Kraken Mare (9 page)

Gentry charged Jou and slammed his shoulder into his ribs. The larger man went down with a grunt as Gentry drove a knee into his side. April and Werner tried to pull him off of Jou, who was yelling and screaming for help. One of the chains slipped off and Gentry suddenly was no longer hobbled. Free from his lower shackles, Gentry kicked April in the shin, which caused her to yelp in surprise and pain. She slipped and fell to the ground, which blocked Werner from pulling the smaller prisoner off of Jou.

It suddenly became a scrum as more guards piled on top of the enraged Gentry, who was kicking and yelling to no avail. Gerry pulled Jou out from beneath the mound of people and shoved him against the wall.

“Stay there!” Gerry bellowed and looked back at the dog pile, which was beginning to get under control. Gentry was pinned down on the floor, his arms held behind his back as a second set of cuffs were applied by April. Gentry struggled again and she rabbit-punched him in the kidneys repeatedly. He quit struggling after eight or nine blows. I winced but kept Dr. Marillac away as she tried to protest the rough treatment. Gentry would probably be pissing blood for the foreseeable future.

“Those are my patients!” she complained as she tried to push past me.

“They're our convicts, first and foremost,” I reminded her as I gently held her back. “Relax, Doc. If we kill them it's even more paperwork. Just let us do our job.”

The doctor was clearly shaken by the events but did her best to hide it. She stopped struggling and watched as Gentry was hauled to his feet. Ling attached the handcuffs to the lower shackles with a chain. Crude, but an effective way to ensure that the prisoner could not move quickly. I wasn't sure Gentry was going to be moving fast even without them, thanks to April. That woman had a vindictive streak a mile wide and had tagged him a few times that were borderline sadistic. I admired her a little bit.

I looked over at Jou, who was watching the proceedings with wide eyes. I almost felt sorry for the guy until I remembered that he had raped and killed seven women while he had been in the Navy. Any sympathy that might have been there went flying out the airlock. I started to look away but stopped after seeing something strange out of the corner of my eye. I gave the prisoner a closer look.

There
.

It was smooth, I’ll give him that. If I hadn’t been looking directly at him the exact moment he had made his move, I would have missed Jou stealing the master key card from Gerry completely.

I quickly stepped over and confronted him. “All right, Jou, jig’s up,” I growled and pushed the surprised prisoner up against the wall. He looked at me with a strange combination of alarm and annoyance. He’d underestimated us and he knew it, but there was no way he could admit to it. It took a big pair of brass ones to pull off what he was trying to do. He needed to be both calm, cool and collected.

He failed. Miserably.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tried to argue. I didn’t have the time nor patience to deal with him so I kept him pressed against the wall.

“Just give it back. I don’t want to get physical, but I did miss out on a good scrum,” I rolled my shoulders for emphasis. “I’m all ready to go, and I’ve got friends.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” Jou blurted, fear thick in his tone. I smiled grimly. I had the bastard.

“You sold that fight well, Jou,” I snarled as I yanked the passcard the convict had stolen out of his pocket. I flipped it over and passed it back to Gerry, who looked at it in surprise. He took the passcard and slipped it back into his pocket. Gerry looked at Jou, appeared to be extremely frustrated. I pushed harder on Jou's chest. “Almost got away with it. Too bad you just got your ass kicked for nothing.”

“Fuck off,” Jou spat angrily. I smirked.

“Stupid twit,” I spun him around and pressed him against the wall. I began to frisk him but found nothing else. I looked over at Fritz, who was staring at me with a dumbfounded expression. “The fight was just a distraction. They planned this. Almost got away with it as well.”

“Jesus,” Fritz muttered. He moved past me and grabbed Jou by his white shirt. He hauled the beefy convict down the corridor. Leigh and Chun followed close behind. I nodded at Gerry and walked back over to where Dr. Marillac stood. The expression on her face was a mixture of shock, horror and confusion. I couldn't blame her. I had barely caught the move by Jou myself.

“Just remember, Doc,” I told her in a low tone. “They are convicts first, patients second. Never forget why they were incarcerated in the first place, or how they used your research and need for volunteers to keep from being hanged for their crimes. As much as they help you discover whatever it is that you’re looking for, they’ll just as soon kill you. For fun.”

ঠ

It wasn't until I was in my room that night, half-asleep on my bed, when it hit me. I quickly pulled out my PDA and queued Gerry on the comms. He was available so I pinged him to contact me at his earliest convenience. He responded to my ping almost immediately.

“What’s up?” Gerry asked. I could hear how tired he was over the comm. “Got lots of paperwork to do, thanks to those chuckleheads. That was a good catch on the card swipe, by the way. I don’t know how I missed it.”

“Thanks. I have a question for you,” I said as I rolled back onto my bed. “Do the prisoners interact with each other often?”

“They don't interact with each other at all,” Gerry said. “Other than passing one another in the hall, and even then that rarely happens. Why?”

“Well…” I hesitated. I was the noob and I didn't want to sound like a complete moron. The last thing I needed at my new job was to be known as the guy who reported everything out of the ordinary and caused his boss more work and bigger headaches. I decided to think some more about it before I came out and asked. I changed my mind and decided to just voice my concern instead. “Oh, I don't know. That just felt weird, you know? That entire fight?”

“First fight I've had here,” Gerry answered. “I think we're going to go over procedures to ensure that something like that never happens again. Maybe a route going to Research and a different one going out? Hmm…you know what? You're task for the next few days is to come up with viable alternate routes so the prisoners moving from Research and their cells never cross paths. Think you can handle that?”

“Uh, sure, I guess,” I replied.
Damn it
, I didn't say. Rule number six I learned while in the military: never volunteer yourself. Besides, I hated route mapping. It had been one of my least favorite activities while in the Corps. Still though, I
was
a bit overpaid for a glorified security guard. I could at least try to help out my boss. “I'll draw something up and have it to you by Saturday.”

“Good deal.” He closed the comm on his end, leaving me alone with my jumbled thoughts. I tried to picture the station, hallways leading to and from Research, and how to transport the prisoners without their paths crossing in my head. My mind, however, kept coming back to the one unanswered question in the back of my skull.

How had they managed to plan and stage that fight if they never speak to each other?

Chapter Nine

The law's the law, but people are people
.

― M.L. Stedman,
The Light Between Oceans

The station-wide alarm caught me with a fork full of the Chef’s Special halfway to my mouth. I was on my feet and running for the door before the last remnants of my bite hit the floor. Old reflexes died hard.

Halfway to the first checkpoint, the alarm stopped. I kept going, waiting to hear the all-clear message from the desk guards to come through on my PDA. I pounded down the stairs towards Control as fast as I could manage, but still no word of an all clear. My annoyance at having my dinner interrupted by some drill began to change to worry. I sprinted down the hallway and passed one of the passage tubes that the aliens used. I noticed that none of the tubes held any of the kraken within. I slowed my pace to a jog and checked my PDA. Still nothing about an all-clear. As I rounded the corner, I saw why it hadn’t come yet.

Control was empty, both guards who were scheduled to be on not evident in any shape or form. Not good. I slowed down but kept moving, hoping this was all a big malfunction, and everything was five by five. My hand drifted down to my belt, where the tranq gun I was required to carry while in uniform rested. That hope sank as I approached the cell block.

A prison break. It was, outside of explosive decompression and the station sinking into the lake, our biggest worry. Given as to how squirrelly the prisoners had been lately, this turn of events simply confirmed my suspicions. Especially considering the staged brawl in the hall from the other day.

The cells were all open, save the last, Holomisa’s. Made sense, given the mutual animosity and the typical “us versus them” mentality of the convicts. Holomisa may have been a prisoner, but he simply wasn’t one of them. The guard’s duty desk was empty, another bad sign. I ran through the roster in my head.
Kirby and Brendan should’ve been on tonight, so where the hell were they?

Something flew by my ear with enough force to strike the wall ten feet behind me. I dove for the desk, trying to get it between me and what was coming next. Rolling to keep low, I got behind it just as the next projectile hit the spot I’d just left. It splattered noisily on the desk and knocked over a display monitor.

The Kirby question was answered – he lay face down on the floor next to me. No obvious signs of blood, which was comforting. There was little time to check on him more, though. I had more important things to worry about. Like how I was supposed to do anything with a stupid tranq gun against someone who was flinging…
something
at me.

I risked a look over the top of the desk, the console a Christmas Tree of blinking lights and warning screens. I ducked down again as something moved in the corridor leading to the living quarters.

“That you, Manning?” A familiar voice called out.
Jou. That fucking bastard.
He sounded like he had a mouthful of marbles, his words punctuated with a loud snuffling noise. It was a sound that the human mouth was not designed to make. “Yeah, that’s you. I can smell your fear, Jarhead.”

“I’m impressed, Jou.” I moved slightly, trying to find the emergency seal button without exposing myself. “You used words with more than one syllable.” There, about six inches in front of me. “Wanna try something more challenging, like, ‘Expeditionary?’”

“I’ll tear your heart out, motherfucker!” I could sort of see him now—my taunting had irritated him enough that he had come forward slightly and into my line of sight.

“That’s four, very good.” Another projectile splattered against the plasteel above my head. “Shit!” It sounded gross, whatever it was. I grabbed the stool that Kirby had been sitting on and hurled it towards the big prisoner, aiming for a spot just in front of him. He flinched, taking a step back into the hall. I slapped the emergency seal button and watched as an elastic bubble closed around the area.

In theory, it protected us from outside elements in case of a hull breach. In truth, it probably just prolonged our suffocation and terror at the idea of dying while forcing us to wait for help that would never arrive. There was no way that the Navy could get down and evacuate someone if they were trapped within one of the bubbles if something happened to the station. There was one thing that I figured it could do to help me out, though. I was counting on it blocking the hallway, preventing Jou from coming any closer and murdering me.

Sure enough, the bubble completely sealed the hallway and blocked anything from getting to and from the cell block. From this direction, at least. The back way out of the cell block led to a stairwell, which allowed for passage between Central and the rest of the station – except for Research, of course.

For now, however, Control was as secure as it ever was going to be.

I knelt down and checked Kirby's pulse. It was strong and steady, which surprised me. In fact, other than the large bruise on his forehead, he appeared to be in good shape. He would have one hell of a headache when he woke up, but otherwise, he was unscathed. I spotted another unmoving form on the exposed side of the desk. I shot a quick glance down the hall but there was still no sign of Jou. I shifted around and recognized Brendan.

I’d found Kirby alive. The same could not be said about poor Brendan.

The kid had his throat torn open from ear to ear. Before that, though, he must have put up a fight. His hands were bruised and crusted with blood, and he had cuts up and down his arms. A massive pool of blood was under his body and was beginning to leak into the ventilation grates beneath the security post.

Brendan had died, and he had been brutalized in a way that made me more than a little sick.

It saddened me to see the life of someone so young be taken so abruptly, but it also made me feel more than a little pride in the kid. He'd been a Marine, though he had only been in for a single tour before getting into the private sector. However, once a Marine, always a Marine. I would make his death count for something.

I dragged his corpse back behind the desk for safety. I was reasonably confident in the ability of the bubble to stop Jou, but not entirely. If it fell while I was in an exposed position, I wouldn’t last very long in a stand-up fight against the giant.

“Central, this is Manning at Control,” I said as I turned away from the duo, pressing the comm button. “We've got a security breach in the prisoner’s cells. Mass prisoner break has occurred. Initiate lockdown protocols.”

Nothing. I frowned.

“Central, this is Manning. Come in. Anyone on this net?”

Silence.

“Well, damn,” I muttered. The protective bubble must have been preventing me from contacting Control. I didn't think that could happen but I wasn't an engineer by any stretch of the imagination. It was entirely possible that the bubble blocked the comms, an oversight that had to be some kind of safety violation. Not that it mattered, since I seriously doubted that the Health and Worker Safety Commission would drop by at that exact moment.

I peeked over the countertop, looking for Jou. The massive prisoner was nowhere to be found.

“Jou?” I called out tentatively. “You mind telling me what you're doing? It's not like you can get off the station or anything. Just surrender peacefully and we'll see about working this whole thing out.”
After I get done beating your ass, that is.

Still nothing. I frowned. Maybe he was smarter than he looked, either keeping quiet to ambush me when I released the bubble, or he had done the more sensible thing and was run for his life. I drew the tranq gun and checked the charge on it. Four shots left. I hoped that would do.

I hit the red button again and the bubble dropped. I aimed and waited nervously for Jou to reappear, hands sweaty despite the relative cool room. A prisoner on the loose defined a bad day for any guard. Eleven of them…that was nightmare fuel.

I wiped a palm on my pants, trying to get rid of the greasy feel. Still nothing. Fighting impatience, I recalled the mantra that my training sergeant had beaten into my head,
Rash actions lead to dead Marines
. A few deep breaths helped, the last one coming out as a growl.

“C’mon Jou, I don’t have all fucking day.”

I risked another peek. The hallway remained empty. Jou was gone.
Dammit. Think, Marine. Think!

I glanced down and took a closer look at what Jou had been throwing. Whatever it was, it was red, oozing…
Oh Christ.

Anatomy wasn’t one of my strong points, but I knew a heart when I saw one. I was pretty sure the other thing was a liver.
But whose?
I looked back at Brendan and shivered.
That was a hell of a lot of blood, but…

Time to move. If there were any staff members in their quarters, I had to keep Jou from getting to them. Kirby didn’t have a sidearm on him, but maybe…
Yes
. Hard to see when Jou had been standing there, someone’s feet were now visible in the hallway. Not a scientist, from the look and design of the boots. It was a guard, and probably a dead one. I approached slowly, tranq gun at the ready, feeling like I was hunting a pissed-off rabid Rottweiler with a rolled-up newspaper.

Still clear. There was no sign of Jou. I knelt down next to the body, one eye on the hall. A quick glance told me who the poor, dead bastard on the floor was. Dale Fletcher. Good guy, had an ex-wife and a few kids back on Earth. I hoped against hope that Jou hadn’t noticed what poor Fletcher had on him.

Fate was on my side for that singular moment.

Today had been Fletcher’s turn with heat. It was a bit shocking that Jou hadn’t searched the body, but I wasn’t going to complain. I unbuckled his shoulder rig, trying hard to get a grip through all the blood, shuddering as something slimy and solid slipped over the back of my hand. I repressed a shudder. Now I knew where Jou had gotten his biological missiles.

“Poor bastard, you never saw it coming.” I took the holster, extra magazine, and his tranq gun, working quickly to get it all situated on my person. Out of habit, I checked the mag and racked the slide. It was oddly comforting, the weight and feel of a real weapon as opposed to the lighter tranq pistol. I couldn’t help the sigh of relief as I raised it. “Yeah, baby.”

Tranqs were a handy way of keeping order with the prisoners. The tranqs often caused the recipient to wake up with the migraine from Hell, and since we rarely offered amenities to someone who earned a tranq shot, it was a debilitating thing to recover from. Of course, that assumed that the tranq didn’t fizzle or something worse, like not work. Training dictated using a tranq gun as a second-to-last resort.

The last resort was at hand, and nothing fit it better than something a little more lethal.

I took stock of the situation. I knew precisely how many hostiles were out there, though not where. I had an unknown number of guards alive, presumably. The supervisors were unaccounted for, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Gerry could have slept through the blaring emergency alarm, the riots, the gunfire and the splattering of body parts throughout the station.

Right, and I’m the Space Pope.

I checked my comm again but nobody responded. I pulled up my PDA and looked to see if I was even receiving any signal. The PDA wasn’t picking up any signal, which told me quite a bit. Internal comms were down, as was the networking system. My PDA should have been able to pick up some sort of signal otherwise. That’s the basic way Wi-Fi worked. I dug through the settings of the PDA and found the secured channel, which acted as a hidden signal broadcaster for each and every PDA within a limited space. Granted, “limited space” was about five hundred yards in every direction, but it was used more as an emergency beacon than anything else. The secured channel should have picked up the other PDA’s in the station at the very least.

So why wasn’t anybody responding?

A few guesses flew through my head, all worse than the last. Deep down we’re all pessimists.

With the station on lockdown for the time being, the elevator tube was out of the question. I would have to risk the stairwell, which would limit escape options should I run into Jou or any of the other escapees running amok on the station. Not an ideal situation but the only one in front of me at the moment.

“Wait,” I muttered as a small blip suddenly appeared on my PDA. It was a ghost-like image, showing me that another PDA was close. Two floors down, to be precise. It disappeared seconds later but I already had the location fixed in my mind. It was near Doctor Marillac’s private suite, or in it. I wasn’t too certain about which, but at least I knew that
someone
on the station was up and about. For how long, though, I couldn’t say.

I quickly made my way to the stairwell, staying in cover as best as I could the entire way. I knew that if one of the prisoners caught me out in the open, I’d be forced to use the handgun, which would probably be heard by anyone and everyone. That would tell the enemy precisely where I was. No, I had to use stealth for as long as I could. Gunshots would only draw unwanted attention.

I slid open the door to the stairwell and stuck my head inside. The air was cold but safe, though the air blowing up from the bottom of the shaft prohibited me from hearing anything other than circulating oxygen. On the plus side, it meant that nobody could hear me as I made my way down the metal stairwell.