Jupiter's Halo Book Two: The Fall

Chapter 23

Dalton had made it almost to the door of the second link-stair before panic started to spread through the station crew.

It started with a crackling sound blurting harshly from the speaker system that served the inhabitants for inter-level communication.

He was tempted to slow as the noise spat into the long corridor they’d taken to loop around the loading bay, but his implant gave another shove to keep him moving.

The intercom rattled and words faded into clarity from the bubbling static.

“-elp us!”

He heard the echoed shrieks and screams in the background. They added another level of fear to the shaky, panicked voice.

“There’s a robot here. Please! If you can hear my voice we need your help. It just came from the terminal and started killing everyone. Please! I think I’ve tapped into the station comms but I don’t know for sure. If anyone can hear this, send help. Send the Blacks. Anyone.”

A crashing noise eclipsed the words and Dalton felt himself jolt at the suddenness of it. Behind him Doctor Ardley whispered in hushed tones, beseeching his faith to save him.

"-if you can hear me. Please! Please, people are dying. There are children here-" Another loud crash distorted the transmission and within it, Dalton thought he could hear the familiar wet sounds of Tiny at work.

The comm speakers settled into a constant hiss. Muffled sounds of panic, fear and death peppered it. Dalton saw the reaction in the few crew within sight. They were confused. Afraid. Unsure of what to do and every one of them looked at him with a question in their eyes.

“We have to move faster,” he said authoritatively, knowing what would happen next.

Ardley groaned but picked up his pace a little as Dalton started to jog.

“What’s happening?” A voice called out behind him.

Dalton ignored it, keeping his eyes on the curve of the corridor and searching for the link-stair door he knew would soon come into view.

“Are we being attacked?” A female voice called out timorously. “Where are you going?”

“Get to the loading bay,” Dalton managed through gritted teeth. “Get inside and barricade the doors.”

His implant was fighting him, but he refused to leave these people totally without a chance. If they could get into that space and keep Tiny out, they might just be able to survive.

Ardley's words flashed in his memory. There was something worse than Tiny on the station. He couldn’t do anything about that. The simple act of warning them was already an effort he worried he couldn’t spare.

The bend of the corridor kept going, achingly free of the door he sought, but starting to fill with more and more worried faces.

“What are you doing?” A man said angrily as Dalton jogged past.

He didn’t answer or even look at him.

“Hey!” The man, dressed in the light grey, buttoned uniform that marked him as a member of the station’s meagre security, broke into a run to come alongside.

“You’re meant to be protecting these people,” he panted as he tried to keep pace and dodge around other people as they emerged from doorways and into his path.

“Not my mission,” Dalton replied, keeping his eyes forward. “Get them to the loading bay.”

The security guard fell back for a moment as a group of confused looking crew stepped in his way.

“You can’t just leave them!” He yelled.

Dalton checked over his shoulder to ensure Ardley was still with him. The scientist was struggling under the weight of his colleague and clearly suffering from the enforced increase in speed. The security guard came up alongside the doctor and grabbed clumsily at his bio-suit.

It wasn’t a good hold, but the effort of freeing himself was enough to tip Ardley off balance and he collapsed against the wall, barely keeping Bramley from falling again. Dalton skidded to a stop and whirled around. His implant throbbed angrily, its insistence he protect the doctors wiping all other thoughts from his mind.

“What’s this?” The man demanded, grabbing again at Ardley’s suit and pulling roughly. “Why’s he dressed up? What’s going on?”

Dalton didn’t pause to answer the questions. He stepped forward, his movements driven by an inescapable urge that wouldn’t abate until the doctors were safe. His hand came up, years of embedded training guiding its trajectory, to connect hard against the security guards temple.

The man dropped, thrown sideways by the force of the impact and crumpled at Ardley’s feet. Shouts of alarm and anger rose from further along the corridor and Dalton knew the pressures of fear and confusion were quickly transforming the crew from a group of panicked individuals into an anger-driven mob.

“We have to go!” He wrapped a hand around the back of Ardley’s neck and used it to propel him forward.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” he said as he backed away from the crew members now making their way towards him.

They were still gripped by their bewilderment, but it wouldn’t last long. They’d looked at him like a saviour they could follow to safety, but in their eyes he could see he was turning to an enemy that had betrayed them.

“Get to the loading bay. You don’t have long!”

Dalton turned on his heel and followed Ardley at a run. Despite the Doctor’s previous arguments against their flight, with the stakes so obviously raised he was now managing a surprisingly decent pace.

More shouts followed them as the link-stair door finally came into view. Dalton risked a look back, seeing the corridor behind fill with following bodies. There wasn’t much he wouldn't give at that moment to be armed with his rifle or mem-sword. For Faith's sake, he’d have taken a length of rusty pipe over being completely unarmed.

The growing noise behind took on a new cadence. The pitch increased as angry shouts turned to terrified screams and he saw shock in the faces at the front as the press from behind suddenly increased.

It was too late. None of those people would make it to the loading bay now. The path they’d need to take included the entrance to the trans-terminal. He knew without needing to see, the robot that it had finished its gory task on the upper levels. Tiny was here. On this deck. He was between these people and their only chance of staying alive.

Dalton turned his face back in time to see the door ahead open and relief flooded him as he recognised the black-clad figures of Elba and Diagno in the space beyond.

Elba looked at him in surprise, the open door offering her a view of her team-mate running full pelt behind a bio-suited man, himself carrying another and in the background, the unmistakable commotion of panic.

Ardley slowed as he saw the figures blocking the doorway but Dalton didn’t miss a step. He barrelled into Elba, taking them both back into the stair and nearly tipping over the edge of the first flight. She wrapped her arms around him as they fell to the floor and rolled to bring herself up ready to fight. Grabbing his sweat-soaked vest, she pulled Dalton’s head up slightly and raised a bunched fist, ready to strike.

“What the f**k is going on, Cross?”

He could see the confusion in her eyes and the natural fight reaction it caused in her.

“Get the doctor. Shut the door,” he panted.

Behind her, Diagno looked back to where Ardley still stood and reached out to pull the doctor through. He stared into the corridor beyond, his face turning back to Dalton with total bewilderment.

“What did you do?”

Dalton shook his head, trying to gather enough breath to explain.

“Just shut the door,” he said again.

Diagno looked away again and then back.

“Tiny is active!” Dalton blurted and the reaction in both his teammates was sudden and dramatic.

Diagno jumped back, pulling the door closed with a hard bang and Elba let go of his vest to step up beside him. They pressed their faces close together so both could look through the small window.

“We have to get the scientists out,” Dalton said, managing to speak more clearly now he’d caught his breath. “Something has happened. Something serious.”

“We should help them,” Diagno murmured distractedly.

“The science team is in danger,” Dalton added.

The physical change in both Diagno and Elba was clear as their implants registered the need to activate and took over. They both turned to face him.

“Describe the threat,” Elba demanded.

“Tiny,” Dalton replied, pulling himself up. “Someone has activated it and it’s clearing the station.”

Diagno glanced back to the window. The sounds from beyond were muted, but their cause was still unmistakable.

“Finsa?” He asked.

“Unresponsive. Hornwood is in command, but…” Dalton hesitated.

Hornowood was unbalanced, but the idea he was responsible was still too big to fit comfortably inside his head.

"Hornwood may be involved," he finished uncertainly.

“He sent us here,” Elba said slowly and Dalton could see the way her mind turned. “He sent us into that.” She didn’t need to what ‘that’ referred to.

“He’s still in the evac bay with Blist,” Dalton supplied.

“Then he can answer some questions when we get there,” Elba put in, steel in her voice. “Starting with why the f**k he didn’t tell us any of this and ending with how he’d like to die.”

“Don’t use your comms!” Dalton threw the warning out urgently as it hit his mind. “He thinks you’re in the loading bay, right? Or in that,” he gestured with a hand to the devastation Tiny was unleashing on the doomed crew. “If he’s no longer friendly, we’ll need all the advantages we can get. Including the surprise of you two being alive, well and with me.”

“So your suggestion is?” Diagno asked.

“I go in with these two.” They all looked at Ardley and the still unconscious Bramley he’d deposited on the floor. “You stay out of sight until we know his motives. If he’s clean then you can join us and we’ll get the science team out of here. If he’s not,” he paused and met their eyes. “We’ll have to deal with that appropriately.”

They all knew what it meant.

“When has Hornwood ever been clean?” Diagno said with forced lightness.

Dalton nodded with a smirk.

“Agreed. That’s why it’s best to be smart about this.”

“Fine,” Elba said. “But you’re carrying him. It looks like hell out there and it’s not going to get any better below. We’re armed, you’re not,” she finished logically.

Dalton nodded again and bent to lift Bramley onto his shoulder.

“We’ll lead, you follow,” Diagno stated. “Our bio-suited friend in the middle. As Elba said, you’re unarmed.”

“About that,” Dalton replied. “We’re going to need to make a couple of stops.”