My boys were still jumpy after the incident in Hangar Bay 4, but my vets had more experience than the Alexander’s other marines, so we were up. Having lost McNulty, Henderson, Parker, Montano and Gandolfini, I had no choice but to put my Kerenza rookies in the firing line. Corporal Sykes had been in a darker mood than usual since Bay 4—if it was up to him, I’m sure he’d have flushed every civi in the fleet out an airlock.
“We expecting resistance, boss?” he asked.
“Negative,” Torrence replied. “These are civilians, they’ll do what they’re told. Still, you’re packing hot ballistics. The chipheads are off-limits, but if anyone else is stupid enough to get in your way, you be the push that makes them move.”
Sykes’s smile put ice in my belly. “Roger that, sir.”
“Sir,” I asked. “Aren’t we there to pacify rather than neutralize?”
“You are there, Lieutenant, to bring back personnel vital to fleet operations. If we didn’t need all our own people, I’d have already brigged Hypatia’s commanders and replaced them with UTA personnel. So if anyone gets in your way, they are to be considered enemy combatants and dealt with accordingly. Is that understood?”
“Sir, yessir.”
“Good hunting.”
On the way down to Hangar Bay 1, we passed the airlock to Bay 4. I tried my best not to think about the man trapped inside it, the people beyond it. Who they were and what they’d become. The gold UTA sigil on my sleeve caught the light of the alert globes spinning above the sealed doors. Red as the blood on my hands.
The trip across to Hypatia was taken in complete silence. I should’ve been talking to my people, making sure they were chill. I could barely stop my teeth from chattering. One of my Kerenza rooks was looking at me—Doherty was her name. Staring from behind her wire-rimmed spectacles like I had the answers. I kept my eyes to the floor. Spoke to no one in particular.
“Follow my lead. Do not fire unless I give the order. The first itchy trigger on my watch gets to learn what the outside of an airlock tastes like, crystal?”
“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” came a dozen barks.
We came into Hypatia’s docking bay at hard burn. The artificial grav kicked back in and dropped me into my seat and I was up and out of it before I could get cozy. If I’d let myself, I’d have stayed there forever—buckled in tight and wondering how it came to this.
I spoke to the pilot as we touched down. “Kilpatrick, keep engines running. We may need to jet quick.”
“Affirmative, LT.”
“All right,” Sykes barked to the squad. “Suit up, let’s roll.”
Out the shuttle door and across the bay, the stink of fuel and char in my mouth. Patching myself into the local Command frequency and speaking through gritted teeth.
“Hypatia, this is First Lieutenant Winifred McCall from UTA Marine Squad Sigma. We are here to escort Hypatia commtech personnel in accordance with Alexander Command directives. Please open internal hangar bay doors, over?”
“Lieutenant McCall, this is Captain Chau of the Hypatia, over.”
“Roger that, Captain, I read you. Please open internal hangar bay doors, over.”
“Negative, Lieutenant. You’re not taking my people.”
I tried not to sigh then. Tried not to acknowledge I knew exactly how she felt to have one of my guys ripped away from me, or remember McNulty’s face as that airlock slammed closed.
“They’re not your people anymore, Captain. They’re UTA conscripts. Now you can open these doors, or the plasma missiles on our shuttle can open them for you.”
Silence down comms, then. Doherty looking at me the way kids must look at their mothers. Wondering if any of this was real. Sykes spat on the deck, spat down his transmitter.
“Open the fucking doors before we blow them in, goddammit.”
I had Sykes’s collar in my fist before I knew it. Hand over my mic so Hypatia couldn’t hear. Dragging him close enough to smell the hooch on his breath.
“You secure that bullshit right now, or I’ll kick your teeth so hard you’ll need to unzip for me to lace up.”
Silent rebellion in his eyes. I should have benched him right there. I could see the names written on his face. Parker. Henderson. Gandolfini. Montano. McNulty.
“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” he said.
The airlock doors opened wide. What passed for Hypatia’s Sec Squad was waiting for us on the other side. Their Lieutenant looked former military, but he was about twenty years too old, about eighty pounds too slow.
“Where are the commtechs?” I asked.
“On the bridge,” the LT replied. “They’re still working to get us out of this mess.”
“You ex-UTA, LT?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Then you know what a VK assault rifle does to a human body at close range?”
A swallow. A glance to the weapon in my hand. “Yes, I do.”
“Lead the way.”
Through long gleaming halls, boots squeaking on rubber floors. All of it surgical white once, but just a little faded now. Pale faces peering at us from behind grubby plasteel windows. Unshaven cheeks or pink dye jobs with six months of regrowth at the roots. Frightened eyes. All of us fraying at the edges.
The Hypatia bridge was semi-circular. Humming with static. Chau had cleared most of her personnel out in case things went south of heaven. The remaining crew glanced up as we entered. I could imagine how we looked. All in black. Hollow eyes. Thirty-eight rounds of murder in every clip.