Indigo Squad (17 page)

It was close, but she was going to make it with about three minutes to spare. Up ahead, Indiya’s passageway joined the corridor Arun was racing down, but Indiya would get there first. She’d cut it fine: if Arun didn’t stop, he would be only a minute or so away from the Security HQ.

In her peripheral vision, she noticed something flashing.

Merde!

Indiya carried on, desperate to reach the junction before Arun, but nagging fear slowed her to a halt, she glanced back at the flashing viewscreen.

It was Heidi. Someone was coming… Marines!

Indiya bit her lip. If she tried to brazen it out, chances were the Marines would want to know what she was doing in this part of the ship. The swaggering wastes of mass would probably stop for a little amusement at her expense.

Growling in frustration, she backed up the passageway, ducking into a compartment just before the Marines saw her.

“Heidi,” she commanded, “please show me the Marines outside.”

How could she get Heidi to cause a diversion, just enough to hurry the Marines out the way and give her a chance to slip past them?

But the view Heidi showed of the scene outside in the passageway froze the blood in Indiya’s veins.

The Marines weren’t passing through. They had taken up positions, spreading out along the passageway to defend in depth, carbines at the ready.

She couldn’t see inside their darkened visors, but she knew the blank expressions she would see there if she could.

The Marines had set themselves up in sentry mode. If she stuck her head out the hatch, they would blow it off before their conscious minds had a chance to question whether she were friend or foe.

Indiya’s expertise was in fleet tactics, not those of small powered-infantry units, but she was certain what she was seeing. The Marines outside were guarding one of the approaches to Security HQ. All over the ship they would be securing critical locations.

This was it! The takeover.

Her sight blurred and she realized she was weeping tears of frustration. She flicked away the tear bubbles ballooning around her eyes, and punched the nearest bulkhead.

The impact made a barely audible slap. Against the armored ceramalloy of the wall, her fist was so flimsy as to be inconsequential.

Without the support of Arun’s comrades, any resistance by the crew to the rebel Marines in their battlesuits and weaponized brains would be just as feeble.

Their greatest hope was Arun McEwan.

Too numbed to seek safety away from this danger zone, she watched helplessly as Heidi showed her Arun sailing through the corridor and into the Security HQ, prey stumbling naively into the maw of a wickedly cunning predator.

If she’d been there mere seconds earlier, she could have stopped him. If only she’d listened to Finfth and opened the hatch to Stok sooner…

But it was too late for regrets now.

They were lost.

“Will you do it?” Arun clenched his fists inside their thick gauntlets. Time was
short
.

“You ask a lot,” replied Fraser. The sergeant of
Beowulf’s
modest detachment of Marines unlocked himself from the secure seat alongside a monitoring console, and began pacing the oval of charged deck that passed around the monitoring screens of security HQ.

Normally, Arun would understand. He often paced. Why shouldn’t his brother?

He waited in silence, fiddling with his helmet that he held in his hands.

“Our enemies have already began to move,” hissed Arun. “Every second you delay, our window of opportunity narrows. You’re our only chance, but only if you act now!”

Fraser halted his pacing, and shot a dark look across the room at his brother. “And yet you
shall
wait. You asked a lot of me, little brother.”

“
Little brother?
We’re twins, Fraser.”

Fraser gave a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I’ve lived far more than you. Stop interrupting and let me think.”

Arun steeled himself to silence as he watched his brother stalk deliberately around the room. Expecting Kalis to report in any moment, when he’d explained all to Fraser, Arun had gabbled and sprayed out what should have been the most carefully articulated argument of his life. He thought he’d blown it, but Fraser seemed to grasp it all with ease. The idea of speaking to his twin brother still felt weird, but he guessed it had advantages. Even so, keeping quiet was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

Fraser slowed and looked up. “Your assessment I accept. Your proposed course has merit. But explain this. Marines Ghosh and Lorentz have kindly paid me a courtesy by allowing me to send them off on a fool’s errand to grant us privacy. Suppose I asked them to return, to keep you in that holding cell over there. You would be out of harm’s way until this conflict has resolved itself. What then for us?”

“Then we will have lost.”

Fraser halted. “Yes, but who are
we
, little brother? If the officers change and their orders with them, why should that make one iota of difference to us?”

Fraser resumed his pacing.

Arun felt hot and clammy at the same time. Was his brother siding with the rebels? He got to his feet and planted himself in Fraser’s path.

No.
Ridiculous
! Fraser couldn’t be a rebel. Arun had fought alongside Fraser at the Battle of the Swoons. Arun could trust him with his life.

Fraser came to a halt a pace in front of Arun. “I’m waiting for your answer,” prompted Fraser. “I can afford to wait. It is you who say we are short for time.”

“Loyalty,” Arun shot back. “Make your stand for loyalty! This business will pit Marine against Marine. Friend against friend. If we aren’t loyal to each other, then we’re nothing. Those traitors have turned against us – they have murdered members of their own family. We should not suffer them to live.”

Fraser gripped Arun’s armored shoulders and stared so intently into his brother’s eyes, it felt as if his soul were being scanned.

“Gather your evidence and your loyal officers, little brother. I shall coordinate a series of armed drills. As many Marines as possible will find themselves at 19:00 hours in Hanger A. That’s the
dorsal
hangar, Little Arun.”

“I do know that.”

“Just checking, brother.”

“Oh, one more thing. Whoever gives the Marines the big speech had better do a better job of it then you did. No dribble, drool or fluffing. Tell them what needs to be done as if you mean it.”

“It shan’t be me. Of course, not! I’ll be in the line listening with the rest,” said Arun. “They won’t follow me.”

“Good. Who will address them?”

At the last moment, an instinct for caution told Arun not to say Krimkrak’s name.

“I hope it’s the ship’s captain,” said Fraser.

Arun pursed his lips. He didn’t like this paranoid instinct. If he couldn’t trust his own twin brother, whom could he trust?

But the paranoia was too strong. “You’ll learn soon enough, Fraser. Trust me.”

Barney reported that Fraser’s unpowered hand was squeezing Arun’s armored shoulder. “You’re right not to speak names. We meet at 19:00 hours. Remember… Dorsal hangar, not ventral. No offense, but you’ve always struck me as a little bit…
lost
.”

Arun shrugged. He would have plenty of time to learn the ways of his brother’s banter when this was over. “Later, Fraser.”

——

The instant Arun left the security HQ, the face of Lieutenant Commander Wotun,
Beowulf’s
XO, appeared on a monitor screen.

“Well done, McEwan. Perhaps my faith in you was not misplaced after all.”

“Thank you, sir.” Fraser issued commands with a few touches of his fingers on the controls. “As we speak, Security HQ is being sealed off by Marines loyal to us. This shall be our center of operations in the forthcoming coup.”

“Very good. Keep me constantly informed of your brother’s movements. By revealing his contacts, he shall be the key to unlock this vessel. And revise the timetable. I want full control of this vessel by 16:30 hours. Any hints of resistance must be crushed without mercy.”

“With pleasure, sir. McEwan out.”

Arun glanced at the black splinter of plastic, wincing at the memory of cutting into his own scabbing wound to extract it, and its original insertion into his flesh.

Ensign Krimkrak had given this to him as a means to arrange contact. But what was it? And would it work?

It had to.

Once he’d put a deck’s distance away from Fraser and the security headquarters, Arun ducked into a low–use passageway and brought out the splinter.

He’d never seen anything like it before.

Obeying the instructions the wetware construct had given him, Arun placed it into the universal port in his battlesuit’s armpit. The orifice swallowed the device.

Barney spoke the words directly into Arun’s mind. A few seconds later, he added: .

Barney flashed up a schematic of the ship, placing a target marker near the main engine on Deck 18, over half the ship away.

urged Barney, though whether Krimkrak was speaking directly or this was another AI construct as before, he didn’t know.

Arun checked his carbine was securely attached to his back and dove for the nearest hatch. He had heard the officer’s order:
hurry!
He itched to reach the deployment tube because then he would let rip with his battlesuit motors. No compromise. Top speed! Any ship-rats he encountered this time would just have to get out of the way.

When she showed the image of Arun floating out of the Security HQ alone and unharmed, Heidi ringed the viewscreen with a rotating multi-colored rectangle.

Indiya was so busy trying to stop her lower jaw dropping off that she barely took in Heidi’s pleasure.

Why wasn’t Arun dead? What hadn’t she understood?

When he set off again on his mysterious travels, as fast as he could go, Indiya squealed with delight. Heidi started flashing the image of the Marines outside the hatch to the compartment where Indiya was holed up. They were still on sentry duty, ready to shoot anything that came their way.

Heidi added another view of the scene outside the Security HQ. Marines were spilling out, throwing up a cordon across every approach route. A team carrying bulky equipment brought out a tripod and started securing its feet to the mounting braces in the bulkhead.

Indiya didn’t wait to see what they were going to place on the tripod. She set off in a new direction to hunt Arun down.

Though whether it would make any difference at this late stage…

She tried to tell herself that Arun still had a trick up his sleeve, an ally he hadn’t declared to her.

Deep down she knew she didn’t believe it. After all, she’d injected him with a love potion to make him adore her.

Surely he would have told her?

Indiya strained to see into the distance of the deployment tube. According to Heidi, she should see Arun shooting toward her any moment now.

She was so intent on Arun’s arrival, that she scarcely registered the hatch opening behind her.

“You’re to come with me now,” snapped a voice from behind. “You must report to the reserve captain.”

It was Petty Officer Lock, hovering just inside the tube. Her face was practically indigo with rage. “You’ll pay for this!” she whispered. “Me playing escort to a pig-licking freak.”

“But please, petty officer, you have no idea. I’ve got to…” Indiya started to remove her glove “I’ve got to deliver a message. It’s vital…”

She stopped. Lock had drawn her sidearm.

“Oh, no you don’t. Put your glove back on, freak. The reserve captain’s instructions were very specific. One: if you remove gloves I am to shoot you. Two: if you mention the name Arun McEwan, I am to shoot you. If you go within ten meters of Arun McEwan, I am to shoot you first, and then him.”

Indiya shook her head helplessly. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. There had to be a way.

“Furthermore, the reserve captain doesn’t trust the security systems,” continued Lock, “so I’m recording these events with a device of her own construction. Sounds like she’s right, because ship-wide comms went black a while back, but her device is still functioning. So even if you’ve some secret freakery that disables me, the reserve captain will know still what you’ve done. There’s no way out for you. Come with me, spacer.”

She couldn’t. She believed everything Lock was telling her but she couldn’t abandon Arun.

“Is that him?” asked Lock, pointing up the tube at a fast-approaching figure.

Indiya nodded mournfully.

“Then you have a few seconds to choose. Unlike you, I have no intention of disobeying an officer.” Lock brandished her sidearm, looking eager to be given an excuse to fire.

Indiya shook her head. She couldn’t do it. Lock would have to shoot.

Lock ground her jaws. She fought to control herself before spitting out her words in distaste: “The officer said there was one word that would explain everything. Would get you to move. I don’t know she meant by the word, but I don’t like it one bit.” Lock’s eyes blazed with fury. “One word: alibi.”

Alibi? For whom? Not Arun…

Understanding locked into place, like gears engaging in a complex mechanical artifact. When she had met the reserve captain with Arun, the Jotun had believed about the mutiny all along. The officer had been playing her own game.

“Sorry, Arun,” she said under her breath. “I can’t help you if I’m dead.”

Knowing the petty officer would hate her doing this, Indiya opened the hatch using her mind, and pushed herself through, abandoning Arun to his fate.

For now.

By the time he reached the deployment tube, Arun’s confidence had grown. Using the full capability of his suit’s propulsion system, he shot through this ship, his bones creaking under the acceleration, and his shoulder and arm wounds anesthetized by Barney. He felt like a fighting machine with a fresh oil and recharged powerplant, eager to confront his enemies.