Relic Engine -- Prologue Pt.2

>> 8

         As Ennio cleaned himself up, Ayumu went over the changes in their plan again.  He had hurried here with the cart, which they intended to leave behind, rather than bothering to take the time to find an incinerator room and dump it.  Whoever visited this washroom next would just get a surprise in the form an abandoned and very odiferous laundry cart.
         Ennio didn’t spend much time cleaning up.  Ayumu figured that, despite his obvious discomfort, he would sooner have ignored it and gone straight ahead with their plan, cutting out every unnecessary minute standing between them and their reaching Snow.  However, Ayumu insisted on going over details again, and so he took the opportunity to clean up.
         “There will only be one shield,” Ayumu said.  “Less chance of us getting split up, that way.”  Or losing you to another episode.  But he didn’t say that.
         “Once we ‘port, they’re going to know about us.  So Keane mapped out an easy access to a heating duct on the second ring.  We’ll go to the linear jump point on this ring, ‘port over and you’ll need to get into the ducts pretty quick.  Then I’ll let them chase me around for awhile.”
         “That’s going to be the toughest part for you,” he said.  “After I port into the third ring, it’s going to be a running firefight the rest of the way.  Should be good fun.”
         “No killing,” he said from the bathroom counter, where he had filled a sink with water.  “No one else dies…in exchange for her life.”  They’d already agreed on this, and it wouldn’t make their hijacking any tougher really.  But if it did require it…he wouldn’t have expected anything to stand in the way of Ennio’s rescuing his beloved Snow.
         Oh, but there will be killing when we get there, he thought to himself. There will be a reckoning…and if whatever’s taken her is a creature that can’t be killed, then he will give it cause to wish it could die.
         Back to reality.  He hurried through the rest of the details. “The umbilical to the ship won’t generate a shield.  So when we enter it, Keane will move our shield out into the corridor.  Now, he thinks it will only last about two minutes if they can break cover, and concentrate their fire on it.  That means I’ll have to stay in the corridor, behind the shields, and keep them honest while you power up the ship.”
         Ennio thought about the complicated process of bringing systems online, distributing power, and any other curves that might be thrown their way.  “I should stay behind with the shield,” he decided.
         Ayumu protested. “It’ll be dangerous, Enn.  If they overwhelm the shield…there’ll be no way for you to get aboard fast enough.  This isn’t me wanting to play the hero.  Fact of the matter is, I’m the expendable one.  If you go down…it’s over.”
         Emphatically, he shook his head.  His green eyes were bright, as clear and sure as they’d been since he had come back.  “I know that it will take me too long to bring the systems online.  Crawling through ducts is one thing, but…that will be too difficult for me, I’m afraid.”
         “Besides—I’m a smaller target.”  He finished and hopped down from the sink.  Ayumu didn’t miss how the Sune wobbled for a moment when he went to stand on his hindlegs, evidence that he was still hounded by vertigo.  How much effort it must require of him, to endure those nightmarish visions, the waves of terrible suffering that she continued to broadcast to him, and continue to anchor himself in the here and now while always leaving half of himself fully aware in that other world.  Vertigo, indeed…he had only to look at his friend for a moment, to see that every other moment he would twitch or shudder. He visibly holding back the howls of terror and rage that threatened to burst through.
         Ayumu donned the harness once Ennio had settled himself in it  He retrieved the duffel that ostensibly carried conductor synapses, and shouldered that himself.  Ennio wore the smaller, manageable pack with the disassembled ‘port receiver. Thus they walked out into the corridor, an army of two about to take on the station.
         The corridor was deserted.
         By Keane’s design, they were here precisely during the “off” hours of this part of the station.  Currently under simulated night conditions, they encountered only the occasional crewman.  A peculiar sight of Sune riding in a sling upon his back, did draw some curious looks. Fortunately, they did not encounter any brass officers, who alone might have had the—well, brass—to question this strange and completely irregular arrangement.  No one else made it their business.
         It took them only a couple of minutes to walk to the teleport site: an bay to the side of the corridor, where panels in the floor and ceiling provided access to the secret world of the station’s strange alien machinery.  These panels they did not remove yet.
         “This is it,” Ayumu breathed.  He unfastened the carrier and let Ennio climb out of it.  “If I may?” he asked.
         Ennio nodded, and for the second time the Teki lifted his friend in his arms.  This time it was tolerable for them both; this time they were working together.  He lifted his four-footed friend above his head, so that he was in easy reach of the ceiling panel.
         “I just want you to know, old friend,” Ayumu said, taking advantage of their last moment of peace, “that whatever happens… I’d travel with you to the ends of the universe and for ten thousand years, to help you save her.”
         The Sune’s eyes shone brightly.  After a moment, he said:
         “Hssh, Ehh ki chi.  Chrri hmma…”
         Thank you, [friend from the soul].  Always with you
         Ennio spoke into his wristcomm then.  “Verify point Two.”
         Moments later: “Clear, point Two.”
         “Standing by for teleport.”
         “We’ll see you soon, guys.” Keane replied.
         Keane took care of the rest.  The air around them shimmered, but it was they who were truly moving.  In the blink of an eye, that shimmer morphed into the slightly-different looking walls of “clear point Two”.  The middle ring of the station.
The sensors were right on top of this protocol breach, and they were howling their distress even before the two of them had fully materialized.
         As soon as he could move, Ayumu lifted Ennio up to the ceiling of this second bay.  The Sune used his nimble paws to pry the grate out of its slot, and pulled himself up into the duct.  His back end and bushy, auburn tail quickly vanished as he scurried along its length, moving parallel to the floor.
         Ayumu was aware of the shield immediately snapping to life around him.  The air took on a wavery, slightly tinged glow.  He stepped out of the bay, looked up and down the corridor.  Apparently he still had a few moments of peace.  It wouldn’t last long, though, and the battle would begin right on this spot.
         He ran, with no purpose except to create some distance.  The duffel slung tightly to his back, in place of Ennio now, he simply intended to run as far as he could before the firefight ensued.
         Moments later he heard distantly the whine of another ‘port.  He didn’t have to look back to know it was security, materializing on almost the very spot he’d arrived on.  There were shouts as the spotted him running, and their boots echoed on the floor behind him.  The chase was on.

>> 9


         Inside the security nerve center of the Horizon Point, the Teki Ayumu now had the starring role in the drama playing out.  There was no lack of footage; once the infiltrator had been located, the great many hidden cameras tracked his every move.  He appeared larger than life on the enormous display, beneath which a couple dozen officers worked in various roles.  The security complex, more casually known as ‘the cave’, was a hive of frenetic, but highly organized, activity.
         Infact the only people present who weren’t busy at some task or another, stood at the back of the cave, behind it all.  On a deck that ran the length of the room, standing perfectly still but for their roaming eyes, these two surveyed everything.
         “We’ll have him real soon,” said one of the two, a tall, older Teki with gaunt features and a head that was immaculately shaved, aside from a long black ponytail decorated with handwoven cloth, the crest of his family.  “He underestimated our response time to his jump.  We are, of course, already tracking him, and his freeze will not end for several minutes.”
         “His ‘freeze’?”  The other, also Teki but significantly younger, frowned.  “I’m not familiar with that term, Captain.”
         “Apologies, Your Honor.  It’s a casual name for the moratorium, the length of time after a teleport before the body can safely go through the process again.  Up here, with the singularity as an artificial origin, it takes a little longer than it does planetside.  These Tradders never seem to figure that out.”
         Up on the screen, he ran free, for the moment.  Other smaller screens, to either side, showed a long view of the corridor.  The sentries were coming into the scene, now, ‘porting in behind him.
         “He has nowhere to go,” the Captain informed his guest.  “Now they’ll stun him, and that will put a stop to this fool’s errand.”
         When he didn’t obey their orders to stop—these Tradders never did, but they always went down just the same—the sentries fired at him.  Their stun-level fire should have knocked him out, but every single shot ended short.  He ran on, unharmed, and now there could be seen an intermittent flickering of golden light behind the man.  This flared every time a shot came within a few feet.
         The orderly security center now exploded with chaos.  Voices rose from calm whispers to shouts.  At the back of the room,  the Captain’s guest now whirled on the older man.  “Captain Ancas!  What is this!  That man is using a shield…one of your own shields!”
         
          


>> 10


         “Enn! How long?” he shouted into his comm.
         The Sune hissed, breathing in sharply.  “Ow, don’t yell! Big ears, tiny spaces!”  A pause, then, “Give me…two minutes to get there, another three to set up.”
         Keane cut in.  “Your timing’s still good,” he told Ayumu.  “But you may want to slow down a bit—in case he has trouble setting up.  You can always go past the point and double back, if he needs more time, but you’ll be running straight into a lot of fire.”
         He spared a look back.  The sentries were still about sixty meters back down the sloping corridor.  Here, in the inner ring, the upward arch of the floor was more pronounced.  He was, really, running on the curved surface of the ring’s furthest wall, his head pointing towards the station’s gravitational center.  And by necessity, the gravity was also lighter, allowing him to sprint along the considerable incline with, literally, a little bounce in his step.
         For a long while, they were hesitant to fire.  Then several seconds of chase convinced them that he wasn’t a silly ensign who had forgotten the security strictures, and that he was running because he was a real, live bogey.  No doubt, the ever-present beauracracy also required them to get clearance to start shooting.  He imagined someone, someplace, hastily signing the paperwork with a quaint pen and paper.
         The first shots peppered his shield ineffectually.  When it was clear they couldn’t get through, the sentries ramped up their shots until the stun shots became lethal enough to be able to, potentially, spray him across the walls like meaty artwork.  He offered a prayer to his God and to the rather vague, nameless deity Sune believed in, just for good measure, that this shield would hold.
          “Shield strength at… ninety-three percent,” Keane informed him.  “Ni—ninety seven percent.”  He gave an easy laugh.  “They don’t have enough firepower—yet anyway.  The fresher generators are coming online as you run, restoring power faster than they can sap it.  This is very good.”
         Far down the corridor, he saw wink into existence another contingent of sentries.  Trying to barricade him, as expected.  Pretty quickly, someone got the word out that the bad guy had a shield, and the reinforcements hastily ported back out, as the shield would, in grisly fashion, enforce their right of way upon any living thing in its path.  Ironically, had they held their ground, Ayumu wasn’t sure he could have forced himself to plow through them.
         “Enn!  How’s it coming?”
         He waited for a response, as his shield again and again lit up with firecrackers.  “Ennio, come in.”
         Nothing.  In his mind’s eye, he thought of the Sune sticking the transmitter on the inside of the grate.  He wouldn’t risk a passerby hearing the voice from his wristcomm, he realized.  If it had occurred to him to do so—and it was a terrible oversight that neither of them had thought of this precaution—he would have turned it off for the moment.
         He hoped.
“Keane, can you see him?”
And, again, nothing.
“Keane?”

>> 11

“Hiya sugar!”
         Nira grinned.  Leaning easily against the wall, waiting for him, she aimed the laser pistol right between his eyes as he came into sight.  The Sune blinked. He found himself staring at the barrel of a gun, and a pair of malicious vulino eyes. 
         “You look surprised!”
         He didn’t bother to reply.  Merely stared at her.  She realized that he was going to wait there, hunkered in the duct, until she forced him to do something.  He couldn’t duck back into the grate, because all she had to do squeeze off a few shots at the narrow duct to easily pick him off.
         He could, of course, have been aiming a weapon at her from within the duct—except  she already knew that he wasn’t hadn’t gone into the duct armed and almost certainly wasn’t now.
         “That’s right, we know what Keane is up to,” she lied. “So go on, pull that grate off just like you did the last time, and come on down.  Nice and slow.”
He knew that he was beaten.  He pushed the grate out of its slot, then crawled over and past it for a moment (if his tail disappeared from sight, Nira was already aiming at where she figured his head would be), so that he could drop down rightside up.  He landed with an undignified plop on the carpet below, tried to stand tall to face her…and then wobbled and fell over and landed on his backside.
         She laughed and mocked him.  “How adorable!  Are you the best Keane could come up with?”  Oh, how she wanted to wring all the details out of him on the spot, and find out what grand scheme the major was working at.  Was he trying some kind of half-assed takeover of the whole station?  Perhaps he had someone he wanted to take out of the picture?  A Sune in his power had enemies as well as obstacles, but that sort of ambition was more her style, not what she would expect of Keane.
          “Up.”  She waved the pistol.  “I want first crack at you. I’ll pry every last bit of information from you, then I’ll turn over what’s left of you over to the big boys.”
She motioned with the pistol for him to step out of the bay.  “You’re going straight to Nira’s interrogation chamber.  Lucky for you, it happens to be a short walk.”
Finally breaking his silence, Ennio hissed,  “You don’t want to stand in my way.”
“Don’t I, now?”  she said.  “Could be that I know more than you realize.  Now shut it and walk.”
         “You use your ignorance as a shield,” he said.  He glared daggers at her, and his words were ice.  “A shield that keeps you powerless, while others use you.”
         “Mmm… such arresting words.  But no one controls me, although I may serve others at times to make my own way.  Nira has her own agenda, darling, and right now you are a pretty pawn for my game.  On with it.”
         “If I don’t?”  he said.  “If I make a run for it?  Are you going to shoot me in plain sight?  There will at least be a few witnesses to see it.”
Now he was just stalling.  She rolled her eyes.  “Silly boy.”  She aimed the pistol.  “Stand still now.  I’ll have to blast a leg off, and make as if I’m taking you to the infirmary. Don’t say I didn’t give you a choice.”
         Before she could shoot, he spit at her.  She didn’t flinch, her reactions disciplined against such potential distractions.  The projectile never hit her, but instead encountered a suddenly visible wall of sizzling light which annihilated it.
         Alarmed, she lowered her gun and looked about her. She retrained the gun, at his head this time, and fired.  She already knew it was useless, or she wouldn’t have risked killing her prize.  The shield absorbed her shot, flared angrily, and then returned to a state of invisibility.
           “What is this!” she howled.  She narrowed her eyes, then looked pointedly to the seam where wall and ceiling met, knowing he would be watching.  “Second-dweller!! I’ll find you, throw you out an airlock, and watch your eyes explode! You hear me Keane?!”
         She tried again and again to blast Ennio, who to his credit just smiled.  Not even close enough for her to read out and claw that self-satisfied look off his face.
         But she could.  Oh yes.  This was Nira’s playground and she knew the rules.
         She stepped forward, into the bay.  Though the shield—by design—stopped moving ahead of her and created a barrier that blocked her from the ‘port area,  she stepped close enough to force Ennio back against the wall.  Very slowly, she inched the laser pistol through the barrier.  Its edges melted and charred slightly, but for the moment it allowed the hollow length of the barrel to become a channel through which she could deliver his death to him.
         “Turn if off now!” Nira yelled.  Not at the Sune she had the pistol trained on, but at the unseen mastermind at the controls.  “Keane, I’ll kill him if you don’t and karma be your own for it!”
         This Sune spy wasn’t smiling now, she noticed.  The barrel stuck right between his wide-eyed gaze could very well be the last thing he ever saw.  If Keane didn’t shut off that shield in the next few seconds, as she demanded, then it would be.
         “Let him be, Nira,” said a voice.
         She turned her head, but did not take the pistol from the Sune’s head.
         “Scheda?”  The captain stared up at her friend, shocked.  “I told you to wait there—what do you mean...let him be?”  she said, a trace of danger creeping into her voice.
          “I mean what I said.  Let him be, and forget you ever saw him.”
         “He’s an infiltrator,” she argued, ”and probably a saboteur.  And a Traddie, I’ll bet.  He’s Keane’s downfall!  Why should we—“
         She stopped short as her friend, or the closest person she had to a friend in this place, raised her own pistol and pointed it at her.
         “We traditionalists will still have our birthright when you heathens are but ashes,” she spat.  “It’s true, we can’t stop you from abandoning Seiyu and allowing her spirit to became soulless space dust, but you will take none of our world with you when you go.”
         “You’re one of them!” she screamed.  “All this time…”
         It had been a very long while since she, Nira, had felt true hurt that she might have believed herself immune to it.  “You were my friend,” she said, weakly, hopelessly.
         “Seiyu is my only friend.  I will do you the honor of returning you to her, and then maybe in some future…we will see.”
         She raised no hands to defend herself.  Scheda, her true self revealed, shot her one-time mentor without so much as flinching.  Nira went down in a heap, dead instantly from the high-power laser burst.
         Once Nira died, the shield fell.  Ennio sprang forward.  He grabbed what could be his only source of salvation—the charred pistol still in Nira’s grasp.  He had it, and pointed it at the newcomer, before Scheda had time to turn on him.
         “I should thank you for saving my life,” he said to her, “but somehow I doubt that you came here just to rescue me.”  He slowly backed up, keeping her in his sights.  To wield the pistol, he had to walk on two’s, and he was very, very careful not to show how unsteady he still was.
         “I’m no Traddie,” he continued, “So to you I’m either an enemy, or a pawn.  I haven’t got time to be either.  If you follow me…I will kill you.”
Before had even finished this warning, she unexpectedly turned and walked away.  No explanation, no demands.  He watched her go, sensing something amiss, until she disappeared into the next ‘port bay.
         This disturbed him.  Who was she?
         Right now, he didn’t have time to worry about it, because he had drawn some unfortunate attention.  Until now, the few distant witnesses had only stared and talked amongst themselves, but in any moment security would appear, likely right beside him.
         He stepped back into the ‘port bay.  “Time to get out of here,” he said into the wristcomm.
         Keane worked fast.  Within moments, Ennio felt his body beginning to tingle, and as soon as the sensation had begun, his surroundings changed slightly, replaced by the similar walls of the Third ring.
         Don’t have long!  He was springing to action just as soon as he could move.  He pried the grate loose from the floor, almost flinging it away before he remembered that he would need to replace it.  He crawled down into the tunnel, pulling the grate shut behind him.
         Keane said nothing, although Ennio knew the link was open, could hear the tapping of his feet on the computers, the low hum of machinery in another place.  He wouldn’t say anything until they were out of earshot from anyone ‘porting in above.
When he had run a good distance through the tunnel, he hissed into his comm.
         “Keane!  Where’s the big guy!”
         The third point of their link came alive, revealing the sound of a buzzing shield, and the brief high-pitched whines of laser rounds being shot “I’m here.  But less talk, more getting me out of here!”
         “Your shield’s at thirty-five percent,” said Keane. “You’re still okay.”
         Somewhere up there, Ayumu was holding his ground, taking a lot of fire while standing at the point Keane had marked.  The shield ought to hold for several minutes yet, even if he stayed in one place, but Ennio ran as fast as he could.
         “I saw the whole thing, En.  You’re very lucky that she showed up—we didn’t have any way to get to you.”
         Of course.  While he was sitting in the bay there, he would block anyone from ‘porting onto that spot.  He hadn’t realized that while at the barrel of her gun.  Not that there was anywhere he could have gone.  He did owe that Traddie his life.  But what was her angle, why had she interfered?  Loose ends didn’t do when you were trying to effect the takeover over a heavily guarded space ship.
         “I’m keeping watch on her,” Keane said.  “These traddies are up to something today. We’ve already had one incident, before you arrived.  I can’t imagine why she would involve herself with our plans, though.  That… worries me.”
Ennio followed the tunnel past its many intersections, all of which led deep into the complex mechanical works of the station.  Somewhere in that steel jungle, Keane was directing this whole affair.  He didn’t need to navigate that maze, navigating the slowly up-curving tunnel until he reached the next grate.
         A few feet from it, Ennio shrugged off the small knapsack.  In the tight space, he had to pull it over his head and then wriggle backwards awkwardly until he had pulled it loose.  He took out the various separated pieces of the receiver unit.  The practice he’d put in before coming to the station paid off—he put it together in less than a minute.
         “Am I clear?”  On the other end, Keane checked to see if anyone in the corridor was about to pass through this bay.  As soon as he confirmed that it was, Ennio pushed the grate away and hauled the spindly contraption out into the open.  He made sure to close the grate again, so Ayumu wouldn’t materialize with one leg in the hole.
         He peeked his head around the corner, into the long hallway.  About fifty feet away, a pair of tecchies were working but otherwise, this area was still in the dead of night and nearly a ghost town.  It wouldn’t be for long, the Sune thought, smiling a bit.  This would be a firefight of the kind that made legends.
         With the receiver unit set in the middle of the floor, Ennio gave the ready signal.  Somewhere on the station, the carefully hidden singularity—a smaller twin of the celestial body at the station’s center—triangulated Ayumu’s signal.  Also somewhere, a cadre of heavily armed sentries waited at the ‘port bay where he should have appeared, but wouldn’t.
         And no sooner did Ayumu shimmer into existence here, than the stations’s sensors discovered this latest offense and again went off.
No rest for the weary.

>> 12

         Keep alive.
         Just alive.
         All the station’s forces on them like hounds.  The stakes were set, the rules laid bare.  It was clear to all what game these two were playing.  Here in the station’s inner ring, dozens of powerful Armada ships were docked.  All of them, bristling with armed, dedication guardians.  Save for one.
         “I hope you’ve got that taken care of!”  Ayumu raised his arm and shouted into the wristcomm.  All around them, the shield was constantly buzzing now as it took continual fire.  “I don’t want to see a welcoming committee!”
         “It’s up,” he replied, reassuring them.  Their one means of escape was, thus far, all theirs.  “But hurry!  They know what we’re up to—they’re trying to take out the shield generators for it!”
         “How long!” Ayumu ran on, straight ahead.  He didn’t look behind.  Didn’t need to.  Ennio had his back.
         “Four minutes…if they don’t decide to make that their priority instead of you.”
         And they would.  Their element of surprise was gone now, their destination obvious, and the it was a firefight all the way to the end.
         Can’t move…
         Riding on his back, Ennio fired shot after shot into their wake.  Because of him, they were taking far less heat from behind than in the front.  Unfortunately, the sentries had learned that the infiltrators’ fire was only stunning their people, and they were becomingly increasingly brave.
         They, of course, weren’t shooting to stun.  Each shot that came at them was maximum power.  Strong enough that it would vaporize them, if anything got through the shield.  Ennio’s heart pounded as the shield took an unending barrage of fire.  He expected at any moment for the barrier to fail.  Those searing bolts would turn him into steam in an instant, and his existence would end before he knew the thing had gone down. It held, though…for now.
         All her feeling leaving now…trapped in a dead body…
         “Can’t those long legs go any faster?”  the Sune yelled.  Even behind Ayumu’s head, he had to raise his voice to be heard above all the noise.  “They’re getting…awfully cheeky…back here!”
         “If you gotta, take some out…!”  Ayumu shouted back.
         He knew what he meant.  But he wasn’t sure he could do it.  This thing had never been about killing anyone… He looked at the rifle in his hands, could have switched the power to a killing level, so easily.
         In the other half of his mind, where horror battered his sanity, there smoldered a murderous rage…oh he wanted to cut out this bullshit and just mow down these sons of bitches standing in his way!  It would only take a few, blasted into vapor, to make them back off again.
         What would you do?  This thought he cast into the void.  Nothing came back, no coherent thought.  Nothing had…for some time now. Only…the pain…and the sense of slipping away.
         What have they done to you…
         The silence, now, was as devastating as the pain he had felt from her.  Of this change, he had not spoken to Ayumu, afraid of the conclusion he would make.  It would be wrong—in his heart he was certain of this—because she was still alive, out there.  He hadn’t felt her go, or he would have been unable to hide it.
         No, it was worse…he had felt her disappearing.  One shred after another, he felt his dear one going dark, as if something were turning out the lights in her mind and her soul.  Extinguishing her, a piece at a time.  The space left behind…it wasn’t empty, either, oh no…what grew up in her place, this touch of cold, icy breath…it would kill him to touch it.
         And so his return to this world wasn’t wholly by his own effort.  But he was here…he was alive… he would never stop until he found her, because she lived yet.  And so, he would not kill, for she wouldn’t want  that.
         “Get out of our waaaay!!”  Ayumu howled.  Ennio twisted himself around, briefly taking his eyes off their pursuer to look in front of them..  Further up the corridor, a line of blue-uniformed sentries stood in a line, half with their backs turned away, half facing Ayumu and himself.  Those who were turned away were firing continually at the shield, trying to bring it down.  The others provided cover.  They were exposed, though, and Ayumu had an easy time picking them off.
         When every last one of them had been stunned, Keane dropped the shield that blocked the corridor.
         “We’re in the clear!”  Ayumu shouted.  There was no one left between them and their very own Gaisuto-powered Armada ship.  It was abandoned, unguarded, and they had only to bound up the umbilical ramp, power her up, and be safely away.
         My god, thought Ennio.  We’re going to do it.  He hadn’t fully realized, until this moment, that part of him had never really expected them to make it.  Part of him had been ready to give his life—but they were going to get on that ship, and go find Snow. 
         It was so perfect, it could have been a dream.
         Will you be there when I wake up?
         
         
>> 13

         
         Keep alive.
         With his friend’s long-ago words in his head, Keane guided them down the final stretch.  Got to keep alive, til it’s your time.
         Used to think he meant keep alive til it’s time to die, he thought.  Now he realized he knew better.
         This is our time.
         “Shield’s down!” he cheered.  “You’re home free, boys!”
         On the screen, Ayumu sprinted the last hundred yards to the airlock.  They had done it.  Now, getting the ship away would be maybe the easiest part.  Displays showed the uplinks to every other vessel docked that sported any weapons.  Every one of them was powered down.  No one would follow them.
         One screen didn’t show the chase, or controls for the sleeping ships.  This last one showed an empty ‘port bay.  Here, a floor grate lay cast aside, exposing a shaft leading down into the maintenance tunnels. The one who’d removed it, had vanished into the tunnels several minutes ago, going where Keane’s camera network did not extend.
         “Come on!  You’ve got time to make it!”  Ennio shouted over the link.
         Close…in a few seconds, they would turn off into the umbilical that connected the ship.  He had only to erect the shield at the airlock’s door, and they would be safely away. It would also keep him out of the ship, unfortunately.
         “I can’t do that,” he said.  He saw Ayumu slow, hesitating.
         Please don’t turn back, he begged, silently.  If they hesitated to go without him…they might lose all. 
           “Don’t worry…I’ll find you guys, wherever you should go.”
         To his relief, Ayumu went on.  He disappeared into the airlock and the tunnel.  Keane didn’t think he believed that lie, not one bit—no one would follow them, that was the point—so he knew that he was leaving his friend, perhaps forever.
         Maybe I can’t follow you, he thought.  But no one will stop me from trying.
         Keane began to key in the code for the shield.  He didn’t stop, even as he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye.  There was, simply, nothing he could do about it.
         He died without ever knowing if he’d finished this final task.


>> 14

         Ayumu howled in pain, and tumbled to the floor.
         Ennio’s warning shout was too late.  By the time it was out of his mouth, the laser bolt had seared Ayumu’s foot.  Falling down actually saved both of their lives, as a hail of fire streaked through the spot where they had just been.
         Ennio, on his back still, had only to sit up in the harness to return fire.  Laying on the ground, they suddenly made for a hard target.  Two helmeted heads poked around the corner of the airlock, popping off shots before ducking back again.
         “Stay still!”  Ennio yelped, once Ayumu tried to get up.  Firing rapidly, he made a lucky guess when one of the guards would peep around the corner again, and that one went down
         “Keane!” Ayumu called.  “Keane come in!  Where the hell is that shield!”
         “Got him!” Ennio crowed.  “That’s it—for now!  Get up and let’s go, fast!”
         He did get up, but Ennio suddenly felt himself falling and then he bounced roughly upon the floor.  Ayumu had thrown the harness off, with him in it, and stood now with his back to him.
         “Get it ready to go!” he shouted.  “I’ll hold them off!”
         “No! We can make it, come on!”
         Ayumu ran to the end of the umbilical, where the two stunned guards lay sprawled, and peeked around the corner. “If they put a hole in that door, we’re done!”  Ayumu snarled.  “Now get going!”  He ducked back, waited a second, then curled around the corner again and squeezed off a shot.  Ennio wriggled out of the harness and ran the rest of the way.
         “Keane come in, damn you!”  He heard Ayumu shouting.  Inside the ship, he kept the door open, went to the controls, and worked as fast as he ever had in his life.  The clamps he disengaged manually, and the ship floated on its tether.  He felt the vessel drift a bit, then suddenly give a jerk as the tether reached its length and inertia snapped them back.  That wasn’t what it was intended for, and somewhere, steel cables groaned under stress.
         “Ayumu!”  He could see him partially, at the end of the now-curving umbilical, still holding off the airlock.  “Ayumu, come on!”
         “There’s too many!” he shouted back.  Streaks of red laser fire zipped past the mouth of the tunnel like sideways rain.  He couldn’t even get time to duck around the corner and get off a shot.
         “Run for it!”  Ennio howled.  His heart hammered in his chest.  He felt things slipping away, going wrong… “Now! You can do it!”  he urged his friend.
         For a moment, Ayumu turned to look back at him.  After what seemed like an eternity of silence, he called back:
         “Remember...ten thousand years!”
         To the ends of the universe.
         In the space of a heartbeat, Ayumu flung himself out into the open.  There was no time for suspense, no time for shock; he got off a couple shots before he was pulverized.  Just like that he was gone.  The afterimage burned into his eyes, Ennio saw his shape there, in a lingering ghostly miasma, in the space where his dearest friend had been.
         The time bought with his sacrifice would be mere seconds, and if he’d sat and stared in shock, or taken an instant to grieve, that sacrifice would have been wasted.  Somehow, some way, Ennio found the presence of mind to command the doors shut.
         In another instant they would be firing on that door—unshielded, unprotected, they could burn a hole right through.  Without time for thought, Ennio kicked the ship into sudden acceleration, without direction, just thrusting away from the station.  Half a second after the engine kicked in, there was a hard snap; the umbilical breaking free.
         Blindly, he sped the ship away.  He didn’t take the time to set a course, check his path, or do anything except put distance between him and the station.  Had Keane taken the other ships out of commission, even?  There was nothing that could be done—if he hadn’t, then this ship would soon be annihilated.
         Long moments passed, and he survived.  Now he activated the peripheral screens, and set them to bear on the station as it moved away.  The other ships remained motionless, paralyzed, though no doubt within those hulls, crews ran about frantically, trying to take to pursuit of him.
         Like the gap from a lost tooth, there was an empty space between the row of ships.  Where this one had been docked, the loose umbilical floated in the zero-gee.  Alarmingly, a crescent of light showed through the open tube at the other end, where the station corridor lay open to the vacuum.  Already, a cloud of debris had accumulated at the terminus of the severed cord.  Debris… he realized that it was not simply debris but bodies.  The dead bodies of many who had been sucked out into the void when the ship tore loose.
         I killed them.
         This thought had barely time to surface, before the ship suddenly went wild.



>> 15

         With some effort, she dragged Keane’s limp body out of the way.
         Certainly, it would have been easier to blast him into atoms.  Instead, she had merely stunned him.  He would be out until her job was done. And there would be no waking after that.
         She lifted his head in her paws.  “There was a time when I idolized you, Keane.  Back in the days when you believed in something.”
Hard to believe, that this was the same enigmatic Sune who had stirred such a passion in so many, including herself.  Once she had believed, in those younger, brighter days, that he would move the world. 
“When did you lose that fire?”
         He didn’t, of course, give her an answer, this almost mythical figure from years past, reduced now to a bothersome obstacle to the course of the greater good.  For her it was only another reminder of how the Gaisuto presence corrupted all that was good and beautiful. 
The clock has to be set back, before all Seiyu withers away.
She settled in between the rather ingenious arrangement of terminals.  It was time to set things right. When her sacrifice was made, when this unfortunately necessary deed was done, their world would be safe once more.
“I left you alive,” she spoke softly to the unconscious Sune nearby, “because I hoped somehow you might see.  Whatever power may judge me when this is done…it would mean more to me if you—you, of all people—could understand.”
         Concentrating on the task at hand, she saw that all of his uplinks were still active.  It was a marvelous piece of work.  As one of the highest ranking officers on Horizon Point, he possessed the override codes to each and every ship which docked at the station.  Wresting these codes from an unwilling captive would have taken great time and effort; by an unbelievable fortune—or the hand of a greater power—she had now complete control over these ships, to do with as she must.
          She watched on one screen, as his two accomplices disappeared into the umbilical.  They would be good to go from there.  Regrettably, she had stunned Keane a tad early, before those two were securely aboard the ship.  Well, if they did not make it, her plans would not suffer terribly.  She turned her attention elsewhere, and did not bother to watch how that turned out.
         One by one, she powered up the previously dormant ships.  Most of them were crewed, and thus frantically trying to restore power.  There would be a moment of relief when power was restored…before they discovered they’d been hijacked again.
         Presently, the stolen ship tore away from the station.  This happened faster than she expected. From the exterior view she saw how it ripped free of the umbilical.  There came a subtle shiver in the deck beneath her, as somewhere not too far away, the station responded to an atmospheric breach.
         There would be much more breaching soon.
         She cast off all of her hijacked ships in much the same way.  All at once, they kicked away from the station, tearing free of their moorings.  Now the deck more than shivered; all the world around her quaked, and the floor seemed to tilt beneath her, as the gravity went momentarily askew.  Fortunately it wasn’t enough to hinder her, or else a couple dozen traumatic breaches would be the worst the station suffered on this day. 
She had grander ideas. 
Once gravity reasserted itself, she began her final act.
         By now, everyone would be aware that the ships were being manipulated.  She could almost hear their collective gasp, when those ships as one turned and trained their weapons on the station.
         There was time to regret the loss of life that would follow.  If there had been a way to force everyone to evacuate, and spare each and every life aboard this station except her own, she would have fought for that chance.  But it wasn’t possible.  Her power was absolute, but precarious; given any time at all, the crews would disable their weapons, reinforcements would arrive, her command center here would soon be sought out. 
No, she did not seek to give death, but life. And by her regret, she could feel confident that these things she did now, she did not do out of madness.
         Regret…
         At the unconscious but still breathing Keane, she looked now, considering…
         
>>16

         This was never about killing!
         But his howls of despair echoed throughout this empty ship, and did not reach the ears of the one who was doing this.  He could only watch, as thirty-some armed vessels, including his own, turned and proclaimed their unmistakable intention to the hapless station.
         There could be no doubt that Keane was no longer in control down there.  And I know who is, he thought sullenly.  Too late, the pieces all fit together to form a clear picture; the only question was, would she go so far as to destroy the Horizon Point, with all aboard?
         He tried Keane’s link again. At least answer me, he thought, so I will know that it was you. 
         He wanted to see her one last time, to burn the image of that terrible face into his memory forever.  He would damn her with every curse he knew, and hope for some of them to entwine with her eternal karma.
         The waiting was torture.  For long minutes after the ships had taken up their positions, nothing more happened.  It was almost enough for him to hope she was attempting to negotiate.
         Perhaps she would give the people of Horizon Point a chance to leave with their lives. That seemed very possible, even if ultimately nothing less than the station’s destruction would satisfy her.
         How can you even envision such a thing… he wanted to scream at her.  You are a monster!  There can be no justification for what you’re going to do.
         After some time, the view began to change.  He checked—no, the other ships were holding position, it was he who was moving.  Strangely, he was moving away, out of the doomsday line that encircled the station.
         What is she up to?  Out of his control, the ship moved under her command.  He fought to try and see the answer to this puzzle, hoping to find a way before it was too late—
         Then, the ships opened fire.  Every single one of them.  And he saw, briefly, the bright trace of fire lancing from his own ship, before it joined the rest, striking the Horizon Point.
         The station held up to the first salvo.  The outside ring took some of the hit, deflecting a good deal of the assault from the vulnerable inner core.  As a result, the ring broke free of core’s gravitational grip.  One end tilted downward, and it began to drift.  Within seconds, the upended side of the ring collided with the inner ring, and a new series of explosions bloomed forth.
         A second volley.  This time, more of the shots hit the core.  The steel exterior first glowed, and then cracked.  What would happen, when the powerful singularity at its center, the black hole which at the heart of the space station, was destabilized? He watched this unfold and was helpless. His claws dug grooves into the utterly useless control board.
         There was a momentary glimpse of light flashing through the broken sphere, and then—
         He went blind.
         Something slammed into him. The walls, the floor, up and down were reversed and he tumbled wildly.  He socked his head on this surface and that.  Somehow he did not lose consciousness.  All around him, grinding, groaning, shuddering, his body slamming into chairs, consoles, walls.  He could see nothing, only a blinding white light.
         Distantly he heard the straining whine of the engines, mounting continually, until they were a shriek.  At some point, the violent tumbling stopped, but he was almost beyond feeling by then.  Horribly bruised, many of his bones surely broken, he could only lay there and wait for the end that must come soon.
         But…it did not…