Into the Light by Jane Wallace

Zendra was standing in the middle of the room circled by six armed sturmgangers. Her face crumpled when she saw Lauden and his two female companions, Agents Anden and Patria, shoved through the door.

’You too?’ she said as the new prisoners joined her.

‘Caught us on the way out,’ said Lauden. ‘Y’alright?’

She nodded.

‘What about the others?’

‘Dead.’

‘Gods above.’ He looked around them. They were in an unused office. The desk against the wall was empty, the shutters on the windows closed and the bookshelves bare.

‘Silence!’ ordered the lead sturmganger. ‘Silence for Hauptleiter Skulldur.’

A burly Gharst of about fifty swept into the room, the navy-blue cloak of his rank skimming the floor as he walked to within a stride of the Special Ops team. He had deep-set eyes which scanned them briefly from under an overhanging brow. He seemed like a man in a hurry with more important matters to attend to than prisoner interrogation.

‘There have been explosions around the North and South Field buildings,’ he stated in accent-free Standard. ‘That is your doing, yes?’

They said nothing, avoiding eye contact.

‘I want to know what else you have been doing here,’ said Skulldur. He moved closer to Anden, grabbed her short blond hair and wrenched her head back. ‘What other bombs are there?’ he said into her face. She kept quiet until he stamped a heavy boot on to her foot and she groaned.

Letting her drop, Skulldur directed a question in Gharst at the lead sturmganger who replied defensively. Skulldur interrupted him with another order. The sturmganger snapped at his underlings and three leapt forward to search the prisoners.

‘I thought you did this already,’ said Zendra.

Skulldur ignored her, watching two guards rifle through the back-packs, pulling out pieces of trike which they examined then threw aside. The last patted down each agent for hidden weapons.

‘We have located and deactivated the rest of the zentrite explosives,’ he said finally. ‘The damage will be contained.’ His gaze dropped to Lauden’s hip pouch from where the sturmganger was drawing a bright orange cord.

Skulldur’s face blanched. He turned to the lead sturmganger, who bowed his head low, and unleashed a torrent of angry Gharst. Then he returned to Lauden. ‘Did they give you the halt code for the Scorpion?’ Lauden kept his face straight and Skulldur sighed. ‘Of course not, by emergency call only. The Coalition are so predictable.’ Spotting Lauden’s timepiece, he grabbed the big man’s wrist to check the display.

‘Fifty minutes to go,’ said Skulldur, letting Lauden’s arm fall like a stone. He crossed over to the door where there was a comms handset hanging from the wall. He spoke urgently into it in Gharst with the odd word in Standard such as ‘drone’ and ‘disposal’. A siren started up, a pattern of three long tones then a short one, the universal signal for evacuation.

The sturmgangers shuffled nervously at the alarm, wanting to leave. They had to wait while Skulldur made another call.’Geherne me Professor Xin.’ He tapped his foot while the relevant person was located. ‘Prepare Infinity for launch,’ he said. ‘Yes, I said launch.’ A seam formed in his craggy forehead as the person on the other side protested. ‘It is ready enough. I will not leave it here to be destroyed. What? Three hours - that is not possible. You have thirty minutes!’ He slammed the handset back into its niche and returned to his spot in front of Zendra and Lauden.

’You appear to be in command,’ he told Zendra. ’You will come with us for the further questioning. Bringe morka til upscenden platz.’ He cast a casual eye over Lauden, who was in fact the superior officer but under Coalition protocol could not offer that information. ‘You will stay here and die,’ he said. ’Binde dem faste.’

He executed an about-turn and was gone in a single swish of cape. Two sturmgangers seized Zendra and hustled her towards the exit, the rest of the guards following.

‘Hey, leave her alone!’ Lauden said, stepping forward then retreating as the last sturmganger showed him the business end of his blaster.

‘I’ll be back for you, don’t worry,’ Zendra called as they bundled her outside, slamming the door shut behind them. The lock turned with a convincing thunk and Bravo group were left alone.

Lauden massaged the back of his neck, aware that Anden and Patria were staring at him expectantly. ‘Aw, c’mon ladies, ain’t you always wanted to be locked in a confined space with ol’ Jes?’ He chuckled to himself as he walked towards the door and tried the handle. It was a drop-hatch fiveway – tricky, but nothing he hadn’t tackled before.

He met the stern gazes of the women and sighed. ‘You don’t wanna stick around? You sure do surprise me. I guess we better see about getting outta here then.’

κ

As the Gharst national anthem resumed, Reverre shut the intercom with a flourish.

‘I don’t understand,’ Brodie said. ‘We were winning back lost territory. It was starting to come together.’

’Negotiations were ongoing at a higher level than yours, Brodie,’ said Reverre, deliberating dropping Brodie’s title. ‘Something the matter, Tem? You look a little – surprised, shall we say?’

For the second time in his life, Sevin felt his entire world had been cut away from him in a single stroke. Surrender to the Gharst? Give in to the enemy against whom he had been fighting an official battle for ten years and a personal one for much longer? It was unthinkable. He watched Reverre numbly.

’Let me explain. There Has Been A Change In Management,’ Reverre spelled out. ’You gentlemen are part of the old guard and must be, hmm, “redeployed” I think is the word. I am part of the new regime which has entrusted me with the remainder of this execrable fleet, including Vigilant and Vengeance when they get here. Therefore you, and the entire crew, will obey my orders from now on.’

Sevin finally understood the communication between Raveneye and Magus.

‘This is it, this is your “prize” to take when the True Light shines?’ he said. ‘You sold us out for a fleet command?’

Reverre’s eyebrows lifted. ‘So it was you snooping through my platform. You and that half-wit sergeant of yours, I presume. Took your time, didn’t you? The most amateur hacker could have breached the security in hours, not weeks.’

‘You traitorous dog!’ blustered Brodie. ‘How many died at Oraman Bay because of you?’

‘That had nothing to do with me. Although I was primed to surrender the ships, until our little major here started throwing those scoops around.’

‘You sent Special Ops to the wrong loco. It was a death trap!’

’Yes. Although obviously they didn’t think you were much of a threat otherwise they would have left more than a complement of tinnies to engage you.’ He pointed the gun at Sevin. ’Enough talk. Both of you will accompany me to the bridge, where Brodie will inform the crew of the change in status quo and we can get underway for the Rikke system.’

‘Damned if I will,’ said Brodie, settling further into his seat.

’You will do as I say!’ Reverre lifted the rackarmen and fired a single pulse which scored across Brodie’s shoulder. The older man yelped and clapped a hand to the wound.

‘No,’ said Sevin. He left Brodie’s side and walked around the table to stop a metre away from Reverre. ‘If you want control of this ship, you’ll have to kill me first.’

‘I will if I have to.’

Sevin came closer, stopping when the barrel of the gun rested in his rib cage. ‘Go on then. Pull the trigger.’

‘Don’t make me.’

Sevin smiled and pulled back. ‘You won’t do it, I know you won’t. You could have killed Brodie then, but you didn’t. Why not?’

‘I missed.’

‘You didn’t kill him because we are worth more to you alive than dead. Part of the deal, isn’t it? Your orders are to hand over the ship and the personnel intact.’

‘You’re about to find out, Sevin, how very wrong …’ His head spun round to the autodoors as they unexpectedly drew apart.

Command Sergeant Major Hauki was on the doorstep. ‘Fleet Commander? Sorry to intrude,’ she said, entering the room, ‘but nobody knows what to do about the surrender …You’re hurt?’ Then she spotted the rackarmen centimetres from Sevin’s chest. ‘Oh my gods!’

Taking advantage of the distraction, Sevin brought his left arm up to knock the gun from Reverre’s hand. It flew across the room and landed near Hauki’s feet. ‘Get it,’ he yelled at her, driving his fist into the bridge of Reverre’s nose. The punch hurt Sevin more than Reverre: the colonel’s head was like a block of stone, withstanding the force without a tremor. Reverre returned the blow with a bruising uppercut to Sevin’s jaw when there was a ‘Stop it, both of you!’

Reluctantly they turned in the speaker’s direction. Hauki had the rackarmen aimed at them.

‘He’s a collaborator. He’s sold us out to the Gharst!’ said Sevin.

‘Major Sevin has the wrong information,’ Reverre smiled like an indulgent father. ‘If you value your position, Command Sergeant Major, you will not get involved in this charade.’

Hauki’s chin lifted. ‘If you valued yours, Colonel, you would not need threats to keep it.’ She turned to Sevin. ‘Leave the room please, Major, and you Fleet Commander.’ She focused on Reverre. ‘You can stay here until we get orders on what to do with you.’

She made sure Sevin and Brodie had exited before she backed out of the room herself, flipping the autodoors to shut. Through the closing gap she saw Reverre spring towards the entrance so she shot out the control panel, securing him inside. A loud hammering and shouting started from within. A couple of passing technicians looked at them oddly but veered away when they saw the gun.

‘That won’t hold him for long,’ she said.

‘Long enough for us to get to the shuttle bay. Come on!’

She hesitated, watching Brodie hurrying down the corridor in the direction of sick bay. When she turned back, she saw Sevin had taken off in the opposite direction.

‘Sevin, wait!’ Hauki jogged after him. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Reverre’s a major player in the surrender campaign.’

‘He is?’

‘He’s been feeding them information all along. The deal is that if he hands us over in one piece, he gets a nice position in the new order.’

‘My gods!’

‘Right. So we need to get Lauden and Zendra out of play now.’

‘How?’

‘A one-man rescue operation, by the look of it.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Good.’

A shout made them look round. Reverre, accompanied by two Ground Force in combat gear, were a hundred metres behind.

‘He’s out already?’ said Hauki, dodging the scar which suddenly gouged in the flooring by her feet. She made to return fire but Sevin grabbed her arm.

‘Someone must have helped him. C’mon!’

Another shot crackled past their ears. They turned as one and belted down the gangway, pushing confused crew aside to get to the stairwell. A cleaner morph stood back to let them pass, clutching its optivac to its chest and staring after them as they rattled down the steps.

Down and down and round and round they sped to Level 2 which gave access to Vehement’s wings and the shuttle bays. Hauki and Sevin fled down the right-angled joins of the stairs, their feet barely touching the ground as their pursuers leant over the banisters above and fired off random shots. Sevin shouted incoherently into his digi as they went, trying to persuade the shuttle crew to prepare a vessel. ‘Major Sevin … authorisation enough!’ Hauki heard him yell as they reached the second floor landing. They charged through the autodoors into the wide thoroughfare that reached all the way to the tip of the port wing. Avoiding a lifter carrying a heavy load of bales, they hurtled past the double-sealed doors of the engine rooms on their left and arrived at the doors of the shuttle bay. Sevin yanked down the access bar and the metallic shuttering heaved open to admit them into the warm and dim-lit cavity. On the central launch pad sat a hopper, its engine ticking over, ready to go.

Sevin took a hasty look behind them to see Reverre and his greensuits penetrating the autodoors. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said, acknowledging the technician in orange hi-vis who was waving from the hopper’s tail-fin. They ran to the pad and boarded the craft. Sevin took the pilot’s seat and began flicking the switches on the cabin roof.

‘You can fly these, can you?’ said Hauki, strapping on the co-pilot’s headgear. The hopper’s engine was making an unnerving wak-wak sound as it revved up to full power in preparation for lift-off.

‘Triple stripe licence,’ said Sevin, checking the displays and instruments.

‘Nebula 5, you are cleared for launch,’ droned the female voice of Traffic Control through their earpieces. Above them, the plates of the hangar portal began to scrape backwards, activating an invisible membrane of energy which served as the barrier between themselves and space. There was a sizzling from the nose of the hopper as an unidentified force skipped over it. Reverre was standing inside the bay doors and seemed to be shouting at the operatives while his arms flailed madly. In front of him, the two greensuits took aim at the hopper.

‘They can’t do anything now,’ said Sevin, switching the controls to manual.

‘They’re doing something,’ said Hauki. Reverre had let his rifle drop and was looking upwards with a satisfied smile. She followed his line of vision and saw that the hangar portal had reversed direction. ‘He’s got them to shut the hatch!’

‘Lift off is aborted. I repeat, lift-off is aborted. Nebula 5 must return to pre-launch setting,’ intoned Traffic Control.

Sevin looked up at the portal. It was closing, but slowly. They’d make it if they went out an angle. Marik’s words came back to him: You want to see what this baby really can do. Now was his chance. He hit release.

‘Sevin!’

‘Abort! Abort! Nebula 5, you must abort the launch program. The portal is closing. You are in danger of collision!’

Sevin rammed the accelerator forward and the hopper shot off the pad like it had been stung. Sevin battled to hold it on course, lurching to starboard at the last opportunity. They cannoned through the narrowing gap and into the liberty of space, leaving Reverre to bend and brace against the blast wave of their take-off.

λ

Onboard the Odin, Marik was reclined in the pilot station playing his twentieth game of Exertex when the signal to evacuate went off. He sat bolt-upright, checking the ship’s timekeeper. It was 23.33 GST, half an hour to run before getaway. He had been expecting at least some of the Special Ops teams to start returning by now, especially since he had heard some explosions in the far distance. The siren made him reconsider. The Gharst wouldn’t have activated an all-out unless the Scorpion had been discovered.

He peered out of the bridge’s port windows. There was plenty of activity around the berths. Hastily recalled crew were running along the quaysides and embarking like ants retreating to a nest. Marik’s eyes widened as he saw a patrol of sturmgangers boarding a freighter uninvited: one resistant crew member was hauled out of the front hatch by the scruff of the neck and pushed down the bridgeway, the door slamming shut behind him. Marik gnawed his knuckles. The last thing he needed was for the Gharst to requisition the ship.

He had to think quickly. The kron valves were loaded and they had an official slot for launch at 00:02. If they missed it, there might be additional delays which could stop them leaving before the Scorpion blew at 00:30. Now it seemed like the whole planet was trying to get into orbit, that slot could be brought forward or put back, at any minute – or might not happen at all. Taking off without permission from Space Traffic Control would test even Marik’s competence. More importantly, could he take off at all if he didn’t have any Special Ops onboard?

His fringe was dangling in his eyes and he brushed it away impatiently. He couldn’t risk calling the secure channel, not yet. Anyway, the fleet was probably too far away for them to send anyone down. If they’d all been taken prisoner, he was the only one close enough to get them out.

He tried to recall the few details of the operation he had been told. He knew the Scorpion was due to be set on the assembly line, so if they had apprehended the teams, it may have been nearby. Where would they take them? Probably the administration offices, they were the closest and most suitable place. He could take a look, but how to get there?

Not in Odin, it was far too big and clumsy. He considered the few lifters he could see around the quaysides then dismissed them as to slow. Ideally he needed a hopper, or even a supernova. His gaze alighted on a tender hovering by the neighbouring ship. A shuttle would do. Hey, Odin had a shuttle! A dented old boat which wouldn’t get them offworld but it would get them back to the Odin or, in the worst case scenario, out of the Scorpion’s range.

He was about to rush from the bridge to the shuttle bay when a thought struck him. What if Special Ops came back and he wasn’t there? He should wait a while, just in case. He could get the shuttle ready and he could lock Odin’s controls while he waited. Then, if they weren’t back by 00:00, or maybe 23:50, Pol Marik was going to go and find them.

μ

‘ETA in five,’ said Sevin, tilting the hopper into descent. They were through the atmosphere and the grey swirl of the nightside planet was forming into dark splodges of countryside around the scintillating sprawl of Tian City. ‘Are you getting anything?’

‘No, just the evacuation order,’ said Hauki, fiddling with the comms panel. ‘They’ve got it on every channel.’ She looked out of the window. ‘Ah sir, that was the Tian City space port back there.’

‘I know.’

‘So where are you thinking of putting down?’

‘As close as possible.’

‘In the plant itself?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘I’m planning on landing outside the offices. The admin block is the sort of place the Gharst would have a few detention cells. I’m sure they’ll be holding Zendra and Lauden there, if they’re still alive.’

’But security will see us,’ said Hauki, alarmed.

‘If there’s anybody left, of course they will – but d’you think they’ll care? If you knew a massive bomb was about to go off, what would be your priority?’

‘I suppose so.’ Hauki stared out of the window at the twinkling cable of the highway that twisted between Tian City and the Koffgardt works below them. The road ran out into a patchwork of bonfires gulching thick smoke.

‘My gods, is that the plane parks? Cantor must have done it after all,’ she said.

‘And probably died in the process.’

She didn’t push the point, noticing a large platform on cantilevered legs which hove into view beyond the fields of fire, rising from the surface like a skyscraper sunflower. Spotlights blazed from its dais, on which sat a sort of pyramid covered in white sheeting.

‘What’s that tower thing?’ she asked, angling her head against the window for a better look.

‘It’s coming out of the launch site. Must be some kind of pad or slinger.’

‘Or a weapon.’

‘No need to worry about it yet. Tell me what kit we have again.’

Hauki sighed and reeled off a list of objects she had scavenged from the rear cabin of the hopper. The inventory, one SW9 rifle on half-power, a gas refill canister, a grenade that was past its shelf life and Reverre’s rackarmen lay at her feet in the cockpit.

‘There’s nothing else?’

‘That’s all.’

‘You’ve got your digi?’

‘Yes.’

‘So have I. We’ll have to use that for comms.’ They were flying over the launch site now, hectares of arid land stripped of vegetation by the heat from regular rocket blasts. A neutral grey under the moonless sky, it was studded by the offwhite squares of launch pads that helped catapult the smaller ships into space. Linking the pads were dotted lines of white and green lights that marked the landing lanes. In the distance, the batwing outline of a Gharst patrol vessel was about to take off.

’Raefnschip going up,’ she said.

‘No problem, they’re not interested in us.’

Sure enough, the ship disappeared in an explosion of blue light, leaving only the raised platform and its mysterious burden in the centre of the site. The other pads and the conventional berths at the north end were empty and unlit, as if every functioning ship had already fled the imminent destruction.

Ahead of them, the low-slung buildings of the laboratories hunched under the single antennae of the traffic control minaret, red spots marking its tip. Tagged awkwardly on to the back of the labs was the much slimmer and taller administration block, standing like a gawky older sister behind its sibling. Sevin pulled back on the steerstick and they began to lose height, eventually coming into an uneven landing on the substantial lawn in front of the block. As the engine whirred into neutral, Sevin threw off the pilot headset and unbuckled himself. Hauki handed him the SW9.

‘I make it 23:47. I’ll be back, with or without them, by 00:20. If I’m not, don’t hang around.’ He patted the steerstick. ‘Try not to lose this one.’ He scrambled out of the cockpit and into the rear cabin where he cranked open the door and jumped down. They were on the easternmost edges of the factory bounds. Behind them, the lawn ran as far as the perimeter fence beyond which lay hedged fields. To his left, there was the end of a red-painted, rectangular shed which he knew was the components workshop. To his right, there was open ground until the test runways. In front was the ugliest building he had ever seen.

Harshly utilitarian in style, the six doughty stories rose from the ground to a slightly sloping roof of reflective slats. The façade was covered with a mosaic of faded peach tiles which had fallen away in places exposing crumbling grout below. A single door under an archway appeared to be the main access. Sevin ran across the twenty metres of trimmed grass to it. There was a security panel, made of such flimsy polypro that it acquiesced immediately to Sevin’s rifle butt. With one heft of his good shoulder, he was into a grotty hallway decorated in dreary browns, off which spanned corridors at the back and to each side behind manual swing doors.

There was no reception desk or any signage, just a couple of threadbare couches by a refreshment vending machine in the far right-hand corner. Evidently not many visitors came to these offices, yet there were six floors of them – a labyrinth with no directions. There must be a floor map somewhere, he thought, spinning around the centre of the room, looking for clues. Then he heard voices and hurried footsteps approaching the left-hand door. Vaulting over the couches, he battened down behind the one with its back to the wall, wriggling the rifle so it lay flush with the armrest and targeted at the newcomers’ entry point.

The voices seemed to be arguing. The swing door flung open and a rich, male voice with an Altan twang percolated the room. ‘How’s the hell I supposed to know?’ it complained. ‘I don’t read no Gharst.’

‘Lauden!’ Sevin sprang up from his hiding place. Inside the door, the three figures in black bodysuits recoiled.

‘Whoa! What’s that? Major Sevin, whaddya doing here?’ Lauden’s huge grin was full of relief.

‘Sir, you were supposed to stay onboard,’ chipped in Anden.

‘Long story, I’ll give you the details later. Reverre’s a traitor, I cracked the files. He’d got the whole thing stitched up to take control of the fleet once we’d surrendered.’

‘Surrendered?’ Lauden asked, frowning.

‘We’ve surrendered to the Gharst.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘I am not.’

‘Why?’

‘So how will we get out of here?’ Patria said, leaping two or three steps of logic ahead. ‘I suppose they’ve run out on us - that’s why you’re here.’

Sevin contemplated the aggrieved woman. Agent Patria had been front line with him on several operations and had proved herself indispensable, even if her overlong arms and nervy disposition reminded him of an hyperactive monkey. He decided to be honest. ‘Right. So let’s make a move. There’s a hopper outside which CSM Hauki is currently defending by herself. Some or all of you join her. Where’s Cantor? And Zendra?’

‘Cantor, I dunno. I told him to go after we were taken. I’ve not heard from him since but then the gribs took our comms. As for Zen, well, she was with us but they took her off somewhere, said they were gonna give her more questioning,’ said Lauden.

’He said upscenden platz, or something like that,’ said Patria.

‘Launch site,’ translated Sevin. ‘Why would they take her there?’

‘Oh, they were definitely leaving,’ said Lauden. ‘The main guy was telling them to get ready for take off. I guess they were gonna take her with them. What was it called? Immanence? “Com” something, or was it Unity? No. Infinity?’ He clicked his fingers. ‘That’s it, Infinity!’

‘Infinity?’ The name was familiar. Sevin tried to recall where he had heard it before. Something Gharst, something classified. Then it came to him – the download from the Kraton palace on Gridon that detailed Project Infinity, the fission-fusion engine. Could it be here, on Tian?