War of the Spheres Read online

  Wincing, I found the damage looked worse than I’d hoped. There was a jagged hole in the station itself. Vapor was escaping, blowing out like mist or steam and instantly freezing in the hard vacuum.

  Fortunately, Jillian, Hughes and the others were a safe distance away in another sector. They were still with the engine and our ship.

  At least my target had been eliminated—along with an entire docking slip and a good number of the station’s external storage containers. A generous wing of General Niederman’s orbital platform had lost power. At least a third of the docks had gone dark.

  When I returned to the bridge, Cmdr. Collins and Lt. Fletcher were both bitching at me—but I didn’t care. I didn’t really hear their threats and recriminations.

  Instead, I continued to survey the damage outside. The debris field was thick with garbage, splintered metal—and I saw bodies, too.

  It was time to get my ass off Viper’s decks. I sensed I’d overstayed my welcome—but more importantly, I needed to make sure the core objective of my mission was still intact.

  Chapter 21

  Niederman was pissed. Everyone else was in shock, but the real source of rage seemed to becoming from his large, almost-spherical form. It nearly filled the screen of the vid-link.

  As usual, when a surprising and unpleasant event unfolded, I was blamed. After all, I was the outsider here, the man who no one understood or liked. Chief Gray—always at the center of the storm.

  “Nothing but trouble…” Niederman’s sides heaved, his body puffing and shrinking with every breath like bellows. “I’ve been down at Maraldi, but I’m coming up personally to Luna Station. The damage had better not be as bad as it looks. It better not be!”

  “I’m sorry sir,” I said. “But I’m afraid it is bad. The enemy made another move on us today. We survived the attack, but not without casualties and destruction.”

  As I watched his face redden, I realized a man like him would likely die if he had to return to Earth someday. He was too fat, too physically weak. It was a common problem out here on the low-grav stations.

  Not everyone’s body could adapt to prolonged periods of low gravity. Men who didn’t keep up with their training became soft rather than combat-ready.

  There were required exercises and eating habits—but they were often ignored by those at the top. If you were the guy signing off on everyone’s fitness, it was easy to cheat when it came to your own annual health report.

  Occasionally, men became distended and rubbery. But sometimes, they became more like small planetoids, feasting on carbs and growing until their skins bled from stretching like leathery balloons.

  Niederman was one of the latter cases. He could move easily in null-G, of course, or with the one-sixth gravity tug of the Moon—but if he was ever recalled back home… I suspected he wouldn’t survive long.

  The screen went dark then. He hadn’t bothered to reply. I had no doubt he was calling Earth, complaining about me to Control.

  But that wouldn’t get him anywhere. Control wasn’t run entirely by the elected officials anymore. It was independent, and no one in power dared to disturb that spiders’ nest. Every time I awoke, their power seemed to be slightly more advanced. That made my job easier—but it was alarming when you thought about it.

  Giving my head a shake, I stopped daydreaming and stepped out of the turbo lift. I’d been whisked across the station from the damaged section to the region where the project scientists were housed.

  Fortunately, emergency power had been restored automatically to the transport zones on the station. It was good design on the part of the original engineers.

  A committee greeted me as I stepped off the lift—but I could tell right away they weren’t there to give me an award for valor.

  “Chief Gray,” Hughes said sternly.

  Her tone and expression would have been appropriate at my execution. I’m sure she would have fired me if she possibly could have.

  “Colonel Hughes,” I replied. “I trust the project has survived this incident?”

  “Yes,” she said in a cold voice. “Your attempted destruction of this orbital facility was unsuccessful.”

  Huffing in amusement, I proceeded to note that every one of them looked deadly serious. Fillmore, Jillian Brandt, Captain Whitman who’d piloted the transport that had brought us here—even Toby was there, furtively lurking in the back. They all looked stern. But, there was another…

  The winner of the pissed-face contest had to be Captain Jessup. He stood with his arms crossed, his glowering eyes insane with rage. After all, I’d usurped his personal kingdom and put Viper at the center of this latest mess. Somehow, I knew he’d never forgive me for that.

  “Is this a joke?” I asked Hughes. “Haven’t you watched the vids by now? The patrol corvette began to break away. It fired on a turret and destroyed it. If I hadn’t taken immediate action—”

  Hughes raised a hand, palm facing me, indicating I should stop. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again after drawing a deep breath. It was as if she was trying to calm herself.

  “We will go over all that,” she said. “There will be an official inquiry. But for right now, you’re on administrative leave.”

  “What?” I asked, still bemused. “Maybe you should check with Control on that point before—”

  “I already have,” she said. “You’ve been replaced, Chief Gray. Control has sent a new man to do your job.”

  “A new man…?” I began.

  At this point, I was becoming alarmed. My teeth clenched unconsciously as I saw a familiar face press forward, stepping out of the crowd.

  “Hello Gray,” the new man said. I knew him only as Lt. Shaw, and we’d fought to something of a standstill shortly after I’d awakened in the Old City. He’d been having a little trouble breathing the last time I saw him.

  “I’m your replacement,” he said. “You know, something has gone wrong with you, Gray… This kind of mess? It isn’t your usual style.”

  That was a lie, of course. I couldn’t recall every detail of my past, only snatches of it, but one thing I was sure of: death and destruction tended to follow in my wake.

  It wasn’t something I relished. It was just part of the job, and I didn’t shy away from it. Being a fireman was no different. That was a career path you’d better not take if you hated to see things burn.

  “Lieutenant Shaw…” I said thoughtfully. “Weren’t you posted back on Earth?”

  “I was. There’s been a change.”

  “Huh, well aren’t you just right in the middle of things.” I observed.

  Shaw seemed to have gotten to Luna Station awfully fast. He might even have been here before me. Like our meeting back in that alley, it was unusually opportune, and I wondered if someone inside the Ministry was backing him.

  His eyes were alight with triumph. This was a moment of sweet revenge for him. I could tell it went deeper, than our last meeting when as I saw it I’d bested him in personal combat. I sensed he hadn’t liked me for a long, long time.

  Unfortunately, I had no memory of why or when our falling out had begun. But it didn’t matter. We were both officers from Control, but he outranked me.

  How had he managed to worm his way into this arrangement? Had he done it out of personal spite, or had someone else back there in that shadowy organization decided to do it?

  Either way, I didn’t like the implications. If Control was breaking apart into factions, with internal struggles going on—that didn’t bode well for Earth.

  “Very well,” I said. “Since I’m on leave, if anyone wants to talk to me, you’ll find me in my quarters.”

  I began to push through the crowd, but Shaw’s arm shot out, barring my path.

  “Hold on, Chief,” he said. “This isn’t a vacation. Besides, you haven’t been debriefed yet.”

  Glancing down at his arm, I considered breaking it. As he was from Control, that wouldn’t be easy. He was no normal man of naturally gr
own flesh and blood—but it would feel good to try.

  “All right,” I said, changing my mind. “Let’s go talk.”

  We walked away from the others down a long, echoing passage that gently curved with the circular shape of the docking ring. Soon, we were out of sight to those behind us.

  At that point, I spoke to him quietly while we walked.

  “This is my mission,” I said. “Do you even have a real transfer order from Control?”

  “Absolutely,” he said with a smug smile. He waved a slip of computer paper in my face.

  I snatched it away, leaving him with a frown.

  “By order of the Second Directorate…” I began, reading aloud at first.

  My voice soon trailed off. “It looks legit. But these things can be faked.”

  “They can be,” he agreed. “But why would I bother?”

  “For the same reason you tackled me out of the blue back on Earth.”

  “Out of the blue…? Oh, I get it. They mind-scrubbed you. Probably for the best. That last mess you presided over… you probably couldn’t function if you remembered all of it. You’d probably wake up screaming every night, soaking in sweat and piss.”

  My expression hadn’t been welcoming before, but now it shifted into outright dislike.

  “I don’t sleep much during missions,” I said.

  “Ah, right… The brain damage. That’s why you joined up originally, isn’t it? A retard with the body of a gorilla. They really shouldn’t have—”

  At this point, we’d reached the end of the passage. An airlock stood nearby, disused and forgotten-looking. It was as good a place as any to fix things.

  Taking the computer paper he’d given me with the signed orders, I rolled them up and stuffed them into my suit.

  “Hey,” he said, “give that back, and that’s an order.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not convinced these orders are real. Therefore, you’re impeding me in the execution of my mission. You know what that means,” I stated.

  His eyes changed, and I saw that he understood at last. Control Officers didn’t let anything or anyone get in the way of completing a mission. My statement indicated that no action was off limits.

  “So that’s how it’s going to be, hey?” he asked, reaching into his suit.

  That hand came back out with an egg-shaped device in it. The device might have been a stunner, or a palmable needler—but it didn’t really matter.

  My bigger hand clamped over his before he could pull it out and get it into play.

  His knee came up with blinding speed. My balls were flattened—but the sickening pain didn’t disable me. Control people couldn’t be taken out so easily. Our nervous systems had been modified to take more punishment than normal men could fathom.

  It was a mixed blessing, of course. Would you want to be able to take vast amounts of pain and suffering and still retain consciousness, even if you’d rather die? That was one of my special gifts—one that kept on giving at times like these.

  Grunting with a mix of agony and fury, I didn’t punch him or push him away. Instead, I yanked him close, crushing his own hand and the egg-shaped device inside my own stronger grip. I heard a satisfying and muted crunch.

  My right foot lashed out—not toward the snarling Lt. Shaw, but toward the airlock’s control panel instead.

  There was a big release button there, and the door shot open.

  Wrestling in a clinch, I levered Shaw into the airlock with me. Really, I lifted his struggling body and carried him like a sack of dirt.

  I sensed right away that I was more accustomed to null-G than he was. He didn’t instinctively know how to get leverage, how to use mass and inertia to gain their best advantage.

  Bodily forcing him, I got Shaw into the airlock with me.

  He shot me then, in the leg. It was that damned egg-shaped device. It had been a needler after all. It burned a hole right down through his suit and mine, lancing a neat sizzling circle into the meat of my left thigh.

  Bracing myself and hissing in pain, my arm pumped, slamming his body and skull into the bulkhead. He didn’t pass out—but he did look dazed.

  My finger reached out and caressed the outer hatch controls on the wall panel. The indicator light flashed yellow each time I did it. Once, twice… the damned thing hadn’t been used for a long time and must have been dirty. It wasn’t recognizing my biometrics. It stubbornly refused to override and open.

  Lt. Shaw woke up again. My head-banging had stunned him, but such states wear off quickly for our kind.

  His good hand slid up to clasp my throat. Fingers clamped, and his grip felt like thick, cold claws. He squeezed my neck, and for a frightening moment, my vision began to darken.

  Not even one of my kind can hold out for long with his carotid pinched off.

  Determinedly, I touched the door panel, swiping my index finger over it twice more. Two yellow flashes—that was my only reward.

  Lt. Shaw’s face split into a murderous grin. He had me, and he knew it. I couldn’t break his grip. I had one hand on his wrist, but it wasn’t enough. I was weakening.

  One more try at the panel. I used my thumb this time.

  That did the trick. The panel lit green and stayed that way.

  Had the damned thing wanted my thumbprint all along? Or was it that my fingers had smeared away enough grime to make the screen read right again when I applied a clean thumb?

  I didn’t know which it was, and I didn’t much care. What mattered was the inner door closed behind us, and the outer door swept open.

  A gust of gas was released into space and the cold hit like a brick on a windshield. Most of the universe is nothing, and that nothingness became a serious force now. Hard vacuum sucked away every ounce of heat and life.

  Lt. Shaw was left with a difficult choice. He could continue squeezing the life out of me—or he could deal with the fact we were both going to die of depressurization in short order.

  Shaw chose the option I figured he would—he tried to survive. His first move was to let go of me and lunge for the panel. To encourage this decision, I’d relaxed my body and rolled my eyes up into my head.

  It had only partly been a ruse—I really was losing it—but the moment the pressure was off my neck, my brain began to work again.

  I wouldn’t recommend exposure to hard vacuum unless completely necessary, but it turns out you don’t die instantly in space. It takes at least a minute if you’re as tough as a Ministry watchdog.

  But already, the pressure was causing gruesome effects, and death was inevitable.

  In the cold of space, a human’s natural blood temperature is enough to cause the liquid to boil in your veins, releasing deadly gases. The surfaces of our eyes were freezing, too, and our lungs were collapsing with our last released breath.

  When Shaw went for the panel, he shot away from me, kicking off my body. For a split-second he was drifting in the open, his form moving like a dark shadow, blotting out the starlight and the curve of the Moon outside.

  That’s when my foot shot out and kicked him in the belly. He flew out of the airlock, booted into space and thrown into a spin.

  He was one lucky son of a bitch—sort of. He managed to grab a bundle of cables as he spun out of the lock, and his rotation was checked.

  He clawed his way back up the cables as I lurched to the green-lit panel by the inward door.

  Claw-like, his fingers latched onto the outer door as it slid silently between us. It finally clicked into place with Shaw on the far side. With the airlock outer door sealed, life-giving air pumped into the chamber, and I gulped it in. My lungs and skin were burning.

  When I could think again, I saw the nubs of several fingers—Shaw had really done his best to stop that door. His frozen fingertips were jammed in the seal, enveloped in silicon gaskets.

  “Hmm…” I rasped.

  I couldn’t leave such clear evidence of foul play behind. To cover my tracks, I tugged at the gaskets until they c
overed those fingers. It just looked like a black, rubbery bulge when I’d finished.

  My cover-up wasn’t the best, but it would have to do. When I was clearheaded and breathing right again, I exited the airlock and unfurled the computer paper Shaw had used to usurp my role.

  I’d have to do something about these orders…

  Chapter 22

  Sensing that it would be a poor move to simply waltz back down the passageway without Shaw, I contacted Toby privately.

  “Have they arrested you yet?” Toby asked.

  “Um… arrested? No.”

  “That was the plan—the secret plan. I listened in.”

  My mind clicked new gears into place. Shaw hadn’t been planning to replace me—he’d wanted to get rid of me. Too bad for him.

  “Lt. Shaw’s plans have changed,” I said calmly. “He’s been recalled to Earth.”

  Toby was quiet for a second. I worried that I couldn’t trust him—but I had to trust someone.

  “All right,” he said. “I can see his tracker isn’t aboard the station anymore—either that, or he’s in one of the damaged sections.”

  “That may well be. But I need some help.”

  “Help? From me? Are you kidding? All I get is abuse from you—the same as the rest of the neurotypicals. Now you want—?”

  “Toby?” I interrupted. “Let me ask a simple question: Would you prefer to work with Lt. Shaw supervising you, or me?”

  He was quiet again for a second. “What happened to Shaw?” he asked suddenly. How could he get off the station so fast? There hasn’t even been a shuttle—”

  “Did you hear me, Toby? This is very important. You have a choice to make—right now.”

  He sighed. “Well, I’d prefer you. I didn’t have much time to talk to Shaw, but I could tell right off he’s a total dick. A stickler for every rule. No sense of humor at all.”

  I smiled. That was the response I’d been fishing for.

  “All right then. I need some help. Come down the passage—where I left the group.”

  “All the way back there? I’m aboard Viper now. Can’t you just come back here?”