The Lazarus War: Artefact (19 page)

“This is all that is left. Maybe a couple of my research staff hanging around the place somewhere, but everyone else is gone. Like Miss Tyler says – Helios is hard on people. Now, I must get back to my research. Mr Deacon – arrange a stretcher for the injured science officer. Perhaps, Captain Harris, when you are cleaned up, you might like to visit me to discuss my findings.”

I watched as he disappeared into the darkness, and took in the twenty or so survivors of Helios Station – all that was left of the two thousand staff that had been shipped here.

As Kellerman had directed, security escorted us to an abandoned habitation module. A hover-stretcher was organised for Olsen, and Martinez and Blake dragged his sagging frame onto the levitating bed. The machine dipped erratically to take his weight; he was still out cold. We were led through a series of covered walkways – the wind battering against cheap polytunnel walls.

“Doc says that someone will come over and check out your leg when they have time,” the lead guard said as he left, grinning a black-toothed smile.

I’m not going to hold my breath on that
.

Without any further explanation, the guards sealed us into the unit and left.

We explored our confined quarters. The module had originally housed fifty or sixty personnel, in double-berth cubicles. Some of the rooms had been stripped down to the bare essentials – empty walls and cots – but many others looked as though they had recently been abandoned. The place had a mournful, ghost-town feel to it. Shift rotas were still displayed on notice boards. Photos of home were tacked to the walls. Coffee cups and empty plates lined consoles. Some wise-ass had pinned holo-pictures of legendary Earthside landmarks to a computer monitor: the Antarctic City, the half-submerged Sydney Opera House, the canals of London Central. It was inviting to imagine that the former occupants of the hab would return anytime soon, exhausted from the morning shift. In the centre of the unit, abandoned as abruptly as the rest of the place, was a mess hall, replete with dust-lined tables and cooking pots full of mouldy foodstuffs. A large display board sat at one end of the hall, proudly declaring DAYS WITHOUT RAIN: 398. Storm-shutters covered every window, simultaneously protecting us from outside influences and trapping us inside.

“And I thought that the living quarters on the
Point
were bad …” muttered Blake.

“There are beds,
cuate
,” Martinez said, wandering out of one of the empty rooms. “That’s a start. And we got power and food.”

“You sound like you don’t mind it here,” I said.

Martinez shrugged. “So long as we can sleep, Cap. Answers later, I guess.”

“The window shutters are locked down,” Kaminski said. “This place is like a prison.”

“Kaminski has a point,” Jenkins yelled, from further down the corridor. “Those bastards have locked us in. The doors are electronically keyed.”

I followed her to the only exit from the unit, and she pointed out the locked door.

I called for a briefing in the mess hall.

Blake sat on an upturned food crate. His chin was speckled with stubble and his uniform was dust-stained. When I entered the room, he started slightly as if to regain some military composure, but I muttered for him not to bother. None of that was necessary out here: protocol had pretty much gone to shit.

Kaminski drifted past. He ate from a self-heating MRE – a “meal-ready-to-eat” – shovelling the rations into his mouth with a metal spoon. He barely registered me.

“Food any good?” I asked.

“It’ll do,” Kaminski said. “Potatoes and steak.”

The food smelt stodgy and bitter-sweet, as though maybe the meat had gone off, but Kaminski continued eating.

Jenkins sat at a table in the corner of the room, with the innards of a disassembled plasma rifle around her. She was engrossed in cleaning every component, reassembling the rifle then going through the same procedure all over again. Martinez watched her, muttering to himself in Spanish. I pulled up a chair and sat down with Jenkins.

“All right there, Cap?” she asked, still focused on her rifle.

“Not really.”

Jenkins continued working on her gun.
Scope goes here. Lens connects to power feed. Chamber must be clear to allow maximum polarisation of charge. Pulse pin enters there. Charger connects to stock
. She never missed a single part. This time was no exception.

Olsen was semi-collapsed on an old mattress someone had dragged into the corner of the room, with his head in his hands. He had awoken shortly after our arrival in the hab. Science staff, working on ships and stations and the sterile end of the Alliance military effort – they didn’t get to see and feel the Krell menace up close. He’d tasted it once, aboard the
New Haven
, but being down here in his own skin was a nightmare become real. I had already explained to him how the med-bay had been gutted, about Kellerman’s bizarre presentation in the hangar. He looked like shit and sounded worse.

“We’re stranded out here!” he said, suddenly becoming animated. An ugly black-and-blue lump had formed on his left temple, so big that it made his head look deformed. “Dr Kellerman is our only avenue of escape and from what the captain says he is a madman. No one is all right, Corporal.”

Jenkins snapped the power cell into her M95 with cold precision, then looked down the scope towards the science officer. She gave a sharkish grin.

“Hey, Olsen,” she called across the room, “you wish you’d brought a gun with you now?”

“Maybe the little man has a point,” Kaminski offered. He looked to Martinez and Blake for approval, but neither of them backed him up. “We’re trapped on this rock, at the ass-end of the galaxy.”

“Hold it together, Olsen, and you too, ’Ski,” I said, as sternly as I could. “Wallowing in this shit isn’t going to solve anything. Just hold it together. We’re soldiers, and we need to plan around what we know. It’s a fact that the
Oregon
is gone. Any distress beacon onboard is either wasted, or it would attract the Krell to our position. The crash has changed our mission parameters. It was never the plan to be here in our own bodies – to be down here skinless. Immediate objective: we need to find a way off Helios.”

My squad exchanged glances. The team grew more intent on what I was saying. It felt good to have some focus, I guess. We were still military and having an objective suddenly helped bring the group together again.

“Yeah, man,” Kaminski said. His mood had swiftly shifted. “Fuck Kellerman. Fuck them all. They’re welcome to stay on Helios, with the fish heads.”

Getting my squad off Helios was my priority, and now my
only
priority. Enough good people had already died.

“From what Kellerman said in the hangar – about watching us in orbit – the station communications satellite must be functional. Before the
Oregon
was attacked, Captain Atkins said that the satellite had power.”

I left out that Atkins, along with the rest of the
Oregon
crew, was now consigned to a cold grave in deep-space.

“And if the satellite has power, it can send a communication off-world,” Kaminski said, between mouthfuls of food. “But we’d need to get access to the Operations centre.”

I nodded. “Which means we will need the Ops manager on our side. That woman – Tyler – might be able to help us.”

“She seemed a little less
neurotic
,” Jenkins said, pausing from her rifle assembly.

“That sounds like a plan,” Kaminski said. He nodded enthusiastically. “We can get back-up, get a ship, and bug out!”

He fist-bumped Martinez and Blake.

“What if we can’t get access to the Operations centre – to the comms satellite?” Olsen asked nervously, blinking red-rimmed eyes. “How long before we’re declared overdue?”

I rubbed my chin, contemplating whether to tell him.

“I’m not sure whether you’ll want to hear this.”

“Tell me,” Olsen said.

“It’ll be a minimum of six months objective before we’re declared overdue. Then another six months for a ship to reach us – provided that the Navy can spare a fast starship. But the reality is that Alliance Command may never send assistance.”

“That surely can’t be right!” Olsen whined.

“That’s the situation. We’re inside the Maelstrom. There are just too many risk factors to consider.”

The group quietly reflected on that. Rescue and retrieval protocols were suspended for this sort of operation. The
Oregon
probably hadn’t even sent a mayday signal. For all Command knew, we might have encountered a technical problem aboard the
Oregon
en route to Helios. What with the history of Kellerman’s failure to report to the
Point
, it was hopelessly optimistic to think that anyone would be coming after us.

“Not to mention the cost of sending a further rescue op,” Jenkins said, bitterly. “Always that to consider, before they send someone else.”

I shrugged. “Those are the facts.”

“All right,” Blake said, standing to pace the room. “Then how do we do it? How do we get to Tyler and Operations?”

Olsen roused again. “Maybe we should shoot our way out. The corporal has a rifle.”

“No point,” Martinez muttered. “Those security men are armed. There are more of them than there are of us. The captain is injured.” He nodded over in my direction. “We’ve only got one rifle and the captain’s pistol.”

“I could take them,” Kaminski said. “Just give me the rifle.”

“All ten of them? In your real body? The simulators are wasted,” Jenkins said. “Those security men are jumpy. They’ll shoot at the first opportunity. A round from one of those shotguns is going to kill you just as easy as a pulse from a plasma rifle. Stupid asshole.”

Kaminski shrugged. “Just saying what I see. I could take them.”

“Real helpful, Kaminski, real helpful. As always, the brains behind the operation,” Jenkins said, shaking her head.

“I mostly just kill stuff, mostly,” Kaminski said. He returned to his food can.

“Cut it out, you two,” I said. “No one is going to get killed out here. We’re not taking any chances.”

“I’ll settle for just surviving,” Olsen chipped in.

“Yeah, well, you’re not like us,” Jenkins said.

Olsen put his head in his hands again.

“Jenkins, leave him alone. We have to bide our time. No one is going to blast their way out of here. We sit tight until the opportunity arises. Nothing else to it. Kellerman wants to speak with me, apparently. I’ll listen to what he has to say and then we’ll plot our next move.”

I stood up, and involuntarily cringed as I put weight on my leg. I tried to hide it, but Blake noticed my facial expression.

“Maybe Olsen can take a look at that leg,” he said, nodding over at the science officer.

“I’d like to make myself useful,” Olsen said. “If we have some medical supplies, I’ll gladly help.”

“I saw some dressings and other first-aid gear in one of the empty rooms,” Blake said. “Come with me, Olsen, and I’ll show you. Captain, I think you should rest.”

I reluctantly nodded and sat back on the seat. “The rest of you should do the same. Get some shut-eye. When the opportunity to move on Kellerman arises, we need to be prepped and ready. Meanwhile, I want a watch on this hab at all times.”

Day passed into night. To give them something to do, I ordered my squad to stockpile MREs and water-packs. They searched their quarters for anything useful, but this was a civilian hab and there was nothing of offensive value. Martinez and Kaminski tried to lever open one of the storm-shutters, attempting to get outside. That didn’t work. Eventually, the squad dispersed and found safe rooms to occupy for the night.

We agreed on a watch rota but in the end I couldn’t sleep anyway, and so I took the duty alone. If the others could find some rest, then they were welcome to it.

I paced the empty corridors of the hab module. Although the storm had broken at some point earlier in the day, the wind was still incessant. It shrieked like the cries of dying xenos through the structures around us. Sometimes it was so strong that the module itself seemed to shake. That had to be my imagination, working overtime.

Hours after sundown, I sat alone in the mess hall. Save for my old handgun, Jenkins’ plasma rifle was our only weapon, and so we shared ownership. I checked the power cell for the hundredth time. The wind and situation in general was getting to me. I propped my injured leg on a metal chair, and rested back on another. The pain in my ribs had settled into a dull ache, and no matter how I lay, sat or stood, the pain was always near.

There was a creak behind me. I immediately grabbed the rifle, and half-stood, aiming into the gloom.
Damn, this rifle is heavy
. I probably couldn’t hit anything with it anyway.

Blake stood in the mess hall entrance, hands up defensively, showing his palms. “It’s only me.”

I nodded, and slung the rifle onto the table in front of me. It clattered noisily. “Sorry, Blake.”

Blake wandered over to the storm-shutters, peering between the battered metal slats.

“I couldn’t sleep either,” he stated baldly. “The wind is too loud. How do you think that the staff put up with it?”

“They adapt, I suppose. Same as us.”

“You want some coffee?” he asked, fetching a couple of cups of self-heating java from the corner of the room.

“If you’re buying.”

Blake sat opposite me in the dark. We popped open the cheap plastic cups – long-lasting rations – and the drinks instantly warmed. The smell of coffee bean substitute filled the mess hall.

“What’s with the lack of light?” he asked. “Isn’t it bad enough that we’re in the back end of the galaxy, surrounded by hostiles? Someone has to go turn off the lights.”

Blake was referring to the blackout. At some point after the suns had gone down – without access to any computer tech, we could only estimate planetary time by the movement of the suns – the power to the module had been cut. This seemed a deliberate decision, because the electronic locks on the doors still functioned.

“Kellerman is likely preserving power. Probably directing it to whatever he thinks is essential. In this case, that’s not us.”

Blake nodded. But this discussion wasn’t about power or lights: he was talking because he wanted company. Because this situation made him nervy, and it was easier to focus on trivialities than the bigger picture.

A long moment passed. I sipped at the boiling hot java, felt the thick liquid sit at the back of my throat. It represented some semblance of normality.