Vanguard Word Update

2200 words. This marks the point the story has reached beyond 100k words. Don't worry, this is the final act in case you haven't noticed.

***

The officer was looking between them, and he pressed his weapon harder into the woman’s head. “I know that you’re talking to each other,” he growled. “you’re thinking of way to turn this around, but you’re wasting your time. Even if you killed all of us, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got contingencies in place, so you better listen up or-”

The Balokarids sprang into action, hurling themselves forward like sprinters off the starting block. The nine-foot aliens travelled the distance quickly on their long legs, faster than their size would suggest they were possible of. For a terrible second Cadell thought the officer would kill the woman, but having a giant alien charging you down forced his instincts to kick in, and he pulled his handgun in Samiha’s direction.

He fired off a shot, the revolver kicking towards the ceiling, but Samiha was faster, grabbing his wrist and thrusting it aside. She shoved her tremendous weight into him, the officer flung aside, his back compressing against the glass. She took hold of the woman at the same moment, pushing her to the ground as the rest of the Confederates trained their guns on her.

They were an instant from cutting her down, but with Kazlu also joining the charge, Hunter and Cadell had the space to open up on them. They cut down three in the initial burst, Kazlu barrelling into one of the hostage takers, leading with her bayonet as she lifted him off the ground with it impaled in his chest, the startled technician darting out of the line of fire.

Samiha stepped over the woman, covering her with her shield as she swivelled to one of the Confederate’s on the right, dumbing the rest off her ammo into his chest. The whole thing had only lasted three seconds, but it ended with the last of the Confederates dead or dying on the floor.

“Clear!” Cadell said, training his weapon on one of the soldiers, lying in a circle of blood but still alive. “Samiha, Kazlu!” he said, rushing up to them. “You okay?”

“Took a round,” Kazlu said, motioning to her arm. “Broke my seal, but I’m fine otherwise.”

“Me too,” Samiha reported. She placed her hand on his shoulder, turning him to face her. “Cadell! What happened?”

“Huh?” She pointed to his side, and he looked down, noting a stream of his blood leaking from his side. “Oh, that.”

He told her about his struggle with the soldier, how he’d managed to slip out using the several-hundred-degree heat sinks to break free.

“Are you well?” Samiha asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “knife didn’t get very deep, it’s just a little bleeding.”

“Not talking about your wounds,” Samiha added. “I meant are you well?”

Cadell turned, surveying the bloody scene. There were bodies everywhere, keeled over terminals and sprawled out in messy heaps, flecks of blood everywhere. There was a distinct smell of cooking meat that even his helmet couldn’t filter out, the image of burning a chunk out of that soldier’s leg flashing through his mind. All this training and preparation, but he had never really appreciated how messy it could all be. 

“Not really like the sims, is it?” he asked. He felt guilt at how he’d burned the flesh off that man only to shoot him dead straight after. It was a horrible way to go. What was it that Samiha had told to him all those months ago? War is not adventure, Cadell, it is the process of turning the innocent into the guilty. He was feeling no shortage of guilt right now…

“It is not,” Samiha said, turning him so he faced her. “That weight you are feeling right now, remember it, let it remind you that you are a cut above these murderers. Don’t become numb to it, like I have.”

She pulled him into a one-armed hug, the two sharing a quick embrace. The moment was cut short, the sound of a scuffle drawing their attention. Kazlu was standing over the Confederate officer, her avian foot planted on his spine. He’d been reaching for a nearby rifle, Kazlu using her coilgun to knock it out of reach.

“This one still lives,” Kazlu said, applying more pressure with her leg. “Stop wriggling, mealworm, or I’ll stop your wriggling forever.”

Samiha came over and knelt down, hovering her coilgun ominously before his head. “Do it, alien,” the officer snarled. “End it.”

“You would want that,” Samiha remarked. “Using civilians as a shield, not even the most destitute creature could live with that shame. But you won’t get that release from us, not until you tell the Alliance all you know.”

She motioned for one of the hostages, the man, taking off his bindings and putting them on the officer. The confederate’s wild eyes went to Cadell next. “Are you going to let these aliens treat me like this?” he demanded. “As one human to another, don’t you thi-”

He was silenced as Samiha tired a strip of cloth over his mouth, his words cutting off into mumbles and growls. Cadell went to free the other hostages, gently easing the woman with the ponytail into a sitting position. She was speaking into her gag incessantly, jerking her head vigorously to the side.

“It’s alright, I’ve got you,” he said, untying her wrists. “It’s over now, you’re safe.”

The woman pulled the cloth out of her mouth by herself. “No, no we’re not safe!” she said, her sudden urgency startling him. “The Feds, they’ve uploaded some… some algorithm that’s overridden the whole system!”

“We’ve got tech’s up on the carrier,” Cadell said, trying to calm her down. “Soon as the shipyard’s secure, they’ll land, help get this place back up and-”

“It’s not that!” the woman insisted. “Listen to me, you need to pull everyone off the station right now. Get back on your ship and get clear of the whole sector. The reactor, they… they’ve set it to go critical.”

“They what?” Hunter asked from nearby. “They want to dust the whole yard? Why?”

“Take a guess!” the woman shot back. “Easier to destroy the place then let you take it back.”

“Can we stop it?” Cadell asked, glancing to the side. For a reactor going critical, there was a distinct lack of alarms.

“Maybe. They used the supervisor’s console, that one over there. I’m just a comms officer, but I can take a look.”

The woman stepped over the body of a soldier, hunching over a terminal as she started to clack away at a keyboard. Cadell peered over shoulder, one of the data feeds switching two a two-dimensional diagram of the shipyard’s nuclear reactor. There were red warnings all over it, and he didn’t need to be an engineer to know that wasn’t a good sign.

“Damn it, they’ve turned off the coolant pumps,” she said, desperately typing away. “fuel rods are melting right through the containment.”

“Can’t you just put them back in from here?” Cadell asked.

“I’m locked out of the system,” the woman replied, panic starting to make her sound flustered. “Admin privileges, emergency overrides, remote controls, alarms, it’s all fried. Whatever they uploaded it’s spread to every damn inch of the station.”

“How long until it blows?” Cadell asked.

“I... I don’t know! The fuel rods build up a lot of heat very quickly, and without coolant they could start to slag the containment unit in a matter of minutes.”

“Who is this ‘they’ you keep talking about?” Hunter quizzed from nearby. “Who set the reactor off?”

The woman nodded to the side. “He did.”

The Confederate officer yelped as Samiha ripped off his gag, the man still pinned below Kazlu’s foot.

“I am going to give you one chance to redeem yourself,” Samiha demanded. “Tell us how to stop this.”

“Told you I had contingencies,” the officer chuckled. “I offered to talk terms, but you chose to be stupid. Now you, me, and the rest of these traitors are going to burn together.”

“You are burning either way,” Samiha replied. “but not under your terms.” She turned to the woman. “Comms officer, your name?”

“Eleanor.”

“Eleanor, there must be manual controls for this reactor, yes? Such powerful technology is not solely operated remotely, is it?”

“Well, no,” the woman, Eleanor, said. “There are manual controls down in the engine room, sure. If the Feds haven’t damaged anything down there, you might be able to reactive the pumps.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Hunter asked. “Let’s go save us a station.”

“The reactor’s two decks below us,” Eleanor argued. “and there’s probably two dozen Feds down there waiting for you.”

“Good thing we brought more than two dozen rounds of ammo,” Kurtis chimed in.

“I’m callin’ this in,” Cadell said, switching radio channel from his wrist display. “Captain, this is Cadell, come in.”

“Receiving, Corporal,” the Captain’s voice chimed after a second. “Is the habitat secured?”

“Yes, Sir, we even got one of the officer’s alive, but there’s another problem.” He explained what Eleanor had told them, the Captain pausing before responding.

“We would have noticed by now if the reactor was about to blow,” the Captain argued. “There would be warnings, alarms.”

“The Feds uploaded some… virus to the grid,” Cadell explained. “Turned off every failsafe so we wouldn’t notice anything till the last second.”

“And let an entire platoon walk into it,” the Captain added, morbidly. “Get your team out of there immediately, Corporal, I’ll have a dropship waiting for you at airlock 13-D. I’ll send word to the rest of the men to evacuate.”

“We’ve got a way to fix it, Sir,” Cadell interjected. “One of the hostages says the reactor can be operated manually, we just have to get to it.”

“Ther are no teams close enough to do that within a feasible timeframe, Corporal,” Vonstock countered. “We have to assume the station will collapse at any minute.”

“Sir, there are hundreds of people on this station,” Cadell argued. “The reactor goes, and they’ll all die.”

“Then save who you can and get your team back to your shuttle,” Vonstock snapped. “Unless you want to join them you need to drop the heroics and return to the carrier. Understood?”

Cadel didn’t bother replying, cursing under his breath. The mission brief stated that two hundred and seventy people worked on the station at the time the Confederates had tried to seize control, there was no way one platoon could corral that many people in such a short timeframe. It was a lot to sacrifice, too much in Cadell’s opinion.

“What are your orders, Kith’sla?” Kazlu asked.

“Captain wants us to cut our losses,” Cadell explained. “Says no ones close enough to the reactor to fit it up. Eleanor, how far a walk is it from here?”

“It’s two decks, so… maybe five minutes if we hurry,” she said.

“And you’re sure you can stop the meltdown from there?”

“I never said that! I’m a comms officer, my expertise is in radio equipment, not nuclear fission.”

“Yeah, well my expertise is in being a soldier, but I’m about to go against orders, so we’re both out of our leagues here. You’re more familiar with the station than we are, that makes you our best shot at stoppin’ this.”

“A-Alright,” Eleanor said. “I’ll do what I can, if you get me there.”

“Listen up, everyone,” Cadell said, waving the group over in a small huddle, save for Kazlu, who still kept the officer secured to the floor nearby. “Captain’s orders are to evacuate, so I want you all to get these two civvies back to the shuttle. I’ll go on with Eleanor here and see if we can’t stop this place from blowing sky high, so Samiha will be in charge.”

“Oh, no,” Samiha replied. “You’re not doing this now, Cadell. A Kith’sla never does anything alone. I’m going with you.”

“So am I,” Hunter said. “I’m not going to abandon my squad leader, and all these people on my first op.”

“Kith’sla, did you actually expect me to agree to abandon my friends?” Kazlu asked.

“Do I have to say my own thing, too?” Kurtis added.

“I appreciate the sentiment, everyone,” Cadell said. “but best case scenario, we’ll all be reprimanded for disobeying orders, and at worst… the whole station goes down, assuming we don’t get killed along the way.”

“Going out in a blaze of glory sounds good to me,” Kurtis said. “Beats turning tail like a coward.”

Cadell allowed himself a moment of pride for his team as he regarded the four of them. Even under certain death, not one of them was showing a hint of doubt.

“Then let’s get movin’,” Cadell said. “But first, someone has to stay behind and lead these people to safety. The Confederate included,” he added, gesturing at the two other technicians who’d been used as human shields.

He left the implication hanging in the air, considering who he should choose to leave without.

“I’ll stay,” Kazlu said, stepping forward. “Much as I hate to admit it, I’ve got the most experience dealing with this officer.”

“No, I need your shields for our run for the reactor. Hunter, I need you to get these people to our shuttle.”

He could see the man wanted to argue, even if his face was obscured behind his helmet. “If you’re sure, Sir?” Hunter asked. “Right, I’ll do it. Kill a few Feds for me, guys.”

“If the Fed gives you trouble, leave him,” Cadell added. “Don’t let him slow you down.”

“Believe me, I’m way ahead of you on that front, Sir. Good luck.”

“You too.”