Chapter Forty
The lights flickered, went out, came back on red.
“Chalmers, what the hell is going on?” Moose asked, coasting back onto the flight deck, engineer in tow.
“Automated visual warning system in case of loss of atmosphere,” Chalmers read, taking the dead man by the arm.
“Warning for what?”
“Radiation levels are increasing beyond engineering…” Chalmers slapped the corpse’s left hand down on the console.
Nothing happened.
“What?” Moose’s voice was strained to the point of breaking. A glance showed the big guy pale beneath his paint. It figured that anyone who grew up in the late forties or early fifties could fully ignore the existential threat of nuclear radiation. Praying it would work, Chalmers grabbed the corpse’s right hand and flattened it against the console.
SYSTEM UNLOCKED glowed in big red letters.
“Look man,” Chalmers said, trying to play it cool as he accessed the previously secured systems beyond the print lock. “I’m no fucking engineer, but something weird was goi—” Chalmers stopped speaking when one edge of the panel started pulsing. He read it aloud. “Engineering comm.”
“What?”
Chalmers ignored Moose, tapped the corner.
A speaker came to life. “Replace the shielding, and I’ll surrender.”
Chalmers recognized Yukannak’s voice with some difficulty. The engineering section had an ear-piercing radiation warning sounding at loud intervals.
“Wh—” Moose began. He stopped when Chalmers raised a hand.
Chalmers faked a baritone and summoned his best Kulsis accent. “Why should we not let you cook until your testicles will no longer serve to sire another generation?”
“Because I can deliver the rest of the stowaways.”
Chalmers thought quickly, waved Moose out the hatch. “We have them already.”
Moose looked at him for an instant, then nodded. He launched himself out the door.
“Do you have them all, though?”
Chalmers called up the hatch control graphic. “The only one outstanding is you, and I have you where I want you,” Chalmers said, voice echoing as it was rebroadcast on every comm throughout the ship.
“I could do a great deal of damage here.” Something in Yukannak’s tone set Chalmers’s teeth on edge. He watched the graphic, tracking Moose’s progress through the ship.
“And die in the process?” he said, trying to visualize the position of the engine-room console in relation to the hatch. He was fairly certain the seat locked in a rear-facing position when it was unmanned, and required the occupant to unlock it when taking the position.
“I understand I wronged you by starting this the way I did,” Yukannak said, even tones belying what had to be a stressful situation. “But I had limited options, and I believed you would be compromised by the drugs those who brought me aboard introduced into your supplies.”
Between beats of the alarm, Chalmers remembered the dopey expression the pilot had worn on entry to the flight deck and decided he’d been only too ready with his own responses and too quick with his answers. He added a slight slur to his words. “Anger accomplishes many things.”
“A wonder of evolution,” Yukannak agreed.
A “lock override request” came up for the hatch leading to engineering. Chalmers’s hand hovered over the accept graphic, praying Moose could get in fast and overwhelm the traitor. He paused, resolved to do what he could to distract Yukannak.
“Tell me again why you—”
“Betrayed the creatures with me?” Yukannak interrupted.
“Yes,” Chalmers said.
“Once you let me out of here.”
“How do I know you won’t resist further?”
“Because I have lost all advantage. It would be foolish to continue. You have proven my superior.”
Chalmers hesitated, thinking through the angles. “You will strap yourself into the console and remain there while we decide what to do with you.”
In the relative silence between the ringing of the klaxon Chalmers half-heard a noise like an indrawn breath, but no words.
The channel went dead.
Shit. I should never have said “we.” Kulsians do not reach a consensus before acting.
Another comm request light blinked, this one from the cargo bay corridor.
Making sure it was private, Chalmers tapped it open and said, “I fucked up, Moose.”
“I heard. Do I go?”
“I’d join you, but there’s no time delay on the door control.”
“Copy. I think I can take him.”
“You sure?”
“We got much choice?”
“Could just let him cook.”
“And let him figure out a way to do us more harm from in there?”
“Right. Tell me when.”
Chalmers swallowed. “Wait one.” He muted Moose, piped the channel throughout the ship, and dialed up engineering.
A pause, then, “Chalmers?”
“Sure is,” he said, dropping into his normal voice.
“I didn’t kill any of you, even when I could have.”
“I know.” And then, because he had only one card left to play, Chalmers said, “It’s the only reason you’re slow roasting instead of dead already.”
“How did you get control of the bridge?” Yukannak said.
“We followed the plan,” Chalmers said, loading his voice with contempt. “You know, the one that would have seen us all safely in command.”
“But the lockouts…Di—”
“You can’t have believed we would reveal all our capabilities to you, a traitor to your own people?”
An indrawn breath, then, “What do you want of me?”
“Surrender. Immediate and unconditional.”
Chalmers heard a sound he recognized: hands slapping a console like the one in front of him. Two hands. The console was not far from the door.
“What kind o—” Yukannak started.
“That is my only, final offer!” Chalmers shouted over him, hoping the sound of his voice would cover the sound of the hatch unlocking.
“What are—?”
Chalmers heard a grunt, followed quickly by a heavy impact. A moan, then a spluttering wheeze.
“Fucker!” Moose yelled, grunting with exertion. More struggles. More gasps.
“Want me down there?” Chalmers half-shouted.
“No, he’s gonna go night-night soon,” Moose said, hoarse with effort.
“What?”
“Isn’t that right, Yuks?” Moose hissed. “Say good night.”
A gurgle. A gasp. More gurgles.
“Choked him out, Chalmers. Come get him. I ain’t letting go of this asshole till you got him hog-tied.”
“On my way.”
“There’s a big difference between swearing innocence and admitting a degree of culpability. I did attempt to take the ship alone, thinking I had a better chance of success that way. In the end, my actions assisted you in the taking of this vessel. Were it not for my actions distracting the crew, you’d not have taken them down so easily.”
“Easily?” Chalmers snarled. “Look at Jackson, you smug fuck!”
Yukannak’s golden gaze didn’t even flick Jackson’s way. He shrugged as much as his bindings would allow, which was not a great deal. He was hog-tied and suspended a good meter away from anything he could possibly reach. The muscle the Kulsian had built up while training with them was a threat they would not be underestimating again anytime soon.
“I warned you all that sons of Kulsis are not easily overcome in hand-to-hand fighting. Especially those who lay claim to a command.” Yukannak cocked his head at Jackson, eyes never leaving Chalmers. “There lies proof of the truth of my words.”
“Didn’t stop Moose from kicking your ass, did it?” Chalmers said. Despite the brave words, he couldn’t help looking at his partner’s still form.
Jackson’s head was a mass of bandages meant to keep his jaw in one place. They’d sedated him with some of the drugs meant for the crew, and he was breathing normally now, but none of them were real medics, let alone doctors.
“I believed your plan insufficient to the task,” Yukannak said. “I told you this before we embarked on the mission. You did not listen. I only took action in order to prevent my own demise. Any miscalculation on my part worked to your benefit, landing you in command of the vessel.”
Chalmers looked at the Kulsian. Yukannak didn’t look that much better. His right ear was missing a big chunk where a blow from Moose’s sap had torn it, his left cheek was swollen around a visible break in the underlying bone, and his lips were split in several places.
“What were you going to do if you managed to take the ship?”
“Use knowledge of your presence to assure my own survival, of course. Disrupting ongoing survey operations is an offense that carries a death sentence under normal circumstances.”
“And these are anything but?”
Yukannak smiled, causing spherical beads of blood to form on his split lips. “You understand more than you let on, Chalmers.”
Moose coasted into the room, sailing right past Yukannak. Chalmers took a bully’s pleasure in watching the Kulsian flinch away from Moose as the big Lost Soldier hooked a bruise-mottled arm through a convenient rung to arrest his flight. He looked from Chalmers to Yukannak and said, “Vat says he’s got a good read on our rendezvous.”
“I hope, for all our sakes, that no emergencies arise.” Yukannak’s blood-dotted grin reappeared. “Emergencies such as those that require a skilled pilot at the controls of this ship.”
Moose reached out and casually slapped the back of the Kulsian’s head with one big mitt. “Can’t exactly trust you at the controls, can we? Just like fuckin’ ARVN. Never knew when they’d been bought out by the dope peddlers or the fuckin’ VC.”
Yukannak glared at his captors. “I only did what I knew to be the best option for my survival. My actions would have also ensured your survival as well.”
“Sure, as POWs,” Moose said.
“Hell, we Untermensch would have been accorded even less rights than any POWs the Viet Cong kept. I bet we’d have all been eager to play Russian roulette a la that scene in The Deer Hunter after a day or two as their prisoners.”
“Chris Walken was amazing in that flick,” Vat said, pulling himself into the galley from the flight deck.
Moose looked puzzled.
“Another great movie, brother,” Chalmers explained.
“That we’ll never see again,” Vat added sadly.
“You are all nostalgic for so many things that mean nothing,” Yukannak said, contemptuously. “And all while you should be focused on survival. It will be your undoing.”
“Should have let you cook,” Chalmers snapped.
Moose grinned. “I’m already nostalgic for a scene like that.”
“No good if I can’t watch that smug expression die,” Vat opined.
Jackson mumbled something. They’d set his dislocated jaw while he was unconscious, but the hinges or whatever had swollen so big as to make him look like a chipmunk.
Chalmers drifted over toward him. “Don’t speak, man. Go back to sleep.”
His partner’s one visible eye was open. It slowly focused on Chalmers.
“Hard to,” Jackson mumbled, slowly and carefully, “with you bastards arguing.”
“Hey, I seem to remember waking up all swathed in bandages—mostly unnecessary bandages—while you performed a little drama for my entertainment,” Chalmers said, a strained feeling building in his chest. “I’m afraid arguing with the fucker who was gonna sell us out was the best I could do on short notice.”
A slight stirring beneath the bandages, a sighed shadow of a chuckle that cut to a pained cough.
“Sorry, man,” Chalmers whispered.
Jackson didn’t reply, eye drifting closed on another wave of dope.
Chalmers felt a selfish need to keep Jackson awake: to ask him for, and receive, his approval. His absolution for everything that had gone wrong since they’d boarded the Blackhawk in Mogadishu.
Sitting on the feeling, Chalmers analyzed the need for reassurance, realized he wanted to know that he hadn’t fucked everything up. That doing his best had, just this once, been enough.
Vat appeared at his elbow. “He’s a tough bastard, Chalmers. He’ll be all right.”
“We’re all tough bastards, ain’t we?” Chalmers said. “But I’m the one who let us get blindsided.”
“What?” Moose said.
Chalmers swallowed past a lump in his throat. “My decisions,” he said hoarsely, “led to this. I didn’t…I should have…seen that fucker coming.” He fixed Yukannak with a stare. All the hate he felt—toward his situation, toward his old life, toward himself—he channeled into that withering glare.
Yukannak didn’t look away, but his grin froze then broke under the stare.
Chalmers kept staring until Moose drifted between them. “I’ll just move this garbage to a cabin for the time being.” He untethered Yukannak from the bulkhead and towed him out of the mess.
Chalmers forced his fists to unclench as the men disappeared into the cabin. His wrist throbbed in time with his too-fast pulse.
Vat cleared his throat. “You know, I didn’t think we’d pull it off.”
Chalmers chuckled, said sourly, “Have we?”
“Have we what?”
“Have we pulled it off?”
“I have to believe we have,” Vat said. He nodded, once and sharply, as if convincing himself. “Bowden and crew will rendezvous with us in a couple days. We get off, report, go home. Everyone is happy.”
“Home?” Another, more forceful, laugh escaped Chalmers’s lips. It was no less sour than the chuckle, though.
Vat shrugged. “Well, for certain values of home, anyway.”
“Right. That’s the thing, ain’t it?”
“What?”
“We ain’t ever going back. Not going home. Not in any real sense.”
“You just now figuring that out?”
Chalmers looked down at his hands. “I suppose so. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“Just…” Chalmers sighed, raised his hands as he tried to explain what bothered him. “I was happy to be here at first. Had all these plans to make myself a better…person. I didn’t really think that all the way through, though.”
“How’s that? Sounds kinda admirable to me.”
Chalmers glanced at Jackson. Eyes skipping from the bandaged body back to Vat’s questioning face, he shrugged. “I just realized I don’t know that making me better is worth two shits if there’s no one to go home to, to be better for, you know?”
Vat smiled crookedly. “I only know what works for me. Family—chosen or born into—is the only thing worth fighting for.”
“Even when all you’re fighting against is your own inclination to do wrong?”
“Especially then.”
He cast another look at Jackson. “I suppose it does,” Horace Earl Chalmers said with a somber nod. “I suppose it does.”