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  Pretorius watched the Skalidions swarm around the old destroyer, green fire raining down. He felt the ship quake and the dull thump of the hail cannons giving fire. Dead in the void, a critically wounded animal surrounded by hundreds of predators slowly draining the life from their prey.

  Skoldra watched through the eyes of her observers as the destroyer floundered. The huge ship filled with the tasty humans was escaping, but alone and cut off from help. Skoldra sent a pheromone wave to her swarm and dispatched another thousand fighters to swoop in, finish the destroyer, and move on to capture the huge transport.

  Skoldra would achieve what the dead swarm queen could not. She would have a store of humans to feast on for herself.

  She could almost taste them already.

  11

  The small storeroom was beginning to feel even smaller. The sounds of the crazed horde outside was growing louder and wilder. The door flexed inward under the pressure of those outside.

  “We have to move,” Sam said as he paced like a trapped animal. The Marines were huddled together, their pulse rifles ready to fire should the door give way. The enforcers stood at the far end of the storeroom on either side of Agent Kitt.

  “Agreed,” Jack said. “We need to take the command deck.” Jack found the quickest route to the command deck through a few corridors filled with wild civilians, driven mad by the Dox vapor that Beretta had pumped into the ship’s environmental systems.

  Jack pulled at a shelving unit against the storeroom wall and rattled it. He fired up his pulse pistol’s short electron blade. The thirty-centimeter-long white blade fizzed and glowed, fierce and bright. Jack applied it to the shelving unit fastenings that kept it stuck to the bulkhead. The unit came away. Jack handed it to one of the Marines.

  “Hold this in front of you,” Jack said. “Get ready to move.”

  Sam, seeing Jack’s plan, was already cutting away a second shelving unit—a dark composite shelf held rigidly together by a fine framework. It was not ideal, but it would just about keep the civilians out of arm’s reach.

  Jack moved the two Marines with their improvised shields toward the doorway. He accessed a micro-drone dataset and showed the scene on the other side of the door. The corridor was still jam packed with civilians, but they were quiet and becoming still. Jack guessed the moment the door opened they would become agitated and attack.

  The Marines and the enforcers were protected by their tactical suits, but Jack, Sam, and Kitt were only wearing their uniforms. They would be vulnerable to the clawing hordes. The Marines would have to protect them.

  Jack signaled the two Marines to get ready. One would press out into the corridor and hold back the horde with the shelf unit before turning left. The other, close behind, would turn right. Jack hoped to create a safe space and move along the corridor toward the command deck.

  Getting to the command deck would be hard, but it might be the easiest part of the plan. Jack knew the obstacle that awaited him there. The long single corridor leading to the command deck was easily defensible, but that was the next problem. First, Jack needed to get moving.

  He opened the door. It slid aside, and the civilians that filled the doorway all looked with sudden wild eyes, their heads jerking about as the door moved.

  Before the civilians could react further, the first Marine pressed forward, bundling them aside. A second Marine help to push the makeshift barricade forward. Then the second barricade moved out, turning to the right to create a small space beyond the doorway.

  Silently, Jack waved the rest of the Marines forward. He could see the civilian mob becoming wilder by the moment, growling and snarling, their hands reaching through the shelving and clawing at the Marines. Thankfully, their tactical suits were impervious to the clawing fingers.

  Then the Marines began to fall back, pressed in by the horde. They were too many. A Marine fired a wrist thruster and pressed the shelf back against their civilians, their wild red eyes filled with a mixture of hate, anger, and surprise.

  “We can’t hold them, sir,” a Marine called out as he skidded backward, determined not to be moved but being forced back by the weight of numbers.

  “We will have to find another way,” Kitt said. “Call up the schematics and find a service conduit behind these bulkheads.”

  It was a vain hope. If there had been a rear exit from this room, Jack would have identified it by now. He took a step back, leaving the corridor and returning to the storeroom.

  “There is no other way,” Jack said. He thought of the Scorpio, so close but unable to help, surrounded and unable to move.

  “Then we shoot our way out,” Kitt said.

  Jack fell back another step. The shelving shield was pressed into a phalanx just beyond the storeroom door, a small triangle of space just enough for the Marines to take position and hold the small space they had won from the civilians.

  “We can’t kill them,” Jack said.

  “They are trying to kill us, Major,” Kitt said. “We have no choice. They are not civilians anymore; they are wild animals.”

  “They are not animals,” Jack said. “They are still humans, and we are so few right now, we can’t just kill our own kind. They are sick. They need our help, not an attack.”

  “Get ready to fire,” Kitt said. Her enforcers stepped up and aimed their rifles at the open door. “Get your people out of the way, Major,” Kitt said. “I will give the order to fire.”

  Beretta watched the holoimage of the destroyer fall away as it was left, dead in space and surrounded by hundreds of Skalidion fighters.

  “The fleet always wants to protect the civilian ships. You can protect us by drawing the enemy, just long enough for me to get away.” Beretta leaned back in the command chair. “Let’s see how the little arrest party is doing.”

  Beretta accessed the surveillance feed from the corridor where the civilians were pressing in on the small group of Marines and intel personnel. He drew more wild civilians to the area, seeing how they were pressing back the small arrest party.

  “They can’t hold them back.” Beretta smiled to himself. He accessed a surveillance node opposite the open storeroom doorway and watched the Marines trying to hold back the hordes with a couple of storeroom shelves. It made him laugh. “Good luck,” he said. He zoomed in, eager to see how the clawing mob tore into the Marines. Would they tear the Marines apart or would they crush them under their weight?

  “Why don’t you shoot your way out,” Beretta said to himself. “That’s what I would do. Whoever is in charge is too soft. I’d give the order to fire.”

  Zooming in on the small group in the storeroom, Beretta saw the two enforcers with their weapons raised.

  “Now that’s the way to do it, but can you kill all the crazy civilians I’m sending your way?” He checked the data on the map and saw the horde pressing in and saw there were hundreds of civilians throughout the ship, all being drawn and herded toward the storeroom. The Marines would be trapped behind a wall of dead if the wild civilians did not overcome them first.

  Smiling and eager to see the carnage, Beretta leaned in and looked at the full-size image of the crush at the storeroom.

  He could see over the heads of the civilians from the surveillance node on the bulkhead behind them and into the room beyond. The shelving units were flexing and buckling under the weight, and the six Marines held them in a desperate battle, trying to hold back an unstoppable tide.

  Behind them were the two Marine officers. They had their back to the open doorway and were standing in front of the enforcers.

  “So there is a bit of disagreement in the group,” Beretta said. “Arguing how best to proceed, are we? Kill or be killed.” He smiled.

  Then one of the Marine officers turned and pointed back to the open doorway, pointing at the civilians. The breathing mask obscured part of his face, covering his nose and mouth, but Beretta felt his heart pound hard as he recognized the man.

  “Freeze the image,” Beretta said, standin
g up. “Zoom in on that officer.” He stepped down from the command chair, but he knew who he was looking at.

  “Jack kravin’ Forge,” Beretta said with a mixture of hate, anger, and joy. “Come to take me down, have you, Jacky? Too bad for you.”

  Beretta stepped up to the command chair and searched for the nearest airlock. A shuttle hangar deck just below the command deck was the closest. It was perfect.

  Beretta accessed the internal hatch controls and shut a series of hatchways, creating a channel of twisting corridors towards the hangar. Then he bypassed a series of safety systems and made ready to open the outer doors.

  “Hold on, Major,” Beretta said. “I’m going to clear the corridor for you. You are going to get to join me on the command deck after all.”

  Beretta hit the final control and the hangar door opened.

  The rush of wind as the air was blown out into space first tugged at the clothes of the wild-eyed civilians driven crazy with the corrupted Dox vapor before intensifying in an instant and blowing them all out into space. Jack felt the rush of air spiral around the open doorway as the civilians were blown away.

  The Marines holding the small space in the corridor were also tugged by the strong wind. They fell back. Their tactical suits’ local grav field held them in place.

  As the shelves were snatched away and the mass of civilians was swept past the doorway, the wind caught Jack and Sam. They slipped forward, grabbing at anything. Special Agent Kitt was pulled off her feet and into the air as she was blown out toward the corridor. Jack reached out and grabbed her wrist as she flailed around for something to hold on to.

  The rush of air popped their ears. Their skin felt the cold. Tiny fragments of grit and dust blasted into them, peppering them with tiny missiles. The civilians raced past and into space. As the air died down, the last of the civilians was snatched away and Kitt fell into Jack’s arms, their face masks tapping together. But in the vacuum, with all the air blown out, there was no sound.

  Kitt opened a team communication channel.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “The Skalidions?” Sam suggested.

  Jack felt the air pressure rise as the atmosphere was replaced. Then they heard Lou Beretta, his voice echoing along the empty corridor.

  “Jacky. My old friend. You should have said you planned to drop by.”

  “Give yourself up, Beretta,” Jack said, assuming Beretta could hear him.

  “Give myself up? No, Jacky, I don’t think so. I think you should surrender. Come to the command deck. You alone, or I will vent the rest of the ship. That’s over one hundred thousand sleeping civilians, and few thousand wild ones, that will be flushed out unless you come to me now. You have thirty seconds to start your walk. The corridors are clear for you now. Head on over. We’ve got some unfinished business.

  “Twenty seconds and counting.”

  12

  “You can’t go,” Sam said. “He’s a psychopath. He’ll kill you.”

  Jack shook his head. “We don’t know that.”

  “Yes, we do,” Sam said, urgency rising in his usually calm voice.

  Jack took his pulse pistol out of his holster and handed it to Sam.

  “You must be joking,” he said, refusing to take the sidearm. “You can’t go in there defenseless.”

  “I’m not letting him kill me with my own pistol.” Jack pressed it to Sam’s chest. “There is no time. I have to go.”

  “There’s no reason to believe he will kill over a hundred thousand people just to get to you, Jack,” Kitt said.

  Beretta’s voice came over the ship communicator, counting down from ten.

  “Sure there is. As Sam said, he’s a psychopath.”

  Jack stepped out of the small storeroom into the corridor that had recently been filled with the clamoring horde of crazed civilians. He walked toward the forward section of the ship. The deck composite glowed with a pathfinder strip showing Jack the way forward. He reached the final set of stairs up to the command deck level and at the top of the stairs, he found himself on the starboard side of the command deck cross-corridor. Walking toward the center, Jack saw two of Beretta’s henchmen step out of the command deck. They were grinning and waved him forward.

  Standing at the end of the corridor, Jack looked down the long hall toward the command deck. Jack walked with Beretta’s henchmen on either side of him and just behind. They gave him occasional encouraging prods in the back, urging him toward his fate.

  Finally stepping into the command deck, Jack could see Beretta standing in front of the main holostage, where a three-dimensional map of the civilian transport was displayed. Scattered over the image were thousands and thousands of tiny, sparkling, red dots. Jack knew they were the ident codes of all the registered civilians on board. He guessed there could be another thousand unregistered civilians scattered through the ship.

  Beretta turned around, grinning.

  “Jack Forge, what a pleasure to see you again.” Beretta made a gesture with his index finger to his henchmen behind Jack.

  The blow landed on the back of Jack’s leg, sending him to the floor. A rough hand on his shoulder pulled him up and kept him on his knees.

  “So these are all the people you saved today, Jack.” Beretta indicated the holoimage. “The world needs a hero like you, Jack.”

  “These people are in danger out here, Beretta. The Skalidions are closing in. Why don’t you let everyone go? There’s a civilian cruiser in a secondary cargo pad. You could take that and your handful of thugs and get out of here.”

  “Jack,” Beretta said softly and with mock offense. “Why don’t you call me Lou? We’ve been through so much together; we must be on a first-name basis by now.”

  “Let the civilian transport get back to the fleet, Lou. You know they are in danger. I’m sure you could evade the Skalidions, a man of your skill, but with this vast civilian ship, the Skalidions will try and take it if it’s exposed and vulnerable like this.”

  “You worry too much about other people, Jack. I think you should start to worry about yourself a little bit.” Beretta leaned in, grinning cruelly. Fierce anger welled up inside him, and he spoke to Jack through clenched teeth. “Because you’re going to be dead long before any of these civilians. And I am going to kill you.” A carefree smile spread across Beretta’s face as he relaxed. “It’s the least I can do for an old friend.”

  “Well, I’m going to try something,” Sam said, glancing around the open doorway into the empty corridor outside the storeroom.

  “Me too, but I can’t get in there without alerting Beretta. Wait for me to make my move and then you can move in on the command deck,” said Agent Kitt.

  “A direct assault on the command deck would be crazy, even if he’s only got a handful of gangsters with sidearms. I’m not sending my Marines into that corridor. Besides, Jack will be dead as soon as Beretta hears pulse rounds blasting along the corridor.”

  “So what’s your plan, Commander?” she said, joining Sam at the open doorway.

  Sam held his right arm up in front of him and turned it this way and that. He let Special Agent Kitt admire his Mech arm.

  “I’m going to make my way to an area above the command deck. I’ll rip the deck plates up and send my team in, then I’ll drop Beretta before he knows what happened.”

  “That’s not bad, Commander, but the chances of you landing right on top of Beretta are pretty slim. And the sound of the composite being torn apart above his head is going to get his attention. I can get in there without even opening a door.”

  Kitt waved her to enforcers to her. “I’ll take position underneath the command deck.” Kitt raised her wrist and accessed the ship’s schematics on her holostage. She highlighted the location. “I’ll send my enforcers in, and they will apprehend Beretta. You create your access point here—” Kitt pointed to a location directly above the command deck. “—and infiltrate with your Marines. Take down Beretta’s crew and secure the command deck
.”

  Sam synced his holostage with Kitt’s.

  “See you on the command deck, Special Agent,” Sam said. He held his hand up as a signal to his squad to get ready. And then with a flick of his hand forward, Sam moved off into the corridor, the Marines moving behind him. He moved smoothly and quickly along the corridor, making his way to the point where he would breach the command deck from above.

  “I don’t understand why a man of your talents wastes so much time trying to get a shortcut,” Jack said, looking up at Beretta from where he knelt in the middle of the command deck floor. “Why not just get involved in helping the fleet find a new home for the civilians?”

  “The fleet?” Beretta chuckled and stepped over to the holostage. He tapped the console and the image of the civilian transport shrank away, finally disappearing from the holostage. “The fleet is doomed. It’s too big, too slow, and too much of a tasty target. The only way to survive is to go it alone.”

  Beretta tapped the side of the holostage and accessed the ship’s sensor net. He zoomed in on the image of the Scorpio, surrounded by Skalidion fighters.

  “Take a look at this, Jack,” Beretta said. He turned his back on the holostage and leaned against the edge. He grinned. “This ship, one of the fleet’s finest, is getting absolutely smashed by a group of tiny fighters.” Beretta turned and looked at the holostage. “Just look at that ship, it’s going to be burned out of the void before too long. You think the fleet is going to be safe? The people on this ship are doing better with me in charge. At least they stand a chance of surviving.”

  “Don’t pretend you’re doing this for anyone but yourself. You are no hero, Lou. You’re a thief. Even if you are stealing something this size, it doesn’t make you anything other than a common thief.”