicker of unease crossed his features.

“Dalton I warn–” He didn’t get the rest out as Dalton lunged at him.

Rosie leaped out of the way. Dalton knocked his father to the floor, wrestling for his gun.

“I remember!” Dalton shouted. “I remember!” Cheeks red with rage, he pinned Jebediah down and punched him in the face. Jebediah’s gun went skidding across the floor towards Rosie as the two of them grappled, arms and legs in a tangle.

Rosie scrambled backwards and tried to get the gun, but Sulawayo intercepted her kicking it away.

“No.” She pushed her to the other side of the bed and Pip grabbed her arm. “Stay here.” He held her there and Rosie twisted frantically to watch father and son locked together. Dalton was on top, but Jebediah managed to flip him over, slamming him down with a sound that made Rosie’s heart wrench.

“Useless!” Jebediah put his hands around Dalton’s throat.

“Don’t!” Rosie cried out, but Sulawayo was suddenly there, pressing the barrel of a large old-fashioned gun to Jebediah’s head.

“Stop it,” she said.

For a second he didn’t seem to hear. His face contorted with rage, he kept squeezing.

“Jebediah!” Sulawayo snapped and cocked the gun. With an angry grunt, Jebediah released his son’s neck. Beneath him, Dalton seemed not to see Sulawayo. Freed from defending his throat, he jabbed his father in the gut with a savage fist. Jebediah crumpled and, shuddering, rolled off his son to the floor. Dalton staggered to his knees as if he was going to hit him again.

“Dalton, stop!” Rosie cried. Her voice seemed to penetrate. He paused, swaying.

“Stop,” Rosie said again. “Sulawayo has him.”

Red faced, his eyes wet with tears of fury, he stared at her, seemed finally to notice Sulawayo pointing a gun at his father. Slowly, he got to his feet and backed away. Gillian picked up the pulse guns she and Rosie had dropped and moved next to Dalton, pushing him further back towards Pip’s bed.

Jebediah squinted up at Sulawayo, blood dripping from his nose. “Knew you were a traitor,” he said.

Sulawayo glared at him with distaste. “That personal shield you’re wearing won’t stop bullets, Jebediah,” she said. “Best you keep your insults to yourself.” He regarded her for a long moment and Sulawayo’s voice was loaded with threat as she said, “How do you like my character judgement now?”

Jeb didn’t smile. “It’s definitely improved.”

“Get up, over there.” Sulawayo jutted her chin to the wall.

“They won’t get far,” Jebediah said as he obeyed, “and neither will you. My operatives will be here soon.”

“We’ll see.”

Rosie helped Pip detach himself from the medibot and off the bed. “Had to be the hero, eh?” Pip said. He put an arm around her shoulders and winced. He wore only a pair of loose black drawstring pants and two cell repair gel patches still covered the gun wounds on his torso.

“Stefan!” Sulawayo called and, as if from nowhere, the tall gangly boy appeared around the corner, clad in protective gear and carrying his own bullet gun.

“One boy?” Jebediah said. “That’s economic.” He was mocking them now, but Sulawayo ignored him.

“Gillian, follow Stefan’s lead,” she said. “Go fast. And Dalton, I think you better go with them. I’ll deal with your father.”

“Lead out, Stefan. I’ll take the rear.” Gillian handed Rosie’s gun back to her.

The younger boy was pale with fear but he spun on his heels and made for the door. Rosie put an arm around Pip’s waist and gently pushed Dalton ahead. He didn’t resist.

Out in the hall, Stefan turned from the stairs and platform and headed in the opposite direction. “That tunnel’s not far from this level,” he said. He jogged along the corridor, checking left and right.

Dalton dropped back beside Rosie. He appeared shell-shocked, red welts marking his neck from his father’s hands. “Rosie,” he began, but she cut him off.

“It’s okay; I know what he did to you.”

“I …” Dalton blinked and clamped his lips together, flicked a glance at Pip who was leaning heavily on her shoulders. “Give me the gun. You can’t shoot and help him walk.”

Rosie hesitated.

“I’m okay now,” he said.

She studied his face. The confusion that had been there before did seem to have gone. He was beat up, exhausted, but more himself.

She put the gun in his hand. “Take these as well.” She pulled the small explosive poppers from her pocket. “Give some to Gillian.”

“Thanks.” He dropped back behind and Pip said quietly, “He’ll be all right, don’t worry.”

Would he? Rosie wasn’t so sure.

“Here.” Stefan stopped.

All Rosie saw was a blank wall with a seam running from floor to ceiling, but Stefan approached it and counted five hand widths from the bottom, then pressed his forefinger to the crease. There was a faint whirring sound. The wall oscillated and what had been solid became opaque, then an open space, revealing a narrow access way sloping downward. There were no lights.

“Some kind of atomic particle dissembler,” Stefan said and shrugged. “I don’t–” He stopped as the sound of a low voice came from down the hall behind them.

“Go!” Rosie pushed him forwards, pulling Pip with her and they all rushed through into the tunnel.

Stefan tried to close the gap in the wall behind them but it wouldn’t work.

“No time. Run.” Gillian pulled him away.

The floor sloped unevenly, slowing them down. Stefan had a small torch, but it didn’t help much. Rosie saw in the flashes of light that the tunnel was made of different stuff to the other corridors. Older, rougher. She glimpsed something written on the wall, red numbers, graffiti.

“They’re coming,” Dalton said.

Rosie looked back and saw the shadows of at least six operatives, thirty or so metres behind, backlit by the light from the entrance.

A pulse blast pinged off the roof. They all ducked. Dalton and Gillian fired back and the shadows retreated.

“Cover round the corner!” Gillian shouted.

Up ahead, the tunnel swerved sharply left. Rosie staggered around it and Pip almost fell over a crack in the floor. Her shoulders burned with pain as his weight changed.

“Sorry,” he panted. They leaned against the wall.

Gillian, Dalton and Stefan were at the corner, firing around it at the operatives.

“That’s not going to work for long,” Pip said. He was right.

It was a long way to the ruins. They couldn’t outrun the operatives and it was unlikely they could hold out against them. They were trapped.

Gillian looked at her, little more than a profile against the light, but Rosie could tell she was thinking the same thing. Pulse blast pinged and snapped off the walls, along with the thunderous crack of the bullet gun Stefan had.

“Sorry,” Rosie said to Pip, “we tried.”

He put his lips against her hair and whispered, “It’s okay.”

“No, wait,” Dalton said. “Rosie, you and Pip can still get out. Gillian, we can hold here. The poppers–”

“Could collapse the tunnel,” she finished. “Yes!”

“What? No!” Rosie protested but Dalton thrust the four poppers back at her.

“Take them. They should be enough to collapse a section between us. We’ll hold them off long enough for you to do it. It’s the only way, or we’ll all get taken.”

“Then we all go together.” Rosie tried to push them back, but he grabbed her hand and forced her to take them.

“You have to,” he said. “Pip can’t stay here and neither can you. Stefan you go too, help them, okay?” The younger boy nodded reluctantly.

“But–” A savage round of pulse blast cut her off and they all ducked as shards of the wall scattered around them.

“Go!” Gillian shouted.

Rosie looked at Pip. He was pale, in pain. He wouldn’t last here, she knew it. “Okay.”

Relief filled Dalton’s voice. “Set the poppers off when you’ve put ten metres between us and make sure you’re away when they blow.”

“Dalton …” Rosie whispered, afraid.

“I’ll be fine.” He leaned close as a barrage of pulse fire from the operatives sang in the air. “But Rosie, I remember now. I saw something on a com my dad has. It was some kind of satellite system he’s building above the planet with sectors above every continent. They’re interconnected, and there’s one really big one, more like a space station that might be a command base for the rest. I don’t know what it is or what it’s for. My dad said it was for a water project, but he was lying. I know it’s to do with whatever he’s planning.” He gripped her shoulder. “If Riley’s back, tell him; he’ll know what to do.”

Rosie clutched his hand as he began to pull away. “Wait, where’s the com now?”

“In the safe in his office,” Dalton said.

“Rosie, go!” Gillian shouted and opened a long swathe of pulse blast at their pursuers.

Dalton squeezed her shoulder once, then was gone – back to Gillian firing at the operatives.

“Come on.” Stefan pushed past them in the lead, his torch light bouncing ahead.

Pip and Rosie followed. She counted out the metres and when she judged they were far enough, she stopped. All she could see behind were pulses of blue light from the weapons. Pip took two of the poppers. They clicked them on then dropped them on the ground and staggered away. Five steps, six. The blast came, short and savage, knocking them off their feet. Her knees hit hard and she tried to keep a grip on Pip’s hand, but failed.

The floor groaned and heaved, rumbled vibrations running through the surface and all around. Then there was a tremendous clamour of things crashing into the tunnel.

Stefan cried out and a roll of dust came over them. All the light went out. Coughing and choking, Rosie felt around for Pip. He was doing the same and they smacked into each other in the dark and dust.

She raised her head, listening. The sounds of the pulse blasts were dulled. The poppers had done their job; they’d collapsed the tunnel behind them, closing the three of them off.

Pip coughed and his hand found her wrist. “You okay, nothing hurt?”