The Edge Page 37

smithereens."

  "It can be done."

  "But, Mak, the time?"

  "Get everybody that can walk. We've got less than three hours. Jamaal, I need two crews. One that's going to set up a self-destruct that'll blow up everything we have. The second's got to get the wounded up here and every last inch of life support."

  "What about the zombies we've captured."

  "Leave them. Now does anyone else have any other ideas?" They were quiet. "Go."

  They signed off.

  He jumped up on top of the console. "Quiet, please," he yelled. "Quiet!"

  Slowly, the Bridge settled down. His stomach suddenly clenched at the sight of all these people watching him. This wasn't his favorite thing to do.

  "Listen up! We are leaving!" He outlined the plan for them. "We need life support, food, water, and room. We need it in less than three hours."

  The silence lingered then a buzz of whispering and muttering replaced it.

  "You are insane!" somebody shouted. "It's not going to work."

  Others took it up. The Soldiers didn't want to retreat. The crew didn't want to abandon the X. They still wanted to win. They thought they could still pull this off. Save the people who had been lost, retake the territory that wasn't theirs, win this. The X was their home. They weren't going to leave it behind. They weren't going to run. It wasn't in their nature.

  He was losing them. There was nobody he could appeal to. They weren't going to take this any more. Not from him. He wanted to scream. Ask them if they had a better idea. Some solution not sounding like he'd overdosed on Aphros. He wanted to say fine, let somebody else do it. Maybe he could just start punching people. He didn't want this to begin with. How had it happened? Somebody, anybody, should be up here. Not him. It was painfully obvious. They didn't want him. He didn't want it. Fight, run, anything but this. Be Calm, he finally thought, forcing the rising tide of panic away. Be Calm.

  "Listen up! Listen! We can't stay. We can't. We're getting our butts kicked. We can't move the X. We're fighting an enemy we can't see let alone kill. We are going to kill people we know. Be killed by those people. If we're lucky. If we are lucky. If we're not, we're going to end up just like them. I am not turning into no zombie. I am not turning this ship over to some bunch of zombies. I am not going to stand around waiting to die. And somebody might try to kill me and, you know, they might succeed. But if somebody's going to kick my ass to hell, then you know what? They're coming too."

  There was silence.

  The Hellborne suddenly raised their fists in the air and shouted out their familiar battle cry. "Fuck 'em!" Over and over again. Until everybody in the room was screaming it out so it reverberated through what became to be known as the Bridge Express.

  Nobody knew whether the Hellborne were telepathic. Least of all the Hellborne. They acted as if they were. How else could all the Hellborne in the room separated by so many others all shout at the same time? Yet, no test had ever shown any telepathic capabilities.

  No amount of coaxing could get them to change their battle cry. Rumors came and went, some by the Hellborne themselves, about how they managed to get such an interesting phrase. Nobody knew and nobody could change it. The D'ha'ren liked it though.

  Supposedly, the first contact with the Hellborne and Earth had been between a small science ship and a giant Hellborne Titan. The first words the scientists had understood required them to recheck again and again. But it was true, even after real diplomats were involved.

  "Command us. We are yours."

  No one really knew what that meant. The Hellborne proved to have as strong a government as anybody. Nobody commanded them. They loved doing things their own way.

  However, Humans who lived on Hellborne felt as if the people there were waiting for something. Reports and books detailed a feeling, an atmosphere of expectation. That something was supposed to happen. A moment to be given. Nobody knew exactly for what. Nor why. There seemed to be a strong suspicion the Hellborne didn't know why and for what either.

  They seemed a gentle people who spent their time creating huge space ships. The DreadNoughts were constructed by the Hellborne. They didn't fight amongst themselves. They loved to laugh and have a good time. Uncomplicated. They adopted some of the Human ways of dress and speech, some of the cities were even renamed. Fundamentally, it didn't seem to change them. They merely integrated Human culture into theirs. They didn't do that with the D'ha'rens or any other alien cultures. Just Earth. Still, there were those undeniable hints of some mysticism which would not be unveiled. And where they had picked up their battle cry was only one of their many mysteries.

  Mak helped out wherever he could. He heaved add-ons to the life support, helped the wounded onto the Bridge, and distributed meal packets. People came to him asking for advice. How much food? How much light? Do we need this? Should we keep that? He was completely lost most of the time. Making wild ass guesses sound like knowledgeable decisions became an art form. One of his favorite phrases became, "Use your best judgment."

  He found himself at one point trying to use the facilities but the mechs were all over them.

  "Uh, you're not taking these out are you?" he asked.

  "Hell no, sir," the mech grinned. "We're beefing up their capacity."

  "Oh okay, had me worried there for a second."

  "Yeah." The mech, his face weary, glanced at the line to use the one functioning bathroom. A gash on his right arm leaked blood. His left hand showed broken fingers. Mak couldn't tell if the wounds were from combat or the work. Didn't matter. "We want the Express to have all the luxuries of a cruise ship."

  Another mech, a bandage covering one eye, an angry looking burn running down her face, chimed in. "Yeah, we're going to be putting in the hot tubs and massage parlors next."

  Mak grinned in return. "I guess that's why you guys make the big bucks."

  "Oh, so that's what they call that shit I get every month."

  They laughed. Mak got in line.

  He knew he looked a mess. His face was stubbly and filthy. He was sorry to say, he didn't look the worst. Beat up. Unshaven. Haggard with fatigue. The air was getting bad. Most conversations were punctuated with coughs that too often turned into hacking fits. Tired. Deep bone tired. Everybody moved with a leaden desperation. Sheer exhaustion was unraveling muscle and bone before his very eyes.

  The Bridge Express was filling up. There were more people wounded than he thought. Some were in bad ways. The Bridge had always looked so big to him. But now? The independent life support of the Express was not designed for this many people. The techs turned the machines into life support monsters. They weren't sure if it was enough. It would have to do. Every enviro suit they could lay their hands on was stripped of their scrubbers. Every available scrubber was hooked up to filter the deadly fumes out of the air. Somebody had the great idea of ripping down the ceiling panels so more supplies could be stacked up. Floor panels were pulled up to shove stuff into.

  He wondered what Suth would have thought about his Bridge now. The Captain of the X had never regained consciousness.

  A portable computer flew at him suddenly and smashed at his feet.

  "Oops!" said a young science officer, struggling over to him. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to fling it at you. I was just trying to?"

  Mak waited. "Trying to what?"

  "I was trying to calculate our survivability based on the number of people, life support capacity, supplies, and so on."

  "Oh yeah?" Mak looked at the smashed machinery. "Doesn't look like good news."

  "Eh. Too many variables. Besides who cares what a stupid computer thinks?"

  "Yeah, screw it." Mak stomped on the broken machine. The young man looked broodingly at the pile of circuits and glass. "They could use a hand in life support."

  He brightened up. "Got it." He struggled away, limping on a leg Mak thought looked broken.

  Quickly, quickly, he found himself muttering. He didn't want to look at the clock but time was
running out. He could feel it.

  The turrets and missiles were moved into position slowly, carefully. The Weapons crew didn't want to give away what they were doing in case somebody was watching. Nobody outside of the X would have noticed since the targeting was beneath the skin of the big ship. But who wanted to take any chances? They rigged it so a single command would deploy the turrets and missile launchers. Then the turrets would fire for thirty-seconds then cut off automatically. The missiles would fire almost at the same time. The same button that fired the missiles started the count down for the self-destruct. It'd be two minutes later when the X detonated itself. The force would probably start a chain reaction in the ships surrounding the cluster. The navigators had figured they needed to get behind a small moon circling SJ-1. That would provide some protection though if everything went up, it might destroy the moon and maybe the planet as well. Assuming they survived and the M'hin'rah had decided to stick around, the Express would get picked up, and they'd be heroes. Simple enough.

  Th'han'dra had an idea which sounded so fantastic he could hardly believe it. They were going to fly the pods through the ship to where they were needed, inside the Bridge transport tunnel. He had assumed they would take them apart, move them, then reassemble them. Instead, they'd simply blast their way through the unarmored decks to the tunnel.

  "Exciting, huh, Boss?" Zin Zin squealed, clapping her hands.

  He was at a console so he could