Onekka - The Tragedy of Jaqui Fennet (15 page)

"What are mercenaries even doing here, anyway?" she asked. "If
the people upstairs have the tech to make those mummies, why risk using living
people, who could blab their secrets at any time? Surely, you and your men are
a massive liability."
The elevator doors closed and it whirred its way up into the strata above.
Somebody had called it, and Jaq knew they'd be hot on her heels in very short
order.
"We're here for life," replied Barrow. "My men and I were all
wounded during a black ops incursion into China. They used some chemical weapon
on us - something no right mind would come up with. By the time we got to the
nearest military hospital, our organs were disintegrating and there was nothing
they could do for us. Next thing I knew, I woke up on Onekka, faced with a
choice between a lifetime contract and the 'off' button." He shrugged.
"I signed up, and here I am. They basically replaced half our bodies with
metal and plastic. They made it clear we could be 'deactivated' at any time, so
basically we serve like our existences depend on it."
"Go," Jaq said, forcing Barrow onwards. "We have to keep moving,
or we'll freeze to death." In fact, the cold already felt like it was
seeping into her bones. They were unwelcome intruders, a virus in a vulnerable
area, and Onekka was rejecting them.
"Fennet, think about it," pleaded Barrow. "You've been operating
under a misunderstanding. You thought Onekka was a threat to peace, when in
fact she keeps it. You were wrong - there's no shame in that."
How can I explain my position? After all I've done, all the crimes I've
committed in my search for the truth, I have to finish this. I won't be a
murderer for nothing - I refuse!
She opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment every vid panel in the
underring went dark. There was a sudden silence where usually that ever-present
background hum dominated existence. On a deep, primal level, Jaq knew what had
happened. The pulsar had done its job, burning out the circuits in the control
cabin. All the views and the cameras, the capabilities run from that room, were
dead. Onekka's optics were down, and the words of the third warning came
crashing into her mind.
When Earth is lost to the humming dark, Onekka will be undone.
"Oh, fuck," whispered Barrow. "Fennet, what did you do?"

Jaq stood,
looking at vid screens with that electronic black that isn't true darkness, but
a willing representation. She could feel the desolation, the confusion of a
populace as every wall, ceiling, balcony and step across the whole of the
station closed its eyes and presented shadows to the world.
The third sign! I
brought it by my own hand. I took away Onekka's defences, and in doing so her
connections to Earth.
The humming dark - existence without the sustenance
even of vision - presided over entirely by the background workings of flimsy
life support and basic back-up systems. That was where they were, a vulnerable
hell condemned to flail blindly at the distant light, wishing for a chance at
hope. Onekka was undone, and it was Jaq who undid her.
While Jaq stood, thunderstruck by her revelation, Barrow made his move. She saw
him coming, had her finger ready on the trigger, and even had time to consider
the idea of pulling it. She imagined the 15mm round puncturing his body,
disappearing in a spurt of blood. Moments later, the explosive in the bullet
would violently rupture his shape, and he would pop, becoming another crime
scene with dead body spread across it. If she was lucky, the concussion
wouldn't bash a hole in the underring's thin hull, and if she was even luckier,
it wouldn't kill her at the same time.
Instead of shooting him, she stepped into his launched form. Before his
shoulder cannoned into her stomach, the solid metal of her gun slammed into his
face with both their momentums behind it. His face, already bruised and
bleeding from his last attempt to overpower her, collapsed under the impact
just as Jaq's breath was knocked from her body. They went down in a heap, and
she found herself flat on her back beneath his heavier form.
Please let you be unconscious. There's no way I can take a trained,
augmented mercenary captain in close combat.
He coughed softly, spattering blood and mucus on her stomach, which was already
covered in blood from his wounds. Her hands were stuck beneath him and her
lungs refused to inflate. Even though she knew she was just winded, the panic
burst in her chest as air was denied her. With a monumental effort, she managed
to roll his armour-clad body from hers. Black spots were flashing in her vision
and a pulsing heat suffused her temples and cheeks. Her nose felt ready to
explode with pressure as her body strained to continue functioning. Was this
how Derek had felt? Or Henrickson - had he experienced such sensations after
she so callously took him down? Jaq stumbled to her feet, feeling an urgent
need to run even though she had no idea where to. Darkness closed in around her
vision.
Did he break my ribs or something - am I dying?
She stumbled,
crashing back to her knees, and as she did so, her lungs exploded back into
action.
Sweet air filled her with life and put a beautiful zest in her mouth, as fresh
as cold lemonade on a baking summer day. She wasn't dead! Jaq remained on her
knees for a while, waiting for her body to recover, and something determined
was born in her breast as she came to a realisation; she really wanted to live.
She'd never followed any particular religion - being brought up in a mixed Sikh
and Christian household made faith a complicated matter. Jaq had gone her own
way, believing in something deep within, a personal power that had more to do with
remaining true to one's self than loyal to another. But whatever she chose to
call it - fate, hope, spirituality, destiny, or just plain luck - kept giving
her chances. She should have failed or fallen a hundred times over by now, but
something kept her going. Wasn't that worth staying true to?
Barrow coughed again; a miserable, pathetic sound.
Some merc captain you
turned out to be. Perhaps you need some of what I've got.
Still, he fought
his way to hands and knees, blood dribbling from his face to the floor in a
steady, metallic patter. Jaq climbed to her feet and retrieved her weapon - a
gun that had no place on a space station - and held it loosely in his
direction, but he didn't seem any threat. He turned to sit against the outer
curve of the round corridor, facing her. Blood caked his nose and one eye was
lost amongst a mess of puckered tissue, but the other peered at her with
something like respect.
"What are you going to do, Fennet?" he said quietly.
She shrugged. "I'm going to tell humanity the real purpose of Onekka. I
realise now it's what's driven me this far. I needed to know, and if it wasn't
meant to, I'd have been dead or arrested long before now. It's my purpose,
Barrow - to show the governments that sometimes, they just have to trust the
people. I'll be the liberator of truth."
"You'll be the instigator of panic, nothing more." He hacked out
another cough, spattering himself. "Is there anything I can say to change
your mind?"
"No." She shook her head. "The truth will set us free."
"Truth," he said, "is just the majority opinion."
She smiled. "I like that, but I don't have time to debate. That elevator
will be filling with your men or station personnel, and I can't be here when
they arrive. I admire your will to delay me, but it's not going to work."
She turned and strode away.
"Aren't you going to kill me?" he shouted at her back.
She cast a glance over her shoulder. "No."
"Why?"
"Because I don't need to."
There was a rustle. "I'm sorry, Fennet."
She turned to see him standing in the centre of the corridor, a small gun in
his hand.
"I can't let you go," he said, and pulled the trigger. Jaq whipped
her own arm up and fired, taking Barrow in the stomach. He stumbled back a few
steps, and then split suddenly into two halves as he detonated. Hunks of
intestine flew in all directions and the metal hull clanked and shuddered.
Several pieces dislodged and clattered to the ground, and a faint hiss sounded
briefly, but then stopped. Jaq looked at the messy body on the floor.
"You bastard," she whispered. She looked down at her upper leg, where
a sting was rapidly turning into pounding agony. A tiny but ragged hole spilled
blood down her thigh and acid-like pain along her leg and up into her groin.
She could still walk on it, but doing so caused a spike to fire up into her
torso with each step. Still, she could only thank the damage to Barrow's face
that she was still alive - the man must have been a better shot than that under
normal circumstances. She tore a long strip from her top and tied it as tightly
as possible around the wound. In an ideal world, the bullet should be dug out
and a proper cauterisation performed, but the ideal world seemed like a fairy
tale dream right now, as ephemeral as a sigh in a hurricane. She blew a great
resigned breath from her body and gritted her teeth.
Hobbling across to Barrow's body, she bent and retrieved the small firearm he'd
shot her with.
What a hypocrite!
It seemed only sensible to take it, so
it went into her pouch bag. Then she turned once more, and continued on her
way.
*
The cold crept through cloth, skin and muscle, seized up tendons and rendered
extremities numb. Jaq shivered as she walked, aware that she was getting
steadily slower. If her mental map of the facility was right, she was more than
half way to the shuttle bay access point, but it was taking far longer than
she'd anticipated. The chill wore her down and clasped at her bones with a
fervent grip, haltering her pace, and the bullet in her leg was sapping energy and
spreading pain throughout her system. At this glacial pace, it would be another
twenty minutes before she reached her destination.
Then she heard a sound that injected urgency into her steps - tramping boots
and raised voices, somewhere behind her! Cold forgotten for the moment, Jaq
moved into something between a hop and a jog, ignoring the nauseating pain from
her thigh. The sounds were echoing along the underring, enhanced by its design
and materials, but still they were not far behind her. Protective armour, which
would help retain warmth, and an obvious lack of bullets in their legs lent the
mercs a significant speed advantage.
She continued for several minutes at the accelerated pace, wincing and panting,
until she couldn't help but pause or cry out. Vomit rose sharply in her throat
and she spat it out. The thundering heartbeat in her ears was drowning out all
sounds of her pursuers, and she knew that was bad. If they caught her, she
wanted fair warning. After a few moments, she continued at a slower pace,
checking her gun as she went. Urgency was pulsing through her veins - the more
desperate her situation got, the more she realised how much she wanted to see
this through. Whatever waited for her at the shuttle bay, she could handle it,
if only she could get clear of these augmented mercenaries.
Suddenly that hideous
whum
sounded again. Her hair flapped up from
behind as a bole of air brushed it, and then slammed into the curved outer wall
ahead of her. The feedback threw her sideways against the inner wall, but she
managed to retain her feet. She spun as the mercenary who'd fired came into
view, and shot him in the chest. He had time to shout in dismay before he
detonated, his limbs bouncing from the walls and ceiling.
Once again, Onekka shivered, vulnerable in her hidden areas. Echoes of the
shockwave bounced back and forth along the great circular passage, bringing a
notable silence from the gaggle of mercenaries behind. More bolts and metal
plates shook loose, but once again she held true. Jaq knew she'd been lucky. As
long as her shots found foes, the insulation of her targets' bodies would
prevent the explosions from tearing holes in the underring. The first time she
missed...
She turned and trotted on, heavily favouring her good leg. The individual merc
had run on ahead of his comrades - big mistake. Perhaps she could get clear
before the others caught up. It couldn't be much further to the hangar.
She ran until blinding agony cramped her stomach every time her feet met metal.
Through an encroaching red mist, she looked at the next ladder she came to.
Engraved up the side was 'Warehouse 12'.
Almost there, Jaq. Keep it together
just a little longer. You can be out of here, free and clear, and the bastards
won't dare chase you openly, because that would lend credence to what you're
going to reveal.
Breath came to her in tiny gasps, forcing its way round
the tightening of her muscles and the undercurrent of fear caused by pain.
Electricity danced in her windpipe, flinging spice in her lungs and fire
against her throat.
Keep it together, keep it together.
She made only one step before another bole of air fluffed past her and burst
ahead, staggering her backwards. She turned, but the merc who'd fired ducked
out of sight, no doubt mindful of what happened to the last guy to catch up
with her. Keeping her aim up, she backed onwards, the slight curve of the
underring keeping her out of sight. She could see an arm protruding round the
inner curve as somebody kept pace with her, never quite revealing themselves.
Jaq kept moving - the next ladder was hers, but how was she going to climb it
with a horde of mercenaries firing air cannons in her direction?
Suddenly the merc skittered forward, bringing his cannon to bear and squatting
to minimise his exposure. Jaq had no time for cover, so she took the risk and
fired at him. He got off a shot just as her round whipped between his knees and
crashed into his groin. He curled into a ball, clutching his privates. Jaq
started to wince, but his air shot caught her square in the chest. As he
exploded, scattering his body around the diameter of the corridor, she was
flung backwards, pin-wheeling through space.
Air wafted the backs of her ears and played havoc with her hair. Her chest felt
like a pillow had collided with it at five hundred miles per hour, crushing her
breasts and knocking the air from her barely recovered lungs. Her limbs were
yanked violently to their full extensions by the force of her spins, throwing
her gun from a grip that may as well have been a mouse's for all the good it
did her. That was a full intensity shot, she realised, but set to a size large
enough that its dispersal was spread across her torso and abdomen. Any thought
that was a good thing was dashed from her head by the landing, which left her
sliding down the outer hull's curve in a broken, pain-wracked heap.
After a few moments of feeling so stunned that nothing registered, Jaq realised
she was breathing. Fresh blood was wetting her leg and a hundred new sources of
pain throbbed with sickly insistence across her body. Through a haze, she
realised she'd come to land by the ladder that was her destination. It followed
the shape of the underring from both outer and inner edges of the floor,
curving up and across the ceiling, in the centre of which was a hatch. The
ladder was bolted to the wall every few inches, and one of those fixing
brackets sat squarely inside a welding channel at head height. The hull plates
had to join somewhere, and the seams were used to house cabling and services.
That resulted in a channel perhaps an inch wide and deep, running in regular
patterns. Following the unbroken line of the channel with her gaze, Jaq watched
it disappear round the outer curve of the hull, and a terrible idea burgeoned
in her head.
The mercenaries were still out of sight, but not by far, she thought. They'd be
at about the position of the previous ladder; the one to Warehouse 12. That
ladder would also be bolted, most likely in exactly the same positions as this
one.
You have moments only, Jaq. Don't let them beat you now. Move it!
She dragged herself with determination and agony to her feet, ignoring the two
fingers on her left hand that weren't functioning and the throbbing dampness at
the back of her head. She needed that gun, or all was lost. It wasn't far away,
nestled beneath the bottom rung on the ladder. She retrieved it, and clambered
two steps up. Her thigh, with its bullet passenger, made climbing nearly
impossible, but she wouldn't need her legs so much in a moment - if her plan
worked.