“Lara?”
She turned and he saw the exhausted worry in her eyes for just a second before she pasted on a shaky smile, a few tendrils of her long hair swirling around her face.
“Hey, Ellis. How are you feeling?” Her concern, at least, seemed genuine.
“A lot better. I’m—I can remember things pretty clearly now, I think. I’ve still got a headache, but not as bad.”
Lara nodded, her smile a little more real. “That’s great, I’m really glad to hear it. Are you hungry? You haven’t eaten since like 1400 yesterday. . . .”
Ellis pulled himself closer, grabbing the molded plastic arm of the other chair. “How long was I asleep?”
“Fourteen, fifteen hours. Don’t worry, we still got almost a full day left and plenty of power on the signal. Someone could still hear us.”
Katherine Lara had been a second lieutenant in the USCMC before having her contract bought up by the Company, and had proved herself to be fast and graceful under extreme pressure—but she couldn’t lie for shit. As out of it as he’d been, Ellis had still been able to comprehend that their chances were one in a million.
Lara started digging through one of the packs hanging on the wall as Ellis moved to the chair and sat, loosely strapping himself in.
“Let’s see, we got . . . soypro in sweet and sour,
grilled and with onion . . . fish and veggie . . . and there’s one lemon chicken left.”
Ellis shrugged. “All kinda tastes the same anyway.”
“No, the chicken’s not so bad, the texture’s really close.” She handed him the thin pack and Ellis pulled the plastic spork off the side and unzipped the seal. In 9.61 seconds, scented steam rose from the pouch and he realized that he was ravenous; he burned his mouth on the first few bites, not caring at all.
“What’d I tell you,” Lara said. “Way better than the beef.”
Ellis nodded, swallowing, thinking of how much things had changed for him in only a few days. He’d been a novice tech before DS 949, signing up for the Max team to make up for a lifetime of feeling powerless, of being too skinny, too smart, too socially inept; his own father had ridiculed him for his weaknesses . . .
. . . and now? I’m dazed and in pain, we’re probably going to die, and I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more at peace. I did something, I made the decision, and then we made it happen.
Being inside of Max had been . . . he, they, had been important. Now that his mind was his own again, he would be able to live his final hours with some real dignity. With the awareness that when things had gotten bad, he and Max had acted.
He finished the chicken and turned to see Lara dozing in her seat, her slender neck arching back, strands of reddish hair that had escaped her ponytail forming a gentle halo around her pale face. She was beautiful, he’d thought so since joining the Nemesis team, but hadn’t thought she could possibly be interested in him . . . still, he had clear memories of her sweet and frowning face in front of his, the sound of her kind, lilting voice reaching into the haze of confusion that had taken up so much of the past—
—seventy-four hours estimate fourteen minutes variable—
—few days. Maybe it was only because he’d been sick, or wishful thinking on his part—
—or maybe she sees me differently now. Because I’m not the same dumb-ass kid I was.
Ellis leaned back in his chair, thinking that it didn’t really matter if she liked him in that way. What mattered was that it was possible, that for the first time in his life he felt like someone, a pretty woman no less, might actually be impressed by him.
First, and maybe last. Ellis watched her sleep, feeling a deep sense of contentment. He’d been a hero, even if only for a little while, the mind inside of a Mobile Assault Exo-Warrior, a giant with hands of fire and death.
It was a dream he could live on, for as long as they had left.
3
The long corridor was tinted red and teeming with alien life, the giant bugs tearing toward them lightning fast—
—and Jess shouted to be heard, his heart in his throat, hearing nothing but alien screams. Something had gone wrong with their transmitters. “Lara, Pop, we’re losing you!”
There were a dozen down now, torn to dusky pieces as the three men fired and kept firing. Shrieking drones leapt over their fallen siblings, a relentless charge into the team’s curtain of explosive fire.
The Candyman yelled, the words rising dear and strong over the screeching attack. “Line’s dead, can’t hear you on the ‘set!”
It was bad, a bad place to be, and it could only get worse. A bug scrabbled toward him, clawing through the growing pile of dead or dying drones, limbs and bodies melting through the deck in oozing acid-splash. Jess fired, the rifle pushed to full auto, hot and jumping, and the monster’s head was suddenly gone.
Even as it collapsed, he could see others behind it, closing
the distance and oblivious to their own mortality. Jess shouted again into the static of his mike, hoping against hope, and there was nothing. They were cut off.
Part of the deck had melted through and several of the maimed bodies dropped out of sight, disappearing through the growing, smoking hole, and still they advanced, barely slowed by the awesome hail of armor-piercing rounds. He made the only decision he could, praying that Teape and Pu-laski could hear him over the intensifying attack. “Fall back! Too many, fall back! Sound off!” Jess fired again, shuffling back a half step, risking a glance at the boys—
—and felt his gut plummet, felt his mind teeter on the brink of something vast and terrible. Both men were firing, holding the line—except Pulaski’s abdomen was shredded, slippery coils of intestine hanging down to his knees in purple ropes. He was grinning the wide grin that spoke of his love for the fight, but his teeth were outlined in red, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth.
Past him was Teape, Jess knew it even though he couldn’t see his face. Teape wore the flat crab body of a hatch-ling, its long tail wrapped tightly around his throat, its spidery, muscular legs curving around the back of his skull. Somehow Teape could still see his targets, picking them out from the seemingly endless river of teeth and claws—
—and Jess had stopped firing but the drones weren’t reaching him, running and screaming but not getting close enough to take him down.
“Fuckin’ hell of a ride, Jess!” Candyman screamed, bloody mist spraying from his red teeth, and Teape didn’t, couldn’t speak, only turned his head in Jess’s direction, the noose of the face-hugger’s smooth, scaled tail slipping tighter around his throat.
Pulaski looked at Jess, blasting the oncoming wave without targeting, his eyes filmed cataract-white.
“You better get outta here, Jessie,” he said, his voice suddenly a dull, dead monotone but louder than anything else. “We’re dead already.”
Jess opened his mouth to resist, to tell them that he would
stay, that he wouldn’t leave them—and nothing at all came out, no matter how hard he struggled. He drew in lungfuls of air, determined to scream, to be heard over the dying howls of the drones and the rattle of pulse fire, above the stench of blood and burning—
—and woke up.
For a moment, Jess didn’t move, staring at the empty net overhead, afraid to close his eyes again. Slowly, his heart stopped pounding and the light sheen of sweat that the nightmare had left on his brow turned cold. Still, he didn’t move, not wanting to; there was nowhere to go, anyway.
The intense feelings of guilt and horror he’d felt in his dream faded, leaving him both wrung out and strangely thoughtful. He closed his eyes again, thinking about the dream, about the conflicted feelings he’d had since they’d escaped the station. Horror, sorrow, guilt—and some dark and heavy feeling that he hadn’t examined too carefully. The horror and sadness were obvious; the rest of it, he thought it might be worth to try and work through. He wouldn’t have much longer to make his peace.
Teape and Pulaski, dead. He wasn’t suffering survivor’s guilt, or at least he didn’t think so; he’d made it because that was how things had worked out, right or wrong—and considering where he and Lara and the kid had ended up, “making it” and “survivor” didn’t really seem to apply. He wasn’t bothered overmuch about checking out, although not because he felt he deserved it; the simple truth was, there was no point in being bothered by what he couldn’t change.